by Martha Carr
“They look like dog harnesses,” Rex added and trotted past his brother.
“Huh.”
The blocks faded from shops into houses renovated to be shops and eventually into purely residential neighborhoods. Johnny exhaled a heavy breath and straightened to place his hands on his hips. “Next time, darlin’, you oughta check the geography with the map. I get enough runaround as it is. I don’t need to pile on extra while we’re workin’ a case.”
Lisa passed him at a steady pace up the steep hill lined with brightly painted single-family homes. “My bad.” She flashed him an energetic grin, not even a little winded by the climb. “Next time, I’ll check.”
Yeah, and she won’t tell me on purpose. With a grunt, he hurried after her again and managed to force his breathing to remain mostly calm.
“Whoa, check out these houses.” Rex trotted casually up the hill. “Luther, how many rodents you think we could sniff out under those porches, huh? Like the rotting ones with all the moss.”
“A lot. Maybe a whole den of hamsters, too.”
“Yeah, then Johnny’d be really proud.”
“Okay.” Lisa stopped once the top of the hill leveled out and pointed up ahead. “Folsum’s house should be the third one down. So do you want to do the talking or should I?”
Johnny darted her a sidelong glance. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
“Probably.” A breeze blew over the hilltop, rustled the lush green branches hanging overhead, and cast their massive shadows across the road and the old, foliage-laden Portland front yards. A huge tree creaked as it swayed. Luther stopped to lift a leg on the thick bark, then padded along happily and stared into the fluttering branches.
Rex snorted. “Showoff.”
“How about I start,” Lisa said, “and if there’s anything I leave out in the process, you can—”
“No. No, no. No!” A man’s voice carried toward them from up the street. “You can’t make me!”
“It sounds like one of the neighbors is havin’ a little upset.”
Lisa frowned and quickened her pace. “Or Christopher Folsum is.”
They closed in on the man’s house and the top of his driveway, which dipped down the other side of the hill into a thickly wooded yard with the house and garage built off to the side.
“Ha. You…you think you can take everything from me, huh?” the man shouted, followed by an admittedly mad-sounding cackle. “Think again. You lose this time. ’Cause you know what? Where I’m going…ha. Well, let’s see you try to follow me there, huh?”
A loud snap and choking noises issued up the hill from the garage, joined by what sounded much like a rope rubbing on timber although they were too far to tell.
“Shit.” Johnny raced down the steep driveway, Lisa on his heels with her firearm drawn. He skidded across the rough asphalt and turned to see Christopher Nelson hanging by a rope from one of the garage’s thick beams. A second later, he flicked his utility knife open, caught the point of the blade between his fingers, and threw it at the highest point of the rope where the most force was centered with the intention to weaken it. His blade sliced through three-quarters of the weave and clattered against the far wall and Folsum lowered by six inches. The man spun as his legs kicked beneath him. “Fuck.”
“Johnny!”
“I know!” The dwarf snatched up the chair that had been kicked out and shoved it under the flailing legs. He stepped onto it quickly, slid one arm around the man to ease the full weight off the rope, and grasped the knot above his neck. With a grunt of effort, he gave it a sharp, powerful jerk.
The remainder of the cord snapped and they both fell when the chair gave out beneath them and they landed in a pile. The bounty hunter scrambled to right himself and immediately grappled with the rope around the man’s neck. A series of coughs and splutters followed as the homemade noose loosened. Folsum dragged in a huge, rasping gasp and flopped on the floor to stare at the frayed end of the rope tied around the beam.
“Come on, man.” Johnny patted his cheeks in what he hoped didn’t feel like battery to the guy. “That ain’t the way, man. It ain’t the way to handle it.”
Folsum swallowed thickly, felt the raw line around his neck, and began to sob.
“Oh, shit.”
Lisa had already dialed nine-one-one and gave the emergency dispatcher the address. “Yeah, we’ll stick around. Thanks.” She slid her phone into her pocket and stepped tentatively into the garage.
