by Gregory Kay
“No thanks. I like to think of myself as a dedicated reporter, but I’m not quite that dedicated.
“But…you did mention some bigger igloos?”
“Now those, you can see. At least, some of them.” He offered her his hand and she took it, both motions feeling somehow so natural that neither noticed until they were halfway back to his Jeep, but still, neither one let go until Luke said, “What the heck?” and Fiona noticed the glaring white of a scrap of paper tucked under the windshield wiper.
“Looks like someone left you a note.” She couldn’t resist adding in a teasing voice, “Maybe you have a secret admirer.” Even as the words left her lips, she felt inexplicably troubled by the thought.
Not noticing the fading of her smile behind him, Luke lifted the wiper blade, took out the folded paper and opened it up.
Luke:
Please be very careful; you are being watched, and every move you make is being followed and carefully noted by all parties involved. You have attracted the attention of some very powerful people, more powerful than you can imagine. If you and the woman continue to push forward with this investigation, bad things may happen to you. I will help you all I can, if I can, but it may not be enough to save either of your lives. My advice is to let it drop immediately, but I suspect you will not listen. Perhaps we are too much alike.
Sincerely,
Your father
“Can you tell me what it is, or is it too personal?” Fiona asked quietly, and was surprised at the intensity of the rage on Luke’s face as he thrust the paper at her.
“It’s personal alright. Somebody has just made it real personal!”
They got in and Luke pulled out on the road with a heavier foot on the gas than necessary, and neither one said anything for awhile afterward; Fiona had read the note and offered it back, but Luke refused to take it, just as adamantly as he refused to offer the explanation she expected but knew she was unjustified in asking for.
Finally, he turned and looked at her.
“Either someone has tried to play a joke and has just made the biggest screw-up of their life, or someone genuinely wants us out of this thing. Maybe you were right; maybe this whole thing is a conspiracy, or maybe it’s something else entirely; I don’t know, but I damned well intend to find out. No matter which it is, though, things could get dangerous from here on; after what happened to you and Muggs, and now this...I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Fiona.”
Slowly shaking her head, she said, “I don’t care; I’m going to continue with it, regardless. I have to!”
“Okay,” he nodded grimly, “I’m in as long as you are.” He thought about it, then added, “Who am I kidding? I’m in it to the end!”
“That note really shook you. Who is your father?”
He shrugged.
“I have no idea,” he told her as they approached the end of the road where it terminated in a T, and he turned the wheel to the left.
“Look, Luke, I’ve told you everything about me, but you haven’t told me anything about you. Fair’s fair, you know.”
Fiona's common sense demanded to know why she’d bothered to ask when she knew nothing could come of it, and she promptly told it the same thing she had told the amorous drunk at the Tex-Mex place the night before: to go commit an unnatural act with itself.
I asked because I wanted to know, that’s why!
He shrugged again, but without as much force, and the first hints of that grin she was becoming so familiar with came back.
“So, what do you want to know?”
“Well, what about your parents? What’s your family like?”
“Weird, I guess, even for around here. I was born out of wedlock; I never even knew my father’s name, and I’m not really sure my mother did either. I guess Mom was one of the strange rangers, a sort of latter-day hippie, a combination of stoner, UFO true believer and Star Wars fan, always ‘trying to find herself.’ Then, one day when I was about four, she took off on another trip to do that, along with some of her doper buddies, and never bothered coming back.”
Fiona pictured a little dark-haired boy in her mind, looking out the front door at the river and wondering where his mommy was, and she felt like crying. Who could do that to their own kid?
“Who raised you?”
“Grandaddy – my grandfather – and the string of girlfriends he went through after my grandmother died just before I was born. I loved the old man, but he seemed to have trouble getting along with women well enough to keep one around.”
Fiona smiled her understanding; she knew quite a few people like that herself: her Uncle Pat for one.
“So, what did he do?”
“He was a deputy sheriff in Mason County, at least until he lost his legs when they blew up the jail.”
Fiona sat bolt upright in surprise.
“Blew up the jail? I’ve never heard anything about that!”
“That was back in the seventies. He told me a woman was arrested on suspicion of murdering her toddler, and put in the basement cells they reserved for women at that time. Her husband was notified at work, and he asked if he could come in, bring her some clothes, and stay there with her.”
“What?!”
Luke spread his hands helplessly while still maintaining contact with the wheel.
“You need to understand, until that time, this place was a lot like Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show. We had a town drunk the police usually didn’t bother arresting, just told to get up there to the jail and check himself in, and he’d go; they even kept a cell reserved for him. It was a whole different world back then, I guess. Besides, although he wasn’t exactly a suspect himself, her husband would certainly have been a person of interest, and he was willing to come to them. They agreed and he came in carrying a suitcase. It had an estimated forty sticks of dynamite inside, and he had a shotgun pointed at it. After he had threatened his way down and had them lock him up in the cell with his wife, while they were still trying to negotiate with him, Granddaddy said he set the case on the floor and pulled the trigger.”
