Dark Tiger

by William G. Tapply

  Pretty soon Robin’s shadow melted into the darkness, and he couldn’t see her anymore. Night had fallen. It was time to get going.

  He went into the cabin. He slipped on the dark windbreaker with the glass vial in its zippered pocket, strapped his sheathed hunting knife to his belt, and checked the batteries in his flashlight before shoving it into his pants pocket. He stuffed a handful of Milk-Bones into the other pants pocket along with his deputy badge, and he tucked his cell phone into his shirt pocket.

  He’d worry about his fishing gear and his clothes another time.

  Then he snapped his fingers at Ralph, who’d been following him around expectantly. “Let’s go,” he said, and the two of them went outside.

  They followed the path toward the lodge but took the fork that led to the oversized garage behind it. When the building came into view in the gathering darkness, he stopped and studied the scene. No lights shone from the garage windows. No vehicles were parked outside. Nobody was standing around. The doors were shut. It appeared that the place was closed down for the night.

  Calhoun told Ralph to heel, then he skirted along the edge of the dark woods until he stood next to the garage. He moved up to the outside wall and slid along until he came to a window. He peered inside. All was darkness.

  He went around to the front. There were four double-sized doors, the kind that lifted up and slid back on steel runners. He bent over and tugged at one of the handles. The door creaked and groaned as if the moving parts needed oil, but he was able to raise it and slide it back on its tracks.

  Parked right there facing the open doorway and ready to roll were two Loon Lake Range Rovers. Calhoun went into the garage. He flicked on his flashlight and shone it through the driver’s-side window into the inside of one of the vehicles.

  There were no keys dangling from the ignition.

  What’d you expect? Calhoun thought. How easy did you think it was gonna be?

  If he couldn’t find the keys, he was out of luck. As far as he knew, with all of the training he’d had in his unremembered days as one of Mr. Brescia’s resourceful operatives, he’d never been taught how to hot-wire a car.

  He shone his flashlight around the inside walls of the garage, and its beam stopped on a rectangular metal lockbox mounted on the rear wall. He went to it and looked at it closely. It was locked, naturally.

  So he panned his flashlight around some more until it stopped on a big steel toolbox standing open on the floor in the rear corner of the garage. He sifted through the jumble of automobile tools, found a sturdy foot-long screwdriver that he thought would do the job, and went back to the lockbox.

  Jimmying it open with the screwdriver was easy.

  Eight sets of keys hung from hooks inside the box. Each hook was numbered. Calhoun guessed that he’d opened the garage door on vehicles number one and two, so he plucked down the set of keys for vehicle one. When he went to the car and shoved the key into the Rover’s door lock, it clicked open, and when he slid behind the wheel and tried the key in the ignition, the engine started without a sputter.

  He held the door open and snapped his fingers at Ralph, who jumped in, climbed over Calhoun, and took his customary seat at shotgun.

  Calhoun put the car into gear and pulled out of the garage. He left it running while he got out, went back, and closed the garage door. Whoever went into the garage first would notice the missing vehicle, of course, though depending on who it was, he might not realize the Rover had been stolen. Eventually, the scratched and dented lockbox would alert somebody to the fact that something had happened.

  He hoped nobody noticed anything until tomorrow morning. By then he’d be long gone and hard to find.

  In any case, there was no sense in advertising the larceny by leaving the garage door open.

  He got back into the Rover, put it into gear, and followed the driveway by the pale light of the moonless night sky. He didn’t know if headlights would be visible from the lodge, but he certainly wasn’t going to take that chance.

  The long driveway curved through the woods for about half a mile before it arrived at the lumber company road that led to St. Cecelia. Calhoun stopped there and got out of the car.

  He moved all around the outside of the Rover, studying it in the beam of the flashlight. He shone the light around the backseats and under the dashboard but didn’t find what he was looking for. He opened the trunk, considered the spare tire well, and discarded it as too obvious.

