Anabeth checked all her mirrors. Checked her speed. ‘So, where are we going?’
‘I think we left off with “explanations are in order.”’
‘You don’t actually have a plan in mind, do you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Teamwork it is, then,’ she said. ‘We need to get this beast off the road.’
This they accomplished approximately twenty miles later, pulling off the interstate and into the parking lot of a Super 8 motel on the edge of Missouri Valley, Iowa – the first town in their path large enough to support a chain motel at its outskirts.
Instead of checking in, however, Ben looked both ways and led their motley quartet back across Highway 30, on foot, to the cornfield-adjacent River Bend Inn on the other side.
Charley, panting lightly from their traffic-dodging jog, said, ‘How come we parked over there?’
‘How come you’re so out of breath? You’re only fourteen.’
‘Not for three weeks.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Should we, um … like … call Mom?’
As if on cue, somebody’s cell phone rang. Anabeth pulled hers from the cargo pocket of her paintball pants, holding up a finger as she answered. The four of them stood in a loose group in the empty, trash-littered parking lot near the motel’s front office while Abe spoke, nodded, then muffled the phone against her shoulder. ‘It’s Gordon. Ajeet has a skull fracture.’
‘Jesus.’
Charley and Reuben, in unison: ‘Who’s Ajeet?’
Anabeth: ‘He also wants to know what we’re doing all the way up in Mo Valley.’
Ben held out his hand for the phone. ‘What are they saying? Is Jeeter going to be OK, or what?’
‘They’re doing scans now.’ Abe put the phone back to her ear, nodded. ‘There’s swelling. Possibly bleeding, possibly surgery.’
‘Brain surgery?’
‘They’ll know more when they know more.’
Ben dropped his arm and let it hang. Abe talked some more, listened some more, then hung up the phone and slipped it back in her pocket. She took one look at Ben and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘This isn’t your fault. You know that, right?’
Ben glanced at Charley, who was pretending to be fascinated by a piece of trash on the ground.
He looked at Reuben Wasserman, who appeared to be standing in some other parking lot a thousand miles away.
He looked at Abe.
She raised her plastic drugstore sack, which she’d had enough presence of mind to grab from the van. Ben had forgotten all about it. Speaking of things he’d forgotten: Gun Guy’s gun in the glove box. He looked past Anabeth, out across the road. Gordon was going to have a stroke when he finally saw his baby again.
‘Let’s get you cleaned up,’ Abe said. ‘After that, I’ll tell you a story. Then we need to make a few decisions.’
Decisions.
Yes.
Ben patted his pockets. Still no wallet. He pointed at Wasserman. ‘You.’
Reuben Wasserman blinked. ‘Huh?’
‘Got a credit card?’
‘Um … yeah?’
‘Good.’ Ben swept his pointer finger toward the motel front office. ‘Take it in there and book us a room.’
While men from the Douglas County Coroner’s Office loaded the zippered bag containing Aberdeen Llewellyn’s disfigured corpse into the back of their transport wagon, Malcom Frost explained to the lead detective what he’d already explained to the dough-faced patrol officer who’d arrived first on the scene: why had his dead compatriot been found wearing a shoulder holster stuffed with Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets?
‘He was one of you,’ Frost said. ‘Once upon a time. Duly sworn.’
The detective looked up from her notepad. ‘Do you mean law enforcement?’
‘In a previous life, of course. His experiences in your field ultimately led him along his personal path toward ours.’
‘I see.’ The detective scribbled in her pad. ‘And, so … why the holster, again?’
‘It served as a reminder, he always claimed. And oddly convenient for our work as well.’ Frost sighed. ‘The Lord never tires of confronting us with irony.’
‘I suppose that’s a way to look at it.’
‘Between you and me, I rather think he may simply have enjoyed the novelty.’
In truth, Frost kept a stack of the pamphlets in the glove compartment of the Lincoln as a matter of routine. One never knew when a believable cover story might come in handy. None of what he’d said about poor Aberdeen was true, of course, nor was it the most polished lie he’d ever concocted.
