âIt was really, really awful.â
âDo you want to tell me about it?â
âItâs almost too bad to talk about, Tolliver. They were tortured with knives and beatings and all sorts of stuff. They were raped. They were killed slowly. It took a while. I got the impression that there was more than one person there.â
Tolliver looked sick.
âIâm sorry for Twyla, then,â he said. âThis will be worse than just finding him as a skeleton with a broken leg at the bottom of a steep slope.â
âItâs going to get even worse before it gets better.â Weâd found plenty of accidental deathsâparticularly in the mountains. Most people didnât understand that the terrain could kill you, or perhaps they became complacent in a familiar environment. Hunters, especially, grew so used to carrying guns outdoors that they grew lax about the basic safety rules. They carried their rifles carelessly. They let their cell phone batteries die out. They didnât tell anyone where they were going to hunt. They didnât carry any first aid equipment. They didnât have a hunting buddy. They forgot to wear orange.
But these deaths were far from accidental.
âYes, itâll be a lot worse,â I said again. âAnd thereâll be someone to blame. Someone around here did this.â
Tolliver stared at me for a minute. âRight,â he said finally. âNo one but someone local would bury the bodies there. All together.â
âYeah, no one from out of town would make a trip back to that site to bury a body eight times.â That seemed like a reasonable assumption to me.
âWere they killed there? Do you know?â
âI didnât read all of them,â I said. âThe first one, the first graveâyeah, he died in the old house, or in the shed. Without looking inside, I canât be sure which.â
âHe took them in there, did everything?â
I puzzled through the rush of impressions Iâd gotten. âYeah, I think so,â I said doubtfully. There was something about the feeling of the deaths, something a little off.
âDefinitely someone local,â my brother said.
âIn a small community like this, how is that possible?â I asked.
âYou mean, how could a man conceal from other people the fact that he wanted to torture and kill boys?â
I nodded. âAnd how come the people around here havenât been up in arms about the fact that so many boys are missing?â
âI guess, if no bodies are found, itâs a little easier to explain away,â Tolliver said.
And then we sat, thinking dark but separate thoughts, pretending from time to time to read, until the early darkness fell. Then Sheriff Rockwell knocked on our door. Tolliver ushered her in. Her dark green uniform pants were covered with stains, and her heavy jacket was smudged, too. âMe and the SBI guys, weâve been digging,â she said. âYou were right. All our boys are there, and even a couple extra.â
Five
SHE sat in one of the two chairs. Tolliver and I sat on the side of his bed facing her. She was already holding a cup of steaming coffee from McDonaldâs, so I didnât offer her hot chocolate. She didnât bring up our departure from Twylaâs. She looked exhausted but wired up.
She said, âWeâre going to get a lot of attention in the next few days. The TV stations are already calling the office. Theyâll be sending crews. The State Bureau of Investigation has taken charge, but theyâre letting me stay in it. They want me to liaise with you two, since I brought you in. The supervising agent, Pell Klavin, and Special Agent Max Stuart will want to talk to you.
âYou know what I wish?â she said, when we didnât speak. âI wish I could write you your check, and you could just leave town. This thing is going to focus attention on Doravilleâ¦. Well, I
Learning to Kill: Stories