The Narrows(86)

“Doesn’t make sense.”

Ben uttered, “Christ.” He bent down and picked up a spent shotgun shell from behind the tire of the Volkswagen Beetle.

“Lord,” Eddie said, his face going slack as he stared at the hollow cylindrical tube Ben held. “Do you think…?” He didn’t need to complete the thought.

“Seems likely.” Ben glanced around. “Looks like there’s only one.”

“One’s enough,” Eddie commented. “What do you think that means?”

“Can’t mean anything good, I don’t think,” Ben said. “Not with all that blood.” He leaned over the Volkswagen’s hood. Aside from the blood and flecks of spongy matter, as well as a number of rust holes that had burned straight through the hood to reveal sections of the engine block underneath, the car was in otherwise fine condition. Curiously, there was a dried greenish crust around the perimeter of the holes that looked suspiciously like the slimy webbing he’d seen around the wounds of Porter Conroy’s Holsteins. “Come take a look at this,” Ben said.

Eddie peered at the hood of the car then looked up at Ben and shrugged. “What about it?”

“That stuff doesn’t remind you of that gunk that was stuck to Porter’s dead cows?”

“I guess.” Eddie seemed unimpressed. “That stuff on the cows was like jelly, though.”

“Well, maybe this stuff had time to dry out.” Ben scraped at some with his fingernail, and the grayish flakes were scooped up by the breeze like dandelion seeds.

Overhead, the sky darkened. Eddie looked up warily. The smell of rain was in the air. “Perfect,” Eddie muttered.

Ben stuffed the shotgun shell in his pocket. He moved down the length of the car, searching for more of the strange greenish substance or any other evidence. There was none. He crossed over to the Pontiac and checked that car out as well. Still nothing.

“Christ, Ben. You don’t really think Maggie shot him, do you?”

“I don’t have an opinion on anything just yet.”

Eddie shook his head, his eyes like searchlights. He looked like he wanted to throw up.

“Grab some rubber gloves from the car, would you?” he told Eddie.

“Rubber gloves?”

“They’re in a box in the trunk.”

Confused, Eddie mumbled, “Okay…”

Ben followed the twin trenches in the dirt until they disappeared in the grass. Damned if those trenches didn’t look like the impression someone’s heels might make if they were to be dragged somewhere…

Ben walked through the grass, his eyes scrutinizing the ground. The trail was lost here. He looked up, his eyes following the slope of the property to the billowing willow tree and, beyond the tree, the chicken-wire fence that surrounded the property. Directly overhead, thunder growled.

Ben stopped. There was something small and black on the ground next to his shoe. Ben picked it up. It was a cell phone.

Okay…so what was this about? A domestic situation gone awry? Evan’s out here yelling about the dent Maggie put in the Pontiac, the fighting escalates…a shotgun makes itself known? It was a leap, though stranger things had happened. Would Maggie have gone back into the house to get the gun? If she’d shot him right here, where’s the blood? Where’s the body? And it’s not like she did anything to cover up her tracks, so why not admit to it back at the Morelands’ place?

He slid the cell phone into the breast pocket of his uniform as he approached the willow tree. Its tendril branches seemed to finger the air, summoning him with a come-hither gesture. There’d once been a similar tree at the corner of the Journell property when he was a young boy. It had been the perfect tree for climbing. Once you were nestled securely in the upper branches, no one could see you. You were hidden from the world. Sometimes, as a kid, Ben would sit up there for hours.

Like separating a curtain, Ben brushed the spindly branches aside and stepped under the umbrella of the tree. It was incrementally cooler and darker in its shade. He bent and examined the earth around the base of the tree and then he examined the tree itself, searching for anything—though he knew not what—that he might perceive as out of the ordinary. He hadn’t liked the way Maggie had been talking back at the Morelands’ house and he didn’t much care for the shotgun and spent shotgun shell he’d found out here in the yard. He didn’t much care for the blood sprayed along the side of the car and smeared on the windshield, either.

If she shot him…where the hell is he?

Back by the cars, Eddie handed Ben a pair of latex gloves. “What are these for?”

“So we don’t leave fingerprints and corrupt the scene.”

Eddie frowned, his eyebrows knitting together. “Fingerprints on what?”

“Let’s go check the house,” Ben said.



3



Yet, with the exception of a broken wineglass in the kitchen trash, the house was otherwise undisturbed. In the basement, Ben located a box of slugs that matched the brand of the shotgun shell he’d found out in the yard. After twenty minutes of fruitless searching, Ben and Eddie returned to the yard just as a light rain began to fall.

“Let’s bag up the shotgun as evidence before the rain washes away any prints,” Ben advised, and the two men began wrapping the shotgun in a sheet of plastic tarp Ben kept in the trunk of his squad car.