“I… I don’t really believe in them anymore…”
But it was obvious he did. He just didn’t want to admit it to his mother.
And, perhaps neither to himself.
“I’ll tell you what, Markie. If we have to go into the mine, your father and I will take you on a tour.”
“A tour where?”
“A tour of all the dark places. We’ll get on one of the Gators, just the three of us. And we’ll ride into each of the bays, one at a time, and drive all the way to the end of each of them. Some of them go for half a mile into the mountain. The reason they’re dark is because it just didn’t make sense to burn extra fuel to light them, when we never expected to use any of them.
“But we’ll take you into each of them. The headlights on the Gator will light them up and we’ll go all the way to the end of each of them. So that you can see absolutely no monsters live in any of them. Okay?”
“Okay. But I’m not scared of them any more, Mom. I used to be, but now I’m way too brave.”
The look in his eyes gave him away, but she wouldn’t call him on it.
“Okay, Markie. We’ll do it anyway, just so I don’t have to worry about monsters. Okay?”
“Okay. Deal.”
Over Markie’s shoulder Hannah could see Sarah walking through the orchard toward them.
Hannah roughed up the hair on Markie’s head and said, “Now you run along now. Sarah and I have something to discuss.”
-31-
“You’ve been wanting to talk about something important. I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Sarah said.
Her memory was starting to return, but was still spotty at best.
She took Hannah’s hand and they walked through the orchard.
Hannah had been hesitant to broach the subject, given her best friend’s state of mind. But she needed to know, once and for all.
“Sarah, what do you remember about Cupid 23?”
“Not much, unfortunately. I remember it had the potential of being a catastrophic event, but that it was overshadowed by the much greater threat that Saris 7 posed.
“I remember it being pushed into the background. I remember Bob Henson saying Cupid 23 didn’t matter. That if we didn’t do something about Saris 7, none of us would be alive to worry about Cupid 23.”
Bob Henson had been the director of NASA, who’d called a top secret meeting of NASA scientists in the early days just after Saris 7’s discovery.
“Sarah, back then you and I disagreed about the odds of Cupid following Saris’ path.”
“I don’t remember that. Why did we disagree?”
“You were in the camp which thought since Cupid was slower and a tumbler, that she’d eventually veer off course as Saris opened the gap between them and grew farther and farther away. I was in the ‘mama duck and baby duck camp.’
Sarah paused, trying to remember. But her mind drew a blank.
“I’m sorry, honey. I don’t remember that at all.”
They walked along in silence for several minutes, then Sarah said, “I’ve decided I’ve been babied long enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, everyone has rebuffed my offers to help. Oh, I appreciate it. I know why you’ve all been doing it. But I’m tired of being sent to my apartment and told to lie down. I’m tired of everyone assuming there’s nothing I can do to help the cause. I want to contribute. I want to help, damn it.”
Hannah looked at her and smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just can’t remember the last time I heard you curse.”
“Well, maybe I should more often. Damn it.”
She smiled as well.
“It’s nice to see you smile again.”
“It’s nice to have something to smile about.”
“What does Bryan think of your decision to go back to work?”
“He doesn’t like it much. He’s the head guy in charge of the ‘Go back to bed and rest’ brigade.”
“Want me to talk to him?”
“No. I just want you to back me up when he comes looking for me and wants to pick me up and carry me back to the bedroom.”
Hannah smiled again.
“I remember a time when you looked forward to him picking you up and carrying you to the bedroom.”
“Yeah, well I don’t remember much of that either.”
“But your memory is coming back, right?”
“A little at a time, yes. The doctors told me in time I’d remember most things, but would likely never get it all back.”
“I’ll tell you what. I have to relieve Frank at the security desk in half an hour. Why don’t you help me work my shift? We can present a united front against Bryan when he comes looking for you, as well as anyone else who says you shouldn’t be working yet. And if you can finish the shift with no problem, we can use that as evidence that you’re as capable as anyone of contributing.”
“Hannah?”
“Yes?”
“Just how sure are you that Cupid is going to hit?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. I’m not certain at all. This is one of those times when I’m praying I’m just crazy. Just being paranoid. That Cupid 23 disintegrated or changed course and has already passed us by. I’m willing to accept a lifetime of ‘I told you sos’ from Mark and everybody else just to be wrong on this one.
“But here’s the thing. We’ve gone through a lot of time and effort ensuring our survival from the first strike ten years ago. It would be stupid, in my book, to let that go to waste just so we could all perish by a second strike. If there’s just one chance in a thousand of Cupid hitting the earth, I say let’s prepare for it. If I’m wrong, so be it. We haven’t lost anything.
“We’ve lost Eva.”
Hannah stopped short.
And Sarah immediately regretted her words.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Yes. We’ve lost Eva. You’re right.”
