Cam - 04 - Nightwalkers

by P. T. Deutermann

From four thousand feet, Glory's End still looked like a green rectangle with three large ripples in it. The one on the western edge was the ridge above the old rail line where the major kept his morning coffee camp. The ridge in the middle contained the house and outbuildings, and the last one, on the eastern side, overlooked croplands on both sides as well as the flooded quarry. The Dan River showed a slate color on the northern edge, and the Laurel Grove plantation extended along the two-lane, overlapping my property by a few miles on each side. I could see the millpond but not the cottage.

  I'd done this before, but not with the specific objective of aerial pictures. Tony and Pardee sat in the backseat of the four-seater we'd chartered, taking the pictures, while I just studied the farm's layout from the air, trying to make a tactical assessment of where someone could be hiding. I was also looking for ambush sites, and vantage points from which one man could see a lot of ground. The topography was clearly visible, but the pilot said that as the summer progressed and the trees filled in, treetops would become the dominant feature on the ridges, and whatever crops were planted would fill in the fields.

  We circled the plantation for about fifteen minutes, and I paid particular attention to the eastern side of the last ridge, looking for signs of a coal mine. There was one area where the trees looked thinner than the rest, but nothing definitive. Then I had him fly us over to the Virginia side. I'd been wrong about the property directly opposite being devoid of habitation. There was a large plantation house, semiobscured by a dense grove of really big trees, about a half mile back from the river. The roof was gone, and it looked like there had been a fire. There were four walls, blackened wreckage inside, and four massive chimneys, two on each end. One of those had lost its top. The house was large enough for someone to hide in, but it certainly seemed thoroughly abandoned. The outbuildings resembled those on Glory's End.

  Next I had him fly downstream for a few miles past the property. I wanted to see if there were signs of an encampment or a possible base of operations for my ghost. Nothing seemed to qualify. The adjacent farm to the east had its center of operations on its eastern border, leaving an expanse of fields and woods between their house and mine. On the western side there was a vast pine plantation with no houses visible except for a few mobile homes up along the road. We flew back upstream. The barely submerged channel pillar foundations for the Civil War-era railroad bridge were now clearly visible from directly above. I pointed out the site of the train robbery and its attendant cemetery to my two associates.

  "Where's the nearest private airstrip?" I asked the pilot.

  "Private? None around here," he said. "The regional airport is that way about ten miles. The FAA won't allow any private strips within its terminal control area."

  "How about helicopter pads?"

  "Wherever they want," he said, banking away from the direction of the airport as a small passenger jet hissed overhead, letting down for an approach.

  An hour later we had lunch in town. Pardee had brought up one of the office portables. He said he could download all the pictures he had taken and then produce a mosaic. Tony was clicking through all the overhead shots on his camera's view-screen.

  "Whole lotta trees going on down there," he said. "Those three ridges--more trees and big rocks."

  "Your point being?"

  "My point being that it would be pointless to go patrolling in that kind of terrain. I say we set up at the big house, make him come to us."

  I nodded. I'd pretty much decided the same thing. We could go tramping all over that plantation and not find my stalker until we stumbled into an ambush. If we made him come to us, we could focus our defensive assets. The only problem would be if he decided not to play our game. He could always just walk away, for now, and see how long we were willing to hole up on the hill.

  "Or," Pardee said, "we make it look like we're holed up in the big house but then set up on the perimeter." Pardee had been in the army and did not like the idea of being trapped in a house without any scouts out.

  "He know that house?" Tony asked.

  "I think he does," I said. "He caught me on the porch and then left by going back into the house, not around it. He's at least been inside, and maybe even knows stuff we don't."

  "Then there's our plan," Tony said. "Let's get set up there and then go find all the secret passageways and hidden dungeons."

  "How much help will we get from local law?" Pardee asked while the waitress cleared our table. As three obvious strangers sitting in one corner, we'd attracted some curious stares from the locals.

