The World's Finest Mystery Part 63

"Come on back!" Donna called.

He stopped walking. His head lifted. Slowly, he turned around and pointed to himself with a gloved hand.

"Yeah, you," Donna said. "It's all right. You can come with us. But we are almost done for the night."

Killer Joe came back, a certain spring in his walk.

Though he never removed his strange and rather disturbing bandanna mask and never told us who he was, he stayed with us that night as we went on from house to house, trick-or-treating.

Before his arrival, we'd been on the verge of quitting and going home. But even though he rarely spoke- mostly just a gruff "Trick or treat" when people answered their doors- he was so strange and friendly and perky, we just couldn't seem to quit.

This had been going on for a while and I was about to follow the bunch toward another house when Donna called softly, "Matt?"

I turned around and went back to her.

She took hold of my forearm. In a quiet voice, she said, "What do you think of this guy?"

"He's having a great time."

"Do you trust him?"

I shrugged.

"I don't," Donna said. "I mean, he could be anyone. I think it's very weird he wouldn't take off his mask. I'm afraid he might be up to something."

"Why'd you let him come with us?"

She shrugged. "Guess I felt sorry for him. Anyway, he's probably fine. But how about helping me keep an eye on him, okay? I mean, he might be after the girls or something. You just never really know."

"I'll watch him," I promised.

"Thanks." She gave my arm a squeeze. "Not that we'd be able to do anything much about it if he does try something."

"I don't know," I said. "I know one thing, I won't let him do anything to Peggy. Or you."

She smiled and squeezed my arm again. "Sure. We'll let him have Alice and Olive."

"But we'll encourage him to take Nick."

Donna laughed. "You're terrible."

"So are you," I said.

After that, I joined up with the rest of them and kept a close eye on Killer Joe as we hurried from door to door.

Sometimes he touched us. He gave us friendly pats. But nothing more than what a buddy might do. I started to think of him as a buddy, but warned myself to stay cautious.

Finally, Donna called us all over to her. She said, "It's really getting late, now. I think we'd better call it quits for the night."

Sighs, moans.

"Just one more house!" the girls pleaded. "Please, please, just one more house? Pretty please?"

"Well," said Donna. "Just one more."

Olive and Alice went, "Yayyyyy!"

Killer Joe bobbed his masked head and clapped his hands, his gloves making heavy whopping sounds.

We all took off for our final house of the night. It was a two-story brick house. Its porch light was off, but one of the upstairs windows glowed brightly.

All of us gathered on the porch except Donna, who waited at the foot of the stairs as she often did.

Peggy Pan rang the doorbell. Olive and Alice stood beside her, and the rest of us stood behind them. I was between Mummy Jimmy and Killer Joe.

n.o.body came to the door.

Peggy jabbed the b.u.t.ton a few more times.

"Guess n.o.body's home," I said.

"Somebody has to be!" said Peggy. "This is the last house. Somebody has to be home."

Olive and Alice started shouting, "Trick or treat! Trick or treat! Open the door! Trick or treat!"

Killer Joe stood there in silence. He seemed to be swaying slightly as if enjoying some music inside his head.

"Maybe we'd better give it up," Jimmy said.

"No!" Peggy jabbed the doorbell some more.

Suddenly, the wooden door flew open.

We all shouted "Trick or treat!"

An old woman in a bathrobe blinked out at us. "Don't any of you kids know what time it is?" she asked. "It's almost eleven o'clock. Are you out of your minds, ringing people's doorbells at this hour?"

We all stood there, silent.

I felt a little sick inside.

The old woman had watery eyes and scraggly white hair. She must've been eighty. At least.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"Well, y'oughta be, d.a.m.n kids."

"Trick or treat?" asked Peggy Pan in a small, hopeful voice.

"No! No f.u.c.king trick or treats for any of you, you buncha f.u.c.kin' a.s.sholes! Now get the f.u.c.k off my porch!"

That's when Killer Joe reached inside his raincoat with one hand and jerked open the screen door with his other.

If the door had been locked, the lock didn't hold.

The woman in the house yelled, "Hey, you can't!..."

Killer Joe lurched over the threshold and the woman staggered backward but not fast enough and I glimpsed the hatchet for just a moment, clutched in Joe's black leather glove, and then he swung it forward and down, chopping it deep into the old woman's forehead.

That's all I saw.

I think I saw more than most. Then all of us were running.

We were about a block away and still running, some of the girls still screaming, when I did a quick head count.

Seven.

Including Donna.

Not including Killer Joe.

Joe had still been in the house when we ran off.

We never saw him again. He was never identified, never apprehended.

That was a long time ago.

I never again went trick-or-treating after that. Neither did Donna or Jimmy or Peggy. I don't know about Nick and Alice and Olive, and don't care.

Now I have a kid of my own. I hate for her to miss out on the strange and wonderful and frightening joys of dressing up and going house to house on Halloween night.

Trick-or-treating...

