Chapter 94
NINETY-FOUR
Bridge Forward
Larry Wheaton cursed as the lights flickered off in the halfway house. Nothing like being locked up in a dark space with violent, desperate ex-cons.
Of course he was one of them.
He’d just been reading the local newspaper about the missing children in Mystic. Also the murders. Living in Mystic had changed his life and made him question everything.
The Believers were mysterious and believed in the old folk legends and superstitions about the ridge being closer to heaven.
His wife’s murder had fed that grapevine, and when he’d confessed to killing her, hatred and fear of him had riddled the locals.
Although oddly the Believers had actually prayed for him the night he’d been carted off to jail.
He’d never forgotten that. What an odd bunch of strangers, who’d pray for a man they thought was a monster.
It had almost made him want to have their kind of faith.
But faith was not an easily obtained commodity in a maximum-security prison. You had to keep up your defenses at all times. Just like he did here.
The older woman, Faith, and her friend, Ester, had even come to the trial, their watchful eyes soaking in the detailed account of his wife’s death.
His court-appointed attorney informed him that Ester had spoken with him and hinted that they’d known something bad was going on at that lodge.
Rumors of yelling and violence and the boy and his mother arguing.
Some talk about his young son being evil.
He lay on his single bed in the dark and closed his eyes, although he kept his senses honed for footsteps or an attack as he’d grown accustomed to.
Memories of those days with his wife, Franny, rolled through his mind like a movie trailer.
Sure, they’d been in love at first. Both shared a dream of a happy family in the mountains, running the lodge and welcoming other families.
They’d tried for three years to get pregnant and finally it had happened.
They were so excited when his son was born.
But that excitement had quickly turned to exhaustion.
Lack of sleep and trying to soothe a fussy infant who screamed constantly had taken its toll.
By the time his little boy was four, Franny claimed Wally was devious and sneaky when he wasn’t around. That he screamed and cursed at her.
“Something’s wrong with him,” Franny said one night when he’d finished cleaning up the grounds on the lodge and come in for supper. “I saw him chopping up worms with the shovel. And yesterday he hacked a bird in two with your ax.”
Larry scrubbed his hand over his eyes. “He’s a little boy,” Larry argued. “It’s just a phase.” Besides, Wally was the perfect, cooperative, well-behaved child when Larry was home. Polite and did everything Larry told him to do.
Her complaints had seemed trivial to Larry, who was working day and night to keep the lodge afloat. One treacherous winter had nearly destroyed the business. The rooms needed updating, the exterior needed repairs and constant maintenance of the grounds was both costly and draining.
Franny had become anxious and agitated, and the tension in the house unbearable. His son denied doing any of the mischievous things his mother accused him of, even when Franny insisted that the teacher claimed he was cruel to another kid.
Boys will be boys, Larry had told her, brushing off her concerns.
The next week Franny declared Wally had come home bloody after killing crows on the Day of the Dead and that he’d sacrificed them. He’d collected the feathers and created art with them on the wall in the attic.
When he’d asked his son about it, Wally claimed Franny locked him in there for hours when he was gone. But she’d insisted he enjoyed playing up there in the dark and had made up stories about the crows flying at him, tapping at the windows to break in.
Franny wanted him to see a psychiatrist. Larry insisted there was nothing wrong with his son, that she was overreacting.
A heaviness settled in Larry’s chest. Now three young girls had died on the same ridge where his wife had died.
Nobody really knew what happened that night on the ridge except for him and his son. The mist and fog had been so thick that it was even fuzzy in Larry’s mind. He’d seen Franny and Wally at the ridge in the storm, the wind howling, rain slashing. The memory taunted Larry as if it were yesterday.
Franny clenched Wally’s arm and they were pushing at each other, “Help, Daddy!” Wally screamed.
“You’re evil!” Franny yelled at their son.
Wally was fighting and struggling to get away from her. “She’s going to throw me off the ridge. Save me, Daddy!”
Panicked, Larry ran to them. A tree limb slammed down and hit him in the head and Larry stumbled and fell. For a moment, Larry was disoriented.
“Daddy!”
Through the haze of the slashing rain, he thought Franny was dragging Wally toward the ridge.
Franny shouted, “He tried to kill me!”
Larry didn’t believe her. His son was only ten. Not a sociopath.
He pushed up from the muddy ground and ran toward them. He had to intervene.
But his son kept screaming and Franny was jerking Wally’s arm and they were getting closer and closer to the ridge.
Cold fear clawed at Larry as they reached the edge of the ridge. Franny stumbled, Wally pulled back.
Larry staggered to them and tried to pull them apart. But… Franny… went over the edge.
Wally threw himself around Larry’s legs, sobbing. Larry stood in shock. Had no idea what to do.
He looked down at his wife’s body, bent and twisted below. Even in the mist he could see blood pooling from beneath her head. Her blank eyes stared up at him, haunting and terrifying. Franny was dead.
Voices in the room jerked him back to reality. What if Franny had been telling the truth about all the bad things Wally did?
Had Larry turned a blind eye to Wally’s disturbing behavior, because he hadn’t wanted to believe it? Was his son really as evil as his wife claimed?
Where was he now?
After being incarcerated, police informed him that an older woman had taken Wally in. He had no idea what had happened after that.
Now he wanted to know. His mind jumped to dark places.
Could Wally possibly be this Midnight Ridge killer?
He bolted upright on the bed.
Once the question entered his head, he couldn’t shake it. Maybe he should talk to the police. No, not a good idea. They’d probably snap the cuffs on a convicted murderer like him and assume he was this serial killer.
He pressed his hand over his blurry eyes. Maybe he’d head up to Midnight Ridge and to the lodge and look around. See if Wally might have returned to his childhood home and the attic with his crow feathers.
And the ridge where his mother died.