Evil Heights, Book IV: In the Pit

by Michael Swanson

  A sheriff's deputy stepped out from beside the car and flashed at Lee with his flashlight. “Hey, where do you think you're going?"

  A pair of ambulance drivers, wearing clear plastic raincoats hurried past, cutting a path through the weeds as the gurney's small wheels wiggled and dragged rather than rolled. Lee turned abruptly and headed back for the deputy. “My mom sent me. We just got home, and all our doors were open.” Lee pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb. “We live just down the road past those trees. Maggie...” he corrected himself. “My mom thinks we might have had a burglar."

  The deputy was a big man. He must have had acne or some type of pox as a child since his face was scarred and pitted. Lee thought he knew almost all of police from both the city and county, but this man he didn't recognize. At least it wasn't Fat Larry.

  "We're on an investigation here.” The plastic covering over the bill of the deputy's cap allowed the rain to drip off on either side when he spoke, running down the right or the left of his raincoat. “You'll need to have your mama call into the Lenoir police. They'll send an officer out."

  Lee didn't like the prospects of walking home and telling Maggie she had to call downtown. She'd find some way to get angry with him for sure. “But y'all are here. Can't one of you just come over when you're done?” Lee persisted. “Like I said, we're just down the road.” He put on his best accent to match the deputy and pointed. “Over yonder."

  The deputy turned off his flashlight and tucked it under the arm of his raincoat. “You said your mama thought it might have been a burglar?"

  Lee nodded.

  "Is anything missing?"

  Lee shrugged his shoulders. “I don't think so. I don't know."

  "If you can wait ‘til were done here, I can come by after. Do you think that'll make your mama happy?"

  "I guess so.” Lee looked over to the gaping door of the house. “What's going on?"

  "A transient found a body out in the back yard here. Or at least so he says."

  "A real dead guy?” Lee asked.

  "A real dead guy,” the deputy repeated. “Real dead."

  Lee remembered the vultures he and Phoebe had seen circling just a couple of days ago on Sunday morning. “Do y'all know who it was?"

  The deputy shook his head. “The body didn't have any wallet or I.D. on it. Of course, that don't mean nothing. I'd imagine the corpse was a buddy of the bum. They probably had a fight over something, and the guy who's still alive was the winner. He probably took whatever he could off the body, and hid it, and then concocted his story about finding the body to cover his tracks."

  "Really?” Lee couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was so much better than any T.V. He was already thinking about what Ronnie's reaction would be when he told him.

  The deputy shrugged. “I doubt we'll ever know for sure unless we get a confession. We usually get one or two of these John Does every summer, but more in the winter when it's colder and the guys wear on each other's nerves."

  The two ambulance attendants emerged from around the side of the house, one in front of the gurney and the other in the back. They were struggling to try to roll the thing as it was sticking in the mud. Lee could see there was something under a wet white sheet. He ambled around to the back of the ambulance to watch.

  The deputy had followed along with Lee and stood by his side. “I don't think this is something you'd really want to see, kid."

  "I'm not hurting anything,” Lee replied.

  The deputy chuckled. “Suit yourself. He's been out back there in the sun for at least a couple of days, and I think the buzzards thought he was right tasty."

  The two attendants finally had the gurney on the driveway and the going was only slightly better.

  "Why don't they just carry it?” Lee asked absently. “It'd be easier."

  "They're too lazy,” the deputy replied.

  Lee considered asking him if he knew Fat Larry.

  The smell was strong. He was amazed even in the rain he could smell it. He'd smelled that smell before from animals he'd passed on the side of the road or come across dead out somewhere. Roaming around like he and Ronnie did they came across dead animals frequently: possums, dogs, skunks, even now and then a cow or horse out in a field somewhere. Right now, though, the odor reminded him somewhat of what he'd smelled in the caboose that afternoon with Phoebe and in his own living room the other night. “Dead meat,” he thought to himself.

  Lee and the deputy stepped back giving the attendant room at the door. The man in front was struggling to get the gurney's corner up and into the ambulance. “Give us a hand, will ya?"

