Lone Wolf (14 page)

16

T
HERE WERE CHORES TO BE DONE
when we got back to Denny’s Cabins. Given how rattled I was, it was good to have something to do. I emptied cans of garbage, hauled a pail full of fish guts up to the pit in the woods and buried it, cut some grass on Dad’s racing tractor, taking care to go easy on the throttle. Sitting on the mower, the vibrations from the engine and the three rapidly rotating blades in the housing below my feet had a calming effect on me that was not unlike a massage. The constant buzz from the steering wheel traveled up my arms and into my shoulders like magic fingers.

I said barely a word to Dad on the drive back from town. Sometimes, I think, when I’m scared—and I’ll be totally honest with you here and tell you I was plenty scared—the things I’m afraid of seem more real if I start talking about them. I ground my teeth until we got back to the camp, bolted from the truck, forgetting to go around the other side to help Dad get out, and went about my duties.

There’d been plenty to unnerve me since arriving here earlier in the week. The shredded body of Morton Dewart. The bizarre dinner at the Wickenses. Those dogs. The murder of Tiff at the co-op, which might or might not have anything whatsoever to do with the events of the last few days.

But nothing had shaken me as much as my run-in with Timmy Wickens on the main drag of Braynor. There’d been menace in the air before, but now I felt it directed at me personally. And I am not, as you may have gathered by now, what you might call a heroic figure.

I believe the term I used in my conversation with Trixie Snelling was “weenie-like.”

It’s a terrible thing to be weenie-like and still have, at some level, some commitment to do the right thing. A moral conscience matched with physical cowardice is not a winning combination.

“How’s it going?” Bob Spooner asked, poking his head into the storeroom, where I was checking to see how the worm supply was going. Betty and Hank Wrigley had helped themselves to a couple dozen that morning while Dad and I were in town, and left a note to that effect so that we could add it to their bill.

I jumped. “Jesus, Bob, you scared me half to death.”

“What’s with you? You seem a bit on edge.”

I just waved my hand in the air in frustration. “Long story, Bob.”

“Hey,” he said. “You’ll never guess who I had on my line this morning.”

“What?” I said. “Who?”

“She took another run at me. Audrey. Saw her break the surface, knew it was her. Almost had her in the boat this time before she spit the plug out.” He rubbed his hands together.

“One of these days, Bob,” I said.

“You know what I think?” Bob said, leaning in the doorway. “I think she knows. I think she knows it’s me. She’s a smart fish, and she’s a mean fish, and she’s playing with me. I can feel it.”

“Maybe,” I said. I dug my fingers through the dirt, drew them up. Still lots of little wiggly guys in there.

“You ever have a goal like that? Something you’ve waited years to achieve? That’s what Audrey is to me. Hauling her into the boat, that’s my ultimate dream. I get her, I could give up fishing after that. It wouldn’t matter anymore. They could put me in a box, drop me six feet into ground, toss the dirt in.”

“My goals these days are rather short-term, Bob,” I said. “I want to see Dad get back on his two feet and me get the hell out of here.”

Bob cocked his head curiously. “What’s up?”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to dump all this stuff on you. This is your vacation up here. Enjoy it. Go fishing. Hunt down Audrey. Whatever problems Dad and I have to deal with, well, we’ll deal with them.”

Bob shrugged. “You need to talk things over, you know where to find me. Think I’ll grab myself a nap, go back out again this aft. Leonard keeps wanting to hang out, go fishing or hiking. All he wants to do is talk about this goddamn resort of his. If he actually gets to build that thing, this lake won’t be worth a shit anymore. Your dad thought of lodging any sort of objection with the Braynor council?”

“I think Dad sort of has his hands full at the moment.”

“Well, if he gets a minute, he should do that. The only way you can stop something like that is to mount some sort of opposition.”

“Bob, I hear ya. You might want to mention it to Dad yourself.”

He mulled that one over. “Yeah, good idea.”

Bob stepped aside to let me out of the storeroom. I strode over to Dad’s cabin, throwing the door open so hard it hit the wall. “Dad!”

