The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery

by Phillip DePoy

  Skidmore’s office was colorless: off-white walls, acoustical-tile drop ceiling, Kmart window blinds. He sat behind his desk; five ancient office chairs surrounded it, the hollow-core door never completely closed. It was the office of a man who spent little time in an office. Papers were piled randomly, the floor was a little unkempt, but there was a clear space on the desk in front of him and the room did not seem entirely chaotic.

  “Go on,” he urged Able.

  “We had a fight, me and Tru,” Able began. “At the church Wednesday night meeting.” He looked around. “I don’t even know what day it is now.”

  “We all heard the fight; it was Thursday night last week, remember? They changed it.”

  “That’s right,” he answered vaguely, “in the new hall.”

  “So that night,” Skid insisted, “after your argument?”

  “She stormed off.” His voice grew distant, and he stared out the window. “I grabbed her arm. We were both pretty mad.” He shifted in his seat. “Tell you why in a minute, I reckon.”

  “We think we know why,” Skid said, more gently than he had been speaking. “Harding appears to have—”

  “Harding Pinhurst is a monster right out of a book,” Able interrupted with such force that Skidmore’s head jerked back a half an inch.

  “But we’ll get to that in a minute,” Skid said soothingly.

  “Okay,” Able agreed. “In a minute. So. She run off; I chased her. Lost her in the woods. Moon wasn’t up yet.” He turned in my direction. “She run in the direction of your place, Dev. I thought I’d find her there, maybe even talking to you. She likes to do that, did you know?”

  “Please talk to me, Able,” Skid insisted.

  Able’s clothes were a wreck, torn, dirty. His face was thin; he had lost weight in the days he’d been gone. But he didn’t seem to be suffering from the kind of deprivation or hypothermia he might have, especially considering he was still wearing only his church meeting jacket and slacks, brown and tan, no tie. Had he found food? Started a fire?

  “She was out of her head. I finally caught up with her. I was out of breath, and still mad as a rooster. She saw me coming; her face was white as a sheet. Like she didn’t even recognize me.” He lowered his voice. “She gets that way sometimes, out of her head. It don’t happen that often.” He sighed. “Anyway, I could see she was scared, so I tried to calm myself. Calling her honey and all, but she just kept staring, eyes big as saucers. When I got right up close to her she just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it,’ which I thought she was talking about our little fight, but she was way more upset than that, I could tell after a second or two. She just kept backing away from me. I tried to stop her. I didn’t touch her, I swear to God.”

  His body was more agitated; his voice was shaking.

  “What happened then?” Skid asked methodically.

  “She whomped me good with a big old tree branch. I don’t even know where she got it from; it just kind of appeared in her hands.” Beginning tears came to his eyes. “I was out for a second or two, I reckon. When I got back up, I looked around for her; my vision was all blurry. I didn’t see her at first.” His eyes brimmed. “Then I did. Still as a corpse. Down at the bottom of the ravine.”

  Andrews jumped. I think he had suddenly realized what was also dawning on me.

  Skid came to the same conclusion. “Truevine fell into the ravine up there close to Dr. Devilin’s house?”

  “Reckon she’s still there,” Able answered; he could barely speak. “I started down to help her; she wasn’t moving a muscle. And then I heard them coming.”

  “Who?” Skid stopped writing.

  “I reckoned it was the Deveroe brothers,” he said, barely audibly, tears brimming.

  “You saw them?”

  “Who else is out in those woods that late? I knew what they’d think. They don’t like me one bit. I’m scared of them all the time, but that night, it was something else.” He squirmed again, searching for words. “Since then, Skid … they caught up with me once.” He seemed unable to believe what he was saying. “They tried to hang me. I don’t even know what happened; it’s all like a dream. I just got away.” He shook his head violently, trying to clear it. “I reckon I been out of my head. Maybe I still am. I seen things.”

  His breathing was labored and I was afraid he might have a heart attack.

