The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) (13 page)

“Pine Oak Courier.  Ginette Cartwright speaking.”

“Hey girlfriend,” I said.

“Sue-Ann!”

“Gina, are you up for a little detecting?”

“Raht now?”

“As soon as possible.  Can you get away for lunch or say you have to see somebody about an ad or something?”

“Ah guess.  Sure.  You sound kinda excited.”

“I am.  Meet me at Meekins’ Market in an hour. 

“What’s it about?” she asked.

“That would be telling.”

I had a few errands to do before I went to Meekins’ but still managed to arrive a few minutes before Gina.  I parked in back near the side of the Quonset hut and walked around to the front just as Gina drove up.  I didn’t know quite how to greet her, especially as Gladys was sitting at the desk and waiting expectantly for her two customers to come in.  I settled on a wide smile; I was glad to see that she had a similar one for me as she got out of her car.

“What’s the big mystery?” she asked, but I put my fingers to my lips.

“Tell you in a minute,” I said.  “Let’s go inside first.  I want to get some kind of snack and maybe a couple bottles of water.”

Gladys nodded at me as we came in.  “I told Clarence you was here looking for him,” she said.

“He here now?” I asked.

“Naw.  Went somewhere.  Never sure where.  Usually goes out after watermelons but always comes back with something else.”

“Chickens, maybe?” I asked.

“Naw.  Now Clarence might eat some chicken every blue moon—don’t tell anybody—but we don’t sell none.”

Gina was only half listening as she stared, goggle-eyed, at some of the stuff on the rough wooden shelves.  At the moment she was examining a squash that had roughly the shape of a swan.

“Well tell him I’m still looking for him,” I said.

Gina walked back into the Quonset hut part of the market and seemed lost in a maze.  I grabbed up the water, a couple of peaches, and a package of trail mix and went back to gather her in.

“Boy,” she said.  “Ah ain’t been here in donkey’s years.  Where do you think Clarence gets all this stuff?”  In one hand she held up a pair of castanets while the other hand grasped a used CD that had a black woman on the cover holding a guitar.

“Whatcha got?” I asked.

“Donno.  but I lahk hearin different girls playin guitars.”

We paid Gladys for our items and I had Gina drive around to where I was parked.  I had not cleaned out my truck since I’d gotten out of the hospital and my bow, arrows, and fannypack were still on the back seat.  I got them out, along with a change of clothes and a small backpack and piled them on the hood of my truck.

“What’s all this stuff for?” Gina asked.

“I went by the house and got you something to hike in.  See that little trail just off from the dumpster?  We’re going in there.”  I started transferring the snacks and water I had purchased from Gladys into the backpack.

“Is that where you went when you . . . ?”

I nodded.  “Now get a move on.  Change in my car if you want, although nobody can see you from the road.  Don’t worry.  I won’t look.”  I took a couple of razor-sharp broadheads from my fannypack and screwed them into shafts.  I wanted to be more prepared in case we ran into a snake or anything else that posed a danger to me or Gina.

“Ah won’t change if you don’t look,” she said teasingly.  She unbuttoned her blouse and folded it neatly before slipping on a gray, long-sleeved t-shirt.  I couldn’t help looking as she stepped out of her skirt and laid it down carefully with her blouse.  The jeans were too big around the waist and short enough to show her ankles.  I handed her a belt.  “Can’t do anything about the cuffs,” I told her.  “Think the shoes will fit?”

Gina had taken down the tailgate of my truck and was putting on the socks I had given her.  She tried one of the shoes but had trouble getting it over her heel.  “Sue-Ann,” she said.  “Reach into the back seat of my car and get that canvas bag.”

I did and handed it to her.  She opened it and took out a pair of new-looking white tennis shoes.  “Ah always keep an outfit in my car in case ah have tahm to go to the gym,” she said, putting on the shoes. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that before you got dressed?” I asked.

She smiled again.  “Ah wanted to wear clothes you’ve been in.  Now where we goin and whah we goin there?”  She reached for the backpack, added her cigarettes and lighter, and slipped the straps around her shoulders.

“Just follow me,” I told her.

I grabbed up my archery tackle and led the way in to the woods along the same trail I had traveled before.  As we walked, trying to avoid puddles below, briars on the sides, and branches above, I filled her in on my visit to Estelle Hobbs that morning.

“That poor dog,” she said.  “Gotta be the same person who killed the goat, raht?”

“Raht.”

“And you think we’re gonna find im out here?” she asked.  “And if we do, what’re you gonna do, shoot im?”

“I doubt if we’ll see anybody,” I told her.  “But have you noticed the tracks?”

“What tracks?”

“Here.  You can see it better where there’s not much mud.  Someone wearing an old running shoe.  You can see tracks coming and going.”  I bent down.  “Can you see where this print overlaps that one?”

“Raht.”

“It means that whoever left these prints came from the woods, walked in the direction of Meekins’ Market, then walked back.”

“Back where?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out, but not today.  Right now we have more pressing business.”

We walked Indian file, me leading the way.  It was easier this time because it was bright daylight, but also because I felt better.  I was about to find one more puzzle-piece, although I knew it wouldn’t come close to completing the picture. 

It was a hot day and we both began to sweat.  Gina rolled up the sleeves on her shirt despite the branches and vines that seemed animate and vindictive.  There was no indication of more rain and bright rays of sun slanted through the trees.

Gina and I spoke, of course, but it was general talk about the paper, about our families.  Gina told me that her parents were from Tyler, Texas, and had gone back there to live when they retired.  She had a sister, ten years older, who now had a family in Canada.  They were never close, but they emailed from time to time if anything important was happening.  I described my mother, and how she once told me that she was pretty sure she could tell the breed of a horse by its smell.  I told her about Cindy’s horses and about how my father had rushed to dispose of her things.  And not for the first time I had a twinge of anger—but this time the anger was because Mike had lied to me when he said that he had sold the horses because they reminded him too much of Cindy.  It seemed now that he had just wanted as much quick cash as he could get, so he could try to salvage what he could of what he considered a wasted life—and to dispose of things that had to be cared for.

