Gray Ghost

by William G. Tapply

  He was stretching the canvas over the bow and working at one of the snaps when he sensed, rather than heard, movement behind him. It might have been the bottom of a sneaker twisting on the dirt, it might have been a tiny intake of a breath, it might have been nothing more than the displacement of air when a body moves through it.

  It was no conscious, considered thought. It was a quick reaction, something learned long ago and buried deep in the inaccessible recesses of Stoney Calhoun’s subconscious memory that made him duck, pivot, and attack.

  His left elbow smashed into ribs at the same time as his hip turned and his right hand locked onto a bony wrist. He gave it a twist and flipped his attacker onto his back.

  He landed with an empty thud. His breath exploded from his lungs, and then he groaned.

  Calhoun instantly dropped a knee on the man’s stomach. He raised his fist, ready to smash it into his throat. The impulse to do it was powerful. He visualized the blow he would strike. He knew how it would feel against his knuckles, the soft crunching collapse of arteries and nerves, larynx and pharynx, muscle and bone. It would crush all the tissue connecting head to body, as quick and neat and certain as dropping a splitting maul on a chunk of straight-grained oak. It would be instantly lethal, and Stoney Calhoun realized in that moment between raising his fist and bringing it smashing down that he had done it before and had lost no sleep over it, and that he was fully prepared to do it again right now.

  But something held his fist there where it was poised to strike. He still had a hard grip on the man’s wrist. Now he saw that the hand at the end of the wrist was gripping a tire iron.

  Instead of destroying the man’s throat, Calhoun twisted his wrist.

  The man muttered, “Ow. Jesus,” and let go of the tire iron.

  Then Calhoun looked at his face.

  It was a boy, not a man. A tall, heavy-boned, sinewy boy, but still a boy. Benjie Dunbar, last seen a few evenings earlier shooting a basketball in his driveway in Biddeford, son of Franklin, the number-one suspect in the murder of Errol Watson, who’d served time for molesting Bonnie, his sister.

  Calhoun had come within a whisker of killing him.

  Ralph came trotting over. He stood beside Calhoun, rumbling a growl deep in his chest, his lips curling back from his teeth, his ears laid against the side of his head, glaring at Benjie Dunbar.

  Calhoun touched Ralph’s forehead and said, “It’s okay, bud. You sit.”

  Ralph sat.

  Calhoun stood up and held his hand down to Benjie who slapped it away with the back of his own hand, then pushed himself to his feet. He held his right wrist against his belly with his left hand. “If you broke my wrist…”

  “It ain’t broke,” said Calhoun. “I could’ve, but I didn’t. Wouldn’t want to wreck your basketball career.”

  “I suppose you could’ve broken my ribs but decided not to do that, either.”

  “That’s about right,” said Calhoun. “And I suppose you were aiming to crack my head open with that damn tire iron.”

  Benjie was glaring at Calhoun out of eyes that wanted to burn holes in him. “That’s right. I wanted to kill you.”

  Calhoun nodded. “You want a Coke?”

  Benjie looked at him for a minute, then shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  Calhoun turned and went back to the shop. He unlocked it, fetched two cans of Coke from the refrigerator in back, and took them outside.

  Benjie was sitting on the steps rubbing his wrist. Ralph stood in front of him. His ears were still laid back, but he’d stopped growling.

  Calhoun sat beside Benjie and handed him a Coke. “Go lie down,” he said to Ralph. “Everything’s under control.”

  Ralph gazed at Calhoun for a minute, then kind of shrugged. He climbed onto the porch and lay down.

  Benjie popped the tab on the can and took a swig of Coke. He turned to Calhoun. “How’d you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know. What you did to me. I thought you were gonna kill me.”

  “You’d’ve deserved it,” said Calhoun. “Ain’t that what you wanted to do to me?”

  Benjie nodded. “Maybe I did. I don’t know. I’ve been crazy lately. My life is like …” He took another sip, then shook his head. “Everybody thinks my dad murdered that guy.”

  “Everybody? How about you?”

  “I don’t know. No. He couldn’t. You don’t know him. But even my mother …”

  “So why’re you coming at me with a tire iron? You could’ve got seriously hurt.”

