by A S Bond
“No.”
“Fuck.”
The bear made a second charge, but just as it entered the river, two shots cracked through the air. Brooke and Dex instinctively dropped into a crouch and the bear reared away from them. A third shot whined across the river, barely a foot or so above their heads, it seemed to Brooke. The bear, unharmed but his courage exhausted, turned and ran across the island, then made its way through the shallow river before disappearing into the trees. Brooke and Dex waded back onto the island.
“Hello?” Dex called out, his voice quickly swallowed by the forest.
No reply.
Brooke turned, scanning the river up and down from the rapids to where it opened out into the lake ahead of them. Then her eye caught a movement as, upriver, a single figure stepped out into the sunlight. It was a man, about six feet tall, dressed in blue jeans and rubber boots, a combat jacket and red baseball cap. There was a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Hi there!” Brooke called out, forcing her voice to sound confident. The figure waved perfunctorily and waded into the water, crossing to the furthest tip of their little island. Brooke and Dex stood and watched as the man came towards them. He walked confidently but unhurriedly, pausing briefly to light a cigarette.
“Bears can be dangerous this time of year,” their rescuer said finally in a deep, heavily accented voice. Up close, Brooke could see that the man looked to be part Indian, and at least fifty or so.
“I’ve never seen one that liked the pepper spray before. But thanks,” Brooke said, smiling broadly, partly out of nervousness and partly from relief. The man merely nodded in response.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Okay.”
All three sat down on the rocks near the stove, and the rifle was placed on the ground between their feet. Brooke poured the coffee.
“Got any sugar.”
“Oh, sure. Help yourself.” Brooke handed him the bag, which had a plastic spoon stuck into it. There was another pause. “We’re pretty glad you were nearby. “
The man nodded.
“I’m Brooke, by the way, and this is Dexter.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Claude.”
Dex threw Brooke a look, but before either of them could speak again, the man put down his cup.
“You’re not here to hunt or fish.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No, we’re here because. ...” Dex looked at Brooke. “Because we’re searching for my brother and his friend. I believe they were out here a few weeks ago prospecting a claim, and they haven’t been seen since. I’m worried their plane may have crashed, or they’ve been hurt....”
Claude lit another cigarette and took a deep drag, his dark eyes wandering over the river towards the lake. The silence escalated.
“It’s been a good year for the caribou. Best I’ve seen in a while.”
Brooke managed an encouraging “Oh?” She could see Dex was nonplussed by the change of subject.
“Got my canoe,” over on a tributary, back there,” Claude said, pronouncing it can-oo, and he jerked a dirty thumb upriver, where a small inlet connected into a skein of shallow waterways leading down east to the coast.
“You’ve done well this season, then?” Brooke asked, pouring more coffee.
“Good enough,” Claude said.
“Is there anything you need? Any extra supplies? I think we owe you.”
“Not unless you got some cigarettes?”
“Sorry.”
There was another pause and Brooke, who had enjoyed similar accidental meetings over the years, relaxed and let her eyes wander over the view, too. Conversation would happen in its own time. To hurry it would be rude. Dex however, had no time for such niceties.
“If you’ve been around here for a while, I don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone? Anything unusual?”
Brooke winced inwardly. Claude didn’t answer at first. Finally, he said,
“The wrong type of gunfire.”
“What?”
“Sound of guns, but wrong for hunting.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago. Maybe more. I thought it might be the military again.”
“But it wasn’t?” Brooke said.
“Never saw them,” Claude said with a shake of his head. “It came from Umiakovik, though.” He paused, as though unsure whether to tell them something. Then, with a glance at Dex, Claude said, “That’s where I was when I found them.”
“Found who?”
“Two men, dead.” Claude looked away. “Last night. I don’t know them. I was on my way back to town to report it, when I saw you this morning. I didn’t know if it was you here before, but you have no guns.”
