Shadows and Ash: Pulp Friction 2014 Finale

by Harner, Laura

  Frank Watson’s side of the fence told a different story. Even here, at the edge of Mountain Shadows you could read his intent, clearly written on the land around them. The land was his, to mold to his will, to provide for his needs, to plant, and harvest, and use to his own ends.

  He was no villain, just a man who made a living from the land, and that was the extent of his care of it. Just here, on the other side of this fence, Finn could see that he’d had earthmovers in recently, flattening, leveling, prepping the land for some purpose.

  Feeling unaccountably heavy, Finn approached the fence. It wasn’t like Frank and his property management strategies were new to him. It seemed to sag in one section, and he picked his way through the growth until he reached it.

  Whistling softly, he pulled off one of his lambskin leather gloves and touched the sharp, spiked wire lightly. Someone had cut through all three lengths, creating an easy access point between the two properties. He’d originally intended to follow the fence down to a stile, and cross over, making his way over the field—now barren—to Watson’s house. Someone had cut a good fifteen minutes off his walk with this act, but he had to wonder why. What purpose was served by cutting that fence, creating an easy access point between the two properties?

  Why would Frank do it? Or any of his employees, for that matter?

  Because it was certain that none of the genuine Mountain Shadows residents had done it. Then again, with the only road into Mountain Shadows passing by the lodge, maybe one of their villainous associates…Lassiter, Arturo, Rademacher…Rowe’s old crew…had done it? Made themselves a handy little access point via Frank’s land?

  Finn filed the thought away. Something to think about later. To go with the ambiguous not-quite-a-plan-yet mash-up of ideas flitting around the back of his head, planted by Rob’s eye games and Rowe’s avowals.

  As he walked in the direction of Watson’s house, the significance, the familiarity of the ravaged landscape all around came clear.

  This wasn’t about farming, about making a living from the land.

  He paused and looked back to where he’d come from. Hard packed earth, devoid of green, flat and unnaturally level anywhere outside of Kansas, a huge, raw scar on the earth.

  It wasn’t being prepared for growth. No field of grain or acres of vegetables, not even neat little rows of Christmas pines would grow here.

  It was a construction site. Currently empty, but that wasn’t going to last.

  What was Frank building? The cleared area was way too big for a new house, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the one he lived in. A new barn? Too far from the house and main facilities of the ranch for that or a garage.

  Shrugging off yet another mystery, Finn shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and trudged into the wind, down the hard-packed road to find Watson. He hadn’t made it another five hundred yards before he picked up the sound of a rumbling ute engine over the constant shushing of the wind that had picked up since he’d left Rowe earlier.

  Finn stepped off the road and waited for the vehicle to pass. Instead, it pulled to a stop.

  “Professor, what brings you over here?” Watson smiled jovially, but his eyes were cold and calculating, and something about his posture, or maybe it was the rifle holstered and hanging from the crossbar behind him, gave Finn pause.

  “Was out walking and noticed a break in the fence.” He smiled. “On break, so I thought I’d walk over and let you know about it, so you can repair it.”

  “That so?” Watson turned off the ute’s engine and climbed out of the vehicle, walking over to stand near Finn. “I’ll send someone over to look at it.”

  Finn jerked his head back at the cleared land behind him. “You’re planning some construction?”

  A crafty smile flitted over the man’s face, gone as soon as it appeared. “Times are different. A man’s got to plan for the future. I’m going to be needing a bunk…house.”

  Finn pretended not to notice the hesitation. “That’s quite a ways from the main house and buildings, isn’t it?”

  Watson scowled. “Hands can be rowdy. Don’t want them disturbing the peace. I hear there’s been more trouble up to the campground.” He stared at Finn speculatively.

  “News travels fast.” Finn grinned wryly. “There was another fire.”

  “Word down at the Gas-n-Go is they took Scott in for it.”

