The Gathering, page 25
“I don’t need your help,” Beau grumbled.
“Sir, it’s just a lift. Otherwise I could arrest you for disturbing the peace and take you to the cells instead.”
Beau looked like he was about to refuse. Then he seemed to sag. “Fine.”
Barbara nodded. “Okay.”
She felt a cool hand on her shoulder. She turned. Colleen smiled at her beatifically. “Thank you for doing this, Barbara. You’re a true good Samaritan.”
“Yeah, well, love thy enemy. Isn’t that the motto of the story?” She fixed the Reverend with a hard look. “Maybe a few people round here could try it sometime.”
45
The Lame Horse was an apt name.
Set back from the road, it was a faux hunting lodge inhabited by the type of clientele who looked as if a bar was the last place they should be while also looking like they had absolutely nowhere else to go (except maybe a twelve-step program).
Tucker used to be a regular. Go figure.
The lodge was large yet gloomy. A bar took up most of one side, an (unlit) stone fireplace took up most of the other, and tables and chairs were cluttered around the rest of the room. Fringed lamps lent a dusty light to the place. Moose and reindeer antlers decorated the walls, alongside a few yellowed vampyr skulls. Incongruously, raggaeton music played a little too loud from a speaker somewhere. The whole place smelt of stale beer and fresh urine.
At just before lunch, it was almost entirely empty. Probably the weather, although even in Tucker’s day it was never bustling. Aside from him, there was only one other person at the bar. A woman, smoking a cigarette and nursing a beer. She wore a sequined black-and-white dress with cowboy boots and a tasseled waistcoat. Bright orange hair cascaded in curls down her back.
Tucker walked up. “Buy a girl a drink?”
She turned. Up close, the hair was obviously a wig. Her face was creased with heavy lines, thick makeup caked into them. Crinkled eyes were thickly lined with kohl and painted with blue eyeshadow. Her lips, as always, were coated in bright red lipstick.
Twenty-five years ago, Tucker wouldn’t have put Margot at a day under seventy. Now, she didn’t look a day under ninety.
The lips drew into a smile, revealing yellowed teeth. “Well, look what the devil dragged in. Jensen Tucker. I heard you were dead.”
Her voice when she spoke was the throaty rasp of a dedicated thirty-a-day nicotine addict.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Tucker said.
Margot stood, somewhat shakily, and embraced Tucker in a surprisingly hard hug. Her head barely reached his chest.
“You feel good.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to make an old lady feel good?”
“Maybe after a drink.”
She laughed, which then morphed into a hacking cough. She thumped her chest.
“Okay. Beer?”
Tucker took a stool. It creaked beneath his weight.
“Thanks.”
It was early and he was driving, but this wasn’t the type of place where you ordered a spritzer. He waited, resting his arms on the bar. It felt sticky.
Margot walked behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of Bud out of the fridge and plonked it down in front of him. “I’d say on the house, but this house needs every dollar it can get.”
“That’s fine,” Tucker said, reaching for his wallet. “How is business?”
“Booming, as you can see.”
“Thought that might be the weather.”
“Not much better most of the time. A lot of the old crowd got sober or cirrhosis. Folks have more choices. You know there’s a brewpub opened up in Talkeetna?”
“Things change, I guess.”
“Yeah, and not always for the better.” She took the note he handed her and stuffed it into the till. No change. Then she took a drag on the cigarette. “What are you doing here, Tucker?”
“You hear about the kid that was killed?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Well, I’m helping with the investigation.”
Her tattooed eyebrows raised.
“You’re working as a cop again?”
“Temporarily.” Despite himself, he took a sip of beer.
“So, I’m guessing this isn’t just a social visit?”
He smiled. “Maybe I just missed your face.”
“This face? No.” She eyed him curiously. “Mostly I don’t like to lose regulars. But some…it’s for the best.”
“Well, in that case, I guess this is business. Were you here the night before last?”
She stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m here every night. Can only afford a couple of staff on the weekends.”
“So, you were here on Friday the 10th too?”
“Yup.”
Tucker held a twenty out. “If you can answer a few questions, I got some more dollars.”
She plucked the twenty from Tucker’s fingers. “What d’you want to know?”
“I need to know if a man was in here two nights ago. Around forty. Dark hair, disheveled.”
“Well, that’s about fifty percent of our clientele.”
Tucker wished he’d got a photo of Nathan. “His name is Nathan, and he has tattoos—a black patch on each of his knuckles.”
Margot’s grin faded. “Oh yeah, I know him.”
“You sound like you’d rather you didn’t.”
“Well, I know he was in here a couple of nights ago because he gave me twenty dollars to tell anyone who asked he was definitely in here on Friday, November the 10th.”
“Was he?”
“Nope.”
Tucker chuckled. “Okay. So, you don’t like him. Why?”
