Switchback. Ch6 pt2

As Danny went to go knock on Mrs Winkle’s, Mitch climbed from the car and put his hat on. He dug a flashlight from the trunk and straightened to look up at the house. It certainly was quiet, eerily quiet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean peaceful, and this old house sure had a history.

          In light of what happened to Elizabeth yesterday, Mitch didn’t bother to knock, he thought it best if he walked around the property first just to see if anything was amiss, a broken window, an unlocked door, any sign of forced entry.

          He checked all the downstairs windows and doors and everything seemed to be in order. The only thing he thought strange was the black Ford saloon parked at the side of the Ferris’ 4x4. At first he assumed they had visitors, but after he peered into the 4x4 and noticed they’d packed for a trip, things just stopped adding up. He tried the door to find it unlocked. Inside were three suitcases, two large light blue ones and one small pink one. He gathered what the large one’s held but was more curious about the small one. He unzipped it to find clothes that would fit a child, a child around the same size as Elizabeth Ferris.

          He closed the car door and walked round to the front of the house to see Danny on his way back with Mrs Winkle close behind and dressed in a nightgown and a pair of loose-fitting lace-less boots, and continually chattering on about what she said she’d heard.

          ‘Now I don’t want to be known as one of them nosey old neighbours, Sheriff, but somethin’ ain’t right here,’ she said.

          Mitch looked at Danny, raised an eyebrow. ‘No, Dorothy,’ he said. ‘You’re just concerned about your neighbour’s business, same as we all are. Now, if you go back indoors, Deputy Walker and I will have this sorted out in no time.’

          ‘But I−’

          ‘No. like I said, we can take care of this.’

          Mrs Winkle huffed her disapproval as she turned and walked back to her house; she opened the front door but waited in the doorway to watch as events unfolded.

          Mitch and Danny turned toward the Ferris place.

          ‘She seems adamant about what she heard, Mitch.’

          ‘Yeah, just like she was adamant about giant blue toads comin’ up through her bathtub plug-hole last year. Turns out she made a new batch of booze with them purple mushrooms. Darn near took her four days to come back down.’

          ‘Well she seems pretty sober right now.’

          ‘I ain’t sayin she’s wrong, nor am I sayin she’s right, but…’ he paused. ‘Here, I need you to take a look at somethin’.’ He walked Danny to the side of the house and pointed out the suitcases. ‘The small one’s got a child’s clothes inside it,’ he said. ‘And if the fact that they’ve packed for a trip so soon after what happened don’t strike you as strange, perhaps the fact that they’ve packed clothes for a child that just so happens to be the same size as Elizabeth should.’

          ‘They coulda packed earlier,’ Danny said, ‘I mean, ya know, before what happened to Elizabeth. Coulda been goin’ on a trip for her birthday.’

          Mitch nodded. ‘Maybe, but do you remember when we saw the Howler boys show up at the festival yesterday?’

          ‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘And do you remember what I told you to do?’

          ‘You told me to go check in all the cars, make sure no one left any valuables on view.’

          ‘And did you do that?’

          Danny nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’

          ‘And do you remember seein’ these three suitcases in this car?’

          ‘No, there was nothin’ in it, same as most of ‘em.’

          ‘So if there were no suitcases in there, doesn’t that say all this packing was done after Elizabeth had drowned?’

          Danny nodded. ‘Guess it does.’

          ‘So don’t ya reckon it looks kinda strange, now?’

          Danny scratched his head. ‘But it makes no sense.’

          Mitch straightened his hat, hitched up his trousers. ‘And that’s why I think it’s time we knocked.’

 

Elizabeth didn’t get an answer to her question so she kicked the man as hard as a six-year-old girl could. ‘I said where the fuck is she?’

          ‘Where’s who?’

          ‘The old woman, the one who told you what to do; only I guess you didn’t listen too well huh, buddy? Thought she was just some old bag babblin’ out some crock-o-shit, didn’t−?’

          The sound of someone shouting outside and banging on the front door interrupted Elizabeth. She looked down at the man who was bleeding out before her.

          ‘You expecting company, buddy?’

 

After knocking on the door, Mitch stepped back from the porch and shouted up at the bedrooms but got no response. The blue glow from one of the bedrooms was still there, and Mitch had to look twice at what he thought he saw.

          He pointed. ‘Does that window look broken to you?’

          Danny stepped out to look. ‘Yeah, and if I was pushed…’

          ‘Bullet holes and blood?’

          Danny nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Did you see any signs of life at the back?’

          ‘No, quiet as the grave.’

          ‘Don’t say that.’

          ‘Come on.’

          Mitch led Danny to the patrol car. ‘Looks like we’re gonna have to bust our way in,’ he said, and passed him a flashlight.

 

‘Where’s my daughter, where’s Elizabeth?’

