South Of Hell

“What is that?” Louis asked.

Ward opened the bag and pulled out a necklace. “This was also found in the grave with her,” Ward said.

“May I see it?”

Ward handed the necklace to Louis. It was a silver chain and what first looked to Louis like a cameo, until he turned it over. It was a plain round silver locket, about the size of a man’s pocket watch. There was no engraving.

He opened it.

Inside was a lock of black hair.

Chapter Twenty

Owen Brandt stood at the gate, staring at the farmhouse. He never should have come back here. Should’ve just stayed in Ohio after he got out, or maybe should’ve headed down to Florida or somewhere where it was warm, at least.

He’d never liked this place, never wanted anything to do with farming, even though his old man, when he started to get sick and old, tried to get him to take over. Like he was going to spend his life getting up before dawn, driving a tractor in the freezing rain, standing in pig shit, and then dying before his time.

Then why did I come back?

Brandt turned up the collar of his denim jacket and started across the yard. He stopped, his eyes fixed on the bright orange foreclosure notice on the front door. He had tried to rip it off once already, but the damn thing was glued onto the glass.

He turned away. A couple of yards from the side porch, he stopped again. Through the window, he could see Margi in the kitchen, taking the groceries out of the bags. After she’d picked him up at the police station, they’d stopped at the Kroger in Howell, spending their last eleven bucks on beer and stealing the rest of what they needed, the bread, baloney, and toilet paper.

The thought of the police made Brandt grind his jaw in anger. They wouldn’t tell him anything about the bones in the barn, but since they’d let him go, he knew they must have somehow figured out they didn’t belong to Jean.

Brandt turned and surveyed the barren, fog-shrouded fields beyond the barn. That meant the bitch was still out there somewhere.

He shoved his cold hands into his pockets, turned away from the house, and began to walk. There was no clear pattern to his path, and he didn’t even know where he was heading. He just felt the sudden need to walk, like maybe it would clear all the shit out of his head somehow and help him think better. He wasn’t thinking too good these days, and that bothered him.

He was back behind the barn now, and his eyes took in every warped board, every rusting piece of machinery lying dead in the weeds.

Why did I come back here?

This place had never brought him any luck. Never brought his old man, Jonah, any luck, either. Wore his bones down with arthritis before he was fifty, wrecked his heart before he was sixty and killed him when he was sixty-one.

And his mother, Verna…

That crazy bitch couldn’t stand it here, either. A couple a times a year, usually in the fall, she used to wither up, get funny in the head and lock herself up in the attic. For weeks, she’d stay up there, crying and moaning and talking about things only she could see.

At first, his father didn’t know what to do about these spells. Ashamed probably, he would let his kids tend to her. Leave it to his son to set the plates of food outside her locked door. Left it to his daughter to dump the shit pot and give Crazy Verna her bath, if she’d even let Geneva in.

His father would work the fields from “can see” to “can’t see” and retreat upstairs with his whiskey to dull the constant thud of Verna’s footsteps across the attic boards above his bed.

Sometimes, if he drank enough and was lonely enough, he’d get the extra attic key from the kitchen and head upstairs, bottle in one hand, undoing his pants with the other. His old man used to say he was just trying to shake her up enough to rattle some sense back into her, but Brandt knew now he was just taking from her what was rightfully his anyway. Not that his mother would have even noticed when she was like that.

Then, one morning, Crazy Verna didn’t unlock the door to get her milk and toast. The plate was still there, eight hours later when Brandt brought up a bowl of rabbit stew. The next morning when he saw that the stew was untouched, he took the key from the kitchen and let himself in the attic.

Crazy Verna was hanging from the rafters in a piss-stained nightgown, her bare feet raw from all that running.

He had been just ten when he found her.

Brandt stopped and turned. The kitchen window of the farmhouse was a small smudge of yellow in the fog. He didn’t realize he had walked so far. He started back.

He let himself in the kitchen door. There was no sign of Margi. He got a beer from the cooler, popped the top and took a gulp, still thinking about that orange foreclosure paper on the front door.

Shit, he should have sold the place nine years ago when he had the chance. Just taken the money and run and hoped Jean’s body didn’t turn up. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. Where the hell was he going to get twelve grand to pay the taxes on this place? Margi would give it to him, but who knew when her settlement was going to come in and how much would be left once the fucking lawyers got done?

Brandt wandered into the dining room, his eyes falling on the sealed cartons. He knew they held nothing but old pictures, dishes, and junk, nothing worth even carting down to the secondhand shop. Nothing worth selling. Except…

He walked to the parlor and stared at the piano. It had been Jean’s, the only thing she’d brought from her folks’ house when she married him.

Married me. That was a joke. I did her the god damn favor. And she shit on me.

“Fuck you, Jean,” he said softly. He drained the last of his beer.

A waft of perfume drifted from behind him. Margi appeared at his side, holding a can of Budweiser. He crushed his empty can, tossed it to the floor, and took the fresh beer from Margi.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Went for a walk,” Brandt said.

“I got worried about you,” Margi said. “I mean, when you didn’t come in the house. I got worried you-”

“I just needed some air,” Brandt muttered, going to the window. He pulled back the lace curtain, leaned his forehead against the frame, and stared out at the empty road. He was vaguely aware of Margi moving in the background, and he hoped she’d just go away and leave him alone. Ever since the cops took him away earlier, she’d been acting weird, turning all clingy and quiet.

A tinkling noise drifted from behind him. He turned to see Margi sitting at the piano. She was poking at the keys.

“Get away from there,” he said.

“Hey, this thing has pedals,” she said. “I never seen a piano with pedals. What do you use these for?”

Margi’s feet started pumping the worn old pedals. Inside the piano’s window, the yellowed roll began to turn. The plinky, off-key music filled the small room.

It was like the screech of metal on metal in his ears. That song. That same damn song that Jean had played over and over and over for the kid.

“Look, Owen, there’s words here. But they’re like foreign or something.”

Margi started to sing, trying to read the words. “Catch Don set a seal… you and me pearl. What do you think it means? Hey, Owen?”

He closed his eyes as Margi’s voice faded. But their voices… he could hear them real clear, the two them, singing those words that only they could understand, like it was some big fucking secret between them, and he was