The Siege (11 page)

After supper, her dad went out to visit with Larry’s mother, but he had returned quickly, saying it wasn’t the right time. So after a mug of hot chocolate, she had said goodnight to him, Lisa, and Mrs. Appleby, and gone upstairs to bed. For more than two hours, though, she laid in bed, listening to the buzz of conversation downstairs in the living room.

What stuck in her memory, replaying with frightening intensity, was that face, a grinning, leering face with insane, glowing eyes, looking up at her through the shattered wood of the loft door. Her wrist still burned where the man had held her; and when she had washed up for bed, she had carefully studied the bright red half-moons where his grimy fingernails had dug into her skin. The cut from the splinter still hurt, too, but she and Lisa had secretly washed and bandaged it up without anyone finding out.

Most frightening of all, though, was when Angie thought about that steely grip. It didn’t feel like it was around her wrist; she couldn’t get rid of the sensation that those bony fingers were closing around her throat, cutting off her air and making her pulse hammer in her ears.

i

She stirred, rolled over onto her side facing the wall, and groaned when her father sat down on the edge of his bed, making the bedsprings creak. He took off one shoe and let it drop to the floor.

Like soft hammering!
Angie thought, and a surge of panic almost made her cry out.

He took off the other shoe and let it drop; then he got up and went into the guest bathroom down the hallway.

The whole time he was gone, Angie lay, staring wide-eyed at the blank wall no more than a foot from her face. Her father left the door open a crack, and the light from the hallway cast her rounded shadow on the wall. Then the door opened, and she saw another shadow loom up over her own. Again, she almost cried out in fear. The shadow looked too large, too slouch-shouldered, too misshapen to be her father! It got bigger and bigger as it came toward her bed.

A sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead as she gripped the sheets into tight-fisted balls. The shadow grew larger as the slow, steady thumping of its tread got closer and
closer
!

Angie tried to keep the thought out of her mind, but all she could think of was that, with a sudden, inhuman grunt, the shadow would suddenly materialize and come crushing down on her. Its bony fingers would reach for and find her neck, and then slowly… painfully crush her throat to pulp.

“Dad?” she whispered, her voice a gravelly gasp.

“Sorry, Angie,” her father said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” The bedroom door eased shut again, and the room darkened.

Angie frantically wished she could get enough air into her lungs and enough courage so she could tell her father about what had happened out at the barn. She knew she should tell him about it, but then again, she and Lisa hadn’t been hurt and maybe Lisa was right. They should keep quiet about it and make sure they never went to the old barn again!

She stirred and rolled onto her back, smacking her lips and muttering a string of senseless words, pretending to talk in her sleep.

Her father came over to her bed and placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. “Are you awake?” he said, so softly she could barely hear him even at this close range.

She snuggled down into her pillow and again smacked her lips, wondering if she was laying it on too thick. As much as she wanted to say something, as much as she wished she could just fall apart and cry on his shoulder, she forced herself to keep her eyes shut and to feign sleep.

Lisa was right, she decided after all. Just forget all about what happened out there at the barn. Keep the secret of Lisa’s “secret place”! But that didn’t stop the nightmares that came later, once she fell asleep.

“Some Unanswered Questions”

I

A
t six-thirty on Sunday morning, Kellerman’s Cafe had all the smells and warmth that only a small-town, working-class greasy spoon can have. Over the snap and sizzle of frying eggs and bacon, and the shouting of orders to Herbie, the cook, and requests for coffee refills, the steady drone of conversation was reassuring to Dale that even in the face of death, life did go on. He found that, ever since Natalie’s death, he took to noticing such reassurances.

Between the much-too-soft mattress, the sounds of Angie’s disturbed sleep, and thinking about his awkward conversation with Larry’s Aunt Roberta, Dale hadn’t slept very well. He figured Mrs. Appleby saw through his lie when he told her he had “slept like a baby.” He hoped she wasn’t offended when he refused her offer of breakfast but said, instead, that he wanted to take a few hours to look around town. Angie was sleeping soundly, finally, when he tiptoed downstairs.

Even on a Sunday, when most families were either sleeping late or getting ready for church, Kellerman’s was busy. Farmers, truckers on a long haul, and a couple of mechanics sat around at the worn mint green linoleum counter or in the padded booths by the window. Two waitresses in light pink uniforms, one white-haired and elderly, the other well on her way to looking old before her time, dashed back and forth between counter and booths and the ordering window. Dale learned there was a bar downstairs, making Kellerman’s practically the only local entertainment short of a drive into Houlton. He imagined seeing these same faces in the bar on a Saturday night.

For the money, though, Herbie slung some mean hash browns and sunny-side-up eggs. Dale knew the cook’s name because every other sentence he heard was a sharply barked, “Herbie, I need this! Herbie, where’s my order?” from one or the other waitress. He wondered if Herbie was Kellerman, but from the way the waitresses yelled at him, he doubted it.

