“They’d probably wonder why I hadn’t done it sooner,” muttered Bob. He fingered his beard and watched a convoy of cars go past them with idle interest. There was just enough twilight left to show that it was an odd assortment of cars, all sedans, all dark, except the last one, which was white. “You know, those look like cop cars. The kind that are unmarked.”
The last car in the line was marked, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. “Oh, shit,” remarked Bob calmly. “You got that cell phone with you?”
“Oh, sure, it’s okay for you to use a capitalistic tool of the new technological age, but I get an SUV and I’m just an unwitting stooge of a nation who is not willing to look toward the environment...”
“Give me the cell, Joe. I think the kids’ are in really deep bear crap.” As he took the phone from Joe, he thought about one of the men sitting in the passenger seat of one of the unmarked cars. The guy had looked like a Fed all the way, but it was worse than just being a Fed, the brief glimpse of his face showed a man who was as bone-chillingly cold as a glacier-fed stream flowing off the mountains.
•
The phone rang and Fitch answered it on the third ring, “Wren residence.” He almost had to suppress a giggle when he said it, because it came out oddly, and Teddy was staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “F-Bob,” he said, happily. “You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been...”
He listened for a minute and hung up the phone. “Time to go,” he said, his mood abruptly shut down like a switch had been tossed. “Bob said they’re on their way here.”
Teddy’s eyes widened with alarm. Lunging to her feet she looked around her as if they would burst into the door of the house at any moment and exclaimed, “How could they have...oh, Jesus, it doesn’t matter.” She’d been so wrapped up in telling her story to someone for the first time in her life, not feeling pre-judged, and almost...relaxed in his company, that she’d forgotten her cardinal rule: Always have an escape route. She didn’t even know which direction was which, much less what was the best direction to run.
“What if I stay here and divert them?” asked Fitch seriously. He tried to keep the frown off his face, because he suspected that he knew precisely how they had found them so quickly, and it was his fault. He didn’t even really consider the consequences, but that in some fashion it was his fault that it was happening and that he might be able to protect Teddy.
One slender hand wrapped around his biceps and grasped him firmly. She whirled him around to face her and Fitch was momentarily surprised that for such a small woman she possessed so much strength. Her face was deadly serious as she murmured, “I said it before and I sounded like a nut. Now that you know the real story, you might just listen. They’re going to kill you. The police can’t protect you because they’ll trust the man who takes you into custody, and then you’ll escape from him, except it won’t be an escape. He’ll torture you to find out exactly what you know, and where I am, and then you’ll vanish and become one of those stupid urban legends you brought up.”
Fitch stared down into dove-gray eyes and thought that he had never before met such a thrilling woman. Too young for him, of course. According to the websites she was almost eighteen, and...he swiftly bent his head down, wrapping her into his long arms, forcing her body up against his, and kissed her.
Shocked for a long moment, Teddy didn’t move. There was heat and intensity, and the pressure of his lips against hers sent an electric thrill coursing through her veins, and a little renegade thought suggested that she wrap her arms around the back of his neck and pull him closer. The moment abruptly passed and he let her go, pulling his head back a foot to search her eyes, wisely keeping his mouth shut for the moment. She took a step back, brought her arm back, and whacked him across his cheek with an open hand. It made a noise that caused Fitch to wince more than the impact itself. “I ought to leave you here!” she snarled and took another step.
Rubbing his cheek bemusedly, Fitch asked wryly, “And how exactly are you planning to go? Hoof it? Only one road out of here, and I’m thinking they’re probably blocking it.”
“Well, your little Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamond-having friend took the only transport that we did have, and you dragged me off to the middle of Timbuktu where we’re all going to be laid out and slaughtered like animals in a butcher shop, not to mention, I CAN’T DRIVE!” she yelled. She put her hands up to her face and covered her cheeks.
