Grim Harvest Read online

  “So,” Nico segued, surveying her property, “we still need you. And we have plenty to pay.”

  Matilda swatted at her familiars, the proverbial shoulder angels, her need and greed muscling past atrophied morality. “What do you need?”

  Nico, entranced with the rural beauty and lulling bugsong from which he had been walled away for so long, left Pipsqueak to take over.

  “To start with, wolf hides and ointment for everybody you see here,” said the mutton-chopped marauder. “Plus two.”

  * * * *

  Candace rolled a ball to Emera—the cheap, simple inflated kind from a tall basket in some department store. The little one giggled and collapsed on it to roll around in the grass and leaves like an armadillo, then rolled it back. Candace loved the music of her laughter.

  The other kids played stickball or lobbed pinecones at one another, breaking into their usual cliques. As always, the fun was draining away by increments as troubled young egos fought to rise.

  The rising roar of two Harleys bulled between their exchanges and brought a halt to their games. The children stood and watched the neighborhood entrance, waiting to see if the bikes would pass close—all except for Emera. As she squealed and covered her ears Candace calmed her with hugs and pats.

  The bikes appeared, raising awed leaps and head turns, especially from Radley. One of the riders wore a helmet fitted with a menacing curved horn just like a real live jungle animal, which it was—a relic from one of the last of the dying species. Rhino had gotten it from a black marketer as a bonus in a gun purchase.

  Fireheads Rhino and Hobie parked in front of the yard’s chain link fence gate, revved a few times—which made Emera tremble—and shut off their engines. Radley bolted inside to summon the Dietrichs.

  When the helmets came off, Rhino’s chrome dome and heavy facial hair had the children murmuring, backing away from the fence. He swung his two-hundred-eighty-pound frame off the Harley and walked to the gate, carrying his helmet by its polished horn, his bootsteps on the sidewalk like the footfall of a city-smashing monster to the orphans. Two other kids ran inside.

  Candace was not so scared. She held Emera in a relaxed hug, instinctively knowing not to tense.

  Rhino left the gate open for Hobie, who remained on his bike, rolling a cigarette. Rhino approached the children, smiling. “Hello there, kiddies!”

  “Hi,” Rebecca murmured. The cruelest of Candace’s housemates was also the bravest with strangers.

  “Well, there’s just an assload of you little midgets, ain’t there?”

  “We ain’t midgets,” Rebecca said, taking a step back.

  Rhino knelt on one leg and placed the scary helmet on his knee. “Nah, you sure ain’t.” He eyed each child. “What, all of ya live here?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said. “With Mister and Missus Dietrich.”

  “We got the right place, Hobe!” Rhino called.

  Hobie, nearly as big as Rhino, was like a Viking with his long braided blond ponytail and Fu Manchu mustache. He stood astride his Harley, stretched and lit a cigarette.

  Rhino’s gaze found Candace and Emera. “Howdy, ladies.”

  Candace saw the knife handle jutting from his boot. Rhino caught the look and drew the knife. He stood, flipping the weapon over and catching it like he had done countless times—often just before using it—and walked over to Candace.

  Emera shrunk away from him but stayed with Candace, as Rhino held it out. “Wanna see it?”

  Candace took the knife with no hesitation and regarded her reflection in it.

  Hobie shut the gate behind him, hard and loud. “You folks running a daycare here?”

  The Dietrichs had come out, and now stood at the bottom of the porch steps. Their faces showed no recognition of the rough-hewn visitors.

  “Can I help you?” asked the house mother.

  “Hey!” Rhino said, spreading his arms like an old friend expecting a hug. “We’re here to help you!”

  The Dietrichs wore matching looks of veiled alarm.

  Hobie walked up to them and exhaled unfiltered smoke well within their personal space. “We run with a fellow name o’ Nico. Nico’s family is Family.”

  Realization and then veiled terror dawned on their faces.

  “Nico got word about your debt. Sent us here to help you folks out.”

  Rhino walked toward the Dietrichs, leaving his knife with Candace. She fought to focus on the uncomfortable situation unfolding but found herself charmed by the shining blade.

