“I’m glad you did,” Vince said. He ran a hand through his hair. “How did you find me?”
“We may be small town cops, but we can still track people down if we have to.” Chief Hoffman gave his first genuine laugh since he called, and Vince found that to be a welcoming relief as well. “Although I gotta admit, it was tough. With no criminal record to go by, it took me about four hours longer than usual.” This time they both laughed, and Vince found himself in a better frame of mind than he’d felt in… why since Laura’s death. “I finally got your address through tracing your social security number. We kept running names until we found a match.”
“When did this all happen?” Vince said. He had a million questions and they all beckoned to be answered now.
“Last night, we think. She was found early this morning. I’ve been putting off calling you because… well, I don’t convey bad news very well. Never have. Especially when it comes to something this grim.”
“I understand.”
“Lillian wanted me to give you a message,” Tom Hoffman said. “She wanted to know if you could come out and sort of… help out with making the funeral arrangements and maybe tending to your mother’s property.”
“Of course,” Vince said. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do when your mother passed away? “I’ll try to get out there tomorrow if I can.”
“Thank you, Vince. And please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodnight, Vince.”
“Night.”
He hung up the phone feeling numb, detached. Despite the severity of the news, he didn’t feel anything. He supposed he should feel some sense of outrage or grief. After all, it was his mother who’d been murdered. But he didn’t feel any of those things. A part of him felt guilty over his lack of immediate sorrow and grief, but he quickly quashed them. He’d been a mess when he heard about Laura’s death. He’d cried, gone into a rage. The depth of his mourning for Laura was so deep that he didn’t think he would be able to pull himself out of it. But he was starting to do just that. And now there was the news of his mother’s sudden death.
But he didn’t feel sad over what had happened to his mother. Not in the least bit.
Because let’s face it, he thought as he exited the bedroom and headed downstairs in his Bart Simpson boxer shorts, she was a sad excuse for a mother the last fourteen years. She didn’t even want to see me, much less hear from me. The way she treated me when I left for college, when I graduated, when I got married. She told me I was the spawn of hell. What kind of mother tells her child that?
One like Maggie Walters, obviously. A woman who immerses herself so deep in crazed Christian Fundamentalism that even snake-handling Pentecostals think she’s off her rocker. A woman who plucks her son away from his father at the age of eight and moves him all the way across the country, then enters him in no less than a dozen schools between then and when he’s sixteen, trying everything she can to suppress his life, ruling over him with an iron fist and the King James Bible… telling him that even if he lived in accordance to the word of God he was probably going to Hell anyway… that was a woman who lost all respect from her son.
But I’m all she’s got she can call family, he thought as he pulled out the Yellow Pages from the counter near the phone and began flipping through it to find the travel agencies. What else can I do?
With that question in his mind, he began making arrangements to fly to Pennsylvania the following morning.
Chapter Two
FOURTEEN YEARS.
It was hard to believe it had been that long since he’d set foot in Lancaster County, much less the state of Pennsylvania itself, but that’s how long it had been. Fourteen long years that seemed to have gone by with the speed of a few months.
Vince Walters thought about the time gone by as Delta Flight 189 taxied down the runway of Philadelphia International Airport. It was already late afternoon, and he had another two-hour drive to Lititz. He unfastened his seat belt, pulled his carry-on baggage out from beneath the seat in front of him and put it on his lap. An elderly woman beside him was watching the scene from the window with a sense of longing; she was coming to visit her brother who she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. They’d talked briefly during the nearly five-hour flight, and Vince hadn’t lent himself too well to the conversation. She was a sweet woman, but he had too much on his mind. Last night’s conversation with Tom Hoffman for starters.
And then the dreams.
The dreams had actually been recurring figments for the past year now. The first one had started off innocently enough; he is alone in the dark, seated on something (a raised dais perhaps?) There is the faint flickering illumination of lights far off in the distance. He thinks it might be candles but he can’t be sure. And then he senses others with him, grouped around him. He is elevated above them somehow, as if the dais is a throne. And then the low hum starts. That’s when he wakes up.
Or at least when he used to wake up. The dream had intensified a little bit as the months passed, and they seemed to explode after Laura died. This time the low hum turned into a chant, and the darkness in the room lifted just ever so slightly so that he could make out the figures gathered around him. Only they seemed to be cloaked in darkness.
He’d sought therapy when the second dream came. This dream was more disturbing and violent.
In this dream he is around three years old. He is in a house somewhere. There are other adults in the house with him. It feels very much like the adults are here to visit his parents, although he doesn’t see them anywhere. He doesn’t really recognize anybody in the dream, although he feels that he should. They all have a sense of familiarity to them that is nagging. In the dream he is happy and playing. One of the adults, a young woman, acts as a babysitter. She sits by him, smiling at him as he plays with a Mr. Potato Head on the floor. A few other adults are gathered around talking to her, pausing every now and then to look at him. They are keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t hurt himself or get into any trouble.
After awhile he senses they’ve left their positions and are now in other areas of the house. He turns to see where they’ve gone and finds that the woman is now talking to somebody on the couch on the other side of the room. Her back is to him. All the people in the room are young; the women lithe, wearing blue jeans and halter-tops or long flowing dresses. Their hair is parted down the middle. Some are wearing headbands. The men, likewise, are long-haired for the most part. Some are sporting beards. Others have short hair, but appear to resemble the other men by their choice of dress: blue jeans, sandals, T-shirts or denim vests. There is a scent in the air that he has later come to associate with marijuana. It hangs in the air like a cloud.
He doesn’t notice the wild man until it is almost too late. He sees him hanging in the background of the hustle and bustle of the party, watching over everything with avid interest. Every time Vince turns to see what is going on among the adults, the wild man averts his eyes, as if he doesn’t want Vince to know he is watching him. The man has long scraggly hair and a beard, ratty looking T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, beaded necklaces hanging down his hairy chest. His eyes are gray and piercing in the dim light. He hangs back in the shadows, leaning against the doorjamb between the living room and the kitchen. Not talking or mingling with anybody.