There was a constrained sigh that was issued forth from Fitch and he closed the space between them in a second. He wrapped her up in a pair of long arms, and said soothingly, “I won’t stay here, and Bob already knows they’re here, so he won’t show up unless he has a legion of lawyers with him. Plus, we have some transportation.” He paused and stopped as the sound of vehicles started pulling into the large dirt and gravel parking lot came to them. “But I think time just ran out.”
Chapter Eighteen
August 16th
A Japanese proverb asserts that: Wise birds live in carefully chosen trees.
Gower watched the restaurant called Banjo Bob’s. It appeared to be an unkempt place, the exterior walls made from dark wood, left in half-round forms and chinked with a pale material, similar to a log cabin. Large windows were cut into the front to allow air and light into the interior of the small eating establishment, and it held an air of preserved agedness. The simple restaurant and the little lot it sat on were carved out of the deep green, pinewoods that covered the lower mountains like a thick blanket. It sat just off the highway, as if it were borrowing the section only for a brief time, whereupon it would return to the natural state, rapidly overgrowing what had been built there. But for the time being it had a small parking lot in front covered with pine needles and a dirt road that led around to the back.
After parking off the highway and quickly exiting the vehicles, Gower directed the small group of men, predominant with their dark suits, short hair, and squared jaw lines. Two would go inside the front of the restaurant. Two to the back. One on each side to secure the windows. No one would be leaving this place if it could be prevented. Deadly force was indicated; the federal officers had been briefed of a fellow officer’s death that had occurred the day before.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department deputy waited until the FBI agent was about to issue the all proceed order when he mentioned, “Bob’s got a place around back.” M. J. Jiminez pointed with his hand at the sign that was featured in the window of the only door in the front of the building. “Anyway, it looks like the restaurant’s closed.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Besides, Mr. Peter down the road a bit, told me that Bob was closing up because his wife done flew the coop to visit her sister in Portland. Thought he might go fishing. In the mountains. For a while.” Jiminez abruptly shut his mouth when he saw how the large, blonde man was looking at him, in a way that made him want to put a warning hand on the butt of his Beretta. So he kept his mouth shut and shrugged instead. Didn’t make any difference to him if the Feds all made asses of themselves. Besides that was Mr. Peter’s big, candy-apple red Suburban we passed not five minutes before, sitting on the side of the road, and I think that was Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Wren who was with Joe Peter. But I ain’t telling Mr. Eff-Bee-Eye nothing. Not even if he kisses my south-of-the-border ass. He considered that. Twice, even. Both cheeks.
It was Gower himself who took the house behind the restaurant with the deputy watching from the corner of the restaurant. Jiminez held back with a note of caution for two reasons. One was that he hadn’t seen a warrant of any kind and none of the other Feds were issuing a peep of protest, like good little zombies. The two other deputies were keeping their mouths shut because they’d been told to cooperate with the federal government. Jiminez thought about it, and decided that anything they got out of this place wouldn’t hold up in a court of law because of a bad search. Everything would be fruit of the poisoned tree. Bad search. Bad products. And judges don’t give a good-golly-goochie-coochie if the Loch Ness Mo
nster, Charles Manson, and the Riddler themselves are inside together downing Jell-O shooters, smoking catnip, and plotting the end of civilization as we know it. If a guy don’t have an effing search warrant, then a guy don’t go in.
And Bob surely wasn’t a saint because he liked to dabble a wee bit too much. Jiminez heard the rumors. He didn’t really care because Bob didn’t flaunt anything. He was easy company, A helluva conversationist, and he always helped out when there were problems with hikers, or campers, or the road had snowed over for the winter. In the last eighteen months that Jiminez had patrolled this road, he had seen every bit of the good side of Bob Wren, who had set up the restaurant not two months before the deputy himself had started. However. And there is a large however, he knew all about the sixties flower children re-unions up here. There could be a little cannabis growing in a planter in a closet with a black light. Could be a little peyote cactus in the garden out back of the little house. Could be anti-government literature on the coffee table.