There was silence as the significance of his words sank in. Brooke felt like she was getting dragged deeper and deeper into something she wanted no part of, and then she immediately felt guilty, because they were probably talking about the death of Dex’s brother. She turned to him, but his gaze was fixed on Claude, who shifted uncomfortably under it.
“Will you take us and show us?” said Dex. A quick nod, and Claude got to his feet, promising to return with his own canoe and lead them to the place on the edge of the lake where he found the bodies. He then walked silently back into the forest.
They stared after him for a moment, almost as if he had been some sort of apparition.
“Was Kyle likely to be armed?” asked Brooke, breaking the spell.
“No. Almost certainly not. Americans need to take a test then apply for a license to be armed in Canada, and my brother never planned ahead that much in his life.”
Brooke placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder as she stood up.
“It may not be them,” she said. “There are a lot of weird things happening out here. There’s no reason why these people should have anything to do with Kyle. He’s almost certainly long gone. And Claude never mentioned anything about a plane, either. “
They bolted down the overcooked stew and Dex threw their last bits of equipment into the canoe. Then he paced up and down the island, until Brooke called
“Here he is!”
Shading her eyes against the strong afternoon sun, Brooke could just make out an old canoe, laden with something covered by what looked like bloodied tarpaulins. Claude paused in the channel alongside the island as Dex and Brooke pushed off in their canoe, and, with a nod, Claude led the way downriver, each lazy twitch of the paddle pushing his big, heavily-laden trapper canoe forward with such speed that both Brooke and Dex had to work hard to keep up.
This trip was getting stranger and stranger, she thought as they paddled out onto the lake. There wasn’t anything about this that sounded good, but the reporter in her knew she had no choice but to see where the journey took her.
Chapter 15
As he waited to board the New York flight with a gaggle of sleepy-eyed executives, officials and lawyers, Scott accessed his office computer on his newly-issued work phone. He recalled the expression of the equipment supervisor, Mrs. Mainport , when he explained his old one had fallen out his pocket and into the toilet. Disbelief and disgust. Disgust had won and a new phone was his before lunchtime yesterday. He sent an internal email to Mike letting him know he hadn’t found anything of use to link Maynard to the chip in the missile, and wishing him luck with the CIA investigation in Afghanistan. Maybe it would work, maybe not. He emailed Sykes to let him know he was taking some personal time, and then Rosie in secretarial, asking her to re-schedule his day.
Scott waited until the plane’s wheels touched down on wet New York asphalt before he made his first call that morning, this time on his personal Blackberry. It was still very early, but years of pulling the dawn shift had left Reggie Flynn unable to enjoy sleeping in. He liked to get a jump on the day.
“Reggie? It’s Scott Jenson, Alan and Margaret’s boy. How are you?”
“Scott! Of course! “
Scott could hear a rumble starting in the chest of his Dad’s old part
ner in the NYPD. The rumble erupted into a classic smoker’s hack.
“Are you still smoking, Reggie?”
“Hell, no. Betty would kill me. Say, are you in the City?”
“Just touched down.”
“Then let me buy you breakfast. Can you remember where me and your Dad used to go?”
“Sure. I’ll see you there. Seven-thirty?”
The diner was packed when Scott arrived. The rain was still falling, and the big, plate glass windows of the old-style diner were steamed up, so he didn’t see Reggie until he got close to the counter. The guy was easing towards retirement from behind a desk, his days of pounding the streets in uniform long gone, and it showed. He had put on about thirty pounds since Scott had seen him last. That had been at his father’s funeral, three years ago. Heart attack, two years into retirement. Go figure, as his Dad would have said.
Reggie saw him and stood up, putting his hand out.
Scott took the man’s huge paw and shook it warmly. It was good to be home, among people he could trust.
“How’s your Ma?” Reggie said as Scott ordered eggs, hash browns and Canadian bacon from the harried waitress.
