by E H Davis
“Bruzza,” he shouted, his voice drowned out by the wind. He looked up just in time to duck a pocket of snow from a tree branch, flopping on the trail already carpeted in white.
Thick grey stratus clouds blanketing the sky seemed to descend upon them, dimming what little light was left, erasing the skyline.
It was time to get home.
“Bruzza, here boy,” they shouted anxiously, almost in unison.
They plunged ahead against the wet wind, following Bruzza’s paw prints in the snow.
“I know where he’s going. C’mon,” Jens shouted, taking Nola by the hand and scrambling up, through the snowy bracken.
________
Jens led them up and up, to the place along the stone wall where he’d discovered Teddy’s shooting range on the other side. He helped Nola over the snow-slippery wall, and they separated to walk off the area, but Bruzza was nowhere in sight. Jens, never a great tracker, was confused by the tracks from Bruzza’s earlier visit here, days ago.
They were about to give up when Nola called to him, the tremor in her voice alerting him to danger.
“Jens, Jens,” she shouted, pointing to a place at the edge of the clearing.
Bright red drops of blood trailed off in the snow, back down the mountain.
“He’s hurt,” cried Jens. “On the broken glass.”
“Pray he’s gone home. Vivian will take care of him,” she added, hopeful.
________
Ferdie had driven as fast as she could from Berlin, once she got the results back from Epping on the body found off Peirce Island. She’d raced down Rt. 16 through the White Mountains, hampered by the massing snowstorm. Her emergency lights flashing, she swerved around slower moving vehicles, only to get stuck behind snowplows already out scraping and sanding roads turning more slippery by the minute.
She’d tried to reach Jens on his landline repeatedly, to warn him, but no one answered. She’d tried to dispatch a patrol car up the mountain, to put Jens and company under immediate police protection. But the local police wouldn’t get there anytime soon, as they were dealing with their own emergencies in Conway and Jackson, brought on by the unexpected snow. A wind advisory had been issued, warning of snow squalls and thirty-mile-an-hour winds.
The body fished out of the Piscataqua had not been Laurent’s but Warren Flynn’s.
DNA had established that — even if Warren’s wife had a hard time identifying him after the fishes had gotten to him. One thing threw her off, she’d said, teary-eyed. Warren’s trademark ponytail was missing.
Laurent had chopped it off, apparently to confuse identification, leaving a perfect dead-ringer behind, almost. Ferdie had to concede that his ruse had bought him time.
She knew where Laurent was heading. He had come back to Berlin like a stray returning to its kennel. He’d pistol-whipped a garage attendant and stolen a car. Before leaving the attendant for dead, he’d asked about the condition of the roads to Jackson.
Now it was a race against time — to see who would get there first.
The killer or the cop.
________
Bruzza’s blood-trail led Jens and Nola back to the switchback that took them home. They ran after him, the trail soon covered up in snow. Jens prayed he’d made it home.
Meanwhile, Laurent tracked them through the woods, the trees and natural cover camouflaging his movements, the mounting snow muffling his footsteps. He ducked behind a tree, waited, proceeded after his prey.
The dog had almost given him away, barking and nipping at his heels. He’d stabbed at him with his sling blade, but only grazed him.
He was cold in his light jacket and thin dress shoes. He’d had nothing to eat but snack food and was very hungry — and thirsty. He scooped up fresh snow and licked his palm clean. He followed, undetected.
It was not hard to be invisible to people like Corbin and his girlfriend. They were stupid and soft. Lacking in fortitude, perseverance.
He thought of his mission — Vivian. She had to be here at Corbin’s.
The image of Warren’s last moments flared in memory. He’d marched Warren, gun in his back, up to the precipice on Cliff Overlook. He gripped Warren’s long rat-tail braid, and chopped it off with his knife. When Warren spun, making a futile last effort to save himself, Laurent slashed his throat, kicked his feet out from under, and shoved him over the edge. He watched him crash onto the half-submerged rocks below.
