Dead Man's Song (Pine Deep 2)

Chapter 29

(1)

Diego saw them walking along the back road and cut through the rows of corn to intercept them, pushing his John Deere cap back on his forehead and smiling. “Little dark out here for a stroll, ladies, dontcha think?”

Val shrugged affably. “Taking the shortcut back to the house. How’s the tractor?”

“Axle’s shot, but we’re going to tow it in back to the shed and José and Ty can fix it tomorrow. ”

“Okay. I have to go into town for a bit. You guys should knock off for today. ”

Diego grinned, his teeth very white against the deep black of his mustache. “Okay, we’ll wrap it up as soon as t

he tractor’s moved. Besides, it’s Little Halloween and there’s a keg party at the campus. Ty and the others were planning on heading out there. ”

“Not you?”

“Too old for that crap. Gonna order a pizza, watch Dawn of the Dead on cable, and fall asleep in my La-Z-Boy. At my age that’s partying. ”

“Sounds like a plan. ”

“Hey,” he said, “if you two are going to be out prowling around you should take this. ” He tugged a Maglite from his back pocket, turned it on, and handed it over.

“We’re just heading back to the house. I need to get my purse and leave a note for Crow in case he comes out, and then we’re taking off. Thanks, Dee. ”

He sketched a salute and headed back across the fields to where José and Ty were hooking the tractor up to the tow-rig on Diego’s big Tundra. The moment he was out of sight Connie’s mental focus seemed to snap back on as if someone had thrown a switch. “I know!” she said brightly. “Maybe before we go see Sarah we can bake her a pumpkin pie. ” Like most of her recent remarks it was as much of a non sequitur as if she’d suggested they set themselves on fire and jump off the roof. Val was learning to roll with them, but it took effort.

“Sure, honey,” she said, “but let’s do that later. C’mon. ”

As they walked the strong white beam of the Maglite picked out their path through the corn on one side and the harvested field on the other, and then caught a splash of dark red as the barn loomed out of the darkness in front of them. In the field they could hear the Tundra’s engine growl to life as Diego and his men began hauling the tractor back to the shed that was down the road from the barn. Val and Connie walked without hurry, and Val figured that if an ambulance was coming to take Terry in to Pinelands, then Sarah would be busy for a while getting him settled. No need to be there for that; it was those long hours of waiting and fretting in the lounge while the doctors ran their tests when Sarah would need allies.

“Maybe we should put together some fruits and things and take a basket,” Connie rattled on and on. “I have a lovely basket in the pantry and we could use some of that ribbon that—”

Then the flash caught something shiny lying in the dirt just outside the barn door and Val bent to pick it up. It was a small diamond-shaped medallion with a length of broken silver chain. Clearly stamped on the front was a six-armed cross painted bright red and set with a tiny caduceus in the center.

“That’s odd…that’s Mark’s MedicAlert necklace,” Connie said with surprise, “for his peanut allergy. ”

“I know,” Val said, turning it over to see the warning notice and phone numbers. “He must have dropped it. ” She looked around and then skimmed the flashlight beam along the dirt path that led from the barn to the house. A line of footprints, clearly Mark’s smooth-soled Florsheims, was visible heading toward the barn, but no overlapping prints led back. Frowning, Val slowly followed the footprints, and saw a second set of prints—shoes of a different size but still city shoes—also heading toward the barn and these were overlapped by Mark’s. Was he meeting someone there? That seemed very odd. The prints led right up to the door, and the last visible print was cut off by the door that had been pulled almost all the way closed. Obviously Mark had gone into the barn and pulled the door shut behind him.

Connie shifted to stand next to her, her eyes following the same path and the same logic Val had used, and there were twin vertical lines between her brows. “Is Mark in the barn?” she asked, as if that was the strangest thing in the world.

“I think so. ” Val took a half-step toward the door, and then paused. Did she really want another screaming match right now? She was shaking her head in answer to her own question when Connie said, “Open the door. ”

“If he’s still in there, Conn, then maybe he wants to be alone for a bit. Let’s leave him be. ”

It was at that moment that they heard something move inside the barn. It was a soft, shuffling sound—a scrape of a shoe on the hard-packed dirt floor just on the other side of the big plank door. It froze Val in place and she stood staring at the nearly closed door, at the black line of inky darkness between the door and the frame. Was Mark right there, listening to them? Listening and saying nothing? Standing there in the dark?

She glanced at Connie, who had also heard the sound. Her frown lines had deepened. “Mark…?”

Another sound—a shift again and this time Val was sure that it was the scuff of a shoe on the floor, just on the other side of the door. It had to be Mark, of course, but why was he standing there in the dark? It was so—she fished for the word. Weird. Especially for Mark, who was not the type to be loitering in the darkened barn. Farm-bred or not, Mark was a city boy, and this was just not his sort of thing. It was—prankish; even a little mean. That part—the meanness—that could be Mark, but not prankish.

A third scuff and now there was a second sound. A more organic sound, like a grunt. Not a middle-register grunt of a pig—there were no pigs on the Guthrie farm—but a deeper sound, almost a cough, or maybe a single short snort of laughter.

“Mark?” Connie asked again and started reaching for the door handle, but Val instinctively caught her wrist.

“No,” she said quietly, staring hard at the door, at that vertical line of darkness that showed a total lack of light inside. “Don’t. ” She hadn’t liked that grunt, whether it was a cough or a snort, it just didn’t sound right. “Let’s go back to the house,” she said. She took Connie’s wrist in her free hand and then took a single backward step, drawing Connie with her. Connie resisted, her gaze lingering for a moment on the door before finally turning around to give Val an uncomprehending stare.

“But—it’s Mark,” she said, giving Val a frowning smile of confusion.