by A. E. Howe
“What’s the trouble? Where are you?”
“I’m out in the woods. Someone’s stalking me.” His voice was sizzling with paranoia.
“Call 911.”
“No, I can’t.” Near hysterics.
“Why not?”
“I’m in the woods. I’m… Look, I need help… I’m at Tommy’s pot spot. Where he grew his weed.”
“Why can’t you call the cops?” I still didn’t quite see the problem.
“Because… He’s not the only one growing stuff out here. I get the cops in this and I’ll have a hundred people trying to kill me. But you aren’t from here. You don’t have juris…something.”
“Jurisdiction.” The logic of a drug addict. “Yeah, sure, that’s right. I don’t care about the pot.” This was probably nothing more than a paranoia-fueled anxiety attack, in which case it might be the perfect opportunity to befriend the idiot and get some information out of him. “I’m on my way. Stay on the line. I need you to tell me how to get there.”
I looked at Cara and mouthed, I have to go. It’s Billy Good. She nodded and I headed out the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Billy directed me northwest of town into a rural area of rolling farmland and dense oak woods. Ten miles outside of Gainesville he had me turning onto a series of dirt roads. I crossed a set of railroad tracks and a couple creeks. The only houses now were old trailers that had seen much better days.
Suddenly Billy’s voice was gone. I couldn’t be sure if my phone or his had dropped the call. I tried calling him back, but he didn’t pick up. Luckily he’d given me pretty good directions for the last few miles.
At last I saw his truck. There were no other cars, but there were half a dozen side roads and paths that you could go down and be out of sight after a hundred feet. I understood why growers would choose to plant out here. It was a maze where you could hide or ambush someone easily.
Billy had said he was near a railroad bridge. I had less than an hour before it would be dark and I couldn’t get Billy back on the phone. Not having much of a choice, I called Chavez.
“What?” he said after I’d given him the basics. “How the hell? Figures it would be the one time our car had to answer another call. Damn it!”
I used the map on my phone and told him where I was.
“Got it. I’ll be there shortly.”
As I made my way down the path in the direction Billy had indicated, I had to watch where I was putting my feet as I looked for signs of Billy or his stalker. I knew from some of the drug interdiction work I’d done in the panhandle that growers often put out booby traps to keep weed poachers away from their patch.
I came to the steep sandy bank of a creek. The trail turned and followed the creek north. Up ahead I could make out a bridge. It appeared and disappeared as the trail wound its way along the bank. As I jogged closer I realized that it was an old fashioned, truss-style railroad bridge with four-foot steel sides, rising thirty feet over the shallow creek.
When I was two hundred feet away my heart began to beat faster; there was someone standing in the middle of the bridge. Something was around his neck and the person had red hair. I was running now. Fifty feet from the bridge I heard the sound of a train whistle.
Billy was trying to talk, but there was duct tape over his mouth. I was on the tracks now. The bridge was only a hundred feet across, but I couldn’t run on the damn ties. Moving as fast as I could was not fast enough. I heard the train whistle again and this time I could feel the train coming.
Billy’s hands and arms were duct-taped to his sides. A thick rope around his neck was tied to a bridge truss. His eyes were pleading with me to hurry. The tracks were beginning to vibrate from the approaching train.
Moving forward, I tried to formulate a plan of escape once I cut Billy free, forcing my mind to stay calm and focused. The bridge was too narrow to stand on and let the train pass. We would have to jump. I didn’t need to look to know that the train was already too close to allow us to get across the bridge.
As I reached Billy, I pulled out my pocket knife. It wasn’t a big knife. Not nearly big enough. And there wasn’t enough time. The train was in sight. I knew that not because I took the time to look, but because I could see Billy’s eyes grow huge as he saw it approaching over my shoulder. Apparently the conductor saw us too, as the sound of the whistle screaming took my breath away. A split second later the sound of the locomotive’s brakes competed with the deafening horn.
