Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  “Becky, Buddy needs to stay by the front door for a while, all right?”

  She nodded and gave the dog one last pat on the head. Jack whistled and walked back to the front door. Buddy followed with his head held low to the ground, as if ashamed he had left his post so easily. He retook his spot next to the door and peered out of the window, his ears cocked upright to pick up the slightest sound. Jack leaned down and scratched the back of the big dog’s neck. “You’re in charge here Buddy. You see as much as a rabbit hop across the driveway, you let me know.”

  Buddy turned his head just long enough to land a wet tongue on his master’s hand, as if to assure him that he understood, and then turned back to resume his vigil at the front window. “That’s my good boy,” Jack said.

  When he returned, only Lauren was at the table.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Upstairs, brushing their teeth. Scared because their dad’s been running around, locking up the house. Tell me what happened.”

  Jack sat down with her and recounted his conversation with Lonetree. He noticed her glance up at the windows when he told her about the man spying on them from the woods.

  “If he saw her writing, then he was watching her while she was alone. You were in the front on the house with Max. He could have…”

  “I know. I know.”

  “What’s all this about Huckley wanting Sarah. About other people coming after her? It’s crazy.”

  “It’s completely crazy. But isn’t that how these things happen? Sane people don’t kidnap little kids, right?” Jack got up and crossed over to the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” Lauren said

  Jack grabbed the cordless phone. “I’m going to call our friend Sheriff Janney and tell him about this guy.” He punched in the number for information and had the operator connect him to the Allegheny County sheriff’s office. “Then tomorrow I think it’s a good idea if you take the kids away for a few days. Just until I can figure out what the hell is going on around here.” Before Lauren could object, an annoyed woman with a smoker’s hack answered the phone, “Sheriff’s office.”

  “Hi there. This is Jack Tremont out on Forest Drive. I just had a suspicious man come to my house and threaten my family. Can I make a report or something? Have someone check it out?”

  “That was Freemont you say?”

  “No, Tremont. Jack Tremont, out on Forest Drive in Prescott City.”

  “Was the trespasser a relative of yours?” the woman asked in a bored voice, obviously unimpressed. Jack figured by the question that the sheriff’s office fielded a lot of domestic disturbance calls.

  “No. I don’t know the man. He gave me his name though. Joseph Lonetree.”

  “All right. Hold please.”

  The line clicked. Music piped through the phone, a country station playing old time Johnny Cash. A half a song later, the line clicked and the music disappeared.

  “Deputy Sorenson here. You want to report a suspicious person?”

  Jack’s throat went dry. He recognized the voice. It was the deputy Janney brought with him to the hospital room. Jack cursed himself for not realizing there was a chance he would answer the phone. “Yeah, someone showed up at my door tonight. He let it slip that he’d been watching the house during the day. And he threatened my family.”

  “Just a sec.” There was a rustling of paper. The deputy came back on the line and asked in a bored voice, “Name?”

  He cleared his throat. “Jack Tremont.” As he expected, there was a long silence on the other line.

  “Mr. Tremont,” the deputy said. “This is Deputy Sorenson. I met you yesterday at Midland hospital.”

  “Yes, I recognized your voice.”

  “Sir, I’d like to apologize if I was rude to you at the hospital. My nerves were a little frayed. I’m sorry for my lack of professionalism.”

  Jack was stunned by the young man’s change of attitude. Maybe Janney had straightened the kid out. He felt himself relax. “Don’t worry about it. It was a long night for everyone.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now, please tell me about the intruder you’d like to report.”

  After Jack went through the details, Deputy Sorenson read back the report to check it for accuracy. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?” the deputy asked.

  “Yeah, he told me to contact him if anything else happened?”

  “What did he mean by anything else?”

  Jack did a quick calculus about whether to tell the deputy about Sarah’s number writing. It took him about two seconds to realize the story would sound crazy to anyone who hadn’t seen it in person. It seemed crazy to him and he had been there. “I don’t know what he meant,” Jack lied. “The whole thing was strange.”

  “Did he tell you how to contact him?”

  “Yeah, he gave me a phone number. He said it was a cell phone.”

  “I’ll need that number.”

  Jack dug through his pocket to find the piece of paper the man gave him. He pulled it out and started to read off the numbers. Halfway through, he felt a sense of dread, like he was making a huge mistake giving the number away. Lonetree was the only person so far who believed his story about Huckley. He might have known more about the night at the rest area. Somehow he felt like he was betraying a possible ally. Before he could think it through, he reacted to his gut feeling and scrambled the last four digits of the phone number. The deputy repeated the number to make sure he had it right. With a deep breath, Jack passed on the opportunity to correct him.

  “All right, I think I have everything I need. Is there anything else you want to add?”

  “Not that I can think of. Do you have any idea who this man is?”

  “No sir. I’ll check the computer but the description and the name don’t ring any bells. I’ll let you know if anything turns up. And I’ll send a deputy by to check out the road out by your house.”

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate that,” Jack said.

