R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T

by R. S. Guthrie

  Spence Grant hated someone. A very putrid someone. A woman named Della Gerard. He was not alone in his hatred, he knew. Gerard was a nasty little woman, a crossing guard for the girls’ school in the morning who then directed the pickup of the children in the midafternoons.

  Half the township had it in for Della Gerard.

  The woman was a fine example of what occurred when a hen-pecked youth grew up and grabbed hold of even a sliver of power—a sconce of dominion over others; one that she could wrap her spindly little fingers around and wield like a scythe to all who opposed her.

  Spence had said on more than one occasion that she ran the pickup zone like a prison soup kitchen—pointing her baton this way and that, chewing on the parents, most who had just rushed in from one stress-filled job or another and didn’t much appreciate the mousy dictator and her oppressive little fiefdom.

  So one night a few weeks before the murders, the voice told Spence a funny anecdote:

  Did you hear about the noxious bitch with a chip on her shoulder that got herself run over by a well-meaning parent? Her chip isn’t nearly as big anymore.

  Spence found he liked that story. Liked it a lot, in fact. Liked it so much when his brain went to making it more of a plan than a funny piece of indulgent fiction, he found he didn’t have much of a problem with the idea at all.

  The next midafternoon, when Della Gerard was holding him back with a flat palm and grousing at a parent who’d been parked a few seconds too long in the yellow zone, Spence simply eased off the brake pedal, turned the wheel ever so slightly, and let the right front wheel of his rusted Subaru Forrester run up and over the foot and ankle of his least favorite crossing guard, snapping her tibia and fibula like brittle summer branches in a rainless wood.

  At the hospital, Spence apologized emphatically and even managed to produce a few tears when being interviewed by the Chief of Police. The incident was ruled an unfortunate accident, and though Spence’s insurance premiums went through the roof, Della Gerard retired from her policing duties and never walked correctly or without pain again.

  ~ ~ ~

  Killing didn’t come as easy to Spence. Most murderers needed to warm up to the idea. Even serial killers began slowly, sometimes graduating from assault to rape to murder. The voice convinced Spence Grant that he could prey on some of God’s lesser creatures to ease his trepidation.

  The voice questioned him relentlessly:

  What about medical science? Labs do heinous things to rats and mice and even guinea pigs, Spence. All under the guise of saving the world from the disease and pestilence brought about by themselves. Why not you? If you aren’t committed to changing the way things are, then…

  But Spence was ready to learn. Or at least he then believed what had to be done had to be done. He just needed some practice. So he bought a dozen mice, four rats, and two gerbils at a pet store in Coeur d’Alene.

  Spence hated rodents. He would never be talked into hurting a dog, or even a cat.

  The voice was specific about the practice runs.

  Look each of them in the EYE, Spence. Taking a life is a personal thing. Look each of them in the eye, and you won’t be afraid. Put YOUR fear into THEM, Spence. Send them on their way.

  Spence looked each mouse in the eyes. He knew it would be different with a person. The mice had no reasonable sentience. They were terrified, which helped, but they sensed only basic, overarching danger. They could not possibly know what the scalpel held in store for them.

  ~ ~ ~

  Three days before the murders Spence hadn’t heard from the voice in a week, and he was getting edgy. It was clear the voice meant him to graduate to a human being, and the idea of taking the life of one of his own kind had actually become a bit of a fixation. After all, mice were not culpable in the destruction of the world.

  Men were.

  And women.

  His own people.

  It was finally time to make a difference. The voice didn’t have far to go in convincing him of that.

  Yet Spence still didn’t know who the first victim would be. This had him pacing back and forth in the downstairs study when his wife thought he was working through the family finances. Who would it be?

  Then, at three thirty-three in the morning, exactly seventy-two hours before the murders, the voice returned to him to give him the plan.

  You must kill THEM, it said to him.

  Who? Spence asked the voice.

  You know who.

  He did know.

  But I want to make a difference, Spence said. He didn’t want to be a monster; he wanted to rid the world of the bad people.

  Not his own family.

  You cannot rid the world of monsters, Spence. The world will always have them. But you can send good people away from here—far, far away. To a better, monster-less place!

  It made sense. The world was no better than a ring of Hell. How many times had he questioned the decision of bringing two young girls into the cesspool of what now passed as “humanity”? He’d never considered such an act of finality in his deliberations, of course. But what a few months before would have been impossible to even imagine, now appeared preordained and positively resplendent.

  ~ ~ ~

  As Spence tucked his two angels away beneath the patchwork covers that night he could hardly contain his excitement for them. His hands were shaking he was so impatient to send them on their journey. What greater thing could a father do than remove his children from a life sentence in Hell?

  And his wife. It made him warm inside to think of her going first. She would be waiting for the little ones, and then, finally, for him—when the four of them could transport themselves a billion light years away from all the mess the world had become; they would leave this toilet of a civilization and disappear into cosmic bliss in the wink of an eye.

