Three
Dallas always knew the trip home was almost over when she could see the burned-out shell of Herman Wagner’s cabin sitting on the promontory of the cliff outside Mystic. After that, it was a matter of navigating the big S curve and then seeing a small green sign: Mystic, WV—Population 6,788.
Usually it made her heart skip a beat, knowing she was almost home. Today she got physically sick to her stomach. There was a moment when she thought she was going to have to pull over, but a couple of deep breaths helped the nausea pass. This was an ugly, horrifying trip for many reasons, not the least of which were funeral arrangements. But she knew enough about unattended deaths to realize they might not release her father’s body as quickly as she would hope, and there was no way to know when to plan the service until they were through.
It was just after 5:00 p.m., and she began thinking of all the chores that would need to be done out on the farm: checking on the cows, putting up the chickens. But she wasn’t going any farther through town until she found out where they were with the case. She didn’t believe for a minute that her father had killed himself, and it frightened her to think someone would want him dead. Whether she liked it or not, she needed to talk to Trey, so when she got to the first stoplight she took a right and drove straight to the police station.
* * *
Trey was on the phone when he heard her voice up at the front desk.
“Listen, I need to call you back,” he said, and hurried out of the office, only to meet her coming down the hall. “Hey, did you have any trouble on the drive down?”
“Can I talk to you?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, and led her back into his office and then shut the door. “Can I get you anything? Something cold to drink? I have Dr Pepper.”
It was the sympathy on his face, and the fact that he remembered what she liked to drink, that did her in. She had so many questions, but all she could think to do was cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he said, and took her in his arms.
Everything she’d been holding back buckled beneath the weight of her grief. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest.
“Oh my God, oh my God, I cannot believe this is happening,” she said, the tears coming faster.
There was nothing to say, nothing to do that would make this better. All Trey could do was be there for her in any way she needed, and right now she just needed to know she wasn’t in this alone.
Dallas cried until her heart was racing and her head felt like it was going to explode. When Trey reached around behind her and grabbed a handful of tissues from his desk, she took them.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, and began wiping away mascara and blowing her nose.
“What can I do? How can I help?” Trey asked.
She looked up. “What can you tell me?”
“Come sit,” he said, and led her to a sofa against the wall. As soon as she settled, he took a notepad from his desk and began writing, then tore off the sheet and handed it to her. “Sheriff Osmond is handling the case. This is his contact info.”
“Thanks,” she said, and dropped it in her pocket. “I don’t suppose you know when they’re doing the autopsy?”
“No, I’m sorry. That’s all being handled at the county level.”
“I guessed as much, and just so you know, I still do not believe he committed suicide.”
“I find it hard to believe myself. When was the last time you talked to him?” Trey asked.
“Three days ago. We talk at least two times a week, sometimes more. We stayed close, Trey. He never sounded upset. He never seemed down or depressed. I know my father, damn it!”
He reached for her hand, but she yanked it back.
“I want to see his body.”
Suddenly Trey was all business.
“No. No, you don’t. You do not want that to be your last memory of him. Do you hear me?”
She shuddered, vulnerable all over again.
“Was it that bad?”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, my God, this feels like a horrible nightmare. I...I should be going. I need to get the chores done before it gets dark. Sundown comes early in the mountains this time of year. Not that I need to tell you that.”
“I can do them for you,” he offered.
“No, but thank you. I do them all the time when I’m home. I know where everything is.”
He didn’t push the issue. And then it hit him.
“Are you going to be all right at the house by yourself?”
Her eyes narrowed sharply.
“Why would you ask that? Do you think I’m in danger? Do you think whoever killed Dad wants to harm me, too?”
“I didn’t ask because I think there’s a killer on the loose. I asked because you suffered a horrific shock today and you’re going to be on your own there.”
“I’m not afraid of ghosts, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Damn it, Dallas. I’m not trying to pick a fight with you. I’m offering help in any way you need, whether it’s doing chores or sleeping on your couch so you’ll feel easy in the night.”