I cut one of Billy’s hands free and started sawing at the noose. He ripped the tape off his mouth as I turned my head to see the train too close, sparks flying, barely slowing down. It was jump or die. Rope still around his neck, Billy started to climb over the steel wall. I clambered up beside him, trying to help him balance on the narrow rail. The vibrating bridge doomed Billy. He over-balanced, grabbing onto me as he went and taking both of us over and down.
I reached out, clutching onto him for a second before I realized what that would mean. Yes, he would die anyway from the rope, but I couldn’t allow myself to hang onto his dying body to slow my fall. I spread my arms and tried to gauge my fall. All too late. I hit the creek bed hard. Pain shot up my left leg as I rolled onto my side. I splashed and dragged myself to the bank. Looking up, I saw Billy hanging from the bridge, no longer struggling.
After taking a minute to catch my breath, I pulled out my phone, dried it as best I could and called Chavez. Miracle of technology, it worked. I told him briefly what had happened and where I was.
“I’m ten minutes away. I’m calling for backup.” I could hear him calling dispatch and telling them there was an officer down.
I lay back in the sand and closed my eyes, feeling my left foot swell. That lasted all of one minute until I remembered that there was a killer on the loose. Someone had duct-taped Billy and put that noose around his neck. They might still be around. I felt for my gun and pulled it out of the holster. The sun was going down and the shadows under the trees were deepening. I listened and didn’t hear anything. Finally I crawled up the sandy embankment and back onto the trail.
How long had it been since I had talked to Chavez? Time was moving at an odd pace. Adrenaline can do that to you. Five minutes maybe? I had another five before backup would arrive. I limped back toward the van. I had no idea how the killer had gotten out there, but it was possible they also had a vehicle hidden away somewhere.
By the time I reached the van I could hear sirens approaching. I hadn’t seen or heard anyone else nearby. I re-holstered my gun so the deputies arriving on the scene of an “officer down” call didn’t find a wet ragged man carrying a gun. I wasn’t in my own county where the arriving officers would recognize me.
I was beginning to feel the cold. I’d gotten drenched in the creek and now, with the temperature falling into the forties and the adrenaline wearing off, I was starting to shake. I took out my badge and held it up as the first cars slid to a stop behind my van. Chavez was the first officer out of his car.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, basically. The body is that way, on the bridge.” He nodded and started issuing instructions to his men while I hobbled over to the van.
“An ambulance is on the way,” Chavez told me. He took my wet coat from me and gave me a dry one from his car. Then he knelt down beside me and pulled off my hiking boot, flexing my foot carefully with a professional’s touch. Pain surged up my leg.
“Shit, that hurts,” I said. “We can just wait for the ambulance.”
“I was an EMT for a year before I decided that I wanted to solve crimes and not just cart off the bodies. I don’t think there’s any major damage,” he said.
The ambulance arrived as I called Mrs. Perkins.
“I’ve had something come up and won’t be back to the motel for a few hours. Would you mind feeding Mauser for me?” I hesitated asking her to walk him, but she offered. “That would be great, if you think you can handle him.”
“I love big dog
s. He and I get along great. What do you want me to tell him about you being late?” I thought she was kidding at first, but as the silence drew out I realized she was serious.
“Um, just tell him I’ll be back as soon as I can. Thanks.” I hung up, shaking my head.
The EMT confirmed Chavez’s initial assessment of my injuries. “Pretty sure it’s just a bad sprain, but you really ought to come to the hospital for an X-ray, just to be sure.”
That was the last thing I wanted to do. “I’ll be fine. But I’ll take a few painkillers, if you have them.”
“If you’re sure, man,” the EMT said doubtfully as he wrapped my foot in an Ace bandage. By that time, crime scene techs were crawling all over the woods. An hour later Chavez came back from the bridge and gave me an update.
“The cars we have on the perimeter haven’t found anything. I sent an officer down to the co-op to knock on doors and see who was and wasn’t there. Most everyone was at home. Not that the person who did this didn’t have time to get back to the co-op. But we’ll go over everything in the morning. You should go and get some rest.”
