Mad Dog and Englishman: A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery #1 (Mad Dog & Englishman Series) (19 page)

Otherwise, it was absolutely quiet in the theater. There was no wind, today, to provide a distant moaning backdrop. No traffic sounds on this sweltering Sunday afternoon, with most of the city’s few remaining businesses shut down. Only on Main Street and Harrison, which were also highways, and thus nearly the only arteries through which the commerce of Buffalo Springs still trickled, were any businesses open today, except for Bertha’s. In here, it seemed as if there was no living thing for miles, except the pigeons gossiping quietly among themselves. Their presence was evidence that those shafts of light above did not necessarily enter the building through windows, or if they did, that some glass was missing.

Other than the pigeons, the only sounds the sheriff could make out were his own quiet breathing and Wynn’s almost equally silent struggles with the back door. The sheriff debated going back to deal with Wynn, then found he couldn’t. His daughter might be only a few feet away. Even the slightest delay might cost her life. He moved softly, in an almost slow-motion imitation of similar tense scenes that had been projected on the great screen that once hung between him and the amphitheater beyond. It was gone now, sold while its silver surface was still of a size to be used in more prosperous communities, before the advent of multiplexes rendered it as outmoded as a newsreel or the concept of the family farm.

The trail led past an ancient electrical board filled with graphed switches whose metal arms reached toward the sheriff as if desperately seeking his attention. Under other circumstances, the curious machine would have riveted him until he deciphered how it might have been used to give audiences the illusion of bright sun, soft moonlight, violent storms, and other magics. Not today. The footprints didn’t pause there and neither did the sheriff.

The footprints led to the far wall. It was lined with ropes and pulleys and stacks of counterweights. It was a place as fascinating as the light board, but, the footprints had not paused here either. They only curved toward the back wall, circling around stacks of boxes and more falls of dusty curtains, toward the darkest corner of the stage. The sheriff followed, his .38 drawn and ready.

At first, the sheriff thought there must be a hidden door, for the burdened footprints only went to the wall and did not return. And then he saw the metal rungs set in brick and mortar, slowly let his eyes follow them up that vertical face through a web of shadows to what might be a catwalk. There were no safety devices associated with the rungs and they rose to a dizzying height that the sheriff would not have ascended under normal circumstances. This was not a normal circumstance. He reached out, grasped a rung and tested it. It seemed solid and so he reached for the next one and slowly, gun still in hand, began his cautious climb. If he was right, his daughter was just above, in the company of danger.

***

Wynn watched the sheriff fade into the darkness. It was an uncomfortable feeling. This wasn’t a place where he wanted to be left alone, especially not half in and half out the alley door. He should be at the sheriff’s side, but, try as he might, he couldn’t squeeze through. Unable to follow, he decided to retreat and search for another entrance. He began backing out and discovered he was stuck.

He’d hooked some portion of his clothing on the door or the jamb and wedged himself, butt out to the world. It was the sort of predicament that had gained “Wynn some, lose some,” his nickname.

This had already been the kind of day that would add to his reputation as a screw up. It took only a moment for Wynn to picture himself being discovered in this humiliating condition, then having to live it down for the rest of his years. Or worse, he could be caught by the killer here, his corpse savaged and left stuck in this final indignity. The idea gave Wynn strength he hadn’t realize he possessed. With one giant heave, he pushed himself through, then listened to the echoes of complaining rusty hinges fill the auditorium and send a clear warning to any occupants that they were no longer alone. Company was here.

***

“I’ve been everywhere,” Judy English complained, “and I can’t find a trace of the motorcycle. It’s like he turned off of Main and just disappeared.”

“The sheriff got a lead from that Lane woman,” Mrs. Kraus rasped. She’d been able to overhear the sheriff as he hurriedly briefed his deputies and shared the highlights of Ellen Lane’s dissertation. So had Doc Jones who was sitting in one of the Sheriff’s Office chairs, feet propped on an old coffee table that held a few outdated magazines even the original owners hadn’t cared enough to read. It had been a long day, but Doc was sure it wasn’t over. Staying in the Sheriff’s Office seemed likely to give him a head start toward the next emergency.