“Hannah, I didn’t mean to blame you for Eva’s death. It wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault. I meant that Eva lost her life for the cause. She believed, like you do, that preparing was not only a good idea, it was something we had to do. If we slack off now, she will have died in vain. Whether Cupid happens or not, you’re right. We need to prepare. If there’s a second strike our continued survival will be ensured. If it doesn’t we’re no worse off than we were before. Our efforts won’t have gone to waste. That’s what I meant to say.”
Hannah said nothing, but squeezed her friend’s hand. It was a nonverbal way of conveying she forgave Sarah for her clumsy choice of words.
“Speaking of Eva,” Sarah continued, “I have only vague recollections of her. Everyone has been talking about how wonderful she was. How caring and loving a woman she was. Would you tell me about her, so I can miss her as much as everyone else?”
The two women walked back to the big house, then straight to the control center to relieve Frank.
They were surprised to find their friend fingerprinting shell casings.
-32-
“Frank, what are you doing?”
The old cop looked up as he dusted black powder carefully over a piece of brass.
“Oh. Hi. How are you feeling, Sarah?”
“I’m much better, Frank. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, you know. Some days are better than others. It helps to stay busy.”
Hannah asked, “Again, Frank. What are you doing?”
“Fingerprinting shell casings.”
“Well, duh. I can see that.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“You’re right, Frank. I asked the wrong question. I should have asked, ‘Why are you trying to lift fingerprints off of shell casings?’”
“These are the shells I got from Marty. He lifted them from the crime scene where he found his murder victim.”
Hannah suspected that was the case. Still, it sent shivers up her spine wh
en she heard Frank say the words “crime scene,” as though Nathan Martel’s death wasn’t justified. As though he hadn’t deserved to die.
Hannah had talked to Frank a few days before, just after Marty had dropped off the shells.
She’d asked him then what he’d planned to do with them.
His only response had been, “I don’t know yet.”
Perhaps Hannah shouldn’t have made assumptions. She’d heard that old adage many times about people who make assumptions and who ended up looking like as ass. Perhaps it was more wishful thinking that drove her to believe Frank would intentionally smudge any fingerprint evidence the brass casings might bear. In an effort to protect his friends who took Martel on his last ride, then dispatched him to the pits of hell where he undoubtedly belonged.
After all, they were good men who believed they were doing the right thing by preventing Martel from hurting others as he’d hurt young Sarah.
As misguided as they were, their hearts were in the right place.
Surely that had to account for something, and surely Frank could see that.
These were trying times for Frank Woodard.
He’d been struggling over Eva’s death, and although there was no lack of love and support from the others around him, it did just a limited amount of good. For grieving was such a deeply personal thing.
Eva had always been his rock. The one person in the world who could calm him, comfort him. Make his world right again.
Of course, there was always the possibility he’d have to live without her, that she’d go before him. But he’d always assumed it would be much later, that they’d both die of old age. And if she left him alone it wouldn’t be for long.
Frank, like most of the others, laid no blame at David’s door. Eva’s death was an accident. Nothing more and nothing less.
Frank accepted that.
But it didn’t make the loss any easier to take.
In the absence of Eva’s comfort, Frank lost himself in other pursuits. He signed up for double shifts at the control center. Security was something he knew well. Something he was comfortable with. Something which soothed his pain.
Marty knew nothing of Eva’s death when he arrived at the compound a few days before to drop off the shell casings. They were sealed in a zip lock bag, just as he’d said they were, when he was ushered in the gate.
He’d been too caught up in his own world, preparing the Eden prison for occupancy by the tiny town’s residents, to keep up on what was going on in the compound. And the compound’s residents hadn’t thought to invite Marty or Lenny to the funeral, since they had their own hectic schedule to keep.
And since they’d only known Eva peripherally anyway.
Marty had walked up to the control center that day, handed Frank the bagged casings, and asked nonchalantly, “Hello, Frank, how’s you and the missus?”
He hadn’t known.
When he’d learned of his blunder he apologized a thousand times. Frank sloughed it off and told him not to worry about it. He’d never let the faux paux come between himself and a good friend.
And besides, Marty had brought him a gift that day in the expended bullet casings.
It wasn’t much of a gift, to be sure. But it did give Frank something to do, something to focus on, when he was trying desperately to keep busy.
The busier he was, it seemed, the easier it was to grieve Eva’s passing.
It also provided him another thing to occupy his mind.
For days after he’d dropped off the zipped bag, it had sat there, on a shelf in the control center, directly above the short wave radio.
Frank had been a lawman for most of his life. He was well-versed in chain of custody procedures. He’d gone to great lengths in the past to hunt down and arrest murderers and other evil-doers, just to see their cases dismissed.
Because someone got sloppy with the evidence.