  The act of sharpening the knife was more than symbolic. Great patience was the key. He moved the edge along the rough whetstone, careful not to nick the blade. Over and over he lovingly pulled the blade, honing, perfecting.

  He’d purchased the knife a few days earlier, though he’d been looking for the perfect weapon for a long time—nosing in and out of cutlery shops, attending gun shows, frequenting flea markets.

  So many wonderful knives; so many choices.

  The voice inside assured him he would know the right talisman when he found it. The one. The blade that would draw his family closer to God; closer to Paradise.

  And he did know it. He found it in a smallish, private shop on a trip across the border to Missoula on business. An old Nez Perce woman ran the store, which exhibited twenty to thirty blades attached to meticulously carved handles made from alabaster, elk horn, and obsidian.

  Spence knew the moment he saw the magnificent black handle, the curved deboning blade glinting even in the dull light of the little shack. When he saw it he forgot why he ever drove to Missoula in the first place. Did he not come for this?

  Of course you did, the voice assured him.

  “How much,” he asked the wrinkled old woman.

  “Two hundred,” she said. “Handmade. Very strong.”

  No price seemed too high for the tool he needed. He paid the woman.

  The voice was speaking to him again, saying he’d better make sure there were no loose ends. It was, after all, a small shop. And the voice seemed to have a problem with the broken down Indian woman.

  She is shaman, Spence. A child of the coyote. Seer. Look into her eyes. She already knows. One phone call to the locals and your plan is over—your children struggle through decades of living Hell.

  Spence did look into the old, wrinkled face. Into those cloudy, ancient orbs, devoid of compassion. The voice was right. It was clear she knew.

  A shaman.

  Just his luck. But then again, he thought, where else to find a knife to do God’s work? Not Wal-Mart.

  Spence had been palming the knife, admiring it, when the voice told him about the Indian medicine woman. He kept
his eyes locked on hers as he reached across the counter, grabbed a fistful of her long, gray-streaked hair, and pulled her toward him. She drew a deep breath, as if to cry out, and Spence deftly plunged the knife into her esophagus, silencing any scream that may have been building.

  He remembered his practice. He kept his own eyes locked on the Indian woman’s. He watched as the fight drained from her gaze; he stared as the life went out of her.

  There were no cameras. No security personnel. It was a small shop, run by poor, proud people. Spence lowered the old woman, inanimate, down into the pool of her own chocolate-colored blood. The vessel was no longer aware, but Spence smiled knowingly, happy he could send another proud, decent soul onward, away from a world filled with horror and shame.

  -CHAPTER FIVE-

  AMANDA BYRNE occupied my thoughts. Three-quarters of a continent away and still I could not forget her. Not that I wanted to. I don’t know about such things being preordained, but the moment I saw her I knew I’d never be able to resist. The smoothness of her skin, the flame red hair, those bottomless green eyes. I missed her.

  It sounds shallow to mention her in terms of her external beauty. I realize it’s uncouth to do so, but I have never been able to deny that the most beautiful creatures are the most desirable. Yes, there is more. Far more. Beauty is, at best, skin deep. But God, or evolution, or whatever mechanism you have conceded dominion over our existence, burned into us a need to mate with the strongest, or most physically dominant, of our species. We are all attracted to innate beauty.

  Such attraction should not be overpowering—so inexplicably intoxicating— but often we are not in control of the innate, feral needs that rise up against our better judgment. We put up the good fight; we assure ourselves and others that we are in control. But it has been my experience that control of our lives is, at best, an illusion, and at worst, an unattainable obsession.

  I called Amanda as soon as I decided to travel to Idaho to help my brother. I told myself it was a professional call. Not a chance. I needed to hear her voice. I wanted to see her again. Her interest in me had seemed to lessen with the distance between us, or at least that is how I read it. There was a flatness in her voice when we talked. And it seemed the frequency of our calls was also diminishing.

  “Amanda, it’s Bobby.”

  “Bobby. How have you been?”

  That flatness again. I wished it was my imagination, but I knew better. I was a detective. I counted on my ability to hear such things.

  “Casework has been slow,” I said. “You?”

  “The Bureau has me buried in bullshit paperwork. Life of a fed.”

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. Amateur hour. The knee-jerk reaction of Insecure Lover.

  “Me, too.”

  Classic non-response.

  “Listen, my brother called from Idaho. He needs my help on a case up there.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “A little girl has been abducted.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “He feels a fresh set of eyes might help.”

  “Are you going?”

  “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “It’s more than that. There are some uncomfortable similarities with the Calypso case.”

  “No shit?” she said. I had her attention now.

  “The girl’s mother and sister were murdered. By the father.”

  “Doesn’t sound much like the Calypso case.”

  “The father says the Devil took her.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You don’t sound impressed,” I said.

  “I see the parallel now.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s thin. But I have some time coming and things are slow here.”

  “Look, Bobby…I have been meaning to talk to you. I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I’ve been intentionally distant.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not you.”

