The soap went to a commercial just as things were getting hot and heavy between the two girls, and he thought back to the day that had changed his life forever. He was a patrolman, stuck in the world of the law enforcement foot soldier, unlikely ever to receive the promotion to detective that he craved, thanks to questionable decision-making skills and his tendency toward over-reliance on the enthusiastic employment of fists and baton in keeping suspects in line.
On that fateful day, Josh had been patrolling a local park where rich and influential native son Brett Parker, local software magnate extraordinaire, was scheduled to dedicate a brand-new baseball field for underprivileged children he had financed out of his own pocket. A podium was set up on the pitcher’s mound, with television cameras and print reporters gathered around home plate to memorialize every second of the Great Man’s appearance among the unwashed masses.
Josh had been patrolling the outfield, ostensibly on the lookout for trouble but mostly eyeing the hordes of beautiful young women who always followed Parker around, drawn to the man’s wealth and power like moths to a flame.
He trailed along behind one particularly scrumptious young thing; a girl dressed in a tiny t-shirt barely covering her ample assets and the tightest pair of jeans Josh had ever seen. He wondered whether she would even be able to slide them off if she ever managed to corral Parker.
As he did his best to look inconspicuous while keeping her in his sights as long as possible, a sudden furtive movement ahead and to the girl’s right caught his eye. He almost ignored it; after all, you didn’t see female specimens like this one every day; not unless your name was Brett Parker, of course. But something about the activity raised his hackles.
He glanced to his right, annoyed at the distraction, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw some dude who looked as though he had just woken up under a bridge abutment—long, dirty beard and filthy jeans that probably had never seen the inside of a washing machine—pull a handgun out of his pocket and begin bringing it to bear on Parker.
And no one noticed, except for Josh.
It was freaking unbelievable. Here they were, smack in the middle of a huge crowd of who knew how many thousands of people, and a grubby bum most people would cross the street to avoid was brandishing a gun, and nobody noticed!
The bum was positioned almost directly behind Parker now, the Great Man’s back completely exposed to the commoners as he addressed the reporters and TV cameras transmitting his words to the millions of other commoners not fortunate enough to attend the ceremony. The moment the guy fired, Parker would go down. There was no way he could miss. It was the perfect angle and the perfect opportunity for this sleazeball—probably crazy as a loon, suffering from paranoid delusions or something—to make his nutty statement to the world by assassinating Parker.
And Josh reacted.
He reacted immediately. Just because he was a semi-dirty cop, willing to take his money where he could get it, didn’t mean he wasn’t a halfway decent officer when he wanted to be. He knew instinctively if he drew his gun dozens of people would die, there was no question about it. He would spook the nut-job, the crazy bastard would spray the crowd with bullets, and people would die.
So he left his sidearm in its holster and instead, launched himself at the man. No bullshit fair play warning like the cops always gave on TV; Josh wasn’t about fair play, he was all about getting the upper hand by any means possible. He launched himself like the middle linebacker he had been back in high school, hitting the guy with his powerful shoulders and driving him sideways into a crowd of teenagers.
The gun flew up into the air as it was jarred out of the asshole’s hand, and as if someone had flipped a switch, chaos erupted. People started screaming and running and Josh brought the guy to the ground, shoving his face into the dirt, grinding a little more grime into the bum’s already filthy beard, not that anyone would notice.
And just like that, Josh Parmalee became a hero. He was the flavor of the day, receiving a commendation from a grateful mayor, whose finely tuned political instincts told him it was the right move despite the singularly uninspired nature of the record in Josh’s personnel folder. There was a ceremony on the steps of City Hall, presentation of a medal, and a sincere handshake from Brett Parker himself at the end of a moving speech where he thanked Officer Parmalee for saving his life. All of it captured by the greedy eye of the Seattle TV news cameras, then transmitted around the country by virtually every network.
But the best part, the unbelievable part, came after the ceremony, while Brett Parker and Josh relaxed in the Mayor’s office, sharing a beer and casual conversation. That was when Parker had sprung the job offer on Josh, admitting the events that afternoon at the park had shaken him up badly. “I need personal security,” he said, and Josh nodded, still with no freaking clue where the conversation was headed.
By the time Parker got around to spelling out the job offer, Josh had stared at him for at least thirty seconds, mouth hanging open like a damn fool, unable even to formulate a response. He waited for the billionaire to begin laughing, to pull the rug out from under him and declare the whole thing a joke, but he never did. He simply waited for a response from the man who had saved his life, the man he now wanted as his head of personal security.
And Josh had accepted on the spot.
Now he sat munching on Doritos and shaking his head at his unlikely good fortune. One moment in the right place at the right time, a few seconds of sheer luck, had given him this cushy gig with all of the trappings of wealth and power. One moment of action—the whole crazy incident had taken maybe ten seconds from beginning to end—and now he had life by the balls.
The commercials ended—laundry detergent, diapers and tampons were all they ever seemed to advertise on soaps; that was the worst part of watching—and the show came back on. Josh was disappointed but unsurprised to see they were now focusing on a different storyline for the time being, one which didn’t feature beautiful young actresses French-kissing each other.
