Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  “Fair enough.”

  Eventually, we reached the end of the road. I was hoping that would prove to be literal rather than metaphoric. About fifty yards back from the driveway, obscured by an overgrown field, was a ramshackle white house that may have been nice at one point… a long, long time ago. Now, the paint was chipped, a couple of shutters were hanging loose, and one of the upstairs windows had been broken out. Plastic was taped over it, but I couldn’t imagine it did much to keep out the draft. Or the beasties.

  “Well, this isn’t creepy at all,” I said.

  “Buddy said they found some tire tracks in the driveway,” Diggs said. “And Wyatt’s medical bag was still on the ground where he’d left it.”

  He stopped the car and turned off the engine. Between the gray day, the creepy house, the overgrown fields, Barnel’s grim prophecy and subsequent murder, and now Danny missing, I wasn’t loving the way this whole thing was unfolding.

  “So, we check the house first,” Diggs said.

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “You want me to go alone?”

  “Give me a break. Let’s do this.”

  “Suit yourself.” He reached across me to the glove box, opened it, and rooted around for a minute before he came out with a gun. A big gun, too—much closer to a cannon than a pea-shooter.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “It’s a Glock.” He checked the clip, slammed it back into place, and tucked it into the back of his jeans. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Teeth brushed? Check. Clean underwear? Check. Fully loaded grenade launcher in my back pocket? Check, and check.

  “Do you even know how to use it?”

  “Yep.” He got out without waiting for any follow-up questions. I scrambled out, snapped the leash onto Einstein’s collar, and followed Diggs toward the house. I didn’t want to be a dweeb, but up to this point in our lives, Diggs and I had navigated some pretty hairy situations without resorting to capping anyone’s ass.

  “You really think we need that thing?” I asked when I’d caught up with him, halfway to the house.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d rather not need it and have it, than not have it and die.”

  When he put it like that…

  Still, I was fairly sure the whole ‘If we’re all armed, no one gets hurt’ argument had proven fatally flawed more than once.

  We reached the front door. The cement step up was split down the center and the house had drifted about a foot from it over the years. Diggs had to lean forward to knock. I started to say something more about the whole gun thing, but he stopped me with a look.

  “I’m not going down without a fight again,” he said. Any trace of fun was gone from his eyes. “If someone comes after you—us—I’ll damned well be ready this time.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “All right, fine. Whatever. Just know that if you inadvertently shoot me, I’m gonna be pissed. And if you hurt my dog, all bets are off.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Diggs knocked again. Einstein whined at the door, pawing at the bottom. There was no answer, and I didn’t hear anyone screaming from the bowels of the basement or anything. I took that as a sign from the universe that we should move on.

  “Buddy said the barn’s across the field there,” I said. “Maybe that’s where they are.”

  “Could be,” Diggs agreed. “Up for a walk?”

  We set out. Once we got past the house, an actual cleared path appeared within a few yards. Most of the land was fenced out this way—good, solid fencing that stretched all the way around, with no gaps that I could see. We followed the fence line over a couple of rolling fields, the grass surprisingly trim considering the condition of the house.

  “Goats,” Diggs reminded me when I said something. “Grass doesn’t grow too long with them around.”

  I looked around for any sign of these alleged goats. Beyond the fencing and the close-cut grass, however, I saw nothing. Einstein gave the ground a perfunctory sniff, but even he didn’t seem convinced there was anything to be found. The place was eerily quiet: the occasional birdsong, a car engine off in the distance… otherwise, I heard nothing. When we finally cleared the last hill, a bright red barn came into view. Diggs knelt beside a thick tire track deep in the soft earth.

  “ATV,” he said. “Looks like it was carrying a heavy load.”

  I wasn’t sure whether it was my own imagination, too much TV, or recent experience that made the statement sound so foreboding.

  The double doors leading into the barn were open, and the barn itself was pristine. Shelves of stainless steel buckets lined one wall, while two barrels of sweet-smelling grain sat nearby. Molasses, I suspected. Bales of hay tinged with green were stacked neatly in the corner.

  “Alfalfa,” Diggs said. He shook his head. “It’s pricey—not the kind of thing people usually feed around here. They might not have known what they were doing, but they put some money into this venture.”

  All the stalls were mucked out, not so much as a stray goat pellet to be found. “Where are the goats?” I asked, going for the most obvious question first.

  “No clue,” Diggs said. We walked to the other side of the barn, where another double door opened up on the other side. Diggs scratched his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t see a trace of anyone—goat or human.”

  “When did Buddy say they were out here last?”

  “Thursday. The day after they found Wyatt.”

  “That was a week ago. It looks like maybe they split. No cars, no goats, no sign of anyone at the house.” Roger Burkett was one of Reverend Barnel’s conquests. That had to mean something. I don’t believe in coincidences in general, but I especially don’t believe in them where crazy branding preachers are concerned.

  We headed back to the house, still searching the horizon for any sign of man or beast. I thought of Barnel’s proclamation of an impending Armageddon. I had to admit, it did kind of feel like we were in one of those sci-fi movies where a mutant apocalypse had taken place while we weren’t looking. Any second now, I expected a pack of freakish southern zombies to appear on the hillside, arms outstretched, ready to save our souls and eat our brains.

