by Thomas King
Thumps looked at the pot and decided not to take a chance. “But if she did see someone on the lake in the snow . . .”
Cooley yawned and shifted his weight to one side of the chair. “Then that someone was headed north.”
“North?”
“Walking around in a snowstorm like that on Red Tail Lake, you got to figure one of two things.” Cooley poured himself a second cup. “Either the guy’s lost or he knows where he’s going. And if he knows where he’s going, then the only reason to be out walking on the lake is to make sure that no one else does.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thumps seemed to recall the sun coming up big and bold that morning, but if it had, there was little left of it now. As they headed north out of town, all that remained of that bright beginning was the memory and the headlights of Cooley’s car reflecting off the snow.
“You don’t have to tell me where we’re going,” said Cooley, “at least not right away.”
“Red Tail Lake.”
“Snow’s been coming down pretty good,” said Cooley. “We’ll be okay to the store.”
“You got snow tires, right?”
“Sure,” said Cooley, “but they’re not on the car.”
The sheriff’s SUV would be able to get through this weather. It had four-wheel drive, a bank of halogen spotlights, a winch, and a two-way radio. If Hockney got into trouble, he could pull himself out.
So long as he kept his temper.
Thumps hadn’t known the sheriff to be a volatile man, but the two murders had put him on edge. Any other time, Duke would have sent Andy out by himself to find the car and gather any evidence, but now Hockney wasn’t about to trust Andy to do the job that needed to be done.
“We should stop and say hello,” said Cooley. “Arthur might have made apple pies.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yeah,” said Cooley, “but I wouldn’t mention that to Dora.”
The Red Tail Lake store had its lights on. There was something festive about the store in the snow. The windows glowed in the darkness, and all you would have needed to make it look like Christmas were a few strings of coloured lights and maybe a big star with reflective tape.
“Dora and Arthur used to come out here regular,” said Cooley as they got out of the car. “They bought Red Tail just before she retired.”
Tourists from the east coming west to find paradise were a common-enough romance. No one called it that, but you could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices.
Paradise.
Nothing ostentatious. A small acreage on a trout-fishing river with a view of the mountains. Or a property on a lake with a piece of the shoreline. And if they found it, they would build something with logs and glass, so they could feel that they were part of the land, while watching the panorama from the comfort of an open-beamed living room. Then slowly, painfully, they would realize that they had mistaken space and solitude for desire and happiness, and they would sell their dream home to the next dreamer who came through and head back home to Sodom or Gomorrah. Or Los Angeles.
Not everyone, of course. Just most.
“So, is she . . . ?”
“Nope.” Cooley knocked the snow off his boots. “She just misses him.”
Thumps knew that feeling, losing someone you cared about. “He die out here?”
“He loved the lake,” said Cooley. “I think she stays to be close to him.”
ANNA HAD BEEN like that. She had loved the coast, had loved the beaches between McKinleyville and Trinidad Head, had loved walking in the surf while the world around her vanished in fog. But after the murders, the coast had taken on a sinister presence, and everywhere Thumps looked, he saw only reminders of her death, not her life. Little by little, he came to resent the very things that had made her happy, until the only thing he could do was to walk away.
THE AIR INSIDE the store was warm and moist and smelled of apple pie. Dora was standing in the kitchen at the back of the store.
“Hey, Dora, what’s the news?”
Dora came into the store with a pot of tea and set it down on the counter. “Cups are behind you.”
“I told Thumps about what you saw,” said Cooley.
Dora brushed her hair back. “You find that Indian you were looking for?”
“Not yet.”
“Saw the sheriff’s car go by.”
“South?” said Thumps. “Toward the park?”
“Hope he wasn’t planning on going for a hike,” said Dora. “Arthur likes to hike, but he’s not fool enough to go out in this weather.”
“Hockney stop?”
“Nope.” Dora took three plates from the shelf. “You boys want some apple pie? It’s Arthur’s speciality.”
“Sure,” said Cooley.
The snow slowed, and by the time Thumps and Cooley had cleaned their plates, it had stopped altogether and the wind had come up. Thumps waited until Dora finished her tea.
“Cooley tells me that you might have seen someone on the lake.”
“Movement,” said Dora. “At a distance, what you see is movement.”
“Maybe an animal?”
“Movement was all wrong. And he was moving fast.”
“Running?”
“No,” said Dora. “Not running. Jogging. When I saw him, it looked like he was jogging.”
Cooley put a huge hand on Dora’s shoulder. “Just so Thumps can keep things straight,” he said quietly, “we’re not talking about Arthur, are we?”
Dora put her hand on top of Cooley’s. “Is that what your friend is worried about? That I’m crazy?”
“He doesn’t know you well enough yet.”
“‘There are worse things waiting for men than death.’” Dora waited to see if Thumps recognized the quotation. “You needn’t worry, Mr. DreadfulWater,” she said at last. “I know that Arthur’s dead. And I did see someone on the lake.”
