The Beasts Of Valhalla

'What was the return address on the envelopes?'

Lugmor raised his hand and cocked a thumb toward the southwest, Duck Pond and the prairie beyond.

'No other corporate address in New York? Chicago?'

'Uh-uh.'

'Who signed the contract and the checks?'

'I never looked.'

'You have a telephone book?'

'I haven't had a telephone for better'n two years, Robby. If it's a listing for Volsung you're looking for, I'll bet everything I've ever owned that it isn't in there.'

'Coop, according to the newspaper stories I read, you found the bodies. Is that right?'

Lugmor opened his mouth to speak, but only managed to produce a gagging sound.

'Coop,' I prodded, 'it's important.'

'Just a minute,' he mumbled. He rose, picked up a flickering lamp and shuffled through a door. I heard the sound of a cabinet door being opened, and I went after him. I caught his arm just as he was raising a jug to his mouth; obviously, Coop Lugmor still managed to distill alcohol. This batch smelled raw.

'I need this bad, Robby.' His eyes were wide and pleading.

'In a minute,' I said, wrestling away the jug. 'I have to know exactly what happened, and what the scene looked like when you got there.'

He leaned forward on the greasy countertop where he had placed the lamp, bowed his head, and moaned softly as I stepped back, holding the jug with both hands like a football Coop Lugmor wasn't going to take away until I'd found out what I wanted to know. There was almost a minute of silence. When he finally spoke, his voice was whiskey-hoarse, climbing up and down a ragged scale.

'I don't sleep too good,' he whispered. 'Hardly at all. It must've been two or three in the morning. It was clear, full moon like tonight; I could hear neighbors' dogs barking from three, four farms away. Then I heard the shots. Two shotgun blasts, real loud. I got my own gun, went out. I… I… I found them down by the creek.'

'How far away is that?'

'I dunno, maybe a half, three-quarters of a mile straight out back of the barn. They were under a big willow. They… they… I found them…'

'Come on, Coop. Tell me exactly what you saw. I need to know everything in detail; I know it's hard, but I have to know. Pretend you're a camera looking back there; tell me what you see.'

'They… they…'

'Goddamn it, Coop, tell me!'

'Tommy… his chest and stomach and guts… Rodney… all of his head from his jawbone up was gone. Brains and bone were splashed… gagh! Gagh!'

Overcoming my revulsion, I stepped forward, gripped his elbow and turned him around, shoved the jug into his hands. I counted three heavy gulps before I managed to pull the jug away again.

'They're dead, Coop,' I said quietly.

'You're a pretty cold fish, Robby,' he said in a strained, accusing voice. 'You oughtta' be ashamed of yourself.'

I was ashamed of myself, but not for forcing him to tell me what he had seen. I was ashamed of the stranger inside me, and ashamed of the things he'd said and done. There were enough rotten people in Peru County, I thought, and I saw no reason to add myself to the number. The stranger was just going to have to go back to whatever dark place in my heart he had come from.

But Coop Lugmor was still going to have to tell me what had happened.

'From the way you describe it, the boys died instantly, without any physical suffering. Think about that, not what they looked like afterward; you'll feel better. Now, I want you to draw me a diagram on paper showing everything- '

'I can't, Robby.' Lugmor held up his hands; they were vibrating like bass tuning forks.

'Then you have to tell me what you saw, in detail. You said there was a willow tree. How were the bodies positioned?'

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked hungrily at the jug. I retreated into my end zone. 'It looked like your nephew had been blown down next to the stream; he was half in, half out of the water. There were.. crawfish at him.'

'Where was your brother?'

'Leaning against the tree.'

'The gun? You said it was a shotgun?'

He swallowed, nodded. 'Remington 1100. Belonged to our pop.'

'How long is that gun from the trigger to the end of the barrels?'

He showed me with his flapping hands.

'Where was it?'

Lugmor screwed his eyes shut. 'They didn't suffer?'

'I don't think so, Coop. No.'

'Rod was holding it.'

'How, Coop?' I looked around, saw a broken broom lying on the floor in a corner. I grabbed it, handed it to him. 'Get down on the floor and show me exactly how Rod was holding it. Pretend the bristles are the butt end.'

My stomach tightened as I watched Lugmor slump down on the floor and angle into position against the broken door of a cabinet. I sighed as I saw him put his finger on the 'trigger' and, with eyes popping from his head like great red moons, slide the other end into his mouth. The 'gun' was short enough. I shoved the broom out of his mouth and hands, helped him to his feet.

'Coop,' I said gently, 'so far you haven't told me anything that wouldn't jibe with the newspaper accounts and what I've heard.'

'What they say isn't true.' 'We come back to the letters Bolesh is supposed to have found in Tommy's pocket.'

'Not signed!'

'Written on Rodney's typewriter.'

'Bolesh says! Nobody around here would know one typewriter from another!'

'The police certainly would, Coop. It's a simple thing to check; it's as if typewriters have fingerprints.'

He clenched his fists and shook his head.

'Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that the letters were written on that typewriter. Could anyone else have gotten to that typewriter without someone in the family knowing it?'

'That week they could've. Rod was staying there by himself, and he was probably out of the house a lot. Our folks were away at a Grange convention.'

'I want to talk to them tomorrow, Coop, and they may not be too happy to see one of Tommy's relatives coming up the driveway. I want you to come over with me.'

'Can't, Robby. They both went away Saturday morning, right after Rod's funeral. Took it real hard, said they couldn't stand knowing that the whole county's talking about us.'

'When will they be back?'

'Dunno. They're paying a couple of neighbors to look after the place.'

'Coop, I asked you this before and I'm going to ask you again; this time I want you to think very hard before you answer. Who might want to kill your brother and my nephew?'

'I don't know!' he wailed. 'That's what you're supposed to find out!'

'The only thing you're really certain about is that your brother wasn't homosexual, right?'

'Yes! Barney Mason, a friend of mine who works in the drugstore in Peru City, told me he saw Rod in there one day sneaking peeks in some of those dirty magazines. Those magazines have pictures of naked women in them, Robby!'

'Great.' I handed him the jug. As I watched him suck at its contents, I took the paper he had given me out of my pocket, tore it up, dropped the pieces on the floor. 'My regular fee is two hundred a day, Coop. That's what