Still Life With Crows p-4 Page 30

  She paused to sweep the room with her light. Off to one side was a table with a couple of glasses on it, one broken. Pieces of a chair lay on the floor beside a rotting playing card; an ace, Corrie noticed. In one corner stood a pile of broken bottles and jugs of all kinds: wine bottles, mason jars, clay jugs, amidst moldy trash. She could just imagine the men tending the fire, playing cards, drinking, smoking.

  Now she shone her light upward. At first she could see nothing, the ceiling was so black. But then she was able to make out some broken stalactites and a honeycomb of cracks that, apparently, had drawn off the smoke. Even so, they couldn’t have drawn it off very fast: her breath was condensing in the air, surrounding her with a fog that the flashlight set aglow.

  She approached the cauldron set upon its iron tripod. It was certainly big enough to boil a human being. It was hard to tell, with all the dampness, if it had been used recently. Would the place still smell of smoke from the long-ago days of the still? She wasn’t sure. And then there was that other smell: the bad one. Not rotten, exactly; it was even worse than rot. It was that same smell of spoiled ham as at the crime scene.

  Corrie stopped, feeling suddenly frightened. She’d come to see if the still was there. Well, itwas there. She should turn around and get out. In fact, coming here at all now seemed like a really, really bad idea.

  She swallowed. Once again, she reminded herself that she’d already come this far. Might as well take five more seconds to finish the reconnoiter.

  She tiptoed up and looked inside the cauldron. A smell of rancid grease hit her as she shone her light inside.

  At the bottom was something pale, almost transparent, like a pearly seashell. A human ear.

  She gagged and staggered back, dropping her flashlight. It struck the hard limestone floor and rolled away toward a dark corner, beam revolving lazily across the floor and ceiling, finally coming to rest against a far wall with a heavy thud.

  A second later, it went out, and the cavern was thrown into utter blackness.

  Shit,Corrie thought.Shit, shit.

  Carefully, she got down on her hands and knees and, moving slowly, feeling along the ground with her hands, crawled in the direction it had rolled. Within a minute her hands brushed the rock wall of the cave. She began to feel along it, looking for the flashlight.

  It wasn’t there.

  She swallowed again, sitting up on her haunches. For a minute, she thought about trying to find her way out in absolute darkness. But the way back down was so long, it would be easy to get disoriented. She fought down a feeling of panic. She would find the flashlight. It must have gone off in the collision with the wall. She’d find it, shake the light back into it, and get the hell out of there.

  She moved along the wall, first to the left, then to the right, feeling with her hands.

  No flashlight.

  Maybe she’d taken the wrong tack. Carefully, she crawled back to where she thought she’d started, and then tried again, crawling in the direction she remembered the light had rolled. Still, no matter how far she went along the wall, sweeping the ground with her hands, she could not find the flashlight.

  Her breath began to come faster as she returned to the middle of the room. At least, she thought it was the middle of the room: she was quickly becoming disoriented in the utter blackness.

  Okay,she thought.Stop moving, breathe a little slower, get a grip. Okay, so it was really stupid to come in here with one flashlight and no matches. But the cavern she was in was small and there was only one opening—wasn’t there? She hadn’t remembered any passageways going off, but then again, she hadn’t really checked.

  Her heart was beating so fast that she could barely breathe.Just slow down, she thought. Time to forget about the flashlight. It was probably busted, anyway. The important thing now was to get out, to keep moving; otherwise, she’d freeze up. She’d left the door unlocked, thank God, and the lights were still on back in the Kaverns. All she had to do was get out of this back room and down the passageway.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .

  Carefully, she oriented herself toward where she thought the exit would be. Then, just as carefully, she began crawling forward. The floor of the cave was cold, rough, uneven, covered with greasy pebbles and puddles of water. It was absolutely terrifying, the pitch blackness. Corrie wasn’t sure she’d ever been in a place completely without light. Even on the darkest night, there was some trace of starshine or moonlight . . . She felt her heart begin to beat even faster than before.

  Then her head bumped painfully into something. She reached up, felt: the iron cauldron. She had crawled right into the dead coals.