  Then he noticed how the taillight bulbs could be accessed from inside the trunk via snap-in plastic panels. He snapped one of them out. Perfect. There was just enough space behind the bulb. He unzipped his jacket pocket and took out the glass vial containing the yellowish powder. He wrapped it in his handkerchief to cushion it against bumps and stuffed it into the opening behind the driver’s-side taillight. Then he snapped the plastic panel back into place.

  A professional search of the car would eventually turn up the vial, he knew, but if you didn’t know the vial was hidden in the car, would you look that carefully?

  Maybe, maybe not. This was safer than keeping it in his pocket, at least.

  He climbed back behind the wheel, turned on the headlights, and went left onto the logging road, heading toward St. Cecilia and points south.

  As he remembered from the day a week earlier when he drove down to St. Cecelia, the road was rutted and potholed and littered with big rocks. At night in the headlights it looked even more treacherous. Calhoun was bubbling with adrenaline, and he had to fight the urge to drive fast, to put distance between himself and the Loon Lake Lodge. The last thing he needed was a blown tire or a broken axle or a cracked oil pan.

  So he crept along, picking his careful way around the sharp rocks and deep potholes, keeping his focus on the job of driving, and gradually he felt the tension begin to drain out of him. It left him relaxed but still keyed up and alert.

  He reached into his pocket, found a Milk-Bone, and held it over to Ralph, who took it gently between his teeth.

  “You’re welcome,” Calhoun said.

  Ralph crunched the treat.

  He guessed he’d put about five miles behind him, and he was feeling pretty good. His gas tank was full, and he aimed to drive all night. He wouldn’t stop in St. Cecelia or Greenville or Skowhegan or Waterville, except maybe for a cup of coffee and to give Ralph a chance to pee on the bushes. He’d keep going for however long it took to get to Augusta. There he’d look up Ella Grimshaw. He knew he could trust her.

  He slowed down when he came to a place where the narrow road dipped down to cross a brook. It was wet there, and he didn’t want to get stuck. The road rose and curved to the left on the other side, and as he went up the grade and made the turn, Calhoun saw a red light shining in the darkness ahead of him. It took him a moment to realize that it was his headlights reflecting from the taillight of a vehicle that was stopped smack in the middle of the road in a place where the rutted old timber company road was barely one car width wide. This vehicle was blocking the way.

  Calhoun pulled up behind the vehicle and saw that it was a heavy-duty GMC pickup truck. It appeared to be deserted. Most likely it had broken down and whoever was driving it had just left it there.

  He stopped the Range Rover, put it in neutral, and pulled the hand brake, leaving the motor running and the headlights turned on. He sat there for a few minutes looking at the truck. He felt his adrenaline surging again. This was a problem.

  When he opened the door and stepped outside, Ralph hopped out, too, and began exploring the roadside shrubbery.

  Calhoun went up to the truck and shone his flashlight around the inside. Nobody was sleeping on the seat, and there were no keys in the ignition.

  He walked all around the truck, trying to see if he could squeeze the Range Rover past it. A stand of thick-trunked pine trees barred the way on one side, but the other side, the left, looked passable. A screen of alder saplings mingled with some birch whips grew there. The ground looked kind of
boggy, but it was flat. Calhoun guessed that the Range Rover could plow right over those saplings. If he put the Rover into four-wheel drive, he might avoid getting stuck in the mud.

  Well, he didn’t have many options. He had to get past the damn pickup truck.

  He whistled to Ralph and went back to the Range Rover. Just as he put his hand on the door latch, something hard jammed into his kidneys.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Put your hands on the roof of your vehicle,” said a man’s voice close to Calhoun’s ear.

  Calhoun obeyed. “You don’t need to stick that gun into me,” he said. “I wasn’t aiming to steal your truck. I just want to get around it and continue on my way.”

  “Shut up,” the man growled.

  Calhoun recognized the voice. “Robert,” he said. “Is that you? What the hell are you doing?”