But it had been irritatingly short notice. Frost was big enough to admit it: he’d had task enough simply performing the required sleight-of-hand, swapping the pamphlets for Aberdeen’s tranquilizer pistol in full view of the gathered crowd. Stripping the very jacket from his cooling body in order to remove the holster beneath had been a trick for an altogether more skillful magician.
‘Still, you can understand my curiosity,’ the detective went on. ‘Considering one of the neighbors claims to have heard gunshots, and the victim …’
‘Brother Johnson.’
‘Is found wearing a speed rig.’
‘I wish I could shed more light,’ Frost said, Aberdeen’s pistol digging uncomfortably into his sacrum all the while. ‘I don’t remember hearing gunfire. But it was a rather overwhelming experience.’
‘Could have been a backfire. Or the neighbor saw the holster after the fact, imagination took over.’
Frost could hardly fail to detect the skepticism lurking behind the detective’s flat brown eyes. She was attempting to lull him into saying something foolish, he knew. So he said only, ‘Does that happen very often?’
‘You’d be surprised what people tell me.’
‘I’m sure that’s true.’
The detective flipped to the next page in her notebook. ‘Either way, we’ll have the ME run blowback tests. That’s a test that shows …’
‘Whether or not a person has fired a gun recently.’ Frost nodded. ‘Brother Johnson used to tell stories from his days on the force.’
‘Did he? Which force was that, again?’
‘Do you know, I’m not certain I ever asked? His stories were not for the faint-hearted, some of them, I must say.’
‘Ah huh.’ The detective scribbled something down. ‘Well. Given that we haven’t recovered a gun, or any casings, or located a stray bullet hole anywhere as of yet, there’s no reason to think the results won’t support your version of events.’
‘My version?’
‘Your memory, I mean to say.’
While she was busy writing, Frost slipped a small capsule from his pocket, broke it open with a thumbnail, and passed it beneath her nose.
‘I can only presume the results will have no other version to tell,’ he said, ‘since I’ve personally never witnessed Brother Johnson carrying a gun of any kind.’
The detective flinched and pulled away, glaring at him. ‘What the fu—’
Then she interrupted herself with a deep, shoulder-quaking sneeze. Trailed by two quicker, squeakier ones in rapid succession: achoo-achoo!
She rocked back on her heels. Frost reached out to help steady her balance. When the detective’s eyes finally opened, they looked milder and deeper and ever so much more pliable than they had a moment before. Like twin dollops of warm chocolate.
‘I …’ she said. She looked at him, scratched her nose. ‘Sorry about that. I’m not sure what just—’
‘A bee,’ Frost said.
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘It flew right between us. For a moment I thought it was going to fly right up your pert little schnoz.’ Frost blipped the tip of her nose lightly with his fingertip, smiling as he slipped the spent capsule back into his pocket with his other hand. ‘Detective? Are you quite all right?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ She consulted her notepad. ‘We were talking—’
<
br /> ‘About the man I saw leaving the residence.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘The man you saw leaving the residence.’
While the detective paged back through her pad, re-finding her place in the world, Frost glanced toward the ambulance parked in the middle of the barricaded street. Within the quarter-hour, the neighborhood had transformed from its sleepy Saturday morning quietude into the tableau of controlled chaos before him now: flashing lights, crackling radios, yellow tape everywhere. Crime scene technicians worked the crime scene. News reporters reported. Bystanders stood by.
In the midst of all this, Lucius Weatherbee sat shirtless and bulging between the open rear doors of the ambulance, receiving preliminary shoulder treatment from the local EMTs. He’d managed to kick his own somewhat more practical clip-on holster down a sewer drain just as the sound of incoming sirens swirled in the air. How an untrained buffoon like Middleton had managed to gain the upper hand on Lucius at all – distractions or no distractions – Malcom Frost would never know. But he’d certainly left them in a pickle.
Or had he?
