The Step Between

by Penny Mickelbury

  She had, and with equal parts dismay and alarm. She’d had occasion to meet quite a few D.C. police officers during her years as a criminal defense attorney; and while no small number of them were jerks and assholes, she’d never considered any of them bad cops. But it did appear that things had changed within what once had been a pretty good department. Jake and Tommy were so disgusted they refused to discuss the matter. Carole Ann followed suit, and they rode in silence for several miles.

  “That song that Jake sang this morning?” Jocelyn was asking the question before she asked the question. “The thing about lighting the brimstone? What was that from?”

  Carole Ann groaned. Jake and Marshall and Patty were about ten years older than Carole Ann and Paolo; and they, in turn, had ten or so years on Jocelyn and Bob. And in certain areas of life, music being one of them, ten years was an eternity. “That was vintage Stevie Wonder. Song called, ‘Skeletons’ from the Characters album. Came out in about 1984 or so.”

  “Gee. I was about—”

  “I don’t need to know that, Jocelyn.”

  She shot Carole Ann a sideways grin, then asked her if she knew all the lyrics from the song. She did, and sang them for the appreciative younger woman, marveling at the genius of a musical talent not much heard from in recent years.

  “I love that line: ‘Somebody done fired up the brimstone.’ Shakespearean and biblical and Black! What a holy combination!”

  Carole Ann laughed at Jocelyn’s youthful exuberance, and found she shared it. She also found that she was grateful for having something else to think about, because as soon as the levity left, reality returned. The thought she’d been trying to keep at bay involved the destruction of an entire family: if the worst of bad scenarios were true, all the Islingtons conceivably could be dead. Annabelle, it appeared, already was; Richard had not been seen in two days; and Ruthie Eva had not been reachable so far this day. She muttered some curses to herself, then, aware of how Jake-like she was becoming, stopped herself.

  “We’re getting close,” Jocelyn said, reading her tension correctly.

  “Good,” she responded, though she didn’t know why. What would they do once they arrived? Ruthie Eva still hadn’t answered her home telephone, nor had she responded to messages left at the Garden of Eden. Perhaps, she thought, driving so far out of town was a mistake. Yet, what would she do if she were back in D.C.? She knew one thing—she picked up the phone and punched a number. “Hi, Carla. From my call sheet, reach Bill Williams for me, please . . . thanks.” She watched the countryside speed past while she held the phone, awaiting the connection, willing herself not to invent reasons to worry. “Mr. Williams, this is Carole Ann Gibson. I’m sorry to disturb you so early.” She listened to him; sounding hearty and full of good humor, he sloughed off the need for her apology and wondered what “an old man like myself” could do for her. It was as if there’d never been a moment of tension between them; as if she’d never said a rude or hostile word to him. Bill Williams either was a forgiving man, or he was, as she’d originally thought, full of shit.

  She shared with him GGI’s concern at not being able to reach Ruthie Eva and the plan to send the police to check her home, unless he knew of some other place she could be. She heard the intake of breath and the lessening of his bonhomie as he sought to assure her that there was no need for that; and when she pressed him, he reluctantly acknowledged that Ruthie Eva had a fishing shack on the Potomac, up in the mountains, about thirty-five miles from her house, where she sometimes went when she was upset.

  “She was upset?” Carole Ann asked, surprised. She’d been on the phone with Ruth until after midnight and the woman hadn’t mentioned being upset or leaving. In fact, she was contemplating driving into D.C. and parking in front of Annabelle’s building. Carole Ann closed her eyes and cursed herself as she listened to the jovial voice relay the details of an argument Ruthie Eva had had with Annabelle the previous day.

  “How awful for her,” she responded, forcing what she hoped sounded like a mixture of concern and sadness into her voice, for she knew that Ruth had not spoken to her daughter the previous day. “Would you happen to have the phone number at this cabin, Mr. Williams? I’d like to commiserate in person.” And when his cheery tones informed her that there was no telephone in Ruthie Eva’s fishing shack, anger and dismay turned to foreboding. She thanked him with a contrived cheeriness of her own, punched off the phone and waited while all the pieces clicked into place. Then she picked up the phone again. “Jake. In my safe, in the ‘I’ file, there’s a Garden of Eden card with Ruth Simmons’s cell phone number on the back. Get it quick.”