  The deputy crossed his arms. “You've gotta be kidding."

  Lee figured he must know Fat Larry.

  The attendant shot the deputy a dirty look and tried to heft the corner of the gurney onto the floor of the ambulance. He slipped, losing the precarious balance, and the nasty thing under the sheet shifted. The already fouled cloth fell away, and Lee saw his first real dead guy's face. It was Boyd Riley.

  CHAPTER TWO: BURGLARS

  About an hour later Lee was sitting on the couch at home, his book in his hands but not reading. He listened while a detective in brown slacks and a stiff white shirt talked to Maggie. Two Sheriff's department cars had been over across the street at the Riley's house and one had just left. Through the window he could see there were people inside. The officer was undoubtedly carrying Darlene to the county morgue to formally identify her husband's body.

  A sallow looking detective, with the last name of Poole, from the Lenoir Police department had made a cursory examination of the house inside and outside. Once that was completed, he had asked for a glass of water, then seated himself at the dining room table. He had a big, black fountain pen, one of the more expensive brands they sell at the drugstore, and was writing everything down on a yellow pad inside a brown, zippered leatherette case.

  "So this isn't the first time y'all have come home to find the doors open?"

  Maggie sat across from him at the table, her legs clenched together, and chain-smoking one Kool after another. “No sir, officer,” she replied, smoke flowing from her nose. There was a pair of his dad's underwear knotted into a fist on the table. Maggie from time to time eyed it but didn't seem to want to get any closer.

  "Did y'all report a break and entry?"

  Maggie shook her head.

  He wrote something down. “What about this?” He reached out with the butt end of the pen and poked at the ball. “Did y'all report any of these other ... occurrences?"

  Maggie shook her head. “No officer."

  He had a toothpick in his mouth and it worked constantly, bobbing it about whether he was talking or not. “Why not?"

  "Well,” she nodded towards Lee, “we've got kids. We just figured it was Lee who'd left the doors open. And,” she looked at the tightly tied ball. “I don't even know what to say about this."

  The detective looked at Lee then back to Maggie. “Actually Mrs. Coombs, this isn't really such an uncommon occurrence for folks who've just moved into a house.” He took his pen and went back over the date he'd written in at the top of the pad, going back over it again and again, until it was bold and thick. “How long did you say you'd lived here?"

  "This was my mother's house.” Maggie jabbed her Kool down into the ash tray and immediately lit another. “I grew up here, but had moved away when I got married. But my mother died last April, and we moved in the end of May."

  "End of May,” he repeated. “Only a month or so.” He tapped the pen on the edge of his notepad. “What I imagine is that someone's got a hold of a set of your mother's keys. Maybe it was the son of an acquaintance, a handy man, or who knows, could be someone who works at the funeral home. You'd be surprised. But since there isn't any sign of a forced entry, it's a sure thing that someone's got a key to your house."

  "But nothing is missing,” Maggie complained. “Why would someone break in and then not take anything? It's crazy. We've
got that brand new T.V."

  The detective sat back and screwed the top back on his pen. “It might be that there was something of value in here your mother had that this guy knew about, and he's trying to find it. When y'all come home, he skedaddles. You did say that on more than one occasion the contents of some of the drawers had been disturbed."

  "I didn't say disturbed.” Maggie put her cigarette down in the ashtray and snatched up the underwear. “I mean look at this. This is the second time it's happened."

  She dropped the underwear on the table. It was so tied so tightly it bounced.

  The detective again prodded it with his pen. “Yes, you said that on Sunday the 19th, Father's day, y'all awoke to find all your underwear and socks and things in the drawers balled up like this."

  Maggie nodded.

  "That's pretty crazy.” The toothpick flipped up and down, almost touching the tip of his nose. “I doubt it could have been your kids, ma'am."

  Lee could tell Maggie was becoming exceptionally put out. He could see her reflection in the window. Her lips were reduced to but a thin red line. He didn't have a clue what she'd say next, but though he feigned he wasn't paying any attention at all he hung on every word.

