A Cold, Fine Evil Read online

  The exit he made from the room was probably not as dignified as he would have preferred since he bumped into the doorjamb, but at least he’d given his opinion.

  So he’d keep the thermostat a little lower this winter and give up on the idea of a new car. He’d been eyeing a sporty SUV, but hell, that was not going to make or break his life. He was disgruntled, but his attention was elsewhere.

  The stairs to the library were wet and he went up carefully, because he did almost everything that way, cracked the door and smelled the odor of decaying paper and old leather and was instantly at home. George usually spent almost every free moment in this place, just reading and working in solitude, pretending the scholarly façade concealed an intuitive mind, but this particular afternoon he had a goal.

  He could remember clearly when Jon’s mother had died but he hadn’t gone over the details in many years.

  This seemed an appropriate time to revisit the past because his future wasn’t improving, that was for sure with the salary cut. Besides, there were vague details he needed to remember.

  He’d been waiting for this a long time.

  The tables were long and narrow and had been obviously harvested from another learning institution from the scratches, but they were functional and there was free wireless connection, so he didn’t bother to pay for it at home and just came here.

  Could afford it less than ever now, he thought with resentment, so the least the college could do was give him one perk. He sat down, took out his laptop, and booted it up.

  Isabelle Palmer—he liked the spelling of her first name, he always had—was found dead on October 16th. Cause of death was asphyxiation. Manner of death was undetermined.

  Exact translation: cause of death was how someone died and manner of death was why they died.

  George had an issue there. The coroner’s notes included an insinuation she hanged herself and implied suicide. That was supported by the lack of any official investigation. George had known even back then it wasn’t so simple. The anniversary was really right around the corner.

  He dug up the article.

  Grisly stuff. Her son had found her dangling from the rafters of the garage and cut her down, and that had interfered with the investigation. The reporter had tried to be kind and spared the details for the most part but George doubted that had been an easy day for Jon Palmer.

  She’d been beautiful, like her son.

  He clearly remembered her, of course. Most of the teenaged boys that were his contemporaries had an adolescent fantasy or two about Mrs. Palmer. Twenty years now…he sat there and wondered if Jon’s return was tied to his mother’s murder.

  Because there was no doubt that’s what Jon believed had happened and George didn’t disagree.

  Black Lake was not the healthiest place to live.

  George saved the article to his hard drive and opened up a different file. Inspiration would not be difficult to find this afternoon. Between Jon’s arrival and his interview with that prick Fowler, his literary work in progress would flow from brain to fingers. He knew that sense of power, and it trickled through him now as he wrote:

  Chapter Ten.

  Braxton Mays knew he was under suspicion. He’d hidden the axe under a pile of brushwood and it was safe there, or so he thought, but now it was inexplicably missing. He stood there, his hands scratched from the sharp thorns, a drop of blood rolling off one finger, and felt a flicker of panic. It wasn’t so much getting caught, as it was that getting caught would stop him.

  That he couldn’t allow.

  He really needed that axe. He had plans for it.

  An hour later he realized he had a class in five minutes. George hit ‘save’, and then forwarded the file to his sister, Lillian. She’d give him feedback by five o’clock if she followed her usual course, and while no one really looked forward to criticism, her insights were usually spot-on. She loved to criticize, and was really good at it. He listened to all of it and used some of it.

  He meticulously packed up his computer, made eye contact with a student he should probably recognize and nodded just in case, then left the building.

  The first pain came on as his foot hit the top step.

  Vise-like, fist knotted in his chest, enough to make him drop his precious computer case and stumble.

  He went down hard, groaning, rolling all the way to the sidewalk, and landed on his back, determined his last vision would not be of depressing leaden skies.

  The rain was cold as hell on his face.

  Goddamn Minnesota. He’d been born cold and he would die cold and there was absolutely no justice in it at all.

  George wheezed and tried to grab his cell phone.

  Chapter 6

  I am a monster.

  At first it was in my childhood imaginings, no doubt addressing the things we all find intriguing for some reason when we are very young. This is a scary world and I have always believed our brains try to make sense of it.

  Animals with fangs and shaggy manes like lions, fabled ravenous dinosaurs, and venomous snakes hanging from trees…

  The truth is people are what should frighten you. I am one of them.

  There’s no evil in a wild creature. It wants to be safe or fed, and that is about it. Calculated harm is the definition of evil.

  An entity that is not a wild creature that just wants to defend itself and feed. Not quite the same story.

  Something to think about. What makes us the way we are, who forms us into the beings that decide to step out of the box of humanity. Those that do should send you screaming into the night. I’ll be honest. We just don’t have boundaries. Compassion is the definition of caring how someone else feels. I just don’t have it.

  So I roam, I make selfish decisions, and strangely I have no regrets. The cycle is never-ending.

  In case you’re straying into our neck of the deep, cold woods, that’s how it works here.

  Don’t say no one warned you.

  Troy normally just wolfed down a sandwich at lunch from the deli at the supermarket so his wife’s legendary chicken salad was a rare treat, but he didn’t have an appetite at the moment.