  Within five minutes, she heard Ruth’s voice answer the phone. “Ruthie!” she exclaimed. “Are you at your cabin and are you alone?” And in the relief that followed, she demanded and got specific directions on how to get there and Ruthie’s promise not to leave until she arrived.

  11

  AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED the line into west Virginia and began the ascent into the mountains, Carole Ann’s sense of foreboding increased. Perhaps if Jake hadn’t yelled and cussed so when she told him where they were headed and why, she wouldn’t be so rattled; but it wasn’t just the yelling and cussing, it was the fear she heard in his voice. And he’d really meant it when he ordered her to turn around and come home and to hell with Ruthie Eva Simmons. And she’d really wanted to obey him this one time. And this was the one time she really couldn’t.

  There still was significant snow cover on the ground and it was at least fifteen degrees colder than it had been in D.C. Carole Ann looked at the map again, checking it against Ruthie’s directions. She felt the truck slow and looked up to see a new-looking gas station-cum-convenience store. She nodded her approval and Jocelyn turned into the parking lot, driving to that corner farthest from the road to park.

  “What’s our plan?” she asked in her quiet voice.

  “I don’t really have a plan,” Carole Ann answered. They already had decided that since it was likely that Bill Williams had directed Ruthie to the remote location, it was just as likely that someone was being sent to . . . to do she didn’t know what and didn’t want to contemplate the possibilities. “Since we don’t know the terrain, we can’t sneak in, and I don’t want to risk calling her again in case somebody has showed up.”

  “But if we go driving up to the door and she’s in some kind of trouble, we could get her killed,” Jocelyn said with a reasoned calmness that irritated Carole Ann.

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “That I walk in,” Jocelyn replied in the same tone. “You drop me off when we’re within a couple of miles, then hold back and give me, say, half an hour. I’ll foot it in, try to get a sense of the situation, and I’ll call you. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know to call in the Marines.”

  It was a good plan. The only difficulty facing Carole Ann was fear. It had come upon her suddenly and without warning. She squeezed her hands into tight fists and took several deep breaths. “I should give you my cell phone number,” she finally managed, “in case, for some reason, I’m not in the truck.”

  “And why wouldn’t you be in the truck?” For the first time, the calm left Jocelyn’s voice.

  “Shit happens,” Carole Ann replied dryly, herself once again. “I don’t know why I wouldn’t be in the truck, Jocelyn, but it could happen and it would be advisable for you to have my cell phone number and for me to have yours, n’cest-ce pas?”

  “Mais ouis, madame,” she responded, and each of them programmed the other’s number into her own phone.

  “Only . . .” Carole Ann began, and stopped.

  “Only what?” Jocelyn asked after waiting for a completed sentence that didn’t come.

  Carole Ann was recalling the ringing of a cell phone in the woods—the swamps of Louisiana, really—on a dank, muggy night. “I just hope the woods aren’t so sparse and naked that you stand out like pepper in the salt shaker,” she said.

  “I’ll hug a tree if
I feel the need to blend in,” Jocelyn said with a laugh.

  They alternately visited the bathroom inside the store, and Carole Ann was in the driver’s seat when they resumed their journey. Both were quiet on the final leg of the trip, partly because each was absorbed by her own thoughts of the mission ahead of them, and partly because once they left the service station, they were on rutted, rural roads that were little more than lanes, following markers instead of street signs. But Ruth’s directions were precise: barns were where she said they’d be, painted the colors she said they’d be painted; the rusted hulk of a tractor on its side was where she said it would be; and the uprooted ancient maple was where she said it would be. And, finally, the virtually invisible path that would lead to the fishing shack was where Ruthie Eva said it would be.

  “Drive down about a quarter mile and let me out,” Jocelyn said, studying the landscape.

