Driven

by W. G. Griffiths

  “Apparently.”

  “Could he have still been alive?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Eww.” Amy shivered again.

  Gavin walked to the abandoned car and looked up at the transformer on the pole. He noticed some fresh scratches in the rust on the trunk and shook his head. “I bet when we get a tech here we find Krogan’s prints and traces of the arrows’ paint in these scratches.”

  “Right here,” Amy said, pointing.

  “Don’t touch,” Gavin said, pushing her hand away. “He may as well have signed his name while he was at it.” He turned around and looked back at the cross street. “He was probably driving by when he saw the truck he wanted right there,” he motioned. “Easy pickings. This psychopath has zero conscience.”

  “Almost like it’s all a game,” Amy said.

  Gavin walked over to the pole and looked at the ground. He’d expected to see blood but realized now it had probably been contained in the bucket. He then scanned the area again in all directions.

  “Go wait in the car. I’ll be right there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Over to that house. Maybe someone over there saw something.”

  “Do you think somebody actually lives in that shack? And isn’t it too early? It isn’t even seven yet.”

  “It’s never too early in this business.”

  “Well, then, I’m coming with you. This place gives me the creeps. For all we know he might be in one of those cars.”

  31

  Krogan’s eyes opened at the familiar creak of his porch stairs. His newly acquired wristwatch told him it was way too early for friendly visitors. In a moment he was out of bed and peering through his cobwebbed front window. He had to squint; his dilated, bloodshot eyes were not ready for the sunrise. He didn’t remember going to bed, but it couldn’t have been long ago. His head ached and his parched mouth needed a drink, preferably beer so his thinking would clear. A drink in the morning was the best remedy for a hangover.

  His pained eyes widened with surprise. “A ghost,” he said to himself as he focused on the two people stepping onto his porch. The man looked familiar, but the woman… He didn’t need to see her in a bathing suit to recognize she was that same Asian wench that had been on the boat he rammed. Apparently she hadn’t been killed. As he wondered why, he suddenly remembered where he had seen the man she was with; he’d seen him get into that van with the cop he’d crashed into. He was probably the detective the newspaper had said to contact. He couldn’t remember the name; his mind was still half drunk and asleep.

  He watched the intruders a moment longer as they nosed around. “Oh, no. You found me,” he mocked in a low, quiet voice that sounded more like a growl. “Found, but not caught.” He quietly stole away from the window and reached under his bed for his compound bow.

  A moment later he was standing naked at his bedroom doorway, swiftly setting a triple-razor broad-head arrow into the bow. Weapon ready, he stepped to the center of his darkened living room. He was invisible to his visitors, but their bodies were silhouetted against the thin curtain covering the glass window of his door. They were talking to each other, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  Krogan’s attention momentarily detoured to the body of a naked woman on the floor by his kitchen doorway. Then he remembered the Harley in his backyard and how he’d dragged her into the house. He didn’t remember what had happened to her clothes and wondered if she was dead. She looked dead—face down, her arms and legs outstretched and limp.

  He returned his focus to the front door. Though groggy, he effortlessly drew back the powerful bow and leveled his sights on the taller shadow’s head. His choice of whom to shoot first was easy. The girl would react with fear at seeing an arrow go through the man’s head, which would make dealing with her more fun. He could play with her for a while, or have her for breakfast. He was curiously excited, wondering whether she would faint or scream.

  The taller shadow reached for the doorbell. Krogan snickered. The doorbell had never worked. Another example of his father starting something and never finishing it. He watched the shadow knock gently on the glass. The wimp. If he was going to call this early he should at least have the courage to knock with authority.

  Krogan lowered his sights to the hand. Though his eyes were as blurry as his mind, the hand was a slightly more challenging shot. Besides, only wounding him would set things up for a fun hunt as they tried to hide from him.

