Night Terror (8 page)

“There’s bad people here.”

The voice faded to nothing on the last word.

Babs tried to make contact with the boy again, clamping her eyes tight, calling his name. When that failed, she tried to contact the original voice. But again there was no answer, and finally the sitting broke up. The ladies left one by one, expressing their concern for Doris, their assurances that the other side wasn’t so bad and that Doris wasn’t going there anyway, and their pleas to Virgil to check out the bike. Babs stayed long enough to explain to Doris about the mix-up. She didn’t claim to speak to heaven or hell and she didn’t know any
authentic
medium who could. She could only contact those souls that were still on this plane and had not yet crossed over into eternity. When everyone else was gone, Virgil sat on the edge of the bed holding Doris’s hand. He was shaken but didn’t want to show it.

“That worked out pretty well,” he said.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” said Doris. “Babs should have told me.”

Doris looked exhausted, but when she spoke again, some of her old fire returned to her eyes. “You go out right now and look for that bike.”

“Are you serious?”

“How could you not?”

For one thing, he’d feel stupid, wandering around in the dark down by that old bridge, on the word of a spirit out of the mouth of Babs St. Clair. “It’s getting late. I’ll go tomorrow.”

“You go tonight or you won’t get any sleep.”

“You mean you won’t let me get any.”

“That’s right.”

“What do you want me to do? Drag the creek by myself?” He thought of the sodden woods and the raging streams the year Timmy had disappeared.

“It hasn’t rained for diddly this spring. Likely that old creek is dry as a bone.”

“Maybe.”

“You heard that boy, Virgil. His soul can’t rest until you find his killer.”

“This is silly, Doris.”

“You won’t know until you look.”

He sighed so loud she blinked. “Why am I arguing?”

He picked up the sandwich tray, then went around blowing out all the candles the breeze hadn’t taken care of. He left the lamps out because, by the time he got back to the bedside, Doris was snoring lightly.

He kissed her forehead and left.

17

VIRGIL WONDERED WHAT KIND
of coincidence it was that the road leading to the old bridge was the same one on which he’d narrowly missed killing Cooder. As he passed the spot where the accident had almost occurred, the moon broke through the trees and, for just an instant, Virgil imagined that the razor of golden light off to his right
was
Cooder, come back again to wait for him.

What if Timmy’s bike was here?

No. That was too crazy to even contemplate. This was a fool’s errand and a waste of time. But at least it had gotten him out of the house. He’d have just spent the next few hours pacing, pretending to watch TV in the room adjoining the bedroom, waiting for Doris to call out in the night when her pain needed its next feeding. Nowadays Virgil slept mostly in his recliner, when he slept at all. Still, he couldn’t help but stare up the road, picturing Cooder there again, making his ominous pronouncement.

Crazy.

His headlights tunneled ahead as the trees flashed past, stoop-shouldered mourners along a funeral route. He spotted the outline of the bridge and pulled over, just short of the cracked and pitted old cement guardrail. When he slammed the car door shut, gunshot echoes slap-slapped away up the creek, and he pointed his flashlight toward the bridge.

The old structure was four car-lengths long, built during the Depression by government workers. Virgil hiked down the embankment through the tall grass, careful where he stepped. A rusted exhaust pipe slithered through the weeds like a jagged brown snake. Farther down toward the stream, a tire still clung to the rear axle from a long-forgotten vehicle. Virgil played the light over the creek bottom.

Doris was right. The creek bed was mostly dry. Only a narrow trickle of water flowed around widely spaced rocks. Virgil scrambled down the gravel banks of what would have been a roaring waterway during early spring runoff. He brushed off his pants legs and pointed the light back up under the bridge.

Time had sent cracks meandering across the cement face, and conspired with the elements to reveal ancient steel re-bar where a few chunks of concrete had fallen away into the creek. But overall the old bridge was in good shape, considering the decades it had sat alone, uncared for, facing Maine winters and summers. It was a concrete monument to a breed of men who no longer existed.

The trees were thicker on the other side of the road and they grew closer to the creek. The arch of the bridge seemed to continue forever up the dark, wandering stream, creating an ominous-looking cavern, and Virgil’s old aversion to shadowy, tight places sent a little surge of anxiety through him. This was stupid. If he was going to search the damned creek, he ought to at least do it in the daylight. How did Doris expect him to find anything in the dark?

He glanced back over his shoulder, deciding whether to go or to stay. It had been an easy slide down, but it would be a rough slog back up to his cruiser. Hell, he was here. Might as well look around.

He approached the bridge, shining the light on any place that might remotely have concealed a bike. There was plenty more refuse hidden up under the arch. There was even part of an old motorcycle frame, shoved way up tight where the concrete met the creek bank, but no bike, and he was glad to exit the other side of the bridge where at least the stars could break through. He really didn’t care for the feeling of the dark hulk hovering over him. He’d already made it twenty yards up the creek on the other side of the
bridge when it dawned on him that he was wasting his time going any farther.

