Chapter 8

Jack

The Reach prides itself on many things. The annual chainsaw carving competition. The single family of black swans in Devil’s Tears Lagoon. That one time a full set of T-Rex bones was found on the border between the town and the res. But most of all, my town prides itself on its neverending ability to make do, like we’re a settlement formed from leftovers found at the back of the fridge.

Nothing sums that attitude up better than the Gravely Brothers Memorial Home.

Turning onto the property, I take the corner faster than necessary and my cruiser skids onto the gravel drive. Les groans from the passenger seat, whether from the movement or the fact we’ve reached our destination, I can’t say. And I can’t let myself care. 

We’re here. We have a job to do.

A grimmer job than usual. 

Slowing down, I study the building’s entrance—as I always do. 

The sign to the right of the drive proudly declares that the funeral home has been “Serving the Reach’s quiet residents since 1954.” Before that, it had been serving the hungry residents as a meat packing plant—a fact enjoyed at every local trivia night—and prior to that it was a failed attempt at a mansion. Now, the confused mass of art deco and steel siding simply doubles as a morgue when needed. And occasionally a wedding chapel, for the Reach’s less discerning and more budget conscious residents. 

I stop in front of the entrance and take a fortifying gulp of coffee. 

“We could come back, Sheriff,” Les says from beside me, adding a hopeful glance. “I’m sure the doc needs more time to—”

“Tempting.” I open my door. “But cowardly. Come on.”

“You know she’s waiting,” Les grumbles. “She’s probably made popcorn. It ain’t right, Sheriff.” 

“Nope, it ain’t. But she’s part of the Reach, and that makes her ours—for better or worse.” Of course, if she didn’t enjoy the worse quite so much, it would be easier for all of us. I take a fortifying breath and slap him on the shoulder. “Come on. Maybe it’s a candy day and she’ll spare us the popcorn.”

“Doubt it,” he says morosely.

Odds are my deputy is right.

I glance back, to where the graveyard sprawls across the road. I’ve always wondered why the funeral home ended up on the opposite side of that road, rather than cosying up with the tombstones. I guess the old manor-cum-meatpacking plant was too good a bargain to pass up. Come to think of it, that sounds like a truly terrible porn, the kind exported from eastern Europe that doesn’t even bother with subtitles. 

And I’ve been up way too long.

I give my head a shake and take another swallow of coffee. 

It’s been a long twenty-seven hours. And with one of my junior deputies sick from the crimescene, and the other barely holding it together at the station, there’s no sleep in my immediate future. The first twenty-four to forty-eight hours of a murder investigation are critical. 

To do right by the gold hour, I have to survive the golden years about to descend upon us.

I open the door to Gravely Bros and motion for Les to go first. He shakes his head. “Coward,” I say. 

“Yup,” he agrees. 

Suppressing a groan, I step inside.

The entrance is dark and moody enough to thrill even the most disaffected goth teenager. The windows are shrouded in purple, and vases large enough to hide bodies line the walls. I’m immediately assaulted by the scent of lilies and roses—it could have been soothing, if the flowers were real and not painfully fake scents applied to mask the telltale odor of embalming fluids. 

The cloying odor sticks to my skin and clogs my nostrils.

It’s what I imagine a frog smells from the inside of a cauldron. Come to think of it, it’s shocking my fake witch hasn’t haunted this place yet. Normally con artists focus their efforts in towns and buildings—no matter how eclectic—rather than wandering the wilderness with a stick…

“Jack! You sexy slice of man.” A throaty rasp emerges from the shadows. “I’m so pleased you finally came to check out my body.”

“Here we go,” Les mutters from behind me.

“Hello, Phil.” I look up to where the speaker is framed in dim shards of light at the top of the stairs. All I can make out is a silhouette of tower curling hair, a square frame in a floor-length skirt and long sleeves that brush the carpet. I tip my hat and say, “Phillipa Gravely, as sheriff of Devil’s Reach, duly elected by the citizens of Blackpass County, it is my duty to remind you that the deceased in question is not your body.”

