But if Liam Lancaster was one thing, he was determined. He was determined to figure out what the hell happened to Patty Smith, and what the hell the little girl had said that made Father Smith gouge his eyes out.
“Yeah, it’s Hugh Freeman,” Liam said, his eyes flicking over to Dwight and offering him a stern expression the meaning of which was clear: keep your mouth shut. In that moment, he was grateful that Dwight had gotten the report and not Stevie; because Dwight could, in fact, keep his mouth shut. Stevie, on the other hand, absolutely could not. “Bring him, too. Let’s go to my car and talk about this mess.”
Chapter 20
Clifford Zanbar cursed as he slowly drove by Tommy Lee Ross’s house. The boy’s Porsche was nowhere to be seen. He briefly debated going up to the door and knocking, but decided against it; this was, after all, also the mayor’s house, which meant that there were always eyes out there watching him. Even in a town such as Elloree, there was always one or two people who wanted what the mayor had, and would be watching him all the time to ensure that if he slipped up they would be there with the cell phone cameras to capture the moment.
As a result, Clifford only slowed as he passed, glancing upward at the windows to see if the lights were on, in case for some reason Tommy Ray might’ve lent his car to a friend and was inside, upstairs nursing a hangover.
But no such luck for Clifford; Tommy Ray was not here.
And now that the boy’s girlfriend, Patty Smith, was dead, there was only one place Tommy Ray would be: the swamp.
And irrespective of how little he wanted to go there, Clifford knew that he had no choice. He quickly pulled a U-turn and sped off, hoping that whatever watchful eyes were on the mayor’s house hadn’t noticed the high school principal driving by at roughly seven miles an hour.
As he drove toward the swamp, he considered the possibility that Tommy Ray had murdered his girlfriend. The boy was a hothead, that was for certain; twice, Clifford had had to suspend Tommy for altercations with fellow students, and on one occasion he had broken a sophomore’s nose and knocked out his front teeth. But in all of his interactions with the boy, these two incidents notwithstanding, Clifford thought that he was actually a bit of a pussy. The two kids he’d beat up were half his size, and every time that Clifford had put his foot down, the boy had cowered. Sure, he pushed the envelope sometimes, like when he had gone against Cliff’s wishes and bought the car, but he chalked this up to a petty disobedience.
It wasn’t totally out of the question. Cliff didn’t think the boy had the gumption to do something as fucked up as to kill Patty Smith. And why would he want to, anyway? Everyone knew that Patty Smith did whatever Tommy Ray said. Whatever and whenever he said it.
What then? Who killed her? And why?
Clifford shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It didn’t really matter who killed her, at least not now. What mattered now, was that what was left of the ten kilos of heroin were still safe. What mattered was that Tommy Ray hadn’t gone and done something that they would truly end up regretting.
The drive to the swamp usually took less than forty minutes, and in the early afternoon the roads were completely empty. Clifford knew he was getting close, as the thin trees started to extend higher, their canopies getting thicker and thicker, blocking out the bright afternoon sun. And the smell… He was more than ten minutes from where the drop point was, and yet Clifford was forced to close his window and blast the air conditioning.
He was never sure why the swamp smelled the way that it did. Sure, he heard rumors about the constant rot of vegetation, or something to do was sulfurous bogs, but there had never been much merit to these claims. It was just a regular, dingy old swamp. And yet on a particularly hot day when the wind was blowing just so, the smell of death and decay reached all the way to the center of Elloree. It was this smell, in fact, that convinced Clifford that the swamp was the best place to hide the dope, the place least likely for it to be discovered.
But now, he regretted having it so far away.
His foot pressed down on the gas pedal, and the car squirted forward, the bald tires making thick grooves in the mud.
He was deep in the swamp now, so deep that the sun could barely peek between the tall spires of trees. He was forced to slow, to avoid the car getting stuck in the mud. Getting stuck would be a disaster of epic proportions. Getting stuck would mean that he would have to call someone out here to help tow his car. And this would raise a lot of questions, questions the nature of which Clifford Zanbar had no answers for, at least not answers that wouldn’t result in him behind bars for fifteen to thirty.
Clifford turned left, and then he saw it: Tommy Ray’s jet-black Porsche, parked at the side of the road.
“Goddammit,” Clifford swore.
One of the reasons they had decided to stash the dope in the abandoned house was that it would offer protection from the elements, and it was almost impossible to see from the road.
That is, unless some jackass parked his car right where the laneway began.
Clifford parked his own vehicle behind the Porsche. Then he pulled out the secondary phone and dialed Tommy Ray’s number a third time.
“Come on, pick up, pick up the Goddamn phone. What the hell are you doing here?”