  Stiffening, Finn shook his head. “Scott’s at the hospital, not the jail. He’s doing fine now though and they’ll be releasing him soon.” He deliberately tried to give the impression that Scott’s hospitalization was due to injuries received in the fire and not legalities. Watson seemed to know entirely too much. Either that, or he had a very different relationship with Merl down at the Gas-n-Go than Finn did.

  “That a fact?” Watson spat a disgusting stream of black tar from his chewing tobacco on the ground to the left of Finn. “Sorry to hear he was hurt. City boys don’t know enough about country living, I guess. Maybe he’s had enough of trying, you figure?”

  “Hm.” Finn shrugged noncommittally. “Anything’s possible.”

  “You do me a favor, professor. You see him next, pass on a message from me.”

  “I can do that.”

  “My daddy always said land was the best investment a man could make, and right about now, with the nigger in the White House and the economy in the toilet, I figure my money is safer in land than in the banks. I’ll take the whole parcel…campground and all off his hands, cash money. He can get on back to where he came from.”

  Finn blinked, struggling to control his distaste. “I’ll pass your offer along as soon as I see him.” The passionless slur spoke of a long-ingrained prejudice that Finn found particularly revolting.

  “I’m not joking. I want that land.” Watson waved a hand to encompass their surroundings. “It would be a damned shame if anything were to happen to devalue it any further.”

  “Right.” Finn backed a step away. Faen. He had his answer, didn’t he? Watson was about as creepy as they came, and nothing in his demeanor or attitude cleared him of wrongdoing. “You see anything yesterday?”

  “I see plenty.” Watson’s jaw worked. “What are you asking?”

  “Anyone hanging around who shouldn’t be, any strangers, anything out of place, other than a cut fence?”

  “It’s a big place.” Watson shrugged, but his gaze shifted to the right, in the direction of his house and the outbuildings. “I can ask around, see if anyone saw anything, but most everyone was out on Saturday, down in town for one thing or another. My men get the weekends off.”

  “What about you? You in town too?” Finn let insinuation color his voice, hoped that Watson would be tempted to further indiscretion. Apparently being a blond-haired, blue-eyed country boy was enough to loosen the man’s tongue into revealing his true nature. Maybe he could be led into more.

  “Someone has to tend the place, answer the phones,” Watson said flatly.

  “That’s the truth,” Finn replied. “Exactly what I was doing over at Mountain Shadow’s office when the fire broke out.”

  “Damn lucky no one’s been hurt bad in these fires yet.”

  Finn nodded slowly, considering. “Yes, it is.” Or was it? He pulled the flashlight out of his pocket. “It’s getting dark and Rowe warned me not to stay out too late.”

  Watson’s lip curled. “That’s the loony with the long hair, eh? He’s got that right anyway. Darkness falls and the temperatures drop, bad time to be out walking.” He turned back to the ute and then called out over his shoulder, “I can give you a lift, if you want.”

  His senses went on keen alert. The hair at the base of Finn’s neck prickled, and his palm grew damp around the flashlight. “How ’bout just over the field to the fence? I can show you where it’s cut, and that’ll put me just a few feet from where I’m supposed to meet up with the guys.”

  Watson assented and Finn climbed into the passenger seat, forgoing the seat belt for easy access to hi
s blade if he needed it. In case his indication that the others were waiting for him was too subtle. Your imagination is too strong, he chastised. Seeing everything as a threat, when Frank’s interest was clearly in acquiring the land, not in murder.

  “Fire marshal got anything to say about you all tramping all over looking into this yourselves?”

  “If he does, he’s keeping it to himself.” Finn sneaked a glance at Watson out the corner of his eye. The man had secrets, but whether they were related to the troubles at Mountain Shadows, Finn couldn’t say. He just felt uneasy in his presence, and maybe…

  Headlights swept the field as a vehicle tore down the hard-packed road at an unsafe speed. Frank barely gave it a glance, but Finn looked back, noting it was a dusty old truck of indeterminate model, but somehow vaguely familiar. Was this the truck Jilly had mentioned? If so, it could be more confirmation that Rademacher and Watson were working together. When he turned around, it was to meet Frank’s narrowed eyes.