“Oh my God...”
“The explosion was so powerful it shattered every window downtown, and blew most of the facing slabs off the outside of the courthouse. There were cops there from all over, trying to contain the situation, and, as a result, we had casualties not only from the Sheriff’s Department, but from the City and State Police, and even some who’d come over from Ohio to help. There’s a monument to the dead officers at the courthouse; you may have seen it. Granddaddy was one of the lucky ones; he was only crippled.”
“Was he bitter about it?”
“I don’t think so, not later anyway, when I was around and he had his artificial legs; said it made hunting pretty damned awkward, but it at least gave him more time to fish.” Shaking his head, he said, “That’s why he bought a place along the river; that man dearly loved his fishing. Well, he told me once that it was the people of the county who got him through it. Lots of folks liked him, and people took up collections, held raffles and bake sales and the like, and, by the time he got out of the hospital, his bill had already been paid and somebody had taken his car and put hand controls on it to allow him to drive it. He never forgot that, and saw to it I never did either.”
“Is that why you followed in his footsteps?”
“Yeah, pretty much. He made some enemies, sure, but he helped a lot of people over the years, did a lot of favors, maybe gave someone a talking to or even a cautionary kick in the ass when they really deserved to be arrested, that kind of thing, and he made it a point to stay active behind the scenes in politics afterward. With all that, when I applied to join the Department, although I didn’t know it at the time, the application was pretty much a formality; it was never in question that I was going to be hired.
“When he died later that same year, the line of cars in the funeral stretched for more than a mile. He gave everything to this county, and people remembered and gave back, all of my life as well as hi
s. I owe them something, for that, as well as for...Linda.”
Fiona didn’t miss the hesitation in his voice, and, even though something told her she shouldn’t, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “How did it happen?”
Luke looked off into the distance, seeing something too far away for her to glimpse, seeing across time rather than space. His mouth opened, but, before he could say whatever he was about to, whether to answer her question or tell her he didn’t want to talk about it, his cell phone rang, and she could swear a look of relief passed across his face like the sun driving away a shadow.
“Hello?” He pulled to the side into a narrow, graveled side road with a pivoting metal bar forming a gate across it. Listening as he cut the motor, then said, “Yeah, Pete what...what?! Yes, Fiona is safe; she’s with me right now...good Lord!...no, nothing unusual...I’ve got it, alright? Thanks...Bye.”
Pressing the disconnect button, he gestured at the area in front of them.
“We’re here.”
“Did I hear my name?” she asked as they got out of the car, and he nodded while he walked around to her side, but there was none of that grin that she was used to, and had decided she rather liked.
“Yeah. That was the Sheriff; your stalker just paid a visit to your hotel.”
Then it was her turn to yell,”What?” The thought put cold chills down her spine, all the fear she’d felt the night before came rushing back, and her hand involuntarily brushed the jacket pocket that held the .38 he’d loaned her. Luke saw her expression and reached for her, pulling her close against him, and she went willingly, pressing herself against his chest, once again grateful for the warm, safe feeling.
“Relax; no one gets into that hotel without the staff knowing it. They stopped him at the front desk, and he started asking about you, but they told him they don’t discuss their guests and, because he was acting so odd, they told him to get the hell out and stay out. He left, but by then the clerk was so spooked she called 911.”
Raising her head, Fiona looked up at him, but didn’t let go; it felt too good.
“Odd how?”
She felt him shrug.
“They didn’t say, but it must have been pretty damned strange considering how weird some of the folks around here can get sometimes. Anyway, he was gone by the time an officer could get over there, although a witness said they saw him speak to some guy – they’d never seen him before either. – before walking around the corner and ducking into the alley. They searched the downtown area and warned the merchants, so, if he shows his face again, someone will report it and we’ll nail the bastard!”
Fiona was surprised by the savage anticipation in his tone.
“You really liked Muggs, huh?”
Looking into her eyes and shaking his head, he said, “Yes, I did, but as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t about Muggs; it's all about you.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, and he kissed her and told her she was welcome. “So...how come you didn’t tell them about the note?”
“That was personal. Besides, if the subject we’re looking for is in town, we know it couldn’t be him leaving notes out here. No, this is someone else; I don’t know who yet, or how everything going on is connected, but I will find out.”
From the way he said it, Fiona had no doubts. Until then, she guessed she would just have to be comforted by Luke’s presence, as well as by the weight of his gun in her pocket. As he walked her down the road past the barricade where they’d parked, she felt it bumping against her hip in time with her steps, and it made her think of her heart beating away against the inside of her chest.
Even after Luke’s description, she was surprised at the size of the igloos. Most of them had their steel doors secured with high-security padlocks; those were either used by the Wildlife Area for the storage of equipment, or else had been rented out to various explosives dealers or ammunition factories to keep their volatile products safe and secure. Some were vacant, however, and a few of those were standing wide open.