“What? Oh she’s good, thanks. Still misses Dad, of course, but the Florida sun makes her feel years younger, so she says. “
They chatted as they ate, Reggie shoveling forkfuls into his mouth like a starving man. Eventually, they exhausted the stories from the old days and reminiscences about Scott’s Dad. He could feel Reggie’s quick eyes fix on him, like he was reading Scott’s mind.
“So you didn’t come up here to catch up with me.” Reggie wiped his mouth, peeled some bills off a roll and threw them on the table. “Why don’t we talk on the way back to the precinct.”
“Sure.”
They strolled through the streets of Queens, Scott half-remembering scenes from his youth like a flickering news reel.
“So Reggie, do you recall something happened a few years back, a politician caught with a hooker here?”
“Well son, you’re going to have to narrow that down for me.”
They laughed.
“The press called it the ‘Scarlet Woman Scandal’. The politician was a guy named Blake, from upstate. He was arrested two days before the election and his rival won the seat.”
Reggie thought for a moment. “Sure I do. Wasn’t it Campbell who won?”
“I think so.”
Reggie shook his head.” I never voted for that guy for president. Couldn’t organise a turkey shoot on a poultry farm.”
“There was a prostitute found in the room with Blake. Mia Gonzalez. She had a record already back then, and she should be in the files for this precinct. Any ideas how I would go about finding her today?”
Reggie looked at him sideways for a second, as though acknowledging the significance, then dismissing it.
“Here’s the precinct; I’d better get back. It’s been nice seeing you again, Scott. Let’s talk again later.” He winked briefly and lumbered up the steps of the old red brick mid-rise.
Scott smiled as Reggie disappeared through the heavy wooden door. He was one of the good guys, there was no doubt about that. As the door swung shut, the glass top half reflected the street behind him, and he had a momentary glimpse of a black SUV. What was it about that vehicle? He turned and hurried down the sidewalk, like he had somewhere to be. He didn’t look at the vehicle, but his peripheral vision told him someone got out of the driver’s side, leaving it parked in a no-parking zone.
Was this for real?
A truck loaded high with building materials went past then, shielding him from the rest of the street, and he took that chance to step into an alleyway. The adrenaline unlocked his memories, and the geography of this part of Queens instantly popped into his mind. They could play tag in the alleys and maybe he could lose the guy. Or maybe he could make sure of it.
A plan began to take shape in Scott’s mind and he moved south, zig-zagging through alleys between the streets. He glanced behind him once, as though checking the traffic before crossing the street. The guy was there: tall but heavy, navy overcoat, dark shades. Was it the same one from the D.C. metro? Scott couldn’t tell. He was keeping his distance. Scott figured the guy wanted to see where he was going before things got sticky.
One more alley. The guy saw him make the turn, but then Scott raced down it. The extra distance would give him a few more seconds, which, with any luck, would be all he’d need.
The auto shop was just as he remembered it, a cavernous, gloomy tin-sided building filled with rock music, drilling and a layer of oily grime.
“Jimmy!” Scott recognised his pal from junior high, even with his head inside a Chevy. A few more tattoos, maybe. Jimmy still liked cars, though, it seemed, and Scott hoped none of these had been stolen. Still, it seemed like he was going legit. Jimmy had Scott to thank for that, or at least his Dad. One close call with a criminal record as a juvenile had been enough to shock Jimmy into staying on the right side of the law. You saw both worlds, as a police sergeant’s kid.
He looked up at the sound of Scott’s voice, amazed.
Good, Scott thought. He remembers. They hugged briefly and shared a couple of wisecracks, but the seconds were running out.
“Your Dad still run this place?” Scott asked, his eyes scanning the room and settling on the grubby corner office.
“Nope,” Jimmy said. “Me and Paul took it over about ten years ago - “
“Listen - “ Scott cut him off. “There’s a guy behind me I don’t want to talk to right now. “
“Some girl’s old man?”
Scott shook his head in exasperation.
“Well, I guess I still owe you - “
Scott glanced out the door. The man was heading their way, looking through windows, trying doors. Scott grabbed Jimmy by the arm.
