Blood Crimes: Book One (37 page)

              Whatever happened that awful night had to have started a ways back. Wayne Lee Garrett and his family didn’t mingle much, mostly kept to themselves. They came down the 41 to buy groceries now and again, rode into town in an old Chevy that farted black smoke, Garrett looking neither left nor right, but did their business and left. He brought his family to church, but the never stayed for cookies and punch, not even once.

      At first
M
ary
, she was a bit different. Now and again she’d bring the children down in that Chevy -- couldn’t hardly see her tiny face behind the steering wheel -- and treat them to a cherry ice cream cone. She’d try to talk to folks, smiling and all, and most men would be polite, but a lot of the women didn’t care for her because of her past. They’d do that strange thing women do, where they are really nice in ways that cut you down at the same time.

      
M
ary
’s smile would stay frozen in place when they walked away laughing, but a sorrowful hurt crouched behind her eyes. She’d cringe like a whipped puppy. And after a time, she stopped coming to town at all.
M
eanwhile, Wayne Lee continued to attend church services, but all that last summer and fall he’d be there alone. Just sitting in the back row, rocking and whispering.

      The devil’s breath was on the town late that fall, meaning the kind of bitter wind comes scratching at the window like a living thing, whips down the fireplace and turns your house ice cold. Now, here’s the thing. A tribe of Native Americans once lived high up in these same mountains. Legend has it they were called the Horse Humans. It’s said their elders believed that wind was the shrieking of an evil spirit called
Orunde
, a demon that drives men mad. Listening to that wind howling outside, it wasn’t a stretch to think they might have known what they were talking about.

      And Wayne Lee Garrett’s little redwood cabin? It was built right on top of the damned Indian graveyard. See, that’s why the land went so cheap in the first place.

      The night it all went down, Wayne Lee Garrett stood in the living room of his small cabin listening to a plastic 45 spinning on his record player. It was a Nashville outlaw tune called “Forty Years of Pain.” That song was a big hit back then, sung by some young country star or another.

      “He was a man,” went the lyrics, “who loved as hard as he drank. Lord, she was trouble. You can take that to the bank…”

      Wayne Lee Garret sighed. He turned and stared at his wife.
M
ary
Garrett stared back. Wayne Lee whispered, “
M
y sweetheart.”

      The record continued. “She broke his heart, took another man’s name, and he died alone…after forty years of pain.”

      “Our favorite tune, precious,” Garrett said, softly. “Our very own little baby making song.”
M
ary
squirmed a bit in her chair, made an odd little whimpering sound through the dish rag jammed in her mouth. Garrett moved closer, stroked her skin. “I have to do this,
M
ary
. You brought it on yourself by lying with another man.” She shook her head feverishly. Her mind raced,
no no no I haven’t done anything I don’t know what you’re talking about please don’t no…
M
ary
struggled against her bonds, watched with wide eyes as Garrett finished loading the Smith & Wesson 38. He produced a gentle smile. “I’m sorry, but it’s out of my hands.”

      
M
ary
tried to scream through her gag. Garrett lurched closer, whispered in her ear. “Hush. Hush, now. You don’t want them to wake up for it, do you? I’ll make this as quick as I can. I promise.”

      Torn,
M
ary
struggled to contain herself as her demented husband walked heavily into the other room. A small girl’s sleepy voice. “Daddy?”

      BA
M
! And
M
ary
shrieked and fought and BA
M
the second shot killed her other child. Wild with grief and terror,
M
ary
sagged in the chair and wept. A third shot as Wayne Lee finished one of them off, and his footsteps slowly trudged back into the front room. The record player continued, and a jaunty guitar solo made this slaughter by lantern light seem all the more macabre. “Forty years of pain…”

      
Oh, God,
my poor babies,
M
ary
thought in anguish. And her body trembled
I am next, dear heaven he means to kill me, too.

      Wayne Lee put the gun against her stomach.
M
ary
struggled in the chair, almost fell backward. He steadied her arm. Looked down with compassionate eyes. “It’s time.” Terrified and broken hearted,
M
ary
closed her eyes. At the last moment, Garrett found it in his heart to spare her more agony. He moved the barrel and placed it over her heart instead. A muffled shot, a spray of blood against the kitchen sink and
M
ary
was gone.

      “And he died alone, after forty years of pain…”

      The song ended. The record player scratched and complained but failed to reset itself. Garrett walked to a kitchen chair, scraped it backwards. Sat down heavily, listening to the noise from the machine.

      A small, wry smile crossed his face. “Forty years of pain,” he whispered, and stuck the 38 in his mouth. Seconds passed. Fear overtook him and he lowered the weapon.
What happened? Where am I? What have I done?
M
ary
!

      His eyes widened. Silence. The voices had stopped their incessant whispering. Wayne Lee Garrett twitched in the chair, horrified and alert. He turned off the record player. The scratching stopped. The cabin was still and silent. For the first time his situation fully penetrated. They were gone. Garrett was a murderer. His wife and children had been slaughtered, killed by his own hand. A brand new life destroyed. Wayne Lee Garrett began to sob.
Why? Why? God, what have I done this?

      Outside, the wind wailed. Now it seemed to carry mocking laughter from the desolate hills. After a time, when the pain became too great, Wayne Lee Garrett put the gun back in his mouth. Nearly vomited but took a deep, deep breath and squeezed the trigger. This time he succeeded. The gun went off, and so did the back of his head.

