by Erik Carter
“You don’t understand,” Dale said. “It’s really damn important that we talk to her, Doctor.”
“Doctor?” he said. “I’m not the doctor here. She is.” He pointed to the gorgeous woman standing beside him.
“So who are you?” Dale said to the man.
“I’m the nurse.”
Dale looked back and forth between them. The man had been doing all the talking since he and Brown arrived.
Dale turned to the woman. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Dr. Susan Anderson.”
Dale glanced at the white lab coat she wore over her blouse. Her name was embroidered on it.
SUSAN
ANDERSON
The nurse’s lab coat was also embroidered.
BRIAN
ANDERSON
Dale had already noticed that both of their coats had “Anderson” on them but assumed that it was the name of the pediatric unit.
“Anderson,” Dale said. “So are you two—”
“He’s my nurse and my brother,” Susan said.
“I guess you’re who I should be talking to, then. We must speak to this girl. There’s a whole lot riding on it.”
“Please explain,” she said.
“What’s to explain?” Brown said. His hands clenched in big, round fists. “This girl is our witness. Now, you listen here, missy.”
“No, you listen. I’m the doctor here, and until you give me a good reason to revive this girl, she’s staying just like she is.”
Brown’s teeth bared, but Dale stepped in before he could spit out some obscenity. He put his hand on the large man’s chest and eased him back, giving him a calm down look. He turned to Susan. “Please understand, we have a hundred and fifty missing people. This girl is our only witness, the only person who might know what happened to them. It’s vital that we talk to her.”
Susan cleared her throat. She looked at the girl in the bed, paused, and then nodded. “I’ll take her off the IV. When she comes around, we’ll let you know.”
Her brother turned to her. “Susan,” he said, utter disbelief twisting his face. “You’re really going to listen to these hayseeds?”
Susan looked from the girl to Dale to her brother. “I … I think it’s for the best, Brian.” She spoke quietly, not looking him in the eye.
The nurse threw his hands up and stormed out.
The room was filled with a heavy awkwardness. Dale slowly turned to Susan. “Thanks.” He nodded at Brown, and they left.
As they reached the door, Dale looked back at Susan and gave her another quick smile. She scowled at him.
So much for first impressions.
Perhaps he’d killed his chances with the doctor, but he’d gotten the important task accomplished. They were going to wake the girl. Yet a twinge of shame still flirted with Dale’s heart. The girl needed rest. After whatever had happened at the Marshall Village, she’d already experienced more than most would in a lifetime. But with dozens of people’s lives on the line, Dale would have to live with the guilt.
Dale had always found the humidity in the Valley to be quite comfortable. On a day like today, though, low humidity didn’t make a bit of difference. Harrisonburg, Virginia’s Rockingham Memorial Hospital sat on the side of a steep hill and was serviced by a busy road. The cars piled up at the traffic light revved their engines and honked, not quite living up to Harrisonburg’s moniker of “The Friendly City.” But, then, only a precious few of the cars had air conditioning. As Dale stood among waves of shimmering heat rising from the blacktop of the hospital parking lot, he looked at the big box that was the sheriff’s Custom 500 and knew their pain. Pretty soon he’d be sealed in that sauna again.
Sheriff Brown rested on the trunk of his car scrutinizing the note that had been on the girl’s back as well as a picture of the blood-splattered stone. He cursed and used a handkerchief to sop up the sweat from his armpits and face. Dale leaned on the car beside him. The hot metal of the trunk burned his arm, and he jumped. He looked at the photo—the carved letters of ROANOKE and the trickles of blood—then turned to the note. The scratchy, erratic style of the handwriting, he could tell, was deliberate. Perfectly imperfect. Like the blood on the stone, the creepy text was a scare tactic.
Who would go to this extreme, creating hammy scenes and clever riddles? Someone with time on his hands. Someone who fancied himself more intelligent than he actually was. Dale’s mind flashed to his prime suspect, Professor Camden Marshall, the founder of the village. If there ever was a person with an inflated ego and a lot of free time, it was a damn professor. And anyone who had the charisma to convince dozens of people to start a whacky, money-free village in the middle of the woods had to be capable of mass kidnapping.
