Consider the Crows Page 23

  “You did the right thing in calling.” Parkhurst put a hand under her elbow and gave her a gentle nudge toward her house.

  “I hope she’s all right.”

  “We’ll check it out.”

  With the flashlight, Parkhurst tried to pick out tire tracks on the driveway; if there’d been any, they were obliterated by falling snow.

  At the rear of the house, kitchen light spilled through the window. From the screened back porch, they heard the dog snuffling along the inside of the door. Susan tried the knob and found it locked. “I don’t like this.”

  Parkhurst shrugged. “The lady’s gone out. A friend picked her up.”

  “A friend who was lurking around earlier?”

  “We’ve had a lot of calls lately reporting lurkers.”

  “Yeah.” She shoved her hands deep in her pockets. “Let’s check the garage.”

  Disappointed barking from the dog as they left the porch and headed for the garage. The overhead door was down. Parkhurst jiggled the handle, locked. The small door on the side was also locked. Brushing snow from the glass pane, he shined the light through. She bent closer to see.

  “Car’s here.” He played the flashlight beam over the Volvo.

  Didn’t mean anything. She could have been picked up by a friend. Susan straightened, hunched her shoulders uneasily and tucked her chin in her collar.

  “Well?” Parkhurst said.

  She took the flashlight and, with her face against the glass, angled it down and to the right. Something lay on the floor that she couldn’t see clearly.

  Stepping aside, she handed back the flash. “Just inside, to the right. What is it?”

  He crouched, peered through the glass, moved the light back and forth. “Wooden handle, looks like. Maybe a shovel or a rake.”

  She hesitated, took in a breath of cold air that hurt her lungs. “Open it.”

  He tipped his head and eyed her questioningly. She nodded. Raising a booted foot, he smashed it against the lock and the door popped open. Inside, he located the light switch and the sudden glare made her squint. It was a shovel, a snow shovel.

  Melted snow had dripped puddles around the car; empty, keys in the ignition. She reached for them and bounced them on her gloved hand as she looked around the garage.

  “Susan.” Crouched on his heels, Parkhurst added the flashlight beam to the overhead light, pointing out a small dark smear.

  She squatted beside him. “Blood?”

  “Maybe. Not enough to get excited about.”

  “Maybe,” she repeated, examined the keys and isolated one that looked like a house key.

  Alexa yipped joyous cries of welcome when Susan opened the kitchen door and leaped around them in wild circles. Parkhurst knelt, whacked the dog’s sides and fondled her head with both hands. Alexa slathered his face with adoring kisses.

  “Dr. Egersund?” Susan called.

  Rising, Parkhurst pulled off his gloves and used them to slap at the white hairs all over his black pants.

  The light was on, bags of groceries—with things like milk and chicken and frozen orange juice that should be refrigerated—sat on the table. A black leather handbag hung by the shoulder strap from a chair. She looked at Parkhurst.

  They went quickly through the house with the dog trotting at their heels. No signs of struggle, or break-in, nothing amiss but little puddles of tracked-in snow. Bloody hell, what happened? She opened the kitchen door.

  “Watch it!”

  Alexa shot out, knocking her aside, nosed open the screen and disappeared in the falling snow.

  “Shit!” She dashed out. “Alexa, come back here!” At the end of the driveway, she looked one way, then another, took a couple of steps, then stopped. The damn dog was gone and she didn’t even know which direction.

  “Hey.” Parkhurst put a hand on her arm. “How hard could it be to find a white dog in a snowstorm?”

  She gave him a withering look, which he couldn’t see in the dark, and tromped back to the Bronco. While he scooped snow from the windshield with a gloved hand, she got on the radio; pickup on Edie, lookout for Carena Egersund and the damn dog. “Anybody sees it, bring it in.”

  “Right away. Ten-four.”

  “We might as well head in,” Susan said to Parkhurst.

  They’d only gone a few blocks when the radio sputtered. She grabbed the mike.

  “I spread the word,” Marilee drawled. “Officer Yancy reported in he spotted Edie’s car. Thirty minutes ago. Headed north out of town.”

