“A chainsaw disappeared in the woods?” she asked.
“The saw was gone.” He let this sink in. “Nowhere to be found, and I had nothing to do with its disappearance, see.”
“Your first mystery, heh?”
“Just a few paces this way or that and even my Dad was turned around, and no one knew the woods here like Dad.”
“Did you find the chainsaw? Was it stolen?”
“No, I mean yeah, we found it after like twenty minutes of going in the wrong direction for it. My point is the forest fooled us. It can kill you as sure as an ocean.”
“I take your meaning.”
“Later that day with my Dad, we got turned around and went way out of our way in search of the house.”
“This house? You couldn’t see the lights?”
“No, I’m telling you, Dad had to locate the lake and follow the water back. That chainsaw got real heavy.”
“Damn…I assumed from the begin—”
“That I know these woods? Sure, I’m a regular Daniel Boone.” He laughed, the sound going out over the lake.
“What’s so funny?”
“Paco knows these woods better than I do.”
“Hmmm…then maybe having Paco on hand isn’t such a bad idea after all, Bogey.”
“Funny, real funny.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, neither saying anything, both listening to the crickets and the night swells of the lake.
“What if he…what if he comes here first?” she asked.
“No way he knows about Blue Lake.”
“He found us in Atlanta, both of us. Just suppose.”
Marcus looked closer into her eyes, thinking he’d seen something there. He had a lot of years of interrogation experience, and while he was not interrogating Katrina, he thought he saw some wavering blip on the screen of her eyes. “I know we have to strike fast. We go hunting tomorrow in the city.”
“But where do we begin?”
“We begin where we know he’s been.”
“Your apartment?”
“Full circle. We give him a clear shot at us.”
“You mean dangling me as bait, don’t you?” Her jaw quivered at the thought.
“You want him or not?”
“Promise me you’ll get him before he gets me and it’s a deal.”
“Promise, of course.”
“Then we take the war to him.”
“Better to fight as city mice than country mice. This guy’s a trained ranger; he could park himself out there—” he pointed to the black forests all round them— “and
wait us out for days if he cut us off here.”
“No way he can completely cut us off. We have cell phones, the Mac, landlines, the boat, the plane.”
He reached across and patted her hand. “Right…of course, you’re right.”
“Still you’re worried.”
“Kat, this man—if you can call him a man—thinks like a snake.”
She thought of the snake Paco had killed the day before. “We can’t begin to imagine how long he’s planned for this.”
“Or what he has in mind from moment to moment.”
“Or how he will proceed.”
She nodded, understanding. “We can only make our best guess.”
“Exactly, and our best guess—”
“—may not be good enough, Marcus?” It was Nora, standing back of them at the doorway, Carl at her side. Carl’s arm was draped over Nora’s ample shoulder. They were understandably worried. Paramount in their minds must be the safety of the children.
Paco had been lying at Marcus’s feet. For reasons unknown to any of them, the dog had taken a powerful liking to Rydell and had begun to follow him everywhere.
Paco now alerted on some noise in the wood, his full attention on something unseen and unheard.
“I hate it when he does that,” complained Katrina.
“Don’t start with me. I didn’t want ’im hanging around to begin with.”
Just then the Mac chimed, and Rydell opened JT’s response. It proved disappointing.
“What’s Thomas saying?” Kat asked.
“While they’ve not found clear evidence that the killing was indeed the work of Iden Cantu in any forensic sense, Cantu had claimed responsibility via the Atlanta Constitution.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Which has printed both his letter and a four-year-old enhanced mug shot of Cantu on page one.”
“So the Atlanta authorities are doing something,” said Nora.
Rydell replied to JT, typing in: Has anyone spotted him anywhere in the city?
The reply came immediately: Nothing credible in the city; lead in Marietta might bear fruit.
What about Marietta? Rydell keyed in.
