Help for the Haunted(35)

That afternoon, I stopped at my usual spot, put down my father’s tote, and rested a hand on the fence while I finished the article.


[page]Since 1986 Mr. Lynch had been seeking counsel from the Masons—a couple who built a national reputation, admired in some circles, mocked in others, as demonologists. Those close to the case say Mr. Lynch was disgruntled with the Masons’ treatment of his daughter. Lynch admits to meeting the couple at the chapel on the evening of the murders, but claims to have left the church before violence erupted. To date, he has lacked a substantiated alibi, insisting that he was at the Texaco on Route 2 at the time of the killings. The station’s security monitors were not in service so no video exists to support his claim. Further weakening Mr. Lynch’s case, he asserted through his attorney, Michael Cavage, that after fueling his car, he paid with cash. The clerk on duty has no recollection of seeing Mr. Lynch that evening.

For months, the suspect insisted that an elderly man had seen him in the restroom. With the court case approaching in April, police had all but stopped searching for another suspect, as the witness failed to surface. Yesterday, however, Cavage announced that the person had been located and would corroborate Mr. Lynch’s alibi in court. Mr. Patrick Dunn, 71, of Kennebunkport, ME, claims to have seen Mr. Lynch in the men’s room that evening while his wife waited outside in the car. The sudden emergence of Mr. Dunn leaves police and investigators without any apparent suspects.

In a final twist to an already bizarre account of the evening, Mr. Lynch has maintained that he paid the deceased couple’s eldest daughter, Rose Mason Jr., now 19, a small sum to make a call from a pay phone outside the Mustang Bar in Baltimore, inviting her parents to the church that evening. The allegation has been denied by Ms. Mason who states that she was home at the time of the call, a claim supported by her sister.

Assistant District Attorney Louise Hock told the press a statement would be forthcoming.

“Hello!” a voice called from across the field. “Hey, you! Hello!”

I looked up to see a very tall someone trudging through the field of turkeys in my direction. He wore a tan barn jacket, gray sweats, and enormous boots, laces loose and slithering at his ankles. The sea of turkeys parted, flapping and gobbling in his wake. When he arrived at the fence, he said, “I’ve seen you here before.”

“Sorry.” I figured I must be in trouble for trespassing or loitering. I pressed the newspaper to my stomach, where the only thing I’d eaten all day—a single slice of Rose’s microwave pizza—roiled.

“Don’t be. I just wanted to warn you not to put your fingers on the fence. Turkeys are as mean as they are dumb. They’ll bite.” He tugged off a glove and held up his left hand, wiggling his thumb and index finger. His ring, middle, and pinky fingers were all missing.

I yanked my hand off the fence. “Is that how—”

“No. But the visual usually makes people listen. You’re Sylvie, right?”

I nodded, thinking of those boys who showed up at the door the night before. This guy was older than them, the age my father must have been when he left Philadelphia and moved to that row-house apartment in Baltimore, where ghosts appeared to him in the evenings. “Sorry about your parents,” he told me.

I kept quiet, waiting for the part where he turned the comment into something hurtful, but it didn’t happen. “How do you know my name?”

“I used to date your sister.”

“Rose?” Most of the dates Rose brought home looked like the derelicts in the smoking area at school and acted just as aloof. This guy seemed too athletic, too polite, to have been one of them. I studied his brown eyes, floppy brown hair, and bulky shoulders. His sweats clung to his crotch in a way that gave a pretty exact picture of the anatomy beneath—a sight that would have caused my mother to make the sign of the cross and mutter about the perversities of youth today. Then I remembered the fights she and my father had with Rose about one boy in particular. “You’re not Franky, are you?”

“No, I’m Dereck.” He reached his hand over the fence to shake mine. Between Cora’s fake, noodly fingers and his missing ones, I wasn’t sure which felt more odd. Behind him, the birds gobbled and flapped, moving closer. “Keep it down, ladies!” he yelled, letting go and waving his hands to shoo them away.

When he turned back, I asked if he ever felt bad about what was going to happen to them in a few weeks. Dereck smiled. At each side of his mouth, he had a pointed tooth, more yellow than the rest, lending him a wolfish look. “Nahh. Spend as much time with these morons as I do and you’re glad to see them go. Besides, it’s just a job I’m doing for extra cash this month. I work at my father’s garage in town the rest of the time. But anyway, I wanted to ask about your sister. She was always so much fun. Is she still?”

“Some might think so.”

“Yeah, well, you’re her sister, so you probably don’t. Tell her hello from me, okay?”

Despite—or maybe because of—the memory of Rose and Cora kissing, I found myself saying, “Maybe you should give her a call and tell her yourself. I’m sure she’d like that.”

Dereck smiled again, flashing those wolfish teeth. “Maybe I will. Glad I ran into you, Sylvie. Remember, what’s the rule?”

“Rule?”

He held up his hand, twiddling what wasn’t missing. “Fingers off the fence.”