I wanted to say something, but for the life of me, I had no idea what it was I wanted to say. Starnes took a cup and held it as Aunt Jo poured the tea into the cup. Rosey did the same. When she came to me, she paused and smiled.
“Take your cup, dear. Eula didn’t know the answer to your question. She never knew. It would have broken her heart had she known. Now, hold steady while I pour.”
I watched the stream of light brown liquid flow from the pot into my cup. This woman who was serving me was also bewildering me. My cup was a brightly colored yellow finch. I could tell that it was hand-painted. I looked over at Rosey’s cup. He had a male cardinal painted on his. Starnes’ cup was decorated with a hand-painted bluebird. Each cup was well done with devastatingly bright colors, yellow, red, and blue. Quite lovely.
Despite the attractiveness of this tea cup set, my mind was thinking about Aunt Jo and her strangeness, her talent or whatever for knowing more than logic could dictate that she should know. It was beyond me. Bewildering, confusing, frustrating, and incomprehensible. The other thing on my mind about this mysterious woman was that if I did not ask the right question, then our little visit here would be in vain. I sipped her delicious tea and pondered my next move.
63
The idle chit-chat subsided after several minutes of sipping hot tea and wondering about the weather as well as the new crop of herbs that Aunt Jo had planted. She told us that today would be the last day of the fog on her mountain for at least two months. Amazing woman, to say the least.
The room grew quiet as we synchronized our drinking. Our routine fell apart when we returned our cups to our respective saucers. Each cup created a distinct sound as it clanked into its own saucer. We were following any proscribed rhythm. It was actually a discord of dissonance. Sometimes sounds provide clues.
“Aunt Jo, you didn’t tell us the whole truth on our last visit,” I said.
“Perhaps you didn’t ask me for the whole truth.”
“You knew what we wanted to know.”
“Of course I did, but I’m not the person to answer questions you do not ask. I tell you what you want to know by the words of your question.”
“You’d make a good lawyer,” I said.
“Doubtful, but I take that as something of a compliment.”
“How many times did Hack Ponder rape K.C.?” I said.
I could feel the eyes of Starnes and Rosey upon me. The room was unnaturally quiet at that very moment. It was as if a dark, dark secret had emerged from the deep shadows and light was beginning to filter into our space for the first time.
“How clever of you, Clancy Evans,” Aunt Jo said. “How very clever of you to ask such a thing.”
Josephine Starling sipped her tea and watched me closely.
“At what point did you arrive at that question?” Aunt Jo said.
“You don’t murder all of those people because of some prank perpetrated during elementary school especially when you lived a good many years with a family of wolves. Nakedness would not be that much of a crime, even after a few years of wearing clothing. There had to be something more devastating. So, Hack Ponder did rape her, and my guess is that he raped her more than once.”
“She only told me about the three times. It happened twice at school. But it was only after the third time that she finally told me what he had done.”
“And the third time involved Dottie, Rufus, and Randall Lee,” I said.
“They saw it happen and did nothing to help her.”
“It happened when they took her clothes,” I said.
“You know a lot, Clancy Evans.”
“I’m a detective.”
“And a good guesser?”
“I deduce. You could call it guessing, just like I could call what you do and how you know what you know as guessing or some type of crystal ball viewing. But we both know that there is more to it than that.”
“We do, don’t we? Yes, it happened when those three played the prank on K.C. But what you may not have guessed is that the prank was the idea of Hack Ponder. He convinced those children to do it and then he took advantage of her.”
“And she told you the whole story?” I said.
“Mostly. It was such a horrible experience, you can imagine, that I am sure she could have left out some details. We cried together. We cried for several days. I helped her as much as I could, but there is only so much one can do in a situation like that. Only so much a body can do to repair the damage.”
“Why didn’t you report Hack Ponder?”
“Good question, Clancy. At first I did try to convince K.C. to tell what he did. She didn’t like that idea at all. She was also afraid, I think, that the authorities would not believe her. And, I believe, she was worried that those same authorities might start snooping around her life and discover who she really was. She wanted to stay with me.”
“And?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand your question?” Aunt Jo said.
“You said … ‘at first.’ That implies you changed your mind about reporting the attack.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I did come to the place where I agreed with K.C. It was best to allow everything to run its course.”
“You mean all of these horrible murders?”
“Bad things happen. You know that. There are consequences to our actions.”
“Did you know all of this was to happen?” I said.
Aunt Jo smiled at me.
“May I pour you more tea?” she said to me.
I knew she was not going to answer my question.
“Do you know where she is?” Starnes said.
“If I did, I would not tell you,” Aunt Jo said.
“Will she come back here?” I said.
“No. She knows that you are looking for her and her … pet. She will stay away as long as she suspects that you might be around. She’s good in the woods. She knows how to stay hidden. She knows how to stay alive while living in the wild.”