Though he hadn’t realized it at the time, a sob of regret had escaped his lips as he bid goodbye to his old friend. Who’d betrayed him.
________
When Jens and Nola got back to the house, they found the door unlocked.
“That’s odd,” said Jens, unnerved by Bruzza’s blood trail and now this.
“Bruzza,” he called.
Warily, he pushed open the door and stepped into the mudroom.
None of the lamps were lit inside the house, except for nightlights with sensors, casting shadows in the hallway. Jens peered inside, wary.
“Teddy? Vivian? Anybody home?”
No answer.
“Where’s Bruzza?” Nola peered over his shoulder.
“Shhhh!”
“What is it?” Nola whispered, affected by his tone.
“Wait here!”
He took up the heavy-duty utility flashlight he kept beside the door, turned it on, and stepped into the main room. Nothing was out of place, but to Jens something felt different. Dust motes danced in the beam of the flashlight, swirling in unfamiliar patterns.
Putting on lights as he went, Jens made a tense trip around the house, imitating the cops on TV and in the movies, checking the back door off the kitchen (locked), treading upstairs to the loft, thrusting aside the shower curtain (clear), padding down to the basement (clear), throwing on the lights in Teddy’s room, shining his light beneath the bunk beds (no one hiding), checking the back door off the game room (locked), and the utility room where the water heater and washer and dryer were housed (clear).
On a thought, he darted his hand behind the hot water heater, confirming that the gun he’d taken from Teddy was still there. He wavered about taking it now for protection, finally deciding not to — he was probably just overreacting.
________
Ferdie hop-scotched her cruiser around the icy corner leading to Jens’ drive and skidded to a stop in the snow. She’d made amazing time, despite the weather. She could only hope she wasn’t too late.
Perhaps Laurent had a change of heart and decided to leave Vivian alone, once and for all. But she doubted it. He’d burned all his bridges, and she was certain he was coming here, the only place left where Vivian could be. If not, he’d get it out of Jens, Teddy his pawn.
She tried to reach the trooper station in Jackson, then Conway, but her two-way radio hissed white noise. The windshield wipers groaned, laboring to clear the snow, offering brief glimpses between arcs.
She surveyed Jens’ cabin, observing the lights on all over the house, thinking it seemed suspicious. Though she’d never been here, only to the house in Lee, she suspected Jens of being frugal, especially with power on the eve of a gale. He was from New Hampshire after all.
She opened the flap to her service revolver, a non-standard-issue S&W Model 27 .357 Magnum with a six inch barrel, glanced up at the house once more, cracked open her door, and was just drawing her weapon, ready to enter cautiously via the mudroom, when a voice she’d never heard before, though she recognized it immediately, hissed in her ear.
“Take your hands off your gun and step away from the car, bitch!”
Laurent. Back from the dead.
________
She was not afraid to die.
Indeed, she was her father’s daughter, himself a distinguished Vietnam War veteran, a Marine colonel, whom she’d emulated and modeled herself after.
She leaned back, instantly crowding Laurent and chopping backward with all her might, upward with her elbow, catching him squarely on the nose with
incredible force.
The cartilage in his nose cracked and collapsed; one of his front teeth dangled from her arm.
A shot rang out. Both fell to the ground.
________
Inside the house, the shot was muffled by the storm. Jens exchanged looks with Nola.
“Could be a car backfiring,” ventured Jens, worried about Bruzza, who still hadn’t shown up.
The front door creaked open and there was a stir in the mudroom. The sound of someone locking the door behind them seemed odd to Jens.
He whipped around to find Bruzza hightailing it in. He skittered across the floor on his toenails, came to a stop at Jens’ feet, and whimpered. There was a slash over one brow, the fur matted with blood. Shocked, Jens reached down to examine him.
“Bruzza, what happened?”
A dark voice opened up a well of terror in Jens.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in, Corbin?”
Laurent was holding his bleeding nose with one hand and spitting blood through the tooth gap in his mouth. In the other hand, he waved around the 9mm he’d taken from Warren. Tucked in his belt was Ferdie’s revolver.
