Dead On

by Robert W. Walker

  Perhaps he ought to’ve brought flowers. Perhaps he ought to simply lie, tell her he’d been unable to sleep, had taken the boat out for a good workout. What his father used to call his water stroll. But he’d left that damned note.

  But then again, he thought, the unvarnished truth might arm her, whereas a fairytale could get her killed.

  The roar of the engine reverberated, the boat skimming overtop the water, the foamy wake the only disturbance for miles. He brought the boat full around, arching to a near flip-over before parking it dockside. He waved to Katrina, but she only returned a frown. While tying to de-board, he heard her footsteps coming down the pier, and from the sheer pouncing of her bare feet, he thought warpath.

  He smiled but did not let her see the smile. This is what life’s all about, he thought. She’d gone on the offensive, coming straight for him, shouting, “What’s the idea? You want to scare me to death? Going off to Atlanta and leaving me here alone?

  In his fatigue, he could mount no defense. She held the scribbled note over his head.

  “Told you I’d be back as soon as I could.”

  “How did you make the round trip? On that?” She pointed to the boat.

  He pointed across the lake. “Small airport the other side of the lake. Cub plane.”

  “You own a cub plane?”

  “Cessna. Didn’t your research say so?”

  “I knew you were a pilot is all.”

  “With you asleep, I thought it the best time to ahhh… leave and come back.”

  She glared anew at him, her features like a flare. “You should’ve awakened me. I’d’ve gone with you.”

  “You had the dog for company, and I presume found the guns I loaded just for you.”

  “I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Your trip in the wee hours. All you learned about Milton. Beginning with is it our Milton who’s been murdered?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Then he—Cantu—has set things into motion, and you like a fool are giving him exactly what he wants.”

  “Hold on, Doctor.”

  “He’s obviously followed you from the crime scene, or haven’t you thought of that?”

  In his fatigue, with a great lack of sleep, he had given it serious thought; however, he’d been extremely careful in making his way back to the Atlanta Municipal Business airport, taking a number of detours, on and off ramps, and unnecessary side streets. Trained in such matters, he felt confident that even if he were being followed by Cantu, or an agent of Cantu’s, he’d shaken loose.

  “All the same, this place may have been compromised.”

  “I took a plane back. He wasn’t on board, and there were no stowaways.”

  She took in a great breath of air. “You know, he just may know about this place anyway. Just seeing you get on a plane—your plane, I presume—would tell him where we are, Detective. I mean…duh.”

  “I think you’re just spoiling for a fight.”

  “That too.”

  He stormed past her and up the boards to the deck and house. “I need sleep.”

  “Whoa up, not before you tell me all the details of how Lawrence died.”

  He turned on her. “I don’t have all the details. CSI is still working on the details.”

  “Then tell me what you saw firsthand. I wanna know.”

  “No you don’t.” He kept going.

  She rushed after. “Yes, I do. I’m a big girl, even have some knowledge of medicine and the human body as well as how to fire that Glock.”

  He kept going. Inside, he found the coffee and gulped a cup down. She stood across the kitchen. Behind her, through the glass doors, birds flitted past and sunlight danced amid the dappled leaves. Rydell heard music playing in the other room, a soft rock tune, sounded like Billy Joel maybe. The room smelled of freshly heated waffles and maple syrup which tightened his stomach in a ball right now.

  “All right. Get some shut-eye,” she said on looking more closely at Marcus. “You look like hell.” It was a lie as he looked positively invigorated, she thought. “After which I will want a full accounting. “

  “Deal, OK.”

  She continued to pursue him through the house, and to the top of the stairs he’d gone down. “ You go rushing off, leaving me alone here, knowing he could be out there at any time.”

  Halfway down, he turned. “I had to know—we had to know—if it was the same man, Milton.”

  “Now we know.”

  “Now we know what we’re in for; that much is certain.”

  She calmed a bit. “His time in the woods has made him even more of a maniac, hasn’t it?”

  “He’s ex-marine, a trapper-hunter, able to survive for years alone, and yet he chose to come back to essentially get us—essentially a pair of strangers to him. Yeah, you could say he’s a total whack-job.”

  “And he’s driven by what? What fuels him?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Whatever it is, you’ve gained a helluva lotta fuel over this whole thing, too.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He stood now at the bottom of the stairs; she’d remained at the top.

  “You’re enjoying yourself is what I mean.”

  “I would hardly call it enjoying myself.”

  “Cantu’s got a desire to hurt you further, to humiliate you, Marcus, further, and to do so he’ll kill anyone you think you can save, including me. So just don’t get to happy with things as they are, OK?”

  “God, Katrina, I don’t think you have a clue what you’re saying, else my lack of sleep is hearing you wrong.”

  “Yeah…yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” She slammed the door at the top of the stairs. This fueled his anger. He rushed back up and caught up with her in the living room. “Look, I admit I’ve returned to the world and to what I know best—investigating, hunting. But that doesn’t make me a monster like him.”