I didn’t argue. I crawled into the van and drove back to the motel, thankful it was my left foot that was injured and that the van didn’t have a stick shift.
Mauser met me at the door, almost as if he’d missed me. Though he was probably just looking for an opportunity to step on my injured foot, which he managed to do repeatedly. I took him for a quick, painful walk, then retreated to a hot shower.
Crawling into bed with ice on my foot, I called Cara and told her everything that had happened. She wanted to come over, but I told her truthfully that I needed to get some sleep. Next I texted Dad that I’d had a bit of trouble, but was fine. I wanted to make sure that if he heard anything through the sheriff’s grapevine, I’d already told him the gist of it. At last I turned the light off and let the pain pills do their thing.
But by three o’clock I was wide awake, my mind churning over what had happened to Billy. Then something else occurred to me. Whoever was doing the killing might target Henry next. If they had planned on him being framed for the murders and those plans were thwarted, then they might decide to take direct action against him. I looked at my watch and decided I should wait until morning before going back to Cara’s. There was no sense getting everyone upset over something that probably wasn’t an issue.
I told myself that a dozen times. But my mind kept asking: What if he’s stalking Henry right now? What if the killer is trying to figure out a way to break into the house? To creep up the stairs? Maybe he’ll kill everyone in the house. He certainly didn’t hesitate to set me up for death or injury.
Mauser moaned in irritation as I flipped and flopped in the bed, trying to get comfortable enough to forget my fears and go back to sleep. But my foot throbbed and every other muscle ached from the fall. And I couldn’t stop thinking about Cara and Henry. At four I gave up and turned on the light. I got up, threw on some clothes and eased my bandaged foot into my hiking boot, stretching the laces as far as they would go. It was going to be a long day.
“Sorry about this, boy-o,” I told Mauser. “But I might not be back in time to walk and feed you this morning, so you need to come with me.” He groaned loudly as I put on his collar. “I can’t wake your friend Mrs. Perkins at this time of night. Sorry.” He stretched his legs out one more time before grudgingly getting to his feet.
Forty-five minutes later we were parked outside of Henry’s house. I got out and made my way slowly and painfully around the house, making sure that nothing looked out of place, no windows broken or locks pried open. Satisfied, I figured I would keep watch from the van for the rest of the night.
A noise caused me to jump and open my eyes. It was morning. My foot was aching and, even wrapped up in a quilt I’d taken from the motel room, I was freezing. Cara was staring through the window at me. I turned the key and rolled the window down. The rising sun burned my eyes.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was worried the killer might be after your father,” I told her, trying not to let her see how much pain I was in. Mauser chose that moment to roll over in the back of the van and give Cara a thunderous bark of greeting. “Yeah, thanks a whole lot for the early warning, you lazy dog.” Cara smiled as Mauser got to his feet and stuck his head into the front of the van so she could pet him.
“Are you in a lot of pain? That’s a stupid question, I can see you are. Let me walk Mauser and you go inside, get warm and have some breakfast.”
It was almost seven-thirty when I made my way into the house. I found bananas, milk and cereal. I was on my second bowl as Henry came out of the bedroom.
“Good morning. You look awful,” he said with brutal honesty. He went to the counter and began the most elaborate coffee-making process I’d ever seen. “It takes a few minutes, but I promise you that it’ll warm you all the way down to your toes.”
The smell of the brewing coffee started to revive me. Henry sat down across from me as I ate my cereal. He took one of the bananas and began to peel it, then stopped and looked me square in the eyes.
“I think you saved my life,” he said in a somber tone. “I couldn’t have stayed in jail another day.”
“You’d have found the strength,” I said, embarrassed.
“Maybe when I was younger. Now?” He shrugged. “I’ve spent most of my life outdoors and being caged in that crypt was too much.”
