Without Virtue

by Trevor Scott

  Overdose, my ass, Max thought. “And Thailand?”

  “Just anecdotal information,” Martina said. “During the timeframe of their visit, a couple of women were found murdered with indications they had been raped multiple times.”

  “It sounds like these men don’t like to leave witnesses,” Max concluded.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “All four men were married. One was divorced years ago. I tracked her down and interviewed her. She divorced her ex-husband because of infidelity and his heavy porn addiction.”

  “What did she tell you about the relationship of these men? And about their trips together.”

  Hesitation. Then Martina said, “The men had a trip every July or August together.”

  “For the past twenty years?”

  “Afraid so,” she said.

  Max was sick to his stomach. He couldn’t imagine the possible number of victims. It could be in the dozens. Now he wished he had killed this last man.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. This man has lost his three friends. We took the two young women away from him, so he has to get to them to make sure they don’t talk.”

  “You think he’ll kill them?”

  “He has to,” Max said. Then he kicked the last of his fire to spread what remained of the coals. “I need to get to them before he does.”

  “How would he know how to find them?” she asked.

  “I killed the two men and took their IDs,” Max said. “What did you find out about their professions?”

  “One was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company and the other one was an EMT from Minneapolis.”

  “I shot another man and he fell into the lake,” Max said. “He had a beard and a slight build.”

  “He was a college professor at a private school in St. Paul.”

  That left the man who seemed to be the leader. “And the last guy?”

  “He’s a slip and fall lawyer from Bloomington.”

  “Wonderful,” Max said.

  “What more do you need from me?”

  “Did you find out anything else on the fifth man?”

  “Not yet. By the way, the ex-wife was married to the Bloomington lawyer. But they had only been married for about ten years, so she might not have known about anyone else. I’ll keep digging.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Try to stay dry,” he said. “But that’s not likely. Although night is a couple of hours away, the storm here has made it almost like dusk already.”

  “Should I send some police to protect the women?”

  “I’ll be there within the hour,” he said. “If it goes out over the radio, the lawyer could be monitoring that.”

  “Or the fifth man could be.”

  “Right. I’ll call my sister.”

  “Good idea.”

  The two of them hung up and then Max started hiking down toward the lakeshore as he punched in Robin’s cell number.

  “Where have you been?” Robin asked.

  “A little busy.” He quickly gave his sister the information that Martina had just fed him.

  “That makes sense,” she said. “Should I call in the local police?”

  “Is there someone you trust?”

  Robin thought for a moment. “Not really. We’ve had the Ely Police Chief and that Forest Service special agent drop by so far. So, they know where we are.”

  “You should go out to my truck and get a gun.”

  “Way ahead of you,” she said. “I got the Glock from your console, along with an extra magazine.”

  “Good girl. I should go. The woods are getting thick here.”

  “Wait. One more thing. The power is out.”

  “Everywhere? Or just at Donny’s house?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

  “Stay vigilant,” he said, and then hung up and stuffed the phone into his backpack.

  Now, with this new information, he quickened his pace toward Donny’s cabin. He figured he was about a mile out, but with the difficult terrain, it could take him an hour to travel that distance.

  •

  Robin found Donny digging out candles and flashlights from a cabinet in his basement.

  “Hey,” Robin said. “We need to talk.”

  She noticed there was a door to the outside here, since the cabin was built on a hill. From the looks of the space, Donny used the walk-out basement to store his canoes and other toys during the winter months.

  “What about?” he asked.

  “Is there someone you can call to verify that the power is out everywhere along the lake?”

  Donny looked confused. “There’s only one power line down our road. My closest neighbor is ninety-four and she has her light on almost all the time.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve checked. It’s off. Why do you ask?”

  “Just trying to be sure. Where is your generator?”

  “North side of the cabin in a box I built for it. I should get that fired up.”

  She took a flashlight from Donny and said, “I’ll hold the light.”

  The two of them went out the basement door and went around the side of the cabin to the north end. Donny opened the wooden box cover and latched it to a hook on the cabin siding.

  “Gotta leave it open when it’s running,” Donny said, “so it gets clean air for the engine.”

  “How much fuel does it take?”

  “Enough to run for about fifteen hours on the gas tank,” Donny said. “But I’ve got extra gas.”

  “What do you have it running?”

  “Refrigerator and freezer. Plus a few lights. We can still cook with the propane stove. I just need to light that by hand.”

  Donny fired up the generator and gave Robin a thumbs up.

  It was noisy, but Robin had heard a lot worse.

  The two of them went back into the basement. Robin made sure to lock the door behind them. Then they went upstairs with the candles, since there were still only a couple of small lights lit around the house.

  She went into the living room and watched Donny set up a couple of candles. The fire also gave them some light.

  Where was Max? Robin always felt better with him nearby.