“In here,” he said. He was in his study, hanging up the phone. “I’ve been calling some other lawyers. I tried two other ones in Braynor, figuring I’d try to get someone close before going to other towns, and the moment I mention who I want them to send a letter to, they say they’re too busy.”

“This town’s scared of the Wickenses,” I said. “I’m scared of the Wickenses.”

“Maybe I should drop it. If those people really had anything to do with setting that other lawyer’s house on fire, I mean, do I need those kinds of problems?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“And by the way, what the hell happened out front of Lana’s, anyway?”

I ignored the question. I didn’t want to talk about it. “Here’s an idea, Dad. Why don’t you put this place on the market and sell? Get the hell out of here. Fast as possible. Buy another fishing camp someplace else.”

“That’s your plan? To run away? And who do you think would buy this place, knowing they were going to inherit tenants like the Wickenses?”

I ran a hand over the back of my neck, tried to massage it. I was feeling a bit tense.

“I think we need to have another chat with Orville,” I said. “A really serious chat. I’m willing to put aside the fact that he seems to be a total asshole to see if we can get something done here. There are more things going on than I realized at first.”

“Like what?”

I told him about May Wickens and her son. How she desperately wanted to get away from her father. How her son was on a daily curriculum of hate and prejudice.

“How’s that your problem?” Dad asked. “Don’t we have enough problems without taking on hers? I want them all out of there, and I guess that would include her and her boy. She can figure out how to get away once they’ve moved someplace else.”

I was silent. There wasn’t much to admire in what Dad said, but it made a lot of sense just the same.

“You got a number for Orville?” I asked.

Dad dug out an address book next to his computer, folded it open to a particular page, and handed it to me. “This his cell?” I asked, and Dad nodded. I punched the number into the phone on Dad’s desk.

“Hello?”

“Orville? Zack Walker.”

“What,” he said flatly.

“Listen, I’m sorry about everything at the café. I think you and I need to get past all that crap, because there’s a real problem out here, has to do with the daughter at the Wickens place. May. That’s her name. I think she’s in real trouble and I think we need to find some way to help her out. I’m willing to stop being a pain in the ass to you if you’ll come out so we can talk about this.”

“I kinda got my hands full with a murder investigation,” he said. “Remember?”

“I understand. Are you still coming out here tomorrow morning to look for the bear?” I kept any skeptical tone out of my voice.

“Depends. On how things go with Tiff’s murder. But if I get a chance, I’ll swing by later this afternoon, about this other problem of yours.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” And I hung up. I picked up the phone again, impulsively, and dialed Sarah’s number at
The Metropolitan
.

“Hey,” I said.

“How’s your dad?”

“Okay.”

“Say hi to him for me.”

“Sarah says hi.”

“Hi,” said Dad. He got out of his chair and, using his crutches, edged past me. “I’m making coffee,” he whispered to me. “Want some?”

I nodded. What would we do without coffee? “How’re the kids?” I asked Sarah.

“Same old same old,” Sarah said. “Fights over the car, seeing as how we’re down one with you up there. Paul’s ignoring curfew, Angie would rather date than study, I want to kill myself. There was a story on the wires the other day, mother kills her entire family. I thought: Been there. How ’bout with you?”

“Okay. Listen, you got Lawrence Jones’s number there?”

There was an instant chill from the other end of the line. “What do you want Lawrence for?”

“There’s kind of a situation up here I’d like to bounce off him.”

“Bad things happen to you when you associate with Lawrence,” Sarah said, using the voice she did with the children when they misbehaved.

“That’s not totally true,” I objected. “Bad things happen to Lawrence when he associates with me.” It was true that, the first time Lawrence and I had worked together—he was doing his thing as a private detective and I was writing about it—he’d taken a knife in the gut and nearly died. But it was also true that the reason he hadn’t died was that I’d shown up at the right place at the right time.

Arguing these points with Sarah, however, was unlikely to score me any.

“That’s not very funny,” Sarah said. “What could possibly be going on up there that you’d need Lawrence’s help for? You want him to do a stakeout on a bear?”

