3
T
hree weeks
went by and the FBI’s daily u
pdates on the news made it very clear they were
doing a lot of wheel spinning and going
nowhere.
Henderson’s whereabouts remained a mystery.
T
h
e lack of progress in the case
resulted in a large
and expected
public outcry
. Footage of outraged mothers, angry fathers, and concerned politicians consistently crowded the airwaves. On its own, though, this wore
thin quickly as a news item. Soon panels of
so-called
experts
were being engaged by the big networks to come up with answers of their own.
Some of the theories offered by these groups bordered on outright lunacy but o
ne I found credible was
that
Henderson
had
a secret nest somewhere
, created years before his arrest,
where he could hole up
indefinitely
if he was ever on the run
.
Though he had never gotten the opportunity to use it before he was
detained
, it would be his destination now that he had escaped.
If
it was true he could have it stocked with everything he
might
need
for months.
The
Bureau was
n’t speculating about the likelihood
of this
but they weren’t denying the possibility either.
With the resources they were
putting into the
hunt
for
him
it seemed
in
conceivable that he
was
able to avoid detection
for so long
unless
this
, or something close to it,
was the case.
Callie had become increasingly anxious as the days wore on.
She
jumped alarmingly at the least innocuous noise and hadn’t slept decently since all this had started. Throughout the night she would wander the house, rechecking door and window
locks
, listening for telltale sounds of an intruder.
And I was
not much better
.
I had taken to wearing my shirt untucked to conceal
my service weapon,
a
Glock
.
40 caliber handgun
I wore in a holster
at my back
.
At night it was never out of reach.
I
n other circumstances I
w
ould have
felt adequately
prepared for what
ever
might be coming
.
But others had been guilty of u
nderestimat
ing Henderson’s
capacity
for
cunning
in the past. I was not going to make that mistake.
Callie
, always concerned about
loaded guns in the house where Tanya might come across them
,
kept
a Smith and Wesson .44 caliber
Magnum
in a
locked
box
which was
stored on a
n upper
shelf in our bedroom
closet
. She
carried
the only key
to the box
with her
at all times.
She liked the
S
mith
for
it’s stopping power. If you hit an assailant anywhere with th
at
thing it was going to do enough damage
to
seriously slow down
an attack. And the truth was,
despite her many years of experience as a police officer,
my darling wife was not the
most talented
shooter
in the world
.
If her aim had been a little better three and a half years earlier, in fact, everything we were now going through could have been avoided.
T
hings went along
pretty much
unchanged for another
month.
Then, a
t
two a.m. one
muggy
night as we both tossed and turned, struggling to find sleep, the phone rang. One ring, that was all. I picked up the bedside
receiver
but
when I brought it to my ear
there was nothing but
the sound of
static.
Callie reached out in the dark and touched my arm. “It’s
him
,” she said, “I know it.”
There was no mistaking to whom she was referring.
“Come on, honey,” I
said
. “
Just a m
is
dial
. H
a
ppen
s
all the time.”
“Not at two o’clock in the morning
it doesn’t
.
”
I had to admit, it wasn’t a common occurrence. Still, I chose not to get
too
wound up over
a single incident of such unsubstantiated importance.
But the next night, at exactly the same time, the phone rang again. One ring.
And again I was greeted by static.
When it happened on the third night in a row Callie
professed absolute certainty it was her father.
By then
I was beginning to think she might be right.
I phoned Tom Kilborn
first thing in the morning
and told him what had been occurring. “We’ll run a trace and let you know what it shows
,
”
he promised.
Within a few hours Kilborn reported back. “It’s damned suspicious, Jack, I have to say.”
“
I’m not surprised.
What turned up?”
“The three calls were all made from public telephone booths.
The good news is that none of them are located anywhere near you.
Whitetop, Virginia, where the last call was made, is at least six hundred miles from your place.
”
I
knew damn well where Whitetop was and I
could tell from his voice there was a ‘but’ coming. “And the bad news
?
”
“All the calls were made from towns
where Henderson has a history
.
The first
came from
Colville, Maine
, t
he second from Richmond, Virginia, and the third from Whitetop.
”
“
Each call a little closer to us,” I noted. “
H
e’s letting us know it’s him
and that he’s coming
.”
“
I
t’s possible it’s just some whacko who knows the story and is getting his kicks by trying to
rattle
you guys
,
”
Kilborn pointed out.
“Yeah,
it’s possible.”
My tone let it be known I didn’t put much stock in that possibility.
“We’ll have
a
t
ap
installed
on your phone
so we can
get quicker results
.
You never know, maybe we’ll be right on top of him if he’s stupid enough to phone again.”
Henderson was a lot of things
, I thought to myself
. He was cunning, evil beyond imagining, and inhumanly sadistic.
Arguably
insane.
How could anyone commit the atrocities he had been credited with if
not
insane?
B
ut
he was not
stupid.
Never that.
“I assume the cabin was checked out,” I said
, referring to the cabin Henderson had been raised in and then used as his killing ground for dozens of torture/murders
.
“The c
abin doesn’t even exist anymore
,” Kilborn told me
.
“
It was destroyed after Henderson went to prison.
We didn’t want a bunch of drunk s
ouvenir hunters crawling all over the place up there
.
”
“
N
ow that you mention it, I remember.”
There was a pause before Kilborn spoke again.
“Listen, Jack, the AD is on the line for me. I’ve gotta run.”
Ass
ociate
Directors, of course, demanded priority
above all else
.
“
Sure
, Tom
.
Please keep
in
touch
.