The man on the floor sobbed incoherently, and Johnny sat back on his heels with a sigh.
“Is he okay?” she asked
“Well he’s alive but I wouldn’t call this okay.” The dwarf gestured toward him. “All right, brother. You…you don’t have to—”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” Folsum clenched his eyes shut and rocked slowly. “Why did you do that? I didn’t ask for help.”
“Christopher?” Lisa stepped closer and lowered her head to catch his attention. “It’s Christopher, right? Or do you go by Chris?”
The man merely moaned again before his chest jerked with sob after hopeless sob.
“Listen, I know you feel there’s no other way out of this. But taking your own life…” She squatted a foot behind Johnny and studied the man. “That’s not the answer.”
“You don’t understand.” Folsum thumped a limp arm against the floor. “It’s my only way. I can’t…I can’t keep doing this.”
“That’s how it feels right now, but you can’t give up before—”
“No, you don’t get it.” He gasped through his sobs and propped himself on one elbow to squint at her through his tears. “I love my life. I truly do. I was happy. It’s her leaving me with no choice. Do you hear me? She wants to take everything from me. And if I’m still here, she wins.”
Lisa and Johnny exchanged a concerned glance.
“Who?” he asked.
“The demon, man. It’s all her!”
Shit. This guy’s nowhere near well enough to answer questions now. The agent sighed inwardly.
“The paramedics are on their way,” she said softly. “When the ambulance gets here, they’ll help you get back on track.”
“That’s never gonna happen. I can’t let her win.” The man began to weep again and raised both hands to cover his face.
She nudged Johnny in the side and nodded at Folsum’s left forearm. Immediately below his elbow was the thin oval mark with three diagonal lines slashed through it.
The bounty hunter grimaced and nodded slowly. “Now, I don’t give my word on a whim, Folsum. You hear me?”
The man continued to cry.
“But Agent Breyer and I aim to get this…demon, whoever she is. We’ll make her stop.”
“You don’t think I already tried that?” Folsum shrieked. “I don’t have anything left. Nothing. I can’t do this—”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to, brother.” With his grim expression schooled into what he hoped was reassuring, he patted the man’s shoulder with as much certainty as he could manage. When he received no reaction, he pushed to his feet and crossed the garage to retrieve his knife.
Rex and Luther sat at the entrance, their attention fixed on the man who continued to sob and run his fingers over the raw ring around his neck. Luther uttered a low whine. “You ever see someone look so unhappy to be saved?”
“Nope. Good thing Johnny knows how to throw a knife.” They both looked at the severed rope that dangled from the garage ceiling, then at the other end that lay in a loose coil at Folsum’s side. “Hey, look. Free rope. Wanna play tug-o-war?”
Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at them. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Okay, okay. Jeez.”
“Only trying to lighten the mood, Johnny.”
Lisa approached the dwarf as the rising wail of sirens drew closer. “It seems to me like they’re still behaving well.”
For a moment, he considered telling her about the collars. For what, huh? So
she can say you’re hallucinatin’ and join Nelson in his campaign to make me an alcoholic?
“Yeah, it seems like it.” Johnny gestured toward the hounds as he closed his knife and hooked it onto his belt. “But they’re my hounds. I can tell when they’re thinkin’ mischief. It’s in the eyes.”
“Right.” She turned to study them speculatively.
Luther’s tail thumped against the concrete and Rex’s mouth popped open so his tongue lolled from the side of it as he panted. “Good goin’, Johnny.”
“Yeah, now she seriously thinks you’re crazy.”
Chapter Seventeen
When the paramedics arrived, together with two Portland PD officers, a sobbing, raving Christopher Folsum was guided into the back of the ambulance, examined quickly, and taken to the hospital to have tests run as well as a psychiatric evaluation.
Lisa had no problem taking the lead in the discussion with the two officers and provided her statement as a witness and as a Federal Agent.
“What were you doing out here at Mr. Folsum’s home?” Officer Millbrook asked.
