The Shadow's Edge

by Patrick Dakin

  “But you can’t go to the law. They’ll immediately figure him for Charlene’s disappearance and that’ll destroy Callie’s justification for killing Croop.”

  “I know. Whatever I do has to be done strictly on my own. I felt I owed you an explanation for what’s got to happen but you have to promise me that no one – ever – will be told a word of this.”

  “God, Jack, please tell me you’re not planning to kill him,” she said, hardly able to speak the words, never mind believe them.

  I felt about the same way myself. “I don’t see that I have any choice. I can’t let the law deal with him and I can’t just let him be. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.” I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that I was seriously contemplating another outright murder. This would make it two for me. What had I become that I could willingly take another human life and justify it simply because it suited my purposes?

  Kat stared at a spot on the table between us. “But you’re appointing yourself judge, jury, and executioner. You don’t have that right, no matter what the circumstances. Jesus … actually killing somebody. I mean, I know he deserves to pay for what he’s done and all but …”

  “Kat, there can’t be any misgivings about this. You’re either with me on this or you’re not. Which is it?”

  She was silent for several long moments, staring deep into my eyes. “Okay,” she whispered, “I’m with you. I give you my word I won’t say anything.”

  “That means not even to your son. No one means no one.” I waited while she absorbed my words.

  She nodded, looking miserable but determined. “I won’t say a word - not even to Devon. But what exactly are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. It’s probably best that, from now on, I keep whatever happens to myself. The less you know, the less implicated you are.”

  “I feel like I’m already plenty implicated,” she responded.

  “It’ll be all right. Just remember, this conversation never happened.” I left some money on the table and stood to leave.

  “Be careful, Jack,” she said. “Don’t underestimate RJ. He’s a snake, and a very dangerous one.”

  I didn’t doubt that she was right about that. It was unlikely that dealing with Fordham, whatever that might entail, would prove to be an easy endeavor. And, despite what I had done to Reuben Henderson that had resulted in my going to prison, I still did not regard myself as an inherently violent person.

  Perhaps I was kidding myself. After all, neither my history nor my current plans supported that contention.

  29

  As Christine Darrow had predicted, on Monday morning Mandlin made his announcement. “Your Honor, the prosecution has come into possession of certain material that may have a direct bearing on these proceedings. In light of these developments it is our recommendation that the charges against Mrs. Parmenter be stayed until such time as an assessment of the material can be made.”

  “Very well,” said the judge. He had already been fully apprised of the details. “And what is your recommendation with respect to Mrs. Parmenter’s prisoner status?”

  “In view of the serious nature of the charges, Your Honor, we believe the defendant should be held in custody pending the outcome of the assessment.”

  The judge looked to the defense table. “Ms. Darrow?”

  “Your Honor, as we’ve maintained since her arrest, Mrs. Parmenter does not represent a flight risk. She presented herself voluntarily to face these charges and has thus demonstrated her willingness to see the matter through to completion. We feel very strongly that she should be permitted to await the prosecution’s further deliberations out of custody.”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” the judge said. “Mrs. Parmenter, you are free to go with the proviso that you remain in the County until the matter before this court is resolved; this may mean either a resumption of these trial proceedings or a dismissal of charges. Do you understand this?”

  Wide-eyed and trembling Callie answered, “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  “Very well. This court is adjourned.”

  When the judge pounded his gavel Callie broke down in tears. Darrow gently steered her from the defense counsel’s table to where I stood. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly while she sobbed against my chest. There are no words to describe how good it felt to embrace her.

  Staying the proceedings, of course, didn’t mean that Callie had been found innocent or that the charges against her had been dropped, but merely that the action was being suspended while Mandlin and his crew mulled over the new evidence.

  I was thrilled that things were progressing as I had hoped they would, but it did not mean we were out of the woods. Not by a long shot.

  As much as I hated the thought of letting her out of my sight, taking Callie to the hotel I had been staying at in Colville was not an option. I called Miles about what to do and he confirmed what I suspected he would. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he said. “I talked to Betty about the two of you stayin’ here with us but she’s just not comfortable with it. I know of a little place not far from us that’s empty, though, and I think you could probably rent it at a decent price. Why don’t I look into it for you and, in the meantime, you can bring Callie back here?”

  “Thank, Miles, that’d be great,” I said.

  Callie was sad at the prospect of me having to keep living on my own but I assured her it wouldn’t be for long. On the way home we stopped at a nice restaurant in Lewiston and spent a couple of hours relaxing and talking. By the time I dropped her back with the Wilsons and returned to the hotel it was late in the evening and I was ready for bed. Sleep was elusive, however. My mind churned until well into the wee hours with thoughts of RJ Fordham and what needed to be done. One thing was certain: I couldn’t allow him to continue on the way things were for long. Who knew what might happen during the time his actions remained unimpeded?

  I was awakened after only a few hours of sleep by a gentle knock at my door. When I opened it Callie stood there looking shyly ravishing. I stood back and allowed her to enter. Without a word she undressed and crawled beneath the covers of my meager cot. It really wasn’t big enough to accommodate two adults comfortably but we spent most of our time for the rest of that day sufficiently engaged so as to be indifferent to such concerns.

