Dark Inspiration Read online

  She wanted from that first day to share what she endured with Doug, but he seemed resolute in some plan to just pretend that nothing ever happened. He offered quick platitudes and a change of subject when she tried, so she quickly gave up. She went to see a therapist at his suggestion, which she assumed was his way of passing the buck.

  To break this spell of sadness that she awoke to, she focused on the positives as her therapist recommended. She thought about how amazing the last few months had been. As soon as Doug made the decision to quit his job, it was as if a magic wand sprinkled them with fairy dust. The rush, the energy, the lightness of their first year of marriage was back. Doug had become Doug again, not Sleazy Reporter Douglas Locke, not Distant Almost-Dad Doug. They smiled together again, kidded each other and made love like they had in college. She had no doubt that tonic sped her recovery from the gunshot wound. Her hands had healed in record time. Even the initial fears she had about being at school, or even being in public, faded quickly. Without his positive energy, she feared she would have traveled a long and dark path.

  A wave of worry washed over her bright remembrances. The turret room. So beautiful on the outside, but inside… As soon as she crossed the threshold, she felt the blood drain from her extremities. Her body temperature dropped so rapidly, she felt chills. There was something unnerving about that room, something fundamentally wrong. She couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.

  Thank God Doug liked it. She dreaded casting a pall over their adventure by saying that a room in the new house gave her the creeps. But Doug took the room without reservation. She was sure once he made it his own, whatever bad vibe she picked up would dissipate. Too much was going too well to risk bringing up nonsense feelings.

  It was two thirty a.m.. She needed to sleep. She had an interview in the morning she needed to ace. She rolled over to wrap herself around her warm husband and drift back off. She pulled herself along the king-size mattress until her hand reached the far side. Doug was gone.

  Doug never got up in the middle of the night. He once slept through a house fire across the street. Laura sat straight up.

  “Doug!”

  “Whoa,” he said, pushing open the bedroom door. “I’m right here. No need to yell.”

  “Where were you? I woke up and you were gone.”

  “Just getting some water. I woke up parched.”

  “Well, get back in here,” Laura said. She pulled back the covers on his side of the bed. “Leaving me alone in a new house. Really.”

  Doug slid back in. Laura wrapped herself around him and shivered.

  “You are freezing!” she cried. “Did you drink that water standing in front of an open refrigerator?”

  “Just chilly, I guess,” Doug said. “Warm me up like the wonderful wife you are.”

  Laura spooned close behind him and wrapped one leg over his. She kissed the back of his neck.

  “Like that?” she said.

  Doug pulled her arm up to his chest. “Just like that,” he said.

  She fell asleep pondering interview questions. He lay awake worried about the man by the pond.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, the sheriff’s office was a surprise. It was on the south side of town, a few blocks from the quaint town square. Doug’s Mayberry-inspired vision of small town law enforcement didn’t fit at all. The building couldn’t have been more than five years old. A fleet of new black-and-white Dodge Chargers further attested to the county’s commitment to the rule of law.

  Inside, a few uncomfortable chairs lined the wall of the small lobby. One door with a keypad lock led to the rest of the offices. Behind a glass window sat a matronly woman in a blue uniform shirt. The patch on her shoulder had Citizen’s Auxiliary stitched over the county crest. The silver tag over her left pocket read Gladys W... The glass window had a slot at the bottom for passing documents and a circular speaker mounted in the center. She flamboyantly pushed the intercom button and shoved her face against a microphone on a stalk.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Her voice echoed like The Great And Powerful Oz in the small room. The speaker clicked off like a rifle shot.

  “I’m Doug Locke. I’d like to speak with the sheriff if he has a minute.”

  She looked Doug over like he was from Mars, a reaction to newcomers that Doug would find universal in Moultrie.

  “It’s about some trespassing on my property,” Doug volunteered.

  “You can’t shoot ’em,” Gladys said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t shoot ’em. Lots of you city folks move out here and think you can shoot ’em. But you can’t. We’re just as civilized as anyone else.”