”
When I told Callie what Kilborn had reported
the color drained from her face.
I had
n
ever seen
fear like that
in her
before
.
Without a word s
he
went immediately to our bedroom and brought the
gun
box from
the
closet
, placing it
on an upper shelf in the kitchen
.
Th
at
night we laid awake waiting
for, and fully expecting,
another call.
When
2 a.m.
arrived
we were holding our breaths but
Henderson, once again, proved unpredictable. T
he phone remained mute.
He had achieved his goal. We knew it was him, and we knew he was coming.
W
e spent the rest of the night
thinking about
where he would be the next time we heard from him.
4
Everything we did now carried an undercurrent of
powerful
uneasiness
.
Every bush hid a potential killer. Every footstep we heard behind us while shopping was cause
for
trepidation.
When and where would Henderson show up?
The only thing we
could count on
was that it would be when and where we least expected him.
I was not accustomed to waiting for trouble to come to me. My training with the Bureau had always been
as
the aggressor - never give the opposition the opportunity to gain the upper hand. But, in th
is case, the enemy had all the advantages. Playing a game of nerves, rattling our cage, was magnifying the fun for him.
I decided to minimize his advantage the only way we could.
“I think it would be a good idea if you and Tanya waited this out somewhere else,” I suggested one night after Callie had put Tanya to bed.
“Come on, Jack,” she
countered
. “You know damn well I’m not going to do that.”
“Callie, think for a minute. You
,
of all people, know
what this guy is capable of.
I know we
’ve steered clear of talking about it
,
but you know very well where he’
ll try to hit us
,
where it will hurt us the most.
”
She sighed
in dramatic fashion
. “And just where would you suggest we go?”
“There’s always my parents place
.”
They lived in a retirement community
in Sun City, Arizona, and
always emphasized there was an open invitation
to come
for a visit
at any time
. “They’d love to have you guys
stay with them for awhile.”
“No way. I’m not going to bring them into this mess. And what about you? How come you get to stay here?”
“Somebody’s got to keep an eye on the place,” I responded lamely.
“And what about Winston? Who’d look after him?”
“
You’re grabbing at straws, my sweet.
Nice try
,
but no dice
. If you stay, we all stay.”
Just then the phone
rang
. Even during
daylight
hours
Callie
was
now
edgy
every time she picked up a ringing phone.
“Hello,” she said.
Her facial expression softened.
“Miles
.
”
The
smile
was an increasingly rare event as of late
.
Miles Wilson was the
ex-
police chief in Colville
, Maine,
who had
hired
Callie
as his deputy
when she’d decided to come back to her home town after
eleven
years with the Newark, New Jersey
,
police force.
Callie had taken over the chief’s job when Miles had retired.
They had remained close friends for many years both during and after his active duty. I
liked and admired Miles myself
having gotten to know him during the investigation into Sophie Crandall’s disappearance
. We had been on
several
fishing expeditions
together
since then
and
they had always been enjoyable occasions.
I left the room
for a moment
and by the time I returned Callie was saying goodbye to Miles.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s okay.
He’s aware that Reuben has been in Colville. The FBI
are
crawling all over town. He’s very worried about what it might mean for us.”
“I
guess I
should have spoken to him,” I said.
“
He
and
Betty w
ere just on their way out. He said he’d
call again soon.” There was a wistful quality to her voice. She
made no secret of the fact that she
loved the old guy
like he was the father she wished she had.
*
*
*
Although getting on in years, Winston
’s desire for daily exercise had not waned.
Our usual routine was to walk the perimeter of our property. He loved rousting out whatever wildlife we came across on our journeys
. Typical of the
retriever
breed
,
if it had rained and
t
he
re was
a puddle of any substance
to be found
,
he
delighted in splashing around in it.
Our walks now took on new significance. I wanted Winston to put his nose to the prospect of routing out unwanted visitors.
I could read him pretty well and I was fairly certain I’d know if he detected
an unusual human presence
during our outings.
R
eturning
home
one overcast afternoon Callie met me at the back door and stood watching as I went through my
usual
routine
brushing
the tangles from
Winston
’s coat
. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
I cringed
a little
.
It was my experience that
Callie’s announcement that she’d been thinking was often an ominous precursor to bad news.
“Ever since you said maybe I should consider taking Tanya away until Reuben is captured ….”
I looked at her expectantly.
“Well, when Miles called the other night I started thinking maybe staying with
them
might be a good idea.”
“Really?” I said. “I mean Reuben has obviously been in the area. Do you think that would be a wise choice?”
“The way I see it,” she said, “it’s probably the last place he’d expect us to be. And besides, it’s very unlikely he’d stay anywhere near Colville now anyway.
The place has been inundated with law enforcement ever since the call he made from there.
”
She had a point. “I suppose you’re right. Have you talked to Miles and Betty about it?”
“Not yet,” she
answered
. “I wanted to see what you thought first. And… I’d really prefer that you come with us
,
too.”
“I don’t know, honey
---”
“They’ve got lots of room.
And bringing Winston would be no problem.
And you do love Betty’s cooking.”
All good points. Especially the part about my love for Betty’s cooking
. The woman was far and away the best cook I had ever known. But the fact was I didn’t want to leave our home unguarded with
Henderson
on the loose. I could
envision
him burning the place to the ground
out of
spite
that we had
deprived him of the opportunity
to slaughter us
.
“Let me think about it, okay? In the meantime, why don’t you give
the Wilsons
a call and see what they think of the idea.”
“All right,” she said.
“But I don’t think there’s much doubt about what
they’
ll say.”