Revised Bury the Lead Ebook Formatting Embedded Cover

by Bury the Lead (retail) (epub)

  Virgo (August 23-September 22): The full moon in your sign may trigger self-examination in the week ahead.

  Bonnie Mac cocked an eyebrow at me. “You want to try and tell Whithers what to do?”

  “Okay, okay. Obviously that’s not an option. So what happened? Same thing as last time? You said it was just one dog this time, though, right?”

  “But so much worse.”

  Now my interest was piqued. I spread my hands.

  She went on. “Poor thing had its throat slit, like the others. But then the monster went one step further. He disemboweled the poor animal and dragged it onto the sidewalk in front of its own house.”

  That was pretty gruesome, I had to admit.

  “Chief Joe is beside himself, I can tell you.”

  “I take it that’s where he’s at?”

  “The call just came in about an hour ago. Imagine waking up to see your family pet displayed that way in front of your house. It’s just so unspeakably cruel.”

  “Has the chief made any progress on the case from last week?”

  “I don’t think so. Nobody saw anything. Whoever is doing this must be luring the animals with treats or something, because they don’t seem to be barking or growling. It’s just so … so hideous.”

  “I guess we should be glad it was only one animal this time.”

  Bonnie Mac looked startled, but she nodded. “You’re right, of course. It does make a body worry. I never would have thought there would be someone in this town capable of something like that.”

  I thought of the story I’d assigned Jack on sex offenders in the area. Bonnie Mac worked in a police station. She knew all the dirty laundry in town. I was surprised that this was the one thing that would shatter her faith in humanity, but who was I to judge? Only last night I’d been near-murderous with rage myself, at a family I’d never met, who’d been guilty of nothing more than admitting they didn’t know how to reach their son. Human morality and its exceptions are more mysterious than the curve of light.

  “Well, this is definitely going to have everyone in town worked up. I’ll probably be back later this afternoon to talk to the chief. I was hoping he’d have more information for me from last week, but I guess not.”

  “It’ll probably be Officer Santiago,” Bonnie Mac advised me. “The chief should have been off today, but when he heard about this, he came right in. I don’t imagine he’ll want to work all day, though. Still, I don’t know how he can enjoy his day off much when it starts out with a scene like that musta been.”

  I added a bear claw to the pile of doughnut holes I’d loaded onto the paper plate. I winked at her.

  “Nobody but you needs to know that was ever here.”

  She placed a finger alongside her nose. “And nobody will.”

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  Three Down: ten letters, rambunctious country bars

  It was funny. It wasn’t until I was walking back to the police station later that afternoon that I realized I hadn’t even thought to ask Bonnie Mac where the latest dog attack had taken place. That’s one of the cardinal rules of journalism: lead with the five w’s and the h. Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Of course, journalism being what it is, the why often falls to the wayside. Human motivation is a hard beast to bridle. But the others are paramount to any story. And certainly would affect the community in a situation like this one. Was the predator sticking to a primary area, or had he branched out?

  People want to know.

  Oh, well. So I was off my game. I’d rectify that with the chief or Santiago, whoever was available.

  Bonnie Mac nodded to me as I walked into the police station but stayed on the phone. She knew what I wanted. She waved me down the hall.

  Santiago it was. I saw his glossy black head bent over the papers on his desk.

  “Buenos tardes!” I sang out.

  He raised his head and glowered at me. Everyone assumed, with his dark coloring and his last name, that Santiago spoke Spanish. The truth was, he was a third-generation American whose command of Spanish was significantly inferior to my high-school acquisition of the language. So naturally I needled him every chance I could.

  “Jeff Paine.”

  Also, he didn’t quite possess the tolerance for the media that Chief Joe did. Santiago mostly regarded me as a spent hack who meddled and muddled up the affairs of the mighty peacekeepers. That was fair, though, because I mostly regarded him as a wannabe hero who was too scared to walk a beat in a real city.

  So, yeah. We’re pretty tight.

  “What do you want?”

  “I heard there was another dog attack. Want to make a statement?”

  Sighing, he opened a drawer and withdrew a sheet a paper. “Chief Joe figured you’d be nosing around. He typed up an official statement for you to print before he went home.”

  I hardly glanced at it before folding it up and putting it in my back pocket. I had a reasonable idea what it would say―the police are following leads, protecting the public, blah, blah, blah. Everyone should remain vigilant and not panic. Maybe an admonition to bring pets in at night.

  “What about off the record? Any ideas on this nutcase? What’s motivating him?”

  Santiago leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, obviously abandoning the hope that I would turn tail and leave. “Besides pure unadulterated evil, you mean?”

  “Yeah, besides that. Unless you’re actively looking for Dracula. I’ll print that, if you like. Any evidence he’s been draining them of their blood?”

  Santiago shook his head, disgusted. “And they say cops have a dark sense of humor. Geez, Jeff.”

  “So nothing?”

  “Nothing solid. He’s staying in the same general area, but this whole town is the same general area. So that’s not helpful. The disemboweling, that’s an escalation. We have to worry about what he’ll do next, if we don’t catch him first. Too bad you weren’t right last week about it being a transient.”