‘OK, here,’ said the detective, consulting the previous page of her notes. ‘You said the teenager appeared to be with the man against his will?’
‘So it appeared to me, yes.’
‘How so?’
‘The man was pulling the boy by the arm.’
‘And was the man himself armed?’
‘Not that I could see from the car,’ Frost said. ‘How wrong we all were.’
The detective nodded. ‘The chisel. Right.’ Scribble scribble. ‘Then the van showed up?’
‘I believe the van came first, and then the chisel, but yes.’
‘And you couldn’t see the driver?’
‘Oh, I’ll be seeing her.’
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Frost said. ‘It all happened so quickly.’
There came a loud chorus of effort as a tow truck operator, a police officer, and three helpful neighborhood men, all working as a unit, tipped the damaged Lincoln back on to four wheels. The investigators had all the photographs, measurements, and paint transfer samples they needed, apparently.
Meanwhile, the object in Frost’s other trouser pocket vibrated with increased urgency.
He disregarded it for now.
One thing at a time. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, Detective, but surely it won’t be strictly necessary for you to impound our vehicle?’
‘Impound? I can’t see a reason for that, once the techs are finished.’ The detective scribbled something and handed Frost her card. ‘As long as the truck’s already here, I can have the guys tow you to the closest shop. Otherwise you can have it picked up at our lot. I wrote the address on the back.’
‘That’s very kind.’
‘You’ll obviously need repairs and an inspection before we can let you get it back on the road.’
‘Certainly. But I’m sure it’s fine.’
‘Looking at it from here, I’m sure it’s fine. We’d like you and Mr …’ she re-consulted the false information she’d unwittingly transcribed in her notepad even before Frost had dusted her, ‘Franklin to remain available for follow-up questions.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. Several of the neighbors offered matching descriptions of the vehicle and license tag. With a little luck, you’ll have the suspects in custody soon enough. It’s not as if my associates and I were targeted in some way.’
‘Wrong place, wrong time, it looks like to me. I’m not inclined to suspect that you and your companions were specifically targeted. But I’ll arrange for an extra patrol at your address for a couple of days, just to be safe.’
Saint Peter in a burning pumpkin patch, Frost thought. Why did people insist on clinging to free will? Didn’t it tire them? ‘We’re from out of town. To review, Brother Johnson has no blood family, so we’ll be leaving his body in the care of whatever indigent and unclaimed program your county follows. Brother Franklin and I have business elsewhere, so we’ll be moving right along. We’re in no need of police protection, and you’ll have no further need for us.’
‘No,’ the detective said, paradoxically nodding yes. ‘Several of the neighbors offered matching descriptions of the vehicle and license tag.’
Frost glanced toward the bright October sky. ‘Meanwhile, I’m afraid this sun has my number.’
‘Beg your pardon?’
He gestured an apology, indicating his primary areas of exposed skin: hands, neck, face, scalp. ‘I have a sensitivity.’
‘Of course, Mr Anderson. I’m sorry to keep you standing out here. We could have done all of this in the shade.’ The detective used her notepad to shield her eyes, craning her neck to look up toward Frost’s scar-webbed face. ‘Would you mind if I asked how you were injured?’
Frost smiled down at her from above. ‘Any pilgrim who claims to you that holy fire can’t harm righteous flesh has never experienced the Lord’s flame first-hand.’
The detective nodded slowly. ‘Holy fire …’
She didn’t write it down in her notepad.
Frost’s trouser pocket buzzed again.
‘Please,’ the detective said, pointing with her pen. ‘Feel free to get that.’
Clearly, she’d mistaken the buzzing sound for a mobile phone with a silenced ringer, presuming, quite reasonably, that somebody was trying to contact him, rather than the other way around.
He slipped his hand into his pocket, closing his fingers around the seamless metal cube waiting for him there.
‘That’s quite all right,’ he assured the detective. ‘They’ll wait.’
