Dead Voices

by Rick Hautala

  Henry scrambled to his feet and approached Murf cautiously from behind. Murf was digging so intensely, he seemed not even to have noticed Henry approaching. The shower of flying dirt and debris made it difficult for Henry to see exactly what Murf was doing, but when he was about ten feet away, he jerked to a stop and trained his flashlight on what the dog had uncovered. His heart stopped for just an instant and then began a rapid-fire pattering.

  This was no animal’s burrow Murf was ripping into; Henry saw that right away. He also saw, but didn’t immediately recognize, the face. Actually, recognition didn’t sink in until much later, once he was running toward his house to contact the police. All Henry saw and recognized now was the exposed face, chest, and belly of a dead man. Murf’s claws had already tom away the man’s clothes. Beneath thick smudges of dirt, the pale skin gleamed an eye-aching bone white. The man’s glazed, open-eyed stare cut through Henry like a laser beam.

  “Jumped-up Jesus Christ, Murf! Back off! Get the fuck away from that!” Henry shouted. His voice was ragged with mounting fear.

  He knew better than to approach the dog. Murf was in such a frenzy, he might just as easily tum on his master and attack him. Unable to think of anything better to do, Henry pointed his shotgun into the air and pulled the trigger. The report startled Murf who, whimpering, immediately backed away from the body and cowered in the brush.

  “Com’on! Com ‘ere, you sum-bitch!” Henry growled. He was trembling inside because of what he had found, but he knew he had to keep his voice firm so Murf would know who was still in charge here.

  As Murf grudgingly obeyed, cowering over toward his master, not for a second did the dog take his eyes off the partially exposed body. He kept looking at it for all the world like he wanted to go back to it and savage it some more. Henry wondered if dogs, like tigers, could acquire a taste for human flesh.

  “Get your bloody ass over here, boy!” Henry said, his tone low and steely .

  When Murf was close enough, Henry grabbed the dog by the collar and yanked hard on it. Aching lungs be damned! he thought as he turned and started running as fast as he could back to his house, hauling Murf along beside him. He had the clarity of mind to let the butt of his shotgun drag on the ground, leaving a nice, clear trail he and the police could follow back to the body; but every step of the way, he expected to see that dead man’s glazed eyes suddenly loom out at him from the surrounding darkness.

  As the memory of that death-frozen face worked its way into his numbed mind, Henry nearly stumbled and fell when he realized — finally — who he had found. He had read about it just that evening in the Portland Evening Express. The dead man was none other than Barney Fraser, the Oak Grove Cemetery caretaker who had been reported missing.

  2.

  “Hey, it’s not like I’m in any trouble or anything, right?” Henry said, after greeting the policemen at his front door. Frank and Norton arrived five minutes after his call to the police station, reporting his discovery. “I mean, all I did was find the poor guy, you know? It’s not like I killed him!”

  “Henry, nobody’s saying you killed anyone,” Frank said patiently. “Calm yourself down, will you? You look to me like you could use a stiff drink.” Frank knew Henry quite well and had always considered him a fairly even-tempered person; right now, though, he seemed completely rattled.

  “You want one, too?” Henry asked, his eyes brightening.

  Frank and Norton shook their heads. “Can’t,” Frank replied. “We’re on duty.”

  “Oh, yeah — sure,” Henry said. His gaze drifted over to the kitchen cupboard where he kept a bottle of whiskey stashed, but decided not to have anything, either; he didn’t want his breath smelling of booze when he talked to Detective Harris. He knew Harris from a few poker nights at the fire barn, and he didn’t care for him all that much.

  “When d’you think Harris will get here?” Henry asked nervously. His tongue flickered over his upper lip, as if he could taste a trace of whiskey there.

  “He’ll be right along,” Frank said, glancing at his watch.

  “Huh,” Henry grunted. He looked down at his shoes and shook his head. “Never would’ve gotten into any o’this if I’d ‘a killed that sum-bitchin’ coon.”

