South Of Hell lk-9 Read online

  His father would work the fields from “can see” to “can’t see” and retreat upstairs with his whiskey to dull the constant thud of Verna’s footsteps across the attic boards above his bed.

  Sometimes, if he drank enough and was lonely enough, he’d get the extra attic key from the kitchen and head upstairs, bottle in one hand, undoing his pants with the other. His old man used to say he was just trying to shake her up enough to rattle some sense back into her, but Brandt knew now he was just taking from her what was rightfully his anyway. Not that his mother would have even noticed when she was like that.

  Then, one morning, Crazy Verna didn’t unlock the door to get her milk and toast. The plate was still there, eight hours later when Brandt brought up a bowl of rabbit stew. The next morning when he saw that the stew was untouched, he took the key from the kitchen and let himself in the attic.

  Crazy Verna was hanging from the rafters in a piss-stained nightgown, her bare feet raw from all that running.

  He had been just ten when he found her.

  Brandt stopped and turned. The kitchen window of the farmhouse was a small smudge of yellow in the fog. He didn’t realize he had walked so far. He started back.

  He let himself in the kitchen door. There was no sign of Margi. He got a beer from the cooler, popped the top and took a gulp, still thinking about that orange foreclosure paper on the front door.

  Shit, he should have sold the place nine years ago when he had the chance. Just taken the money and run and hoped Jean’s body didn’t turn up. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. Where the hell was he going to get twelve grand to pay the taxes on this place? Margi would give it to him, but who knew when her settlement was going to come in and how much would be left once the fucking lawyers got done?

  Brandt wandered into the dining room, his eyes falling on the sealed cartons. He knew they held nothing but old pictures, dishes, and junk, nothing worth even carting down to the secondhand shop. Nothing worth selling. Except…

  He walked to the parlor and stared at the piano. It had been Jean’s, the only thing she’d brought from her folks’ house when she married him.

  Married me. That was a joke. I did her the god damn favor. And she shit on me.

  “Fuck you, Jean,” he said softly. He drained the last of his beer.

  A waft of perfume drifted from behind him. Margi appeared at his side, holding a can of Budweiser. He crushed his empty can, tossed it to the floor, and took the fresh beer from Margi.

  “Where’d you go?” she asked.

  “Went for a walk,” Brandt said.

  “I got worried about you,” Margi said. “I mean, when you didn’t come in the house. I got worried you-”

  “I just needed some air,” Brandt muttered, going to the window. He pulled back the lace curtain, leaned his forehead against the frame, and stared out at the empty road. He was vaguely aware of Margi moving in the background, and he hoped she’d just go away and leave him alone. Ever since the cops took him away earlier, she’d been acting weird, turning all clingy and quiet.

  A tinkling noise drifted from behind him. He turned to see Margi sitting at the piano. She was poking at the keys.

  “Get away from there,” he said.

  “Hey, this thing has pedals,” she said. “I never seen a piano with pedals. What do you use these for?”

  Margi’s feet started pumping the worn old pedals. Inside the piano’s window, the yellowed roll began to turn. The plinky, off-key music filled the small room.

  It was like the screech of metal on metal in his ears. That song. That same damn song that Jean had played over and over and over for the kid.

  “Look, Owen, there’s words here. But they’re like foreign or something.”

  Margi started to sing, trying to read the words. “Catch Don set a seal… you and me pearl. What do you think it means? Hey, Owen?”

  He closed his eyes as Margi’s voice faded. But their voices… he could hear them real clear, the two them, singing those words that only they could understand, like it was some big fucking secret between them, and he was left out.

  He opened his eyes and turned. His eyes were fixed now on the dusty ivory keys, watching them move up and down, up and down, all by themselves, like some fucking ghost was playing the damn thing.

  “Stop it!” he shouted.

  The music stopped, and silence filled the room. He felt like he’d gone deaf.

  “I’m just having some fun, Owen.”

  Margi’s white face wavered in front of him.

