To Darkness and to Death

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Eugene frowned, considering. “Is it? I didn’t think so. Anyway, she had a flashlight. And there are trails all through these woods.”

  “Didn’t you worry when she didn’t show up at bedtime?”

  “I was readying myself for bed when she decided to take her stroll.” He gestured toward an oak-and-glass gun case mounted on the far wall. “I had planned to hunt this morning.”

  You and every other man in Millers Kill, Clare thought. She turned to Huggins again. “Is Millie in good shape? Any physical issues that might slow her down? Is she familiar with being in the woods?”

  Eugene van der Hoeven answered. “She’s in excellent health. I’ve known her to readily hike ten miles in a day. As for familiarity, she summered at Haudenosaunee every year from the time she was born until she went to college.”

  “We’re guessing she got disoriented in the dark,” Huggins said. “If she was smart, and it sounds like she is, she hunkered down under some brush and is waiting on daylight. We’re working the search with the starting assumption that she walked for up to two hours before she realized she was lost.”

  Clare bit off an expletive before it could escape. “That’s a six-mile radius.”

  “Maybe more.” Huggins rocked back on his hiking-boot treads. “Hopefully, she figured out she was in trouble after forty-five minutes and she stayed put after that. But I’m not in the hopeful business, so we’ll plan for the worst.”

  6:00 A.M.

  Russ downshifted and let his truck grind its way farther up the logging road, bouncing from rock to rut. He figured he was a few minutes away from permanent kidney damage when he spotted a gleam through the trees. Around the last bend, where the road petered out into brush and stumps, Ed Castle had parked his Ford Explorer. Russ pulled up behind him and got out. “Did I keep you waiting?” he asked.

  “Naw. Perfect timing. Official daylight’s in fifteen minutes. Then we can get started. This gonna be your year, is it?”

  “You bet.” Russ hauled his pack with his lunch and Thermos out of the cab and settled it over his shoulders. “Twelve points or bust.”

  Ed snorted a laugh. Russ had been hunting with the man for three falls now and had yet to bring down a yearling stag, let alone one with a twelve-point spread of antlers.

  He filled one pocket with spare cartridges and then unzipped his new gun case. Ed whistled as Russ withdrew his Weatherby. “Will you look at that,” Ed marveled. Russ held it out for the older man to inspect. Ed rested his own gun against the truck and took the Weatherby reverently. “This is a beaut.”

  “Birthday present from my wife.”

  “Now that’s a woman. Know what I got for my last birthday from my wife? A dinner out at a restaurant where I had to wear a tie, and a fish on a plaque that sings songs when you walk by it.” He stroked the Weatherby’s stock lovingly. “You treat this woman right.”

  “I try.”

  Ed handed the rifle back to Russ. “Ready?”

  “Lead the way.”

  They walked in silence for a while, watching as branches etched themselves in detail and bittersweet berries flushed from gray to orange in the gathering light. Russ loved the woods this time of year, loved the dry, half-musty smell of the fallen leaves rustling underfoot, loved the snap of the cold and the tracery of frost on tree bark and pine cones. Here and there, a lone oak still held its foliage, and he and Ed brushed under tanned leather leaves, acorn hulls crunching beneath their boots.

  “So,” Russ said. “Haudenosaunee. I haven’t hunted here since I was a kid. Have you heard it’s a likely spot?”

  Ed shook his head. “More of a busman’s holiday for me. I harvest timber from the estate. Or I did. They’re setting to close it to timbering after tonight.” He glanced up at Russ. “You know about the land deal they’ve cooked up for this place?”

  “Yeah.” Russ stepped over a mossy rock. “Some big wood products company is buying the whole estate and then turning it over to the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. I’m supposed to go to the damn party where they sign the papers tonight.”

  Ed’s eyebrows shot up. “How’d you rate that?”

  “Linda was invited. Her business is doing all the curtains for the resort.”

  “Right, right, that’s right. My oldest girl, Bonnie, she does sewing for your wife, you know. Don’t think she was invited to the party, though.”

  “I’d give her my invitation if I could wiggle out of it. Unfortunately, Linda has me in the crosshairs. So I have to show up in a rental tux and make small talk with a bunch of suits.” He took a deep breath of the thin, cold air. “Not my favorite way to spend an evening. But my wife cuts me a lot of slack. I owe her.”