“I know I’m being defensive, but I feel like I’m in this corner all by myself. Everyone thinks Dad committed suicide but me. Did he have a run-in with someone recently? Did anything happen out at the farm, like a theft? Was he being threatened?”
“I haven’t heard about anything like that, and he didn’t report trouble of any kind.”
“I’ll get answers,” she said, and then slipped the strap of her purse across her shoulder. “If you hear anything, I would appreciate a call.”
Trey resented the brush-off.
“I’ll be calling whether there’s anything new or not. You’re not going through this by yourself. I’ve known you my whole life, and regardless of how we parted company, that history gives me the right to say this. Understand?”
Her vision blurred all over again, but she refused to cry.
“I hear you. I’m going home.”
He frowned. “I’ll call you before I go to bed tonight, so if you don’t answer the damn phone, you can expect me on your doorstep to find out why.”
She left the office without looking back.
He shut the door behind her without watching her leave.
Even in the midst of sadness, the spark between them was still there, and it sucked.
* * *
Dallas drove home with a knot in her belly, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was completely to do with her father’s death. Seeing Trey again... Damn that man. She’d been in love with him for so long that when they’d finally broken up, it had taken her over a year to realize it was final. He wanted nothing to do with city life, and she couldn’t put farm life behind her fast enough. Every time she’d come home to visit, she’d made a point of avoiding him. Most times she’d been successful. But this time it wasn’t going to work that way.
By the time she turned off the blacktop and headed toward the house, she was shaking. This was going to be a nightmare. All she had to do was remember that nightmares eventually come to an end.
Rocks crunched beneath the tires as she drove through the tunnel of trees, and when she drove out, she was home. As luck would have it, the first thing she saw was yellow crime-scene tape flapping in the wind down at the barn.
“God help me,” she whispered, as she parked in her usual spot by the front gate.
It was habit that made her look up toward the porch. She half expected to see her father coming out the front door with that big smile on his face. When she got out, the utter silence made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She could see the chickens, but they weren’t making a sound, and the cows were nowhere in sight. It was as if they, too, knew he was gone.
“One thing at a time,” she muttered, then took a deep breath, got her suitcase out of the trunk and headed for the house.
She had her key out, ready to go inside, but when she realized the place was unlocked, her heart skipped a beat. She pushed the door inward and then stood on the threshold, looking and listening for something out of place.
The hall clock was still ticking, and the living room looked like her dad had just stepped away and would be back any second.
The way she figured it, she had two choices. She could stomp her way in and maybe be okay, or she could call Trey and ask him if the door was unlocked when they left. It was too soon to subject herself to his presence again, so she opted for stomping.
She slammed the door behind her as she entered and began tromping loudly through the house, checking every room, under every bed and in every closet, then made a quick check of the basement before she was satisfied she was alone.
She locked the front and back doors, and then paused in the central hallway, trying to think if there was something she’d missed, but the house was so quiet it was unnerving.
“Daddy, if you can hear me, I need an answer. You know me. I’m not leaving this place until I get it.”
When the hall clock began to strike the hour, she jumped. It was already six o’clock, past time to do chores. She hurried into her bedroom and dug out work clothes from the stash she kept there, and then changed. On the way through the kitchen she noticed the cold coffee still in the pot, poured it out and started a fresh pot brewing before she went through the utility room and out the back door.
The wind was moving the cane-back rockers. If she was of a mind to go there, she could imagine her parents sitting on the porch, watching the storm she could see was approaching. But she’d already told Trey she didn’t believe in ghosts, and the chairs were as empty as she felt. However, the chickens had heard the squeaky hinges on the back door, and were fussing and clucking and looking toward the house.
“I see you, and I’m coming,” she said, and jumped off the back porch.
The quickest way to get the chickens to go in was to feed and water them in the coop. While they were eating, she gathered the eggs and shut the hens up safely for the night. She sat the egg basket down to fasten the gate and then paused outside the chicken house, staring toward the barn. The yellow tape was still flapping in the breeze, reminding her of the horror that had happened beyond it. There was no getting out of taking that walk. She picked up the eggs and started down the path as she had countless times before.