“Now, now.” A hand sweeps lazily through soft beams of light. “No need to badger me with formalities.”

“It is my job,” I say, lips curving.

She sighs. “You would say that.”

“I would,” I agree and hold out my arm toward her, elbow crooked so she can take hold when she reaches the bottom of the stairs and make a display of leading me into the back. “Shall we?”

“All right, all right. I’m coming.” She tosses something from a bag into her mouth. A telltale crunch fills the air, then she descends the stairs—slowly, taking her sweet time. Having grown up in this mausoleum, she knows exactly when the dim light will reveal her to the people below—and she sure does like making an entrance. Knowing that, I stay put. There’s no need to offer assistance—she might be well into her seventies, but she could probably outlast an olympic marathon runner.

I made the mistake of stepping on her moment in my first year as sheriff. Never again. 

Upon reaching the bottom , she says grandly, “Welcome, Sheriff Goodnight. Gravely Brothers is pleased to host your guest.”

“Thank you, Phillipa,” I offer the expected reply.

The brothers of Gravely Brothers passed years ago—when I was just a kid—and the funeral home passed to their younger sister, Phillipa. I once asked her why she never changed the name, and she seemed genuinely surprised by the question. Why would she bother with all that paperwork, when everyone already knows what’s what?

The surviving Gravely might be what my mother calls “a real character,” but I can’t fault her logic on that point. 

“I assume the doc is already here?” I ask.

“He sure is.” She sniffs. “Old coot had the nerve to kick me out of my own embalming room. Rude.” She might be too short for half the rides at the spring fair, but somehow she manages to glare down her nose at me. Her long gown rustles, somehow resembling a snake’s rattle. “You’ll fix that for me, won’t you, Jack?”

Today her tight curls are dyed a robust purple. As always, they’re somehow secured in her signature bouffant—a towering twist better suited to pastry than actual hair. How she creates the thing, I have no idea. Weekly shipments of hairspray? Ritual sacrifice to ancient hair gods? Who knows. Right now, the entire fixture is vibrating with affront, a clear warning that she’s decided to dig her heels. 

She shoves her hand into a pink paper bag, tosses a handful of the contents into her mouth, and chews furiously.

Candy and popcorn today. 

Fuck. She’s already prepared for a show. 

I know better than to sigh. Phil only dresses in black, and claims to speak with the crows that nest in the roof. She’s also determined to involve herself in every investigation that needs to use the Funeral Home as a temporary morgue. Sometimes it’s easy to shift her. But I should have seen this coming. Pointing out the obvious—that a boy has died and our job studying the remains is not her personal entertainment—will only have her wailing about being misunderstood. She’ll cry and carry on, making a production of being aggrieved…all while parking herself in the examination room. 

She’s what I consider to be a little too fascinated by death. Still, I suppose that makes her well matched for her chosen profession. 

Where the hell is Mayweather when I need her? 

That fake witch might actually be a match for Phillipa ‘Call Me Phil’ Gravely. Those two could face off and I could focus on actual police work—wait, what? Why am I suddenly wishing for two problems on my hands instead of one? Mayweather would not make this better, even if part of me insists she would. 

I draw in a deep breath and push thoughts of the witch from my head. “Will you take me to our guest?”

“Of course.” She gestures toward the back of the home. “You know the way by now, don’t you, Sheriff? Make a girl’s day and escort me.” She claims my arm and beams up at me. “While we walk, you can tell me what happened to this one.”

“I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation, Phil,” I remind her. “You know that.”

“Rules, rules.” She pouts. “Surely you can tell me something.”

“Someone died,” I say. “That’s something.”

We walk down a moody hallway, past two parlors set up with model coffins, fake floral displays, and chairs draped in dark fabrics. One is done in hues of midnight blue, while the other sports an alarming burgundy theme. Everything is smokey hues and velvet, and would probably make Dracula feel right at home. The entire space is dim and moody, wrapped in cloying scents and softly-playing organ music.

