If You Could See Me Now (36 page)

In eight minutes, which must have been a record, the deputy's squad car came speeding down the valley road. I waved, and Lokken braked to a halt, raising a great white plume of dust. He jumped out of the car as I walked across the road toward him. “All right, what is this?” he demanded. “This just plain don't make sense. Where's Chief Hovre?”

“I think he imagined that I'd go back up to that clearing where you found the Michalski girl. Maybe Duane went with him.”

“Maybe he did, maybe he didn't,” said Lokken. His hand was on the butt of his gun. “Maybe we'll go there, maybe we won't. Why in hell did you call the station?”

“I told you.” His hand curled around the gun butt. “I know who killed those girls. Let's get in the car and talk about it on the way.”

Very suspiciously, he stepped away from the side of the car and permitted me to walk around its nose. We got in at the same time. I leaned back against the hot plastic of the seat. “All right,” Lokken said. “You better start talking. If it's real good I might listen.”

“Duane Updahl did it,” I said. His hand, holding the ignition key, froze on the way to the slot and he swiveled his head to gape at me.

“I wasn't even in town when Gwen Olson died,” I said.

“That's why I'm listening to you,” said Lokken. I returned his glance. “We just heard this morning from the Ohio state
police. The Chief had them checking into your story about staying in a motel ever since you told him about it. They finally found a guy named Rolfshus says he recognized your picture. He runs a little place off the freeway. Well, this here Rolfshus says you might be someone checked in there that night.”

“You mean Polar Bears was looking for that motel since the night I told him about it?”

“He's tooken statements too,” said Lokken. “Lots of folks up here don't like you.” He started the car. “I don't know what the Chief would say, but it sure as hell looks to me like you're okay on that Olson killing. So why the hell do you say it's Duane?”

I gave him my reasons as we spun down the road. His hatred of women, his hatred of me. The physical evidence. “I think he set up the whole thing to get me a life sentence in the booby hatch,” I said. “And Polar Bears was hoping he'd shoot me, so that I couldn't say anything about how Alison Greening really died. He sent you off so you'd be far away when it happened.”

“Christ, I don't know,” said Lokken. “It's crazy. What's this about Alison Greening?”

So I told him that too. “And I think Duane has been half-crazy ever since,” I ended. “When I wrote him that I was coming back, I think he just snapped.”

“Holy man.”

“I sort of snapped too. Otherwise I think I would have seen it earlier. I had a crazy theory, but last night it turned out to be wrong.”

“Everything about this is crazy,” Lokken said in despair. He pulled the car up on the shoulder of the road beside the rows of corn. Polar Bears' car sat, facing the way we had come, on the other side of the road. “Looks like you were right about the Chief, anyhow. You think they're both up there?”

“I think Duane would go with Polar Bears,” I said. “It'd be too risky for him not to.”

“Let's have a look. Hell, let's have a look.” We got out of the car and jumped the ditch.

He said nothing, the run up toward the woods took much of his breath, but after we had forded the creek Lokken spoke again. “If what you say is right, Duane might of tried something on the Chief.”

“I don't think he would,” I said.

“Yeah, but he might of,” he said, and drew his gun. “I don't exactly remember where the damn clearing was.”

I said, “Follow me,” and began to work up over the rise and toward the beginning of the woods. Lokken crashed along behind me.

When I reached the first of the trees I began to trot uphill, going in the direction of Rinn's old cabin. I had no idea of how the scene would be played. For once, I was grateful for Lokken's presence. It did not make sense that Polar Bears would have spent the entire night in the clearing. Gradually the big gnarled trees drew closer. I slowed to a walk. In places I had to part branches and tall weeds with my hands.

“Do you notice anything funny?” I said after a time.

“Huh?” Lokken's voice came from a good distance behind me.

“There isn't any noise. No birds, no squirrels. No animal noises.”

“Huh,” said Lokken.

It was true. Other times when I had come up into the woods, I had been aware of a constant natural chatter about me. Now it was as though all the birds and animals had died. In that dark place, surrounded by the looming trees, the silence was decidedly spooky.

