Lisa Miscione - Twice

“Anyway, like I said,” Marilyn went on, “Maura knows a lot more about the curse and the Ross family than I do. But I’ll warn you that she’s not overly friendly. And she’s suspicious of outsiders. Since her ancestors settled this town, she kind of thinks of it as hers. There’s not much left to it, but she’ll protect it with her life.”

Lydia thought of the roads riven with potholes and the crumbling neglected Main Street. She thought of a land wrested from the Native Americans and tilled by slaves who worked and bled and died on it. She thought of Annabelle Taylor and the souls of her dead children. She thought maybe there was never a more fitting name for a town.

“There’s a lot of blood in the ground,” said Lydia, half thinking aloud.

“Indeed there is.”

“ Frankly, Detective, I don’t see what my mess, from nearly forty years ago, has to do with your present situation.” Police Chief Henry Clay was a fat, sour man with a big belly and a face that was as wrinkled and dirty as an old potato. He was bald except for a few determined silver strands that were currently being blown every which way by the heat coming from the vent above his head. His hands were thick and pink, reminding Jeffrey of nothing so much as wads of Silly Putty.

“Well, sir,” said Ford, trying his level best to use honey instead of vinegar, “it might have nothing to do with it; it might have everything to do with it. But we would sure be interested in your thoughts on the ’65 case.”

The old man made a noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a belch as he pushed himself up from the chair behind his desk. He walked past them and opened the wood and opaque glass door that bore his name and said to his secretary, who was seated outside his office, “Can you go down to the archives, Miss Jean, and see if you can’t find the Ross file?”

There was a moment of silence, and the woman, who was at least as old as the police chief, sounded incredulous as she repeated, “The Ross file, Henry? Eleanor Ross?”

“Well, goddammit, woman, you heard me,” he answered, and closed the door.

“The case was never solved, is that right, Chief Clay?” asked Jeff.

“That’s right,” he said with a sigh as he sat back in his chair, which groaned in protest of his tremendous girth.

“Who were the other suspects?” asked Ford.

“Well, there were no other suspects, officially. No one we could ever charge.”

“But you had someone in mind,” led Ford.

“There had always been bad blood between Eleanor Ross and another longtime resident, a crazy old woman named Maura Hodge. It was something ancestral, some kind of family feud that went way back to when their people settled this town. But that was just a lot of gossip. Maura’s always been an angry woman, very bitter. And she had a well-known hatred for Eleanor. Jealousy, I always thought. You know how women are.”

Jeff said a silent thank-you that Lydia was not with them. She really had a distaste for misogyny and could not be counted on to hold her temper when faced with men like Henry Clay.

“Oh, yeah.” Ford laughed in a complicit man-to-man kind of way.

“She’s still alive?” asked Jeff.

“Yeah, that old bitch is too mean to ever die,” he said with a laugh that ended in a rasping cough. “She lives just up the road a piece in a big old house. Gorgeous old mansion from her husband’s estate. Heard it’s gone to disrepair over the years, though. She doesn’t keep it up the way she used to. Doesn’t let anyone on her property to help her. Like the Ross estate. Now, there’s a piece of property that’s gone to shit.”

“The house where Eleanor’s husband was murdered?”

“The same. The Rosses still own it, but it’s sat empty some fifteen years. They still pay taxes on it, though, so it stands as they left it. Furnished and everything. We have lots of trouble with kids up there, breaking in. They claim it’s haunted, course.”

The chief was loose and talking now, so Ford kept pumping. “Anyone else you thought at the time might be a suspect?”

The old man leaned back even farther in his chair and lifted his arms, folding his hands behind his head. He looked above them with his small blue eyes and squinted as if he were looking off into the past.

“Well, Eleanor’s brother was always trouble when they were growing up. Something wrong with him… you know, in the head. He was never right. There were always rumors about him and Eleanor. That their relationship was…” He stopped before finishing his thought and looked at them. He seemed angry suddenly, as if they had tricked him into talking about things he hadn’t wanted to discuss. “But that’s all ancient history.”

“Where’s Eleanor’s brother now?

“Paul? He disappeared more than thirty years ago. Most people think he’s dead,” he said, looking at his watch. Just then there was a knock at the door and Miss Jean pushed in before waiting for an answer.

“Sir, I just can’t find those files for the life of me,” she said, looking at them apologetically. Ford didn’t believe her for a second. “I’ll keep looking, though, and let you know if they turn up.”

“All right, then, Miss Jean,” the chief said with a nod. “Well, gentlemen, if you leave your card, I’ll give you a call if those files turn up.”

Ford handed him a card and the chief regarded it suspiciously before stuffing it in his breast pocket and standing. “If there’s nothing else…”

“Actually, Chief Clay, I’m just curious,” said Ford, leaning in and lowering his voice to a low, just-between-us-cops tone. “Do you think that Eleanor Ross killed her husband? Did she get away with murder?”

He looked at Ford and an ugly smile split his face. “Tell you what. You were thinking of marrying one of those Ross women? I’d tell you to think again.”

Word was that he wasn’t welcome in the tunnels any longer. But that was just too damn bad. Word was that Rain, the omniscient, omnipresent Rain whom the bottom-feeders had deified into their lord and savior, was angry over Violet’s murder and was planning to make him pay. Jed couldn’t give a shit less. He didn’t fear the wrath of Rain the way Horatio the Dwarf seemed to when he’d found Jed and delivered the news.

“You better leave, and leave soon,” he’d said, shifting nervously from foot to foot and wringing his hands. Jed handed him a black-and-white cookie for his warning. Horatio was funny that way. He didn’t care about money or drugs; he didn’t even drink. But he had a sweet tooth and kept Jed in the loop for fresh cookies and pastries from some of the fine food purveyors in the city. Horatio didn’t like packaged foods; only freshly baked would do.

“I’m not going anywhere, Horatio,” he’d said, patting the little man on the head.

“That’s what you said before. Where would you be now if you hadn’t listened?” he asked, his mouth full of cookie.

It was true. When Horatio had pounded on his door yesterday to warn Jed about the approach of intruders, he’d had only twenty minutes to pack his belongings and disappear deeper into the tunnels. He’d loaded Horatio up like a pack mule and sent him off while he waited in the darkness. When Jeffrey Mark and Dax Chicago burst into his hovel, he quickly and easily killed their guide, so they would have no choice but to turn around and go back. He’d thought about going after them, too, when they were trapped with no exit in his space. But Dax Chicago stood at the door, never turning his back. And he had the biggest handgun Jed had ever seen. That one couldn’t be trusted to go down easily; he was crazy. Not to mention incredibly strong. So Jed slung Violet’s body over his shoulder-she was surprisingly heavy for such a short woman-and disappeared. He dumped her where she would be found. He wanted the twisted corpse to be a warning to those who might think about trying to lead anyone to him again.