At one o'clock of a Sunday morning, Gene Packerson
entered a cubicle in the intensive care unit ward and studied the prone
figure tucked neatly in white sheets. He had a name to work with, Neal
Blackburn, and a wild story of an massive assault upon the Kahl estate
perpetuated by a man with one hand and a drinking problem. Not only had
John Hartman escaped unscathed, he had reaped a poetic justice of sorts on
one of his arch enemies. Neil Blackburn's right hand would never work
again. Too many pieces of it had been left back at the mansion.
Gene calculated what it would take to get a rise from
a man as hard as Blackburn. Blackburn had refused to talk with the state
police, but he was still awake and staring at the ceiling with his narrow
Asian eyes.
"Why did John go after Kahl?" Gene said.
No response.
"John's a crippled alcoholic. How'd he managed to
mess you over so bad?"
Narrow eyes dark with rage flashed at him.
"What pissed him off so bad?"
Blackburn turned his head away.
"About that assassination story. Did John Hartman
really kill the girl?"
"He killed the girl," Blackburn murmured.
Gene felt a stab of despair. "You saw it?"
"We were acting on orders. The family was to serve as
an example. John Hartman put the blade in the girl."
Gene wanted badly to disbelieve the man. He couldn't
bring himself to dismiss Blackburn out-of-hand. "Why didn't Hartman kill
Orville Kahl?" he said. "From what I hear, he had the opportunity."
Blackburn sighed. "I guess he wasn't after Kahl."
"Kahl accused John of killing his daughter."
Blackburn's grin was a sneer. "Maybe he developed a
taste for it."
"Then why are you still alive?"
Blackburn had obviously been asking himself the same
question. He looked quickly looked away to hide his glimmer of humiliation.
He was a warrior defeated, crippled, and then scorned.
The fact that Blackburn, his partner, Lucas Chambers,
and Kahl himself, had been left alive and in relatively good health worked
against the notion that John had crashed the gate in an rage of bloodlust.
Insane men did not regain their equilibrium and become calm and
reasonable at the peak of a frenzied assault upon the deadliest of their
enemies. Neither would he ever believe that John had cold-bloodedly killed
a child, not until he heard it from John's own lips, or understood the
circumstance behind such an incident.
Gene left the room and wondered if he had further
business at the hospital. The emergency ward had attended to a rash of
minor injuries among his own men. Nobody had been killed. Security dogs
and ricocheting bullets had inflicted more injuries upon Kahl's security
forces than John Hartman, and Hartman had vanished as mysteriously as he
had appeared. Because the ruckus had been confined to Kahl's property and
Kahl’s attorneys had intervened to defend Kahl and file charges against
John Hartman, no arrests had been made.
Gene spotted his dispatcher standing by the nurse's
station. He paused and frowned and searched through his memory for some
reasonable scenario to explain Sheila Davies’ presence at the hospital in
the middle of the night. A sick friend, maybe. When she saw him
approaching, his petite and very pretty departmental employee eyed him
with a severe look. "Gene. You're just the man I wanted to see."
She had changed. She wore an expensive-looking,
conservative turquoise skirt and jacket. She carried a handbag that
flipped opened to reveal an ID card on the inside flap of leather. Gene
had seen one like it in the past. Sheila Davies, this one read. Sheila was
a special agent for the CIA.
Gene tried hard to contain his surprise, and then his
terrible disappointment, but she took him by surprise in the next moment.
She stopped closer and slipped an arm in his. "Shall we talk in a more
private place?"
They started down a dark corridor lined with offices
closed and locked for the night. Sheila's high heels clicked slowly in the
stillness. "Why in God's name would the CIA put a plant in my office?"
Gene wanted to know.
"Give it some thought. Ten seconds worth should do.
It's terribly obvious."
"Kahl," he said with a sigh. "You're keeping an eye
on Orville Kahl."
"I'm CIA, Gene, not FBI. Try again."
He turned to her in surprise. One more possibility
occurred to him. "The foreign outfit backing Kahl?"
"Juni Electronics. A front. We're keeping an eye
peeled for names and faces."
"I see."
She smiled up at him. "Don't worry. I had no need to
keep my identity secret from you, but would you have rather known who I
was?"
"Ignorance is bliss now and then."
