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“In the flesh. ”
He goggled. Jonatha Corbiel was certainly tall, and at six-one she towered over Newton’s five-seven. She was certainly dark: her skin was an exquisite and flawless blue-black, as richly dark as that of her Ashanti ancestors. And she was certainly top-heavy, with large breasts straining at the fabric of her faded gray U of P sweatshirt, distorting both letters. Standing at his full height his eyes came to just above her chest and try as he might, he could not help but stare.
“Might as well get it over with,” Jonatha said with tolerant amusement.
“Er…what?”
“I have really big boobs. Take a good look and get it out of your system. ”
His eyes leapt immediately away from her chest and up to meet hers, which were filled with humor. He felt his skin ignite to a fiery red.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You must hate that. ”
“I’ve been used to it since I was fourteen. ” She looked around. “Where are your friends?”
“We’re meeting them at the diner. Couple blocks from here. My car’s over there…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the parking lot and reached for the small suitcase that stood next to her. She let him carry it, but opted to hold on to her laptop case, which she wore slung over one shoulder.
“Let’s go, then. ” Her tone was on the affable side of matter of fact, and he turned and led the way to the lot, trying not to cut looks at her as they walked. Jonatha Corbiel was a knockout and Newton had no experience at all around women of that level of beauty. None at all. In the thirty yards between the bench and his car he managed to bang his knee into the Intelligencer news box and trip down two of the three steps from the platform. When they were in the car, Newton drove slowly and badly and tried not to study her face in the rearview mirror. She wore seven earrings in her right ear and four in her left and silver rings flashed on each of her long fingers; she wore no makeup, and he thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“I…really want to thank you for coming up here. I know it’s a lot to ask. ”
She shrugged. “I’ve had it on my list to visit Pine Deep at some point. ” She smiled and held her hands out like she was reading a movie marquee. “Pine Deep, Pennsylvania: The Most Haunted Town in America. To a folklorist that’s like the mothership calling me home. ”
“The charm wears off once you live here for a while. ”
“Maybe,” she said. “I’m interested in this book you’re writing on vampire and werewolf legends in Pennsylvania. I don’t think anyone’s ever done a folklore book as specific as that for this area. ”
“Seems to be a theme with us,” Newton said dryly.
“In the last ten years I’ve done over fifty field investigations of reported vampirism in eleven states, and fourteen of werewolfism. You’d be amazed how often these things are reported. All of them were duds, dead ends. It always turns out that the witnesses were untrustworthy, or the evidence faked or simply misidentified. ”
Instead of replying to that, he said, “We’re here. ” He pulled into the lot of the Red Lion, a Greek diner on the corner of County Line Road and Route 611, and parked next to Val’s two-year-old Dodge Viper. Inside, Gus, the owner, gave him a friendly grin.
“You looking for Val and Crow? They’re in the back. ” He picked up two menus and ushered them into a nearly empty dining room. Newton made introductions and everyone shook hands.
“Thanks for agreeing to come up here,” Val said after they’d ordered coffees.
“Well, Mr. Newton piqued my interest with his book. A mass-market trade paperback deal is something we academics only dream of, so being extensively quoted and footnoted in one is actually a good career move. ”
Newton’s cover story was only partly a lie because Newton did plan to write a book, leveraging his celebrity as the reporter who broke the Karl Ruger/Cape May Killer story. Even his editor, Dick Hangood—who was not Newton’s biggest fan—thought a book deal would be a no-brainer, but no actual deal yet existed.
Crow sipped his coffee. “Newt’s been tapping me for info since he started on the project. Up till now I’ve been the local spook expert. ”
“I know,” Jonatha said. “I Googled you and saw how many times you’ve been quoted. ”
“Then you’ll know that most of it has been related to hauntings and such,” he said, nodding.
“You’ve been quoted a few times in articles about werewolf legends, but just in passing. Do you have a folklore background?”
“Not really. I’ve read a lot of books and when you live in Pine Deep you tend to pick up on things. ”
Newton watched Jonatha as she studied Crow. She had shrewd eyes and didn’t blink until after Crow finished talking. Newton recognized that as an interviewer’s trick. She was looking for a “tell. ” If you blink you can miss small changes in the other person’s expression, pupilary dilation, nostril flaring, thinning of the lips, angle of gaze—all of which could reveal a lot more about the subject than words or tone of voice. Newton had seen cops use the same tricks. So far Crow seemed to be doing pretty good.
