They covered the boat with branches, looking up periodically, and Teddy touched Fitch’s arm and leaned close to his ear. “They’re not looking for us, here, yet.”
“They didn’t see us go into the water,” Fitch surmised. “We might still be over by the highway. Off-road. With transportation, though, that they don’t have. The Forestry Service probably has some ATVs, if they can get them in, this time of the night. And then, maybe they might get some horses to track us. They’ll keep the highway covered.”
“Yeah, but what if we can...uh...steal one of the police cars,” suggested Teddy artfully.
“My girl. My thieving little make-up artist, teenaged, runaway heiress. You have a devious mind.” Fitch smiled broadly. “I really like that in a girl.”
Teddy stuck her tongue out at him.
“Careful, I might take that as an invitation.” Fitch studied the bridge. “One of the police cars just backed out. Turned around. Headed back up the highway. They’re probably concentrating on the area around Suttle Lake for the time being. But that won’t last long.”
“And once we steal a squad car, they’ll start stopping those.”
“Not if we get off the main road fast,” said Fitch. “The prof isn’t the only anti-government dude I know on this mountain. We’re only sixteen miles away from the town of Sisters. A hotbed of tourism and capitalistic tendencies. If we can make it down there, we can make it anywhere,” he sang the last part.
“Sixteen miles,” she said. “On a single road. We might as well be going a thousand.”
“Then we go get your evidence, Teddy,” he finished. “I think it’s good, if it’s worth killing so many people for it. More than good. It must be pretty damning to your uncle.”
“You want to take a road trip, there, Fitch old buddy?” she asked.
“Old buddy, huh?” Fitch sighed theatrically. “And all it took was me saving your cute butt a half dozen times before I was promoted. Life is good once more. Where to?”
“Back to the family mansion, of course. Back to Louisiana.”
“You left your so-called evidence in your own house?” he asked incredulously.
“Sure. It’s right in plain sight.”
•
Waldo Newman sat on the end of the dock and stared out at the water. He sure hoped that the two young people would not hurt his beloved boat, the Betsy Sue. It was named after the first girl whose breasts he had touched when he had been sixteen years old. Dangling his legs off the wooden wharf, he thought about what the pair had told him.
Fleeing from the FBI. All made up. Wants to know if there’s another road out of here, and when they find out there isn’t, they take the boat. My boat. “Well, silly old man,” he told himself. “It just goes to show that you can’t trust...”
An unmarked car pulled up to the parking lot near the end of the dock. Its interior was marked by a blue and red flashing globe. Waldo studied it interestedly and reckoned that it was possible that the two children had been telling the truth. At least, some of it. That little girl didn’t have to yell that she was really, really sorry. And if they were such hardened criminals, why not just shove an old geezer like me into the lake and take the boat then?
Waldo answered it himself, Because they knew an old fool like me might get hypothermia before I could get to shore, and I gave that boy my life jacket. So instead they ran me over to the dock and wasted some of their getaway time. Sure doesn’t sound like hardened criminals to me.
A tall blonde-haired man in a suit exited the unmarked car and looked down the row of yellow lights that illuminated the dock. He saw Waldo and raised his arm in a wave. Waldo sighed and waved back. Then the stranger began to stalk down the dock toward him. The older man looked back out at the lake. This here fellow looked like what I always supposed a federal agent should look like. He doesn’t look like Mulder anyway. Doesn’t look like Scully either.
And there was the little girl. Didn’t she look like someone I’ve seen before. Can’t recall where. A newspaper? The television news? Naw, haven’t seen the news in weeks. What in the name of St. Peter was it? Maybe she’s one of them actresses from Hollywood. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the man in the suit was almost on him.
“Hello,” said the man. There was a cold smile on his face that did nothing to enhance the man’s handsome features.