  Benjie shrugged. “It’s your fault. You and the sheriff. Coming to our house like that, in the middle of dinner, and then the other cops coming and taking my dad away, questioning him all day, questioning me and my mom, too. Things were bad enough, my sister all messed up, my parents not talking to each other, people looking funny at me, as if your sister getting raped is something you’re supposed to be ashamed of. Now everybody thinks my dad murdered somebody. I blame you for that.”

  “I don’t think your father killed anybody,” said Calhoun.

  “No?” Benjie was clenching and unclenching his fists. “Then why the hell did you come to our house like that?”

  “Look,” said Calhoun, “the truth is, I don’t give a shit who killed Errol Watson. He got what he had coming.”

  “I thought you were investigating the murder?”

  Calhoun shrugged. “Other people have been killed. I care about them. But not Watson. I got no interest in solving that one.”

  “Wait,” said Benjie. “You can’t do that. You can’t crap out now. Don’t you get it? If you don’t find the guy who really did it, my dad’ll go to prison.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” said Calhoun. “He won’t go to prison unless he did it.”

  Benjie blew out a quick, ironic breath. “What planet are you from, man? Innocent people go to prison all the time. That cop Gilsum there, he’s got it all figured out. My dad had to hire a lawyer, and he’s saying he might have to sell our boat so he can pay him, and now my mom is talking about how hard it’s going to be to pay for my college, and—”

  “Cut it out.” Calhoun put his hand on Benjie’s arm. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. A lot of things are happening. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “What things?”

  “I can’t tell you. Trust me.”

  Benjie laughed quickly. “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because I could’ve killed you,” Calhoun said. “I had every right to. I would’ve been defending myself. It would’ve been easy. I almost did it.”

  “So what?”

  “So I didn’t. So you’re alive because I decided to let you continue to live. You owe me for that. So when I say trust me, you might as well trust me. Okay?”

  Benjie frowned for a moment. Then he smiled. “That makes no sense to me. But okay, maybe I’ll trust you. You go find the man who killed Watson so my dad can be free. Then I’ll trust you forever.”

  Calhoun held out his hand. “It’s a deal.”

  Benjie hesitated, then took Calhoun’s hand. They shook.

  “I’m sorry I tried to smash your head in,” said Benjie.

  Calhoun shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t going to happen. You’re not very good at sneaking up on people, and you hesitated before you raised up that tire iron. If you were any good, I’d be lying there with my head in a puddle of blood. Then how’d you feel ?”

  “I guess I’m glad you stopped me,” said Benjie.

  “You’re welcome,” said Calhoun.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  At daybreak the next morning Calhoun and Ralph were sitting on the boulders beside the pool downstream from the burned-out bridge. They were taking turns sipping from Calhoun’s coffee mug and watching the Bitch Creek currents come curling around the old granite abutments. Yellow poplar leaves and scarlet swamp-maple leaves twirled like rudderless sailboats in the eddies. A soft mist was sifting down, and the woods sound
s—some faraway crows cawing, a distant woodpecker hammering on a hollow tree, chickadees and nuthatches cheeping and chirping, the brook gurgling, the pine boughs and dead leaves rustling in the soft breeze—were all muffled and echoey.

  Calhoun felt insulated and solitary and complete. His mind, for the moment, was empty of complicated or stressful thoughts.

  It was hard to say how Ralph was feeling. He was sitting on a flat boulder with his ears perked up and his nose twitching, watching the woods. Autumn had arrived in Maine, which meant bird-hunting season, and Calhoun suspected that Ralph knew it, that some strand in his DNA sent out signals this time of year to remind him that the woodcock migrations had begun, and that it was his job—his destiny as a bird dog’to snuffle around alder patches and birch hillsides and abandoned apple orchards in the fall and to lock into a stiff point when his nostrils filled with the heady scent of a woodcock or a grouse, so that his partner, the hunter with the shotgun, could flush and shoot it.

  For the hundredth time, Calhoun thought that, for Ralph’s sake, he really should take up bird hunting.