  “I didn’t really plan on—”

  “Well, no one does,” Gladys cut in. “It’s always just self-defense. Sheriff’ll tell you the same thing.” She pointed at the door to the parking lot. “Ask him yourself.”

  Sheriff Rick Mears met none of Doug’s expectations. Doug had imagined at best TV’s Andy Taylor, at worst Smokey and the Bandit’s Buford T. Justice. Instead Sheriff Mears looked like a USMC recruiting poster, down to the broad shoulders and blond crew cut. He had ten years on Doug but it was hard to tell.

  “Sheriff,” Gladys announced through the speaker. “Mr. Locke here needs a word with you about shooting trespassers.”

  Sheriff Mears gave Doug a quick examination. Doug’s face went beet red.

  “I don’t want to shoot anyone,” Doug said. He extended his hand. “Doug Locke. My wife and I just moved into the old Galaxy Farm.”

  Gladys stifled a gasp from behind the window. Sheriff Mears gave Doug’s hand an iron-gripped shake.

  “Oh, the Hutchington place,” the sheriff said. The phone company rep had referred to his house that way as well. He wondered how many generations of his family would have to live in it before someone referred to it as the Locke place. “So you don’t have a trespassing problem?”

  “No, I do,” Doug said, irked that Gladys had managed to sow confusion and suspicion in a matter of seconds. “There was something strange there last night I thought you could help us with. There was someone out by the pond in the middle of the night.”

  The sheriff’s face pinched a bit with suspicion. He took a subconscious half step back. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I am,” Doug said. “Some young guy. Tall. Thin. Walking the pond probing the ground with some sort of stick. He left footprints everywhere.”

  The sheriff’s face relaxed. “Oh, okay. Did you see his face?”

  “Long, pale, wasted. White guy.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I’ve got an idea. Probably Vernon Pugh.”

  Doug gave him a blank look.

  “Vernon Pugh,” the sheriff repeated. “He was the last tenant at your address.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Doug said. “I bought the property from the bank. Who is this guy?”

  “It’s a long story, but you’ll find every place around here has one. Galaxy Farm was built by the Hutchingtons in the 1920s. Vernon Pugh was the last family member to live there. When his father Alexander died, the bank ended up administering the estate and selling the property. Taxes and a note came due, and Vern couldn’t pay.”

  “So the bank tossed him off the property.”

  “They bought Vernon off with an acre of land south of yours and Vernon put a trailer on it,” the sheriff said. “Vernon wasn’t happy about it but he never turned violent because I didn’t get called in. They convinced him he wasn’t going to win anything suing, especially since no lawyer in town would take his case.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a little strange,” the sheriff said. “But no history of violence.”

  Doug did not take that statement as a ringing endorsement.

  “We busted him a few times for personal possession, DUI. Nothing to warrant jail time. But he’s a loner type. Secretive. I’m certain he isn’t happy with you in the house he considers his birthright. He probably thought
he had a right to trespass.”

  “But he doesn’t,” Doug said. “I don’t want him lurking around there. If Laura saw him out there, it would scare her to death.”

  “I’ll drop by his trailer,” Sheriff Mears said. “Pay the boy a little visit and make sure he understands where things sit. I don’t think he’ll be any trouble after that.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “And just to be on the safe side,” the sheriff added. “Post some No Trespassing signs at your property line. Keeps you covered and lets the neighbors who hunt know that you don’t want them poaching your deer this fall.”

  Doug had never thought of the wildlife on his land as being his property. The idea made him smile. “I’ll put them up today, Sheriff.” He added the signs to the mental list of items he needed to pick up in town.

  Sheriff Mears punched a code into the keypad and entered the office area. Doug turned to go.

  “That’s not the whole story,” Gladys whispered. She was hunkered down over her desk with her mouth near the window’s mail slot.

  “What do you mean?” Doug asked.