Waldo was instantly surprised by his own reaction. He had known men like this in his lifetime, especially in his work as a civil servant. Men who lied so convincingly that they could probably dupe their own shadows into tomfoolery of some sort or another. It was a snap judgment that he couldn’t account for. The man hadn’t said more than one word. But the old man’s face kept neutral as he looked up from where he was sitting. “Nice night for fishing,” commented Waldo. “But I already caught my limit on trout today. Wouldn’t have minded a few more kokanee.” He paused. “That’s a landlocked salmon, you know. Suttle Lake has quite a population of them. The forest service doesn’t even have to stock them. They only let you keep one over twenty inches, though.” Then he winked at the tall blonde man.
“I’m a federal officer in pursuit of two fugitives,” Gower informed the man, keeping his own voice impersonal. “Perhaps you’ve seen them.”
“Saw the back half of a semi-truck come crashing down the side of the mountain not ten minutes ago,” Waldo indicated the opposite side of the lake. “That’s going to mess up the fish population something fierce.”
“How about two people on a motorcycle?” asked Gower.
“Yeah, saw them too.”
“Where did they go?”
“Kind of hard to tell in the dark,” Waldo answered. “Their engine sounded just like a lawn mower, huh?”
Gower gritted his teeth. Every minute that was passing meant that the pair was getting farther away. He would have bet his next payment from Jackson Theron that the two slid down the side of the mountain from the highway to the lake, on a parallel route to the semi-trailer, but this old man was saying they had managed to do something else. But that isn’t exactly what he said.
“There’s the main road out,” said Waldo helpfully. “And then there’s the Pacific Crest Trail.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the west. “That’s a hard trail from what I’ve heard. Guess you could get a motorcycle up it.” If it weren’t sitting at the bottom of the lake, that is. “Some boy scouts went up that way yesterday, I do believe. It’s not really the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s just a trail that leads to the Pacific Crest Trail, and that’s the one that runs the length of the Cascade Mountains from south to north, or vice versa, from north to south.”
Gower continued to study the old man, approximating what it was that made this individual tick. “Why didn’t you call the police about the semi-trailer?”
“I did,” replied Waldo. “Down to the office.” The thumb hooked to his right, to the small building that was next to where the unmarked police car was sitting. “There’s a pay phone around the back. Besides the front half of the truck didn’t come down, so I figured that no one was going to drown.” He made a mental note to himself that he needed to perform some charitable acts in the next week, to make up for all these half-truths he was telling this man he had instantly disliked. He had called the police and then he had hung up before saying anything, troubled about his brief conversation with the two children.
Suddenly, the radio from the unmarked sedan began to spout out. Gower tilted his head, trying to make out the words. He spun on his heels and left Waldo sitting on the end of the wooden formation, dangling his legs over the edge, thinking about how he hadn’t actually had to lie. The old man sighed and hoped again that the children wouldn’t damage the boat overly. He’d report it stolen in the morning.
•
Bishop sat in the back of the sedan and thought about the conversation he had had with his eldest son. Then he thought about the conversation he had had with Robert Wren. Finally, he said to Judd, “Get on your laptop and a
ctivate the secure satellite link. I want to know what we have on the author he mentioned.”
“Sir, the professor comes across as a flake and a troublemaker,” Judd said, but even as he spoke he was pulling the laptop from its carrying case and making the appropriate connections.
“Yes, I know,” said Bishop. “But I have a feeling. A very bad feeling about this. Information will not hurt the situation. On the contrary, information is power. I think you know that, Judd.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed the younger man. “The satellite link-up is up. We’ll be online in thirty seconds.” There was a pause. “We’re on. This is a secure line, sir. Point to point encryption has been activated. The name he mentioned was Morris, was it not?” Judd commenced typing on the slim laptop.
