She glared at Manning. “Did you want me to spank him, too?”
Bo walked her to her car. The sun was low in the sky. They stood in the long shadow of the maples, and Diana Ishimaru spoke quietly. “Are you okay, Bo?”
“Yes.”
“We all care about him,” she said. “But if he were able, he’d tell you to take care of his daughter first.”
“I know.”
“And Manning is just doing his job.”
“I know that, too.”
“I figured you did. Stay in touch.” She got in her car and drove away.
Bo went into the Op Center and tried to call Detective Timmons at the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. Timmons was unavailable. Bo asked to speak to the sheriff. He explained to Doug Quinn-Gruber his concern about Max Ableman and suggested the sheriff run a check of the man on the NCIC computer and also a check of the plate on the pickup parked at the Bayport Court.
“Thanks, Bo. We’ll take it from here. But I’ll let you know what we find out.”
Bo sat down and looked over the log kept in the Op Center. Nothing indicated a need for concern. He checked the duty roster. It occurred to him that an electronic sweep of Wildwood still hadn’t been completed. His own concern about Tom Jorgenson, coupled with Manning’s objections, had kept him from seeing to it. The phone rang just as he’d begun to consider a good time for the sweep.
“Thorsen, here.”
“This is Deputy Williams at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff asked me to pass along some information.”
“Go ahead.”
“We didn’t come up with anything on Ableman, Maxwell Frederick. The vehicle with the plate number you gave us is registered to Luther J. Gallagher, 352 Platte Street, St. Peter, Minnesota.”
“Luther Gallagher,” Bo repeated as he wrote it out on a notepad.
“Right.”
“Deputy Williams, could I ask a favor?”
“Fire away.”
“Would you check and see whether Gallagher has a criminal record, and if there’s a photo available? And could you fax me that information?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“Thanks.”
The agents assigned to evening duty arrived. Bo briefed them all, and they relieved their day counterparts. He heated some of Sue Lynott’s famous chicken and dumplings on the stove, then went into the Op Center.
He stood with his plate in his hand, eating as he scanned a screen that held an outline of the Wildwood perimeter. Two dots moved along the perimeter lines. These were the agents Manning had requested Bo detail to patrol the orchard. Each carried a transmitter that relayed the agent’s location. If one of the dots stopped moving for too long, the Op Center would do a radio check to make sure there wasn’t an agent down.
Before he could finish his dinner, he got a call from Chris Manning.
“The First Lady would like to see both of us right now.”
Annie, the First Lady, and Chris Manning were in the kitchen of the main house. The room had a southern exposure and was full of early evening light. The windows were open, and a nice breeze came through the screens. Annie sat at the table with the First Lady. Manning stood leaning against the kitchen sink. A frosted pitcher was on the table, along with empty glasses.
“Tea, Bo?” Annie offered. She smiled, but Bo knew something else was behind her pleasant demeanor.
“Thank you, no. You wanted to see me, Mrs. Dixon?”
If earlier, Kathleen Jorgenson Dixon had appeared to be a simple country girl, she seemed anything but at the moment. She sat erect, assuming a solid, commanding aspect in the way she regarded both agents.
“I’m aware, have been aware for some time, of friction between the two of you. I’d like to know what’s going on.”
“It’s of a personal nature,” Bo said.
“If I feel that it affects my security, and I do, then it is no longer personal.”
Manning said, “I assure you, whatever history exists between Agent Thorsen and me—”
The First Lady cut him off. “Chris, I want to know what’s going on.”
Manning’s eyes flicked to Bo, and he said, “Agent Thorsen slept with the woman I was going to marry.”
“She had no intention of marrying you,” Bo said.
“We had an understanding.”
“Maybe you did. She certainly didn’t.”
“Excuse me,” the First Lady interjected. “How long ago was this?”
“Ten years,” Manning said.
“Ten years?” The First Lady gave them a withering look. “My God, nations have waged major war and reconciled in less time.”
The anger that had momentarily enlivened Manning’s face seemed to disappear, and he said, “I assure you that whatever feelings Agent Thorsen and I may have toward each other, we’re both quite able to put those aside and do our duty. Right, Bo?”
Manning had finally called him by his first name. Bo wasn’t sure what that meant, but he agreed with the sentiment. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“All right then,” the First Lady said with a nod. “The next issue. When we left the hospital this afternoon, I noticed that a sheriff’s deputy had been posted outside my father’s room. What’s that all about?”
Bo said, “I arranged for it.”
“Why?”
“Considering the threats your father has received in the past, I thought it best. He’s vulnerable right now.”
“Right now? Agent Thorsen, if someone wanted to kill my father, they could easily shoot him when he’s out alone in the orchard. Does this have anything to do with the questions you asked my aunt the other night about his accident?”
“Yes.”
“What specifically?”
Bo looked at Manning, who gave no sign of his own feelings on the subject, then he proceeded to explain his concerns point by point.
The First Lady listened carefully. When Bo had finished, she asked, “You’ve pursued this investigation on your own authority?”
“Yes.”
“I see. And what do you think of all this, Chris?”