  “You tell Scott what I said. I want that land, and I’ll pay him cash for a quick deal.”

  “Cash, got it.” Finn nodded.

  ***

  Amos sat in the small office Scott had set up behind the front desk area. The previous owners’ had kept immaculate records, and the transfer in ownership hadn’t changed anything. Scott picked right up where they left off.

  Figuring he didn’t need to go back more than ten years, Amos pulled the financial and accounting records and began a close inspection of both the regular operating expenses and revenues, and capital expenditures. There were repairs and maintenance, contractor salaries, food expenses, utilities, insurance…nothing appeared out of the ordinary. The cabins had been built prior to the ten year window he’d started with, but nothing stuck out.

  It was when he got to the letter from the previous owner to Scott, detailing the limitations of the purchases and rights and revisions that things got interesting.

  There were also six offers of purchase from the neighboring landowner, Frank Watson, that were at first politely, then more forcefully declined. It seemed the man wanted the land badly. There was also a letter, addressed to Scott from the former owner, adamantly warning Scott not to sell to Frank Watson.

  Which made the provisions of the sale of the land to Scott all the more fascinating. There were clauses in the contract forbidding the sale of the property to Watson and any other potential investor who wanted to develop the land beyond what it was—a campground and long-term cabin rental and lodge.

  Interesting. Amos wondered if Watson knew about the provisions of the transfer of title, or if Scott had really followed the line of reasoning out to its logical conclusion.

  The past year, though, since Scott took ownership, showed an interesting progression of expenses and revenues.

  Revenues were off a little at the beginning of the year, after the sale. That made sense, Amos thought. Scott was still recovering from his injuries sustained in the wildfire the year before. He had no experience in running a lodge, but Amos could see a steady growth in bookings. Expenses were tight, and the monthly financials started tight and ran that way throughout most of the year. It was six months into the fiscal year when the insurance premiums almost doubled, and the operating profit became razor thin.

  With revenues almost constant, there was no margin for additional operating expenses. Scott had the right idea, Amos mused, bringing in Charlie to renovate additional cottages and rent them out, but it seemed almost as soon as one came on-line, some accident took another off the grid. And expenses only increased, mainly in insurance and repairs and maintenance costs.

  “A prime opportunity for some well-meaning investor to swoop in and make a save-the-day offer at a bargain basement price,” Amos mumbled, tapping a pencil against the corner of the desk. “I wonder if this Watson fellow has made another offer?”

  Closing the file for the last month, Amos sat back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. He had a clear picture of what was going on. From the outside looking in, there were two possibilities.

  The first, Scott was looking to limit further losses and setting up an insurance scam where he could collect on ‘accidents’ to supplement a scant operating profit. Only…that was a short-term solution to a long-term problem, as the insurance premiums would outpace the cash influx and the campground would soon go bankrupt.

  The second, some outside entity was sabotaging the operations to devalue the property for a quick and dirty sale. There would almost have to be an inside knowledge of the property and its tenants to know just where to hit without hurting anyone and potentially being arrested for attempted murder. Some of the accidents had come close to causing harm, which made Amos suspicious.

  Knowing Scott, he could eliminate the first option. The second…from what he knew about the people living on the grounds, from firsthand interaction and through Charlie’s stories of the men, it made it hard to imagine any one of them could be in cahoots with someone like Watson to try to force Scott into a short sale.

  Unless…

  Amos found his mind drifting to this Carl Rademacher.

  His interaction with Jilly the previous day brought back memories of Amos’s own abuse. He’d told Charlie and Damon about the Major, but there had been more. Amos had been a small child, and while yes, his rape at the hands of the former Marine and his sons had been the first, it was far from the last time he’d been assaulted during his years in foster care. But he’d learned to defend himself, and as clichéd as it was, his rapists had to sleep sometime, and they often awoke to a knife at their throats, or on their next foray into his bed, found the boy knew how to kick and bite and scream.