JT’s response chilled him: Neighbor of Nora Miersky “thinks” she saw the man on page one at Stan’s Marietta home. Of course, she likely knew of Stan’s having been killed by this nut job. Could just be the old lady’s looking to get on the nightly news.
After a moment, Marcus saw that JT had more to say. Questions. Where’re you, anyway? Went by your place and no one home.
Rydell closed the PowerBook, not wishing to answer.
“What is it?” Katrina asked.
“He was in Marietta at your home,” Marcus told Nora and Carl, both of whom looked stricken at this news. “Look, I suggest you get some sleep tonight. He can’t know we’re here.”
“You expect us to simply go to sleep?” asked Nora. “After telling me that monster was at our house?”
“Better there than here,” said Kat.
“Look, perhaps tomorrow, we’ll change tactics.”
Nora was face to face with Marcus. “Change how?”
“Get you and the kids to a new safe house.”
“Where?”
“Do you have any family out of state?”
“West Tennessee, yes.”
“Maybe we can get you and the kids there. Make a call but do it on your cell.”
Nora nodded and she and Carl disappeared into the house.
Marcus went to the end of the deck and stood looking out over the darkened lake. He took in a great breath of air and looked tired. Kat joined him at the railing. “You think he’s coming this way, don’t you?”
“I have a sinking feeling, yes.”
“To be honest, I think so too.” She felt a little weight lifted, being able to say this. She’d believed it from the beginning, and this isolated place was perfect for her goal to act as judge and jury, and to put an end to Cantu but in the fashion she had planned.
But how could he know of this place?” Marcus wondered aloud.
“You said it yourself. If I can find you…then why not him?”
“So I said.” He reached out to wipe a lock of hair from her eyes. He half expected her to pull away, but she didn’t, their eyes meeting. “I guess you know I find you attractive, Kat.”
A cool breeze lifted her hair, replacing the strand he’d pulled away to exactly the same spot. She smiled when she said, “All I know is I’m sleeping with my weapon under my pillow.”
“Don’t shoot your ear off, Van Gogh.” He gracefully accepted her ignoring of his comment. Under his breath, he added, “She’s the Van Gogh of detection, that one.”
“Very funny. I heard that. Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Marc.”
She called Paco to go with her. The dog struggled to all fours and followed, his tail wagging, likely thinking she meant to feed him again.
Marcus took in the night stars, the silent distant planets, the tops of the pines, silver in the moonlight, and the sheen of icy gray over the blue waters of the lake. It’d make a hell of a painting, he thought. And he thought of what he’d confessed to Kat, and he wondered if she thought him an old fool.
For a moment, he allowed the worries to melt, disallowing any fear or thoughts of fear of either Cantu or his having made a fool of himself with Kat. Instead, he concentrated on the bea
uty around him, breathing in the purity of this place. A purity he did not wish defiled by the likes of Iden Cantu.
He gave thought to his mother inside at the kitchen, his father casting out there at the end of the pier, how the two of them loved one another so absolutely and unconditionally, and how they had loved their last years here in this home.
He could smell his mother’s pies cooling on the sill back of his head; he could smell the gamey fish his father hauled from the lake.
He returned to his deck chair, and he put his feet up, and he fell to dozing until his head fell forward, waking him. Then he felt the real fool. In that moment of dozing out here, unprotected, he could have easily been overpowered, tied up, and made to watch as a fiend devoured Nora’s children and everything that lived here.
He thought of Katrina’s last words tonight about sleeping with her gun tucked below her pillow. It was a joke but it resonated. He got to his feet, went inside, locked up and double-checked all the other locks. The damn dog oughta be put outside if he were to act as any sort of early warning alarm, should the monster find them tonight. The dog needed to earn its keep. Instead, it’d curled up with Kat, where he’d like to’ve been.
He waited for Katrina to be fast asleep before he dared entice the dog with the smell of red meat from the fridge. He saw to it the dog found a mat on the porch, and again locking up, he found a pillow and blanket from a cupboard and stretched out on the couch. Outside, the complaining whine coming from Paco threatened to wake the entire house. But it didn’t.
