“Okay, Sam. Go position yourself next to where the door is supposed to be and wait for the sound of an exploding bomb. Go quietly. The element of surprise is the only way this tenuous plan will work. I will signal your next move.”
I spoke to Sam as if he could understand every word of my directions. I suspect that my dialogue with him was as much for my own reassurance as it was to communicate with him. Of all the skills that Sam possesses, mind-reading may be his best gift. Failing that, his keen powers of intuition would make the world marvel. It made me marvel even when I expected it.
He headed in the direction of the light coming from inside the small building. I lost track of him after several yards and then spotted his shadow when he finally arrived near the cottage doorway.
I had two things which I hoped would work in my favor. First, I hoped that Rosey and his captor were asleep. Second, I hoped that the explosion and the sudden appearance of Sam would catch the kidnapper off guard.
I positioned myself behind a tree to guard against the light of my cell phone being seen. I punched in the numbers from the note and waited for the explosion. Nothing happened. I looked at the cell phone and noticed that I had no bars. The phone began searching for a tower. What a time for technology to fail me. Cell phones and satellites. Moonbeams and shooting stars. Life.
Closing the phone, I moved to another location, hoping that I could find a signal so I could make the call and activate the bomb. In vain I moved from tree to tree, away from the cabin, then towards the cabin. Nothing was working.
Sam was patient. Unmoved as far as I could tell.
I walked away from the cabin again, still keeping the front and the light in my vision. I was now close to a hundred yards away from Sam and the visible light when a satellite signal manifested itself with one bar. I turned slightly to what I believed to be the southern exposure and another bar appeared. As far as I knew, Sam was ever vigilant near the entrance to the cabin. I no longer could see him. Distance and darkness.
I dialed the number which had been left for me in the refrigerator. I made myself ready to run the moment I heard the explosion.
The first ring. Nothing happened.
I waited expectantly for the imminent eruption to the peace and quiet of the deep woods.
The second ring. No explosion.
“How good of you to join me in this adventure, Clancy Evans,” a voice broke the silence of the woods. It was not coming from the phone.
Chapter 5
“I had to leave abruptly the last time we were together. I apologize for that, but I did want to get back to you,” the voice belonged to Marilyn Saunders.
“Now, if you will be ever so careful and move in front of me, we will get out of this night air and talk over old times. Oh, by the way, I saw the canine who accompanies you, so unless you want him dead, call him off.”
I could feel something hard pressed into my back, so I decided to oblige her commands rather than risk having a hole blown through me and Sam.
“Sam! Stay!” I yelled across the open field in the direction of the broken down hovel.
My experience with Saunders was limited but meaningful. Her blind obedience to the whims of the man seeking revenge was still fresh in my mind. Perhaps she was still following some sadistic orders he had given her. I discovered that her diligence to his beck and call was noteworthy if not pathological. All in all, I had concluded a little more than two weeks ago that Marilyn Saunders was not a nice person. I had no recent evidence to change that assessment.
Saunders had managed to escape the local Clancyville police before they could detain her at least for questioning concerning the Peace Haven murders. My guess is that she has been on the lam since our last revealing conversation.
We walked for several minutes before arriving at a truck hidden behind some rhododendron. During the walk I eased my cell phone into the front pocket of my jeans.
“Get in on the driver’s side and slide over carefully. I really do not want to shoot you here, at least not before you have a chance to visit with Rosey one last time. However, I think you know that I will shoot you. It will give me great pleasure.”
I opened the door and slid over to the rider’s side of the front seat. She climbed in carefully after me. Her .45 never veered from pointing toward my chest.
What I knew about Marilyn Saunders was limited, but informative. At the very least she was a cold, calculating maniacal killer who saw to it that nine of the jurors were murdered from that 1970 decision handed down against the preacher’s son. I wasn’t too surprised that Saunders set this trap for me. Somehow she had developed a dislike for Rosey and myself. Go figure.
“Now,” she said, “let’s go find Roosevelt Washington and talk over old times.”
Saunders moved the .45 from her right hand to her left, and started the truck. The gun never shifted from its deadly direction.
“Let’s see how good you are at following instructions. You sit there and behave yourself. I will drive us to Rosey. When we get there, we will all have a nice chat and then decide how I am going to kill you. I think it best that all of us enter into this discussion. You know, the more heads we have working on a problem, the better.”
The truck began to move out slowly. Despite the darkness, the amber lights of the dashboard allowed me to see her eyes dart from the road to me and back again as we followed the dirt road in the dark woods of the Virginia mountains. Road, me, back to the road.
Since she had the rather obvious advantage over me, I decided to be a good girl and not do anything foolish. The gun pointing directly at me at point blank range was sufficient to control my deportment. Besides that, she was holding Rosey somewhere. It would be easier for me to help him escape if I were not wounded or dead. Obeying this crazy woman holding a gun on me was the thing to do at present.
