Dead Man's Song (30 page)

“No, not like before, and that’s a plus,” Val said. “Maybe it’s because we have a hospital here now, or maybe the antibiotics and drugs are better now. Who knows? Some older folks and some kids have gotten sick, but we haven’t had a real killer plague this year, thank God.” Crow reached out and gave her thigh a small squeeze.

Newton said, “Did the blight spread to other towns?”

Crow shook his head. “No, and that’s pretty weird, don’t you think? Some folks said that it was because Pine Deep is surrounded by water on all sides, it’s kind of like a little island. They said that the water boundary stopped whatever infection was in the actual soil. Of course that wouldn’t stop an airborne virus, nor would it stop much of anything else with all the traffic that goes back and forth between Pine Deep, Crestville, and Black Marsh, but none of the surrounding towns experienced any increase in sickness or mortality and none of the crops of the other towns was in any way affected.”

“Jeez, that
is
weird.”

“On the other hand,” Val said, “it’s different from the current blight. This time there are cases of crop disease as far away as Lambertville, Stockton, and Frenchtown in New Jersey, and all through this part of Bucks County. New Hope, Upper Black Eddy, Doylestown, New Britain. Understand, it’s not as bad anywhere else as it is here in Pine Deep…but it’s spreading this time. No doubt about it.”

Newton looked at her, then at Crow. “I have to say, folks, that this is making me feel a little sick myself.”

“Buckle up, Newt, ’cause it gets worse,” Crow said drily. “Folks who got sick back then, but who went to hospitals outside of town, or who went to stay with relatives in other towns, got better quickly and never had any lingering symptoms. Not one sick person who left town to recuperate died as a result of the disease.”

“Oh, come on—”

“It’s a matter of public record,” Val said quietly. “Look it up.”

“Yeah,” Crow agreed. “That was a terrible year. I got sick, too, but not bad. My brother Billy never got sick, so he was okay. A couple of my friends from school died, though.”

Val said, “Eventually the blight and the epidemic ended. Slowly, but it ground to a halt. There were fewer new cases of the sickness, and fewer deaths as the weeks passed and it got closer to October. Of course by then most of the crops had been chopped down and burned, so perhaps that halted the spread of the infection.”

“I know you’re going to think that this is romantic or morbid or something,” Crow said, “but it was as if the souls of the people of Pine Deep were being harvested that year, instead of the crops.” The reporter said nothing to that, nor did Val add anything to it. After a moment, Crow said, “Okay, so that sounded stupid.”

“‘Sounded’?” Val said with a wicked little smile pulling at one corner of her mouth.

Crow motored on. “Obviously I didn’t work at the farm that year, but the bunch of us hung out there all the time. Morse was there sometimes, too, but not to work. My brother Billy said that Morse was working out at Griswold’s farm that season.”

“Griswold’s farm wasn’t hit?”

“Oh, his farm was all but smashed flat. Nearly all of his cattle died in the first few weeks, and the meat must have been spoiled because Morse worked his ass off hauling off dead cattle and trying to keep alive all the new ones Griswold would import, but they all died, too. It must have been some nasty, disgusting work—but it was work. Drifters can’t be all that picky, you know. So the weeks passed and Morse kept at it, and at the same time the town kept going to shit. Finally, by the middle of September the plague and the blight were over, probably because every harvestable crop was already dead. The crop that year was a complete and total loss. Just a year after the Golden Harvest, that year turned out to be a financial disaster. Whole families went down the drain, people lost their homes, their farms, and, as you can imagine when things go really bad really fast, there was a lot of anger and frustration. Even some violence. Fights broke out, people started getting hurt.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “My dad was one of the ones who took his frustrations out with his fists.” That statement hung there, and Newton was sharp enough to read into it what was meant.

Into the silence, Val said, “For some reason my family’s farm wasn’t hit by the blight…just like it hasn’t been hit by this current blight. We were actually having a pretty good year, good crops. My dad took on more help than he really needed, hiring as many of the locals as wanted to work here, adults and kids. He hired Billy and Crow to be gofers on the farm, and, I think, to keep me company. Crow and Billy became friends with me and Terry Wolfe, who was my best friend at the time. That whole season we were always together.” She paused. “Terry’s little sister used to tag along with us. Terry and I were ten, Crow was nine, and Billy was twelve. It was fun having my own little ‘gang.’”