  “Just save it till Harris gets here, all right Henry? No sense repeating yourself,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, but you ain’t gonna — I mean, I ain’t in any trouble for huntin’ out of season, am I? I mean-that sum-bitchin’ coon’s been after my hens for weeks now, and I don’t wanna —”

  “Henry,” Frank said, with less patience. “Will you calm down, for Christ’s sake? I think we’ve got a bit more to worry about than someone out hunting at night, all right?”

  Headlights washed across the front living-room windows as another car pulled into the driveway. Chained out beside the bam, Murf started up a long, loud howling. All three men went out onto the front steps and greeted Detective Harris and Jeremy Keller, the lab technician who was with him. Even before they finished shaking hands, Henry was pouring out his story, completely forgetting his private vow to talk slowly and clearly so he wouldn’t get tripped up on any small details he might overlook. He’d seen enough cop shows on TV to know that some little screwup could land him in jail on a murder charge.

  “Tell you what,” Harris said, once he had the gist of the situation. “Why don’t you just take us on out there so we can have our own look around?”

  “Yeah, but — I ain’t in any kind of trouble, am I?” Henry blurted.

  “Did you kill Barney Fraser and bury him out there in the woods?” Harris asked. Henry sputtered and shook his head. “‘Course I didn’t.”

  “Then I’d say you haven’t got a worry,” Harris said. “So let’s take ourselves a little walk.”

  With flashlights glowing, illuminating the trail Henry had scraped with his rifle butt, they headed out to the makeshift burial site. The lab tech was loaded down with equipment, which, along with the dense underbrush, made for slow going. Angry at being left behind, Murf barked all the louder, and they could hear him long after they were out of sight of the house. Henry wondered if Murf wanted to come along so he could finally nail that raccoon, or so he could have another munch on Fraser’s decaying corpse.

  “Never woulda gotten into all ‘a this if I’d a’ killed that sumbitchin’ coon,” Henry repeated several times as he walked along beside Frank. Harris and the lab tech followed behind them, and Norton trailed last behind everyone else. Night sounds of frogs and birds filled their ears as they made their way through the thick growth of trees and underbrush.

  Looking up at the sliver of moon, Frank said, ‘‘I’d guess we’re going to end up out behind Oak Grove Cemetery, if we keep heading this way.” He glanced over his shoulder at Harris but couldn’t see his face clearly enough to judge his response. They continued to walk in silence, except for the noise their boots made on the forest floor.

  When they crested a small lise, Henry called a halt and, aiming his flashlight beam down the slope, said, “Right over there by that old deadfall.” He cringed when he caught a glimpse of the pale flesh and torn clothing. The dead man’s face rose up in his memory like a misty ghost. He tried like hell not to think about how Murf had been gnawing so avidly on the body. Shit like this was bad if it made a man question his dog’s loyalty.

  “You can either wait up here and watch,” Harris said, “or you can head on back home. I’ll stop by later if I have any further questions for you.”

  For several seconds, Henry didn’t move; then he glanced over at a large tree. Hitching his thumb at it, he said, “I’ll hang around close by.” He walked over to the tree and eased himself down against the gnarly trunk. Harris stayed with him for a few minutes to ask him a couple more questions and jot the answers down in his notebook. This time, Henry considered what he said more carefully. His biggest concern, still, was getting nailed for hunting out of season. but Harris never mentioned it, so he figured it was best if he didn’t, e
ither.

  Once Harris had gone back down to where the body was, Henry tried to relax as he watched the police set about their work at the scene. They marked the area with POLICE LINE tape, took hundreds of photographs, and poured plaster casts of any footprints and scuff marks they found. After a while, Frank radioed for the State Medical Examiner to come out so they could remove the body to the hospital for an autopsy. At first, Henry was interested in what the men were doing, but before long, he got bored; with that, his attention began to wander.

  At first, Henry had hoped that this discovery would make him some kind of town hero — the person who had found the missing cemetery caretaker; but before long, he started seeing how all of this could turn into a ripe, royal pain in the ass. Over the next few days — weeks or months, more likely-he’d probably be bugged to death by everyone around town asking him to relate exactly what had happened. The prospect was getting increasingly less pleasant.