He assuaged his disappointment with another Dorito, crunching away happily, when he heard a drawn-out creeeeeak just outside. The sound seemed to come from the porch, and although this brand-new house creaked and groaned all the time as it began the process of settling on its foundation, this particular noise seemed somehow different. Furtive, like the movement he had detected so long ago at the park, and which had ultimately been responsible for changing his life.
Josh stopped chewing and listened hard.
15
There were less than a half-dozen real estate agents in the Paskagankee area who might have rented a home to the mysterious Max and his beautiful companion. The pair wasn’t living in the small downtown area—it would have been impossible to do so and remain as invisible as they had—and the only apartments for rent in Paskagankee were all located within a fifteen minute walk of the police station, so Mike assumed if they were living in the area at all it would have to be in a house somewhere on the outskirts of town.
This still left them with a vast expanse of territory to consider, given the sheer geographical vastness of Paskagankee. But the handful of local realtors became the logical starting point for the search. If none of them panned out, Mike knew more research would be required to uncover names and contact numbers for homes available for rent by individuals outside the immediate area.
He eased into the wheeled chair behind his desk and picked up the telephone, gazing through the glass office wall at Sharon, busy working the phone out in the mostly empty squad room. They had split the numbers evenly, three for him and three for her, and he watched as she sat with her feet on her desk, holding the telephone receiver to her ear and biting her lip as she tried to coax information out of a realtor clearly unwilling or unable to part with it.
For those few minutes back in the cruiser, after leaving Needful Things, the shroud of tension and regret which had been hanging over them since the breakup seemed to lift. Then reality reasserted itself. They drov
e into the police station parking lot to continue the search for Earl Manning and the easy familiarity they had shared disappeared like the popping of a child’s balloon. They trudged into the station and split up, Mike disappearing into the chief’s office and Sharon sitting down at her desk, the moment rich with symbolism and pain.
Mike sighed and looked at the telephone numbers he had printed out, selecting the top one and punching the digits into the keypad on his phone with more force than necessary.
“Green Mountain Realty, Barb speaking, how may I help you?”
Mike was surprised but grateful for the opportunity to talk to a real human being rather than a machine. “Hello, Barb, how are you today? This is Chief Mike McMahon of the Paskagankee Police Department.”
“Chief McMahon, hello! Finally decided to get out of that little apartment you’re renting downtown and enjoy the advantages of home ownership?”
Mike laughed. “No ma’am, I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of responsibility just yet. Actually, I’m calling on police business. We are investigating the disappearance of a Paskagankee resident, Earl Manning, and believe a newly arrived couple in town may have information which could be helpful in the search. The problem is we don’t have a last name for either the man or the woman. We only know that they are likely renting a home on the outskirts of town. We believe their first names are Max and Raven. I don’t suppose you’ve rented any homes within, say, the last three months to a couple with these names? The man is considerably older than the woman.”
“No, Chief, but the rental market has been very slow recently. Between the slow economy, which will continue to struggle in a remote area such as this even after the rest of the country has gotten back on track, and that horrible business with Chief Court killing all those people last fall, residential home sales and rentals have virtually dried up. I’m certain I would remember if I had served a couple such as the one you mentioned. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
“No problem. Thank you anyway, Barb.”
“Good luck with your search, Chief, and give some thought to what I said about buying a house. There are tax advantages, not to mention the pride of ownership.”
“I’ll think it over, Barb, and when I’m ready to buy, you’ll be hearing from me. Thanks again.”
Mike hung up and glanced out through the open blinds into the bullpen to see the front legs of Sharon’s chair slam down on the worn tile floor as she stood, writing furiously in her notebook. She looked up and caught Mike’s eye, gesturing with her head for him to come out of his office. He could see, even from twenty feet away and through a window, that she was onto something. Her eyes shone and her body crackled with an electric energy that made Mike’s heart ache.
He left his office in time to hear the end of Sharon’s telephone conversation with the realtor. “Are you kidding me?” she said into the mouthpiece. “That place was run-down ten years ago. I’m surprised it’s even inhabitable. Thank you so much for your information; you might just have helped locate a missing person.”
She hung up the phone and turned to Mike. “Bingo. Max Acton is the guy’s name, and he’s renting the old Higginson house out on Depot Road, way out in the woods. The place was empty and falling apart when I was in high school—“
“—Way back then?” Mike interrupted, and Sharon smacked him on the arm.
“The point is,” she continued, “the place was a piece of crap a decade ago and it has undergone virtually no maintenance or restoration since. No legitimate couple would ever rent that place unless they were trying to keep as low a profile as they possibly could.”
Mike smiled and fist-bumped his officer. “Looks like we’re in business. Let’s go”
16
Josh Parmalee listened for the creaking sound a second time, his mouth hanging half-open, Dorito crumbs littering his jeans and his Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. He was careful to dress professionally when in public on the job with Parker—the Great Man would expect nothing less—but out in the woods in the middle of nowhere a suit seemed a little bit like overkill.