“Gunshot scares 'em off,” Lokken said. “Maybe there was
some trouble.” He sounded as apprehensive as I felt, and I knew that he still had the gun in his hand.

“We're pretty close to the clearing now,” I said. “We'll know soon.”

A few minutes later I saw the ring of trees around the clearing. “Right through there,” I said, and looked around at Lokken. His face was red with effort.

“Yeah. I remember now.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Chief? You there?” He got not even an echo; he shouted again. “Chief! Chief Hovre!” He looked at me hard, angry and frustrated, sweat running down his face. “Dammit, Teagarden, shake your butt.”

Though I felt cold, I too had begun to sweat. I could not tell Lokken that I was afraid to go into the clearing. Just then the woods seemed very potent.

“Come on, we saw the car, we know he's here,” said Lokken.

“Something's funny,” I said. I almost thought I could smell cold water. But that was not possible.

“Come on. Let's go. Move it.” I heard the revolver click against a tree as he shook it at me.

I went toward the circle of trees; light hovered in the clearing beyond them.

Then I went through the sentinel trees and stepped into the clearing. The sudden dazzle of light at first made it difficult to see. Smoke came from the banked fire at the clearing's center. I took another step toward it. I wiped my eyes. There was no humming, vibrant noise of insects.

Then I saw them. I stopped walking. I could not speak.

Lokken noisily broke into the clearing behind me. “Hey, what's goin' on? Hey, Teagarden, they in here? You—” His voice ended as if chopped off with an ax.

I knew why Lokken had vomited when he had seen the body of Jenny Strand.

Polar Bears was in front, Duane behind him fixed to a shorter tree. They were pinned to their trees, both naked, their bodies blackened and hanging like crushed fruit.

Lokken came up beside me, making a noise in his throat. I could not take my eyes from them. It was the most savage thing I had ever seen. I heard the handgun thump onto the earth. “What the—” Lokken began. “What—”

“I was wrong,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ, I was wrong. She's back after all.”

“What—” Lokken's face had turned a glistening, cloudy white.

“It wasn't Duane after all,” I said. “It was Alison Greening. They came up here last night and she killed them.”

“Jesus, look at their skin,” moaned Lokken.

“She was saving me. She knew she could get me any time.”

“Their
skin…
”

“She punished them for raping and killing her,” I said. “Oh my God.”

Lokken half-sat, half-fell into the tall grass.

“Now she'll be after Duane's daughter,” I said, suddenly realizing that another life was probably lost. “We have to get down to the farm right now.” Lokken was retching into the grass.

“How could someone—someone lift them two like that—”

“My crazy theory was right,” I said to him. “We have to get to the farm right now. Can you run?”

“Run?”

“Then follow me as soon as you can. Go down and drive your car to Duane's place.”

“…place,” he said. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he picked up the gun and waved it at me. “You wait. You don't go anywhere, hear?”

I bent over and pushed the gun aside. “I brought you here, remember? And do you think I'm strong enough to lift those two and pin them to trees like that? Now hurry up and get straight. If it isn't too late, we have to keep this from happening again.”

“How—”

“I don't know,” I said, and turned away from him, and turned again with an idea. “Give me your keys. You can hot-wire Polar Bears' car.”

When I got back down to the road I hastily got into the squad car and twisted Lokken's key in the ignition. The motor started at once. I rolled away from Polar Bears' car and stepped the accelerator all the way down to the floor.

A tractor chugged down the road before Bertilsson's church; it straddled two lanes. I blew the horn, and the straw-hatted overweight man on the tractor's seat wagged his hand without looking back. I looked for the siren button and found it. The farmer jerked around on the seat, saw the car, and steered the tractor to the side of the road. I blasted the horn and zipped by.

When I drove up to the old farmhouse I could see nothing unusual—the mare grazed among the cows, the lawn lay ripped and burned, Alison was not in sight. I swallowed, turning into the drive, afraid that I would find her as I had found her father and Polar Bears. I braked as I cut the car onto the lawn, and jumped out before it had stopped rolling.

