Slayer: A Horror Novel (Carver Book 3), page 14
“That’s because it’s my own little theory. Buy me another beer, and I’ll let y’all in on it.”
So we bought him one more.
I can’t say how much of what Arch spoke was true based on the fact he was on his way to drunk. He’d had three beers since we’d walked into The Joint, but then he’d had some empties in front of him when he was sitting at the bar waiting for us. I’d imagined he’d at least crushed a six-pack, and I would’ve bet he’d had a few more than that. Not to mention all the booze he probably sipped on during the day while on the job. Most likely had a flask he kept in his pocket or his desk drawer. Splash of whiskey in his coffee, a nip in the bathroom, another when no one was looking.
But then again, the file had said he was high-functioning. Not exactly something to be proud of, but in our case, we had to take him at his word. We had nothing else to go off on, really.
“Blackwood, he’s a mean motherfucker. I’ve been after him for years,” Arch said and drank from his beer, grimacing. “Can never get him for what I want to get him for. Mostly he just gets a slap on the wrist, lays low for a while, and then gets back up to his bad deeds a few months later. Doesn’t really matter, I think either. Because when he’s in custody or serving a short stint in county, the drugs keep flowing.”
“So he’s a local drug lord?” I asked, still humoring the sheriff.
“Something like that,” Arch said. “More like a local kingpin. We can’t touch him. But when someone goes missing, or some store gets torched to the ground or a car shot up, I, as a good officer of the law, gotta look into him, y’know?”
Harry and I nodded.
“So we find Ed smashed to bits in the middle of the road, who’s the first bastard I think to question?”
“Blackwood, right,” I said.
“Bingo. But he had an alibi at the time of the murders. Have him on tape at a strip joint in Leech County. Asshole was there for almost eight hours. Convenient.” Arch snarled, took another swig of beer. He raised a finger. “I know that bastard kills people. I can’t prove it yet, but people that associate with Blackwood usually end up in a ditch with a bullet in their heads.”
I lowered my voice. “I don’t know, Sheriff Arch. That seems a little out of our territory.”
“Drug kingpins? Maybe gang affiliated? Yeah, we weren’t trained for that,” Harry agreed.
“He ain’t mafia. He ain’t cartel. He’s just a wannabe. Tony Soprano with a few less teeth and a bigger gut.” Arch leaned back, exhaled. “This could be good. He might talk to you guys. People around here, they want their fifteen minutes, y’know? They want their fame. If he thinks y’all are big shot journalists, he might—”
“Kill us,” I finished.
Arch was nodding. “Yeah, that’s definitely a possibility, no doubt about that.”
“Man,” Harry said, “I don’t know about that.”
I said, “I really don’t think the guy selling drugs would have much to do with anything that’s been going on around here. If the Order is right, I mean.”
“Ah, you’re probably right.” Arch’s eyes lit with fire. “I just hate the bastard so much. I’d give anything to have him locked away for good.”
“We’ll keep him in mind. Now, with Blackwood on the back burner, where do we go from—?” I began.
A uniformed officer walked over and cleared his throat, cutting me off. He was young, younger than Harry and I, with a head full of curly reddish hair and a face full of redder pimples. The name tag above his badge read M. SWITCH.
“Excuse me, Sheriff, I don’t wanna bother you—”
“Spit it out, Switch.”
“Uh—well”—Officer Switch rubbed at the stubble beneath his chin, orange and Velcro length, and bounced from foot to foot—“there’s been another one.”
“Another what? Attack?”
If Arch had seemed somewhat drunk before, he was stone-cold sober now.
“No, sir,” Officer Switch said, “a murder.”
CHAPTER 13
MURDER
Arch shot up, knocking over the empty bottles in front of him with a clatter.
“Where at?”
Officer Switch replied, “Heart Way. Double homicide.”
“Fuck me. How?”
“Not sure yet. It just got called in. Figured you’d want to be there.”
