“It’s not a bad system,” he pronounced. “Those entrance checkpoints give residents a feeling of security, and the parking
setup unobtrusively monitors golfers and other club guests while there are people in the plateau area. The sensors and cameras
take over when it’s supposed to be deserted. It’s not cumbersome, it’s reasonably tight. Not foolproof, of course. You haven’t
mentioned it yet, but I do assume you know a way in.”
“As it happens—”
In the earliest stages of the project, while the major reshaping for the golf course was being done, things were wide open.
Then, before they started work on the country club building, the walled access road was put in, a guard installed at the bottom
gate to sign workers in and out. The way around that annoyance was simple. Since the residential accesses were not yet manned,
you just drove in along the loop to its highest elevation, which was not far from the pool/courts terrace, parked your car,
and hiked on up to the worksite. Matt griped but decided he could live with a few people doing this. Most of the guys figured
they got enough fresh air and exercise on their jobs and drove in as close to them as they could.
In June, however, with the first few houses occupied and the residents demanding their promised perks, the entrance gatehouses
were manned. This brought out the explorer in me—having to check in and out every single day felt too Big Brotherish for my
taste. The eastern edge of the tract, away from the river, had no bordering road, not even a rutted dirt one-laner. No fencing,
either, but a deep woodsy buffer, which was punctuated by a meandering stream about as shallow as the one behind my house
and much narrower. Except maybe during a couple weeks in spring in high snowmelt years it was not an effective barrier for
a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Farther east beyond the stream was private property, farm holdings most of it, few of them currently under cultivation. These
were served by a narrow, badly out-of-shape county road. I looked around until I found a bleed-off from that which took me
over to the water. A little tree clearing on the other side, and I was in. I’d never told a soul about this trail-blazing
and only used the route a few times. When I did go that way, I carefully parked the Bronco out of sight from the road. As
far as I knew, my secret remained intact.
I’d taken the route on one of my last visits to Hudson Heights, and it was still passable. They hadn’t started building in
that sector yet, so we could get almost to our disembarkation point without passing any houses. We debated taking two vehicles
but opted for one, the desirability of alternate getaway routes cancelled out by doubling the chances an unauthorized shape
would be spotted. So: we knew the way in, we had our working circuit diagrammed out, and it was almost eight. Time to go,
I thought.
Baxter didn’t, quite. “Before we leave I want you to fax an update to your lawyer.”
“I already did, while Frank was minding me this afternoon. On the off chance the right opportunity knocked.”
“Did you say you were going to Hudson Heights tonight?”
“I didn’t know that, then. I said ‘when I could.’”
“Fax her the time, too. And tell her who you’re going with.”
It was Calvin’s Blazer we took rather than my Bronco, black with red stripes being deemed more inconspicuous than unadulterated
red. We didn’t try for the cat burglar effect, but all three of us wore jeans and dark, long-sleeved shirts. The men both
carried pistols; I was offered the chance but declined. For communications we had Baxter’s cellular phone.
Frank was working overtime to take charge at headquarters, prepared to sound an alert if necessary. He had been told where
we were headed and must have had a good idea what we were up to, but you can’t get hung by your thumbs for mere speculation.
Baxter deemed it safer for all concerned if the rest of the department was informed after the fact.
We didn’t talk much, driving over. Hunched behind the wheel, Calvin looked really into the project. Baxter’s expression was
pensive. I was so high on the idea of finally doing something instead of being done to that I felt utterly removed from such
considerations. We were right, we were deserving, we would succeed. It’s as well I am not usually blessed with such certainty.
“What the hell!” Baxter exclaimed as we approached the Route 5 entrance to the plateau road. Clearly the country club would
not be jumping tonight: the gates were already shut.
“There’s a sign. Calvin, slow up a little.”
“Closed. Either of you catch any of the rest of it?”
“The printing’s too damn small. I’m pretty sure ‘family’ was one of the words.”
“‘Death in the family.’” Baxter sounded positive. “Well, she was Chad’s aunt.”
