Fatal Obsession

by Stephen Greenleaf

  The interior was a single room that smelled of rotting foods and dried plants and mystic oils. Other than the door, the only light came from a hole in the roof, which was the size of a plate and covered by a sheet of plastic. Like the front, the walls at the rear and sides, as well as the roof, were planks of rough-hewn cedar. The chinks were filled with something that resembled porridge. In a few places where the caulk had fallen out I could see the shiny black of polyethylene, holding back the dirt and moisture. The floor underfoot was hard-packed clay.

  Even with the curtain drawn back it was too dark to see things clearly at the rear of the house. A kerosene lantern sat on a low table near the center of the room, but I hesitated to use its unfamiliar system for fear of fire. I blundered about for another minute before I found a candle. The light sprayed the room, giving it the patina of spun flax. The smoke from the candle snaked toward an exit in the ceiling that was both invisible and disconcerting.

  Someone had beaten me to the room. It was a mess, the result of a hurried, frantic search. Cans and bottles were tossed aside, books spilled from shelves, wood scattered randomly for me to stumble over. Since I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, I fumbled among it all, beginning with the flat pallet that was Billy and Starbright’s bed.

  The mattress was essentially a bag of dirt and sand, the blankets a patchwork swatch of everything from flags to gunny sacks. Scattered among the bedding were some threadbare garments but nothing else. There was a second lamp beside the bed, and around it were books that chronicled supernatural occurrences and governmental crimes and nutritive miracles.

  In the opposite corner I found some cookware, much of it hand-wrought from maple and walnut, the rest unmatched foundlings that were chipped and cracked and haphazardly repaired. Beside the kitchen corner was a work in progress—a bassinet being woven from strips of bark and leafless willow branches, its hickory frame complete but its sides only partly so. Beyond the baby bed were bottles that smelled of elixirs that I was sure would perform miracles that Starbright would swear to. I opened a small plastic bottle and sniffed and sneezed, then replaced the bottle and scratched the smell out of my nose as best I could.

  Except for scattered items of clothing and some decoration in the form of dried weeds and bits of shell and glass and colored fabric, there was little else in the room. The wood-burning stove against one wall was cold and quiet, its ash only that, as far as I could see. I hadn’t even found the placenta bowl, which probably meant that Starbright had taken it with her into town.

  The lack of treasures of a personal nature in the cave suggested the existence of a hiding place. There didn’t seem room for one in the ceiling or the floor, so I felt my way along the walls, alert for something false.

  It didn’t take long to find. In the back corner, over an area perhaps a yard square, there was a hollow echo behind the cedar when I tapped it. More by feel than sight I located the notch that allowed me to pull the hidden door away and find the nest that held a metal box and something more immediately arresting.

  The first thing I pulled out was an M-16, army issue, with a full magazine locked in place and a dozen extra banana clips piled beside its resting place. Even more incredibly, a high pyramid of fragmentation grenades lay beside the rifle clips like a peaceful relic of Indian ritual. Behind the grenades was the stubby menace of a grenade launcher. A brass-topped round was already loaded in its chamber and two just like it lay on the floor. And around it all was a mysterious tangle of wires, heavily insulated, probably the project Starbright had said that Billy had been working on the last morning he’d been alive.

  I smelled the muzzle of the rifle and absorbed a whiff of oil, but none of the fragrance was of recent use. I put the rifle back in its place. Was the arsenal the result of paranoia or was it a more reasonable precaution for someone who dealt in dope? I had no way of knowing anything but the vicarious fright that the guns gave off. I sat down on the floor and pulled out the metal box and opened it, suddenly conscious of the heavy earth above and around me on three sides.