  North? Susan looked at Parkhurst, pressed the transmit button. “We’re headed north too. Get a patrol unit to the Creighton place.”

  * * *

  The Bronco picked up speed once they left town. Snowflakes sparkled silver against the headlights. The silence was broken only by the hum of the heater, the double beat of the wipers and the whisper of tires cutting through snow.

  Susan tried to tell herself that Egersund had simply forgotten her purse, had gone somewhere with a friend. Uh-huh, sure. She might forget her purse, but she wouldn’t leave frozen peas on the table.

  “No reason for Edie to axe Egersund,” Parkhurst said, picking up on her thoughts.

  Right. “No known reason.” And no reason to think she was at the Creighton place, simply because she was headed that direction.

  He slowed to make a left and they jounced along the driveway.

  “No car,” she said when they pulled around to the rear of the house.

  No tire tracks either, but tracks wouldn’t last long with the snow. When she slid from the Bronco, cold air made her catch her breath. Edie got stuck in a snow drift. Stopped for coffee along the way. Long gone into the next state. “Any bright ideas?”

  He grunted, fanned the flashlight beam over the rope swing, across the unmarked snow on the ground and aimed it in the direction of the woods, invisible behind the swirl of snowflakes. From the set of his shoulders, she could tell he was as keyed-up as she was. He tromped a few paces, stood motionless, then tightened to attention like a sentry hearing a twig snap. Even his movements were tighter, direct and focused as he took two more steps. Turning, he motioned with the flash.

  “Hear anything?” he asked in a soft voice when she joined him.

  She listened. Wind. Sighing through the trees. Very soft. Almost like singing. Singing?

  “… falls the eventide … darkness deepens … help … helpless … abide with…”

  The thin high sound drifting on the cold air was hair-raising. It seemed fragile, the way the sound of a finger running along the rim of a crystal glass seemed fragile.

  * * *

  Breathing in fast puffs of cold air, Edie opened the trunk. The hinges squealed. Didn’t matter. Nobody could hear. She tugged her old rubber boots from beneath the blanket-wrapped burden and set them on the ground. Pulling off one shoe, she flung it way back in the trunk and pushed her cold foot into a boot, then put on the other one. The boots reached her knees. Leftovers from teenage. She’d used them on the farm when it was raining and muddy.

  The wind brushed snow against her face and she rubbed her cheek with the back of a gloved hand. I have to do this. For Belinda.

  She rolled the burden over the edge of the trunk and guided it as it flopped onto the sled. If she didn’t think about what was in the blanket, it wasn’t so bad. Think of it as a bale of hay. She used to move those around plenty when she was a kid.

  She shifted the burden on the sled—the feet part dragged and she twisted them around and bent them up—picked up the big square flashlight by the handle and trudged toward the woods.

  Under the trees the snowfall wasn’t so thick. Hard-going, though. The ground was uneven and the flashlight sent shaky light around when she stumbled. She tugged and yanked her way, jerking the sled over tree roots when it snagged. Her arms ached and she had to keep switching the pull rope from one hand to the other. The hammer in her coat pocket banged against her thigh. The burden kept shifting and sliding and once even fel
l off.

  Snowflakes stung her cheeks and clung to her eyelashes. She pulled her scarf low over her forehead to shield her face. Periodically, she stopped to rest or tug the burden back into position. Just a little way more. Keep going. Shadows hovered just beyond the beam of light. When she stopped and swung it around, there was nothing but falling snow. She heard sounds. Like somebody whispering. Wind through the trees. She plodded on.

  There! Over there. By that tree.

  Her heart pounded. She strained to see through the snow. No. It’s all right. Nobody’s there. She struggled onward. Unless it’s Creighton’s ghost. A laugh started somewhere in her throat and she pressed her lips in tight.

  There’s the well. It’s almost over. This is the last. No more.

  Dropping the pull rope, she bent and set the flashlight in the snow, pushing down firmly and rocking it slightly from side to side to make it level. She knelt and scooped snow from the boards.

  The wood was new and nailed tight. They wouldn’t think to look in here again.