But Tommy Ray didn’t pick up the phone; it went directly to the answering machine again.
This time Clifford didn’t leave a message. He took a single deep breath, preparing himself for the funk of the swamp, and then exited his vehicle.
He walked around Tommy Ray’s Porsche and peered inside, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing of interest. Then he moved toward the house looking down at the fallen mailbox that was half-buried in the mud. Moss covered nearly every inch of the old hunk of wood, so much so that he could barely make out the numbers that had represented a civic address many, many years ago: 8181, or maybe 1818, he never could tell.
Chapter 21
On the way to the front doors of the police station, Liam grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down what he thought he had heard the young girl mutter to Father Smith right before the man got a close-up view of a pair of scissors.
He had no idea how to spell it, and wasn’t even sure if it was what the girl had said, but he managed to come up with: Matter east, matrum omnia.
“What’s that?” Stevie asked, lifting his chin to the piece of paper.
Liam shrugged.
“Show you in the car.”
With that, he hurried from the station with the three other men in tow. Outside, Liam tilted his head up to the sun. It was still hot and bright, but the temperature had started to dip a little.
Good, he thought absently, a reprieve from this damn heat.
Liam grabbed the door handle and said, “Stevie, you and Dwight in the back, Hugh, upfront with me.”
And then, less than a minute later, they were all piled into his cruiser, and he turned it on, blasting the AC. Then, with a deep breath, he turned to Dwight first.
“Tell me what you found out at the school, about Patty’s last few hours.”
Dwight cleared his throat and his eyes bounced from one person in the car to the next before he started speaking.
“Well, I, uh, I spoke to her friends at the school?”
Liam scowled.
“Is that a question? For fuck’s sake, Dwight, I’ve got one murdered sixteen-year-old and her father just filled his face full of holes with a pair of goddamn scissors. Spit it out!”
“Yes, sorry. So, I found out that Patty is, err, was, dating Tommy Ray Ross.”
Liam turned completely around at the mention of the boy’s name.
“The mayor’s son?”
Dwight nodded.
“The very one. And not only that, but Tommy was into dealing heroin, which he stashed in the—”
This time Liam’s eyes bulged from his head.
“What?”
Stevie chimed in quickly before Dwight could answer.
“I heard a
bout some brown sugar going around—”
Liam held up a finger, silencing him.
“Heroin? You sure?”
Dwight shrugged.
“Patty’s friend told me… she was scared shitless, and once I told her that Patty was dead—”
“You what?”
Dwight averted his gaze.
“I had to, no one was speaking and…”
Liam felt his blood pressure begin to rise to dangerous levels.
“This is insane,” he muttered to himself.
“No kidding,” Stevie replied.
“Quiet, Stevie,” Liam barked. “Dwight, any reason why she might have been out in the swamp?”
Dwight nodded.
“Rebecca told me that that’s where they keep the heroin.”
Liam chewed the inside of his lip.
“You want me to talk to Bobby Lee Ross?” Dwight asked.
“No—let me talk to the mayor. But we need to find Tommy Ray sooner rather than later. Once this gets out…”
Liam didn’t need to finish the sentence for the gravity of the situation to fit in.
“What about the priest?” Stevie asked from the backseat.
Liam tossed the piece of paper over his shoulder.
“Take this to the library, see if you can dig up some Latin texts there, figure out what the hell it means.”
“This is what the girl was saying to Father Smith?”
Liam nodded.
“Close enough.”
Hugh Freeman suddenly leaned over and peered at the words that Liam had scribbled on the page.
“You spelled it wrong,” he said in a strange, airy tone. “It’s not Matter east, but mater est, and it means mother of one, mother of all.”
All eyes were suddenly on the strange detective, who opted to stare straight ahead instead of focusing on any one of them in particular. At first, Liam didn’t know what he was looking at, but then he caught sight of the back of the little blond girl’s head in the police station window.
“I told you already, this is only the beginning.”
Chapter 22
The house belonged to nobody. There was no deed, no owner of record; in fact, Clifford Zanbar couldn’t find any record of 8181 Coverfeld Ave in any public document. For due diligence, before he and Tommy Ray stashed the drugs here, Clifford made a trip to the local library and had done some subtle inquiries into the place.
Growing up in Elloree, he had heard things about the swamp, about people going missing, about bad things happening in this area, and while it was enough to keep him away as a boy, as an adult he just felt no need to enter the swamp. Just wasn’t his cup of tea, until it came time to stashing the drugs of course, then it seemed like the perfect location for him to become acquainted with.
And while he couldn’t find anything on record about the place, there was a curious police report from a while back about a missing girl who had shown up naked wandering the streets covered in blood. But other than that, 8181 or 1818 Coverfeld Ave didn’t seem to exist at all.