  The box was full of papers and pictures, of various shapes and sizes and significance. Some were snapshots of Starbright and of Billy, separately and together, Billy looking in each of them as though he had just been wronged. And there were newspaper clippings about Tom Notting and Clark Jaspers, detailing malfeasances I already knew of, one of them also featuring a photograph of a laughing Billy that had obviously been snapped without his knowledge. And then there was a recipe for carob cake and a beatific picture of Meher Baba and some pornographic pictures depicting Oriental men and women and dogs. Then Billy’s army discharge certificate and a piece of rampant optimism by Khalil Gibran. And then a letter from Seaman Bruce Notting, return address the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.

  I started to open the envelope but stopped, because the next item in the box was a legal document, typed, complete with a blue backing stamped with the name and address of Clark Jaspers’ law office. I flipped the cover page and read the standard legalisms of a grant deed.

  This one transferred, for the consideration of one dollar, receipt of which was acknowledged, all right, title, and interest of the Grantor, Curtis Harold Tanner, in an undivided one-eighth interest in that certain parcel of real property situated in Appanoose County, commonly known as the Tanner plot, full legal description of which is recorded in Book 30, Page 45, of the Appanoose County Index, to William Lyle Tanner, the Grantee, his heirs and assigns, to their use and benefit forever. Dated July 1, 1976. Signed by Curt and Laurel. Legal as hell, or so it looked.

  So Billy had owned half of Curt’s share of the farm. I looked further into the box.

  The rest was junk—notes, letters, pictures, poems, lists of prediction and revelation plucked from sources ranging from the Book of Mormon to the National Enquirer. But there was nothing to indicate a cause for Billy’s murder. I picked up the letter from Bruce to Billy and opened it.

  The note was handwritten on dime-store paper, the kind the PX sells. The message was brief: “You did the right thing. I only wish I’d done my part sooner. If it doesn’t end, let me know and I’ll find a way to stop him myself. Good luck with your plan. Let me know how it comes out. Kiss Starbright and the baby when it comes. You told me how it would be, and it’s that way and worse, but better here than there. Sincerely, Bruce.” I put the letter back in the box and replaced the panel in the wall and went outside the cave, breathing deeply, thankful to be no longer entombed.

  There were a zillion more hiding places outside the house, and I burrowed through some of them as well, gathering a splinter and a scratch in the process, but not much else, my mind half on my random search and half on what if anything Billy’s deed meant as to the ultimate disposition of the farm. Over hot humid minutes I probed the stack of hickory logs and the pile of sawdust and shavings beside it, tipped back buckets and rain barrels and peered behind spades and saws, looking for the headwaters of death, finding only creatures that lived beyond the reach of light.

  High above me a chicken hawk circled, and above that the white ink of a commercial jet wrote west to east. I watched the invisible finger write and then move on, until it disappeared in the foliage of the tree that shaded Billy’s lair. Had I not been attuned by the plane to streams of white I might never have seen it, and even when I stared at it I wasn’t sure it was anything to bother with. But there seemed to be a white ring around the tree, a band of unnatural precision high above me, at the fork of two large branches, the left one dead, the right still leafed and fertile.

  The tree was an oak, its lowest branch fat and well above my reach. I walked around to the other side. Two boards had been nailed to its trunk, clearly climbing-aids. I placed a foot on one, reached high for the other and pulled myself up. From the bottom step I could reach the lowest branch, and soon my pants were ripped in the seat and my palms were scratched by bark as sharp as ocean coral, but I was sitting in the tree, feet dangling, chest heaving, plotting my route up to the thi
n white rope that had caught my eye.

  I caught my breath and set out for it, smiling as I climbed because of how much fun it was. When I reached my goal I yelled like Tarzan. Then a breeze came up and I held on tightly until it died.

  The rope was made of nylon, and when it was at eye level I recognized its purpose. The dead branch in the fork was hollow, and one end of the rope was tied around it so that something on its other end could be lowered into the rotted void within the bark and thus secreted.

  I pulled the rope. Whatever it secured was heavy, and partially wedged inside the hollow branch. I pulled again, and then again. The branch shuddered and exhaled dust. And then I had my prize.

