Lord of the Mountain

by William Ollie

  Earl rolled his eyes. “Late,” he said, and then took another sip of coffee and stepped back into the kitchen.

  “You find Elmer?”

  “We found him, all right, hanging in a tree in his back yard.” Earl walked over to the kitchen table, slid a chair out from under it and sat down.

  Vonda took a seat opposite him. “He killed himself?”

  “Not hardly. Somebody… well, it was horrible. Brutal… sadistic.”

  “Oh, I just thought, you know, since you told me he’d been in love with Missy Thomas… maybe he’d killed himself.”

  “No,” Earl said, shuddering as he remembered the butterfly broach pinned to Elmer’s eyeball. “Would’ve been a lot easier on him if he had.”

  “That’s terrible, Earl,” Vonda said, and then stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter and poured a cup of coffee. “You know who did it?”

  “Yeah, well, not exactly. We know who’s behind it, but we can’t prove anything.”

  Earl took another sip of coffee. He thought about trotting off to get his cigarettes, but Vonda would be heading to work soon. He’d missed his wife and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. Maybe now that the tragedy was over, things would be getting back to normal. He sure hoped so.

  “Huh?” Earl said.

  Steam rising from the coffee cup in her hand, Vonda returned to her seat and placed the cup on the table. “Who? Who do you think is behind it? You make it sound so… mysterious.”

  “Sorry.” So deep in thought had he been that he’d barely heard her. “Jason’s father, and Judge Croft.”

  “Oh, Earl.” Vonda crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair and stared up at her husband. “Judge Croft… really.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “A judge… I can’t see it.”

  “You can’t, huh?”

  “He seems like such a good man. He’s a judge, for chrissakes.”

  Earl laughed. “You didn’t see that good man shaking his fist and threatening to take my job if I didn’t—”

  “What?” Vonda said. “If you didn’t what?”

  “Find Elmer and lock him up.”

  Vonda put her finger through the loop on the side of her coffee cup, picked it up and took a sip. “Did he tell you to kill him?”

  “No.”

  “No, he didn’t, did he?”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t have anything to do with it, but Jared Thomas sure as hell does. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “And you’re probably right, but you can’t go around making accusations against Judge Croft. You know that… right?”

  “Yeah, yeah… I know… you’re right. Fuck it, I’m not going to say anything about either one of ‘em. The hell’s the use?”

  “Wise decision, Sheriff.”

  Earl stared down at his coffee cup, wishing he could crawl back into bed, tuck the covers under his chin and drift off to sleep.

  “Rough night?”

  “Horrible. Jerry Hodges is still missing. Leastwise he was last night.”

  “Oh, no,” Vonda said. She shook her head, and pursed her lips, blew air at the steam rising off her cup, and took another sip of coffee.

  “Yeah, Alvie Ross, John Fraley and Harvey Lain went out to Butcher’s Holler last night and talked to his daddy.”

  “Harvey Lain, the lawyer?”

  “They were playing poker over at Henry Walker’s—Ezra Butcher, too. Me and Henry went—”

  “Henry and I,” Vonda corrected him. “I swear, Earl. I’m going start making you give me a dollar every time you do that.”

  Earl chuckled. “Henry and I went down to Slag Town to see Bobby Jackson’s mother. Found her sitting in the dark on her front porch. Wasn’t easy seeing her like that, crying and mumbling, wringing her hands. And that no good piece of dirt she’s married to passed out on the couch.” Earl lifted his fist, his thumb and index finger spread about a sixteenth of an inch apart. “I came that close to dragging the son of a bitch outside and kicking his ass.

  “Anyway, we’re all going to meet up this morning. See what else we can do.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Get some men together, go up the mountains around Butcher’s Holler and look for Jerry Hodges. His daddy’s afraid he might’ve fallen down one of those old abandoned mines.”

  “Jesus,” Vonda said.

