August Moon (17 page)

“From the Galatians, we know we should ‘be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’” Pastor Meale pumped his fist with every syllable.

“It’s just a party!” a heckler yelled from behind me.

“And we got a drought!” someone seconded.

Pastor Meale yelled back, his neck veins popping. “‘He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap,’ Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, verse four!”
The feel of the crowd was dangerous. Those here for a good time, a reprieve from this dry summer and their long workdays, were growing agitated, but a fair number of people appeared shamed by the pastor’s words. I was wondering where Gary Wohnt was when I saw someone flip a lit cigarette from the crowd. It arced and landed on Naomi Meales’ lap, not five feet from me. I was the only one who appeared to notice it except for Pastor Meale, who flicked a glance at the thin wisp of smoke snaking up from her blanket, glared balefully at me, and then went back to yelling.

I waited for Mrs. Meale to spot the smoke, but like the rest of the crowd, she was transfixed by her husband. I was loath to put myself on center stage, but the cigarette had quickly burned a hole in the fleece lap quilt and was working on whatever layer she had underneath, whether that be skin or cloth. I jumped into the circle and ripped the quilt off her lap. The butt flew off with it, but I saw that the ember had already melted through her slacks, leaving a red mark on the skin of her undernourished thigh. “You’re burned!”

Naomi snatched the quilt from my hand and covered her legs up quickly. “I’m fine.” She looked back at her husband with fierce adoration.

“What?” Had she noticed that her leg had been on fire? “Your leg is burnt. You need to get some ice on it.”

“We’re fine.” Pastor Meale took his foot off the wheelchair and glared at me.

“I don’t think you are. Your wife’s leg is burnt. Someone accidentally threw a cigarette on it.”

The unintentional intermission the butt had caused woke the crowd from their reverie. They began to look around, at the masks in one hand and the beer in the other. A couple shook their heads (“If they were in charge of evolution, we’d still be monkeys,” I heard someone mutter), and all but a few hardcores turned back toward the maze and their friends and family.

“I said, we’re fine.”

“Shouldn’t you ask your wife if she’s fine?”

Naomi spoke without meeting my eyes. “For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does,’ 1 Corinthians 7:4.”

“What’s going on here?” Gary Wohnt elbowed his way next to me.

Pastor Meale dropped his angry expression and offered his hand. “Gary! Welcome!”

Gary shook it, turned back to me, and repeated himself. “What’s going on here?”

“Well, these two were picketing the festival, and I came to see what was up when I saw someone flick a cigarette that landed on Mrs. Meales’ lap. I brushed it off her, but wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“She is,” Pastor Meale said firmly. “And now, I think we’ll be on our way. I believe we’ve conveyed our message. If we can turn away one person from this ungodly exercise, we will have done our duty. Good day to you both.” He pushed his wife’s wheelchair toward the main entrance.

“You go to their church,” I said accusingly. He didn’t respond. “And
you’re
at the Festival. Don’t you see a conflict?”

“I’m on the clock.” He strode off toward the entrance of the maze.

For my part, I stared longingly at the keg of beer across the commons. If Weston hadn’t been waiting for me, I might have put my mouth to the hose. I settled for two Diet Cokes and a handful of salami-cream-cheese-and-pickle tubes and made my way back to the woods. We munched and talked and traveled around groups of people as the sun set and the air became bearable. I didn’t much like small talk, but Weston was good at it, as long as it was only with a few people at a time, so I played shadow. The highlight was when I caught a glimpse of Alicia Meale, who must have expertly avoided any run-ins with her parents, dressed like a Fly Girl and holding hands with a flop-haired brute. I smiled to myself, a titillating hunch taking shape in the back of my head.

When I heard the sounds of Not with My Horse warming up on the north side of the festival, I asked Weston if he was ready to brave the maze with me before the sun was completely off the horizon.

“Do you mind going without me? You know that guy I was talking to about the correlation between rainfall and mosquito reproduction? I told him I’d wait here for him. He had to run and pick up his girlfriend, and then he was going to finish telling me about a wood tick he pulled off his dog last week. Said it didn’t look like any other tick he’d ever seen.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not a problem. I’ll probably head home after I get through the maze. See you around?”

“Deal.” Weston squeezed my arm and then turned back to wait for the inside track on a wood tick, his fingers quivering in anticipation like he was playing little pianos at his side.