  Okay, so she’d gone in precisely the opposite direction. But at least now she had her bearings. She’d crawl along the wall until she reached the passage out. Once in the passage, she’d keep crawling, one hand on the wall, until she reached the iron door. From there, she could reach the pool, she felt sure—even in utter darkness. And in any case, on the far side of the pool lay light and the boardwalk.It’s not so far, she repeated,not so far at all . . .

  Forcing herself to relax, she began crawling forward, sliding her left hand along the wall:slide, stop, slide, stop again, three, four, five. Her heart began to slow. She bumped into a stalagmite, tried to visualize its orientation in the room. With relief she realized the exit should be straight ahead.

  She kept on crawling, one hand on the floor, the other on the wall.

  Six, seven, eight . . .

  In the dark, her hand touched something warm.

  She instinctively snatched back her hand. The rush of fear and surprise came a moment later. Was it some cave-dwelling creature—a rat or a bat, perhaps? Her imagination, working overtime in the blackness?

  She waited. There was no sound or movement. Then she carefully reached out, felt again.

  It was warm, naked, hairless, and wet.

  She shrank back, a sob rising involuntarily to her throat. The smell of something dirty, something indescribably foul, seemed to rise and envelop her. Was that noise she heard really the sound of her own breathing? It was: she was gasping with fear.

  She gritted her teeth, blinked her eyes against the darkness, tried to regain control of her wildly beating heart.

  The thing she had touched hadn’t moved. It was probably just another bump or ridge in the floor. If she stopped in horror at every little thing she touched, she’d never make it out of the cave.

  She reached out to move forward, and brushed against it again. Itwas warm, there was no imagining that: but it must be some freakish thing, volcanic or something. She felt it again, lightly, letting her hand brush here, there . . .

  She realized she was touching a naked foot, with long broken toenails.

  Ever so slowly, she withdrew her hand. It was shaking uncontrollably and her breath came as a rasp, completely beyond her control to silence it. She tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry.

  And then a coarse, singsong voice, a caricature lisping of human speech, came from the darkness.

  “Wanna pway wif me?”

  Forty-Seven

  Hazen sat back in the well-upholstered chair, fingertips pressed lightly against the polished wood of the conference table. He wondered yet again why Medicine Creek couldn’t afford a sheriff’s office with nice comfortable chairs, or a table like this one; but then it occurred to him that the Deeper sheriff’s office, like everything else in Deeper, was running on borrowed money. At least his department ran in the black, every year. Medicine Creek’s time would come, thanks in no small part to him.

  The voice of Hank Larssen droned on in the background, but Hazen was barely listening. Better to let the Deeper sheriff talk himself out. He glanced surreptitiously at his watch. Seven o’clock. They’d come a long way today, made some great progress. He’d done a great deal of thinking, and in his mind the case was now almost complete. There was only one detail that still bothered him.

  Larssen, it seemed, was winding down. “It’s just w
ay too premature, Dent. I haven’t heard any hard evidence, just a lot of conjecture and supposition.”

  Conjecture and supposition.Christ, Hank had been reading too many Grisham novels.

  Larssen drew himself up with an air of finality. “I’m not going to cast a cloud of suspicion on one of Deeper’s leading citizens without firm evidence. I’m not going to do it, and I’m not going to allow anyone else to do it. Not in my jurisdiction.”

  Hazen let the silence ripen, then turned to Raskovich.

  “Chester? What do you think?”

  Raskovich glanced at Seymour Fisk, the KSU dean, who had been listening intently in silence, a crease furrowed across his bald pate. “Well,” Raskovich said, “I think that what Sheriff Hazen and I found is enough to justify continuing the investigation.”

  “All you’ve found out,” Larssen replied, “is that Lavender’s in financial trouble. A lot of people are in financial trouble these days.”

  Again Hazen withheld comment. Let Chester do the talking.

  “Well,” said Raskovich, “we found more than just financial trouble. He hasn’t paid real estate taxes on some properties in years. Why there haven’t been any tax seizures is something I’d be interested in knowing. And Lavender went around assuring everyone that the experimental field was coming to Deeper. He told everyone he had a plan. As if he knew something that nobody else knew. This ‘plan’ sounds pretty suspicious to me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, it was justtalk to appease his creditors,” said Larssen, practically rising out of the comfortable Naugahyde to make his point.