  With the claw end of the hammer, she pried at the edges; pulling hard, panting. Finally, she felt some give and there was a screech as she managed to raise a board. Working desperately, she wrenched out a nail, stuck it in her pocket so she wouldn’t lose it, and started on the next one. The gloves made her hands clumsy. When the nails were out, she slid the board aside.

  Despite the cold, she was beginning to sweat, but with one board gone, the others were not so bad. Her arms were trembling by the time the well was open. She started to get to her feet, then froze. She heard singing.

  “On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.”

  A figure in a pale raincoat with the hood up materialized in the falling snow. Edie stared in terror. Tearing her eyes from the woman in the raincoat, she glanced at the blanket-wrapped burden on the sled. There’s no such thing as a ghost.

  “You finally came,” the woman said in a soft creepy voice. “They’ve been screaming at me. The crows. The well, they screamed. I can’t. I told them. I can’t. I tried. The boards. You can, they screamed. A dark angel will come and help you.”

  Tears blurred Edie’s vision and ran down her face.

  The woman took a step closer. “Are you crying? The babies are crying. In the trees. Hear them? Hanging in the trees. Crying. I can’t stand it any more. Even when the dark angels sing, I can hear the babies. Crying. Crying.”

  She looked down into the well. “A safe place. Long quiet sleep of peace where the angels are shining and caring. I’ll see Lowell. I’ll tell him about the baby. He never knew. We were friends and we helped each other. I kept the key. The only thing I have of his. We never—he was so unhappy—and we talked and—just that one time. It didn’t seem wrong. And we held each other and—and after—and after—Lowell cried. He cried.”

  Edie watched, hypnotized, as the woman came closer and squatted to peer in her face.

  “God sent the dark angels. Singing. Always singing. And then the crows. They laughed at me and they screamed you have to kill yourself. For your parents and Carrie, because they love you, so they won’t suffer anymore. They said a dark angel would come. I’ve been waiting.”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Edie was aware of a dog barking.

  * * *

  Susan listened hard, trying to figure out where the dog was, sound seemed distorted, trying to see movement through the swirling snowflakes.

  “This way,” Parkhurst said.

  She lengthened her stride to keep pace with his. There was a luminous quality to the falling snow. The footing was treacherous and the crunch of their boots sounded like an advancing army as they slogged beneath branches, heavy with snow, that closed overhead like a long black tunnel.

  The dog barked again, closer. Slipping and stumbling, she followed Parkhurst. He stopped, placed a cautionary hand on her arm. Ahead was a dim glow of light.

  Mouth close to her ear, he whispered with small puffs of warm air, “I’ll circle around.” He drifted away, almost immediately lost in the swirling snow.

  Cold air burned her lungs. She felt she was struggling without gain as she weaved around trees, trying to move quietly and cover distance quickly. She couldn’t hear anything over her own heavy breathing.

  Then she stopped dead and stared.

  Ahead in the small clearing, a flashlight resting on the ground gleamed through the dark like a beacon. Boards were gone from the well. Two dark figures, heads covered, crouched beside it, provoking the image of renegade monks performing ancient prayers.

  The dog pawed at something on a sled, nudged and poked with her muzzle. Suddenly, the dog raised her head. She barked and came bounding toward Susan.

  Oh shit! Susan started running. Her feet sank deeply into the snow. She floundered.

  Edie jerked her head up, mouth pulled tight over bared teeth. Hands clasped together as though in prayer, she leaned forward.

  “Noooo!” Susan screamed. The sound seemed to echo over and over, caught by the snow-laden branches, muted and twisted and thrown from tree to tree. She felt the sensation of time slowing down, of muscles stretching too tight over her chest, her face stiffening into vacancy and her mind growing still with horror.

  Edie, head bowed, leaned out over the well, leaned further, seemed to hang suspended for an instant of eternity, then dropped, wordlessly, into the black hole.

  23

  THE FIGURE IN the hooded raincoat teetered on the edge of the well, peering in.

  “No,” Susan yelled, running toward her and tripping as the dog bounded in the way. Oh Christ, I’ll never get there in time.

  From the other direction, Parkhurst pounded up through the falling snow, tearing off his jacket. He shoved the raincoated woman aside. She stumbled back and fell on her rear. He threw his jacket down and started climbing into the well.

