In Shadows

by Chandler McGrew

  Hungry.

  Hurt.

  Sad.

  That had been another hurdle, communication of an abstract thought. But Pierce learned quickly, faster than anyone the woman had ever worked with. Mandi was pretty sure he was a genius. He could focus on one subject to the exclusion of all others, often for days, and you only had to tell Pierce something once for him to remember it.

  He intuitively understood that there was a larger world around him that reached far beyond the limits of the darkness and silence encompassing his body. When he was younger Mandi had spent every free moment with him, patiently finding ways to explain things like sky, and telephone, and television. By the time Pierce was four he could read braille, and he spent almost as much time asking Mandi for explanations as he did reading. Now Ernie was trying to get donations to buy Pierce a used laptop with a braille display. Mandi hadn’t told the boy yet because she didn’t want him to get his hopes up. But Ernie was determined.

  Pierce was remarkable in many ways, not least of which was his uncanny knack for fixing things. Things he shouldn’t have been able to understand, let alone repair. Mandi had first discovered this skill when he was only six. She’d been trying to explain to him that he couldn’t have toast for breakfast because the toaster was on the fritz. When she came back into the kitchen she discovered burnt crumbs all over the counter, and Pierce screwing the appliance back together with a butter knife. Miraculously, when she stuck a piece of bread into it, it worked even better than before. After that, Pierce began to fix other things. A radio that got nothing but static, a vacuum that kept burning up belts. Dr. Burton said it was a savant talent, but Mandi had done some research and discovered that most people with those had very low IQs. Pierce was far too intelligent to be called an idiot savant.

  Mandi parked as close to the front doors of the church as she could. The tall wooden steeple had a definite lean so that the bell seemed ready to leap out the side opening. But the building had been standing for over one hundred years, and the steeple hadn’t fallen down yet. As they walked down the aisle toward the tiny kitchen in back Pierce tapped his cane across her shins to get her attention, and she stopped. His brow was furrowed, and his brown eyes seemed to be searching the pews. She stared at him, imagining that he could see, that he was as normal as any other boy. It was a daydream that haunted her often. One that she would live with until the day she died.

  She reached down and took his hand. What is it?

  I’m listening, he signed back, continuing his search.

  Listening? she signed, frowning.

  Pierce frowned, too. It’s here somewhere.

  What?

  The thing in the valley. Now it’s here. I can hear it.

  There’s nothing here, honey. Honest. Nothing but us.

  But Pierce shook his head, unconvinced.

  She stared up at the two stained-glass windows, one of Jesus, one of Mary. Pierce had never heard a single sound, just as he had never seen light or shadow or color, and no one had ever tried to teach him to talk. The doctors had told Mandi that a limited form of speech was possible, but there was no state money for the training, and she couldn’t afford a therapist. She felt guilty about that, as any parent would, but what could she do?

  She bowed her head and said a prayer that whatever was happening was God’s will, and she told God that she would deal with it no matter what. But she sure would appreciate it if He would take care of her boy, since in her opinion Pierce had already had more than enough bad things dumped on his plate. She patted his shoulder reassuringly, guiding him toward the kitchen door.

  She found him a folding chair in the corner of the kitchen and brought him the braille Bible Ernie kept in the church for him. Then she began digging out serving dishes, wiping them clean and setting them onto the table out front. She plugged in the big coffee urn and filled it, then ripped open packages of paper plates and plastic knives, forks, and spoons. As she worked she began to sing.

  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound . . .” As she checked the coffee and began to load a tray, a strong male voice chimed in from the front of the building. She smiled, continuing on through the end of the chorus.

  “Coffee ready?” asked Ernie, poking his head through the door and reaching over to ruffle Pierce’s hair. Pierce grabbed his hand, testing both sides with the tips of his fingers.

  Hi, Ern! he signed.

  Ernie ruffled the boy’s hair again in reply.

  “Mandi,” said Ernie. “There’s a couple of people here Pam said you ought to say hi to.”