“I’ve come a long way to meet you,” he lisped. “At no small expense.”
He pointed to the damage to his face and then at Nola who was trembling.
“Fix it!” he barked at her.
Nola was frozen in place. Jens started toward her, to protect her, but was stopped by Laurent with a wave of his gun.
“You want to die?”
Jens shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“God damn it!” screamed Laurent, recoiling with sudden pain. “Where’s my wife, anyway. Where’s Vivian?”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Nola’s hand shook as she cleaned up around Laurent’s mashed nose. Seated on a kitchen stool, he winced as she applied antiseptic wipes.
“It’s broken,” she said, her voice quivering. “Do you want me to set it? You’ll need pain killer.”
Laurent’s eyes roamed, looking for something.
“Is that booze over there?”
He pointed his gun at the liquor cabinet off the kitchen.
Laurent followed her with his eyes while she retrieved a bottle of whisky, unscrewed the top, and handed the bottle to him.
“Don’t even think about it, asshole,” he told Jens. He raised the bottle to his lips and gulped, wincing as the burning liquor washed over his broken lips.
“Uggha!” he spat, his massive head spasming involuntarily.
His two front teeth were missing, making him look like a vampire rabbit, his swollen nose a snout.
“I heard a shot. Is someone hurt?” Jens asked, worried about Vivian and Teddy. He was sitting on the couch, his mind racing, trying to figure out his next move.
One of Laurent’s guns, the pistol resting on his knee, was aimed at Nola’s midsection as she treated him. Jens could tell she was repulsed — by that tattooed, bleeding, disfigured brute of a man — as she stood as far away as possible, tearing surgical strips from a roll, readying them to support the splint she’d fashioned from wooden salad tongs. Jens was saddened to acknowledge that he’d brought her, too, into his circle of danger.
Vivian and Teddy, where were they? Had they gone for help? He prayed they were in a safe place, far away from here, from Laurent.
Oh my God, that shot we heard. What if Laurent shot Teddy?
Jens had to do something. When Nola set his nose — that’s when he’d make his move. Jens was poised, ready to hurl himself at the intruder.
“Sit your ass back down or I’ll tie you up,” growled Laurent, his words muffled.
The gun from his waistband, a revolver with a huge barrel, was pointed at Jens.
“She’s going to set my nose, and you’re going to sit there like a good boy, aren’t you? No heroics,” he added, shoving his pistol into Nola’s gut. She doubled over in pain.
Jens sat back, cooperating, at least bodily.
“Now, sister!” Laurent barked.
“You should be in the hospital, x-rayed, sedated.”
“Do it, bitch! Or I’ll shoot him — like that trooper I left bleeding like a pig out in the driveway.”
Suddenly, Jens recognized the revolver in his lap. Ferdie’s.
The bastard shot Ferdie.
Laurent pushed his pistol into Nola again, glared at Jens, eyes twinkling maliciously.
“Do it!”
Nola pushed his gun hand away.
“Get that off me if you want to have a nose when I’m done here.”
“Sassy bitch, isn’t she?” Laurent spat just before she broke his nose again, resetting it.
Leaving him howling with pain, but still in charge, the revolver cocked, ready to blow Jens into seventh heaven.
________
While Laurent was getting his nose plugged and taped, Jens fished around under the pillows of the sofa, finding the utility flashlight he’d used earlier when he’d cleared the house of a possible intruder.
Jens gripped the flashlight and tensed, ready to lunge.
The click of the revolver stopped him cold.
“Put it down, asshole. Slowly. On the floor.”
Jens rolled the flashlight in his direction.
“I’m getting tired of your antics.”
As he pointed the revolver at the phone, Jens noted that the 9mm was back in his waistband. If he was going to make a play, it would be for that one. Ferdie — he had to get to her in time.
“Just in case you’re thinking of calling in the cavalry.”
He let the hammer fall. There was a deafening boom — the phone in its cradle exploded. Jens clapped his hands to his ears. Blue smoke and the smell of cordite filled the room.