I was hoping that Sam would come looking for me. He was gifted as a tracker. It was more than following a scent. He could do that. But he also had instinct and reasoning. I have never known a dog to think so rationally. At least that was my take regarding his tracking abilities. Unless she drove us to Richmond or Norfolk, I figured that my super-sleuth dog could follow the trail in these back roads for miles. Sam could very well be my only hope out of this.
“You made it rather easy to get you to come here, you know.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“You shouldn’t be so conventional,” she said peering at me through her cold, green eyes.
“What can I say? I live a boring, predictable life.”
“Well, hardly boring. Out there all day catching bad guys and girls.”
“Sometimes I take a day off.”
“And sometimes you have off-days,” she laughed.
“Touché.”
“So, you admit that I got the best of you this time.”
“You’re holding the gun.”
“I am. It feels good, really good. You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
“You have no way of knowing how smart I think I am.”
“I know you have an ego the size of Texas,” she said.
“So you say.”
“I don’t know how you escaped the hired assassin Diamond, but you will not escape me.”
“You got away. Why do this?”
“Oh, come on now. That’s really too easy to answer. I hate you. You destroyed my life. I had it made with Reverend Rowland.”
“You’re joking with me now, right?”
“Joking?” she said as if surprised.
“Yeah, pulling my leg. You were going nowhere with Rowland. In fact, the last time I saw you was the early morning of the day Rowland was murdered.”
“He paid me well. I handled all manner of business for him. You messed that up.”
“I didn’t mess anything up. You went to his house to end the relationship,” I said.
“He didn’t appreciate my leadership. He was also demanding and demeaning. He thought he was so smart.”
I could feel the anger rising in her voice. I noticed that the gun barrel moved slightly off center. Another time I might have jumped her. Not this time. I had Rosey to consider.
“You were smarter than Rowland, but he got in the way of his own plans. If he had only listened to you….” I purposefully did not finish the sentence.
“You’re damn right I was smarter than him, but he had all the money. And, well, I did owe him. He helped me a long time ago, when I was young. I needed someone to give me a chance and he did. I stayed with him all those years out of loyalty.”
The truck turned right onto a paved road.
“So why end such a lucrative relationship?” I said.
“I couldn’t take his condescending attitude any longer.”
“So I was correct. You did go to his home that day to quit.”
“You think you’re so smart. You know nothing, Miss Super Detective. You know nothing.”
“Tell me why you went there if I am wrong.”
“I went there to tell him off. I wanted him to know what I thought of him. I went there to spill my guts and tell that deranged old codger that I was leaving him for good.”
“It wasn’t worth the money he paid,” I said.
“Exactly. He paid me well, but not what I was worth.”
“So you disagreed with each other over money?”
“No, not really. More often over technique. He was too pompous to know how to manage a thing. I helped him to channel his hatred to those jurors. It was my idea to poison them with their own medicines. I thought that was clever … and, rather easy. He said as much. Finally gave me some credit for doing his dirty work.”
“He knew your worth, did he?”
“No. Never. He did not respect me and my careful thinking. It was his idea to hire those two idiots in Norfolk to kill you. They bungled the job of course. It was me who hired Diamond, not him. He didn’t want to spend the money at first. We could have gotten away with the whole thing if he had listened to me from the beginning. But no, he had to pinch pennies.”
“Why come after me?”
“Because you took away my chance, my only chance to tell him off. I wanted to say the words for him to hear. Like you, he thought he was superior to me. He was so damn condescending. All the time! And so righteous! He actually believed that he was a divine instrument, God’s right hand man … that God wanted him to kill those poor slobs who hung his son years ago. No, you took away my glory, my vindication, my chance to show him that I was in fact smarter and better and more astute than he ever could be. You deprived me of that satisfaction. You deserve to die because of that.”
“But I didn’t kill him.”
“You might as well. You were the catalyst. You were the nagging thorn in our sides. You wouldn’t quit. You wouldn’t go away. We tried to kill you, but like some damn cat you have at least nine lives. And…,” she stopped and stared at the road.
“And?” I said.
“I wanted you to see how smart I am. I didn’t want to leave this life without knowing that I am smarter than you. I had to prove to you that I could get the drop on you.”
“You’re risking a lot, you know.”
“Ah, but it is worth it. Life is a risk. And –” she paused as she pulled into a rock driveway off of the paved road. It was the first turn after we had traveled the paved road for two or three miles.
“And?” I said as she braked the truck to a stop and put the gear into park.
“Revenge is so sweet. Especially now that I have the two of you. I can kill both of you and then go my way knowing that I got the better of two people who thought that they were so smart. Don’t you think that is rather delicious?”
“Not my first word choice.”
“Not the murder, stupid! The revenge. It’s all about revenge. You know, revenge being sweet and all. I just like to say it is delicious.”
“If the revenge you get is in fact murder, then that is sick, never delicious.”
“Tsk, tsk. We shouldn’t be bitter now. I have kept you alive so that you and Rosey could say your final goodbyes to each other. I didn’t have to do that.”
“No, you didn’t. You want me to be grateful for that, correct?”