  Mandi rested the tray she was holding on the counter and followed Ernie out into the church proper. She nodded at Pam—who hurried away to greet people arriving at the front of the church—and leaned around Ernie to meet the two men behind him.

  “Jake!” she said, startled as he stepped out of the big black man’s shadow.

  “Hi, Mandi,” said Jake, glancing away from her toward Pam, who smiled wickedly as she flounced away up the aisle. “This is my friend, Cramer. Cramer, this is Mandi Rousseau.”

  “Morin,” said Mandi, frowning.

  “Sorry,” said Jake. “Pam said . . . I thought.”

  “I haven’t changed it since the divorce. I heard you were coming home. How have you been?”

  “The same,” said Jake, flustered. “Yourself?”

  “Not quite the same,” she said. “Let me show you.”

  She led Pierce out into the church, introducing him by way of long, slow handshakes to Cramer and Jake. Pierce studied each of their faces with questing fingers, taking an especially long time with Jake. Jake couldn’t take his eyes off of the boy.

  “He can’t see or hear at all?” Cramer asked Mandi.

  “Pierce is one of the rare kids born deafblind. He’s never heard or seen anything.”

  “Mon poor petit ami,” muttered Cramer.

  Mandi stared at Jake. “I often wondered how you were, Jake.”

  “I’ve kept a low profile.”

  She nodded. “Not a phone call or card.”

  Jake flushed. “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced at Cramer, but Cramer pretended to be paying a great deal of attention to some muffins on the table.

  “I got over it,” said Mandi. “I just always wondered if you were going to let me know what the real story was, why you ran out like that. Are you back for good?”

  “Just visiting.”

  People began filtering in through the double doors down the aisle. Mandi glanced at Pierce, but he was sniffing the air and twisting his head from side to side. He probably knew as well as she did who was in the church and who was missing.

  “What do you think of Crowley?” she asked Cramer.

  “Exciting.”

  “Well, that’s a description I never expected to hear.”

  Jake smiled. “Cramer got lost in the woods today.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I thought I heard something, and I went to investigate,” said Cramer. “Cop instinct.”

  “You’re a cop, too?”

  “Jake’s partner.”

  Mandi nodded. “What was it you heard?”

  “I thought perhaps someone was lost,” said Cramer.

  “He thought maybe it was a grizzly bear,” said Jake, smirking.

  “We don’t have grizzly bears,” said Mandi.

  “So I’ve been told,” said Cramer.

  “You didn’t get a good look at it?”

  “It kept to the shadows.”

  “Probably just a trick of the light.”

  Cramer nodded. “The light was making funny noises.”

  “What kind of noises?”

  Cramer frowned. “I couldn’t put my finger on where it was coming from, but it sounded like someone whispering or singing to me.”

  Mandi nodded noncommitally, then turned back to Pierce.

  “He’s a fine-looking boy,” said Jake.

  She nodded. “The apple of my eye.”

  “
Where are you living now?”

  “The old Miller cottage, between Albert’s place and the highway.”

  She stared into Jake’s eyes, sensing the old attraction like a storm building inside her. She knew that all he had to do was open his arms, and she would fall into them like a fool, and she prayed that he did nothing of the sort. Instead she searched for the heat of anger that had sustained her for the past fourteen years. But this close, it was difficult to kindle much more than a flickering warmth.

  Pierce took Cramer’s finger, showing him how to finger spell by “writing” each letter of the alphabet on his palm, and Jake watched the two of them.

  “Must be hard, raising him alone,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said, discovering that that sounded harsher than she had intended. “You do what you have to do.”

  Jake nodded.

  But she wasn’t letting him off that easily.

  “Why’d you run out, Jake?” she whispered. “Was it another woman?”

  His face fell. “Don’t ever think that. Not ever.”

  “Then what? Tell me.”

  He glanced around the church. People were heading their way, and Mandi could tell that Cramer really wanted to hear their conversation although he was pretending to pay attention to Pierce.

  “Can we talk later?” pleaded Jake.