  “We’re going to start dragging the river, too. You never know. Alvie Ross says they’ve fished a body or two out of there over the years.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Vonda said, and then stood up, sitting her coffee cup on the table. “I need to get ready for school.” As she started to leave, Earl swiveled sideways in his chair, hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. When the backs of her legs touched the chair, she hopped backwards onto his lap.

  “Why, Sheriff,” she said, sliding her hand under his robe, guiding it to his crotch and giggling. “I do believe you’re glad to see me.”

  “Damn right, I am,” Earl said, parting her robe and caressing her breast through the silky fabric of her nightgown.

  * * *

  It was a pleasant enough morning. The sun had made it over the mountain, bringing with it a gentle breeze that blew in from the west, pushing puffy white clouds across the clear blue sky. Most of the people in and around Whitley were going about their business that day as if nothing had happened. And why not? Nothing had happened to them.

  Driving through town with the wind rushing through his open window, Earl almost forgot about Missy Thomas and Elmer Hicks, the bank robbery and the charred bodies he’d left over in Weaver’s Creek now a distant memory, as if it had happened a long time ago. Almost as if it had happened to someone else.

  But when he pulled up in front of the police station and saw Alvie Ross Huckabee standing outside with the undertaker, it all came rushing back: Missy’s battered and swollen face; her husband’s guts painting the sidewalk; Elmer Hicks swinging from that creaking tree limb with a butterfly broach pinned to his eyeball.

  Earl climbed out of the car, eased the door shut, and made his way onto the sidewalk. “Alvie Ross,” he said. “Ezra.”

  “Hey, Earl,” Alvie Ross said, and Ezra nodded.

  “Well?” Earl said. “Where do we start?”

  “Ezra called Jared Thomas last night, told him about our missing kids. Jared’s shuttin’ one of his mines down. By noon he’ll have fifteen men scouring the mountainside.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Earl could hardly believe it. Maybe Jared Thomas wasn’t such a prick after all. Probably just a murderer with a soft spot for kids.

  No probably to it.

  “Well, maybe since he just lost his own boy,” Ezra said.

  “He’s also sending Micah Hanson down to Slag Town with an empty pickup and a pocketful of money. He’s gonna hand out five dollar bills to anyone willing to help us look for Jerry Hodges. I’m gonna meet Hanson and his men over at Luke’s place. Meanwhile, Ezra and his boys’ll be draggin’ the river.”

  At least we’re doing something, Earl thought. Who knows, maybe some good will come of it. “Vonda’s going to let me know if either of them shows up at school. I don’t really expect that to happen, though. Not with Jerry Hodges, anyway. I’ll hang around here ‘til she calls, then do a little scouting of my own.”

  “Why don’t you come back to the office at the top of every hour,” Alvie Ross suggested. “Just in case one of us needs to get in touch.”

  “All right. Hell, who knows, maybe a miracle will happen and Bobby Jackson’ll turn up in school.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Ezra said.

  “Wouldn’t hold my breath,” Alvie Ross said, glancing down at his watch. “Well, it’s eight-thirty. I’m gonna head on out.”

  While Ezra took off walking, Alvie Ross got into the police car and Earl went inside the station house, where he sat at his desk waiting for Vonda to call. Around nine o’clock, she finally did phone him. But the news was n
ot good. Bobby Jackson was not in school; neither was Jerry Hodges. As soon as he hung up, the telephone rang again. This time it was a woman calling from the east end of town, wanting to know if it was true that two children had gone missing, and what, if anything, he planned to do about it.

  “Everything I can,” he told her.