  Apparently Amy felt the same way, her meal virtually untouched, their conversation non-existent.

  Fuck.

  She was thinking about having a stiff drink. He could read the signs. He wanted one too. More than most lucky human beings could imagine. The disease was with him every waking second.

  Maybe she even needed a whiskey after their return from the hospital to see his cousin. George looked terrible after the heart attack, his skin pasty, his eyes ringed by dark circles. It had happened a few days ago and Troy had been sure he’d be ready for visitors. George had been with it enough to mumble thanks for the visit, and then he’d asked Troy to hunt down Jon Palmer because he really needed to talk to him.

  He hadn’t gotten around somehow to telling his wife that her former lover was back in town and her unguarded reaction to the news wasn’t exactly reassuring. What was it they said? You never forget your first love. Well, Amy was his, but he sure as hell wasn’t hers.

  He set aside his fork and pushed his plate to the side so he could fold his arms on the table. “We going to talk about it? Let’s get it over with.”

  Amy glanced up from toying with her glass of iced tea, running her slender fingers down the moisture on the side of the glass. Her hair brushed her shoulders in a shining fall and she still looked like that high school girl he’d first fallen for, with her smooth skin and delicate features. She was still trim too, with small firm breasts, a nice ass, and long legs. She never dressed provocatively but men looked at her anyway and always had, so she really didn’t notice. He hadn’t ever worried about fidelity, but that was starting to go out the window. Her spine stiffened at his deliberate tone. “Talk about what?”

  “Jon Palmer.”

  “Oh, please, Troy. Grow up.” She didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  The clock on the wall chimed and he waited a
moment, weighing his response. “You’ve been pretty quiet since you heard he was back.”

  There was a slight change in her expression. “Okay, I’ve been quiet. And he’s back apparently. It doesn’t mean one is related to the other. George looked awful. I’m worried about him.”

  “You were thinking of walking out on me before this. Why is it I get the feeling having Palmer back in Black Lake, newly divorced, isn’t going to help the situation? Maybe it’s because I’m a lawman and we have to decipher clues.”

  The sarcasm was going to help nothing, but he couldn’t help it.

  Her mouth tightened. “I didn’t know he was here, I haven’t seen him obviously, and why do you think I’m ready to walk out?”

  No kids. That was why. She wanted them desperately and they’d tried just about everything, which had been a financial nightmare, but she was one of those women who wanted to be pregnant, not just have a child to raise, so she had balked at adoption. He understood to the extent he thought any male could, but he didn’t forgive the toll on his marriage. He wanted children too, but it didn’t ruin his very existence that it seemed to be out of reach for them.

  “I’m not blind or deaf.” He stood and picked up his full plate of food to take it to the trash. “Palmer has a couple of kids. Obviously he’s able to make it happen. Maybe he can get you pregnant, is that what you’re thinking?”

  There were times when he was just an asshole. Maybe this was one of them.

  “That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard you say and that bar was set pretty high already.” She also stood, and though she was usually pretty even keel, he thought her full plate might come flying his direction. All the color had drained from her face. “You might want to consider an apology for that comment.”

  He held his ground. “Tell me it didn’t occur to you and I will.”

  She said furiously, “What occurs to me is that your jealousy over something that happened two decades ago is so ridiculous that I refuse to even offer a response.”

  Not an answer. He followed her into the kitchen. “Tell me it didn’t.”

  Idiot. He knew he was pushing her, testing the limits of their relationship, but they’d been in trouble before Palmer chose to make his unwanted appearance and, dammit, he’d seen her face in that hospital room when she heard his name.

  Low sperm count. That was part of their problem. If there were any more emasculating three words strung together in the English language, he couldn’t think of them.

  At least he wasn’t impotent. That was how he consoled himself. The doctors promised it wasn’t an insurmountable problem and he could still get her pregnant, it just wasn’t as likely, but his psyche had argued that there was a finger pointed his direction and a blazing neon sign in his wife’s brain that said: Your fault.

  He went to the back door and got his coat off the peg in the mud room and said over his shoulder, “I’d better go see if I can dig up Jon Palmer. For all I know it was my cousin’s dying request. George really did look like shit. Ever notice that Palmer seems to trail death in his wake? Something to think about, sweetheart.”

  Troy slammed the door as he left, but even as he walked out into the cool mist, his shoes crunching the gravel in the drive, he wondered just what exactly made him so angry. Was it Amy’s obsession with having a child that left him frustrated and helpless? Was it a fear that Palmer’s return would tilt an already precarious marriage toward no-return? If that was it, he wasn’t helping the situation.

  Or was it deeper?

  Was it the secrets of Black Lake in general and he was so stuck in the mire that he could never extricate himself?

  All of the above, probably.

  He started the SUV and was about to back out of the driveway when his cell phone rang. He cursed, put the car back in park, and fished it out of his pocket. “Walda.”

  The voice on the other end quavered. “Sheriff, I hate to bother you, but Jesus, we may have a situation.”

