Sacrifice (13 page)

Ken smiled at the woman, whose brass badge said “M. Childress”. She returned a disapproving scowl. Ken immediately knew that a direct set of questions wouldn’t be worth a damn. He browsed the displays in the hope that a feigned interest would score some points.

The collection of relics was surprisingly good. Ken focused on the Colonial period section. If the Woodsman’s clothing betrayed his origins, he’d be from the 1700s. There were scrimshawed whalebone pipes from the unreal era when whales swam in Long Island Sound. There were tools and clothing and tarnished silverware with designs too intricate to reproduce today. Each item had a card next to it that read something like:

Silver Tongue Scraper

1750s

On loan from Mrs. Miles Wentworth

Though some artifacts had estimated vintages, there was no doubt about any of the items’ provenances. Each one listed an owner and all were “on loan”. If the museum folded, the village elite weren’t about to sacrifice their keepsakes.

The bottom shelf of one cabinet held an interesting book. It was bound in leather, and the title was hand stamped in gold on the cover and spine:

A Century of Sagebrook History

1690-1790

Cracks crisscrossed the cover, and the edges of the hand-cut pages were uneven as an Escher staircase. The book promised some answers if the grim-faced witch in the back would let Ken read it. The cabinet’s rear sliding door had no lock. Ken would have gone for it if he hadn’t felt Ms. Childress’ eyes burning a hole in his back.

He continued his casual perusal of the museum and ended in front of the matron in charge. She looked up from her copy of the
Sagebrook Standard
. He flashed a big grin. She grimaced.

“I’m doing some research on Sagebrook’s history,” Ken said.

“Really?” Ms. Childress said. She raised her nose an inch as she said it. “Why?”

Ken didn’t have an answer. What museum guide ever questioned a visitor’s motive? They were usually just happy someone had an interest in their dusty doodads. With days left before graduation, he sure couldn’t say it was for a history class.

“Eagle Scout project,” Ken said. Damn, he didn’t even know anyone who was a Boy Scout, much less what an Eagle Scout project was. He’d just seen a plaque about doing one on a park bench.

“Really?” the woman said. Some of the tension eased from her face. “My Richard was an Eagle Scout. What’s your project?”

Ken wondered how he rated this inquisition that just kept burying him deeper.

“It’s a study of the impact of the founding families of Sagebrook,” Ken said. “How the generations made the town what it is today.” He pasted on a nervous smile and hoped he hadn’t spread it on too thick.

She broke into what for her passed as a pleasant face. “You’ll find that the founders continue to be the backbone of this community. We’ve…they’ve really made Sagebrook special.”

Ken gave the ball another push while it was rolling.

“The library is pretty sparse on local history. I noticed a book in the display case…”

“Oh no,” Ms. Childress said. Her face betrayed an alarm out of proportion with the request. “That book is far too fragile. It is only for display.”

Ms. Childress stood. The bottom of her skirt brushed the floor. She pointed to the rear wall with a flourish. “We have quite a collection of research materials, some published by the families themselves.”

Ken approached the wall. Many of the books were decades old and in far worse condition than the old text in the display case. Some of the books were ledgers and records from old businesses. He recognized a dozen volumes with “Abernathy Hardware” on the edge and dates from the Civil War. A collection of every local high school yearbook since 1926 had a shelf to itself. A number of other texts looked like long out of print local histories.

Ms. Childress returned to her desk.

One book on the shelf lay across the top of the rest, as if shoved there in haste. It was a thick volume with a black leather binding. White letters on the spine read
The Tree
.

Ken caught his breath. He remembered his dream about the tree on the hill. There was no way this was a coincidence. He shot a glance over his shoulder. Ms. Childress was engrossed in
The Standard
.

He slipped the hefty book from the shelf and cradled it in one hand. From the rough cut of the edges and the different textures of the pages, it appeared that they had been bound together at some later date. He opened it to the first page. The book’s spine wheezed.

Inside was a family tree, or more accurately, a forest of family trees. The first page listed a dozen couples along with the dates of their births and deaths. The entries were all handwritten in that beautiful, flowing penmanship working with a quill required. Ken recognized familiar last names: Pickney, Childress, Worthington, Adams, Parker, Reed, Fletcher among others.

Following each couple were their children, each couple with more than six. Many of the young life spans were tragically short. Were there victims of the Woodsman on this page? Ken checked the dates. There very well could be. All the births were after 1750. That was odd. The family trees weren’t important until after 1750, though the town was founded generations before that.

Ken flipped through the centuries of records. The last entries were three quarters of the way through the book. The penmanship had deteriorated to block letters, and the ink was ballpoint and boring. He ran his finger down a list of names that ran along the right side of the page, each with only a birth date, all after 1960. A lot of the names were familiar. A few were in his senior class. Some of the names had a red star beside them, most did not. His finger stopped at three unmarked names that were too familiar: Marc Brady and his brothers Albert and Daniel. If Marc knew he had the equivalent of Sagebrook royal blood, he’d never mentioned it.

He continued down the list and gasped out loud on one entry. Josie Mulfetta, sans red mark. The entry was in blue pen, but the date of death was in black. Someone was keeping the family trees way too up-to-date.

Ken’s gasp garnered Ms. Childress attention. She snapped to her feet.

“What are you doing with that book?”

“It’s fascinating,” Ken said as he popped it shut. “A town family tree.”

She was on him in three steps and yanked the book from his hand.

“That one shouldn’t be out. It’s not for public use.” She shoved it into the top drawer of her desk. “What scout troop are you from?”

The curtain needed to drop on this performance. Ken checked his watch. “I’ve got to go.” He headed for the door. “I’ll be back later.”

