“Sorry, man,” he said softly, and then turned to follow Ruger.
The tall stalks of corn closed around them.
Long minutes passed with no sound except the dry rustle of the corn. Then softly, faintly, “Boyd…help me…”
Then silence.
Chapter 5
After Terry left, Crow stood looking at the closed door for several long minutes, processing everything that had just happened. In the space of a few minutes he’d been faced with the outrageous idea of armed gunmen in Pine Deep, been reinstated as a cop — although a very temporary one — and been assigned the job of closing down the hayride.
None of this exactly fit the way he’d planned to spend the rest of the evening. It was seven-thirty and he’d intended to close at eight, catch the AA meeting at the Methodist church — tonight was a fifth-step night — and then drive out to Val’s, sample her cooking — hoping that it wasn’t as bad as Mark and Henry predicted — and then at the earliest possible convenience bundle Val off to bed. Then he was going to spring the idea of a weekend at a New Hope bed-and-breakfast on her, which would in turn lead up to his master plan of finally proposing. He’d been working out the details of this plan for about five years and so far it involved a ring, dinner, and a hotel stay. He was hoping for some last-minute inspiration to make the event really memorable. It didn’t help any that everyone in town already assumed they would get married, so the proposal wouldn’t be much of a surprise. More than once, when he’d stopped by to take Val out to dinner somewhere particularly nice her father and brother had grinned and winked at him, assuming that he was going to propose. Even Mark’s wife, Connie, who was as dim as Coop, knew that Crow was going to ask her, which meant Val definitely knew.
So how to make it a surprise? That was the real puzzle, and so far he’d come up with exactly nothing; though a nice cozy dinner with her at her place, and an early bedtime, would give him time to probe for hints of what she would really like. Crow had already bought a ring — a 1.8-carat Asscher-cut diamond with smaller diamonds filling in a channel-cut platinum band. Crow knew that people considered him an affable goof, but no one could accuse him of being cheap. The question was how to present it. Val was not a flowers and candy sort of woman, and traditionally romantic gestures were somewhat lost on her. Crow needed something unique and very, very smart.
Instead…he now had to go fetch his gun and play cops and robbers again. Val would just love that.
Crow locked up the shop and switched off the lights, then went into the storeroom and through the doorway that led to his apartment. Like him the place was small and messy and filled with a lot of strange things. The front end of a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle (Crow’s very first car) had been converted into a jukebox and was parked in one corner of the living room. His coffee table was a snowboard on cinder blocks. His clock was a replica of Dali’s melted timepieces. Every inch of the walls was covered with head shots of Crow’s actor friends, interspersed with some very badly painted watercolors Val had done during one of her infrequent artistic phases.
His three cats, Pinetop, Muddy Whiskers, and Koko, flocked around him, rubbing against his legs and mewing for their supper.
“Hi, kids. Miss me?”
Pinetop made his usual, weird little ak-ak-ak-ak sound and walked significantly in the direction of the kitchen. Crow followed dutifully and popped open two cans of aromatic glop, divided it into three equal portions, and laid out their plates. The trio promptly ignored him and set to their feast.
Humming to himself, he wandered into the kitchen, drank a Yoo-Hoo by the open refrigerator door, peering pointlessly at the various Tupperware containers of mystery meat, mystery pasta, and mystery sauce that lurked on each shelf. One vaguely tumescent shape lay swaddled in Saran Wrap. Crow thought it might have been a zucchini, but he just wasn’t sure. He was afraid of it and didn’t want to touch it. He found a piece of celery that didn’t look too hideous and took it over to a large glass aquarium where a rather absurd-looking guinea pig named Professor Longhair sat meditating on a rock. Crow lifted the top and set the celery down next to the guinea pig, who opened one eye, regarded the limp celery with obvious disdain, and returned to his contemplations. Crow went back to the fridge and had another bottle of the chocolate drink, staring once more at the scientific wonders evolving in there among his bottles of Yoo-Hoo, Red Bull, and Gatorade. He shut the door and was wondering why he was stalling rather than getting his ass in gear when the phone rang.
Scooping up the receiver he said, “I’d like to order a large pizza, mushrooms and extra cheese, and an order of fries.”
“For God’s sake,” said a voice, soft, laughing.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, the person you have reached is not a normal person. Please hang up and try your call again.”
“Okay, fine. Bye.”
“No! Wait! Hey, baby.”
“Hello, idiot.”
“You always say the nicest things.”
“True,” Val agreed, “but not to you.”
“Mm. So…what’s cooking?”
“Me.”
“Don’t I know it?”
“No, I mean food. Supper. Turkey soup, to be precise. You are still coming over, aren’t you?” There was a brief moment of silence. “Don’t tell me you aren’t coming over, Malcolm Crow.”
“Well—”
“Damn it, Crow…”
“Hey, babe, duty calls.”
“Duty? What duty? Do you have a rush order for rubber vomit? Is there a desperate need for glow-in-the-dark dog poop?”
“No, nothing nearly as important as that. Just three psychos on a killing spree.”
“Seriously, why can’t you make it? I’ve been cooking since five o’clock. I have actually worked up a sweat.”
“Are you covered in turkey blood and gristle?”
“No, but I do have a spot of gravy on my good blue shirt.”
“You have to learn to control these domestic urges before they become an obsession.”
“Ha,” she said dryly, “ha, ha.”
Crow had a powerful visceral image of her standing in the bathroom that morning, naked and glorious.
“Actually, sweetie, I actually do have some important civic duties to perform.” Briefly, he told her about the manhunt and what Terry had asked of him. There was a considerable silence on the far end of the line. After a while Crow said, “Uh…Val?”
The silence positively oozed out of the phone. Finally, Val muttered, “So, you agreed to go gunslinging for Gus Bernhardt. Isn’t that special?”
“Well, not for Gus. Terry asked me, but it’s not like I’m actually going back on the department. Terry wouldn’t ask me to do anything like that. He just wants me to go close down the hayride for the night.”
“Carrying a gun.”
“Would you rather I went out there without a gun?”
“I’d rather you didn’t go out there at all.”
“Someone has to.”
“You know, there’s this marvelous new invention, maybe you’ve heard of it? Called a telephone?”
“We already tried calling Coop. No answer. He must be out with the kids, or walking the grounds, or maybe he really is too stupid to use a phone…and anyway I don’t want to leave that kind of a message on his answering machine. Can you imagine Coop trying to organize things all by himself?”
Val had to concede that point. George Cooper was pretty good at running the Haunted Hayride, but when it came time for any real decisive action, he was as useful as a freshly beheaded chicken. Terry had once said that Coop was the only guy who could cause a panic in an empty room. “Okay, so maybe someone does have to go. Why you, though?”