“They’re both injured,” I said.
Aunt Jo looked surprised. I finally said something to her that she did not know. It meant that she had told us the truth about not seeing K.C. or the animal.
“Badly injured?” she said.
“The animal, perhaps. I can’t say about K.C.”
“She and her pet have ways and means to find what they require. It’s possible that both of them, if they are injured, will heal in time.”
She drank deeply from her tea cup. She smiled at me and then drank some more.
“You need to know something,” she said finally.
“What?”
“There will be no more killing unless she is cornered.”
“That’s good to know, but it does not stop us from searching for her,” Starnes said. “We have to keep at it.”
“I know, but I wish I could convince you to let it go.”
There was great sadness in her voice and I genuinely felt sorry for this mysterious lady.
“I do feel sorry for you, Aunt Jo,” Starnes said. “You know I care about you … and, in some ways, I care about K.C. and all that she has suffered. But, well …”
Starnes voice trailed off without finishing. She decided not to continue her thought.
I stood up and the rest followed. Aunt Jo followed us to the door. Starnes and Rosey walked to the Jeep while I stood on the porch with Josephine Starling.
“Be careful how you help her,” I said. “You could get into a lot of trouble. Some folks might understand, but I don’t think the law would be on your side.”
“You might be surprised at that, my dear. Still, I will take your words to heart. I will be careful. They will have to be very clever if they expect to catch me doing something … wrong. It is not in my nature to break the law.”
I hugged her and walked away knowing that she had told me some truth. Clever indeed.
64
It was nearly dusk when Rosey and I parked along Old Fox Lane. Sam was with us. I tho
ught his prowess might be needed.
“That spot across the river,” Rosey said and pointed to the rock outcropping that formed a cliff about a hundred yards from the beach, “I’ll make my way to the top. I should be able to see that sandy area clearly. I’ll keep you in my sights.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to make your way there.”
“Ten will do nicely.”
Rosey was in his military camouflage fatigues to aid his blending into nature. He was carrying his 710 Remington. Still, I had no intention of killing K.C. I had no intention of letting her kill me with her pet either. Rosey was simply my fail-safe. Plan Z.
“Keep your eyes open,” I said to him.
I watched him move his large head around taking in the surrounding area. He seemed more alert than usual which was something to behold. He seemed to be studying every millimeter of the land, everything someone could see from our present vantage.
Just as I was about to exit the Jeep and head down to the sandy spot on the river, Sam’s head jerked to his left. He caught sight of something in that direction. I turned in that direction trying to focus my attention where he was looking.
I saw nothing.
He remained attentive to that focused spot.
“You see something?” I said.
He moved his tail one swish but his head remained resolute and his eyes focused intently on his spot.
“Maybe it’s Rosey.”
I would have sworn that he shook his head to tell me no at that moment. My imagination sometimes has a mind of its own when it comes to my dog.
“Then again, maybe not,” I said to him.
I waited to see if Sam would move his stare. He stayed the course. No movement away from whatever it was he had seen in the distance. He seemed to be staring into the woody area directly across from the beach on this side of the river.
“It’s time to go,” I said as I stared at the digital clock on cell phone. “Promise to stay close. I don’t need you running off and scaring our prey.”
Sam raised his left paw as if taking an oath to my command. Dogs, go figure.
I opened the door of the Jeep and he jumped out. He didn’t run off in pursuit of the object of his intent. His body remained still as he continued his gaze.
We made our way to the beach. I wanted to be seen without indicating that I was expecting someone to be there. I had a strong hunch that K.C. Higgins would show up. I wasn’t sure as to why I believed such a thing, only that I did. Intuition can be a real gift to a detective. It can also be a curse. Sometimes it’s nothing less than a nuisance.
The sun was breaking through the early morning cloud cover. I suspected a warm day. I pretended to be studying the tracks in the sand while I waited.
“I need you to be looking at these tracks as well,” I said to Sam. “Stop staring off in the distance. Pretend with me.”
He looked at me as I had lost my mind, then he shifted his gaze to the ground and began sniffing the beach area following some trail. Good communication between master and dog. Right.
Sam and I circled the area at least twice before a noise across the river alerted us. Sam moved much faster than I. My eyes followed his eyes. K.C. was standing in the open. The wolf-creature was with her. We were separated by some fifty feet of water that might have been no more than four feet deep at its greatest depth. The water was moving at a good pace between our opposite positions.
“Odd place to run into you,” K.C. shouted over to me.
“Not so odd.”
“It is unlikely that you trailed me here. How’d you find this place?” she said.
“Followed the details of the story.”
“What story?”
“Yours.”
“You don’t know me,” she said. The wolf-thing sat down next to her but kept her eyes glued on me and Sam.
