by Trace Conger
I didn’t say anything.
Little Freddie pointed to the .45. “If you aren’t going to shoot me, you mind easing that thing down?”
I lowered my weapon, but kept it tight to my side.
Little Freddie walked past me and into the kitchen. He opened his pantry door and stuffed a few boxes into his duffle.
I watched him pack the duffle and remembered the suitcase in the back of his car. “Where you going?” I said.
“I’m in my own pickle, thanks. I’m not in the business of killing kids and wives.”
“Ex-wife,” I corrected him.
“But if I bitch out and don’t follow through, Bishop is going to send Wallace after me, too. Plus, I hear there’s some big fucker from Detroit in town. Here to find out who killed Rollo and Hickman. And now, thanks to you, the Feds. That’s too much heat for me. Figured it was a good time for a vacation.”
“The guy from Detroit, that’s Dunbar,” I said. “Bishop turned me over to him. He strapped me to a chair and tried to burn my face off with ammonia.”
“Funny, I heard he was more keen to cutting off nutsacks.”
“I’d rather not find out,” I said. “Look, the way I see it, Bishop played us both. He used us to clear his way out of Cincinnati. And now he plans to feed us to the wolves. Wolves from Detroit.”
Little Freddie added a few more boxes to his duffle. “And if Bishop turned on you, then it’s just a matter of time before he turns on me,” he said. “I’m not one to sit around waiting to die. Thus, the vacation.”
“Bishop know you’re leaving?
“That’d defeat the purpose of running away, wouldn’t it?”
Little Freddie finished packing his duffle, zipped it up and slung it over his shoulder.
“So we’re cool?” I said, slipping the gun back into my waistband. “I’d rather not have to be looking over my shoulder for you, too.”
“We’re cool. As long as I never see you again. You got a funny way of fucking up people’s lives, so stay the hell away from me.”
“Deal. And thanks for the tip on Wallace.”
“Don’t thank me, Finn. Just get your head right and get your family out of trouble. I don’t have anyone left to protect. You do. I’ve been at this for a long time, and I’ve known people like Wallace and I’ve known people like you. Trust me when I tell you the people like Wallace always win.”
“I’ll take care of Wallace.”
“Then, it’ll just be someone else. You can’t protect them forever. Sometimes it’s easier to run.”
Little Freddie ushered me onto the front porch and looked up and down Orchard before closing and locking his front door.
“The GPS unit on my car,” I said. “You put that there?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“I found it yesterday. I think Sam planted it. You might want to sweep yours if you’re hitting the road.”
“I’ll do that. Did you ditch it?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Christ, Finn. You’re dumber than I thought. How are you still alive?”
“I’m going to make it work for me.”
Little Freddie shook his head. “I’m not big on advice,” he said. “But I’ve been at this a lot longer than you, so listen up. If you’re smart, you’ll get out of this shit while you can. Play this game too long, and you end up tied to a concrete block at the bottom of some backwoods lake with a bullet in your neck. You’ve got a family for shit’s sake. Round them up and get out of here.”
“I can’t take them all with me,” I said. “I need to make sure Wallace follows me to Maine and doesn’t try to go after my family first.”
“You’re the primary target, Finn. He’s coming after you first. Bishop’s orders. Take him out, and your family’s safe.”
Little Freddie pushed past me and walked toward the street.
“Look me up when you come back to town,” I said.
“I ain’t coming back.”
LITTLE FREDDIE CLIMBED INTO HIS Volvo, passed the cardboard lemonade stand and disappeared onto a side street. I was back in my car heading for I-71 North a moment later. It would be four hours before I hit the Ohio/West Virginia border and another fourteen hours before I found the cabin in Maine.
WALLACE PARKED HIS CAR UNDER a large oak in a residential neighborhood two blocks away from Daryl and Brooke’s home on Tangerine Court. He sat in his car and waited for his watch to tick past 11 p.m. Wallace moved his rearview from left to right, scanning the area behind him. The street corners and front yards were clear. No dog walkers. The few vehicles parked on the curb sat empty. Most of the main house lights were off and, he assumed, most of the homeowners were watching late-night television in bed, if not already asleep.