He was certain he had heard a noise, furtive and hushed, like someone (something) sneaking across the newly constructed wraparound porch Parker was so proud of. The hairs on the back of Josh’s neck stood on end and he felt a worm of fear wriggle its way through his intestines.
He shook his head and grunted. He was being ridiculous, a freaking little pansy. Next thing you knew he would scream and piss his pants. He was just unused to being way out here in the forest, that was all. He was a city guy, had been born and raised in Seattle and spent his entire life there. All of this vast emptiness, with its three hundred year old towering pines and its millions of frigging mosquitoes and its mooses or meeses or whatever the hell they were called, it was all a little unnerving. That was all.
Besides, he had now been listening closely for at least a minute and had yet to hear a repeat of the sound which had caused this massive overreaction. He was glad his old compatriots on the Seattle PD couldn’t see him now, cowering inside his rich boss’s house, all because of a little noise.
He grunted again and stuffed another Dorito into his mouth and that was when the front door slammed open with a Crash! banging into the freshly painted living room wall with enough force to gouge out a chunk of drywall. A puff of delicate white dust floated into the air like a miniature explosion and Josh’s eyes widened in shock.
Looming in the doorway, swaying side to side as if drunk or high, stood a haggard-looking skeleton of a man, hair unkempt, dirty clothes hanging off his rail-thin body, his face somehow . . . off . . . as if the features couldn’t quite coordinate with each other. His eyes seemed off-kilter, glazed and unfocused and looking in two different directions, and one side of his mouth curled up as if attempting to smile or perhaps sneer, while the other side bent down in studious concentration.
The man shook his head side to side slowly and his eyes came together, focusing on Josh, who was so surprised he hadn’t moved, hadn’t even put down his bag of chips. The intruder shambled forward a couple of feet and stopped. “Brett Parker?” he asked, the voice issuing from deep inside his chest, low and rumbling, and that was what snapped Josh out of his shocked inaction.
Josh leapt to his feet, orange-yellow crumbs scattering all over the freshly varnished hardwood floor, and he had the absurd thought that he had better get the mess cleaned up before Parker saw it or his boss would flip out. He reached for his weapon, a Sig Sauer P229 shoved into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back. He yanked it out, holding it—for the moment—with both hands at his side, barrel pointed toward the now-messy floor. Josh had instinctively checked the intruder’s hands the moment he crashed through the door and they were empty, and he knew he could bring his weapon to bear, if it came to that, before the man could get within arm’s length of him.
Josh had had plenty of experience dealing with drugged-up losers back in Seattle, usually young men, assholes hopped up on meth or angel dust or any of the other crazy shit these idiots were stupid enough to put into their bodies, and that’s what it appeared this dirtbag had done.
Sort of.
Something was off about the guy, that much was plain as day.
“Why don’t you just stop right there,” Josh said calmly, his insides churning with the adrenaline rush he used to experience almost daily but had nearly forgotten about since hiring on with Parker. He raised the Sig to punctuate his point and almost lowered it to the floor again, but thought better of it and held it eye-level, barrel now pointed at the intruder’s chest.
To his surprise, the man did stop. In Josh’s police experience, losers as far gone as this guy appeared to be didn’t normally pay the slightest attention to a weapon, whether pointed at them or not. But this guy looked quizzically at Josh and repeated his question. “Are you Brett Parker?” The voice really was spooky as hell.
“Who wants to know?” Josh countered, and the man standing three feet inside the damaged doorway, s
waying on his feet like a stoned teenager at a heavy-metal show, shook his head. “You ain’t Parker. Where’s Brett Parker?”
And that was when everything went to shit. Because at that moment Brett Parker, the real Brett Parker, the man this loony-tune was searching for, came wandering into the room from the hallway, forehead wrinkled, demanding to know just what in the holy hell was going on here. And the hallway was behind the intruder, meaning the crazy bastard stood between Josh and Parker. Meaning the intruder was closer to Parker than Josh was, meaning also that if Parker came any closer to the man standing in front of the door, there would be no way he could get a shot off without risking hitting his boss.
It was decision time. Josh had to make a split-second determination whether to fire his weapon or not. The answer was simple. This crazy-looking motherfucker had burst into a private residence uninvited and unannounced, lunacy written all over his features, ranting and raving about Brett Parker, a man worth billions and who had dozens—if not hundreds—of enemies throughout the business world.
It was a no-brainer. Sure, the intruder was unarmed, but Josh could take care of that minor detail later; maybe put a steak knife in his dead hand or something.
He fired. Flame belched from the barrel of the Sig and the weapon blasted, the noise loud and shocking inside the enclosed room, and a sharp, tangy smell filled the air, and the crazed-looking, drugged-up stranger took a direct hit in his chest. The impact blasted him backward and he smashed into the partially open door, falling against the wall he had damaged with his violent entrance.
Parker instinctively dove to the floor and Josh had to give him credit, he never screamed. Josh figured a prepped-up Ivy League pussy like Brett Parker would crap his pants with the discharge of a weapon, but he did nothing of the sort. He hit the deck and rolled into the hallway and instantly rose a notch in Josh Parmalee’s eyes.
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