“Figured right.” Arch pointed at Harry and I. “You guys meet us out there, all right? Go down Main about two miles and then take a left at the light. You’ll see the trailer park. Bring your researcher too.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, getting up.
Arch and Switch bounded across the bar toward the exit, and we followed after them. I put two twenties on the counter for the bartender. “Keep it,” I told her, and then we were out into the dusk. It was still hot and humid. Felt slightly smothering.
“I’ll drive. You call Annette,” Harry said, so I climbed into the passenger’s side just as two cruisers peeled out of the lot. Harry got in, fired up the engine, and, following suit, also peeled out of the lot.
Well, peeling out in a stock Camry wasn’t exactly peeling out, but you probably catch my drift.
I called Annette.
She answered with annoyance in her voice. That meant she must’ve been reading, doing her research.
“Another murder,” I said. “Someplace called Heart Way.”
The annoyed tone evaporated. “Are you going out there?”
“We are. Following the sheriff now. We’ll swing by and get you.”
“Okay.”
“How’s the research g—?”
She hung up. I shook my head. A few minutes later, she was in the back with a small pile of books and notes. Her eyes were on their way to bloodshot.
“Blink, Annette,” I told her.
“Huh?” She never looked up.
Harry took a left corner too fast to get us back on Main, and I had a sickening image of the car standing on two of its side wheels.
“She’ll figure out a way. She always does,” Harry said.
Another corner. Another image of the Camry barrel-rolling across the two-lane blacktop.
“You know,” I said, “you would get along pretty well with Zeke.”
“That corpse-of-Clint-Eastwood-looking motherfucker with the cool car?”
“Yeah, that’d be him.” I chuckled. Corpse of anything hit it right on the head. “He drives a lot like you do.”
“Can you blame me? There’s been a double murder. We ain’t got time to waste, man. Look at Arch, he hauled ass outta The Joint.”
That he had.
“He’s also about ten beers deep,” I said. “No good judgment there.”
“Decent enough point.”
The way Harry was hauling ass, we got to Heart Way Trailer Park about five minutes later. The trailer park was actually pretty nice compared to the other trailer parks I’d seen in my life. I didn’t smell anything besides the distant scent of fresh cut grass. The trailers were in good shape. Most of them were painted colors you’d expect to see in South Beach, Miami. Pinks and ocean blues and pastel greens. Vintage-looking.
Even the roads leading to the various homes were freshly paved and made for a smooth ride. There was a large man-made pond in the heart of Heart Way. A circular sidewalk went around the entirety of the pond, reminding me of a concrete gym track. White benches were set around it every thirty or so feet. On a warm evening like tonight, I imagined it would be pretty busy, full of dog walkers and couples out on strolls, maybe a few people feeding the ducks. But from what I could see now, it wasn’t. Any evening strollers had probably been drawn to the flashing police lights that now lit up the narrow streets between trailers.
There were three cruisers there. My stomach, which already felt loose at the prospect of seeing a pair of dead people, roiled.
“Showtime,” Harry said, parking the car on the other side of the road.
“Yeah…showtime,” I said.
“You guys are weird,” Annette said.
A female officer I hadn’t met yet held up a hand as we approached and told us to go back with all the rest of the onlookers. I now saw on the opposite side of the trailer a group of people trying to crane their necks around Officer Switch, who was busily putting up yellow police tape, forming a perimeter.
“They’re with me, Margie,” Arch said.
“Sheriff Arch, this is Annette Greene,” I said. “Our researcher.”
“Nice to meet you, young lady.” He nodded at Margie. “These three here are outside help. Let them in once they got their gear on.”
Margie said, “Yes, sir.”
We got our gear on, same as Arch, gloves and shoe covers, and went into the trailer. Harry first, then Annette, and me bringing up the rear.
Right away, as we mounted the two steps into the door, we were hit with a terrible stench.
Harry suddenly turned around and gagged. “Nope, sorry,” he said, pushing past Annette and me. “Can’t do it.”
“Harry,” I said.
“Nah, man. Can’t. Sorry.”
Annette said, “It’s all right.”
