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

by R. S. Guthrie

  “What the fuck do you think you are doing, Chief? Cuff that prisoner before I arrest you, too.”

  “You don’t arrest people either. And if you don’t pipe down, I’m going to have my deputies come in here and remove you forcibly. You won’t like that at all, I promise.”

  Jax looked at me.

  “Now why don’t you start from the beginning, for Mr. Xavier’s benefit?”

  I shared the entire interview, which had also been taped. Afterward, Xavier wanted to view the twenty-two and a half minutes for himself.

  “There’s no way he could have known about the pregnancy,” the attorney asked me later, after making a few calls.

  “None,” I said.

  “I didn’t even know,” said Jax.

  “Then how…” Xavier began. “Never mind. After we watched the tape, I called Springer Lewis, Grant’s attorney. He wasn’t even aware of the incident, which is pretty shocking because Grant was taken to the emergency room for stitches and a resetting of his nose. Afterward he was given a phone call.”

  “Who did he call?” Jax said.

  “Ewing’s Auto Repair. To see when his wife’s car would be ready. It was dropped off a few days before the murder. Merle Ewing said Grant just wanted to make sure the bill was paid on time and that no additional storage charges accrued.”

  “Jesus. He has no concept of what’s happening all around him,” Jax said.

  “He knows,” I said. “He’s just pleased as frog shit that it’s all going according to plan.”

  “Well, he’s not pressing charges,” Xavier said. “Springer is mad as hell because he can’t talk his client into it. Grant’s exact words were I’d have beaten the tar out of me, too. End quote.”

  -CHAPTER EIGHT-

  I’VE FELT the Scotsman in my veins since bagpipes first beckoned to the ear of my soul. Paddy used to put me on his knee and we would listen to records on the old turntable, those once-outlawed pipes haunting me with songs of the old country.

  I’ve never been able to fully explain it. I was born and spent my whole life in the United States—as American as they come—but there has always been a palpability to the feeling of Scottish heritage in my soul. I had yet to visit my homeland, but in the year after losing my partner and my girlfriend, I considered it more than any other time in my life. I wanted to see Scotland one day. I needed to climb to the top of the rolling mountains, as did William Wallace, whom my ancestors hid from British soldiers and fought next to as Scotland won her freedom.

  The bulk of Father Terence Macaulay’s journal—my grandfather’s journal—had been stored away inside my head. I read much of it directly after Calypso was killed and my son healed. Father Macaulay was a complicated man. I never considered myself very complex, but I suppose he didn’t either—or any complicated man, for that matter.

  There was a particular passage that moved me; one that reached so far into my soul I knew I would never forget the words:

  We don’t choose our heritage, nor does it choose us. It simply IS. What we can do is respect it; we can carry on the traditions of our ancestors. We owe them as much. The Clan MacAulay is one of vital importance, and this dedication to duty—indeed the very genetic need to protect this world—has been passed to us as the torch is passed to the next sentry, ready to give his life for the rest of the land.

  This genetic need to protect and to serve my fellow mankind has been with me since I can remember. It’s not something taught but rather something passed to me in the MacAulay blood. There is no other way to explain it. I don’t always love my brothers and sisters; in fact my Jack Russells, Tina and Sketch, have brought me more joy and earned more trust from me than many people I’ve met.

  But that does not mean I am not there to protect them—each of them; every man, woman, and child who sleeps under my watch. It is akin to disagreeing with someone’s opinion but being willing to die in order to defend their right to have and voice it.

  I discovered a book a few months back—one written by Sean McCulloch. McCulloch had done extensive research into the major clans of Scotland. My own clan publicly died out in the early 18th century, however, the Book of Ossian clearly documents that this official removal of recognition of the MacAulay Clan was staged, in part, to divert attention from the covert actions of the clan to draw together a stronger force to wage a guerilla battle against the enemies of Ardincaple, Scotland, and the world at large.

  -CHAPTER NINE-

  I FIRST met Tilson Wayne in the forest south of Priest River. Amanda, Meyer, Jax, and I joined the search party the morning after investigating the crime scene at the Grant residence. The night had dumped eight inches of heavy rain across the countryside and it made trekking through the Idaho wilderness that much more difficult. The footing was treacherous at best, and the only shoes I’d brought for outdoor activity were my running shoes. My prosthesis was damn good handling semi-even terrain in the city, but the computer chip was finding the constant recalculations due to ever changing ground levels a bit challenging.

  Overcompensation was the worst. I would be hiking up a steep embankment, the gyro having auto-adjusted to compensate for the additional force of the good climbing leg—then the incline would flatten for a moment, or dip in the other direction, and the leg would adjust too quickly, giving me the momentary sensation of having stepped for a stair in the dark that was not there—and I would go down, hard.

  “Are you all right?” Amanda asked me after one such fall.

  “Shit,” I said. “Yeah. My ego took the brunt of it, I think.”

  “Let’s rest,” she said.

  “Just me. You keep moving. I need a couple moments to adjust the calibration of this damn leg.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. Head out.”