  Robert Dunlap was patting Calhoun down. He unsnapped the hunting knife out of its sheath and took the cell phone, the flashlight, the deputy badge, and the wallet from his pockets. “Hold on to these things, sweetheart, will you?” he said.

  Then Calhoun realized that there was another person there. He recognized her clean, soapy smell. “Robin?” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Stoney,” she said.

  “What’ve you got yourself into?”

  “That’s enough,” said Robert. He jabbed his gun hard into Calhoun’s lower back. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “You know.”

  “Nope, I don’t. You better tell me.”

  “It doesn’t belong to you.”

  “You mean the Rover?” said Calhoun. “I was borrowing it. Didn’t intend to keep it.”

  “Not the car, damn you.”

  “You better tell me what you want, then,” Calhoun said. “Me, I was just hoping to visit one of the casinos in St. Cecelia tonight, play a few hands of Texas Hold ’Em, have a little fun. Tomorrow’s my day off, you know.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” said Robert. “If I have to shoot you, I will.”

  “Like you shot McNulty?”

  “Give me that duct tape,” Robert said to Robin. “Here, you hold the gun on him.”

  The gun barrel left Calhoun’s kidneys, and then Robert Dunlap grabbed Calhoun’s left wrist and pulled it around to his back, and that’s when Ralph growled and Robert yelped and Calhoun spun around and smashed his right elbow into Robert’s throat, an instinctive move, but one, Calhoun realized, that he’d been taught and had practiced until he could do it without thinking.

  Robert was thrashing around on the ground gagging and gasping for breath. Ralph had his teeth sunk into the man’s calf. Calhoun dropped onto Robert’s chest with both knees and grabbed his throat. Blood pounded in Calhoun’s brain. He felt Robert’s fragile life fluttering in his hands.

  Then the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head.

  “Get off him, Stoney,” Robin said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “This sonofabitch will kill me, and that’s unacceptable.”

  “Then I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll kill you.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said. “You won’t do that.”

  “You don’t know me,” said Robin. “I’m not such a nice girl.”

  “I never accused you of being nice,” he said, “but you ain’t a killer.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “You’re not going to kill me,” said Calhoun.

  “Just let go of him. And tell Ralph to let go.”

  “Let him go,” Calhoun said to Ralph. He lifted his hands away from Robert’s throat.

  “Get off him. He can hardly breathe.”

  “Ralph,” said Calhoun quietly.

  Ralph came flying through the darkness, a brown-and-white flash, and then Robin screamed.

  Calhoun got off Robert’s chest. Robin and Ralph looked like they were wrestling on the ground. Robin was grunting and cursing. Ralph was growling deep in his chest. Calhoun looked around, and in the indirect light from the Rover’s headlights, he found the revolver where Robin had dropped it. He picked it up and pointed it at her. “Okay,” he said to Ralph, who had latched on to Robin’s wrist. “Let her go now.”

  Ralph released his hold on Robin and sat down. He seemed to be glaring at her.

  “What kind of a dog is this?” she said. “He always seemed so . . .”

  “Gentle?” said Calhoun.

  “I guess so.” She was holding her right wrist in her left hand. Calhoun saw some blood ooze through her fingers.

  “Well, you seemed gentle, too,” he said.

  Robin laughed quickly. “You never know, huh?”

  “I’ve trained him,” Calhoun said. “Plus, unlike you, he’s loyal as hell. You mess with me, you’ve got to deal with Ralph.” He spotted his flashlight on the ground. He picked it up, shone it around, and found his hunting knife and his cell phone, his wallet and his badge.

  “Where’s that duct tape?” he said to Robin.

  “I gave it to him.”

  He shone the flashlight on Robert. He was holding his throat in one hand. His breath came in short raspy gasps. He was still clutching the roll of duct tape in his other hand.

  Calhoun took the tape and handed it to Robin. “Tape his wrists together.”

  “Why should I?” she said. “You’re not going to shoot me. Are you, Stoney?”