“What? Where’s he going? Has he found Heather?” Judy demanded.

“He got a lead,” Mrs. Kraus said. “Mrs. Lane, she lived here when she was a kid. She told him about a secret place she had in Buffalo Springs. Her husband knew about it. The sheriff and Wynn have gone to check it out.”

“Where?”.

“Oh no, Judy,” Doc interrupted. “You wait right here. The sheriff’s got problems enough without having to worry about you too. Besides, you go barging in there, you just might make matters worse.”.

“How much worse can I make them?”

“Far as I know, Judy,” Doc said, “your daughter’s still alive. You show up in the wrong place at the wrong time, that could change.”

Judy’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry Doc. You’re right. I’m just so damn scared. I promise I’ll stay here, but please tell me where they’ve gone.”

Doc nodded and Mrs. Kraus told Judy about the Strand, then filled her in on the rest of the story as best she’d been able to get it. It all seemed fantastic to Judy, unreal. Unreal was how she felt too. Her hands and feet and nose were numb and tingling. Her heart was racing and she had to stop and remember to breathe. It seemed like she couldn’t get enough oxygen. She thought maybe she should ask Doc if his earlier offer of sedatives was still open, then rejected the idea. Her daughter needed her. While Heather was in danger, Judy wasn’t going to hide behind any pills.

Doc had been sitting there, massaging his temples with the slow circular motions of a man who’s very tired and has the kind of headache that cannot be ignored. He was listening to what Mrs. Kraus had to say because he didn’t have anything better to do, but even with only half his attention it was making more sense to him than it was to Judy. Up to a point, anyway.

“Whoa, Mrs. Kraus,” he interrupted. “Back up a minute there. Did I hear you right? Did Mrs. Lane claim she was the daughter of that Todd fellow who was a hired hand of the Simmses?”

“Yes sir, that’s what the sheriff said.”

“I must have missed that part, Mrs. Kraus. You sure? We talking about the Todd who killed himself after he was accused of molesting the little Simms girl, Lord, must be more than twenty years ago?”.

“That’s what I understood,” Mrs. Kraus agreed.

Judy’s patience was gone. “What the hell does it matter, Doc?” she asked.

“That Todd,” Doc replied, “the way I heard the story, I don’t remember him having a daughter. Mrs. Kraus, you were here then. Think on it. Is my memory really that bad?”

Mrs. Kraus thought, and as she did, you could see the light dawn behind her eyes. “Well,” she said, “I ain’t real sure Doc. I remember a child but it seems to me it was a boy.”

“Boy, girl, what’s the difference?” Judy asked.

“The difference between truth and lies,” Doc said. “Judy, you got a key to the school?”

Judy was totally baffled now. “Sure,” she said, “but why?”

“Yearbooks,” Doc said. “You and me need to go look at some yearbooks.”

***

The Buffalo Springs Elementary, Middle, and High Schools were located only a few blocks east of the courthouse and, like everything else in the village, within easy walking distance. They were in a hurry, though, so Judy piled into Doc Jones’ Buick and learned that her husband wasn’t the only local driver who’d become skilled at high speed maneuvering. Like the sheriff, Doc Jones had frequent cause to get places faster than the posted limit. He didn’t bother with a parking place in the empty lot, pulling to a stop immediately in front of the door to the elementary school.

The three age divisions of the local educational facilities were distributed into the two buildings that had originally served as grade and high schools only. By the time junior highs, and then middle schools, became popular, the two original structures were serving fewer students than they once had. The addition of a single-story walk way containing a few administrative offices and linking the pair of two-story buildings had been sufficient to accommodate the third branch of academia.