Arch chuckled humorlessly from the small living room. “First body, huh?”
I shrugged.
“C’mon, through here. And don’t touch a damn thing if you can help it, got it?”
I followed, covering my mouth and nose with my sleeve.
There was the sound of a camera shutter snapping, the intermittent burst of the flash.
The bodies were in the kitchen. I saw the pool of dark blood on the black and white checked tile as I turned the corner, and my stomach clenched.
I slowed a little, but Annette realized it and turned and grabbed my hand. Her feet dragged the last few steps it took to get a good look at the grisly scene.
And it was grisly.
The first body, the one from which the pool of blood had mostly come, was situated in the middle of the kitchen. A young woman by the look of her, but that wasn’t definitive because her face had been smashed in along with the upper half of her body. She looked like roadkill.
I couldn’t see the other person’s face. Could only see him from the neck down because the guy’s head was closed up in the oven. The small glass window was spattered red from the inside.
“God Lord Almighty,” Arch said.
A swarm of flies encircled the bodies, and when I noticed the maggots squirming on the floor and in the blood, pulsing and fat, my insides hitched. Annette’s must’ve as well. She pushed past me back the way we had come, her hand clamped over her mouth, her cheeks almost comically full. She banged against the storm door. There was a hollow metallic clink, and then I heard the echo of her vomit splashing against the paved road.
“Can’t blame her,” Arch said.
I focused on the sheriff’s face, on his salt-and-pepper stubble, on the tiny fingernail-shaped scar on the bridge of his nose, on the sheen of his eyes. I did it so I could focus on anything but the bodies.
“Her first time too,” I said. “Probably.”
“Lord have mercy on her.”
“Yeah.”
Arch nodded and then had a conversation with one of the uniformed officers nearby and the guy taking pictures. I listened to most of it—“Who found ‘em? How long they been dead, you think? No one touched nothing, did they?” and so on—but I didn’t really hear it. Without anything of note to look at, my eyes drifted back to the scene.
The Order was right. This had to be supernatural. Because a regular person shouldn’t have been capable of performing such an act.
Of course, I knew someone could, but seeing it, being just a few feet away…it was hard to accept. Still is today.
Annette came back, wiping the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.
“Feel better?” I asked.
“Much.”
Arch said, “Good news. My guy says these two been dead at least since the early morning. Since y’all just got here today, you’re in the clear.”
My eyes widened. “What? Really?”
“Well, yeah. Newcomers in town. Trying to insert yourselves in the investigation.” He shrugged. “You never know.”
I blinked, unsure of what to say.
Then he gave me a friendly elbow and laughed. “Lighten up, Carver. It’s like a murder scene in here or something.”
Gallows humor. Wonderful. No one laughed, but Arch clapped his hands.
“All right. Down to business. You two, outta here.” He motioned to the photographer and the other officer. “Let us work in peace.”
“Sir?” the officer said.
“Ya heard me, Getz.”
Reluctantly, they left, and it was just the three of us inside with the bodies. “That might look a little suspicious,” Annette said.
“Nah. My boys know me. Plus, I don’t wanna put y’all on the spot here in front of them. I think it’s pretty obvious what happened.”
Was it? Now that I wasn’t so sure about.
“So, go on. Tell me,” Arch said. “What happened? Like I said, y’all must be good. So, show me.”
Silence.
I cleared my throat. “Two people are dead.”
“Good job, Carver.” Arch reached into his pocket and pulled out nothing. “Ah, shucks. Left my gold star stickers in my other pants.” He snorted. “C’mon, really tell me what you see.”
“Well…” Annette said as she sidestepped around the sheriff. “The woman on the floor, she was crushed. And judging by the smear of blood on the refrigerator and the dents, there’s your murder weapon.”
“Not necessarily,” Arch said. “Boxes like these, they’re pretty damn heavy. Probably around three hundred to four hundred pounds. It’d take a strong fella to move that.”
“Or multiple fellas,” I said.
“That too. But then the question is…what, y’all?”