  * *

  As badly as I needed to focus my thoughts on the problem of RJ Fordham I could not deny Callie the attention she needed. Each morning for the next few days she arrived at my room at the same time with a picnic basket full of food, and Bix in tow, and we would enjoy long walks along the banks of Cameron Creek. They were idyllic days and, if not for the ugly thought of what lay ahead of me, I could have happily spent the remainder of my life doing nothing else.

  It would have been an immense help if I could have talked to Callie about what I was facing but that, of course, was out of the question. She was like a child now in many ways, not the least of which were her short temper and easily activated frustration level. Since our reunion I had witnessed several minor episodes of Callie’s loss of temper. Although they were not significant in terms of substance they were certainly out of character for her – or at least out of character for the person she had once been. One such incident occurred while she was trying to use a can opener. When she couldn’t get it to work properly she cursed loudly and threw the device at a wall. In another case she had beckoned Bix to come to her while we were on one of our walks but his interest had been captured by something and he ignored her calls. She exploded with anger, chasing after him and yelling loudly – totally overreacting to the situation. I was made to wonder just what Croop had really done that resulted in Callie reacting with enough rage to kill him. After all, knowing what I now knew, it was unlikely she had been in a life or death situation. And what would it take for something similar to happen again? It was a discomforting thought.

  Although I loved my wife with every fiber of my being I found myself wondering if her
volatile temperament might be our undoing.

  30

  If he was anything, RJ Fordham mused, he was sensitive to the emotional state of people with whom he was interacting. Case in point: Kat Stedman. A few years earlier when he had arrived in Colville and discovered she now lived here, too, he’d been worried. She was the mother of one of his high school ‘friends’ and had obviously been aware of the accusations floating around about him in the death of his girlfriend. Although the police had lost interest in him as a suspect in the case following the discovery of the evidence incriminating Steven, RJ knew that staying in Rumford was thereafter out of the question. Too many people felt they knew what had really taken place and they avoided him like the plague. Moving to Colville allowed him to start over without the stigma of a dubious history. Having Kat around, however, meant the past could rear its ugly head again at any time and it left him ill at ease, no doubt about it. So he got into the habit of, every once in awhile, stopping by the diner just to let her know he was watching her. He never said a word about Rumford – he didn’t have to. All he needed to do was look at her with that stare of his, the one he had refined to an art. She could never hold his gaze. Her fear was palpable. And that was exactly how he wanted her to remain – scared shitless of him. After Charlene disappeared he could almost smell the fear coming off her in waves whenever their eyes met. It was obvious what was in her mind. In hindsight, of course, it had been foolish of him to take a local woman. But he had since dealt with that well enough. Last week up in Canada, though, he had very nearly been caught in the act by some good Samaritan. He’d been careless and he knew he could not afford to allow himself that luxury again.

  Of immediate concern, however, was the fact that something in Kat had changed. There was a new element to her nervousness now. In the past her fear had been a contained thing; his intuition told him that was no longer the case. Something had to be done about her. The problem, of course, was that if she turned up missing like Charlene Lamont even that idiot, Jessup, would have to question whether Croop had really been responsible for Charlene’s disappearance. Downloading his pictures of Charlene to the flash drive he had scooped from Croop’s place and then planted in his garage had been damning all right but, in and of itself, wasn’t conclusive evidence of his guilt. That Croop had developed an obsession with the Parmenter woman and then gotten himself killed had surely been a most fortuitous and accommodating turn of events. What had really clinched things against Croop, though, had been the discovery of Charlene’s hair strands out at the place on Beaver Lake Road. A baffling development that was, but RJ was not going to spend a lot of time worrying about things that were going his way. He had more immediate concerns, such as how to deal with Kat.

  Maybe she needed to have an accident. A serious one.

  With Kat foremost in his mind RJ decided to pay a little visit to the diner. Get a feel for how things were shaking, do a little reconnoitering. It was early afternoon, a quiet time for her. He pulled to a stop, parking beside a pickup that looked vaguely familiar.

  When he walked into the diner he saw Kat in deep conversation with Jack Parmenter. They were sitting across from one another in the corner booth, hunched over like they were sharing deep dark secrets. Their exchange came to an immediate halt when they registered RJ’s presence. Kat slid out of the booth and came around the counter to stand in front of RJ.

  “Hello, Kat,” he said cheerfully, masking his disappointment at finding she wasn’t alone.

  “RJ,” she said ashen-faced. “Coffee?”

  “Yeah. Make it to go.”

  She was trembling as she filled a Styrofoam cup and handed it to him. “No charge,” she said.

  “Why thank you, Kat. Much obliged.” He turned, nodded at Parmenter, and left the diner.

  Once outside he got a look at the front of that pickup he had parked beside. In a sudden, gut-squeezing moment of revelation, he knew why it looked familiar.

  He’d seen it last week in Canada while beating a fast path out of the woods.