  “Vernon wasn’t Alexander Hutchington’s full son,” she said. “Dirty old man was over sixty-five when his mistress gave birth. And a slutty thing she was, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Doug promised. The sarcasm sailed over Gladys’s head.

  “Worse, Vern was born with no hands,” Gladys said.

  “None at all?”

  “Well, just nubs for fingers,” Gladys said. “Boy could barely hold a pencil in school. Then his mother died when he was twelve and he was on his own. Of course wolves could do a better job that his mother anyhow. But Alexander’s wife, a good church-going woman, mind you, had just passed, so Alexander took him in, acknowledging the boy without actually doing it, you see?”

  Doug realized that Gladys’s volunteerism with the police department was more to keep a thumb on the gossip pulse than to serve and protect. “So, Vern should have owned the house,” Doug said.

  “Alexander left Vern the house,” Gladys said. “But he willed everything else to an animal rights group up in Nashville. Vern didn’t have no money, so he couldn’t pay even the small note the bank held against it. Taxes came due and Vern went belly-up. The bank tossed him out.”

  A neighbor with a serious grudge, Doug thought. Perfect. Gladys’s idea about shooting him might have more merit than he first thought.

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Doug said.

  “You do that,” Gladys said. “Boy’s record back here is thick, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Of course,” Doug said. He backed out the front door with a little wave.

  He fired up the Volvo and started to worry. To Laura, the vengeful criminal neighbor would be as welcome as a plague of locusts. If Gladys had been so quick to share the story with him, someone else in the Moultrie gossip net would be sure to give the news to Laura. But she didn’t know about Vern’s little midnight foray to the pond, so as far as she knew, he didn’t even exist. Doug decided he could hold Vern’s story back from her for now. No need to give her something else to worry about.

  Damn Vernon Pugh, Sheriff Mears thought.

  He sat at his desk, cowboy boots resting on the edge as he leaned back in his chair. The walls of his office were covered with grip-and-grin pictures with every county official past and present from his last six years as sheriff. He’d put away a lot of rotten apples in that time, but Pugh hadn’t been one of them.

  Mears wished he had been, but the boy didn’t break the right laws. Mears would have been happier with him off the street, but not just because he was the epitome of white trailer trash. The county was full of that. He wanted him put away because he gave Mears the creeps, a crawling discomfort that wrapped around his spine and squeezed. He hadn’t gotten that bad a case of the willies since he’d come across that Serbian fortuneteller in Kosovo during his active duty days.

  Mears stood and grabbed his hat off the hat rack. Not the usual baseball cap emblazoned with the department logo, but the heavy, hot, peaked cap that exuded authority. It’d bring a little psychological edge to his meeting with Mr. Pugh. Anything to help him make his point and get away from that sewer of a trailer Vernon called home.

  Chapter Nine

  Laura’s heart beat so loudly she was sure the students passing her on the way into school were going to stare and whisper. Her future was on the line at this interview. In this rural county, Moultrie Elementary was her best bet for employment anywhere near their home. The pressure squeezed her like a corset. She prayed she wouldn’t start sweating in her best navy suit.

  Moultrie Elementary was beautiful. The façade was all chiseled tan block granite with tall narrow windows and the ten-foot ceilings favored in the late ’40s. The school, including the playground and parking lot, took up most of a town block. Laura stood outside the front doors and drew in a deep strengthening breath before entering. A few late kids dashed past her and inside. She clutched her portfolio under her arm and followed them in.

  She unshouldered her purse automatically and realized she didn’t have to. She wasn’t in New York anymore. No metal detectors, no security search. She smiled like a miner seeing the sun again. Finally, a school not gripped with the endemic fear of violence. What a joy.

  The principal’s office was down the polished hallway to the left. Posters renouncing drugs and praising performance covered the walls. Laura swung her portfolio up against her chest and gripped it with both hands. She accidentally thumbed the catch and its contents slid to the floor like a white waterfall.