  "Once we get set up," I said, "I'd like to invite Sheriff Walker out to the house, show him what we're doing. You see how these locals are looking at us. It's a really small town. Maybe he and his people can watch for strangers, especially ones with two big Dobes."

  "What's the Rockwell County operation like?"

  "Small," I said. "Nowhere near as big as Manceford County, but it's not Mayberry RFD, either."

  "So no chance for round-the-clock assets?"

  "I wouldn't think so. We're gonna be on our own unless it spills over into the community. Then I just don't know."

  "We'll need comms with them, something besides 911."

  "Right," I said, "and we need to be careful about what we say in both the house and the cottage. Have to assume they're both bugged."

  "Where the hell does a civilian get surveillance devices, bugs, and all that stuff?" Tony asked.

  "If he was in that business for a long time, he could have accumulated some shit," Pardee said. "Like I have."

  "Did he sound old?" Tony asked.

  "What, like me?" I asked.

  Tony rolled his eyes.

  "He didn't sound young, but he had that white film all over his face. He mostly sounded like a guy with a mask on."

  "I can get us some commercial surveillance gear," Pardee said. "Is there power over there?"

  "Some, if you don't mind pennies in the fuse slots."

  "Electronics don't eat many amps," Pardee said. "I can get it swept. Then maybe rig a video system and I can set up a local cell phone network."

  "One last thing," Tony said. "Who's gonna cook?"

  While Tony and Pardee went back to Triboro to get more gear, I met with Carol at the cottage. I told her that I was going to suspend the renovation project for a little while in order to take care of a problem.

  "This that stalker thing you were talking about?"

  "Yup. He's followed me out here, and now we're apparently going to settle things."

  "Brilliant," she said.

  I looked at her.

  "Why don't you just go on vacation?" she asked. "Give it to the sheriff and get out of the way? Then regroup and--"

  I started laughing and then had to explain it to her. She shook her head, and I had the sense that she was a little disappointed in me. I told her about my meeting of man and beasts on the front porch. "Look, Carol," I said, "this is no dumb-ass jailbird. This guy is educated, probably ex-military or even a cop, and he's really determined. He as much as said I could run wherever I wanted to and he'd just be waiting whenever I came back."

  "Running's not your style, right?"

  "Exactly right. I'll back out of any tactical situation that's impossible, but if someone's determined to rumble, then I can do that."

  "You know you sound like just any thirteen-year-old, don't you?" "Perhaps," I said, "but you know what? My business for too many years was dealing with strong, aggressive, violent men whose development had pretty much terminated at thirteen. Besides, you know what they say: The difference between the cops and robbers is a piece of tin."

  She waved her hands in an I-give-up gesture. "I'm sorry," she said. "I have zero right to lecture you. It's not like I made a success out of being a cop."

  "You made a mistake. We all make mistakes, and I'm no exception. Unfortunately for you, it was the kind of mistake that the brotherhood won't forgive, so you also made the right decision to give it up. Essentially, tho
ugh, this is what I do, Carol. I came out here for some new directions. Guess what?"

  "Yeah," she said. "I get it. How can I help you?"

  I grinned then. "That's better," I said. "You can help me, or us, actually--I've summoned some backup. You can help by paying attention to new people in the area. New faces, people mentioning a guy going around with two big Dobermans, a vehicle you see running down that two-lane out there more than once. Like that."

  "Do the Lees know about all this?"

  "Valeria knows something's up. She was there when Cubby took that collar off."

  "That's Ms. Valeria," she reminded me.

  "Oh, right," I said, although, based on Valeria's body language at the tea party, it might not be. Carol, ever the attentive female, gave me an inquiring look. "Careful, big guy," she said. "That's very deep still water."

  "That or superbly medicated," I said and described the tea party.