“Edward Morris,” Bishop affirmed. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“The search didn’t take long. There are sixteen Edward Morris’ mentioned here, sir. Give me a moment to segregate them into possibilities.” Judd analyzed the contents. “This one was a baron, a political leader in Newfoundland, in the nineteenth century. This one is a research fellow at a London University, present-day. An eighteen-year-old socialist is mentioned because of several arrests in the vicinity of the Russian consulate in Washington, D.C. But here we go.” More keys were punched. “Edward Morris, author. Born 1964. Died a year ago.”
Bishop leaned forward. “What did he write?”
“Two books. The subject matter on both is true-crime. The first book was a work on missing persons. It featured such infamous cases as Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, and Jimmy Hoffa. It was called Vanishing Acts! Neither of the two were best sellers. But the second one did considerably better than the first one. No wonder your professor mentioned it,” said Judd, clicking the next screen with expert fingers. “It’s called The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager.”
“That’s a bird.”
Judd continued to read, summarizing what he was seeing on the LCD screen. “But it is also the nickname for a young woman named Theodora Andrea Howe. This was a pet name given to her by her father, who had also been somewhat of a bird enthusiast. Ultimately, it turned into a cult reference, thus the name of the book.”
“Let me guess,” submitted Bishop. “She was framed, all to take away the billions that belonged to her father.” He knew the story. He’d known the story long before Fitch had shared with him that he was helping a teenager who was in desperate trouble, so deeply in trouble that his son baldly stated that he thought corrupt law enforcement officers were involved. He’d heard all of the rumors before, since one of the most prominent members of the FBI was inadvertently involved with the tragic scenario. There were thousands of stories of similar ilk, too many for Bishop to digest and many just fanciful tales.
“Yes, but there is a fascinating addendum to the abstract, sir,” Judd said, examining the words before him. “Since Mr. Morris alleged some kind of cover-up the material was added to a database, with a current vita and pertinent information. A copy of an internal report from the NTSB indicates that there was not enough evidence to charge any one individual with the crime. In fact the investigator had problems proving that there had been a crime. Evidence had gone missing. Most of the plane burned to bits. The deaths were ruled questionable and the young woman’s survival was a miraculous fluke. She consequently inherited the billions that belonged to her father. Then she vanished. About three years ago. Two years after she vanished, Mr. Edward Morris died in an automobile accident. A single-car accident in the middle of the night. The coroner ruled it as a driver-responsible accident. There was a certain amount of alcohol found at the scene. However, the agent responsible for writing the summary notes that the accident was deemed ‘suspicious’ and might have been a possible homicide. Again, with a distinct lack of evidence.”
Judd trailed off, and rubbed his clean-shaven chin, as he continued to study the words on the computer screen. Bishop kept silent.
After a minute, Judd asked, “Could it be possible that the young woman has been targeted for death? That she managed to escape by herself, and ran for all of this time, only to be caught again, simply because she saved a little boy’s life?”
Bishop’s strangely colored amber eyes met his aide’s eyes in the rear-view mirror and caught them. Finally, he said, “It seems like some kind of soap opera storyline, doesn’t it, Judd?”
“Yes, sir,” Judd agreed, although his eyes slipped back to the screen, and privately he wondered if the general’s son and his newfound friend would live out the next twenty-four hours.
“I have a specific job for you, Judd,” Bishop said, after a while. He was thinking of Robert Wren’s words about faith and proof. His son had made mistakes in the past, but never anything on this order. There was more to meet the eye here and Bishop was surprised at himself. Someone had attempted to sell a bill of goods that had been whitewashed. The least he could do was to determine whether that bill of goods was genuine or not. “This is what you will do,” he told Judd.
