| |
The sun was out and bright the next day, but I saw only gloom and darkness. An ominous feeling overwhelmed my soul, and I pictured myself as a cartoon with a black cloud over my head.
I didn’t even step outside until eleven o’clock. Scott told me my friends had stopped by and asked for me while I was still in bed. It’d been a rough night. Between my parents fighting and my suspicions surrounding Lester Kilborn and Mr. Beaumont, so many thoughts had been shooting through my mind that I couldn’t focus on anything, especially sleep.
I opened our garage door, dragged my bike out, and pulled myself up on it. I squinted from the bright sun, trying to acclimate to the day, then, absent of energy, I rode my bike down the driveway and into the street.
I headed for the Moguls, knowing my friends would be there working on our cave fort. I stopped at the fork in the road. Straight ahead were the Moguls. I saw my friends’ bikes parked at the foot of the hills, but a house hid my view of the cave.
To my left, the road led to the Andersons’ home and Dawn Williams’s house. She hadn’t left my mind, either. I saw activity in front of the Andersons’ house, and I couldn’t ignore it. I rode my bike toward their home and stopped about twenty feet short of it.
“I’m leaving!” Joanna, Morgan’s sister, yelled as she stomped to the red Dodge Dart parked in the driveway. Her hair was a raggedy mess, and her clothes were wrinkled. It was Joanna, Morgan’s missing sister.
“Joanna!” Her mother scrambled out the front door, face twisted with frustration, guilt, and grief. “I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
Joanna snapped around, bloodshot eyes blazing with hatred and anger, lips tightened. “There’s nothing to talk about!”
I couldn’t describe her voice as anything other than pure evil. It was dark and deep, and it didn’t sound right. Chills ran like ants up my arms. Morgan crept out the front door, watching in shock. She crumpled to her knees on the porch and sobbed.
“There’s a lot to talk about, young lady!” Mrs. Anderson sounded stern. “Everyone spent the entire day and night searching for you, including the entire police force! We deserve an explanation!”
“The hell you do!”
Joanna opened her car door, and her mother grabbed the top edge of it to keep it from shutting. Standing in front of her daughter, Mrs. Anderson made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate Joanna’s behavior anymore.
“What has gotten into you? Did someone take you? Are you on drugs?”
Joanna looked dead into her mother’s eyes, and I got a good look at her. Her skin was pasty, and dark rings circled her eyes. “Let me make this very clear to you. I am leaving. You will never see me again. In fact, I am no longer your daughter.”
Mrs. Anderson might as well have been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but the words caught in her throat.
“Let go of the door,” Joanna demanded.
“Joanna... please. I love you.”
“Back off.” Joanna’s words were like ice, and her arms shot out. Joanna pushed her mother so hard that Mrs. Anderson flew off her feet, and her body crashed to the ground with a thud. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.
Morgan ran to her mother’s side as Joanna jumped into her car, slammed the door, and sped away with a screech. Mrs. Anderson stayed on the ground but placed a hand on Morgan’s shoulder.
I rode my bike fast to their house to help. I ran to Morgan’s side, and she lifted her leaky eyes to me, lips trembling.
Absent of better words, I said, “Mrs. Anderson, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She groaned. “I just need to lay here a minute. Get my wits about me.”
My immediate urge was to help her to her feet, so it was strange to sit idly by and stare at her lying on the ground. But just then, Mr. Anderson pulled his car into their driveway. In a flash, he jumped out and ran to her side. I stepped back as Morgan and her dad lifted Mrs. Anderson to her feet.
They thanked me, even though I’d done nothing but eavesdrop. They went back into their house, and through the screen door, I heard Mrs. Anderson say, “She just came home ten minutes ago... Didn’t say a word. Went straight to her room...”
Morgan looked at me just before the door closed, her eyes filled with sadness and embarrassment.
Standing alone outside the Andersons’ house, I didn’t know what to do next. My friends waited for me at the Moguls, but I couldn’t go there. Something tugged me in a different direction.
I’d seen in Joanna the same thing I’d seen in Mr. Beaumont the day he’d returned. She was someone or something else. Joanna was long gone, and no one knew where she was going. She had made that clear.
I couldn’t follow Joanna, but maybe I could follow up on the Beaumonts. Where was Mrs. Beaumont? She was still absent to the world, and her husband continued to rattle off the same story about her illness.
I went home and pulled out our church directory, which listed all the members’ names, phone numbers, and addresses. I found the Beaumonts’ and headed for their house.
I didn’t bother to tell my friends. The voice in the back of my head told me I was a crazy loon, and if my suspicion turned out to be a paranoid delusion, I didn’t want to pull anyone into it with me.
I stopped my bike in front of the Beaumonts’ home. It looked empty, deserted. No car was parked in the driveway, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one in the garage. The lawn was unkempt, and weeds popped through the grass, which hadn’t been mowed in weeks.
