Still Life With Crows (39 page)

This is great,
thought Hazen.
Now Hank’s arguing with the KSU guys.
Larssen always had been a few beers short of a six-pack.

“It’s pretty clear,” Raskovich went on, “that if Dr. Chauncy had announced on Monday that the field was going to Medicine Creek, Lavender’s creditors would have moved in and he’d have been forced into bankruptcy. That’s a powerful motive.”

There was a silence. Larssen was shaking his head.

And now Fisk spoke at last, his reedy ivory-tower voice filling the office. “Sheriff, the intention is not to make accusations. The intention is merely to continue the investigation, looking into Mr. Lavender’s affairs along with whatever other leads develop.”

Hazen waited. It was politically important to “consult” with Larssen. Old Hank just didn’t seem to get the fact that it was all pro forma, that nothing he said would stop the investigation into Lavender.

“Mr. Fisk,” Larssen said, “all I’m saying is, don’t focus on a suspect too early. There are plenty of other avenues that should be explored. Look, Dent, we all know Lavender’s no saint, but he’s no killer either, especially not
that
kind of killer. Even if he hired someone, how in hell did that person get from Deeper to Medicine Creek without being observed? Where’d he hide out? Where’s his car? Where’d he spend the night? That whole area’s been searched by air and on the ground, and you know it!”

Hazen exhaled quietly. This was precisely the point that still bothered him. It was the one weakness in his theory.

“It seems to me,” he went on, “that it’s more likely the killer’s a resident of Medicine Creek, a Jekyll and Hyde type. If it was an outsider, somebody would’ve seen something. You can’t come and go from Medicine Creek, time and again, unnoticed.”

“Someone could be hiding in the corn,” said Raskovich.

“You can see into the corn from above,” said Larssen. “They’ve been flying spotter planes for days now. They’ve searched the creek for twenty miles, they’ve searched the Mounds, they’ve searched everywhere. There’s no sign of anyone hiding, and nobody’s been coming or going. I mean, where’s this killer supposed to be hiding? In a hole in the ground?”

Listening, Hazen suddenly went rigid. He felt his limbs stiffening as the sudden, brilliant insight burned its way through his consciousness.
Of course,
he told himself.
Of course.
It was the elusive answer he’d been searching for, the missing link in his theory.

He breathed deeply, glanced around to make sure nobody had noticed his reaction. It was critical that it not seem like Hank had given it to him.

And then he delivered his revelation in an almost bored tone of voice. “That’s right, Hank. He’s been hiding in a hole in the ground.”

There was a silence.

“How’s that?” Raskovich asked.

Hazen looked at him. “Kraus’s Kaverns,” he said.

“Kraus’s Kaverns?” Fisk repeated.

“On the Cry Road, that big old house with the gift shop. There’s a tourist cave out back of it. Been there forever. Run now by old Winifred Kraus.”

It was incredible how fast the pieces were coming together in his mind. It had been under his nose all along, and he just hadn’t seen it. Kraus’s Kaverns.
Of course.

Fisk was nodding, and so was Raskovich. “I remember seeing that place,” said Raskovich.

Larssen had turned white. He knew Hazen had nailed it. That’s how perfect it was, how well it fit together.

Hazen spoke again. “The killer’s been hiding in that cave.” He looked at Larssen and couldn’t help but smile. “As you know, Hank, that’s the same cave where old man Kraus had his moonshine operation. Making corn whiskey for
King Lavender.
”

“Now that’s
very
interesting,” Fisk said, turning an admiring look on Hazen.

“Isn’t it? There’s a room back there, behind the tourist loop, where they boiled up their sour mash. In a big
pot still.
” He emphasized the last two words carefully.

He saw Raskovich’s eyes suddenly widen. “In a pot still big enough to boil a human body?”

“Bingo,” said Hazen.

The atmosphere became electric. Larssen had begun to sweat now, and Hazen knew it was because even he believed.

“So you see, Mr. Fisk,” Hazen continued, “Lavender’s man has been holed up in that cave, coming out at night with his bare feet and his other shenanigans, killing people and making it look like the fulfillment of the Ghost Mounds curse. During Prohibition, King Lavender financed that pot still for old man Kraus, got him set up in the business. It’s what he did all over Cry County. He bankrolled all the moonshiners in these parts.”