Dale finished scooping up the last bit of yolk with his crust of toast when he looked up and saw a policeman walk in from the back door. The cop was middle-aged, maybe mid-forties, Dale guessed, and beneath his well-pressed uniform, he looked a bit worn out. Although sturdily built, his gut looked flabby and hung out over the edge of his belt. His service revolver looked heavy and mean riding on his right hip.

“‘Mornin’, Cloe! Hi ’yah, Ruth,” he said, nodding at each woman as he hoisted himself up at the counter near the cash register.

Herbie glanced up. When he saw the policeman, he touched the rim of his grease-stained chef’s hat in a weak salute and immediately reached for two eggs and broke them open onto the griddle.

Before the policeman said anything else, Cloe, the older waitress, slid a cup of coffee down the counter to him. “How goes the battle?” he asked, looking down as he stirred two packets of sugar and a squirt of milk into his coffee.

Cloe snorted as she turned away. “Nothing a year’s vacation in the Bahamas wouldn’t fix,” she said.

It was times like this that Dale yearned for a cigarette, but he pushed aside the dented green ashtray—color coordinated with the countertop—and contented himself with his refill of coffee. Sitting back in the booth, he took a moment to size up the policeman.

One of the first things that crossed his mind was to ask this policeman if he knew anything about Larry’s death. Dale figured he must, in a small town like Dyer. If there was anything to Roberta’s claim that Larry’s mother hadn’t even been allowed to see her son’s body the policeman would know. He also realized, in a town like this, that such questions, would be considered prying by an outsider. Maybe, though, if he explained that he was Larry’s boss at the D.O.T., it would be seen as nothing more than concern for Larry’s survivors.

Good questions
, Dale decided as he swallowed the last bit of coffee and put his cup down.

“Get ’cha anything else?” Cloe asked, coming up on Dale from behind.

Startled, Dale looked up at her and shook his head. “Ahh, I guess not,” he said. “The bill, I suppose, if you have to.”

It was a stale joke, and Cloe surely had heard it a thousand times before because her face remained passive as she took the order pad from her stained apron pocket and hurriedly totaled it up.

“You can pay at the register,” she said, tearing off the sheet and handing it to Dale. “Have a nice day,” she added, sounding so automatic, Dale was sure she couldn’t repeat it if he asked her what she just had said.

With one last wipe across his face with his napkin, Dale stood up and fished in his pocket for some loose change. Not finding enough, he unlimbered his wallet and slipped out a dollar bill. He left it under his plate and strode over to the register.

He didn’t miss the side-long glance the policeman gave him, so he nodded a friendly, wordless greeting. He could practically hear the cop’s mind, questioning him:
New fella… Ain’t seen you ’round here before… What’cha doin’ in town?
Dale chastised himself for slipping into small-town, redneck cop cliché.

Cloe, still unsmiling after snatching up the monstrous tip Dale left her, walked to the register and rang up the sale. Dale handed her a twenty-dollar bill and waited patiently for her to count his change.

The whole time, Dale could feel the policeman’s gaze burning into his back. His neck felt flushed as he put the bills into his wallet, folded it closed, and slipped it into his back pocket. He was about to stride on out of Kellerman’s, but impulsively he turned to the cop and met his gaze.

“Good morning,” Dale said, letting his smile widen as he held his hand out to the policeman. “My name’s Dale Harmon. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

The cop shook his hand firmly and then, letting his hand drop, said “M’name’s Jeff Winfield.” Gesturing at the empty stool beside him, he added, “I see you already had breakfast, but have a seat and tell me what I can do for you.”

Dale pulled nervously at his ear lobe as he sat down. Suddenly, he felt very foolish, but now that he had started, he felt compelled to continue.

“Well, you see,” Dale said, shifting on the stool, trying to get comfortable, “I worked down in Augusta with Larry Cole. My daughter and I came up for the funeral tomorrow, and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me to clear a few things up.”

Winfield squinted as he regarded Dale. “I knew Larry since he was a boy,” he said softly. “ ’S a shame what happened. He was a good kid growing up, as far as I was concerned. Never got into any trouble with me, anyway.” He glanced up when Cloe slid his breakfast plate in front of him. “You don’t mind if I eat while we talk, do you?”

Dale shook his head. “Go right ahead. I just wanted to get a bit more information about what happened last Friday,” he said. “You see Larry was pretty close to me and my daughter, and I just won’t feel right unless I know how it happened.”

Winfield stripped back the foil from a small container of grape jelly and, squeezing it tightly between thumb and forefinger, squirted it onto a piece of toast. He spread it evenly with his knife, then took a huge bite. Jelly squirted out from between his front teeth.

“Not all that much to tell, really,” he said between grinding chews. “He was driving south on Route 2-A, in a section the locals call the Haynesville Woods. What was he doing up here, anyway? Was he just home for a visit?”

Dale damned well knew that the cop already knew what Larry had been doing up in the area and was just feeling him out. “There’s some highway money appropriated for some work on that stretch of road. I guess some folks consider it too dangerous and want it straightened out.”