“There’s no bear,” I said.

“There’s no bear? Tracy didn’t say that in the story she filed. She says the coroner said the guy, what was his name?”

“Dewart.”

“That a bear killed him.”

“It’s a long, long story, Sarah. Have you got Lawrence’s number in your book or not?”

She gave me two. His home/office and his cell.

“A couple other things,” I said. “I know we’ve probably run a million stories on this, but can you look up what sort of services there are for women? Like shelters?”

“Abused women?”

“Well, sort of. I mean, I don’t know if there’s actual physical violence, but—”

“Zack. What the hell are you getting into? I thought you were helping your father run the camp?”

“There’s a woman up here, her name’s May Wickens, and she’s got a son, and she’s kind of under the thumb of her father, who doesn’t want to let her move out, and has threatened to hold on to her son if she tries.”

“Jesus. And what does this have to do with you?”

“Sarah.”

“Look, tell her to get a good lawyer.”

I laughed. “Yeah, fat chance in this town.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll see what there is, but the services are probably mostly in the city. I can’t imagine there’s much like that up in Braynor.”

“And one last thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Does the name Orville Thorne mean anything to you?”

Sarah took a moment. “No. Should it?”

“He’s the local police chief, and from the moment I’ve gotten here it’s been bugging me. He reminds me of someone, and I can’t figure out who. I feel like maybe I’ve run into him before someplace, like maybe doing a story for the paper, or something. I thought, if that was the case, maybe you’d recognize it.”

“Hang on,” Sarah said. I could hear her tapping some keys. “I’m just keying the name into the system.” She was referring to the paper’s library system. If we’d ever run a story with Thorne’s name in it, it would come up. “Is that Thorne with an ‘e’?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s nothing,” she said.

“Google?” I said, glancing at Dad’s computer. I could have checked myself. But Sarah was already on it.

“Absolutely nothing,” Sarah said.

“Okay, thanks. It was worth a shot.”

“Can you send me a picture?” Sarah said.

“What?”

“A picture. Maybe I’d recognize him, too, even if the name doesn’t ring a bell.”

I glanced over to the shelf where Dad’s digital camera sat. I knew Dad used his computer to send guests pictures he’d taken of them with their catch.

“I might be able to pull off something like that,” I said. “Leave it with me. Listen, while you’re keying in names, I’ve got another one for you.”

“Fire away.”

“Timmy Wickens. Maybe Timothy Wickens. Or Tim Wickens. If he’d ever been arrested, it’d probably be Timothy.”

“Arrested?”

“Sarah.”

“Okay, hang on. Nothing in our own files. Let me check Google…. Okay, there’s a writer…”

“I don’t think that’s him.”

“And a hairdresser in Reno.”

“Definitely not.”

“And a story here, from, like, five, six years ago, it’s just one name among a dozen, bunch of people arrested for causing a disturbance at a Holocaust memorial event in Pittsburgh. They were Holocaust deniers.”

“Read me some of the names.” I grabbed a pen and Dad’s yellow legal pad and began scribbling.

“Uh, other than Wickens, there’s Randall Stilton, Gregory Bent, Michael Decker, Charlene Zundman—”

“Hang on. Charlene? What was that?”

Sarah repeated it. Then she read the rest of the names, all of which I made note of, but no other ones rang any bells.

“Anything else come up?”

“Nothing,” Sarah said. Then, with more gentleness in her voice than before, “Zack, you’re being careful, right?”

“Of course,” I said.

“There’s nothing dangerous going on up there, is there?”

“Of course not,” I lied.

“Because, I’ve had enough, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Lately, you seem to have this knack for attracting trouble.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “those days are over.”

17

M
Y NEXT CALL
was to Lawrence Jones.

I got his machine when I phoned his home/office. I left a message, saying I would try his cell, which I then did.

“Jones,” he said.

“It’s Zack,” I said.

“Zack, my man, how’s it going?” In the background I could hear some piano, probably one of Lawrence’s jazz CDs.

“Pretty good, you know, more or less.”

