The Summer We Lost Alice (35 page)

"Spread it out as he dug, filled in a couple of low spots."

"You there while the hole was
bein' dug?" Sammy asked.

"Just off and on.
The other crew shaped up the bunker. That's where I wanted to supervise."

Myer turned to Ethan. "So, this is all part of the old witch story, the dog that buried the magic statue—all that?"

"Yeah, it is. Sort of."

"Sort of.
I see."

Myer looked from Ethan to Sammy and back again as if sizing them up. "
You serving a warrant on our boy?"

"Yeah," Sammy said.

"What charge?"

"Suspicion of possession of stolen property.
Whatever he found in that hole belonged to you."

"Sounds thin.
You think the judge'll grant a warrant?"

"In this case, I think he will."

Myer pulled at his face. Clearly he wasn't getting the whole story. For some reason Sammy wasn't at liberty to reveal—or because Ethan and Sammy's theory was so goofy they didn't want to talk about it—they were playing their cards close to the vest. They weren't ready to bring in the FBI, so a stolen property warrant was the way to go. Mundane police work had to go on even during kidnapping investigations.

They were fishing. Whatever they caught would have to leap out of the water and into their net, though. If they were looking for bodies, Digger Walsh had the equipment and the know-how to bury them where they'd never likely be found.

"Well, I wish you boys luck," he said.

"Just one more thing," Sammy said. "Any chance you coul
d give us a ride back to town?"

MYER DROPPED them at Cat's and they unloaded the dog. Sammy thanked Ethan for his help. He said he'd take it from here. Ethan tried to argue. Sammy cut him short.

"It's a police matter now," Sammy said. "I'll keep you posted."

"You know what you're looking for?"

"A
Tiki god. Kid's toys."

"Don't forget the baseball. It's signed, so you'll know it."

"Right. Chigger Malone."

"
Skeeter Barnes."

"Right."

Ethan scratched Boo behind the ears as they watched Sammy drive off. The women would be back from church soon. He hadn't called to let them know what he was up to with Boo. Heather would have wanted to go, and maybe Cat, but he hadn't wanted to wait. If there was any chance of preventing more disappearances, they couldn't delay. At least, that would be his line.

The truth was
, he was getting scared. Miss Lilian's story had unnerved him. It had troubled his dreams, he'd woken in a sweat. Knowing that Sam Sr. had confessed also sent a chill up his spine. What must it take to convince a child molester to confess? It had to be the fear of hell, or something therefrom. Sam Sr.'s confession lent credence to the tale, despite the possibility of collusion between him and Miss Lilian.

If the old man was on the evil's radar, then tracking it down put Ethan on it, too.
From there the line went straight to Heather and Cat and Flo and, most especially, the kids. The thing had a preference for children, it seemed. Yes, Perla and Martin and Alice's deaths were in response to Sam's actions, but the thing was a part of Sam, the worst part, Sam's personal evil. If it had, as Miss Lilian feared, developed its own sentience, it had evolved from the twisted psyche of a child molester. Willy Proost and the girl, Kaitlin, showed that it still harbored a taste for the young. Ethan didn't want Cat's kids in the center of this mess.

It was time to get them out of town.
Past time.

* * *

Sammy hurried to the station for a blank warrant. He ordered a deputy into the office and filled out the warrant while waiting for him to show up. As soon as he arrived they drove to the hospital to get Sam Sr.'s signature authorizing them to search Digger Walsh's premises.

"Your father checked himself out,
Sheriff," the nurse said. "Miss Lilian picked him up this morning."

Sammy pulled out his cell phone. He punched in his father's number. No answer. The deputy looked totally flummoxed.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

"I'm
callin' the nursing home," Sammy said. He started punching buttons but stopped halfway through, deciding he'd rather drop in unannounced. He had the uneasy notion that they were already packing for parts unknown. He didn't want to alarm them into bolting before he could obtain that warrant. Then again, maybe they weren't planning to go anywhere. Sam Sr. was in no condition to travel—a major trip would likely kill him.

"How could you let him go?" he asked the nurse.

"We can't keep them here against their will," she said.

Sammy all but ran for the door. The deputy scurried to keep up.

* * *

"I can't believe you did that!" Heather said.

"After what Sammy told me, I couldn't wait."

"You could've called."

"There's a chance the girl is still alive," Ethan said. "Every minute counts. And what would you have done that Sammy and I didn't? But listen, there's something more important to consider."

He told them—Cat, Flo
, and Heather—of his thoughts about the kids, that maybe they should get out of town, away from the evil.

"I had that thought last night," Cat said. "I want to be here for this, whatever it is. I want to see it through. Maybe we should take the kids to Doug's or Lori's or somewhere?"

"I'll call and make arrangements," Flo said.

"You seem pretty sure we're headed for a showdown with this thing," Heather said.

"We don't know anything of the sort," Ethan said, "but by the time we know it, it'll be too late."

"Better safe than sorry," Flo said.

"Okay, you make the calls," Cat said. "Can you drive them down, Mom?"

Flo nodded. "I'll take them straight from Marianne's."

"Oh, Christ," Cat said.

"Don't tell me you forgot," Flo said.

"Completely," Cat said.

"Marianne's?"
Ethan said.

"Birthday party.
I can't believe Brit hasn't been pestering me about it."

"She chattered about it all morning. I had to shush her in church. You didn't notice?"

