Pasting on a plastic smile, she walked toward Davis, a hand extended before her.
“Oh, good morning,” she said, practically gushing, enough gleaming veneers present to force the need for sunglasses. “Carol Ann Bateman, WGHB News. So nice to meet you.”
Offering none of the same warmth, or even a smile, Davis returned the handshake and introduction.
“You folks are trespassing out here, you know that, right?”
Her grin wavering just slightly, Bateman said, “But we’re the news. People have a right to know what’s going on.”
“But this is private property and a closed scene,” Davis said. “And the people were being kept unaware until we had time to run an investigation.”
One corner of Bateman’s mouth turned down at that, the conversation clearly not going the way she intended. Changing course, she said, “You mentioned you’re with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, I don’t suppose-“
“No,” Davis said, cutting her off.
“Are you-“
“None,” Davis replied, her tone iron, her gaze moving to the truck, the crew loading up the last of their supplies and slamming the doors shut. “But there is one thing you can do for me before you go.”
All pretense of friendliness had bled from Bateman’s face as she looked at Davis, her arms folded across her torso. “Yeah? What’s that?”
Shifting her focus back to the woman, Davis said, “You can tell me how the hell you guys knew to show up here this morning.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The engine ticked quietly as Radney Creel sat behind the wheel of his truck, staring out at the darkened surface of Lake Edstrom just twenty yards away. Parked in the same small lot he had used for surveillance the day before, it seemed the place that made the most sense, a hurried choice made in the heat of the movement.
Gripping the wheel tight in both hands, he could see veins traveling the length of his forearms, the only visible sign of the tension he was feeling.
After catching sight of Tim Scarberry on the fiber optic camera, he had left Elijah Pyle and his grating smile, the conversation of half-sentences and open insinuations, all sitting at the kitchen table.
Bursting out the front door, he’d hopped into his truck and headed straight over, everything he needed already stowed away and ready to go, years of planning coming to a head at last.
With adrenaline surging through his system, his hands practically tingled, anticipation roiling through him.
This was going to be the one, the final major score that might, at last, push him out of the life. At the very least shove him into another income bracket, making Vic Baxter beholden to him in a way that could not easily be repaid.
Already envisioning how things would go, having played it out in his head innumerable times before, Creel leaned heavy on the gas, flying through the grid of backroads from the farmhouse they were squatting in toward the cabin by the water.
Twice on the way he had gotten ground clearance, going airborne in his quest to get there before dawn broke, knowing that the cover of night was his best chance at nabbing Scarberry and getting away unseen.
With each passing moment, he had felt anticipation building, a feeling bordering on euphoria seeping into his system.
A feeling that dissipated as he drew closer to find a pair of headlights turning into the same driveway he was headed for, cutting a hard right in front of him, sending a plume of dust and gravel up in its wake.
His first impulse upon seeing the vehicle, realizing their destination was one in the same, was that somebody else had been lying in wait. Another party had wanted Scarberry as bad as they did and were making a move the moment he stuck his head up.
As fast as that thought arrived, it was shoved aside, his headlights flashing across the side of the vehicle as it shot across the road and disappeared into the trees.
There, in bright letters three feet tall, was KGHB, Channel 4 News.
The media.
Pressing his foot down a bit harder on the gas, Creel sped past the cabin, not once even glancing over as he connected back with the larger thoroughfare encircling the lake, following the shoreline to the lot he now sat in.
Somehow, the media had gotten wind of what was going on. Given the heinous nature of what Pyle had done to the body, the way they had purposely left it sitting where somebody was bound to find it, it was only a matter of time.
Though Creel would be lying if he said it didn’t all seem a bit too coincidental.
With the front of the truck now aimed toward the water, he couldn’t quite see over to the cabin across the way, his only indicator of activity being the faint glow of lights rising above the treetops. Tugging his cell phone over onto his lap, he pulled up the most recent call in his menu, knowing the person on the other end would answer regardless of time.
Two rings later, such thoughts were confirmed, the booming voice of Vic Baxter coming on the line.
“Yeah.”
“Good news-bad news, boss.”
A loud sigh was the first response, followed by, “Don’t give me that shit. Just tell what you’ve got.”
Nodding, knowing a straightforward approach was part of what made their partnership work so well, Creel said, “Scarberry has surfaced.”
“Scarberry?” Baxter replied, an undeniable ripple in his tone. “You’ve got eyes on the bastard?”
“No,” Creel said. “He showed up on the camera, I saw him enter the place, but any attempts at getting to him have been thwarted.”
“Thwarted? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Glancing up from the phone, Creel took a moment for his eyes adjust, checking to make sure that the glow from the vehicles parked across the way was still present.
“It means the damn media has shown up,” Creel said. “I can’t get inside.”
Wanting to say so much more, to add his personal thoughts, at the very least a few choice pieces of profanity, Creel opted to remain silent.