“Why go through all the trouble of lifting it back up and not wiping the blood off?” Annette said.
“Bingo, doll.” Annette bristled at that, but Arch caught on and quickly apologized. “Sorry. Too much of my South is showing.”
Which I thought sounded oddly worse.
“Maybe they got spooked. Heard this guy coming in,” I said, pointing to the victim in the oven. “They get in a fight, and then…that happens.”
Arch sawed a finger across his neck. “Head’s still in there, believe it or not.”
“I’ll, uh, take your word for it,” I said.
“And if there was a fight—” Annette said.
“There would be signs of a struggle,” I finished. “Broken pictures and dishes, flipped-over furniture, that sort of thing. People would’ve heard it and called the cops.”
“Not totally true,” Arch said, his hands in his pockets. “‘Round here, there’s a lot of disturbances. It might look nice, but it’s still a trailer park. Lot of shady shit going on. People don’t wanna snitch. Looks bad, y’know? I like to think Channel Falls is close-knit, but when it comes to the boys in blue—well, beige—the seedier parts of town don’t show much appreciation. Someone hears a fight happening or maybe the loud bang of a Frigidaire falling over, it ain’t the end of the world. Nothing too out of the ordinary. As long as you mind your own business, you’ll be fine. See, you don’t know who exactly you’d be calling the cops on. Could be some of Blackwood’s guys. And people fear that prick.”
“So no one reported any disturbances?” I said.
“Not any within the last two days, no. Not even in the last five days. I already got my guys going around asking questions. But like I said, no one wants to snitch.”
“They’re pretty spaced out,” Annette said. “The trailers. You don’t see that often.”
“Yeah,” Arch agreed.
“Do we know who they are?” I asked, motioning a hand to the bodies. My mind was ready to match whatever names Arch said to those in the file we’d gotten from the Order, and if one had slipped through the cracks in my memory, Annette would have had my back, being the Index of the group (and basically a human Rolodex).
“The fella’s name is Brendan Fletcher, or ‘Fletch’ to his buddies. Real piece of work. We run him in about once a year for some minor offense. Drunk and disorderly, DUI, harassment, domestic violence. This is his trailer. The girl, I don’t know. Not in her current state. No purse or wallet in sight. Probably from another town.”
“Killer took her wallet?” Annette said.
“Could be, but I’m betting it was whoever found ‘em.” Arch’s eyebrows raised to his hat. “Like I said, shady people ‘round here. We’ll figure that out soon enough.”
I thought the young woman’s own mother wouldn’t have recognized her like this. I didn’t say that, though, because we all knew it. Her head looked like a watermelon that had been dropped from a ten-story building.
“We’re talking to Fletcher’s buddies to see if he was seeing anyone regularly,” Arch said.
It was all so weird. The first theory that came to mind when I saw the bodies was a murder-suicide, but the longer I looked at the scene, the stranger it got. It couldn’t have been a murder-suicide.
For one, I thought it was impossible for someone to do what Fletcher had done to himself in the oven door. For two, the refrigerator was most likely the item used to kill the woman despite her face looking like she had gotten blasted with a shotgun.
Who would have stood the fridge back upright? Fletcher? And then, had he really decapitated himself with the oven door? I doubted it because it wasn’t an easy job. Not quick and clean. Your mind wouldn’t let you. It was like how our jaw muscles possess enough power to shatter our own teeth, but our brains would never use that power. Not without outside influence.
Could Fletcher have been on drugs? Some crazy meth or PCP that basically took over and wiped away any notion of pain? In Channel Falls, that was possible. Hell, it was possible all over the world.
Was it likely?
That was the real question.
Of course, if you asked that, you had to ask if this being supernatural was likely as well, and the short answer to any normal person, was no.
“But,” Arch was saying, “this is in line with the other murders.” He took off his hat and slicked back the little hair he had left against his scalp. “Christ, what’s that now, six? All under my nose too. Some sheriff I am. Feds’ll be back before I know it.”