  “Sure, Jake,” she said. “We’ve always got later.”

  Pam walked up to them with an old woman on her arm. Barbara Stearn wore a red dress that Mandi thought might have been expensive in the early eighties. Her heels were so high she wobbled when she walked, and a string of fake pearls that would have choked a sperm whale dangled around her throat.

  “Jake Crowley!” she said, stroking back bottle-blond hair. “I thought you were dead.”

  “No, Barbara,” said Jake, extending his hand. “I’m alive and well. How are you?”

  “Getting crotchety, that’s how. Are you moving back into the family home?”

  Jake gave Pam a long-suffering look. “I don’t think so.”

  “Too many bad memories?”

  “I have a life out West.”

  “Do you now? Doing what?”

  “I’m a police detective in Houston.”

  “How thrilling. You must tell me all about it sometime.” She patted Jake on the cheek as though he were a ten-year-old and grabbed Cramer’s bicep in passing. “And by all means, bring your friend!”

  She flittered away toward the food table. They all watched her go as though she were a strange sea creature crawling along the shore. Even Pierce wrinkled his nose at her perfume.

  Mandi laughed first. “Getting crotchety? And by all means, bring your friend!” she said, giving Cramer another squeeze and leaning close to keep her voice down. “Barbara claims she made films back in the fifties, but no one seems to have ever seen one.”

  “What were you guys talking about, earlier?” asked Pam, slipping between them and giving Mandi a reproachful grin. “You looked thicker than thieves.”

  “Old times,” said Jake, frowning.

  “Whispered voices,” said Mandi quickly, smiling at Cramer. “Cramer heard them in the woods.”

  But Pam didn’t echo Mandi’s smile.

  “It’s a weird coincidence, I guess,” continued Mandi, “but a few minutes ago Pierce told me that he heard something, too.”

  “Pierce?” said Pam.

  Mandi shrugged. “When we entered the church Pierce said he was listening to something. He’s been acting weird for a couple of days. He says he’s heard something at his window. I don’t know what’s going on with him . . . Maybe it’s the Crowley curse. Remember how your mother used to tell us bogeyman stories about the valley?”

  Jake was silent.

  “Curses are like baggage,” muttered Cramer, staring at his partner.

  Jake frowned and turned away.

  AKE SPOTTED ERNIE TALKING TO VIRGIL MILCHE near the front of the church, and he and Cramer made their way through the crowd. Jake could tell Ernie was alarmed as he waved his arms, calling for people’s attention.

  “Sheriff Milche has an announcement!”

  Virgil took a deep breath, glancing at Jake and nodding. “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no easy way to put this, and I hate to have to bring it up here, but we’ve had another homicide.”

  Murmurs filled the air. Cramer bumped Jake’s arm, and Jake noticed an evil grin on his partner’s face.

  “I knew this was gonna be a good trip,” Cramer whispered.

  “We’ve got a positive ID,” said Virgil, glancing around at the crowd. “Girl was a runaway from North Carolina, and we think she was probably hitchhiking. I don’t believe my going into the details right now is necessary. We just need to know if any of you here saw anyone hanging around the old school bus stop on the highway recently. No? Well, she was wearing jeans and a tie-dye shirt.”

  Mandi gasped.

  “You saw her?” Jake asked, as Virgil stepped alongside.

  She nodded. “It must have been her. Work was slow, and my boss let me out early. I came up here to the church before going home, thinking I’d get a jump on preparations for tonight. When I pulled out on the road again I spotted her, coming from somewhere up near the old Crowley house.”

  “When was that, Mandi?” asked Virgil.

  She frowned. “Yesterday. Around three maybe.”

  “See where she went?”

  “No. I started to ask her if she wanted a ride. But . . . I don’t know . . . we waved and she seemed okay . . . and I wanted to get home to Pierce. Maybe if I’d picked her up, offered her a place to stay—”

  Virg shook his head. “You can kill yourself with maybes, Mandi. There’s just no way of knowing. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Are you sure about the time?”

  She nodded. “Pretty close.”