  Muttering under his breath, Henry began to curse a whole host of things ...

  First off, he cursed that sum-bitchin’ coon! Why the fuck hadn’t he steadied his aim better and blasted the fucker right there in the coop? Who cared if he’d splattered his whole coop with coon blood and shit? If he’d gotten one clear shot, none of this would be happening.

  Next, Henry cursed fucking Murf and his fucking nose! Why the Christ did he have to smell out Fraser’s body and then go and dig it up? And the way he had gone after the body! Christ! Fraser was practically tom to ribbons by the dog’s claws and teeth! Something like that could make a guy wonder what they put into those cans of dog food!

  Finally, and most of all, Henry cursed his own fuckidy-damned bad luck! Why couldn’t someone else have found Fraser’s body ... say, next spring sometime? The corpse wasn’t even on Henry’s land, so if someone else had found it, Henry would have been simply one more curious neighbor, asking for details and gossip about what had happened and when and why!

  Of course, as he sat watching the police work, Henry also couldn’t help but wonder who the hell had killed Barney Fraser and buried him out here; but that, at least, he figured, was the least of his problems!

  3.

  Kendall Payne was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a quick lunch before heading back out to the bam. His hands and elbows were smeared with oil and grease from working on the tractor. As he chewed the sandwich Elizabeth had made for him, he made small, satisfied sounds in the back of his throat.

  Elizabeth was at the counter, mixing up a batch of brownies for desert and racking her brain, trying to think of something to start a conversation with her father. Since she had arrived home, she hadn’t had a good opportunity to talk with him. He always seemed too busy, too preoccupied with work to take the time to talk with her the way her mother did. Even though they had had their differences over the years, Elizabeth had always felt a deep and abiding love for him; and she had always felt it returned. Now, with her mother away for at least an hour or two, she was hoping they’d get a chance to talk before he went back to work.

  “Wasn’t that something about Barney Fraser?” she said, just to break the ice.

  It was Thursday, her day off, and she was grateful for the break from all the gossip she had heard at Hardy’s about Henry Bishop’s discovery. Dozens of bizarre explanations were circulating, with stories ranging from darkly whispered rumors of Barney’s closet homosexuality and that he had been killed by a male lover who accused him of giving him AIDS, all the way to a Mafia hit connected to something, never specified, to do with his job as cemetery caretaker. When the unsubstantiated story began making the rounds that the autopsy had discovered dead human flesh — not his own — in Barney’s mouth and throat, talk about a secret group of black-magic practitioners and Satanists swept through the town like a fire.

  “Don’t know what to think of it,” Kendall said gruffly. He took a long drink of beer and then wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Barney always seemed like a nice enough fella, but who’s to say?”

  Elizabeth continued, “He might have been the one who dug — who did that to Uncle Jonathan’s grave!”

  And by moving just one grave over, could have done the same thing to Caroline!

  Her father grunted. His eyes narrowed, as if with remembered pain, but he said nothing as he took another bite of sandwich.

  Elizabeth hated the way she was stumbling to get the conversation going, and then the last thing she wanted to have happen, did; the phone rang just as she was walking over to the table to sit down with her father. Huffing with frustration, she turned and picked up the phone.

  “Hello?” she said, glancing at her father, who was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

  “Hi, Elizabeth,” the voice on the other end of the line said. It had been years since she had talked to him on the phone, but Elizabeth instantly recognized Frank’s voice.

  “Oh ... hi,” she said, not caring if she betrayed the disappointment she felt. Her first impulse was to say, I thought we had nothing else to say to each other after that argument in Hardy’s backroom, and then hang up.

  “You’re not busy, are you?” Frank asked.

  “Not at all,” Elizabeth replied, turning her back to her father and cupping the phone close to her mouth in case she lost her patience and told Frank to take a flying fuck at the moon or something.

  “Look,” Frank said, sounding almost breathless. “I don’t want to waste your time or anything, but I was wondering if I — if you would like to go out sometime ... say tomorrow night?”