  “We picked up the bill for ya. Nice, aint we?” Rhino said. “Now you can just pay us! And we won’t tack on no more interest.” Rhino took a few steps before adding. “If…you can take care of this. Right…now.”

  * * * *

  Stella always made sure Reverend McGlazer had a hot nutritious dinner every night, rotating between a handful of restaurants. Recalling that Elaine Barcroft had offered to provide a meal anytime, Stella decided to take her up on the offer.

  She arrived while Elaine was still cooking, well aware that the widow and mother of troubled sons could use an ear. Elaine always had plenty of worries, but no shortage of good cheer to share.

  Stella lamented to Elaine that the adoption services were snubbing McGlazer but didn’t mention her desire to adopt the girl herself, or the growing chasm between her and Bernard.

  “Poor Candace,” Elaine lamented, as she topped off Stella’s tea. “She wrote Stuart that Everett is coming back from the dead. It was very strange. Worrying.”

  “Oh my God.” Stella’s heart sank with the weight of worry for the girl. More than ever, she felt the urgent need to save her, to do something.

  “Hudson is planning to finagle some reason to go check on her.”

  Stella felt like she had failed the girl, that she was selfish for not pursuing the adoption sooner and more tenaciously. She had planned to wait for Stuart to come home—she had a job for him—but she couldn’t sit still any longer. Something had to be done about Candace before the girl succumbed to the doom that seemed to follow her throughout her short life.

  “I should be getting this food to Abe,” was her excuse. “He’s probably very hungry by now.”

  Elaine saw her out, considerate to keep the goodbyes short, sensing that Stella was preoccupied.

  En route back to the church, Stella had to keep making herself slow down. She would make sure McGlazer had dinner, and then, home.

  There was an argument, surely loud and bitter, to be had with Bernard.

  Chapter 9

  The Violent Kind

  Mr. Dietrich led his wife toward the door. “Let me just talk to them, Miriam. I can work this out.”

  She pulled away. “No, you can’t, Henry.”

  She went to Hobie. “We don’t have it right now. But we will. Soon.”

  Candace saw Mrs. Dietrich shoot a glance in her direction. Whatever this was about was a big deal all right. The housemother didn’t even seem to notice that Candace had the knife.

  “Well Miss Lady Woman,” Rhino asked. “What makes you so goddamn sure?”

  The Dietrichs were silent.

  “Let’s step around the side of the house, could we?” asked Mr. Dietrich.

  “Better idea,” Hobie said. “Let’s step inside! You can offer us refreshments.”

  “Okay.” The house parents forced smiles to rise beneath their alarmed eyes. “Sure.”

  Hobie pushed Mr. Dietrich, not terribly hard, but enough to make him pick up the pace.

  Rhino essayed a baby wave at Candace and Emera.

  * * * *

  It was difficult for Matilda to focus on her mental inventory with all the warning voices shouting in her skull. Salivations at the prospect of another fat stack flooded to the fore. “The rub is no problem,” she said. “But I think I’m down to four skins.”r />
  “Ha!” Pipsqueak’s quick cackle made her jump. “Foreskins.”

  “Knock it off, Pip,” ordered Nico. “You’re making our friend nervous.”

  Though she couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, Matilda felt Nico’s gaze on her trembling hands. Sure enough, the fugitive drew another stack, though it was smaller by half than the previous. “I dig it. Pelts don’t grow on trees. Probably cost you a good bit to get what you got.”

  “Yes,” Matilda said, as she held out her hand.

  But Nico did not fill it. “Goods before cash this time.”

  Matilda turned toward the barn. She didn’t start walking, but realized it was too late anyway. In just glancing, she had shown the bikers where she kept her craft stock. She had always known when to expect them before and had their orders ready to go. In the presence of Nico Rizzoli, her poise was melted like a snowball in an atomic blast.

  It’s not like they wouldn’t find it, said her greed, setting her forward. Entwined in dread and regret, she almost fell over the goats as they crowded in front of her.

  Argyle and Amos usually loved making the trip to the barn, where Matilda kept treats to occupy them when she worked. Isn’t it telling, wondered her survival instinct, that they’re so reticent now?