  “Why can’t I have a little fun? There ain’t nothing else to do in this crappy place.”

  “This is my home.”

  She turned back to the piano. “Ain’t no wonder she left you if you made her live here,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  Margi didn’t move.

  He was at her side in one step. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face forward into the keyboard.

  “She didn’t leave me!” he shouted.

  He yanked Margi off the stool and, still clutching her hair, dragged her toward the kitchen. Margi clawed at his hands and started to kick.

  “Stop it!” she screamed.

  He shoved through the kitchen door, holding her by the hair as he started searching drawers. Empty. Empty. Damn it. Where are the fucking knives?

  “I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Margi whimpered.

  “You’re not leaving me!” Brandt shouted. “No one leaves me!”

  “I won’t!” Margi cried. “I won’t ever!”

  That was the same thing Jean had said. But Jean had lied.

  He threw the last drawer across the room. It crashed and splintered against the wall. His fist smashed into her face so hard it would have sent her flying had he not had a grip on her hair. And Margi… now she was suddenly fighting back, ripping at his hands and kicking at his shins, fighting him. She never fought back before. But she was fighting now, fighting like her life depended on it.

  Just like Jean.

  He shoved her down onto her hands and knees on the floor and held her there by the back of the neck. He heard coughs and screams, felt her bony body shuddering under his grip.

  Just like Jean.

  He pushed her flat to the floor, spread-eagle on the linoleum as he dropped down hard on her thighs. His blows came like a pendulum, swinging fists from both sides, slamming into her back and ribs and head. Over and over and over like that fucking song.

  Suddenly, he stopped.

  Deaf again and numb to anything but the feel of a warm stickiness on his face and hands. He drew a breath heavy with the stench of blood.

  He opened his eyes and looked down at what was beneath him.

  Red on blue. Slick black leather. Matted yellow hair.

  He pushed off her and slumped back against the wall, legs spread out in front of him. His chest filled with something that made it hard to breathe.

  He opened his eyes slowly, trying to get his bearings, trying to get things to stop spinning. He brought his hands up slowly and squeezed his head between them.

  The cops thought he had killed Jean and buried her out here. But he hadn’t buried her. Not in the barn or anywhere else.

  He’d left Jean lying here on this very floor. He had left her to go to the barn to get the axe after he broke the knife. When he got back, the bitch was gone, nothing in the kitchen but a bloody smear across the linoleum to the back porch.

  It was raining like hell that night, and he couldn’t follow the blood trail, so he waited until morning to walk the farm to find where she had finally fallen down and died.

  Two weeks of walking, and he never found her.

  For nine years, even after he had left the place, he had told himself she had to be dead. Carried away and eaten by animals. She was dead. Had to be. Chopped-up, bleeding women just didn’t vanish into the corn.

  Where is she?

  A soft moan pulled him back.

  He looked over at her, but
still it took him a moment to understand it was Margi. Her skinny body was trembling like she was in shock or something. And she was trying to move her arms and legs, but all she could seem to do was slide around on the floor, kind of swimming in her own blood.

  But she was alive.

  Just like Jean.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Louis stood by the bedroom door watching Amy’s face. Joe was sitting next to her on the bed, and although he couldn’t hear Joe’s soft voice, he knew what she was saying: “It wasn’t your mother in the barn, Amy.”

  Amy’s expression registered surprise, then settled into something he could read only as deep disappointment.

  Louis had expected tears or even resignation, anything but the quiet look of blighted hope that colored Amy’s face. But in the end, he understood it. He had seen the expression before in the faces of those who had lost loved ones. With loss came the relief of grief, but only if there was someone to grieve over. Amy still had not found her mother. The hole in her heart remained.

  Still, he was surprised when Amy told Joe that she wanted to go back and see Dr. Sher again. “I need to keep looking for her, and Dr. Sher can help me do that,” Amy said.

  It was only after Joe finally agreed to take Amy back to Dr. Sher the next day that Amy went back to bed.

