JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  Hamilton waved at Rennie’s truck. “Owner of that’s wanted for estioning in a murder. He disappeared yesterday. Wiley here,” he dded at the trooper, “found the truck about an hour ago.” Bishop nodded and walked a few steps toward the truck, his head nt, watching the ground. He stopped a few feet from it and crouched, oking underneath. “Any of you walk around here?” Wiley spoke up first. “I went to the driver’s door, then around to e other side, just to see if anyone was maybe in the ditch. But that as it.” “You walk around the front or the back?”

  “Front.” “Anyone else?” “I did about the same thing,” Spinney admitted.

  “I also looked side, using the driver’s door.” Bishop placed his hand on the truck’s hood and then stepped ay, coming back toward us. “Well, it was parked here last night.” e looked at both Wiley and Spinney. “Could I see the bottoms of your oes?” Both men turned and lifted their feet up for Bishop to see. He dded after a few seconds of study. “Thanks, I just want to rule them t-don’t want to mix them up with other prints.”

  He walked out to the middle of the road and crouched again, arming the surface with those careful eyes. He got up, moved a bit, ouched. He did that several more times before nodding to himself. e nodding was something I learned he did a lot, the gesture of a man ho spends much time alone in serious conversation with himself. He crossed over to his truck and retrieved a camera, a large knife at he attached to his belt, and a tape recorder, into which he muttered veral notes. He glanced over at us, clustered together, looking back him. “Saves on time and paper. I type it up at the office.” %186 He pointed to the road. “You had two vehicles here last night. On’ of them parked over there, and then turned around later and left in n< big hurry.” He returned to Rennie’s truck, this time from the rear, and go down on one knee near the exhaust pipe. He muttered something to himself I didn’t catch and strode quickly to the driver’s door again, thi’ time opening it and looking in. He slammed the door and faced us.

  “Well, that explains why the branches and leaves were taken off the front-the engine was running and whoever did it didn’t want too much heat to build up and cause afire.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Why run the truck half-coverec with leaves and junk?” “The lights are on, or they were until the gas ran out and the battery died, and they’re aimed right to where the tracks lead off int< the woods. I guess he was lighting the way, or maybe just showin~< which way to go. That’s not a good sign, by the way.” Hamilton said it. “Why not?” Spinney answered.

  “‘Cause it means he meant to come back and turn off the engine and never did.” I’d understood instantly, too, and it opened a void deep within me Over the last several days, I’d had to relinquish much of what I’d helc dear of my memories of Rennie and of Gannet. What had been plannec as a spiritual homecoming was fast becoming a wake.

  Bishop gave a small smile and ducked his head slightly. “Righ you are.”

  He followed the erstwhile path of the headlights to the edge of the woods, where the road petered out. “More bad news. Three sets 0 prints head off here; only two come back, both leading to where the other vehicle was parked.” We walked toward him as a group, but he stopped us.

  “Tell y01 what.

  I’d like your company-all except Wiley-but I’d like you t( follow my tracks and not these.” He pointed at the ground where, to be honest, I hadn’t seen much from the start. “Wiley, I’d like y01 to stay here to watch the truck and to act as liaison between us and you] car radio.

  That okay, Lieutenant?” Hamilton nodded. I noticed Wiley seemed relieved as he trampec back to his unit-and its heater. Hamilton, Spinney, and I tuckec ourselves into Bishop’s wake as he led the way into the woods.

  Now in his element, and in obvious control, Bishop became a’ talkative as he’d been quiet earlier. Bending over at the waist, frez quently dropping to one knee, switching suddenly from one bearing to %187 there and back again, he chatted freely about what he was seeing, his rarely leaving the ground. I was tempted to think of him as a ting dog on the scent, but somehow the image didn’t stick. The gun, quiet, unemotional voice, and the sheer Iitheness of his movements him a more lethal air.

