Lost Echoes

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “Fits right in,” Kayla said. “Golf course is on the other side of those trees.”

  “Figure the redhead had a good lead,” Tad said. “Might have come close to getting away. “Might have thought he could hide down there in those trees. Maybe in the creek bed. I can tell there’s a creek, way the trees grow. Right?”

  “There’s a creek,” Kayla said. “Me and Harry and Joey used to play there.”

  “My mother’s house isn’t far from here,” Harry said. “And Joey’s dad’s house is the third one on the right.”

  “And my father’s house is long bulldozed under,” Kayla said. “Sorry, Tad. A bit of nostalgia. You were saying about the redhead?”

  “He hadn’t stopped to hide,” Tad said, “he might have gotten away. Or had he found a better hiding spot he might have gotten away. But it wasn’t his night. Just guesses, but it seems logical, doesn’t it?”

  “What about the other guy?” Kayla said.

  “He maybe did some last-minute touches on your father’s body,” Tad said. “Cut the bonds. Whatever. Finished, maybe he went in another direction, looking for Vincent. They could have split up, trying to find him. But it was the hatted guy who came across him.”

  Kayla said. “You’d make a good cop.”

  “Martial arts I studied also taught psychology and strategy. Some of it stuck with me.”

  “I’m beginning to think all of it stuck with you,” Harry said.

  “Thing that throws me is, why didn’t the original investigation turn up the missing phone wire, the lamp cord?” Kayla said. “All of that.”

  “Because they already had their minds made up,” Tad said. “It looked like death by misadventure, and they accepted it as that. Case closed.”

  They followed across the backyard lawns and down the slope and came to the stretch of trees that bordered the creek.

  When they reached the other side of the creek they were on the edge of the golf course. They followed it until it came to a burst of woods and a trail. Alongside the trail were gullies, and the water had washed them deep and there were all manner of trees and vines alongside of them.

  Harry said, “The shelter has got to be nearby.”

  They walked a little more, then they could see lights and the great house of the McGuires. They stood at the edge of the woods and looked at it.

  Tad said, “Nice digs.”

  “The shelter is over there,” Harry said.

  They eased along until they came to it, gently pulled the door back, went down inside. It was cold in there, but warmer than outside. Kayla flashed her light around. There wasn’t really anything to see.

  “Question is,” Kayla said, “what happened to the redhead’s body?”

  “I’m thinking it’s near here,” Tad said. “Hatted guy had already taken a chance chasing the guy, and he didn’t want to be seen dragging out a dead body. He was strong enough to do it, that’s for sure, but that wouldn’t be wise, exposing himself even more.”

  “You think it’s here, in the shelter?” Harry asked.

  Tad shook his head. “Don’t think so. This guy knew this place, so he probably knows McGuire. Hell. It could be McGuire. Whoever he was, he obviously didn’t leave Vincent here. There’s really no place to stash him. Under the bed, someone would have noticed when it started to stink.”

  “So he got rid of the body outside,” Kayla said.

  They went outside and walked along.

  “May I see the light?” Tad asked. Kayla gave it to him, and Tad kept talking. “Way I see it, he killed the guy, dragged the body back out, and if I’m thinking the way he was, he disposed of it pretty quick.”

  “I don’t see why he didn’t just leave it in the shelter,” Kayla said.

  “Because he knew the guy who owns the place,” Tad said. “Or he was the guy owned the place, and didn’t want to take the chance of tying himself to it. If it was McGuire, wouldn’t be cool his daughter brought some date out here and they found Vincent propped in a corner, drawing ants.

  “There’s some other thinking going on. Your dad’s dead, Vincent doesn’t show up, it points the business to him. Him being there was actually a lucky break. Kayla, you know anything about Vincent’s family?”

  “Checked,” Kayla said. “Didn’t have one. They died when he was young. He was pretty much on his own. Worked in Sheetrock, was learning the mechanic business from my dad.”

  Tad shined the light into the woods. There was a tire-track trail there.

  “Where does this go?” Tad said.

  Neither Harry or Kayla knew.

  They walked down the trail a ways. Finally it broke out of a patch of woods and onto a little road that wound its way around a curve of trees.

  “Hatted guy probably dragged him out here, other fella drove their car down here, loaded up the corpse, took him somewhere else to dump,” Tad said.

  “Sounds likely,” Kayla said.

  “Guesswork,” Tad said. “What’s left of the body could be over there behind that tree, for all I know.”

  “We’ve done all we can do tonight,” Kayla said. “Let’s call in the dogs.”

  48

  Harry and Kayla sat with Tad at his house, drank diet colas and decaffeinated coffee until one in the morning, rehashing the night’s events.

  Harry felt as if he had been pulled through the small end of a funnel, but all this talk, even if it was about the night’s events, was good. It kept him from remembering alone, kept him from thinking maybe the shadows weren’t gone, that they were hanging in the belfry of his head like cobwebs.

  Yeah. That was a help, having Tad and Kayla. But a drink…God, a drink. And then another drink. Cold beer or hot whiskey. That would be the ticket for the pleasant ride to Numb Land.

