Ghost Point

by James A. Hetley

  Susan looked around in shock. Two dead men lay in spreading pools of blood, stinking as if they’d shit themselves in dying. She wondered which one had butchered her poor dog. That was all she could think about, Bitch killed and gutted and skinned and left as an obscenity on her bed. Which one of them had murdered her eagles and hung their mutilated bodies from a spruce? That was what she thought about—dead animals, not dead men.

  The gun lying on the sofa by the dead man there . . . the wear through the blue finish next to the muzzle, showing silver, the crack on the left hand-grip and the chip missing from one corner . . . . “That’s mine! That’s my Walther!”

  “Leave it, my daughter. Alice will take it. Evidence. It will vanish. We do not wish anything to tie you to this. This fool never turned it over to the state crime lab. In his report, he said it was lost in the fire. You have the receipt, with his signature. You checked the serial number to make sure he had it right. He hangs himself. Imbécile.”

  “I think I need a cigarette.”

  “Go and sit in the car. Do not throw your match out the window. Do not drop ash outside, do not throw your butt away. Remember evidence. You are much smarter than these.”

  Susan noticed that Aunt Jean still held her cigarette. It had gone out—must be hand-made, without those chemicals to keep the tobacco burning. “Go and sit in the car, my daughter. Sit and smoke and remember the things that these . . . men . . . did to you.”

  She paused and stared into Susan’s eyes. “They deserved to die. Le bon Dieu made them decide to die.”

  The way she’d paused told Susan that she had considered other words, words a lady of her age would not use. At least, not use outside her own thoughts.

  Evidence. Susan walked out of that room, out of that trailer, touching nothing. They wore gloves. All three of them wore gloves, she’d thought it was just the cold. They’d walked in a trodden path, almost ice. She glanced down at her boots, at the faint tracks she left, at the other tracks they’d made walking in. Alice’s tracks covered Susan’s, covered Aunt Jean’s, giving sequence. But she hadn’t seen Alice. Could the kid just vanish, turn invisible? Susan fumbled with the door handle, got it open, climbed into the old Jeep.

  Cigarette. Her hands shook. She finally got the lighter flame to connect with the end of the tobacco.

  Carlsson knew what was going to happen. He’d warned her. Probably half the fucking county knew those guys were doomed. You couldn’t keep secrets in a place like this. The smuggling wasn’t a secret. Aunt Jean knew just who to ask, exactly where to look. She hadn’t cared about simple whiteman laws, until the idiots threatened someone under her protection. Then the Haskell Witch had to act.

  Act according to Naskeag law, no appeal.

  Susan concentrated on her cigarette. Hot, raw, bitter smoke stinging her eyes, tightness of smoke in her chest, she could think about that and not the hot, raw, bitter power she’d just seen. She caught a vision of Eagle swooping down to grab a salmon. Deadly. Merciless.

  Aunt Jean climbed down from the trailer door, heavy, weary, eyes on the sky—dark cloudy sky, sunset out there somewhere behind the next storm. How the hell has it gotten so late without my noticing? Don’t time fly when you’re having fun.

  Alice followed. She pulled the door closed and tested it, making sure that it was locked. Susan wondered what they’d been doing. Talking about the kid freezing at the crisis? Picking up the empty cartridge cases, for sure, picking up the Walther. Planting evidence, rearranging evidence, as well as removing it? Making sure the deputy had some drugs on his body?

  She’d smelled cured marijuana before. She’d been in college, for God’s sake. She’d smelled it heavy again in the rank air of that trailer, heavy behind the smell of the burned dope. The smugglers must have used that hide-away to store their product, break it down for distribution.

  Aunt Jean opened the driver’s side door and then glanced up at the sky again. “Rain, maybe two hours, maybe less. That is good. That is lucky.” But Alice still dragged her satchel behind her, looking down and sweeping it back and forth, destroying tracks.

  Lucky, hell. Aunt Jean must have expected rain when she came out here. Knew rain would destroy evidence, keep people off this steep twisty so-called road. The bodies probably wouldn’t be found for days. Maybe weeks. Maybe not reported then, depending on who found them, with all that dope in there. More rain, more snow.