I strode firmly past the keg, grabbed an apple out of a bowl, and entered the maze. Most people had already gone through, so I was alone in the entrance space with only the play between the setting sun and burgeoning full moon for company. The first fork appeared at twenty feet, and I chose left. I followed that winding path for ten minutes before I realized it was a dead end. I could hear distant chatter and the squealing riffs of Not with My Horse’s opening number when I returned to my initial starting spot, choosing right this time.

The clean, peppery smell of corn tassels tickled my nose as I marched over the hay lining the ground. I considered for a moment turning back. It was going on full dark, and if the rising moon went behind a cloud, I wouldn’t be able to see. Glancing at the clear sky, I decided to continue on. If nothing else, I could yell for help if I got lost. But would anyone hear me over the cranking of the band?

My fingers trailed over the smooth leaves and rough stalks of the six-foot-tall, thick-as-thieves corn, and on a whim, I tried to bend one. It was like a steel rod. I didn’t know what sort of genetically modified corn went into making a maze, but it was solid. I gave a yank to the stalk, and the ground didn’t move. I couldn’t even push it far enough apart to squeeze through and cheat. I guess the only way out of the maze was to follow the paths. As I walked, the sound of the band grew louder. The techno-punk-country-fusion was painful to listen to, but it served as a beacon for the exit.

I took what I hoped was my last right when I was brought up short by a scream, long and shrill like an animal being butchered. It sounded close, maybe twenty feet straight ahead, and it turned my blood to ice. I rushed forward but met a wall of corn, planted so close together it felt like a bamboo jungle. I had to take a run at it to break through the first three layers with my shoulder, but behind it were just more layers.

I darted back and around, and then around again, searching frantically for a way to reach the scream. When I heard another shriek, this one so full of terror it made my stomach turn, I realized I was getting farther away, not closer. I raced back, and then left, and forward, and right, and forward, and right again. I was just about ready to scream myself when I saw a wide opening ahead, a lighter black then the corn walls surrounding me. I charged forward and stumbled out of the maze. Straight ahead was the stage, but most people were turned toward a sobbing teenage girl crumpled on the ground not far from the exit I had just ran out of.

“They took Lydia! They just grabbed her and pulled her out of the maze!”

Lydia, the bubble-nosed brunette
from Tom and Tina’s Taxidermy, Lucy’s friend and fellow cheerleader, was missing. According to her friend, Julie, two men dressed in black had jumped out of a corner on the forest side of the maze and dragged both teens to a hole whacked into one of the outside walls. Julie had escaped by biting the arm of her captor and running, but Lydia had not been so lucky.

As Julie sobbed inconsolably in the arms of a woman, a pall hung over the crowd, everyone thinking the same thing: Lydia was going to be shot in the back, just like Lucy Lebowski. Parents ushered their crying children away, and men and women exchanged worried glances before buzzing into action.

Someone called the state police, and a search party was forming out of the townspeople gathered around. I listened to all of this, feeling like one of those firecrackers that spins on the sidewalk, pointlessly shooting sparks. Instead of waiting for instruction, I took off around the east side of the corn maze until I spotted the hole. Gary Wohnt was already standing there with one of his deputies, and I cut into the hardwood forest on the maze’s perimeter before he spotted me.

I wished I had my flashlight and spider knife on me, but I would have to make do with the full moon and a big stick I kicked up. The woods were fairly cleaned out, which made walking easy, especially when I found the path Weston and I had been on earlier. I walked the path back toward the maze until I was about fifty feet south of the cut-out exit. I stepped in something sticky and looked down. Someone had spilled a large amount of liquid where the trees met the field, and they had done it after Weston and I passed over this spot. Two evenly spaced tracks ran through mud, each about two inches wide and half an inch deep. I stuck my fingers into the ooze and smelled it—water and dirt.

I backtracked on the path into the woods, searching for more clues. Trees loomed over me, casting long-limbed shadows. I felt like I was in another maze, only larger, and my senses were heightened by a blend of fear and anger. How dare someone terrorize the festival! Would another mother have to learn that her daughter was murdered, that nowhere was safe?

I had an idea that I’d keep going until I came out at the lakefront property in the hopes of finding some evidence of Lydia having been taken this way, but the deeper I walked, the less able I was to see amid the trees. I was about to turn around when a shaft of moonlight through the trees outlined a figure, maybe six feet tall, his arms out. He was headless. I froze, my heart knocking around in my chest. Was it Lydia, shot through the back and hung in the trees? Was it one of the kidnappers? I was too afraid to tear my eyes away. I opened my mouth to yell, but nothing came out. In the distance, I could hear the rumble of people shouting Lydia’s name, searching, agitated, but they were all too far away to help me.