      BOO
M
. Grey and red matter splattered the record player and raced up the back wall.
M
eanwhile, the song echoed through the woods, carried on the wind,
forty years of pain...

      A constable found the family a few weeks later, from the stench of four darkened bodies, all fly-bloated and rotting.  In fact, the smell was so damned ripe the place stayed empty for years. And naturally it began to get something of a reputation. “Go up there, you don’t see nothing,” the people said. “But you know what? You only think you’re alone.”

      That’s what they whispered to their children, too, and those kids told the generation after that. Until finally it was just the one sentence, gave the whole story about that old Indian graveyard and the Garrett cabin.

      “You only think you’re alone.” 

ONE
 

      The moving guy was a perpetual college student named Aaron, one of those laconic surfer dudes who never seemed more than ten minutes from a bong hit. He carried boxes in and out with brisk efficiently, sometimes using a metal dolly but often just his own gloved hands. The hardest part was the medical equipment, but stuff that was electrical had been carefully marked with numbered tape, which helped a lot. Somehow they’d managed to reassemble everything. It was finally time to go. Aaron stopped, leaned on the gate to close it. He grabbed his clipboard then took a long look around.
Damn,
he thought.
Why the hell would anyone sane want to live way up here?

      The screen door squealed. Aaron looked up, squinted into the afternoon sun. His client cameout of the ancient redwood cabin, stood on the porch and slammed the screen door. Dust rose from the splintered wood and settled again, like a wide cloud of insects too lazy to leave.

      “Blood hell,” Jack Wade said with a good-naturedgrin, “what a piece of shit!”

      The handsome young Englishman wore carefully torn jeans and a faded tee shirt that had probably set him back three hundred dollars at some shop in Beverly Hills. Aaron thought the guy looked like some movie star dressing down, or maybe a porn star dressing up. Jack glanced around the empty clearing, shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Still, I have to admit that it is kind of pretty up here.”

      “You don’t say.” Aaron took in the dilapidated redwood cabin made of splintering boards, the lonely clearing, the dense, piney woods and the foul outhouse. “Way to look on the bright side.
M
e, I prefer a little human company now and then.”

      “Well, it is unquestionably a pig sty, but at least I don’t have to worry about keeping up with the neighbors.”

      “Good point. You all set up in there?”

             “Almost.” Jack Wade stretched and forced a chuckle. “Can you believe it? That icebox has to be fifty years old, but it still works. Even the television pops on once in a while, before it goes off again.
M
ust be some lose wires. And catch this. The owner put a drain in the kitchen floor, probably because the walls leak when it rains.”

      “A drain in the floor? Charming.”

      “Anyway, I put the food away and just used my cell to order groceries from some place called the Dry Wells market. I had to leave a message, so God only knows what’s going to show up.”

      “Don’t worry, they have to grow something fresh around here besides crystal meth,” Aaron said. “And at least you’ve got one hell of a wine collection.”

      “That we do.
M
y spouse is quite the epicurean gourmet.”

      “Sorry, dude. I didn’t bring my dictionary.” Aaron finished totaling up the charges, motioned for the new owner to come closer.

      Jack didn’t notice at first. Aaron waved a second time. Jack jogged over with the studied insouciance of a natural athlete. “Okay, straight up,” Aaron said, conspiratorially, “tell me you didn’t pay good money for this.”

        “No,” Jack said. He flashed a killer smile. “To be honest, I won it in a card game.” He looked down at the clipboard. “That’s everything, right?”

      Aaron nodded. “All I need you to do is sign.”

      Jack examined the paperwork. He frowned. “What’s with the overcharges?”

      “Had to pack it up in the middle of the night, bro. That’s extra.”

      Jack scowled. Something unsettling flashed in his eyes. “What, you guys do one swing shift and we have to pay six hundred bucks?”

      Aaron looked down and away. “Hey, that’s also for being awake all night, and driving it all the way up here.” He lowered his voice further. “Now, you want to pay me in cash, I’ll do you a solid.”

      Aaron looked up hopefully. Jack’s face said he didn’t understand. Aaron cleared his throat. “For cash,” he whispered, “it’ll be like we never met.”

      Jack got it. He nodded and reached for his wallet. “Hang on.”

      The screen door banged again. A middle-aged brunette in hospital whites emerged from the cabin and walked briskly towards the moving van. “
M
r. Wade,” Nurse Clark called, “your wife is in the bedroom. I did her makeup and combed out her hair.” The nurse had a reedy, emery board of a voice that seemed constantly tense. Not for the first time, Jack Wade wondered if the bun in her hair was half as tight as her ass. Still, he paused, managed to turn on the charm as the dour nurse moved closer. “Sure you can’t stay for a day or two, just until we get settled in?”

      “I hate to be crass about this, but you’re two weeks behind already.”

      “I understand, Nurse Clark, I was a medical student back in England, remember?”

      She held her ground. “Well, then you should understand more than most.”

      “I’m sorry to let you go, but the insurance money is gone, and we can’t afford to continue on our own.”

      “
M
r. Wade, I have problems of my own.”

      Aaron didn’t care for drama. He sighed theatrically and rapped his fingers on the side of the moving van. “Look,
M
r. Wade. Sorry for your troubles, but can we move this along? I haven’t got all day.”

      Jack counted out a number of hundred dollar bills. He handed them to the driver. “Here, and it’s like you just said, yeah?”

      The nurse fixed on the money, an eagle after a field mouse. “Okay, and while we’re on that subject, pay
me
. I’m not exactly running a charity here.”