  28

  Max had come across a quarter mile swamp that seeped into a narrow bay on Snowbank Lake. To go around it would have taken him at least an hour, but to cross it might have gotten him killed. He had heard stories of men sinking into the black sludge of muck like that and never to be found again. So, he made a tactical decision to go around the swamp. It took him an hour and fifteen minutes to navigate the swamp, where fingers slipped into the forest like the tentacles of an octopus. His GPS kept him tracking back toward the lake, and that would eventually get him to Donny’s cabin.

  By the time he got back to the lake, true darkness was starting to set in. For now, it wasn’t much different from the way it had been during the worst of the storm. But now, at least, the thunder and lightning had stopped for a while.

  Now he could hear a generator in the distance. They had lost power, he thought. Or, someone had lost it for them.

  Max paused as he got closer to Donny’s cabin. He went into his backpack and pulled out his Night Vision Goggles. With his NVGs on, he crept up to the area of grass cut down to the edge of the lake, where Donny kept his green canoes. They were turned upside down and tied to trees.

  Glancing up the hill toward the cabin, he could see a few lights on. The largest illumination seemed to come from the living room fireplace.

  With great stealth, Max went up the hill, around the south side of the cabin, and to the back yard, where his truck sat about fifty feet from the back door. He found the spare keys he had hidden there and opened the back end of his truck topper. First, he quickly changed into dry, black clothes and fresh military boots. Then he crawled inside and opened his gun safe. He retrieved one of his AR-15s, along with three add
itional 30-round magazines of military-grade 5.56 mm ammo. He gently closed the safe and locked it. Then he crawled out of the bed of the truck and locked his topper. He slung his AR-15 over his shoulders and headed toward the cabin.

  Max stopped suddenly in his tracks when he heard a vehicle approaching down the long dirt road. Without thinking, he reacted by stepping into the forest and hiding behind a large white pine. He clicked on his Eotech holographic sight and shoved the gun into his shoulder.

  The vehicle stopped at the end of the road, which had been made into a turnaround. One door opened and closed. Then Max saw a lone figure walking down the driveway. His voice sounded familiar. But who was he talking with?

  Through his NVGs, Max could see that the man was Forest Service Special Agent Wayne Cranston with a cell phone in his hand.

  “I’m sick of excuses,” Cranston said. “This is your screw-up. I’m at the old guy’s cabin. Where are you?”

  The special agent stopped at the back of Max’s truck and he glanced right at him. But there was no way the man could see him tucked in the forest.

  “His truck is here, but he wasn’t back yet the last time I came by. At least that’s what his sister told me.”

  The man started walking again toward the house.

  “Hot as hell,” Cranston said. “But she’s got an attitude.”

  Max wasn’t sure who this guy was talking with, or what he was doing at Donny’s cabin. He assumed the man would have to close out his investigation by interviewing Pam and Judy.

  “Power is out on the entire road,” Cranston said. “But the old guy has a generator.” By now the special agent was nearing the back door. “Gotta go. Clean up your mess.”

  •

  With darkness complete now across the northland, Pam and Judy had taken a spare bedroom with two single beds and were probably sound asleep by now, Robin thought. She sat with Kim and Donny in the living room, the fire reduced to hot coals now.

  “Should we put another log on the fire?” Kim asked.

  “I like to let it settle down before I go to bed,” Donny said.

  “You should go,” Robin said. “I’ll make sure to put out all the candles.”

  Donny got up and said, “The other spare bedroom has just one bed. You two can flip a coin over that one. The other can sleep out here on the sofa.”

  “We’ve been through a lot,” Kim said to Robin. “I don’t mind sharing a bed with you.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Robin said.

  Donny said good night and wandered back to his bedroom.

  “I promise to stay on my side of the bed,” Kim said with a smile.

  “I’m so tired I think I could sleep standing up about now,” Robin said. “But I should wait for my brother to get here.”

  “I guess he could take the sofa,” Kim said.

  “My brother said he could sleep in a ditch. And he has many times.”

  A knock on the back door startled the both of them.

  “That’s probably Max,” Robin said, getting up from the sofa.

  She went into the kitchen and with the light of only a couple of candles she couldn’t see who was at the door. She grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen counter and clicked it on, illuminating the man at the door. What in the hell was that special agent from the Forest Service doing there at this time of night?

  Through the door in the mud room, Robin said, “What do you want?”

  “With the power outage,” Cranston said, “I just wanted to check up on you folks.”

  “As you can tell from the sound of the generator, we’re doing just fine.”

  “Can I come in and talk?” he asked.

  “Almost everyone is sleeping,” she said more sternly this time.

  “I have some news about your brother,” the man said.

  What could he know about Max, she wondered? Not a damn thing. What was this guy’s game?

  “What’s up?” Kim asked from the kitchen.

  Robin took a couple of steps away from the door and turned to Kim. “It’s your Forest Service buddy, Cranston.”

  Kim gave her a look of wonder. She went past Robin and said to her colleague, “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “I told her that I have some news about her brother,” Cranston said. He kept looking back toward the main road, as if he were expecting someone.