  In the course of fifteen minutes, Earl received four more phone calls, frightened mothers worried about their children. Judge Croft called demanding to know if he had arrested Elmer Hicks. Just for the hell of it, just to piss him off, Earl told him he hadn’t found Elmer yet. When Croft asked Earl what he was doing to find those missing children, he told him, “Everything I can.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Doc Fletcher stopped by the mayor’s office on his way to work, knowing he would find Teddy Levay and Judge Croft together when he got there. Yesterday, Levay had been frightened; he himself, uneasy, and Croft had refused to even speak of what had gone on in the basement of Pitch Place. But not today. Today they seemed to have been drawn to each other like moths to a flame. And they couldn’t quit talking about last night, dissecting it, examining every little detail: why now? Why cut out the hearts, and what is he doing with them? Why only three, and why in the hell aren’t we doing this every night?

  Why hasn’t he aged in the last thirteen years?

  Maybe it was the ceremonial sacrifice, or that eerie presence floating across the basement like a creeping, unholy mist, seeping into every fiber of their beings as they drew ever closer to the Dark Master. And if that master was Satan… who cared? Not Fletcher, not as long as the money kept rolling in, not as long as he felt that vibrant force coursing though his body like a mega-dose of opium gone wild. Pitch was becoming a god, and he was carrying them right along with him. Fletcher could hardly wait to see what tonight might bring.

  Judge Croft picked up the telephone. Moments later he was on the line with the sheriff, ranting and raving about Elmer Hicks, demanding to know what was being done about those missing children. He smiled into the mouthpiece, hung up the phone and laughed. “Everything he can, he said.”

  “Lotsa luck with that,” said Teddy Levay.

  “Said he ain’t found Elmer yet.”

  Smirking, Fletcher said, “Yeah, right.”

  Suddenly, sounding very much like a jealous child, Croft said, “Why did he tell you two to stay behind last night?”

  “Haw!” Fletcher cried out, slapping a hand against his leg.

  “Fuck you,” Levay said.

  “You should’ve seen him… you should’ve fucking seen him.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Croft said.

  Teddy Levay settled back in his chair, his face screwed up into a scowl.

  “After you left yesterday, Pitch asked us why we never brought Jason into the group. I mentioned how pissed off Jared got when those three boys were snatched up. Pitch thought that was a riot, told us maybe we should take his—” Fletcher made quotation marks in the air with his index and middle fingers—“three little friends and leave them on Jared’s doorstep. You know… trick or treat?”

  “The hell you say.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Levay rubbed a hand across his throat.

  “I thought he was kidding around,” Fletcher said. “But then he came up to us as you and Sid were leaving and pointed at his watch. ‘It’s Halloween’ he said, and then made us go back downstairs. I thought Teddy was going to faint.”

  “Aw, shaddup,” Levay said, and then stood up and stepped over to his liquor cabinet, and opened a glass compartment, out of which he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and turned to face his companions. “How about a shot or two?”

  “At ten-o’clock in the morning?” Croft asked him.

  “Hell, why not?”

  Grinning, Fletcher said, “He’s trying to change the subject.”

  Teddy stuck fingers in the tops of three shot glasses, which clinked together as he carried them back to the desk.”

  “Well, hell, son. Let’s get back on the subject then,” Croft said, as Levay screwed the cap off the liquor, and tilted the bottle toward one of the glasses.

  “He took us to a room way at the other end of the basement. I gotta tell ya, it was pitch black out there away from those torches, and creepy as hell.”

  Teddy slid a shot glass full of whiskey across the desk to Doc Fletcher.

  “Goddamn right it was,” he said.

  Fletcher tossed the liquor down his throat. “Ah,” he said. “Good for what ails ya.”

  “Here you go, Judge,” Levay said, as he pushed one over to Croft. “He had his goddamn New Yorker scrubbing blood off that altar. That was one sad lookin’ son of a bitch.”

  Fletcher looked at Levay and smiled. Then he chuckled.

  “What?”

  “You looked pretty sad yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, fuck you. If I remember right, you didn’t look too goddamn happy either.”

  “Fair enough. But then, I didn’t vomit all over my own shoes, did I?”

  “What?” said Croft.

  Levay cut his eyes toward the ceiling, and shook his head.