  “You think Truevine Deveroe fell into that ravine up there last Thursday night when she hit you,” Skidmore said carefully, “and before you could go help her, you ran away from her brothers?”

  All Able could do was nod, unable to control his facial muscles.

  “You have to tell him,” I whispered to Skid.

  He drew in a long breath, nodded once, set down his pencil.

  “Look, Able.” He let the breath out. “Truevine’s missing, that’s all. At the bottom of that ravine we did find a body. It was Harding Pinhurst. He’s real dead. That’s what you’re under arrest for: his murder.”

  Able’s head rose slowly. “Harding’s dead?”

  Our next stop was the emergency room, where Able was pronounced safe for incarceration, a formality Skid would not have entertained had he not been running an election campaign. It took over an hour after that for Skidmore to fill Able in on what had happened while he’d been hiding, including my bizarre attempt to save him from being hanged. He listened to it all, shivering in a blanket Skid had given him, holding on to a shaky Styrofoam cup half-filled with coffee.

  When our story was done, Able finished the cup. “I have no idea what to say.” He rubbed his eyes.

  It didn’t appear to me that Able was lying. Few people in our little town get so emotional; no one I knew from Blue Mountain would have been able to pull off an act of that magnitude. He was telling the truth.

  He lifted his head. “But you saw what Harding was doing, what he’d done.” His face contorted.

  “We saw it,” Skid said quietly.

  Andrews had opened and closed his mouth ten times, dying to put in his two cents. Each time he’d thought better of it, but the silence in the room proved too much for him in the end.

  “Someone else saw it too,” he declared.

  “Sh!” Skid spat sharply.

  “But isn’t it obvious—” Andrews protested.

  “This is a police matter,” I said calmly, touching Andrews lightly on the forearm.

  He fell silent, nodding his apology.

  “What seems clear,” Skid began patiently, “is that Harding Pinhurst is dead and, Able, you’ve been in hiding for days. You can see it don’t look good for you.”

  “Where’s Tru?” he asked, ignoring what Skid had said.

  “Dev believes she’s hid out in the cemetery.” Skidmore shot me a quick glance. “That’s how we found you.”

  Skidmore’s eyes spoke volumes. When we were kids, Skid and I spent endless hours in the woods not speaking, exchanging looks, just this side of telepathic. Both of us knew what those looks meant. We’d had decades of mutual experience since that day. I knew the meaning of the glance in his office as if it were a detailed paragraph.

  I stood. “Well, this isn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.” I stretched. “And I’m ready for a bite. Andrews?”

  “I could eat,” he answered, not understanding.

  I started out the door. “We’ll be at Etta’s,” I told Skid.

  Andrews picked up the pace. “Etta’s diner?” His voice filled with joy.

  A memory of black-eyed peas panfried with bacon and fresh sage filled his mind, it was obvious from the transfigured look on his face. Few things gave Andrews a sense of transcendence more than Etta’s cooking.

  Out on the street, I headed for my truck.

  “We’re going to drive there?” Andrews asked, confused. “It’s just down the block.”

  “We’re going back into the woods.” I pulled out my keys.

  Andrews froze in his tracks.

  “You’re going,” he said
firmly. “I’m eating.”

  He turned in the direction of Etta’s diner. I knew that walk. It would take a baseball bat and two other men to stop him from getting lunch. I pocketed my keys.

  “I could eat,” I said, falling in beside him.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked irritably.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know you had a hundred questions to ask Able. He looks terrible, but he doesn’t look like he hasn’t eaten or drunk anything in nearly a week.”

  I nodded agreement.

  “Then you jump up,” he went on, “run out of the office. What is it?”

  “Face code,” I said. “Skid wants us back up there looking for Truevine.”

  “Face code?” He shook his head.

  The diner was crowded even though the lunch rush was over. We managed to find two stools at the counter.

  Etta shuffled over, acknowledging us with drooping eyes. She set down a package of silverware wrapped in three paper napkins and indestructible plastic plates big enough for two men. Mine was pale green, Andrews had acquired one of vaguely beige hue. Etta was dressed in her usual dark print calf-length dress, ancient blue slippers, a man’s brown cardigan, disheveled white bun for a crown.