Sometimes, what happens on Halloween is as good as it gets.

Sometimes not. Judy agrees.

"What the h.e.l.l," she said, "let's go with her, show her how it's done."

Judy's not Donna, but... she's terrific in her own ways and I have my memories.

John Lutz.

Veterans.

SWF SEEKS Same was a popular novel that resonated with the troubles of its era. Filmed as Single White Female, the popular movie brought its author, John Lutz, to greater prominence than at any time in his long career. His novel is as rewarding to readers as it has been to John himself. One of the smoothest stylists and tart (but forgiving) observers of contemporary American culture, Lutz has won both the Edgar and the Shamus awards and built up a substantial following. From modern day to the Civil War era, few can match his gift for mystery and characterization. "Veterans," first published in the anthology Murder Most Confederate, proves this in spades.

Veterans.

John Lutz.

It began because Confederate Major General Henry Heth's troops needed boots.

In search of a new supply in a town called Gettysburg, Heth's men marched unknowingly toward death and history. They were noticed by Union soldiers serving under Brigadier General John Buford, who were bivouacked on a nearby hill. Buford sent for Union reinforcements. The ensuing Union troop movements were observed by Heth, who attacked. The newly arrived First Corps, led by Major General John Reynolds, took the brunt of the a.s.sault on McPherson's Ridge. Casualties were high, the Union's crack Iron Brigade lost more than half its men, and Reynolds was killed.

Corporal Will Faver, born in Oak River, Missouri, and a Union volunteer, survived. Grape shot had grazed his head, leaving a nasty gash, and a minie ball had taken a bite out of his left arm, but he was alive and still full of fight. Bandaged and determined, he rejoined Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, where they'd been driven backward to hold after fierce fighting.

The Rebs decided not to press the attack in the evening's waning light, so during that night the Yanks regrouped and waited. Reb troops were moving in from the north and west. Pickets were needed to take up position in those directions, well away from the main body of troops, to act as isolated lookouts and give warning of approaching Confederate forces. Dangerous a.s.signments. Which was why Will Faver, wounded but not seriously, and mostly unknown by the men around him, was given picket duty. With a youth named Elliott Nance, a lean and sad-faced Pennsylvanian, Will was sent about half a mile north to take up position in a peach orchard.

There was a moon that night, and the two men were spotted near the orchard and had to break into a run when Confederate light artillery opened fire on them.

Will, who'd won many a picnic foot race in Oak River, simply put his head down and sprinted for the trees. Nance decided to weave to avoid the Rebel fire. Entering the cover of the orchard, Will heard the young trooper's shrill scream.

Will found himself alone in the orchard.

He moved farther into the shelter of the trees. It was June and they'd borne early fruit. The sweet scent of peaches rotting on the ground spooked him, reminding him of decay and death. His lost comrades in the First Corps... young Nance. Morose and afraid, he stumbled through the darkness beneath the tree cover, waiting for the artillery to be trained on the orchard. Will had seen wooded areas a.s.saulted by artillery, leafless, blackened skeletal ruins where no life could survive. He hadn't much hope.

The ground dropped out from beneath him, and with a gasp of surprise he slid on his back into a dry creek bed. It would provide him some cover if the artillery decided to open up on the entire orchard. He scooted around to sit with his back braced against the slope of the hard dirt bank. And there he sat listening to his harsh, ragged breathing, living his fear, knowing his duty.

As he had so many times in danger, he slid his hand beneath his shirt and caressed the silver locket with Sharleen's curl of blonde hair tucked beneath its oval lid. The metal warmed to his touch and calmed him. His faith returned. He would survive this night, this war, and get back to Oak River and live out his life with his wife and the children they planned on having. He knew at that moment that Will and Sharleen Faver would grow old together.

Then his brother said, "Move a muscle, Yank, and I shoot you dead as a stump."

Terror froze Will so he couldn't have moved if he tried. Then through his cold panic seeped warm realization. The Reb's voice! He couldn't mistake that voice!

"Luther?"

Luther Faver, Will's older brother, had taken sides in the war first, and joined the Tennessee Volunteers. He'd been in the tobacco business with partners in Memphis, and that was where his loyalties lay. Will was the brother who took over the family farm rather than let it lie fallow, married Sharleen, and sank his own roots deep and forever in Oak River.

"Luther? That you, Luther?"

The dark form of the Reb aiming his musket down at Will didn't move. Then slowly the long barrel of the gun dropped low and to the side.

"My G.o.d, it is you," Luther said, and scampered down into the gouge of the creek bed with Will. "How in the h.e.l.l you been, boy?"

"Stayin' alive, I guess."

"Good thing we had orders to bring back prisoners if we could find 'em, or I'da surely opened fire on you when I saw you here." Luther, a tall man with a lean face and darker hair than his brother's, wiped the back of a hand across his forehead and took a swig from a canteen. He recapped the canteen and tossed it over to Will. "Seen Ma lately?"