After parking in front of the lodge, however, I did walk across to the kennel to check on Preacher. I fussed with her for a couple minutes, told her I’d be back in about an hour to feed her, then returned to the lodge.
The first thing I noticed was that Amy had apparently made good on her vow to have Mitch put up Christmas decorations. The porch railing was now hung with pine boughs and a large wreath adorned with a bright red bow and pheasant tail feathers hung on the front door.
I stepped inside. A fully decorated tree now stood near the fireplace and when I moved over for a closer look, I could see that most of the ornaments were species of wildlife—deer, gamebirds, ducks, as well as various miniaturized pieces of sporting equipment such as tiny shotguns, a little orange vest that looked like it might have fit an original G.I. Joe action figure, and so on. A beautiful garland of pheasant feathers was draped around the tree as well.
I went upstairs to my room and opened the battered old silvery-gray Samsonite briefcase that I always carry when I travel. I realize such a relic immediately brands me as a bona fide geezer now that everyone these days carries backpacks, but I don’t care—the briefcase is sturdier than any backpack known to man, and it also has a lot of sentimental value.
It was a Christmas present from a former girlfriend (since deceased) and the combination of its lock are the digits of her birthday. It has a dull metallic finish that suggests to some people it’s actually a handgun case, and when asked I’ve occasionally joked that it contains a pair of matched .44 magnums. A few of those folks weren’t sure I was kidding.
I withdrew a pen from one of its zippered pockets and a legal pad and sat down on the bed. I began by sketching a floor plan of Flanagan’s house, both the ground floor and the upstairs. Although I hadn’t had a chance to check the remaining two bedrooms, I’d seen the master bedroom and that was going to have to suffice. Given that Flanagan lived alone, I guessed the other two bedrooms were used for storage—glancing in from the hallway, I’d seen some boxes piled in the closer of the two—so not getting a better look at either one probably wasn’t critical.
I labeled the rooms, then flipped the page and started making notes, jotting down in list format what I felt were the important details, each on a separate line.
Large equipment shed/garage to right of driveway, house to left.
Kennel at far end of shed.
Key in garden shed by back door.
Shotgun (loaded?) in mud room, shells on shelf above.
Large pantry in kitchen. Louvered door.
Longneck Buds in fridge.
Gun cabinet (full) in living room.
Nice 12-pointer on the wall.
Glock 9 in middle desk drawer, downstairs office.
Computer on desk.
I paused to reread what I’d written. I added empty downstairs bathroom and small closet beneath stairs, boxes on floor to the list, then paused again. For the moment I couldn’t think of anything else to add about the downstairs that seemed significant. I moved on to the upstairs.
Shower stall and tub in large bathroom.
Men’s toiletries.
Advil and Tylenol in cabinet; no prescription meds.
Two guard uniforms in master bedroom closet, jeans and sport clothes, one suit.
Unmade bed. (Don’t know why I bothered noting this.)
Two additional bedrooms—storage?
I reviewed my list again. It was all pretty basic stuff, about what you’d expect to find in a house inhabited by a single guy. Well, except perhaps for all the firearms I’d seen. But even those weren’t unusual for someone who obviously hunted a great deal. The holstered Glock in the desk drawer was a self-defense weapon, not a hunting firearm, but again, it wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary, given Flanagan’s profession and the fact that he lived alone in the country.
I reread the list, from beginning to end. I closed my eyes, trying to picture the house, the surrounding grounds, everything I’d seen, inside and out. I remembered the windrow of pine trees behind the equipment shed, the stacked flower pots and the assortment of tools on the shelves in the garden shed, the snow shovel leaning against the shed door, the coats and jackets hanging on the mud room wall just inside the back door and the jumble of boots and shoes on the floor beneath the jackets. None of these seemed especially noteworthy.
I thought again of the Remington 870 leaning against the mud room wall in the corner by the freezer. If Flanagan kept it loaded—and now I kicked myself mentally for not checking—I wondered if I could somehow stage a scenario that would suggest Flanagan had accidentally shot himself. Doing so would almost certainly require me to overpower him initially, and I wasn’t confident I could do that.