“Coming to speak to the victim.”
“You know he’s one of the people who’s been going off about this so-called Portland demon, right?” Officer Hennessey added.
“Yes. That is why we’re here.”
“Agent Breyer, these are all cases that engender concern, but there’s no physical evidence of wrongdoing or that any of these individuals are actual victims.”
She raised her chin obstinately and glanced at the officers in turn. “And that’s why the case was sent to us. Are you familiar with the Bureau’s Bounty Hunter Division?”
Millbrook grunted. “I’ve heard of it but we never had to call your people to this city as far as I know.”
Hennessey sniffed and fisted both hands on his hips. “So you’re the agent on this case, then. The one the Bureau thinks includes victims and…what? Some kind of magic?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I assume he’s the bounty hunter.” All three of them turned to where they’d left Johnny at the bottom of the driveway. Now, however, he had finished scouring Christopher Folsum’s garage and strode across the concrete floor toward the door into the house. “Wait. Sir? Sir!”
“You can’t go in there until we’ve finished—”
“Watch me.” He grunted and waved a hand dismissively before he opened the door. “I have a license.”
“Wait up, Johnny.” The hounds trotted after him.
“I don’t think those cops like hounds.”
The door closed behind them.
The officers grumbled and shared a frustrated glance. “Do you take full responsibility for that guy?”
Lisa frowned at them. “That’s my job. And while the attempted suicide remains under your jurisdiction, Folsum’s house and any evidence we find that helps us solve this federal case falls under mine.”
“Yeah, yeah. Nothing we haven’t heard before.” Millbrook thumped the back of his hand against his partner’s arm and nodded toward their squad car. “I think we’re done here.”
“I think you’re grasping at straws on this one, Agent Breyer,” Hennessey muttered.
“Well, that’s why they sent us in.” She gave him a small, tight smile. “So you let us worry about the straws and the magic, huh?”
The officer scratched the back of his head, then turned to join his partner in the squad car. “That’s a shitload more paperwork than I wanted to see on my desk today.”
Millbrook started the engine. “It always is when the feds show up. There’s no use in hoping for a good day now.”
She watched the officers turn in the wide drive before she hurried down the steep hill toward the house. As she walked through the garage, she glanced at the frayed end of Folsum’s homemade noose that still dangled from the beam. This could have gone better. And it could have been so much worse.
When she stepped into the house, the smell of mildew and rotting food hit her instantly. She wrinkled her nose, covered her mouth, and stepped slowly down the narrow hallway littered with dirty clothes. With her free hand, she groped in the back pocket of her jeans and retrieved the surgical gloves she’d stashed there. Unfortunately, she had to remove the hand from her mouth to slide one pair onto her hands. “Johnny?” she asked and waved the second pair as if that might conjure her partner.
“Livin’ room,” he muttered from her right.
Lisa moved the other way down the hall and stopped abruptly. The dwarf stood in the center of the room, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, and studied the main wall in front of him.
“Oh, my God.” With a deepening frown, she approached him slowly. Her foot kicked an empty beer can and it skittered across the hardwood floor littered with packaged food wrappers, empty cracker boxes, and open pizza boxes with most of the pizza uneaten and growing an impressive colony of mold.
Rex sniffed the spinning beer can when it slowed to a stop, then snorted and shook his head. “Not into beer.”
“Hey, Rex.” Luther sniffed the floor and followed the trail to an open can of Spaghetti-O’s still half full. “I think I hit the jackpot.”
Johnny snapped his fingers. “Y’all stay outta things, understand?”
“Aw, come on, Johnny. The guy’s not gonna miss this stuff. It’s not like he planned to come back inside for leftovers.”
“Yeah, look at everything. It’s all as ripe as hell.”
“Too ripe.”
“Just the way we like it.”
With a grunt, he turned to glare at his hounds. They both hunched almost on their bellies and returned his stare. Luther inched closer to the Spaghetti-O’s can.