They’d been doing this a long time together.
There was no need to state the obvious.
“Shit,” Baxter muttered, the single word drawn out several seconds in length. “Which one showed up first? The media or Scarberry?”
“He did.”
“Sonuvabitch,” Baxter said, whatever emotion was present a moment before now replaced by bitterness, Creel having a pretty good idea why, but knowing better than to press it.
As he’d thought just a moment before, the timing had seemed a bit too convenient to be coincidental.
Remaining quiet, he let the conversation lag for a full minute, Baxter working through whatever he was thinking on the opposite end.
“So Scarberry was able to slip away?” Baxter eventually asked.
“Not that I know of,” Creel said, “at least, he hasn’t gone out the back.”
“So where the hell is he?”
Narrowing his eyes slightly, wishing so much that he could see through the small clump of poplars sitting in front of him, view past their leaves to the cabin on the far shore, Creel said, “Far as I can tell, he’s trapped inside until they go.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Getting inside had been easy. The paper tape encasing the back door and the strings of yellow plastic were there to serve as visual barriers, but they offered little physical resistance to someone wanting to get through.
Using the tip of the hawksbill tactical knife I’d picked up in the bunker, a few quick slices had reduced it all to ribbons, the backdoor easing open with just the slightest squeal of hinges.
Keeping my hand on the knob, I put the door back in place before releasing my grip and allowing the latch to catch, standing inside the place that for fifteen years had been my home. Stepping to the side, I pressed my back against the wall, beyond the sight of anybody that might happen by, and peered through the rear doors.
At a glance, the place brought back a rush of memories so thick I could almost brush them away wit
h my hands.
My mother cooking dinner on that stove.
My father sitting in the corner in the morning, reading his newspaper and drinking coffee before heading off to work.
The doorway where we had tracked my growth using a felt point pen.
While it all had a din of familiarity to it, there was also a difference that was unshakeable, like looking at an image that was distorted enough to fuzz the details.
The colors of the walls had changed. The refrigerator had been swapped out, our aging black hulk replaced with the sleekest new silver design.
More than anything, though, had been the scent of blood in the air, the smell almost metallic, heightening the feelings of anxiety and animosity I felt.
If the crime scene tape outside hadn’t been a neon sign for me, that aroma was everything else I needed to know, a direct signal of what had happened to Uncle Jep.
Now, there was no denying that this was all because of me, a clear and incontrovertible message aimed in my direction.
Keeping to the outside of the room, I skirted behind the island positioned across from the main counter. Using it for cover, I knelt behind it and studied the expanse in the center of the room, the evidence markers and fingerprint dust scattered over everything making it clear that whatever had transpired had taken place here.
Whatever that was, I couldn’t be completely certain, the bare floor giving the impression that a large rug had once been present, now rolled up and taken away to be checked for evidence.
In its wake were only shiny floorboards and the overwhelming smell of death, both making my core clench in ways it hadn’t in years.
Certainly not since I had left the army.
Maybe not until clear back when I had first gotten the news about my parents.
Crouched low in the darkness, I leaned a shoulder against the island beside me, moisture lining the undersides of my eyes as I stared at the barren floor. Tried to imagine my uncle, my oldest friend, stretched out across it, paying for a decision I made six years before.
Uncle Jep was a throwback, a man whose own time in the military had inspired me to do the same. I’d grown up being rocked to sleep by tales of him and the guys fighting the Viet Cong in the way other kids might have heard about Winnie the Pooh or Curious George.
He was as capable a man as I had ever known.
If someone had gotten to him, it hadn’t been easy.
And it damned sure hadn’t been an accident.
Fixed in that position, I allowed my mind to drift for a moment, a rare moment of self-pity floating in, filling me with a shame and anguish I hadn’t known in a long time.
A feeling that was ripped away just as suddenly by the flash of headlights across the front of the house.
In the moment, my first thought was that it was whoever had done Uncle Jep in coming for me. They had somehow been alerted to my presence and were arriving in force, ready to finish the job.
With the hawksbill still in hand, I touched at the butt of the Beretta stowed away in the backpack, ready for come what may.
No matter how many, no matter how heavily armed.
Taking up a post alongside the front windows, I had stood in wait, nerves dancing, entire body poised for an impending encounter.
As fast as those thoughts had arrived, as my ache for action had arisen, they abated with the blinking out of the headlights.
Of a large handful of people spilling out from the vehicle and going straight to work, the emblem for their media affiliate stenciled across the side.
For as much open hostility as had surged through me a moment before, equal amounts of realization and self-flagellation come next.
Just because nothing had come up in my media searches the night before didn’t mean that they wouldn’t soon catch wind of what had happened. In a community as small as Monroe County, a person going missing – even one as reclusive as Uncle Jep – couldn’t be hidden forever.
