RandomActNEWpub

by Random Act (retail) (epub)

  “I can’t stop you, I know,” she said. “And I don’t know how far you’re going to take it. Just be careful.”

  I mustered a smile.

  “People keep saying that. Worrywarts.”

  “I’m serious, Jack,” Roxanne said, and she turned and walked into the living room. I heard her kick off her shoes, knew she’d settled on the couch with her laptop.

  I was alone with my friendly demon, her smiling face, her blood pooling on a concrete floor.

  Sitting at the desk, I tried to chase her away. I looked at the BVI police Facebook page: hurricane recovery, arrests for assault and possession of cannabis, a guy killed in a scooter accident. A long report on a drive-by shooting with two people killed, including a nine-year-old boy. A plea for information from the public so the detective inspector could bring to justice those who had “callously and heartlessly taken his life.”

  I kept scrolling until I hit Nigel Dean. One short paragraph. He’d succumbed to injuries sustained during a burglary gone wrong. No one had been apprehended. The investigation was continuing.

  And now Dean’s girlfriend was laying low, but waiting for what? For Louis to pop the question, so she could latch on to another millionaire? For the home invaders to be caught so she could sleep easy? For Louis to take them out?

  I stared at the screen, the questions circling in my head like birds, never finding a place to light.

  When I went to bed, Roxanne was still up working. I looked in on Sophie and she was snoring softly. I gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then I went to bed and stared at the gray outline of the sky beyond the window. Listened to the creak of frozen branches in the wind.

  And I slept until an awful image crept in. Sophie’s soft child’s throat was bared to the night and people were around her bed, saying, “Where is Marta Kovac?” One of them had a black hatchet and he raised it high over his head.

  No, take me! I screamed.

  And I woke up with a gasp, my heart still pounding as I left the bedroom, crossed the hall, and eased Sophie’s door open. She was still asleep, but her throat was bared, just like in the dream. I covered it with the blanket, watched her until my heart slowed.

  And then I was back in bed, Roxanne still downstairs tapping on the keys. I shut my eyes and tried to will sleep to come, no dreams. And then it was morning, Roxanne beside me, bedclothes kicked off. I felt the warmth of her, touched the curve of her hip. And then I got up and crossed the hall again, eased Sophie’s door open. She was asleep on her stomach, her dark curly hair strewn on the pillow.

  I stepped closer, leaned down. Listened to her breath. Took a deep breath of my own.

  On Monday morning we drove in silence north to Hyde, Clair’s jaw clenched. I could tell when he was ready to talk and when he wasn’t. I’d learned to just wait.

  Turning off the potholed paved road, we skimmed through a snow-covered dirt path. Then I slowed and turned into the woods, slipped the truck into four wheel. The pickup lurched, snow flying in the glare of the headlights. I downshifted as we climbed the rises, braked as we eased our way down. The yard was a half-mile in and it was slow going, but still, we were there right on time, seven a.m.

  Clair parked beside the skidder. Lifted the plow and shut off the motor.

  “What time did you tell him?” I said.

  “Seven-hundred fifteen hours.”

  “Sanctuary is another forty minutes away.”

  “Can’t coddle the boy, just because he’s got company.”

  I smiled, said, “You’ve had your coffee.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t want to intrude on your grumpy time.”

  “Not quite there yet. I’ll just listen.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Here it is. I don’t trust her.”

  Clair reached for his mug, took another swallow.

  “Longtime partner gets whacked in a pretty horrible way. Not four months later she’s banging the bejesus out of her high school boyfriend.”

  “Thanks for cleaning it up for me,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “People grieve in different ways,” Clair said.

  “She’s madly in love with Louis? She hadn’t seen him in eleven years, for God’s sake.”

  “Flames get rekindled.”

  “What, you been reading romance novels?” I said.

  “I have my sensitive side,” Clair said.

  “And what does your sensitive side tell you?”