  "The first time we thought it might have been some type of practical joke, my stepson over there had played on us.” She indicated to Lee with a jab of her Kool. “But, it's not possible he could not have done this today; he's been with me all morning.” Maggie looked at Lee then put her hands back on her clenched knees. “We were at a funeral."

  The detective buffed his pen with the paper napkin Maggie had given him with his water, and clipped it back in his shirt pocket making sure it was set just right. “There are some strange people out there, nut cases, who like to do things to people's underwear and personal items. You haven't found any evidence of semen on any of the items have you?"

  Maggie blanched. “I have a little girl. You mean to tell me you think some pervert has been coming into my house with a key and jacking ... I mean doing things on our clothes?"

  "It wouldn't be the first time,” the detective said, with a nonchalance that probably scared Maggie more than his original postulation. “Sometimes they like to defecate in people's beds or even in the kitchen sink. It gets about as bad as you can imagine."

  "Here in Lenoir?” Maggie clenched her knees. “You'd think about things like this happening in New York or maybe even Atlanta, but this is just a little town."

  The detective waved his hand. “You'd be surprised. But since you do have a young girl in the house, I'd go out today and buy new locks. Does your husband have a gun?"

  "A gun?” Maggie was unraveling.

  "A gun,” the detective repeated with the same bored ease. “If you don't have one, I'd suggest you go out and get one."

  Maggie picked up the knotted socks and buried her fingernails into the cotton, then dropped it as though it'd burned her. “Aren't y'all supposed to be the ones protecting us? This morning our Sunday school teacher tells us there's two dead negro girls, my son sees our dead neighbor just down the street, and you tell me to buy a gun to shoot some lunatic who's got a key to my house and doing his filthy stuff on our clothes!"

  "Calm down, Mrs. Coombs.” The detective closed his case and zipped it up. “We'll be here if you need us, but we can't be everywhere at once."

  Maggie switched her cigarette from her right to her left hand and ran her fingers through her hair. “That's supposed to make me feel better."

  The detective got up. “Sorry ma'am, it's the best we can do for now. Like you said, we're busy with the one dead girl and her missing sister. And now we've got your neighbor to worry about.” He ran his fingers through his well-oiled hair. “Summers are usually pretty quiet."

  Lee had picked up on the part about the missing sister. He turned around. “Y'all haven't found the other girl yet?"

  The detective again checked his pen, running his fingers up and down. “Not a trace."

  "Do you still think it was Carl Willis who did it?” Lee asked quickly, as the detective had tucked his case under his arm and was almost to the door.

  The detective opened the screen. “No. Who told you that? He's not a suspect. He's the one who found and reported the body."

  After the detective had gone, Maggie was in a frenzy. She wanted to go get Ted from work, but she didn't want to go alone, or take the kids, or leave the house unoccupied, or leave the kids alone in the house. She settled on calling Ted and crying into the phone until he agreed to leave early and have someone give him a ride home. He also had to promise to go to Southern hardware, which had once been Maggie's family's store, and buy all new locks. That evening Maggie insisted that Lee and his dad couldn't turn in until all the locks were changed. Patty was as eager to help from the inside as Flapjack was eager to be of assistance on the outside. Lee and his father worked together until almost midnight installing the new locks and deadbolts before they were done.

  On Wednesday, news trucks from as far away as Burlington were parked out in front of the Riley house, and that evening, on the news, Lee had seen Darlene Riley crying on TV while a stoic looking Phoebe stood in the background behind the disheveled young woman holding little Evie. Maggie had taken over a batch of brownies, as she had said it was her Christian duty. When she'd come home Lee had asked about Phoebe, but didn't get an answer.