“Ah always heard that them that caint do, teach,” said Gina.  “But teachin is maybe the most important job there is.  Whah should he be ashamed?”

“Daddy was a mild-mannered man with no ambition and no oomph,” I explained.  “If Cindy didn’t tell him what socks to wear he would have gone to work barefoot.  Guess he thought that this was his chance to go out on his own and be his own man.”  

I told Gina about Cindy’s books and how I had found them in the used bookstore.  How it was going to be very difficult to forgive him for that.

“Yer momma had a lot of books?”

“Dozens, maybe a hundred, all about horses.  Most of them about dressage.”

“Hey, ah’ve seen dressage on RFD-TV.  Ah kinda lahk it.”

“Yeah, me too.  She taught me as much as she could whenever I was around.  Maybe I’ll get back into it someday.”

“Gonna get you a horse?”

“Who knows?  Maybe if I live I’ll think about it.  Would you like to ride with me?  There are all kinds of trails out behind the farm.”

“Yippie yi ki-yay,” she said.

I laughed.  “I’ll teach you how to shoot a bow and we can do horseback archery.”

“Can you do that?”

“I have a book on it.”

I slowed down as we approached the clearing where I had found the corn starch circle.  I fitted an arrow into my bowstring and put a finger to my lips.  We walked into the clearing.  It was empty.  I looked around for a few seconds, listened intently, but we were alone there with the squirrels and lizards.  But the clearing wasn’t the same as I had left it.  Despite the heavy rain, I could see that a new circle had been drawn over the old one.  And some new designs had been added at the top.

But it was what was in the center of the circled area that I had come to find.  Gina saw it too.

“Oh mah!” she said.

“Oh my is right,” I said. 

“So whoever killed that ole lady’s dog wasn’t after the dog at all.”

“No.  The dog was in the way.”

In the center of the circle—in the charred remains of a fire—lay two chickens, beheaded but unplucked.

“Some kinda sacrifice,” she said.

“Yes.  It’s Santeria or voodoo, or something like it.  And here’s something else: that pirate radio station has something to do with it.”

“You told me about that station before but ah haven’t been able to fahnd it.  What do you mean about them havin somethin to do with this mess?”

“Last night this deejay, Gamma, played an album by a group that had a drummer named Chicken.  And she gave a recipe for chicken fajitas.  She read a damn poem she wrote called “Poultrygeist.”  She
knew
, Gina.  Either she was here or she had been told by someone who was here.  And they knew about the goat, too.  They know about too damn many things.”

I looked at Gina.  “I’m a little scared,” I said.  “Not for myself or for you, but for whoever is doing these animal killings.  The people on the radio station seem to be playing with them like toys.  Sometimes it seems like they’re playing with me, too.”

“But Sue-Ann,” she said.  “Dontcha think it’s gotta be the people at the radio station that’s doin all this wacked-out stuff?”

“I think it’s possible, but don’t you remember what I told you about that guy they call Creeper?  He knew about this voodoo ritual and was warning them away.”

“But whah?”

“I don’t  know.”

“What are you goin to do?”

“I think
we
need to find out who’s been stealing barn animals and have a talk with them.”

“Ah, agree.  What then?”

“Then we come back and follow that trail.” 

I noticed that whoever had brought out the chickens had also left more effluvia round the thick log: a few beer cans, a crumpled cigarette package, a few butts.  On a whim, I gathered up three of the beer cans and set them a few inches from each other on the log.  “Come over here,” I said, walking back beyond the circle, so that the cans were maybe fifteen yards away.  I took an arrow from my quiver, nocked it, and nailed one of the cans on the first try.  It went flying into the grass behind the log.

“Wowie zowie,” she said.

I handed the bow to Gina.  “You try,” I said.

“Can ah?” she asked, her eyes wide.  “Wait a minute, though, Sue-Ann.  Ah’m a lefty.”

“I knew that,” I said quickly.  “I just forgot.  But you can still get the idea.”

I showed her on which side of the bow to put the arrow, what the shelf was for, and how to nock the arrow properly, cock feather out.  I explained about using the side of her mouth as an anchor point for the string, and showed her how to sight down the arrow.  From my fannypack, I fitted an arm guard to her left forearm and a shooting glove to the first three fingers of her shooting hand.

“What’s this thing you put on mah arm?” she asked.

“Protects your arm from the string.  Without it you can put a bruise on your arm that looks like a rainbow and feels like somebody ran over it with a truck.”

“
You
didn’t have one,” she said.

“I’m a professional,” I smiled.  I didn’t tell her that I had simply forgotten to don the guard and that the string had brushed my forearm warningly.  “Go ahead when you’re ready.”

Gina had a little trouble pulling the string back to an anchor point and she let go of the string too soon.  The arrow smacked into the log below and about a foot to the right of the second can.  Both cans topped from the impact, but I quickly replaced them.

“Try again,” I told her.  “Relax and let the string roll off your fingers like a wheel rolling off a cliff.”

She did, and the result was better, although her left arm was shaking with the effort of holding the bow steady.  The arrow flew between the cans and swicked down into the grass behind the log.  “That was a lot better, Gina,” I said with sincerity, as we walked over to pick up the arrows.  “You’ve got good form, but I think you need to start out with a little lighter bow.”

“Do they make left-handed ones?,” she asked.

“Sure.  And it might be a good idea if . .  . oh, shit!”

“Sue-Ann!  What’s wrong?”