Judy let them in the main entrance, a wide hall from which steps led both up and down and corridors branched into a maze of classrooms. There was something eerie about the silent, abandoned building. The place, when occupied, was never still. It constantly echoed with children’s voices. Today, not even the wind called down the empty corridors. Rows of lockers stood mute and unslammed. Only the whisper of Doc’s and Judy’s shoes on worn tiles interrupted the building’s well earned vacation.

“There should be a set in the library, but things in there tend to get torn up and misshelved, Doc. That’s why there’s another set kept in administration. I think that’ll be quicker. They go all the way back to when the school was founded.”

“I’m thinking Sixties is what we need,” Doc said as he hurried to match her frenzied pace down the hall that led toward a principal’s office, past teacher’s lounges and faculty meeting rooms. “But we may need to get into students’ records, too. Todd’s not that uncommon a name.”

The yearbooks were neatly stored in one of those old bookshelves with the glass doors that kept out dust without hiding contents. It occupied the back wall of the secretary’s office, midway between a row of file cabinets and a bulletin board displaying children’s art and out of date announcements. They started with the 1965 and 1966 copies of
The Bison
, with Doc traveling back in time and Judy aiming for the future.

“No Ellen Todd,” Judy reported, after skimming through the books to 1970. I’ve got a Jimmy, a Karen, and a Lyle. No way the Karen could have been Ellen Lane, though. This one was a pale little blond.”

“I think I’ve got something interesting,” Doc observed. “Take a look.”

He passed the 1962
Bison
across for Judy’s inspection. A swarthy, Mediterranean looking little boy whose eyes refused to meet the camera’s gaze sat in the collection of first graders. The caption said he was Benjamin Todd. Doc flipped some pages and displayed a dark, intense young lady’s face peering defiantly from a flock of fifth graders. It bore a definite resemblance to Ellen Lane’s, but the name underneath was neither Ellen nor Todd. It was Sarah Ann Simms.

***

The sheriff paused as the sound of the door echoed through the building. He watched the outline of what he thought was a catwalk above for any sign of movement. And suddenly it was there. A dim face peered down from beside where the ladder’s rungs disappeared into the gloom. The sheriff flattened himself against the wall and tried to make himself invisible, but he kept the pistol pointed in its general direction. That was probably the madman he saw up there, but it could be his daughter instead.

“Is that you, dear?” A voice he recognized from their encounter at Sourdough Ranch called softly from the loft.

The sheriff didn’t answer. Having announced them, he hoped Wynn would now have the sense to come provide back up, to offer some sort of distraction that might let him finish this climb and pluck Heather from harm’s way.

The face disappeared for a moment, then returned.

“Peak-a-boo, I see you,” it said.

There was a scraping sound and something solid and dark came hurtling down toward him. It struck two rungs above and ricocheted out from the wall, brushing at the sheriff’s back before careening down to the stage, and, from the sound of its impact, perhaps through it as well.

It took the sheriff a moment to understand that the man had dropped one of the long, brick-shaped counterweights at him. The sheriff hadn’t stopped to examine them as he passed the array of ropes and pulleys and stacked weights below, but he’d noticed they were all metal and even the smallest must weigh ten pounds or more. The larger ones might weigh fifty. If any of them struck him on this uncertain perch, they would tear him from the wall and throw him to the stage, more than thirty feet below. That didn’t matter. The fall wasn’t going to kill him. The impact of one of those weights would do it first if the damage it had done to that steel rung so near the sheriff’s head was any indication.

“Jesus, Sheriff, you all right?” Wynn’s voice echoed from the vicinity of the motorcycle.

The sheriff didn’t answer. He just held his pistol and watched for the face or his doom to appear above.

“Is that you, Sheriff?” the voice asked. “I didn’t think she’d send someone else to do her dirty work for her. I thought she’d come herself.”

The sheriff decided the time for silence was over. “Time to give it up, mister. You’ve climbed into a trap. There’s no other way down from up there and I’ve got a sharpshooter on the stage with a night scope. You throw any more weights or do anything else threatening and I’m going to have him blow the top of your skull off.”