  Tad showed how he could throw coins and knock knickknacks off a shelf and break them. A pile of shattered elephants and assorted ceramic animals lay Humpty-Dumptied all over the place. Scattered amongst them were winks of shiny minted silver.

  “My mother-in-law gave us that shit,” Tad said. “Me and the wife hated them. Been meaning to get rid of them. When I was drunk I thought about it all the time, but then I was too drunk to do anything.”

  “Are those quarters you’re throwing?”

  “Nickels. It’s all in the wrist.”

  Finally Kayla took Harry back to her place, so he could pick up his car.

  They lingered at the door, Kayla’s perfume driving him crazy, but there was no kissing. Harry liked to think it was in the air, a kiss, but if it was, he didn’t try to make it materialize. He wasn’t exactly feeling like Don Juan, not after tonight. An event like that, it could put the shrinkage on a man’s equipment.

  “See you later,” Kayla said.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I like your friend.”

  “Tad. Yeah, he’s great.”

  “Really, Harry. I know it must have been terrible for you.”

  “You’re right. It was. But I hope I helped.”

  “You did. I’m not sure where to go with it now, but you helped. Lots.”

  “Yeah, well…” They were very near now to that kiss hanging in the air, but, alas, he hadn’t the will to try it. What if she said no? He wasn’t up to the disappointment right now.

  “Good night, Kayla.”

  “Good night, Harry.”

  When Harry got home there was a light on the answering machine. The first message was from Tad.

  “Kid. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t drink. I know, ’cause I’m thinking the same thing. You need me, call. I’ll come get you.”

  Harry grinned, let the other messages come. There was one from his mother, one from Joey.

  It was too late to call his mother, but he decided, what the hell, might as well get it over with, call Joey. Shit, I’m going forgive him, way I always do, and he’s going piss me off again. How it works.

  When Joey answered, he
sounded as if he were climbing out of a hole in the ground.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s me, Harry.”

  “Good. I was wondering…I mean, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “Yes, you did. And you’ll be happy to know it didn’t work out, the thing with me and Talia. Oh, I was in the saddle for a while, but it’s all over now.”

  “Well, you done pretty good then, considering who she is.”

  “So you’re gonna sideways insult me, Joey?”

  “Nope. I was wondering. Can we still be friends?”

  “Sure. We’re always gonna be friends, it’s just I got to wonder why.”

  “How about I drop by tomorrow night? We can have a beer.”

  “I don’t drink anymore. Remember?”

  “Not at all?”

  “We did this last time, Joey. You’re already starting it again.”

  “Sorry, man. That not-drinking business. How’s that working out for you?”

  “Damn good.” Then, trying to change the subject: “Know who I saw tonight?”

  “Who?”

  “Kayla.”

  “Our Kayla?”

  “One and the same.”

  “How’s she look?”

  “Like a million bucks. She’s a cop in town. We visited.”

  “She beat me up once.”

  “I remember. It’s one of my fondest memories.”

  “She could hit really hard.”

  “I know. She beat me up too.”

  “She used to really smell nice.”

  “Still does.”

  “Kayla. I’ll be damned.”

  “Well, good night, Joey.”

  “Good night, Harry…And hey…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for calling. I’ve missed you.”

  “Can’t say the same.”

  Harry showered and went to bed, tried not to think about what he’d seen there in the garage, but every time he closed his eyes, the images came back.

  He was glad when the phone rang. He didn’t check the caller ID. He thought it was Joey.

  “Harry?”

  “Kayla?”

  “You know that wooden bear in my place?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s named Harry.”

  “What a coincidence.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought you were going to kiss me.”

  “I started to try. Really. Just wasn’t certain. Not exactly at my peak, you know.”

  “You should have tried. Good night, Harry.”

  About five A.M., Harry awoke.

  He had struggled to fall asleep, and when he did it had been deep and solid, and now, suddenly, he was awake—bright eyed, bushy tailed, and nervous.

  He sat up in bed and thought for a while, then got dressed, drove over to his mother’s house, and sat out front. He wanted to see her, but it was too early, and he didn’t want to wake her. If he did, she would know something was wrong, something was bothering him. He thought about how she would feel if she knew he was taking martial arts lessons, that he actually got hit and it hurt. She’d want him to wear a helmet, knee pads. She’d want him to quit.

  He drove down where the honky-tonk had once been, now bulldozed over and growing pine trees. Somewhere in all that, the sounds of an old murder hid.

  He tooled over to the entrance to the drive-in and let his high beams rest on it. The great frame for the drive-in screen still stood, as did the old ticket booth. The snack bar was collapsed and dark from having caught fire some years back. If he kicked something out there, maybe it would activate a memory. Lot of date rapes in those old cars, most likely. Some of those cars were still on the road. In junkyards, holding badness in a shadow bag.

  Harry backed out, drove around trying to find the entrance to the road that led behind the McGuires’. Finally he found a way. There was a lot of garbage tossed back there, even an old armchair. Cruising to the end of the turnoff, Harry came to where he and Tad and Kayla had stood. He killed the lights and sat there. Finally he switched the beams on again, backed out, tried to decide if Tad was right about their carrying the body away.

