by Mark Murphy
"Amy, I promise we'll be careful."
She dried her eyes and sniffled once.
"How will I know what to do?" she asked at last.
"Ben will call you guys with the exact date and time. All you have to do is show up. And remember—the cops are in on this. I'm not asking you to lie to them."
"How are you going to get away with the closed casket thing?"
"We're telling the press that I hung myself, and that my body wasn't found for a few days, so an open casket isn't really an option."
"So what if someone does open it?"
"The only person who would really want to see if I was in it is our killer. At least that's our theory. That's what we're banking on."
"I'm just not sure that this is going to work. You say the killer is brilliant. Someone brilliant could poke some huge holes through a plan like this one," Amy said.
"What would be the down side?" Malcolm asked.
She sighed.
"I don't know," she said. "I just want this to be over."
"Me, too," said Malcolm.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too."
As she hung up, she wondered about the way things had gone— about how their pristine lives had gone bad so rapidly, corrupted by things that were completely beyond their control.
Amy had never been a big believer in fate. How many times had she told Mimi, "You make your own luck"?
And now this, she thought.
A deep dread, bordering on despair, welled up within her. She could see it, could smell it and taste it. It was as black as oil and as bitter as bile, and it roiled up from the depths of her soul, threatening to spill over and engulf her.
She hadn't been to church lately. She regretted that now.
God help us, she thought. And she meant it.
For, deep down inside, Amy was beginning to wonder if she would ever see Malcolm alive again.
19
The morning of his "funeral," Malcolm was sitting on a stump gazing out over the marshes surrounding Green Island. A cool mist had drifted in from the sea. A screeching seagull streaked through the curling vapors like a fighter jet before disappearing into the morning fog.
His phone vibrated, shattering his reverie. He had received a routine e-mail from Joel Birkenstock, his collaborator on the lap appendectomy paper.
He found this amusing.
"I guess Joel doesn't look at the news," Malcolm said aloud. "He's sending e-mails to dead people."
"What's that?" said Billy.
"I've been co-authoring a medical paper with a guy at UAB. He sent me an e-mail this morning. We've never met—we were supposed to in Miami, but he got tied up and couldn't get there—but you'd think he'd see the news, wouldn't you? I mean, you told me CNN picked up our story, and the Atlanta Constitution had a front-page spread on the murders and my "suicide," so how could this guy be so clueless as to send me an e-mail asking about when we could meet to go over our first draft of the paper?"
"Has he been overseas?''
"Heck, no! He's in Birmingham, Alabama!"
Billy shook his head.
"You doctors get so fixated on your work sometimes. I know Jimbo did. It's like there's nothing else going on out there in the world."
"Should I respond to him?"
"Not a good idea. Let this all blow over first. There'll be time for all of that later. Don't want to blow our cover."
Malcolm nodded, turned the iPhone display off, and dropped it into his pocket.
The two of them walked down to the skiff, which was bobbing in the water. Its bowline was tied to a skeletal tree stump which had tumbled halfway down the bank.
Billy clambered into the skiff, cranked the engine, and pushed his hat down over his eyes.
"I'll let you know when we get him. Your friend Ben has been really helpful," Billy said.
"We go way back. He's like a brother to me."
"Stay out of sight. And try not to have any more run-ins with wild animals!"
Malcolm gave Billy a floppy-armed salute.
"Aye aye, skipper!"
Billy shook his head.
"Smartass," he shouted over his shoulder as he motored away.
Malcolm spent the next several hours wandering the paths of Green Island. He went back to the old well. The stench of the dead boar was overwhelming now. Its rank putrescence violated his nostrils. Malcolm recoiled from the edge of the well, his mouth dry as dust, his stomach in an uproar.
The farmhouse's door was padlocked, but the wood was rotten. Malcolm put his shoulder to it and the door splintered, cracking a bit. Wood dust flew around him, catching rays of sunlight. He backed up a few feet and slammed his shoulder into the door again, driving through it like the linebacker he was in high school. This time, the door collapsed and Malcolm fell headlong into the dark, toppling onto something furry that wriggled out from under him with a squeak!
Malcolm stood and brushed himself off. A few stray beams of light cut across the room from holes in the ceiling. The windows had been broken but were boarded up in an irregular, gap-toothed fashion. Crumpled beer cans, cigarette butts, and other debris littered the floor.
Probably teenagers, Malcolm thought.
Malcolm understood why the door had been padlocked. It was amazing the place had not been burned to the ground.
As his eyes adjusted, Malcolm saw that the house still had some furniture in it. There were a few battered pictures on the wall—skinny children from another era, dressed in overalls and plain dresses. The children sat atop a brick wall with a mangy-looking golden retriever, its tongue lolling out. All of them were frozen in time, immortal on paper but likely dead in life, with a half-century or more gone since the pictures were taken. There was a layer of dust on everything, like the volcanic ash at Pompeii.
Malcolm thought about life—how ephemeral, how fragile it was. And how precious.
He thought of his wife and daughter. His chest ached for them.
He sat down on a rickety chair, which creaked under his weight, and took a deep breath, absorbing the stillness of it all.