Unless I could first weaken him in some way.
I looked at my notes again. I paused just before the end of the list. No prescription meds.
And just like that, I had it. I’d have to fine-tune the details, but I knew how I was going to take care of Charlie Flanagan.
With a little help from a friend, I was confident I could even gain Flanagan’s cooperation for what I had in mind.
Chapter 39
Saturday night was steak night at Hidden Hollow.
About an hour before dinner, while we clients were gathered in the lounge enjoying some libation and swapping stories about the day’s hunts, Amy had made the rounds and asked us how we wanted our steaks prepared. Medium rare was the most popular choice, with only a couple of guys asking that theirs be well done. Predictably, those requests generated some sarcastic rejoinders.
“Anybody who would order a steak well done would probably also eat yogurt,” said Steve Parks upon hearing his brother Aaron’s request.
“And what’s wrong with yogurt?” Aaron asked.
“Nothing, if you like food with the texture of snot,” Steve said. Wayne Parks said, “Gross!” and the rest of us groaned.
Dave Larson shook his head, laughing. He’d also ordered his steak well done. “How was your afternoon?” he asked me. “Did you get the photos you needed?”
“I think so,” I said. I wanted to steer the conversation away from what I’d done that afternoon. “I’ll shoot a few more in the morning and that should have me pretty well covered. Are you fellows hunting again in the morning?”
“No, we’re heading back to Chicago right after breakfast. It’s about a five-hour drive and we don’t want to get home too late. What about you?”
“I’m scheduled to go out again in the morning but I think I’m gonna cut it a little short,” I said. “Maybe hunt for an hour or an hour and a half and then load up and head home. It’s about a five-hour drive back to Des Moines also, and like you said, I don’t want to get home too late.”
I didn’t add that I was feeling impatient to get away from Hidden Hollow and Rushville for at least a couple reasons. Originally I had thought I would take care of Charlie Flanagan while I was here for my hunt at Hidden Hollow, but now I realized there was no way to do so without potentially incriminating myself.
I was a stranger in town whose name was known to a fair number of folks. Walt the bartender and at least a few of the Rushville Tap patrons had seen Charlie Flanagan give me a hard shoulder bump on his way out of the bar. To prevent even the possibility of anyone thinking I might have decided to retaliate—that is, if Flanagan suddenly and inexplicably turned up dead—I needed to establish that I’d left town. So killing him while I was still known to be here wasn’t an option.
I also wanted to put some distance between this place and myself to help clarify my thinking. I needed a little time to sift through the details of everything I’d learned. Doing so would help me nail down the specifics of a plan for Charlie Flanagan’s demise. I already had a pretty good idea of what I was going to do, but I figured the drive back to Des Moines would give me plenty of time to mull things over, weigh the various possibilities and, I hoped, come up with a strategy that was reasonably foolproof.
Of course “foolproof” was
a relative term. There were always going to be some unknowns or unanticipated factors that could throw a major wrench into the works. It was up to me to try to minimize those factors based on what I’d discovered about Flanagan—his habits, his lifestyle, his personality—and I knew this would occupy much of my thinking during the trip home.
I was eager to get started, partly because I knew I was going to have to return to Rushville to conclude the Flanagan business once and for all. The sooner I got back to Des Moines to pick up what I needed—at this point I was missing a key ingredient—the sooner I could head back to Rushville to finish what had begun a couple weeks earlier with the death of Frank Reynolds.
This was going to require some long hours and a lot of road time and it would put nearly another 500 miles on my SUV’s odometer, but I couldn’t see any way around that. Rule Number 2 stipulated no collateral damage, so this wasn’t something I could sidestep.
The steaks were grilled to perfection over mesquite coals, and if there’s anything better for dinner than beef cooked over mesquite, I’ve yet to discover it. Cardiologists might have a problem with that observation but then, to paraphrase Steve Parks, they probably also eat yogurt. Or at least recommend their patients do so.