  “No problem. I wouldn’t worry too much about this Mr. Tremont. Usually these things are one time deals. Drifters, you know.”

  “I hope so. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem. Once again Mr. Tremont, sorry about last night in the hospital. It was very unprofessional.”

  Jack smiled. “Forgotten. Really, don’t worry about it.”

  The deputy promised to have a patrol car drive by shortly, said goodnight and hung up the phone. Jack was glad he had called in but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed an opportunity to get more information out of Lonetree. He fingered the piece of paper with the phone number and considered making the call. He hesitated, then stuck the paper back into his jeans pocket. Maybe later, once Lauren and the kids were out of town.

  When he walked out into the great room, Lauren was gone. Upstairs to tuck the girls in he assumed. He was by himself, the large vacant windows staring down at him, the trees outside casting shadows into the room. He noticed little noises throughout the house. The hum of the refrigerator. The click of the furnace turning on. He guessed they were the same noises that rattled through the house every night, but now they took on new meaning. Every creak of a floorboard was a foot being put down as someone crept up the stairs. Every draft caused by a window being opened by a kidnapper. The openness of the great room gave him chills. He wondered when he’d be able to sit in the room again and think of it as a great view rather than a transparent cage for intruders to spy on his family. He wondered if maybe Lonetree was watching him at that moment, suspended high over the ground in a tall pine. He flipped the bird to the wall of windows and trudged off to the hallway closet.

  After rummaging through two years accumulation of coats, gloves, backpacks, and shoes, he found what he was looking for. He pulled out the Louisville Slugger aluminum baseball bat and shoved everything else back deep into the closet. He gripped the bat with both hands and took a few slow motion swings wondering how much damage a full swing would do to a human body. He didn’t
want to kill anyone, just stop them in their tracks. A long, painful recovery time would be good too. He used to tip of the bat to push the closet door shut.

  As it closed, it revealed a body in the hallway, right behind where the door had been.

  Jack gasped and raised the bat to his shoulder.

  “Jesus, Jack. It’s just me,” Lauren said.

  “God, you scared me. What are you doing creeping around?”

  “I wasn’t creeping around. I just came down to see what you were doing.” She nodded to the bat. “Is that the secret weapon?”

  Jack shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”

  “Come on. The kids are all tucked in. Let’s try to get some sleep.”

  “I’m a little wired for sleep.”

  “Yeah, me too. I just want to be upstairs. Close to the girls, you know?”

  Jack put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “Did they go down all right? I thought maybe we’d have them sleep with us tonight.”

  “If they asked I would have let them, but they were O.K. staying in their own rooms. They’re on the second floor and their windows are locked. I figured if they’re not freaked out, let it alone.”

  “Fair enough.” They walked into the family room. “Now that we’re alone, what do you think about the numbers Sarah wrote?”

  “There’s got to be a simple explanation. Maybe she heard the room number at the hospital.”

  “But the way she wrote them. She’s not capable of that.”

  “I don’t know. The stress of the accident…”

  “Made her smarter? C’mon Lauren. Something weird is going on here.”

  “O.K. So what do you think?”

  Jack rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand. He knew he had to be careful. After his scene at the hospital he noticed Lauren watching him closely, almost clinically. “I’m not sure. But something unusual is going on. And it’s not just from the stress of the crash. I think it’s more than that. There’s something I haven’t told you about that night. Something about Sarah. When Huckley was outside, trying to get into the Jeep, I looked in the back seat and saw Sarah talking. I couldn’t hear her so I told her to speak up. But she kept talking to the window. Finally, she stopped and said she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the bad man outside. It was what she told us about today.”

  “She was scared. She’s a little girl. It was just her way of telling us what she was scared of. You can’t take it literally.”

  “You weren’t there. She was having a conversation. Answering questions. Shaking her head yes and no to questions I couldn’t hear.”

  “Maybe she could hear him through the window?”

  “No way. With the rain and thunder, Huckley could have been screaming right at the window and she couldn’t have heard it. It was like she heard a voice that Becky and I couldn’t hear.”

  “You think she heard voices in her head? Like she’s some kind of psychic? Give me a break.”

  “I don’t know what it is, but something is happening, something very strange. I haven’t told you everything about Albert James either.” He made her sit down at the table and went through everything Albert James said, both before he went into the bar and as he lay dying in his arms.

  When he was done, the color was drained out of Lauren’s face.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

  “Because it sounds nuts. I can’t explain how Albert James knew someone was after Sarah. I can’t explain how Sarah was talking to Huckley that night. I didn’t say anything because there is no explanation for it.”

  “Of course there is. There has to be,” Lauren said, her voice less sure than her words.

  “There’s another thing too. That night, when I asked her what the man had said, she asked me who Melissa was. She told me Huckley said she would end up like Melissa if she didn’t open the door.”