  “I hear that.”

  They walked on for a while, quiet again, eyes scanning for a telltale flash of white or a trace of spoor. It was true dawn now, rose-gold light shafting high into the treetops from the east, brightness hanging in the air. The deer would be on the move, heading back to their beds, pausing to snatch a mouthful here or there before retiring to sleep away the day.

  Over the rise of a slope, the heavy forest opened up to a long glade. Rotting stumps sprouted saplings and mushrooms, and the grass was still shaggy and green under a rime of frost. Spindly young birches and maples shone in the dawn light. The forest was reseeding itself.

  “I did this,” Ed said. “Cut it eight years back.” He gestured upward. “It goes way up, between these two hills.”

  “How many acres are there?”

  “To Haudenosaunee? Two hundred fifty thousand.”

  Russ whistled.

  “Ayeah. It’s been my primary harvesting area for a good ten years now. Used to cut in forest that was close enough to make it easy to get to, up past Tenant’s Mountain, but Global Wood Products bought it up a decade ago. We’d leased the yearly rights from Haudenosaunee, from way back when it was my daddy and old Mr. van der Hoeven. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why my dad didn’t do more in these woods, since he paid for the license. But as one piece of land and then another shut down to timbering, I was grateful he’d held this place close to his pocket.”

  “Isn’t the company that’s buying the land for the conservancy GWP, Inc.? Is that Global Wood Products?”

  “It’s their American subsidiary. All these big foreign companies got themselves an American subsidiary these days.”

  “So why aren’t they harvesting the timber themselves?”

  “Oh, they may some time in the future. Right now, it’s more valuable as a tax write-off to them. It works like this, see. If you’re the owner, you pay six, seven dollars an acre on these woodlands in property tax. That’s sumpin’ like two hundred thousand dollars a year for Haudenosaunee. And the owner pays that whether he’s taking timber from the holding, or building vacation homes, or just sitting on it watchin’ the leaves fall. The Adirondack Conservancy Corporation loves getting their hands on great big tracts of land like this one. But they’re hard-put to buy ’em, unless the owners can afford to give ’em a break on the price. So the ACC teams up with a business like Global Wood Products. The business buys the land and gives the conservancy the development rights to it. GWP takes a big yearly tax writeoff, and the conservancy gets to save the woods from guys like me, as they’d say.”

  “Why doesn’t GWP harvest the timber?”

  “Don’t be fooled—they hold on to the logging rights. They just agree not to exercise ’em for a decade or two and to give the ACC first option to buy ’em outright. Gives ’em a place to put their profits, while locking up some choice timber for the future.”

  “And meanwhile, the giant corporation gets a reputation as a warm and fuzzy, environmentally friendly kind of place.”

  “Yeah. And nobody notices that they’re getting rid of all the little guys in the timber products business at the same time.”

  Russ looked at him sharply. “Little guys? Like you?”

  Ed shrugged. “Looks like it.” He let his gaze drift out over the
green and sun-splashed glen he had created. “What the hell. I had a good run. Everything ends eventually.” Then his breath caught. He pointed.

  At the other edge of the clearing, a young buck emerged from the wood, lured into the open by the rich feeding. Russ had a glimpse, for a moment, of the way it all worked: the man felling trees to make his living, the cleared land running thick with grass, a new feeding ground for the deer. Eventually the trees would grow over it all, and the cycle would begin again. Or not.

  Ed nudged him, gesturing, Take your shot.

  Russ shook his head. He swept his arm, indicating the clearing. You made it. You take it. It should go to you.

  6:15 A.M.

  Officer Mark Durkee straightened his hat as he walked up the driveway toward the entrance of 52 Depot Road. He knew the current tenant, Mike Yablonski, from three disturbing-the-peace calls and a suspicion-of-dealing relating to a large quantity of pot that had circulated through Millers Kill last fall. He knew the man he was here to pick up from Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.

