by Ed Gorman
I sat next to the camera. Watched them. Laura was doing a much better job than the kid had done. I understood now why she'd been so unhappy.
"Let's try one," she said.
She came over to get the camera.
"Hi, Robert!" Tandy called to me and waved again. I waved back. Laura hefted the camera. Got it ready to shoot.
"I told the kid you wouldn't say anything to his boss."
"He's an idiot, Robert."
I shrugged. "Maybe he'd be an idiot in Chicago. But out here he's probably just fine."
She laughed coldly. "You should be a union representative, Robert. They always say things like that."
"He's getting married in the spring."
"Isn't that just ducky?" She smiled sarcastically.
"You're a hard woman." I tried to kid the line but we both knew I was serious.
"I know I am, Robert. And I intend to stay that way in order to protect my sister." She paused. "I don't know why the hell she called you, anyway. Nothing personal."
"Of course not."
"She's the star now. She doesn't need to share the spotlight anymore. And anyway, things are going just fine."
"I can see that."
"Except for that incompetent fucking cameraman. And I am going to tell his boss."
Then she went to work.
"Over thirty years ago, on this ground where I'm standing, was an experimental, cutting-edge psychiatric hospital called the Sterling Institute, named after its founder, a psychiatrist named J. K. Sterling.
"The hospital treated many of the most violent criminals in America, studying them, trying to quantify them as to types of psychological disorders. Sterling was cited here and in Europe as one of the most important medical men of his time. He was regarded as the Freud of criminology.
"Here is what's left of his hospital. A burned-out hulk over which crows and coyotes and the occasional wolf now have domain. His career came to a violent end one day over a quarter a century ago when a patient named Renard—a sadomasochistic rapist and murderer—slashed Sterling's throat and then doused much of the first floor with gasoline and set it ablaze. More than twenty patients and staff perished in the fire.
"A manhunt found Paul Renard the next day, hiding in a cave. But he managed to elude them once again. He was never found. There were rumors he made it to Europe; rumors he's now living in South America; even rumors that he's living in Brenner again. In disguise, of course. Most officials seem to think he's dead.
"The land around the remains of the asylum seems barren compared to other land nearby. It even seems several degrees cooler—a clammy kind of chill—when you stand near the charred foundation—like that of Poe's description in 'The Fall of the House of Usher.'
"I'm here at the request of a local teenage boy who is about to go on trial for first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend. The boy, Rick Hennessy, claims to be possessed by the spirit of the killer Paul Renard. He claims he explained this many times to a counselor his parents had sent him to but that the counselor refused to take him seriously.
"The Hennessys have asked Mind Power to come here to this small Iowa town and talk with Rick Hennessy and see if we can help him in any way. We thought we'd give you a look at the notorious asylum from which Paul Renard escaped nearly thirty-five years ago, leaving twenty people dead in his wake.
"Now, we go into town and talk to the Hennessy boy."
"Cut!" Laura said. "Great, Tandy! Let me check it on playback. But I think we've got it."
Tandy brought her microphone over to Laura and then turned and looked at me. Her smile was a heartbreaker.
TWO
She was five-four and maybe one hundred pounds. Next to her, Laura, all of five-six and maybe one-ten, looked like a giant.
The way she walked gave an impression of struggle, as if everything she did were difficult. And maybe it was. She was child-size in an adult world.
She was three, four feet away when I noticed the difference in her face. Five years ago, she could have posed for those sentimental paintings you see of young saints—fresh of complexion, innocent of gaze, and with a kind of radiance that truly did reflect the soul.
That was all gone. The smile was still there, and so was the quirky, impish beauty and gentle but powerful eroticism. But there was a frantic quality to the gaze and no radiance at all.
It was the weight loss and the attitude of the gray-green eyes. She probably hadn't lost more than four or five pounds, but on her the loss was noticeable. The bones were too sharp, especially the facial bones, and up close there was a cynicism and distrust in the gaze that would have been unthinkable when I'd first met her. She reminded me of the few models I'd known, all coffee nerves and cigarettes to repress the normal need for food, and a sense of anxiety that was almost violent.
She said, "Hug?" But it was more formal than truly friendly.
