by Tom Deitz
“Oh, so that’s what all those bells and whistles were about? We could hear ’em even down here.”
Brock grinned so wide Robyn thought the top of his head would fall off. “Yeah. Neat, huh?”
“Yeah,” Don echoed. “So they were exactly where I told you, right?”
“Dead on—good thing your mom’s fellow gave you that tour that time.”
“Yeah,” Don chuckled in spite of himself. “Told me every way there was to break into that jail. Bet he never thought I’d use it against him, though!”
“So where is the scale?” Robyn inquired pointedly.
“Downstairs somewhere: room marked STORAGE.”
“Well, that’s just great! How’ll I get down there?” Brock frowned abruptly. “Well,” he began, “that may be kinda complicated. I guess I better draw you a picture.”
“Get at it then, before I lose my nerve.”
Brock stuck his tongue out at his sister and picked up a piece of rusty rebar with which he began sketching in a sheltered pile of sand. Before Brock’s mission Don had already drawn a gridwork like a tic-tac-toe board, but now Brock was filling some of the squares with smaller ones. “Okay,” he began, indicating the top-middle section: “We’re here behind this old hotel, graveyard’s to the left, depot to the right.” He paused to inscribe a prickly looking line above the map. “These are the railroad tracks we followed in, and right beyond them’s the river.”
“I’m not stupid,” Robyn noted sarcastically. “Besides, Don already told us that much.”
“Just gettin’ you oriented,” Brock went on patiently, pointing to the rectangle inside the central square. “Courthouse’s in the middle—that’s the funny-lookin’ buildin’ with the tower. Jail’s to the right—the east, I guess. Entrance to the west, toward the courthouse. Calvin’s on the second floor—that’s up one flight of stairs—but the stairs go down at least one level below the street, too, which would jibe with what Calvin said ’bout there bein’ a tunnel between the jail and the courthouse.”
“A tunnel!” Don slapped his forehead in frustration. “Shoot, yeah! I forgot about that, or you coulda probably used it to get at Calvin.”
Brock regarded him incredulously. “You know about it?”
Don shrugged. “Everybody’s heard of it, but not many folks know for sure, ’cause I don’t think it’s really supposed to be there—or to be used. I think it was part of the Underground Railroad, or something, ’cept that they supposedly closed it up when they redid the courthouse back in the fifties ’cause it wasn’t on a public level. Rob showed me a door that was s’posed to go to it that time he gave me that tour and all; but he said he didn’t have a key or nothin’. I don’t think he was supposed to talk about it anyway; leastwise he looked kinda funny when he mentioned it to me, like he’d slipped up or somethin’, and he made me promise not to tell.”
“So much for promises,” Brock inserted, winking at his sister.
“Yeah, but that still doesn’t tell me how to get to the basement—since you’ve pretty well blown the direct approach!”
“Yes it does!” Don countered, more perkily than heretofore. “’Cause if there is a tunnel from the jail to the courthouse, that’s where it comes out! That’s where the door Rob showed me is.”
Brock’s face was a-beam. “All right!” he crowed.
Robyn regarded them dubiously. “So all I’ve gotta do is get myself out from behind this derelict hotel without being noticed, then get into either the jail or the courthouse without attracting attention, then find a scale in a three-story building, and then get it to somebody on the second floor of a jail…”
“Piece of cake.”
“Bullshit!”
“Sis!”
Robyn glared at him. “I’ll do it,” she snapped, “just to show you I can!”
“Go to,” Brock challenged gleefully.
“Just as soon as it stops raining,” Robyn told him. She rummaged in her backpack until she pulled out a bar of soap, which she handed to her brother. “Now why don’t you see if you can get your golden locks back like they oughta be again.”
“Yeah,” Brock chuckled. “They’ll be lookin’ for a dirty little black-haired kid, and they’ll get a squeaky-clean blond one instead.”
As if it were a spotlight highlighting his impending transformation, the sun chose that moment to finally slide from behind the heavy clouds—though it was still drizzling steadily, and looked even more threatening to the north and east.