SIXTEEN
It took Anabeth Glass the better part of the morning to dig the shot pellets out of Ben’s back, shoulder, and neck with a pair of drugstore tweezers, dropping the pellets one at a time into a flimsy motel water cup with the faint tick of bloody lead on plastic. She refused to speak at length while working, communicating only as strictly necessary to the task at hand, swabbing and reswabbing each wound with antiseptic as she went.
Which was, for the time being, grudgingly acceptable to Ben. He had trouble enough keeping a square thought in his head through the teeth-grinding torment, unless that thought was, How much of the creature is in my bloodstream right now? By the time Anabeth was finished, his iodine-stained back burned as if she’d lit it on fire and doused the flames with battery acid. The pellet cup could have doubled as a paperweight.
‘I think that’s the best I can do on my own,’ she said, dropping the forceps on to the bedside table. She stripped one blood-smeared latex glove, rubbing at a kink in her neck as she straightened her spine. ‘You still have a couple of deep ones in there. And one stinker that keeps sliding back and forth under the skin.’
‘I’m sure they’ll heal over.’ Ben sat up on the edge of the bed and stayed there until his head stopped spinning. He felt low on everything. ‘I thought you said you weren’t a nurse?’
‘As if you couldn’t tell.’
‘Felt pretty sure-handed to me.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Maybe now would be a good time to review a few other things you’ve said since we met.’
Abe ignored this, turning instead to Reuben Wasserman, who sat on the floor in the corner with his head against the wall. She’d sent Charley to the vending machine for a small bag of peanuts and a bottle of Gatorade, which Wasserman had consumed greedily. ‘Reuben? How are you feeling?’
No response.
She went to him, touched his sweaty-looking forehead with the backs of her fingers. ‘Can you speak?’
‘No.’ Wasserman didn’t open his eyes.
Ben said, ‘What the hell’s the matter with him?’
‘You know, Benjamin,’ she said, ‘as much as I understand how you must be feeling, you really ought to try cutting others a little slack sometimes. Reuben didn’t ask to be part of this, either.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Reuben said.
; Ben sighed and tried closing his own eyes. When he opened them, the room hadn’t changed: same thin, faded carpet underfoot; same water-stained ceiling over their heads; same outdated drapes and furniture all around – right down to the rabbit-eared television on the cheap particle-board dresser. The dresser’s simulated wood grain had long scuffed away at the corners.
‘But seriously,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I’m pretty sure he’s been blotted.’
‘Huh?’
‘Mal always has loved his serums.’
Wasserman said, ‘What did that psycho put in me?’
‘His own concoction,’ Anabeth said. ‘Basically a weaponized sedative. But the cognitive impairment can be unpredictable.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘If he used it on you, it means one of two things: either your memories aren’t important to him, or … well.’
Wasserman’s eyes popped open. ‘What do you mean, “Or, well?”’
She leaned in close, stealing the opportunity to examine his exposed eyeballs. ‘I don’t think he dosed you past the “It’ll still wear off” stage.’
‘You mean there’s a chance it won’t?’
‘The important thing is, you’re looking better already.’
Wasserman closed his eyes again. ‘I don’t see how that could be.’
Ben said, ‘Who’s Mal?’
‘The pale man in the car. Malcom Frost.’
‘And you know him how?’
‘We used to work together.’
‘And now he’s following you?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Then how did he end up at Christine’s?’
Instead of answering, she dug a twenty-dollar bill from her pocket and turned to Charley. ‘Handsome, do you think you could run to the machines again? Bring another Gatorade and all the bottled water you can buy with this. We need to do everything we can to flush this gunk out of his system.’
Charley remained fixated on Gordon’s prepaid phone, having crushed the life out of his own back at the house. Ben had handed over the loaner almost by rote, the way they used to hand over the family iPad on long car trips. Still, as the morning had worn on here in Room 103 of the River Bend Inn, Charley’s teenage imperviousness had disappeared like the cheap old dresser’s stick-on veneer. He was down to bare wood now like the rest of them.
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