  “Will you be warm enough?” Carole Ann asked. “And dry?”

  She nodded and as the truck slowed, her hand gripped the door handle. “Give me thirty minutes to reach the house, then drive in unless you hear differently,” and as the truck slowed to a halt, she opened the door, jumped out, slammed the door, and darted into the woods. Within seconds, Carole Ann no longer could distinguish Jocelyn from the forest.

  She looked at the clock, then eased the truck forward into a slight verge and backed up, then executed a U-turn. She planned to drive back toward the service station and, after ten minutes, turn around and follow the rusted tractor and uprooted tree back to Ruthie Eva’s hideaway.

  All morning, all the way from Washington, she had been checking to make certain they hadn’t been followed. That task became easier once they left the heavily traveled interstates and turned onto the state roads. In a couple of months, they would be choked with campers and pickups pulling boats; but now, this time of year, only the locals occupied and utilized these tiny back roads, and the locals, for the most part, drove well-used, American-made automobiles and trucks. Which is why, even at a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, the approaching vehicle bleeped loudly—and ominously—on her radar screen. “Dammit to hell!” she yelled to herself, and forced the gas pedal to the floor. She was doing eighty when she passed the white Range Rover.

  She knew she could not return to the gas station, and a quick glance at the clock told her that even if she wanted to, it was much too early to rendezvous with Jocelyn; she could put them both in danger. She checked the rearview mirror: no sign of the white Range Rover. She sped past the gas station and, making a quick decision, slowed enough to make a hasty left turn into what she hoped was a road and not merely a path to somebody else’s fishing shack. It was wider than that, she thought, though it was heavily rutted, and the ruts were ice-filled, so the truck slid and shimmied. She realized that she was climbing, and wondered if four-wheel drive would help. Then she saw another road, again to the left, and decided to take it since that would take her in the general direction of Ruthie Eva’s. Then, she wondered, did she want to go in that direction? Did she want to risk leading MacDonald—and she was certain that it was MacDonald driving the white Range Rover—to Ruthie Eva?

  She looked again into the rearview mirror. She was alone in the woods. She shifted the truck into four-wheel drive and, miraculously, remembered the emergency call button. She studied the truck’s console. There it was, next to the telephone. She pressed it and before she had completely withdrawn her hand, an answering buzzer sounded, followed by a voice: “This is Central, who is this, please?”

  “Carole Ann Gibson.”

  “Are you in danger, C.A.?”

  She hesitated only slightly before replying, “Yes. I’m being pursued by a white Ranger Rover that I believe to be driven by John David MacDonald.”

  “I have you located on the map, C.A. You’re way off-road . . . there’s a vehicle approaching your location . . .”

  She looked into the rearview mirror but saw nothing. She threw the truck into gear and it jumped forward, moving slowly but steadily up the ragged road. Then, abruptly, the road ended. There was nothing ahead of her but forest, and nothing behind her but J. D. MacDonald.

  “I’m bailing out, Central. I just ran out of road.”

  “Where is Jocelyn?”

  “With Ruthie Eva . . .” She glanced hurriedly at the clock. “I’m supposed to meet her in exactly ten minutes. Central, turn this thing off so nobody can find out that you know where I am. I’m leaving the truck, continuing on foot to Jocelyn’s location. I’ve got my cell phone. Get me some backup as soon as you can.”

  She turned off the truck’s engine, removed the keys from the ignition, and, as she slammed the door, pressed the button that both locked the vehicle and set the alarm. Then she began running. Carefully, because she didn’t want to risk an injury, but as quickly as she dared. She hadn’t run in two weeks and while she found it invigorating, it also was taxing. The frigid air seared her lungs, and the higher altitude was taking its toll. She stopped and melded herself against the trunk of a massive oak. She needed to catch her breath and to use the tree as camouflage, to study her surroundings. She had run directly toward where she thought Ruthie Eva’s cabin should be. She looked back and no longer could see the truck. She was aware that she was angled downhill instead of up, and she thought that was a good sign.

