Laws of Nature -2 (22 page)

Investigating,
he told himself.
I'm investigating.
Yet it was ironic, Alan thought, that he was up here at all, traipsing around the woods at one o'clock in the morning in search of some evidence that Molly and Jack's story was true.

If he did not believe in it at all, he would never have come.

But if he truly
did
believe them . . . he would never have come, would never have had the courage to return to the forest around Buckton.

Now, as he pushed through the trees and the night sounds of the woods came to him, Alan found himself believing more and more and wondering if he should not go home, go back. Return again in the morning, when his imagination might not be so likely to run away with death and legends. In his present state of mind, filled with fear and wonder and curiosity, he was just as likely to see a windigo or some wood sprites as to find evidence that Prowlers existed.

It was more than fifteen minutes of brisk walking later, through trees and underbrush, that he emerged into the same clearing. He would never have been able to find it again, save that there were still trails in the woods, though not commonly used by hikers or teenagers these days. Both brands of forest-wanderers tended to stick more to the path most traveled.

It would have been much simpler to drive up there. The coroner's truck had made the trip up to the ruins of the old Bartleby place with only some damage to the shocks and suspension. Alan could have taken his cruiser over that same overgrown terrain. But that was not how the kids had done it, and he wanted to try to follow their trail as best he could.

There had been no dead monsters in the woods.

In an odd sort of way, he found that disappointing.

In the clearing, he first made his way to the ruins from which they had retrieved the girl's body. There was blood soaked into the ground there in the circle of police tape, but that would tell him nothing. The flashlight beam shone like a searchlight down upon the area around where her body had been discovered.

His breath caught in his throat.

There, upon a pile of shattered brick, was a tuft of fur.

Could be nothing. Just an animal. Any animal, really.

Mind struggling not to leap to conclusions, despite the dark influence of the night and the dread that began to build within him, Alan made a circuit of the clearing. Molly and Jack had said they had killed one of the Prowlers just at the edge of the clearing.

Alan smiled. Of course they had not admitted to owning the guns, but the implication was there that they had shot the creatures.

The flashlight beam cut a wide swath across the grass and brush, but there was nothing there. Three-quarters of the way around the clearing, and he had found nothing. Alan had begun to feel the tight knot of tension in his chest unraveling.

He did not know what was really going on around here, but to think it could be some kind of monsters was just . . .

"Ridiculous," he said aloud.

But his voice cracked and sounded absurd even to him. For in midthought, he had stumbled upon something. The flashlight beam caught a splash of something on the ground. Only a dozen feet from the place he had come into the clearing there was a broken tree branch, and beside it, a dark pool of blood soaking into the ground and the brush.

There was reddish fur there as well, little tufts of it on the grass.

Alan closed his eyes a moment, but when he opened them, though his flashlight beam wavered in his hand, the evidence was still there. Something had been killed on this spot. Something with fur. Something large, judging by the way the brush had been crushed beneath its weight.

Something glittered in the light and he bent to poke through the brush. He retrieved a shell casing from a shotgun.

Up this close, the blood was a deep crimson. Alan reached out to dip a finger into it. He raised it to his nose and inhaled, hoping it would prove to be something else, but the copper scent confirmed it. Blood.

It can't be true,
he thought.

But he knew, then, that it was.

Something shifted in the darkness behind him. Twigs snapped.

"You shouldn't've come up here again, Alan," growled a deep voice. "Should've left it alone."

The voice sent a shiver up his spine and everything inside him seemed to let go. The fear came up in him full force, and he was not even breathing as he turned around. Alan did not dare to lift his flashlight. He did not want to see more than the moon and stars would show him.

For that was terrifying enough.

It was rows of razor teeth, and eyes that seemed to glow in the starlight. The thing's muscles rippled under its fur, and it seemed almost to be mocking him.

"You could run, you know," the Prowler said almost kindly.