  Lauren’s shoulders caved forward. Just the mention of the name was like a weight on both of them. “But she didn’t mention it tonight. Are you sure…”

  “Jesus, will you stop asking that,” Jack said, his voice rising. “I’m not making this stuff up. You heard her today. She told us what he said. He said he was going to kill us. Do you think Sarah would just come up with that herself? And somehow she wrote those numbers down. Don’t forget that.”

  “Settle down. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for everything.”

  “You think so? You want to know what I think?” He jabbed his finger into the table. “Something’s happening. Something bad. Whatever it is, we have to figure it out before they come after Sarah. For what ever fucked up reason, I really believe someone is trying to get her. And I think they want to hurt her, maybe even kill her.”

  “Mommy?” The soft voice came from the top of the stairs.

  Jack and Lauren looked up to see Sarah standing on the landing above them, clutching a stuffed elephant against her chest. Jack forced a smile as if that would make her forget everything he’d just said. It didn’t work. Sarah spun around and ran back to her room.

  “Great. Just great.” Lauren ran up the stairs after her daughter.

  Jack was about to follow her up but decided against it. Better to let Lauren calm her down, then he’d go and make his peace. He only hoped she hadn’t heard much of their conversation. He made sure Buddy was on guard at the front door, did another check of the windows then headed upstairs, dragging his baseball bat with him.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The stretch of I-70 between Prescott City and Midland was empty. Sheriff Janney always found the drive peaceful at night. He drove with the radio off and the car windows lowered a few inches. It was a cold night but that didn’t stop him from enjoying it. The car heater was on high and pumped out air hot enough that he felt it through his thick leather boots. He stuck a hand out the window and diverted a burst of wind toward his face. It felt good and calmed his nerves. It was exactly what he needed.

  Janney had avoided this meeting all day, hoping for some late break through to save his skin, but it hadn’t come. Now it was time to face the Boss. Face him with nothing but a shitpile of excuses for why he couldn’t tie up Huckley’s loose ends. And if there was one thing that put the Boss in a bad mood, it was excuses for not getting a job done.

  Janney had cleaned up Huckley’s messes before, but this one was different. Tremont was more credible than the usual backcountry folks he dealt with. A few tough words and most people backtracked whatever story they were spilling. But Jack Tremont was going to be more of a challenge.

  At first it seemed all the breaks were going Janney’s way. His wife waving off the blood alcohol test helped fuel the booze rumors. Tremont’s past was a dream come true. The little girl’s death in the crash back in California had made Janney giggle whenever he thought about it. It was just perfect. Deputy Sorenson had played it perfect during their visit, goading Jack just like he’d instructed. That crash combined with Tremont’s episode in Huckley’s hospital room was making it easy for Janney to chip away Tremont’s credibility. But there was one important piece of the puzzle missing and it was driving him crazy.

  He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a single page fax. It was the latest missing persons database. None of the new entries on the Internet matched Tremont’s description of the girl. At least Huckley had always done his hunting out of state like they had all agreed; tracking down runaways, girls already reported missing, years ago by parents who hardly cared. Huckley was a pain in the ass but he wasn’t sloppy when it came to the abductions. Not usually anyway. Trying for the Tremont girl wasn’t like him at all. Taking such a risk didn’t make any sense.

  Still, without a body, Tremont couldn’t prove what he saw. There was no evidence on the cars, Janney had seen to that himself. But without a body, Janney couldn’t be sure this situation was contained either. The girl had to be somewhere. Had someone found it before he got there? If so, why would they have taken it and not told anyone? Could it be the girl was s
till alive?

  The cell phone laying on the dash rang. Only a few people had the number and none of them would use it unless it was important. He checked the caller ID. It was blocked, as it was supposed to be. “This better be good,” he answered, unhappy with the interruption.

  “This is Sorenson. I just took a call from Jack Tremont.”

  Janney rolled up his window. “What did he want?”

  “He had a visitor tonight. A man who told him Nate Huckley was after him.”

  “Really, who might this be? Don’t tell me Max Dahl was over there again.” Janney said.

  “No. It was a Joseph Lonetree. Mean anything to you?”

  Janney flexed his grip on the steering wheel. The name meant plenty to him.

  Sorenson filled in the dead air. “I got the name from Tremont. I kissed his ass to make him trust me. Being nice to that puke made my stomach turn. Sheriff? You still there?”

  “Does anyone else know Tremont called in?”

  “Yeah, Bernice took the call. She got his name. Is that a problem?”

  “No Bernice is fine. She’ll keep her mouth shut if I ask her to.” Janney rapped his knuckles against the window as he thought. “Is Morales still out at Tremont’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. Let him know about Lonetree. Tell him he’s a stalker so the story checks out if Tremont spots him.”

  “Roger.”

  “And Sorenson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Lonetree is armed and dangerous. He’s to be shot on sight if he’s spotted on the Tremont property.”

  The deputy’s voice came back serious but eager. A little too eager, Janney thought. “I completely understand Sheriff. You can count on me.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing Sorenson. Just remember what’s at stake here for you. There’s no second chance.” He pressed the end button and terminated the call.