He could see them, Roy thought.
He returned uneasily to the letters, discovering without much surprise that Frederick had taken his brother’s advice and gone to meet with Silas Vesey, who still lingered along the ridge.
“I told him that the delays were unacceptable, and that if he was capable of aiding the sick, I bid him to do so. He asked if I wished him to see that the men were bound to the bridge. I responded that if he was, indeed, capable of healing, that is exactly what I wished. His response was most unusual. He put forth a smile that chilled me more than the wind and the snow and what he told me made no sense at all. He said that it might be far easier for him to bind the most gravely ill of the men to the bridge. I denounced the claim as preposterous, but Vesey said that he could heal only the willing, and sometimes desperate men were more willing. At that moment, I had a distinct and abiding sense of fear, and wished deeply that I had not made the trip to see him at all. He seemed to sense my doubt, and told me that he could promise the bridge shall be completed, and said that I was fortunate because he was the only man in the region who could see to such a thing. There are others capable, he said, but none in these mountains. I said I had no time to send for anyone else, and he told me that if I wished the crew bound to the bridge, then he would need to be of them. I was not surprised that he should try to extort a wage, but I said not a dime would pass into his palm until I saw proof of his abilities. He then told me that dollars were not his concern, that he simply wanted me to know that once he agreed to help, he’d be required to remain with the crew for a long while, and then asked whether I believed Blade Ridge will be a prosperous and well-traveled region for years to come. I assured him that it will be, though the idea of his wishing to linger among us did not appeal in the slightest. I wished no dealings with him at all, but I know well that our time is short and our investors impatient, and so I sent him on to try. I doubt he will be of help despite his assurances, and I look forward to the day of his departure.”
The next letter was a great deal shorter, and far more optimistic.
“I have counted more men working on the bridge each morning than the day before. There is an odd quality to watching them work—never have I seen a more silent group of men—but the construction is sound.”
Then came his final letter, written on Christmas Eve 1888, and Roy read it with astonishment.
“My concerns about Mr. Vesey have been growing immensely, and last evening I endeavored to put them at ease by observing the men in the night. Their silence during the day, which is when I typically visit, has unnerved me, and well it should. Our bridge, brother, is a creation of an evil I have never believed possible. The nails are being driven by dead men. At night, Vesey visits the sick with a torch in hand. Sometimes he moves on, and the next morning those men have passed. But on two occasions last evening, I watched with my own eyes as he lowered the torch to a dying man. The flames turned to coldest blue, and then the man rose. I watched this happen, Roger. There is no mistaking what I saw.”
It was the last letter Frederick Whitman Jr. wrote, or at least the last that the family had preserved. Roy flipped through several pages of business-related correspondence with frustration, hoping for more, and finally hit upon an exchange from May 1890, between Roger, by then located in Sawyer County, and his wife, who was still in Boston. It was the first mention of his older brother.
“We are moving him again, and I maintain hope that the plagues of his mind will soon abate. I’ve heard numerous accounts of the miraculous restorative powers of the mineral springs of French Lick and West Baden, Indiana, and have been assured that time spent at rest amidst those healing waters may well be what my brother requires.”
The next appearance of Frederick Whitman Jr. in the college archives was his obituary, published in 1892. It said that Frederick, an ill man, had perished in Indiana. The formal language of the time did not succeed in entirely obscuring the fact that he had died by his own hand.
33
THE HONORABLE DOUG GRAYLING, Sawyer County Circuit Court judge, was presiding over his morning docket when Kimble arrived, so Kimble waited in his office, pretending to flip through an Outdoor Life magazine so he didn’t have to make conversation with the judge’s clerk and explain the purpose of his visit. The issue he picked up included a feature detailing mountain lion attacks in Montana and California. Just what he wanted to read about today.
When Grayling finally wrapped up his docket, it was nearly eleven in the morning, and Kimble had an ache down low along his spine from sitting so long.
“Kimble, hey there.”
He stood and shook the judge’s hand. “Hello, Doug. You have a minute?”
“Of course.”
They walked into his private office, and the judge sat behind his desk, let out a soft groan, and said, “It would be nice if assholes took the holidays off, wouldn’t it, Kimble? If people said, Hey, let’s take the month of December and not be pricks to one another, not get arrested, not get charged, not be arraigned. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“It would. You’ll have a tough time convincing them of the merits of the plan, though.”
“Agreed,” Grayling said. “What can I do for you?”
Kimble took a deep breath, looked at the judge who’d sentenced Jacqueline Mathis to ten years, and asked for an order on jailer to be issued. It was a simple bit of legalese granting the sheriff’s department temporary custody of an inmate. Usually this was done for court proceedings of some kind, when the inmate was required to travel for a hearing. Today Kimble requested it for purposes of investigation, and Grayling went silent.
“She’s in a minimum-security facility,” Kimble said, “and she’s recently been approved for work release. There’s no reason we can’t borrow her for a few hours.”
“No reason we can’t, okay. But I need to hear the reason we should.”
