The Backwoods by Lee Edward

Author:Lee, Edward [Lee, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 2005-09-27T05:00:00+00:00

“Never seen nothin’ like it,” Sergeant Trey was telling them in the foyer of the old Stanherd house. It had been so long since Patricia had been inside the dilapidated plantation house that seeing it now refreshed no memories. Nothing had been replaced, just repaired, however expertly, such that she could’ve just walked through a time warp, back to the 1850s.

“And I guarantee there ain’t never been nothin’ like it, ever, in Squatterville before, and not in Agan’s Point either,” Trey finished. “Except for Dwayne last week, we ain’t never had a murder in these parts. And like that?”

It was too much information too fast. She and Ernie had jogged up to the house upon seeing the cruiser’s flashing lights, when Sergeant Trey had told them that two of the clan’s elders, Wilfrud and Ethel Hild, had been murdered. Patricia thought she remembered the name, but simply couldn’t place faces that far back.

“Craziest thing I ever heard,” Ernie murmured.

The old house smelled of incense, potpourri, and handmade candles. It stood in dead silence, like something watching them in disapproval. Wide, bare-wood stairs led up into darkness at one end of the foyer, but Trey showed them through a sitting room full of throw rugs, faded, intricately patterned wallpaper, and sunlight filtering through dusty bay windows.

“Is the house empty?” Patricia asked.

“Only one here’s Marthe,” Trey said.

Everd’s wife, Patricia remembered. “So the Hilds lived in the house too?”

“Yeah, along with some of the older couples. All the men are out on the crabbing boats. That’s why Everd ain’t here. And the women are all out gatherin’ for the picnic comin’ up. Ain’t gonna be much of a picnic now. Shit.”

He took them deeper into the house’s first floor, and more sun-edged darkness. No pictures hung on the walls, which seemed strange, but instead all kinds of inexplicable handmade decorations: corn-husk flowers, oyster-shell mosaics, and crosses, of course, some that appeared to be made of small-animal bones. In frames, she also noticed more of those squiggly designs, their mystical good-luck sign.

In the room farthest in back, Chief Sutter was grimly taking pictures with a Polaroid, and making notes. From his face he looked like a man experiencing stomach pains.

“You tell ’em?” he asked Trey.

His deputy nodded.

“Damnedest thing. Murders. In Squatterville, of all places.”

Patricia frowned her confusion. “Chief, I don’t understand. The Hilds were murdered? Where are the bodies?”

“No, no, they weren’t murdered here. Couple miles away, on the Point’s where their bodies were found. Old Man Halm came across ’em doin’ his morning walk. So me ‘n’ Trey checked it out.” He put his notebook down next to the camera, then sat down on a big poster bed that must have been fifty years old. A purplish stone hung above the bed from a piece of red yarn, and on the nightstand sat a jar of what appeared to be pickled eggs.

“What’s that in the jar?” she asked. “Eggs?”

“They call ‘em creek eggs,” Ernie said. “Just regular hen’s eggs that they bury in a creek bed for a coupla months, turns ’em black.

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