I stayed, frozen to my spot, and a breeze rippled through the treetops. The form did not move. A larger gust blew, raising the arms of the figure. When the wind died, so did the arms. I stepped cautiously toward it and reached up. It was a dark, empty coat, caught in a branch. I pulled it down and felt inside. The pockets were empty and the interior was smooth except for a rip in the left shoulder. I forced my breathing to slow and relaxed ever so slightly. I scanned the immediate area and found nothing else.

I made my way back out the woods and straight to Gary Wohnt, who was still standing at the hole the girls had been dragged out of. He was taking notes and barking orders. When he took a breath, I said, “There’s something I want you to see.”

He raised his eyebrows but followed me without complaint, motioning to one of his deputies to finish assigning tasks. When we reached the tracks in the mud, I pointed.

“What?” He asked.

“Those tracks. See them? They’re the same tracks I found outside the Fortune Café after it was vandalized.” I had a theory forming in my head. The vandalism at the Fortune, Lucy Lebowski’s murder, and Lydia’s kidnapping were all connected, and I was working on an idea of who was behind it.

“Wagon tracks. They brought the kegs through here to avoid the crowds.”

“And the tracks at the Fortune?”

“Was the ground wet there, too?”

“No,” I said reluctantly. “It wasn’t. They were just faint tracks in the dry grass. But they were the exact same tracks that are right here. What made them?”

“I don’t know. Another wagon? Why didn’t you point them out to me when I was there?”

“It didn’t seem important then. It does now.”

“I don’t see how.” Gary abruptly turned on his heel and walked away.

We weren’t friends, but he had never been this dismissive of me. What was going on? I looked at the coat I had found in the woods, now draped over my shoulder. It was either navy blue or black. I looked at Gary’s retreating back, remembered him shaking hands with Pastor Meale as the pastor picketed the festival. I wasn’t sure any longer which team Gary was playing for. I would keep the coat to myself for now. I made my way back to my car. After a quick stop at home to grab my knife and flashlight, I was going to head directly to New Millennium Bible Camp.

___

The traffic was light. Almost everyone had stayed at Hershod’s, knowing they wouldn’t find Lydia there but unwilling to go home without trying to help. When I drove back past the corn maze, hundreds of flashlights bobbed in the night like fireflies, or the torches of villagers hunting a monster.

My radio wasn’t on. I needed to think, and the clean night air and buzzing bullfrogs were enough background sound. I knew in my gut that Robert, Alicia, and Naomi Meale were responsible for the vandalism, one dead girl, and one missing girl. The tracks I had seen outside the Fortune Café had been made by Naomi’s wheelchair, and they were the same tracks I had just seen at the corn maze. Lucy Lebowski’s body had been dumped in Clitherall, not far from the Bible Camp, and if it had been wet enough, I’m sure there would have been wheelchair tracks there, as well.

The two men in black Julie said had pulled her and Lydia out of the maze had actually been Robert and Alicia, I was sure of it. Naomi probably waited in the background while they did their dirty work, and then they piled the body on her and wheeled it away. I didn’t know why they had done it or how they had known the dead girls, but guessed it was related to the God’s Army they were forming. I needed proof, though. That’s what I was hoping to find at the Bible camp.

I turned on the gravel road leading to the New Millennium and continued on past the camp entrance, parking my car next to the Spitzer Lake public landing. I hoofed it back, my senses on alert for any sign of Lydia. The camp was dark. None of the six cabins had lights on inside, and the assembly hall was as black as a haunted house. The only spark I could see was a dim glow off the back of the Meales’ house. I scurried to the nearest cabin, my heart pounding in my ears, and crouched down. From here, I had a clear view of the central yard, a vast, moonlit sea separating me from the Meale house and the main hall. I was about to leave my safe spot and dart toward the house when I spotted someone lurking around the assembly hall.

I pressed myself to the cabin wall, a shrub partially obscuring me from view. The person was not much taller than me, and slightly stooped. He or she appeared to be heading toward the Meale house. I concentrated on making my heart stop hammering until the lurker was out of sight, and then I dashed across the open space separating the cabin from the assembly hall before my common sense had time to haul on its work clothes.

I crouched for a moment, catching my breath, and then slipped soundlessly around the moon-shaded side of the great hall and tiptoed toward the Meales’ house. At the end of the building, I peered around the corner and peed my pants a little when the shadow walked not twenty feet in front of me, looking over his shoulder back toward the house.

