Kill Devil Falls Read online

  Putrid-smelling air wafted across Jesse’s face. He nearly gagged. Musk, shit, and rot.

  Inside, a dozen thick candles on elaborate stands provided a soft, flickering light. Alice sat in the middle of the room on a woven mat. She was naked, facing a plaster statue set against the far wall. The room’s radiator valve was wide open and Alice’s pale skin was shiny with sweat. The floor around her undulated grotesquely, loops and coils of black and brown bodies, gliding and slithering.

  Alice turned.

  “What do you want?” she snapped.

  “The electricity’s out.”

  Alice glanced over at a double row of terrariums resting on racks against the wall.

  “The heat lamps. My babies will freeze.” She turned back to Jesse. “Did you check the fuse box?”

  “Just about to.”

  “Well, hurry up.”

  “I took a tumble down the stairs today, you know. How about you go down and check the fuse box?”

  “Isn’t it enough that I do all the thinking for the both of us? Do I have to do the grunt work, too?”

  “You think it was so easy?” Jesse said.

  “I really should have known better, Jesse, because the one thing you can reliably be counted on to do is fail. You’re a regular Old Faithful of fucking up.”

  “Go to hell, Alice!”

  “I’m already there! Now go fix the damn lights!”

  Jesse slammed the door.

  He stomped to the kitchen, opened a drawer, fished out a flashlight. He wasn’t much of a handyman, but at least he knew how to change a fuse. Naturally, the fuse box was in the basement, which meant a trip down two flights of stairs.

  He walked down the hall, turned right, descended to the ground floor. Here, there was a small vestibule with three doors. A door on the left led to the restaurant; another on the right, down to the basement. The third door opened onto the back yard.

  Jesse opened the basement door, gingerly negotiated the cement steps.

  The basement smelled of onions, garlic, and wet earth. Metal racks held giant cans of crushed tomatoes, olive oil, bags of flour, cases of soda and beer, coffee beans, and other foodstuffs. Broken, discarded furniture and appliances were piled to one side. Cartons of paper goods rested against a wall.

  Jesse tried to remember where the fuse box was located. He waved the flashlight around, finally spied the box on the wall behind a stack of plastic-wrapped paper towels. He pushed the towels aside. The stack toppled over.

  Cursing, he savagely kicked a set of paper towels across the floor. He yanked open the fuse box, inspected the fuses one by one. They appeared to be fine. Good thing, because now that he thought about it, if a fuse needed replacing he’d have to go back up the stairs, through the restaurant, and into the market, where the fuses were stocked. Too much goddamn walking.

  The bad news, of course, was that the electrical problem wasn’t going to be a simple fix. Maybe a transformer somewhere along the grid blew. Who knew how long before it might be repaired? The county government didn’t give a shit about Kill Devil Falls. It wanted them out of here.

  And, after fifteen years, Jesse was more than ready to oblige.

  He grimaced his way back up the stairs. As he came through the doorway into the vestibule, wind tickled his beard. He rounded the bannister, saw that the back door was ajar. Strange. He usually secured it before heading up after dinner. He stepped out onto the back stoop. Outside, it was as dark as only remote forest could be, just a scatter of twinkling stars and a custard-yellow moon. He shivered in the chilly night air.

  Jesse went back inside, closed and locked the door. He trudged slowly up to the second floor. The glow of candlelight bled through the bottom of the door to Alice’s room. He extended his middle finger as he passed.

  “Hope your babies turn into Popsicles,” he muttered.

  Back in the kitchen, he set the flashlight sidewise on the dining table. He opened the freezer and removed a plastic ice tray. He cracked ice into a tall glass. His plan was to keep drinking until he passed out. Relegate this horrible day to a distant, hazy memory.

  He picked up a bottle of Johnny Walker and the glass in one hand and the flashlight in the other. He shuffled down the hall to the master bedroom, opened the door. He set the flashlight on Alice’s vanity, picked up a disposable lighter, lit a few candles. He turned toward the big brass bed, looking forward to sinking into a soft mattress and drowning himself in the bottle of Scotch.

