Page 39 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
After what I saw last night?
I shush that little girl. Calm myself. Analyze and deal with it, and whatever happens, do not let Gail see how this affects me. Be the rational, former premed student who can deal with this.
At first glance the fox seems whole. It’s lying on its stomach, all the body parts where they should be. Except it’s been dismembered, like the rabbit, and all the internal organs laid with a small gap from where they should be attached, like a macabre puzzle, the pieces waiting to be pushed back together.
“I’m calling Sheriff Smits,” Gail says. “Take photos of it. He’s not going to be able to brush this off as a bird kill.”
I turn.
“What?” she says, a little belligerently. “Don’t tell me not to call him, Sam. Someone did this. Ahumansomeone.”
“I know. Just… don’t demand he come running out. We’ll notify him, and I’ll take pictures, and he can come at his leisure.”
She grumbles, but I know she sees my point. If we demand an immediate response to a nonemergency, we run the risk of him not hurrying when it is urgent.
“You call then,” she says. “I need a shower.”
She stalks back inside and then stops, looking over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. That was snippy. I’m angry with whoever is doing this and taking it out on you.”
“You’re shook. I get that.”
She peers at me. “And you’re not?”
How do I answer that? Inside, I’m trying so hard not to freak out.
“Sam?” Gail steps outside and envelops me in a hug. “You’re obviously in shock. Let me handle taking the photos while you call the sheriff.”
I hug her back. “No, I’ve got it. Former premed student, remember?” I’m about to also remind her how I’d been fascinated by the anatomy of dead animals as a child, but I stop, a little voice inside whispering that won’t help. It’s why I couldn’t tell anyone what Austin did, in case they blamed me. Then, after what my father did? In high-school biology labs, I’d always pretended to be repulsed by the dead critters we had to dissect. Because if I treated it in the properway—as an interesting science specimen—I knew what my lab mates would say.
Sam Payne, daughter of a killer.
Instead, I say, “I’m sickened that someone did that to a fox, but I’m okay with the gore. I got used to it in my undergrad classes. You go have your shower.”
Sheriff Smits arrives just after we finish breakfast. Josie isn’t with him this time, and that makes me nervous, as if he left her behind so he could tell me I’m paranoid. If that was his intention, it doesn’t happen, probably because it’s impossible to blame the dead fox on any predator who doesn’t walk on two legs. I don’t even need the photos, though I still show them.
He rubs his mouth. “I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t imagine…” He shrugs. “Well, I just plain can’t imagine what would make someone do that.”
My father murdered a local child,I want to say.
But Smits means that he can’t imagine a person mutilating an animal to send a message to the killer’s daughter.
“Someone wants me gone,” I say.
He hunkers down, prodding the fox with a stick. “No sign of a bullet or trap. Of course, the, uh, damage could be hiding that. Might also have been found this way.” He quickly says, “Found dead, I mean. Not found likethis.”
He keeps prodding as he talks. “Someone finds a dead fox. Hit by a car or died of natural causes. Chops it up as a message.” He sighs and shades his eyes to look up at me. “Not that it makes much difference, I guess.”
“Well, using the corpse of a dead animal is different than killing it.”
He keeps studying the fox, his gaze on it as he says, “I know you’re under orders to stay on the property. Part of your granddaddy’s will, apparently. I can’t say much about that, except that it’s another thing I can’t quite wrap my head around. But, if I understand correctly, if you leave the property, you don’tgetthe property.” He looks over at me. “That right?”
I nod. “I need to be here for a month, and I can’t leave for more than an hour.”
He shakes his head and mutters something under his breath that sounds like “rich folks.” I can imagine how my grandfather’s stipulation seems to him. Like some kind of game show, the rules set by an old man with too much money.
He continues, “So if someone scared you off, you’d forfeit. Who gets it then?”
“Ah. I hadn’t thought of that.” I lower myself onto the porch steps. “It goes to distant relatives I’ve never met.”