“I don’t want to make it seem as if I’m not giving any credence to Agent Thorsen’s concerns. And I’m sure you would prefer that all precautions be taken in protecting your father. The reality is that any investigation related to your father’s present condition is not our responsibility or jurisdiction. Your safety, not your father’s, should be our only concern.”
“I appreciate your position, Chris. How do you feel about this, Bo?
“My responsibility is here, protecting you at Wildwood.”
“And if I prefer otherwise?”
Bo considered for a moment her stern, gray eyes. “With all due respect, your preference is not what governs my actions.”
“I see.” She folded her hands and regarded both men with an unflinching gaze. Finally she said, “Very well.”
Agent Manning excused himself. “I have duties to attend to.”
Bo started after him, and Annie rose. “Bo, let me see you out.” She took his arm.
As they walked to the front door, Bo said, “I’m sorry about in there.” He nodded back toward the kitchen. “But my hands are tied, Annie.”
“You think that’s the end of it?” She opened the door for him. As he stepped out she said, “You don’t know Kate.”
chapter
fourteen
The first time, he wasn’t even fourteen years old.
The basement of the old farmhouse was home to Nocturne. In summer, the walls were cool and damp, home also to potato bugs, spiders, and centipedes. In winter, it was a cold, drafty place despite the ancient oil-burning furnace that heated water for the radiators upstairs. The basement was full of boxes stuffed with broken things and items that had belonged to Nocturne’s grandmother and that the old man had put down there in order to forget. Nocturne’s mother told him his grandmother had been a school-teacher. Some boxes held books, some held magazines. Some were
packed with clothing, others were full of small broken electrical appliances—a mixer, an iron, a table lamp, a heating pad, and the like. On her good, lucid days, his mother read to him. Although books and magazines were available, she always read from the Bible, always from the Old Testament. Sitting beside her, watching her finger move under the printed words, the boy had learned early to read on his own, and he loved it. In the long days by himself, he eventually went through all the printed material contained in the boxes, mostly elementary textbooks and stacks of National Geographic. He practically memorized every word of the books of the Bible. He devoured cover to cover a set of Encyclopedia Britannica with moldy pages. His favorite book was a sketchy biography of Harry Houdini. He also loved to fiddle with the old electric appliances so that he might understand their construction and make them run again. His mother was a reluctant conspirator. After he’d asked her many times, she sneaked him wire and tools. She cautioned him fearfully never to mention any of this to his grandfather, and Nocturne obeyed her absolutely.
There was an old RCA radio console in one corner that he worked on for weeks until he coaxed voices from the airwaves. From what he heard on the radio and read in his books, he formed ideas of the outside world. Although he loved the dark of his basement, he longed to see more. He sensed that his life was odd and that he must be odd to be living it. Yet, there were people in the world stranger even than he, people with lips like dinner plates and necks stretched like giraffes and green tattoos over every inch of their faces. In such a world, one more freak would hardly be noticed. Locked in the basement, Nocturne dreamed of those places and people. On the nights his mother released him and they walked outside in the dark, he imagined they were in Africa, and in the trees gorillas slept, and somewhere out of sight a village of big-lipped, long-necked, tattooed people were waiting to welcome him. He loved the night and the walks, and he hated waiting to be released. So he began to plan his escape.
There was a laundry chute, no longer used, that dropped from the second-floor bathroom to the basement. Although he’d often stared up into the black of the shaft, he was nine years old before he thought of it seriously as a way out. One night he piled crates and boxes high enough beneath the opening so that when he stood on the top box, his torso fit inside the chute. It was a square, fifteen inches on each side, lined with smooth tin. He tried to pull himself up, but there was nothing to grasp. He pressed against the tin sides and only felt himself slip. He realized his clothing allowed him no traction. He climbed down, stripped naked, then mounted once again. This time when he pressed against the sides of the chute, his body held. He inched upward, pushing with his palms, holding with the press of his legs. He made progress, but it was hard work, and he soon gave up, exhausted after moving only a few feet.
He began to exercise, to strengthen his body and keep it supple. The pipes that hung from the basement ceiling and that carried water to the sinks and radiators above him served as an obstacle course. He climbed over them and around them, slipping between the metal and the beams and the floorboards. He made a game of it, timing himself with a clock he’d found broken in one of the boxes and had repaired. At first, he was covered with splinters from the ragged beams, but as he progressed he could move swiftly and safely. Within a few weeks, he was strong enough to inch his way up the chute all the way to the second-floor bathroom. The first time he eased out of the opening upstairs, he wanted to shout in triumph. It was the middle of the night, however, and not far from where Nocturne stood, the old man was sleeping. He discovered immediately that with every step the old floorboards creaked, crying out his presence. That first night, all he did was stand at the bathroom window, staring out at the night and the stars, listening to the crickets and breathing the air of freedom. The next night, he made it through the window, across the roof, and down the porch supports to the ground. After that, any time he wanted, he could be free. Over the years, as his body grew, he practiced a discipline of concentration and patience and learned how to fold his body into that small chute and move upward by expanding and contracting the appropriate muscles, much like a snake.