“I don’t care if you’re grateful. I hate you. You deprived me of great satisfaction with that old man I served for more than fifteen years. I don’t care what you think. You will be dead soon enough. I’ll be gone with no trace and the people who investigate this horrible crime will be left without clues. Such a sad chapter in the history of law enforcement in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Don’t you think?”
I chose not to say anything else. The conversation was not helping my mood. I focused on the surroundings. My internal clock suggested that we had driven less than thirty minutes by the time that Saunders pulled into the drive of this mountain cabin. My keen observation noted that we had not left the area, nor had we ventured far from where she had surprised me in the woods. Despite being lost, I felt good knowing that we were still within ten or so miles of Rosey’s vacation place. We were still in the mountains of Virginia and I was having trouble remaining calm.
Chapter 6
I fully expected to enter this large cabin in this remote mountain section of Virginia and find Rosey bound and helpless waiting on me to rescue him. I was wrong.
The last thing I remember from our ride over to this cabin was Saunders coming around to my side, opening the door and ordering me out of the truck. I remember the gun was still aimed directly at my midsection. Then the lights went out.
When I awakened I found myself chained to a basement support pole. My hands were secured behind my back and wrapped around the pole. My feet were bound in front of me with some long, sturdy looking zip chords so that my figure resembled a reversed capital L lying on its side.
My head hurt. She must have hit me with something like the butt of her handgun and then dragged me into the basement room. That wasn’t smart on her part, but then, I never did believe that Saunders had all wheels rotating at the same time.
Saunders was not in the room with me when I woke up. Neither was Rosey. I could move around the pole and observe the entire room from my reverse L position. It was not easy or fun, but I have been in worse predicaments. Actually I could recall some worse positions before my law enforcement career began.
I studied the area, scanning the room from right to left as far as my eyes and head would permit, then I climbed the pole by pushing against it with my backside and walking backwards. Once upright, I could hop around the pole and finish scouting my environs. It took more energy and I was rather tired after this escapade.
A long workbench was adjacent to a closed door in front of me. The door was to the left of the workbench. Left of the door was a wall full of boxes and old furniture pieces desperate for repair or refinishing. There were jars of brushes filled with some liquid, no doubt to clean the brushes. Cans of stripping solutions and a small mountain of steel wool rested next to the jars in a cardboard box. At the far end of the boxes and the old furniture was another door. There was a sink and some old cabinets on the third wall. More cans and bottles of refinishing solutions were scattered around the sink area. The final wall, adjacent to the workbench as I had now come nearly full circle, contained shelves and storage cabinets. The double doors of the cabinet were closed. I could only guess at the contents of the cabinets. The floor was a smooth finished concrete that had been painted a dark brown.
The concrete was extremely hard, as my nearly deadened derriere could attest. It was good to rest by standing on my bound feet.
The standing and leaning against the basement pole made me realize that Saunders had discovered the gun I carry in the small of my back. I was disappointed. I had not counted on her being that thorough.
The only sound I could hear was my own breathing. I held my breath and listened for other sounds.
Nothing but silence. Have you ever noticed how loud silence can be when you actually pay attention to it? S
leuth and philosopher. Dynamite combination.
My stomach growled and I recalled my sandwich from the evening before. I decided it was a bad idea to think about food at the present. Then I remembered my cell phone and I could see some of its shape when I glanced at the bulge in my right front jeans pocket. I wondered why Saunders had not taken it when she took my weapon. Did she forget? Did she just miss it or was it a blunder on her part? Saunders was a methodical psychopath and would never make such a careless mistake. However, with my hands safely secured behind my back and lashed around the pole with a heavy chain, there was no way I was able to make a call or to receive one. I was simply hoping that it would not ring while I was taking inventory of my surroundings and plotting some avenue of escape.
The door at the end of the old furniture and stacked boxes opened. Saunders entered my space of captivity. She was carrying a plate of something I guessed to be food. It looked unappealing, but I was hungry. If it was tolerable, I would eat it.
She placed the plate on the workbench and then approached me.
“Turn around,” she said.
I heard some keys jingle. In a few seconds, my chained hands were free from the heaviness.
“Put your hands in front, around the pole.”
I obeyed. I was too stiff to try anything extraordinary by way of escaping. It was likely morning, but since I had no way of knowing, I could only guess.
Saunders wrapped the chain around my wrists and replaced the padlock. I was secure once more.
“Sit,” she said.
“You wake up on the wrong side of the morning?” I said.
She handed me the plate of food.
“If you plan to kill me, then why feed me?”
She yanked the plate from my hand and some of it spilled on the basement floor.
“You ungrateful bitch!” she yelled at me.
She was not having a good day. I decided to keep my conversation with her at a minimal. No need to escape if I were dead.
“I’m hungry,” I said in my most pleasant of voices. I was straining to be nice. It reminded me of those times when as a child my mother forced me to say I was sorry to my brother for having kicked him and locked him in the shed out back of the house. What my mother did not know was that Scott had tied me up and locked me in the shed before I had escaped and turned the tables on him. I was the one who got caught. He had been declared innocent of course. Thus began my adversarial relationship with my mother, the unjust judge.
Revenge: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 4) Page 3