  The smaller shadow said something and rapped hard on the door, obviously agreeing the detective was a coward. She was determined … and probably not the type to faint. The taller shadow pulled her hand away but she quickly snatched it back and said something. She then moved her head about as if trying to peek inside. Feisty, Krogan noted.

  “Greetings,” he growled, now zeroing the arrow’s point on the center of her right palm, flattened on the glass. He was about to release, but paused as a half-sober thought came to mind: maybe he hadn’t been found. They didn’t have guns drawn and there were no police cars or cops surrounding the house. They must have somehow found out the electric utility truck had been on this street and were probably looking for a witness.

  Krogan lowered the bow. As much as he wanted to properly greet his guests, he was now thinking just enough to realize it would cost him. After his fun was over he would no longer be able to return home.

  As the shadows finally left the front door he went back to the window to make sure they were leaving the property. For a moment he watched them walk down the block to their car, then he flopped back onto his bed. He could have them later, whenever he wanted. He warmed to that thought as he fell back to sleep.

  32

  Can we go now?” Amy said, standing beside the car as impatient as ever.

  Gavin tried to ignore her as he recapped instructions to the uniform cop standing before him, making doubly sure he had conveyed everything and was understood.

  “Got it. Don’t worry. Go have a good time with your wife before she leaves without you,” the cop said, motioning toward the car.

  Gavin started to correct him but instead just nodded. He had been mostly appreciative of Amy’s help, but he didn’t like being rushed away from a probable crime scene. The fact he’d only managed to station a single patrol car at the end of the block to maintain the site until the techs got there was disturbing. He wanted to personally point out his own findings and suggest his own theories, not relay secondhand messages. Experience had shown him more could be learned from the logic produced during random crime-scene chitchat than an entire stack of investigative reports. Amy, though, was driven in another direction. That Reverend Buchanan supposedly knew Krogan was all the logic she needed.

  THREE HOURS LATER, Gavin was driving through the green rolling hills of the Catskills mountain range. The hours of engine hum, wind noise, and flashing road lines had worked as well as any metronome Katz could have produced. Amy was out cold. The lack of conversation, mixed with too much strong coffee, had ignited Gavin’s hyper-focused mind. Too many questions with no acceptable answers. Instead of enjoying the fact he was finally getting the chance to drive his little sports car on country roads or that right now he had the soft-top down on a perfect sunny morning with a beautiful woman at his side, he was rehashing last night’s session with Karianne. Was any of it real? He felt like he had entered a time machine and taken statements from over two dozen character witnesses from across the ages—witnesses to crimes committed by the same man he was now hunting. Without the videotape, who would ever believe him? He kept rearranging the pieces of Krogan’s puzzle—the consistencies and the incongruous. Maybe something would click.

  He had never seen Amy so quiet for so long. She’d been sound asleep for almost the entire trip. Earlier, she had opened her eyes only briefly when Gavin pulled the little lever to recline her seat. He glanced at her now as he had done throughout the trip, the one pleasurable divergence he allowed himself. But eve
n that relief was tainted. As she lay there peacefully, the sun warming her golden skin and the wind playing with her hair, Gavin was cruelly reminded of when he’d first seen her twin sister in the hospital.

  During the first hour of their trip, when Amy was awake, she’d reread her notes aloud. Noting that Krogan liked to tattoo himself with his name, she’d wondered if he might have had his name put on a vanity license plate. Gavin had told her the department did have some experience in tracing names and a vanity plate check was standard procedure. He then told her he’d already made a note to check the local tattoo parlors, but figured Krogan had probably gotten tattooed abroad, possibly in Norway.

  Another pattern Amy had brought up was Krogan’s apparent preference for Jewish blood; more than half of Krogan’s victims in the interviews, which included the early Christians, were Jewish. Just another tidbit that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. And then there was the celebration at Jesus’ crucifixion—Krogan’s happiest moment, according to Karianne.

