Shadow Season (24 page)

“What’d I say? Stay right there. Aren’t you ever gonna listen to me?”

His nostrils have thawed. A faint but caustic group of odors reaches him. Gasoline. Oil. Finn puts out a hand and feels the bottom of a weed whacker. He strains and touches a gas can. He turns over and moves like a slug on his naked belly.

Finn reaches again. He smells semen and blood. He touches a shoe.

He crawls. He finds a cold ankle, and from there
continues on, the nerve endings in his hands on fire with feeling.

A knee. A thigh. The jeans have been tugged down. He discovers a cold hand with something trailing from the wrist. It’s a rope.

Finn clambers to his knees and continues to inspect the body.

Roz is dead.

She’s been tied up, hands in front of her, the knots fairly intricate. But the rope is now cut. Not bitten through. Harley sliced the bonds on Roz’s corpse so she could pull the coat off her and cover Finn with it.

He reaches for her face. An oily old rag has been shoved into Roz’s mouth. She vomited and choked to death on it.

We don’t want to hurt no one
.

Harley says, “They done it. They aren’t all bad, really. Pudge, he gets excitable sometimes. It’s just his way. They just got their mind set on something and there isn’t nothing can turn them away from that. They’re on a path.”

She didn’t learn none either, your lady
.

Finn pieces some of it together.

Roz never forgot anything back at the shop. She’d been dealing meth this whole time, and Finn hadn’t known. He should’ve realized, but he just hadn’t seen it.

When he mentioned Harley’s name to her this afternoon, Roz knew something was wrong, that something bad might be going down. Had she cheated them out of some cash? Stolen product? Was she fronting for Murph? For some of the girls? Fuck. She didn’t go back to town, she went to find the Moon brothers. But they
must’ve found her first, raped her, and stuffed her in here, let her die gagging.

He touches her face and her eyes are still open. He closes them.

“Why’d your people rob us?” Harley asks. “My lot, it’s with them. Should be with them. But I liked this nurse lady. Met her a few times at the house. She was sweet. She told me I could go to school here someday. Educate myself so I could go down to the city, get a decent job. I believed her. She had a way about her. She talked nice. She loved you, I could tell.”

When he sees Roz dead before him he sees his own shadow before him, there on the floor. It knows it’s being watched.

Finn’s shadow faces him without eyes.

It’s another few minutes before he can speak.

“Wh-wh… ere’s…” He gulps heated air. His shudders are slowing. “… your b-b-brother?” His mouth burns with the name.
“Rack.”

FINN MANAGES TO DRESS HIMSELF AGAIN
in his cold, wet clothes. Harley Moon shouts at him to stop, but Finn opens the shed door and heads back into the storm. She yells that she can’t follow him, she screams that he’s a lunatic. He understands.

It’s all right, he knows where he is now. No way he can miss the Carriage House.

Ice and wind attack once more as he staggers through the drifts. He buries his hands inside Roz’s pockets. The coat is too small to zip closed, and the snow stings his chest and throat. It doesn’t hurt much this time and can’t slow him down at all. He plods and inches along, practically stuck in place.

The wind chimes in front of the dining hall can barely be heard above the howling wind, but they’re there at the edge of his hearing. He’s trained to hear them. He isn’t going to fall down this time. He won’t fail again.

An easy thirty-second walk takes him five hard-fought minutes. He’s beginning to freeze once more as he blunders against the Carriage House doors. They’re stuck and he has to throw himself against them and
pound with his fists before he can yank them free. Finn takes two steps inside and flops on his face.

“Jaysus!” Murphy shouts. He squats and tries to help Finn get to his feet, but it’s not happening. “You’re a bloody mess! Has everyone gone mad? I come in for a wee dram of Jay and another bite of lamb and find the two of you on the floor?”

Two?

Here they are up in the sticks and no one has a gun. “G-get knives,” Finn tells him.

“What? You need help. You’re hardly more than a block of ice, man! We need Roz. Where is she, I’ll find her.”

“Get—”

“Stop your bickering! You need blankets. Are there blankets here?” Murph’s hands are on Finn, panicked and moving over him, trying to help but without knowing how. “For fook’s sake, what’s all this shite, now? You’ve been cut near to ribbons. And Duchess has a cracked jaw, found her on the floor as well. And here it’s me who’s supposed to act like the idjit child.”

“Is she…?”

“I’m fine,” Duchess says. “I’m right here.”

“Knives. D-d-do it.”

Murph’s breath stinks of Jameson. He’s been pouring back a lot tonight. “Why in Christ’s holy name would I want to do that?”

Duchess says, “Finn, what’s happened to you? Where’s Roz?”

Finn stands and stumbles. She puts an arm out to help. The smell of blood is so strong that it fills his belly. Even so, there’s not much of a tug in his mind. A swirl of
color, mostly red. Duchess has been beaten. She’s strong, she fought like he knew she would, but she’s gotten off easy. He falls into her embrace and she says, “You need help. You’ve got hypothermia. There’s coffee. Hold on.”

He hisses, “Two holler men … are on campus. W-watch the girls.”

“Couple motherfuckers broke in here. One of them chipped my crown.”

The kitchen door opens and closes. Finn almost hits the floor again but Murph grabs him.

“Enough of this tossing,” Murphy says. “What goes on here? Some bloke decked Duchess? I thought one of the young wans might’ve gone daft after too much eggnog.”

Neither of them has been to the Main House, Finn realizes. They haven’t seen Vi dead in the hall. “We need to get over there,” Finn says.

“Over where?”