“How many country clubs close on a Saturday night because somebody’s aunt died?” I asked, outraged.
“It could be tonight’s function involved people who’d be mostly at the wake anyhow. Maybe there wasn’t even a function scheduled—it
was going to be a walk-in night and they decided not to bother. Maybe Clete’s famous sentimentality kicked in. Who knows?
Whatever, there goes any prospect we had of mingling up on the plateau. We may as well reschedule for later.”
“To what advantage?” I demanded. “Even if that sign should have read ‘Closed to Cover Our Tails,’ the people we don’t want
to run into are more likely to be up there on the lookout after the wake than now. And it could be a ritual closing, like
it says. There wasn’t anybody manning that gate.”
“No need. Anything so much as touches the lock, an alarm sounds up in the control room. But you’re right, later isn’t likely
to be better and could be worse. Okay, we go for it now.”
“Right.” Calvin speeded up noticeably in honor of the verdict. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that my heart had speeded
up too. I hadn’t figured on anything like that until we were actually dodging around among the vegetation.
“At least the moon shouldn’t be a factor,” Baxter mused out loud. “Our cloud cover isn’t supposed to lift till morning.”
“I hope they got that right.”
“Another plus: At this temperature, we shouldn’t even work up a sweat.”
“Not unless we have to run real fast,” I muttered.
“Getting a few nerves, are we?” he asked mildly. Slowly, casually, he worked his hand behind my waist and down. It wasn’t
a bad preoccupation for the remainder of our journey to my own private trailhead.
For that part of the route, moonlight would have been a plus. There was so much overgrown vegetation, especially as we neared
the stream, that trying to get through without headlights would have been suicidal. When Calvin briefly cut down to the parking
lights we lightly brushed a couple of trees.
We crossed the water without incident and continued slowly on through the woods on the Hudson Heights side. As they began
to thin, Baxter said, “Calvin, cut the lights as soon as we’re beyond the good tree cover—in case they’ve put a lookout up
on the plateau. I wish we could avoid passing under those fancy streetlights they’ve installed along the road.”
“We can just keep detouring around them,” I said. “Those lights are pretty well spaced out, and the front yards-to-be have
already been graded along that stretch. Who cares if somebody bitches about the tire tracks tomorrow?”
Baxter’s “Go for it” sounded tentative. It couldn’t be the easiest thing in the world for a law officer to be a party to willful
property damage.
We rode in silence across the tract-house property and along the short spur that connected to the main residential road. There
we turned left and cruised along toward the first street-light. Just before its oval of illumination Calvin cut sharply right,
making a half circle around it through terrain that turned out to be more roughly graded than I’d thought. It was the bumpiest
part of our ride so far, and we must’ve torn out a survey marker or two in the process. They would notice tomorrow.
Three more such detours and I directed him onto what would someday be a paved walkway over and up to the pool/tennis-courts
area. The vegetation needed pruning; Calvin’s Blazer was going to wear some scratches from this part of our excursion, but
the cover was excellent. As soon as we were in past where we could be spotted from the road, I had him stop, not wanting the
backout—which would be the diciest part of the driving if we still couldn’t use lights—to be any longer than necessary.
Everything we needed for the sampling was stowed in the two backpacks Baxter and I put on. The load was light and compact
going in. You need at least a half-cupful of soil for a proper sample. Many people put it in plastic bags, in the field. I’ve
found that once you get more than a few of these, spills and tears are almost inevitable, so I like to collect in pint-size
freezer containers. You’re not adding that much weight, there’s plenty of room for the soil, the lids fit tight, and you have
a surface for writing the necessary identifying information as you go.
Besides the neat stacks of empty containers and their lids, each backpack contained a package of disposable cleansing sheets
(so we wouldn’t transfer elements of one sample to another), a dry-off towel, and a trowel. I’d also brought a core sampler
and a collapsible spade, too light a tool for major job use but handy for spot situations.