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN the snowstorm and Arthur Manning’s apple pie, the road had vanished, and Cooley had to guess where it had been. On high ground, the wind had cut across the road, leaving open patches and the line of telephone poles to navigate by, and Cooley made it all the way to the Connor place without finding a ditch.
“Nice lady,” Cooley stopped at the driveway. “Swinburne’s not a favourite of mine, but Dora likes the aesthetes.”
There was no sign of anyone’s having come back to the house. Which didn’t mean a thing. If Noah was on the run and if he had doubled back, the storm would have covered his tracks.
“You think he’s here?”
“Maybe.” Thumps tried to sound positive.
“He could have picked any of the houses along the lake.”
“He knows this one.”
“And the cops have already been here.” Cooley eased the car into the driveway. “I always thought that was one of those cliché things.”
“What?”
“Returning to the scene of a crime.”
“You bring that rifle?”
“We going to need it?”
Thumps went around the west side of the house. Cooley took the east. They met at the back in front of the bank of windows.
“No tracks,” said Cooley. “What about you?”
Up to this moment, Thumps had been reasonably certain that he would find Noah inside. Now, standing in the snow with Cooley, watching the moon shine off the frozen lake, he wasn’t so sure.
“Any of the windows broken?”
“Didn’t see any.”
“Doors?”
“All locked.” Cooley set the rifle on his shoulder. “How’d he get in the first time?”
Thumps had missed it completely. When he and the sheriff had arrived, Andy was already inside. Andy wouldn’t have had a key, so the house must have been open when he got there.
“He had a key.” Thumps said it out loud before he had a chance to think it through.
“Noah? Where’d he get a key?”
If Thumps were a betting man, he would bet
on the small rock garden near the front door. Leaving keys under doormats or under flowerpots was predictable. Phony electrical outlet boxes and plastic rocks were now the hiding place of choice. The rocks were great. You couldn’t tell the fake ones from the real thing. Maybe that’s what Noah had done, picked up a rock to break a window and discovered, quite by accident, a more efficient way to get in. Andy had missed that little detail, but so had the sheriff. And so had he.
“What do you want to do?”
Breaking a window was never as easy as it looked in the movies. The glass in the French door was triple glazed, and Thumps had to use Cooley’s tire iron to break out one of the panes.
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s a keyed dead bolt on both sides.”
“That’s smart.” Cooley felt around the door. “But the door’s wood. So is the frame. I know a side kick that should take out the jam.”
“You got a flashlight?”
“That’s good thinking,” said Cooley. “Look before you leap.”
Thumps was surprised at how little you could see, shining a light in through a window. In place of deep shadows, you got regular shadows. Nothing looked out of place, but as Cooley played the light around the room, Thumps realized that he hadn’t really been paying attention to the particulars when he took the photographs of Reuben lying on the couch. A good cop would have made a mental note of everything.
“Anything out of place?”
“Can’t tell.”
Thumps had seen any number of doors broken down in his years on the force, but he had never seen a door explode.
“Sorry.”
Cooley had been modest about his side kick. It took out the door, the frame, and most of the moulding. The door itself slammed back into the wall, burying the knob in the sheet rock. Anyone in the house would have had to be dead not to hear that entrance.
Cooley stepped over the wood and glass. “What do we do now?”
It didn’t take a great deal of time to search the house. The second floor was one large bedroom, with a bathroom the size of a small apartment. There were two cedar-lined walk-in closets and a dressing area with another couch. The main floor was completely open so you could see the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, and the foyer all at once.
Cooley was waiting for him. “Expensive house.”
“You check the basement?”
“There’s a wine cellar down there and a big-screen television and an exercise area. It’s pretty impressive.”
“But no Noah.”
“Maybe he didn’t come back. Maybe we should check out the other houses.”
No, thought Thumps, if Noah was looking for somewhere to hide, this place was his best bet.
“What about the garage?”
The way to the garage was through a large room that doubled as a mud room and a laundry. Unlike the French door that Cooley had destroyed, the door to the garage was heavy metal with a metal frame.
“How about you flick on the lights,” said Cooley, “and I’ll jump in with my rifle and yell, ‘Freeze, sucker!’”
Thumps tried to imagine the effect that Cooley, leaping into the garage, would have on Noah, and he found that the thought cheered him for a moment.
“Thought you wanted to protect him.”
“We got to catch him first.”
Thumps knew what he was going to find when he opened the door and turned on the lights. An empty garage. Which meant Noah was still on the loose, and they were no closer to solving two murders than they had been that morning. Worse, he was going to have to explain to the sheriff, and, eventually, to the Connors, just why a perfectly good door had been kicked in.
Thumps opened the door and tried to imagine an excuse that would sound plausible, that would convince Hockney and the home owners that the door had been a casualty of law enforcement. The light switch was to the right, and as he bent forward to find it, he felt something large and hard sail over his shoulder and crash into the frame where his head should have been.
And before he had time to right himself or say something apropos, he heard Cooley shout and felt the large man shove him through the doorway and straight into the arms of whoever it was had just tried to kill him.