Hank Larssen removed a handkerchief and dabbed at the line of sweat that had formed on his brow.

“Lavender claimed his assistant, McFelty, went to visit his sick mother in Kansas City. It’s one of the things Raskovich and I checked out today. We tried to get in touch with McFelty’s mother. And we found out all about McFelty’s mother.”

He paused.

“She died twenty years ago.”

He let that sink in, then continued. “And this man McFelty’s been in trouble with the law before. Small stuff, mostly, but a lot of it violent: petty assault, aggravated assault, drunk driving.”

The revelations had been coming fast, one almost piling up upon the other. And now Hazen added the kicker: “McFelty disappeared two days before the Swegg killing. I think he went underground. As Hank just pointed out, you can’t come and go from Medicine Creek without being noticed: without neighbors noticing, without
me
noticing. He’s been holed up in Kraus’s Kaverns all this time, coming out at night to do his dirty work.”

There was a long pause in which nobody spoke. Then Fisk cleared his throat. “This is first-rate work, Sheriff. What’s the next move?”

Hazen stood up, his face set. “The town’s been crawling with law officers and press. You can be sure McFelty’s still laying low in those caves, waiting for a lull so’s he can escape. Now that he’s completed his job.”

“And?”

“And so we go in there and get the son of a bitch.”

“When?”

“Now.” He turned to Larssen. “Conference us into state police HQ in Dodge. I want Commander Ernie Wayes on the horn himself. We need a well-armed team and we need it now. We need dogs, good dogs this time. I’ll head over to the courthouse, get a bench warrant from Judge Anderson.”

“Are you sure McFelty’s still there, in the caves?” Fisk asked.

“No,” said Hazen. “I’m not sure. But there’s going to be physical evidence in there at the very least. I’m not taking any chances. This guy’s dangerous. He may be doing a job for Lavender, but he’s been enjoying himself just a little too much—and that scares the piss out of me. Let’s not make the mistake of underestimating him.”

He looked out the window at the blackening horizon, the rising wind.

“We’ve got to move. Our man may use the cover of the storm to make his exit.” He glanced at his watch, then looked once again around the room.

“We’re going in tonight at ten, and we’re going in big.”

Forty-Eight

T
he darkness was total, absolute. Corrie lay on the wet rock, soaked to the bone, her whole body shivering from terror and cold. Not far away, she could hear
it
moving around, talking to itself in a singsong undertone, making horrible little bubbling sounds with its lips, sometimes cooing, sometimes laughing softly as if at some private joke.

Her mind had passed through disbelief and stark terror, and come out on the other side cold and numb. The killer had her.
It
—she supposed it was a
he
—had tied her up and thrown her over his shoulder, roughly, like a sack of meat, and carried her through a labyrinth of passageways, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending, sometimes splashing across underground streams, for what seemed like an eternity.

And through darkness—always, through darkness. He seemed to move by feel or by memory.

His arms had felt slippery and clammy, yet strong as steel cables that threatened always to crush her. She had screamed, begged, pleaded, but her protests had met with obliviousness. And then, at last, they got to
this place
—this place with its unutterable stink—and he had dropped her sprawling onto the stone floor. Then the horny foot had kicked her roughly into a corner, where she now lay, dazed, aching, bleeding. The stench—the stench that before had been faint and unidentifiable—was here appalling, omnipresent, enveloping.

She had lain, numb and unthinking, for an unguessable period of time. But now her senses were beginning to return. The initial paralysis of terror was wearing off, if only slightly. She lay still, forcing herself to think. She was far back in the cave—a cave much bigger than anyone imagined. Nobody was going to find their way back here to save her. . .

She struggled with the panic that rose at this thought. If nobody was going to save her, then she’d have to save herself.

She shut her eyes tight against the darkness, listening.
He
was busying himself in the blackness somewhere nearby, gargling and singsonging unintelligibly to himself.

Was he even human . . . ?