  They stared across at one another. It felt like a moment in the relationship when it could go completely awry if either said the wrong thing. “Look, Detective, all I’m saying is that maybe what motivates you—the hunt—is what motivates this maniac.”

  “The hunt, I suppose you’re right.”

  She shrugged. “All I’m saying.”

  “The hunt and the kill.” He shuffled off to his bed.

  “I will want to know every flaming detail!” she shouted after him.

  “Later.”

  “Maybe I’ll go for a ride on the lake then!”

  He stormed back at her like a man shot from a cannon. “No, you don’t go three feet from the house, understood?”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “No, I’m saying and that’s an order!”

  “Whoa, easy.” He’d taken her by the shoulders.

  “Come to think of it, you don’t go outside, not so much as the porch or the deck. Not alone…not without—”

  “I’ve got Paco.”

  “Inside!” he shouted so loud as to disturb Paco who’d been lying in a corner.

  “All right, all right. Go to bed. You’re far too grumpy.”

  “Remember, stay—”

  “Inside. Got it. Now go, go!”

  “I’m sorry I yelled.”

  “Do you feel a need to get in the last word every time we talk?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s not about that. It’s about your safety.”

  “You’re the one about to topple over. Get thee to a pillow, now!” she ordered, a raised index finger shaking at his nose.

  His shoulders slumped, he asked, “Do you have to have the last word, always?”

  “Frankly, yes! Especially when I’m the wronged party.”

  “I see. One of those people who doesn’t believe in the word sorry, see it as a weakness, huh?”

  “I can say I’m sorry when circumstances call for it, but believe me, with men, that’s a rarity.”

  F O U R T E E N

  Several hours la
ter, the Rydell cabin

  “From what JT told me, and from what I could see, the head and limbs were bound by yards and yards of heavy medical tape to tuck everything into the center at the torso. Hung up like a side of beef. Only thing keeping the flies off was the smoke.” Marcus had decided to leave no detail out; she needed to fear this man with every fiber of her being.

  “My God,” Mallory quietly erupted. “He used medical tape to stick his damnable letters in places where I’d find them.”

  “As I recall, his murdered wife had been a nurse,” added Marcus. His wife had been a nurse.” He sipped at a beer. “Milton had every part of his body tucked in and bound to the chest with the same sort of tape.”

  More information had come in via CNN and other news outlets while Marcus had slept. “They’re saying Milton had been a basketball star at the high school where Cantu strung up his remains.”

  Rydell tried to imagine the horror of what Milton must have endured. He imagined Cantu telling the other man precisely what he had in mind for his remains.

  “Something the newsmen don’t know, Doc.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Attached to the body or rather in his mouth along with the wallet, the killer left a note.”

  “Bastard likes to write, doesn’t he?”

  “Note read: one down, five to go.”

  “Five?”

  “I figure he’s talking about you, me and Miersky’s wife and two kids.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I tried to get in touch with Nora while in Atlanta, but she’s not there.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Dunno. It’s been years. For all I know—”

  “We’ve got to find her and those kids! Warn her!”

  “We will. We will.”

  “We’re just sitting here doing nothing, and this maniac is one step ahead of us.”

  “Easy.”

  “He may well’ve already abducted those kids, your partner Stan’s kids.”

  “I’m not sitting on my ass on this.”

  She stared across at him on his ass and drinking another Sam Adams.

  “What’re we going to do now?” she pleaded.

  “I’ve got JT working on determining the whereabouts of the Miersky family.”

  “The cops? Whoop-de-do!”

  “JT’s not the cops. I’ve told him everything to win his trust. We have a partner in JT.”

  “JT, huh? Would that be Jack Thomas?”

  “You know Jack?” He jumped up, rushed the kitchen, and returned with another beer.

  She paced the living room. “Detective Thomas, sure, I know Dee-tec-tive Thomas.”

  “Do you have to make the word detective sound like a dirty word?”

  “Only in the context of the few I’ve known.”

  “What kinda vote of confidence is that?”

  “You wanted me to sit home waiting for results, just like your buddy JT, and if I had, maybe that wouldn’t’ve been Milton dangling murdered at his alma mater; maybe it would’ve been me dangling in pieces at Jefferson High or Georgia Tech.”

  He bit his upper lip, giving thought to the wisdom of this young woman. He knew she was correct. Somehow, he knew that Cantu’s entire purpose, for whatever twisted motive or lack of motive, the monster wanted to toy with the mouse until the end. He wanted Rydell to keep on paying for the day they failed to meet man to man.

  He said none of this. He’d also lied about involving JT. He just wanted her to calm down and trust in him. To that end, he took her hand in his and firmly said, “Katrina…Kat, all we can do at the moment is wait for JT’s call. Have a brewsky.” He extended the beer he’d just opened to her. He did indeed have someone searching for Nora and the kids, but it wasn’t anyone in the Atlanta PD. I just need a snitch in time, he silently told himself.

  Two sips and a frustrated shake of the head later and Rydell’s cell phone rang.