  In a shadowed corner of the room, something moved.

  “Wha—” was all Jesse managed to say before taking a hit across the temple. He saw a burst of stars. The bottle and glass fell to the floor, and Jesse crashed down on top of them.

  Helen stepped out onto the porch and breathed in the sharp scent of mountain pine. There was no sign of Big Ed or the Explorer. Just her ailing Charger.

  It occurred to her that, if Lee Larimer was responsible for Rita’s death, perhaps he’d disabled her car to prevent her from taking Rita back to Sacramento. But if that were the case, how could he have known she would leave Rita to go off and find a mechanic? Or was his original plan just to break Rita out by force? If so, why bother with the car? To prevent her from pursuing?

  Lots of unanswered questions.

  She saw Teddy approaching, a lantern in one hand and a thermos in the other. He waved. Helen waved back.

  “Any luck?” he asked, clomping up the porch steps.

  “Says he didn’t do it.”

  “’Course he does.”

  “How much longer for the other deputies to get up here?” she asked.

  “Hard to say. Dispatch said the accident scene was just one big ol’ goat rodeo.”

  “What about the crime scene techs?”

  “Well, we don’t have a crime scene unit in Donnersville. We use a team from Carson City. Probably won’t be here till late morning, and that’s if they don’t catch any other cases.”

  “Great.”

  “We’re just a small county, Marshal. Big in area, but only a handful of people. We don’t got money, equipment, resources like you all in Sacramento.”

  “I understand, Teddy. I didn’t mean to be snarky. But … for God’s sake. We have a fresh murder, possible evidence lying around … and no means to conduct a proper investigation.”

  “Come morning, we’ll get it all sorted out.”

  Helen had her doubts. Teddy set the lantern and thermos down on the wooden steps and pulled a tobacco pouch from his pocket.

  “I’m real sorry about how complicated this all turned out to be,” he said.

  “Not your fault. But thanks for saying so.”

  “I know my dad feels the same way, although he ain’t so good at expressing himself.” Teddy stuffed a wad of tobacco into his cheek. “He comes off as kind of a hardass sometimes. Okay. All the time.”

  Helen laughed. “He does, at that. Seems like you and he have a difficult relationship. Must be tough working with him.”

  Teddy shrugged. “He’s good at his job.”

  “If you say so. He doesn’t seem overly concerned with catching whoever killed your sister.”

  “I think he’s a lot more upset about her than he lets on.”

  “That wouldn’t be difficult, because he doesn’t seem upset in the least,” Helen said.

  Teddy leaned over, spat into the dirt.

  “Well … ” he started. He scratched his nose. Looked at Helen, back down at the ground. Back at Helen.

  “What is it, Teddy?”

  Teddy’s jaw bulged as he worked the tobacco.

  “You know my dad married Rita’s mom when Rita was about ten. We’re the same age, Rita and me. Thirty-two this year.”

  Helen nodded, but she was surprised. Rita had looked much older, while Teddy, apart from the beard, could pass for early twenties.

  “When Rita was thirteen or so, her mom got sick. Cancer. She spent a few hard years fighting it.”

  Helen remembered the day her father
had come to pick her up from school, three hours early. In the car on the way to the hospital, he told her about her mom’s car accident. It was the only time she’d ever seen him cry. At least her mom didn’t suffer—she just simply never woke up.

  She pushed the memory away.

  “That must have been rough.”

  “Well, she wasn’t my mom,” Teddy said.

  He stopped abruptly.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I, uh … my mom was already dead. She died when I was six.”

  Helen shivered, stuffed her hands into her pockets. What were the chances of the three of them all losing their mothers as kids? Astronomical. She was suddenly overcome by a crushing wave of sadness. For Rita, Teddy. For herself.

