The scene was surreal, made even more so by the realization that Stumpy was probably hiding out there in the woods, watching this, taking it all in. Barry scanned the lower bushes and the beginning of the bridle trail, looking for a telltale glint of eye shine and though he saw nothing, he shivered.
Ray was asking Russ Gifford, a young man Barry had met at the Dysons’
party, what he thought had happened.
'You got me. I just saw the lights and came out to investigate I
thought it was probably an accident or something, maybe a burglary. I
didn't expect anything like this.' He nodded toward the bearded man on his left. 'Hank says he heard the guy was creeping around, casing the neighborhood, and he tripped and cracked his head open.'
'Is that true?' Ray asked.
The bearded man shrugged. 'I don't think anyone was actually there to see it, but that's what I heard Annie told the law. And she was the one that found the body.'
Annie Borham , a fitness freak of the first order, had apparently been on one of her nightly jogs when her flashlight in had illuminated Meldrum's feet poking out of the ditch. II She'd run home and dialed 911.
'She never came back out here, though,' Hank said. 'I guess she was pretty freaked out about it, didn't want to see it again. They probably interviewed her at her house.'
A middle-aged woman standing next to a young man who could have been her husband, could have been her son, said that she heard Meldrum had been hit in the head with a rock, and that that had knocked him into the ditch, where he hit his head on another rock and died. The retiree next to her said that it was kids, that teenagers from town had been hiding in the brush, throwing rocks at passing cars, and they'd accidentally hit Meldrum , taking off and running back to the highway so they wouldn't get caught.
Rumors were rampant. No one in the crowd seemed to really know anything--most of them had simply been drawn by the lights the way they themselves had--and after waiting for the ambulance and watching it take away Meldrum's dead body, lights and siren off, Barry and Ray started back up the hill the way they'd come. They had company until they reached Barry's street, but then their silent companions headed in the opposite direction, and the two of them continued on alone.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
'Did you see all the blood?' Ray said quietly.
Barry nodded. 'Yeah.'
'Looked like an awful lot for someone just tripping and falling on a rock.'
'You think those guys were right? You think he was hit before he fell?'
Ray didn't respond.
'What?' Barry said.
Ray shook his head.
'Come on.'
'You don't want to hear what I think. / don't even want to hear what I
think. I'm just a paranoid old buzzard who should be on the Internet all day spreading conspiracy theories.'
'Tell me.'
'Forget it.'
'Come on.'
'You really want to know?'
'Of course.'
Ray stopped walking and turned toward him. 'I think the homeowners'
association bailed him out. I think they did so because they knew he'd return here and they could get a little vigilante group going and run him out of the county, maybe out of the state. But I think something went wrong. I think they meant to just scare him but somehow things got out of hand and they ended up accidentally killing him.'
Barry laughed. He couldn't help it. 'That's wild,' he said.
Ray shrugged and started walking again. 'Told you.'
The laughter faded, and despite the outrageousness of the claim, Barry found that he was unable to dismiss it entirely. While he didn't exactly believe it, he could believe it. Such a scenario was within the realm of possibility.
That in itself was frightening.
They walked in silence for a moment.
'Is there any way to check, to find out for sure who bailed him out?'
'I don't know,' Ray said. 'But I'm going to call the sheriff's office tomorrow.'
'What if it's true? What if the association did bail him out and now his dead body's found up here in Bonita Vista? You think the sheriff'll look into that? You think he'll see a connection?'
Ray shook his head. 'I told you before. He's in their pocket. I
don't know whether he's getting actual kickbacks or whether this is just the usual law enforcement kowtowing to moneyed interests, but he's beholden to them, and there's no way he's going to upset the applecart by investigating them.'
'You think Meldrum has family in town?'
'I don't know.'
They trudged up the hill.
'If that is what happened,' Barry said, 'if the association did bail him out because they knew he'd return here, and then they killed him, and no one investigates it and the case is closed... that means that they'll get away with murder.'
Ray didn't answer.
They walked the rest of the route without speaking.
Maureen and Liz were no longer on the deck. The bugs had apparently grown immune to the scent of citronella, and the two women had come inside to avoid being eaten alive. They seemed to be in a good mood, but when Barry and Ray gave them a rundown of what they'd seen, it put an end to any hope of finishing the evening on a high note, and Barry and Maureen went home soon after.
In bed, getting ready to fall asleep, he told her Ray's theory, that Meldrum had been bailed out of jail by the homeowners' association specifically because they knew he would return here, and that they'd gathered together a vigilante group to scare him, but things had gotten out of hand and he'd ended up dead.
'That's ridiculous,' she scoffed.
He had to admit that here in bed it didn't sound quite so logical, but when he thought back to the scene on the road, the black trees illuminated only by the flashing lights of the patrol car, the covered body on the ground, the blood on the dirt, the staring crowd, he could not help feeling a twinge of queasiness.
They were both silent for a while.
'I'm glad,' Maureen said quietly.
He'd thought she'd fallen asleep--he was about to doze off himself--and though the words came out of nowhere, had no context, he knew exactly what she was talking about.
She rolled onto her side, facing him. 'I'm glad he's dead,' she said.
Barry said nothing, not knowing what to say.
'Does that make me a horrible person?'
'No,' he told her, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. 'No it doesn't.'
They came over while Liz was taking a bath.
Ray didn't know if that was intentional, but the idea that the house was under surveillance, that his and his wife's movements were being monitored, made him both uneasy and angry. He was near the entryway, and he opened the door at the sound of the knock. Neil Campbell stood on the welcome mat, Chuck Shea and Terry Abbey