E I G HT E E N
The following morning the children and Paco splashed madly about in the shoals of Blue Lake just below the deck. To be sure, the children were being closely watched by the adults, even as they listened to Marcus Rydell’s plan. “We get you and your family out of here today, Nora, Carl.”
“I thought you said this was a safe place,” complained Carl who’d been grousing under his breath since waking, most of it not audible enough to hear. Rydell picked only a word here, a word there, none of them pleasant, many of them of the four-letter variety punctuated with a lot of old-fashioned Georgia “confound its.”
Carl and Nora had been constantly picking at one another like a couple of angry ferrets, making Katrina and Marcus uncomfortable in their presence. “We’ll do as you say, Marcus,” Nora now said, her tone indicating the matter was finished. Apparently, Carl wanted to make for home in Marietta on the theory that if Cantu had come and gone, that he wouldn’t be looking for them there now.
“It’s doing what Marcus says that’s got us here,” Carl erupted now. “That maniac Cantu is probably out there right now—” he pointed out into the distant chirping forests—“with a high-powered rife sighting on us this minute.”
“Carl, we feel reasonably sure that Cantu doesn’t know of this place,” replied Kat, coming to Marcus’s defense.
“All I’m saying is that following Rydell’s lead, after he got your and Nora’s husband killed, could get me…ahhh…us killed…along with the kids, I mean.” Carl kept pacing, moving nervously about the deck as if to do so might throw off any intended gunfire directed at him.
“Sit down and shut up, Carl!” Nora ordered.
Carl slumped into a deck chair, pouting, grumbling, “I still say we’re safer in our own home backyard. I called Spenser Johnston at the Marietta police and asked his opinion.”
“Hold on! You called the cops in Marietta?” Marcus got to his feet, towering over Carl. “Didn’t we agree no phone calls.”
“I used my cell. No one’s going to be tracking a cell phone with my name on it. This guy’s not after me.”
“No, he’s after your wife and your kids!” shouted Nora. “Carl, these days, anyone can be tracked by someone with the knowledge to do it. Stan taught me that much!”
“Stan again! It’s always Stan with you. Stan did it this way, Stan knew how to treat a lady, Stan knew how to poach a g’damn egg!”
They all fell silent. All that could be heard was the laughter and splashing of the children and Paco in the shallows.
“Make no more calls,” Marcus pleaded. “Did you tell the cops where you are now?”
“No, I just suggested a couple of hypotheticals to Spenser is all. We went to high school at Pratt together.”
“You didn’t invite the authorities to contact the Blue Lake authorities, did you, Carl?”
“Ahhh, no, I didn’t.”
“Good. That’s all we need is the local Barney and Andy come to snoop,” replied Marcus. “Look, we have looked at this thing from every angle. The monster we’re facing can’t be dealt with through normal means, channels, or prayer.”
Kat agreed from where she leaned against the deck rails. “Hell, Cantu has eluded the Georgia State Patrol, the Atlanta PD, and the Georgia FBI—everyone—including experts called in from Washington for four years, Mr. Schramick. Do you get that?”
“Then why do you two think you can beat him?” came Carl’s quick reply.
Just as he said this, a car barked tires and threw up rocks on the entry road, making them all start and turn to see a police cruiser marked Blue Ridge Police Department. Marcus glared back at Carl. “You lying sack of—”
“Hold on! I didn’t ask Spense to call anyone up here; it must’ve been his idea.”
“Stay off the damn phone,” Marcus ordered and rushed to meet the local officer now laboriously climbing from his car. The man spilled out of his car; spilled out of his uniform as well. A wide grin on his face competed with the deputy’s girth. He tossed his Smokey-the-Bear hat onto his cruiser seat, a seat permanently flattened by this giant.
“You the Marcus Rydell whose parents owned this place?” he asked as Marcus approached.