“Gate House. The g-girls, we have to—”

“The dorm? Why the hell didn’t you say that, then? You can’t go anywhere, man, you’ve gone six shades of blue. How long were you out there? Who’s the bollix who put this coat on you? Here, wear mine.” Murph’s voice is getting squeaky with frustration as he strips Roz’s coat off Finn and manages to fit his own on him. It’s large and warm and soft as a comforter. Finn floats for an instant and nearly passes out.

He rouses when Duchess presses a cup of hot coffee to his lips. “Here, drink this.”

A steaming mouthful goes down but at first it only increases his chills. The tremors are so bad that it feels
like a seizure. Murph lets out a sound like a terrified cat. Duchess grabs Finn by the shoulder and tries to quiet him. The fit passes quickly but it pulls the opening volley of a bellow from him.

Murph’s scared and confused and his neck cricks as he turns from Finn to Duchess and back again, waiting for answers and getting nothing. “You were on your way double-jig time to meet the Holy Mother, Finn. You’re still bleeding. Your wrist, Jaysus, is that a bite mark? I have to stop the—”

“Phone?” Finn asks.

“Land line is out from the storm,” Duchess tells him. “Tried calling my Ruby a while ago. And I don’t have a cell.”

“Neither do I. Who the fook am I going to call? Me sainted ma, may she roast eternally?”

Something’s wrong here but Finn can’t get it together enough to figure out what it is.

He decides to lay it out flat for them. “Listen. There’s one or two hard cases loose in the school. Holler men, drug dealers.” His lips squirm. He can’t say that Roz is dead in the shed, that Vi fought and died for him.

“That’s who you two have been clashing with?” Murph asks. “What are these fooks here for?”

“They say I owe them money.”

“And do you, now?”

“No.”

Duchess dabs a cloth against her mouth. Spit and blood bubble across her chin. She takes a breath that sounds like air is being forced sideways down her throat. It’s a noise he’s heard a thousand times before. It’s the fear and worry making way for a confession.

He turns and looks at her. She’s still smiling in the kitchen, wooden spoons in each hand, banging the shit out of her pots.

She whispers, “I have to tell you something.”

He is stone. He won’t break. He dreams of death. He has someone to kill. Her disheartened tone has given him a last needed clue. He pulls the story together before she can relate anything more.

“Yes, you do,” Finn says.

Finally his voice is back. His true voice. He tries to get to his feet but can’t do it alone. She takes his hand. They’re both trembling. He thinks of Roz touching the side of his face like she wanted to explain something. Like she was silently asking his forgiveness. It makes sense now. While they were making love she mentioned that Duchess’s granddaughter didn’t get into St. Val’s. Roz was trying to explain.

He thinks, That’s what it meant.

“Tell me, Duchess,” Finn says. “Tell me why my house isn’t in order. Tell me how you and Roz have been running meth with these assholes. Tell me why you didn’t pay them. And while we’re at it, tell me where you’ve been delivering it. No, let me guess. Up to Sing Sing for Ray?”

THE THREE OF THEM MOVE WELL
now, as a unit, Finn propped between Duchess and Murphy, picking up speed through the dining hall.

Murphy coughs Judith’s name. Murph might bitch about her, but Finn now realizes that the Irishman truly does care for Judith. He should’ve guessed. Anyone who complains that much about a woman must be doing so in order to hide from his own heart.

The windows rattle like they’re about to shatter. “It’s pounding away like the end times. Shite, the lights are flickering. We may lose them yet.”

Duchess is trying to find the words to explain herself, but she hasn’t got them yet and probably never will.

He hears the metal blades clanging. She’s got butcher knives. Murph asks, “The hell’s that?”

“Keep an eye out,” Finn says. “That bastard might be outside.”

“Och, only one?”

“I think I killed the other.”

“Jaysus! You’re a hard man even now.”

They get through the door, and the storm slashes at them. Murph’s coat can only do so much. The ice instantly gets back inside Finn. His core temperature is
way down, the furnace practically out. The rage fans the fire and keeps him alive. Sometimes being a touch nuts helps out in the strangest ways.

They move quickly through the blizzard, with Finn staggering and Murph pulling him along. Finn slows even more, and his legs nearly fold beneath him. They get to the Gate House and the three of them hit the doors as one. Finn’s limbs are dead and he goes sprawling.

The butcher knives strike a ringing series of notes that lift Finn’s chin and try to carry him away.

The blades are here to help. They tell him, We’re with you, buddy, we’re on your side. We fit your hand, we await your firm touch. We won’t fail, we’ll lay open, we’ll rend. We wish to slip in, debone, flay. He imagines them peering over the rim of Duchess’s pocket and looking at him, grinning like wicked children. He wants to say, Thanks for giving me a hand.

“I’ll run ahead and check on the girls,” Murph says.

“No,” Duchess orders. “Help me with him.”

“You two will be fine. But Judith, and the wans—”

“If we split up now, who knows what’ll happen. You’re going to stay right here. Help me. He might die.”

“I won’t die,” Finn says.

Duchess warms him with her huge meaty hands. Murph, unsure of what to do, tries to follow her lead. Finn can barely move but feeling is starting to return. He’s got to go through the agony again. His thoughts are clear for the first time in who the fuck knows how long.

“I needed the money,” Duchess admits. “For my babies.”

“The money,” he repeats. After all this, he wants to laugh. Nothing is funny and everything is funny. The
fury of Howie wants out like vomit. It begins as a sick little snicker, the kind lunatics covered in blood make when you catch them in the basement, rubber gloves on, finishing up with a wife or boyfriend or the cat or the kid.