  “Oh, no!” Her teaching life lay on the floor like a tossed deck of cards. If kids came barreling out of a classroom now, her work would be destroyed. She dropped to her knees and began shuffling papers together.

  A second set of hands pitched in. The man crouched beside her was in his mid-fifties with wire-rimmed glasses and a full head of silver hair. His broad face carried a matching wide smile. He wore a blue corduroy jacket but his white shirt was open at the collar. He picked up one of her pictures of her old classroom.

  “Looks like you need a hand,” he said. “Is this your classroom in the picture?”

  “Yes,” Laura said. She barely looked up in her scramble to reorganize her papers. “That was my classroom outside New York City.”

  “New York?” he said. “We hear that those schools are close to prisons. This looks downright cheery.” He pointed to the ceiling tiles that were painted in alternating primary colors. “Did you paint these?”

  “Yes. I spent a Saturday with a few cans of spray paint the week before school started. I wanted the children to know right away that their classroom was a special place, different from all the others.”

  “I’m Ken,” the gentleman said. He scooped a half-dozen papers from the floor.

  “I’m Laura. Nice to meet you.”

  “I assume you are here for an interview,” Ken said. “Lets get this stuff straight before you go in.”

  They laid all her papers out on a narrow table outside the principal’s office. Laura quickly sorted the pages into stacks of test examples, classroom setup and student evaluations. The student evaluations were closest to Ken.

  “These are pretty detailed,” Ken said, looking one over. “Much more than the ones I need to fill out. I’ll give the big city credit on that one.”

  “No, those are mine,” Laura said. “I used those in addition to the standard forms. I had some serious ‘at risk’ kids and I wanted to make sure that their parents knew what they needed to succeed.”

  She collated her stacks and slipped then into her portfolio. “Okay. I’m ready. Any tips on talking to Principal Wheedle?”

  “Nope,” Ken said. “I’ve known him all his life and he’s a decent man. Let me walk you in and introduce you.”

  Before she could decline the offer, they were past the receptionist in the outer office and through an open door into the principal�
��s office. An imposing mahogany desk sat in the center. Laura caught her breath when she saw the name plate on it.

  Principal Kenneth Weedle

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  Ken laughed. “Don’t tense up now, Ms. Locke. The interview was going so well.” He sat down at his desk. “Let’s continue by telling me about that boy’s evaluation I saw. Kendrick? Tell me how you diagnosed his dyslexia.”

  Thirty minutes later, Laura had a job with the best principal she had ever met.

  Chapter Ten

  Flies buzzed in the trailer’s stale air like a lazy droning chorus. The weak daylight that passed through the small dirty windows gave the interior a sense of permanent dusk. Hardened shriveled remnants of past meals clung to the dishes piled on the kitchen countertop. The hollow plop of the dripping faucet in the sink marked time.

  Vernon Pugh sat on a sagging frayed couch. He stared through rips in the ragged tan curtains. He could see a sliver of Galaxy Farm through the trees. It was the only house that ever felt like home. The sight of the place used to fill him with joy, but now… He ground his teeth in seething anger. A dagger of pain lanced his jaw. A lifetime of bottled rage had ground his rear molars down to the nerves, yet he could not break the habit. But pain makes you learn, pain makes you stronger. So Mama had said between educating lashes with the big studded belt.

  Long greasy hair framed his drawn pallid face. His pale blue eyes looked like life had washed the vibrancy from them. The dirt on his jeans gave them a hard, dark sheen. He wore a Joe Camel promotional t shirt. Time had cracked and faded Joe unmercifully and the phrase Lasting Flavor stenciled below him had been reduced to sting Flav through attrition. Herpes scabs lined his upper lip.

  Tires crunched through the gravel outside. Vern went to the window. He brushed the curtain aside. He could barely grip the cloth. His shortened fingers lacked the last knuckle and had just an irregular spot of a fingernail at each tip. They all bent in, as if half grasping some phantom object. Doctors had blamed his mother’s drug use. Momma had said it was God’s will.