  “Her lifeboat sank. She swam for the next one and climbed on.”

  I looked out the window. A blue jay landed on top of a pile of brush and looked at the truck. I reached in my lunch pail and dug out a peanut butter sandwich, broke off a piece and rolled the window down. The jay fluttered close and scooped the bread up and flew off.

  “I looked on the Virgin Islands police website. This murder gets a paragraph. There was half a page about some guy who stole a motorbike.”

  “Maybe they pulled the local police off this one.”

  “But why?” I said.

  “Her ex was politically connected in England. Didn’t trust the locals not to screw it up, trample the evidence?”

  “I get that.”

  “Then what’s bothering you?” Clair said.

  “She knows way more than she’s saying. She knows they were Russians. She knows how they knew her boyfriend had serious cash. She knows how they knew they were alone in the house that night, with no servants.”

  The jay was back; at least it looked like the first one. I broke off another piece of sandwich and tossed it.

  “If she knew all that, would she blab all of it to a couple of relative strangers?” Clair said. “And remember, she’s gun-shy around men. Gotta be, after all she went through.”

  “Gun-shy or not, somebody’s looking for her. The police. The bad guys. Somebody.”

  Clair didn’t answer.

  “So she’s using Louis. Good place to hide out, in the boonies of Maine. Some serious firepower on hand, and he knows how to use it. Dragging him into bed is just a way of getting in the door and staying there.”

  He scratched his chin, pushed his hat back.

  “Think about it, Clair,” I said. “Why would somebody be hunting for her?”

  “Witness to a murder.”

  “Or she grabbed something and ran, and that wasn’t part of the original plan.”

  “Where would that something be?”

  “Stashed someplace,” I said.

  “What? Jewelry? Cash?”

  “A million dollars in hundreds only weighs sixty pounds,” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Story I did about drug money being smuggled north.”

  “She’s in good shape,” Clair said. “Sixty pounds is nothing.”

  He looked at me and smiled.

  “Listen to us, Jack,” he said.

  And then there was a rumbling clatter on the tote road. I reached for my gloves, warming on the top of the dashboard. Clair took a last gulp of his coffee as Marta’s Audi came out of the trees and slid to a halt beside the truck. Louis was driving and he shut the car off and Marta got out from the passenger side. She was wearing aviators and a black knit cap, jeans, and a black sweater, the same L.L.Bean boots. Opening the rear door, she leaned in and pulled out one of Louis’s Marine Corps field jackets. Desert camo. Marta stretched her back, her hands on her buttocks.

  “Fit as a fiddle,” I said.

  13

  k

  Louis climbed out of the car and Friend jumped out after him. Moving to the back of the Audi, Louis lifted the hatch. Clair opened the door and got out of the pickup and I did, too.

  “I hope you guys don’t mind,” Marta said. “I told Louis I’d be careful. I’ve just never seen lumberjacks at work b
efore.”

  “Not sure we’re much to look at,” Clair said, “but you’re welcome to freeze your butt off.”

  Louis was still at the back of the Audi as we dropped the tailgate of the Tacoma, reached for saws and toolboxes and gas cans.

  “Hey,” Clair said.

  Louis nodded.

  Marta had moved to the front of the car and was calling to Friend, slapping her hands on the front of her thighs. He kept walking, stopped and peed on a bush.

  “She’ll stay out of the way,” Louis said.

  “She can drive the skidder for all I care,” Clair said.

  Louis took his saw out of the trunk and put it down on the snow, then his toolbox and helmet. He didn’t answer and didn’t make eye contact.

  “As long as you’re good with her being here,” Clair said.

  Louis plucked at his saw chain, peered at it closely.

  “She’s afraid to be left alone at the cabin,” Louis said.

  We ran fingers over saw teeth. Unscrewed caps and poured chain oil and gas. It was their conversation and it was running in slow motion. I waited.

  “My impression is, she’s isn’t afraid of much,” Clair said.