After dinner I let myself get talked into taking part in the 8-ball tournament in the lounge. Dave Larson and I—the old guys—paired up to take on his son Mike and Wayne Parks, with Steve and Aaron Parks set to play the winners. Ordinarily I’d have tried to beg off like I had the night before, but I didn’t want to appear anti-social on my last night at Hidden Hollow.
Nor did I want to make another trip into Rushville and risk running into Charlie Flanagan again. We’d already crossed paths several times, and his shoulder bump the previous night notwithstanding, so far he seemed fairly oblivious to my presence. I didn’t want to do anything to change that.
Mike and Wayne gave us the break, deferring to us on the basis of our “advanced age,” as Mike put it. Dave insisted I do the honors and when I cracked the rack, the 10-ball obligingly dropped into a corner pocket. I missed my next shot at the 12 and left Mike with a gimme on the 4, which he quickly sunk. He followed up with the 6 then missed on the 5. Dave missed a shot at the 13, after which Wayne proceeded to run the table, finishing with the 8 in a side pocket.
“I think we’ve been hustled,” Dave said, and I laughed.
“At least it was reasonably quick and merciful,” I replied. We racked our cues and headed over to the bar, leaving Mike and Wayne crowing about sending the geezers home to bed early as Steve and Arron stepped up to take our place.
Dave and I uncapped beers and had just settled on tall stools when Amy came in to announce the guide assignments for the morning. Mitch was guiding the Parks brothers and I would be going out with Allie.
I was happy to hear this. I hadn’t requested Allie but if she was going to be guiding me, I planned to make the most of the opportunity. If I had the chance to renew our conversation from the night before, I might pick up a few more details about Charlie Flanagan that could prove useful.
When you were planning to kill someone, you never knew what little tidbit might come in handy.
Chapter 40
The groove I’d finally found on Saturday morning was fortunately still with me when Allie, Preacher and I took to the field on Sunday. Unlike the previous day, I didn’t start off with any embarrassing misses. I flushed a brace of quail over Preacher’s first point and dropped them both, causing Allie to whoop like a cowgirl.
“Nice shooting!” she said, and I smiled and thanked her. What guy doesn’t like being complimented by an attractive woman after he’s just made a good showing? And there was no denying Allie’s attractiveness that morning. In her trim-fitting brush pants and orange game vest over a heavy green-and-gold plaid flannel shirt, and with her long dark hair in a ponytail pulled through the back of her orange Hidden Hollow cap, she did indeed make a mighty fetching bird-hunting guide. Pardon the atrocious pun.
Earlier the Larsons, the Parks brothers and I had enjoyed a breakfast of waffles (our choice of pecan, blueberry or plain; I opted for pecan), country fried ham and scrambled eggs. In deference to Sunday, breakfast began a half hour later, and this time Mitch and Allie joined us. Matt, the other guide, apparently had the morning off.
Following breakfast we’d all said goodbye to Dave and Mike Larson before they loaded up Jasper the Lab and headed home to Chicago. As I shook hands with Dave he said, “I’ll be looking for your article on this place. In the meantime, we should both practice our pool.”
“Indeed we should,” I replied. “Have a safe trip.”
“Thanks, we will. You do the same.”
“Will do.”
After the Larsons departed, Allie and I loaded Preacher onto the back of one of the ATVs and headed out to the field. Allie took us to a different area than the one Preacher and I had hunted with Mitch the day before but the cover was similar—fields of corn stubble and sorghum strips bordered by brushy tree lines.
“I’m probably gonna want to cut this a little short this morning,” I told Allie as we climbed out of the ATV and I uncased my gun. “I’ve got a five-hour drive back to Des Moines and I’d like to get home fairly early. I always need a little time to decompress before turning on the company computer on Monday morning.”
“I understand, and that’s fine,” she said. “We can wrap things up whenever you’d like.”