He never told his mother. He understood that unlocking the basement door for him was the only gift she had to offer. Because he learned to move as silently as a breath of air, his grandfather never knew.
But his grandfather did discover eventually that Nocturne had other talents.
The old man seldom visited the basement except to check on the ancient furnace that sometimes faltered. Nocturne kept to the far corners whenever his grandfather came down. In addition to trying to hide himself, he tried to keep secret all the tinkering he did. To that end, he was careful never to turn the volume on the old radio console much above a whisper. One night as he was attempting an adjustment, his fingers slipped, and the sound of the Beatles belting out “Twist and Shout” seemed to shake the walls. It scared the hell out of Nocturne, and he panicked, fumbling desperately with the knob. It was too late. He heard the boom of his grandfather’s boots across the floor above him. The padlock rattled, and the basement door flew open. The steps shook as the old man stomped down. He grabbed the string on the light and yanked. Nocturne stood exposed, quaking beside the old radio.
“What the hell, boy?” He glared at Nocturne and the console.
Nocturne expected his grandfather to hit him. Instead, the old man seemed to notice for the first time all the accomplishments hidden in the dark of Nocturne’s world, all the electrical appliances pulled from the boxes and restored to life. He said nothing, no word of praise or encouragement for a boy who, from books and his own imagination, had unraveled the mystery of the old machines and much more. He simply grunted, turned, and returned to the world above. The next day, Nocturne received another visit. This time his grandfather brought with him a book. In the light of the basement’s twenty-five-watt bulb, the old man opened the book to a page and stabbed a yellow fingernail at a picture. “Can you build this?” he asked.
Nocturne looked at the picture. It was a diagram, a blueprint labeled with words such as detonator, fuse, and timer. He recognized it immediately for what it was, a fairly simple device. He gave his grandfather a nod. The old man turned away without another word and left.
That night, the basement door opened and the old man called him up. He handed Nocturne a jacket, and he started outside. Nocturne’s mother cowered in a chair in the kitchen, looking at her son as if she were terribly afraid for him, but she said nothing to stop the old man. Nocturne followed his grandfather across the yard to the barn. They went inside to a room that held a workbench and tools and the book lying open on a stool. The old man pulled a cord and the light came on—a hundred-watt bulb that made Nocturne blink.
“You got everything you need here,” his grandfather said. “Let me know when you’re done.” The old man left him.
Nocturne constructed the device in little more than an hour. He left it in the room and stepped into the barn. He’d been there many times since he’d conquered the laundry chute. To a boy whose only physical recreation had been pipes in a basement, the barn was a great playground. Although it was a dilapidated structure with gaps between the wallboards and in the ceiling, it had beams and rafters and posts and great height, and Nocturne often spent hours climbing and swinging there throughout the night. He knew he was supposed to tell his grandfather he was done with the bomb, but the temptation of the barn was tremendous, and Nocturne gave in, telling himself he would climb once to the roof, then go see his grandfather.
He was on a beam twenty-five feet above the floor when the old man walked in. Nocturne froze. He watched his grandfather cross to the room, open the door, and step inside. The old man came out holding the bomb.
“Boy!” he hollered.
Nocturne didn’t want to answer, but he knew the old man would find him eventually. “Here,” he said in a small voice.
The old man’s eyes rose upward and grew large when he saw the precarious perch his grandson straddled.
“How’d you get up there?”
“Climbed.”
“Then climb back down. Now.”
Nocturne quickly obeyed. He stood before the old man with his eyes downcast. His grandfather said, “Look at me.”
Nocturne did. With his opened hand, the old man struck him hard across the face.
“You do what I tell you, understand? No more, no less.” The old man’s voice was cold, but didn’t sound angry.
Nocturne fought tears, and he nodded.
The old man held the bomb. “Will it work?”
Nocturne hadn’t considered the question before. He saw clearly his grandfather expected an answer, and he quickly assessed the device he’d constructed. “Yes,” he said. Then he added in almost a whisper, “But I would have built it different.”
The old man looked up at the rafter, then down at Nocturne. “Get plenty of sleep, boy, you hear? We got work tomorrow night.” He shoved his grandson ahead of him toward the house.
Nocturne was waiting when the old man came down the next night. His grandfather had a big rolled sheet of paper. He turned on the light and spread the paper on the basement floor. It was a crude drawing of a building.
The old man said, “This is a bad place, and you and me are going to do something about it. That thing you built yesterday, we’re going to put it right in here.” He pointed to a window on the third floor of the building. “You’re going to put it in front of a bunch of filing cabinets—metal cabinets with lots of drawers, understand?”
Nocturne nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.”
They got into the old man’s truck. Nocturne had never ridden in a vehicle before and the sensation was wonderful. It was fall and the night was cool. The old man had the windows wide open, and the air blew through with a force that thrilled the boy. The fields flew by. The yard lights that were all so distant from his grandfather’s isolated house rushed toward them, then past. His grandfather said nothing, didn’t even look in Nocturne’s direction, just kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road lit in the headlights. The device was in a small backpack between them on the seat, but Nocturne hardly noticed. He was out in the world at last.
The Devil's Bed Page 9