  “So, yeah,” Teddy continued. “I’m sure it was tough on Rita. But the thing is … when Rita’s mom got sick, she was in and out of the hospital, and even when she was home, she was in bed most of the time. In a lot of pain, near the end. Sleeping mostly. Drugged up.”

  “How awful.”

  “And somewhere along the way … my dad … he took a shine to Rita.”

  Helen’s stomach sank.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yeah, he … you know.”

  “He molested her?”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’d say it was as bad as that.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Maybe just … grabbed her a bit, every now and then.”

  “Grabbed her?”

  “I think it’s why she run away.”

  “I see.”

  “Thing is … he’s not a bad man. Not really. And deep down, I know he regrets what he done. And blames himself for the way she turned out. For the way she ended up.”

  “He regrets it.”

  “I believe so. Part of him probably feels like what happened to her tonight … It was like a, you know … It was a sure thing she’d end up dead or in prison.”

  “An inevitability.”

  “Right. And my dad, he knows it’s partially ’cause of him. Not entirely. She was kind of a troubled kid even before her mom married him. But … if she hadn’t of run away, maybe she could have finished high school. Even gone to college or just gotten a steady job in Donnersville. Married, had kids. Like that.”

  Helen clenched her fists. If there was any justice in the world …

  “I don’t know why I told you that,” Teddy said.

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “Don’t let on to my dad. Promise me.”

  Helen looked up at the night sky, the moon, thinking how the sheriff should be hogtied and stuffed in a hole along with a few sacks of black powder, like the cannibal Stoppard.

  “Marshal?” Teddy said.

  “Okay, Teddy. I won’t say anything.”

  “Thanks. We should probably go on inside.”

  “Is there any chance of getting the electricity back on?”

  Teddy shrugged. “We could ask Frank and Mike to take a look.”

  “Do they know what to do?”

  “Better’n me,” Teddy said. “They rewired the Trading Post, so maybe.”

  “Let’s ask them.”

  Teddy nodded toward the jail door. “My dad wants us to stay with Lawrence.”

  “You stay. I’ll go.”

  “Marshal, it ain’t safe to walk around here by yourself.”

  “I’ll stick to the sidewalk. And watch out for mountain lions.”

  “It ain’t a joke.”

  “I know it’s not.”

  Teddy sighed. “My dad won’t be happy.”

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Helen said. “Save a cup of coffee for me.”

  Frank and Mike’s double-wide was a shrine to arrested adolescence combined with a complete lack of parental, legal, or social restrictions.

  Hanging on the walls were full-color, highly pornographic spreads ripped from European adult magazines. Beer cans, dirty dishes, weed paraphernalia, potato chip bags, loose change, crumpled dollar bills, random tools, and various other bits of garbage fought for space on the dining table and kitchen counter. Mike’s crossbow was mounted on the wall beside the front door.

  Frank sat on the edge of a broken-down couch playing Grand Theft Auto. He paused frequently to sip from a tall can of Blue Hurricane Four Loko. Mike was smoking a joint and reading a tattered copy of The Walking Dead: Volume 17.

  “No, you don’t, motherfucker!” Frank yelled. He leaned his body precariously to one side, frantically working the controller to steer his stolen Trans Am through a busy intersection, two police cars in hot pursuit.

  There was a knock at the door. Frank ignored it. Mike went to the window, looked through the cheap plastic blinds.

  “Oh, shit!” he whispered. “It’s the lady cop.”

  Frank didn’t take his eyes off the TV screen. “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know, but we got, like, four kilos in the bedroom.”

  Frank’s Trans Am sideswiped a fuel tanker and was engulfed in a massive explosion.

  “Fuck!”

  Another knock, louder.

  Frank tossed the controller to the floor.

  “Go shut the bedroom door, then! And ditch that fatty!”

  Mike trotted to the sink, tossed in his joint, ran the water.

  Helen called from outside: “Frank? Mike? It’s Deputy Marshal Morrissey. Open up, please.”

  Frank rose from the couch, waited while Mike closed the bedroom door. He waved a hand in the air.

