Footprints of a Dancer (Detective Elliot Mystery) (22 page)

“Ever since I’ve been here, going on seven years now would be about right. Are you family or something?”

“No, just an old acquaintance.”

As if acknowledging Elliot’s presence, Stephens raised one of his hands slightly from the arm of the chair.

“The way I understand it,” the attendant said, “I’m the closest thing he’s got to family. Like I said, he comes around, not so much anymore, but we talk now and then, he tells me things.”

“What kind of things?”

Stephens made an effort to move, his actions becoming somewhat successful as he reached from the wheelchair and grasped his attendant’s hand.

“Would you look at that,” the man said. He leaned close to Stephens. “He wants to know who you are. I understand you told me already, but he wasn’t listening, know what I’m saying?”

“The name’s Elliot. I attended school at the university while you were teaching there.”

“Student?”

Surprise showed on the aide’s face. The word had come from Stephens.

“Not exactly,” Elliot said. Of course he’d been a student at the university, but Stephens was talking about students who had taken his classes. “I knew Angela Gardner,” Elliot continued. “She told me about your classes.”

Stephens raised his head, some of the haze clearing from his eyes, his recognition of Elliot now showing on his face.

“What happened to Corey Sherman, Professor Stephens, and the rest of those people who lived on your property?”

Elliot didn’t like being so blunt, but it was why he’d come to Woodland Estates, and the question needed to be asked.

A tremor started in Stephens’ neck and worked its way to his feet. He freed his hand from the attendant’s and began to slap the arm of the wheelchair. “Don’t touch the knife. Don’t touch the knife.”

The man rubbed Stephens’ shoulders. “It’s all right, now. Everything’s all right.” To Elliot he said, “Maybe you ought to get on out of here. It ain’t good for the Professor to get all worked up.”

The attendant seemed like a good man and Elliot didn’t want to make life hard for him, but he had a job to do. “You’ve shouldered the burden long enough, Professor Stephens. Tell me what happened while you were teaching at the university.”

The aide came from behind the wheelchair and started toward Elliot, shaking his head.

Elliot showed his badge. It seemed the only way.

The man examined the identification and backed away.

Elliot unbuttoned his jacket exposing the Glock hanging in the shoulder holster, an old interrogation habit. It was possible Stephens had something to do with the missing drifters in Stillwater, but it was a pretty sure bet he hadn’t killed anybody in Tulsa. “Whatever you let loose eight years ago has found a way to come back, Stephens. If you know how to stop it, or corral it in anyway, please tell me.”

Stephens opened and closed his mouth, like some kind of demented fish, though he could not speak, and when he’d managed to regain a small amount of control, he squeezed out one word and said “Reynolds.”

Elliot leaned closer to Professor Stephens. “Are you talking about Stanley Gerald Reynolds who wrote for the school newspaper?”

Stephens slumped over, his head hanging nearly to his chest. The nurse shook his head. “The professor’s gone back to wherever it is he goes.”

“How long will it last?”

“Hard to say. Could be hours, could be days. The fellow he mentioned, though, I’m pretty sure he’s some kind of kin. He talks about him. I gather there was some kind of dispute, something bad enough to tear the family apart. That’s why nobody comes to see him, the way I see it. This Reynolds he keeps talking about, you know the man?”

“He was Stephens’ nephew.”

“I see. You know I hate to pry into other people’s business, but with Mr. Stephens being under my care and all, I’d sure appreciate knowing what brought you here.”

Elliot glanced at the floor. The man had been cooperative, allowing the questioning of his patient. Answering his question was only fair. “Something odd went down a few years ago in Stillwater while Stephens was teaching at the university, people gone missing, that sort of thing. I suspect Stephens knows something about it.”

“I’m not an educated man,” the attendant said, “but I know people. It’s something God gave me. The professor here, he’s sure enough got some problems, but he’s not a bad person. No, sir, I can’t see him killing nobody. You find this Reynolds fellow he keeps talking about and maybe you get some answers.”