Winfield nodded his head. “Folks have an expression for that stretch of road. They say there’s ‘a tombstone every mile,’ because of all the accidents out that way.”

“So what happened to Larry?” Dale asked with a sudden intensity that caught Winfield by surprise.

“Like I said, not much to tell. The road’s pretty curvy most of the way to Haynesville, and it gets pretty monotonous pretty fast. Lots of times, it’s something as simple as a deer suddenly darting out onto the road or a logging truck pulling out from one of the tote roads. A driver gets startled and
blam
!
” He slapped his fist into his open hand. “He doesn’t make the turn and he meets a tree or a rock head-on. That’s all she wrote.”

“Larry went off the road sometime around midnight,” Dale said. “You can’t tell me there was a logging truck out there that late.”

Winfield shrugged and put a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “I’m not saying I know what made Larry go off the road,” he said, chewing noisily. “I’m just saying he went off the road as he was going into a curve. He went straight into a rock embankment. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of his car or him left.”

“You don’t have any idea why he was driving out there, so late at night, do you?” Dale asked.

“You sure do seem to have quite a few questions,” Winfield said, leaning away from Dale and scanning him up and down. “You sure you aren’t from the press or maybe the insurance company?”

Trying to keep the intensity he felt out of his voice, Dale shook his head. “Like I said, Larry was like family to me and my daughter, and I really feel like I have to know what happened.”

“Look here, Mr. Harmon. From Haynesville, you have two choices. You can either drive south to Bangor or you can go north straight off the edge of the world.” He paused, took a deep breath, and added, “I guess we know which way Larry went.”

Dale nodded and looked away, feeling a sudden iciness in his stomach. He tried hard not to imagine the squealing sounds of tires and brakes, the smashing of glass and groaning of twisted metal, and the soft, thudding impact of human flesh that had taken his friend’s life.

“As it was,” Winfield continued, “I was on patrol that night, and I was the first one on the scene after we got the call.” He shuddered and swallowed. “ ’T’weren’t very pretty.”

“I can imagine,” Dale said softly. “But what you’re saying is, you haven’t really determined the cause of the accident, is that right?”

“No, but we sure as hell know the cause of death,” Winfield said. He scooped up some more eggs and shoveled them into his mouth. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

“Well,” Dale said. Cold fingers still gripped his stomach. “There was something else I was wondering about. Have you heard anything about the funeral?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s tomorrow afternoon.”

Dale nodded. “At two. Have you heard anything about the funeral being closed-casket?”

Winfield took a swallow of coffee and wiped his chin with his napkin. Shaking his head, he said, “I hadn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me any. Like I said, I was there on the scene and, frankly, if I hadn’t found his registration and his wallet, I never would have recognized him. The car burst into flames on impact, and he was… Look, you just finished eating. I don’t want to be responsible for any indigestion, all right?”

Dale shifted to his feet, about to leave, but still, he didn’t want to let it drop, not quite yet. “I went out to Mildred Cole’s last night,” he said.

Winfield shook his head solemnly. “I had the dubious honor of going out there myself to tell her what had happened. I understand she’s taking it pretty hard.”

“Actually, I never got to speak with her,” Dale said, “but I spoke with her sister.”

“Roberta,” Winfield said, unsuccessfully disguising a small laugh.

“Uh-huh. Roberta told me Mildred wasn’t allowed to see the body, that the funeral director, what’s his name?”

“Franklin Rodgers,” Winfield said.

“Right. He’s insisting that Mildred can’t see the body.”

Winfield shrugged. “After seeing what I saw, I can understand why,” he said, taking another sip of coffee.

“And you don’t consider that unusual?” Dale asked. It struck him as strange how, in talking about this to Winfield, the whole thing grew in intensity for him. He suddenly felt very committed to finding out exactly what the hell had happened out there on the Haynesville Woods Road last Friday night.

Winfield shook his head slowly. “Look here, Mr. Harmon,” he said. “No one tells me how to do my job except for Captain Bates. Frank Rodgers is the local undertaker, ’n in my estimation, no one, including some state worker from Augusta, is going to tell him how to do it. Can I be any clearer on that?”

Dale shook his head and paused to scratch the back of his neck. “I’m not telling anyone how to do their job, Officer. Look, you knew Larry Cole, didn’t you?”

Winfield shrugged. “ ’Course I did. Not very well, but like I said before, he always stayed in line. Never any trouble ’s far as I was concerned.”

“And you knew his mother and his father before he died.”

Winfield grunted agreement.

“Well, then, think about how his mother must feel! She gets a call sometime after midnight…”

“Actually,” Winfield said softly, shivering from the recollection, “I went over to her house to tell her.”

“Okay, fine, and you tell her that her only son, her last surviving family member is dead. Gone, just like that!” He snapped his fingers in the space between them. “Think about it! She has to absorb all that grief, and then, how do you think she feels when she’s told that she can’t even see him one last time? How do you think she feels?”