Dead Voices (21 page)

“You ain’t gettin’ far, though,” Henry snarled. He smiled grimly as he shoved the chickens out of his way and bent down to inspect the ground. A dark red splotch of drying blood glistened on the wooden ramp. He touched it with the tip of his finger and smiled when he felt it was warm and fresh.

Straightening up, he shouldered his shotgun and went back to the house. Flinging open the door, he whistled for Murf, who, excited by the noises coming from the hen house, bounded out the door, almost knocking him over.

“Hold on there, shit-for-brains!” Henry shouted as he grabbed the dog by the collar and yanked hard. “I want yah to get a good whiff of the prick before we head out. “

It took Henry a lot of effort to hold Murf back while trying to carry the flashlight and shotgun, but after bringing Murf out to the coop and letting him sniff around the doorway, he turned him loose. In a flash, Murf took off into the night-drenched woods baying like a lunatic. Henry’s only problem now was to keep up with him. Cradling the shotgun in the crook of his arm and lighting his way with the flashlight, he followed Murf into the woods.

The dog’s wild barking echoed eerily in the night, and Henry couldn’t help but wonder if one of his neighbors, having heard the commotion and the shooting, might call the police or game warden. He knew Kendall Payne, who lived on the farm next to his, probably wouldn’t; but Murf had taken off in the direction of the housing development going up in the woods on the other side of Henry’s property, and he knew damned well those friggin’ yuppies wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops if they heard gunshots and Murf’s barking, especially if it woke up one of their spoiled little yuppie-brats!

“Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em
all
!” Henry muttered as he ran as fast as he could through the thick woods. Branches, suddenly illuminated by his flashlight beam, leaped out at him like hands from the dark and just as quickly whisked away. Henry’s boots pounded heavily on the forest floor, crushing last year’s leaves. He realized it was useless to try to track Murf in the dark, but the old dog was keeping up such a racket, Henry figured he’d have no trouble finding him once he treed the wounded raccoon. As long as the bastard doesn’t turn and fight, he thought. He knew raccoons weren’t quite as nasty as fishers, but once they were cornered, they could give even an experienced dog like Murf a pretty good tussle.

Before long Henry’s lungs were burning with exhaustion. Murfs baying didn’t sound any closer. If anything, it was further off. Henry started to wonder just how wounded this raccoon was. He knew the woods didn’t go on forever. He had already passed behind the new yuppie housing development, so if he kept going in a straight line, he figured he’d come out on Old County Road, maybe up near where it joined Deering Road, out behind Oak Grove Cemetery.

“Dammit all!” Henry muttered over and over. “Dammit all to hell!”

Slowing his pace, he took in huge, burning gulps of air, not even sure whether he was cussing the raccoon and Murf for leading him on such a merry chase, or his own drinking and smoking that made a chase like this such an effort. It hadn’t been this tough back when he was, say twenty — or even thirty. Cocking his head to one side he listened and heard Murf, still baying like a hound from Hell as he raced effortlessly through the woods; but then, when Murf’s howling suddenly cut off with a sharp, rising yelp, Henry froze in his tracks. A teasing chill raced up his neck as he strained forward and listened.

All around him, the woods were deathly quiet. Deep shadows and weak moonlight shifted under the trees. Henry was a hunting man; he had spent plenty of nights out in the woods, so he would never have said it was fear he felt tingling his gut; but something made him feel ... well, cautious. It wasn’t like Murf to stop his barking like that. If he had the raccoon treed, he’d be roaring as he leaped into the air, jaws snapping, trying to get to the animal scrambling up into the higher branches. Christ! Henry thought, they should be able to hear him all the way to the fucking game warden’s office!

“Goddamned sum-bitchin’ coon!” Henry muttered as he swung his flashlight around in a wide arc. Off to his left, he caught a green glimmer of something. Thinking it might be the wounded raccoon, Henry approached, his gun held level and steady. It turned out to be nothing more than a discarded Heineken bottle. Damned uppity teenagers, sneaking out here and drinking Heineken in the woods. Shit! Budweiser had always been good enough for him and his friends! Kids these days sure thought they had class! Henry picked up the bottle and threw it into the night. He waited until he heard it thump to the ground.