He knew that any defense attorney worth his salt would go to great lengths to find a broken link in the custody chain. An instance where someone left evidence unguarded. Or allowed an unauthorized person access to it.
It didn’t matter whether someone ever actually touched the evidence or tried to tamper with it in some way.
The mere possibility of such a thing happening was enough to taint the evidence and make it worthless in court.
Frank knew better than to let the zippered bag just sit there, accessible to anybody and everybody, day after day. He knew that if Marty’s case ever went to trial, it might be the killer or killers’ ticket to freedom.
He left it there, because, in all honesty, he didn’t know if he cared.
Now, though, on this particular day, things were slow at the security console.
David and his bunch weren’t going out any more after RVs.
Not after that day.
On the day Eva passed, there was an unspoken agreement between all in the compound. They’d gather no more RVs. They’d make do with what they had, no matter how many additional guests they had to let into the mine.
There was no longer any desire whatsoever to go on any more RV runs.
The only real activity the control center was involved with on this particular day was coordinating the arrivals and departures of the truck drivers as they came and went through the mine’s overhead door.
So Frank had some extra time on his hands.
Enough time to leave the station for just a few seconds to retrieve his fingerprint kit from a nearby storage closet.
The kit, of course, was old school. It was a type not used by any of the police departments in Texas even before the big freeze.
And Frank no longer had access to AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System used by law enforcement agencies around the world before the world went to hell.
Frank had explained all that to Marty beforehand. He was half hoping he could talk Marty out of even asking for his help.
But Marty didn’t bite.
“Even if you can’t identify the killer through AFIS, you can at least record his prints so if I ever have a suspect you can match them up,” he’d said. “That way you can either eliminate him or give me some evidence to present to the prosecutor.”
Hannah was a bit alarmed to find Frank printing the casings. She’d heard the rumors, like everyone else, that some of her friends might be involved in the murder.
Still, she had to hold her tongue. Everyone in the compound had been careful not to share their suspicions with Sarah. She’d been through enough already, and the thought that her husband might be involved in a murder might be too much for her to bear.
Even if everyone pretty much considered it justified.
So Sarah didn’t know she might have murderers walking the halls of the big house alongside her.
She wasn’t even aware that Martel had been killed.
And by unspoken agreement, neither Hannah nor Frank would tell her.
Hannah tried her best to sound disinterested, as though she were merely passing the time of day.
“So, Frank, have you found any prints that Marty can use?”
Frank didn’t even look up from his task at hand before answering.
“A couple of smudges. One possible. Kind of small, but it might have ten good points of reference. I’ll know more when I can examine it with a magnifying glass.”
“Do we even have a magnifying glass?”
“There’s one in the kit.”
“And what are you going to do if you find a usable print?”
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Give it back to Marty. Let him figure out what to do with it. It’s his case.”
Hannah reached over and picked up one of the casings, with ungloved hands, and held it up to the light as if to examine it.
She couldn’t have cared less whether she was tainting any evidence. She was intentionally trying to. Frank knew it as well, but pretended not to.
“Put that down, you big dummy. Don’t touch anything else.”
&nb
sp; But Hannah didn’t have to. The damage was already done.
-33-
At that particular moment in time, at a place somewhere east of Eden, though nowhere as exotic at Steinbeck’s version, Marty Hankins was busy himself.
He was hooking up the brake line and pigtail on a Coca Cola trailer.
It was a jewel of a find.
Fifty miles away from the nearest town, it was untouched since the freeze. Highway 83 was not traveled by nomads, who stuck to the interstates because there were more trucks there.
This particular rig was making deliveries to small town convenience stores and gas stations and had been traveling the back roads when the trucker decided to abandon it.
He’d only delivered a third of his load. The rest of the goodies were still in the trailer. And although many of the cans had burst when they froze, the majority of the bottles had survived intact. The plastic containers were much more likely to expand and contract while keeping their contents intact.
He crawled into the back and unscrewed the lid on a bottle of Sprite.
He was surprised that it still fizzed.
And what’s more, it still tasted good.
Carbonated beverages, of course, weren’t preferable during a long stay at the prison waiting for the earth to thaw again.
Bottled water was much better.
But in a pinch either would do.
The previous day Marty had inspected the exercise yard at Eden prison. It was filling up quite nicely, although they had a long way to go before he’d fill comfortable. In the early days his drivers were grabbing anything and everything they came across, and the yard was filling up unnecessarily with things they didn’t need.
Like a truck full of paintings and art supplies. And another full of industrial table saws.
Marty had to call his drivers together and to tell them, “Use your head. I don’t care how convenient a load is to grab, if it’s not something we can use, you’re wasting valuable time and space.”
It got better after that, but the problem didn’t go away entirely.
A New Start: Final Dawn: Book 9 (Volume 9) Page 11