Brock glanced at it hopefully. “Good omen?”
A shrug from Robyn. “Calvin’d probably say so.”
“So what’re you waitin’ on?” Don asked edgily, and Robyn could sense him drawing into himself again. That was bad too, for as long as he was busy—helping them shift camp, or hiking here, or planning Calvin’s escape—he was okay. But she wondered what would happen when he finally had time alone.
“Sis?” Brock prompted.
Robyn sighed. “Nothin’, I reckon,” she replied, “I guess I’m off to the wars. Brock…soon as you get your hair clean you probably oughta sneak up top and keep an eye out from the shadows, just in case anything happens. And, Don…” She paused, staring at the boy thoughtfully, not wishing to leave him alone, nor yet to place him in a situation where he might be noticed—though they’d all agreed that he would go to the cops if their wild plan hadn’t borne fruit by dark. “Don,” she repeated, “I guess you oughta hang out down here until we get back. But if we’re not back in, say, an hour…you probably oughta just go ahead and turn yourself in and tell what you know, ’cause they’ll have us by then anyway.”
Don nodded absently and sat down, his back firmly lodged against his security pillar.
“Sorry,” Robyn apologized, “but it’s the best I can do in a pinch.”
“Like I said, I’m tough,” Don mumbled dully, and fell silent.
Robyn sighed once more, and—after a bit of additional discussion during which she clarified Brock’s observations and Don’s directions as well as she could—made her way nonchalantly up the opposite bank from the one Brock had used, then darted across the side street and entered the graveyard from the hotel side. The main gate was to her left; the courthouse diagonally beyond it. Robyn took a deep breath and started toward them.
*
“Uh…excuse me,” Robyn whispered five minutes later, “but I…uh…could you, like, point me to a restroom?”
The gray-haired man behind the tag-office window looked up at her wearily and motioned to his right. “Down the hall, it’s marked.”
Robyn nodded and cast a glance back toward the glass doors through which she had entered the west end of the courthouse. A storeroom in the basement of the jail, huh? And one she had to get to via a secret tunnel. Shoot! Might as well have been a needle in a haystack. Still, if Brock had the balls to make a shambles of the jail, she supposed she could do no less to the courthouse.
“Down the hall,” the man repeated, and Robyn realized she’d been standing there gawking—which might attract suspicion, the last thing in the world she needed.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, and trotted off. She made a show of going into the ladies’ room, remained there perhaps a minute, then reemerged, trying to look irritated and uncomfortable, which did not in fact take much effort. An instant later she was back before the tag window.
“Yes?”
“Uh, I’m sorry, but…well, I’ve got a…a female problem, and the machine’s, like, empty. Is there maybe another…”
“Upstairs.”
“Thanks.”
Good, her plan was working, Robyn thought, as she made her way toward the staircase to the right of the door. Nobody’d think anything about somebody roaming around the building looking confused now—or if they did, she had a witness to her rationale. With possible opening lines still jumbling through her head, she strolled casually into the stairwell, then made a very loud and obvious show of going upstairs but only paused at the first landing a
nd slipped quietly down again, not exiting this time on the main floor. A quick check showed at least two underground levels—the topmost with more offices and such, their windowsills level with the lawn—but the stairs continued down another flight to terminate in a gray steel door that read SUBBASEMENT: MAINTENANCE STAFF ONLY.
She hesitated there, fingering the flashlight in her purse and wondering if this level was more or less analogous to the basement of the jail; and—more to the point—if what Robert had told Don about the connecting tunnel was even true.