Our plan called for us to walk in the rest of the way to the pool/tennis-courts area, take our first samples there, and then
make our way up to the plateau, paralleling the new steps for most of that distance. Baxter didn’t know if the motion sensors
called for in the master security plan were installed along the steps yet, but we couldn’t take the chance. It was an easy
climb, getting a little steep only toward the top when we veered north away from the steps so we’d emerge onto the plateau
into a stand of spruce trees. None of this terrain was visible from inside the country club, but anyone assigned to watch
from the parking lot could monitor our progress all the way.
After stopping several times en route to take soil samples, we scrambled onto the plateau in the area I had chosen. The nearest
corner of the country club building was a good 150 feet to the northwest of us, the inn maybe 100 feet to the southwest. The
southernmost wall of the parking lot stood roughly 30 feet north and a little east.
When completed, the plaza was going to be quite pleasant, I thought, but it had a way to go. Sections of the paving had been
laid, and part of the lighting system was in, but its individual components were always getting accidentally knocked out and
most of them shone on bald spots or stacks of construction materials. Where the fountain circle would be was presently a roundish
excavation. Diligent though they were prodded to be, the contractors often failed to secure their litter before the wind got
hold of it. In daylight the area wasn’t remotely pretty yet. After dark, it looked like the remains of somebody’s failed civilization.
To our relief, only night-level lights were showing from the visible sides of the country club; the inn looked totally dark.
From the spruce grove we moved on into a staggered double-row forsythia hedge just south of the crossing road. After waiting
several minutes, with no indication that anyone was approaching, Baxter and I jumped the low wall on our side of the road,
dashed across the road, and jumped the other wall into our first sampling area. The drill was for Calvin to keep lookout from
the forsythia hedge while we dug. No reason to put three bodies at risk.
My backpack was still pretty light, I remember thinking, though we were deliberately oversampling. It wasn’t like we could
come back any old time for seconds. The range of the motion sensors covering the country club’s windows and doors, Baxter
knew, had been shortened to ten feet. The original twenty-foot band tripped so many alarms it was driving the monitor nuts.
They’d partially compensated by mounting a battery of three floodlights well up on the side of the building. Knowing where
to look, we could make out their dark shapes as we approached. When they were turned on, I guessed they’d light up most of
the garden area.
I could rattle off a complete list of its shrubs, perennials, and bulbs. Having started off with mostly oversize shrubs for
immediate effect, Willem’s planting already provided quite a few good patches of cover for a couple of cautious soil samplers.
We were nonetheless at our closest point to the most likely source of danger, our farthest from the escape route. Each time
we changed sites, we had to judge the angle of view of those damn moving cameras, then react to it.
I think the lights came before the voice—I retain the impression of being blinded before getting shouted at. No matter. In
that degree of illumination, there was no way to take cover.
What the voice said was “Either of you moves, I shoot.”
N
ormally, I don’t put somebody else in charge, but in this case, it was instinctive. I looked toward Baxter, who responded
with a slight nod. With the light in our faces, we couldn’t see the person behind the voice. Neither of us needed to.
“Take it easy, Kyle,” Baxter said calmly.
“You know you’re trespassing.” Somewhat modulated, the voice still carried easily over the maybe fifty feet that separated
us. He was standing a little beyond the front entrance to the building, not as well-lit as we were but recognizable once your
eyes adjusted. So was the rifle pointing out from mid-chest level. “I bet I can get away with shooting a couple of trespassers,
even if one of them does turn out to be a sheriff in civvies.” The voice kept dropping off volume until it was almost his
normal, reasonable one. Something had been added, though, or was it subtracted? Too much control? Not enough? “A tragic mistake.
Understandable, though, in this tense atmosphere our incompetent sheriff let get out of control.”
Baxter sounded unruffled. “Do you really think we’d be reckless enough to come out here without taking precautions?”
“You’re not here officially, I’d bet the store on that. Dad’s got you boxed out too well. And your companion’s reckless enough
for the both of you. My sister may have lost it, but I didn’t for a minute believe those vague threats Val made to Willem
yesterday. There couldn’t have been much meat to them—it wasn’t till this afternoon she called Chauncy.”