  Aunt Jean climbed in. She turned to Susan. “I think you should ride in the back. I think Alice will need you.”

  Alice? Need me? That kid needs my help like a fish needs a fucking bicycle.

  But Susan climbed out and climbed back in, changing seats. She tapped her cigarette ash off in the car’s ashtray first. Maybe rain, maybe not. No reason to add any possible evidence. Would Alice walk down the driveway, walk down it twice, sweeping out the parallel tracks of the tires?

  No. She climbed in. She threw her satchel in the back, heavy metallic thump, not caring if she broke something. Susan hoped she’d unloaded those guns, ‘cleared the weapons,’ that was the language, as alien to Susan as Vietnamese. Carlsson would know that language, the language of killers.

  No. The language of fighters. Different thing. Those had been killers, inside. Now they were dead, and she could go on living. Because of the fighters.

  Aunt Jean started the car and set it rolling quietly down the so-called road, no headlights in the gloom. Alice hadn’t buckled her seatbelt yet. The kid just sat there, a lump, staring at nothing. Chewing on her wad of gum. A kid. She looked a lot younger than fourteen. Then Susan knew why Aunt Jean had wanted her in the back with Alice.

  She reached out and touched the girl on the shoulder, got a reflex angry shrug and retreat for her effort, touched Alice again. “Thank you.”

  And then she had an armful of girl, of shaking girl, face buried in Susan’s shoulder. Susan didn’t know if those were adrenaline shakes or sobs, too quiet, but she held Alice. She caught Aunt Jean’s glance in the rearview mirror, a nod, then the old witch concentrated on the bad road and the ice and snow that covered it, turning, shifting gears, braking with deft touches, driving a dark car down dark roads under the dark trees. No witnesses.

  Hot wetness soaked into the shoulder of Susan’s blouse, Alice burrowing her face inside the collar of Susan’s jacket, shaking. Sobs, then, but absolutely silent. The kid gave nothing away.

  Susan held her, one hand smoothing her hair, talking to that hair. Words came out of her past, Latin words, Pater Noster, Susan hadn’t been to Mass since she was maybe twelve or fourteen but the prayer came back when she needed it. People had always looked at them funny in church back in South Boston. Gooks were supposed to be Buddhists or some other kind of Godless heathen, not pretending to be honest Catholics. South Boston’s Heaven had a sign saying “Whites Only” at the Pearly Gates.

  Alice whispered along with her, Susan could feel her breath on the damp cloth. She realized she was still holding her cigarette, hot against her fingers, nearly burned down to burning her. She stubbed it out and went back to concentrating on the kid. The kid who knew her prayers in Latin, old-style Catholics still holding to their heritage and to hell with Vatican II.

  Old-style brownskin Catholics. I wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb around here, would I? Not where Naskeags make up half the congregation? Brownskin is “normal” around here, not the Irish/Polish/Italian whiteskin Catholic “normal” where we felt like trespassers every time we stepped inside the church. Where blonde Mary and the Christ on the crucifix didn’t show a trace of Jewish genes. Where God was white.

  Whispered words breathed on her collarbone, not Latin. “I want to heal people, not kill them. Everyone has different magic, and that’s mine. Healing.”

  The words cut like a knife. A scalpel—an analogy flashed across her brain, sharp as that scalpel, help for her as well as for Alice. “Sometimes you have to kill in order to heal, kid. Cancer. Think of those men as cancer, something living that has to be cut out an
d killed to save the rest of the body. There is a time to kill and a time to heal. This was a killing time. Aunt Jean gave them the choice.”

  And she had. Susan realized that, for all her thoughts earlier. Those men could have left. Alice hadn’t shot until well past the last safe instant. Even the cop, the second death, Alice hadn’t shot him until he started to aim his gun.

  Both men had chosen death for Susan, for Aunt Jean. Instead, they’d found it for themselves.

  The car stopped in darkness, yellow glows ahead, warm lamp-light in the kitchen windows offering welcome and safe haven. They had electric lights but the oil lamps gave a softer, comforting radiance. The shadowed bulk said Aunt Jean’s house, the Haskell House, black against the night. Fortress.