  Her breathing was under control and her heart had ceased its beating so that she could listen to the forest. Hearing nothing but the whisper of the wind, she released her hold on the tree and plunged forward, running again, but slower, as the ground cover became denser. Then she was angling uphill again. She stopped to check her direction, but there was no point of origin. She no longer was certain where she’d left the truck, nor that she was, in fact, running toward Ruthie Eva’s. She looked at her watch. She’d been out of the truck for fifteen minutes. That made her five minutes late for her scheduled arrival. Jocelyn, she thought, would allow a maximum of fifteen minutes—

  What she heard could have been caused by an animal; it was a larger sound than the wind would have made, or a bird. She was out in the open. She turned, peering into the brush all around her. She began running again, her heart beating now in fear and not in exertion. She was aware that she now was running away from something rather than toward something, and she therefore was running faster and with less caution. She stopped suddenly, grabbing a sapling with both hands to keep herself from falling. Whatever was running in step with her, off to her right, didn’t stop when she stopped and the sound carried, louder than anything she could have imagined. Then it, too, stopped, and silence prevailed. Someone was following her. She looked frantically around and, seeing nothing, no one, prepared to propel herself forward.

  “Stay where you are, Miss Gibson, and do not move.”

  John MacDonald stepped out of the brush forty feet above her. His stance, and the weapon he trained on her, served to convey the inadvisability of attempting to run. She turned to fully face him.

  “I knew that you were a city jogger, but you traverse the woods with the skill of a rabbit or a deer.”

  She looked at him steadily, seeing the man who had silently and elegantly wheeled the service cart into Richard Islington’s library, poured coffee, and departed with barely a glance at his employer, to say nothing of a word in greeting. A pity, given the elegance of his language. No American this. He stood tall and still—and silent and elegant—improbably clad in a fawn suede jacket, a black wool turtleneck visible beneath it, black wool slacks, and calf-high, all-weather boots, into which the bottoms of his trousers were tucked. He stood poised and ready to shoot her if necessary. Had he already murdered his employer? He almost certainly murdered his own brother and his brother’s business partner. And perhaps his employer’s daughter . . . She shuddered. She didn’t believe that it would pose significant difficulty for him to add her to the list.

  “Why are you here, Miss Gibson?”

  She still didn’t speak and it was apparent that her silence was anno
ying him. To what extent? she wondered. So much as to make him careless enough to reveal information to her? Or merely angry enough to shoot her? She was thinking of something to say, some words that would agitate him, challenge him, when her phone rang. She’d have laughed had not his reaction been so dangerously startling.

  “What is that!” he screamed, whirling around and pointing his gun into the bush. “Who’s there?” He whirled around again, another three-sixty, waving the gun and firing off a round.

  The phone trilled again and she yelled at him, “It’s my phone, MacDonald! For God’s sake, it’s my cell phone!” He was unhinged and she now knew that it would be a fatal mistake to bait or goad him. “It’s in my pocket,” she said more calmly.

  “Do you have any idea who it might be?” His face was contorted as he struggled for control.

  “My office. I haven’t checked in this hour,” she replied as the phone trilled again.

  “Then answer it, please,” he said, with a degree of restored calm. “And be very careful in what you say and how you say it, Miss Gibson,” he said, sounding dangerously normal.

  She unzipped her jacket then raised her left hand as she gently eased her right hand inside to retrieve the phone. It trilled again as she punched a button and held it to her ear. “Hello?” She heard Jocelyn’s panicked voice wondering where the hell she was. “I know, and I’m sorry. I guess I lost track of time . . . no, everything’s fine. I’ll call in the next hour.” She held the phone toward MacDonald, both hands raised. “My office . . .”

  “You already told me that and now I know you’re to call them in an hour. If you’re properly cooperative, you should be able to make that call on time.”

  She lowered her left hand slightly and opened her jacket, holding the edge between her thumb and forefinger. She lowered her right hand, with the phone in it, and returned it to the pocket. Her movements had been slow and exaggerated so that he would not mistake her meaning. She kept her hands slightly up and toward him.