“What do you figure it means?” Brown said and touched the note with his finger.
Dale looked at the writing.
When he tried to decipher these damn riddles, it always helped to think back to how he had developed his own riddles for the books he wrote. Dale hadn’t written your average mystery novels. His shtick was empowering the reader. The series was called You’re the Detective and required readers to solve the riddles within the story before they could continue turning the pages. Given Dale’s interest in history, these riddles were usually historical in nature. So, in The Hastings Muddle, the reader couldn’t get past page thirty-four—the first major plot point—without solving the following riddle:
Billy came and overwhelmed. When did he come?
Subtract the first two digits from the second two and turn to that page.
Dale always made the first riddle easy. “Billy” was, of course, William the Conqueror, the leader of Normandy who invaded through Hastings and became the first Norman King of England. The year was 1066, so the readers of The Hastings Muddle had to do a little simple math before they knew what page to turn to next.
66 – 10 = page 56
The entire series was set up this way, with the novels written in non-sequential sections. Reading the books straight through cover-to-cover would result in an incoherent mess. It was something entirely new, something that challenged readers. And they ate it up. The books’ popularity flared like an oil fire, fading out in less than a year—just like the Pet Rock fad—and leaving a wad of dough in Dale’s bank account.
As a BEI agent, his experiences writing You’re the Detective often came in handy. But there were some riddles, like the one that was pinned to the girl’s back, where the experience didn’t help one bit.
He exhaled and ran a hand through his hair—the shagginess and dark brown color made it hot to the touch. He was going to need a trim soon.
He stared at the note.
“I’m not sure,” he said finally.
“That slippery son of a gun in the Duster wrote it, ya know?”
“That’d be my guess too.”
Brown pointed at the note. “And what flags is he talking about? Weren’t no flags at the village.”
“It’s a riddle, Sheriff. He’s talking in code. Are there any signs or banners in the village? Anything else that’s similar to a flag?”
Brown scrunched his lips and looked to the side. “Nope.”
Damn. Dale tried to think of anything he saw in the village that could be substituted for flag. He thought of the clothes he had seen folded neatly in the dresser. The blankets, too, had been neatly folded. There wasn’t a misplaced stitch of cloth in the whole place.
Brown grunted and leaned up off the car. “I suspect you’re going to want a ride. They got you boys some rooms down there in Staunton.”
Dale glanced at his watch. It was later than he thought—pushing six o’clock. “That’d be great …” he said, trailing off as he looked at the note again. He wasn’t ready to give up on this. Not yet. He pointed at the note. “Can I take this with me, Sheriff?”
Chapter 10
The Stonewall Jackson Hotel in Staunton, Virginia, was built in 1924 and was the most desirable accommodations in town. It wa
s designed by H.L. Stevens in Colonial Revivalist style and featured marble floors, chandeliers, the Colonnade Ballroom, and a Wurlitzer Organ. It sat atop a hill in downtown with a large sign on the roof that lit up bright red at night. Dale had been in the lobby several times when he was younger, but he’d always hoped for the opportunity to stay in one of the rooms.
He wasn’t going to get that opportunity during this assignment.
Special Agent in Charge Walter Taft was a notoriously cheap bastard. As head of the Bureau of Esoteric Investigation, he followed a policy of “second cheapest.” Taft’s thinking was that if a guy purchased the second cheapest available option, he wasn’t getting the worst product available, but at the same time he was still saving money. Therefore, his agents received the second cheapest kind of ink pens and the second cheapest brand of briefcase. And when they traveled, his agents stayed at the second cheapest available lodging.