The wind was rising, making the tape pop.
Flap, flap, flap.
She looked up at the gathering clouds. It was going to rain. She hastened her steps, anxious to finish this and get back inside before the storm hit, but the tape was like a guard dog, warning her, blocking her path.
A big gray heron suddenly lifted off from the pond out behind the barn. It knew the storm was coming, too.
Flap, flap, flap.
Now the tape was telling her, Hurry, hurry, hurry.
She couldn’t run with a basket full of eggs.
Flap, flap, flap.
This is the place. Come see, come see.
“Shut up,” Dallas said aloud, wondering what her dad had been thinking this morning when he’d walked this way. What had he been planning to do? Who was lurking in the shadows when he’d walked into the barn?
Flap, flap, flap.
“I said I’m not afraid of ghosts.”
Flap, flap, flap.
“I’m not afraid of you!” she screamed, but her vision was blurring, and the smell of imminent rain was in the air.
She stared at the tape for a few seconds more, then set the basket down and started running. She broke through the tape like the winner at the finish line, then turned on one heel and began gathering it up hand over fist, crying and cursing at the top of her voice until it was in her arms and spilling down around her ankles. She carried it to the burn barrel where they burned the household trash, and threw it inside. Considering her blurred vision and the state of her emotions, it was like looking into a pit of yellow snakes. She wanted to burn it—to watch it melt and take the pain of her loss with it, but she didn’t have anything to start the fire, and it was too windy to be burning anything anyway. She dropped her head and went back for the eggs.
Stepping into the barn moments later gave her a momentary feeling of shelter, and then she hurried into the egg room, where she set the eggs in the cooler. She would clean and sort them tomorrow, when there was more time.
The wind was rattling something on the outside of the barn as she walked back out into the breezeway. She paused, giving all the familiar objects a careful inspection. Nothing seemed to be missing—except her dad.
Don’t look up. Don’t look up.
She heard the voices, but she had to face the fear to get past it, so she tilted her head back, distraught but defiant.
Immediately her eye was drawn to the raw place on the fourth rafter down, where the rope had cleaned the grime of a hundred plus years from the wood, and in that moment the weight of grief was too much. Trey had told her she didn’t need to see the body, but in her mind’s eye she already had.
She threw back her head and screamed until she ran out of breath, and then dropped to her knees and wept until she was choking.
The rain hit hard, splattering the first drops onto the hard dry ground, but the dust soon turned to mud. It wasn’t until the wind began to blow rain in where she was kneeling that she came to herself enough to get up. If nothing else, she had to get back to the house to take Trey’s call or he would come looking for her. She couldn’t be vulnerable around him. It was too dangerous for her sanity.
The moment she walked out of the breezeway, she doubled up her fists and shook them at the sky, screaming her every word.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts! Do you hear me, goddamn it? I am not afraid of ghosts!”
With her head up and her shoulders back, she started walking toward the house with a long, steady stride while the rain poured down around her.
* * *
Betsy Jakes had just finished Trey’s cake when the storm finally hit. She dropped the spatula back into the icing bowl and began walking through the house, closing windows as she went.
“Trina! Shut the windows upstairs!” she yelled.
“I already did,” Trina said, as she came hurrying down the stairs, then followed her mother into the kitchen. “Gosh, that cake looks good. Is there any icing left?”
Betsy started to answer, and then grinned when she saw Trina already licking the spatula and scraping bits from the sides of the bowl.
Betsy covered the cake and then carried it to the extra refrigerator in the attached garage.
Lightning flashed, making the house lights flicker just as she came back inside. Trina had abandoned the spatula for her finger and was licking off icing as Betsy walked in. She smiled and shook her head. Some things never changed.
“Hey, honey, what do you want for supper...besides icing?” Betsy asked.
Trina shrugged. “Scrambled eggs and toast?”
Suddenly her smile felt weird, as if she had just laughed at a funeral, but she managed to hide the jolt. Eggs. For a few minutes she’d almost forgotten. “And maybe some sausage links?” she added.