Especially if it was as bad as the crime scene tape and scent in the air seemed to indicate.
Retreating away from the front windows, I went to the room that used to be my parents, the layout of furniture different, everything outfitted in a clear North Woods motif.
If I had to guess, I would peg the place as a vacation rental, the type of place my parents were already openly bemoaning decades before.
The type of place they would have never let the place succumb to, had they not met their own end far too early.
Walking in a low hunch, I kept both weapons out, slipping past the bed and on into the back corner of the room. Putting my frame flush against the corner, I angled my body so I could see out, the natural hang of the curtains giving me a three-inch gap.
Outside, the sky lightened just barely as the crew went about their work, putting in place a makeshift setting and filming their segment. Five people in total, four of them moved quickly and efficiently, a swirl of activity with a single blonde holding a microphone at its core.
With my knees locked, I kept my body tight in the corner, ignoring the growing heat inside the sealed home, the renewed perspiration coming to my skin.
For twenty minutes, that was where I remained, waiting until a second set of headlights appeared. Trusting they would be enough to draw whatever of the crew’s attention might be aimed my direction, I nudged the curtains open just a bit further, craning to see out.
On the far end of the open plot of gravel that served as a combination driveway/parking lot out front, the vehicle drew closer. Angling to the side, it came to a stop, allowing me to get a full look at the official star stenciled on the side, the lettering announcing it to belong to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department framing it.
Feeling my chest draw tight, I retreated back a few inches, weighing the admittedly few options I had.
A few nights before, I had met with a federal marshal and had then boarded a plane to Chicago. These things were verifiable, an ironclad alibi should anybody get twitchy.
Not only that, I was the sole heir to everything Uncle Jep had, and used to live in the very cabin I was now standing in.
It would be messy, and take a lot of time and explanation and even a few phone calls to Lipski, but I could wiggle free without being charged with a major crime.
Even if I would be in endless trouble with WITSEC and immediately have my ass pulled back to Portland.
Those were all long-term points to be made, though.
In the short term, I was an armed man stowed away after breaking into an active crime scene.
My heart rate increasing, I peeked forward another few inches, a woman in uniform with her back to me standing with her hands on her hips, watching as the media van did a k-turn and started in the opposite direction.
If ever I was going to have a chance to get out, this was it.
Dropping to my knees, I circled the bed, staying well beneath the eyeline of the window.
Making it just to the threshold, I rose to my feet, my weight rocked forward, my footfalls as silent as possible as I stole through the living room and back into the kitchen.
Retracing the path I’d used moments before, I extended just my hand, twisting the knob and easing the door open a couple of inches. Once a gap was wide enough for me to slip through, I ventured a sidestep out, still facing into the home as I cleared the space and pulled the door shut behind me, the door no more than latching before I heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked behind me.
My heart leaping into my throat, I paused, my hands rising a few inches to either side as I checked the reflection of the glass doors before me, seeing just the silhouette of the same deputy I’d spotted out front a moment before.
She had me dead to rights, escaping a crime scene, carrying weapons that had never been registered.
I was dicked, in every way possible.
“Real slow, drop the bag, put your hands up, and turn to face me.”
The voice was younger than I expected, the tone exactly as I would have anti
cipated.
Holding my left arm at waist height, I let the nylon strap slide from my grasp, the bag landing heavy against the wooden floor.
Rotating a few inches at a time, I kept my fingers splayed wide, turning to face the woman square.
For a moment, there was not a word shared, not a single sound made between us, two sides measuring the other, trying to determine how this was going to play out.
In the next, recognition seemed to hit us both at once, my hands dipping at the same time the front end of her weapon shifted to the side.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “Tim?”
Nodding only slightly, I said, “Hey, Lou.”
Part IV
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The front façade of the home was anything but what Deputy Marshal Abby Lipski had expected. Judging by the way Tim Scarberry had fought so hard to secure his one blessed phone call a month, she would have thought it was to some grand Gone with the Wind style plantation home, with thick columns and sweeping meadows surrounding it.
Once she had found out the number was actually along the coast of Maine, she’d had visions of a Nantucket mansion, the outer edge of the property made from sea cliffs, whitewater spraying against it, a lighthouse visible in the distance.
Never would she have imagined the small, dilapidated clapboard just outside of Bangor with the sagging front stoop and peeling paint.
Same for the pair of trucks sitting on blocks in the driveway, weeds poking up through the opened hoods where engines were supposed to have been.
“Thoughts?” Marshal Les Burrows asked, turning in the front seat to look at her.
In the rear of the cramped rental was a marshal from the local Maine office, protocol mandating they call and let the locals know when visiting a new jurisdiction.
A young guy with a square face and a crewcut, Lipski couldn’t help but think he looked young enough to still have acne, his face not even bearing the requisite outline of full facial hair.
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