Meeting the man’s eyes and studying his features, Marcus felt a certain familiarity. “You’re not Tim Grimes, are you?”
“In the flesh, all 280 pounds of it. Marc! How’ve you been, ol’ son?”
Ol’ Son. Marcus hadn’t heard the backwoods, good-old-boy term used on him since childhood. “I’ll be damned. I thought you moved off from here for good once you joined the Navy, Tim.”
“Navy wore thin fast. Come right back to God’s country. Got me a job with the county maybe twenty year-’go come November. They was desperate,” he self-deprecatingly joked.
“Short-handed, no doubt.” Marcus shook his old friend’s hand, and it felt like that of the stranger he’d become, wholly different and a lot fatter.
Grimes laughed good-naturedly. “Blue Ridge don’t change. Short-handed then, even short-handed-er today.”
“Yeah, we noticed how few times the patrol boats go by on the lake.”
“Budgetary constraints it’s called. The lake patrol’s been cut to bare bones.”
“What’s the schedule?”
“They run up and down twice a week only.”
“A single run?”
“Back and to to the Blue Ridge docks. Things’re tough all over. Gas alone.”
Marcus recognized the Fannin County Sheriff insignia on the uniform patch. “So what’s brought you out from town?”
“I heard a rumor someone’d opened up your mom’s house.”
“Rumor heh? Buck’s place?”
“Still the biggest rumor mill around.”
“Wonder no one’s shot Buck with one of his own guns.”
“Get a lotta our best tips from old Buck.”
They laughed like the old friends they once were. “Damn good to see you’re doing well, Tim.”
“Married, three kids, a mortgage, two dogs, a cat and a pet raccoon and a fox. If ever the game warden learns my boy traps exotic animals, I’m done for.”
“Life’s treating you well then?”
“Can’t complain too much. And you? Ya’ look good for yourself old stick.”
Marcus smiled anew. “Lately? Ahhh…can’t complain.” He looked back up at the deck where he’d ordered the others to stay and remain calm. Kat waved back.
“Goo
d to see the old place with some life about it. Friends from the city, heh?”
“Yeah…a getaway from Atlanta.”
“Is it true you’re a PI now? No more big city cop duties?”
“For some time been on my own, yeah. How’d you know?”
“Last time I fished the lake before your mother passed on, I came up to say hello. We had coffee and she caught me up on your doings.”
“Why didn’t I see you at the funeral?” Marcus asked.
“Was outta town. How’s that PI game workin’ for you?”
“You want a glass of lemonade or something stronger, Tim?” he suggested. “Meet my company?”
“From sounds of it, you’ve got quite a large family yourself.” The noise of the children in the water had continued throughout.
“Kids belong to my guests, Tim.”
“I heard you had kids.”
“I do.”
“But they’re not with you and you wife?” He indicated Kat who remained nervously watching from the deck.
“She’s not my wife, Tim.”
“Ooooohhh…gotcha, you ol’ dog.”
“Not like that, Tim. She’s my friend, Katrina Mallory, a doctor. My wife and kids left me sometime back.”
“Suckin’ on all my four toes here, ain’t I. Damn, sorry to hear that ‘bout your family.”
“For the best. Up in Ohio now.”
“Oh, God! I spent a few months on a job site in Ohio when I worked for the railroad, and I swear it was like a livin’ hell for me. Take that lemonade now.”
Marcus played it off, shouting to the others that he’d found an old friend out here in the woods. He introduced Tim to the others as casually as he might at a church social and asked Kat to get the officer a lemonade with a shot of gin.
When everyone had settled and Grimes weight threatened to topple the deck chair he’d chosen to torture, he grunted and said, “I gotta be straight with you, Marc. I got a call from a guy in Marietta on the force there. Said something about how you might be holding someone here against their will?”
“Looks like he was mistaken.” Marcus laughed at this and as if on cue the others joined in except for Carl. Carl piped up and asked, “How many police in this area…I mean aside from yourself, Officer?”
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