  “Oh yeah. When we got to the room, there were four little corpses stacked in a corner. Pitch picked one up and told me and Teddy to grab one. I threw one over my shoulder, and Teddy puked all over his shiny new wingtips.”

  “Ho!” Croft called out, laughing, downing his whiskey, and then tapping an index finger on his empty glass, which his sidekick quickly refilled.

  “And then…” Fletcher chuckled, placing a hand on his belly as he leaned back in his chair. “… Pitch screamed at Hastie to get his mop the fuck in there.”

  Teddy, obviously happy to deflect the sarcasm away from himself, added, “He must’ve run like a son of a bitch, ‘cause he got there in no time.”

  “Threw up all over the place when he did,” Fletcher said. “We left him knee deep in his own vomit.”

  “What about the bodies?”

  “Heh,” Levay said. “He was just messing with us.”

  “Thank God for that,” Croft told him. “‘Cause Jared had a poker game going last night, and he’d’ve blown your asses straight into next week.”

  “No doubt,” Teddy said, reaching for the Jack Daniels, but stopping short when the telephone rang. He plucked the receiver from its cradle and held it to his ear. “Yes, sir! We were just talking about you… But of course… Oh yeah?… Well, yeah, he’s something else, all right… Yes, sir. We’ll make sure he’s there… both of them.”

  Teddy hung up the telephone.

  “Well?” Croft said.

  “He wants us to bring Vonda and Earl with us tonight.”

  Fletcher’s jaw dropped.

  “What?” Levay said.

  Fletcher looked at Teddy as if he was crazy. “The fuck’s he wanta go and do a fool thing like that for? What if something happens? Do you want to be there?”

  Teddy rubbed an index finger across his throat. “I don’t give a shit. Since I’ve been goin’ up to that mansion, my lump is gone. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from there tonight.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Pitch sat at his desk, smoking a cigar, gleefully scanning the morning headlines.

  Confusion had spread throughout the concrete canyons of New York City’s financial district in a single day of frenzied selling that had seen more than sixteen and a half million shares of formerly high-dollar stocks and bonds change hands. The bottom had fallen out, sending fortunes tumbling while desperate people leapt from windows and rooftops all along Wall Street. Pitch imagined hundreds of thousands of people falling through a giant trap door, screaming and crying and hurtling headlong into a deep, dark tunnel on their way to the fiery pits of Hell. But not him. He and his fortune were heading onward and upward to better things.

  Blue skies, he thought. Nothing but blue skies, baby. And lots of fucking money!

  He wondered how much he actually had, how many millions lay do
rmant in bank accounts scattered throughout the world. Pitch, who had gone from river-rat gambler to a cultured captain of industry, was quite proud of his amassed fortune. Like Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, he had taken his sack full of gleaming jewels, multiplying them like the long-haired messiah and his basket of fish. Hell, he couldn’t have spent all that money if he’d tried. And what if he did? All he had to do was climb up Ward Rock Mountain and that barefoot son of a bitch would fill him right back up.

  Pitch had thrived, growing his fortune like Jack’s magical beanstalk, stretching higher and higher, until those twisting golden vines reached into the heavens. If he never went back up the mountain again, he had enough money to live out his life like a king. But how long would he live? Would he really age a year for every minute past midnight? Would he shrivel up like a rotten apple left too long in the sun, touch his face and find it withering like a dying weed beneath his fingers? Pitch stroked a palm along his freshly-shaven cheek, and knew that, yes, he would make the journey tonight, and keep coming back to this place… forever.

  Pitch leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on his imported crystal chandelier as he blew a series of smoke rings, which drifted slowly away from him. How long could this really go on? Surely someone would figure out what was happening, someday, put a bullet through his head, or run him through. He wasn’t invincible. If cut, he bled. If shot, he would die.

  He looked down at the paper, turned the page and smiled. Gang warfare had broken out in New York’s five boroughs. Pitch wondered if his dealings with Louie Boccianni had anything to do with it.