Until we reach the back. 

The blinding white of the space never fails to shock me. I figure Phil converted the house’s original kitchen into a state-of-the-art embalming room when she updated the space a couple decades back. It’s a sea of gleaming white tile and bright steel, with lit shelves full of glass jars filled with fluid. It even has a make-up station that could have come from an actor’s trailer—a highly fastidious actor.. 

Weirdly, it smells better in here than out front. 

As my eyes adjust to the wash of bright, I see Doc Keller leaning over the body. “Doc.”

He glances up. “Jack! I have a preliminary update for you on cause of…” His lips form a thin line at the sight of Phil on my arm. “I’ll bring you up to speed—in private,” he says, adding a pointed look at Phil. 

Why he bothers with the display of disapproval, I can’t say. We all know Phil can be tougher to shift than a burr on a bear’s buttcrack—and she gives exactly zero shits about our opinions about her delight in snacks and death. Still, he’s not wrong. A kid lost their life last night. 

This is not a funhouse exhibit. This is murder.

My gaze drops to the body on the table.

The room’s temperature control is set to ‘bone chilling.’ Normally, it doesn’t bother me—I tend to run hot. But today it seems unnecessary to blast air conditioning from the ceiling vents, not with that shattered young corpse on the polished steel table sucking all the heat from the room.  

“Update, you say?” Phil asks. “Do tell. I can help. What I don’t know, the crows do.”

Her obvious glee twists my stomach. 

At least Mayweather had the grace to express remorse when she crashed the crime scene. And something tells me she’d be even less inclined to tolerate Phil’s behavior than the Doc…

Stop it, I silently order myself. 

“Sheriff.” The doc sends me an alarmed look.

Sometimes we throw Phil a bone—so to speak—just to keep her happy. It’s not exactly professional, but we need the space, and the price of ‘free’ is all the town’s budget can accommodate. I send Les a meaningful look over her head and steer us so he can squeeze past us into the room.

“Not today, Phil.” I plant myself in the entrance, angling my body to prevent her from sliding past me into the room. 

“You don’t mean that.” She offers me her bag. “Jelly worm, Sheriff?”

“Ah, no thanks.” I take hold of the door, hoping she’ll step out of the way. 

She doesn’t budge. “Shame. You’re missing out. These are made with real fruit juice.” She pulls out a bright pink worm and draws it into her mouth like one might a strand of well-cooked spaghetti. Then she cranes her neck to stare at the body. “Huh.” She pulls out a pair of thick glasses and perches them on her nose. “I didn’t get a good look earlier. Someone did some serious work here, didn’t they? Wonder what they used to crack that ribcage open. I’ve got some tools that could do it, but—”

“Phillipa, stop.” I use my other arm to block her attempt to duck past me. “This is police business.”

“Uh huh.” She reaches into her bag and extracts a handful of what appears to be candy corn. “I’m not stopping you from getting on with your business. You carry on, now. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“No.” Apparently I’ve reached my limit. “You can’t be in here.”

Her face scrunches inward and her bottom lip quivers. She looks like one of those wrinkly dogs caught stealing from the counter. She clutches her bag to her breast and gasps, “Jack. You can’t mean that.”

“I reckon I can.” I close the door in her face. 

I hold onto the handle until I can no longer hear her affronted litany through the door—there’s no point in locking it, she has a key. Sure enough, she tests the handle. “Go away, Phil!” I shout. “Now.” 

The words “see if I don’t send a bill” travel through the door. 

Shit, she’s going to make me pay for this. But the last thing this investigation needs right now is Phil and her snacks. If she holds true to form, she’s gone to compose a searing letter to the town council. Still. If Sage and Long weren’t out of commission, I’d post them at the door, just to be certain. 

“That woman is a menace,” Doc Keller says. 

