The Banshee (5 page)

The next morning David rang Nancy's doorbell at exactly ten o'clock. It opened slowly and an older woman appeared. “May I help you?”

“My name is David. I'm here for Nancy.”

She smiled. “I'm Betty, Nancy's mother, please come in.”

The middle-aged woman called up the stairway, across from the front door, for Nancy then invited David into the adjacent living room. She excused herself to return to the sauce simmering in the kitchen.

Along the fireplace mantle stood a number of photographs of Nancy, displayed in various poses and frames. David admired the skill of the photographer in capturing her attractive eyes. Even on film, they were hypnotic.

“Hello,” said a voice. David thought for an instant the image in the photograph had spoken, then realized Nancy was behind him.

“Do you like it?” She nodded toward the photograph.

“Very beautiful,” he answered.

“Well, what did you have in mind?” She shrugged, wondering.

“I'd like to get reacquainted with the town. It has been awhile since I was here last. I was hoping to remember some of Wexford.”

“Having trouble with your memory?”

Her eyes caught his and held them. He thought of looking away but could not; they were holding his in some kind of sensuous vice. He shook his head, breaking the contact and thought of the coincidence of her mentioning his memory loss of late.

“Not really. It has been a long time since I was in Wexford. I recall a few places my dad showed me when I was young,” David said.

“When was the last time you visited your Uncle?” she asked.

“I can't recall…”

“Are you sure?”

For some arcane reason, David felt she knew he had been in town recently. It was probably a carry-over from what he felt on the bus, the sensation of
déjà vu
.

“Positive,” he replied, knowing he was not.

Nancy took hold of his hand and led him to the kitchen door. They said goodbye to her mother, slowly stirring a steaming pot at the stove. The wonderful garlic scent followed them outside. They entered the car David borrowed from his Uncle with a promise to fill the tank. Turning the key, he brought it to life.

Nancy sat kitty corner with one arm along the top of the seat and the other along the open window. The lettering on her tee shirt read SKI BUM, distorted by the bulk and curvature of her braless form beneath, with faded jeans cut to expose her long legs to the summer sun. They drove from her house headed for nowhere in particular.

“Are you a ski bum?” he asked as they passed Whiting Field. She laughed, looking down at her chest.

“I guess it's just a hidden desire to ski in New Hampshire. You know, lessons with a handsome Nordic instructor named Eric or Leif, fireside romance, the whole thing.”

Nancy had a faraway look in her dangerously beautiful eyes. She seemed lost elsewhere, somewhere she yearned to be, somewhere other than Wexford. She returned to the conversation.

“I never seem to have time, something always comes up. How about you, do you ski?”

“Are you kidding? I have trouble walking, never mind sliding down a mountain on a piece of wood.”

She laughed and asked, “How about your parents, still living?”

Small portions of his past seemed allowed into David's memory, as if there were a valve letting only certain aspects of his history seep through. He spoke as he remembered, with eyes transfixed somewhere out the windshield, but the blurry images were all he focused on.

“I have to be honest, Nancy. I am having trouble remembering anything about my past and I don't know why.”

“Really?” She turned to face him and held his hand. “Is it something your Uncle could help you with?”

“I don't know, maybe…I mean, I vaguely recall my parents. They were both from Wexford, married at an early age, then my father wanted to find his fortune working the rail yards in Brooklyn. I was born there.”

“In the rail yard…?”

Her humor lightened the atmosphere and slackened the uncomfortable sense they both shared. They both laughed.

“In Brooklyn…”

“And your sign is?” she asked.

He blinked several times bringing her question to mind. He smiled and shrugged. “I don't know. I can't even remember my birthday.”

“That's bad, are you sure you didn't bump your head or something?”

“No, I'm sure I didn't,” he answered, running his fingers along his scalp searching for an unknown abrasion.

“Are your folks still in Brooklyn?”

“They're both dead.”

“Sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. Something I would like to forget but seem to remember. One afternoon a priest and a man from the railroad came to our second floor apartment above the A&P.”

David's eyes welled. He turned his face from Nancy while continuing. “It scared me when they talked to my mother in a low monotone. She sobbed softly for a while, then the tears turning into loud cries of anguish that caused her to fall back into a chair. The priest knelt, whispering into her ear. She collected herself as best she could, sobbed, looked at me and burst into tears again.

“The next day she poured half a bottle of Jim Beam into her gut to raise enough courage to tell me there was an accident at the train yard and my father was dead. My mother tried to go on but it was hard to keep a decent job, pay the bills, and raise a son.

“She sought solace from a bottle, and her whiskey-soaked brain failed to negotiate a turn. The car veered off the road, landing upside down in a tidal basin pinning her inside, where she drowned.”

“I'm sorry.” Nancy placed a hand on his shoulder.

They remained quiet for a few minutes until David broke the silence. “I met your mom, how about your dad?”

“My father died before I was born,” she answered.

“Now I'm sorry. It's a shame you never got to know him.”

“I feel as though I did. My mother talks of him often. She says he was a prince of a guy.”

The car passed grazing cattle scattered about a dairy field with sweeping grasses, daisies and fluttering ringlet butterflies. David enjoyed the peaceful vista and the serenity of the area. They continued their trek along the back roads, taking them on a wide circle of Wexford.