  Now, two hours later, Joe was stretched out on the sofa, hand over her forehead, and Louis was sitting close by. There was a bucket of chicken and a bottle of cabernet on the coffee table between them. Louis reached over and poured the last of the wine into Joe’s glass and held it out.

  She shook her head, closing her eyes.

  “Did you call your sheriff?” Louis asked.

  “Detective Bloom called him,” Joe said.

  “Is Mike upset at you?”

  Joe shook her head. “He’d like me to come home, but he told Bloom whatever I did, he’d back me a hundred percent.”

  “He sounds like a good guy.”

  Joe nodded slowly.

  The room was quiet. It was nearly eleven, and Louis knew Joe was as tired as he was. Still, she had been quieter than usual all evening.

  “So, I guess you haven’t changed your mind about running for sheriff this fall,” Louis said. “You’re going to stay in Echo Bay?”

  She opened her eyes. “You knew that when I left Florida,” she said. “Nothing has changed.”

  He nodded. “Thank you for staying,” he said. “I think Amy likes you a lot.”

  Joe didn’t comment.

  Louis glanced to the bedroom door, open just enough so they could hear if Amy had a nightmare. But she had been out for hours now. Her need to sleep seemed to have lessened some, and she had not had another episode.

  “You want to talk any about Lily?” Joe asked.

  “No,” Louis said, not looking at her.

  He heard her sigh. Maybe she felt the need to talk about it more than he did, but he couldn’t right now. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Not to Joe and certainly not to Lily. He wouldn’t know until the day came when he met her.

  Louis rose, gathered up the chicken bucket and empty wine bottle, and went to the kitchenette. He tossed the garbage and opened the fridge. There were six Heinekens and two sodas. He grabbed a soda.

  “Oh… stop! Stop! God, help me, please! Stop it!”

  Amy.

  He ran to the bedroom, Joe at his heels. Amy was in the bed, sitting straight up, both hands rigid in front of her face. He grabbed her shoulders before he realized it might scare her even more.

  “Amy! Wake up.”

  She started thrashing at him, twisting away from him so violently she tangled herself in the blankets. He reached for her again but caught only the sleeve on her pajamas. It ripped as she scrambled from the bed.

  “I have to get to the corn!” she said. “I can’t lead them to John. I have to run. Oh, Lord, help me, please!”

  Joe tried to catch her, but Amy pushed away from her, stumbling across the bedroom. She was heading right toward the window. It was thick glass, but Louis wasn’t sure she couldn’t put herself through it.

  He lunged for her. They both tumbled to the carpet.

  “No! No!” Amy cried.

  He pinned her wrists and looked to Joe. Amy was crying, bucking against his hold. She wasn’t very strong, and it was easy to hold her down.

  Joe dropped to her knees next to them. When Amy felt Joe’s hands on her back, she started to relax. Louis let go of Amy’s wrists, and she drew her arms under her face, weeping.

  “I’m going to die,” she whimpered. “I’m going to die.”

  “You’re not going to die, Amy,” Joe said, rubbing her back. “I promise you. You’re not going to die.”

  Amy was on her side, hands clasped against her chest, eyes closed. She had lapsed into a sudden, comalike sleep, just as she had done at the farmhouse.

  Joe sat back on her heels. “Louis, we can’t keep doing this,” she said. “This girl belongs in a hospital.”

  “Dr. Sher doesn’t think so,” Louis said.

  “Dr. Sher has only seen Amy a couple of times,” Joe said. “And she hasn’t seen one of these attacks. We could be doing her irreparable damage by not having her in a place where she can be watched twenty-fours a day.”

  “And medicated so she can’t remember any of this stuff?” he said.

  “Maybe she’s not meant to remember,” Joe said. “Maybe there’s nothing to remember that has anything to do with her mother. It’s probably memories of her own abuse. Why force her to relive it?”

  “Not remembering makes it worse,” he said. “And you heard her tonight. She wants to remember. She wants to go back and see Dr. Sher again.”

  Joe sat back against the wall, staring at Amy. “I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing here,” she whispered. “She scares me. This whole thing scares me.”