  She twisted the old black key in the rusty padlock and opened the barn’s double doors. “Give me a sec.”

  She entered, leaving the light switch off. But this only raised the curiosity of the gang members, who crowded at the entrance. “Wow!” Aura said. “This is so goddamn cute!”

  The goats remained outside for once, well clear of the bikers. Matilda went across from the doors to an old unplugged freezer where she stored dry goods, tossing a nervous glance toward a cedar wardrobe at the far wall to her left. On a shelf near it was a sealed clay jar. She had a terrible wish that it was closer—yet the last thing she wanted was for the Fireheads to get their hands on it.

  Matilda opened the old freezer, took out the hides and draped them over her arm.

  The transforming ointment was on a shelf beside the freezer, with other prepared concoctions. She knew where it was; could find it easily without light. But when she reached for it, a pale, demonically grinning face, somehow familiar, appeared, its features barely limned in the dimness.

  She withdrew her hand, stifling a yelp.

  The lights came on, courtesy of Pipsqueak. “You okay back there, Tilly?” There was no real concern in his voice.

  “Yes, I just…” There were only the shelves and the sealed clay jars, in all their fifty-watt banality.

  She took down two jars, one of which she had engraved with the letters “LUP” using her athame before the clay had hardened, and a second containing the reversing balm. She went to the door, handing Jiggy the hides and Nico the clay jars. He opened one and sniffed. “Smelly stuff.” He tossed them to Pipsqueak, who barely caught them, making Matilda wince.

  “It’s not easy to put that together,” she said. “Please don’t spill or misuse it.” She envisioned the jars falling and breaking, her goats then licking even a tiny amount of it—and she shivered.

  Nico laughed. “Got it under control.”

  Matilda switched off the light and dropped the key back in her pocket beside her athame. She decided it would be best to keep her hand in that pocket for now, as she tried to goad the bikers out of the barn.

  Aura flipped the light back on and stepped further in, giggling like a little girl as she beheld the roots and stems hanging from the rafters, the open shelves lined with green and black and orange liquids, the vials of powder and mineral.

  Amos bleated complaint from a few feet beyond the door. “Come in here, little goatie!” Aura called to him, and Matilda hoped he wouldn’t, ever. Matilda stepped just outside the double doors and cleared her throat. The goats came and crowded her legs like snakes seeking heat. They would not cross the threshold.

  Nico raised his face to the sun and inhaled another deep breath of free man’s air. “Say.” He took out the cash again but didn’t immediately hand it over. “There’s one more thing, and I’m guessing it’s a pretty goddamn big deal.” He withdrew yet another block of green, and pressed it into the other, the bills between his hands in prayer pose against the blasphemous tattoo on his chest.

  Matilda had no choice but to hear him out, while trying to keep an eye on Aura’s wanderings.

  “My girl. You may have heard of her.” Nico stuffed the cash into his front jeans pocket, so its top half could flop around in full sight. “Ruth Treadwell.” He lit a cigarette and patted the tattoo on his chest, then placed hand on heart. “Ruthie.”

  Matilda’s spine went cold. “Ragdoll Ruth.” She took a step back from him.

  Pipsqueak raised a hand of warning. “He hasn’t decided whether he digs that particular nickname or not.”

  “Wh…what about her?” Matilda asked.

  “Just kicking some ideas around,” Nico began. “Does the skinwalker spell work on corpses?”

  Matilda grabbed the bustling goats by an ear in each hand to steady them. “What are you asking?”

  “I just had this idea,” Nico knelt to pet Amos, making the kid tug and squirm that much more vigorously. “Maybe I could throw somebody’s skin over poor Ruth’s bones,” he motioned toward the van, and Matilda realized with a nauseous spasm that the killer zealot’s remains were in there. “And bring her back.”

  * * * *

  Rhino closed the front door behind as Hobie roughly nudged the Dietrichs through the family room, past the hallway and into the kitchen. “We don’t want the kiddies seein’,” explained Hobie. “‘Case there’s an accident or something,” Mr. Dietrich wore the countenance that Hobie loved seeing in debtors and victims, the one of pure dread.