  I shook my head. “I never said that.”

  “Right, right. Well, is there anything else you need? Because I have actual work to do. You know, something besides wandering up and down the sidewalks gossiping with anyone who likes to eat doughnuts.”

  “Now, don’t pretend you didn’t have any.”

  Santiago smiled reluctantly. “Go away, Jeff.”

  “You’ll miss me,” I warned.

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  “No, I won’t,” Santiago called after me. I knocked a farewell on Bonnie Mac’s desk. She was still absorbed in her phone call.

  I unfolded the press release and perused its contents as I walked back to the office. Pretty standard stuff, as I’d expected. And yes, there was the location of the latest incident, along with an estimated time for the attack. I wondered how they’d arrived at that. I smothered a chuckle at the idea of the coroner coming out to check the liver temp on the poor creature. And wouldn’t that be affected by the liver lying outside the body rather than inside it?

  I’m not sure if I watch too many crime shows or not enough.

  Liver temp aside, I’d run the chief’s statement mostly verbatim. Partly because I had nothing to add, and partly because in a small town like this, little signs of respect do count for something. I wished I could have gotten a quote to add to the copy, but oh, well. By Sunday most people would have gleaned the basic facts on their own, anyway. The rare occasion when a weekly paper is timely with its news is the sheerest of luck. I’d given up hoping for it a long time ago.

  I swung by the office, more out of habit than for any good reason. It would only take a few minutes to throw this copy in the layout for Sunday. Might as well get it over with. The office felt oddly empty as I pushed through the door. I’m not sure what mad
e that Thursday afternoon different from any other. After all, I worked alone most days. Maybe it was having Dayla in for the extra hours this week. Maybe it was all the general absences that were beginning to fill up my mind―Ada, Andy, even Brett.

  I had the sudden vivid image of my mind, a cluster of stars, of galaxies, of color and light, being slowly consumed by dark matter pressing in from every direction.

  I was being swallowed by what wasn’t.

  Bit by bit, the pieces of me whose edges I knew were changing into unfamiliar shapes. The me who had walked these streets ten days ago seemed to be irrevocably gone. It wasn’t simply that Ada was gone. It was that I was gone. This new person wearing my skin, walking my streets, was a stranger to me. He intrigued me, interested me, but I couldn’t pretend to know or understand him. I was just along for the ride. I wanted to see exactly where he was headed, and what he knew about that place that made him so determined to get there. I wondered how long he would allow me to observe, to consider, before he devoured me.

  Golem. Doppelganger. Changeling. Which was he, and which was I? And how was it no one else seemed to notice that this crooked-leg creature walked with a gait entirely its own?

  Had Ada glimpsed him behind my eyes? Had he been the reason she left? Or had she left because she was tired of loving someone who was always hiding behind someone else?

  Press time!

  I whooped aloud as I saved the story to its delegated inches. One story closer to Sunday. Almost there.

  I was so ready.

  MP Becomes First Responder In London Attack

  Sunday did finally come.

  It is perhaps the eternal curse of writers everywhere, that they imbue so much more power in their words than anyone else perceives. On the off chance success is realized, does it ever approach the anticipated? I think not. Even if the work in question were to be met with bells and parades and dancing in the streets, the poor writer would be on the side of the road, shaking his head, proclaiming, “They don’t understand it at all.”

  Mozart was lucky in that respect. To die in poverty and disrepute is easier than to die celebrated for lies you never told.

  I didn’t go hiking this weekend. I couldn’t. I felt like the kindergartner who has just brought home his first picture to mommy and can’t stop lurking anxiously around the kitchen ’til he sees her put it up on the refrigerator with a magnet.

  So I prowled instead. I made myself sleep late Sunday morning―not much effort required there. I kept blackout curtains in my bedroom for a reason. Namely, that I hate the sun and hate him most fiercely when he first arrives. I also fixed myself a lovely breakfast―leftover pizza fried crispy in the skillet and topped with extra cheese. But then I prowled.

  I walked down to the park and lounged there on a bench. I strolled down neighborhood streets and past all six churches in our well-Christianed little burg. I stopped at the gyro stand―Brisby’s only food truck, which operated solely on weekends because Rinaldo ran a carpet-cleaning business during the week―and made small talk. One of my many talents.

  I used to despise the stuff. But then I learned the trick. Most people who hate small talk think they are required to come up with delicious tidbits about themselves or society at large that are sufficiently fascinating to engender further conversation but not so fascinating as to stir up actual controversy. A common fallacy.

  All you really need is the barest of personal knowledge about your combatant―let’s not kid ourselves here. Aren’t we all at war with each other? Conversation is merely an extension of the old jousting days, where each levels a deadly instrument at the other and then upon an incomplete pass, declares just fooling! Merely a contest, old chap, meant no harm. And then here comes the next volley. And the next.

  Questions. Questions are the key to successful small talk. Pretend an interest in their pitiful lives and the most hesitating of opponents will engage.