  Home to ruthless power.

  A shudder ran down Susan’s back. Now those windows had turned into yellow eyes burning with inner fire, the glare of a dragon waiting in the darkness. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t. Alice had just killed two men.

  She couldn’t walk into that warm welcoming wood-stove kitchen after what they’d just done, couldn’t sit down to hot onion soup and fresh home-baked bread that she could smell all the way out here inside the car. That peace had to be an illusion, the House weaving its own spells to draw her in and soothe her and seduce her.

  It pushed the wrong buttons. If she tried to eat right now, she’d puke.

  Alice had pulled away, had reached back behind their seat to get that satchel, that satchel with the guns inside. Susan heard the ring of empty cartridge brass rattling when it moved. Evidence, probably headed for the bay or even the open ocean. Alice climbed out of the car and headed toward the house.

  Susan climbed down from her side of the old Jeep, icy wet splashes hitting her face—that promised rain already starting. She turned to her car. Shivers took her and her teeth started to chatter, not cold, but fear. She couldn’t stay. She opened the door, she sat down, she slid the key into the ignition. Aunt Jean loomed out of the darkness into the dim glow of the Dart’s dome light.

  “Stay with us, my daughter. You should not be alone.”

  Susan just shook her head. She couldn’t trust words right now. She couldn’t trust that House right now.

  Aunt Jean touched her, a gentle hand on her cheek as if she wiped away the tears Susan didn’t dare to show. “It is hard, ma petit. But we cannot let men do those things. We have no choice. They made the choice. Now it is over, and you must go on living. We can help with that. Come inside.”

  Susan shook her head again. “I can’t. I need some time to think. I still have a room up in Naskeag Falls. I’ll go there.” She had to get away from here.

  Aunt Jean’s faint smile showed that she saw the lie and wouldn’t challenge it. “Be careful, my daughter. This rain will turn to ice, a few miles inland. Those roads will be bad or worse than bad. Stay here.”

  She was right, of course. Dammit, Aunt Jean was always right. And the House would be warm and dry and above all safe, always safe, always welcoming. Seductive. She couldn’t trust it. She couldn’t trust anything. She’d learned that, the hard way.

  Aunt Jean nodded as if she’d read all those thoughts. “Then go with God, my daughter. Drive carefully.” She paused, old lined sagging face suddenly showing a sadness that wiped out any pretense of a stoic Noble Savage.

  “Always remember, they tried to kill you. They would have kept trying. You sat in the same car with that deputy for an hour. The only reason he did not kill you with your own pistol was the police radio log. People knew he was there. He was afraid of that.” Aunt Jean shook her head.

  “Come back to us, Doctor Tranh. Alice needs you. She needs a friend, and I am far too old. She needs an older sister. The one who God and her mother gave her follows a different trail. Elaine is a fine child. She’ll lead our People when she’s old enough, so Alice can’t talk to her about this day and other things. Important things that our People must keep separate from our public leaders. Their hands and memories must be clean. Mine can never be.

  “Come back to us when you feel you can or must, my daughter. Any time of the day or night, the House will let you in.”

  XXV

  Susan drove through the night, substituting action for thinking. Aimless action. She drove the old Dart out of Stonefort, off the island and away from her memories, past the marsh and over the bridge and through the dark wet forest tunnels of the roads, windshield wipers thumping, rain pounding hard and sideways and cold to glaze road and trees and power lines with slick black invisible ice. She had studded snow tires. She’d learned the tricks of winter driving. She could just leave, dammit.

  The problem was, her memories came with her.

  She wandered the night, down past Fire Road 47B and the burned-out wreckage of her trailer, the smell of char still blowing in the wet air, reminder of a man-shaped shadow against the moonlight off her busted door and the blaze of gunpowder exploding into darkness. Reminder of other drying blood spattered on old cheap vinyl and wood-grain paneling and a butchered dog dumped on her bed. Reminder of why two men deserved to die, visions of blood and brains splashed across the trailer walls forming out of the darkness and the steady silver sleet in her headlights, visions that would not go away. She lit another cigarette to mask the stink of death.