  Rhino stood at the door into the kitchen, while Hobie hovered near the rear kitchen door that opened outside. “Prih-tee nice digs you got here,” Hobie said. “Must take a lot of work keeping it up what with all those kids.”

  “We’re stretched to our limits,” said Mrs. Dietrich. “Between the children, and—”

  “So, y’all get a check from the guv,” said Hobie, reaching into the refrigerator and helping himself to a beer. “Rhino?”

  “I’ll take one o’ them juice boxes,” he answered. “Grape, please.”

  Hobie tossed it and Rhino caught it in his helmet.

  “The check barely covers our basic needs!” Mrs. Dietrich explained. “It’s like pulling teeth to get—”

  “Pulling teeth,” Hobie interrupted. “Ouch.”

  “I guess somebody needs to get a goddamn job,” noted Rhino.

  “We both work overtime, every week,” said Mr. Dietrich.

  “That ain’t what I mean,” Rhino elaborated after a long pull from his juice box. Hobie grabbed Mrs. Dietrich and pushed her up against the counter. Her cry was muzzled by Hobie’s big gloved hand.

  Mr. Dietrich reflexively moved to help her and found himself breathless and pained. He collapsed, his face inches from Rhino’s scuffed boot.

  “Nico ain’t gonna like hearing you blew us off,” Hobie said evenly. Then he ripped Mrs. Dietrich’s top, exposing her bra. Her squeal stopped at his iron hand.

  Mr. Dietrich tried, despite his pain, to stand. Rhino kick-shoved him onto his back against the counters.

  “He’ll wanna know we got at least something outta you goddamn moochers.” Hobie’s face was almost against Mrs. Dietrich’s.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Henry Dietrich’s plea came out like a mere whisper; the air needed for speech unavailable.

  Rhino put his size thirteen on Mr. Dietrich’s chest. “Why not?”

  Mr. Dietrich pointed at his throat. Rhino hefted him and walked him to the sink, shoving his head under the spigot. “It ain’t oxygen, but it’ll help.”

  Hobie ran his finger down between Mrs. Di
etrich’s breasts and tugged at her waistband.

  Rhino pulled Henry Dietrich away from the spigot.

  “We have a plan,” Henry puffed. “It’s gonna make us rich. And we’re gonna pay everything off.” He looked at Hobie and then his wife. “Double if you like.”

  “That sounds like one hell of a plan,” Rhino said.

  “Some real Frank Sinatra-Ocean’s Eleven type shit, I’d say,” Hobie contributed through gritted teeth.

  “No, really!” Dietrich gulped and sputtered. “It’s foolproof. I promise.”

  Both Fireheads chuckled. “Promise, do ya? How ’bout a pinkie swear?”

  Dietrich held up a hand. “One of these kids…is our ticket.”

  “Ticket to what?”

  “Book deal, TV, everything.”

  “You got the next goddamn Hannah Montana here?”

  “Better. She’s the sister of that slasher from the parade disaster over in Ember Hollow last year.”

  Hobie released Mrs. Dietrich and turned to Rhino. “Keep talking.”

  “Everett Geelens’s sister. That’s her out there with the littlest.”

  “I’ll be a sumbitch,” said Rhino. “How do you figure to cash in?”

  Mr. Dietrich checked around to make sure none of the kids had found a way in. “She’s crazy like her brother,” he said in a low tone, “She’s gonna…break at some point. And we’re helping her along, you could say.”

  Rhino and Hobie laughed, long and hearty. “Damn, brother! You are one sick son of a bitch! How long?”

  Mr. Dietrich went to Mrs. Dietrich and held her, wiping her tears. “Not long! She’s already had a dangerous episode.”

  “You get three days to make her pull some kinda serious goddamn Lizzy Borden-level action.” Rhino said. “And it better be splattered all over every newspaper and TV station from here to goddamn Timbuk-the-hell-tu.”

  “What!? We can’t—”

  “We ain’t sticking around forever, boy,” said Hobie. “Get it done.” He yanked Mrs. Dietrich away from her husband roughly. “Or she gets done.”