Memorials by Richard Chizmar

Author:Richard Chizmar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

25

VIDEO FOOTAGE

(7:37 p.m., Monday, May 9, 1983)

The young man in the Boston Red Sox cap sits in a lawn chair with the creek behind him. Squinting in the glare of the bright lights, he picks his nose. “What do you want me to say?”

Melody’s voice from off-screen: “Just pretend like the camera isn’t there and tell us what you know about Griffin Schutz’s murder and his fiancée’s disappearance. Maybe mention the stories and rumors that went around town…”

“It was more than just rumors.”

“Okay… then tell us about that.”

The teenager clears his throat, sits up straight, and puffs out his chest. He’s shirtless, and we can see a fishhook-shaped scar on his right shoulder.

“Well, like I said before… my Aunt Yvonne works at the sheriff’s office in Stoneridge. She hears about all the good stuff and is always gossiping with my mom. When Parker Jennings crashed his Trans Am into a telephone pole last fall after homecoming, she’s the one who told us about the stolen car stereos he had in his trunk. He didn’t get charged for it and it never made the news on account of Parker’s dad being the mayor… but we all knew.”

A second boy’s voice scolds him from off camera: “They don’t even know who Parker Jennings is, dumbass.”

“I know that, peckerwood. I’m just saying… that’s how I know things. It wasn’t no rumor.”

The cameraman’s voice: “Please… go on.”

“So, anyway, my aunt said it was in the police report and everything. Satanic cult activity suspected. That’s exactly how she said it too.”

“And you were how old when Griffin Schutz was murdered?” the man behind the camera asks.

Hat Guy thinks about it for a moment before answering. “I was ten… no, wait, nine.”

“How old are you now?”

“Eighteen.”

“And you remember all this from back then?”

He appears irritated. “Back then… and now. Are you kidding? People still talk about it. It’s the biggest thing that ever happened around here. My aunt told me the investigation is still active, but she doesn’t think anything will come of it.”

“Keep going,” the cameraman says. “I was just trying to clarify the timeline.”

Hat Guy stares into the camera like he has no idea what that means. He turns and spits into the dirt——and resumes talking.

“At first, it was just graffiti. You know, like upside-down crosses. Pentagrams. Amityville Horror, that sort of shit. No one thought much of it. But then the police started getting calls about missing animals——cats and dogs. Even a couple of cows. Can you imagine? Who the hell steals a cow? Then, the animals started turning up dead around town. My next-door neighbor’s beagle disappeared one night. The next morning, someone found it hanging on the gate to the cemetery. Its stomach was cut open and all of its insides were gone. A little later, some kids on motorcycles found what the cops called a ‘ritual site’ in the woods behind Layton’s Hardware. A buncha cats had been strung up in trees and bled dry.”

He slouches in the lawn chair and plucks something out of his belly button.

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