          The little girl shook her head. ‘Don’t you get it, buddy? You fucked-up big time; you shoulda listened but you didn’t, you did it all too late, and now she ain’t never coming back.’ She pointed at one of the mirrors. ‘She’s in there, all curled up in some dark corner shittin’ bricks out her pretty little ass, and sooner or later Pa’s gonna come and find her, and there ain’t nothin’ can be done to stop−’

          Elizabeth was interrupted by the front door being kicked-in and more voices, this time from inside the house.

          She raised the gun one more time. ‘I hate to cut and run, dear daddy, but it’s time I said goodbye.’ She looked at the dead woman under the window, then back at the man. ‘When you see mommy again, in about five seconds or so, be sure to give her all my love.’

 

The door wasn’t much of a barrier for a man of Mitch’s size and now both men stood in the hallway.

          ‘Peter, Helen, can you hear me?’ Mitch shouted.

          ‘Missus Ferris, hello,’ called Danny. ‘Mister Ferris, are you there?’

          A stairway rose before them and the landing at the top was in darkness. Mitch placed his foot on the first of the stairs just as a young girl’s scream was followed by a gunshot.

          As overweight as he was, Mitch ran the stairs four at a time and made the landing in seconds; Danny followed and stopped one step below. Mitch moved his flashlight all around the landing. To his left were two doors, one front bedroom one back. Another door stood directly in front of him and Mitch could see the glass of the shower unit and the white toilet basin. To his right were two more doors, mirroring those on the left, the front one of those rooms was the one with the bluish light, and that door was the only one closed.

          Mitch flicked his flashlight inside the room next to him to see a rowing machine and treadmill pushed into one corner, in another corner was a wardrobe, its doors wide open and its shelves bare. A dozen empty wire hangers hung from its rail and some clothes and shoes lay scattered on the floor. The room facing and adjacent to the bathroom was the master bedroom, this one held a double bed and two larger wardrobes, and again both open and half-empty with more discarded clothes on the floor. A similar scene met him in the room on the opposite side of the bathroom, which left the one remaining room, the bedroom with the bluish light shining from the window. The same light that now laid a fine blue strip under a door that had different coloured plastic letters adhered to it. “ELIZABETH’S ROOM PLEASE KNOCK” the message read. Mitch didn’t bother, he took a step back and kicked flat-footed and the door swung open.

          Both men stood at the entrance to a room in semi-darkness, but bright enough to see blood running down a bullet-shot window. Below which lay Helen Ferris, a dark stain over her abdomen and a small dark spot in the centre of her forehead. Near Helen’s right leg was Peter Ferris who lay slumped against the left hand wall, his wounds almost identical to hers. But what commanded the majority of their attention was something they hadn’t expected to see. They both lowered their weapons, neither of them quite sure what to say or do.

          ‘Holy fuck,’ Danny managed.

          If Mitch wasn’t looking at what he was looking at, he’d have told his deputy to watch his mouth.

          Elizabeth raised an arm, leaving the other concealed behind her. ‘Please help me,’ she said. ‘Please help me.’

          ‘Holy fuck,’ Danny said again.

          Mitch turned to look at him.

          ‘Sorry, Boss, but … Holy fuck.’

          Both men re-holstered their weapons and looked back to see Elizabeth now with both arms outstretched and a gun aimed at them. Mitch stood in stunned silence as the gun went off and sent Danny backward into the corner behind the door. Before Mitch could fathom out what the hell just happened, he saw a flash and felt a sharp pain in his neck. He made a grab for his throat to feel warm liquid seep through his fingers, and then he too dropped to the floor.

          Through his fading vision he saw little Elizabeth Ferris continue to pull the trigger, but the gun only produced clicks which sounded like clunks from a grandfather clock’s pendulum that were ticking away his life in half-timed motion. In a last-ditch attempt he fumbled to pull out his own gun as he looked over to Helen under the window, then to Peter, and then his dead deputy. He looked back to Elizabeth, raised his gun and made sure his aim. He had her in his sights, all he had to do was squeeze, but he couldn’t fire on a child, he’d promised himself he’d never do that again. The shaking began with a slight tremor at his elbow and rippled along his arm until his hand shook beyond control. He dropped his head and lowered his arm and allowed the gun to fall from his grip. He looked again at Elizabeth Ferris just as the light inside the mirrors began to flicker.

          ‘Shit,’ said the little dead girl. ‘Looks like I gotta go now, Sheriff. But I’ll be back, count on it.’

          She slung the empty gun at him but Mitch shifted his head to the right and the gun hit the bedroom’s door frame. He looked back at Elizabeth Ferris to see her do something as unexpected as her being there in the first place. She ran at one of the mirrors and disappeared into it like she’d jumped into a pool of upright blue water. Half a second later her lifeless body fell from the facing mirror and landed at the feet of her dead father.