Joe Turner carried an apple crate into Eddie’s that night. He hefted it up onto the bar, then climbed onto a stool. He put his elbows on the bar and said, “Draft.”
Eddie, the bartender, broke off a chat he’d been having with Rita Johnson at the far end of the bar. He slid to the taps, then plucked a glass, filled it. He put the beer down in front of Joe Turner and said, “Nice box.”
The crate was old, with dusty slats and faded remnants of labels and stickers. The slats went together tongue-and-groove, so there were no gaps. They didn’t make crates like that anymore.
Joe ignored the compliment and picked up his beer.
“So what’s in it?” Eddie asked.
Joe drank half the beer without coming up for air. He put down the glass and said, “Myrna.”
“Your wife?”
Joe glared. “You know any other Myrna?”
Eddie eyed the box. “Kinda small.”
At the end of the bar, Rita giggled, maybe even at what Eddie had said.
Joe cleared his throat and shifted on the stool. “Chopped her up.”
Rita’s giggling ceased.
Eddie leaned over the box, glanced down into it. A burlap sack covered the contents. “No blood,” he said.
“Washed all that off,” Joe told him, finishing the beer. He set down the glass and looked at Eddie.
With a nod, Eddie drew another beer. When he brought it back, he said, “You feelin’ okay, Joe?”
“Fine.” He sipped the second beer as if tasting it for the first time. “Now.”
Eddie grabbed a bar cloth and rubbed the mahogany near Joe. Rita, meanwhile, had balanced her martini on the tightrope walk to the nearest booth.
“Pretty dead in here,” Eddie said aloud, at once glancing at the crate on the bar, then at Joe. Joe’s face remained blank, like any tired working man’s.
Rita was watching Eddie’s eyes, ready to laugh if he’d meant it as a joke.
“She just fell apart,” Joe said, putting a hand on the crate. “Nothin’ to her.”
“Joe,” Eddie said. He used a man-to-man tone. “Are you telling me you killed Myrna?” He’d heard confessions of every kind over the years, but it was hard to tell a serious one when it came along. The lack of embellishments — hell, the lack of sexual braggadocio — had him worried about this one.
Joe sighed, gulped more beer. “Never said I killed her.”
“You said you chopped her up.”
Joe scowled. “Couldn’t leave her like she was.” He shuddered, gagged.
“Like she was, how?” Rita asked, calling the question in a quavering voice that barely carried across the empty room.
Joe looked around at her, then turned back to finish his beer. He said nothing. He dug out his wallet, selected a five, and flicked it onto the bar. He stood, belched, and hefted the crate. He walked out without his change.
Eddie plunked the coins into a charity bowl, then said to Rita, “Never saw Joe stranger.”
“His Myrna’s the strange one,” Rita said, holding up an empty martini glass with a gleam of hope in her eye. “If he ended up taking an axe to her, ain’t no surprise to me.”
Eddie asked her if she had any more cash. When she said no, he spotted her one for the road or, in her case, the street. When she’d guzzled and gone, he went to the telephone, the one under the bar. His hand perched on it, then flew off, as if startled. He eyed the pay-phone on the wall by the door. He dug into the till and shrugged, then used the pay-phone to drop a dime on Joe Turner.
#
That town had two cops. One was always on duty, but not by alternating. It was a matter of character. Cal Melkins liked the work. He kept the scanner on at home and carried a brick on his hip twenty-four/seven. He responded to calls in or out of uniform. He caught Eddie’s call concerning Joe Turner because he happened to be lingering in the office after a 12-hour shift, shooting the breeze with his subordinate, the only other town cop, Mark Gracelli.
When the ‘phone rang, Cal snatched it up without thinking. He listened, raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips, and said, “You don’t say. Okay, I’ll check it out.”
Mark Gracelli opened a Clark Bar, chomped half of it, and watched Cal cradle the ‘phone. He preferred any kind of action, even routine patrols, to any kind of desk work, even answering the ‘phone, but he knew better than to offer Cal a chance to go home now that he’d taken another call. “What’s up?” he asked.
Cal punched his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Eddie Slocombe. Says Joe Turner was in just now. Something about Joe saying he killed his wife.”
Mark licked his fingers, having finished the candy bar. “He that old farmer out Grantview way?”
“Yeah, boards dogs now. Hasn’t raised a crop in years.” Cal grabbed his brick, a heavy radio with secure channels, and headed out. Over his shoulder he called, “I’ll let you know.”
After the door’s pneumatic hinge had pumped the door shut, Mark said, “You do that, Cal. You do just exactly that.” He pulled open a drawer and looked for more candy.
#
“Thought maybe he had a litter of puppies in the box,” Eddie told Cal, who stood with one foot on the brass rail. Rita, long gone, had left her purse. Eddie gave it to Cal, who promised to deliver it or keep it until she asked after it. “Well,” Cal said, “guess there’s no law against a man talking that way. Or carrying a box around.”
“You didn’t see him, Cal. He was dead serious.” There was that word again, dead. Seemed to be on Eddie’s mind that night.