“Yeah, well, people don’t usually call me unless they’ve got a problem, so I’m guessing you’re going to work up to it slowly.”

“Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“Just sitting in my car, listening to some Oscar Peterson, parked down the street from a motel where Mr. Corporate Executive is boffing his secretary, and by the time I get the photos back to his missus he’s going to be a lot more agreeable when it comes to working out the terms of the divorce.”

“I didn’t know you did that kind of work.”

“Oh, Zack, I bet you still believe there’s a tooth fairy, too.”

“This is a long-term job you’re working on?”

“I’ll be done soon as this guy walks out and gives his sweetie a kiss goodbye for the camera.”

“You got anything lined up next?”

“Zack, there’s always work. We live in cynical times. Did you know that people don’t trust each other anymore? It’s a very disturbing development, but it pays the bills. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m up in Braynor. You know Braynor.”

“I know I got called one all the time when I was in high school. The teachers thought I might be gifted, and I always did my homework. Of course, I also got ‘browner,’ but that might have had more to do with my skin tone.”

“Braynor’s an hour and a half north of the city. Lakes and mountains. Fishing. Wildlife.”

“Sounds nice. I’m not due for a vacation.”

“I’m up here at my dad’s place. He’s got some cabins he rents out. Lawrence, there’s a whole lot of shit going on up here and I think I could use your help.”

“I see. What sort of shit?”

“Well, there’s some people up here you might find interesting. They think the world’s going to hell in a handcart because of blacks and gays.”

“Hmmm,” said Lawrence. “That makes me a kind of double-header worst nightmare for them. Tell me more.”

I did.

“I could come up tonight, maybe tomorrow,” Lawrence said.

“I haven’t cleared this with Dad,” I said. “But I think he’d be prepared to hire you. He was ready to pay a lawyer. And if he’s a bit short, I can—”

“Zack, shut up. Every day I get, I thank you.”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

When I was finished talking to Lawrence, I found Dad plopped onto the couch, reading the
Braynor Times
I’d bought him at the grocery store.

“Poured you your coffee,” he said, nose in the paper. “Cream and sugar’s already in it.”

I grabbed my mug off the counter and sat down opposite him. “I’ve called in the cavalry,” I said.

“I figured, with your newspaper connections, it’d be Superman,” Dad said.

I told him about Lawrence Jones. That he was an ex-cop, an experienced private investigator, and, as a bonus in dealing with whatever the Wickenses might throw at us, black and gay.

“That’s comforting,” Dad said. “We’re gonna be rescued by a poofster.” I decided to let that one go, figuring Lawrence himself would be able to dispel the stereotypes once he got here.

As I took a sip of my coffee, Dad said, “I did a little checking on the Internet while you were outside.”

“Yeah?” The notion of Dad surfing the net was still difficult to imagine.

“I looked up ammonium nitrate. Fertilizer.”

I said, “Go on.”

“What McVeigh did was, he used four thousand pounds of the stuff and mixed it with diesel fuel, and some blasting caps, then put everything in fifty-five-gallon plastic drums, loaded it up into that Ryder truck, lit a fuse, and ran like stink.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, “even if you stole a lot less than four thousand pounds of that stuff, you could still make a hell of an explosion.”

“I suspect,” Dad said.

“A day ago, you didn’t even want to consider the possibility that something other than a bear ripped that man apart, and now look where your mind’s taking you.”

“You haven’t thought the same thing?”

“Of course I’ve thought the same thing. You know what kind of paranoid I am. I’m this close to pinning the Lindbergh kidnapping on the Wickenses. But we don’t have anything to suggest that Wickens had a thing to do with the murder of Tiff Riley. If we hadn’t seen that picture of Timothy McVeigh on their wall, hanging where most people might hang a picture of Jesus Christ, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You know, the Wickenses aren’t the only crazy people in the world, probably not the only crazy people in this county.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Maybe we should be calling the FBI or something,” I said. “Don’t they handle this sort of thing? Or Homeland Security? What color alert are we at when the neighbors have murderous pit bulls?”