  Peter Hammond, a deputy, was normally just an unflappable young man who handled situations with directness and common sense, which was why Troy had hired him. “Define that, please?”

  “We’ve got a missing person. When Anne Gibbons didn’t show up to pick her son up from kindergarten, the school called her ex-husband. He drove home and her car is there, but she isn’t. Front door slightly open to the house, and no one inside. He’s flipping out and I don’t really blame him. No one has seen her. He’s called everyone he could think of. The kid stays with him half the time and with her the other. As far as he can tell, she’s been gone at least since yesterday. There was a reminder card on the kitchen counter for a doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon. He called them too, and she didn’t keep it. My gut tells me we have an abduction on our hands.”

  The rattled tone of Hammond’s voice was out of character. George was going to have to wait to talk to effing Palmer. Troy asked tersely, “Where? I’m on my way.”

  * * * *

  Jon woke on the back porch, his clothes soaking wet, wondering where the hell he was for a long moment.

  Cabin. Right. Black Lake.

  He stood up, shivering because sleeping in damp clothes due to an autumn rain was not a particularly good idea. The screen was wet and there were puddles on the wooden deck next to his chair. The trees around the cabin dripped slowly. He had no idea what time it might be.

  He needed to do something about his sleep pattern in general but the truth of it was, that it really didn’t matter to anyone else, so if he dozed off during the day, who cared? Besides, considering the disturbance of the other night, the dark wasn’t conducive to peaceful slumber.

  The cabin was cold and damp because when he’d fallen asleep he had the door open, but it apparently hadn’t been raining then and he’d wager the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. It probably wouldn’t hurt to look at the forecast now and then. He had his phone and a signal.

  He opted for a hot shower rather than to try and fire up the woodstove, a skill he was trying to relearn from his youth, which seemed like a lifetime ago. At least the hot water heater was a modern on-demand, wall mounted model that worked very well, and the tiny bathroom steamed right up.

  So much so he almost didn’t notice the stain on his shirt.

  It looked like blood.

  In consternation he picked up the garment from the floor where he’d carelessly tossed it and examined it. There were a couple of stains actually besides the large one that caught his eye. Speckles on the right sleeve.

  What the fuck?

  He didn’t remember hurting himself, but he didn’t know anything about the gravestone either. A quick survey in the steamy mirror showed nothing unusual on his naked torso. Legs, arms; all unmarked.

  Nose bleed? Could be.

  Jon stepped into the stream of water, his muscles tied in knots, and braced his hands against the wall of the small stall, the scalding water sluicing over his body.

  The beach in the Caribbean hadn’t worked, but so far, this return to his past wasn’t working either. There were answers he needed to find, but he wasn’t at all sure he was in control of the situation. He’d definitely lost some time. It always amazed him that when he went into one of those fugue states, he seemed to be able to function, he just didn’t remember anything afterward.

  What he needed to do was decompress, look back, and see if memory returned. It did sometimes, in little flashes.

  A positive thing, if he wanted to remember.

  Not always was probably the answer to that.

  He felt better after he warmed up and dressed in dry clothes. Food would probably help as well. Maybe it was the dark skies and dismal rain, but he didn’t feel like sitting down to a lonely meal. A noisy restaurant might bring some sense of normalcy back.

  Good idea.

  The shirt was a goner, he decided halfway up the steps toward his car, still unsettled on that score, and he turned around and went back into the cabin for it.

  Th
ere was a roadside pull-off about five miles down the road, nothing but a small swing-through drive and two weathered picnic tables in a scenic stand of pines. In high school it had been a great place to bring a girl for a little privacy but in his memory he’d never seen anyone actually using it for anything else. The county did maintain it though, and there were several covered trash containers, the lids on chains to keep the bears out as much as possible. He pulled in, got swiftly out of his car, and dumped the shirt in one of the cans. The clang of the lid signaled that he no longer had to look at it, so maybe he wouldn’t worry about it.

  It sounded good in theory.

  Black Lake was dreary with rain-streaked buildings and wet streets, but the gas station was busy, and the lights along Main familiar and bright. There was a lodge on the other end of town on the actual lake the city was named for, geared toward tourists, and in the past anyway, it had a decent restaurant. He braked for one of the three stoplights and caught sight of a familiar sign. On impulse, he pulled into the parking lot once the light turned green.

  The world operated on a nothing ventured, nothing gained kind of mindset, at least the business world he knew so well. He recognized the plain little car in front of the liquor store, remembered warm hazel eyes and a friendly smile, and decided to take a chance.

  If anyone could use a friend, it was him. He could have sworn he’d hear from George, but he hadn’t bothered to call either, so that was a two-way street.

  Usually he craved solitude, something Connie had certainly never understood, but not this evening.

  Chapter 7

  Opportunity is predicated on several different definitions.

  The convenience of the situation or aka what are chances of getting caught, or how gnawing is the hunger.

  When I was ravenous, there was almost nothing that would stop me.

  I killed once when my mother was cooking dinner, the smell of roasting meat mingled with the stench of death. Once it was over, I went and washed my hands and then ate dinner after saying grace.