Pink looked at the ground, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in the same house with Isabelle and Claire as his sisters. But his mind lacked the nimbleness to embrace that thought for long. It was too hard to erase how Claire felt in his arms, how her hair smelled of honey, how she cried when they watched sappy movies, her warm breath in his ear when they made love. And Isabelle’s smile, her laugh when Pink said stupid things, her patience when he did stupid things. Pink had always been clever, but Isabelle was smart. And the first time they made love. She was fifteen, and he had never been with a girl before.
All Pink had now were memories. The world he knew was gone.
The dogs were running full-out, snapping twigs beneath their paws, leaves crackling under their speed. Pink could almost see their tongues flapping, teeth flashing white, ropes of saliva swinging from their mouths.
“Been one hell of a week, Mr. Squirrel,” Pink said, thinking about Isabelle, Lulu, Claire and her baby, Mrs. Stage. His mother. He wished he could have seen her one more time. He wiped his cheek.
The dogs were closer now. Sounded like five or six of them, Pink reckoned.
“Well, Mr. Squirrel, seems like this is the last button on Gabe’s coat. Wish I had a little corn squeeze for the occasion.” The squirrel ran up the tree and disappeared into the canopy above.
Pink shook his head. The dogs were within fifty feet.
“Louden, call ’em off!” Pink shouted from behind the tree. “I don’t want to shoot them mongrels.”
Someone yelled, calling the hounds back. One of the dogs rounded the tree, snarling at Pink, barking. Saliva hung from its black lips as it growled at Pink, lunging at his leg. Pink butted the dog firmly in the head with the shotgun. Not enough to kill it, but to stave it off. The dog whimpered, backing up, then ran in circles. Someone whistled the dog back, and it scampered away.
“Pink, I know you have Clarence’s shotgun. He called me this morning. You need to throw it out. Then you need to come out, hands on your head.”
Pink knew Fisk’s voice and felt the woods start to spin and tilt, the earth beneath his feet begin to loosen. Pink figured he probably should have stolen Clarence’s truck instead of the damn gun. Maybe he’d be halfway to Kentucky by now.
“Hey, Louden, I know why you don’t remember that Stage fella with his head blown half off,” Pink shouted. “Lulu told me one hell of a story the other day.” Pink was sweating through his shirt, yet he was chilled and shivering. “You didn’t even flinch when Mr. Stage walked into that cabin the other day live as a stripper at the Katty Klub Room. Now I know why.” Pink laughed and swayed, leaning against the tree for support.
“Pink, I need you to throw out that weapon. You hear me?”
A helicopter cut across the trees above Pink. Men moved in the bushes and trees around him, partially hidden, but Pink still saw them; he could spot a deer in a thicket from a hundred yards. Pink knew he was surrounded. How did this happen? How did everything go to shit overnight? What a strange world, he thought.
Pink stepped out from the tree. He heard the unmistakable clatter of rifles and pistols being cocked and readied to fire.
“Pink, drop the shotgun!”
“Louden, it’s too bad you don’t remember breaking that feller’s fingers to get that pistol out of his frozen hand.” Pink chuckled. “Hell, I’ll never forget that. You called it a ‘death grip’ if memory serves.”
“Pink, you gotta drop that gun! Now!”
Pink shook his head, laughing. “That was some crazy shit, wasn’t it, Louden? I’ll never forget that . . .” Pink brought the shotgun up. “. . . for as long as I—”
“Pink! Don’t . . .”
Gunfire rang from every direction, ripping leaves and brush and bark. Pink’s body took the bullets, his limbs flailing in a strange rhythm to the explosions around him. He kept his feet for almost a full ten seconds before slowly sinking to his knees, his torso and arms jerking under the constant barrage of lead and brass. When he finally settled to the ground, steam rose from his body, like a spirit too-long trapped. The gunfire stopped. An errant breeze stirred the leaves around him for just a moment, and the woods fell silent and still.
Chapter 48
Michelle stepped from the pool and dried herself with the towel then grabbed her cell phone from the glass table. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Stage. Sheriff Fisk . . . from Ardenwood.”
“Hello, Sheriff,” Michelle said.
“I’m sorry to bother you. Not sure if you heard, but . . . we verified that the skeleton we found in your septic was indeed Isabelle Souder, Pink’s wife.
“I heard it on the news,” she said.
“Also . . . Pink’s dead.”
“Yes, I know,” Michelle said. She tried to imagine the level of Pink’s rage, enough to kill Isabelle, to dispose of her body in such a horrible and demeaning way.
“Yeah, sad deal, Pink and Isabelle,” Fisk said. “Not sure how much you knew about them two, but it was . . . uh . . . well, just a sad deal from the beginning.”
“No, I didn’t really know Pink. I had just met . . . you know . . . very briefly . . .”
Cassie had come outside and was standing next to Michelle, listening. Michelle smiled at her.
Fisk was quiet for a moment then cleared his throat before he spoke. “You remember that day you called me to your cabin, Mrs. Stage?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I really appreciate all your help. I should have just waited for you to return . . . it was stupid . . .”
“I’m just glad you and your husband are both safe,” he said. “But there are still some questions I have . . . you know. Some things that still confound me.”
“Like what?” Michelle asked.
“Well, that night we drove down the road and Dell said he could see that house from his chopper . . . until he turned his light on, and then the house disappeared. Well that has been weighing on my mind. And Dell stands by his story. Then Pink told me some crazy stuff about the night he showed back up in Ardenwood. With you.”
Michelle sat down on one of the chairs. Cassie stood next to her, touching her shoulder.
“Pink had all kinds of wild ramblings about faceless creatures and noises and beings and a woman in a nightgown and feeling sick, and snow melting, and I pretty much discounted everything he said, ’cause Pink’s no stranger to corn liquor, but then he mentioned something that gave me pause.”
Michelle listened.
“He said you had been at his mama’s house the night before,” Fisk said. “And Mattie told him you had psychological problems. That you had experienced a terrible trauma with the death of your daughter. Don’t you think that’s odd?”