As if a switch had been thrown, Alan came alive. He spun around, dropping his light, and sprinted toward the edge of the clearing. His breathing sounded impossibly loud in his ears. He reached for the weapon at his belt, unsnapped the gun, and drew it from its holster.

He felt the thing's hot breath on his neck, heard it loping after him.

He would be killed.

Alan turned, raised his gun, and fired once as he fell.

Then the monster was on top of him, cracking his ribs. His throat was torn out in a single gulp and his blood fountained onto the scrub brush. Then his chest was opened and his heart ripped out.

Tina always felt small in John Tackett's office. When she was a girl, her father had visited Tackett from time to time, mostly to talk local politics. Boring talk, but Tina had been thrilled just to have her father take her along, and to have the sheriff 's office to explore. There was an antique globe in one corner, not far from the a table upon which the sheriff almost always had a vase of fresh flowers. Tackett's penchant for flowers had seemed odd to her, even as a child. She wondered if he kept them around because he enjoyed the scent, or if he felt it took some of the edge away from his status and demeanor.

For Sheriff Tackett's demeanor had always had an edge.

This morning that edge seemed to have been worn away.

"Tina, we'll get to the bottom of this. I promise we will," Sheriff Tackett told her.

His eyes were crystal blue sky, not a trace of tears, but the way his lips were pinched together beneath his thick mustache revealed the emotion roiling in him.

The rage and the grief. Or, at least, that was the way Tina interpreted his expression.

She saw herself reflected in his eyes, her hair a scraggly mess, eyes raw and red, mascara-stained tears on her face. Tina did not want to see that face, did not want to acknowledge her reflection. She closed her eyes tightly and more tears squeezed out to run down her cheeks. Though it was at least ninety degrees, she shivered and hugged herself tightly.

"Why'd it have to come to this?" she whispered, voice cracking with grief. "What the hell was he thinking, going up there by himself ?"

Tackett encircled her with his beefy arms. The aroma of his deodorant was strong and sweet and it gave her a little comfort, like cotton that had just been ironed. Her tears stained his shirt. Tina let out a long breath, coming to terms with the horrid truth of that morning.

Alan . . . her Alan . . . was dead.

He had never been a dynamic individual, but he was a good man, sweet and sincere, and he had loved her. Tina knew that as long as she lived, she would never really be able to forget the pain of the news of that morning, under the harsh sun. Sheriff Tackett had caught up with her outside the Inn.

That morning, when she went to assess the damage to the library, Lavinia Murray had been surprised to see Alan Vance's patrol car in the lot. After an hour or so with no sign of him, she had called the sheriff 's office. Tackett had immediately feared the worst, and a trip up to the ruins where they had arrested Jack and Molly the night before had led to the grisly discovery.

"It's not fair," she whispered.

Tackett gazed at her, a grim expression on his face. "No. No, it isn't. I've been to see Alan's mother already. You might want to go over there, now, Tina. She may need help making plans."

The edges of Tina's mouth lifted as if to smile, but the ache in her heart would not allow it to be truly born. She knew that the sheriff figured that she and Mrs.

Vance would both need to do some crying, and that they could lend each other support both needed. She also knew he wanted her out of his hair so he could continue his investigation.

"Thank you, Sheriff," she said, wiping at her eyes. There was a hollow place inside her, but she knew there was no going back.

The phone on his desk rang and Tackett gave it a hard look, as though he might shoot it. He gave her an apologetic shrug and went over to answer.

"What is it, Alice?" he asked. Alice Tyll was the department's receptionist.

As the sheriff listened, Tina began to wander around his office. He was a man who liked things neat and orderly, and yet that effort seemed to be undone by the number of knickknacks he had. Little antique picture frames, animals carved out of wood, and other odds and ends adorned the cabinets and bookshelves.

Tackett was an enigma, and always had been.

"Tell him he'll have to wait just a little longer," the sheriff muttered into the phone. "If you have to, tell him what's happened. Maybe he'll understand better. Just tell him to wait."