“Let’s give Orville another chance,” Dad said. “You were almost nice to him on the phone, which must have nearly killed you. We’ll lay it all out for him. You know, you really haven’t given him a chance. From the moment you got here you’ve been picking on him. And by the way, who loaded that dishwasher last? You or Lana?”

“Wasn’t me,” I said.

Dad shook his head. “She put the knives in blade up. Almost slit my wrist unloading it.”

“So many faults, so little time to correct them,” I said.

Dad tossed the paper at me. “Read the piece on the front.”

I grabbed the paper off the coffee table that separated us. “Which?” I said.

“The main piece.”

Had I bothered to read the headlines before asking Dad, I would have been able to figure out which one he meant. The headline on the lead story, written by Tracy, who also had all the other bylines on the front page, was “Mayor Mulls Canceling Parade.” It read:

Braynor mayor Alice Holland says she may cancel the fall fair parade on Saturday if she thinks the appearance of a gay activist group could lead to violence.

“Either the Fifty Lakes Gay and Lesbian Coalition will be in the parade,” the mayor said, “or there won’t be any parade at all.”

Mayor Holland said to exclude the coalition from the parade, something many people in Braynor want, would subject the town to a potential civil rights suit that could bankrupt the municipality.

“People are going around collecting names on petitions to keep the parade straight, and if they don’t mind seeing their property taxes double to pay the costs of going to court to defend a foolhardy decision, well then, fine. But if they have a problem with that, and still want the coalition banned from walking down Main Street, then we don’t have to have a parade at all.”

Charles Henry, manager of Henry’s Grocery, which puts a float in the parade every year, has been spearheading the petition to “Keep the Parade Straight” and he reacted angrily to the mayor’s comments.

“I can’t help but wonder,” he said, “whether the mayor is a lesbian. It would explain a lot.”

Henry said the mayor may not need to cancel the parade, that many of the participants may back out instead. “She can ride in her convertible all alone,” he said, but refused to say whether Henry’s Grocery would withdraw its own float, which this year was to depict a large cow, its body covered with dotted lines to depict different cuts of meat.

Stuart Lethbridge, of Red Lake, who heads the Fifty Lakes Gay and Lesbian Coalition, promises a tasteful display. “There’ll be a good crowd of people in the parade, carrying the Rainbow Flag, plus we’ll be displaying the number for our counseling line, which, as you can imagine in a community like Braynor, gets a lot of calls from gays and lesbians looking for a sympathetic ear.” Lethbridge said the coalition would not back out of the parade, even if that’s the only way it can be saved.

The Braynor council is divided on what to do. Most members are united in wanting to avoid a lawsuit, but a number are in favor of scrapping the parade altogether, even though it is a tradition.

But even if the parade is canceled, all other fall fair activities, including the pie-eating contest, the lawn tractor races, chainsaw competition, and cow-pie-tossing contest, will go ahead as planned.

“What’s a cow pie?” I asked.

“Shit,” Dad said.

I nodded. “And this chainsaw competition. What do they do? Juggle them?”

“You’re starting to annoy me.”

“And I see the lawn tractor races are still on. Too bad I won’t be able to help you there. I have a predisposition to whiplash.”

“I might be well enough by then,” Dad said. “I was putting some weight on my ankle today, and it didn’t seem that bad.”

“You think the mayor’s a lesbian?” I asked. “There’s no picture of her here.”

Dad started to answer, then could tell by the look on my face that I was still working at being annoying.

“But seriously,” I said. “Have you met her? She a nice lady?”

“Yes, and yes. She’s a bit too reasonable for this crowd up here. She moved up here from the city a few years ago, and she’s still a bit too sophisticated for her own good.”

“I wonder if she’d be worth talking to,” I said quietly, almost to myself. “Are you okay with gays in the parade?”

“I don’t give a shit,” Dad said. “You think we could look any more foolish when we’ve already got a marked-up cow in it?”

“How about Lana?” I asked. “Her business is on Main Street, right by Henry’s Grocery. She signed the petition yet?”

“Lana, and I, are a lot more tolerant, and forgiving, than you’ll ever know,” Dad said.