Ms. Childress followed.

The sunlight made Ken wince as he hit the parking lot. He didn’t look back until he was inside his car. Ms. Childress hadn’t followed. She wasn’t even looking out the window. Ken peeled out of the parking lot.

He drove home on autopilot as his mind focused on the museum discoveries. He was certain that the Woodsman had some connection to the founding families, a lot bigger one than Ms. Childress thought the Sagebrook peasants would want to know. Ken needed to make that connection.

The Dirty Half Dozen had a mission.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ken needed to recruit for the night’s foray. There was no question who he’d ask first. Only one of the Half Dozen could pick a lock.

Ken pulled up behind the Park Street Diner. Bob’s Duster sat next to the Dumpster. It was a tossup whether the patchwork-painted car was there for transportation or for removal with the trash. Ken took up his usual station by the rear kitchen door. The parking lot had a thick, black sheen in a direct line between the door and the Dumpster. The area’s pungent aroma was ten percent food and ninety percent decay, a combo Ken hoped he wouldn’t have to endure for long.

It wasn’t fifteen minutes before the back door slammed open. A big, gray, plastic trash can skidded through the doorway onto the pavement. Bob followed, dirty apron over a white V-necked T-shirt, hair a shade wilder than usual, unlit cigarette at his lips. He saw Ken and smiled.

“Drop by for a snack?” he said. He reached into the trash can and scooped out a soggy, half-eaten hamburger. “Here you go. On the house.”

“You know, I’ll pass.”

Bob dropped the burger and it hit the trash can with a splat. He lit his cigarette and leaned against the closed door. The key ring on his belt jangled against the metal door.

“I need your help finding out about the Woodsman,” Ken said. “It requires a slight case of burglary.”

Bob blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Fuck yeah, I’m in. When?”

“Tonight?”

“Gotta be after midnight,” Bob said. “I’m off at eleven thirty.”

“Perfect. We’ll meet you here. You care where we’re going?”

Bob took another drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. “Nah. I’ll find out when we get there.”

“You’re the man, Bob.”

Bob gave the laden trash can a one-handed hoist across his back. It had to weigh half his scrawny body weight.

“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” he said.

Jeff’s phone rang minutes later.

“Are you alone?” Ken said.

“Yeah.”

“We need to put your skills to work. There’s information on the Woodsman at the Sagebrook Historical Society, but they don’t want to share. We need to go in there tonight and borrow it. You need to make sure we don’t trip any alarms.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“You installed the alarms at your house,” Ken said.

“Yeah, but that’s different.”

“You’ll figure it out, Sparky. Meet us at eleven thirty behind the Parkview Diner?”

Pause.

“My folks are usually asleep by ten thirty,” Jeff said. “I can probably get out the back door after that.”

“Bring whatever you think you need.” Ken hung up.

Jeff had no idea what he’d need. He knew what he’d need to bypass his house security system, but the museum’s would be different, professional. There was no way…

He also couldn’t be out all hours of the night. He had to study. Bob might be fine with a D grade or two, but Jeff was working with conditional acceptance at SUNY Albany, the same place Katy had selected. If his grades bottomed out he’d be doing Suffolk County Community College, which he equated with a second senior year at Whitman. And he’d be there alone.

Yet he’d agreed to go on the night’s little mission. His first thought was that his reputation for electronic wizardry was his claim to fame within the Half Dozen. There wasn’t a car stereo in the clan he hadn’t installed, and he’d brought a few blown amplifiers and turntables back from the dead.

But in the wake of his ready acceptance of the assignment, second thoughts plagued him. He was about to risk arrest on some alarm system guesswork. Arrest. Jail time. Even community college looked a lot better than that.

“Well, bite me sideways, I didn’t know how to do half that stuff ‘til I tried it,” he said to himself. “All for none and none for all, right? Nothing I can’t figure out.”

But he wasn’t going to figure it out in the dark at midnight. He headed out the door for a little daylight reconnaissance at the Sagebrook Historical Museum.

Chapter Thirty

It was just past midnight. Heavy cloud cover doused the moon. In the darkness, the three boys huddled in the woods at the rear of the Historical Society. No cars had passed by since their arrival.

“I checked the place out this afternoon,” Jeff said. “The system is straight out of Radio Shack. Window and door sensors. No motion detectors.”

“You went inside and met Ms. Childress?” Ken asked.

“Yeah, she’s a doll,” Jeff said.

“Knock off the chatter and let’s roll,” Bob said.

The three dashed for the back door in a low crouch. They tucked into the shadow at the base of the building. Jeff slung a small pack off his shoulder. He twisted his Mets cap around backwards to get the brim out of his way. He pulled out a two inch long metal plate wrapped in wire. The wires ran down to a blocky, twelve-volt battery.

“What the fuck does that do?” Bob whispered.

“Electromagnet,” Jeff said. He spoke with the tone of a doctor describing heart surgery. “The magnetic contact on the door completes a circuit on the doorjamb. When you open the door and break the circuit, the alarm goes off. I put this magnet up and it should keep the circuit closed.”

“Should?” Ken asked.

“Run like hell if it doesn’t.”

Jeff tightened the connections to the battery. He pulled a plastic egg out of his pack.

“Tell me that’s not Silly Putty,” Ken said.

“Bite me,” Jeff said. “Like you gave me time to shop for supplies. It will work.”

Jeff scooped a wad of clay-like Silly Putty out of half the shell. He applied it to one side of the magnet and pressed it into the top corner of the doorjamb.

Bob gave his head a shake of disbelief. He pulled out his wallet and extracted a gouged and faded Diners Club credit card. He worked it between the door and the jamb around the lock. A loud click sounded.