The path the Harlans’ Chevy pickup had cut through the median and between a break in the cable barrier was a short drive from where they had started.
Riker decelerated rapidly and bumped the Shelby onto the grassy median.
Due to the extra weight of the camper, the tire tracks sank deep in the grass and proved easy to follow. Negotiating the chicane left between the run of cable for State Troopers and emergency vehicles to reverse direction on the I-10 without having to go to the distant overpass was not an easy task in the wide body Shelby. It proved especially difficult in the dark. But Riker had no choice. Last thing he wanted to do was turn on the HID lights and risk spooking the Harlans and having them rabbit.
Slowly and from a distance was how Riker intended to follow his quarry.
Tara was pulling up the navigation window on the SYNC screen when the Shelby rode up onto I-10 eastbound. She was zooming in and moving the image around with her finger when Steve blurted, “They’re turning.”
Looking up, she estimated the distance to the spot on the stretch of interstate she’d last seen the taillights. Regarding the nav screen, she tried to determine where on the pixelated map the pickup had turned south. Which was not an easy task. She quickly found that gauging distance in the dark and then trying to convert that to the scaled-down digital map was akin to performing Chinese arithmetic while blindfolded.
Squinting at the glowing screen, she said, “I’m not seeing a named road where they just turned.”
Riker asked, “Is there a road?”
She shook her head. “Not an established thoroughfare. If something is there to turn off on, it’s a driveway, feeder road, or something like that.”
Nearing the spot on the right where Tara thought she saw the truck turn off, Riker slowed the Shelby to a crawl and flicked on the headlights.
After travelling another hundred feet or so, the headlight beams washed over the entrance to an unmarked access road branching off to the right. Only difference between this road and the one in the Hixtown Swamp outside of Madison, where they had encountered the woman and her two kids, was the mangled gate. It was hanging wide open and being supported by just one undamaged hinge. Beyond the gate, the narrow track seemed to get swallowed up by the surrounding foliage.
“This has got to be it,” observed Tara. “The gate—”
“And the trees,” interrupted Riker as he steered onto the road and stopped beside the steel post to which the one remaining hinge was bolted.
Tara said, “Trees?”
Riker indicated the trees crowding the road on both sides. Some of their branches were bent and broken from ground level to about the height he guessed the Caveman cabover rose above the road. The road itself was littered with leaves and small limbs that had come off the trees.
Riker said, “See how the trees took a beating from the camper?”
Tara eyed the trees, then craned to see the gate. “What color was the guy’s pickup?”
“In the dark it looked silver,” answered Riker. “Could just as well have been gunmetal gray.”
She said, “Well, there is gray paint on the gate.”
“I saw that,” conceded Riker as he pulled the truck into the trees, killed the engine and extinguished the headlights.
“It’s real dark here,” Steve-O said. “Hope there aren’t any Sickos lurking around.”
It was real quiet, too. Only sound was an owl hooting somewhere far off.
Tara tightened her grip on the Shockwave. Throwing a hard shiver, she said, “Can we go now?”
Riker shook his head. “We’re going to have to drive with the lights on. Means we’ll need to give them a few more seconds’ head start so they don’t make us and run for it.”
Propping both elbows on the seatback, Steve-O said, “Be like Hansel and Gretel, Lee Riker.”
Nearly in unison, the siblings said, “Huh?”
“They followed crumbs. You can follow broken branches.”
Riker had already been thinking along the same lines. However, not wanting to steal Steve-O’s thunder, he turned to him and said, “I like the way you’re thinking. That there is some Grade-A, Sherlock-Holmes power of observation.”
While they waited on the dark road, time moving painfully slow, Tara manipulated the satellite image on the navigation screen until the shoreline left of the closed bridge was the focal point. It was irregular and dropped away south by east. She traced a finger along a half-inch-long stretch of shoreline equidistant to the roadblock northwest of them and the small bay to the south.