  “Maybe we should call Buddy,” I suggested when we were almost back to the house.

  “I’ll call him when we’ve checked the place out,” Diggs said. He didn’t even slow down. Suddenly, I had a pretty good idea what he’d been dealing with from me over the past year. What a pain in the ass.

  “What if there’s someone in there?” I asked when we reached the front door.

  He knocked on the door. “If there’s someone there, they’ll answer. And if they don’t…”

  I was familiar with the logic, having made the same argument myself upon occasion: If they don’t answer, we should bust in and make sure everything’s all right.

  No one came to the door. Einstein whined and pawed at it, his nose pressed to the crack. Diggs started to knock again; his knuckles had barely grazed the wood when I thought I heard something coming from inside.

  A whimper.

  My skin crawled and my heart dropped toward my navel. Einstein nosed at the door, whining all the louder. “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  Diggs shook his head. He tried the door, but it was just as locked now as it had been when we’d first shown up on the scene. I put my ear to the wood while he went around to the side, looking for a way in.

  “Hello?” I called inside.

  Nothing. Einstein was frantic now, scratching at the door with a steady, low whine. Two seconds passed. Then three. And then, again…

  A whimper.

  It was unmistakable this time—someone was in there.

  I stepped back and jogged over to Diggs, standing beneath a window that was open just a crack.

  “There’s something in there,” I said.

  “What do you mean, something?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It could be a person, or it
could be an animal. It’s probably not a mutant southern zombie, but I make no promises.”

  He gave me a look, lip twitching to keep from smiling, then retrieved a plastic milk crate lying in the grass. He set it beneath the window and stepped up, pushing the window up farther before he pulled himself into the house. Since I’d seen this movie before and I was fairly sure it ended with someone decorating their cave with our skins, I took that opportunity to call Buddy Holloway. It went to voicemail just as Diggs’ feet disappeared through the open window.

  “Hi,” I said to Buddy’s voicemail. “This is Erin Solomon—Digg’s friend. Listen, I just wanted to let you know you might want to check out the Burkett place again. Soon. This afternoon would be great.” I hesitated. “Please.”

  I hung up. So, that didn’t actually incriminate us or say anything about the fact that we were currently breaking into a locked house. But hopefully the deputy would get the picture.

  Diggs stuck his head out the window. “Hey—are you coming or what?”

  I tied a very unhappy Einstein to the nearest tree, promised I’d be back soon, and stepped up on the milk crate. Diggs took my hand and pulled me up.

  That cannon he was hauling around was looking pretty good about now.

  Once through the window, I found myself in an old bathroom in serious need of updating. I wasn’t expecting much based on the Hoarders’ exterior, but the room was surprisingly clean... and very monochromatic. Mint green fixtures—toilet, bathtub, and pedestal sink—were the perfect complement to the mint green tile walls and the faded, mint green towels.

  “Pretty,” I said.

  Diggs nodded. “Green living at its best.”

  I groaned.

  He pushed the door open, landing us in a dimly lit, wood-floored corridor. Whoever had been there last had left without turning off the heat: it was like a steam bath in there. I tried the light switch, and a naked bulb flickered in a wrought iron sconce on the wall.

  The hallway was narrow, with a bizarre pineapple-print wallpaper and not a stitch of art work on the walls. A swinging door brought us to the kitchen.

  I stopped moving.

  “Do you smell that?” Diggs asked.

  I definitely did: The smell of something rotting, strong enough to make me gag. I pulled my shirt up over my nose, my stomach rolling.

  “You wanna keep going?” he asked.

  “Hello?” I called out in lieu of an answer.

  This time, the response was immediate and unmistakable: A whimper that grew to a full-blown whine when I called out again. I didn’t bother to answer Diggs’ question, instead plowing on toward a narrow stairwell at the back of the kitchen where the stench was strongest and the whining loudest.

  The stairs were partially rotted, the ceiling was low, and the walls were narrow. I thought suddenly of negotiating the tunnels with Diggs last summer, and my newly regained courage wavered. It was even hotter here than the rest of the house, the air wet and as heavy as a blanket. I focused on taking shallow breaths through my mouth, and kept going.

  At the top of the stairs, there was a small, windowless room that had clearly been used for storage. I shined my flashlight across stacks of boxes, dishes, and books. A dingy curtain cordoned off a section at the back.

  “Anybody here?” I asked. The whining was coming from behind the curtain. I glanced back at Diggs. The smell was nearly unbearable now. “You’re still with me, right?”

  “Barely,” he said grimly.

  I took a step forward. Then another. The curtain moved. My heart was already thumping like a rabbit’s, but that movement kicked it up another notch. I took a breath, mentally steeled myself for unspeakable horror, and pushed the curtain aside.

  Chapter Eleven

  DIGGS

  Roger Burkett was seated with his back against the wall, naked from the waist up. His eyes were open, both arms outstretched and his wrists fastened with twine to eye bolts screwed into the wall. His throat was slit from one side to the other. I stared at the insignia over his heart, excised and re-stitched: An inverted cross.