Newton said, “I’ve been collecting some oral stories—things that have not yet been recorded and some weird things have come up that are outside of my own experience. ”
“Outside mine, too,” Crow said.
The waitress came and they ordered. Cheese omelets for Crow and Jonatha, a stack of French toast for Newton, and a bagel with whitefish for Val. Everyone had second coffees.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Ms. Guthrie,” Jonatha said, “what’s your involvement in this?”
“Val, please, and I’m an interested observer. ”
“Crow and Val are engaged,” Newton explained.
Jonatha stirred Splenda into her coffee. Her eyes lingered on Val’s. “I read the last few week’s worth of papers. Please accept my condolences. ”
“Thanks. ”
“I read that the mayor of the town is in a coma. ”
Val paused. “Yes. ”
“Unrelated events?”
“Yes. ”
“But on the same day as the attacks on your brother and his wife. ”
Val said nothing.
“Which is the same day you shot and killed that criminal, I believe?”
“Are you going somewhere with this, Dr. Corbiel?”
“Jonatha. No, I’m just trying to put the pieces together. You’ve all been through a terrible series of events. It’s pretty amazing that you can find the peace of mind to work together on a pop-culture book. ”
The food arrived, which gave Newton, Crow, and Val time to share some brief eye contact. All of them were hustling to reevaluate Jonatha Corbiel. When the waitress left, Crow said, “Distraction is useful under stress, don’t you think?”
“Distraction? That’s a funny word to put on the pursuit of a book on vampires. I would have thought you’d have had enough of monsters by now. Human monsters, I mean, which I think we can all agree are much worse than anything we find in film, fiction, or folklore. ”
Val tore off a piece of bagel and put it in her mouth as she leaned back in her chair and assessed Jonatha. “Is this going to be a problem? Would you rather not help us out with this?”
Jonatha gave them all a big smile that was pure charm and about a molecule deep. “Not at all. I’m rather interested to hear what you have to say. ”
They all digested that as they ate, but it was Jonatha who again broke the silence. “So…who wants to start?”
“Why don’t I give it a shot?” Crow said.
She waggled a corner of toast. “Fire away. ”
“Okay, if you’ve been reading about Pine Deep, then you’ve read about the Massacre of 1976. ”
“The Black Harvest and the Reaper murders, yes. ”
“Um…right. Well, since the seventies there have been a lot of urban myths built up arou
nd what happened. Have you heard of the Bone Man?”
“Sure. That’s the nickname given to Oren Morse, the migrant worker who was falsely accused of the crimes. ”
That threw Crow. “Falsely…?”
“I have copies of the news stories, Crow,” she said. “When Newton told me that the records from the Pine Deep newspapers had been destroyed in a fire I just probed a little deeper. Crimes of that kind are widely reported, and I have photocopies of the stories as reported by the Doylestown Intelligencer and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some Daily News and Bulletin articles as well. Prior to his own murder, Morse was quoted in an Intelligencer article. It was just after your brother was murdered. ”
If she had tossed a hand grenade onto the table she could not have hit Crow harder.
“What?” Val and Newton both exclaimed.
“Your father was also quoted in four separate articles, Val,” Jonatha said, “beginning with the murder of your uncle. ”
The three of them sat in stunned silence, gawking at her.
Jonatha finished her toast and cut a piece of omelet. “Mmm, good food here,” she said as she chewed. The silence persisted and finally Jonatha put down her fork. “You didn’t know your father was in the papers, did you?”
“No,” Val said. Her face had gone pale.
Jonatha folded her hands in her lap and looked at them in turn. Some of her smile had faded. “Okay, let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Val, you and Crow lost family to the Reaper. According to the news stories you were friends with Morse, who worked for some time for your father. Your town’s mayor, Terry Wolfe, lost a sister to the killer and was himself hospitalized. All through this there was a terrible blight…the Black Harvest in question. Now, thirty years later we have another blight, another series of brutal murders, and violence again hitting the same three families. Even some of the dimmer news affiliates have remarked on the coincidence, but they left it as coincidence. ” She pursed her lips. “I don’t much believe in coincidence. ”