Vultures at Twilight

by Charles Atkins

  ‘So how the hell did they get here?’ she asked. ‘I can’t imagine someone dragging them down here all by themselves.’

  ‘Good point, so they had to come under their own steam.’

  ‘Which leaves . . . Did they come willingly or under duress? So where’s the other body?’

  ‘You’re practically standing on it.’

  She turned and scanned the ground. Her gaze caught on a filth-smeared bit of red-plaid. She traced it back to a mud-caked mound, which, as she stared at it, took on human form. ‘Jesus, you can barely tell it’s there. Did you get pictures?’

  ‘First thing. Figured this would be a hard scene to protect.’

  ‘So how long do you think they’ve been here?’

  ‘Few days. Must have been here before the storm. Anything after and they wouldn’t be so badly covered.’

  ‘You think that was intentional?’

  ‘The storm?’

  ‘No, to get them down before a big rain. Otherwise there would have been a lot more physical evidence.’

  ‘Could be. We had a couple days’ warning.’

  Mattie felt a hollow victory and suspected that after the Medical Examiner and the forensic team got through with the bodies her earlier suspicions would be confirmed: that Jeffries and Renaldo had been killed not long after Philip Conroy. Her mistake was in not demanding a search team and dogs sooner. Two more dead. She looked up as Kevin, the Medical Examiner and two other detectives from Major Crime descended. ‘We have to put Lillian Campbell under surveillance.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Hank asked.

  ‘It sounds like our boy . . . or someone pretending to be him . . . has staked her out. She’s been getting hang-up calls saying “you’re next”, and I don’t think he’s talking about the Irish Sweepstakes.’

  ‘Lil Campbell? She doesn’t fit the profile.’

  ‘I know, so maybe we’ve got the profile wrong. There is some common denominator but it may not be what we thought.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I’m not certain . . . You remember a girl named Wendy Conroy?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, after a moment’s pause. ‘Real tragedy. Killed herself. What’s she got to do with this?’

  ‘Near as I can figure, there’s old secrets coming out.’

  ‘Like what?’ He eyed her closely.

  Before she could respond, the winded Medical Examiner called out. ‘Couldn’t you at least keep your murders someplace dry?’ Arvin Storrs struggled through the last few yards, his boots slipping and slurping in the mud. ‘So what have we got?’ he asked, smiling broadly at Mattie.

  Hank pointed. ‘Body one and body two.’

  ‘Cause of death?’ Arvin asked.

  ‘Thought that was your job,’ Hank said. ‘My guess is bullet wound at close range, at least for this one here. That one over there I haven’t wanted to turn over.’

  ‘Looks like a herd of elephants has been through here,’ the examiner commented as he surveyed the pockmarked mud. ‘Any chance someone took pictures before they trampled the scene?’

  ‘Done,’ Hank assured him.

  ‘Find anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Some garbage, a few old beer cans, some less old than others. I got them bagged, but I think it’s less likely from the murderer and more likely some high school kids coming down to party. I even found a used condom.’

  ‘Where?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘Just dangling over a branch,’ he said, pointing with his stick. ‘Looked like it had been there for a while. I took some pictures of it before I bagged it.’

  Mattie looked at the mud-crusted bodies that melded into the swamp. ‘Any chance it was from one of those two?’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Dr Storrs as he snapped on a double layer of gloves. ‘You still got your camera, Hank?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He slogged his way toward a boulder covered with a variety of sealed plastic evidence bags, and retrieved his high-resolution Nikon.

  ‘Just follow me,’ Arvin instructed. ‘Let’s see what we got.’

  Kevin and the pair of detectives joined the group and watched from the sidelines. In the distance two pairs of patrolmen had started the descent carrying a rolled-up stretcher and shiny black PVC body bags. And behind them, members of the search team dotted the crest as they sipped coffee and watched.