  We knew what to do. Strangers were sometimes served by Etta, but most everyone else was simply given the tools with which to feed themselves. We took our plates into the kitchen, surveyed the vegetables simmering on the oversize stovetop. The smell of fried chicken came from a large warm oven to the left of the stove.

  Black-eyed peas, crisp fried okra, cut-off corn cooked in butter and sugar filled my plate. A square of jalepeño cornbread rested precariously on top of the peas. A golden chicken breast crowned the center.

  There was little talk for the next twelve minutes. I hadn’t realized how famished I was. The food was gone in short order.

  “Banana pudding, I think,” Andrews declared, pushing his empty plate away from him on the countertop.

  I was still scraping my plate with the last square of cornbread in an attempt to get every last drop of nectar from the black-eyed peas.

  Though it didn’t appear Etta had heard us, she disappeared into the kitchen and returned seconds later with two bowls of pudding.

  That particular dessert, ordinarily a somewhat plebeian affair, had been made glorious by several of Etta’s modifications. First, the crust was made from Oreo chocolate cookies. The bananas had been sautéed in Etta’s own berry brandy. The meringue contained flecks from at least three vanilla bean pods. A bowl of the pudding cost nearly twice as much as the rest of the meal, and she ran out of it every day.

  “That’s the last of it,” she croaked, sliding the dessert our way. “Had to give you smaller size to make two.”

  That was all. She turned and went back to her chair at the table closest to the kitchen. There would be no discount, no economic adjustment of any sort. She was only explaining the scant portions. I smiled down at the brimming bowl, large as half a loaf of bread.

  We dug in, still silent.

  The place began to clear out, Andrews wiped his mouth with a third napkin, I leaned on the counter.

  “This was a good idea,” I admitted. “My head is clearer. Calmer anyway.”

  “It might hold me till nightfall,” he conceded. “Now what’s all this about going back into the woods?”

  “Skidmore wants us out there looking for her,” I said, “before it gets dark. He’s worried.”

  “You got that from a single look?”

  “We’ve known each other forever,” I said. “There’s more.”

  “I’m listening,” Andrews said with irritated patience.

  “She’s in the cemetery.”

  “We think.”

  “No,” I said, reaching for my wallet, “she’s there. Skidmore’s face: he saw her this morning.”

  Nine

  The last afternoon sun had reached the peculiar moment when amber and golden hues seem to come from everything everywhere, the sky least of all. In that unreal light, Andrews and I sat down close to the Angel of Death.

  “I’m in,” he said, leaning his back against a tombstone. “She’s not here. You misunderstood Skidmore’s face code. I can’t do any more of this.”

  “Been a long day,” I agreed. I tried to remember the last time I’d spent all day tromping through the woods. “Let’s check her parents’ grave once more before we head home.”

  “Christ,” he complained. “We’ve been there five times.”

  “Three, and it’s on the way to the truck.”

  We managed our way to a standing position; I took off in the direction of Eloise and Davy, together once more. Andrews trudged behind.

  The light was dimming quickly. There was no path to follow, just weeds and the last brown leaves drifting down around us from an oak twenty yards away. No order organized these markers. Some were grand, some anonymous. None had been attended to in years. Is there a sadder place than an untended grave?

  I was the first to see it, and froze.

  Andrews, in his usual daze, ran into me.

  “What?” he said, irritated.

  I nodded my head in the direction of the nearest stone.

  A black dog, like the shadow of a tomb, sat on the grassy grave we were looking for, its coal eyes locked on us.

  “Don’t move,” I whispered to Andrews.

  The dog’s hair bristled.

  “Stop talking,” Andrews shot back urgently. “It doesn’t like talking.” The dog came to all fours, standing ready.

  We played our tableau for perhaps thirty long seconds before sweet whistling turned all our heads.

