Seed of Evil by Greig Beck (smart books to read TXT) 📗

had just come into the practice and was standing in front of Shelly’s desk when it hit. He stopped to hold his arms wide a little like a tightrope walker.

“Whoa.” He looked up, arms out, newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other. “What was that?”

She smiled and shrugged. “Probably a little quake. We get ‘em now and then. I heard they come from down deep and are due to some big old caverns collapsing, and not when the planes or plates or something moves. Nothing really to worry about.”

“Tectonic plates,” Mitch added. “And you mean the mines?”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, I think I remember it was more like the big sinkhole type ones wa-aaay deeper down. Eldon sits on ground that’s a little like honeycomb. The deep limestone melts away, leaving big holes.”

Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Good for spelunking.”

“For what?” She grinned. “Spunking?”

“Spel-LUN-king—caving,” he said on his way to the office.

“Oh, that.” Her mouth turned down. “I’d hate that ‘cause I hate dark places.”

“Yeah, not really on my bucket list either.” He lifted his chin. “Appointments?”

“Yep,” she said, beginning to read from the schedule on her screen. “Mrs. Abernathy at 9, John Jamison at 9:30, and Mrs. Oswald is bringing in her son at 11.”

“Good.” He meant it. He needed work as a distraction following Ben’s suicide.

As coroner, he’d checked Ben Wainright over and it was straightforward strangulation. Jumping from a stool doesn’t break the neck, so death doesn’t come quickly; instead, it’s just a slow choking.

Without his hands tied behind his back, it takes real willpower to go through with it. Ben must have really been determined to check out.

He paused. “Hey, how you doing? About Ben, I mean.”

She bobbed her head from side to side for a moment. “A bit bummed. But okay. And you?”

“Yeah, yeah, just…confused more than anything else.”

Shelly’s eyes bulged and she pointed past him to the open window. “Rat!”

“Huh?” Mitch cringed from her shriek and spun to see a large black rat moving along the windowsill to then drop into the garden.

“That thing was huge.”

She snorted. “Yeah, and been here for years. I call him Willard.”

“Well, it’s not a good look for health professionals to have a pet rat on the premises. So, Willard goes.” He looked at her from under lowered brows. “Can you organize…?”

She sighed long and loud. “Yes, I’ll get someone to catch him.”

“Thank you.” Mitch headed into his practice rooms. He recalled that after finding Ben when he had first returned to the practice, he’d found a stack of letters in his desk drawer addressed to many of them—himself, the mayor, Karen, Ralph, and most of the other councillors and town elders. They all contained just two words: forgive me.

Forgive him for what? His suicide? Maybe. Or was there something else? Some other thing he had been carrying around in his head that generated some industrial-grade guilt that had finally overwhelmed him?

Mitch remembered something and turned in his chair to look at the large antique and formidable wooden filing cabinet in the corner. He sat staring at it for several moments. It was the only thing he hadn’t got around to investigating.

He crossed to it and ran his hand over the exterior—oak probably and he bet it weighed 200 pounds and maybe another 100 fully loaded. He pushed it a little and it didn’t budge even a fraction.

He pulled at the top drawer and that also didn’t shift. “Yep.” He stuck his finger in one of the brass keyholes in the drawer face. He knew it’d take a large, old-style Mortise-type key with the rounded barrel. And he’d just found one.

Mitch went back to his desk and opened the top drawer in his desk where the heat tarnished set of keys still sat. He snatched them up and knew before he even tried it that it was going to be the right one.

What secrets was Ben trying to hide? Were they what he was shamed by and sorry for? Mitch went back to the filing cabinet. It is time to find out.

He stuck the key in and turned it. The lock moved slowly but went all the way around—success. He tugged the top drawer open, and it came out way too easy.

“Shit.”

Inside was empty. And the next drawer, and then the last one. He suddenly knew what else was in old Ben’s bonfire.

“Taken to the grave.” He tossed the keys up onto the cabinet top. “Thanks, Ben.”

CHAPTER 09

Red Rock Canyon Creek, Oklahoma

Johnson Nightbird stood on his front porch, hands in his old denim jeans pockets, and looked up at the sky. His once raven wing-black hair was now silver and still hung past his shoulders, but his eyes retained their sharp hawk-like gaze.

He knew it was coming again and also knew he needed some spiritual fortitude before he was called upon to engage the ancient adversary.

It was time. He sighed, stepped off the porch, and walked the track through the forest toward a secret area beside the canyon creek where the water slowed in a belly and where no one ever came.

He easily found the cave even though heavily overgrown and he pushed in past the thick brush to stand in its mouth for a moment. It was known to very few surviving members of the Otoe tribe and he inhaled the cool air that emanated from deep inside. He hadn’t been here for 50 years, but it had left a scar on his spirit that was still as raw as if it were carved there just yesterday.

There were torches ready and a tin of lighter fluid that he squirted on the rag tied at one end. He flicked his small lighter to life and held the flame to the soaked cloth for a moment to ensure it took, then he drew in a deep breath and headed in.

The cave narrowed for 100 feet or so then opened out into a larger cavern, and Nightbird stood at its center and turned