  He dug in his pocket for the key to the skidder. Pulled it out and put his glove back on.

  “She’s had to be tough,” Louis said.

  “I know that,” Clair said. “Question is, do you want to be the next chapter.”

  The dog was snuffling in the snow, probably smelling partridge, snowshoe hare, deer—last night’s woods traffic. Marta wandered back from the far side of the Audi, stood beside Louis.

  “This is all the gear, huh?” she said.

  “Tools of the trade,” Louis said. He turned to her and, I imagined, smiled.

  “What can I do?”

  He patted her on the shoulder, then pulled her closer and gave her a quick hug, his hand on her hip.

  “Keep the dog from following us in,” Louis said. “We’re working just up that road.”

  Marta broke into a fast trot down the tote road and Friend followed. Sixty pounds was nothing.

  The road was a gash in the underbrush made with the front blade of the skidder, then trampled by its chain-wrapped tires. I picked up my saw and Clair’s, and Louis and I started walking as Clair started the skidder with a clack of metal and a puff of blue diesel smoke. The smoke hung and then drifted sideways through the trees.

  All the noise drove the birds away, left the trees frozen in place like they’d been startled. We walked up a rise, boots sinking in the snow and sliding on the underlying ice. I glanced back, saw the skidder lurch forward, smoke belching. Behind it, Marta was covering her ears with her gloved hands. Friend was nowhere to be seen.

  “Dog’s gone,” I said.

  “Brain is in his nose,” Louis said.

  “She gonna get lost trying to follow him?”

  “She can just turn around, follow her tracks right back.”

  I walked. We moved to the side as the big yellow machine rumbled up behind us. I gave Louis a sideways glance and he said, “Sometimes you choose a situation. Sometimes a situation chooses you. Either way, you have to do the right thing.”

  He gave me a look, like he was daring me to push it. I nodded.

  “She’s solid,” he said. “Just has shit for luck.”

  And he walked ahead. I waited for Clair.

  He stopped the skidder and shut it off, climbed down from the seat. I handed him his saw and we fanned out into the woods, eventually spreading a few hundred feet apart. The three of us were staring skyward, eyeing the canopy, considering which tree to cut first, the way it would fall. The sky was pale blue, a backdrop to the black bouquets of branches.

  We were cutting hardwood for firewood. Clair’s saw revved first as we moved into a stand of mostly maple, oak on the ridges, some ash on the edge of what sixty years ago had been pasture. I picked out a big maple and yanked my saw to life. Looked up again, picked the best direction for it to fall, but there was a squirrel nest in a crook at the top, a bundle of leaves and sticks. I pictured the squirrels working away all fall, constructing a winter home.

  I moved to the maple thirty feet to the left.

  And then we were in the rhythm of it, two cuts on the upside, one that let the tree drop. Crashing and splintering, then the trunk hitting the snow with a whump, like a giant had stepped into the forest. Then climbing through the tangle, cutting the big limbs, some more than a foot thick. Working your way down to limb each one. Saw in one hand, dragging the brush out of the way with the other. Waving to Clair, now in the skidder, to drive in and hook up the chains. The clumped wood leaving a dark gash in the snow.

  This was old school—no heavy equipment, no mechanical claw snapping trees off three feet above the ground. Drop, cut, limb, haul. We moved deeper tree by tree, leaving the softwood and poplar. I took an ash down as Clair hauled a twitch of red oak back to the yard. I glanced over, then started taking the big limbs off. Heard a metallic whine, saw sparks, pulled the saw back.

  In the cut I could see a glint of metal. A big square nail showed, deep in the wood. The tree had grown over it fifty years ago or more and my saw chain had found it. What were the chances? I looked at the teeth, dulled by the metal. I could file the chain or swap it out for a sharp one from my toolbox.

  I walked back to the truck, weaving around stumps, stepping over branches. Clair and Louis kept working and the roar of the skidder and rip of the saw receded. The woodyard was quiet.