“Guess I could drop in on them, see how things look. I’m off duty.”
“Yeah, friendly visit,” Eddie agreed.
#
Mark Gracelli sighed and looked at the clock, then leaned back in the swivel chair. He pulled open his snack drawer, then slammed it. He said, “What the hell,” and picked up the ‘phone. He dialed the number he’d looked up just after Cal had left. He listened to the buzz a dozen times, then hung up and said, “Myrna’s not answering.”
The radio stood on a counter behind him. He swiveled around and keyed the mike. “You there, Cal?”
“Go ahead, Mark. Whatcha got?”
“No one answers the ‘phone at the Turner farm, Cal. Might want to be a little careful. It’s not that late, y’know? Even for farmers.”
Both knew the local farmers went to bed early, and many didn’t have ‘phones upstairs, but it was only a little after eight-thirty. “Thanks,” Cal said.
“Where are you?”
“En route. Just driving past a couple places Joe might’ve gone. I’ll be at the farm inside twenty minutes.”
“Just you watch you don’t get your head bashed in,” Mark said. He flipped the microphone off and rolled back to the log book. He made an entry of the night’s activity, then opened his snack drawer again.
#
Cal spotted Rita Johnson leaning in a doorway a block south of the main drag. It was the old Grange building, its windows boarded. Cal pulled the car over and rolled down his window. “You change addresses again, Rita?”
She sauntered over. “Just restin’, honey. I’m still at the Buckhorn.”
“Glad to hear it. That old place there –” he indicated the Grange building with a look — “isn’t safe. Floors are rotten.”
“You came out here just to warn me, Cal?”
He told her he was looking for Joe Turner. She perked up when he told her what Eddie had said. “If there was pups in that old apple crate,” she said, “then they was dead pups. Didn’t hear a yip or any sound at all, and that ain’t puppies.”
He agreed. Especially when they’d been carried roughly in a box and slammed down on a bar. Puppies would make some noise. If they could.
“Besides,” Rita added, now leaning on the police car. “Joe’s brought puppies around before.” To unload on sentimental drunks and guilty family men. “Joe’s always in a good mood when he’s got pups with him. He likes ‘em. Never had kids, him and Myrna.” She trailed off into a glum reverie — she’d never had children either. There was no one to look after her, her posture said.
She still hadn’t asked about it, so Cal said, “I hear you’re missing something.”
“Me?” She genuinely didn’t know. “Besides the rent? And here I thought I had a pretty full life.”
He showed her the purse and she laughed loudly and clapped her talons. “Mercy me,” she said, affecting an old woman’s voice. “Once I run out of money I forget to grab it.” She thanked Cal.
He thanked her right back and told her to find herself a boyfriend for the night soon or get on home.
“You find Joe Turner,” she told him. “And Myrna. Or a gal won’t feel safe. I tell you, he gave me the chills.”
#
Joe Turner chopped the blade down and let the shovel stand in the mound of dirt he’d made. He stood straight and wiped sweat from his face. He stretched his back, a weary man with more to do.
Beside him, the crate. Before him, a hole almost big enough. Behind him, a favorite tree, a tree under which he’d courted Myrna. Above him, only sky, with a scattering of forgotten stars.
Around him, silence.
#
Cal got to Turner’s farm just as that night’s freight train wailed and moaned as it slammed over a distant crossing, a string of giant bullets delivering a chain of rolling power. He checked the time on the dash. Nine oh seven. He wondered how long it took sound to travel from the train to his ear.
He got out of the car slowly, tireder than he’d want anyone to see. He clapped a palm onto the butt of his revolver, then clipped the brick to the other hip, as if balancing out a burden. He was still in uniform, so he reached in and grabbed the Smokey hat. He flicked his finger on the front of the wide, stiff brim, for luck.
He walked toward the house, up a slight slope, then paused. His hackles rose. Where were all the dogs? Usually, any vehicle in the driveway prompted yelps, howls, and barks enough to wake half the county.
Silence threatened to spook him, so Cal called, “Hello the house. Joe? Myrna? Anyone home?”
To his left lay the kennels and dog runs. To his right, a fallow farm field. The house loomed in front of him, three stories of settler brick with a wraparound white plank porch. No sign of Joe’s banged-up pickup truck, but it could be around back.
Cal cut left, unable to believe the dogs could be either so quiet or gone. Surely Joe’s kennels wouldn’t be down to no dogs. People needed dogs boarded all the time, especially during summer, when they took vacations.
His boots crunched in shale. He squinted in the dark and glanced up at the telephone pole. It stood in the center of the dog runs and usually the light in it came on when daylight failed. It was off, though, with sunset an hour gone.
When Cal got to the pole, he thought he could make out that the pole’s bulb had been smashed somehow. Rock? Too much damage.
Shotgun, he thought. His flesh rippled as he turned to look at the dog runs more closely.