Cat realized that she had no clear recollection of anything that happened that morning. The kids' chatter—she was used to tuning that out. The sermon—the same. Her thoughts had focused on Miss Lilian's story and all that had happened in the past week. My God, was it only a week? Ethan was right. By the time they saw trouble zeroing in on them, it would be too late to run.

"Maybe we should skip the party."

"Mom!" Brittany stood on the stairs. She'd already changed into her party dress. Her chin quivered. Cat rushed to her and swept her in her arms.

"Mommy was just kidding," she said. "It was a bad joke. Of course you're going to Marianne's party."

* * *

The patrol car's tires crunched on the gravel driveway leading to the nursing home. It wasn't the stealthiest approach, but Sammy didn't care. He wasn't worried about his father and Miss
Lilian making a break for it if they hadn't already. What did worry him was his father's leaving the hospital too soon and the strain everything was putting on his failing heart.

A nurse answered his knock. She led him and the deputy upstairs to speak with Miss
Lilian.

"She's in the treatment room," the nurse said, "her private one, with Judge Morse."

The nurse knocked on the door. Miss Lilian's voice came from within.

"Come in."

"Wait here," Sammy told the deputy. He opened the door.

The room was dusky, illuminated by candles that filled the room with a heavy, earthy scent. Sam Sr. lay face down on a massage table,
his face planted in a padded cradle. His naked body, modestly draped, was punctured with a dozen needles, as if Lilliputians had brought him down with tranquilizer darts. A mobile of a topless woman with wings for arms hung over the bed. Miss Lilian sat beside him. She looked tired and sad.

"Who's there?" Sam Sr. asked. With his face in the cradle, all he could see was the floor.

"It's me, Dad," Sammy said. "I heard you'd checked yourself out of the hospital. I was worried about you." Sammy moved closer. "Why'd you do that, check yourself out?"

"They were about to kick me out anyway. You know how it is these days. If you've got a pulse and two breaths in your body they'll plop you in a wheelchair and shove you out the door."

"What's all this, with the pins?"

"Acupuncture.
Lil says my
qi
is blocked. I think she just likes torturing me. I'm supposed to relax, so if that's all you wanted, I'm fine and you can go home now. You don't have to check on me every two minutes."

"There's
somethin' else." Sammy told his father about the trip with Boo, how the dog had led him and Ethan to the golf course. The sand trap. Digger Walsh. "I got a warrant to search his place, if you'd sign it."

Sam Sr. grunted.

"Put it under here where I can see it. Lil, get me a pen. Put it on something, Sammy, so I can sign it. A book or something. Hold it up. That's it."

He scrawled his signature and let the pen drop from his hand. It had been an effort.

Sammy said his thanks and turned to leave. Sam Sr. reached out a hand.

"Take my hand, boy," he said. Sammy did as he was told. Sam Sr. gripped Sammy's hand tight. A week ago it might have been a bone-crunching grip, meant to dominate. Now it seemed desperate, as if Sam Sr.
were clinging to Sammy, though whether to save Sammy or himself wasn't clear.

"That thing is evil, son," he said. "It's
my
evil. I thought I could get rid of it, and I did. But listen—that was a mistake. Biggest mistake of my life, and I've made some bad ones. You have to hold your evil close. You've got to beat it down, beat it down a little bit every day. Keep it within yourself, because it's yours and you're responsible for it.

"What I did, I let it out to grow. That statue had to be buried, like all secrets, in the earth. The earth purifies and contains, isn't that right, Lil? If that statue's got out somehow, the evil's out, too. It'll be working on somebody. This Walsh fellow, maybe, if he's the one. Son—"

He squeezed Sammy's hand tighter.

"It's already taken two innocent kids. It won't stop there. You be careful."

"I will, Dad," Sammy said. He wrapped his father's hand in both of his and held it for a moment. It was awkward, with his dad lying naked on the table, unable to look each other in the eye. Maybe it was better that way.

"I
gotta go. Thanks for the warrant."

Sammy placed Sam Sr.'s hand back on the massage table, careful not to disturb any of the acupuncture pins. He paused when he reached the door.

"One more thing, Dad." He was thinking about the investigation that was about to ensue once the Digger Walsh business was dealt with, and about the charges his father would face.

"Don't leave town," he said.

DIGGER WALSH, it turned out, lived near a salvage yard that had once housed a trailer park. The park was long since gone. Digger had arranged three derelict mobile homes into a villa of sorts. It reminded Sammy of the forts he'd made out of living room furniture as a kid. The backhoe sat on a flatbed truck nearby.

Rows of rusting automobile carcasses and other miscellaneous scrap loomed on the horizon not two hundred feet from Digger's compound. The area immediately surrounding the trailers was nearly wild with only a token effort being made to hold the weeds at bay. A wooden shed sat in what would be Digger's backyard, if there'd been a yard. An electric fan hung in the doorway with an extension cord running to one of the trailers.

Sammy took all this in as he approached the compound. He stopped the car and asked the deputy for the warrant.

The warrant specified Digger's mailing address but it was woefully vague in the description. Which of these three trailers would be considered Digger's residence? Did he have the right to search them all? What about the shed? If he did turn up any evidence, the warrant would probably be thrown out in court and Digger would walk free because of Sammy's sloppy police work.

Sammy cursed and wadded up the warrant.
Useless!
He was about to turn the cruiser around and head back to town to work on fresh paperwork when he got a break—a bullet punched a hole in the windshield and buried itself in the headrest next to his ear.

He and the deputy ducked under the dashboard. No warrant needed now. That bullet was an engraved invitation to Digger's domain.

Sammy grabbed the radio and called for backup.

* * *