  Elizabeth started to reply, but all she got out was, “I —”

  “Maybe we could go out to dinner or something,” Frank said. He sounded hurried. “There are a lot of nice places that’ve opened up since you’ve been around. There’s a really nice Chinese restaurant, the Panda Garden, out on Forest A venue. Or maybe we could take in a movie or something.”

  Elizabeth hesitated, feeling anger welling up inside her. Her first impulse was simply to say no thanks. That would have been easiest and cleanest because, bottom line, she had absolutely no interest in even seeing him again, much less picking up where they had left off twenty years ago. After unnerving herself by getting out the old Ouija board, she had vowed not to start digging up, much less start living in, the past. No matter what she had for pleasant memories of growing up in Bristol Mills, the more recent past was laced with too much misery and pain. She prayed that those wounds would heal up and be gone soon; she certainly didn’t need to open up any new ones!

  On second thought, why the hell not?

  No matter what bad things had come between her and Frank, she knew he was a decent sort of person. There probably wouldn’t be any harm if they went out on a — well, the word “date” almost made her chuckle aloud; she was too old to be going out on a date! But what was the harm if she went out to dinner or to a movie with him as a friend? If nothing else, she should see him at least once so she could apologize for overreacting that day in Hardy’s backroom. She knew damned well that she had unloaded emotions and reactions on him that should have been directed elsewhere ...

  Like maybe right back on myself, where they belong, she thought with a guilty twinge.

  “Uh ... sure,” she said, surprised by the tentativeness in her voice. “I think that’d ... be fun.”

  She glanced over her shoulder when she sensed that her father was getting up from the table and clearing his place. She wondered if he had overheard her conversation and figured out what it was about.

  “How does tomorrow night sound?” Frank asked.

  Elizabeth watched her father as he rinsed his plate at the sink and then put it into the dish drainer. Shrugging even though she knew the gesture was wasted, she said, “I get out of work at five o’clock. Why don’t you stop by around — oh, say six-thirty? That’ll give me a chance to get ready.” She turned to face the wall again but could feel her father’s gaze boring into her back.

  “I’ll see you then,” Frank said, and hung up before Eliz
abeth could say anything more. Listening to the steady drone of the dial tone, she cradled the phone and, cringing, turned to face her father.

  “Is that who I think it was?” Kendall asked. His brow was furrowed, casting deep shadows over his already grease-streaked face. His mouth was set in a thin, hard line.

  “That was Frank ... Frank Melrose,” Elizabeth said simply, forcing herself to sound casual and uncaring.

  “From what I heard, it sounded to me like he asked you out for a date,” Kendall said.

  Biting her lower lip, Elizabeth nodded.

  “‘N’ it sounds like you accepted?” He looked down at the floor for a second, then back at Elizabeth, his scowl deepening.

  Elizabeth blushed under the gathering storm of her father’s disapproval. But she also felt defensive and almost said aloud, Hey, wait a minute! What the hell’s going on here?

  “Dad,” she said, trying to color her voice with a hint of laughter. “I think I’m old enough to decide for myself who I want to go out with. Besides —”

  “It ain’t that simple,” her father said in a low, measured tone. “You’re still a married woman. I don’t think something like that is — is proper.”

  Elizabeth flushed with anger. Only with effort could she refrain from shouting at her father — as she had as a teenager. He wasn’t even trying to see things from her point of view! Why in the hell did everyone think she needed so damned much advice about what she should and shouldn’t do?

  “Doug and I are separated, Dad,” she said evenly, “and nothing will change my mind. I want a divorce because as far as I’m concerned our marriage is over ... it’s dead! Can’t you understand that?”

  In the hollow silence that followed her outburst, a blinding panic filled her as she remembered the night Caroline died ...

  4.

  The night was filled with the tortured sounds of twisting metal and ear-shattering explosions ... a searing jet of orange flame ripped upward, into the storm clouds ... a shrill voice, sounding feeble and helpless against the razor-sharp blast of the blizzard, cried out . ..