All of which didn’t matter to Jiminez, because Bob made a great Swiss-bacon hamburger that tasted like a slice of heaven. The truth was that Jiminez had long since gotten over the initial years of everyone-is-doing-something-illegal-all-the-time. He’d been forced to discover that he couldn’t be a cop twenty-four hours a day and still expect a restaurant owner not to spit in his food or a little assistance when he had to get some idiot snowboarder who’d broken his leg off the mountain. That was the truth, plain and simple, and Bob wasn’t such a bad guy. He didn’t rob anyone. He didn’t beat up his wife and molest his kids. He didn’t butcher young female hitchhikers and bury their piece-meal bodies in the woods. He was a damned fine cook and a man with not one but several graduate degrees. He was not someone who would knowingly aid and abet a murderer or two.
He looked at the back of the big guerro’s head and wrinkled his face. Sure Bob knew the Lee kid. Jiminez had actually met the little bomb-making pinko once. He had stopped by the place to see the old prof while Jiminez was loading up on his annual allotment of fat and cholesterol in a single sitting at Bob’s. He had the usual burger, including a mound of Swiss cheese, covered with what was probably half a pig in bacon, accompanied by mongo-killer-chili-cheese fries, which all sat next to a chocolate shake that he could have gone swimming in, when Bob had introduced young Mister Fitch Lee, of Salem, on his way to rock-climbing, extraordinaire, over in central Oregon. Upon reflection Jiminez thought the kid had a mouth so smart that it could have gone to college by itself but he didn’t seem like such a bad sort.
That didn’t mean the kid was going to show up here with his murdering girlfriend, who was supposed to be responsible for the deaths of her parents, a security guard, a reporter, and another federal officer, Who the hell is Theodora Howe anyway, like I’m supposed to know the name, and why isn’t the whole country looking for her like them fellas who escaped out of a Texas prison last year and killed themselves a cop?
Gingerly, Gower tried the front door knob and Jiminez thought caustically, Like that’s going to be open, well, son of a bitch. It is open. The door started to swing open and the agent withdrew his Glock with a well-coordinated movement. Jiminez frowned and unbuttoned the flap of his own gun holster. Sometimes I don’t like my job. I’m going to move to Cancun and sell nose plugs to el turistas. Si. Yeah. Si.
Jiminez slowly crossed the small parking lot, reluctantly backing the Fed up, as the other man disappeared inside. There was a noise that was coming from the back of the little house that gave him a brief pause. It sputtered once, and then started again. It hesitated as if it were clearing its throat and then roared into life. Thinking about what the hell it was, because it sounded a lot like a weed-eater, he had almost made his way to the porch when the two people on a dirt bike exploded around the corner and almost mowed him down.
•
Fitch yanked Teddy by her arm. Even while they were hustling through the tiny hall that led out the back she managed to comment sarcastically, “What no secret passage?”
Not even pausing for breath Fitch responded smartly, “Of course not. I’m pretty sure F-Bob hides his shit in the woods, well away from the house.”
“His shit?”
“His pot, his hemp, tea, weed, Mary Jane, you know. Maybe some tabs of acid.”
“Nice guy.”
“Hey, he only uses it recreationally. And oh by the by, little miss fugitive on the run from the FBI, you’re not exactly as pure as the driven snow.”
“I don’t do drugs,” she admonished him and winced at how lame that sounded.
“My own little goody-two-shoes. Neither do I, but I believe that Bob believes that he has the God given right to experiment, as long as he’s in his own home, doing his own thing.” Fitch grinned. “He could wrap his woody in a pink-polka-dotted scarf and dance the Watusi to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, but it should still be his own business.”
“Physics professor,” she said doubtfully, wondering if Fitch had some basis upon which to reflect about the older man dancing around naked to sixties acid-rock icons. She decided very quickly that he probably did.
“Yeah, and a pretty good one, too. Took a sophomore class off him. Had a blast.”
They hurried through the back of the house and Teddy said, suddenly, “The Glock! We’ve got to get the...”
One hand grasped her arm, halting her in her tracks, in much the same way that she had done to him moments earlier. He turned her toward him and those oddly colored eyes looked down at her for a single second in time. “We don’t have time, Teddy,” he said, deadly serious.