Henry froze where he was, listening, hoping to hear Murf at least snuffing ‘at a hole in the ground or a hollow log where the raccoon had gone to ground, but the silence of the night was like an extra layer to the darkness. Eerie shadows thickened in the underbrush.

Placing his tongue up against his top teeth, Henry let out a short, shrill whistle. It echoed back out of the darkness, sounding much too close.

“Hey boy! Murf!” Henry shouted, when repeated whistles produced no response.

Henry didn’t like what he was feeling and thinking; he was suddenly quite sure that something had happened to Murf — something bad! It couldn’t have been that wounded raccoon, though; it would take more than a sum-bitchin’ raccoon — even a desperate, wounded raccoon-to get the best of Murf. Of course, there was always the chance that a bear or a bobcat had run him down; or that in the dark Murf had fallen into a ravine and hurt himself; or just maybe he really had run off so far that he was truly out of earshot.

Henry whistled again and called the dog’s name, even louder. He took a deep breath of relief when he heard a response, a faint chuffing sound. It sure as shit sounded like Murf, but either he was far off or else he had his head stuck inside a hole or log nearby. The sound was heavy and muffled, as though Murf was ...

“You all right, boy?” Henry shouted. His voice echoed back out of the darkness. The ringing echo indicated he had misjudged his direction and was closer to the cemetery and Brook Road than the Old County Road.

Without warning, Murf started barking, loud and steady nearby. The sudden sound made Henry jump, but after a moment, he got a fix on the direction and, lighting his way with the flashlight, followed the sound. Before long, he found Murf. He was down in a narrow ravine, his face buried in the dirt as he scrambled wildly to dig up something.

“There yah are, you sum-bitch! Good boy! Good boy!” Henry shouted. “Y’got ‘em!”

The forest floor was spongy underfoot, and Henry slipped as he started down the slope to where Murf was furiously digging. Leaves and dirt flew high into the air from between Murf’s hind legs as he dug, growling deeply in his chest.

Henry scrambled to his feet and approached Murf cautiously from behind. Murf was digging so intensely, he seemed not even to have noticed Henry approaching. The shower of flying dirt and debris made it difficult for Henry to see exactly what Murf was doing, but when he was about ten feet away, he jerked to a stop and trained his flashlight on what the dog had uncovered. His heart stopped for just an instant and then began a rapid-fire pattering.

This was no animal’s burrow Murf was ripping into; Henry saw that right away. He also saw, but didn’t immediately recognize, the face. Actually, recognition didn’t sink in until much later, once he was running toward his house to contact the police. All Henry saw and recognized now was the exposed face, chest, and belly of a dead man. Murf’s claws had already tom away the man’s clothes. Beneath thick smudges of dirt, the pale skin gleamed an eye-aching bone white. The man’s glazed, open-eyed stare cut through Henry like a laser beam.

“Jumped-up Jesus Christ, Murf! Back off! Get the fuck away from that!” Henry shouted. His voice was ragged with mounting fear.

He knew better than to approach the dog. Murf was in such a frenzy, he might just as easily tum on his master and attack him. Unable to think of anything better to do, Henry pointed his shotgun into the air and pulled the trigger. The report startled Murf who, whimpering, immediately backed away from the body and cowered in the brush.

“Com’on! Com ‘ere, you sum-bitch!” Henry growled. He was trembling inside because of what he had found, but he knew he had to keep his voice firm so Murf would know who was still in charge here.

As Murf grudgingly obeyed, cowering over toward his master, not for a second did the dog take his eyes off the partially exposed body. He kept looking at it for all the world like he wanted to go back to it and savage it some more. Henry wondered if dogs, like tigers, could acquire a taste for human flesh.

“Get your bloody ass over here, boy!” Henry said, his tone low and steely .

When Murf was close enough, Henry grabbed the dog by the collar and yanked hard on it. Aching lungs be damned! he thought as he turned and started running as fast as he could back to his house, hauling Murf along beside him. He had the clarity of mind to let the butt of his shotgun drag on the ground, leaving a nice, clear trail he and the police could follow back to the body; but every step of the way, he expected to see that dead man’s glazed eyes suddenly loom out at him from the surrounding darkness.

As the memory of that death-frozen face worked its way into his numbed mind, Henry nearly stumbled and fell when he realized — finally — who he had found. He had read about it just that evening in the
Portland Evening Express
. The dead man was none other than Barney Fraser, the Oak Grove Cemetery caretaker who had been reported missing.