“Yeah.” I give the door a final listen. “But she’s our menace.”

He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “are you sure you don’t mean Satan’s menace?”

And honestly, no, I’m not. 

I’ve got to figure out a way to pit my fake witch menace against my over-eager funeral director. Unfortunately, no amount of coffee is going to convince my sleep-deprived brain to come up with that solution today. 

Right now, all I can do is stay on task. 

“Les, stay by the door.” I relinquish my position to him.

“Sure thing,” he says, taking hold of the handle without needing to be asked. 

His relief at staying as far from the body is palpable—I find I can’t blame him. My skin is already crawling, and I’m ten feet away. It’s as if a repellent static emanates from the body—an invisible miasma I have to force myself to push through. 

It’s like nothing I’ve experienced with a murder victim before, and almost enough to make me wish I’d let Mayweather have her way with it. But when I took this job, I took it entirely. I don’t make anyone do things I won’t do myself, and I don’t let evidence be tampered with to appease some imagined sense of dread. 

Gritting my teeth, I cross the room and join the doc beside the table. 

“Doc.” I try to subtly assess his condition. 

He still looks pale, but better than he had earlier. How a medical assessment of our fake Mayweather could do that, I have no idea. Especially since she was the one being assessed. Maybe it was simply a distraction?

Still… It's strange. 

There’s this sense of urgency building under my skin.

A tugging, scraping sensation that demands action—almost a warning, or a ticking clock. 

“Ah, Sheriff, Doc, maybe don’t get too close,” Les says. “Remember what that witch said, right? I know she’s full of it but… There’s no harm in putting a little salt on the floor or sticking some sage in our pockets—”

“Les…” I sigh. “Just stay by the door.” 

I don’t have the heart to reprimand him further, especially when I notice the doc has a sprig of sage poking out of his labcoat’s breast pocket. Something crunches under my boot. Is that salt? Did the doc actually scatter salt on the floor?”

“Doc…come on.” 

He shrugs. “I’m with Les on this one, Sheriff. I figure it can’t hurt.” 

“Don’t be so certain,” I mutter without any real heat behind the words.

I refuse to buy into the nonsense Mayweather had been spouting. But damned if I can’t stop thinking about it. 

The woman is skilled—I’ll give her that—and I can’t figure out what a con artist of that caliber wants from Devil’s Reach. If you look up ‘backwater’ online, you’re going to get a picture of my town. Hell, that picture will be at least five years out of date and no one will notice. We don’t have enough votes or industry to compel the lowest levels of government to help us deal with the most violent murder the county has seen in nearly a century. What the hell could a fake witch of a professional caliber possibly hope to gain? 

I don’t know—and it’s pissing me off. 

“Speaking of Mayweather. Could she have done this?” I motion to the body. It doesn’t seem likely, but it would explain things. I feel weird even asking the question—her grief at the death just felt so real—but I’ve been wrong before. I won’t take chances, not with this crime, not with my town. 

“Not a chance.” There’s no doubt in Doc’s voice. “Even if I thought she was capable of murder, she doesn’t have the strength.”

“I know you like her, Doc,” I say, “but like Phil said, there are tools that can—”

“No.” He shakes his head and points to the body’s broken torso. Shattered ribs gape upward, white teeth in a terrible mouth that seems to have erupted from the poor kid’s chest. “If tools were used to crack the ribcage open, there would be marks on the bones. Everything capable of that leaves distinctive traces. I can’t find any.”

I freeze. “Any?”

“Any,” the doc confirms, sending me a worried glance. “Whoever did this, they used brute force.”

“Jesus,” Les whispers from the door. 

“Not here,” Doc says quietly. “And it gets worse.”

I stare at him. “How the hell does it get worse than ‘someone ripped this kid’s ribs open with their bare hands?”

“Because that’s not all they did.” 