  Amanda left to catch up with Jax and Meyer. I unbuttoned my jeans, pulled them down, and opened up the module on my leg. I switched to manual stance calibration, which meant the artificial leg would be counting on me—what was left of my upper leg—to make the physical compensations. It was a lot more work, and made me slower and less wieldy, but the change would lessen the risk of going down again.

  After putting my jeans back on, I caught movement out in the peripheral forest. I spun to see a man, maybe twenty feet away, standing still, his gaze locked on me. He then raised a hand in salutation. Another searcher, I assumed. I waved in return and he moved through the thick scrub, toward where I stood.

  “Tilson Wayne,” he said, extending a slender, nearly fleshless hand.

  He was haggard and rough looking, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The majority of the left side of his face was tattooed with a strange design—almost like a Scot’s war paint. His hair was stringy and full of grease, as if he’d never washed it.

  I accepted his grip. His hand was as cold as the bottom of a grave.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Left my gloves in the truck.”

  “Bobby Mac,” I said.

  “I know. Word moves like greased pig shit in this little burg.”

  “Didn’t see you at the gathering point this morning,” I said.

  “Don’t care much for groups. Figured I would take a walk, see for myself what a man might find out here.”

  “No law against it, I suppose.”

  “Laws are for the innocent,” he said, looking into the brooding sky. “Going to pound us here in a bit.”

  “What’s your story, Mr. Wayne?”

  “Tilly. Can’t abide a man calls me by my father’s name.”

  “Roger that.”

  “An asshole like no other you’ve ever encountered. Dear old dad, that is. You were in the Marines.”

  “You say that as a matter of fact, Tilly.”

  “It a fact or ain’t it?”

  “It’s a fact.”

  “Then I stated correctly.”

  “Why am I getting the impression there’s a little ass-busting going on here?” I said, sounding more perturbed than I was.

  “A mount
ain man like me decides to bust your ass, you’ll know it. Sorry for the directness. Afraid it’s the only inheritance I received.”

  “Direct I can handle. Did you serve?”

  “Never believed much in serving the innocent.”

  “That’s twice you referenced the innocent. I take it that puts you in the guilty category.”

  “We’re all guilty of something,” Wayne said. “The innocent most of all.”

  “I happen to believe something pretty similar.”

  Tilson Wayne had distinguishing features—pointy chin with a long tuft of goatee and month-old facial hair. Big sideburns. Up close, the tattoo appeared to be a strange maze-like design. The skin on his face was sunbaked and leathery.

  “Do you know the truth behind men such as us, Bobby?”

  “Not sure we are cut from the same mold, sir.”

  “Family is everything.”

  “Family’s not something we choose.”

  “Too often it don’t choose us either.”

  “Almost never,” I agreed.

  “BOBBY,” Amanda shouted from far up the trail.

  “Here,” I yelled back. She came jogging back into the small clearing where she’d left me.

  “What the hell are you doing back here?” she said. “I had to double back something terrible.”

  “Sorry. Just chewing the rag with my new friend.”

  I turned around. Tilson Wayne had evaporated into the damp woodland air. Before Amanda could ask me what the hell I was talking about, a thunderhead broke and the heavens poured down unmercifully.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Never heard of him,” Jax told me in the police Suburban.

  “Well I’m not crazy,” I said, realizing how totally crazy it sounded to deny it. “You didn’t see anyone?”

  “No,” Amanda said. “And you weren’t exactly hidden from view either.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just calling it like I see it. Or like I didn’t see it.”

  “He said something about his old man. You know any Wayne’s around here?”

  “None currently,” Jax said, “We can check county records when we get back.”

  We did just that. And there was one Wayne family listed in the census records.

  “Percival Wayne,” Jax said. “Looks like he and the wife died fifty years ago. No children.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Where are birth and death records?” Amanda said.

  “Why?” Jax said.

  “Census records that far back would have included a house count only. Any children who were born or died between counts wouldn’t show up in the census reports.”

  “I need to hook you up with Marta Esteban. County Clerk. Woman is like a bloodhound when it comes to finding a needle in a pile of dusty records.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Marta Esteban was a pleasantly thick, onyx-haired, attractive mixture of Nez Perce and Latina and had the spunk to back it up.

  “Bobby Macaulay,” she said when we met her at the Records Division. “Your brother is a hunk and a half. Looks like you got a fair share of those genes, too.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. I don’t think Amanda was amused, but she held her temper in check.

  “We’re looking for names,” I said. “Babies that were born, died, anything with the Wayne surname.”

  “Done, Cariño. Your brother called ahead of you. I already have what you are looking for. Question is how much do you have in recompense.”

  “Barter, eh?” I said.

  “Si, Cariño.” Marta winked at me and Amanda kicked me in the shin for my part in the flirtation.

  “I’m Amanda,” she said. “Mother of the cariño’s child.”

  “Lo siento, Chiquita. No offense intended.”

  “You said you have some information for us?”

  “Si, there was a baby born. 1922. ‘Tilson’. Born to parents Percival and Agnes Wayne.”

  “Do you have any idea why the census would have missed this name?” I said.

  “Census count back then was every fifteen years. There was a count in 1920 and again in 1935.”

  “Tilson was born and then died in-between.”

