2

2

THE NEXT DAY, a stranger walked into Blackwater Valley’s redbrick Public Safety Building and straight up to the information desk. She was a long, tall young woman, this outsider, fair complexioned, and elegant despite being lanky, her irises pearly gray in color.

Katie scanned the room as she entered, noting the many desks and computers; the dispatcher’s radio in a corner. She took stock of the people, probing their minds, their inner workings. She noticed one of the older deputies staring at her, checking out her rear end and firm thighs inside the faded denim jeans as she passed, the curve at the small of her bare back where her top had ridden up. The ribbon in her dark hair.

“Chief Clemency’s office, please?” Katie asked the duty secretary, tugging the hem of her shirt below her waist again. “Name is Miss Franklin. He’s expecting me.”

The lady looked her over, pressing an intercom button before her. “Just one moment.”

A uniformed black man in his early to mid-fifties came out to greet her. He had an overtaxed, bone-tired manner to the way he moved, and his wiry hair was almost white.

“Katelyn?” He offered his hand, which she took with a smile and a nod. “Good to see you. Come on back with me.”

She followed as he escorted her from the fluorescent illumination of the reception room down a hall and into his office. He closed the door.

“Lord, you’ve certainly grown. You were only about yay big the last time I saw you, mm-hmm.”

“I remember.”

He made an attempt at small talk; offered her coffee, which she declined. They both sat.

“First off, I’d like to thank you for coming all this way. How are you, Kate? I was shocked and saddened about Richard . . . ”

“Me, too.” Her gaze had lowered to the desk.

“Um, there was nothing I could do to get you out of that place,” he said, with some feeling. “I tried. Inquiries were made, believe me.”

Katie looked up at him. “I know,” she replied shyly. “It is what it is. I made the best of it.”

The police chief nodded.

“So, what am I told?” said Katie without hesitation.

Clemency couldn’t help grinning. “Right off the bat. I like that.” His dark eyes twinkled. “He always said you had dash.”

“My dad?”

“Yes. He was very proud of you, I could tell.” The chief glanced away and then back, clearing his throat. “Okay. Here it is. Something’s out there, stealing our young people in the night. Creeping in and stealing them and murdering them. Carving them up, slashing their eyes, mutilating them. Never any signs of sexual assault, so at least there’s that. But they spout Bible verses while they do it. Chants. Always at night.”

“Vespers,” said Katie. “Never any witnesses? No one’s seen him, just heard the chanting?”

“That’s right,” answered Clemency. “A man’s voice. Bastard’s killed three kids so far. Two more are missing.” He put his reading glasses on and took a brown manila folder out of his desk drawer. “Legally I can’t let you see any of the police reports or case files—”

“Well, hell,” Katie said.

“—but I put this together for you.” He handed her the folder, which was filled with black-and-white copies of photographs, clippings of articles and the like, a Xeroxed map with areas circled and margin notes jotted in red ink. She leafed through it briefly.

“Of course the complete story was kept out of the papers. Ongoing investigation and all. They got a few gruesome facts on some unsolved homicides, just to maintain awareness and keep the case in the public’s eye. Certain truths were held back, though, and were never revealed to the press. For example, these kids were covered with insect bites. Actually had the damn things caught in their clothing and hair.”

“Was it spiders?”

The chief looked genuinely startled. “Well hell, is right—maybe you had better tell me.”

“The two others you mentioned—the missing ones? I believe they’re deceased as well.”

“Oh.” His teeth were clenched now. “Christ. Do you know where they are?”

Katie was about to continue when Clemency noticed the silhouettes: figures of subordinates hovering outside the frosted glass of his office door.

“Tell you what, Katelyn,” he said. “Let’s get out of here for a while.”

Katie had spotted the chess set on a small side table against the wall, two chairs at the ready. “Do you play, Chief?” she asked, holding the folder with both hands.

“When I can, when the job allows. You?”

“My father was teaching me.”

“Um-hmm.” He exhaled, gathering his things. “Perhaps we could have a game together sometime.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Back in the reception room, Chief Clemency caught the way Deputy Lou Garko was eyeing Katie beneath the cool-white glow of the fluorescents, lust apparent in his otherwise waxy expression.

“Daughter of an old friend of mine,” the chief commented in passing, breaking the spell, “so don’t even think about it.” He produced squad car keys, let a hint of a smile show benignly through, and followed Katie Franklin from the building.

But Lou Garko thought about it.

***

Twenty minutes later they were up in the old bell tower, high above the tallest of trees. Standing on the squared walkway and gazing out the belfry openings, the rusted iron bell at their backs.

North, east, south, west.

“Started about three years ago,” the police chief said in this hushed, secret still, his hands on the railing. “Animals snatched from yards. House pets. Drugged, or sometimes electrically shocked. Dogs with knife wounds. Gutted. Found with broken legs, eyes put out. Heads bashed in.”

“Ugliness,” Katie said, her disgust obvious. “Coward.”

“Some of them are buried here,” Clemency went on, “in the field below us. You remember Owen Croom?”

Sallow Man, thought Katie dreamily. “Yes.”