Well, there was no way she’d find out without looking. Taking a deep breath, Robyn twisted the doorknob. It did not move, but fortunately had one of those simple sort of locks that acquiesced easily under the assault of a determined credit card, in which art she’d had considerable practice at various summer camps. An instant later, Robyn found herself peering around the doorjamb into a long, dim chamber filled with boilers and pipes and humming machinery. Blessedly, the space was not brightly lighted, and a lot of what was present was blocked and dimmed by the plethora of machinery, so she felt relatively secure scouting along the perimeter. Assuming Don’s hasty instructions were accurate, there ought to be some sort of opening on the other side leading to the tunnel that ran to the basement of the jail. She only had to navigate the length of the room to find out.
And twice more luck was with her, for there was no one minding the place, and the door she wanted was in plain sight of the other side, again simply noted as STAFF ONLY, and again secured with an easily carded lock.
Another deep breath, a furtive peek through the door, and Robyn was squinting into a long brick-walled corridor whose damp mustiness and general air of decay hinted that it was both old and infrequently used. There were no lights on, nor did there seem to be much provision for any, and Robyn almost couldn’t believe her luck in finding it also empty. She was almost starting to believe her plan—“I was only lookin’ for the bathroom, officer, and I got lost”—might succeed. It was a long corridor, though, maybe a hundred yards or so, and it sloped gradually upward, so that her feeble flashlight beam went to diffusion without ever reaching the opposite wall. And she wondered what purpose it had served—probably no legal ones, but whether it had been built for clandestine Klan activities, Prohibition foolishness, or even, as Don had intimated, the Underground Railroad, she had no idea.
Nor did it matter. What was important was getting through it and into the basement of the jail as quickly and quietly as she could. Her footsteps would be loud on the bare floor, so she slipped off her shoes and padded softly along the damp stones toward the other end of the tunnel, where another, newer door glimmered. She paused there to catch her breath and steel herself, and had the presence of mind to press her ear to it before trying the grimy handle. As best she could tell, there were no sounds at all from nearby, but a fair number of raised and/or irate voices filtering down through the ceiling indicated some sort of ongoing chaos one floor up.
And to her surprise, the door opened at her touch—evidently it had had some sort of electronic lock that had lost its grip when Brock’s ruse had overloaded the wiring. Another corridor greeted her, this one much newer and cleaner, and to her everlasting relief, the second door she passed was marked STORAGE/EVIDENCE. Its lock yielded to a deft touch with a credit card as well and Robyn ducked inside. A rank of metal shelves faced her, most piled with uniforms or bits of gear, but one labeled, unmistakably, EVIDENCE.
A hasty inventory of the baskets—there were only ten, of which nine were empty—and she found Calvin’s clothes. Right on top were his knife and the uktena scale, still on its thong. An instant later, the scale was in her pocket. She considered collecting the knife along with it, and actually picked it up before deciding it might be a little too obvious if she were apprehended. Reluctantly she put it back.
Now came the hard part. She’d hoped, by taking the back way in—the way most folks weren’t supposed to know about—to come upon the jail from its unprotected underbelly. Now she had to get the scale to the prisoner and hope she wasn’t caught. A quick survey of the hallway outside showed it still empty, and a dimly lit rectangle at the end indicated the entrance to a flight of stairs. She paused to put her shoes back on, then squared her shoulders and marched purposefully toward the stairs. There was enough noise going on above that her footfalls were lost in the shouts and scrapes, and so it was that she made the second landing—halfway home—without being noticed. The power still wasn’t on, and apparently they were conducting business either with lanterns or by the scanty daylight filtering in through the jail’s narrow windows. But as she started up the next flight she found herself face-to-foot with a harried-looking policeman. He froze for an instant, stared rather stupidly at the top of her head, then recovered. “What’re you doin’ in here?” But it was more surprise than demand.
Robyn tried to look flustered and shocked. “Oh jeeze, man,” she began, “like, this isn’t the way to the restroom, is it? Like, they told me over there” (and here she waved in some vague direction) “that it was, like, down the stairs and to the right, and I started goin’ and got lost and then the light went out and there was all these, like, pipes and things, and…” She stopped in mid-sentence and tried to look unhappy and scared and imploring. “I’ve really gotta go, man!”