  “You smoking the Sasquatch? That shit smells to high heaven.”

  Mike shrugged. Frank opened the front door. He leaned against the door jamb, one hand on his hip.

  “Hi.”

  “Frank.”

  “Noticed Big Ed grabbed up Lawrence. Did he kill Rita? Or was he just arresting him for being a freakazoid?”

  Helen sniffed.

  “You raising skunks in there?”

  “Ah … no. That’s just the smell of Mike’s dirty socks.” Frank laughed.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “We’re kind of busy. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m wondering if you can do something about getting the lights back on,” Helen said.

  “You are, are you?”

  Helen didn’t like the predatory nature of his smile.

  “Actually, the sheriff asked me to come over,” she said.

  “Is that so?”

  “Why would I lie, Frank?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” He scratched his armpit. “People lie all the time, for various reasons.”

  “Like when you said just now you were busy?”

  “Big Ed told us to stay put.”

  “Well, now he wants you to check out the electricity. Can you do that, please?”

  “Depends.”

  Helen sighed.

  “On what?”

  “How much does the job pay?” Frank said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Seeing as how we’re being asked to provide a service, and seem to be the only ones around here with the necessary skills, it’s only fair that we get paid.”

  “Wow. I didn’t realize I was dealing with a rapacious capitalist.”

  Frank frowned, not fully understanding the definition of “rapacious.”

  “How much are we getting paid?” he asked again.

  “You’ll have to take that up with the sheriff.”

  “I’m taking it up with you.”

  “Listen, I really don’t have the patience for this. Get your ass out of this trailer and see if you can put some mother-effing lights on, or I’m coming in there on suspicion of illegal narcotics. Namely, the skunkiest weed this side of Pepe Le Pew.”

  Frank’s eyes turned flat and cold.

  “You wait right there,” he said. He shut the door in her face.

  “Get the tools, Mike,” he said. He grabbed his Dickies jacket off the back of the couch, slipped into it. A nickel-plated .45 rested on the floor beside the can of
Four Loko. Frank tucked it into the back of his pants.

  After a long wait, the door opened again. Frank and Mike came out, carrying a tool box and handheld electric lanterns.

  “Well, let’s fucking do it, then,” Frank said to Helen, stalking off down Main Street.

  Helen trailed along behind. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Transformer,” Mike said.

  “Transformer?”

  “If there’s no electricity, first place to check is the transformer,” Mike said.

  “Listen,” Frank said. “We know what we’re doing. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. You just follow along and try to look sexy.”

  Helen considered and discarded a number of responses. Right now, she badly wanted to get the electricity working. Enduring Frank’s bullshit was a small price to pay.

  After five minutes or so, Frank and Mike halted at a wooden pole on the edge of the sidewalk, a few buildings down and across the street from the Trading Post. Mike directed his lantern to the top of the pole, where a large metal cylinder sat beneath a crossbar, sprouting a network of cables.

  “Go ahead,” Frank said to Mike.

  “You go ahead.”

  “Rock, paper, scissors.”

  Helen rolled her eyes while the two men pumped their fists. Frank chose scissors. Mike went with paper.

  “You lose,” Frank said.

  “Two out of three?”

  “Mike,” Helen said. “Get up there and take a look. Now, please.”

  Mike tipped his hat. “Yes, ma’am!” He turned to Frank. “Gimmie a boost.”

  Frank interlocked his fingers, made a sling, spread his legs wide, and bent his knees. As he did so, his jacket rode up, exposing the .45 in his pants.

  Mike put his foot in Frank’s hands and stepped off the ground, holding onto the pole for support. He reached up and grasped an iron rung, pulled himself upward. He climbed quickly and nimbly. At the top, he used the lantern to inspect the metal cylinder and its components. He fiddled around a bit, clambered back down, and took a moment to catch his breath.

  “What’s the story?” Frank asked.

  “Smashed bushing. Wires yanked out.”