“Sure, sounds good,” Trina said, and then carried the icing bowl to the sink, rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. “I’ll clean up the cake mess if you do supper, okay?”
“Deal,” Betsy said, and both women were soon involved in preparations for their evening meal.
* * *
Trey picked up an order of sliced brisket and French fries from Jonny’s Ribs to take back to his place. The smell of the food was so good he grabbed a couple of fries from the sack and ate them as he drove.
The rain hit just as he entered his apartment. If he was really lucky, he wouldn’t be called out tonight, but just in case, he’d learned not to waste time when it came to hot food. He washed up, then transferred the food to a plate and began to eat. A cold beer would have been good, but he was on call, so no dice.
He thought about Dallas, wondering how she was doing. One thing about her hadn’t changed. She was still as headstrong as ever. It probably served her well as an investigative reporter. Him, not so much.
He turned on the television as he ate, waiting for the weather report to see if this storm front was going to move through or hang around. Still fidgeting, he glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven. He would give Dallas two more hours and then he was calling.
* * *
Freshly showered and in clean, dry clothes, Dallas went to the kitchen for the coffee she’d made. The thought of food made her sick, but she felt light-headed, almost weak. She hadn’t had anything but junk or fast food since noon the day before and knew she couldn’t do what she needed to do if she were sick. Finally she settled for an omelet, an old standby for supper, and had it ready in minutes. She added buttered toast to the plate and carried it and her coffee into the living room to eat.
It was almost dark, so she went around the room drawing shades and pulling curtains until she felt safe, then sat down, turned on the television and ate.
Even though it was virtually tasteless, she felt better when the food was in her stomach. Settling in to finish her coffee, she pulled her feet up beneath her, and as she did, her gaze went straight to the recliner where her dad would have been sitting. A wave of loss washed through her so fast it left her shaking. She blinked away tears and turned up the volume. Trey would be calling, and she didn’t want him to hear the tears in her voice.
* * *
Trina’s boyfriend, Lee, had come by to take her to a movie, leaving Betsy with the house to herself. The thought of a long soak in the tub seemed like a good idea, and she headed for her room, ready to put this day to bed.
The tub was nearly full as she poured bath salts into the water and turned off the faucet. She stepped out of her robe and into the tub, easing down into the steamy heat. Water lapped against her breasts and up the back of her neck as she tucked the bath pillow beneath her neck and closed her eyes.
The buoyancy and heat were so soothing that she soon lost track of time. The sound of rainfall on the roof made her feel sleepy. The heat always soothed the ache in her lower back, a remnant from the wreck that had nearly killed her in her teens. The moment she thought of the wreck, she saw Dick Phillips hanging from the rafter. Before she could look away, his face morphed into someone else, someone covered in blood. She sat up with a gasp, splashing water onto the bathroom floor.
“What the hell?” she muttered, chalking it up to the horrendous day.
She wondered if Dallas was back in town yet. She should call, but since she’d also discovered the body, it made things awkward. She reached down and pulled the plug to let the tub drain.
* * *
As school superintendent, one of Will Porter’s duties, and there were many, was to attend the monthly school board meetings, and tonight was no exception.
Tonight the school board members, the school principals, the high school secretary and a few interested parents were present as they went through the agenda.
Porter went through the motions, saying all the right things in the right places, but tonight his mind was not on the business at hand. He did what he had to do for his job and his goals in life, but he had bigger problems at home that he didn’t know how to handle.
His wife, Rita, was already three-sheets-to-the-wind drunk off her ass when he got home after the meeting, which was really nothing new. But this time she’d used the excuse of grieving for their old classmate Dick Phillips as the reason for her condition, although she no longer needed an excuse to imbibe. All pretense of hiding her addiction was in the past.