  It was a plastic bag, black, the size for lawns and leaves, its open end strangled by the rope I pulled to fish it out. Whatever it held was lumpy. I let out some slack, then swung the rope back and forth until the bundle cleared the branches down below, then I let it fall to the ground. I made my way to the bottom branch, locked my legs around it and swung to its underside, then dropped to the ground beside the sack. When I hit the ground I fell forward on my face, which caused the tree to absorb the shot instead of me.

  Twenty-three

  The report came from somewhere on the hill to my left, near the trail between the house and the marijuana. As I reached for the bag the rifle cracked again, and a twig next to my foot exploded. I grabbed my booty and scurried behind the tree and took a careful peek.

  Someone was moving down the hill toward me in short, jagged bursts of movement, using trees and brush for cover. He was holding his rifle high overhead so as not to snag it. From where I was it looked as big as a bazooka.

  I assumed he was alone until I heard him call out to someone on the ridge behind him. I tried but failed to glimpse this or any other confederate the rifleman might have. In a reflex I felt for my revolver, the one I’d left behind in San Francisco, unable to imagine a need for it on the sleepy streets of my hometown.

  The gunman moved closer. As long as he was moving I decided to move myself, toward the only weapons that were close at hand.

  Another shot rang out as I scampered around the woodpile and into the house. Whatever it hit was left to die behind me. I tossed the bag on the ground and went to the back wall and removed the panel and grabbed the M-16 and checked the clip to be sure it was full, then locked and loaded a round. With its plastic stock and featherweight alloys the weapon felt like a toy in my hands. The house around me seemed part of juvenile antics as well, a cave, a place for hide-and-seek, cowboys and Indians. And with the only exit the filmy curtain across the only door, a trap as well. I picked up the plastic bag and peered around the curtain.

  I sensed no further movement on the western slope, but I was conscious that armies could be massed on the ridge behind me without my knowing it. I had to get out of my buried box and the woodpile seemed the best bet. From there I could possibly work my way back up the ridge behind the house, keeping my foes in front of me, and once on the other side run like hell for the car. I let the curtain fall again, picked up three extra ammunition clips off the floor and stuck them in my pockets, then peeked outside again.

  The shot nicked the rough wood beside my ear. Chips of cedar raked my cheek like claws. The sound created a vacuum that sucked my breath away. I dropped the bag to the floor and sat beside it, wondering who was out there, wondering what they wanted besides my life.

  “Tanner? Hey. Tanner.”

  The voice was one I knew, the one I suspected it would be. “What do you want, Zedda?”

  “I want the bag, man. Toss it out and we go away.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “We take it from you, man. Dead or alive, we take it from you.”

  I looked at the slick sack on the floor beside me and decided to see what the game was all about. I unknotted the rope and reached through the plastic throat and pulled out money.

  Cash. A bundle of it, tied haphazardly with a bit of ragged twine. I dumped the rest of it out, a score or more of money-bricks.

  The denominations seemed to range from fives to hundreds, the thickness of the rectangles from one inch to three. There was no way to know how much I had without counting it all. I put the money back in the bag and cinched it up again and cradled my rifle like a child who craved a story, awaiting Zedda’s next move, planning my own.

  “How about it, Tanner?” The words seemed closer than they had been.

  “This is Billy’s money, not yours,” I yelled back.

  “The hell it is. He stole it from me, the bastard. I spent all day out here yesterday, looking for it.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Here and there,” Zedda yelled. “What’s it matter?”

  “Drugs?”

  Zedda paused. I heard scrambled sounds of movement. “What if it did?” he said finally.

  “Then I think I’ll keep it,” I said. “I’ve got a use for it.”

  “You think I don’t, man? Toss it out, Tanner. You don’t have a chance and you know it.”

  “Did you kill Billy, Zedda? String him up to make him tell you where the money was?”

  “Hell, no. I wish I had, the fucker, but shit. I was never fool enough to go up against him. No way.”