Chapter Twenty-Three
August 16th
An excerpt from Big Daddy’s Book on Birding, written by Dan ‘Big Daddy’ Sully, Roget Press, 2005, pg. 157: Now everyone knows Big Daddy don’t get out much, ‘cepting to watch them birds he do like so much. And one of the most peculiar fellas he ever done seen in his whole life is the Roadrunner, or for you fancy-schmancy types, Geococcyx californianus, although I sighted my first one many a moon ago in Texas. With his unusual characteristics this guy makes his home in mainly desert areas, flat and rolling terrain is his heaven on earth. He’s a big ‘un, as high as a foot, and almost two feet in length from the tip of his bill to the end of his upturned tail. A large, black and white, mottled, ground fella, he’s got a distinctive head crest. If you ain’t seen one, don’t worry, ‘cause you’ll take one look and say, “That there is a Roadrunner. Beep. Beep.” Interesting fact about our boy is that he is capable of eating rattlesnakes. And Big Daddy is not joshing you. He’s quick enough to catch them and make mincemeat out of ‘em. Although he’s a ground bird, he can fly, for at least a few seconds in times of danger (when too many birders chase him around yelling, “BEEP! BEEP!” like big dumb jackasses who done watched too much television when they was children.). He prefers walking or running and can run up to seventeen miles per hour. It shore goes to show that a fella who’s grounded can still make a run for it...
“They’re still down at the other end,” whispered Teddy, peering over a giant rhododendron bush. Fitch craned his neck and agreed silently. The entire group of police officers, some obviously sheriff’s deputies, some in suits, were gathered on the eastern side of the small bridge, rapt in an animated discussion.
A northern wind had started to blow, and brought some chillier air with it, making a high whistling noise as it careened through the valley that the lake and creek sat in. Other noise was almost entirely obscured and Teddy and Fitch could only watch from the side of the road while the men bathed in yellow headlights gestured and articulated. “The one in the back,” she pointed at the county car at the western side of the bridge, and farthest away from the men talking, and kept her voice to a modulated murmur. “I’m thinking that’s the way to go.”
“You know, we’ve had a pretty wild time,” said Fitch, nodding his head at the police cruiser. “Now what, a police car? You know what we need next?”
“For you to shut up?”
Fitch made a noise with his lips. “Temper. Temper. What color is your hair anyway?”
“It’s flame red, now shut up and go on. If I do it, they’ll all know. Are you sure?”
“My father is the director of the en-freaking-es-ay. You wouldn’t believe the phone calls I’ve overheard from him, and believe me, I’ve read a book on police procedures at least twice.”
“So what?”
“I have pretty close to a photographic memory. Let me give you an example. This is car Zulu-X-Ray. We have a hairy, whacked situation 13 at mile marker 75. That’s a ten-dash thirty
with a priority factor of urgent. I repeat, a situation 13.”
Teddy turned back to Fitch. Her face was mottled with impatience. She accused, “You’re making this up.”
“What color is your hair?” he asked again, and his tone was lightly indulgent.
“It was light brown three years ago,” she answered reluctantly, her face relaxing into a neutral pose. Two hundred feet away from imminent danger and Fitch could make jokes like a late night talk show host, and switch subjects just as fast. “I don’t know what color it is now.”
A gentle hand came out and touched hair dyed bright scarlet. His fingers captured a lock of hair and twisted it around. “You don’t know what color your own hair is?”
“My mother’s hair was this auburn brown color.” Teddy’s gray eyes were large as saucers as she looked at Fitch. He thought for a moment that if her mother had resembled her daughter, then she must have been very lovely. “It sparkled in the sun. Golden red.” Those dove eyes reflected a bit of sadness at the memory. Then she turned away. “I dyed my hair the day I escaped from the mansion. And I’ve been dying it ever since. And I don’t dare let the roots show. So no, I don’t know what color it is.”
Fitch caressed the damp, silken curl in his fingers, for a moment longer and then let go. For a moment he wondered what would happen if he bent his head down to smell the fragrance that was hers and hers alone. She’d probably deck me. So he changed the subject again, “What happens if they leave more than one car?”
“Then we’ll have to think of something else. But why would they?”
Shrugging, he crouched and began to work his way through the underbrush, through a nest of shadows toward the last vehicle on the bridge, the one closest to them.
Flight of the Scarlet Tanager Page 26