I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. No sound or answer came back. I knocked harder then waited patiently. Nothing. I rang the bell, and still nothing. I pushed the doorbell several times rapidly then pounded on the door. Nothing.
I looked around the neighborhood. Not a person was in sight. I tried the door, but it was locked. I walked around to the back sliding-glass door. It was locked.
Silence surrounded me. The sun beat down. The dying lawn crunched under my feet.
I stepped back and looked at the house. If Mrs. Beaumont was just sick, would she not be at home? If she’s too ill to answer the door, shouldn’t I still hear movement inside? A TV or radio? I heard nothing, and my curiosity was not satisfied.
I crept to the back window and peered inside. It seemed to be the window to the master bedroom on the main level. I could see the top half of the room through a crack in the drapes, but not the bottom.
I found an empty milk crate beside the back door, set it on the ground below, and stood on top of it. My eyes barely cleared the lip of the window. The dirty window distorted my view, but I could see the whole room. The only sound was a dull buzzing inside. I saw a long dresser against the far wall, a mirror, and some pictures. A tall bed sat along the other wall. Its legs gave the bed nearly a two-foot clearance from the floor, and the mattress was thick. On top of it was a long gray object.
I thought it was a baseball bat at first. It had the same thickness, but it was longer and ended in a weird shape. As my focus improved, I saw it for what it was—a foot, attached to its leg, but it was gray. The toes were curled in like claws, and long purple veins snaked across the legs and ankles.
I followed the leg up the body, and I saw an arm. Hanging down off the side of the bed, it was also gray and veiny. Resting on the shoulder was Mrs. Beaumont’s white-topped gray head. I could only see half of her face due to my angle. One eye open, glazed over like glass, stared at nothing. Her mouth hung open, and black dots flew all around her. I suddenly realized the source of the buzzing. Swarms of flies danced around the corpse in the bed.
Forgetting I was on top of a milk crate, I stumbled and fell to the ground. Small rocks and a thistle weed pricked the skin of my arm. I hopped to my feet and bolted to the front of the house. My heart in my throat, I tore out of the neighborhood on my bike, my stomach churning.
Instinctively, I rode to the sheriff’s office. Houses and cars were a blur on either side of me as I pumped my legs up and down on those pedals and raced down the sidewalk along Redwood Road.
I stopped and waited for a light to change, and my focus and wits came back as I began to breathe regularly. I cleared the street and passed Pederson’s. On my right was the back entrance to Beaumont’s Funeral Home.
I glanced as I passed and caught the color of red. I skidded to a stop. A red Dodge Dart sat parked behind the mortuary. Joanna Anderson’s red Dodge Dart. I didn’t see Joanna, but I saw Mr. Beaumont. Wearing a black suit, he seemed freakishly tall and daunting, arms dangling like weights, and he turned his head to glare at me. His lip crept up into a slight grimace.
“Shit.” I cursed at myself for not bringing my friends.
I sped ahead, one more block and across the road to the sheriff’s office. I busted into the office like a tornado; the front door had lost its spring and flew all the way around to slam against the wall with a bang. The blinds on the door bounced and crinkled loudly.
Everyone in the office turned, on high alert.
Sweating and panting, I searched the room for Sheriff Packard. He stood in front of his deputy’s desk, holding papers and talking. I ran to him.
“What in the Sam Hill?”
“Sheriff!” Without focus, my words tumbled out in no order: “Found Mrs. Beaumont. Dead. Joanna is in with Beaumont—over at mortuary. She’s dead in her house—on her bed. Beaumont and Lester are stealing people—”
“Hold on, Ret, you’re going to have a heart attack. Sit down. Take a deep breath.” He turned to Deputy Gonzales. “Get the boy some water, will ya?”
I sat down in the closest chair, which was behind the desk Packard was standing next to.
He sat on the edge of the desk, folded his hands in his lap, and looked down at me with concern. “You look like you outran a ghost.”
My face was cold and dripping with sweat. I couldn’t wrap my brain around what I’d just seen. I had never witnessed anything as gruesome as someone’s dead body not dressed in their best and lying in a casket for viewing. I thought of her sprawled awkwardly where she’d died, flies about her head, eyes open and gawking, skin gray and purple.
I wiped sweat from my forehead, attempted to get in control of my breathing, and sipped on the plastic cup of water Deputy Gonzales handed me.
“I know you’re going to think I’m crazy,” I said.
He looked at my hands, which were trembling badly enough to shake water out of the cup.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said with hesitation in his eyes. “Let’s go talk in my office, shall we?”
I nodded and followed him in, and he closed the door. He sat across from me behind his desk and leaned forward. “What is this all about, Ret?”
“Well... you know Joanna Anderson was missing?”
“Yes.”
“I was riding my bike past their house, and there she was. She’d been found—or returned.”
“I just got off the phone with her dad. He told me all about it.”
“Did he tell you how different she is? She’s not the same. She swore at her mom and pushed her down. Really hard!”