“Her dad also hired Oren Morse when there was no more work at Griswold’s.”

Val nodded and sipped her coffee. “Dad had heard him play his guitar a bunch of times the year before, and the two of them had talked quite a bit. Politics mostly, and books. Dad liked him, and maybe felt sorry for him, thought that Morse could have been someone. So, when Griswold cut him loose from the cattle job, Dad hired him. Dad was like that.”

“No one better,” Crow said, almost to himself and he toasted himself on the sentiment and sipped his drink. “As for Morse, we were the ones who gave him his nickname. The Bone Man.”

“You never met him,” she said, leaning forward to make better eye contact, “and probably the only things you’ve heard about him are the rumors and local legends, making him out to be something between Jack the Ripper and the Boogeyman, but that wasn’t who he was. He really was a good man. My dad was almost never wrong about people. He was a very good judge of character, which is one of the reasons he was so good in business.”

“She’s right,” Crow said. “Henry’d look you right in the eye and he’d know right away if you were going to deal straight or if you were a shifty bastard. As I recall,” he added with a smile, “he didn’t much care for me when he met me.”

“He liked you when you were a kid, honey,” Val said. “He just had some issues with you when you were…” She trailed off, realizing that she was talking in front of a reporter.

“It’s okay, baby, you can say it,” Crow said, then he looked at Newton. “I used to be a drunk. Or…I am a drunk, though I haven’t had a drink in years. What they call a sober drunk. I go to meetings. Val and I had kind of drifted apart as friends for a while there and when we met up again I was hitting the sauce pretty hard. That didn’t wash too well with Henry and he told me in no uncertain terms to dry out or buzz off.”

“He didn’t phrase it that way,” Val said.

“The hell he didn’t. You weren’t there, sweetie. Your dad looked me right in the eye and he was about fifteen feet tall and he told me to stay the hell away from his daughter until I had some self-respect.”

“Jeez,” Newton said, grinning.

“I tell you this, Newt,” Crow said, “because I want you to understand Henry Guthrie. If he thought Oren Morse was a bad man he’d have never let him near his farm, let alone near his daughter, and yet we worked side by side with the man, and almost every night Henry’d have us all on the porch—us kids, a few of the regular farm staff, and the Bone Man—and we’d hang out and drink ice tea Val’s mom made, with mint and lemon slices, and we’d listen to the Bone Man tell stories and sing the blues. We
knew
that man.”

Newton considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay, you sold me. If Henry Guthrie gave him the seal of approval then he’s okay with me.”

Val chuckled. “You kiss up very well.”

“Part of the job,” he said, and they all laughed.

Crow nodded to Newton. “You can leave all that shit about me being a drunk out of the article, okay?”

“Sure,” Newton said a little too quickly, but then he caught the look in Val’s eyes, which were as uncompromising as a fist.
Yeah
, he thought,
Henry Guthrie’s daughter right enough. Screw with her, Newt ol’boy and she’ll rip you a new one.
“Sure,” he repeated with emphasis, giving Val a brief nod. She returned the nod and sat back in her chair.

“Okay, so where were we? Oh yeah,” said Crow, “the summer was coming to an end and fall was coming on.”

“And that,” Val said, “was when people started getting killed.”

“The Massacre?”

“Right,” Crow said. “That’s when it started. The first to die was one of the drifters. An old wino who’d been doing day labor with Morse, but who doesn’t show up for work one day near the end of September. The Bone Man and another guy go looking for him after work, thinking maybe he’s sick or something. The guy usually slept in a ragged bedroll under that old covered bridge near the reservoir and, he was there all right, but…well, I never saw it firsthand, but years later, when I worked as a town cop I looked at the case file, read the description, and saw the crime scene photos. The poor old bastard had literally been torn to pieces.
Pieces
, mind you—his throat was ripped out and his head was found thirty feet from his body, and the body had been partially devoured. No one knew what to make of it. Naturally, starving dogs were blamed. Seemed like a logical choice.”

“Sure.”

“Then it happens again. Same thing—another drifter. Guy never shows up for work, and when they find him he’s in his bedroll, torn to pieces and partly eaten. Two kills on two consecutive nights just rocks the whole town. They formed groups, loaded their guns, and killed damn near every dog in and around Pine Deep.”