  “She’s already heard from her brother,” Kim said.

  “Oh,” Cranston said. “Good. Then you probably know more than we do.”

  “That goes without saying,” Kim said.

  Robin pulled on the back of Kim’s shirt, bringing her back into the kitchen. Then she said to the Forest Service man, “I told you we’ll meet you at the district office in the morning.”

  A frustrated look on his face, Cranston finally nodded his head, turned, and wandered into the darkness.

  Kim swished her head side to side. “What was that about?”

  “That guy creeps me out,” Robin said.

  “Me too.”

  Robin put out the small light and the two candles in the kitchen as she went back toward the living room. When she got there, Kim was putting out those candles.

  “I’ll leave the small table lamp on for you,” Kim said. “Are you sure you won’t come to bed with me?”

  Robin checked the time on her phone. “Max should be here by now. I’ll wait for him.”

  “I can wait up with you,” Kim said.

  “No need for both of us to stay up.”

  Kim gave Robin a big hug and then went off to the bedroom.

  Robin’s phone suddenly buzzed and she saw that it was from Max. He had left his regular cell phone in his truck, so he had to be back. The text read, ‘I’m outside. Hide!’

  She got up to comply with her brother’s demand, and the small light on the table suddenly went out, along with the formerly constant hum of the generator outside. Without thinking, she drew the compact handgun and held it at the side of her right leg. Then she went down the hallway. She gently opened the door where Pam and Judy slept, locked their door, and quietly closed it. Then she went to the spare bedroom, locking the door behind her.

  A flashlight came on, and Kim sat up in her bed to inspect Robin. “Why do you have a gun?” Kim asked.

  Robin put a finger to her mouth and directed Kim to the floor on the other side of the bed. She had Kim turn off her light and then she whispered into her ear, “They’re here.”

  Kim gasped.

  “Don’t worry. So is my brother.”

  29

  Max had heard the Forest Service weenie tell his sister that he had information about him, but that was a total lie. He had suspected for a while that this guy wasn’t just a tool. Wayne Cranston was their fifth man.

  His friend at NCIS had sent him a long text explaining this fact. Max had skimmed it quickly before sending a text to his sister telling her to hide.

  He didn’t call 911 and request police on the scene. The only time he called that number was to tell the police where to pick up the bodies.

  After his sister had sent the Forest Service asshole packing, Max had watched the man go back to his truck out on the road. At first Max thought the guy was going to go away as ordered, but then he returned with what looked like a tactical shotgun.

  Moving slowly through the woods along the outer perimeter of the property, Max tracked the guy around the north side of the cabin. A flashlight clicked on, and then the generator suddenly stopped.

  Now Max had no choice. He moved into the yard for better footing, and crept closer to the guy.

  Something made the man turn. When he did, Max saw the shotgun rise up.

  The shotgun blast came toward Max, but he had flung his body to the wet grass. By the time he rolled over and took aim, the man had gone around the lake side of the cabin.

  Max jumped to his feet and hurried toward the edge of the cabin. As he shoved his body against the brick basement wall, he heard glass shatter.


  Rounding the corner with his gun, Max took aim. But the man was already in the house. Damn it!

  He rushed toward the door and suddenly blasts from the shotgun took out the picture windows that overlooked the lake. Max felt pain in his neck and assumed it was from shards of glass hitting him. He shoved his body against a brick wall for a second. Then he swiveled his gun around the corner and opened fire with a salvo of bullets firing through the broken window.

  Silence.

  “You’re firing on a federal agent,” Cranston yelled.

  “We know all about your activities over the years,” Max answered back. “Drop your weapons and I might let you live.”

  Cranston laughed. “Might? Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m the man that’s going to take you in,” Max said through gritted teeth. “You can leave this cabin on your feet or in a body bag like your high school buddies.”

  “None of you will leave here alive,” Cranston said. But he did so with much less conviction.

  “Tough words for a Milwaukee desk jockey.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know everything important there is to know about you. You’re a serial rapist and murderer just like your friends.”

  Cranston didn’t even try to deny it this time. He just said, “Screw you.”

  The guy was delaying for some reason. Why?

  Then Max thought about the conversation the Forest Service man had on his cell phone. He was in contact with the man from the aluminum canoe. The last of the four rapists. Max needed to get inside now. He couldn’t let this man get upstairs.

  •

  When Robin heard the glass break downstairs, she knew immediately that someone was breaking in to the basement. Then came the gunfire—first the shotgun blasts and then the rapid fire from what had to be her brother’s AR-15. She had shot one of those with Max many times.

  She told Kim to hold tight as she took the flashlight and left the bedroom, locking Kim inside. Robin had her gun out and ready to fire, but she was concerned that she could hit her brother.

  As she stepped down the hallway, Donny suddenly appeared at his bedroom door with a shotgun in hand. She waved the flashlight at him and whispered, “Get inside and lock the door.”