“I can see they drew on the poor kid in his own blood,” I say quietly. “I’ve got Long searching for the symbols online.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Doc Keller swallows visibly and picks up a thin steel implement. He points into the torn chasm of the chest. “I’ll know more when I’ve finished the examination, but I can tell you this already: the killer didn’t just break the ribs and draw in blood. They took parts of our victim with them. Organs.” The pointer moves with gut-churning accuracy to empty parts of the cavity. “The heart, liver, right kidney, left lung and spleen, to be precise.” 

Well. Shit.

“Ever encountered anything like this before, Doc?” I ask softly. 

“No, never.” He shakes his head. “We’ve had our run ins with Satanism over the years—I imagine it’s impossible to live somewhere called Devil’s Reach and not deal with that on occasion. Even then… the worst those would-be cultists did was cut up some sheep and make a creepy altar with their skulls. Some get swept up in it and carve into their skin—but that’s mostly unhappy teenagers desperately trying to control something in their lives.” He shakes his head again. “Not this.”

“Come on, Doc,” Les hisses. “You know that group of troublemakers have been playing Satan in the woods.”

“Playing.” Doc emphasizes the word.

“That doesn’t mean—”

“What the doc is saying—” I cut off my deputy before he can launch into his favorite topic: ranting about the group of local teenagers who seem to have taken up shoplifting with a veneer of occult. “—is that a teenage boy, no matter how tall for his age, doesn’t have the physical strength for this any more than our fake Mayweather.”

Les’s shoulders hunch into a belligerent hump. “Doesn’t mean they’re not using black magic to enhance themselves.”

“Magic doesn’t—” I bite off my instinctive retort. 

Growing up in the Reach, I was inundated with tales of dark witches and evil spells before I was old enough to ride a bike. My town is obsessed with its fictional history. Usually I can let that nonsense roll off my shoulders. Not this time. Still, there’s no point in getting into a “magic isn’t real” argument with Les. He won’t believe me—it’ll probably make him dig in harder on going after those kids.

Since becoming Sheriff, I’ve seen kids dabble with Satanism and witchcraft—a handful try their hands at it every year—but those are mostly love spells or rituals to get rid of acne. Or just excuses to get high and fuck in the woods. Sure, sometimes they play at being vampires and bleed by candlelight. 

But weirdly, that’s been consentual—and ultimately harmless. 

Nothing like this. 

I take a fortifying breath. “Les, those kids are a pain in the ass, I grant you. But so far they’ve done nothing even close to this—we’ve had no uptick in missing pets, no lost livestock or butchered deer. Hell, we haven’t even found a questionable squirrel. No group of teenagers dabbling in pretend magic go from tossing some weed into a cauldron to brutally murdering one of their own with super-human strength.”

“Well… fine.” He crosses his arm. “It’s still all we’ve got.” 

Unfortunately, he’s not wrong. 

“You’re right,” I say. “That’s why we’re going to do this right.” I hold up a hand, forestalling his inevitable request to throw five teenagers in lock up simply because they like wearing black and have nose rings. “We’re going to canvas the areas—those closest to the crime scene and those frequented by these kids. We’re going to gather statements and build a timeline for our victim’s final week. We’re going to take a hard look at the local gangs and check for any signs of escalation.”

My answer is textbook correct—and I already fear it will get us nowhere. 

The methodical horror on this table doesn’t match the patterns of any of our local gangs or troublemakers.

“If you say so, Sheriff.” Les does not sound convinced. He rubs his arms, as if fending off a chill. “I still say we should take those kids into custody and make them talk—for their own safety, if not ours.”

“They’re kids, Les,” I say. 

“And they’ve just lost one of their own,” Doc adds quietly.

There’s no point in pushing until Doc has results on what specifically killed this boy. 

Before that happens, I have to face the worst part of my job. I face the doc and steel myself. “I take it you’ve identified our victim?” My stomach clenches at his slight nod of confirmation. “Okay. Les, you’re going to start the canvas. I’ll join you when I’m done. First, I have to tell this boy’s parents their son isn’t coming home.”