He stepped out of the car and walked the two blocks to the large stone wall welcoming everyone to Citrus Fields, “Home Sweet Home.” Surveying the street again, he turned the corner onto Tangerine Court and walked to the house with the green Range Rover.
Six spotlights tucked into flowerbeds lit up the front of the house. A cedar plank privacy fence surrounded the back yard. Wallace gripped the top of the fence, hopped over and landed with a soft thud on the other side. He walked across the trim lawn, onto a small deck and found the back door. Part wood, mostly glass. Light from a single overhead fixture shimmered off the brass deadbolt. The raised interior shade enabled Wallace to see throughout the lower level. Beyond the glass door was the kitchen and living room. The house was dark except for a dim light on the range hood in the kitchen.
Wallace unscrewed the bulb illuminating the back door, being careful not to burn his fingertips. He took a ring of bump keys and a screwdriver from his pocket. The first two keys he tried didn’t fit the lock, but the third slid in. He pulled the key out of the lock and slipped a rubber washer over the teeth and then reinserted it. The washer kept the key from going all the way into the lock. Wallace applied slight pressure, turning the key to the right. He tapped the key with a screwdriver handle. Nothing. He hit it again, harder this time. Still nothing. He tried again. The third tap bumped the tumbler’s pins, aligning the shear line and unlocking the deadbolt.
He returned the tools to his pocket, turned the knob and inhaled. He pushed the door open, his fingers tightening around the knob. He listened for the shrill beep, but no alarm sounded. Wallace walked into the kitchen and closed the door behind him. He crept through the kitchen, into the living room, where he stopped at the foot of the steps and listened. No television. He pulled a Glock from his belt holster and headed up the steps. The floor creaked with each step. At the upstairs landing, he turned down the hall. There were two bedrooms on the right side of the hallway and a third on the left side at the end of the hall. Wallace looked in the first bedroom. No one. He walked to the second room, where he could see the pink walls with purple circles through the darkness. Three large ponies, giant wall stickers, watched over the sleeping child, a pink blanket pulled over her. Wallace slipped the Glock back into the holster and removed the screwdriver from his rear pants pocket. He gripped the screwdriver tight and drew it up over his head as he approached the bed.
Wallace heard the floor creak first, and then a whisper.
“Take another step, and I’ll paint that wall with your insides.”
He stopped.
“Next time you bump a lock, you might want to get it right on the first try,” said the voice. “Otherwise, surprise goes down the shitter. Toss the screwdriver on the bed. And the piece, too. Slowly.”
Wallace did as the voice told him.
“Now turn around.”
Wallace turned to find a white-haired man in his seventies, holding a shotgun at his chest.
“Think you can get a shot off before I get to you, old man?” said Wallace.
“I’m willing to find out. How about you?”
“What about the girl?” said Wallace. “Close-range shotgun blast might hit her in the process. That’d be a shame.”
> “I might be worried if she was in that bed.”
Wallace looked back at the bed. He pulled the blanket down. A stuffed polar bear smiled back at him.
“Well done, old man. You gonna shoot me?”
“Maybe.” Albert paused. “Let’s take this downstairs.”
Wallace walked downstairs, Albert’s shotgun trained on his back.
Wallace stopped in the living room and turned around to face Albert.
“Let’s start with why you’re here,” said Albert.
“I’m looking for Finn Harding.”
“He don’t live here.”
“According to the DMV, he does.”
“You run the plates on the Range Rover?”
“Yes.”
“Not his car, dumbass. That’s my daughter’s car. Finn’s ex-wife. She lives here with her new husband. And the girl.” Albert paused. “And me.”
Wallace squinted at Albert. “The redhead. That’s your daughter?”
“That’s right. That piece of shit you’re looking for, he left my daughter in a bad way. He don’t come around here. So you got no reason to come back.”
“I just need to talk with Finn.”