  “I heard so-and-so was in the hospital. Did you hear what happened?”

  “Is it true your son made the team?”

  “What does your wife think about her new job?”

  “How are your crops doing in this drought?’

  And off they go, lances raised. What was once a chore has now become entertainment. Not to mention a useful source of information. The best way to garner information, though, was the old-fashioned way―plain old eavesdropping.

  The problem for me was, most people aren’t talking about the weekly paper. They’re talking about their kids’ soccer practice, about the hike in milk prices, about Lydia who had to be airlifted to the hospital in Denver.

  Not about me, as it happens.

  But. Finally. About the dogs.

  “Do you think they’ll catch him?

  A sulky-looking girl with acne and a black T-shirt: “Why are you so sure it’s a him?”

  Mom: “Are you seriously trying to laud this dog-killer as a feminist heroine?”

  A huff. “No! I’m just asking, why are you so sure it’s a guy?”

  “Well, I don’t think there has been a great pattern of women slicing open dogs. But please forgive me if I’m wrong. Women can kill dogs, too. Equal opportunity for dog-killers everywhere.”

  I didn’t bother to hide my smile as they argued their way past me. The teenager glared at me. I winked. She glared harder. I smiled wider.

  All right, then. At least someone was discussing my story.

  The one person I would have liked to discuss all that with was Andy. But he hadn’t been back to the office. Not all week. I’d seen him around, but always at a distance, always engaged with someone else. My dismay was transitioning into a dull, resentful anger.

  That troubled me. I felt too angry lately. Logically, I knew that anger was somehow a much safer emotion than sorrow or guilt, so of course it became the fallback. I needed to get my arms around that. I didn’t want losing Ada to become the dividing point of my life.

  Didn’t you know? He lost the woman he adored and was never the same again.

  It might sound romantic on the surface, but to become defined by what you have lost, by who you have failed to become, is a horror to me.

  But perhaps it is a horror I cannot escape. Like a bad B-rated movie, where the monster rouses again and again, no matter how the hero struggles to subdue it.

  Am I the hero or the monster?

  Can I be both? I thought so, once. But perhaps Ada―in her complete, terrible, horrifying absence―has proven me wrong.

  Without controvertian.

  Yeah, that’s my own word. I’m a fucking writer. I get to do that.

  Pastor Willis Randolph materialized out of seeming nowhere and ordered a gyro with Greek fries. That’s exactly what I ordered. Because it’s delicious.

  “Hey, Jeff.” He nodded to me as he paid his bill and wrapped his goods in a generous amount of paper napkins before sitting down beside me. “How’s the newspaper world going?”

  I’m not a super religious guy, but it seems fundamentally wrong to fake it around a man of faith. Whether he wears an actual collar or not.

  Maybe I am a religious guy.

  “You tell me.”

  Randolph took a fairly humongous bite of his gyro. I had to believe today’s sermon hadn’t gone over as well as it could have. No happy man eats with that kind of desperation.

  “If you’re asking if Whithers got his ass kicked in front of my church this week, the answer is no,” he finally replied when he had room in his mouth for something besides seasoned lamb.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Say what you really mean, Randolph.”

  Setting down his gyro, he looked me in the eyes. Such a classic good guy move to make.

  “Did you know Angela’s husband was a sex offender?”

  I shook my head. “What? Who is Angela? I feel like that is the first piece of informatio
n I would need to have.”

  “Angela. Angela Wilcott. You saw her at church services last Sunday. You prayed for her.”

  Not hardly. But this probably wasn’t the moment for that proclamation.

  “Okay.” I spread my hands. Making peace. “I am following you now. That bleached blonde at your church last Sunday.”

  “Yes.” Randolph bit off the words. “That. Bleached. Blonde. That suffering wife. Damn it, Jeff, did you have to crucify her in front of the whole town?”

  I strove for reason. Randolph, more than most, found it compelling. “Randolph. Seriously. I didn’t know who that woman was. Who her husband was. I have to admit, it doesn’t seem surprising in retrospect that he might be one of the forty or so sex offenders living in this general area, but you can’t seriously think I targeted the man, whom I don’t know, based on a non-interaction with his wife, whom I also don’t know.”

  Randolph was still peering into my eyes. “Are you being straight with me, Jeff?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like I live in fear of what your God will do if I don’t convince you. Come on, Randolph. Give me some credit. Actually, give me less credit. That is some serious masterminding you have me pegged for.”

  Finally those light gray eyes left my own. Randolph shook his head, and then, unexpectedly, seized both my hands in his.

  “Forgive me. The coincidence seemed impossible. Angela, she was definitely foolish, but not evil. Never cruel. And the thought that you might have exploited the bonds of fellowship for a story, especially a story that could only engender fear and strife and hate … well, it has eaten at me all day. You’re right, I know you better than that. Please―”

  He dropped to his knees in front of me on the sidewalk. I was mortified.

  Mortified. I have taken an uncommon liking to that word.

  “Please, forgive me. I thought ill of you without cause. I haven’t been a friend to you.”

  I tugged at him, but he resisted.