  I heard more noise of movement, the scratchy sounds of brush and weeds. Then I heard voices, indistinct: directions, orders, strategy. And I was in a bag as black and slick and vulnerable as the one that held the money.

  “Toss out the bag, man. Now.”

  “Or what?”

  “This.”

  He riddled the front of the house with bullets. I flattened on the floor, dirt coating my face and lips, tasting of the dry ash of death. Another string of shots rang out, measured, torturing, ambiguous, reminding me of the false volleys that had ended Billy’s funeral.

  From the sound of it Zedda had a hunting rifle, a thirty-aught-six or so, lever-action. The heavy boards across the face of the house weren’t thick enough to stop the shells. They crossed the room above my head and lodged in the back wall in barely perceivable niches. Most of the shots had been high, but the last one had been low enough to knock the lantern off the table. The smell of kerosene erased the rest. I hurried to the iron stove and crouched behind it, trying to figure out what to do besides make a desperate dash for safety, hoping the holes in the wall behind me were not a sieve through which my life would leak.

  Time swelled, becoming a physical bulk that pressed me toward the door. I crawled over to the cache of weapons and picked up a grenade and flipped it up and down. It felt like something I should start a game with rather than a war. Then I put down the grenade and picked up the launcher and locked the brass-topped round inside the chamber. The sights on the stubby barrel seemed set for a close distance, but I could only guess how far. I remembered the shattered farmhouse and knew how Billy had sighted-in the piece. Then I wondered where Billy got the damned thing, and what he planned to do with it. Then I tried to figure out what I could do with it myself. None of the sounds I heard were comforting, including those I made.

  “Hey, Tanner.”

  He was directly overhead now, his voice coming down through the vent in the ceiling, as clear as bird calls over lakes.

  “Time’s wasting, Tanner.” His voice parachuted easily to my ears, under the weight of his confidence. “Make it easy on yourself, man. Toss out the cash and we’ll be on our way. No need to make this bloody, man. No need at all.”

  I put down the launcher, considered whether the rifle could shoot through the roof, and decided it could. I considered whether a blind burst would have much chance of putting Zedda out of action and decided it wouldn’t. I picked up the wires that were coiled behind the stack of grenades and tried to figure out if they could help me.

  “How much, Tanner?”

  “What?”

  “How much you want? You found the bag, so I figure I owe you something. So how much?”

  “How much is there?”

  “Thirty grand,
if it’s still all there.”

  “Is anyone else looking for it?”

  “You mean the buyer? Hell no. The bread’s mine, man. All mine.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think Billy got the dope as well.”

  Zedda paused. “What if he did? The bread’s still mine. I made delivery.”

  “I want it all,” I said.

  “What kind of shit is that?”

  “I want it all. It was Billy’s and he’s dead and now it’s mine.”

  “You’re fucking up, man. You’re half in the grave already down there. Don’t make it something permanent.”

  “If I toss out the money, what happens?”

  “You go on up the hill to your little car and we get the bread and go out the back way. Sayonara.”

  “What’s to keep you from shooting me in the back?”

  “Not a damned thing, man. But hey. Why would I? I’m a man of peace. Save the whales, you know?”

  Zedda’s laugh was curdling. I could think of a dozen reasons why he would shoot me down, reasons having to do with money and with the illegal and therefore profitable weed that grew on the next slope over.

  I snuggled more securely into the iron womb of my fortified corner. As I shifted position my hand struck something I hadn’t seen before, a square metal device of some kind. I looked more closely and saw that it went with the wires, was meant to be hooked to them and to act as a switch of some kind. I attached the bare ends of the wires to the terminals in the device. I had only to press a button to make happen whatever it was that Billy had rigged to happen just before he ran off up the hill, the last time Starbright saw him. Over the next few minutes I thought about everything I knew of Billy and made a guess about what that was.

  “Zedda?” I yelled.