The stream flowed the other way. If anyone had thrown anything into it, it would have been carried downstream. That was why there was less garbage the farther upstream he got from the bridge. He waded across the ankle-deep water and came back down the other side, shining the light up and down the slope. Of course, the bike might have been anywhere in the tall grass. If it was, the only hope of finding it was a long search in the daylight. He stopped for a moment, listening to the night sounds.

An owl hooted far off in the woods. To his left something rustled in the underbrush. Probably a raccoon or a porcupine. And of course there was the trickle of the tiny stream. He glanced overhead, but the stars were silent. Watching him on his fool’s errand.

He glanced up toward the road, but the embankment on this side of the bridge was much steeper, studded with large outcroppings of granite. He hunched his shoulders and hiked back beneath the bridge. Once again he was struck by an odd sense of being
caught
, the bridge pressing down on him. He shone the light quickly around the arch to force the gloom away, and once again he was glad to be out from under the old structure when he reached the far side.

Virgil turned to scrabble up the loose gravel bank. The flashlight twisted sideways in his hand and he froze, leaning against the slope. Through the trees along the bank he could see that twenty feet downstream, back in the underbrush, a flood had washed a stretch of rusted chicken wire into a thick stand of yearling pines. It hung there like an old fishing net laid outside to dry. Tangled in its web he could just make out the curve of a black bicycle tire.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

He pushed off from the bank, losing view of the wire, but never taking his eyes off the spot where he’d seen it. He approached the area with the trepidation of a hunter moving in close to a wounded animal’s lair, afraid of what might leap out at him from the darkness. When he pulled back a snarled mass of brush, his flashlight illuminated the enclosed area like a spotlight in an oven.

Hidden in the bracken was a boy’s bike. Virgil fought his
way through the undergrowth until he stood directly over the bicycle, staring down at it as though it was the first he had ever seen.

“Damn.”

The cycle was in surprisingly good condition, except for a little rust and two flat tires. Obviously the wire had caught it on this higher ground during that first spring when the rivers were all running high, and it had lain here protected in the trees ever since. There wasn’t a dented fender on it. The plastic grips on the handlebars still shone bright black in the light. No one had tossed this bike out because it was useless. Someone had thrown it in the creek so no one else would find it, just like Babs said.

Just like
someone
had said.

He trotted back to the cruiser and called the station. Birch answered.

“What’s up, Sheriff?”

“I found Timmy Merrill’s bike,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

“No way.”

“Yeah. I’m on Old High Road at the bridge over No Name Creek. I’m going to cordon off the area. I want you to start scavenging up a search party for tomorrow morning. Get hold of Martin over at Fish and Game and see if Bill Keens’ dogs are available.”

“You okay? You sound shook.”

“Just winded. Find out about the dogs.”

“You think the body is there somewhere?”

“No,” said Virgil. “But we need to search anyway. Maybe we can turn up some more evidence.”

“Right.”

Virgil got the crime-scene tape from the trunk and returned to the bike. He considered running tape across from the upper edge of the bridge to the tree line, but decided that would draw too much attention. The idea was to protect the scene, not to attract gawkers before he’d even had a chance to figure out what he’d found. He crashed his way through the underbrush, laying out a large circle around the chicken wire and bike, wrapping the tape around trees and branches until he had the area completely encircled.

Then he stood for a moment with his eyes closed, listening to the woods.

“Are you here, boy?” he whispered.

For some reason he felt certain that he would know if Timmy’s body lay close at hand, but he sensed nothing from the woods. Nothing except a growing heat in his chest every time he stared at the forlorn bike. It seemed like a deserted pet awaiting a master who would never return.

He climbed back to his cruiser and tossed the tape in the trunk, slamming the lid. Staring off up the road into the darkness, he began to wonder which promise he was going to keep: his promise to Doris, his promise to Rosie Merrill, or his promise to himself.

18

AS THE NIGHT WORE ON
toward dawn, dew began to glisten on the blades of tall grass, reflecting blue starlight. Silver-lined clouds scudded across the moon, sending predatory shadows creeping through the forest all around. A lone cricket chirruped in the underbrush. A woman slipped into the alders like a breath of wind. No twig snapped beneath her bare feet. No branch rustled against her cotton skirt. Every step was measured and sure. Graceful as a deer or a wolf. But furtive as a weasel on the prowl.

She reached the top of the saddle in the hills and studied the Bock house sitting silent below, a thin light visible in the kitchen window. The bedroom was dark.

The woman surveyed the area. The road in front of the house was empty, as it was most times of the day or night. Nothing moved in the yard. She saw no one in the trees, but still she waited, uncertain. She didn’t expect anyone to be awake at this hour, but she was stealthy by nature.

An owl hooted in the distance, a forlorn sound, full of portent. The woman carefully negotiated the steep slope, winding through the brush, stopping at the edge of the garden. She glanced at the fountain that sat still now, reflecting the intermittent starlight.

Then she slipped silently across the lawn like a mouse across a kitchen floor, hating the openness. She knelt beneath the bedroom window, her knees dug into the damp
grass, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness. Then ever so slowly she raised them to the windowsill, peering into the dim confines of the house.