  There was an element of limitless determinato him-a rare thing in a human being, and a potentially dangerous “The owner of the truck went first-alone. The other two followed r, and not too well at that; not too used to walking in the woods. ok at this-you can see where one of them tripped. And over there, other one did it; looks like a woman or a small, light man, maybe enager. The lights must have been left on for them, although they uldn’t have been much good for more than a few feet.

  That part still sn’t make much sense to me.” I was staring at where he was pointing. All I saw were minute turbances in the leaves, a slightly rolled twig, a tiny smudge in the t. “How can you tell the other two followed later?” Bishop pointed to a spot on the ground. “Heel marks are the iest to spot. All the weight comes down on them, at least when ‘re on flat ground or going down hill. And you see where there’s a tiny skid mark from the top of the heel mark to the bottom? That icates the direction they’re taking… It’s a little hard on this partly zen ground. Okay, there’s another one, but it’s on top of the first, obviously it came along behind.” “I can see that, but the time thing-“

  Bishop straightened and pointed behind us, back toward the road.

  e how we’ve been walking? All in a line? That’s normal in the ods, especially stuff that’s pretty thick like here. Now the first guy e pretty much like we did straight ahead, and along that row of all, white birch trees there. The other two wandered some. They to the other side of those trees, and over there they got into a bit angle, so they backed out and went the other way. All that indicates, the way, that they were in tight formation, the little guy following larger one. Here they crossed the first guy’s tracks, but they didn’t p on ‘em; they wobbled off instead slightly to the left. They wouldn’t that if all three had been in Indian file. I also think the first guy knew area like the back of his hand, while the second two obviously n’t, but that might be stretching things a little.” We came to a depression, a wet-bottomed swale that might have e been a small creek or a runoff during the rainy season. Bishop held his hand and went ahead, going up and down the edge of this area.

  stopped suddenly, far off to the left, and straightened, looking ahead %188 and behind. Then he took his knife out and slashed a foot-long blaze on a small tree beside him.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” Spinney muttered next to me. Bishop, now bent almost in half, had begun walking slowly in circles around the tree he’d marked, reaching out in an ever-wIdening spiral. Around and around he went, slowly and purposefully.

  Spinney pointed to the damp depression ahead. “Even I can see the tracks through that, coming and going, even on the rocks where they left muddy footprints.” Hamilton smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ve worked a lot with this guy.

  He’s so good it’s creepy.” Bishop had stopped his circles. He seemed to be backtracking on a parallel course, about twenty feet away from ours, frequently marking trunks as he went. Through the forest of bare trees, we could see him heading back toward the road, his green uniform barely distinguishable from his cold and gloomy surroundings. I looked up at the dark, swollen clouds, seemingly just beyond the reach of the uppermost branches. I didn’t like the additional clammy feeling that was beginning to creep inside me, like a confirmation of my fears.

  Finally, he came back to us, returning to the edge of the swale. “Found a fourth guy.

  We all looked at one another, but stayed silent. If he’d had more to add, we knew, he would have.

  We followed him across some stepping stones, slightly above the tracks Spinney had pointed out. On the far side, where the trees clustered together again, he stopped and let out a grunt of surprise.

  We followed his look. Tied to a tree, about chest-high, was one of those mini-mag lights. Its reflector top had been entirely removed, so that its halogen
bulb stood exposed at the top, making it look like a miniature lighthouse. The bulb was not burning.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said, looking back the way we’d come. “That explains the truck lights.” He twisted and pointed ahead. “If I’m right, we’ll either find more of these, or something like it, until we get to the place they intended on meeting.” We could no longer see the end of the road from here; the trees had accumulated enough to totally block the view, but we could have seen the glow from a pair of car lights at night. “He was guiding the way, I muttered.

  Bishop grinned. “Right-back and forth. That’s why the top’s off this light, so you can see it from both directions. The first guy must have told the second two to bring a flashlight, and to pick their way from light to light.” %189 “Why not just escort them from the road? Or just meet at the road d have done with it?” Hamilton asked, half to himself.

  “He’s a wanted man,” I answered. “This rig allows him to see if re’s more than his guests coming.” “And it lets him fade away into the night while the other two’re king their way back,” Spinney added.