"It's easier on the nerves," she said laughing. "We
have a plant at his estate. I was checking on a dog bite he incurred this
evening."
Her smile faded. "I may have unpleasant news for you,
Gene."
His department had only one possible connection with
Orville Kahl. "My deputies Jim Langton and Ben Reeves," he said in dismay.
"Jim Langton has been seen at the estate on more than
one occasion."
Gene felt gut-wrenching despair. "I had no idea that
was happening."
"Have you heard from either of them yet?"
"They'll turn up sooner or later. They'll have me to
answer to when they do."
"And John Hartman?" she said in a noticeably cautious
tone of voice. "What connection does he have with Orville Kahl, may I
ask?"
"I'm not sure he has one."
"You don't seem to suspect John in your local
disappearances."
"I don't have a handle on those at all," Gene said.
"I haven't reached first base. I don't think the state has either."
"Do you know where he may be hiding?" she asked
mildly.
Gene shrugged his helplessness. "We've got multiple
warrants out for his arrest. An APB has been issued."
"Will he run?"
"No. He'll stand and fight. He has his boy with him."
Sheila sighed in frustration. "Do the disappearances
tie in with Orville Kahl in any way?"
"Aside from his daughter being among them, I can't
see how."
"Is Mr. Kahl being blackmailed?"
"I thought maybe that was the case," Gene admitted.
"John's behavior throws everything out of whack. I can't imagine why he or
even Kahl have behaved in this manner.”
"We'll just have to find out," Sheila said.
"Good luck."
She gave him a sly smile. "You don't feel we'll fare
any better than you?"
"I think you'll have your hands full just trying to
making sense of it."
"Are you referring to the ghost stories I've been
hearing about?"
"John Hartman may be central to a few of the ghost
stories, but I don't think he's a murderer."
"You and John were friends at one time."
"I respect the man."
"Even if he enjoys carving up little girls?"
Sheila was testing the depth of his confidence in
John. "Is that what he does?"
"You tell me."
"I won't know one way or another until I've spoken
with John about it."
"We'll do what we can to give you that opportunity.
Cooperate with us and we'll share our files with you. It’ll make you look
good."
Gene shoved his hands in his pocket and leaned
against a wall. "I suppose this means I have to find myself a new
dispatcher."
Sheila drew close and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Can you keep me a secret until the situation resolves itself one way or
another?"
He had to chuckle at the thought. "You don't think
the department's not going to notice that I'm calling my dispatcher
ma'am?"
She cocked her head and gave him a coy look. "You're
not going to look at me in that special way of yours anymore, Gene?"
Her new identity hadn't dampened his passion for her,
although she was hardly the innocent item of fluff he had thought. It
amazed him to think that the beautiful girl-child standing to his chest
had a knowledge and command of law enforcement to rival his own. "Sheila,
you're killing me. You know how I feel about you by now."
"And you don't think a relationship between us
appropriate because of our profession and the difference in our age. Gene,
I think we need to come to a mutual understanding. Over a cup of coffee,
perhaps." She glanced at her watch. "What's open all night in Eagle
Junction?"
Gene gave it a moment's thought. "A coffee shop? I
know of one for certain. A rather nice one at that."
"It's too soon to call it a night, wouldn't you say?"
Gene concurred. If John managed to stay out of sight
until dawn, he'd certainly lay low for the day to recuperate. Dawn would
be the earliest sleep any of them could afford. He gave Sheila a nod of
agreement. "Way too early."
"Lead the way, Sheriff."
Gene escorted her out into the early hours of the new
day suspecting she'd use their conversation over a cup of coffee as an
excuse to grill him for more information about John Hartman. She spoke
little on the drive to the coffee shop. When they took their coffee to a
back booth, she sat close and had surprisingly little to say.
"I'm making you nervous," she said at last.
He chuckled nervously. "I had you pegged as a
beautiful, airheaded child. I've had experience in these matters. After
all, I have daughters older than you."
"Would it help if I told you I lied about my age? I'm
twenty-six, not twenty-two."
Gene rolled his head in dismay. "Christ. My youngest
daughter is twenty-six."
"I'm not a child, Gene. I finished college at
eighteen. I have an IQ of 174, which helps keep me ahead of the crowd.
