Something Wicked--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright

Author:David Housewright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

I yanked open the cabin door. I saw the burning cross. I started running toward it. I have no idea why. It’s not like I had a plan.

Nina called me out over it later.

“I remember thinking,” she said. “I remember thinking at the time that most people would have called the fire department, called the police. Not my guy. Oh, no. How long ago did they shoot you? Five months? Well, it’s nice to know that you’re still the man I married for better or for worse.”

“I was a cop for a long time,” I told her.

“You’ve been not a cop for a long time, too.”

“My old man, he used to say, ‘Once a marine, always a marine.’”

“How many beaches did he storm after he left the service?”

“I don’t think he ever stormed a beach, even when he was a marine. I don’t think he ever set foot in a landing craft except maybe during training.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just trying to change the subject.”

That was later, though. At the time I was running toward a cross burning in the middle of the clearing behind Redding Castle. I didn’t have a plan until I did. The clearing was dotted with water spigots. Attached to the spigots were garden hoses wound on reels that were used to water the grass. I grabbed the one closest to the cross, turned on the water, and began dousing the flame up the ten-foot high trunk and across the ten-foot arms. There was a loud sizzling sound and the distinct odor of gasoline. I didn’t think the water was doing much good.

I glanced around me as I used the hose. I had lost track of time by then, yet I remember looking at my watch just after the movie ended that Nina and I had been viewing. One ten. Exactly. I figured it was now pushing one twenty, maybe one twenty-five, and all of the cabins were dark with only a few lights showing through the windows of the castle. I wondered if I could get the fire out and the cross down before anyone noticed.

Footfalls on my right caused me to turn my head away from the flames. I didn’t see him until he entered the circle of light—Mr. Doty. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which reminded me that I wasn’t wearing shoes. He was carrying a chain saw; a small one used for trimming trees and not for cutting them down. He fired it up and I remembered thinking, “The noise…”

Mr. Doty notched the cross as close to its base as he could get without burning himself and then cut from the other side.

Maybe the chain saw sounds louder than it actually is because you’re listening so intently, my inner voice suggested.

Lights appeared in the cabin windows—one, two, three, four—almost like they were in sync. More lights appeared in the castle.

Or not.

The cross fell and lay flat on the grass. Mr. Doty took the saw and ran back toward the barn on the far side of the parking lot.

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