by Ben Farthing
“Why would they lie?”
“They were always in denial about Jackson. They might cover for her.” Cessy slowed to make a hairpin turn. “After that chat, I’ll talk to the Sheriff.”
“I thought he hated you.”
“That was the Sheriff twenty years ago. And like I’ve told you, I deserved it. Hopefully the current guy hasn’t heard any stories.”
“Maybe use a fake name.”
“We’ll see. I’m hoping he’ll update me on what Jackson’s been doing with his life for the last five years. Give me an idea of how dangerous he is. Then I’ll go visit Jackson myself.”
“With the Sheriff, you mean.”
No, she didn’t want anyone else there. If she found Jackson without Kate, she intended to get answers. “Yeah, of course.”
“Good. That’ll be safer. Remember, you’re not a cop in West Virginia.”
“I’m still a big sister.”
Landis sighed. “Be careful. Will you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
“Perfect. Now I’m going to spend the day catfishing the next bank robber. Think you could text me something seductive to lure him to the McDonald’s parking lot?”
“You’re on your own there. Talk about how big your breasts are, and he’ll believe whatever you say.” She could practically hear his face turn red.
“When are you back? Maybe I’ll lead him on a bit first.”
“As soon as I can. Ideally, a day or two.”
“Right then. I’ll let you know if I can get a warrant for Kate’s phone location, and when I get into her email. See what Jackson sent her. You keep me updated on all the interrogations you have planned for today.”
They ended the call.
It took another twenty minutes to scale the mountainside. Her 4Runner made easy work of the dirt road. Blackberry bushes and branches from young trees encroached on the path. They scraped at her shiny paint.
Cessy cringed at the buff job she’d have to pay for, but was already enjoying bragging to Detective Landis about her off-roading adventure, showing off the scratches as a trophy.
Once atop the ridge, the road was in better shape. She bumped along it.
The trees were just as thick up here. These weren’t the Rockies--few mountains in Appalachia towered above the treeline, where cold and thin air strangled trees to leave the vegetation scraggly. Here, lookout spots were few and far between. Through the trees to her left would be a view of the valley northeast of Hamlin. To the right, in the valley northwest of Hamlin, the remains of the coal mine that gave birth to and then abandoned the town. But she’d have to climb a tree to see it through the thick forest.
The ridge dipped before a final gentle climb up Black Gold Peak. Mud River Road was somewhere down the mountainside to her left, infinitely out of reach.
With her luck so far, Cessy half-expected to run into another gate.
As if confirming her suspicion, as she reached the top, her headlights reflected off of pale metal.
The yellow light bounced back off something off the side of the road, hidden behind a pair of pine trees.
Cessy suddenly remembered stumbling upon this spot as a teenager. Some kind of forestry station, a squat steel shed near the top of Black Gold Peak.
She pointed her headlights at it now. Twelve-by-twelve, corrugated steel walls under a black tar roof.
She’d broken into it nearly twenty-five years ago. It was already out-of-use at the time. The owners had left behind shelves and cardboard boxes, which contained paper field notes on an invasive species of crawler vine.
Sheriff Miller hadn’t caught her that time, but the memory of breaking in triggered memories of times she had been caught. The high school for her senior prank. The feed shop when she thought her neighbors were starving their goat--the damn thing was fine, she’d been an idiot. The gas station when she couldn’t find anybody to buy her beer. That time, Sheriff Miller dragged her home and lectured Mom and Dad on how this was a step beyond teenage exuberance.
Another reflection in her headlights pulled Cessy from her thoughts.
Next to the forestry shack was a truck, crudely-painted camouflage. Her headlights glinted off the tail pipe.
Cessy would recognize that garish monstrosity anywhere. How many times had it pulled into their driveway, for her underage baby sister to run out and hop into the passenger seat?
That epitome of redneck aesthetic belonged to Jackson Wilder.
5
Cessy hesitated only a moment.
What were the chances that she’d find Jackson and Kate before even reaching the town?
She wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She parked the 4Runner. She’d taken off her holster soon into the trip, so now she reached over and drew her pistol before hopping out of the SUV. She grabbed her flashlight from the pocket in the door.
Chirper frogs and crickets screeched. The air was cool up here, and leagues less humid than Fairfax.
She crept to the camouflaged truck. The tires were fully inflated. No rust anywhere. It hadn’t been abandoned.
She turned to the shack and clicked on the flashlight.
Metal creaked inside, like someone had shifted on an old bed frame.
Cessy held her breath, but no further sound came. She crept forward to inspect the shed.
Up close, it looked even worse for the wear. Panels of corrugated steel curled up at the edges, revealing strips of rotting plywood behind them. The tar roof had been patched with clear caulking–an amateur repair.
On the side opposite the road, a rough lean-to had been built from branches and brown tarp. Beneath it were stacked canned food, two-liter soda bottles filled with water, and green ammunition boxes.
She hadn’t considered that Jackson might be armed. Now that she did, of course he was. The type of teenager who drove a lifted, camouflage F-250 became the type of man who open-carried, and ranted about .45 having more stopping power than 9 mm.
She hadn’t pegged him to become the type of man who stocked bunkers in the woods, but it didn’t surprise her. Vain disdain for others could take you down paranoid avenues.
She pointed the flashlight at the shed’s door. It was flakeboard on hinges, tightly closed. The outside latch hung free, meaning there was a fastened latch on the inside.
Kicking down the door of an armed man was a quick way to get shot. She’d try the gentleman’s way, first.
“Jackson, come on out. I want to talk.”
The chirper frogs and crickets continued their grating songs.
“Kate?” ventured Cessy. “Are you in there?”
Wind rustled the forest floor of dead leaves, and crinkled the lean-to’s tarp roof.
Cessy pointed the flashlight through the cracks in the door. She couldn’t make anything out. “Come on out, or I’ll come inside.”
Maybe no one was home. Cessy tried the door. The inner latch held it closed. She reared back to kick it open.
A breathless voice from inside. The same Appalachian drawl that still lingered in Cessy voice. “I’m on your side, I swear it.”
That wasn’t Jackson. This voice was melodic, quietly confident, and female. None of which described Kate’s scummy ex.
“Who’s in there?” demanded Cessy. “Why do you have Jackson’s truck?”
“Huh,” said the woman inside. “That spittin’ idjit sold me this truck two years back. Why don’t you know that? Either you blinked every time I rumbled my way to and from the library, or you’re not from Hamlin.”
Cessy heard the unmistakable creak and click of a rifle’s hammer being slowly lowered.
She dropped to her stomach. The blow winded her. She aimed her flashlight and pistol at the closed door.
“What was that noise? Is someone with you?”
“Open the door and show me the gun!” Cessy wheezed.
“I already put down the gun. You ain’t here to hurt me. Unless you didn’t come alone.”
“I’m just one pers
on,” Cessy said. “Just come out. Nice and slow.”
The scraping metal of undoing the latch, then the creak of hinges. The door swung wide.
A woman stood in the doorway. She wore camo pants and a green army jacket four sizes too big. Greasy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Pudgy cheeks that used to suggest youth now sagged.
She squinted at Cessy’s flashlight.
“Alright then, who the hell are you?” she asked.
Cessy’s tongue caught, shocked by the familiar face.
6
Cessy lowered her gun but kept it ready. She stood and brushed decaying leaves from her thighs and chest. “You’re Valerie Watkins,” she said to the woman in front of her. “What are you doing up here?”
“I know who I am.” Valerie squinted past Cessy’s flashlight. She jerkily looked into the dark woods at any little sound. “I asked who you are.”
Cessy didn’t see any risk in being honest. “Cecilia Timms.”
“Angry Cessy?” Valerie looked shocked.
Cessy swallowed the anger that flared up over the twenty-year-old insult. “That’s what you used to call me.”