I released Preacher from the crate on the back of the ATV and dropped two shells into the breech of the Remington. We started out with Preacher quartering about 50 yards ahead.
“She’s a good-looking dog,” Allie commented, and in another moment or two Preacher locked up. “There we go!” Allie said and we quickened our pace.
I moved in and killed the first bird going straight away, then swung to my right and dropped the second. After complimenting me, Allie said, “If you keep shooting like that, we’ll be done before ten o’clock!”
I laughed. “Well, I don’t want it to end too soon,” I said, thinking, not before I have the chance to pump you for more information about Charlie Flanagan.
“Oh, I’m sure we can make things last awhile longer,” she said. “We try not to make things too easy for our clients.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said, again reflecting that the mark of a topnotch preserve was a realistic presentation of birds in a natural setting, ensuring that the hunters had to work for their game.
We moved on down the tree line and Preacher was soon on point again. I flushed another brace of quail and dropped the first one, but the second bird managed to put a tree between us just as I swung on it and fired. My shot clipped off a couple of low-hanging branches and Allie laughed. “That tree needed a little pruning anyway,” she said.
“I thought so too,” I replied, grinning.
The rest of the hunt played out along similar lines. I shot two chukars and four more quail, and as Preacher retrieved the last bird I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to eleven and I was ready to call it a morning. I said as much to Allie, and she agreed we could head back to the lodge.
The only drawback to quitting early was that I hadn’t managed to steer the conversation around to Charlie Flanagan. Unlike some guides who feel the need to keep up a constant line of patter, Allie wasn’t the chatty type in the field. That’s something I ordinarily appreciate as I’m not fond of a lot of needless babble, preferring to keep things relatively quiet so I can concentrate on my dog and the hunt. But in this case I’d have welcomed a little more talk.
When we got back to the ATV and Preacher was settled in her crate, I decided to force the issue. Apropos of nothing, I said, “When I went back into town yesterday afternoon I saw Charlie Flanagan again.”
“Really?” Allie said. “Where…at the Rushville Tap?”
“No, this was on the square,” I said. “At least, I’m pretty sure it was him. He was driving a white Ford pickup with a yellow Lab in the back. He passed me and I go
t a pretty good look at him as he went by.”
“Yes, that would have been him,” she said. “He has a yellow Lab that always rides in the back.”
I didn’t mention that I’d watched Flanagan park his truck and then kick the Lab’s hind legs out from under him when the dog had jumped out of the bed and attempted to follow him. Nor, of course, did I tell Allie that I’d immediately driven out to Flanagan’s house and given it a quick toss. Instead, I said, “He was wearing a scowl when he drove past…is that his usual expression?”
She snorted. “Probably. Charlie always wants to make sure people appreciate what a badass he is—or thinks he is, anyway.”
“I remember you saying something like that a couple nights ago when we talked on the porch.”
“Right. He’s used to bullying people and getting away with it. Didn’t you say he bumped into you in the bar?”
I winced inwardly. “Yes, he did. It kinda caught me by surprise. But before I could do anything about it, he’d gone out the door.”
“He does stuff like that a lot, just to see if he can get a rise out of people.”
“Well, like I said, it caught me surprise. But why’d you ask if I saw him in the Rushville Tap again…does he spend a lot of time there?”
She laughed. “He’s there every night, and a lot of Saturday afternoons. He’d be there on Sunday also if they were open, but they aren’t. I told you, didn’t I, that that’s where he claimed Carlyle confessed to him?”
I couldn’t remember if she’d told me this but I knew it anyway, first from the newspaper clipping James Collins had sent me about Wilson’s arrest, then from the conversation I’d had with Pete Sawyer and Walt the bartender. “Yes, you did,” I said, playing along.
She shook her head angrily, her dark ponytail swinging. “Such bullshit,” she said. She seemed about to add something, but she hesitated. Then she smiled sheepishly and said, “Sorry. I shouldn’t use that kind of language with a client.”
“No problem,” I said. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do.”
The Killer in the Woods Page 20