  Amy was resting on the red settee, eyes closed. Louis and Joe were seated near the piano, far enough away not to be a distraction but close enough to hear. Amy had asked that Louis be allowed to sit in this time. It had surprised him, but ever since he had given her the locket, she didn’t seem to mind him being around. In fact, this morning, on the way to the Bronco, she’d whispered to him that he shouldn’t tell Joe about the necklace because she would take it away from her.

  He hadn’t told Joe about the locket. Nor had he given voice to the question that had been in his head since the trip to the medical examiner: Why had Amy put her own hair into the locket?

  The click of the tape recorder drew his attention back to Dr. Sher. The room was quiet and warm. He and Joe waited in silence while the doctor again took Amy back to her nightmare, telling her there was nothing to be afraid of and that she was safe.

  “Tell me where you are,” Dr. Sher said.

  “I don’t know,” Amy said.

  “Look down at yourself,” Dr. Sher said. “Look at your clothes and shoes. What do they look like?”

  “I’m wearing a blue dress,” Amy said. “And black leather lace-up shoes. They don’t fit me right, and they’re heavy and hard to run in.”

  “Are you running now?”

  “No,” Amy said. “But I’m afraid. I hear the horses coming. I see a white horse pulling a black carriage. I hear the men. The fire is in their hands.”

  Louis caught Joe’s eye and mouthed the word Carriage? She just shook her head.

  “Are there other people with you, Amy?” Dr. Sher said.

  “He is there… and his wife.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. They’re watching.”

  “What do they look like?” Dr. Sher asked.

  “He has eyeglasses and a long black coat, heavy to keep the cold away. She wearing a long yellow dress, and her hair is black and piled up on her head.”

  Louis glanced at Joe. She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, mesmerized by Amy’s narrative.

  “I’m running,” Amy said. “I’m running through the corn. It’s cold, s
o cold. My chest hurts.”

  “Why are you running?”

  “They’re chasing me,” Amy said. “I hear the horse’s hooves on the dirt. They’re close, very close. But I can’t go to the cellar. John is there, and I can’t let them find John. So I run to the corn.”

  Amy’s breathing became labored.

  “What is it, Amy?”

  “They found me. They found me in the corn. They’re dragging me back, back to the barn. No!”

  “Calm down, Amy,” Dr. Sher said. “You’re safe. Just tell me what you see.”

  “He has a whip.”

  “Who? The man with the eyeglasses?”

  “No, one of the others,” she said. “The fire… I can feel it on my skin.”

  “Is the barn on fire?”

  “No, no,” Amy said impatiently. “Torches! They scare me, but I can’t move. I can’t move. I am naked now. They have taken my clothes. I’m so cold.”

  “Slow down,” Dr. Sher said. “Relax.”

  Amy’s voice suddenly deepened, became almost unrecognizable. “Stand back,” she said. “You stand back, Amos. You let us do what we need to do.”

  “Who is speaking, Amy?”

  Amy let out a low moan. “The ropes… they are pulling me up on the hook. The whip… it hurts. It rips and rips. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

  “Amy, pull yourself away from the pain, and get past the whipping,” Dr. Sher said. “Look down now. Where are you?”

  For the next few seconds, Amy was quiet. Dr. Sher glanced up, meeting Louis’s eyes. She seemed as mystified as he was.

  “I’m lying on the ground,” Amy said softly. “I’m freezing but warm with my own blood.”

  Dr. Sher placed her hand gently over Amy’s.

  “I hear digging,” Amy whispered. “They are digging a grave. It is my grave.”

  Louis heard Joe pull in a quick breath.

  Then, suddenly, Amy went limp. She fell quiet again. It was the second or third time she had, but Louis got the feeling that her memory — or whatever this was — was over.

  Dr. Sher awakened Amy and told her to rest. Then she motioned Louis and Joe from the room. Once in the foyer, she closed the French doors to the living room and took several deep breaths. She was watching Amy through the doors.