Stone Maidens (41 page)

Avery’s head suddenly came off the pillow. “Sure as a vein of coal pissing gas will blow,” he said and slumped back, heaving for air in great rasping gulps.

The newswoman didn’t blink an eye at the man’s pained expression. She was too perturbed.

“I take it you’re admitting you know something about these killings? It’s only a matter of time before police forensics will prove it.”

The old miner grinned, showing off his teeth to the camera.

The newswoman looked frazzled. “Cut,” said the cameraman, stopping the shoot.

Devereux heard a button clicking—Earl Avery was signaling the nurses’ station with a remote device.

“I’m sorry. This is in violation of home policy.” The head nurse filled the doorway, and her tone left no room for disagreement. “You must all leave immediately.”

The nurse took Avery’s pulse. An oxygen mask dangled from a nearby hook. She repositioned it over the patient’s nose and mouth and adjusted the flow gauge on the tank.

After the nurse and the TV people had left the room, Earl Avery sank back deeper into his pillows and let his mind wander. Bruna—he could remember picking her up at a bar in Chicago. A big girl she was, with a Scandinavian accent. Plain, but with a body on her that immediately made him hungry for it. And right after she’d swallowed the last of her suds, he’d done the gentlemanly thing and asked if she’d like him to walk her home, and she’d said that she would. He’d taken her down a deserted side street and shoved her up against a brick wall, having his way with her. He’d been surprised to wake up later with a lump on his head. Bruna was gone, and that was the end of it. Until the letters began arriving from her in her broken English. Ridiculous, whiny letters begging him for money so she didn’t have to give up one or both of their sons for adoption. The letters stopped, and he’d more or less forgotten about her. Why he’d bothered to keep any of the letters he wasn’t sure, but he’d liked the idea of having sired sons.

With a trembling hand, Avery reached for the glass of water on the bedside table. He gulped a mouthful, spilling it down his chin, his thoughts drifting further back. It was late summer, just like now, and he was seventeen. It was hot. He liked that, even though he worked on a farm and spent long hours stacking hay. He was laying up bales for the winter in a three-story loft. From the open bay where the chain pulley swung to hoist the pallet, he saw her—the nubile young daughter of a neighbor farmer in
a flower-print dress that flowed prettily. The tight-fitting bodice showed off her slim waist. The way her body moved inside the frock sent him tumbling down the wooden steps and out into the hazy August air.

Avery smiled, the pleasure of the memory never failing him.

She wandered into a cornfield, slapping the long green leaves of a second planting tasseled in full bloom, and disappeared down a row, taking a shortcut home. He followed her into the corn as if pulled by a ring in his nose, pushing aside the leaves and thick stalks in the fading heat of the day. Walking faster, two rows over, he caught glimpses of her flowery dress. For several minutes he trolled behind, waiting till she was farther along into the maize. Gradually, he drifted deeper into the sweet-smelling crop abuzz with bees going from tassel to tassel.

His skin began to crawl as if covered in a swarm of ants. Breathing shallowly, he was stricken, his eyesight shrinking. He dropped to one knee. Everything had gone dark. He scratched at the ground, as if searching for his lost sight there, heaving on all fours with his face in the soil, sucking up dirt. Then slowly the light returned, and with it a new craving.

Clumsily he crashed down stalks, fearing he’d lost her for good. He jogged madly, crisscrossing the rows, crushing the corn, until, fifty feet away, still ambling with her hands outstretched, gently catching the broad-curled leaves, there she was. He could hang back no longer—the hunger had rooted in him. He ran recklessly, and she let out a cry as she turned and saw him thrashing behind her. He lunged, tackling her, punching out her air. Circled his arm around her face. She bit him hard, and still he felt nothing but joy, searching and finding the smooth seam of her jawbone. With the same tremendous force that he used to jerk the hoist chain, he snapped her neck sideways, hearing it pop. Becoming all his. He felt so alive lying over her still-warm body, with the smells of the corn and the deep black soil effervescing.

He carried her body a great distance, into a forest, to an old limestone cave he had discovered. Carefully, he climbed down the steep entrance. Hunched over her body in the dim light of the passage, he opened out the blade of his pocketknife with barely enough strength, he was trembling so. He worked the thin carbon steel below her rib. And he feasted. With each bite, he grew stronger, enabling him to lift her afterward to the edge of a deep vertical shaft in the cave. Seconds passed after he’d tossed her before he heard the dull thud of her body hitting rock.

When he’d emerged from the darkness empty-handed, the daylight had been too much. He’d stumbled, fracturing his ankle. The memory of it now, in his hospital bed, pained his leg immensely. But oh, the pain had been worth it. The pain had been very much worth it.

I am grateful to my wonderful agent, Elisabeth Weed, for taking me on and investing her time and patience in me, and never losing enthusiasm believing in this book. She kept the project moving forward and got me to the finish line. Thank you so much, Elisabeth! And thank you, Stephanie Sun, for your cheerful assistance. I cannot thank enough my dear editor, Nan Gatewood Satter, for getting me to Elisabeth and for her keen eye and commonsensical judgement; she challenged my plotting and rooted out awkward expression, and minded those p’s and q’s in the otherwise silent world of authorship.

Senior Acquisitions Editor Andrew Bartlett’s enthusiasm for my writing made it happen. And thanks to the whole Amazon Publishing team: Jessica Fogleman, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Leslie LaRue, and Reema Al-Zaben, who deserve high praise for their professionalism, competence, courtesy, and, above all, for making me feel like a true partner on their team. Particular praise is due Kate Chynoweth for her fresh laser eyes that scrubbed the book while helping lift the story to a better place. Thank you, Kate!

Pat Sims and Chris Noel gave much-needed feedback in the book’s early stages and challenged me to reach to a higher place.

To my sister, Susan Richards, a gifted author herself, who believed in my writing from the get-go with all her heart and cheered me on to never give up. I am deeply grateful, Sooz! To Nathaniel, Marguerite, and Evan: I am privileged as their father because they have taught me so much about myself; without them
I would have been denied my greatest gift—to demonstrate to my children what dogged determination, love of work, and believing in one’s self can bring.

And above all to my wife, Cameron, who never doubted me or had a cross word all those hours I spent writing in the attic; I am forever blessed.

Photo by Robert C. Price, 2010

Lloyd Devereux Richards was born in New York City and traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, and Central America before attending law school. He previously served as a senior law clerk for an Indiana Court of Appeals judge, researching and writing drafts for dozens of published opinions, including the appeal of a serial killer sentenced to death. A father of three, he lives with his wife, Cameron O’Connor, and their two dogs in Montpelier, Vermont.
Stone Maidens
is his first novel.