  ‘Mattie, you want to give me a hand?’ the examiner asked. ‘Here, put some gloves on.’ He bent by the first body, studied its position, and scraped off a layer of leaves. Then he tilted back the left shoulder to get a clear look at the head and face. ‘Terrible,’ he commented as several plump white maggots fell to the earth. ‘Raccoons have been gnawing at this one. You want to get some shots, Hank?’ The examiner made clicking noises with his tongue as he surveyed the body. ‘It’s going to be hard pinpointing the exact time of death. Judging by the size of those larvae, I’d say a week.’ And taking a pair of tweezers he dropped three shiny maggots into a specimen bottle. ‘I’ll be able to tell when we get him inside. Looks like an entry wound here,’ he said tilting up the forehead. ‘Oops.’ The body shifted and the head tilted back, almost detaching from the neck. ‘My goodness,’ he commented, scraping mud off the back of the cadaver’s neck. ‘Something’s really been chewing away at this; you’d think this was the Thanksgiving turkey. Mmm mmm mmm. Another few days and there wouldn’t have been much. Mattie, give me a hand; let’s get him on his back.’

  Together, the two pried the half-gnawed body free from the mud and flipped it. The stench of methane and rotting flesh roared over them. Mattie stepped back; her stomach lurched.

  Completely unperturbed, Arvin commented, ‘Pants are zipped. Other than that, his clothing is pretty shot; I’d bet that all came after the fact. See, look at this?’ He poked a twig into a tear in the flannel shirt. ‘See how jagged that is, and if you look close you can see dried bits of saliva, that’s not human . . . At least I hope not.’ He scanned the body. ‘Yeah, not a lot more to say. Male, forties, probable cause of death is a bullet, small caliber, to the brain. Was there much in the way of splatter around the body, like a struggle or anything? Any tracks of a dragged body?’

  ‘Not so as you could tell,’ Hank replied. ‘But you got to remember it’s been raining pretty fierce. This is the first real clearing we’ve had.’

  ‘Lucky us,’ Arvin said, glancing up through the trees at the darkening sky, and the small crowd of onlookers lining the crest, including the bloodhound, now straining at her leash. ‘Any chance you took some mud samples from around the body?’

  ‘Didn’t think to. Why?’

  ‘Maybe get lucky and see if there was some blood mixed in, otherwise we’ll never know if there was much movement before death. Shall we take a look at body number two?’ He got up with a groan. ‘The knees don’t work the way they used to. Look at this,’ he said, in the tone of a TV-commercial mother who’s found muddy footprints on her just-washed floor. ‘I tell you –’ he surveyed the half-submerged body – ‘what a mess.’

  A trickle of water ran by the corpse’s outstretched hand and meandered toward the stream at the bottom of the ravine. From overhead came the spatter of rain landing on the trees.

  ‘God, he’s stuck,’ Arvin complained as they struggled to pry the body from its muddy cradle.

  ‘Let me help.’ Kevin snapped on gloves and gripped the body around its middle.

  ‘On three,’ Arvin instructed. ‘One, two, three.’

  A wave of brackish water rushed to fill the hole left by the body.

  ‘Hank, grab some pictures, quick,’ Arvin ordered as he stared down at the cavity.

  ‘Wow,’ Kevin commented, still hanging on to the body’s flank. ‘It’s Pete Jeffries.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Mattie agreed, getting a clear look at the filth-smeared face, which had been preserved in the mud.

  A droplet of water landed on Mattie’s neck and the woods rustled with the sound of falling rain and leaves. Thunder rum
bled and the wind whipped the trees. A trunk creaked ominously, and in a matter of moments, darkness fell. Mosquitoes, emboldened by the coming storm, swarmed. Arvin squashed one on his forearm in a bloody smear.

  ‘OK to bag?’ Hank asked.

  ‘Yeah, let’s get out of here,’ Arvin agreed. ‘Not much to say. Except, this body looks a whole lot better and I’d be willing to bet it hasn’t been here as long as the other one.’

  ‘Killed at different times?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘I’ll let you know for sure once I get them on the slab; but I’d say this Jeffries guy has only been dead a couple days, maggots haven’t even hatched. That other one’s over a week.’

  ‘So someone got them down here one at a time,’ Mattie said. ‘Makes sense, it’s easier to control one person than two. But why here?’