She nodded briefly, acknowledging that he was right. “Now where’s the transportation?”
Out a tiny back door that opened up into a massive forest of towering pine trees and Douglas firs a hundred years old they paused on the edge of a small step. The smell of sap and needles was heady in their nostrils, drifting down from the great dark shadows cast by a thousand trees, as if they were suddenly in a place where it was simply them and no one else. If they hadn’t been standing on a piece of concrete they might have been in the deepest forest, miles away from the nearest other human being. But Teddy heard the movement of someone else in the house, the creak of someone’s heavy feet on the porch on the front of the property, and her eyes grew large.
“Come on,” said Fitch, the hand still on her arm, his voice modulated. He pointed.
“That?” she sputtered, forgetting to speak quietly and he shook her arm in mute warning.
Fitch dragged her to what he had pointed at, which was propped against the side of the house. It was an old Honda dirt bike with knobby Moto-Cross tires. It was crusted with mud, with the front fender rotting with rust. Once it had been red, and now it was faded orange. She had to look closely to even read the Honda logo.
“It isn’t going to get us five feet,” she snarled. It looked like it had been sitting at the back of this little house, at the edge of the dark woods, decomposing for the last twenty years.
He pulled it away from the wall and paused to listen. “Get on,” he said softly. “You know how to ride a bike?”
“I don’t know how to drive a car, much less a motorcycle,” she growled at him. “Remember, you were having a good time with that one.”
Fitch couldn’t resist the smile that crossed his face and it irritated her that much more. “Behind me.” He told her exactly what to do. “Keep hold of me as tight as you can. Keep your feet on the pegs. When I lean, lean with me, or you’ll overbalance the bike. No time for you to get used to it.”
The key was in the ignition where F-Bob had left it, trusting that no one in their right minds would want to steal the decrepit old motorcycle anyway, and Fitch turned it to the ‘on’ position. He climbed on and held in the clutch with his left hand. With a strong motion he jumped on the kick-starter with all of his weight, coming down hard with his right foot. It made a chug-chug-chugging sound and died. There was a strong smell of gasoline in the air as components tried to do their jo
b and failed.
Teddy tried very hard not to screw up her face. She merely looked back over her shoulder at the closed door and shut her eyes briefly. All this time running to be caught like this. Just because she couldn’t stand to let a little boy drown in the neck of the bay. And then there was Fitch, who’d endangered himself helping her, just like she’d helped Danby Shelton. Any moment the blonde-haired man was going to exit the building and there was nothing she could do to protect Fitch from being killed just as dead as the security guard and the other man who’d surprised him. Not a thing. Oh, God.
When she reopened them Fitch grinned like a maniac at her, meaning to come across as reassuring, but in reality, he was almost frightening, and he jumped again, every bit of his six feet and change coming fully down on that little peddle to the right side of the bike. “Come on,” he muttered fiercely. “Come on. Come on.” This time the motorcycle coughed like a dying man in a lung cancer ward in a hospital, hesitated, and then roared into life. He held his hand out to Teddy and yanked her on behind him. Her arms automatically came around him and held on tight. “Remember what I said,” he told her, over the putter of the engine. “And if we start leaning, just trust me! Do exactly what I do!”
The bike shuddered a little as Fitch put it into gear with his left foot.
Teddy couldn’t remember ever being on a motorcycle before. Sure, an ATV once, but that had four wheels, all firmly on the ground and imminently stable, even if it had been at night once while the people she worked for were smuggling illegal aliens across swamps in Florida. Decisions, decisions. It’s the woods or this or the blonde-haired guy with the freeze you at a thousand yards look. I don’t like any of those. “What’s the thing on the right handle?”
Fitch grinned again. “That’s the front brake, but don’t worry.” He twisted his right wrist back, giving it gas, and the motorcycle thundered with life. Then he yelled as the back end of the bike came leapfrogging around, “We won’t be using that very much!”
Flight of the Scarlet Tanager Page 21