When Malcolm's phone thrummed, it startled him. He fumbled to pull it out of his pocket and dropped it, sending it clattering onto the wooden floor.
"Dammit!" he muttered, picking up the phone and brushing it off.
It was a text message from Ben, with an attached video file. Malcolm hit PLAY
The video was a little difficult to see at first. It was off-center and fuzzy. But then Ben came into focus. He was sitting in his car behind the steering wheel, in the driver's seat. Someone else was doing the filming.
His eyes look funny, Malcolm thought. Is he ill?
But then Malcolm realized that Ben was crying.
"I'm sorry, Mal. Sorry for everything. I was wrong on so many fronts. I've failed you. I've failed you and Amy and Mimi and I will never, ever forgive myself for that. And Operation Tom Sawyer has been a failure, too. A big, colossal, green-eyed screw-up, one I'll never live down."
Ben then looked straight at whoever was filming him. His eyes grew wide.
"No!" Ben said, lunging forward.
The image was a jumbled mess for a moment as the camera phone fell to the ground. There was an image of the side of Ben's gray Volvo and an aquamarine sky.
BANG!
A single gunshot.
A single gunshot and then a large hand, picking up the camera phone and turning it to show Ben once more.
Ben was slumped behind the steering wheel covered in blood, eyes closed. A bloodstain was spreading around a dark bullet hole in his chest, its maroon imprint growing larger by the second.
Malcolm's old friend did not appear to be breathing.
The video flickered, ending at that point, leaving Malcolm alone in the stale darkness of the deserted farmhouse.
Distraught, Malcolm stood up and screamed. The shattered windows of the farmhouse shook.
He fled outside, blinded by the sun and consumed by rage.
Sprinting through the sun-dappled forest, Malcolm hoped that Billy had returned with the boat. He could help Ben if he could get to him. He prayed out loud, his breath coming in staggered gasps between muttered prayers. He was praying for a miracle. A thousand yesterdays flew past, a torrent of memory that nearly overwhelmed him. Through it all, Ben had always been there. Always.
Only not now.
Ben was dying. Malcolm could feel it.
Malcolm reached the shore, but the beach was deserted. He was trapped, powerless, impotent.
Mal's phone buzzed again. A second text, from a different number—one Malcolm did not recognize. No video this time.
Did you really think I was that stupid? You can't win this.
Jack
"You asshole," Malcolm said.
Take a deep breath, a calm voice inside him said. You can still help Ben.
Malcolm recognized the voice. It was the inner voice that calmed his brain during crises in the OR. His surgery voice. An old friend.
He listened to it.
Ben s not dead yet. You can still save him.
And then, clear as day: Activate the trauma protocol.
Malcolm called Memorial Hospital's ER.
"This is Dr. Malcolm King. I need to speak to the ER attending," he said.
He was placed on hold for a moment, and then a familiar voice answered.
"This is Dr. Sims."
"Brad, this is Mal King."
"Mal? But on the news . . . they said you were . . ."
"Dead. I know. It's a long story, and it's all bullshit. I'll explain later. Listen, I need a favor—a medical one."
There was a pause, and then Sims answered.
"Go ahead."
"There's a cop who has been shot in a car outside of Waverly Funeral home on DeRenne, not five minutes from you. It's a chest wound, and it's serious, although I don't know the full extent of the organ damage. It just happened just a few minutes ago. The patient is in a late-model gray Volvo sedan. I don't know any more than that. Get an EMS crew out there pronto, activate the trauma protocol, and call the thoracic guys."
"But how do I know that you're on the level with all of this?''
"Brad, you know me. Trust me on this. A good man's life is at stake."
There was a momentary pause. Malcolm could hear Brad Sims breathing.
Come on, dammit!
"Okay," Sims said at last. "We'll handle it."
"And, Brad?"
"Yes."
"Take good care of this guy. He's my best friend in the world."
Malcolm hung up and then called Billy Littlebear.
"What the hell are you doing, Malcolm? They can locate you when you're using your cell, you know," Billy said.
"Billy . . ."
"Our killer never showed up. Something must have spooked him."
"Billy, listen. Our killer did show. He shot Ben Adams and sent me a video of it. He knew we were going to be there, Billy. He knew and he found Ben, then put a bullet in him."
"Jesus H. Christ."
"Find Ben, Billy. He's in a gray Volvo. The EMS is on its way. I called them. But find him."
"I'm on it."
They hung up.
There was not much more Malcolm could do at this point, so he dropped down on his knees on the little sandy beach and began praying once again
"Dear God, take care of Ben," he said.
"And punish those who do evil things."
Malcolm was kneeling on the beach for a long time. It seemed like hours.
Water pooled around his knees. A soft wind brushed its fragrant breath across the undulating marsh grass.
A peace settled over Malcolm. He had done what he could for Ben.
Malcolm was no longer afraid. The Shadow Man was still out there, but Malcolm's fear had been transmuted, irrevocably altered.
He was not scared. Instead, he was pissed.
Malcolm lifted his eyes to the sky, uttered one last prayer for Ben, then pulled out his cell phone to send "Jack" a text message of his own.
I'm coming for you, asshole, the message said.
There was no reply.