  “Parkhurst!” Susan shouted.

  The hood of the raincoat slipped back when the woman scrambled to her knees, crawled toward that black hole. The dog barked, raced toward her, then toward Susan. With a flying leap, Susan launched herself, hit broadside and knocked the woman down again. Using her own weight to keep the woman pinned, Susan grabbed at flailing arms and kicking legs.

  “The dark angel.” Fists battered against Susan’s shoulders.

  “Stop it!”

  “Have to go with her.” The tossing head caught Susan on the jaw, hard enough to make her teeth clack and her vision blur.

  The dog pranced around them, barking, darting forward, then backing off. The woman fought like a captured cat and Susan felt her grip slipping. She eyed the flashlight in the snow a couple feet away. If I could reach it, would a good bash on the head knock her out? Suddenly all resistance ceased.

  Susan tensed. Not a quiver. Warily easing up from the heaving chest, she gripped a wrist in each hand. “What’s your name?” She pulled the limp form to a sitting position.

  The fighting cat now sat like a doll, lifeless. Oh Jesus, what’s this? “Can you tell me your name?”

  Still holding both wrists, Susan stood and helped the woman to her feet. Docile compliance. Seemed content to keep any position she was pushed into. Yanking the belt from the rumpled raincoat, Susan pressed down on unresisting shoulders until the woman was sitting and propped her against a tree. Hurriedly, Susan tied the cold hands, then pulled her own belt loose and tied the ankles. It wouldn’t hold for more than a few minutes if there was a serious attempt to get free.

  “Don’t move,” she patted an arm. Grabbing the flashlight, Susan shined it into the well. “Parkhurst!”

  Nothing moved in the cold black water. Oh shit. I’ve got four people here, possibly dead or dying. Where the hell is the back up? Ripping off her trench coat, she flung it aside, jammed the flashlight through the top rung and put her foot on the second.

  I don’t want to do this. Placing her feet cautiously, she lowered herself down one rusty slippery rung and then another.

  Just below, there was a great deal of splashing an
d Parkhurst’s head popped up. He gulped in air and shook water from his face. One gloved hand held onto a metal rung and the other clutched Edie’s hair. He pulled her face from the water.

  “Hold onto her,” he said through chattering teeth.

  Susan lowered one more rung, held tight and reached down to grab Edie’s coat.

  Parkhurst draped Edie over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Move.”

  Susan clambered out, snatched the flashlight and held it so he could see better. He labored up one rung at a time. When he reached the top, she stuck the flash upright in the snow and grabbed Edie’s shoulders, helped as much as she could as he staggered out and fell to his knees. They straightened Edie on the ground. He rocked back on his heels, shaking uncontrollably.

  Scared and desperate, Susan wrapped his coat around him and started for the Bronco. Within seconds, she heard the siren. Thank God. Hurry up, guys.

  She saw blue lights glimmer through the falling snow and ran to meet them. “Ambulance,” she yelled, “then get over here.”

  When flashlights started bobbing in her direction, she went back to Parkhurst and knelt in front of him.

  “I’m okay,” he barely managed through chattering teeth.

  “The hell you are.” She stood up. “Yancy,” she said to one uniformed officer. “Get him dry and warm. Right now. You radio for an ambulance?”

  Yancy nodded, bent over Parkhurst and helped him to his feet.

  “Car keys,” she said.

  Parkhurst tried to get them, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t get it in his pants pocket. Yancy fished out the keys and tossed them to her.

  “Demarco, get that coat over Edie.” Susan swung the flashlight over her own trenchcoat crumpled by the well and then over Edie lying with her slack face exposed to the falling snow. Edie didn’t look good. Susan was very afraid Edie was not breathing. “CPR?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get with it.”

  The woman she’d left propped against the tree hadn’t moved. Susan shined the light in her face, strong resemblance to Carena Egersund. Except for blinking her eyes, she gave no indication of awareness. Should the belts be removed? Get her on her feet so she wasn’t sitting in snow? Susan decided not. She didn’t want to risk one more person disappearing into that hellhole.