The chain link aluminum fence glittered as if splashed by silver paint. He went to it, felt it. Chunks had been torn out of the wire in an almost-random pattern where the shotgun pellets had blasted through the mesh. Some of the dull, braided wires were broken, some gouged, some untouched. All the gouged ones shined.
Cal trotted back to the car and got the flashlight, miffed at himself for not having grabbed it. He went back to the dog runs and shined the light through the battered chain links.
He expected to see carnage. He was tensed against the sight of bloody fur, shredded guts, and pathetic, staring eyes. He was braced to fight down his gorge, to stop himself from running.
What he saw, though, made him exclaim several blasphemies and several other holy names in a succession from disbelief to simple wonderment.
#
Joe couldn’t figure a way to bury himself. If he had time, he could build some kind of contraption, a platform with a trapdoor, maybe. Time was gone for him, though. There was only one thing left to do.
Joe climbed down into the hole he’d dug. He sat on the crate, balancing on a corner of it because it had no top, no lid. He reached down to touch the burlap, to feel the shapes under the rough cloth. So soft, under such a harsh fabric. So smooth, beneath such an itchy covering. It wasn’t much of a shroud, but it would do for what was left.
He had no final wishes, regrets, or words.
The shotgun’s muzzle tasted metallic and spicy, with a hint of oil to it. Then it got hot as it coughed a hollow, muffled roar. Then it fell from Joe’s suddenly useless hands.
#
Cal jumped when he heard the blast. He ran toward the house, then realized, from the echoes, that the sound had come from behind the house. Rounding the corner, he drew his gun.
He almost skidded into the hole. “Aw, Joe, no,” he said when he shined the light downward. He tugged his brick from its belt clip and pressed the XMIT button. “You there, Mark?”
“Where else?”
Cal sighed and said, “Wake up Rollie and have her cover for you on dispatch, then cruise around to Doc Morton’s and bring him to the Turner place right away, but don’t, I repeat, do not create a ruckus. We want this quiet.”
“What you got out there?”
Cal ignored the question and said, “If Doc’s not sober, bring him, but stop for that new doctor, what’s his name?”
“Yolanda?”
“Krishnanda, yeah. In fact, bring him anyway. We could use a couple different points of view.”
“What the hell you got out there, Cal? A massacre?”
“You might say that, but remember, no big noise. Keep it quiet for now.”
#
Not everyone with a police scanner picked up the phone but enough did to ensure that the media, such as it was in those parts, got wind of strange doings at the Turner place. Concerned dog owners jammed ‘phone lines and converged on the kennels, along with both local TV channels and a couple amateur stringers for the local papers.
For that area, it was a crowd.
“Good thing we got the tarps up,” Mark told Cal, even as the two doctors argued over what they’d found when they’d examined what the tarps concealed.
#
Cal said, “I figure it killed Myrna when she went out to feed the dogs.”
“Or to check on them,” Mark said.
Cal nodded. “Then Joe maybe hears a scream and grabs his shotgun. He kills it, then has to chop what’s left of Myrna out of its, well, embrace.” He looked down, as if embarrassed at the word. “You can see the hack marks where he missed with the axe.”
“And the dogs’d be dead by now? Or are they already dead when Joe gets out here? Either way.”
Again, Cal nodded. “So then Joe goes off his rails. Decides to take what’s left of Myrna to town for one last beer. He cleans her up at the pump by the barn. So there’s no blood. Cleans himself some, too, I figure. Has a couple beers at Eddie’s, then heads home for one last rest. And he keeps it tidy, too.”
Mark agreed. The doctors reserved judgment until they had a chance to examine the remains thoroughly, but they thought Cal’s reconstruction of events made as much sense as anything else.
Under those tarps lay what started the whole mess.
They kept circling back to the question of what, exactly, it was. It was a question made harder by the gold circle found in the crate.
Cal held the circle up. It would just about fit over his head. “Well,” he shrugged. “This, together with those wings–” seven- to nine-foot long white feathers like silk woven from moonbeams, iridescent in starlight and dazzling under the sun– “kind of puts me in mind of, well.” He hung his head again. “An angel.”
“A nine-foot tall naked angel with all those sharp things that clamp on, that eats people,” Mark said, his tone hard to read, his eyes wet with tears.
Cal shrugged again and said, “Maybe Joe or Myrna had a better idea, but I sure don’t.”
“What about them cattle mutilations?” Mark stared at the sharp things. “Been a lot around here this year.” He was openly weeping now, without really noticing, barking out his questions as if desperate to find one that would change things.
No one ever did.
#
They ended up with a story about how Joe Turner had gone crazy and had killed the dogs and his wife, then himself. One of those things no one really expects to be explained in a satisfactory way, that’s all it was.
They burned the thing, and buried the ashes deep in an unmarked grave out in the woods near Turner’s farm. And from then on, the ones in town who’d seen the thing always looked up when they went outside, especially at night, because those wings had looked beautiful, but they had also looked as if they’d be quiet, if not completely silent, as the thing swooped down on unsuspecting prey.
/// /// ///