  This is great,thought Hazen.Now Hank’s arguing with the KSU guys. Larssen always had been a few beers short of a six-pack.

  “It’s pretty clear,” Raskovich went on, “that if Dr. Chauncy had announced on Monday that the field was going to Medicine Creek, Lavender’s creditors would have moved in and he’d have been forced into bankruptcy. That’s a powerful motive.”

  There was a silence. Larssen was shaking his head.

  And now Fisk spoke at last, his reedy ivory-tower voice filling the office. “Sheriff, the intention is not to make accusations. The intention is merely to continue the investigation, looking into Mr. Lavender’s affairs along with whatever other leads develop.”

  Hazen waited. It was politically important to “consult” with Larssen. Old Hank just didn’t seem to get the fact that it was all pro forma, that nothing he said would stop the investigation into Lavender.

  “Mr. Fisk,” Larssen said, “all I’m saying is, don’t focus on a suspect too early. There are plenty of other avenues that should be explored. Look, Dent, we all know Lavender’s no saint, but he’s no killer either, especially notthat kind of killer. Even if he hired someone, how in hell did that person get from Deeper to Medicine Creek without being observed? Where’d he hide out? Where’s his car? Where’d he spend the night? That whole area’s been searched by air and on the ground, and you know it!”

  Hazen exhaled quietly. This was precisely the point that still bothered him. It was the one weakness in his theory.

  “It seems to me,” he went on, “that it’s more likely the killer’s a resident of Medicine Creek, a Jekyll and Hyde type. If it was an outsider, somebody would’ve seen something. You can’t come and go from Medicine Creek, time and again, unnoticed.”

  “Someone could be hiding in the corn,” said Raskovich.

  “You can see into the corn from above,” said Larssen. “They’ve been flying spotter planes for days now. They’ve searched the creek for twenty miles, they’ve searched the Mounds, they’ve searched everywhere. There’s no sign of anyone hiding, and nobody’s been coming or going. I mean, where’s this killer supposed to be hiding? In a hole in the ground?”

  Listening, Hazen suddenly went rigid. He felt his limbs stiffening as the sudden, brilliant insight burned its way through his consciousness.Of course, he told himself.Of course. It was the elusive answer he’d been searching for, the missing link in his theory.

  He breathed deeply, glanced around to make sure nobody had noticed his reaction. It was critical that it not seem like Hank had given it to him.

  And then he delivered his revelation in an almost bored tone of voice. “That’s right, Hank. He’s been hiding in a hole in the ground.”

  There was a silence.

  “How’s that?” Raskovich asked.

  Hazen looked at him. “Kraus’s Kaverns,” he said.

  “Kraus’s Kaverns?” Fisk repeated.

  “On the Cry Road, that big old house with the gift shop. There’s a tourist cave out back of it. Been there forever. Run now by old Winifred Kraus.”

  It was incredible how fast the pieces were coming together in his mind. It had been under his nose all along, and he just hadn’t seen it. Kraus’s Kaverns.Of course.

  Fisk was nodding, and so was Raskovich. “I remember seeing that place,” said Raskovich.

  Larssen had turned white. He knew Hazen had nailed it. That’s how perfect it was, how well it fit together.

  Hazen spoke again. “The killer’s been hiding in that cave.” He looked at Larssen and couldn’t help but smile. “As you know, Hank, that’s the same cave where old man Kraus had his moonshine operation. Making corn whiskey forKing Lavender. ”

  “Now that’svery interesting,” Fisk said, turning an admiring look on Hazen.

  “Isn’t it? There’s a room back there, behind the tourist loop, where they boiled up their sour mash. In a bigpot still. ” He emphasized the last two words carefully.

  He saw Raskovich’s eyes suddenly widen. “In a pot still big enough to boil a human body?”

  “Bingo,” said Hazen.

  The atmosphere became electric. Larssen had begun to sweat now, and Hazen knew it was because even he believed.