Years and added weight had changed his appearance greatly. He looked more like a used-up prizefighter than a school superintendent, but what he wanted didn’t require good looks. He had aspirations of greater grandeur than being superintendent of minuscule Mystic and could have cared less if Dick Phillips was dead. Rita had spent a good portion of their married life referring to Dick as the one who got away. It made no sense to Will. Dick had never left the farm, while he had gone on to graduate school and had a successful professional career. Then one night, in a drunken stupor, she’d taunted him, claiming Dick’s cock was bigger and he was better at sex.
That night he’d done an unforgivable thing. That night he’d physically raped his wife. The fortunate part was that she’d been too drunk to remember it. The downside was remembering how much he’d liked it. He’d never thought of himself as a violent man, but he’d learned the hard way that there were times when no other avenue would suffice.
And right now Will Porter’s dream of running for State Superintendent of Education was imminent, and the only thing holding him back was the drunk in his bed. Now Rita could whine all she wanted about how she’d let Dick Phillips get away, because he was dead, and Will wasn’t a damn bit sorry.
* * *
Dallas was sitting in the dark, the television on mute, as she listened to the storm rage on. It fit how she felt, all torn and shattered inside. The thunderstorm hit its zenith just before nine o’clock, rattling windows and pelting the roof with raindrops that sounded more like bullets. Dallas had grown up in this house. She knew every creak and pop the structure could make, but when it thundered, followed by a crack of lightning so close that it lit up the room where she was sitting, she screamed and jumped off the sofa.
“Did that hit the house? I think it hit the house,” she gasped, and then realized there was no one to answer.
She bolted through the hall into the kitchen, but the power was still on and she didn’t smell smoke. She opened the back door and ran out into the rain to see if the roof was on fire.
From what she could tell, it looked fine. She took shelter again on the back porch, waiting for the next lightning strike to light up the area so she could see if the other structures were okay.
When it came, she saw enough to feel confident her question had been answered. The chicken house was intact. The barn was still there. The security light had been temporarily knocked out, but it was slowly coming back on and from what she could see, she didn’t think lightning had struck the pole.
Wind was blowing rain up on her bare feet and legs as she turned around to go inside. Then she heard her phone and locked the door and ran, dripping water as she went.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Is everything okay? You sound like you’ve been running.”
Trey.
“Lightning struck something close by. I was out on the back porch looking the place over when the phone began to ring. I’m fine. Thank you for calling.”
“I have a question,” he said.
She frowned. “Okay, ask.”
“Did your dad feed the cattle every day?”
“There are four cows with calves still nursing. He fed the cows ground feed so they wouldn’t lose weight until the calves were weaned. Why?”
“He fed the chickens this morning, but he didn’t feed the cows.”
Dallas’s mind was spinning, trying to see where Trey was going with this, and then it hit her.
“You’re wondering why, if he was going to kill himself, would he take time to feed the chickens but not the cows?”
“It crossed my mind.”
Her voice began to shake. “You don’t think he hanged himself, do you?”
“What I think and what the evidence will show could be two different things.”
She started to cry, but softly now, no longer alone in her quest for the truth. “Thank you, Trey.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“For not taking the easy way out of this.”
“You forget, honey. It’s not my case. Sheriff Osmond is running the show. He’s the man you have to convince to dig deeper. In the meantime, you could go through the house, specifically your father’s business records, and see if there’s anything there that would help explain what happened.”
“I will. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she said.
Trey hated to hang up, but there was nothing else he could say.
“If you have a question, or if you need help in any way, call me. Will you do that? Will you let me help you that much?”
She sighed. “Yes. I’ll do that. And, Trey, really...thanks for calling.”
“Yeah, sure. Try and get some rest.”
He disconnected before she could say goodbye, and she told herself it didn’t matter, then had to make herself move. All of a sudden the day had caught up with her. She stumbled into the living room, turned off the television and then headed for her room.
She had the bed turned back and was ready to get in when she stopped. She thought about how far it was from here to her nearest neighbor, then about the person who’d killed her dad, and went across the hall to his bedroom to get his shotgun. She checked to see if it was loaded, then put it just under the edge of her bed.
She might not sleep a wink, but it wouldn’t be because she was scared. And she didn’t believe in ghosts.