Due south of the spot on the map where the bridge began its long run out over water was the end of the road they were currently parked on. The road met a T. The left branch snaked off toward the bay, while the right wandered off toward a series of docks on the nearby waterway. Though mostly obscured by trees, the roofs of a house and several outbuildings could be seen through the lush canopy.
“Here,” she finally said. “It’s a treed cove. Looks to be sheltered from prying eyes on the bridge.” Tapping a cracked fingernail on the screen, she added, “And this road we’re on will take us to it.”
Adopting a passable British accent, Steve-O said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Then, voice returning to normal and wavering slightly, he asked, “Can we go now?”
Chapter 31
The Shelby had taken a beating as Riker tooled it along the unimproved track of a road leading away from the interstate. Five minutes after leaving the I-10 behind, they were stopped at the T in the road, the big V8 thrumming away under the hood, and the house they had spotted on the navigation screen visible through a copse of mature trees. Someone was definitely home, as nearly every light inside and out were ablaze.
The house was a two-story affair with clapboard siding, sprouting multi-windowed dormers at each point of the compass. Up close, it didn’t present as nicely as it had from space. The blue paint was faded and chipped. Its wraparound porch had also seen better days. Many of the white balusters were missing and the planking was buckling in places. Under cover of the porch roof were a number of cheap plastic chairs and a lone love seat, the cushions making a pronounced dip in the middle.
Seeing headlights approaching from the left, Riker turned right onto the two-lane road. After a short run on pavement, he nosed the Shelby left onto the gravel drive leading to the house.
The place was open. That much was clear. At the mouth of the drive was a sandwich board advertising crossing fees. It wasn’t a professional-looking item. The old price of $50 per vehicle and $25 per single-axle trailer had been crossed out. The new fares were written on the sign below the old in big block letters.
Incredulous, Tara said, “A thousand bucks a car? And another grand if you have a trailer? Are they fuckin’ crazy?”
“Nope, these folks are shrewd risk-takers,” Riker said. “There’s probably some kind of statute on the books says you can’t ferry people across when bridges around here are shut down. Supply and demand drives the price.”
“That’s a lot of Big Macs,” declared Steve-O.
“That’s highway robbery,” sneered Tara. “No different than the dick selling gas at a four-hundred-percent markup.”
Riker didn’t want to argue with Tara. It was a losing proposition, any way you sliced it. She was a bit of an idealist. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, when someone had something you and a whole bunch of other people really, really needed, maybe even coveted, the people holding the commodity were the ones in the driver’s seat.
The drive took them past outbuildings and then curled around back of an enormous glass greenhouse. Coming out into the open, they saw a number of things not visible on the satellite image.
Halide lights mounted high up on wooden posts bathed everything close to the water in soft orange light. On the right, facing the inky black water, was an open-air boathouse twice the size of the greenhouse. On the dock beside the boathouse was a pair of rust-streaked gas pumps. Abutting the boathouse was a ge
neral store of sorts. A sign on the store’s shingled roof read SHORTY’S BAIT AND TACKLE. On the wall facing the boat ramp, directly below the sign, was a single door with one glass window bearing a CLOSED sign.
On the low porch, left of the door, was a freezer dedicated for block and cubed ice. A handwritten sign on one of the freezer doors indicated Shorty was all out of both. Right of the entry was an old refrigerator emblazoned with the words LIVE BAIT.
Each of the store’s four darkened windows hosted a glowing neon beer sign.
Dead ahead, at the end of the drive currently occupied by a number of vehicles was the “ferry landing” Jessie had spoken breathlessly of—Harlan’s gunmetal gray Chevy last in the long line.
As far as ferry landings went, this slab of concrete disappearing into the dark water was nothing more than a boat ramp lined by orange traffic cones to show where vehicles needed to line up prior to boarding.
Riker set the brake and shut the motor down. Turning to Tara, he said, “I’m going to go check things out. See if I can find Shorty or his boss.”
“I’m going,” declared Steve-O. “I have to pee like a racehorse.”