Laurent gave his revolver a critical once-over before re-aiming it at Jens.
“Tie her up.”
He pushed Nola onto the couch, swung the gun at Jens.
“Where’s my fucking wife?” he said, enunciating every syllable.
Jens winced at Laurent’s reference to Vivian as his wife.
With manic energy, Laurent tore the electrical cord from a nearby lamp and tossed it to him.
“Make it good and tight. Now, where’s Vivi? I’m here to collect what belongs to me.”
He spoke thickly, lisping, his plugged nose making him sound like a kid on laughing gas. Jens was not amused. This was a deadly game and he didn’t know how he was going to get everyone out of harm’s way. He hoped it wasn’t too late for Ferdie.
“Vivian’s gone into town to pick up her meds — she’s had a breakdown.”
“A breakdown?”
“Why do you think she’s here? She’s recuperating from what you put her through, you fucking maniac,” Jens added, unable to stop himself.
Laurent’s blue-black gun barrel — all six inches — landed on his head.
________
When Jens came to, he was on the couch next to Nola, trussed up with wire, hands behind his back, feet tied together. Nola was tied as well. Plumber’s tape sealed his mouth, making it difficult for him to breathe only through his nose. Blood from his head wound blurred his vision. He glanced at Nola, terror visible in her eyes. Her mouth was taped too.
Laurent back-straddled a kitchen chair, squinting at Vivian’s medicine bottle. He looked ridiculous with his nose taped up, like he was wearing a knight’s helmet with a long nose plate.
“Lithium carbonate,” he read on the label. Again, that laughing gas voice. “Bug juice, that’s what it’s called in the joint. It’s for depression, right?”
He looked up at Jens.
“Just nod your head, asshole. I imagine that’s within the range of possibilities, even for a fuckup like you.”
Jens nodded.
“Good, we have an understanding. Now, you and her are divorced, right?”
Jens nodded.
“I made sure of that,” he said with a laugh. “And she’s been in this shelter” — he glanced at the address on the pre
scription — “in Burlington. That right?”
Jens nodded.
“That her car out front, the Volvo?”
Jens nodded.
“Subaru is yours, the VW hers?” He gestured at Nola with his gun.
Jens nodded again.
“So, wherever she’s gone, it has to be on foot.”
Jens didn’t respond.
“I asked you a question, didn’t I?”
Jens nodded, staring at the barbed wire tattoo on Laurent’s neck pulsing menacingly.
“Does that mean yes to my asking you a question or to her going on foot.”
Jens nodded ambiguously.
“You want another tap on the head?”
Jens shook his head emphatically no. The movement made him dizzy and nauseous.
“The boy, your son,” Laurent added distastefully. “He’s with her, right?”
Nola darted her eyes away — Laurent noticed.
He leered at her. “You think I didn’t see that?”
She was frozen with fear. He could do anything he wanted to her.
He glanced outdoors, onto the patio, where the snow, still falling steadily had formed drifts, swirling like in a snow globe.
“Where could they have gone in this snow?” he said.
Laurent’s eyes turned inward, remembering something. He touched his face — tracing his broken nose, pulped brow, bloody lips, scars. His eyes flared.
“I used to be a good looking dude, like your son,” he told Jens. He gestured at Nola. “Girls were always hitting on me in high school. I came from money. I could’ve had the pick of the litter.” He smiled to himself. “But I chose only one — Vivi D’Arcy.”
His eyes darted about, unfocused, settling on the topographical map mounted over the fireplace.
“Been in jail, Corbin?”
Jens shook his head.
He scoffed.
“Lot of time to think about what might’ve been. Useless. I read a lot. Lifted weights.”
He flexed his massive arms and shoulders.
“Tried to keep my mind off of what a Sancho like you was up to with my wife while I was doing time. Drove me nuts. Want to know why I’m on your case? Vivi wrote to me in the beginning, told me all about you, your big ego, your awards, your movie deals. Why’d you disrespect her painting?” he asked heatedly, glaring at Jens “We started our relationship over art. She tell you that?”