  Her cell phone went off just then. It was the Realtor calling, asking if she knew where I might be. Apparently the title attorney was available to take the job and asking if he should proceed. She handed me the phone, and I told him to go ahead with it. Oatley said this would delay closing, because Whatley Lee did not do anything quickly. He proposed the alternative of my buying title insurance, but by now I was more than a little curious.

  "The survey bring-up and the title search have become important," I told him. "I'm willing to wait. With a cash buyer in the offing, I suspect the sellers are willing to wait, too, right?"

  He agreed with that notion and said he'd take care of it. I switched off the phone and handed it back to Carol.

  "Does anyone do reenactments around here?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "There weren't any real battles here," she said. "The anniversary of the train robbery is coming up in a few days, but the people most associated with that sad business would rather just forget it."

  "Got that right," I said and told her what Hester had thought about my cleaning up the graves on the hill, perhaps turning it into a historical site.

  "Just remember," she said, "if you do that, you must grant perpetual access to any and all descendants of any of the men who died there. That could mean a lot of strangers tramping through your property."

  I hadn't thought of that. For that matter, I hadn't thought of a lot of things when I made the decision to buy this piece of property. The history could cut both ways, apparently.

  "I've got my guys working back through Manceford County Sheriff's Office records on the wife-shooting conundrum," I said. "My bad guy kept saying that it would come to me, but damned if I can remember anything like that."

  "You've talked to him?"

  "In a manner of speaking," I said and elaborated on the porch encounter.

  "That's scary," she said. "Especially the Dobermans."

  "Well, I guess I can't complain. I run around with German shepherds, don't I? The real problem is that, so far, he's holding the initiative. That's what's scary."

  "Maybe it means that you locked him up, and his wife then killed herself out of despair. Something like that?"

  I hadn't considered that. It would certainly widen the scope of possibilities.

  We talked about other, less frightening things for a few minutes, and then she had to go. She said she'd be in touch and left.

  I called Horace and asked him to expand his search to look for dog trainers who specialized in Dobermans, again statewide. I needed to find a guy who'd had two dogs trained in the past five years for attack work. He said he'd get right on it. Then I passed along Carol's idea. He groaned. That would make a really big search effort. I told him to forget it unless nothing else panned out.

  Once Carol left I grabbed my SIG, the two operational shepherds, and a walking stick. We headed out into the forests and fields of Laurel Grove this time. I dropped by the shop behind the big house, but Cubby had already gone for the day. The sunset was bright yellow, and I wished I'd brought some sunglasses. I thought I saw movement behind the curtains in one of the upstairs rooms, but it was probably just my imagination.

  "C'mon, you hairballs," I told the shepherds. "Let's go find that cat."

  At the mention of the word "cat," they both gave me a look that said, Let's not and say we did.

  The Laurel Grove plantation was quite different from Glory's End. For one thing it was an active farm, so there were many more dirt roads, and the fields were all either in crops or being readied for planting. The terrain was rolling, but the ridges of Glory's End subsided into the ground on this side of the road. We walked for an hour into early nightfall and then returned to the cottage. I walked the dogs around the building to see if they alerted on anything, but they did not react. The moon was low in the sky, and the night was going to be clear. I checked the Suburban, locked it, and went inside. I put Frick on the front porch on her dog bed, and Kitty came in the house with me. She was not only bigger than Frick but seemed to have a more developed protective sense. Frick was getting a bit independent in her old age.

  Once inside we went through the rooms and generally checked the place out. If someone else had been in the cottage since we'd left, Kitty would have been following scent trails, but she appeared to be mostly bored. I checked on Frick, who'd not been happy being left outside, especially when Kitty got to come in, but she was on her dog bed, watching the lawn. It had been much easier to train Kitty with Frick around, because dogs learn best from other dogs.

  I turned off all the lights in the cottage except one in the bedroom and closed the curtains in that room. Then I found the bottle of single malt, sat on the couch in the living room, and called Pardee at home. His wife, Alicia, was a trial lawyer in Triboro and one tough lady. She asked if he could call me back as they were sitting down to dinner. Pardee was back to me in twenty minutes.