When he turned his face toward the moon, I saw it was Pastor Winter, sneaking around the Bible Camp. What could he possibly be looking for? Cribbing a sermon for tomorrow’s service? Searching for a kidnapped girl, like me? Or maybe hiding an abducted teen’s body, or planting evidence of a kidnapping? He scurried across the open grounds to one of the sheltering cabins, and then was out of sight. When I heard the distant rumble of a car starting, I prayed it was Pastor Winter heading out, and I gathered my resolve to take my turn spying on the dimly lit Meale house.

I walked lightly and low to the ground, avoiding the gravel so as not to make noise. My calves ached at the effort, and every sound, from the song of the bullfrogs in the slough to the snap of a branch in the woods, made my hackles quiver. When I was within twenty feet of the Meales’ house, I dropped into a crawl, my knife in hand. This close to the grass I could smell dryness and dirt, and the unwatered sod crackled under my hands and knees.

A light spilled out the back of the house, and I followed it around to Pastor and Mrs. Meales’ bedroom. Crouching under the lit window, I took a deep breath and slid up the side of house, facing in. Not for the first time in my life, I wished my forehead was smaller. If they were looking out, they’d have a full view of two inches of noggin before I could see them.

Fully erect, I was just able to peer over the sill. Pastor Meale was in bed, holding a Bible, a glass-shaded lamp casting a circle of yellow light around him. Next to him was a prostate form completely covered in a quilt. I assumed the body was Naomi, probably in bed early at her husband’s command. I continued around to Alicia’s window. Her room was dark, so I had to peer in for several minutes before my eyes adjusted. It looked like the bedroom was empty, so I took a risk and shone my flashlight around. The door was closed and the room was person-free. That was significant, but how, I didn’t know. Was Alicia somewhere, in charge of guarding Lydia? If so, where?

I crouched down onto my haunches, contemplating my next move. I considered searching the other buildings, but they were all open to the public and would be busy bright and early tomorrow, on a Sunday. I couldn’t imagine that the Meales would be foolish enough to hide a girl where she’d be certain to be discovered. There was only one logical place besides the Bible camp where the Meales could hide a body, and it was only a couple miles away: Naomi’s sister’s house on Hancock Lake. I shoved my knife into my waistband and jogged back to my car.

I was at the Toyota door in less than seven minutes. I was fairly certain no one had followed me, but I drove with only the light of the moon until I was back on the blacktop. I knew there was a minimum maintenance road that would take me directly to Hancock Lake, and after several missed attempts, I found it and bumped along. When I came out on the windy road adjacent to Sissy’s house, I sped up and turned right to reach Hancock Lake. I parked my car at the same spot near the lake where I had left it on my original visit and walked up to Golden Pond Road, knife once again in hand. I knew Les Pastner patrolled these woods, and it was better to be prepared.

I followed the perimeter of the woods, the lonely sound of an owl hooting overhead. I shivered. Night birds were worse luck than day birds. I was sure of it. When I reached Sissy’s driveway, the front kitchen window was ablaze in light. A figure inside zipped past the window, too quick for me to be certain who it was. I made my way closer, on guard for some more half-assed rope traps. My ankle burn from the first one was just starting to heal.

I stepped closer to the house. There was also a light on in the basement, coming out of those little half-windows high on basement walls. The yellow glow shone through the snowball bushes in front of the windows strangely, flickering and golden, and I wanted to get closer to peer in.

I was forced to cross an expanse of naked driveway to reach the house, though, and the moon barreled down like a headlight. I steeled myself and strode steadily to the house. I was fifteen feet from the basement window, the light strobing out, when the front screen door of the house crashed open.

“Who’s out there?”

An icy claw grabbed my heart and my feet. If I ran forward or sideways, I could hide in the woods. If I ran back, I could stay on the road and get to my car the quickest. My mind was agile, but my feet were leaden.

The ratchet of a shotgun being cocked came on the heels of the woman’s harsh voice. “Who are you?”

Her command broke through my fear, and I turned and beat cheeks. I ducked in the woods first, remembering a conversation I overheard between some hunters at the Turtle Stew. They said that if you zig-zagged from someone who was shooting at you instead of running straight, the shooter would only have a one in ten chance of actually hitting you. Even then, they would likely miss a vital organ. So I darted around trees, in and out of ditches, until my car was in sight. Then, I ran straight as an arrow, fumbling for my keys, so I had the car gunning before I was all the way sat down.