  *

  “Do you like to fly?” he asked her after hanging up on the snitch he kept exaggeratedly calling JT.

  “Depends. Where too?” Kat’s forehead creased with the question.

  “Nashville.”

  “We could drive that in an hour, hour and a half from here.”

  “We don’t want to be behind Cantu on this one.”

  “You think Cantu knows the Miersky’s have moved to Nashville?”

  “They’ve not moved there. Just on a trip, some school function or other if JT’s information is good.”

  “Hmmpf! And if he can get that information, then so can that murdering, foul- smelling Cantu.”

  He nodded. “Obviously, he knew a lot about Milton. Downright creepy how much you can learn about a stranger these days.”

  “Why do you suppose he…I mean, what kind of a thrill can he get out of murdering people he doesn’t even know?”

  “But he does get to know them…homework…electronically.”

  “All right, we fly to Nashville,” she said. “Then what?”

  “We have to convince Stan’s wife to come back with us, here.”

  “Here? Wouldn’t it be more advisable for her to get on a plane bound for…I dunno, Costa Rica?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, we have to warn her.”

  “Call ahead.”

  “Two problems with that.” He dialed as he spoke. “One, she wouldn’t listen to JT, so she’s not likely to listen to reason from the guy who got Stan killed, and two, she still lives in Atlanta or rather Marietta. What’s happening in Tennessee is that one of her kids is in a concert there.”

  “A concert, heh?”

  “Plays some instrument.”

  He then ordered up his plane to be made ready. “Be there in ten, fifteen minutes.”

  He said to Mallory, “Pack an overnight bag and that Luger of yours.”

  “You planning on kidnapping these people? I thought abduction wasn’t your style…shattered some sort of code?”

  “I plan on never seeing another body in the condition that Milton was left in. Now get packing.”

  *

  They were soon rushing out for the boat, Paco with them, but when they got to the boat, both Marcus and the dog balked—Marcus at taking him along, Paco at getting into the boat. “We have to leave him, Kat.”

  “To the elements?”

  “To his resourcefulness. He found us. He’ll find some other suck-ahhh— someone to take him in. Found you, didn’t he?”

  “It’s cruel to just leave him here.”

  Paco got along perfectly well before we arrived, and now—”

  “I can’t just leave him behind like this.”

  “But he doesn’t want to go and there’d be no room in the plane for him anyhow.” He kept his tone as practical sounding as possible. “Look at him!”

  “He’s afraid of water for some reason.”

  “Or boats. Get in. No time to lose.”

  “But Paco!”

  “You have two choices.”

  She glared at him where she remained on the wharf. “Can’t you at least try to get him into the boat?”

  “I don’t fancy being bitten, and I don’t think I can make Paco jump into this boat. Hell, I can’t even get you into the boat—a reasonable person.”

  She stewed where she stood.

  “You staying with Paco or going with me?” he asked as he revved up the motor.

  At the last instant, Katrina leapt aboard, her face telegraphing that she was an unhappy camper.

  As they moved off from the dock and the house, the plume of the wake building behind them, a forlorn Paco stood at the end of the wharf, skin rippling as in a shiver, barking, running to and fro.

  “Marcus, he’s going to jump into the lake. Look at him.”

  “No he won’t.”

  Katrina had thought about how terrified she’d been here alone. She simply could not go through that again.

  “Are you sure? Sure Paco will be all right without us?”

  “Trust me. He�
��ll take up with the next hand that feeds him.”

  “You really are a cynic, aren’t you?”

  “Paco’ll do just fine.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “The dog is an opportunist.”

  “And on what do you base that?”

  “I’ve seen his kind before,” joked Marcus. “Even interrogated a few.”

  F I F T E E N

  Nashville was nothing like it’d been the last time Rydell had seen it. In fact, the place had turned into a complete zoo, a musical zoo. Every street appeared to have been named after some country music singer, and finally they found June Carter Parkway and slipped quietly off and onto Merle Haggard Boulevard. Traffic could not be believed, almost rivaling that of a typical day in Atlanta, but here was a much smaller city with a population boom no one could have predicted. “Everybody wants to be the next Billy Ray Cyrus,” Rydell said to Mallory from the driver’s seat of the rental they’d picked up at the small business airport.

  “Everything changes.”

  “It’s the Elvis effect.”

  “Elvis effect?”

  “American royalty. Everyone growing up today believes in overnight success the way they think Elvis Presley did it.”

  “I thought that was the American dream.”

  “No one wants to know how many one-night stands a guy like Presley had to work, how many country roads driven down, or how many county hot, humid, stinking county fairs had to be played before he became an overnight sensation.”

  “So half the population of Nashville is trying to break into the country music game.” She shrugged. “What’s the harm?”

  “Harm is everyone who has half a mind to become a musician and even less talent is sadly in for a rude awakening.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “That’s fact. Just watch the tryouts on American Idol.”

  “So how do we locate the Mierskys?”

  “One of the kids is playing at a talent show, something called Nashville Idol.”