Page 48 of The Witch’s Orchard

THIRTY-NINE

T HE QUARTZ CREEK HOSPITAL is a squat, redbrick, single-story building in the middle of a parking lot riddled with cracked asphalt.

I stand aside on my way in to let an ambulance pull into the ER unloading zone and then I head through the front doors.

I have avoided hospitals most of my life and even now I think I’d rather be out combing the woods with the sheriff’s department than padding down the pale green tile to Tommy Hoyle’s room.

“What are you doing here?” a voice asks, and I turn to find Kathleen Jacobs coming around the desk of the nurses’ station to greet me.

“I could ask you the same question,” I say. “Don’t you work nights?”

“Ordinarily, yes. But lately I feel like all I ever do is come here. Barely know my nights from my days now.”

“I’m here to talk to Tommy Hoyle,” I say.

“Well, we’re not supposed to let anyone in,” she says. “Outside of family. He’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Is he conscious?”

“He should be. He’s heavily medicated and he’s been in and out, but he’s been awake today asking for this and that. But really, I can’t let you in there. Police orders, and not just Cole. The DEA is coming to interview him and investigate the lab.”

“Come on, Kathleen,” I say. “I need to talk to him.”

She looks toward the door of what I can only assume is Tommy’s room and purses her lips, thinking.

I catch her gaze when she looks back and say, “Whoever took Olivia and Jessica, whoever killed Molly, is still out there. And now they have Lucy Evers. He might know something. I have to talk to him.”

She sighs through her nose and then gives a tiny nod and ushers me into the room. I’m surprised to find that it’s private but, then again, I wouldn’t want to put anyone in with Tommy Hoyle either.

“Ten minutes,” she says. “And then Teresa’s going to be coming around to check vitals. Please don’t get me fired.”

I nod and check my phone for the time. She edges out of the room and I walk to the foot of Tommy’s bed.

He’s lying with one hand cuffed to the bed rail and his eyes shut.

There are bandages on his left arm, disappearing into his hospital gown.

Bandages on his left temple and over the left side of his freshly shaved head.

There’s an oxygen tube stuck in his nose and an IV bag hanging over his bed and all I can think, as I stare at him, is how much this is going to cost Mandy.

“Tommy,” I say, nudging him and not bothering to be gentle.

His eyelids flutter.

“Tommy,” I say again. “Wake up.”

“Huh—” he says as he opens his eyes and squints at me. “Who are you?”

I move around to the side of the bed and pull the chair up next to him, check my phone again for the time.

“I’m the person who pulled your sorry ass out of that meth lab.”

“Oh my God,” he says. His syllables are mushy, his voice distant. “Oh my God, you’re that PI. I told Mandy not to talk to you. I always said a PI was a waste of fucking money. I told Dwight about you. Told him you were going around. Asking questions.”

“You talked to Dwight?”

“Yeah…” he whines.

“Tommy, did Dwight ever tell you something about seeing a scarecrow at the Andrews house?”

“What?”

“A scarecrow? Did he see a scarecrow at the Andrews house?”

He squints at me like I’m the one who should be doped up and chained to a bed.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I take a deep breath. Change tack.

“Tommy, they used to say that you took Jessica. Do you remember that?”

He squints at me again, his head coming off the pillow.

Then he grimaces and his head falls back.

His eyes close tight, but he says, “Nothing but a bunch of fucking rumors. That’s all it ever was.

Ugly talk. I’d never hurt my baby girl. I’d never hurt her.

I told them. I told them then. It was that witch. ”

“What witch?” I ask. “Who is the witch?”

“What?” he asks. “Witch what?”

The last word turns into a moan and then a high whine.

“The witch,” I say. “The Witch of Quartz Creek.”

He squints his eyes shut, and tears squeeze out of them and drip down his cheeks.

“She took my pretty baby. My pretty Odette.”

“No,” I say. “Jessica. She took Jessica. Your daughter.”

He shakes his head, eyes still closed, and whispers, “Odette.”

I remember the story Mandy told me. How Odette died young.

Drank herself to death. How she had tried to warn Mandy away from Tommy.

How she hadn’t wanted to go to Tommy’s haunted house.

I imagine Tommy in the maze of rooms he’d built, covered in tattered black fabric, hands grabbing at the girls who paid to walk through and scream at the make-believe horror.

“Tell me about Odette,” I go along with him. “Who took her?”

“That witch,” he says. “Like I said. She would go see that old witch in the woods. Tell her all kinds of things. Ugly stories. Ugly. Saying I hurt her. Saying I… No, I loved Odette. I would never hurt her. I loved her. I loved her more than the world.”

“And what happened?”

“Odette told the witch. I know she did. And the witch told the sheriff.”

“Jacobs?” I ask. My heart is thumping.

He shakes his head, violently, then seems to regret the movement, and grimaces. He screws up his face some more, and a fresh batch of tears slide down his cheeks.

“Kerridge?” I ask. “Was it Sheriff Kerridge?”

“Yes,” he blubbers. “He told me not to touch her. Told me he was sick of men like me. Men… like me… I loved her. I was scared of how much I loved her.”

He grimaces again, the tears streaming.

“Kerridge asked her questions, but she was a good girl. Wouldn’t say nothing bad about me. A good girl. Always went to church, did Odette. Always said her prayers. Every night. Never said a word. Only to the witch. That… witch.”

“Are you the one who made the anonymous call? The one who pointed at Susan?”

“What? Anony—what?”

“Did you call the sheriff’s office from a burner phone, after Molly Andrews was taken, and tell them that the kidnapper was Susan McKinney?”

I look at my phone. Time is running out.

“What? No. No, I told them it was that witch the whole time. Right from the start. I always said that witch took my girl from me. Just like she took Odette. Just like my pretty baby. But that sheriff wouldn’t do shit.

He hated us Hoyles. He thought we were trash.

He saw Odette in her trailer. The day she died, he saw her.

And he said it was my fault she drank like she did.

He said he would kill me. I’m glad he’s dead.

I’m glad. Him and that witch. They took my girl. My pretty baby.”

He starts to drift off again, talking in circles.

I look at the phone one more time and make a break for it, waving to Kathleen as I head back down the hall.

I try to tell myself it’s the sickly fluorescent lights or the pale green walls or the orange tile floor that’s making my stomach roil.

But as I break into the cold October air, I still have an overwhelming urge to be sick.

Because if I understand it right, Odette Hoyle told Susan McKinney that her brother had been abusing her. Susan tried to help her. And maybe, if that’s the case, Sheriff Kerridge helped Susan cover up at least one kidnapping.