  "Sorry to intrude," I said.

  "She's a little pissed that I'm going camping again," he said, "but I'm not."

  "Joys of married life," I said. "Get the stuff?"

  "Pretty much. Tony's working on a couple things. Horace is tackling the dog trainer business."

  I remembered then my own caution about the cottage possibly being bugged, but I didn't want to step outside. "How's the hive?" I asked.

  "The hive" was a code word we'd decided on to indicate that we thought there was a bug or two within range of the conversation. Hive, as in many bugs. It took Pardee a second to get it, but then he did. "We're working on that, too," he said. "I talked to the young blond lady down at the ranch. She said she could get us something to deal with that."

  "Great," I said. "She knows her stuff, actually. I'm staying here for the night, and then I'll contact one of you in the morning to see what's next, and where."

  "Got it," he said. "Or you could come down here for the night, stay with us, and then catch your plane to the Seychelles."

  Factor that, I mentally told any listening devices. "Thanks for the invite, but I'll wager Alicia is giving you that serious trial lawyer frown, as we speak."

  "Well . . ."

  "Yeah, right. Hasta manana, Detective Sergeant."

  From the couch I was able to see out onto the front lawns and down to the millpond. There was still enough moonlight to see pretty well outside, and I had a good view of the dam and the road that crossed it. Old Frack was a dark furry ball in the corner of the living room. Kitty waited by the bedroom door so she could assume her sentry post. I called her over to the couch and gestured for her to curl up next to me. It took her a good second or so to make a decision about that. I had her on one side, my SIG on the other, and the world's supply of Scotch. I waited for something to happen, and within minutes fell sound asleep.

  The next morning I awoke with a start and a stiff neck. Kitty wanted to go outside to piddle, so I let her and the elder statesman out with Frick. I made the dogs' morning chow, put the bowls out on the front porch, and then went into the bathroom to take a shower. I took the SIG with me, although I felt a little foolish with a loaded .45
parked on the towel rack. When I came out into the bedroom, showered, shaved, and partially awake, I opened the curtains. There were two windows in the bedroom, and when I opened the second curtain, there was the guy in the white mask staring back at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin and was bringing up the SIG when I realized what it was: Someone had taped a life-sized picture of that white rubber face to the glass from the outside, looking in.

  I went to the kitchen and made some coffee, trying to think whether I'd actually looked out those windows last night before I closed the curtains. The bedside table light had been on, and I couldn't imagine that I would not have seen that bright white face staring at me. That meant that he'd come in the night, without alerting the German shepherd out on the front porch. My stalker must be an expert creep. There'd been a very slight breeze, and it had been coming across the pond, which was on the opposite side of the cottage, so he would have been coming up into the wind. Still--neither Frick nor Kitty had heard anything to cause them to alert, and their hearing was a damn sight better than mine.

  So: Elvis was in the building, or at least in the neighborhood. Not great. Not great at all. It also meant he'd had time to rig anything he wanted to over in the deserted mansion at Glory's End. Hell, for all I knew he was holed up there, using it as his base of operations. First order of business, then, would be to sweep the environs of that hill very thoroughly, but not until my partners arrived.

  Pardee showed up an hour later, and Tony was right behind him with a minivan. I stepped outside to avoid listening devices and told them what had happened overnight and what we had to do. Pardee got out some sweep gear and went through the cottage, finding no bugs. He suggested we do the same thing to the old house at Glory's End, but I said no. I remembered what the young blond tech had said about how a listening device could work for two masters.

  We took all three vehicles and both shepherds with us, leaving Frack to guard his dog bed in the living room. We started with the house itself, and I again put Frick on watch outside and took Kitty with us into the house. We went room by room, checking walls, floors, and windows on all three floors, then the attic, and then we tramped down into the basement. I showed the guys where I thought there might be a false wall, and Tony went outside to get some tear-down tools.