  “Probably not,” he said, “but I wouldn’t mind shooting him. I figure he’s the one who killed your friend Elaine and blew up Curtis Swenson in the Cessna. He doesn’t deserve to live. You I’ve still got some hope for. If you can’t tape him up, I guess I’ll have to shoot him, and if I do, it’ll be on you. That what you want?”

  She smiled. “I don’t believe you—but okay, I’ll do it. I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

  “I’d say it’s a little late to think about that.” To Robert he said, “Sit up and hold our your hands.”

  Calhoun held the gun on them while Robin taped Robert’s wrists together halfway up to his elbows. Then he patted Robert’s pockets, took out the keys to the truck, and slipped them into his own pocket.

  He opened the passenger door of the truck and folded it forward. “Stick him in there,” Calhoun said to Robin.

  She helped Robert lurch to his feet, steered him around to the open door, and stuffed him into the cramped backseat.

  “Now tape up his ankles,” Calhoun said.

  Robin wrapped duct tape around Robert’s ankles all the way up to his knees.

  “Give me the tape,” Calhoun said. “Your turn.” He taped Robin’s wrists together. Her right forearm was bleeding a little from Ralph’s teeth. It probably hurt, though she wasn’t complaining. He didn’t feel sorry for her. Ralph wasn’t rabid. She’d live.

  He told her to climb into the front seat, and after she did that, he taped her ankles together. He checked the tape jobs on both Robin and Robert. Neither of them was going anywhere.

  Calhoun told Ralph to jump in back with Robert. “Don’t hesitate to bite somebody,” he told the dog.

  He went back to the Range Rover. He opened the trunk, pried off the snap-on plastic cover over the taillight, and took out the vial wrapped in his handkerchief. He stuck it in his jacket pocket and zipped it up.

  He left the keys in the Rover’s ignition. Then he went back to the truck and climbed in behind the wheel. “Ready to go, kids?” he said.

  Neither Robert nor Robin answered.

  Calhoun started up the truck, turned on the headlights, and headed for St. Cecelia.

  In the backseat behind him, Robert groaned every time they hit a bump in the road. Robin, riding shotgun beside Calhoun, kept her face turned away from him.

  “I don’t want to think about the possibility that you betrayed your friend Elaine like you betrayed me,” Calhoun said to her.

  “She wasn’t really my friend,” said Robin.

  “So all that crying when she got killed . . . ?”

  “Oh, I was s
ad,” she said, “but I understood that it had to be done. I guess the tears were mostly for your sake, Stoney. Robert was suspicious of you right off, the way you kept asking about McNulty.”

  “So he told you to seduce me, huh?”

  “I tried,” he said.

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “Good try, too.”

  She laughed softly.

  “I showed you my badge,” he said. “I confided in you. I trusted you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “How was I supposed to know I was going to like you?”

  “Tell me about Curtis Swenson,” he said.

  “Just shut up,” said Robert from the backseat. “Don’t talk to him.”

  “Ah, he’s gonna find out sooner or later.” She turned to Calhoun. “Robert was over in Afghanistan,” she said. “He learned how to make those roadside bombs. What do you call them?”

  “IEDs,” Calhoun said. “Improvised explosive devices.”

  “That’s it,” she said. “So he made one of them for the Cessna. You were supposed to be on that plane. Two birds with one stone.”

  “Me and Curtis,” Calhoun said. “Why Curtis?”

  “Robert stopped trusting him,” she said.

  “And me?”

  “He thought you were too curious about things. He thought you had some other agenda besides guiding. He didn’t trust you from the beginning. He knew you were a deputy sheriff. Robert thought—”

  “Will you shut the hell up?” said Robert.

  “He’s right,” Robin said. “Time for me to shut up.”

  “The more you tell me,” Calhoun said, “the easier it’ll go for you.”

  “No,” she said, “Robert’s right. I’m not going to say anything else. Robert can tell you whatever he wants, but I’m done.”

  “Suit yourself,” Calhoun said. He hesitated. “There is one thing, though.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you? What do you get out of it?”

  She shook her head. “You’d never understand.”