  He’d been in over thirty placements by the time he was eighteen, and not one man or other boy took something from him without Amos extracting his own pound of flesh in return.

  The thought of a man raping his own daughter, then threatening to do the same thing to his own granddaughter…it turned his stomach. The abuse he’d suffered was nothing compared to what darling Jilly must have been through. And he remembered Charlie knew her as a young girl, going out of his way to draw her out of her shell and give her an escape through books. He felt a special connection.

  God gave second chances. Just witness the horrible acts Chip visited on his love’s family, but he’d also opened the door for Amos to find his own family.

  Perhaps…perhaps this was a chance for Amos to give this lovely young woman and her daughter a second chance. Carl was nothing to him; he’d taken down worse and slept peacefully at night. All he needed was a description of the man, and he would take care of things. No one, especially Charlie, need ever know what happened to the scumbag, and two innocent girls would be safe.

  He could live with it. Amos just needed to get to the safe back at his condo, and it would all be okay.

  Chapter Seven

  “You realize, we extend this opportunity as a courtesy only,” the stern-faced psychiatrist pronounced, lips puckered as though he’d bitten into a bitter lime.

  Cannon smiled thinly, calling on all the Southern superiority he’d been raised with. “I appreciate that, Dr. Evers.” The subtle emphasis implied all kinds of things, that his neurology background was more elite, more specialized, that psychiatry was a lesser field, that Flagstaff was nowhere near the sophisticated culture center that Atlanta was.

  The psychiatrist bristled slightly, but they both knew there was nothing he could do. Cannon had called in a favor from a long-ago classmate, and Dr. Evers was forced to allow him to see Richard Lassiter in a consulting capacity.

  “There’s no legal value in anything he might tell you.”

  Cannon stared until Evers dropped his gaze and muttered something unintelligible under his breath that might have been an apology. Of course, it might also have been a malediction, but since the man used his ID card to swipe the lock and gain the two of them admittance to the locked ward, he chose not to push it. “Thank you.” He stepped past the man, then waited near a nursing
station while he secured the door behind them.

  “This way.” Evers strode briskly down the hall. A few staff members in green scrubs gave them curious glances, but no one stopped them or spoke to them.

  The whole wing seemed inordinately quiet, and Cannon realized that was due to the soundproofing. Evers stopped to swipe his card again at another door about halfway down the hall. A tray of uneaten food sat congealing on a rolling cart outside the door. Cannon glanced at it, noting that it appeared to be a typical hospital breakfast, rubbery yellow eggs, a plastic bowl of canned fruit, an unopened carton of fat free milk, another of orange juice.

  Evers noticed the direction of his gaze and shook his head. His lips turned down in a frown. “He’s still refusing food. We’ve got him on an IV.”

  Pity. Lassiter had been a young man with all the advantages money and pedigree could buy him, until he’d been felled by love. Unrequited, unreciprocated, unwanted.

  The object of his affections had at first ignored him, then when Lassiter couldn’t be discouraged, the young man had changed schools, gone out of state. “Is he lucid?”

  “He’ll talk to you.” Evers shook his head again. “But as I said, he’s very disturbed, and anything he says is inadmissible in court.”

  “For god’s sake, do you imagine I’m here because I want to sue him or something?” Cannon snapped, running a hand through his hair, once more over-long and in need of a cut. “Both Professor Lorensson and I are concerned about Lassiter’s health and well-being.” The lie flowed easily from his lips, but then, they always had, even when he believed them, before he knew how much damage they could do. Polite lies, white lies, social lies, all to hide his secret desires, his gayness. He’d come to Flagstaff to live honestly, to give up the lies. Did it matter that these new lies were for a good cause? Was his new family worth a few more lies?

  “I can’t imagine why. According to the files…neither of you has reason.” If the man had seemed concerned for his patient, Cannon might have succumbed to guilt and invented a forgotten appointment, but Evers just seemed consumed by a curiosity that Cannon found particularly loathsome.