  His coffee mug was empty, and he was thinking it was time to climb the slope to the house to get a refill and make Ralph his breakfast when the chunk of a car door slamming came echoing through the misty air.

  Calhoun recognized that particular slamming sound.

  “Let’s go, bud,” he said to Ralph. “The sheriff’s here.”

  They climbed the hill and found Sheriff Dickman in his khaki uniform leaning against the side of his sheriff’s department Explorer talking on his cell phone. The sheriff lifted a hand by way of greeting, then turned his head away and said something into the phone. He listened for a minute, nodded, and shoved the phone into his shirt pocket. “I tried to call you a little while ago,” he said to Calhoun. “Be sure you were up.”

  Calhoun shrugged. “I been up for a while. Want some coffee?”

  “Of course.” The sheriff shook his head. “I do wish you’d keep your cell phone with you.”

  “I know,” said Calhoun.

  They climbed the steps onto the deck and went into the kitchen. Calhoun refilled his own mug and filled another one for the sheriff. He put the two mugs on the table, dumped some Alpo and a cup of dry dog food into Ralph’s bowl, put it on the floor for him, then sat across from the sheriff. “You here on business?”

  The sheriff nodded. His Smokey the Bear hat sat on the table in front of him.

  “Kind of early, ain’t it?” said Calhoun. “What is it, about seven fifteen?”

  The sheriff glanced at his watch. “Seven seventeen, to be precise.” He smiled. “How the hell do you do that?”

  “Always knowing the time?” Calhoun shrugged. “Not sure what good it does me.”

  “I got some information,” said the sheriff. “And I got a job for you. I recall you mentioning that Kate’ll be watching the shop today.”

  Calhoun nodded. “I got a guide trip at four. That’s it.”

  The sheriff took a sip from his coffee mug, then pulled a small notebook from his pants pocket. He opened it, squinted at it, and looked up at Calhoun. “Those three burned-up bodies we found the other day? No surprise, I guess. They all had their throats cut and their organs lopped off and stuffed into their mouths. Their hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. All had been dead for between one and three weeks, near as Dr. Surry could guess, and their faces and fingers were burned beyond indentification. But we had a pretty good idea of how we could identify them.”

  “That list of sex offenders,” said Calhoun.

  “Right. Gilsum had his crew track down every male on the Portland registry, all one hundred and twenty-six of them. There were several who’d moved or got different jobs or something, but it didn’t take them long to identify the three who’d gone missing. They’d all done time, of course, so their dental records were on file.” The sheriff looked down at his notebook. “Leslie Miller, age fifty-one, rape and assault on a visiting nurse. Served nine of a sixteen-year sentence, got out three years ago. Howard LaBranche, thirty-one, trafficking in child pornography. Three of five, out year before last. Anthony Boselli, fifty-nine, sexual contact with minor boys, four and a half of ten. He just got out last February. You don’t need the details.”

  “I don’t want the damn details,” said Calhoun. “It’s a good thing they’re dead.”

  “Am I going to have to give you another lecture about justice and the law, Deputy Calhoun ?”

  “Nope. I figure whoever killed those bad people killed Albie Wolinski and Mr. Vecchio, too. That offends me. So what do you want me to do?”

  “Tell me who murdered them.”

  Calhoun looked at the sheriff, waiting for his smile, which came a moment later.

  “Okay,” said the sheriff, “if you can’t do that, at least you can go talk to Otis Maxner. He defended two of them. LaBranche and Boselli.”

  “Maxner,” said Calhoun. “That real estate lawyer we talked to, office in Westbrook, used to be a public defender?”

  “Him,” said the sheriff.

  “What about the third guy ?”

  “Leslie Miller. That case got heard up in Augusta. Rape. Badder crime, bigger case, longer sentence. Miller had a real lawyer. Anyway, his trial was twelve years ago, when Maxner was probably a freshman in college.”

  “So you just want me to go talk to Maxner?” said Calhoun. “That’s it?”

  “For the moment,” said the sheriff. “Me, I’m having lunch with Judge Roper. He heard the LaBranche and Boselli cases. Gilsum’s got his crew interviewing the families of these guys, their neighbors and coworkers and so forth. Since you and I talked with Maxner and the judge before, we’re doing the follow-up with them.”