  RJ drove away from the diner slowly, but his mind was racing. What possible explanation was there for the presence of that pickup here? RJ didn’t believe in coincidences and especially not ones like this.

  The pickup was parked in front of the diner and Parmenter was the only one in the place. It stood to reason he was the owner but, to make sure, RJ drove down the block and parked where he had an unobstructed view of things.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Within five minutes Parmenter emerged from the diner, climbed into the pickup, and drove off.

  RJ fought down the urge to panic. He had to keep a clear head. What did this all mean? Kat had been suspicious of him from the start, he knew that. And lately she had been showing signs of even greater nervousness around him. Now he finds her in deep conversation with the guy who very nearly caught him with that girl he had grabbed last week in Canada. Parmenter had to have been following him. No other explanation was feasible. So Kat had told Parmenter what she suspected and he had taken it upon himself to play detective. Which meant Parmenter knew about the house in Sherbrooke. And that could lead directly to Kristov. Which in turn meant RJ’s life wasn’t worth shit. But why wouldn’t Parmenter have reported what he’d seen in Canada? Surely that girl would have told him what had happened. This wasn’t making sense. For some reason he couldn’t figure out Kat and Parmenter were keeping what they knew to themselves. Now why would they do that?

  The pounding in RJ’s heart began to subside. Maybe things weren’t so bad. It was possible he could still save his ass. If Kat and Parmenter were keeping quiet about what they knew there had to be a good reason for it. And if that was the case then in all likelihood they hadn’t shared that knowledge with anybody else.

  Well, he had already planned to deal with Kat; now he’d just have to invite Parmenter along to the party, too.

  31

  Seeing Fordham walk into the diner while we were in an animated discussion about him was eerie in the extreme. The look he gave us was hard to read. Disappointment? Surprise? Maybe both. I wondered what the real purpose of his visit had been and what he’d have done if I hadn’t happened to be there at that moment. Whatever the case, it was clear that he’d had a powerful effect on Kat.

  “I think he knows we’re up to something,” she said in a shaky voice when he left.

  “Maybe. It’s possible he remembers my truck from our near collision in the woods up in Canada. He tore by me pretty fast but it’s not impossible that he got a good enough look at the pickup to be able to recognize it. If he did he’s got to be wondering what the hell is going on.”

  “Whatever you’ve got in mind, Jack, it had better be done soon. I’m afraid of him. I ---”

  “I hear you, Kat. But I’ve got to come up with a plan that will get the job done without landing me back in the slammer. I’ve spent all the time in a cage I need to in this lifetime.”

  My declaration did nothing to ease Kat’s anxiety. She leaned in close to me and spoke in a hushed, unwavering voice. “You’ve begged me to keep quiet about RJ so Callie gets a ‘get out of jail’ card. Okay, I get that. But this is my life we’re talking about here, Jack. Don’t think for one minute that I’m going to give up my life for anybody.”

  I nodded my understanding. She was absolutely right. This guy was a destroyer of lives and if I didn’t get the job done, and fast, Kat could very likely be his next victim. And I might be right behind her.

  I left Kat and walked out to my truck.

  Without making it obvious I had a good look around. Not far away I caught a glimpse of a Colville police cruiser with a figure slumped down behind the wheel. I couldn’t say for sure it was Fordham but I harbored little doubt that it was.

  A little shiver rippled through me. It occurred to me that I needed to get myself a weapon.

  Being an ex-con meant I couldn’t just walk into a gun store and buy myself a shooter. And even if I could have it wouldn’t have been an option. I needed s
omething that couldn’t be traced back to me. The only person I knew in town who might have such an item was Miles. Being an ex-cop himself he had likely acquired a number of guns over the years. But I couldn’t very well ask him to borrow one so I could kill somebody, could I?

  He had phoned me yesterday to tell me the house he had checked into for Callie and me was available for rent. If we were interested we could move in any time. I hadn’t seen the property but Callie knew it and said it would suit us well. She was very excited about us getting a place of our own and I had promised her we’d have a look at it together today.

  As I drove to the Wilson place to pick Callie up I tried to get my thoughts in order. I hated the idea of Kat spending even one more night on her own. If anything happened to her before I was able to deal with RJ I would never be able to live with myself.

  * *

  The house was a typical farm structure, built about fifty years ago with clapboard siding, smallish windows, and overgrown vegetation. It was no palace but it offered privacy, serene views, and lots of quiet. It would take some work to fix it up to Callie’s standards but she was thrilled with the idea of us living together again in our own home. We went in to town after our inspection and met with the owner’s lawyer to sign a rental agreement.

  When we walked out to our truck Callie stopped me and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so happy, Jack. It’ll be just like it used to be.”

  I smiled tolerantly. If only that were true. “We’ll need to get some furniture.”

  “There’s a used furniture store in town where we can get some stuff. And what we can’t get there we can get in Lewiston.”

  “I’ll have to do some repairs and painting before we get much.”

  “I’ll help.” She oozed enthusiasm and it was wonderful to see those beautiful eyes so animated.