  There was no sign of Marta or the dog. I lifted the tray from my toolbox, fished out a sharp chain. Loosened the bar and slipped the dulled chain off, looped the new one on. I’d bolted the bar back in place, adjusted the tension, when I looked over at the Audi. I thought of Lindy Hines, her SUV, the mail on the seat, clues to her identity.

  Saw in hand, I walked to the back of the Audi. The hatch was up, Louis’s toolbox sitting on a piece of green tarp. I looked down at the bumper. There was a small Hertz sticker. I was right about the rental. Wondered what they’d think when it came back smelling like dog and chain oil.

  I circled the car. The butt of Louis’s Sig Sauer stuck out of the map bin on the front passenger’s door. Marta’s side. Didn’t feel safe in the cabin alone, and left the gun in the car?

  There was nothing on the seats, which also seemed odd. She’d driven all the way to Maine, and the car was as clean as when she’d picked it up at the airport. I looked around the clearing again. Listened, scanned the woods, then leaned back in and shoved the toolbox forward.

  There was a cargo lid under the tarp and I glanced around, then gave it a yank.

  It was locked.

  I walked around the car and looked in the passenger window.

  No keys.

  I hesitated, then opened the passenger door, then the glove box. I fished out the Hertz papers, scanned the agreement—the Audi rented to M. C. Kovac, an address in Longboat Key, Florida. I remembered it vaguely as some rich town near Sarasota. I reached back into the glove box, under the manuals. Felt a small folder. I pulled it out, opened it.

  The emergency key.

  I looked around again, then took the key out. It was plastic, no electronic buttons. I hurried to the back of the car, tried it in the cargo bin lock. It slipped in. I turned it, lifted the lid.

  Newspapers on top: USA Today and the Miami Herald. August 18 for both. I pulled them aside.

  Saw money.

  Stacks of it, lined up in neat rows like the bin was a teller’s drawer. Banded hundred-dollar bills, fourteen across, three rows. Forty-two bundles. I lifted one out. It was a couple of inches thick. I thumbed through—hundreds, top to bottom. I put the bundle back, arranged the newspapers on top, eased the lid down, and locked it.

  “Each one is fifty thousand,” Marta said, behind me. “A little over two million, if y
ou do the math.”

  14

  k

  I turned. She was standing ten feet behind me. Her tracks showed she’d come from that direction, made a big loop.

  “The dog got away,” Marta said.

  “Not the only one, huh?”

  She smiled.

  “I guess I made a run for it, too.”

  “Escaped with the shirt on your back?”

  “Something like that.”

  We stood there for a moment, neither of us moving closer. We could hear the saw and skidder in the distance.

  “You don’t trust me,” Marta said.

  “Trying to figure you out.”

  “Louis says that’s what you do. Study people.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So you can write about them,” she said. “Are you gonna write about me?”

  “I don’t write about friends or family.”

  “Am I a friend?” Marta said.

  “No, but Louis is. You’re safe.”

  She walked toward me, stopped four feet away. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold. Her eyes glittered with a sort of predatory excitement.

  “You’re not making me feel safe, Jack,” she said. “You’re making me feel very nervous.”

  “You don’t seem nervous to me.”

  She glanced toward the car.

  “If you were a cop, you’d need a warrant to do that.”

  “That’s why I like being a reporter.”

  “License to pry into everybody’s business?”

  “Not everybody’s,” I said.

  Another pause. I could hear a nuthatch in the trees to my left. Then titmice rasping, chickadees joining in. Closer, I could hear her breathing.

  “Where was the key?”

  “The back of the glove box. You’re supposed to put it in your wallet in case you lock yourself out.”

  I held it out and she took it.

  “Will it start the motor?”

  “No. Just opens the doors.”

  “Good to know.”

  One chain saw shut off. Clair starting to twitch the wood out.