Sam had moved to the edge of the river. He was standing with his front paws in the water as if readying himself to leap into the current at a moment’s notice. All I had to do was give him the command and he would respond. Or, he would jump at his own whim if I failed to command him. Despite our inexplicable communication skills with each other, I am never positive as to what motivates Sam the wonder dog.
“I’m still piecing together some of your painful past.”
“You have no idea what pain there is,” she said.
“You’d be surprised as to the pain I have experienced.”
“Abandoned in your life?” she said.
“Not like you were.”
“Treated as some zoo-like critter by so-called civilized kids?”
“Some of that, but not so I couldn’t beat up the boys after school. I was always smarter than they were, so I took a lot of abuse during middle school.”
“Ever been raped?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know pain. Multiple pain, multiple times.”
“You’re right. I have no experience with that type of pain and torture. But you can’t kill off the people involved without answering for it.”
“It’s done. It’s over now. Justice has prevailed.”
“Justice has one more thing to do,” I said.
“Are you serious? You think you can take me and Doc here?”
“Doc, is it? Interesting name for a vicious monster.”
“She’s not a monster. She does what I ask of her.”
“And that means you’re guilty of murder.”
“Justice, Clancy Evans. Simple justice. It’s not murder if the people deserved to die.”
“Isn’t that something for society to decide? Isn’t that the way the system is supposed to work?”
“You want to argue philosophy about how society is supposed to work? Really now … give me some credit. The good old boy system of this county is not going to do a damn thing, and never is. People are connected. That means the guilty are protected by the system you serve.”
“I’m not trying to cover anything up. The whole story will come out. I don’t think you will receive the death penalty. But you will have to serve time.”
“That’s not going to happen. I couldn’t live behind bars.”
The shot stunned me. It was a rifle blast that rang out and startled Sam as well. I instinctively dropped to my knees and drew my weapon. K.C. fell on the rocks where she had been standing. The wolf darted across the river heading straight towards us. I looked down the river to see if I could spot Rosey. Surely he had not shot K.C.
My search for Rosey had to be quick. Doc was making excellent time in her approach to our position. I couldn’t spot Rosey.
Doc was almost across the water. I aimed my 9mm at her head and waited for her to get just a bit closer. I would only have time for three, maybe four shots. Sam had all four feet in the water by this point.
My target was moving closer to me. Seconds passed. She was advancing.
Another rifle shot exploded. Doc fell into the water, then jumped up almost immediately. She was bleeding from her left shoulder. She continued her approach toward me but didn’t seem to have that same kill-look in her eyes. Sam was ready to attack.
At the last second, just before I was certain I would shoot her in the head, Doc veered off to the right of us and disappeared into the woods. Sam wanted to give chase, but I called him off.
“Stay with me,” I said. “Protect our flank. She may come back out.”
He stood firm but his eyes remained on Doc’s path into the woods.
I looked back across the river at the place for K.C. She was still lying on some small rocks. She was probably dead, although I couldn’t tell from this distance. I could only see that she was not moving and that there was blood on the rocks next to her body.
Within a minute or two, Rosey was standing next to K.C.’s body directly across from me.
“She dead?” I said.
He knelt down and felt her neck for a pulse.
“Weak pulse. We need to get her out of here,” he called ou
t.
Instead of picking her up, he waded across the river. I was surprised.
“Why didn’t you bring her?” I said.
“There’s a shooter still out there.”
“You didn’t shoot her?” I said.
“You thought I shot her?”
“Well, not really. But who else?”
“Always more than one choice, you know. I did not shoot her. I had no reason. But I did shoot that wolf-thing,” Rosey said.
“Doc.”
“Beg your pardon.”
“The wolf-thing, her name is Doc.”
“Quaint.”
“Yeah. I’m guessing it to be a shortened form of Dochau. Her brother’s name.”
Suddenly Walt Stanton emerged on the ridge just above our beach position. The area was starting to become too crowded to suit me. He was carrying a rifle. His camouflage getup was similar to Rosey’s.
“She won’t be killing anymore people now,” he said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice.
“So it was you,” I said.
A grin spread across his face.
“Good shot, huh?” he beamed.
Walt jumped from the ridge to our beach and started toward us. Suddenly, from the brush behind him, Doc leaped on Walt and locked her teeth into his neck. They were less than ten feet from where Rosey and I were standing.
I raised my 9mm and put four slugs into the wolf. It didn’t faze her.
“Shoot her,” I said to Rosey.
He raised his rifle as Doc ended her attack on Walt. She turned and looked into my eyes. It seemed that she wanted to speak. Rosey hesitated for a brief moment.
Doc bounded away before Rosey took a shot. The animal was quicker than anything I had ever encountered. She was across the river in three leaps. She hesitated a moment at K.C.’s body. She licked K.C.’s face and nudged her head. It appeared that she was trying to arouse her master. K.C. remained deathly still.
Outcast In Gray: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 7) Page 32
