The Haunted

She did seem older to him now than she had when he’d arrested her, and though ordinarily he would have given her a stern warning and ordered her to put her clothes back on, this time he turned around, closing and locking the jail door behind him.

The telephone rang again, but he was afraid to answer it, and let it ring.

He walked outside to clear his head. In his mind, he went over the way Mrs. Daniels looked at the house and the way she looked just now in her cell, trying to figure out what seemed different about her, why he thought she now looked older. Was it because of what she’d said? That bizarre nonsensical statement?

I was in the room where things grow old.

Or was it because she was naked, because, without her dress and girdle, parts that had been held in were allowed to fall out?

No. It wasn’t just her body. Her face looked more lined. And her hair seemed grayer. Luther had no idea how that was possible, but it was true, and the fact that the other prisoners were afraid of her made him think that they’d noticed the same change in her that he had.

Inside the station, the phone stopped ringing, and moments later, his deputy returned from accompanying Mr. Daniels’s body to the mortician’s. Jim Sacks wasn’t much of a deputy and was as dumb as dirt, but Luther was sure happy to see him now. He explained what was going on in the jail, and Jim had a reaction that was completely and utterly normal: he grinned and said, “I want to see that!”

The deputy’s response gave him courage, and Luther followed Jim into the building. Jim got his eyeful, then turned official and ordered Mrs. Daniels to put her clothes back on, which she did. Out in the office, the deputy winked, slapped him on the back and said, “Thanks for waiting for me. That’s some woman, huh?”

Luther had a difficult time sleeping that night. He had no dreams, but he kept waking up, and each time he did, he was filled with the growing certainty that he had done something he should not have or had forgotten to do something that he should

have. It was a vague worry but a very real one, and he awoke in the morning tired and unrested, the feeling still hanging over him.

Later that week, Mrs. Daniels was transferred to the county seat at Amarejo, and for that Luther was grateful. She’d kept her clothes on after that first incident and hadn’t done anything strange since—he even thought she looked young again—but he was glad to see the last of her just the same, and around town things began to seem calmer, more pleasant.

Until the following Tuesday.

Jim was the one to take the call. Luther was eating lunch at Bob’s Diner, and he knew from Jim’s face when he saw the deputy hurry in, looking for him, that this was bad. Jim didn’t even want to explain what had happened in front of the other customers, and Luther accompanied him outside, getting quickly into the car as Jim told him that a woman had been seen hanging her children from her front porch.

Luther didn’t believe it at first. As more and more homes were fitted with telephones, young men and unstable adults had begun using the instrument for pranks, and this sounded to him like one of those instances.

But when they turned onto Rainey Street, Luther knew instantly that it was true, and it was he who spotted the house. “There!” he said, pointing. Jim pulled the car to a stop at the front yard of the house.

The woman had already strung up two of her children. They hung from ropes attached to a beam on the wraparound porch, twisting slightly in opposite directions, eyes bulging and mouths open in dark purplish faces. The remaining three children sat on a porch swing, sobbing. She was tying a rope around the neck of the smallest one, preparing to hang him, too.

Why weren’t those kids running away? Luther wondered. Why weren’t they screaming for help?

He knew why, though.

It was Rainey Street.

Both Luther and Jim leaped out of the car and ran up the porch steps, pistols drawn. “Stop right there!” Luther ordered.

The woman ignored him and tightened the noose around her son’s neck.

Luther pushed her to the floor, away from the boy, grabbing the rope from her hands, and Jim held her down. She was screaming incoherently, spit flying from her mouth as she jerked her head from side to side, yelling out nonsensical words. Her hair was wild, her eyes wilder, and she looked like someone who had escaped from an insane asylum. He recognized her, though, had seen her about town, and he wondered what had happened to turn her like this.

Other neighbors were gathering around to see what all the commotion was about. The two children—one boy, one girl—were still hanging from the beam, but the sight of the dead kids did not generate the reaction he thought it should. There was very little reaction at all, in fact. The purple-faced corpses might as well have been duffel bags for all the interest that was shown in them.