In Staunton, that meant the Ashbury Motel. The city’s second most reasonable accommodations sat just off the exit to the interstate highway and right next to a filling station. The rooms had small wall-unit air conditioners and televisions—black-and-white as they were—which were both proudly advertised on the motel’s sign. The gal at the front desk was a sweet old thing who greeted Dale and Wilson with a warm smile and the promise of fresh-baked cookies each day of their stay. Her name, conveniently, was Mrs. Baker.
It was dusk, and Dale was sitting on a folding chair outside the door to his room. He gazed forward across the parking lot toward the filling station. Beyond the gas pumps were the mountains, bluish violet framed above by a pale orange sky. Above this was a thick layer of clouds, their borders crisp and bright from the sunlight they concealed, and further above, the sky still retained its earlier blue. The sunsets were always gorgeous in the mountains, and it was one of the reasons Dale returned as often as he could. Though he was only a couple hours away, this was an entirely different world than the crowds and crime of D.C.
He was glad to be back in Staunton, even if the visit would be in the hectic, strained manner of a BEI investigation. Dale knew the place well, as he’d lived for a while in Harrisonburg, about a half hour away. Staunton was a quirky, unique city of about twenty-five thousand people. Even the name was a curiosity, being pronounced Stan-ton rather than Stawn-ton, as one would think.
He took a sip of water from the coffee mug he’d brought out from his room and turned his attention to the note on his lap. “Upend … flag …” he mumbled.
He’d hated Wilson earlier for callously bringing up his past. But now, as he tried to figure out the message on the note, he realized that it could be helpful to think back. As uncomfortable as that might be.
The camp he had been at was quite different than the Marshall Village. It was more utilitarian, with cinder block buildings and pole barns in the back. Dale tried to remember if there was anything that might have resembled a flag. Something the Marshallites might have had at the village as well. He thought hard for a few moments—and drew a blank.
He strummed his fingers then sat the note on the small wrought iron table next to his chair. The phone from his room was sitting on the table as well. It had a long cord, and he’d brought it out with him when he sat down. He’d been procrastinating on the phone call he needed to make. Sometimes it’s hardest to call the people you care the most about. Especially your parents.
Dropping his birth name when he joined the BEI hadn’t been nearly as hard on Dale as it had been on his mother. I gave you the name, she would say. I should damn well get to call you by it. Mom hadn’t understood how he could give up everything he’d once been to go around chasing “murderers” and “perv-o’s.” She was especially flabbergasted that he chose to do so after he made his fortune. Timing, she contended, was never Dale’s strong suit.
To make matters worse, the nature of his work with the Bureau meant that he often had to change their plans at the last minute. Dale met his mother for breakfast once a week, but he’d had to cancel on her that morning, as he’d been following Willard Ledford to the Jefferson Memorial. Mom had been less than happy when he’d broken the news, but he hung up with the promise that he would give her another call as soon as possible.
He dialed. “Hey, Mom.”
“About time I heard from you.” Her voice had the character of a pile of wet leaves. “You chasing some crazy clown again?”
She didn’t say clown metaphorically. Last year he’d tracked down a deviant who thought he was the world’s latest messiah and showed it by driving around the Southwest in a clown suit, exposing himself to women and senior citizens.
“Not this time, Mom.”
“So what are you doing?”
“I’m afraid that’s classified.”
“Can’t tell your own mother. What a world. I hope this job is worth it to you, Waddy.”
“Don’t call me Waddy.” It was her nickname for him. It was based on his birth name, and he couldn’t let her use it. He’d always hated it anyway.
“Fine.” She sighed loudly, deliberately into his ear.
Dale rolled his eyes. “Did you have a good day, Mom?”
“Oh, it was wonderful. The neighbor walked her dog twice today, not once.” Her sarcasm came in thick, measured doses.
He should have known how asinine it was to ask a seventy-six-year-old shut-in how her day had been. “I need to get going. Duty calls. Always a pleasure.”
“Fine. I love you, Waddy.”
Waddy again. There were donkeys less stubborn than his mother. “Love you too.” He hung up.