  “Gilsum still think Franklin Dunbar’s his culprit?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I’m not sure what Gilsum’s thinking. He seemed a little disappointed that his case keeps getting more complicated.”

  “I ran into Benjie Dunbar yesterday.”

  “Benjie?” The sheriff frowned.

  “The boy. The basketball player.”

  “What do you mean, you ran into him?”

  “He stopped by the shop. Wanted to talk.”

  The sheriff smiled. “Nice it was you he picked to talk to.”

  Calhoun nodded. “Sure. Flattering.” He decided not to tell the sheriff that Benjie had come at him with a tire iron, or that he’d raised his fist to kill the boy. He didn’t see how that would serve any purpose. “I gave him my card when we were there the other night. He wanted to explain to me how his old man couldn’t’ve killed anybody and how this whole thing was ripping his family apart. Bad enough his sister got molested, but now, Gilsum harassing his father …”

  “Well,” said the sheriff, “if Dunbar really didn’t do it, it behooves us to figure out who did.”

  “That’s about what I told Benjie,” said Calhoun. “That we were behooved to find the real killer.”

  The sheriff smiled. “Maybe Otis Maxner will come up with something for us.”

  “Or Judge Roper.”

  “Or both of ‘em,” said the sheriff. “Roper’s treating me to lunch at his yacht club. How about that?”

  “You get to drink Bloody Marys and eat avocado-and-crabmeat sandwiches with the judge,” said Calhoun, “and I get a cup of yesterday’s coffee in some real estate lawyer’s office?”

  “You’re merely the deputy,” said the sheriff, “while me, I’m the sheriff. How it works.” He glanced at his watch, then drained his coffee mug, twisted on his hat, and stood up. “Gotta get going. I got a week’s worth of paperwork to clean up before lunch at the yacht club.”

  “Don’t let the judge snow you with his club sandwiches,” said Calhoun.

  “Ha,” said the sheriff. “Soon as you catch up with Maxner, give me a call.”

  “What should I ask him?” said Calhoun. “How do you want me to handle it?”

  The sheriff looked at him. “Stoney,” he said, “you’re at l
east as good as me at this, whether you know it or not. Follow your instincts. We’ll compare notes afterwards, see what Gilsum’s people turn up, and take it from there.”

  Calhoun waited until a few minutes after nine to call Otis Maxner’s law office in Westbrook. The secretary who answered told him that Mr. Maxner would be in Augusta all morning researching a property title. She wasn’t sure when he’d be back in the office, but he had a two o—clock appointment with a client, so it would definitely be by then.

  Calhoun told her to write him in for that two o—clock slot.

  She said she couldn’t do that. Attorney Maxner already had a two o—clock.

  He reminded her that he was a deputy sheriff working on a case, and that Mr. Maxner, as an officer of the court, owed him his full cooperation.

  She sighed and said, “Two o—clock, then, Mr. Calhoun. I do hope it won’t take too long.”

  “Me, too,” said Calhoun.

  “Can I tell Mr. Maxner what you want to talk to him about?”

  “No,” said Calhoun. “I’ll tell him myself.”

  He spent the rest of the morning tying flies, making new leaders, cleaning fly lines, organizing rods and reels and other gear, and filling the cooler with frozen bottles of water and soft drinks and snacks for his afternoon fishing trip with Dr. Sam Surry, and then loading everything into his truck.

  Dr. Surry was meeting him at the shop around four. He figured if it took an hour to talk to Otis Maxner—and he didn’t see why he’d need that much time—even in Friday-afternoon traffic he’d still have plenty of time to drive back from Westbrook to the shop and be there when she showed up. For some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, he didn’t want her to get there first and end up waiting in the shop when Kate was there. The way Kate had been acting, he guessed it might upset her. Lately, it was hard to predict what might upset Kate.

  Two middle-aged men in suits were waiting in Otis Maxner’s office when Calhoun walked in. They were thumbing through magazines, ignoring each other.

  Maxner’s secretary poked her head up from behind her computer monitor. “Mr. Calhoun,” she said. “Mr. Maxner’s not back yet. Do you want some coffee ?”