Cold on the Mountain Read online

  Phil nodded. He had a bit of a hike, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

  “Good. Take care.”

  And with that, Phil was on his own. He turned and caught Gutierrez adjusting her bra. She grinned and made a big show of finishing her fictional call.

  “Okay. Okay, then I’ll just go see the property on Millikan and come straight back to the office. Bye, hon. Thanks.”

  She put the phone back in her purse and made a theatrical gesture of ushering him up the stairs.

  The place was kind of cute. Hardwoods and attractive crown molding. Sturdy kitchen with antiquated appliances that worked just fine when Phil tested them out. It was sparsely furnished, but there were twin beds for the girls and a smallish master bedroom. There was even a little alcove with a place for the girls to read books or work on art projects.

  It would do, and Phil felt a shiver run through him. Things were falling into place, and he could almost hear the nails on the coffin that would damn them to Adrienne indefinitely.

  “We, uh…we don’t plan on staying too long, Ms. Gutierrez.”

  “Nobody ever does, Mr. Benson. But I’m sure Mr. Wren already told you that.”

  “What I mean to say is that we can’t pay a deposit, or anything like that.”

  Gutierrez mock pouted. “No? Well, the trust will be disappointed, of course. We prefer some form of financial security in our dealings with tenants. Did you…did you try Dorothea’s Corner yet, Mr. Benson? I don’t think she requires a deposit.”

  Phil coughed. “No. No, we’re not interested in staying with her. I guess…I guess we can stay at the motel until something better comes up. Thank you for your time, but I ha—”

  “Not so fast, Mr. Benson! A bird in the hand, am I right? I’ll have to check with the home office, but I think we can forgo the deposit just this once. We’ll call it your ‘Welcome to Adrienne!’ gift! The rent is affordable, and I think you’ll find th—”

  “We can only pay you $600 dollars, Ms. Gutierrez. Nothing more than that. I’m sorry…we—we just don’t have a lot of money.”

  Gutierrez wore a confused expression. “That’s hardly a fair rent, Mr. Benson.”

  “I know,” Phil said. “It’s disappointing. And I don’t want you to get into any trouble. You’ve been so nice to meet me here this early, and you’ve done a fine job of showing the property. A great job, really. It’s just,” he shrugged, “we can’t afford it. It’s as simple as that. And I was really hoping to find a safe place for my girls. But it’s okay. We’ll…we’ll make do some other way. Thanks again.” He made his way for the door, his head down.

  “Stop,” Gutierrez sighed. Her demeanor had shifted. “Dang, you have that hang-dog thing down pat, Mr. Benson. Look, I’m not an ogre. I know that you have twin girls and, regardless of what you might think of me, I can understand your need to find a safe place for them. Even though girls really aren’t his thing, you don’t want them anywhere near that filthy animal Gacy.”

  Phil turned, his heart racing. He and Wendy had run the figures. They could put a lot away at $600 a month. It was about a third of their mortgage back in Oregon.

  “I sincerely appreciate that, Ms. Gutierrez. I really do. You seem like such a nice person. Thank you for your help.”

  She smiled, and there was genuine warmth in it. Phil felt a sudden pang of sadness for the woman. What had gone so badly in her life to bring her to such terrible behavior?

  “I had little ones once, Mr. Benson,” she replied, her eyes shimmering, and Phil understood immediately. “Keep them close and love them every day. Children are a treasure.”

  She turned to swipe a tear away and Phil watched her rummage in her bag for a simple rental agreement. She offered him her pen and he flinched for a second. His hand went to his pants for his own pen, but he reconsidered it, despite Wren’s warning. He took hers and scrawled his name on the paper, and she took the pen back with a smile that said she appreciated the trust in his gesture.

  “Here are your keys, Mr. Benson. You’d better go and get yourself to work. Every minute counts, and there’s some speculation around here that the lottery might come a little early this year.”

  Phil filed that last part away for further discussion with Wren. He took the keys and thanked her again, locking the door on the way out. She waved before puttering off in a late-model Honda and he jogged toward the textile factory, surprised to find a smile on his lips.