A noise came from the opposite side of the parking lot. Wilson was walking down the small hill that led up to the filling station. He’d left a few minutes earlier saying he needed to grab something. In his hand was a six-pack of beer. He struggled to keep his balance on the sloped grass in his dress shoes.
Dale watched as Wilson crossed the parking lot. Earlier at Rich’s Diner was the first time he had seen Wilson since they were partnered together for his first assignment two years ago. While the rest of the Department of Justice, including SAC Taft, hailed Dale as a new prodigy after his success with the case, Wilson was the lone holdout. Dale’s answer to the riddle posed by the perpetrator had been incorrect, and Wilson felt that Dale’s steadfast belief in his answer had been arrogant. When Dale solved the case with a bullet rather than his brain, Wilson had said he was reckless.
Wilson popped one of the cans of beer off the plastic six-pack holder as he approached. He extended it to Dale, who took it.
“You know I don’t drink,” Dale said and tapped his mug of water with the beer can.
Wilson gave him a look. “One beer won’t kill you.”
“I suppose not.”
He’d never been a drinker, though he often found himself in situations where drinking was a de-facto necessity. At gentlemen’s clubs, for instance, he always ended up with a beer. Somehow a nice glass of iced tea just doesn’t fit in that environment. Still, in situations like the one with Wilson that was currently presenting itself, Dale did his best to refuse drinking. If a guy thought you’d have one beer with him, he would then think you’d be willing to have multiple beers with him. And Dale didn’t like full-on drinking. It clashed with his passion for physical fitness, and alcohol had a tendency to make a perfectly fine person look like an ass. Dale could handle that one just fine on his own, thank you very much.
But Dale conceded. He smiled, pulled the tab on the beer, and took a drink. He grimaced but tried to hide it. He’d never liked the taste of beer, even in college. While others quarreled about the flavor of domestic versus imported beer, Dale thought it all tasted like cat piss.
He smacked his lips and tried to clear the taste from his mouth. “A preemptive peace offering?”
Wilson sat down in the other lawn chair. “Just call it a nice gesture.”
Dale was encouraged by Wilson’s deed, but he wasn’t naïve. Word had it from some of Dale’s FBI acquaintances that Wilson re
ferred to Dale as “the BEI Fluke.” One beer wasn’t going to drop Dale’s guard.
They were quiet for a moment, each sipping their beers and looking out across the parking lot. There was a steady noise of cars from the highway.
Despite knowing that he shouldn’t drop his guard, Dale also knew that he should try to thaw the ice. Wilson had indeed made a nice gesture with the beer. He could return the favor.
“How are things in the ol’ Cody Wilson love life?” Dale had to pause slightly before he said “Cody.” He could never remember the guy’s first name. It was always “Wilson” or “Agent Wilson.” That was it.
Dale on the other hand preferred to go by his first name, much to the chagrin of Wilson and SAC Taft and others like them. When the Bureau had given him the name “Dale Conley” and expunged his Prior Identity, or PI, one of the first things Dale did to take ownership of his new moniker was to fully adopt the first name.
“My love life? Awfully personal, don’t you think, Agent Conley?”
“Not like I asked your favorite position,” Dale said. “Just chit-chat.”
“I don’t have time for a love life. I’m in a committed relationship with the FBI.”
“Wonderful. I bet you’re a lot of fun at parties. But, then, you don’t have time for parties.”
“No.” Wilson looked at the note on Dale’s lap. “May I see that?”
Dale handed it to him.
Wilson frowned. “What do you make of it?”
“Not sure. With messages like this, the guy’s usually messing with you. There’re double meanings all over the place.”
Dale was always getting cases with riddles. Occasionally, he would get a guy who really knew what he was doing. A guy like that would use ciphers or ancient languages. But most of the time, the riddles were basic word replacement. The suspects always thought they were cleverer than the police, teasing them with clues that they thought were brilliant. The problem was, a lot of the time these riddles were challenging not because the clues were brilliant but because they weren’t nearly as brilliant as the suspect thought, making the connection between the words flimsy at best.