“He got overfamiliar with my staff a few times. Asked one of them if he wanted to go to his truck with him. Even offered him cash.”
Interesting. “The staff member take it?”
“He’s a nice boy. He politely declined.”
“That the last of it?”
“I had some words. Nathan backed off. Then he found himself a new friend. They’d sit and have a drink then disappear outside for a while. To his truck, I guess—and I don’t think they were checking the oil.”
“This a regular hook-up?”
“Regularish. Maybe once a week over the last few months.”
“What did he look like, this hook-up?”
“Young, long blond hair, pretty.”
Tucker felt unease stir in his stomach. “You got a name?”
Margot hesitated. Tucker sighed and reached back into his wallet. He produced another twenty. Pretty much all he had.
“This help?”
“It’s not the money.”
“Then what?”
“What d’you need to know for?”
“Well, Nathan is a person of interest, you might say—his friend might be able to tell us more about him.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all.”
She seemed to consider. “You know my story?”
Tucker did. Margot used to be called Martin. Long time ago. Before Tucker was a regular here. Tucker didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Margot was Margot. Everyone should be able to live their life comfortable in their own skin.
She lit a fresh cigarette. “I was wearing dresses before anyone had a phobia about it. But I know what it’s like to be discriminated against, spat on, attacked just for who I am.”
Tucker nodded. “Well, that’s something we got in common.”
“Yeah. So, I got sympathy with people who don’t fit in.”
“I hear you. And I only want to talk to this guy. I don’t care if he’s gay or soliciting.”
“It’s not that.”
“He’s underage?”
Margot gave a short laugh.
Tucker frowned. “Then what?”
“He used to come in here a long time ago—”
“When?”
“Must be almost thirty years, before you were a regular—and he looked exactly the same.”
“He’s Colony?”
“His name is Michael.”
Michael. “Dammit,” Tucker cursed.
“You know him?” Margot asked.
“Yeah.” Tucker sighed and reached for his beer. “He’s Athelinda’s son.”
46
“You okay there, sir?” Barbara pulled off carefully down the snowy road. More snow than road now, she thought, gripping the wheel tightly.
“I know what you think,” Beau muttered.
“What’s that, sir?”
“I’m crazy.”
“No, sir. I don’t think that.”
“I saw them looking at me in there. You get old, and people look at you like you’re pathetic, stupid.”
She guided the truck around a bend. “Well, sir. You should try being a woman.”
She saw his lip twitch. A relaxing in the tight hostility of his face.
“My wife, Patricia. She had dementia,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Dementia is a cruel illness.”
“But this isn’t that.”
Barbara nodded. “What did you mean about hearing them? You mean the Colony?”
The guarded look returned.
“Sir,” Barbara said, “I’ve studied colonies. One of the ways they communicate is through a kind of hive mind—telepathy, if you will. They’ve been known to use it to get into people’s heads.”
Barbara didn’t add that there were certain predilections for this: adolescence, illness, being half-turned and certain mental health conditions. Then there was the more fanciful myth that once you killed a vampyr, you carried them with you.
Beau shook his head. “Damn Colony. We should have got rid of them when we had the chance. Saved ourselves a lot of trouble, and Janice and Ed would still have their boy.”
“Sir, you and I might have different views about the Colony—”
“No ‘might’ about it.”
“But we both want to see Marcus’s killer brought to account. If there’s anything you know about the town or its history that could help…”
“History is history for a reason.”
“But if we don’t learn from it, we repeat it.”
“You get that out of a fortune cookie?”
“Saw it on a bumper sticker.”
He made a noise that might have been a grunt or a short chuckle. “Over here,” he said, gesturing toward a turn-off in the road. Barbara pulled up outside a neat clapboard house. She left the engine running. She had a feeling there was more here. Something had happened, and Beau wanted to talk.
He sighed, then reached for the door and pushed it open.
“Guess you’ll be wanting to come inside—make sure I don’t drop down dead.”
* * *
—
The house was cold. Yet Beau didn’t seem to notice. He walked straight into the kitchen at the end of the hall.
“You want coffee?”
It sounded more like an accusation than an invitation, but Barbara said, “Yes, thank you, sir.”
“I’ve not got any milk.”
“Black is fine, sir.”
She followed him into the kitchen, noting the closed door to her left, presumably the living room. She guessed Beau didn’t want her to feel too much at home. She waited while he picked up two mugs from the drainer and set the kettle to boil.
“So, Rita tells me your family has always lived in Deadhart?”
“My grandfather came here, like a lot of men, to work in the mine.” He spooned coffee into mugs, hand trembling slightly. “Why are you interested in Deadhart’s history?”
“I think there may be a connection to what’s happening now.”
He poured hot water into the mugs, brought them over to the table.
“The connection is obvious. The Colony. They came back, and another kid is dead. That’s all they bring. Death. Won’t ever change. It’s not right to ask good God-fearing people to live alongside them. Not without being able to defend ourselves.”