“I said no.”
“Fine…” Luther took a final sniff, padded toward his brother, and sat, licking his muzzle. “Party pooper.”
“What is all this?” Lisa asked as she moved beside the dwarf to study the wall. When she extended the second pair of gloves toward him, he glanced down and shook his head. She returned them to her back pocket with a frown.
“If you were lookin’ for evidence Folsum didn’t lose his mind, this ain’t it.”
The entire wall was plastered with different sizes and colors of loose paper. Most of them were regular white printer paper, but a good portion was on lined notebook paper, sheets from a legal pad, graph paper, and eventually, pages ripped from magazines. Every single one of them had a drawing in thick, dark lines—pen, pencil, or sharpie—of the same round, dark image.
“These have to mean something.” Lisa folded her arms and studied the drawings. “What do they look like to you?”
“Are you fishin’, or do you have an actual idea?” Johnny darted her a sidelong glance. “I ain’t an art critic, darlin’.”
“You don’t have to be for this.” She stepped closer to the wall and her shoe crunched on a slice of dried bread that crumbled to dust beneath her. “Those look like tunnels.”
“Huh.” He narrowed his eyes to focus better. “You know, I think you’re right. The question now is whether Folsum’s artistic streak is part of the crazy or part of the magic.”
Lisa stepped beside the armrest of the couch to move closer to the wall but her attention was drawn to the furniture itself. “Even if the report hadn’t said it, Johnny, Folsum wasn’t always crazy. It looks like he was successful as a contracted carpenter in Portland.”
He stared at the couch. “You mean the nice house and all.”
“Yeah. If you ignore the crumbs and the beer stains and the streaks of—what is that?”
“Cheeto dust, lady.” Rex licked his muzzle.
“Uh-oh, Johnny. Red flag right there. She’s never had Cheetos?”
“Neither have we.”
“Yeah, but I know ʼem when I smell ʼem.”
“Whatever he had on hand and he couldn’t be bothered to clean up,” Johnny muttered and ignored the canine peanut gallery. “On account of all his art.”
“Well, it certainly looks
like that took over at one point, yeah.” Lisa looked at the drawings pinned, tacked, and taped to the wall. “Anyone else would characterize this as obsessive behavior.”
“Ya think?”
“Johnny—look.” She pointed at one of the drawings in front of her. “There’s something else in this one.”
He took one step forward and squinted to study it more intently. “It looks like a person.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
“And there’s another one ʼbout two feet above the back of the couch. Dead center.”
Lisa climbed onto the sofa and held her arms out at her sides for balance so she wouldn’t have to touch anything unnecessarily. “That one?”
“Yep. The person’s bigger in that. Folsum ain’t one for details, is he?”
“The tunnels are more detailed than merely scribbles. That’s for sure. Hey, see if you can find any others with a person. Even only a silhouette like this.”
“All right.” Johnny marched across the floor but was careful to step over the piles of rotting food and crumpled paper towels the man had discarded before he simply used the couch instead.
The hounds watched their master cross the room dutifully but made no more smart-ass remarks.
“Yep. One right there.” The bounty hunter pointed at a large tunnel drawing tacked up too high for him to reach. “There’s no real detail. It looks like one of them shadowy figures in the paranormal flicks.”
“You mean Paranormal Activity?”
“Ain’t they all the same?”
With a shrug, Lisa hopped off the couch to approach him and examine it for herself. “Yep. And there’s another one way up high. None of them look any more detailed than the others.”
“This one has more.” Johnny pointed at a smaller drawing at the far-left side of the wall. “See the stone detail? And what’s that? Some kinda handrail? And a broken wooden sign behind it, maybe.”
“Truly?” She joined him to study the drawing. “Wow. Maybe he did have some talent.”
“Eh…I think that’s a fairly subjective assessment.” The dwarf sniffed and scowled at the images. “Everythin’ on this side looks like the inside of a pro’s sketchbook.”
