Ghost Road Blues

Goddamn! Why did the kid have to be such a pain in the ass? Why did he have to push it all the time? Like giving him that spooky smile last night. All it did was make more trouble for him, for Vic, who tried to set some kind of an example of how to grow up to be a man, even if the Man didn’t tell him to. The kid pushed it, though. He always pushed it; and when he pushed it, Vic just plain had to slap the kid back into place. How else was the little shit going to learn any damn thing about life? If the little idiot had any kind of brains, then maybe he’d understand that Vic was just trying to set him straight, make him tough, teach him to be strong. After all, he was the Man’s only human son. Vic just couldn’t stand to see his son grow up to be a wimp-​ass piece of shit. Did the kid ever get it? Fuck no! All he did was cry like a little girl. Last night, well, that was the topper, wasn’t it? Having the fucking mayor call him and tell him to go pick the kid up, at the Haunted Hayride no less. God! Vic wondered if the kid still had any idea of how dangerous that had been. Probably not. How could he? He had no idea what was in the woods out beyond Dark Hollow.



Vic paused in his reflections and allowed himself a smile. Well, it wouldn’t be long before the kid did find out. Soon, they’d all find out.



Still smiling, he set about the brake job, pleased with the way the future was spreading out before him. Vic worked in silence, unaware of the bright blue sky beyond the half-​closed garage doors, and the golden, enriching sunlight. Unaware, also, of the tall, gray-​skinned phantom who stood across the road and watched him from the shadow of a skeletal old maple tree. The stiff breeze whipped at the Bone Man’s clothes and carried away flecks of dried graveyard mud.



Then abruptly Vic straightened and looked up—not across the street to where the image of the Bone Man was fading into illusion like a sun dog, but instead he looked inward, his head cocked as he listened.



Vic lowered his wrench and let it dangle from his greasy fingers as he heard the voice speak to him in a soft, secret whisper. Vic smiled a very ugly smile and set down his wrench. Screw the workload. He quickly cleaned his hands, shut off the lights, hung a CLOSED sign in the window, and locked the door on his way out. He climbed into his pickup and for the second time that day headed out of town toward the abandoned farm that bordered Dark Hollow. He never stopped smiling.



3



Terry hid in a bathroom stall for half an hour, fighting a case of the shakes that was so bad that he had uncontrollable diarrhea. Trousers down around his ankles, head bowed and held tightly in both hands, he waited it out until the Xanax finally kicked in. Each pill took longer to work and did less, but at least the shakes finally eased up.



When he was sure the bathroom was empty he left the stall, washed in the sink, combed his hair, and straightened his clothes as best he could. Then he went to meet Gus in the doctors’ lounge.



“Ah, there you are,” Gus Bernhardt said. He was sitting on the couch over by the coffee station.



Shit! Terry thought, the use of the expletive not even hitting a speed bump in his brain. For one crazy second he considered fleeing, but then he spotted Ferro and LaMastra as well, sitting in chairs that flanked the couch. Son of a bitch.



“Your Honor,” Ferro said mildly. “We were just discussing our options with the media. The chief here wants to go public with the story and my partner and I feel it would be best to keep things low-​key. No sense exciting the citizens and drawing rubberneckers.”



“Yeah,” LaMastra agreed, “a manhunt is worse than a fire for bringing out every idiot with a video camera for fifty miles around.”



Still standing half in and half out of the door, Terry looked from one to the other and felt like screaming. Were they all crazy? Who the hell cared what the media thought? Or the tourists? Or any of this? He just wanted to get out—to crawl out of his own skin and just run. His best friend was in the hospital, along with every surviving member of his girlfriend’s family. Henry Guthrie, one of the most respected and influential farmers in the area, was dead. Madmen were having their way with the residents, and not twenty-​four hours ago Terry’s little sister—his dead little sister—had called him up on the phone. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass for what did or did not make the papers.



But old habits die hard, so by reflex his face assumed an approximation of his Mr. Mayor facade and he cleared his throat, entered the room, and sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs.



“Let’s play it your way, Sergeant,” Terry said curtly. “I don’t want to have to go on TV and explain it fifty times. Not now.”



“I fully agree” Ferro began but Terry cut him off.



“In fact I don’t want to release anything to the press until we have actually accomplished something,” he said with a touch of asperity.



LaMastra gave a surreptitious little silent whistle and raised his eyes significantly to Ferro, whose face had become wooden.



“As you say, Your Honor.”