  The ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. I thought we’d moved deeper than second date repertoire.

  “I’ve had so much on my mind,” Amanda said.

  “I get it. We shared some time together. Great while it lasted. Maybe we thought it was going to be more. Or maybe I did.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The merry-go-round stopped. It didn’t slow down; the ride ended so hard my head nearly separated from its axis.

  “Shit,” was all I could think to say. “Sorry.”

  It wasn’t my finest moment.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “My reaction was about the same. To be honest, Bobby, I have been thinking for a long time about what I should do.”

  “What we should do, I’d like to think.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  I was in New York four months earlier, at her request. She took a week off work and we stayed downtown in a four-star hotel, her showing me the city, us making love and ordering room service. It wasn’t long after my return that she started clamming up.

  “I wanted to tell you, Bobby. Something inside me needed distance; needed to digest this notion before breaking the news to you.”

  “Meet me in Idaho,” I blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Fly there. Help me sort out what’s going on with my brother. It will give us some time together.”

  “You want me there?”

  “Of course I want you there,” I said. “Both of you.”

  “Jesus, Bobby. I want to cry. I don’t have to tell you how messed up that is for me. It confuses me.”

  “What did you think, Amanda? I was going to stop calling you?”

  “Maybe. Something like that. I’m a strong woman. I would have dealt with it.”

  “But you don’t have to deal with it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m in love with you, lady.”

  There was a long pause on the line.

  “Fuck you, Bobby Mac. Fuck you for making me feel like a schoolgirl after her first kiss.”

  “I have a way with women.”

  More silence. Then:

  “I love you, too.”

  ~ ~ ~

  In the quiet of the house all I could think about was the new life growing inside Amanda and, frankly, what a baby meant to us, our world, and to me as a past-forty cop who was closer to breaking down than to the glory days of old.

  I did love Amanda. It was the first time I’d told her that, however. Her reaction was certainly positive enough—more so than I’d hoped. She loved me, too.

  That fact alone instilled a confidence in me that had been missing for some time. Just over a year ago I’d said the same words to another woman—Greer Foster: college professor, dog lover, and part-time Bobby Mac fan. I say part time because I think it could be argued that I was more filler in her life than something (or someone) she ever really considered a permanent fixture.

  In other words, I had fallen hard for her, too, but was unsure if she felt the same toward me. I would never find out; I’d never know if there was room for me in the world she was hammering out for herself. Greer’s death was harder even than losing my wife, Isabel. I thought Greer was the one; the woman to fill that void in my life, give me more children, and share the rest of my life with me. When she died, as with Isabel, a part of Bobby Mac died with her.

  ~ ~ ~

  The relationship with my brother is a conundrum I’ve struggled to reconcile since I was old enough to wonder about such things. How can two boys be so similar and share such joy while at the same time being predestined to destroy each other?

  Jax and I were like matter and antimatter.

  Meyer and I drove down Main Street toward the old brick two-story in Rocky Gap that housed the town police department.

  “You and your brother were close once,” Meyer said.

  “We were.”

  “You’ve never said what drove y
ou apart.”

  “Probably because there is no one thing,” I said.

  I wish it had been one thing. A disagreement. A wrong that needed righting. Things can be fixed. It’s not so easy to restructure what is coded into our DNA.

  “I always wanted a brother,” Meyer said. “You are lucky to have Jax.”

  “It doesn’t always feel that way. He and I are too much alike. We aren’t good for each other.”

  “Isn’t it more complicated than that?”

  “Not really.”

  I pulled the truck into a visitor spot and killed the engine. It occurred to me this was the first time I’d visited my brother since he became Chief. When he was a patrol officer, I flew up for the birth of Gracie. Even then it was clear to me he’d be running the department one day. My brother was a good cop. We had that in common, too.

  Jax was at the front desk, waiting on our arrival, drinking from a large mug of steaming coffee. Our father loved his java, too. The bitter stuff never did much for me.

  “Bobby,” Jax said as we walked through the double glass doors. He extended a meaty paw. My brother was several inches taller than I was and outweighed me by twenty or thirty pounds. I accepted his iron grip.

  Macaulays did not hug.

  “Meet Meyer,” I said.

  “Ah, the priest,” Jax said, offering a second handshake.

  “Retired,” Meyer said.

  “Once of the cloth always of the cloth,” Jax said to him. “Cops don’t retire, they die. Same thing in your line of work.”

  Apparently bluntness ran in the family, too.

  “You are a cousin, too?”

  “So they say,” Meyer said.

  Jax motioned down the hallway.

  “Let’s sit in my office.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “We’ve got search parties working around the clock,” he said, pointing to a map of the Coeur d’Alene wilderness. “Teams of forty. Sweeping the area. Divers working the rivers and lakes.”

  “What makes you think she’s been abducted?” I said. “Could your perp have killed her, too? Buried her to assuage his guilt?”