Albert stepped closer to Wallace. “You aren’t hearing me. I don’t know where he is. We aren’t friends. He don’t talk to my daughter, and he don’t see his girl. So I can’t help you.” Albert paused. “This is what’s gonna happen: You get up from that couch and leave the way you came in. I’m calling the police in ten minutes and telling them I seen a suspicious black man in the neighborhood. I’ll give them your description. Given all the rich white people live back in here, I’m sure the police will be crawling all over the place. So if you’re smart, you won’t be coming back here anytime soon. And if you get brave and decide to pay us another visit, I swear I’ll carve you up. No warnings. You’ll hear a click, a bang and then nothing else. Ever. You got me?”
“I gotcha. You won’t see me again.”
“I got a good feeling you’re right, son.”
Wallace started toward the front door.
“I said the way you came in, shithead,” said Albert.
Wallace stopped and left through the back door.
ALBERT WAITED TEN MINUTES AND then called the police. He hung up the phone, tightened the light bulb Wallace unscrewed and locked the back door. He grabbed the Glock and screwdriver from Becca’s bed, walked into the bedroom at the end of the hall and placed them into the duffle on the floor. There, in a king-sized bed, Becca slept swathed in a thick comforter. Albert walked to the side of the bed and kissed her on the forehead. He sat down on the red Victorian couch in the corner of the room, placed the shotgun across his knees and watched his granddaughter sleep.
WALLACE RETURNED TO HIS CAR, pulled out from under the large oak tree and found a nearby gas station parking lot. He grabbed his cell phone, pulled up the GPS-tracking app and then dialed Bishop.
“I just left the ex-wife’s house. She’s shacking up with some other guy, but they’re all out of town. GPS shows Finn’s SUV off I-95 in Portland, Maine. He’s not moving, so he probably stopped for the night.” Wallace didn’t mention Albert.
“If he’s in Maine, he wants to put a lot of miles between us,” said Bishop. “Follow him. And when you find him, put a bullet in his head and chuck him in the Atlantic or feed him to a moose. I don’t give a shit. Just make sure he’s dead. You can mop up his family later.”
“What about Little Freddie?” said Wallace.
“Can’t reach him. I’m going to send Sam over to his home in the morning and find out what the fuck is going on.”
THANKS TO MY DIGITAL BREADCRUMBS, I knew Wallace would tail me, but I didn’t know how long it would take him to start. I minimized stops because I wanted to get to Maine as quickly as possible, but I did stop to stay the night at the Courtyard Marriott off I-95 in Portland, Maine. I was fourteen hours into the trip, and there wasn’t enough coffee on the East Coast to keep me awake long enough to get to Meddybemps in one day. I parked my SUV in the Hilton parking lot next door. I paid with cash and rested pretty well, knowing that even if Wallace caught up with me that night, he’d be staking out the wrong hotel.
The next morning, I grabbed two banana-nut muffins and a cup of coffee from the free continental breakfast, scoped out the Hilton’s adjacent parking lot for Wallace’s Shelby, which wasn’t there, and hit I-95 East by 6 a.m.
From the road, I called a contact in Meddybemps and asked him to haul my father’s boat to the town dock. It’d be hard to get to our island without it. I also asked him for a few provisions.
Within an hour, I turned east onto ME-9, and by 9:30 a.m. I found ME-191 South. That took me straight into Meddybemps, Maine. Two days and twelve hundred miles after I left Cincinnati, I pulled onto the access road to the Meddybemps town dock and parked my SUV in the parking lot next to a trailered pickup truck. Albert’s aluminum fishing boat bobbed in the water and slapped the dock. I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat, walked to the dock and climbed into the swaying boat. The red cooler that sat on the bench at the back of the boat offered bread, peanut butter, a two-liter of Coke, a dozen apples and two boxes of granola bars. It wouldn’t fill the pantry, but it would keep me out of the grocery store for a few days.