Terry rubbed his red-​rimmed eyes and sighed. In the back of his mind Mandy’s voice was whispering to him over the phone. The force necessary to keep a bland smile on his face was immense.



Ferro opened his mouth and was about to add something else when the lounge door opened and a very weary-​looking doctor came in, his green skullcap and surgical scrubs stained with unpleasant splotches of various colors and viscosities. He sketched a weary wave, lumbered bleary-​eyed over to the coffee station, and poured himself a cup of very strong black coffee in a chipped ceramic mug that said: #1 DAD.



Sipping the coffee, he ambled over and sank wearily down onto the couch beside Gus. He crossed his ankles and rested them on the coffee table, and Terry could see that the soft paper scrub booties he wore over his shoes were spattered with dark drops of dried Betadine. The doctor looked bleakly at the gathered faces, sipped his coffee, and sighed.



“Doc, have you met Detective Sergeant Ferro and Detective LaMastra?” Terry said, and the doctor gave them small nods.



“Yeah, but last night things were a little too busy to be social.” The doctor toasted them with his mug. “Saul Weinstock.” He tugged the green skullcap off, stared for a moment at the sweat stains that darkened the soft papery material, and then tossed it onto the table. Weinstock was thirty-​five, looked thirty, and had a face that looked remarkably like a younger, tougher Hal Linden. A chai on a gold chain glittered from within the tangle of curly black chest hair.



Terry said, “Dr. Weinstock is the administrator here at Regional, as well as the chief surgeon and county coroner.”



“In small towns we wear a lot of hats,” Weinstock said with a small grin. “I also double as the mailman and the fire chief.”



“Uh…really?” LaMastra asked.



“No,” said Weinstock.



“Oh.”



The doctor glanced at Terry. “Christ, you look like shit.”



“Been a long couple of days, Saul,” Terry said. “So, where do we stand?”



“Well, that’s a loaded question. Which do you want first, the good news, the so-​so news, the bad news, or the really bad news?”



“How about in that order?”



“Okay, the good news.” Weinstock had a clipped but affable voice. “Officer Rhoda Thomas is an exceptionally hardy and fit young lady. We removed two 9-millimeter bullets from her last night, and she is doing very well. She’s conscious and aware.”



“Prognosis?” asked Ferro.



Weinstock shrugged. “She’ll be fine. No truly life-​threatening damage, except for the collapsed lung, and we fixed that. She gets the right P.T. and she’ll be playing tennis in the spring, no problem. In a couple of months, you’ll have to be a damn close friend to even see the scars.”



“Good,” Terry said. “And Crow?”



“Oh, also good news there. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself for taking up bed space. Pissant little wounds both of them. If he didn’t eat at McDonald’s so much he probably wouldn’t have had big enough love handles for the bullets to graze. He’ll be out of here tomorrow.”



“What about his face?”



“Jeez, have you seen it?” Weinstock asked with a malicious grin. “Looks like something out of a Frankenstein movie, but that’s just bruising, couple lacerations. Piddling stuff. He’ll have a couple of scars, sure, but nothing that will spoil his looks.”



“What about his girlfriend?” asked LaMastra.



“Val? Well, that’s the so-​so news. She has a couple of cracked ribs, some torn cartilage, a helluva lot of facial bruising, and assorted minor lacerations. Her shoulder was wrenched, but that’s just a sprain, nothing to worry about. We shot her up with some cortisone, and I had our sports med guy take a look at her and he said she’d be doing cartwheels in a few weeks. In short, the body trauma is in no way debilitating, so all that will heal.” He blew across the surface of his cup and then took a careful sip. “The real issue is the emotional and psychological trauma. I mean, she was threatened by a madman, was injured while fighting for her life, she more or less saw her father get gunned down, and saw her boyfriend get shot. That’s one hell of a lot to take in one night.”



“Val’s as tough as iron, Saul,” said Terry.



The doctor nodded. “I agree. I’ve known Val forever. Hell, my uncle David delivered her…she used to babysit my sister and me. I know she’s tough, and I think if anyone could recover from the psychic trauma of this, then she’s the one. This morning I had a long talk with her, and she’s tearing herself up with guilt.”



“Guilt?” asked Gus. “For what?”



“For leaving her father to die out in the field while she went to help her brother and sister-​in-​law, then for being too traumatized to help him after all the fireworks were over. No, no, don’t say it. We all know that that’s just grief talking, but grief coupled with this kind of trauma can really do a number on a person. Seen it too many times.”



“So,” asked Terry slowly, “will she recover? I mean, in your medical opinion?”