Elliot thanked the attendant for his time and cooperation then turned and walked away. The man’s advice carried an element of logic, but as Elliot left the senior living center, he began to entertain a line of reasoning. The commonality linking the murders was not the killer himself, or herself, but the type of victim and the manner in which their lives had been taken. Laura Bradford had known that as well, and her understanding of the problem had drawn her to Stillwater.

Elliot grabbed his phone. He had a hard time understanding how someone like Detective Ryan, who had been, at least on some level, a kind and caring person, could have taken his own life. However, suicide by its nature would involve some level of premeditation. Ryan had made sure David Stephens would be taken care of. It was possible, after Elliot had showed him the remains that he’d done the right thing and contacted Laura Bradford’s next of kin as well.

Elliot called Sergeant Westlake and explained the problem. A few minutes later, Westlake gave him the name of Nathaniel Parker, Laura Bradford’s grandfather. The address was in Spiro, Oklahoma.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The address in Spiro turned out to be an old singlewide on Dogwood Street. A tall Native American with long, grey hair stood on a small wooden deck attached to the mobile home.

At the foot of the steps leading to the deck Elliot stopped and said, “The name’s Elliot. I called earlier. I’m looking for Nathaniel Parker.”

He smiled. “It looks like you’ve found him.”

He invited Elliot inside, and once they were seated, he said, “I spoke with Detective Ryan yesterday. He told me you were the one who found my granddaughter and called the police. It was a good thing you did.”

Elliot started to speak but nothing seemed appropriate, so he just nodded, a gesture that was also insufficient to express his feelings.

“I have a question,” Nathaniel Parker said. “You seem like a nice person, but not so much that you would drive to Spiro just to offer your condolences to an old man who you don’t even know. Why are you here, Mr. Elliot?”

Elliot leaned forward in the chair, a brown leather model with wagon wheels on the sides. “I knew your granddaughter while she was in Stillwater, long enough for us to become friends.”

Mr. Parker nodded. “She was like that.”

“Yes. She also gave me the impression she’d come to the school for a reason, something more significant than hanging out with a bunch of college kids. When she stopped coming around, we were all curious as to why she might leave without saying anything, but we didn’t take it any further. I’m sorry. We should have done more.”

“Did you suspect at the time that she might be in danger?”

Elliot shook his head. “Although, looking back, it’s difficult to understand why I wasn’t more concerned.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. If what you say is true, you did not know what had befallen Laura.”

Elliot sat back in the chair. Nathaniel Parker was much like his granddaughter, possessing a mysterious yet kind and respectful nature that gave him the resonance of an old friend. Elliot told him everything, beginning with what happened in Stillwater while Laura was there, and ending with what had transpired since Gerald called him a few days ago. He didn’t skirt the issue of murder, and unlike the abridged version he’d given to Dombrowski, this account held back nothing.

Mr. Parker’s dark eyes studied Elliot. Later he said, “You should let go of the guilt. You were young and did not know.”

“That’s good advice. But I’m not very good at letting things go.”

“Tenacity is a good character trait for a police detective. It’s also part of why you are here.”

“I checked the records. Laura wasn’t a student. The content of an article published in the school paper concerning the drifters drew her to Stillwater, but she could have known something, picked up on a part of the article the casual reader would not have. Do you know why your granddaughter went to Stillwater, Mr. Parker?”

Nathaniel Parker leaned over and switched on a lamp, sending a soft glow across the room, not enough to eliminate the darkness created by heavy shaded windows, but sufficient for a commingling, a tolerable dilution, like a campfire in a dark wood. “Do you believe in God, Mr. Elliot?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good. I’ve been a member of Oakwood Baptist Church here in town for more than twenty years. I also remember and respect the ways of my people. We all have darkness in our hearts, some more than others. I used to wonder if agrarian societies bred superstition, you know, like the book by Stephen King,
Children of the Corn
, I think it was.”

Elliot smiled. It was difficult to imagine Mr. Parker kicking back in an easy chair and reading horror novels.

“But I finally decided it was more a matter of time.”

“Come again?”