I could smell her—I could smell cold water, as if rain had just ceased to fall. My legs nearly refused to move, and in my stomach lay an iciness that fear had deposited there.

I began to jog up the path to Duane's house. A door slammed. I realized that Alison Updahl had seen the squad car pull into the drive. She came running around the side of her house. When she saw me instead of Polar Bears or Dave Lokken, she stopped running and stood hesitantly on the path, looking worried, pleased and confused all at once. The air seemed to tighten, as it had on my first night in the woods: it seemed to grow thick and tight with malevolence. “Run!” I shouted to the girl. I waved my arms, semaphoring. “Get going!” The smell of the quarry washed over us, and this time she too caught it, for she half-turned and lifted her head.

“Danger!” I yelled, and began to sprint toward her.

Wind knocked me down as casually as a breeze flips a playing card.

“Miles?” she said. “My father didn't—”

Before she could say
come home
, I saw another woman, a smaller woman, appear momentarily on the path behind her. My heart froze. The shadowy second girl stood with her hands on her hips, looking at both of us. She vanished in the next instant. Alison Updahl must have felt some particle of the other's force, and she twisted her upper body to look behind her. I saw the terror begin in her—it was as though life and will had suddenly drained from her. She had seen something, but I did not know what. I got up from the dust and stones of the path. “Take off,” I shouted to her.

But it was too late. She was too terrified by whatever it was she had seen, and she could not move. “Alison!” I shouted, and it was not the living girl I addressed. “Leave her alone!”

There was a whirring, typhoonlike noise of rushing, rattling wind. I turned in its direction, and was aware of Alison Updahl, stunned like a bird before a snake, turning slowly too. In the long grass before the road, wind was making a pattern:
carving circles in flattened grass. Leaves and twigs began to fly together. Out on the road, stones and chunks of tarry asphalt lifted and flew toward the circling pattern.

I called to Alison Updahl, “Come toward me.” She jerked herself forward, stumbled. The air was filled with small flying bits of wood, with tumbling leaves.

Through the leaf storm I ran toward her. She had fallen on the path, and a shower of small branches and stones came cascading down upon her. I grasped her hand and pulled her upright.

“I saw something,” she muttered.

“I saw it too. We have to run.”

The whirling pattern exploded. Most of the twigs and leaves filling the air were blasted soundlessly away, and spun lifelessly down to earth all over the area between the two houses. Only a tall skeletal superstructure, a vague outline of brown and green, remained towering; then it too blew away. A few stones rattled around us. The noise of screeching air, as if we were in a hurricane, stayed with us. Again the grass was printing itself into wide circles.

Her mouth opened, but she could not speak.

I took her hand more firmly and started to run. As we came hurrying down the path. Dave Lokken pulled into the drive in Polar Bears' car. He still looked like a man climbing out of a three-day drunk. He looked at the girl and me, running as hard as we could in his direction. “Hey,” he said. “We gotta get those bodies…”

The circling pattern on the grass moved in his direction. Then I saw the figure of the girl, still shadowy, that I had seen on the path appear beside his car. Immediately, both windshields shattered. Lokken screamed and covered his face with
his arms. A force I could not imagine pulled him from the car seat and through the open window at his side. He rolled across the gravel of the drive. His nose was pouring blood.

I tried to take Alison Updahl toward the side field, seeing that it was useless to try to hide in the house. We had gone three paces, me tugging, she stumbling, when our hands were torn apart and a wind that stank of the grave and rotting meat buffeted me aside and knocked me against the tree where my grandfather used to hang his scythe. Something started to move across the grass toward Alison Updahl.

It was as though the rind of the world had broken away, just sheared away, houses, trees, dogs, people, jobs, sunlight, all of it, and only the most primitive and the darkest life was left, what remains when everything comprehensible and usual, the rind, has peeled off and what emerges is like what you see when you flip over a long flat rock in the woods. Lokken, lying down in thick vines behind me, his nose still gouting blood, saw what I saw and screamed a second time. I knew that he was covering his eyes.