Tina let her fingers slide over the spines of the old books on the sheriff 's shelves. His taste in antiques included books, and she wondered if some of the things up there were first editions. They must have been worth a great deal of money, if they were.

Her fingers stopped on a cracked, leather-bound volume with no title on the spine. With a small frown, she slid it off the shelf. The cover was also blank.

Curious, she flipped the book open to find that it was handwritten in an elegant scrawl, the words all seeming to bend to one side as though in a breeze.

Tina recognized the penmanship, and a chill ran through her.

"Sheriff, what's this?" she asked.

He seemed not to have heard her. "No, Alice. Just tell him to . . . hold on." Tackett put a hand over the phone and glanced at her. "I'm sorry, Tina, I have a visitor I'm not going to be able to put off. Can you let yourself out?"

The sheriff was watching her closely, out of concern. She glanced again at the writing in the book, then closed it and reluctantly slipped it back onto the shelf, wishing she could have taken it with her. In her grief and rage over Alan's murder, nothing made sense to her anymore.

"Of course," she said. "I'll talk to you later."

"I'll call as soon as I have any new information."

Tina thanked him and left the office. She had parked in the lot behind the building, so she went out the rear door.

Less than a minute after Tina left, Tackett gave Alice the okay to let the visitor in. The man who stepped into his office was tall and broad-shouldered, rugged-looking in that needed-a-shave-two-days-ago sort of way.

"I'm Bill Cantwell, Sheriff. We spoke on the phone this morning. You've got some friends of mine locked up, and - "

"I know who you are, Cantwell. Saw you play for the Patriots ten or twelve years ago. You were good, but they lost too many yards to penalties from you roughing up the other teams," Tackett declared. "In case my receptionist didn't tell you, Mr. Cantwell, we've had a rough morning here."

"I heard about your deputy, Sheriff. You have my sympathies. But you're holding my friends in connection with some murders that I'm guessing are similar to what happened to your man last night. Which means they haven't done anything. They've been in jail all night and all morning, sir. I'd like to ask you to let them out now."

Every joint in Jack's body ached with an echo of the discomfort of the night before. It had taken him more than an hour to fall asleep on the torturously uncomfortable cot provided in his cell. His mood upon waking had been quite dark, but he did not blame the sheriff for his discomfort. It was jail, after all, not a hotel. But their predicament was worrisome, to say the least. While they lingered in jail, the monsters preying upon the people of Buckton still roamed the land.

The night before, Jack had used his one call to telephone the pub, only to have Courtney tell him Bill was already on the way. Ever since dawn, he had been waiting for Bill to arrive and get them cut loose somehow.

It was almost noon when Tackett came to let him out of his cell.

"You're free to go, Dwyer," the sheriff grumbled, eyes empty and gray as the sky just before a storm rolled in.

Jack wanted to ask why, but thought better of it. When the sheriff released Molly from her cell at the other end of the corridor, however, she had no such hesitation.

"There's been another killing, hasn't there?" she asked. "That's why you have to let us go."

The sheriff turned to her slowly, like the straight man in an old vaudeville act. It was unnerving to see, and for a moment, Jack thought he might hit her.

"Deputy Vance," Tackett said bluntly.

"Oh, no," Molly replied, a hand flying to cover her mouth. She turned to Jack, gaze weighted with guilt and sorrow.

For a second Jack thought she might offer condolences. He felt some obligation to do so himself. But in the back of his mind was the suspicion he had been nursing since the night before . . . that the sheriff himself was a Prowler. With that lurking in the back of his mind, he could not bring himself to offer any kind words at all to the man. Molly, too, kept silent, and he imagined her reasons were the same.

Sheriff Tackett walked the two of them up to the front of the building where Bill was waiting.

"Are you going home soon?" Tackett asked, glaring at them.

"Not sure," Jack replied.

"Come talk to me first if you plan to leave," the sheriff commanded. "I think you know more about what's really happening here than you're telling me . . . and not that crap about Prowlers, either. The real thing. If I thought I could make those weapons charges stick in court, I'd hold you here."