Valerie had been Cessy’s babysitter when Cessy was little. By the time Cessy was in high school, Valerie had left to college and returned as assistant librarian. It was a part-time job in Hamlin, and last Cessy had heard, Valerie was living with her parents.
Valerie put her hands on her hips. Her sleeve stretched up, revealing a tattoo on her wrist of a book with an orange cover. “Well hot damn. I haven’t seen you since you left town after... after what happened with my cousin.”
Cessy didn’t want to talk about Marissa, the final victim of Cessy’s reign of teenage terror. She hadn’t come here to stock up on guilt. Although that’s what she’d be doing regardless, if she couldn’t find Kate.
“What are you doing up here?” Valerie gestured with a flippant wave at the wooded mountaintop around them.
Cessy looked around. She hadn’t been this isolated for months. A mile downhill through the woods to get to Hamlin. Miles and mountains to the next closest house. Dozens of miles to the next closest town.
And now she was face-to-face with someone who had familial reasons to wish harm on Cessy, and the mental issues to be up here hiding. Legal issues, too, most likely.
She inspected Valerie’s waistband, checking for any concealed weapons. The only odd part of Valerie’s getup--apart from the size of the camo jacket--was the patch sewn into the breast with stitched wording: I love reading.
Cessy’s pondering silence didn’t shake Valerie.
“Probably trying to get into town, huh?”
“Why is the road closed?” Cessy asked. “Why are you up here? Why do you have Jackson’s truck?”
Something small crunched through the leaves out in the darkness. Cessy pointed her flashlight into the trees.
“Stop!” hissed Valerie. She lunged towards the flashlight.
Cessy jumped back and pointed the pistol.
Valerie held up her hands, eyes wide, but in pleading, not fear. “Don’t aim the light towards town. You know what? Switch the damn thing off.”
Cessy complied. She kept the gun trained on Valerie until her eyes adjusted to the moonlight. Valerie’s army fatigues and dirty face blended into the deep grays and blues of the night.
“Come on inside and I’ll answer your questions. Grab yourself a water bottle, if you’re thirsty.”
“I’m good.” Cessy didn’t know how long the two-liter soda bottles had been sitting up here, but at least one of the Coke bottles had an outdated logo. She flexed her fingers around her pistol, then followed Valerie inside.
Valerie switched on a battery powered lamp which was covered in red cellophane. It filled the shed with a crimson glow. A cot sat in one corner, next to a stack of paperbacks and cardboard boxes holding clothes. Against another wall was a folding table and chair. On top was a laptop wired up to what looked like an old TV antenna. Next to the laptop sat a pile of handheld radios. Loose batteries were strewn about the shed.
Valerie turned the chair around and sat down. “Take a seat on the bed. I’ll answer your questions.”
The cot creaked under Cessy’s weight. She kept her eye on the librarian-turned-mountain-woman.
“Easiest answer first: I bought Jackson’s old truck after he downgraded to a Camry. Better family car, he said.”
“Jackson has a family?” It looked like Kate wasn’t his only victim.
“He married Olivia Goodman.”
Cessy felt her jaw drop. “But she’s so nice.”
Valerie laughed. “So is he, if you ask Olivia. You’ve been gone a long time. People change.”
“Not much they don’t,” said Cessy, aware of the self-condemnation she risked by declaring that to someone in Valerie’s family. “Jackson’s been in touch with Kate, trying to lure her back here.”
Valerie went stiff. “She said no, didn’t she? Oh no. That’s why you’re here.” She pounded her fist on the flimsy table. The lamp wobbled, shuddering the shadows and red. “Stupid boy.”
“Kate must not know he’s married. She’d never purposely mess up a marriage.”
“You’re chasing your tail with this romance obsession. Don’t think I didn’t notice your last name is still Timms. But not everything’s a bodice-ripper.”
“I was- I’m not- tell me why you’re freaking out. Is Kate in trouble?”
Valerie exhaled, cheeks puffing out. “Could be. Depends on why Jackson called her. He was asking for help, wasn’t he? That stupid boy’s going to get himself killed.”