“Is Paul here too?”
“Paul!” Jimmy yelled, looking at Scott, who could feel sweat starting to prickle his skin. Paul’s head appeared from the office. He was even taller than his older brother.
Scott said, “The guy will be here any second. I need to lose him. Can you ...slow him down for me?”
A third mechanic emerged from somewhere in the back, his work pants covered with grease, a large wrench in his hand. Jimmy glanced over to him and nodded.
“We can do that.”
“Nothing...permanent.” Scott said. “He might be packing, but nothing you can’t handle.”
“Sure.”
Scott hustled to the back of the garage, where he recalled a small door opening onto the alley.
He paused and looked back at the three of them, standing together.
“Catch you later,” he said, and he was gone.
Chapter 16
Umiakovik was a huge lake, and the indented, low-lying shore would have made navigation from the water line with no GPS very difficult. But Claude knew the place well, that was clear. He kept them close to the shoreline, and they paddled on, hour after hour. The afternoon sun dropped low enough to glare directly in Brooke’s eyes, giving her a headache. A nagging soreness in her shoulders reminded her that this trip was the first paddling she had done in over a year, and keeping up with their new companion was testing her stamina.
Dex, however, seemed refreshed, driven on by his desire to find out the truth about Kyle, regardless of what it might be. But he moved with a kind of controlled urgency that Brooke found worrying. How would he react if his worst fears were realized?
Claude did not stop, or even change pace, all afternoon, even when lighting another cigarette. It was late in the day when he turned the bow of his canoe slowly into a small inlet. There was little in the way of shoreline, just a patch of smaller rocks and pebbles, where the dense, water-loving willows were set a few yards or so. The inlet ran deep, but its shape was almost invisible out on the water unless you were opposite the entrance. Brooke looked into the water below their canoe. The lake here was clear of sediment and a kind of deep green that suggest
ed the bottom was far, far below. They were clearly on the edge of a trough in the lakebed, the depth of which Brooke could not guess
Claude turned his canoe broadside to the bank and stepped out, lashing the bow to a rock, so the craft drifted toward the land, like a finger barely touching it. Brooke gently maneuvred her canoe against the rocks, and Dex almost fell out in his haste to see Claude’s discovery. Their new guide waited without complaint, his dark eyes crinkled against the sun, watching them. Brooke found it impossible to read him. Perhaps it was the constant haze of cigarette smoke, but the clouds of mosquitoes that accompanied them everywhere on land never seemed to bother him at all
When they were all on shore, Claude nodded briefly and turned into the trees. The willows clustered on the bank, and he immediately disappeared into their cover. Dex followed him and Brooke pushed through the green barrier last, the thin boughs whipping across her arms and face. She could see nothing except the trees directly in front of her, but before she could become disoriented, she stepped out of their embrace on the other side.
Here, beyond the periphery, the forest proper thinned out into spruce and fir trees and the ground beneath her feet was spongy with dead needles. The light was dim and faintly creepy, and Brooke found the silence unsettling. The trees seemed to muffle every sound: the hush of wavelets on the shore, even birdsong. Gone was the thick foliage of the lakeside. Here, the stark brown trunks of evergreens marked a somber distance until greener boughs fought for light higher up. At first, Brooke couldn’t see Claude and Dex in the gloom. They had moved fast
“Brooke!
She saw the flash of Dex’s plaid shirt ahead and stumbled towards it, her feet slipping on the moss covering unsuspected rocks
When she reached them, Brooke realized why the silence in the forest felt so ominous. They were standing by a shallow grave, part of which someone or something - Claude, or maybe even a bear - had dug out. There was enough to see that there were two bodies in it. Brooke saw that it was two adults, but that was where the certainty ended, as both were badly burned
Brooke put a hand on his arm, but Dex seemed oblivious. He bent down and gently brushed away earth from the face of the less burned body. He drew a sharp breath and looked away for a second