  The combination of buzzing flies, heat, and the smell of putrefying flesh was overwhelming, to say the least. Solomon seemed unfazed. She moved forward, ignoring the dead body before us in favor of the live one beside it: a medium-sized golden retriever with feathered fur matted with blood. The dog lay beside Burkett, its head on the dead man’s lap.

  Solomon knelt beside it, talking softly.

  “You should wait until we can get a vet here,” I said.

  I might as well have been talking to the dead guy.

  She sat down and reached for the dog—palm up, fingers outstretched. Solomon’s one of those women who’s never actually still; I’ve slept with her, and even in her sleep she moves more than your average, fully conscious American. The exception is when she’s around anyone sick or injured—animal or human. It’s like she becomes another person. Her mother always wanted her to be a doctor, something Sol adamantly insists she was never interested in pursuing. I’ve always thought she would be good at it, though.

  The dog stretched its muzzle toward her, still whining softly.

  “She’s hurt,” Solomon said. She scooched a little closer. The dog didn’t shy away. “There’s a gash behind her ear.”

  “Sol—” I tried again.

  She ignored me, gently brushing her hand over the dog’s head. It came back sticky with blood. “We need to get her out of here,” she said. She removed the dog’s collar, decorated with penguins and dark with blood, and put it in her back pocket.

  “And the dead guy?” I asked.

  She barely glanced at him. “The cops are on their way. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

  Once she was up, Solomon tried sweet talking the dog out of the room first, with no success. Then, she looked at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Maybe if we put her on a blanket, we could carry her down.”

  We made a couple of clumsy attempts. By that time, I figured if the poor dog hadn’t bitten us yet, she probably wasn’t going to. I hefted her into my arms. She whined when I started walking away from Roger, struggling against me the farther I got.

  “Easy, girl,” I said softly. She laid her muzzle on my arm and closed her eyes, still whining quietly, as I made my way down the steep stairwell. Sirens were headed toward us by the time we got outside, and I could barely feel the dog’s heartbeat.

  <><><>

  Einstein had slipped his collar by the time we got outside, and was waiting anxiously for both of us. He totally ignored Solomon and headed straight for me instead, bumping up against me as I lay the retriever on the grass.

  “Will you get him out of here?” I said to Solomon. I like the dog, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a limit to how much canine bonding a man can take.

  Before she could grab him, Stein lay down facing the retriever, his muzzle on his paws, and whimpered softly. She opened her eyes. Stein thumped his tail. The retriever thumped her tail. He licked her head, then settled in for what I was guessing was the long haul.

  Buddy Holloway arrived on the scene a few minutes later, siren wailing. Solomon and I sat cross-legged on the ground, the retriever lying on her side next to us, panting while Einstein looked on anxiously.

  Buddy pulled up, took one look at the dog’s blood-matted fur, and I think was tempted to turn around and run back home.

  “The body’s on the second floor,” I said.

  “We found the dog in there with him,” Solomon said. “I’m not sure how long she’d been there.”

  Buddy crouched beside the dog, gently ruffling its ears. Einstein growled until Solomon shushed him.

  “Hey, Gracie girl,” Buddy said quietly. He shook his head. “She hurt bad?”

  “I’m not sure,” Solomon said. “There’s a nasty gash behind her left ear. And she’s dehydrated. Pretty freaked out. Her name’s Grace, you said?”

  “Yup,” the deputy confirmed. “She was just a pup
when they moved back here. ‘Bout the only thing Roger cared two figs about was this dog.”

  “Apparently it was mutual,” I said. “It took some doing to get her to leave.”

  “She may have tried to protect him, too,” Solomon said. “It looks like her gums are cut up, which means she could have bitten whoever killed him. You could swab for DNA… I read about that working before, on another case.”

  Buddy looked at me. I shrugged. “She doesn’t know about the way things work in this part of the world, I guess,” he said.

  “You don’t have DNA in Kentucky?” Solomon asked peevishly.

  “We don’t have a lot of resources for testin’ DNA,” Buddy corrected her. “We can get it done… it just might take awhile. In the meantime, I’ll get her on over to the vet. We’ll see what we can do for her.”

  I heard more sirens in the distance, which could only mean one thing. Sure enough, thirty seconds later Sheriff Jennings and two other cruisers pulled into the Burkett’s driveway. It wasn’t going to be a good afternoon.

  Buddy Holloway might be convinced Harvey Jennings had turned his life around, but as far as I could tell the sheriff was exactly the same egomaniacal, abusive prick he’d always been. Einstein was already none too happy that Buddy was trying to abscond with his new girlfriend, but he went ballistic when Jennings showed up on the scene. Grace started whining as soon as Jennings got out of his cruiser, and Solomon had to physically drag Stein away while Buddy put the retriever in his own car so he could get her to the vet’s.

  Once the dog situation was resolved, Jennings approached Solomon and me while the other cops started dealing with the crime scene. In the light of day, I noticed circles under the sheriff’s eyes that I’d missed the night before, and an intensity that seemed to burn brighter thanks to the fatigue.