He sat down heavily on one of the hard wooden chairs.
“And you think attack is the best form of defense?” Barbara asked, pulling out the chair opposite.
“It’s us or them,” he said. “We took care of things before.”
“An unauthorized cull. You killed Aaron, his father and his uncle.”
“Tucker was letting a killer escape.”
“And what if you were wrong? What if Aaron didn’t kill Todd Danes?”
Beau blinked at her. “He confessed.”
“To protect the Colony.”
Beau’s hand went to his head, rubbed at it. “No. You confessed,” he muttered.
Barbara frowned. You? A slip of the tongue, or something else?
“What do you know about the Bone House, sir?” she asked, deciding to change tack.
She saw him start. “Why are you asking about that place?”
“I’m interested.”
“If you know the name, you already know what it was.”
“A whorehouse, where men had sex with vampyrs. I understand your own grandfather was a visitor.”
The blue eyes flashed. “Lots of men visited. It was a different time. Your type always act like vampyrs are the victims. Kids used to go missing from Deadhart all the while back then. Rita ever tell you about her mom’s older sister? Six years old. Lost in the woods. Never found her body. But everyone knew it was the Colony.”
“No, Rita never told me,” she said, and wondered why.
“Well, I guess her mom don’t like to talk about it.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right though.”
“No. And maybe that’s why that vampyr girl hates us so much. Why she wants revenge.”
“Athelinda?”
He nodded. “It ain’t just about Aaron and his family. It’s about that place—the Bone House. What they did to her there.”
“What they did…”
And suddenly the penny dropped. Of course. How had she missed it?
“Athelinda was kept at the Bone House?”
Beau nodded. “When my grandfather had a little too much to drink, he’d talk about the Bone House—and a girl. ‘A cascade of blonde curls, sweet as a cherub,’ he would say. ‘But she was truly a devil.’ ”
Barbara’s throat felt dry. “She was a child.”
“She’s a vampyr, using innocence as a disguise.” He shifted in his seat, winced. “So, now you see. This town. The Colony. There’s no coming together. No making amends. There’s too much hate on both sides.” He clutched at his head again, shivered.
Barbara frowned. “Are you all right, Mr. Grainger?”
“I’m fine.”
Barbara felt a twinge of guilt. She’d been questioning the old man too hard.
“Mr. Grainger, it’s cold in here. Maybe we should go into the living room, light a fire.”
“I said, I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I can get a sweater.”
“And I want to make sure you’re okay.”
She walked down the hall.
“No! You can’t go in there.”
A scrape as Beau pushed his chair back. Barbara shoved open the door to the living room and stopped.
“Shit.”
The room was small, cozy, but it looked like it had been disturbed. A lamp was broken, and ash smeared over the walls. It smelt of smoke. But that wasn’t what caused Barbara to pause, ice snaking down her spine.
Above the fireplace, mounted on wooden stands, were two vampyr heads. Older males, with thick gray hair. A third mount was empty. When Aaron and his family were killed, the heads had been taken. No one ever claimed responsibility.
“We hunted ’em fair and square,” Beau said from behind her.
Barbara turned. “Really? Did they have weapons too, Mr. Grainger?”
He gave her a withering look. “They don’t need weapons. The boy was a killer. We did what was necessary.”
“And displaying them like sick trophies, that was necessary too?”
He walked past her, up to the heads. He had stopped shivering. In here, he seemed to have regained some of his color, his strength. “You’re not a hunter, Detective. There’s a relationship between hunter and prey.” He raised a hand to touch the cheek of one of the men. “Almost like a marriage. What you kill, you own…for better or worse.”
Barbara’s stomach churned. “Where’s Aaron?” she asked, nodding at the empty mount.
“That child demon came here the other night, and she took him.”
Good for Athelinda, Barbara thought. She took her phone out and snapped a picture of the heads.
“You can’t keep these,” she said to Beau. “They need to be returned to the Colony.”
“I’ve kept them for twenty-five years—”
“And you have twenty-four hours to relinquish them voluntarily, or I’ll be back with a warrant.”
He turned back to her. “You don’t understand—”
She cut him off. “Oh, I do, sir. My dad was a hunter. He hunted because he needed to feel power over other creatures. But once you took away his weapons, he was a weak, bitter man.”
“Don’t seem like any way to talk about your father.”
“He wasn’t much of a father, or a man.”
“He still alive?”
“No. He killed himself when I was sixteen. Only time he shot anyone who deserved it.”
She slipped her phone back in her pocket. “I’ll give your daughter a call. Tell her to come check on you—and bring some packing boxes.”
47
Tucker’s body felt tired. His skin and eyes itched. But his mind felt more alert than it had in a while. He had missed this—investigating, being a cop. He had been stagnating. Existing, but not really living. Now, it felt like he was being given a second chance.
