The Narrows(52)

He left Lomax’s and walked up Hamilton, enjoying the cool autumn air on his face, the crunch of dead leaves beneath his sneakers, and the smell of fireplaces coming from the residential streets just a couple of blocks over. Many of the shop windows were dark and soaped over. The businesses that remained, like random teeth in a diseased mouth, tried their best to appear upbeat and festive, their windows decorated in seasonal attire and jack-o’-lanterns glowing on the front stoops. In the front window of a liquor store, a cardboard decoration depicted a cadre of skeletons in top hats wielding slender black canes, their fleshless arms intertwined in some semblance of camaraderie.

That’s us, Ben thought morosely. That’s all that’s left of the proud Stillwater PD—a bunch of skeletons marshaling through the streets of a ghost town.

At the corner of Hamilton and Susquehanna, Ben jaywalked in the direction of Hogarth’s Drugstore. The drugstore’s windows issued a soft, yellow glow and Ben could see a variety of Halloween costumes—masks and hats and capes—in pedestals behind the glass. He hopped up the curb and entered Hogarth’s.

It was a cramped little store that had an old-fashioned soda fountain toward the back. Godfrey Hogarth was back there now, toiling away with something underneath the counter. At eighty-eight, Godfrey Hogarth was one of Stillwater’s eldest residents. Despite his age, the man’s memory was as sharp as a tack, and he was known to tell stories about Stillwater’s heyday—or what passed as Stillwater’s heyday—with much fanfare and animation when he was down at Crossroads, enjoying some dandelion wine or Wild Turkey. He’d run the drugstore since Ben had been a kid, though back then it had taken up the whole block and had employed roughly a dozen people.

“Hey, Mr. Hogarth.”

“Hello, Ben!” The old man’s eyes lit up as he peered at him from over the counter. “Haven’t seen you in a coon’s age.”

“I’m either working or holed up at the farm. You know how it is.”

“You want a float?”

The notion struck him as almost comically appealing. “You know what? What the heck, let’s do it.”

“Fantastic!” The old man opened a freezer chest and took out a small container of vanilla ice cream. He opened it and scooped some into a fountain glass then poured cola over it. The drink fizzed and the ice cream bobbed like a tiny iceberg.

“I came in to ask you about a boy named Matthew Crawly,” Ben said as Hogarth slid the ice cream float in front of him. “Do you know him?”

“Sure. He’s been coming around some days after school with another boy, looking at the costumes in the window.”

“His mother reported him missing Saturday night.”

“Oh, no. What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

“I certainly do. It was Friday afternoon.” He pointed toward the front of the store with one hooked, arthritic finger that reminded Ben of a knotted tree branch. “He stood right outside on the sidewalk with his friend and looked at the costumes and masks in the window.”

“Did he come inside?”

“No.”

“Did you go out there and talk to him?”

“I would have, but I was on the cash register.”

Ben sipped the float through an accordion straw. It was delicious and reminded him of childhood.

“Do you think something bad has come down on the poor kid’s head?” Hogarth asked. There was genuine concern in his ancient turtle eyes.

“I don’t know much yet,” Ben said truthfully.

“That’s a shame. He seems like a nice boy.” With speed Ben would have thought impossible for the old man, Godfrey Hogarth jerked one finger up beside his face. He had the tired, drooping face of a scarecrow, capped with a wild nest of thick, iron-colored hair. “You know, I may be a crazy old man, but I haven’t felt right since that other boy was found down in the Narrows, Ben.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I’ve seen a lot of things. I’ve felt a lot of things, too.” Hogarth shook his head, his eyes wise yet distant, like the eyes of an old reptile. “I know when to listen when my heart tells me something.”

This sparked something else inside Ben. “In all the time you’ve lived here, have you ever heard of any animal eating—God, this sounds so stupid—any animal eating the brains out of other animals?”

Hogarth brought his hand back down. His muddy-brown eyes narrowed. “Eating brains, did you say?”

“I know how it sounds.” Like something out of one of Eddie La Pointe’s horror magazines, he thought. “We’ve had two cases of farmers whose livestock have been killed.”

“Since you’ve mentioned the brains, I’m assuming you mean only the brains, correct? Nothing else was eaten?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Well,” the old man huffed, “that is strange.”

“That’s not something a mountain lion would do, is it?”

Slowly, Godfrey Hogarth shook his shaggy head. “I couldn’t say, Ben. I suppose anything is possible. A mountain lion?”

“Some folks in Garrett shot and killed one Friday night.”

“Would get cougars come down from the mountains on occasion,” Hogarth said. “You know that as well as anyone, having grown up here in Stillwater, Ben.”