  Two notes. A human sound.

  The dog gave us a final glance, leapt like a demon over a high stone wall, and was gone in the direction of the musical noise.

  “Did you see that thing jump?” Andrews said, releasing his breath. “Did you see the look it gave us?”

  “I think it speaks English.” It was the most intelligent look I’d ever seen in a dog’s eyes.

  “At least,” Andrews topped.

  The whistle came once more on the wind.

  “So, there’s someone over there.” I tried to see where it had gone.

  “I stand by my earlier complaint,” Andrews said softly. “Why don’t you take me home so I won’t be in your way?”

  I was tempted to go home myself. It’s one thing to hike around a quaint old graveyard in late October looking for a strange young girl. It’s quite another experience if you’ve spent the day counting decayed bodies stacked everywhere in the surrounding woods. And you come across a black dog. And you’re not alone in the cemetery. And it’s nearly dark.

  “We have to see who that was,” I heard myself say. “They know we’re here.”

  “What do you mean: ‘who that was’?” He followed my gaze. “You don’t think it’s Truevine?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned to her parents’ tombstone. “Is there anything over on the grave?”

  We both examined it as best we could—nothing new.

  “The dog was waiting for us,” Andrews said. A sudden shiver took his shoulders. “Damn. Did the temperature just drop ten degrees?”

  “It gets cold fast once the sun’s gone,” I affirmed. “Let’s go.”

  I started off after the dog. Andrews, at a loss for what else to do, followed. The downward slope revealed an area that seemed familiar to me. I assumed it was one of the sections we’d explored earlier, but when we rounded a granite boulder I realized I had visited the site many years before.

  I came to a sudden halt; Andrews nearly ran into me again.

  “When I was seven or so,” I began.

  “Memory Digression Alert,” he interrupted wearily.

  “My great-grandfather died and left some money for me to attend college,” I continued. “It was the only way I could have gone; he knew it. It made me the first in my family to get a higher education.”

  “Thanks.” His
voice burned red with irony. “I’d always wondered how you managed it.”

  “That’s his grave.” I pointed.

  Andrews saw it, fell silent, held his breath.

  The black dog sat perfectly still, tongue out to one side, on the bare dirt of my grandfather’s grave.

  “All right. That’s enough.” A strange voice, low and rough, addressed the dog. It came from behind a sarcophagus ten or twelve feet to our right.

  The dog yawned.

  A figure appeared where we’d heard the voice. Its features were impossible to make out in the near-darkness. It was a tattered coat, a walking stick, banshee hair blown backward by the wind.

  “You are Dr. Devilin?” it continued.

  “I am.” My voice was an imitation of calm confidence.

  “Okay,” it sighed.

  It headed our way.

  The dog stood.

  I could feel Andrews behind me readying for a fight. His breathing intensified, weight shifted. I’d seen him play rugby. His fear-pumped aggression coupled with my size were more than a match for the scarecrow.

  The dog worried me.

  I thought about the thermos in my pocket, wondered if it would be strong enough to bash the animal in the head, do any damage.

  “We’ve been waiting,” the strange voice croaked.

  My shoulders dropped slightly. “For me?”

  He nodded once, a staccato jab.

  “Do you know him?” Andrews whispered.

  “Are you with Truevine?” I asked our host.

  He gave another low whistle and the dog vanished, moving faster than I would have imagined possible, behind the sarcophagus.

  “Come on,” the tattered man said, turning away from us.

  I looked back at Andrews. His eyes widened.

  We followed the man into an area of larger stone crypts, hard to tell how many; they were jumbled and hidden by brush and brambles. The ground was clawed with black moss, the air thick with the smell of decayed leaves. Tumble of stones, knot of vine here and there made all the crypts seem one. Old oak branches overhead looked like exposed veins, bloodless, lifeless but for the artificial animation of the chilled wind. Odd rock angles reflected the gloom, seemed to work at blocking out what little light wandered there. The sun was nearly set, the horizon a red wound.