Riker nodded and grabbed the Sig from the console. Looking to Steve-O, he asked, “Do you ever have to pee like any other animal?”
“Don’t be a smartass to your elders, Lee.”
Riker had no answer for that.
Suppressing a smile, Tara said, “Be careful, Bro.”
Riker said, “I will. You be careful too.” And though he really wanted to instruct her to gun up and lock the truck behind them, he decided to see what she would do if he didn’t.
Like a wild animal freed from a leg trap, Steve-O launched out the door and began walking toward the bait shop.
Riker closed both doors and lifted his gaze to Tara. She was staring at him through the window glass, worry in her eyes.
Just as he was beginning to second-guess leaving her behind, the locks thunked shut, she showed him the little pump gun and then mouthed, “Hurry back.”
As Riker rushed to catch Steve-O, he looked the length of the line of cars and saw a man in a black hoody and olive-green hip waders turning away from the Harlans’ Chevy.
“Wait up, buddy,” called the man, his long shadow seeming to weave and bob with each purposeful step he took in Riker’s direction.
Though high in pitch and a bit reedy, the voice definitely belonged to a man.
Riker said, “You work here, buddy?”
Nodding as he pulled the hood back, the man said, “I’m collecting fares for Shorty. Cash, gold, silver, like-new stuff in trade … we take it all.”
Riker sized the man up. Found there wasn’t much size to him. He looked to be a couple of inches north of five foot and a few years north of fifty. A plug of tobacco puffed out his lower lip, the brown juice dribbling from the corner of his mouth as he talked. The picket of yellowed teeth were crooked and flecked with tiny black tobacco granules. Explaining the nasal tone to his voice was the boxer’s nose. Broken multiple times, the nose jagged left then right like a lightning bolt before culminating in a curled-over nub of flesh home to blackheads and broken capillaries.
After a pregnant pause, during which the man looked Riker up and down and Steve-O disappeared around back of the bait shop, Riker shook his head emphatically. “First I need to speak with Shorty,” he insisted.
“Suit yourself,” said the man. “First come first serve is how we work it here. And Shorty is just about to load two more paying customers and shove off.”
“You the deckhand or something?”
“Or something,” answered the man.
Riker craned to see the corner where he had last spotted Steve-O.
Nothing.
“How long is the round trip?”
The man spat tobacco juice on the ground. Wiping his lips on his sleeve, he replied, “‘Bout thirty minutes. Give or take.”
The rumbling of jet engines began anew. Riker panned his head and determined the noise was coming from behind the boathouse. Which told him the boat ramp was oriented in roughly the same direction as the bridge. And that meant the ferry was probably going to motor south by west before making landfall somewhere near the naval air station.
Regarding the little man, Riker said, “Where does Shorty make his drop-off?”
“Depends.”
Riker stared the man down.
Finally, the man said, “Depends on where a fella wants Shorty to take him.”
Trying another tack, Riker asked, “Where does the thousand-dollar trip end?”
The man spat again. “A short ways south of here, but on the east side of the air base.”
Riker lifted his shirt and dove a hand into his pants pocket, inadvertently revealing the Sig in the process. Displaying the wad of hundreds, he peeled ten from the stack and handed them over.
“Do I get a receipt?”
“Don’t worry,” said the man. “You know where to find me.” With that he was on to the next vehicle in line.
Riker called, “I’m not much of a worrier,” and struck off toward the bait shop.
The bait shop’s “restroom” was a pair of Honey Bucket port-a-pottys secured side-by-side and locked to the trunk of a nearby fir. Riker was wondering what kind of freak would want to steal several hundred pounds of plastic shithouse when his attention was drawn to the curled corner of a dark-green tarp covering something laid out on the ground behind the fir.
Taking a step around the trunk, Riker leaned over and lifted the tarp. The sight of a pale human hand, its dirty fingers curled tightly into a fist, started his “Spidey sense” tingling.