“The killings didn’t stop?” Newton prodded.

“Of course not. Wasn’t any damn dog doing it, and the killings kept up, nearly every night. Third vic was another drifter, but the fourth wasn’t any drifter.”

“Who was it?”

Crow’s eyes were as dark and intense as those of a real crow. “The fourth body they found that year, the body they found without its head and with its heart torn out of its chest was…my brother Billy.”

Newton felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. “Oh…my God…”

Crow eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I thank God I never saw the body, and I never had the nerve to look at those photos in the file. They had a closed coffin, of course. Cremated him and spread his ashes over the baseball diamond. He had always wanted to play pro ball when he grew up.” Crow wiped at a tear and gave a small laugh. “Man did he love baseball. Bone Man called him Boppin’ Billy.”

“Damn, Crow,” said Newton, “I’m really sorry. I should never have—”

Crow waved it away. “No, it’s okay. I’d actually want the story to be told.”

“Yeah…I can see that. But why? I mean…why now?”

Crow looked at him over the mouth of the bottle, but Val answered the question, her fingers lightly touching her silver cross. “Because he doesn’t think it’s over yet.”

(2)

“You’ll have to sign for these, doctor.”

Weinstock nodded, took the pen from the assistant security supervisor and signed his name on the clipboard.

“Doctor…you do know these are tapes from the interior cameras, not the ones in the hall? When the night guard told me that you wanted the interior cameras left on all night, I thought he was mistaken.”

Weinstock’s face showed no emotion, but in a cool authoritarian voice he said, “Is there a
problem
, Gary?”

“Uh, no, sir. It’s just a little strange.”

“Is it?” Weinstock said in a way that did not invite any further comment. “Can we assume that as the hospital administrator I have the authority to have a camera running when and where I please?”

The assistant supervisor stiffened. “Sir, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t…”

“Then what were you going to say?”

“Well, it’s just that the security assistant hasn’t had a chance to review those tapes. We don’t know what’s on them, yet.”

“Gary, if there is anything of note on these tapes, I’ll bring it to the attention of your supervisor. Now, any further questions?”

Gary, seated behind his desk, had stiffened so much as to give the appearance of having snapped to attention. Weinstock took the tapes, turned without a further word, and walked away.

Back in his office he locked his door and popped the tape into the deck, sat down in his swivel chair and hit
PLAY
. For a long while he saw the morgue room, empty and badly lit. He hit
FAST-FORWARD
and the time code in the lower left speeded up. There was a blur of movement and he stopped, rewound the tape, and played it forward at normal speed. It took him nearly ten seconds to understand what he was seeing. It would take him the rest of his life to fully accept that what he was seeing was real. Numb, staring, immovable except for his thumb on the remote he sat there for over an hour, pressing
STOP
,
REWIND
,
PLAY
. Over and over again as icy tears streamed down his cheeks.

(3)

Newton looked at Val and then swiveled his head toward Crow. “What do you mean about it not being over?”

“I’ll get to that in a sec.” Crow said. “So, with Billy dead, the people in town started to really get up in arms. Drifters getting hacked up they could more or less accept—you’re a drifter, shit happens—but a popular town kid like Billy getting killed, well that was something different. Cops and men from town started scouring the brush, checking the forest, poking in every swamp and hollow around town. I don’t think they had any kind of a clear idea what they were looking for—they were just looking. They needed to find something, and in a way it brought the town together. Instead of fighting each other, they were unified in searching out what had done this thing to Billy.

“Two days later I was in my backyard, just sitting on a swing and thinking about Billy. It was just around sundown, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere out of sight of the house, of course, but I couldn’t stand to be inside. I guess if my dad had actually cared about me he’d have had me inside with every door and window locked shut, but he was too busy drinking and he figured if I was in the yard what could happen? Ah well. Anyway, I was sitting there and trying to wrap my head around the idea that Boppin’ Billy was dead. I was still all screwed up by the deaths of my friends, but that was from sickness, and I could half-assed understand sickness leading to death, but to die by violence, that was something totally outside of my experience, and it was hurting me. I felt lost and stupid, and somehow I even felt as if I was to blame. No, don’t ask me how, it was just the sort of stupid thing a confused kid feels. Something about feeling like I was being punished for being a brat by having Billy taken away. Stupid shit.