  ‘Guys –’ Arvin stepped back to let the patrolmen pack up the bodies – ‘I’d love to stay and chat, but it looks like I’m going to be spending the day in the morgue and frankly, I can’t do that on an empty stomach. So, Hank, where can a guy get a decent meal around here?’

  A torrent of rain swept the ravine.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ he replied, gathering his evidence and tucking his camera inside a plastic bag.

  Leaving the officers to collect the bodies, and the other detectives to wait for the crime-scene team, Mattie, Kevin, Hank and Arvin started the climb.

  All the while, Mattie was thinking what it must have been like for the two men they’d left behind. What, or who, had induced them to come down here in the first place? There were no signs of a struggle. Although, the rain might have washed that away, but still. As she struggled upward, grabbing at saplings and low-hanging branches, she thought about Lil. With a surge of energy she barreled her way up the rest of the incline, overtaking her colleagues. At the crest she shouted back over the driving rain, ‘I’m going to check on Lil. I’ll call from there. But Hank, I wasn’t kidding, get her some protection.’

  Hank yelled something in reply, but his words got lost in the storm.

  A crack of lightning split the sky and without waiting, Mattie raced to her car, and with a worried feeling gnawing at her gut, she sped back to Pilgrim’s Progress.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Lil, you’re overreacting, I chided myself as I stormed out of my condo and toward my garage. But after Mattie had left, the fight with Barbara had deteriorated. I needed to get out of there. I knew that Mattie had wanted us to stay, but Barbara was driving me crazy; if I’d stayed another minute, I would have done or said something regrettable. Even the simple act of taking a ride to clear my head had been a cause for discussion.

  ‘Are you safe to drive?’ Barbara had asked as I’d reached for the raincoat on the hooks by the door. I’d worn it home from the hospital, and it was drenched.

  ‘Would you let your mother alone!’ Ada had interjected.

  ‘Of course I can drive,’ I’d shot back, before Barbara could turn on Ada. ‘I had a heart attack, not a stroke.’ Abandoning the raincoat, I opened the hall closet and grabbed my hooded green-wool winter coat with the wooden toggle buttons.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Ada had said.

  ‘No,’ I’d replied too fast. ‘Mattie didn’t want any of us to leave. I just need to drive around, clear my head.’ I smiled, suddenly aware of the hurt on her face. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll be right back, promise.’

  Before anyone could say more, I was out the door. The rain was blinding, and I wished I’d taken an umbrella as well. I pulled the broad hood over my head and walked quickly down to the garage. My head was pounding and my knees felt weak and rubbery as I slid behind the wheel of the Lincoln. I had no idea of where I wanted to go as I backed out. I half expected Barbara to try and stop me. Even more than the threatening phone calls, or my heart attack, her attitude had made me nuts. This was the kind of stuff my older friends talked about. But Barbara was my own daughter; why was she being like this?

  The rain eased and the sky was dark with low-hanging clouds. The air felt thick, and my coat smelled of wet wool and mothballs. I flicked on my low beams and drove toward the gated entrance to Pilgrim’s Progress. I turned left and toward town. I had no destination; I just needed to think.

  The rain quickened, and I turned the wipers to high. I don’t like driving in bad weather, but the familiar feel and smell of my car was like a salve. The steady whish and whir of the wipers and the hum of the engine gave some relief. And why wasn’t Chris doing more to defend me? Was my getting behind the wheel more evidence that I was slipping into an early senility? And if that wasn’t enough, what would they think about my kissing my best friend? While confusing the hell out of me, that at least felt good; better than good. And wasn’t that a huge problem?

  On impulse, I turned down the side street that led to Nillewaug Village. I passed the trimmed hedges that lined the long drive. It looked nothing like a village and I couldn’t tell if the dense greenery was to keep people out, or in. I cruised among the outlying buildings placed like spokes on a wheel, where the hub was the massive faux-Georgian residential complex where Ada and I had met with that awful Ms Preston. Was that where I was destined to end up? Maybe Ada and I together, like a pair of spinsters . . . only, not so spinsterish.