Uncovering the corpse’s naked upper body revealed clues that set him somewhat at ease. The milky eyes were open and stared skyward. Cause of death appeared to be the pencil-eraser-sized hole in the young man’s temple. Having seen his share of true crime documentaries, Riker identified the tiny black dots on the pale skin surrounding the hole as powder burns. Clearly someone had put this one down up close and personal.
The cheek facing Riker was ripped away, the bloody flap suspended by a ribbon-thin length of skin. Lifting the flap, he saw that the stark white molars were still locked down on what looked to be the better part of someone’s thumb.
Beginning on the corpse’s neck, just below the ear facing him, were a number of deep furrows still weeping blood. They were angry red and continued over the shoulder and on down the right arm. Where the meandering scratches ended, the bite marks began. They were puckered and oozing blood. The jagged ridges ringing the half-dozen inch-deep wounds peppering the well-muscled forearm were purple and curling over.
Coming to the conclusion that this was likely the corpse of a Bolt, and that the severed thumb meant it got to someone else before being put down, Riker dropped the tarp and tucked the corner under. No sooner had he hinged up and backed away than the door on the nearest outhouse opened and Steve-O stepped out.
“Hey there, Man-O-War,” said a still slightly shaken Riker. “You drain every last drop out of that trouser snake of yours?”
Still cinching his belt, Steve-O smiled and nodded.
“Let’s go check out this ferry.”
Looking up at Riker, one hand adjusting his Stetson, Steve-O said, “You look pale, Lee Riker. Like you just saw a ghost.”
“Maybe it was something I ate,” Riker lied. “My stomach is a bit queasy.” Waving Steve-O along, he struck off toward the distant boat ramp.
Chapter 32
Riker felt Tobias Harlan’s eyes tracking him and Steve-O as they walked past the man’s high-riding Chevy. The man was leaning against the truck’s grille and talking quietly with his wife and nephew.
Ignoring the trio of gazes following him, Riker continued on by with Steve-O in tow and none the wiser to the scrutiny.
To the left of the boat ramp was the long dock Riker had spotted on the satellite image. It was lit up with soft light thrown from frosted globes atop nearby stanchions. Though he’d gotte
n a feel of the scale of the thing from the brief glance of it on the Shelby’s navigation screen, the true scope of the operation didn’t hit him until he saw it close up. It looked as if a dozen ski boats or runabouts could tie up here at one time. Presently, a thirty- or forty-foot vintage motor yacht was moored near the ramp. Thick, taut ropes coming from the yacht fore and aft wound around burnished metal dock cleats. White fenders hung at intervals from the yacht’s deck rail.
With all the gleaming mahogany and brilliant chrome trim, Riker had the vessel pegged as a Chris-Craft. A super high-dollar item when new decades ago, the waxed and buffed beauty still projected that if you have to ask how much, you probably can’t afford me attitude. As the motor yacht strained against the lines, the fenders rubbing against the gleaming white hull produced a symphony of squeaks.
Why the owner wasn’t already moving her to a safer port was lost on Riker.
Out of the blue, Steve-O stopped walking and pointed at something off to his left. “Jet skis,” he called to nobody in particular.
Riker followed his arm and spied, parked underneath the magnolia tree fronting the house, a single-axle trailer carrying two newer-looking Yamaha WaveRunners.
FOR SALE - $1000 EACH - TRAILER FREE IF YOU BUY BOTH was spray-painted in white on a plywood sheet propped against the trailer.
Steve-O asked, “Can we ride one?”
“Not tonight,” Riker said. “Maybe when we get to where we’re going, we can look into buying a pair of them.”
Obviously excited by the prospect, Steve-O said, “There’s water where we are going?”
“There’s got to be a lake or two nearby.”
“Tara won’t tell me where we’re going. Every time I ask it’s just ‘West, Steve-O.’” The Stetson brim cut the air as he shook his head in frustration.
“Sorry about that. It’s just—” Riker went quiet for a tick. “It’s just that we don’t want to say it aloud and end up jinxing it.”
The Plan Page 18