“I feel trapped in this town, nowhere to go, no hope for a future. I hope someday to visit New York. Turn left here,” she said.

David turned onto yet another back road. “You may feel trapped here but it's a hell of a lot better than city living.” He frowned at his own statement, wondering how he would have known that. “I wouldn't move out, I'd move here.”

“I wasn't planning on moving, just visit.”

“I don't think you can get an accurate picture of city life in only a few days.”

“I'll never know until I go,” she replied.

He shrugged, believing Nancy knew more about the subject than he did since any recollection of city life was far removed from his imagination. He spotted a burnt, weather beaten house and changed the subject. “What's that place?”

“The old Johnson farm, for sale if you're interested; plenty of land but the house was destroyed in a fire, the barn needs a lot of work also.”

“Can we have a look?” David asked, already turning the car into the long dusty drive to the burned structure.

The two buildings were in terrible condition. The barn across the yard from the house lacked its doors and many wood planks were damaged or missing from its walls. The red paint had faded to a shade of rust, with most of the roof shingles simply gone.

The wood siding on the house retained its white color painted many years before. A gaping black hole from the fire exposed most of the structure to the elements reminding David of a decayed tooth.

They stepped carefully over the fallen front door. Half lay on the porch, half into the front hallway. The staircase leading up to the bedrooms was badly damaged with a single remaining post connected the railing. Wallpaper hung in strips from the living room walls where they stopped by the fireplace. The stones of the hearth were blacked and chipped, soot fanned out, covering the flooring and debris.

“There's something dripping from the flue.” David knelt and touched the damp ashes. “Blood.”

“Let's get out of here.” Nancy looked nervous.

“I want to see what's up there.” David strained his neck to look into the chimney. With a piece of wood, he poked at the flue striking something solid.

Twirling the wood around the blockage, David prodded and tugged at the object until it slid down from the flue. Both jumped back staring in disbelieve at the mutilated body of a police officer.

* * * *

Murphy's radio came to life. “Chief?”

“What is it?” Murphy answered, driving past the gas station on route eight.

“I have Nancy Flanagan and the doc's nephew here. They say they found Andy.” Keith's voice crackled through the patrol cars radio receiver.

“Thank God,” Murphy said, relieved. “Where the hell was he?”

The radio crackled but remained silent as Keith squeezed the transmitter button, unable to tell Murphy the bad news.

“What is it?” Murphy called on the radio.

Keith answered, “They say Andy is dead.”

Nancy and David stood across the room awaiting Murphy's reply.

Murphy's voice quietly asked, “Where?”

“At the old Johnson farmhouse…” Keith replied.

“Pick up the doc and meet me there, bring those two,” Murphy ordered.

“You heard him.” Keith dialed the doctor's phone. “As soon as I contact the doc we'll head out there.”

When the patrol car arrived, they found Chief Murphy already at the scene, sitting on the front stairs with his head in his hands.

“This doesn't look good,” Carl said, opening the car door.

“Is it, Andy?” Keith asked Murphy as the group approached.

“Yeah, what's left of him,” Murphy sighed, troubled at the death of his officer and friend. The doctor walked back onto the porch after viewing the body.

“What could have done that, doc?” asked Murphy.

“I wish I had an answer. Right now I am as stunned as you.”

Murphy took out a large black plastic bag from his car's trunk and brought it back to the house.

“I'll bring him to your office. I want a full report as soon as possible,” Murphy said to Carl as they both placed Andy's remains into the bag.

Nancy and David left the house and stood by the barn.

“Did you know him?” David asked her.

“I've seen him around. He was okay, I guess. I think he had a girlfriend in Plymouth named after a month, May or June, something like that. Once in a while he would show up at Kelly's for a few beers.”

They watched Murphy and Keith carry the black bag with the body of their comrade. Placing the bag into the back seat, Murphy turned to Keith.

“Take him to the doc's. I'm staying here for a while, I want to look around.”

Keith looked ashen as he drove off, leaving a dusty cloud along the dirt road. Murphy slowly walked back into the house.

“Do you hear anything?” David asked, cocking his head. Nancy listened for a moment. “It sounds like buzzing.”

David walked into the old barn, following the sound. It became louder as he neared the last empty horse stall. A rain barrel stood by the back wall, a dark cloud of flies swarmed above it. Grasping the handle of a wooden rake, he stretched to the barrel, hooking the rake's tines onto the rim. He pulled tipping the gory contents onto the floor. David immediately vomited then ran to the house.

Murphy was kneeling on the ash-covered hearth looking into the flue, trying to imagine the force required to lodge a full-grown man into the narrow soot airway when he heard David's shouts.

“In here,” he stood, brushing off his pant legs.

“Chief…!” David cried out, “in the barn!”

“The barn…?”

“The missing child,” David struggled to say, his stomach churning, his breath baited.

The Chief ran past Nancy at the barn door, her hand tight over her mouth.

“Sweet Jesus,” Murphy gasped, then turned to vomit. David also gagged then left to be with Nancy. Murphy went to his car for another black bag, shaking his head as he did.

“What was in the barrel?” asked Nancy.

“The missing girl. Something terrible happened to her and that cop. They weren't just murdered, they were torn apart.”

David looked around at the fire-destroyed building, an uneasy sensation churning in his stomach. “Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?”