  “So you see, Mr. Fisk,” Hazen continued, “Lavender’s man has been holed up in that cave, coming out at night with his bare feet and his other shenanigans, killing people and making it look like the fulfillment of the Ghost Mounds curse. During Prohibition, King Lavender financed that pot still for old man Kraus, got him set up in the business. It’s what he did all over Cry County. He bankrolled all the moonshiners in these parts.”

  Hank Larssen removed a handkerchief and dabbed at the line of sweat that had formed on his brow.

  “Lavender claimed his assistant, McFelty, went to visit his sick mother in Kansas City. It’s one of the things Raskovich and I checked out today. We tried to get in touch with McFelty’s mother. And we found out all about McFelty’s mother.”

  He paused.

  “She died twenty years ago.”

  He let that sink in, then continued. “And this man McFelty’s been in trouble with the law before. Small stuff, mostly, but a lot of it violent: petty assault, aggravated assault, drunk driving.”

  The revelations had been coming fast, one almost piling up upon the other. And now Hazen added the kicker: “McFelty disappeared two days before the Swegg killing. I think he went underground. As Hank just pointed out, you can’t come and go from Medicine Creek without being noticed: without neighbors noticing, withoutme noticing. He’s been holed up in Kraus’s Kaverns all this time, coming out at night to do his dirty work.”

  There was a long pause in which nobody spoke. Then Fisk cleared his throat. “This is first-rate work, Sheriff. What’s the next move?”

  Hazen stood up, his face set. “The town’s been crawling with law officers and press. You can be sure McFelty’s still laying low in those caves, waiting for a lull so’s he can escape. Now that he’s completed his job.”

  “And?”

  “And so we go in there and get the son of a bitch.”

  “When?”

  “Now.” He turned to Larssen. “Conference us into state police HQ in Dodge. I want Commander Ernie Wayes on the horn himself. We need a well-armed team and we need it now. We need dogs, good dogs this time. I’ll head over to the courthouse, get a bench warrant from Judge Anderson.”

  �
�Are you sure McFelty’s still there, in the caves?” Fisk asked.

  “No,” said Hazen. “I’m not sure. But there’s going to be physical evidence in there at the very least. I’m not taking any chances. This guy’s dangerous. He may be doing a job for Lavender, but he’s been enjoying himself just a little too much—and that scares the piss out of me. Let’s not make the mistake of underestimating him.”

  He looked out the window at the blackening horizon, the rising wind.

  “We’ve got to move. Our man may use the cover of the storm to make his exit.” He glanced at his watch, then looked once again around the room.

  “We’re going in tonight at ten, and we’re going in big.”

  Forty-Eight

  The darkness was total, absolute. Corrie lay on the wet rock, soaked to the bone, her whole body shivering from terror and cold. Not far away, she could hearit moving around, talking to itself in a singsong undertone, making horrible little bubbling sounds with its lips, sometimes cooing, sometimes laughing softly as if at some private joke.

  Her mind had passed through disbelief and stark terror, and come out on the other side cold and numb. The killer had her.It —she supposed it was ahe —had tied her up and thrown her over his shoulder, roughly, like a sack of meat, and carried her through a labyrinth of passageways, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending, sometimes splashing across underground streams, for what seemed like an eternity.

  And through darkness—always, through darkness. He seemed to move by feel or by memory.

  His arms had felt slippery and clammy, yet strong as steel cables that threatened always to crush her. She had screamed, begged, pleaded, but her protests had met with obliviousness. And then, at last, they got tothis place —this place with its unutterable stink—and he had dropped her sprawling onto the stone floor. Then the horny foot had kicked her roughly into a corner, where she now lay, dazed, aching, bleeding. The stench—the stench that before had been faint and unidentifiable—was here appalling, omnipresent, enveloping.

  She had lain, numb and unthinking, for an unguessable period of time. But now her senses were beginning to return. The initial paralysis of terror was wearing off, if only slightly. She lay still, forcing herself to think. She was far back in the cave—a cave much bigger than anyone imagined. Nobody was going to find their way back here to save her. . .