There was something in the way he’d said that that stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon, which I spent doing more chores around the camp. I felt we were in a holding pattern, waiting for Orville Thorne to show up, and, with any luck, Lawrence the next morning.

I was down by the docks, replacing a board that looked like it was about to break through, when Bob Spooner returned from an afternoon out on the lake. Once he’d killed the motor, I said, “Get anything?”

Bob lifted up the stringer from the bottom of the boat, revealing two good-sized pickerel and a large-mouth bass.

“Not bad,” I said. Beyond Dad’s cabin, I could hear a car approaching. I looked back and saw that it was a police car.

“The law,” Bob said ominously.

“I got an idea,” I said to Bob. “Let me get your picture with your catch.”

“Oh, I’ve done better than this.”

“No, come on. I want to get some pictures with Dad’s digital camera, send a couple snaps back to my wife, Sarah.”

Bob shrugged and secured the boat to the dock while I ran back for the camera. Orville was out of his car and walking toward the cabin. “Two seconds!” I shouted to him, burst into the cabin, grabbed Dad’s camera from the study, and ran back out the front door for the shoreline.

Chief Thorne, curious about what was going on, which seemed so unlike him, followed. Dad, on crutches, was coming down as well.

The commotion was attracting others. Leonard Colebert had been inside making himself some dinner, and Betty and Hank Wrigley were sitting on their porch, reading, but as is generally the case at a fishing camp, when someone comes in with a good catch, everyone wants to pass judgment.

Bob, his arm in a muscle-making position that kept the stringerful of fish from dragging on the ground, smiled proudly as I held up the camera.

“Nice!” said Leonard.

“Where’d you get ’em?” Betty wanted to know.

“What were ya using?” Orville asked.

I took a couple of shots, then said, “Hey, let’s get some other people in here.” I moved Betty into the frame on one side of Bob, then Hank on the other, and took a picture. Leonard took no persuading at all to have his picture taken with Bob.

“Tomorrow morning, early, we go on our hike, right?” Leonard said. Bob nodded resignedly.

“Hey, Chief, how about you?” I said, bringing Orville forward.

“No no, that’s okay.”

“No, come on, come on.” I had my hand around his back and was moving him up next to Bob.

“Hey, Orville, think you could lose the hat for a second?” I said. “The way the sun is, your whole face is in shadow.”

Orville obediently removed his hat. I fired off a series of shots. For a couple, I used the zoom lens, cropping out Bob and his fish and coming in tight on Orville Thorne’s face.

“Hey. That’s great,” I said. “Thanks, everyone. Don’t forget to leave me your e-mail addresses before you go home so I can send you all—”

The sound of something being knocked over caught us all by surprise. Over at the fish-cleaning table, the bucket of guts underneath, which couldn’t have had much in it since I’d emptied it only a few hours earlier, had been tipped over.

The Wickenses’ two pit bulls, Gristle and Bone, had their heads jammed into it, and their maniacal snarls and growls echoed within the metal chamber.

I turned to Bob, standing there with his fish. “Get inside as fast as you can,” I said. But he was already making a beeline for his cabin, and just as he had his hand on the porch door, the two dogs withdrew their heads from the bucket, their fish-finding sonar evidently beeping in their thick skulls.

Gristle and Bone both looked about for a second, slobber and fish innards dripping from their massive jaws, and then, in a shot, they were on the move, their legs like pistons. Even though they barely came up above my knee, I could feel their charge through the ground, like a pair of horses running past.

Betty screamed. Leonard, figuring the dogs wouldn’t go after him in the lake, ran off the end of a dock. Hank put himself in front of Betty. And Orville was unholstering his weapon.

The dogs didn’t care about us, however. They were after Bob Spooner, who was inside now and putting his weight against the flimsy wooden screen door. The dogs hit it like a pair of battering rams, growling, trying to bite at the wood.

“Help!” Bob shouted. “Get back, you fucking monsters!”

“Shoot them,” I said to Orville.

He had his gun out and was running toward Bob’s cabin when we heard someone shout: “Bone! Gristle! Stop!”