Stone Maidens by Lloyd Devereux Richards Read Free Book Online Page B

That was what he called his grandfather, Elmer Templeton, who, four years earlier, had come to live with Joey and his older brother, Mike. It happened after the boys’ parents had been caught in a deluge and had driven onto an unmarked railroad crossing as a freight train sped through, killing them both instantly.
    A truck door slammed. Joey bounded off the porch and ran pell-mell around to the side yard. At the turn of the hedgerow, there he was—the kindest man in the universe—Gran, shuffling slowly on stiff legs toward the boy.
    Joey grabbed Elmer’s leathery hand, nearly toppling the old man. He drew his grandfather’s hand close to his cheek, smelling the nutty residue of the Corn Huskers that had spilled out of the large square bottle the night before. Elmer had rubbed the excess goo on Joey’s soft white hands.
    “What’s with you, son?” The old man stooped down in his faded denim bib overalls. Clean shaven, Elmer had a thin build like Joey’s.
    “Gran, all right, I know how you think I go around blabbing all the time. And I know Mike does,” Joey said. “But I saw this really strange man, I mean he was weird. What he was doing in a creepy old truck like that God only knows. He wasn’t from around here, no way.” Joey stopped to take a breath, his chest heaving. “He gave me a mean look, Gran, real mean, then smiled right after so I wouldn’t think anything was wrong about his creepy face. He didn’t fool me one bit. I’m not biking home that way anymore!”
    “Slow down. What are you talking about?” Elmer cupped the boy’s shoulder. “Did someone bother you? Was the man minding his own business?” Joey’s grandfather was used to his grandson’s tendency to exaggerate, but the lad’s pained face seemed more serious than usual. Together they walked up the porch steps to sit on the glider. Elmer dearly wanted to see the boy overcome his fears, to get over the awful dread his life had been full of ever since that day on the railroad tracks when his parents had been crushed to death.
    “You got to believe me, Gran. Honest, he was up to no good. He had an old truck, real rough, way badder than yours, parked all crooked by the woods, nowhere near anyplace. You know that long way I sometimes bike?” Joey crinkled his forehead, staring into Elmer’s watery eyes. “Where there aren’t any houses for a long ways? Old Shed Road?”
    Elmer nodded. “I know it.”
    “He was there covering something in the back of his truck. He didn’t want me to see. But I did see, Gran.”
    “What’d you see?”
    “It was...” Joey studied the porch floor as if spotting something creeping toward him. “Something he was trying to hide.” Joey looked up at the old man. “He didn’t want me to see it. That’s for sure. It ticked him off that I did.”
    Elmer bobbed his head, assessing things. “I think what we need to do is go collect Mike and get something to eat at Shermie’s Diner.”
    “The truck was parked real crooked,” Joey repeated himself, the flesh on his forehead bunched with worry. “And his clothes were real dirty, like he’d been digging or something in the woods. Now why would he be doing that? Why, Gran?” The boy shuddered, seeing the man’s hostile glare again in his mind’s eye. “Something was wrong, Gran, something really, really bad.”

CHAPTER SIX
    “It’s a steep wood. Her body was nowhere near the road. I’d estimate a good quarter mile and maybe three hundred feet vertically below the highway grade. Victim placement was literally drowning in downed leaves, nearly impossible to discern much of anything around the grave site.” Bruce Howard’s end-of-day call reporting in to Prusik was strictly factual. “We’ve scooped thirty-seven bags of environmental sampling surrounding the grave site. That’s pretty much it. No forensics to speak of really.”
    Prusik stood up from her desk, examining an eight-by-ten blowup of the victim in situ. Tentatively, the Jane Doe