Kimble gave him the pitch: active investigation and a delicate one. Based on evidence found in Wyatt French’s lighthouse, he said, it was possible that a series of accidents that had occurred over the years at Blade Ridge might have been initiated.
“Initiated?” Grayling said. “What in the hell does that mean? Caused by French?”
Kimble had expected this jump, and while he felt a pang of guilt at allowing the misconception to flourish, he figured Wyatt would have approved. He’d wanted Kimble to pursue the truth, not polish his reputation.
“Possibly. There have been many deaths out there, Doug, and survivor accounts are uncomfortably similar. People report the accident being initiated by a man in the road.”
“You think he was causing car accidents by running out in the road?”
“I don’t think it’s anywhere near that simple. But he kept track of the dead, and of the survivors. I’ll tell you this in total honesty: I’ve never been more disturbed by discovery of evidence than I am by what I found in that lighthouse.”
“Homicide investigation,” Grayling echoed. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“Absolutely.”
“The man is dead. We can’t prosecute.”
“That does not remove the need for answers,” Kimble said, “and there’s the distinct possibility—probability, actually—that he was not working alone. One of our deputies died last night, Pete Wolverton, and that demands—”
“I’ve heard. I understood that he was killed by a cougar.”
“Autopsy results are pending, Doug, but I just got off the phone with the medical examiner. He says those results will confirm what I suspected when I saw the body last night—the cougar might have found Pete, but it did not kill him.”
“You’re saying that Pete Wolverton was murdered last night.”
“Yes. I think that’s what happened. I may be wrong, and I hope to be. But I don’t think that I am, and neither does the ME.”
“Tell me again why we need Jacqueline Mathis released for this?”
“She’s one of the survivors who reported activity on the road
.”
“Well, interview her then. Get a statement.”
“I have. That’s why I’m here. I want her to walk me through it. I can’t overstate the importance of seeing the way she recreates the scene, Doug. I simply cannot overstate that.”
“You have a distinctly personal relationship with that woman, Kimble.”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“She shot you. That constitutes a—”
“I am well aware of who she is and what she did,” Kimble said. “I’m asking for a little latitude here.”
“It’s not my job to give you latitude, it’s my job to uphold the law.”
“That’s both of our jobs,” Kimble said. “How long have we worked together, Doug? How many cases? You know me, and you know my word. I’m asking you to let that count for something.”
“Always has, always will. But I’ve got to understand how she can help!”
“Her recollection of the scene is special.”
“Special.”
“Yes.” Kimble leaned forward and said, “Doug? I have never worked another case that feels as threatening to the people of Sawyer County as this one. Never.”
Grayling looked at him with alarm. “Car accidents that were really homicides. We’re actually talking about this. Based on evidence you found in a lighthouse.”
“We’re actually talking about it, yes. And I need her at the scene. It’s critical.”
“Someone else should handle her testimony.”
“It’s my investigation. And that was my deputy who died last night. I’m not turning it over to anyone else, Doug. You have a problem with that, you can call the sheriff himself. Troy will approve it.”
The Honorable Doug Grayling swore under his breath and ran both hands through hair that glistened with dye that left it an impossibly radiant shade of black.
“She shot you,” he said.
“I recall that, yes.”
“And you want me to issue an order on jailer to turn her over to you.”
“Twenty-four-hour release. This thing is big, Doug. It’s worth it. No, check that—demands it. I have to know what she can recreate at that scene.”
Grayling pushed back from his desk and stared at him for a long time. Kimble, who understood the value of silence, let him stare and didn’t press.
“I can’t give her to you alone,” Grayling said finally. “Not with your personal history. And I need a female officer there. Is that clear?”
“Diane Mooney will be with me,” Kimble said, and it was the second time he’d ever lied to a judge. The first time had also been with Grayling, only Kimble had been on the witness stand then. Not so much a lie back then as an omission. The prosecutor hadn’t asked specifically if, after the supposedly accidental shot that had dropped Kimble to the farmhouse floor, Jacqueline Mathis had leaned down, smiling, and pressed the muzzle of his own gun to his forehead.
“Do me a favor on this,” Kimble said. “Do the people of your county a favor on this. Keep it quiet, all right? You give me twenty-four hours and I hope to have the answers for you. You might not like them, or even believe them, but I intend to have them.”
“I’ll issue it. But I don’t like the way it feels.”
“Neither do I,” Kimble told him, and it felt good to speak the truth again.
34
ROY SAT IN A BOOTH at the Bakehouse, wondering why Kimble would possibly want to meet to discuss something so dark, so wildly implausible yet thoroughly documented, in a brightly lit coffee shop. It felt like a discussion for a dim and private room, where even whispers wouldn’t be overheard, where two men could talk about madness and not fear the consequences.
Kimble had been firm, though. He wanted to meet at the Bakehouse.
When he came through the door, Roy was taken aback by just how exhausted he looked. The chief deputy had always walked with a touch of a limp after the shooting, and stood with a posture that suggested more years than he had, but today you could have said he was fifty and no one would have blinked.