  When he was back on the main road he turned so that he was facing the way he had come, then he backed into the side road and considered.

  The road T-boned, and he tried to decide which direction they might have hauled a body, if they hauled one at all.

  If they went left, that led alongside the golf course and finally onto the little road that ran alongside Mr. Jones’s garage. They could have gone that way, the way he had come, but it seemed pretty open and well lit, wound down between houses and dumped headlong onto the highway. No problem, but if you had a dead body with you, you might want to stay in seclusion as much as possible, just in case. Even if the corpse was coiled around a spare tire in the trunk.

  T-bone to the right…well, he didn’t know where that went. But it was darker that way, with more trees on either side, and seemed more likely if you were gonna be sneaking around.

  He turned right.

  In the headlights the clay road was red as blood and wound its way slightly upward. There were a number of little turnoffs along the way, and Harry thought any of them might have served as a place to bury a body. But the practical side of it was this: They didn’t want to just dump the body. They needed to get rid of it. Without Vincent’s body, there was no way to prove he had been there when Mr. Jones died. He could have gone home long before it happened. Something could have happened to him later. He might have cleared out. There were all kinds of explanations, but a dead body—that was an explanation that might throw off the whole program. Whatever that program was.

  Harry was considering this while he drove, and as he wheeled around a curve there was a break in the trees and across the way, in the distance he could see a great and rare rise in the landscape.

  He recognized it immediately, though he had not seen it from this angle before. Humper’s Hill. Nothing else around was that tall. It was a good distance away, but just looking at it brought back memories of Talia’s fine ass in the moonlight, of moments sublime.

  And it made him think of something else.

  It was a hunch, but it made a kind of sense.

  He drove around the curve, and sure enough there was a road that went right. In a short time that would put him onto the highway, and then, in a matter of moments, he would be at the turnoff to Humper’s Hill.

  He thought: If I were going to dispose of a body, that would be the place. Up there on Humper’s Hill, tossed over the edge to end up lying down there in the undergrowth, hidden from view, to rot and be eaten by wild animals and insects. Someone found the body, it could be years later, there would still be no direct connection to Jones’s murder.

  He felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He felt so goddamn certain of what he was thinking, his stomach churned.

  “Rope?” Tad said. “For me to hang you with, I hope.”

  “I’m sorry, Tad. Really.”

  They were in Tad’s living room. Harry had awakened him by leaning on the bell.

  “So you had a hot flash and suddenly decided you need rope?”

  “I think I know where Vincent’s body is. Or might be.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “I remember this place,” Tad said.

  “You’ve been up here?”

  “Just to jack off.”

  While Harry was thinking on that, Tad said, “Hey, I’m fucking with you. This hill was popular in my time too. I used to bring my dates here.”

  “Funny thing is,” Harry said, “sometimes you seem like a wise old sage. Rest of the time, you’re just kind of a regular A-one asshole.”

  They got out of the car and Tad dragged the coil of rope out of the backseat. They walked over to the edge of the rise and looked down. It had a slight slope to it. It dropped about a hundred feet into a kind of po
or-man’s ravine. The brush was thick there and trees grew straight out from the slope and curved up, seeking sunlight. In the starlight they looked like alien creatures.

  “You got your cell phone?” Tad asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about it.”

  “Figured that’s why you came over and sat on my doorbell. Make sure it’s on, that way you can keep me posted, and what I’ll do is I’ll fasten one end of the rope to something under the Mercedes, and when you need me to pull you up, I can do that with the car, the phone stuck to one ear, you giving me information. You know, ‘too fast, too slow, my neck’s tangled up.’ Shit like that.”

  “Great.”

  “What you’re thinking, that the body is down there, might be right,” Tad said. “But the odds are you ain’t gonna find shit. It’s been years now, and the meat would have long come off the bones, and the bones would have come apart and been spread all over hell and back. Some dog, coyote, some kind of critter has probably got a leg bone in his den somewhere, using it as a conversation piece.”

  Tad fastened the rope under the car, then Harry coiled it once around his waist and held the loose part so he could lean back and let it out, yet maintain the wrap as he went down.

  “Watch for snakes.”

  “It’s too cold for them, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what they say, but hey, you could wake one up.”

  “Thanks.”

  Harry went to the edge, turned his back to the drop, held tight to the rope, leaned way out, leaped slightly, and went down about ten feet. When he landed, letting the rope loose as he went, he was surprised at how much the rope cut into him. It looked so much easier in the movies. The brush was also thicker than he imagined, stuck straight out of the sides of the slope as much as two to three feet.

  Harry twisted and looked down. That would be some drop.

  There was a tree directly below him, standing out from the drop at an angle, twisting back up toward the sun in a U shape. Harry made that his target. He thought, If they were going to dump someone over the side, they’d probably do it where the place dropped the most, and that was it. He tried to figure where a heavy body would fall, even with two guys slinging it. He thought the tree looked about right.