  “It didn’t work, though,” Hamilton said. “There’s the fourth y.

  There was a moment’s silence. Bishop filled it quietly. “I think t’s because the fourth guy was trailing the first one, not the other 0. He didn’t need this,” he pointed at the light in the tree, “because could see the first guy’s flashlight as he set this whole thing up. Also, ‘s a natural: From what I can find of his tracks, he’s spent a lot of e in the woods; knows just where to walk. He barely left a single n behind, even in that muddy area he rigged a rope with a grapng hook on one end from one tree to another and went hand over nd there.” Bishop headed off at a faster clip, surer now of what he was iling. He still made occasional side trips, but obviously for confirmation only. In fifteen minutes, we stepped out of the woods onto a large, ss-covered rock outcropping, stuck like a giant’s foothold onto the e of the mountain slope. To our left, the slope continued up; to our ht, it angled past and below the rock ledge, creating a twenty-foot p straight down to a tangle of thick brush and small trees. The entire e had taken us almost an hour, although we had probably covered more than four hundred feet.

  The view extended due west for almost a mile, its dramatic effect omily heightened by the low, threatening cloud cover. Bishop had stepped ahead, not far from the edge, and now dropped one knee. “You better stay where you are for a bit here, while I look und.” Hamilton picked up on his cautious tone. “What’d you find?” “Blood.” Again, he began moving in ever-widening circles around the spot ‘d marked with a red handkerchief. I noticed he had several more of er colors sticking out of his two back pockets. He stopped right at the edge of the cliff and looked over for a while. you want, why don’t you stand over here and keep an eye on me. going to cut around to the bottom and see what I can find.” The three of us did as he asked, as he moved left toward the untain, gained the slope, and then cut around to the area below us. went very slowly, muttering into his tape recorder, once or twice %190 A7c~~

  Mo9~ taking a picture, while we scanned the bushes and undergrowth for any movement. None of us had missed the possibility that if two people had come and gone, and another was fatally lacking the blood Bishop had found, then the fourth, whose return to the road still hadn’t been documented, might still be out here, watching.

  Bishop finally stopped directly below us, where the brush was particularly thick. Had it not been for his movements, we might have lost sight of him entirely. We saw his face look up at us.

  “Lieutenant, I think you better get down here. You, too, Lieutenant Gunther.” During our slow-motion trek through the woods, we had filled him in on our suspicions about Rennie, along with the fact that he and I had almost grown up together. There was little doubt in my mind now that Bishop wanted me as well as Hamilton because I knew best what Rennie looked like. I was no tracker, but I had seen the torn moss at the cliff’s edge, and had recognized from the broken shrubs and twigs sticking from the rock face that something heavy had brushed against it on the way down.

  It was Rennie, of course, at least most of him. His body had been sliced from belly to mid-chest, giving him a crude similarity to a gutted deer.

  He was lying on his side, facing me, his head pointing downhill, his eyes half open and dry. There was brush and dirt in his mouth and left ear, and I noticed a tiny insect crawling across his pupil. Even during the war, where I’d seen more dead people than I’ll ever see again, I didn’t remember anyone appearing quite so lifeless. Rennie looked tossed away, like some ancient discredited rag doll that had been thrown from a passing car.

  Bishop was watching my face. “Wilson?” “Yup.” I squatted down, my forearms on my thighs. Because of his position, the blood had pooled to his head, giving him a florid color, much as he’d had when he’d gotten angry in the past.

  I’d been preparing for this, certainly since I’d heard his truck had been found and maybe, subconsciously, even before. But this was a death in fact. I realized, watching this dead body, that I’d been mourning his loss long before that knife had ripped him open. Still, now that it was real, I missed him, and what he represented to me, terribly.

  “You okay?” Hamilton asked.

  I nodded. Dead people have such a different look to them, even if they’ve been tidied up. I could see where the concept of the soul had won acceptance over the centuries; it really did look as though something had fled this man, something that had once given him more than %191 hat lay before me now. N0~~ he was something busted up and filled with dirt; then, he’d been an active, cantankerous, opinionated, obscene d very honest friend. That man was gone and maybe had been gone r years.