Cessy waited.
“Answers to your other questions: I’m not the librarian anymore. I was head librarian for eight years, did I tell you that? Good gig. Two months back, my parents kicked me out of my basement apartment, and Sheriff Miller convinced Mayor Briggs to fire me.”
“Sheriff Miller? Did his son grow up to take his job?”
“Nope. The same Sheriff Miller who wanted to run teenage you out of town. Retired fifteen years ago, then strapped back on his pride-parade cowboy hat and won the election last year. The man’s nearly eighty.”
Sitting on the cot, Cessy’s exhaustion caught up with her. She’d have to ask Sheriff Miller for help. The same man whose groin she’d kneed during an arrest. “Wait, why are you telling me about Sheriff Miller getting you fired?”
“You asked!”
“I didn’t.”
Valerie raised her voice an octave, mocking Cessy. “Why’re you up here?”
“You got fired and your parents kicked you out so you moved up here? You’re not communing with nature. You’re hiding.” Cessy had talked down paranoid schizophrenics before; and more often failed to talk them down. Sometimes, they believed their delusions so much, that you started to believe them. She could feel it happening now. Valerie lost her job because of mental health issues. Her parents kicked her out after giving up dealing with her. It was sad, but not uncommon. “Your parents don’t know where you are? Are they looking for you?”
Valerie’s head drooped. “Sheriff Miller is.”
“How long ago did your parents make you leave?”
Valerie shrugged. “Six weeks? And they didn’t kick me out as much they were going to tell Sheriff Miller where I was.”
Cessy’s heart dropped. Valerie had probably hurt somebody. Cessy needed to tell Sheriff Miller where Valerie was, asshole that he may be, before Valerie hurt someone else.
She felt selfish for thinking it, but if Valerie couldn’t help her, then Cessy couldn’t stick around. “I need to go find my sister.”
“I didn’t answer your last question yet.”
Any answer Cessy got from Valerie was suspect. But easier not to agitate someone going through a mental health crisis. “You’re right. Why is the road closed?”
“To keep everyone in.”
Cessy leaned forward. “Everyone? Is the road west of town closed, too?”
“Every road is blo
cked off.”
“The state police haven’t noticed? The postal service? Anyone commuting to work?” And how would Kate have gotten in?
Valerie shrugged.
Cessy knew she shouldn’t encourage delusions, but she asked anyways. There might be some truth behind Valerie’s paranoia. “Who wants to keep people in?”
“Lockler,” said Valerie. “The Maple Table.”
It wasn’t clear whether she was listing multiple parties responsible, or whether “The Maple Table” was another name for “Lockler.” Regardless, Cessy felt foolish for trying to get information from a mental breakdown.
Cessy slapped her knees. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I need to get into town now.”
Wide eyed, Valerie shook her head. “You need to skidaddle back down this mountain and drive on outta here, is what you need to do. I’d like to follow you, but I’ve been keeping an ear on what they say.” She picked up a handheld radio to gesture with it. “And it’s getting even more aggressive. Lockler’s trying to gather everyone. I haven’t been down there to see how folks are reacting.”
“Is Lockler a radio host?”
Valerie’s hair went wild as she nodded. “You’ve heard him already.”
“I think so.” Cessy hated angry talk radio. Their rants had real effects on vulnerable people. But, she supposed, if it wasn’t the radio show, Valerie would have found something else to latch onto.
“Listen,” Valerie said, “and I mean no offense, but this town didn’t like you much twenty years ago. Being as you’re a Timms, they might stick you in the ‘good apple’ barrel at first, but all it’ll take is a backwards glance for them to taste rot. They’ll say you’re vermin.”
Cessy stood up. “I’m sorry, Valerie. I’m not following you.”
Valerie sighed. “There’s no slowing down Angry Cessy, is there?”
Cessy grimaced. “I gotta find Kate.”
“Go on then.”
Cessy moved to the door, keeping her eye on Valerie and the rifle at her side. “She didn’t pass by here, did she?”