20
Malcolm waited as long as he could.
The tide marched in and swallowed the beach, driving Malcolm from the sand to the edge of the maritime forest, where he had hoped to wait for Billy's return. But then the sky darkened, the horizon billowing with ominous clouds the color of a fresh bruise. The wind whistled and howled; hail pelted the trees. The storm crawled ashore like a leviathan, massive and inexorable, undressing the trees and tearing off their branches.
Malcolm ran through the forest to the crumbling farmhouse. Leaky as it was, the house was the island's only shelter. He sprinted in through the shattered door, lightning striking in every direction, its flashes the blades of a thousand knives. But then the lightning ended and the winds collapsed into a ponderous hush, the rumble of thunder fading deep and low somewhere over the dark horizon.
Raindrops drummed, soft and steady, on the rooftop. Water dripped through the myriad holes in the ceiling, pit pit pitpat pit pitat pit, in an asynchronous rhythm that made Malcolm sleepy. He drifted off in the wooden chair as darkness rushed in, swift and silent, erasing memory and regret as surely as the tides that crashed on the little island's spare beaches.
Malcolm awakened to the acrid sulfur scent of a match strike.
"Billy?" he said.
Malcolm saw the glow of a cigarette in the darkness, like an unblinking eye.
"Your friend is one tough hombre," he said.
"He's alive?"
"Just barely. He took a clean shot right through the left lung. Just missed his aorta. He had a tension pneumothorax, but they got a chest tube in him in the field and decompressed it. The trauma surgeons came with the ambulance. Don't know how you managed to get that done, but it saved his life. I've seen a lot of people shot, both here and in Iraq, and I'd have put the odds of his surviving that sort of injury at someplace south of five percent."
Thanks, Brad, Malcolm thought.
"So he's made it so far?'
"He's on a ventilator in the ICU, but he's alive. Thanks largely to you."
"I could have done more if I'd been there in person."
"Not much more you could have done," Billy said.
Malcolm realized that this was true.
Billy ignited a second match and used it to light a small kerosene lantern. The little room was suddenly filled with its flickering glow Shadows danced on the walls to a silent refrain. The old pictures seemed less static. If Malcolm looked at them too long, the people seemed to be breathing and blinking, like the pictures in the haunted mansion at Disney-World. One little boy seemed to be smiling right at him.
God, I'm tired, he thought.
He rubbed his eyes.
"They never would have found him if you had not called. He would have died," Billy said.
Malcolm thought of how close Ben came. Tears welled up in his eyes again.
"It's my fault this happened to him," he said. "My brilliant idea was a colossal disaster. Amy said it was stupid, and she was right. I was so desperate to get out of this situation that I wouldn't listen."
"It was no such thing," Billy said.
"Ben was shot. It wasn't worth that."
"But the killer showed his hand. He shot Ben while you were here, giving you an alibi. And he contacted you directly—a mistake that again proves his existence. He's left a trail that we can follow."
Billy tapped a finger to his forehead.
"Ego. That's his weakness. If he'd been as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have just sent the video to the police and they would have thought it came from you. But he had to gloat. That sort of behavior may be the break we need to catch the son of a bitch," Billy said.
Just then, Malcolm's phone rang, startling both of them.
"Don't answer it no matter who that is. Things are just too hot right now," Billy said.
Malcolm looked
at the phone and chuckled.
"It's Joel Birkenstock again. He's really not aware of all that's been going on," Malcolm said. "He usually e-mails. I wonder why he's calling me this time?"
The phone pinged, signifying a voicemail had been left.
"Can I listen to voicemail?" said Malcolm.
"That's not a problem," said Billy.
Malcolm tried to hear it the standard way at first, but the rain was still coming down hard, and there was some interference, like a clanging cymbal, on the other end. He couldn't quite make out what Joel was saying. He put the phone on speaker.
"Malcolm, this is Joel. I sent you an e-mail but didn't hear back from you. I'll be passing through Savannah in the next few days and thought you might want to sit down together and go over the manuscript. I'm looking forward to meeting you in person. Give me a call when you get this and we'll talk."
Joel's last few words had been garbled by the sonorous gonging of a clock as it sounded out the hour.
Billy walked over to him.
"Play that again," he said.
Malcolm did.
Billy dropped his cigarette, which lay smoking on the floor.
"Holy shit," Billy said.
"What?"
"That's him," Billy said hoarsely.
"No way. That guy's a faculty member at UAB. Has been for years."
"I know that voice. That's Walter Jernigan, the guy that set up my brother," said Billy.
"You're sure of this?"
Billy's dark eyes were feverish, distant. Like they were someplace else. Someplace long ago.
"One hundred percent certain," Billy said, choking out his words through clenched teeth.
"One hundred percent."
21
The storm was relentless.
At times it sounded like someone was throwing marbles on the farmhouse roof. Wind rattled the windows and whistled through the cracks and gaps in the walls. Water dripped everywhere, spattering on the floor and pooling along the baseboards.
Billy pulled up a chair and sat down in it, opposite Malcolm.
"They released the identity of the Isle of Hope victim," he said.
"I'm almost afraid to ask," Malcolm said.