  Virgil was silent for a moment.

  “Well,” he said at last, “if anyone thinks of anything, you all know where to contact me. Something that seems trivial to you might make all the difference.”

  He patted Mandi on the shoulder, turning to Jake. “You picked a heck of a week to come home. Sorry about your uncle Albert. You staying?”

  “Just visiting. My partner and I needed a break,” said Jake, introducing Cramer.

  “Big-city law enforcement getting you down?” said Virgil, giving Jake the once-over.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m a cop.”

  Jake laughed, but his face clouded when Virgil nudged him out of the crowd.

  “I want you to take a look at something, Jake,” said Virgil, slipping a Polaroid photo out of his jacket.

  Jake stared at what appeared to be two crystal candlesticks resting atop a canvas pack. The sticks were cut into a swirling diamond pattern, larger at the top than the base. They looked ungainly, possibly unstable, and terribly familiar.

  “The girl had these on her?” he asked, shaken.

  Virgil nodded. “I thought I recognized them. They’re the ones from the mantel in your parents’ house, aren’t they?”

  Jake nodded. “Unless there’s another pair like that in town.”

  “Not likely.”

  “All right, then. Tell me more.”

  “You’re on vacation.”

  “Apparently she broke into my house.”

  “Nothing more to tell, yet. She was beaten up pretty good, but it didn’t look like it was bad enough to kill her. Don’t know if she was raped yet, although I expect so. I’m waiting for the medical examiner’s report.”

  He looked at Jake as though waiting for him to add something.

  “Anything new on Albert’s murder?” Jake asked.

  “No. But whoever did it is crazier than a mule on whiskey sodas. It wasn’t pretty, Jake. Way I figure, it had to be strangers. Nobody around here is that crazy. It wasn’t a robbery gone bad. Not a damned thing was taken that we could see. Seems like some loony just ended up at the wrong pla
ce at the wrong time. I hate to admit it, but you know how it is. More than likely the case will never get solved without some real luck.”

  Jake frowned. “You want some assistance?”

  Virgil eyed him as though weighing the idea.

  “No,” he said at last. “You got no jurisdiction here. And you made it pretty clear years ago you didn’t want any part of the sheriff’s department. Besides, Albert was family.”

  Jake shrugged. “Cramer and I might be helpful.”

  Virgil nodded. “You might at that. And you might muddy up my chain of evidence and let the guilty parties slip through the court system. You know what defense lawyers are like.”

  “We’ve both had training you haven’t,” said Jake. “And you could be wrong. Two murders in Crowley in a month? Both beatings? Don’t you think they just might be related?”

  A couple of Ernie’s congregation had casually edged close enough to listen in, but Virgil shooed them off with his eyes. “The two murders probably aren’t related. The girl’s killing could be just a rape gone bad.”

  “Albert’s body was found upright against the kitchen table. What was the crime scene like for the girl?”

  Virgil frowned. “How do you know that, Jake?”

  Jake shrugged. “Cramer got hold of the report.” When Virgil gave Cramer a surprised look, Jake smiled. “He’s resourceful.”

  “Well, she was lying facedown. Fully clothed. Blue jeans, T-shirt, hiking boots. It was almost like the killer didn’t want her to look at him.”

  “That happens,” said Jake. “A disorganized killer might feel remorse. He’ll dress the victim or cover her. Sometimes it’s a signature, other times it’s just something the guy feels like doing. But Albert was sitting up.”

  “So no signature there,” said Virgil.

  “They were both beaten,” said Jake.

  “Yeah.” Virgil grimaced. “But the girl was nothing like Albert. In fact it looked like she might have done a lot of the damage to herself, running through the woods.”

  “It would be odd for a second victim to be less brutalized than the first, though,” mused Cramer. “Usually a killer progresses.”

  Virgil studied both Jake and Cramer. “I’m heading for the autopsy from here,” he said, frowning. “My boys will be going door to door in the valley and up and down the highway again tomorrow. If anyone saw anything, we’ll hear about it.”