The Narrows(91)

Looking at Tom Schuler’s house brought back those memories of the old burger joint in Truax, and Eddie shivered behind the squad car’s steering wheel. He hadn’t thought of that old place in years (it couldn’t still be standing on that corner at the edge of town, could it?) and having it resurface in his mind now felt like a bad omen. Still shivering, he popped the door and stepped out into the cool, rainy night.

Trees applauded in the wind. A mist of clouds sailed slowly across the sky, blotting out the early stars. In the woods that surrounded him, he could hear all sorts of noises that let him know that he wasn’t the only living creature out here after all. The thought gave him little comfort. After a moment, he convinced himself it was only the rain and nothing more.

He mounted the creaking porch steps of Tom Schuler’s house and rapped on the front door. Though he couldn’t be certain, he swore he heard his knock echo through the entire house. It was like shouting down into a well or out over the Grand Canyon.

That’s just my nerves.

He knocked again.

“Hey, Tom, you in there? Wake up, bud. It’s Eddie La Pointe.”

Things hidden in the darkness of the woods made whispery noises at him.

Just my stupid imagination, he told himself again. Reading too many horror magazines and watching too many bad movies on late night television. This is what you get, you chickenshit. He couldn’t argue with that logic. It even caused him to chuckle a little, though there was hardly any humor in it.

Eddie pulled his flashlight from his belt and turned it on as he slid away from the door and peered into the nearest window. He pressed both the flashlight and his nose against the windowpane, shielding some of the glare with one cupped hand around his eyes. The beam illuminated only a small bit of Tom’s front parlor—an armchair and the grate over a stone fireplace—but nothing more. He repeated this at several of the other windows too, but from what he could see, nothing appeared to be in any state of disarray.

Out back, he knocked on the back door then took a few steps away from the house so he could shout more audibly to the second-floor windows. His heavy boots sank an inch or two into the mud.

“Hey, Tom! Wake up, will ya?”

His voice shook the night but no lights came on in the upstairs windows. The only response he got was from a clash of thunder.

He could be at Crossroads, he thought, glancing at his wristwatch. He could drive by the place, see if Tom’s car was in the parking lot…

Eddie keyed up his handheld radio and called into Shirley Bennice in the dispatch office.

“Hey, Eddie,” she said, her usual cheerfulness gone. “You okay out there?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to bother Ben. I know he’s got his hands full tonight.”

“Eddie, what’s going on around here?” There was a desperate, pleading quality to old Shirl’s voice that Eddie didn’t much like to hear. “Ben said Maggie Quedentock killed her husband. Tommy Schuler, too. And now Platt and Haggis are on their way back here with a dead body.”

“Jesus,” Eddie said, not meaning to say it aloud. Thankfully, he hadn’t keyed the radio yet. “Whose body?” he asked into the radio.

“The missing Crawly kid. Can you believe it?”

No. He most certainly could not believe it.

“Swell time for the chief to go on vacation, huh, Shirley-cue?” he said finally into the radio, an attempt at humor. When Shirley didn’t respond, he quickly added, “Let Ben know I checked out Tom Schuler’s place. He ain’t home and his car’s gone, but nothing seems out of the ordinary.” He glanced around the yard to make sure everything was still copacetic.

“You heading on home now?”

“Well, my shift was over an hour ago, but I’ll keep the radio on in case anything else comes up.” His mind was still whirling. He thought, How can the Crawly boy be dead?

“Have a good one, Eddie. Stay safe.”

“Goodnight, Shirley-cue.”

He clipped the portable radio back onto his belt and was about to do the same with his flashlight when a noise rose up from somewhere in the yard. He turned the flashlight in the approximate direction but saw nothing but an overturned birdbath and the handle of an axe protruding from a tree stump.

Reading those stupid monster magazines, scaring myself half to death so that I’m jumping at every noise, every shadow—

Something moved just beyond the trees at the periphery of his vision. It was a blur beyond the curtain of rain.

Eddie jerked his head in its direction in time to see something recede quickly into the shadows. Over the patter of rain, he heard the crunching of footfalls over dead leaves and fallen branches and tried to convince himself it was just rain or possibly a deer, only a deer. Fuckin’ whitetail are all over the place this time of year. Open season, halle-f*cking-lujah!

But it wasn’t a deer.

Somehow, he knew that.

He swung his flashlight around and let the light play along the stand of trees that rushed up to meet Tom Schuler’s backyard. The light illuminated very little.

His breath clouding the air, Eddie took a step toward the line of trees…then another step, slowly passing the flashlight beam back and forth along the tree trunks like a searchlight in a prison yard. Rainwater spilled over the brim of his hat, down his shoulders and his back. Water drained from an old birdhouse that hung from a nearby tree branch.