  Coming over the ridge of the Downsville pass, Gavin could see the small historic town of Hamden in the valley below. Hamden was nestled cozily within pine-clustered mountains and grassy foothills. Running parallel to Route 10, the only main road, was the Delaware River. This far north, the river was barely fifteen feet wide and appeared too shallow for anything larger than an inner tube or kayak.

  “Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Time to wake up,” Gavin said, patting Amy’s left thigh.

  Amy stretched her arms upward and smiled. “But I don’t want to go to school today.” She pulled herself upright by the armrest, with the back of the seat following her. “Wow! We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?” She turned and looked at Gavin for a long moment. “Sorry I fell asleep. How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” Gavin said.

  “Liar.”

  Upon entering the town, Gavin was halted by a girl wearing a yellow hard hat and waving a bright orange flag. The road ahead was under construction and Gavin had to wait.

  “When all of this is over, I’m going to get a job like hers,” Amy said.

  Gavin suddenly had to shake off a thought that came from nowhere, of Amy directing traffic and then unsuccessfully trying to stop a wild car headed right for her. He shivered as he saw the impact in his mind’s eye and then saw Krogan laughing through the car’s window.

  “What’s wrong?” Amy asked, apparently having seen Gavin wince.

  “Nothing,” he said, not very convincingly.

  Amy frowned, but didn’t pursue it.

  Hamden appeared to be no more than a dozen houses on either side of the road with one store in the middle on the right. The river ran behind the store. A small rectangular sign several yards away read “Hamden, founded 1797.” Gavin figured the town had not gone through too many facelifts since. The modern machines tearing up the road appeared out of place next to the old homes surrounding them.

  The girl waved them on. A hundred feet further, where the construction actually began, the paved road suddenly became a packed gravel subsurface. Oddly, the gravel gave the old town a more authentic feel.

  Gavin pulled over in front of the store and parked. The sign hanging over the old wood porch read “Hamden General Store.” A smaller sign in the window revealed it was also the post office. Someone here would know where Samantha’s Farm and the Reverend Buchanan were.

  They parked and walked up the well worn, creaky steps of the porch. Next to the doorway was a rack of newspapers, none of which were familiar. An overhead bell jingled as they entered the store. The floor was sprinkled with sawdust and in the center of the wide main aisle was a large, black pot-bellied woodstove. Beyond it an elderly woman stood working behind a counter.

  “Can I help you?” the old woman asked as Gavin and Amy approached. She was old enough to be Gavin’s grandmother, bony and petite, with white hair tied up in a bun. She energetically stocked the shelf behind her as she spoke.

  “We’re trying to locate Reverend Jesse J. Buchanan,” Gavin said. “We understand he lives here in Hamden at Samantha’s Farm.”

  “Mr. Buchanan,” the old woman corrected. “You should know he doesn’t like to be called Reverend anymore. Are you news people?”

  Who is she, his secretary? Gavin thought. He pulled his shield from his pocket and dropped it on the counter. “I’m Detective Pierce. I was hoping Rev— Mr. Buchanan would be able to help us.”

  The old lady stopped working and looked at Gavin, then his badge, then suspiciously at Amy. “That of course would be up to him. A half mile north, take your first right. The first driveway on the left after you cross the river is Samantha’s Dairy Farm. You can’t miss it.”

  33

  Samantha’s Dairy Farm” was hand painted in small lavender letters on the white mailbox. Gavin turned into the driveway and stopped before driving on. A wire fence, probably electrified, bordered the ascending dirt driveway on either side. On the right side of the driveway several brown cows stopped grazing to stare at them.

  “Check it out,” Amy said, pointing at the cows. “How adorable.”

  Gavin did a double-take when he saw the cows all had pink bows on their necks. “Can I trust you to not ride any of these?” Gavin said. Amy smiled.

  He turned his attention to the house at the top of the driveway—a white two-story with pink shutters and a wraparound porch. Gavin thought it looked like a dollhouse; Amy said it was adorable. To the right of the house was the broad side of a white barn with about two dozen small windows running the length of it, all with pink shutters. Between the windows, large multicolored butterflies had been painted in detail. Several black crows perched along the ridgetop.