  I stood back up. “Yeah, I’m okay. What do you think happened?” “The tracks of the two that came together never show any speed.

  ey stumbled around a lot, not being used to the dark and the woods, they came in slow and left slow. Remember their tire marks? They ove away slow, too. I’d guess they had their meeting with your friend re, and then left him alive, picking their way back to the car following ose lights. It wasn’t ‘til after they’d gone that the fourth guy came of hiding.” Bishop pointed to the rock shelf above us, from where Spinney was ill watching us. “They didn’t have much of a fight up there. It looks etty much like the fourth guy just came up and let him have it with enough force to pitch him right over the edge.” “From the front or the back?” “I didn’t want to move him or mess around much, but I don’t see y blood on his back. ‘Course, he may have a big hole on his right e the M.E.’II have to tell you that.” “What else?” Hamilton asked.

  “The killer came down here, probably to check his work. His acks lead off back toward the road, but lower down the mountain than e way we came. While there’s light left, I’d kinda like to find out here he headed. I’m betting we’ll find tire tracks further back on the ad than where the other two cars were.” Hamilton gestured in that direction.

  “Be my guest.” We returned to the ledge and Hamilton told Spinney what Bishop d found. We radioed Wiley and told him to activate support troops, e Crime Lab, and the local medical examiner. The three of us then turned the way we’d come. I figured if everyone got here in an hour, which would be pretty surprising, they’d only have an hour or two left daylight in which to work.

  Some unhappy troopers were going to wind up pulling all-night and duty in the cold, in the dark, and in the middle of nowhere. As r Rennie, he was beyond caring. The gloom and the frost would settle him and lay claim to a body whose soul, I now believed, had been ing for a long, long time.

  %192 It had been dark for over two hours before Hamilton and I finally left Lemon Road ourselves and headed back to St. Johnsbury. He wasn’t a man prone to chattiness, but I could tell by his grim demeanor that Hamilton was distinctly unhappy. The hope of nabbing Rennie and putting this entire case to bed had just turned into smoke, and the latest crime promised to whip the press into a frenzy. Indeed, it was partiall
y in an effort to control what information might reach the media that he’d called a mandatory, all-hands meeting at State Police barracks.

  But before we even pulled off Route 5, I knew the lid had already blown sky-high. The entire front of the barracks was bathed in television lights, and a crowd of people was standing around the parking lot, forming a gauntlet I would have paid money to avoid.

  Hamilton gently nosed the car into a space, moving through the crowd like a farmer among chickens. As soon as we’d slammed our doors, the lights swung over to blind us.

  “Lieutenant, apparently you and the deceased were old friends.

  How are you taking his death?” “What about the cult, Lieutenant? This murder was reported as having ritual overtones.” “No comment.” “Are you close to solving this? Or are you still all in the dark?” “Is anyone under arrest yet?” “How is the cult involved?” We finally made it to the door and stepped into the front foyer. A trooper was standing guard, keeping people out. “Everyone else here?” Hamilton asked.

  “Yes, sir-conference room.” We walked down the hallway to the conference room. The smoke, the noise, and the smell of too many bodies stopped me dead at the door; Hamilton plowed ahead to the front of the room. The place was packed; every chair around the long table was full, others had been brought in from every corner of the building, people were lining the walls. The shades were drawn across the windows-the nervous lights and shadows outside played across them like gigantic moths wanting in.

  %193 I parked myself next to the door with my back against the wall.

  from that distance, Mel Hamilton was wreathed in a mist of tobacco moke.

  Beside him sat a uniformed State policeman with more bangles nd baubles than I’d seen since the service, obviously a bigwig from aterbury. I noticed Ron Potter nearby, too, which gave me a jolt. while I’d been dropping by the office to help FIo Ginty keep things unning and write reports, I hadn’t actually seen him over the last orty-eight hours. It made me wonder whether he’d been busy, or trying 0 avoid all this.