“I know you didn’t do anything wrong. It was just a matter of time until we got you out. You know, Lt. Chavez is a pretty good guy and a good investigator. I think he smelled something fishy from the start.”
Henry seemed to think about this for a while. He got up and poured both of us a cup of coffee. Drinking the nutty dark brew made my whole body feel like I was standing in front of a warm fire.
“I’m glad Cara’s seeing you.” Henry waved his hand dismissively. “Not because of what you did for me, but because I think you’re a good man. Everyone needs someone by their side.” He drank half of his cup of coffee in one go.
“I wasn’t sure if she was going to see me again.”
“Cara told me that she had doubts. But when she told me why you were a deputy, I said that a man who stands by his family is the type of man you want.” He finished the rest of his cup and set it down carefully on the wooden table. He was an interesting set of contrasts. Large and obviously strong, with a gentle manner. Quiet, but with a temper hidden deep within. I got the feeling there was a child hiding under that Viking exterior.
“I need to talk with folks around here again. I’m pretty sure that one of them is the killer,” I told him.
“That’s hard for me to believe.”
“The three men who were killed were capable of doing some very bad things. I think they kicked a hornet’s nest with someone around here. And the killer has proven he has it in for you too.”
Henry looked up sharply, his eyes narrowing. “I guess you’re right. But I don’t know what I’ve ever done to anyone that they’d want to frame me for murder.”
I was about to tell him that we’d figure it out when the door opened and Mauser came charging over to us. He bounced into me first and then Henry. The morning walk in the cool air had left him crazed. He continued to ricochet between Cara, Henry and me until Anna came out of the bedroom so he could include her in his high-speed game of bump-a-human. At last he settled down and dropped dramatically to the floor.
“I’ll make him some breakfast,” Cara said.
I looked around the room and, for just a flash, I got a vision of what it would be like to be with Cara, visiting her parents for Christmas. Of course, my dream world did not necessarily include a black-and-white elephant.
But the reality was that my whole body ached, my foot worst of all, and I still had a job to do. If I didn’t find the person responsible, how could I go back to Adams County and leave Cara’s family to fend for themselves?
Chapter Nineteen
Anna convinced all of us to eat eggs fresh from their chickens and bacon from one of the hogs the co-op had butchered last month. I chased this with a couple pain pills left over from the night before and began to formulate a plan for the morning. I looked at Cara’s map and decided on a few people to re-interview and some others that I hadn’t had a chance to speak with yet.
Henry provided me with a walking stick that a neighbor had carved for him, which made my hobbling a little less painful. Cara offered to drive me around the co-op while Henry and Anna agreed to babysit Mauser, even after he managed to knock over a can of paint and wade through it before walking on one of Anna’s paintings.
“No, really, I think he has something here,” Anna said, looking at a couple of Mauser’s five-inch-wide paw prints liberally spread across the beach landscape. “There are those elephants that paint. Seriously, his choice of colors is impressive.” Mauser, tongue hanging out, wagged his tail and looked back and forth between us.
“Okay, great, just don’t compliment his work too much. His ego is already tough enough to deal with.”
I didn’t know how many people would be willing to talk to us on a Sunday morning, but Cara reiterated that everyone at the co-op was behind Henry. I didn’t point out that at least one person wasn’t. I think they were still finding it hard to believe that one of the co-op’s members had a vendetta out on Henry. Of course, I could have been making too much of it. Maybe Henry was just a convenient scapegoat to frame for the first two murders. They did seem to abandon that pattern on the last killing.
I’d planned to start with the folks I hadn’t had a chance to interview yet, but one of the previous interviews was still bugging me.
“I want to go back to Karen Gill’s house,” I told Cara. “She was hiding something from us. Before we go off doing a bunch of new interviews, I want to go back and see if we can cross her off the list or…” I shrugged.
“I’ll give her a call.”
I made my way gingerly onto Karen’s porch as Cara rang the doorbell. Karen answered, wearing the same large smile. She greeted Cara as an old friend and nodded in my direction.