  “Shouldn’t the crows also have pink bows?” Gavin asked.

  “Definitely. Look!” Amy said. A large bird circled high over the barn. “That must be an eagle, or a hawk.”

  Gavin wanted to tell her which it was, but the truth was he didn’t know. For some reason he felt embarrassed by that, like he should know such things. The bird circled effortlessly, without even a single flap of its wings to maintain its lofty height, then drifted over their heads. Both Gavin and Any craned their necks around, following the majestic creature’s flight over the valley fields that bordered the river.

  The country setting was beautiful and serene, a place Gavin could easily imagine getting used to. But why had Reverend Buchanan come here? Why had he left his congregation in New Jersey? Was it because this was “God’s Country”? Was it an escape in the wilderness? Escape from what? Krogan?

  Suddenly the great bird stopped drifting across the sky, flapping its wings to hold its position. Then, as if for the thrill of its audience, it tucked its wings and fell headfirst like a meteorite to the earth until the high grass of a nearby field swallowed it up. Gavin and Amy looked at each other with wide eyes then, without a word, unbuckled their seat belts and kneeled on their seats, craning for a better view. The tall golden grass moved lazily in the gentle breeze without evidence anything had happened. Just as Gavin wondered if he had witnessed one of nature’s strangest ritualistic suicides, the bird suddenly swept back in the air with a limp animal in its claws.

  “Shoot!” Amy said. “How would you like to be that poor little guy? One second you’re enjoying a great day in the sunshine, sniffing for roots and seeds, the next second, boom, you’re dead… in the claws of a giant flying monster.”

  Gavin said nothing. He could not help but see the bird as Krogan, crashing into Amy’s brother-in-law off the fishing pier, leaving his limp, lifeless body half crushed under the car that had pounced on him.

  “ ‘The brave live as long as the coward allows,’ ” he said.

  Amy looked at him quizzically. “You okay?” she asked lightly.

  “Yeah.” They both turned and slid back into their seats. “Say good-bye to the muffler,” he added as he slowly started what looked to be a bumpy ride up the driveway.

  “Not that I’m real up on this, but I’ve never heard of reverends or minis
ters or preachers, or whatever you call them, working a dairy farm,” Amy said.

  “Mr. Buchanan, remember,” Gavin warned. “And I get the impression he’s no longer a preacher.”

  “Don’t you think we should let him correct us just in case the old lady was wrong?”

  “I suppose you’re right. Calling someone Reverend isn’t exactly an insult,” Gavin said.

  “Unless he no longer wants to be associated with his old ministry,” Amy said after a moment of thought.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “What about you, Gavin. What are your beliefs?”

  “Why?” Gavin said.

  “Well, if the subject comes up I don’t want to be shocked. Partners should know what each other’s beliefs are.”

  Gavin looked at Amy, wondering if she was serious. Her reasoning had merit, but now was not the time to open a possible can of worms. “I’m a Christian. I don’t know much about the details, but I know that.”

  “So you believe in loving God and loving your neighbor?”

  “Yeah. And I also believe in my gun inside Krogan’s mouth,” he said, really not wanting to get into this now.

  “Wonderful,” she said sarcastically. “Now I feel I really know you.”

  “Sorry. You get what you see.”

  “What about reincarnation?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, have you seen enough with Karianne to at least believe in that?”

  “I’ve seen enough to know I haven’t seen enough.”

  “Now that’s deep.”

  “What do you believe?” he said defensively.

  “I believe there’s something going on behind the scenes.”

  Gavin looked at her again. She was staring at him as if she hadn’t appreciated his shortness with her. He knew he should be touched she wanted to know him better. If only he wasn’t so tired and wired. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cared what he believed. “It cuts across my basic beliefs. But to tell you the truth, I’d never really thought much about reincarnation before Katz brought it up.”