The house itself was dilapidated and decrepit, the slat board front almost completely rotted out and the porch, which might’ve been a beautiful thing once long ago, had fallen into such disrepair that you couldn’t walk up without risking falling through and cutting yourself something fierce on the twisted planks. The thick vegetation that covered the south side of the small bungalow, a layer of moss and other foliage of the likes Clifford could not describe, let alone name, and the layer of dust that covered every window that wasn’t boarded up, made it clear that no one had been here in a long, long time. And yet, Clifford wasn’t so foolish as to put the drugs inside the home, less a curious camper, or just some kids out on a dare were to stumble upon the place and break-in.
As he approached the long driveway, the house suddenly came into view, as it was difficult to see from the road what with the tall spires in front of it and the façade that looked more rustic and organic than some of the features of the swamp itself.
He kept to one side, wary of leaving footprints in the muddy driveway, in case Tommy Ray really did have something to do with Patty Smith’s murder, and he would inevitably leave evidence of his own presence here. His first priority was to find the drugs, confirm that they were still here, and then his next step would be fine Tommy Ray and figure what the fuck had happened to Patty Smith. And then they would discuss moving the drugs, because they couldn’t keep them here anymore, not after what had happened to Patty Smith. In a matter of hours, or maybe even less, Clifford had the sneaking suspicion that the place would be crawling with cops.
And Tommy Ray… he had to be here. He had to be here; his car was here, so he had to be here.
Clifford shook his head, trying to stall his runaway thoughts. There was no way that Tommy Ray killed Patty Smith… was there?
Clifford slowed his pace as he neared the storm shelter around the side of the house
“Tommy?” He whispered. “Tommy, you there?”
A new thought occurred to Clifford then, one that made his heart rate quicken.
What if someone had killed Patty Smith and Tommy Ray, someone who wanted their drugs?
The thought was so cogent, that Clifford wished that not only had he brought a flashlight, but also the .45 Ruger that he kept under his bed in case someone decided to come and pay them a visit. Somebody with, let’s say, a tattoo of a snake eating an eyeball on the webbing of his right hand.
All of a sudden, Cliff couldn’t shake the feeling that coming here now was a mistake, given what had happened to Patty Smith. Then he scolded himself for being silly, and knew that he had to collect the drugs, make sure that they were all here, otherwise he wouldn’t fear phantom feelings, but a real tangible threat to his own existence in the form of said man with the tattoo on his hand.
“Tommy, are you—are you—”
The sound of a chain creaking and sending a high-pitched whine of the air made him freeze, and his heart nearly stopped.
When the sound didn’t recur, Cliff chalked it up to just the wind.
Only there was no wind.
The swamp was deadly still, the sulfurous funk that permeated his every pore hadn’t so much as stirred.
I have to get out of here…
Clifford hurried to the side of the house and as he approached the storm shelter door, his fear suddenly became palpable.
It was open.
The storm shelter was open, and Clifford ran for it.
Chapter 23
The four men sat in the police cruiser and said nothing for several minutes after detective Hugh Freeman finished his speech. It seemed to Liam that this silence would continue on indefinitely, if it hadn’t been for an image of Patty Smith’s body flashing in his mind.
For some reason, he chuckled dryly.
“I’m not doing this,” he said.
The comment seemed to bring with it another bout of silence, one that lasted roughly half as long as the first. This time, however, it wasn’t Liam who broke in, but Stevie.
“Naw, I’ve heard something like this before. Something about a witch in the swamp, something about—”
“I said, I’m not doing this,” Liam reiterated.
Detective Hugh Freeman turned to look at him, a blank stare on his face.
“I was like you, once, not too long ago,” he began. “But then I’ve seen things… things that I never thought could be real, things from stories, books, movies. I’ve seen dead people, I’ve seen corpses rise from the grave, I’ve seen people control them using their minds.”
Liam chewed the inside of his lip. The man was convincing, if nothing else. If he had been saying anything other than absolute insanity, Liam would be compelled to listen.
But this thing… this thing about dead people rising from the grave, about a witch that lives in the woods, a demon from the 17th-century that was out to… What? Steal the souls of the young as payback for something that had happened all that time ago?
Liam shook his head, and fell just short of repeating what he had already said twice. The truth was, he was confused over what had happened to Father Smith and his daughter, about what the strange girl that Hugh claimed to have rescued from the swamp had done to him by simply uttering those strange Latin words, but that didn’t mean that there was something supernatural happening here.
But Liam had had his fair share of interactions with the devout, the more fundamental of late Father Smith’s congregation, and knew better than to broach the subject head-on.
Daughter Page 8