I've been through a lot. I grew up too fast. I was raised by the men in my
family, my father, and when he died, my uncles. I have grandfathers and
brothers, but no sisters. All the women folk in my family are gone, except
for me."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
She shrugged. "It hurts. Your wife is gone. I'm sure
that hurts. But we don't live forever, and we deal with it as best we can.
That explains my behavior, don't you think? I don't relate well to men my
own age." She smiled. "They're hardly more than beautiful airheads."
Gene reached out and put his hand on hers.
She looked down at it and smiled. "That's much
better."
"It's not just your age, Sheila. I haven't dated
since my wife died.” He blushed furiously at the way that sounded.
“You’re out of practice. Gene, I understand, but
you’re still a card-carrying member of the human race, male division.”
“I haven't had the time to nurture friendships or
socialize,” he added, trying to put an air of propriety on his gaffe.
Sheila's mischievous smile was back. "Would your wife
have approved of me?"
"She's turning over in her grave. My daughters are
going to tear me to pieces when they find out."
She patted his hand. "I’ll take that as a sincere
compliment.” And then she glanced at her watch. "I've got things to do. Do
we have a date for later?"
"If it's the last thing I ever do. You go on ahead.
I'm going to have another cup of coffee."
He watched the sway of her body until she was gone.
He thought it amusing that his hand trembled reaching for his coffee.
Sadly so.
He left the café a half hour later and drove to John
Hartman's house on the Ridge. He parked alongside the Volvo and tied a
white handkerchief to his antenna. Twenty restless minutes later, the sun
was coming up in the east and he started out across the slope on foot.
John was out here somewhere, and he had questions that could not go
unanswered. The surveillance of the slope had ended, and he was alone in
the countryside when he circled the stand of trees and wondered at the
mystery they had contained. He could sense it was gone now. Or had it just
moved elsewhere?
Gene went down to the highway to where Ben's car had
been found. State forensic experts had stated that Ben had been pacing
along a twenty foot section of the shoulder a few hundred feet from the
surveillance blind, as if he had been waiting or guarding something going
on further down the slope within the forest.
Gene eyed the gloom beneath the trees dropping off
below the highway. It would be foolish to go in alone. He went anyhow. He
followed a deer trail downhill at random, constantly scanning the barren
ground to both sides, but without questioning himself as to what exactly
he expected to find. He paused twenty minutes later, growing uneasy in the
intensifying glow of morning. His behavior had become a bit daffy indeed.
He almost missed the uniforms lying piled against the
dark soil of the forest floor. At a distance of several hundred yards, his
gaze just happened to fall upon the right spot. But only when he drew
closer did he recognize them for what they were.
"Oh, shit."
His heart hammered. He kicked at the clothing. Two
uniforms. Two belts, but only one revolver in evidence. Two pair of shoes,
their laces still neatly tied with their socks still in them.
Tooth fillings.
He knelt and inspected the clothing. He looked
through both wallets. They were filled with cash, identification and an
assortment of credit cards. Underwear, he noticed were still inside the
pants.
An intensifying eeriness engulfed him like a dense
and cold fog rolling down the slope of the valley wall.
"Shit."
He scanned the surrounding ground for makeshift
graves. Neither did that make much sense. Who would bury two naked bodies
and leave the clothes piled in plain sight?
He rose to his feet, formulating a plan of action.
He'd leave the items for the State forensic teams. He had to get back to
the car and radio for backup.
Turning away from the pile of clothing, the toe of
his shoe kicked a lightweight, flat black, basketball-sized sphere. The
object bounced across the uneven ground, and came to rest fifteen feet
away.
He gazed at the object for a time, then approached to
inspect it more carefully. He tested the mass of the sphere with the toe
of his boot again, then knelt and put four fingers of his right hand upon
it. It felt soft and tepid. Plastic, maybe, but something harder than
plastic. He lifted the sphere with both hands and tossed it into the air a
few times. It had to be hollow to weigh so little.
"What the hell?"
He thought then of John Hartman, glanced at his
watch, and calculated the walk down to the cabin in the valley. An hour
in, an hour out. He had nothing else to fall back on. John had been
holding back on him, and how could this mysterious object not be part of
the answer? If there were answers to be found, John would have them.
Novels by
William G. Tedford