I pushed the cooler to the side, leaned over the back of the boat and felt around the rear tow hook until I found the fishing line tied there. I pulled up the line, snapped the boat key off the end and cranked the ignition. The engine started on the first turn. It had been run within the last few hours. I untied the lines, pushed the boat away from the dock and hit the throttle. The lake was still. No wind and no traffic. I passed two fishing boats as I zigzagged the familiar route from the town dock to the island that my father referred to as his “summer home.” Fifteen minutes after shoving off, I tied up the boat inside the boathouse.
I stepped out of the boathouse and onto the main dock and for the first time I stopped and surveyed the lake. The sun glistened off my boat’s wake that just reached the island. Once the lake returned to glass, I saw the minnows swimming around the dock and hundreds of water striders dancing across the lake surface. I inhaled deeply and recognized the clean and crisp air that eluded me on the Ohio River.
My grandfather purchased the one-acre island and camp in 1962. According to family lore, he visited the lake for a vacation the previous year and fell in love with the fishing, the water hyacinth and the proximity to nowhere. With the exception of a new boathouse some twenty years ago and a few minor updates more recently, the camp hadn’t changed much since he signed the deed. My father spent time every summer here after my grandfather bought the place. After he retired twelve years ago, he spent the entire summer at the camp. My brother and I would visit from time to time, and while I hadn’t been here in the past five years, the place still looked exactly the same as I’d remembered. My father, normally a staple on the lake, hadn’t returned to the cabin since he moved into the retirement community. In fact, he rarely mentioned the cabin in the past three years.
A fishing boat sped by the island about a hundred yards out and snapped me out of the lake-induced trance. I headed up the walking trail to the main cabin and unlocked the door with the key we kept under a rock next to the porch. I glanced back over my shoulder and took another look at the still water.
Then I closed the door behind me and went to work.
WALLACE FOLLOWED THE GPS APP into the Meddybemps town-dock parking lot. He found four vehicles—three pickups and a Lincoln Navigator—in the small lot. Only the Navigator wore Ohio plates. Wallace stood on the aluminum dock and watched the lake. Three fishing boats were anchored a few hundred yards out and a pontoon crisscrossed the lake, an inflatable inner tube and rider bobbing behind it. The Meddybemps Community Center stood adjacent to the town-dock parking lot. Wallace stepped across the stone walking bridge that spanned a narrow creek dividing the two properties.
The Meddybemps Community Center was housed inside a large whit
e building with a flagpole in the front and two garbage dumpsters on the side. An abandoned boat trailer peeked out from the overgrown wooded area to the right. Only one car was parked in the community center lot, a brown station wagon with wood paneling and a yellow sign on its roof that read “FREQUENT STOPS. U.S. MAIL.”
Wallace walked inside the building and into a large rec room with photos and plaques on the wall and about two dozen folding chairs set up in rows. There was a small office with a desk, and next to that a Plexiglas window with a wooden ledge and a bell. The sign next to the window read “U.S. POST OFFICE. RING FOR SERVICE.” Wallace rang the bell on the ledge, and a woman in her sixties appeared from a back room.
“Hi there,” said the woman. “If you’re here for pickup, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow. No delivery on Sundays. But you can drop off if you like.”
“I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help,” said Wallace. “Finn Harding. His car is in the lot next door. Any idea where I might find him?”
“Nah, name don’t sound familiar. That lot is reserved for boaters only. If he’s parked in that lot, he’s probably out on the lake. It’s a public launch. Or one of the island camps.”
“Island camps?”
“Yeah, there’s eight camps out there. Only way to get to ‘em is by boat. You know, being islands and all. Gotta park somewhere.”
Wallace looked at the U.S. Mail insignia on her shirt. “You never heard of Finn Harding? Or maybe Albert Harding? You ever come across those names sorting mail?”
“I don’t sort mail,” said the woman. “I just work on the weekends. Paperwork mostly. So I wouldn’t know those names. Now Janet will be here tomorrow if you want to come back. She’s a sorter and might know your friends. You can ask her.”
“I’d like to find him today.”
“Then, your best bet might be Mitch Skinner. He grew up on the lake. Knows everyone around here.”