“I’ve got a story,” Roy said. “But it’s not one you’re going to want to hear, and the source is hardly reliable. It’s not just more than a century old, it was also left to us by an insane man. I don’t even know that it is going to be worth hearing.”
Kimble said, “It’ll be worth hearing. And maybe we shouldn’t judge the man’s sanity just yet.”
It was an odd thing for him to say, this man who was so painfully practical that extracting colorful quotes from him for a newspaper story had been almost impossible. Roy shrugged, said, “Okay,” and then he told him the story.
When he was through, Kimble didn’t respond right away. He sipped his coffee and looked over the notes Roy had taken in the archives, studied the pictures Wyatt had already found there, and did not speak.
“Like I told you,” Roy said, “this is probably wasting time that you can’t afford to waste. It’s a good chiller, I’ll grant that, but the idea that it has anything to do with what’s—”
“I think he was looking for Vesey,” Kimble said. “All those pictures labeled NO? I think you’re right. He must have been looking for Vesey.”
Roy sighed, lowered his voice, and said, “I hit on the same idea. Then I hit on one that’s even more absurd. I was wondering why he was content to write the names of the dead on the walls, but he used photographs for the murderers. It almost suggested that… that he had seen them, somehow. That what he was looking for was visual confirmation.”
“I believe that’s correct.”
Roy stared at him. “The story I just told you was about dead men building a bridge, Kimble. Are you being this calm about it because you’re waiting for someone to come take me away to a padded cell, or is there something I don’t understand?”
Kimble was staring out to the patio, where in warm weather the sidewalk tables were popular. Now they’d been put away for the season, and a trace of snow was beginning to gather where they’d once stood.
“There are lots of things we don’t understand,” he said. “And I’m tired of it, Darmus. I can’t bear it anymore. I’ve got an idea that might help me understand it, and it might also cost me my job by the time things are done. I think it probably will. If things go well, then my badge may be all that I lose.”
“What in the world are you talking about, Kimble?”
“There’s a ghost out there,” Kimble said, turning back to him. “Or the devil? Some combination of the two? I don’t know how to explain him, but this Vesey sounds just right. Now you’ve told me the stories you found. Let me tell you the ones I’ve found.”
He told them, while Roy’s coffee went cold and people milled around them, laughing and talking and complaining about last-minute holiday shopping and long car trips to see family in far-off places. Roy listened as the most dogmatic cop in the county spoke of specters with blue torches and bargaining that led to murder and invisible beams of light that had protected Blade Ridge for many years. He told all of this, and Roy listened, and he believed.
The time when he could not believe had passed.
“If I’m crazy,” Kimble said, watching him carefully, “at least I’ve got company. I appreciate that.”
Then Kimble told him his intention to take Jacqueline Mathis to the ridge, and Roy found himself shaking his head.
“Too dangerous for you, Kimble. Even if Grayling approved it, if something goes wrong out there and you’re left with this explanation, you’re done.”
“I know it,” Kimble said simply. “I’ve thought on that a great deal, trust me. But let me show you the other side of that coin. If I don’t take her out there, and I don’t do anything about it, and a hundred years from now someone is still adding names to that list Wyatt started… well, which would you rather have? Your parents died out there.”
Yes, they had. And if Kimble was to be believed, they had died by making the right choice. Roy thought back to Wyatt’s words in that final phone call, those that had incensed him so
deeply: The decisions that they both made. Very brave. Very strong. And knowing what they were saying goodbye to, with a child at home, it must have been so difficult.
He’d thought Wyatt was suggesting that they’d killed themselves. Instead, he was suggesting that they hadn’t been willing to preserve their own lives at the cost of another’s.
“That’s why Wyatt killed himself,” Roy said. “He had to take a life. He chose his own.”
“It seems that way.”
“When he got his diagnosis, he would have known that just waiting to die wasn’t an option for him. Maybe he could feel that? I think that he could.” Roy recalled the man’s panicked breathing on that final phone call, recalled how he’d said that he was becoming afraid of what he could do in the dark, and nodded. “Whatever was pulling on him, it was tugging harder at the end.”
“You see what I’m saying?” Kimble said, his voice mournful but determined. “Which is worse, Darmus?”
“The second option,” Roy said, and then, just as Kimble started to nod, he said, “But that’s assuming you could do something about whatever is out there. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest that you can.”
“Jacqueline thought she could help.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But she can see them, Darmus. She can see them, and I can’t. I can’t fight something I can’t see.”
“I don’t know that you can fight dead men, either,” Roy said. “Maybe you can fight them, but win? How do you defeat the dead, Kimble?”
The chief deputy was silent for a very long time, and then he said, “I need to know what she sees. If there’s nothing that can be done, she’ll know it. If there is something… maybe she’ll know that, too.”
“Why would she if Wyatt didn’t? He figured out that the light helped, and he figured out the history of the place. He did everything that could be done and still nothing worked.”
The Ridge Page 22