  Despite their surreal circumstances, the excitement of finding a new place to live never got old. It was a damned strange thing—like the uncanny satisfaction of picking at a scab—to feel enthusiasm about starting over in such a terrible place.

  He had worked up a light sweat by the time he arrived at the factory, fifteen minutes before the start of the workday.

  Jasper stood outside the factory. He leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette with a half dozen other early arrivals. Somebody made a joke and there was a smattering of chuckles as Phil joined them, panting lightly from the exercise.

  “Jasper,” he said, and the foreman gave him a simple wave. Phil nodded deferentially at the others but got blank stares and hostile sneers in return.

  “You a fitness freak, new guy?” one of them said. He was short and well built—a young guy with a huge chip on his shoulder.

  “Not especially. Just…just don’t want to make a bad impression, you know. I’m Phil, by the way.” He offered his hand, but the young man merely crushed his cigarette beneath a scuffed boot before turning and heading inside. The others followed suit.

  Jasper wore a smile. “Never fun being the new guy, is it? Just keep your head down, and for heaven’s sake, don’t be such a go-getter. These guys will warm up to you in time, but they don’t know you from Adam and you’re a threat to them right now. Remember what I said about pacing yourself this week? You don’t want to work circles around these guys. Makes it hard on you and it gives them a reason to resent you.”

  “How long are they going to give me the treatment?” Phil said. He knew what it was like to be the new guy, of course, but it was still a little surprising. He’d expected more in the way of camaraderie when everyone was stuck in the same shitty situation.

  “A day. Maybe a week. Certainly not much more than a month,” Jasper said with a wink. He flicked his butt and cuffed Phil on the shoulder. “You find a place to stay?”

  Phil nodded, smiling at the gesture of friendship. It was a lifeline in rough waters, and Jasper didn’t seem so bad at all to him in that moment. He wondered just what the man had done to find himself stuck in Adrienne.

  NINETEEN

  Tasket was silent on the trip to Miriam’s, but that was fine; Bo and Kelli enjoyed studying the impressive scenery from the warmth of the cruiser. The snow glowed in the dying afternoon light, the fullness of the moon maybe a week away.

  After a meandering climb, Tasket nosed the cruiser into Gladstone’s drive and put the transmission in park. He turned to his passengers. “Now, you both know that I’m firmly on the record in my opinion that this is a bad idea, right?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. I want that out there in the open.” He sighed, and his disposition softened. “But listen…I am trying to keep an open mind here. It’s not easy, but I’m trying. Now c’mon, kids—let’s get all this voodoo shit out of the way.”

  With that, he was out and charging up the stairs, all business as he rapped on the storm door. Bo and Kelli suppressed their grins as they followed him up to Miriam’s.

  They understood that Tasket was in a difficult spot—caught between the world he knew and comfortably understood, and this new angle on solving a disappearance. It had to be grating on him.

  “Good to see you…all of you,” she said, her eyes lingering on the sheriff. “Please, come inside. Anna’s already here. Can I get you all something to drink? I’ve got wine and beer—coffee and tea.”

  “Coffee,” Tasket growled. “Black…please, ma’am.”

  “I’ll ha
ve some red wine if you’ve got it,” Kelli said, and Bo asked for the same.

  They made their way into the den, where Anna Wells was immersed in a book. She smiled at them and put it aside.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” she said theatrically. “I’ve just been reading about the rites of séance. I’m not sure if that’s what we’re doing here tonight, but it’s actually in there. Can you believe it? A freaking séance! That, and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff.”

  Tasket picked up the book. A trio of unfamiliar characters had been etched into its leather cover. Other than those odd symbols, the book lacked any other form of ornamentation—no author or publisher. “Parchment,” he said, paging through it. “Looks pretty old.”

  “More than two hundred years,” Miriam said, bringing him his coffee. She had a corked bottle of merlot beneath her arm and a couple of wine glasses. She set Bo and Kelli up with drinks and topped off Anna’s glass before taking her seat with a contented sigh. “I got it on eBay. So…are we all set to begin?”