  “Si. There is a death certificate from 1933.”

  “Thank you, Marta,” I said. “Jax is right, you’re a star.”

  “There’s more,” she said. “I searched the old microfiche archives. We have articles from the Coeur d’Alene Press from everything after 1901. Including obituaries. Tilson Wayne died of injuries received in a farm accident. I printed the article for you.”

  “You’re a doll, Marta.”

  She looked at Amanda and shrugged her shoulders. “If you get tired of him, or have any trouble putting him in his place, you know where to find me, Chiquita.”

  “Thanks,” Amanda said. “For everything.”

  “Still think I was seeing things?” I said.

  “No,” Amanda said, holding the printout of the old article. “I didn’t think you were crazy in the first place.”

  “I don’t know. If we hadn’t been at Grand Lake—if we hadn’t witnessed the…well, you know. I don’t know what I would believe. I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that.”

  “Why would Tilson Wayne be here now? And why would he appear as the full-grown man you describe? Why would he appear only to you?”

  “Hmm. Questions without answers. I think that’s what they pay us for.”

  “We’re going back to the search in the morning,” she said.

  “I think we need to talk to Meyer. The man with the plan. Have you seen him since we got rained out at the search?”

  “He hitched a ride back with one of the deputies. Salem. Or Salon. Something like that. Said he had some research he wanted to do.”

  Meyer’s room was three down from ours. He knew about my supposed meeting with Tilson in the forest but he’d not seen the newspaper article yet. It was time to share the knowledge.

  I knocked on Meyer’s door but there was no answer.

  “He’s not here,” I told Amanda.

  “Try his cell phone,” she said.

  “Cell phone? Ah, no. The man lives in the eighth century technologically speaking.”

  “There’s really only one place where a technologically-challenged bibliophile in need of research would go.”

  “Public library.”

  “Viva la Dewey Decimal.”

  “You need to work on your Spanish. That might be exciting later on.”

  “Let’s go, Cariño.”

  ~ ~ ~

  We found Meyer burrowed down in a cubical in the darkest corner of the town library, surrounded by a stack of books three feet high. Two or three were opened in front of him. His eyes were blood red.

  “Did you know this area was settled by French Canadian trappers and miners?”

  “Jax mentioned something about that. Hadn’t thought much about it,” I said. “But Coeur d’Alene doesn’t conjure images of a Germanic settlement.”

  “I found a reference,” he said. “To bête noire.”

  “Black beast,” I said. “Same as Father Terrence’s journal.”

  “Yes and no. Same reference, the literal translation anyway. Turns out, however, bête noire is more appropriately used as a term of extreme anathema. I—it references the cursed. Or the damned.”

  “I’m assuming there is more.”

  “Indeed,” Meyer said. “The early Native Americans met here by the French were called Coeur d’Alene by the trappers, in reference to their shrewd trading practices. The name’s reference is believed to be heart of the awl, or shrewd-hearted. The Coeur d’Alene Indians believed in a beast—the creature of nek’we’ aldarench, or ‘one moon’—an evil presence that stalked pre-teen children for sacrifice to the evil God Hamaltmsh, loosely translated fly god.”

  “Loosely translated?” I said.

  “The Coeur d’Alene language was almost exclusively spoken, not written
. So textual references are a bit spotty. Most importantly, this creature stalked under the “one moon”. Every two to three years, there is an extra full moon. A second full moon in what we know as our calendar month.”

  “A blue moon,” Amanda said.

  “Yes. The Coeur d’Alene called it ‘one moon’. The Clergy used to refer to an extra moon as a ‘belewe’ or ‘betrayer’ moon.”

  “And the beast stalks during this time…this one moon?” I said.

  “According to legend,” Meyer said. “The sacrifice occurs on the one night of the nek’we aldarench.”

  “When is the next one moon?”

  “October thirtieth.”

  “That’s the day after tomorrow,” I said.

  ~ ~ ~

  The Scottish temper, at least as I know it, is a very real thing. It may also be the stuff of legends—portrayed as almost cartoonish at times; the brunt of jokes and funny sketches—but I can attest to its authenticity. There are times when there is absolutely nothing one can do about controlling it—particularly the one who is afflicted—and one might as well give in to the ride.

  Such hotheadedness did not make the Macaulay relationships any easier to maintain.

  Jax had invited Meyer, Amanda, and me out to his ranch for breakfast. Afterward we planned to join the search parties. There was no new information, and the rank and file of the volunteers were beginning to crack under the stress of knowing a young child could have been exposed to the elements (and God knew what else) for almost eight days. Additionally, the search parties had little more to go on than the day they began the search.

  The Macaulay ranch is forty acres of property a few miles outside the town limits, nestled in a wooded valley with a roaring stream running through the middle of the land, providing plentiful, natural irrigation. It’s really a gorgeous location.

  Part of the reason for the size is the fact that my brother and his family raise suri alpacas. Now I can barely keep my domesticated canines fed and watered (and I’ve never been able to keep a plant alive for more than a few days at best), so I’ve never understood how a member of my family ended up raising anything, much less a herd of docile beasts that looked no different to me from llamas.