Michael Palmer - Fatal

"I'm awake, I'm awake," he said again. "Just stunned. Jeannie, the men who are there would probably be two of the Slocumb brothers."

"Oh my."

"It sounds like you've heard of them."

"Some. I'm recently from Philadelphia. I thought maybe people were making up an Appalachia story just to shock me. How many brothers are there?"

"Four. The one who came into the ER, is he where you can see him?"

"No. He went back out to the truck. Dr. Rutledge, he smells something awful."

"He may not think so. Do you remember if he has any teeth?"

"What?"

"Teeth. Does he have any?"

"Just a couple in the front, I think."

"Well, that would be Lewis. Tell him to allow you to bring his brother into the ER and begin to take care of him or else I'm going to turn right around when I get there and go home. Be firm. Each of the Slocumb brothers is more stubborn than the next. The only chance you have is to stand up to them. They respect anyone with guts."

"Oh, I've got guts," Jeannie said. "It's permanently losing my sense of smell I'm concerned about."

"Please get his BP and pulse lying, sitting, and if he looks like he can tolerate it, standing."

"Okay."

"EKG and routine labs if you can charm them into allowing it. Also, have the lab type and cross-match for three units and be ready to cross-match for three more."

"You think he's bleeding?"

"No idea. But they would never come to the ER unless there was something very much the matter. They make their own moonshine in this hideous still behind their house. I wonder if maybe the whiskey has eaten away the lining of his stomach."

"I'll get right on it. You're awake, right?"

"The odds favor it," Matt replied, hauling himself out of bed. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

The pounding behind his eyes had him trying to remember how many beers he had downed with the guys after the game. Not that many, he decided, given how easily he had been awakened — certainly not too many to deal with whichever Slocumb was slumped on the front seat of the truck.

The Slocumb brothers, Kyle, Lyle, Lewis, and Frank, were all in their fifties or early sixties. They lived together as they had since birth on their combination junkyard and farm — a hundred acres or so located about eight rugged, densely wooded miles north of town. Their mother, who died decades ago, was perhaps the only woman who had ever set foot on the spread. Not once in Matt's long relationship with them had the Slocumbs mentioned their father.

Matt had heard of the "Freak Brothers" from his early childhood. Rumors about the reclusive Slocumbs ranged from bizarre to perverse to downright frightening. Like most children in the area, Matt had been forbidden to go anywhere near their place. He was ten years old when some of the older boys dared him to try to get a Little League contribution from them.

None of the boys were willing to go any closer than the parallel dirt ruts to the farm that (cut off from the narrow highway. One of them told Matt the place Was just a little ways up the road. In fact, it was more than three miles. Matt alternately rode and walked his bike the whole way. At the door of the ramshackle house he hesitated, clutching the donation can so tightly he thought he might crush it. Then he took the sort of deep, calming breath he would one day use just before driving a large-bore needle into a young miner's chest, and knocked.

Twenty minutes later he was on the dirt road again. In his basket was a sausage sandwich on homemade bread. On his wrist was a bracelet forged out of bent horseshoe nails. And in the donation can were two crumpled, oil-stained dollar bills. Before a day had passed, the whole town had some version or other of the story. Matt's father docked him two weeks' allowance for disobedience and forbade him from going near the place again. From that time on, Matt kept his monthly visits to the farm a secret. Since returning to Belinda from his residency, he went out there every so often to do some doctoring or just to catch up. There was very little, if anything, he had learned about the four men over the years that he didn't like, although none of them would qualify as a prize-winning conversationalist. And he knew for a fact that there was a whole new generation of kids who were being forbidden by their parents from going near the Freak Brothers. The Slocumbs most definitely preferred it that way.

Matt threw on his favorite pair of denims and a plaid work shirt, and pulled on his boots. There was no chance he would be returning to the cabin before his workday began in earnest.

The envelope was lying on the floor by the front door. Matt had actually stepped on it before he noticed it. It was a plain white envelope, darkened in spots with grime and grease. "Dr rutlege" was printed in pencil on the front, in a labored hand. Given the shape Matt was in after the rugged basketball games and the postmortem at Woody's Tavern, the envelope might have been there when he got home. He flipped on some lights in the living room and tore it open.

Dr.Rutlege.

you are Rite.

Theres poyzon barryed in the Mountin.

find it thru the Tunel in the Cleft.

giv the Reward to them as needs it.

signed

a caring Frend.

The uneven scrawl was similar to the writing of many mountain people — mixed uppercase letters with lower, with phonetic spelling and no consistent attention to punctuation. Regardless of who wrote it, they were clearly on the right side — his side. His heart pounding, Matt put the note back in its envelope and stuffed it into his jeans. Quite possibly, this was the break he had been working for.

The tunnel in the cleft.

Matt had lived in the area much of his life, and still had no idea what the line referred to. But whoever wrote the note knew, and so, without a doubt, others did, too. Buoyed by the turn of events, Matt jumped on his Harley and raced down the hill toward the hospital.

He rolled his motorcycle to a stop next to the brightly lit Emergency entrance and dropped the kickstand. The Slocumbs' battered Ford pickup, parked nearby, was empty. For no particular reason, Matt guessed the one who had been passing out was Kyle — the most outgoing and obstinate of the eccentric Slocumb quartet.

Jeannie Putnam, wearing a set of maroon scrubs and a surgical mask, was waiting for him in the surprisingly busy ER. She was a tall woman in her late twenties, with a good grasp of emergency medicine and an obvious empathy for the patients.

"We're grateful for your coming in like this," she said.

"Which brother is it?"

"Kyle. And you were right about the other one. It is Lewis."

"Labs off?"

"Kyle drew the line at getting any tests until you were here to order them."

"Lord."

"But I changed his mind," she added with a wink. "I even got him to put on a johnny. He's really sort of cute."

"You should see the room the four of them sleep in. 'Cute' isn't the first adjective that would come to mind. But I am glad you appreciate some of his charm. What did you order?"

"The usual, CBC, Chem 12. Plus the cross-match. Tell me again why you ordered it?"

Matt shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. Kyle's never had any medical problem that I've had to deal with. Something you said about his passing out then waking up sounded like low blood pressure, so I thought maybe he was bleeding internally."

"If you have made the correct diagnosis over the phone at three A.M., I would consider you very spooky."

"You wouldn't be the first," Matt said.

Looking absolutely ridiculous in a paisley-print johnny, grizzled Kyle Slocumb, the youngest of the brothers, nodded his approval as Matt walked through the door. Lewis Slocumb, who seldom spoke a word he didn't have to, was seated in the corner, half asleep. Matt went straight to the bedside and began his examination as he asked questions.