  Mark pressed the buzzer for Apartment B. And pressed the buzzer. And pressed the buzzer. On the fourth ring, he heard a slam and someone clumping down the stairs inside. “For chrissakes, I’m coming! Shut up already!” The door flung open, revealing Mike Yablonski, barefooted, wide-eyed, in sweats and a saggy T-shirt. “Uh,” he said.

  Mark noted Yablonski neglected to look through the window or even pause to unlock the door before opening it. Not the habits of a drug dealer—at least, not one who hoped to remain in business. Chief Van Alstyne might want to drop him from the watch list. “I’m here for Randy,” Mark said. He skipped the pleasantries; he wasn’t this man’s friend, and he didn’t want Yablonski thinking he was.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Yablonski leaned forward, looking at the battered blue pickup parked in front of Mark’s squad car. “You taking his truck, too?”

  “He can come back and get that later. I’m just delivering him home to his wife.”

  “Sure. I’ll go get ’im. You can, um—”

  Mark put his foot in the door. “I’ll wait here.”

  Yablonski looked at Mark’s shoe. “Yeah. Sure.” He trudged up the stairs. Mark examined the walls, old horsehair plaster cracking and bulging away from the lathes. The hallway smelled like cat urine. He crossed his arms, drawing his uniform jacket snugly over his shoulders. The only reason Randy wasn’t living full-time in a dive like this was because he had had the good sense to marry a smart woman. Mark’s wife’s sister. Too bad she hadn’t been smart enough to avoid a loser like Randy Schoof.

  He heard voices, faintly, from above. “C’mon, man, time to get going. Your brother-in-law’s here.” Then stumbling steps. Finally, Yablonski appeared, one arm wrapped around Randy’s waist, supporting him on his ham-sized shoulder.

  “Hey. Mark.” Randy waved blearily as his buddy helped him ascend the stairs. “Whaddya doin’ here, man?”

  “Lisa called me.”

  “Did I . . . did I forget to call her?”

  Yablonski answered. “No, man, you called her last night after you decided not to drive home.” The big man looked at Mark, as if seeking approval. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Stay over, ’stead of driving.”

  “That’s right.” Mark reached for his brother-in-law. “C’-mon, Randy. I told Lisa I’d bring you home.”

  “I knew I called her. I always call her. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “Yeah, you’re a saint, all right.”

  Yablonski stepped back, giving Mark space to maneuver Randy out the door. “Hey,” he said. “Anybody ever say how much you two look alike?”

  “No,” Mark said. In truth, he had heard the remark more than once, and it pissed him off every time. Yeah, he and his brother-in-law were both several inches shy of six feet. And they both kept their dark hair short, Mark in the high-and-tight of his academy days, Randy in an angry-white-guy buzz. And they both had more than a few muscles, Mark from regular weekly workouts in his basement gym, Randy from swinging a chain saw and unloading crates and whatever other backbreaking work he could find to keep him in cigarettes. But all anyone had to do was look at the tattoos crawling up and down Randy’s arms, at his idiotic Yankees rally cap, at his jeans flopping past his boxers. Nothing could be further from Mark’s spit-polish and shine, as he pointed out to anyone tittering about the Bain girls marrying mix-and-match husbands.

  He deposited Randy in the squad car and went around to the driver’s side. Yablonski was still standing in the doorway. Mark stopped. “Thanks for letting him stay the night,” he said grudgingly. Whatever else he thought of Randy’s companion, Yablonski had kept Randy from driving drunk. That was worth thanks. “Sorry about waking you so early. I’m on my way home after my shift. This was my only chance to get him.”

  “No prob. I was planning on hunting today, anyway. You kept me from being later than I would’ve.”

  Mark nodded. He slid behind the wheel of the squad car and chucked his hat onto Randy’s lap. “Don’t throw up on it,” he warned as he reversed out of the driveway.

  “I’m not going to throw up.”

  “You look like you’re gonna throw up.”

  “I’m not gonna throw up.”

  Randy reeked of old cigarettes and stale alcohol. Mark navigated the twists and turns out of town silently. As he drove west, toward the mountains, the rising sun exploded across his rearview mirror. He tilted the mirror and rolled down his window. Cold air battered his face. Randy mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “I said thanks. For picking me up. I got kinda messed up last night.”