“People began bringing their pets to him to be blessed. I don’t know why. They believed he had the gift of longevity, I suppose, like some kind of holy man or something. Afterwards, when the canines eventually did pass, they brought them to be blessed again. Right here.

“This whole field is one big graveyard of animal bones now—people from all walks of life bringing their beloved dogs to be blessed by Mister Owen, taken care of by him. Like a priest giving last rites almost. He’s the one who planted the asters down there, and larkspur. And the dogs, of course, after they’d expired. He laid them to rest here, and he tended to them.”

Their daylight was already slipping away, the sun starting to drop lower in the western sky.

“Where is he?”

“Hm? Owen? He died a few years ago. Lived a lot longer than anybody ever expected him to, that’s for sure. Mm-hmm. Longevity.”

“And the German shepherd he had with him?”

The chief paused. “Oh. She passed on a bit before he did, I seem to recall. Lived a hell of a long time also. Went in her sleep, I want to say.” Palm Clemency blinked, remembering something forgotten. “Wait, that’s . . . Blondie. Sure. She belonged—” He let his words trail off, and he gestured to the purple field stretching beneath them. “She’s here, too. Somewhere.”

“Please, go on,” Katie urged, disheartened.

“Ah. Right. Teenagers began vanishing next, locals, five of them during about a year-and-a-half long period. Three boys, two girls; ages fourteen to seventeen. Last one disappeared six weeks ago. Three of those five have since turned up deceased, in manners like I’ve never even seen before. Or ever want to again. Press was never given all the details on what we found—we wanted to keep them out of the loop, for the most part. No one really knew the full extent of the violence inflicted on those recovered corpses. It was best that way. Small town.” He shifted uneasily, his voice dropping. “How did you know about the spiders, Katelyn? What makes you certain the others are dead?”

“I saw something,” said Katie, “when I first arrived. Something awful. There were five total, I’m pretty sure, but now it’s in fragments. Pieces missing from the whole.” Her pale-gray gaze went distant.

“Always figured as much,” he confessed to her, “although it’s still an active missing persons case. You don’t know where we might locate their remains? The two?”

“No, not yet. I’m sorry.”

Chief Clemency sighed wearily, looking across the field. “Who does something like this?” he breathed. “Are we really cursed here in the Val, like Richard and I used to think? Slashed eyes, the shattered bones. One boy was found naked, his genitals—ruined. Mutilated.” He glanced at her, his own gaze faltering now. “Small town, hmm.”

“Savagery,” Katie broke in. “I followed some of the story, what I could of it, on the Internet when I was inside Ransom.”

“Yes? They must’ve suffered something terrible. I can’t even imagine. And then, dumping venomous spiders all over them like that? While they were still alive.” He shook his head helplessly. “First girl was discovered in the autumn, facedown on a leaf-covered dirt pathway in Shaw Woods with her throat cut; another, Reesie Billups’s daughter, in a vacant field out by the old grain silos. The last one, the nude boy, he was found in what’s left of Jasper Park, close to the river where—near where . . . ” The chief fell silent for a second or two. “Well, you know.

“My police force hasn’t turned up a single lead, no solid evidence to go on. No DNA, other than from the victims themselves. No forensics, no suspects. How odd is that? Even the spiders are a bust; Brazilian wanderers, the lab says. Absolutely no idea how they might have gotten over here. Zilch. It’s a wonder state cops or the feds haven’t stepped into this yet. If they do, and if the national press comes in with them, this town won’t ever be the same. But who knows, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing at this point.” His mouth was slightly twisted, Katie saw.

Clemency forced himself to meet her sympathetic stare. “Again, I want to say thanks for coming to try and help. Your father and I used to talk quite often about you, Katie Kate, during those long-distance calls of ours. I still don’t fully understand everything he told me during those conversations, but that’s all right, I guess. He shared a lot with me before the heart attack came.”

Katie’s face clouded, her elbows on the railing. “I believe it killed him, what happened here fifteen years ago. It broke him, tore down everything he knew about the world. Thought he knew. Weakened him, and then it killed him.”

“You may be right. I’m sorry.”

“Actually, he warned me to stay away from this place. Said no good could ever come of it. But here I am.” She shrugged, and didn’t say any more.

“Don’t take this situation lightly, Katelyn. That would be dangerous.” His eyes held on her. “This is a huge risk we’re taking, and it needs to stay just between us. Try not to draw undue attention , arouse any suspicions. In other words: discreet, and in the background.”

“I’ll be fine,” Katie promised. “I’ve done this type of thing before, back home in Maine. That’s what got me into trouble in the first place.”

“Not like this.” He gave her one of his business cards. “If you get jammed up by anybody, show them the card. Tell them to call me immediately. But please, don’t get jammed up. Please. Try to keep low, okay? Low as you can.”

Katie nodded. She shut her eyes and listened to the quiet around them.

“Strangeness . . . ”

Her eyes remained closed against the sunlight slanting into evening. “Yes.”

“That business by the river, I mean,” said the police chief, frowning darkly, “all those years ago. Over to Jasper Park. Strange, wasn’t it, how we located all the bodies back then except one.” He hesitated a moment. “Glee Deadmond’s—your grandmother.”