“I think it’s why my people hold in such high esteem the balance of nature and the sanctity of the hunt. When having to use the bulk of your faculties just for survival, a certain purity of the soul results. It’s when we have the time to sit around and think about what we are doing that we get ourselves into trouble.”

“I’ve never heard it put that way before,” Elliot said, “but the concept carries a fair amount of logic.”

“You have a strong spiritual nature, Detective Elliot. This is the impression you give me. But it causes you discomfort because you don’t understand it. You lean toward the pragmatic world in which you live, but your spiritual gift refuses to relinquish its hold. Laura was like that, too, and she cared for our culture, a rare quality for someone as young as she was.”

“You have a gift as well, Mr. Parker. You look inside people and understand them.”

Laura’s grandfather smiled. “Let me tell you a story. Long ago, even before the white man, a stranger came to a village of my ancestors. He tricked them by saying he was lost and hungry. In truth, he was an outcast, an evil shape-shifter, driven from his homeland by his own people. This was found out later. As it was, he came to live among the villagers who took him in.

“As time passed, being clever and deceitful, the stranger convinced many of the villagers he had power and would make a good religious leader. He promised he would bring prosperity and much food. He gained many followers who fell under his spell and were blinded to his true nature. Soon he began to hold ceremonies in secret, where he and his followers would offer blood sacrifices, cutting out the hearts of prisoners from other villages with an obsidian blade. Carved into the handle was the likeness of his god.

“This angered and troubled the elders, so they held council and decided the visitor should be made to leave the village. Having been around the people, though, the stranger had many followers and he refused.

“Soon the skies dried up and the crops began to wither. The elders knew it was because of the stranger and the bad things he did. Again they held council, and this time they prayed to the spirits of their ancestors so they might help them.

“The next day, a princess came to the village and said she would help the elders with their problem if they would promise to leave food for her on occasion in the forest where she lived. The elders agreed they would do this.

“When night came, the princess caught the eye of the stranger and she lay with him. When he was asleep, she took the knife with the blade of obsidian and killed him with it.

“Early the next morning, the princess was gone, and before anyone else awoke, the elders took the body of the stranger and sealed it along with the knife in a tomb on which they put a curse so no one would open it.”

A knot formed in Elliot’s stomach as he thought of Gerald and his obsession with Native American artifacts. “Would the tomb happen to be what is now called the Spiro Mounds?”

“Yes, that is the story as it has come down to me.”

“The mounds were reopened in the 1930’s.”

“Yes. By the white man.”

“What does any of this have to do with Laura, Mr. Parker?”

Nathaniel Parker’s eyes looked as distant as the time period of which he spoke. “Do you believe in genetic memory, Detective?”

“I never gave it much thought.”

“Even as a child, Laura would ask me about the legend. I would say it was an obsession, but it goes deeper than that. Laura knew the desire of our ancestors to put an end to the curse. She was wise,” he said, “and knew things her years should not support. She told me of a vision she had, and its meaning was clear to her. The visitor, who had long ago brought trouble to our people, had been possessed by a darkness that did not die with him. It had been imprisoned in the tomb, but was set free when the tomb was breached.

“The next morning, I found her room cleaned and her bed nicely made, but Laura was gone. The note she left said only that it was time for her to be on her own, and that I should respect her wishes and not try to follow her. She said she loved me and she would be back some day. It wasn’t until yesterday that I learned what had happened to her. I always knew, though. I think I knew.”

Elliot took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The rhythm and cadence of Nathaniel Parker’s words had him mesmerized. “Thank you,” he said, “for sharing the story with me. I know it must be hard for you.”

“The job you keep carries honor, though many in such positions are not honorable people. With this case, you lack the support of your superiors and even, or so it sounds, those close to you, and yet you sacrifice your time and the respect of those who do not understand in order to continue your mission. Simply having the ability and the strength to impose your will does not make you a warrior. There are those who stand tall among their nations because they refuse to lose dignity and humanity for the sake of vague ideals. These are the true warriors of the world. You and I, Detective Elliot, we are warriors.