2.

“Hey, it’s not like I’m in any trouble or anything, right?” Henry said, after greeting the policemen at his front door. Frank and Norton arrived five minutes after his call to the police station, reporting his discovery. “I mean, all I did was find the poor guy, you know? It’s not like I killed him!”

“Henry, nobody’s saying you killed anyone,” Frank said patiently. “Calm yourself down, will you? You look to me like you could use a stiff drink.” Frank knew Henry quite well and had always considered him a fairly even-tempered person; right now, though, he seemed completely rattled.

“You want one, too?” Henry asked, his eyes brightening.

Frank and Norton shook their heads. “Can’t,” Frank replied. “We’re on duty.”

“Oh, yeah — sure,” Henry said. His gaze drifted over to the kitchen cupboard where he kept a bottle of whiskey stashed, but decided not to have anything, either; he didn’t want his breath smelling of booze when he talked to Detective Harris. He knew Harris from a few poker nights at the fire barn, and he didn’t care for him all that much.

“When d’you think Harris will get here?” Henry asked nervously. His tongue flickered over his upper lip, as if he could taste a trace of whiskey there.

“He’ll be right along,” Frank said, glancing at his watch.

“Huh,” Henry grunted. He looked down at his shoes and shook his head. “Never would’ve gotten into any o’this if I’d ‘a killed that sum-bitchin’ coon.”

“Just save it till Harris gets here, all right Henry? No sense repeating yourself,” Frank said.

“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna — I mean, I ain’t in any trouble for huntin’ out of season, am I? I mean-that sum-bitchin’ coon’s been after my hens for weeks now, and I don’t wanna —”

“Henry,” Frank said, with less patience. “Will you calm down, for Christ’s sake? I think we’ve got a bit more to worry about than someone out hunting at night, all right?”

Headlights washed across the front living-room windows as another car pulled into the driveway. Chained out beside the bam, Murf started up a long, loud howling. All three men went out onto the front steps and greeted Detective Harris and Jeremy Keller, the lab technician who was with him. Even before they finished shaking hands, Henry was pouring out his story, completely forgetting his private vow to talk slowly and clearly so he wouldn’t get tripped up on any small details he might overlook. He’d seen enough cop shows on TV to know that some little screwup could land him in jail on a murder charge.

“Tell you what,” Harris said, once he had the gist of the situation. “Why don’t you just take us on out there so we can have our own look around?”

“Yeah, but — I ain’t in any kind of trouble, am I?” Henry blurted.

“Did you kill Barney Fraser and bury him out there in the woods?” Harris asked. Henry sputtered and shook his head. “‘Course I didn’t.”

“Then I’d say you haven’t got a worry,” Harris said. “So let’s take ourselves a little walk.”

With flashlights glowing, illuminating the trail Henry had scraped with his rifle butt, they headed out to the makeshift burial site. The lab tech was loaded down with equipment, which, along with the dense underbrush, made for slow going. Angry at being left behind, Murf barked all the louder, and they could hear him long after they were out of sight of the house. Henry wondered if Murf wanted to come along so he could finally nail that raccoon, or so he could have another munch on Fraser’s decaying corpse.

“Never woulda gotten into all ‘a this if I’d a’ killed that sumbitchin’ coon,” Henry repeated several times as he walked along beside Frank. Harris and the lab tech followed behind them, and Norton trailed last behind everyone else. Night sounds of frogs and birds filled their ears as they made their way through the thick growth of trees and underbrush.

Looking up at the sliver of moon, Frank said, ‘‘I’d guess we’re going to end up out behind Oak Grove Cemetery, if we keep heading this way.” He glanced over his shoulder at Harris but couldn’t see his face clearly enough to judge his response. They continued to walk in silence, except for the noise their boots made on the forest floor.

When they crested a small lise, Henry called a halt and, aiming his flashlight beam down the slope, said, “Right over there by that old deadfall.” He cringed when he caught a glimpse of the pale flesh and torn clothing. The dead man’s face rose up in his memory like a misty ghost. He tried like hell not to think about how Murf had been gnawing so avidly on the body. Shit like this was bad if it made a man question his dog’s loyalty.