  Four sets of confused eyes darted about the room.

  “We, uh…” Tasket said, clearing his throat. “So it’s just like that, huh? We just…begin?”

  “No,” Miriam said, grinning. “I’m teasing. This is actually a very difficult task that we’re trying to accomplish here, and it requires two elements above all others: strength and belief. We have to be strong in our convictions to bring Phil and his family home, as well as Anna’s dear Frankie, and we have to believe—truly believe, right from the center of our hearts—that we can actually do it. I’m…I’m going to step into the physical vessel of somebody in Adrienne. Somebody…not so nice.”

  Anna’s mouth fell open and she stared at Miriam with awe. “Who?”

  Miriam rummaged in a bag near her feet until she found the jar of soil. She took her time in spilling it before her and spreading it evenly over the tabletop. “Somebody that I met when I was there. Somebody who probably knows just precisely when the lottery will happen—or at least can tell us if it’s going to happen soon. Somebody…well, somebody hostile.”

  “Hostile?” Tasket said, his finger finding that spot on his neck. “Care to elaborate?”

  Miriam calmly folded her hands before her, any warmth in her expression gone. Bo’s eyes went from hers to the soil in front of her. Barely—just barely—he noticed that it was trembling.

  It was vibrating, as if in anticipation.

  “I don’t know the entity’s name. It only…it only revealed itself to me for a moment on my way out of Adrienne. It was just a shadow, really. A dark spot, in the vague shape of a human. I suppose you could call it a gatekeeper, but I didn’t get the sense that it was one of them, and by that, I mean the dark ones. The monsters consigned to Adrienne. Maybe once it had been a person, but not now, and certainly not when I was there. There’s this creepy short story that we all read back in high school—about a terrible ritual in this tiny New England village.”

  “Shirley Jackson?” Kelli said, and Miriam replied with a knowing shake of the head.

  “Have you ever read Jackson’s ‘The Lottery,’ Sheriff Tasket?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Anna?”

  “Oh, of course. It’s a classic.”

  Anna summarized the story, and Tasket winced when she reached the conclusion. Though Bo had read it years ago, hearing her synopsis still sent a chill through him. The concept was just about as surreal as an arbitrary lottery freeing those poor innocent souls stuck in Adrienne.

  “Come to think of it, that does ring a bell. They made it into a movie, didn’t they?” Tasket said.

  “Oh, a couple of times, I think,” Miriam said, “though they have yet to do Shirley’s story any justice in that medium, I’m afraid. Mostly made-for-television crap if you ask me—no offense Bo.”

  The actor shrugged. “None taken.”

  “Anyway,” Miriam continued, “the entity that I’m going to attempt to make contact with…well, he’s sort of like—”

  “Sort of like Mr. Summers?” Kelli cut in.

  “Bingo,” Miriam smiled. “I’m going to attempt a little pow-wow with Adrienne’s very own version of Mr. Summers.”

  ~0~

  Phil was sweating.

  “Take it easy,” Jasper warned him. They were on their morning break. “You’re putting up some strong numbers out there, Phil. You want those guys to really hate you? Keep working circles around them and see how that works out for you.”

  Phil nodded. He knew it was poor form for the new guy to show everybody up, but it was hard for him not to push it. Going through the motions wasn’t his style, though the work he was doing at Adrienne Automated bore zero resemblance to his tenuous office job back in Oregon. No, this was honest-to-god labor. He had the throbbing joints and aching back to prove it.

  “I know it,” he replied. “I’ll pace myself—promise. Hey, Jasper? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “How is it that you’re working so closely with the rest of us out there on the floor and yet…yet, you’re…”

  Jasper grinned. “Yet I’m one of them, eh Phil? One of the dark ones. Boo!”