TWENTY-NINE
It didn’t take all that long to sort things out. First, Cooley turned the lights on. Then he picked Thumps up off the floor with one hand and, with the other, aimed his rifle at Noah Ridge.
“Should I shoot him?”
Thumps’s shirt was bunched up around his shoulders. He wondered if Freeway felt the same way about being picked up by the scruff of the neck as he did.
“No.” Thumps shoved his shirt back in his pants.
“I thought you and Thumps were friends.” Cooley loomed over Noah. “Trying to bash his head in like that wasn’t very friendly.”
“We are friends,” said Noah.
“No, we’re not,” said Thumps.
“I thought you were coming to kill me.” Noah started to get to his feet, but Cooley wasn’t ready to shake hands just yet. He pressed the muzzle of the rifle into Noah’s chest.
“Let him up.”
“You sure?”
“No,” said Thumps, “but if we’re going to beat the truth out of him, let’s find someplace warm to do it.”
The living room wasn’t exactly warm, especially with the French door lying on the floor. Cooley picked up the pieces and set them back in place as best he could.
Noah stood in front of the fireplace, his back against the stones. “I suppose you want to know what’s going on.”
Thumps waved him off. “Tell it to the sheriff.”
“He won’t believe me.”
Cooley tucked the rifle under his arm. “That’s probably true.”
“He thinks I killed Street, doesn’t he?”
“Tell me about Reuben.”
Noah looked at his hands. “Reuben showed up at the hotel. I hadn’t seen him in years.”
“What happened?”
“We talked about old times.”
Thumps was willing to make allowances. He supposed that living on the edge for all those years had made Noah paranoid and uncooperative. But he wasn’t willing to waste time.
“What?” said Thumps. “You talked him to death?”
“I didn’t do it.” Noah tried to keep his voice level. “I left him in the room. When I got back, I found him on the floor. He had been shot.”
“And that’s why you brought him here?” Thumps made little attempt to hide his disbelief.
“No,” said Noah, “I took him to the hospital.”
Thumps turned to Cooley. “Shoot him.”
“Sure thing,” said Cooley, bringing the rifle up.
Noah flinched. “I was going to take him to the hospital, but by the time I got him to his car, he was dead.”
“You could have stayed in the room and called for an ambulance.” Thumps could feel his disbelief turning to anger. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“What movie are you watching?” Noah looked as if he had just heard something funny. “What did you want me to do? Stick around and wait for the killer to show up to finish the job?”
“You think whoever killed Reuben was really after you?”
“No,” said Noah, “I don’t think it.”
“So, why’d you bring him here?”
“What would you have done?”
Thumps had heard this question any number of times, mostly from people who were sorry that they had done what they had done, who wanted sympathy and understanding, who wanted to make the world a co-defendant, so they wouldn’t have to be guilty of something alone. Thumps knew why Noah had brought Reuben out to the lake. To get away. To buy time. To try to figure things out.
“I would have called Hockney.”
“No one’s trying to kill you.”
“This the same person who beat you up?”
The question hung in the air, as though
it had been frozen by the drafts coming in around the ruined door.
“That was different.”
Thumps wasn’t about to let Noah slide away. “You tell the sheriff and me that someone beat you up on your morning jog. You go to the hospital and play the injured Indian.”
“I did get beat up.”
“Sure,” said Cooley. “The Mustang can be one tough place.”
“Hard way to drum up publicity.”
“What the fuck do you know!”
“Oh,” said Cooley, “you’d be surprised what Thumps knows.”
“And just who the hell are you?” said Noah, most of his courage having returned.
“I’m the guy who’s protecting you,” said Cooley.
Noah looked at Cooley, and then he looked at Thumps.
“Cooley Small Elk,” said Thumps. “He runs his own security service.”
“Small Elk Security,” said Cooley.
“I don’t know you.”
“Yeah,” said Cooley, “but now that we’ve been introduced, I should tell you about my executive-protection program.”
Thumps turned to Cooley. “You really want a client who lies to you all the time?”
“It is a problem, all right,” said Cooley.
“So, what now?” Noah sounded tired suddenly, as if someone had let the air out of his bluster. “You going to turn me over to the sheriff?”
“Works for me.”
“You can’t arrest me.” Noah was trying to sound like the old Noah. “You’re a photographer.”
“Good news,” said Cooley. “This week he happens to be a deputy.”
It had been a while, but Thumps was reasonably sure he could remember most of the speech. It was just a matter of beginning it right. “You have the right,” he said, trying not to enjoy the moment too much, “to remain silent.”
THE RIDE BACK was more exhilarating than Thumps appreciated. The big trucks had packed the pavement and turned the snow into ice. From the turnoff, the road was a ski slope, and Cooley had to slalom his way down into town.
Noah sat in the back in silence. Thumps might have supposed that he was contemplating the mess he had helped to create, but common sense told him that Noah was working on a story that would fit the facts, a story that would make him the hero, or at the very least a victim, a story that would play sympathetically on the front page of dailies around the world.