The cop, already frazzled, looked taken aback, and pointed back the way he had come. “Through there, door to your left. But be careful, we’ve had a power outage, and—”
“Yeah, tell me about it, man,” Robyn interrupted. “Like, I was tryin’ to find a place to…you know?”
“Yeah,” replied the cop, obviously baffled. “I know.” And with that, he edged past her and continued his descent.
“Thanks,” Robyn called after him, executing a little twist, as if she couldn’t hold it any longer, but once more proceeded up the stairs. She let her feet slap hard the first part of the climb, then tiptoed quietly past the chaos of the offices and up to the second story.
A barred door greeted her there. She peered through it and saw a corridor lined with cells, exactly like Brock had described.
Let’s see, she thought. Calvin’s in the second one to the left. But how to get his attention? There was no hope for it; she’d have to call and hope no one else heard.
“Calvin,” she hissed. “Co—”
She did not need to risk further summons because the Indian appeared at the entrance to the second set of bars almost as if he had teleported there. He raised his finger to his lips and made hushing motions, then sketched a question mark in the air. She nodded and brandished the scale. He stuck his arm through the bars and mimed her throwing it. She hesitated, uncertain of her skill, but finally took a deep breath and flung it skittering along the floor.
Almost she missed, but Calvin strained his reach to the limit and managed to snag the thong with a fingertip. Robyn held her breath until he had reeled it in. She nodded; he mouthed thanks. And she turned and headed back down the stairs.
The man was still there, fooling with the fuse box with a flashlight. She came up behind him, making no secret of her presence now. “Like, where’d you say that rest-room was?” she whined. “I really gotta go.”
“Next landing, turn left,” the man repeated, exasperated and preoccupied.
“Oh, left,” Robyn echoed dumbly, and started up the stairs again. This time she entered a darkened hallway, the left side of which was evidently (to judge by the signs) the domain of the Whidden Police, while the right was home of the Willacoochee Sheriff’s Department. The only open door was to the right, and she went that way—and blundered into the chaos that still reigned in Sheriff Wilson Lexington’s main office. A hard-looking woman noticed her immediately, and Robyn noted with an ill-suppressed smirk that she had a bandaged hand. Robyn made the preemptive strike, though. “Guy downstairs said, there was a restroom up here?”
“Where’d you come from?” Hardface muttered suspiciously.
“Got lost, and then the power w
ent off and I got loster and wound up in, like, a bunch of tunnels and all.”
The woman did not look convinced. “It’s right over here,” she barked. “But you’ve been in unauthorized areas. I’ll have to search you goin’ in and comin’ out.”
“Far out,” Robyn said without conviction.
“I’ll teach you far out if you ain’t careful,” the woman informed her.
Robyn had no choice but to allow herself to be escorted into the restroom, no option but to allow herself and her purse to be thoroughly examined (fortunately she’d left her real ID and credit cards with Brock; the ID in the billfold was one of several fakes she’ procured just in case), and no alternative but to allow the procedure to be repeated again when she had performed her stated function.
As she marched back out into the morning light of Whidden, Georgia, she hoped Calvin appreciated what she was doing for him. She hoped he appreciated it a hell of a lot.
Chapter XXIV: Breaking Point
(behind the old Whidden Hotel—mid-morning)
Don was beginning to wonder if he was as tough as he had thought he was when he’d assured Robyn and Brock that he’d be okay if they left him alone long enough to conclude their quest for the scale. He’d said it before, too: when they’d first set out to shift camp prior to coming to town. But it was one thing to make that kind of assertion in the middle of the night when you were tired and sleepy and shell-shocked, because then the whole thing seemed unreal—like the journey to Calvin’s camp had seemed unreal: a trek with two silent, moody ghosts among tree-shaped shadows. But now, in the clear light of day with the leavings of the brief morning shower still dripping fitfully off the crumbling cornices above him and the odd sprinkle still making circular interference patterns in the muddy pools behind the derelict hotel, he was beginning to have misgivings.