  Mark considered pointing out that Randy had gotten messed up considerably before last night, starting with dropping out of school at the end of tenth grade.

  “I’m losing my job.”

  “Which one?”

  “Working for Castle Logging. The old man called me yesterday morning. Said he was sorry, but he wasn’t going to be able to cut the costs of moving the operation up north. So he’s putting the business up for sale. Says he’ll give me a good reference if I find a job with another timberman.”

  “Jeez. I’m sorry to hear that.” Randy’s lumbering job ran from whenever the forest floor froze hard enough to support the weight of trucks and skidders until the thaw threatened to mire the heavy vehicles in their tracks. Usually late November through April. Getting laid off so close to the start of the season would make it hard to find a place on another crew. “Does Lisa know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said I’d find something.” He slammed a shaky fist against the edge of the door. “Find something. Like what? There’s nothing around here in winter except lumbering.”

  “Take it easy on the car. It’s not mine.” Mark turned off Old Route 100 onto a dirt road that would shave five minutes off the time it would take to get to the Schoofs’ house. They were about as far away from Mark and Rachel’s Cossayuharie home as they could get, tucked up in the mountains, inside the Adirondack State Park. “There’s plenty of work around here in winter. Retail in the mall—”

  “At minimum wage plus a buck or two. Cutting timber paid sixteen thousand in a season. There’s nothing else I can do that’ll get me that much money.”

  “Why don’t you try going back to work at the mill?”

  “Reid-Gruyn? Christ, they’re in as bad shape as the lumber industry. Plus, they’d want to put me on the overnight shift like they did last time I worked there. That sucks.”

  Mark didn’t comment on the fact that he worked the dog shift. From the dirt road, he turned onto a county route, startling a passing SUV, whose driver slammed on the brakes at the sight of his black-and-white. “You got a trucking license for Castle, didn’t you? Why don’t you see if there are any local carriers hiring?”

  “Staying up twenty hours in a row and never seeing my wife? No, thanks. Besides, I like working outdoors, not behind a wheel. I ju
st got the license so old man Castle wouldn’t have to spend the bucks to hire an outside delivery service. Fat lot of good it did me.”

  Then go hire yourself out as a compost heap, you complaining sack of shit.

  The turn-off to the Schoofs’ house was hard to see, just a narrow gravel way shrouded in bony bushes that grasped at Mark’s car like witches’ fingers. He jounced over a few ruts, then pulled into the clearing in front of the house. He hadn’t reached the end of the drive when Lisa bounded out the kitchen door. In her red woolly jacket and matching hat, she looked like a cardinal against the graying house and the November trees. Mark pulled alongside her and killed the engine.

  “Hey, babe.” Randy staggered out of the car into Lisa’s arms.

  “Are you all right, baby?”

  “Yeah. Still kinda out of it. I’m sorry I didn’t come home. I was feeling so lousy about losing my job that the guys started buying me quarter shots to cheer me up.”

  Lisa looked past Randy’s shoulder at Mark. “I gotta ask you another favor.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m supposed to be cleaning at the Haudenosaunee estate right now. My piece-of-crap Ford fell apart last week, so we’re down to just Randy’s truck. Could you give me a ride?”

  Mark’s heart sank. He was hoping to catch some quality time with Rachel before she left for her shift at the hospital. Sometimes, if Maddy was still asleep when he got home, they had time for a quick one before Rachel had to shower and get dressed.

  His dismay must have shown on his face, because Lisa added, “I’ll trade you a favor.”

  “Like what?”

  “I know Rache would love to do something special for your anniversary,” Lisa said. They had been married right before Christmas, which had seemed romantic as hell at the time but which in practice meant they ignored their anniversary in the rush of preholiday shopping, cooking, and cleaning. “I’ll stay overnight with Maddy, and you two can go to a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “Yeah? That would be great. Okay, you got it.” He suddenly felt a lot cheerier. A bed-and-breakfast. He’d find one with a big fancy four-poster and a fireplace in the room. And a restaurant within walking distance, so they could have a bottle of wine and after-dinner drinks without worrying about driving. He was sprawled across the bed and Rachel was peeling off her clothes in the firelight when his sister-in-law’s voice brought him back to reality.