Richard had his arm draped across Audrey. She slept quietly beneath the sheet, curled with her back tight against him, facing the window. One faint ray from the hall lit her face in sharp relief, like a Rembrandt painting. Her hair was pulled back, and, wrapped in the embrace of sleep, she seemed childlike and unafraid. The woman could not pull her eyes away. She needed to remember every shadow, every texture, every pore. Her fingers tightened on the sill, as though she were about to burrow her way through the wall itself.

As the moon peeked from behind a cloud, it shone at a soft angle on the woman’s face, erasing the wrinkles from her brow. In that instant, someone coming upon her in the backyard might have taken her for Audrey. Then the moon was gone again and age returned, along with grief. She glanced quickly around the bedroom.

Through the glass she heard a gasp and she jerked herself to her feet, scurrying across the backyard, ducking into the brush. Audrey’s shrieks tightened the muscles of the woman’s back as she rushed through the bracken to the top of the hill, turning just as the bedroom light flicked on.

She shouldn’t have come. She knew better. But she couldn’t stay away. It drove her mad being so close, being
almost
able to touch. She stood beside a tall spruce, invisible in the half-light, watching as first one and then two faces appeared at the window. They glanced in her direction, but she didn’t budge and the searching eyes moved on. Then the back-porch light came on, sending long shadows racing across the lawn toward her. When Richard stepped out onto the back stoop in his bathrobe, the woman melted away into the forest.

The grass was cool beneath Richard’s bare feet. He glanced around, but of course no one was in the yard. He was groggy from lack of sleep and trying to fight down his anger at Audrey for another night shattered. He didn’t know how much more he could take. But as he approached
the window, he saw the fear in Audrey’s face and his irritation melted. He waved at her and smiled, glancing around in what he hoped didn’t appear to be a comic rendition of a man on guard. She lifted the window and leaned out.

“I saw a face,” she said.

He nodded.

“I did,” she insisted. “I woke up and she was staring right at me.”

“She?”

“Yes.”

“What did she look like?” asked Richard.

Audrey bit her lip.

“Audrey?”

“Light hair. Gray, maybe. She was there and then she was gone.”

“Peeking in our bedroom window?” said Richard, trying desperately not to sound condescending. Audrey sounded confused, almost as though there was more she wanted to say but was afraid to.

“I saw what I saw, Richard!”

He moved closer to the window, glancing once more around the entire backyard, taking in the garden and the dark forest beyond. “There’s no one here now, Audrey. I’ll walk around the house just to be sure.”

“Be careful,” she said, closing the window and clicking the latch.

Sure. I’ll be on the lookout for some crazy gray-haired woman who might be lurking in the shadows. But he nodded at Audrey and walked dutifully around the house anyway. When he reached the front yard he halted. His eyes roved across the lawn toward the mailbox and suddenly a pang tore at his heart. He’d stood in this same spot a year before.

He’d rushed out of the house when he heard Audrey shriek, and ended up here, listening to her cries disappearing through the trees, trying to make sense of them, to tell where the hell she was or what she was doing. He knew instinctively it had to do with Zach. Only Zach could have caused such terror in her cries. Finally he’d found her when she broke out of the woods again, running up and down the gravel lane, Zach’s bat clutched to her breast, out of breath,
but still shrieking Zach’s name. He’d caught up to her and held her, trying to get sense out of her. What had she seen? Where was Zach? When he began to understand that she hadn’t
seen
anything, that she’d found the bat on the front lawn, some of the panic had eased and Richard had allowed himself a hint of hope. Maybe Zach had wandered into the woods. He was a boy. Boys did things like that. Only why wasn’t he answering?

But Audrey’s initial reaction had been the correct one. Someone had taken their son. And Zach wasn’t coming back. Richard had finally accepted that.

He pulled himself away from that dark place in his mind and continued his halfhearted search. If a woman had been hanging around the house, she’d hiked in. There was no car down the road or in the drive. He’d completed his circle and started up the back stoop toward the open kitchen door when a glint on the grass froze him in place.

It had to be a trick of the light, but, from this angle, footprints shone like quicksilver where moonlight caressed the flattened turf. Richard cocked his head, trying to get a better perspective. He could make out five, maybe six clear imprints crossing the lawn directly toward their bedroom window.

He stepped slowly back down onto the lawn, never taking his eyes off the ephemeral tracks. The closer he approached, the more tenuous they seemed. He knelt beside the clearest example and touched the flattened grass with his fingertips. He couldn’t believe it. Somebody
had
walked across the lawn. Someone with small feet, like a woman.

He stood and stared into the dark forest, squinting. The longer he watched the motionless woods, the less sure he became. He glanced back down at the flattened grass and wondered if he wasn’t letting his mind run away with him. For all he knew, Audrey had made the tracks the day she had her last seizure in the garden. Lord knew how she might have run around on the lawn. He
really
wanted to believe that.

But then why were there no other tracks? Why wasn’t the lawn covered with them? When he glanced back down at the tracks he noticed that the dew on the standing grass glistened, while the footprints seemed smudged dry. Was it
possible that
he
was starting to imagine things? The tracks seemed so real.

He turned back toward the window. Audrey stared raptly at him and he smiled at her, wiping the tracks away with his foot and heading back into the house.