Inside most of the structures, the only thing to see was their flat concrete floors and massive domed ceilings; other than that, mummified birds, cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and the occasional pair of forgotten panties left behind during some particularly wild evening were their only furnishings, and spoke plainly about the only use made of them.
“I know this is going to sound stupid, but is there a lady’s room around here? I think I drank too much coffee this morning.”
Luke responding by expanding his grin and waving his arm around, indicating the general area.
“They’re all over.”
Fiona muttered, “Great,” in a sarcastic tone, and Luke took her hand and started leading her toward the side of the nearest igloo, one they hadn’t examined yet.
“Come on; we’ll find you a good spot.”
“You know, I think I’m old enough to pee by myself!”
“I’m sure you are,” he told her, letting go once they were at the side, in a clear, grassy spot in the surrounding brush, “but I need to check before I let you squat. It’s late in the year, but the day still may be warm enough for snakes to be out.”
“Oh,” she managed, suddenly feeling something flip-flopping in her stomach, and Luke hastened to reassure her even while he bent over to look at the ground.
“Probably not, of course, but you don’t want to take a chance on getting bit, especially not there, because someone will have to suck the poison out,” He straightened up, his grin growing to huge proportions as he took her camera from her. “Normally I'd find that prospect not at all unattractive, but I’m afraid the envenomation might kill the mood.”
“Ha-ha, very funny!” she declared, unable to stifle a smile; although she’d never have admitted it, were it not for the idea of the snakebite itself, she wouldn’t have found the prospect at all unattractive either. “Do you have poisonous snakes around here?”
“Some; mostly copperheads, and occasionally a rattler. I did see a cottonmouth once, but they don’t usually come this far north.”
“Great!” she muttered again, and then suddenly stopped him as he turned away to give her some privacy. “Luke...” He looked back, and she paused, swallowed hard, and blushed. “Would you mind...checking for spiders too? I really don’t do spiders well.”
His response was to wink and say, “I already did,” before walking around to the front of the igloo, out of sight. “I’ll be right here,” he called back to her, “Just come on back when you’re done.”
She smiled and shook her head. He thinks of everything.
Fiona unfastened her jeans and slipped them down, her panties along with them, just far enough for the job; she still felt horribly exposed out here in the open with her bare bottom stuck out in the breeze while she gingerly squatted down.
She was almost finished when she saw the bones.
She was actually looking out for snakes, or spiders, or God only knew what kind of animals, real or imagined, she might run into in a place like this, when a series of regularly-spaced, ivory-white objects beneath a tangle of briers not ten feet from her caught her eye, and she recognized them as a large rib cage jutting forth from a spine, although she couldn’t believe it at first...not until she saw the top of the skull sticking out of the leaves, one empty eye socket leering at her.
Fiona caught herself before she yelled, biting it off in such a hurry her teeth slammed together with an audible click. Any shout would certainly bring Luke running, and she didn’t want him to see her like this.
Quickly wiping with a tissue she had in her jacket pocket, she spotted more and more bones, both large and small; some disarticulated and others almost whole skeletons, partly concealed by the brush and the fallen leaves.
My God! What’s happened here?
She couldn’t wait any longer; she was still fastening her pants when she called for Luke, and, as she suspected he would, he was there before the echo had time to die.
“What’s wrong?”
His voice was full of concern because he had picked the fear in hers.
Pointing at the bush in response, she said, “Something is dead under there. There’s a skeleton; several of them!”
Luke frowned and promptly squatted down himself, peering at the bones.
“Are they...human?”
He continued looking for a few seconds before moving closer and gingerly grabbing a branch and, being careful of the thorns, raised it to get a better view.
“No; they’re animal, but I see several different ones in there. There’s rabbit, birds, a couple of dogs, one of them pretty big, either coons or possums, and...hell, this one is a sheep!” He pointed. “There’s still wool on the ground around it.”
“But...what are they all doing there?”
“Somebody has dumped them there; there’s no other explanation I can think of.”
“Why?”
Pursing his lips, he straightened up and told her, “Because whoever killed them didn’t want them found. Otherwise, he would have just thrown them in a ditch somewhere by the road, not carried them a hundred yards from the nearest parking place to dump them under these briers back here.”
“What’s he done to them?”
Luke shook his head.
“I can’t tell; the freshest one is the sheep, and it looks like it’s been here at least a month, but some of the others have moss growing on them. They’re all different ages, and somebody’s been dumping them out here for a year or more...somebody killing animals on a regular basis.”
Fiona was finally getting her mental equilibrium back, enough that her voice was once more calm and professional when she asked, “Again, though, why is he doing it?”
“Because he’s a sick, twisted son of a bitch,” Luke told her, his dark eyes suddenly cold and hard, “I can’t help but think of your buddy in town: the one who killed Muggs.”
She not only couldn’t deny it, but had been thinking that very same thing herself; still, she felt slightly sick at hearing it articulated into words.
Meanwhile, Luke nodded at the nearest mound.