  Despite himself, Phil flinched. Jasper was a trip. He did seem different than the others. There was something fundamentally decent about the man. Gacy had projected an unsettling vibe from the moment he’d emerged from the back office, that dab of paint still clinging to his temple. Goebbels had exuded an eerie, officious danger, San Marco a frantic lunacy. The few glimpses he’d caught of Levi Strauss had caused him to immediately avert his gaze—as if the very act of making eye contact with the bearish industrialist would melt his face or something.

  There were people in Adrienne whose very presence inspired gooseflesh.

  But Jasper…Jasper was different. He was good natured, if you could overlook that little fly-barking episode back on the mountainside.

  “Well, yeah…I mean, I guess you are,” Phil replied, a nervous tremor in his tone. “One of them, I mean. Technically. But you’re stuck down here with us on the floor. Isn’t that strange? I mean, in terms of the pecking order around here. The rest of us—the grunt labor…we just got stuck here. You, though. You, uh—”

  “I killed people, right Phil? I’m some ruthless murderer, like the rest of these sickos? Can’t you tell? You’d better watch out, buddy,” he said with a wink. “You don’t want a bad performance evaluation, do you?” Jasper made a gun with his thumb and index finger and mimed taking a shot.

  Phil’s mouth fell open, and Jasper chuckled. He gave Phil a playful swat on the shoulder. “Honestly, Phil…what do you think? Am I like these other people?” He cut his eyes and lowered his voice, now speaking with sincerity. “These legitimately dark souls? Am I one of them?”

  “I, uh,” Phil stammered. He drew a deep breath. “No, Jasper. No, I don’t think you’re one of them at all.”

  “Well, there it is, right? There it very well is.”

  “But if you’ve been here for so long, why haven’t—”

  He was interrupted by the shrill blast of the plant whistle. Their break was finished, and droves of workers streamed toward their work stations.

  The world needed more blue jeans.

  “C’mon, Phil,” Jasper said, patting him on the back as they left the break room, “let’s get back to it. Tell you what. You pace yourself for the rest of the day and do a passable job of making all of our lives a little easier around here, and I’ll let you buy me a beer after work, yeah? Maybe we can have a little chat about the complexity of my status in this here alpine Eden.”

  “Okay,” Phil replied. “That actually sounds pretty good.”

  And it wasn’t a lie. Just a few days earlier, the thought of having a beer with a man who had taken another human being’s life would have been an utter impossibility.

  Phil just didn’t know those kinds of people.

  Now, it sounded like a decent way to blow off some s
team after a hard day of sewing blue jeans.

  Funny, Phil thought as he stooped to gather another role of denim, how perspective can change in the blink of an eye.

  ~0~

  “What is that?” Tasket said, motioning at the board perched at the edge of the table. It was covered in ornately scripted letters and numbers. Miriam rummaged through her bag until she located a little plastic device.

  “Ouija board,” she replied. “Thought it might speed things up.”

  Bo felt his heart kick up a notch. Jesus. How long had it been since he’d seen one of those? He winced, and his reaction didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Bo?” Kelli said. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Bo said, but it was far from the truth. He felt a twinge of nausea—the very same nausea he’d felt back in the timber company’s field office.

  “You’re pale as the new moon,” Anna said. “You sure you’re okay?”

  Bo swallowed thickly and the nausea abated. It wasn’t gone altogether, but at least he wouldn’t lose his dinner. “We, uh…we used to play with one of those when I was a kid. Phil and me. One of Phil’s buddies had given it to him. The kid claimed he had to get rid of it—that it just got too scary, and his parents didn’t want it in the house anymore. We thought it was a game, you know? And then,” he shrugged.

  “Then what, honey?” Kelli prodded.

  Bo cleared his throat. “We...one time we were playing with it, and we made contact with this spirit. This…little girl. She was around our age. We called her Maddy—short for Madeline. She came around pretty often for a few weeks. Phil and I would just touch the pointer and call out to see if she was around, and that sucker would take right off. Sometimes she wasn’t there, but more often than not she answered the call. And when she did, that pointer would zip around the board quicker than we could write down what she was spelling out.

  “And most of the time, we weren’t even touching it.”

  “Oh, come on,” Tasket smirked. “Bo, you can’t be serious.”