He
had
to be human. He had a human foot—though as callused as a piece of rawhide. And he spoke, or at least vocalized, in a high, babylike voice.

And yet, if he was human, he was like none other that had ever walked the earth.

Suddenly she felt him near. There was a grunt. She froze in fear, waiting. A hand seized her roughly, dragged her to her feet, shook her.

“Muh?”

She sobbed. “Leave me alone.”

Another shake, more violent this time. “Hoooo!” went the voice, high and babyish. She tried to wrench free, and with a grunt he flung her down.

“Stop . . . stop . . .”

A hand seized her ankle and gave a sharp jerk. Corrie screamed, feeling pain lance through her hip. And then she felt his arms around her, grabbing her by the shoulders, lifting her bodily. “Please, please stop—”

“Plisss,” squeaked the voice. “Plisss. Hruhn.”

She feebly tried to push him away, but he was holding her close to him, his foul breath washing over her.

“No—let me go—”

“Heeee!”

She was flung down again, and then she heard him shuffle off with a low, murmuring sound. She struggled wildly, tried to sit up. The ropes burned her wrists and she felt her hands tingling from lack of blood. He was going to kill her, she knew that. She had to get away.

With a great effort, she managed to flop herself upward into a sitting position. If only she knew who he was, or what he was doing, or why he was there in the cave . . . If only she understood, she might have a chance. She swallowed, shivered, tried to speak.

“Who . . . who are you?” she said. It came out as a bare whisper.

There was a momentary silence. This was followed by a shuffling sound. He was coming over.

“Please don’t touch me.”

Corrie could hear him breathing. She realized that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to attract his attention again. And yet her only hope was to engage him somehow. She swallowed again, repeated the question.

“Who are you?”

She felt him leaning over her. A wet hand touched her face, broken nails scratching her skin, the huge fingers callused and warm. She turned away with a stifled cry.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She tried to lie still, to ignore it. It squeezed her shoulder, then moved down her arm, stopping to feel here and there as it went, then sliding further: horny and rough, the broken nails like splintered ends of wood.

The hand withdrew, then came back, sliding and slipping up the ridge of her backbone. She tried to twist away but the hand suddenly gripped her shoulder blade with a horrible strength. Involuntarily, she cried out. The hand resumed its crawl. It grasped the nape of her neck, squeezed. She felt paralyzed with terror. The squeezing grew harder.

“What do you want?” she choked out.

The hand slowly relaxed. She could hear breathing, and then some humming, and an undertone of rapid, singsong words. He was speaking to himself again. The hand caressed the back of her neck and reached up and rubbed her head.

She wanted to twist away but she forced herself not to. The hand kept rubbing, sliding down now over her forehead. It rubbed her face, stroked her cheek, pulled at her lips, tried to open her mouth, stinking horny fingers like a golem’s claw. She turned, but the hand followed the movements of her head, poking, always poking, as if inspecting a cut of meat.

“Please stop it!” she sobbed.

The hand stopped, and there was a grunt. Then the fingers slipped around her neck, from the front this time, and squeezed, first lightly, then a little harder. And then harder still.

Corrie tried to scream, but the squeezing had already closed off her windpipe. She thrashed, struggled, saw stars begin to flash in front of her eyes.

And still he squeezed. And as consciousness flickered and her limbs began to relax involuntarily, Corrie desperately tried to reach out, to claw the darkness, to push him away . . .

His hand gradually relaxed and released her. She fell, gasping, drawing in air, her head pounding. His hand went back to her hair, petting it.

Then he suddenly stopped. His hand withdrew, and he stepped back.

Corrie lay there, terrified, silent. She heard a sniffing noise, then another, and another. He seemed to be snuffling the air. She noticed then that the faintest of breezes was moving through this section of the cave. She could smell the outside world: the ozone and moisture from the storm, the earth, the cool nocturnal smells, pushed aside—if only a little—the stench of this nightmarish place. The smell seemed to beckon him, call him away.

And he was gone.

Forty-Nine

I
t was 8:11
P.M.
: normally the hour of sunset. Except that to western Kansas sunset had already come, four hours early.