“I know.” He nodded.
“She said she wasn’t her daughter anymore...” My voice shook. “And then she took off. She’s never coming back!”
Anger flushed over me as I saw that none of this information was affecting Packard in the same way it had me. I’d expected some shock, a little surprise.
“Ret, I appreciate your concern. Sometimes people her age find themselves in a different world than they grew up in, or that we live in. They hang out with a different crowd. One that gets them involved in all sorts of trouble, like drugs, violence, stealing, and all manner of destructive behavior.”
I scrunched my face in frustration.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s a private matter, but I see how much this has affected you. She stole money and other things from her parents before she went missing. Did they tell you that? They also found drugs in her possession. Drugs make people do funny things, act differently.”
He went on for several minutes about drugs and how bad they were, saying it was more likely that Joanna was into drugs than anything else.
I couldn’t believe the bullshit he was feeding me. I knew about drugs somewhat, but I knew what had happened to Joanna wasn’t drugs. I just knew it. She’d told her mother, “I’m no longer your daughter.” It’d sounded so definite. It was an admission she’d become someone else.
“The best thing you can do,” Packard continued, “is to let the Andersons be. They have a long road ahead of them in dealing with Joanna, and it’s not going to be easy for them. All you can do is continue to be their friend. Be a friend to Morgan.”
I nodded and took another sip of water. He had a point. There really wasn’t anything anyone could do at this point, and he was so good with his words that he’d almost convinced me Joanna had a drug problem, but it didn’t add up. But her car was parked at the mortuary! Right next to Mr. Beaumont! Why?
“I have something else to tell you. It’s worse than this.”
“Okay.” He settled back to listen.
I told him the story about Mrs. Beaumont, why I’d gone to the house, and what I’d found. For the first time, I saw my words sink in.
He sat back in his chair with a grim face. “You sure of what you saw?”
“Yes.”
The look in his eyes could not be mistaken. He believed me. “I don’t know quite what to think. You went to their house? Did you break in?”
“No. I told you, I just looked in through their back window, and there she was. She wasn’t moving or breathing. She’s dead all right, and she looks real bad. You have to go there and check it out.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like what you’re doing, Ret. That’s breaking the law. You can’t go into someone’s backyard and peek through their window. I don’t condone it.”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry. I really am, and I won’t do it again. But she is dead. And she has been dead for a long time.”
Packard didn’t say a word. He just stared into my eyes, and I stared back, waiting for his response.
The door opened, and Deputy Gonzales poked his head in. “Phone call for you, Sheriff. It’s Gerald Beaumont.”
My heart sank, and I felt chills. Packard gave me another grim look as he picked up the phone.
“Sheriff Packard,” he answered.
I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, only Packard’s.
“Yes.” He paused. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry to hear that.” He paused again. “There is a process, Mr. Beaumont—you know that. I’ll send a team right away. Don’t move the body. We need a medical examiner.”
He hung up the phone. I knew before he said anything what it was about. He looked at me as if I were a troubled, nosey kid.
“That was Mr. Beaumont. He called in to report that he found his wife deceased.”
“Convenient. Good timing.” I rolled my eyes.
“Ret! You are crossing into some dangerous territory. With what you told me at the fair, and now this... it’s gotta stop. No more about the Beaumonts! You don’t go to their house, you don’t talk to him, and you leave them completely alone. Got it?”
“Sheriff, I passed by the funeral home to get here, and Joanna’s car was parked there. Isn’t that too much coincidence? Beaumont was there too, and he looked at me. He knew. I know he knew. I don’t know how, but he did. That’s why he called—”
“Ret!” He stood up. He’d lost his patience. “I don’t want to have to talk to your parents about this, but I will if I have to. Leave it alone. You’re not Sherlock. And even if you were”—his tone softened—“and even if everything crazy you just told me was true, this is dangerous. You can get hurt, and that would be on my conscience. Promise me, Ret, that you’ll leave this alone.”
He stuck his hand out to shake. I hesitated then shook it.
“Good.” He nodded. “Do you need a ride home?”
“No. I got my bike.”
Sheriff Packard left with two of his deputies. I said goodbye to Doreen, the woman who serviced the front desk, and she gave me a warm, sympathetic smile. I exited the department, feeling sheepish and deflated.
I didn’t blame Packard for not believing me. I was just a kid. He’d said what he had to for my own protection. Even if he hadn’t really believed me, I hoped I started the wheels turning in his head.
I rode my bike home and tried to sort things out. It would have been easier to believe Joanna was on drugs and Beaumont had just found his dead wife, but that wasn’t the truth. There was still something at the bottom of my gut that didn’t believe it, and I wasn’t about to let it go.
Packard was right about one thing, though. The situation was dangerous, and I had to be more careful. I had to switch gears again for the moment. I decided to lie low, but I was going to keep my eye on everything. I have to stay aware. This is far from over.