  On Thursday, it drizzled all day with only an occasional torrent, and on Friday the clouds finally lifted near late afternoon, letting the sun begin to dry things out. Saturday, Lee was permitted to accompany his dad downtown when he went to Richardson's Sporting Goods and bought a gun, by far the highlight of Lee's week. They even went down into the basement where the store had a firing range and tried out the new Smith and Wesson, using up an entire box of cartridges. Lee was amazed his dad was such an incredible shot. Kneeling, standing, and even off the hip, three of five would always be dead center, where Lee was lucky to get one when he really took his time and aimed. His dad, though, was pretty humble about it, simply saying he'd had a lot of opportunity to practice in Korea. Sunday, the last day of Lee's grounding, after the family had returned from church, Lee had watched out the window while a file of cars came and went from the Riley house. More than a few had Tennessee plates, so Lee figured Phoebe's family must have been in as well.

  With all the rain, Lee didn't miss all that much going on outside. Daily, he talked to Ronnie on the phone, who was stuck inside as well. Since Lee wasn't allowed out he tried unsuccessfully to wrangle Ronnie into coming over. But with Maggie being on the warpath, and still somewhat blaming Ronnie for Lee's being on the river with Phoebe, it was easy for Ronnie to decline. Lee was surprised to find out that Ronnie's dad had seen Lee's name in the paper as the boy who'd identified Boyd's body. Lee was pleased to find out he was famous even if he was grounded. After Ronnie told him, later he went back to their paper, found the little piece with his name on it, clipped it out, and put it up in his room. Each time they talked, Ronnie kept Lee on the phone longer and longer, always asking Lee to repeat each and every detail about what the body looked like, what the police were like, everything. It was tough to talk for too long, though. With the phone on the wall by the dining room table, Maggie could hear everything if she was in the kitchen or on the sofa watching T.V. Lee was a pretty good judge at reading Maggie's glares and knowing when it was time to hang up.

  But for the most part, during these long rainy summer days, there wasn't very much to do, and the hours seemed to stretch out interminably. Maggie had finished most of her cleaning and reorganizing projects; for the most part she left Lee alone as long as he stayed out of sight. He'd finally been able to finish the third novel in his John Carter of Mars series, and since Patty still wasn't very interested in watching much T.V., on Wednesday he'd been able to enlist Patty's help in talking Maggie into a trip to the library. He'd checked out two really good books. One was on Viking mythology with a wealth of Norse legends about Asgard and the adventures of Thor
, Odin, and an evil monster named Loki. Lee was so absorbed by it he read it cover to cover that same day. The other was about Roy Chapman Andrews, a paleontologist who worked for the New York Museum of Natural History. Lee found it in the Science section, but it was all about adventurous trips to exotic places like the Gobi desert in China, where Mr. Andrews was the first person to discover dinosaur eggs. One story particularly fascinated Lee, as it was about a whole mass of jumbled dinosaur bones, which had been found in the side of a cliff, but fossilized in iron. The paleontologists had been forced to abandon the find, as it was impossible for them to extract the iron bones with the tools they had. The illustrations and photographs were some of the most fascinating Lee had ever seen.

  Too, Lee spent a bunch of time playing with Patty, reading to her from the books she'd checked out from the children's section, wrestling around with her, and even playing pretend games just as though he was still a little kid himself. They had to do it in one of their bedrooms, though, as Maggie would get aggravated if they made too much noise in the living room while she was watching her stories.

  Friday morning Lee was in Patty's room, reading to her from the collection of fairy tales she'd picked out, when Patty surprised him by suddenly butting in.

  "Lee?” she said out of the blue.

  He was a bit startled as she'd been silent for so long. “What, Squirt?"

  "The other night ... the other night when Mamma and Daddy had gone to the movie, and we were left alone, you were scared, too, weren't you?"

  Lee was on the floor with his legs stretched out and his back to Patty's bed. He placed the book down open on his lap. Patty was sitting across from him. She had been lying down in a pile of stuffed animals, but had suddenly sat up.

  "Mama keeps telling me it wasn't real,” she continued, her eyes as honest as they could be. “She says you were doing it. She says you were just trying to scare me to be mean. It's like how she says you did the underwear and the doors, too."