  Susan drove. She pulled in at Tracy’s, filled up the Dart, went inside to pay, picked up more cigarettes and a cold pepperoni provolone onion sub from the cooler and a large bag of corn chips and dithered over a six-pack of Bud before kicking herself upside the head. Beer and icy roads? I might be crazy but I’m not stupid.

  She added a liter of Pepsi, instead. Dottie Whitcomb stood behind the counter, permanent scowl of concentration on her face. No need for ID this time, no alcohol, she punched each number of the purchase into the register with deliberation that Susan now could read as effort, not sullen anger. Dottie counted out the change with the same slow concentration. Susan tried out a tentative smile and got one, just as tentative, back.

  Sometimes, what you get out of a meeting is what you bring to it. Remember that “Beyond Bitch” bumper sticker, Doctor Susan Tranh. Nine out of ten doctors surveyed say you can be a royal pain in the ass.

  She headed back out into the cold stinging rain. Enough bite, enough splatter on the windshield, there must be sleet and wet snow mixing in even along the coast. She climbed into the Dart and lit another cigarette and drove on.

  They tried to kill me. They would have kept on trying. I sat in a car with that deputy for an hour, as he filled out reports.

  She turned onto the state highway toward Naskeag Falls, not a nice road on the best of days. She did not have an apartment in Naskeag Falls, but that was someplace to go. She drove. She chewed on bites of leathery sub sandwich, day old or worse, probably hadn’t had time to grow a healthy population of salmonella yet. If some of the things she’d eaten from the back of her refrigerator in grad school hadn’t killed her, she could survive a truck-stop sandwich.

  Did Mom’s head look like that, after they’d shot her? I never saw her body. Closed coffin.

  The trailer scene flashed across her windshield, blood and spattered brains and dead men and the smell of dope and gunpowder smoke mixed with human shit. The Dart spun on the ice and her hands froze to the wheel and she stared straight ahead, no trying to control the skid, no steering, no brakes, tires whining, spinning down the center of the road, one-eighty, three-sixty, her headlights sweeping across rocks and tree trunks and the white dashed line she rode and back into rocks and tree trunks and snowbanks, five-forty and the studded tires finally dragged her to a stop. A stop facing right back the way she’d come. Damned good thing no one else is dumb enough to be out in this shit driving, pure luck I stayed on the road instead of ending up in a ditch or wrapped around a maple.

  Icy roads, a frigging skating rink under your wheels and you’re heading into a two-hour drive. Aunt Jean had warned her. Just like Carlsson had warned her, like Alice and Aunt Jean had warned her n
ot to go along on that visit to the black hats. They’d warned her and then let her make her own decision and live with it. She was a big girl now.

  Okay, I can take a hint. If you slap me hard enough.

  She drove again, back toward the coast, slower now, careful before the curves, not trying to eat while she drove, holding her speed below half the limit and creeping down hills and up hills, mind on the queasy greasy feel of the road under her until she got back within a few miles of the ocean and a tap on her brakes told her the black road was just wet instead of ice. She still saw memories against the black night, blood and brains splashing across the trailer wall, oozing down the worn upholstery of that sofa. She wondered how Carlsson lived with the things he must have seen.

  Tracy’s had closed, lights off now, Dottie headed home. So much for finding warmth and safety in the night, refuge from the storm. She checked the Dart’s gas gauge, still over three-quarters full.

  She turned around and headed back toward Stonefort. Any time of the day or night, Aunt Jean had said. The House would let her in. But the House killed. She couldn’t trust the house. She remembered Alice standing behind her, gun smoking in her hand. Fourteen years old and a hardened killer.

  No, not hardened—Susan remembered the kid shaking in her arms in the back of the Jeep, the tears hot soaking into her blouse. Alice wanted to heal people, not kill them.

  But sometimes you have to cut the cancer out.

  I sat in the same car with that deputy, for an hour.

  Screw this. She needed company, someone she could talk with about this, and that list looked damned short from where she sat. Aunt Jean, sad-faced, “You should not be alone.” Someone like Carlsson, dammit, he knew what the hell was going on and would understand and wouldn’t throw her ass to the cops as an accessory to murder. He’d seen war.