  An ambulance was parked beneath one of the outer red-brick structures, its flashing lights were turned off, but some sort of activity was taking place inside. I tried to remember what Preston had said about these buildings, some kind of specialized nursing home units. I pulled over and with the motor idling, I watched as a female medic got in the driver’s seat. She put the vehicle into gear and pulled out in front of me. Through the back windows I could see a second attendant filling out forms as he bent over a figure swaddled in sheets. It wasn’t until they had moved beyond the front gates that they turned on the lights and siren.

  I looked back to where the ambulance had been parked and realized that each building had been designed with a hidden bay for this purpose. They were like factories only instead of smokestacks they had ambulance bays.

  I followed the drive to its central cul-de-sac and then back out to Cat Swamp Road. With lights on and going no faster than twenty, my tension slowly eased. I knew that Barbara was upset; my heart attack had hit her hard. I knew that she loved me and was afraid that I was jeopardizing my health. Maybe she was right. Three days after a heart attack, should I be driving? What would Bradley have said? ‘Bradley’s dead, Lil . . . You’re not.’

  As I came to the stop at the end of the road, I turned away from Grenville. There was little traffic and almost no visibility as I headed toward Shiloh and Jefferson, small rural towns to the north.

  The windshield was steaming and my defrosters were fighting an uphill battle. I cracked the window and let the cool air try to clear the milky film.

  I thought about Barbara and Chris; I didn’t really know them. And lately, that seemed true of too many things: my town, my husband, even myself.

  Through the driving rain, I passed by fields of Guernsey cows huddled against the storm. The road twisted and climbed around ancient oaks and farms that were falling one by one to developers who filled the fields with million-dollar homes that sprouted – seemingly overnight – like mushrooms in dung.

  My thoughts drifted back to my dream, and how it ended with that call. The more I thought about it, the more he’d sounded familiar. It wasn’t a prankster teen; it was somebody older, trying to disguise their voice, but definitely not young.

  The car lurched violently forward and the steering wheel jumped beneath my fingers. I both felt and heard tearing metal from my back bumper. My adrenaline raced as I struggled to steady the wheel while catching quick glances in the rearview mirror. I could barely make out the darkened outline of a van. A lone figure struggled at the wheel as he bore down. At first I thought he wanted to pass me, but as I tried to find some purchase on the edge of the road, I could see that he was coming straight at me. I hit the gas, but it was too late and he clipped my right
rear. Turn into the spin, I reminded myself struggling to stay on the road. I clung white-knuckled to the wheel as I skidded, the tires squealing on the asphalt.

  I lost all sense of direction as I finally came to a stop. I looked for my pursuer in the window, but the rain was too heavy and I couldn’t see him. I peered through the opened crack, my breath having fogged up the windows to the point I couldn’t tell where the road ended. I had to get out of there. Gently I applied pressure to the accelerator, having caught a glimpse of the white line outside my window. I felt the road beneath my wheels and prayed that I was headed back in the direction from which I had come. Shiloh and Jefferson were too deserted; I had to get back to Grenville.

  As I stepped on the gas, I opened my window further to try and get a better look at the road. As long as I could see the white line I’d be OK. I picked up speed, my heart was racing as I glanced in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see further than a few feet but there were no lurking shadows of the dark-colored van. Leaning forward, I took the side of my sleeve and tried to clear some of the fog from the glass. As I did, a towering shadow sped toward me. There was nothing I could do. I stared into the space where the driver sat, and, as if in slow motion, I watched as his eyes came into focus, meeting mine.

  Even before I could clearly see, I knew who it was. I should have known. It all made sense, I thought of a childhood saying: close only counts in horse shoes and grenades.

  A moment later, impact, and my world went black.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘Where is she?’ Mattie fumed, while pacing tight circles in Lil’s living room.

  ‘I couldn’t stop her,’ Ada said. ‘She was upset. She said she’d be right back.’

  Mattie glared at Barbara.

  ‘What? This isn’t my fault. Mother has been behaving erratically ever since I arrived. This is just more of the same.’

  ‘I had said no one was to leave.’ Mattie tried to control her temper; the anger clouded her thoughts and made it difficult to think. The stench of the bodies still hung in her nostrils. ‘Where did she go?’ Mattie demanded, already having been told that none of them knew. She looked around. ‘Great . . . Any more phone calls?’