The Narrows(84)



“Hey there, Jed. I’ve got Eddie La Pointe on his way out here, too.” The porch creaked beneath Ben’s boots. “What the hell happened?”

“I caught her about a half hour ago running through the field,” Jed said, opening the screen door. He was nearing sixty but looked younger; working in the fields year-round kept him healthy and in good shape. “She was screaming her head off and nearly socked me in the face when I grabbed her. When she finally got herself under control, she said someone did something to Evan. I didn’t quite know what to make of it so I figured I’d best call you guys. She’s inside with Bev now. She’s calmed down some but she still ain’t makin’ a whole lot of sense. Talkin’ gibberish, if y’ask me.”

Ben followed Jed Moreland into the house. It was a traditional country home, the ancient wallpaper bearing a corncob pattern and adorned with framed needlepoints. Miniature tractors and hand-carved angel figurines stood on shelves in the hallway that led into the kitchen. The kitchen itself was spacious, with a bay window overlooking the Morelands’ property and, beyond, the immense panorama of the Allegheny Mountains.

Maggie Quedentock sat at the kitchen table with Jed’s wife, Beverly. Beverly was a stout, stone-faced woman in her fifties who looked both concerned and unnerved sitting at the table with Maggie. There were two cups of coffee on the table between the women but it didn’t appear as if they’d been touched.

Maggie looked up at Ben, and he was immediately taken aback by the swimmy, unfocused quality in her eyes. It was like looking at an asylum inmate.

“There’s some stuff out in the yard that needs tending,” Jed said to his wife, who rose quickly from the table and appeared more than happy to be ushered out of the room.

Once they left, Ben pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. On the tabletop, Maggie’s hands gyrated like seismographic instruments. Having spent his whole life in Stillwater—among the people of Stillwater—he often tried to put his own opinions about certain people out of his head when he was acting in an official capacity. As someone with little interest in gossip and innuendoes, he was usually able to do this without difficulty. Therefore, it bothered him when he suddenly found himself sitting here with Maggie and hearing his father’s voice rise up into his head from the grave, warning him to steer clear of the Kilpatricks. That Aaron Kilpatrick, his father had once told Ben when he was just a boy, he ain’t too right in the head, boy, and I don’t trust what he’d do if he ever caught you over there doing something he didn’t like.

Ben shook the thought from his head. “Seems like you’ve been having one busy week,” he said, putting a hand atop one of Maggie’s. “Did something happen to Evan?”

“There’s something going on,” she rasped in a partial whisper. Her voice sounded hoarse and her hand vibrated like a tuning fork beneath his.

“What’s that?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know what it is.” Then her eyes went distant and seemed to stare right through Ben and at the kitchen wall behind him. “Or maybe I do. I don’t…I don’t know…”

Ben squeezed her hand but then slid his off hers. He felt uncomfortable touching her and feeling the bones trembling beneath her flesh. He glanced over his shoulder, following Maggie’s gaze to the wall. A large silver crucifix hung there. A chill in his bones, he turned back to Maggie. “You told Jed someone hurt your husband,” he said, deliberately phrasing it as a statement. “Do you remember?”

“Not a She began to slowly shake her head. Her eyes refocused and clung to him now, burning holes in his flesh. He almost preferred her staring at the wall. “I don’t know exactly…” Her voice trailed off.someone.”

“Maggie, what happened to Evan? Tell me what you know.”

“What I saw.”

“Okay. What did you see?”

“Evan was out in the yard yesterday. Or maybe it was two days ago. I can’t really remember what day it was. Time’s all screwed up.” On the table, her hand trembled audibly. “We’d had a…a fight. It was dark so I couldn’t see. Something…” She squared her shoulders, her body going rigid. “Something came out of the dark and got him.”

“Could you see who it was?”

“It wasn’t she screamed, startling him. Her own chair skidded against the tiles. “It was a anyone!” thing! It looked like a person but it wasn’t!” She jerked forward and clutched at Ben’s shirt. “It was the thing I hit with my car. Remember? Remember what happened?”

“I remember,” he said in a small voice, trying to pry her claws from his uniform. “You said it was a boy.”

“It looks like a boy,” she said, “but it’s not.”

“Do you—”

“It’s haunting me and breaking me down. It’s making me pay.”

“Pay for what, Maggie?” He managed to get one of her hands off him, though it still retained the hooked shape of a bird’s talon. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Why do you think it’s the same person from the accident?”

“It’s not a person,” she reiterated, more calmly this time.

“Okay. But the night of the accident you said it looked like a child had come—”

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