He shook hands all around, patted the little boy’s head, and pulled out two chairs. “What seems to be the problem, Agent Savich? Your wife said it was urgent that you see me.”
“It’s a woman, Sheriff, she ran out in front of my car, waving her arms, hysterical, yelling that a man was trying to kill her.”
Sheriff Harms didn’t say a word, just leaned a bit closer, his eyes on Savich’s face. He hadn’t heard anything like this before. “Where is she, Agent Savich? This woman?”
Savich told him what had happened, including the bats that had knocked him off the attic ladder and onto the second-floor corridor.
“Bats,” the sheriff said, then nodded for him to continue.
“It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. We’ve got to hurry, Sheriff. You need to get your deputies together so we can search around the house. She ran away again, and I’m very worried for her safety. She believes a man is trying to kill her, and whatever’s going on, something’s just not right.”
“I can see that you’re worried, Agent Savich. You spoke of driving her back to her home. Where was her home?”
Savich was ready to throw Sheriff Harms through the front window. Time was not on their side. She was out there on this dark night, it was cold, and she had been so disturbed he knew she’d do something stupid. He could see her huddling in the thick trees, shuddering with cold, crying, her hysteria building until maybe the man would find her. Or maybe she’d just die of fright without his help.
“She lives in a big house on Clayton Road. We have to hurry, Sheriff,” Savich said, rising. “It’s about a fifteen-minute drive.”
“Just a moment, Agent Savich. You said she was gone when you came back downstairs?”
“Yes, I’d left her in the living room, told her not to move an inch. I was coming back down to give her some hot tea, hoping to calm her down, to get some sense out of her.”
“She didn’t tell you who this man was who was trying to kill her?”
Savich shook his head. Sherlock said, “If my husband says this woman is in danger, Sheriff, she’s in danger. Do you think we can get out to that house, begin a search for her?”
“You said it’s a big house on Clayton Road?”
Savich wanted to coldcock the old guy, but since this was a local situation, no matter he was at the center of it, he held to his patience. “Yes, on top of a small rise on the left side of Clayton Road; it’s a narrow road off Route 85. All the downstairs lights are on, so it’s like a beacon.”
Sheriff Harms began fiddling with a tooth-chewed pencil on top of his desk. “Would you say it’s no more than a half mile off Route 85 on Clayton Road?”
“That’s right. Maybe twelve, fifteen minutes from Blessed Creek. Look, Sheriff, time is running down. If I have to call in the Philadelphia Field Office to get some action, I will, but it will take time. I don’t think this woman has much of that left. We’ve got to get out to that house and find her.”
Sheriff Harms slowly rose, leaned forward, his palms flat on the desktop. “You’re talking about the Barrister place, Agent Savich. Biggest house around these parts, you’re right about that. You said the woman lived there?”
“Yes, of course, she lived there. It’s a lovely house, really big, but nice and warm, cozy. There was a fire burning in the living room fireplace. No one was there, no husband, no help, no one. I searched the place top to bottom.”
“After the bats knocked you out of the attic, you came back downstairs? And she was gone?”
“Yes. Maybe she heard me crashing out of the attic and it terrified her. She must have run outside to hide in the woods.”
“What did the woman look like, Agent Savich?” Sheriff Harms spoke slowly, his faded blue eyes intent on Savich’s face.
“She was about thirty, thin. Her hair was long, straight, dark, parted in the middle. I don’t remember her eye color, but her face was very pale. She wasn’t dressed for winter, I can tell you that, which is part of why I’m concerned.”
Sheriff Harms said, “That was an excellent description, Agent Savich. Now, we can go out to the Barrister place and look around. We can shine big lights all through the woods, make a lot of racket—but the thing is, that’d be a waste of time.”
“I don’t see how, Sheriff.”
“Well, the fact is, Agent Savich, the Barrister house has been abandoned for well nigh thirty years now. There’s no one there, hasn’t been for half my lifetime.”
Sherlock said, frowning, “Thirty years? You’re saying that no one’s lived there for that long a time?”
“Yep. I know the Barristers still own the place, since the taxes are paid on it every year, but they all left.”
“No,” Savich said, rising, leaning over the sheriff’s desk. “No. You’re thinking of a different house. Look, Sheriff, I didn’t dream this. The woman was as real as you are. I’ve described her to you. We’ve got to go out there; we’ve got to find her and help her.” He turned on his heel, said over his shoulder, “Sherlock, I want you to take Sean back to the cabin and wait for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“You want me to come with you, Agent Savich?”
“That would be up to you, now wouldn’t it, Sheriff?”
Sherlock stood by the front door of the sheriff’s office, rocking Sean, who was bundled up in his winter jacket and gloves. “Why don’t we all go?”
All of them piled into the sheriff’s big black SUV. Ten minutes later, without Savich saying anything, the sheriff pulled off of Route 85 onto Clayton Road. It was dark and cold, the black clouds thick overhead. There was the smell of snow in the air, not rain. Savich supposed he expected the woman to come running out on the road again, waving her arms madly—wearing that skimpy dress. She could freeze to death. She could be dead already. The man could have been hiding outside, at a safe distance, watching to see what would happen. If so, he could have seen her run outside, and followed her.
He didn’t believe for a minute that the Barrister house, the one Sheriff Harms said was deserted and abandoned, was the house he’d been inside.
“We should see the house any minute now,” the sheriff said. It seemed to Savich that there were more ruts in the road than he remembered, the asphalt crumbling in many places, as if it hadn’t been tended in a very long time. No, he was wrong, he was mis-remembering. That beautiful big lighted house would come into view at any moment. Yes, there, another hundred feet and the small rise appeared, on the left, and on top of the rise was the house, trees closing in around it from all sides. He didn’t remember the trees being so close.
There were no lights shining out of the first floor of the house now, none at all. It looked like a huge black hulk, crouched atop that rise. Someone had come back and turned the lights off, or the power. A small voice in the back of his brain asked why.
“This is the Barrister house,” Sheriff Harms said, as he pulled to a stop in front of the big, dark house. “Is this the place where you brought the young woman, Agent Savich?”
Savich didn’t say anything. He pulled on his leather gloves as he slowly got out of the SUV and walked to the front of the house. He paused a moment, unwilling to accept what he was seeing. He walked up the wide wooden stairs that led to the covered porch which extended the full width of the front of the house.
Suddenly the moon came out from behind the black clouds, and he saw the house clearly for the first time.
It was the same house he’d been inside an hour before, but it wasn’t, not really. This house looked deserted, dilapidated, as if it had been neglected for many years. Trees pressed in toward the house, some of their branches whipping against upstairs windows. There were boards nailed over downstairs windows, broken glass scattered on the porch. There was even graffiti on the wall next to the front door.
The house was dead, had been dead for a very long time. His heart pounded as he looked at the front door that was barely hanging onto its hinges, studied it, and accepted what he saw because there was simply no choice. He closed his eyes a moment, seeing the woman clearly in his mind’s eye, realizing how very pretty she’d been, not having noticed it at first because she’d been so frightened.
He turned and walked back to the car.
Sheriff Harms said as he turned on the engine, “Her name was Samantha Barrister. She was murdered here