"You bet."
She slid into my arms. I felt as if I were holding somebody who was seriously ill. I'd given my favorite aunt a clinging hug the night before she died in the hospital. The cancer had worn her down to bone. There was some of that in holding Tandy now.
"It's really good to see you, Robert. I'm glad I called you."
"I don't think Laura is."
She squeezed me. At least her strength was intact. Her arms were strong and agile.
Then, "Oh, God, I forgot about him." She eased away from me and said, "I'd better go say something to him."
She was talking about the cameraman. He was down leaning against his truck. I followed her. There was a breeze suddenly, cool but fragrant with smokiness. Jack-o'-lantern weather. Beasties and ghoulies weather. Thousands of miniature Draculas prowling the streets for candy bars and taffy apples—hopefully the kind without razor blades secreted inside.
She said, "I'm sorry if my sister was a little rough on you."
His male pride took over. He shrugged, the gesture saying it didn't matter to a master like himself. That amateurs could do what they wanted. No skin off his nose. Or ass. Or balls.
"She's under a lot of pressure."
He started thinking about his job. Forgot about his pride. "Your friend here says you won't mention this to the boss. How she took the camera from me."
"I'll make sure she doesn't."
"A guy in a production company in Des Moines told me anytime I want a job all I need to do is call him."
"I'm sure you're very good. She's just a little nervous is all."
He nodded uphill to Laura. She was checking things on playback. "How much longer she gonna be?"
"I think she just wants to check the tape, make sure it's all right. Then she'll bring your trunk back and you can go."
"How'll you get back?"
"Our friend Robert here'll give us a ride."
"Five bucks," I said.
"A comedian," she said.
"What about the videotape?"
"Oh, she'll keep that."
"Won't she want to edit it?"
"Yes, but we'll do that back in Chicago."
"Oh." He looked at me and then at her. "And she really won't say nothing to Cal?"
"I'll see to it," she said again.
The trunk weighed seventy pounds. I found out the hard way. I went up to give Laura a hand. The cameraman was by now duly afraid of her. He sat in the van. He was packed up. He had some heavy-metal station on. He could go when I shoved the trunk in the back. I hefted the trunk by the handles. He made no offer to help.
As we were coming downhill, she said, "I'm going to call his boss and tell him what a moron that kid is."
"No, you're not."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"The kid's getting married. I told you that already."
"So?"
"And if he loses his job, he'll have to go back to Best Buy."
"That's not exactly my problem, Robert. He's incompetent."
"You get what you pay for. Your company didn't want to spring for a Chicago outfit
so you hired some small company out here. They do a lot of cornball commercials and probably even a wedding or two when things get really thin. That's what I mean. You get what you pay for."
"You should've been a priest."
I laughed. "I'm holding out for pope."
"The kid's an idiot."
"Well, if he is, we'll let his boss find that out for himself."
The kid got out of there as fast as he could. As he ground the stick shift into reverse, he rolled down the window and said to me, "Remember what you promised. You know, about Cal."
I nodded. He backed up all the way to the blacktop road. He kept the heavy metal up good and loud. Now, there was something worth bitching to Cal about—the kid's taste in music.
Tandy had walked back up to the ruins. She looked frail against the chimney. There was a sense of isolation up here. The burned-out asylum made the isolation ominous.
"She doesn't usually do stuff like this, does she?"
"What 'stuff' are you talking about?" Laura said.
"Seeing if someone is possessed."
"She sees it all of a piece, the whole thing. As Dr. Rhine at Duke always insisted, paranormal powers tend to come in clusters. People gifted with clairvoyance also seem to have the facility for other forms of ESP. You have a problem with that?"
"I asked a civil question."
"No, you didn't. You asked a cynical, snotty one. That's one of the reasons I don't want you around. Your skepticism gets in the way. And she doesn't need any more skepticism at this stage of her life."
"She doesn't need any people exploiting her, either."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
The breeze was stronger now and muffled the sound so that it didn't register true.
The second sound that came right on top of the first was unmistakable. "Hit the ground!" I shouted up to Tandy.
"God," Laura said, "what's going on?"
"Gunshots."
I took off running the long way up the hill and around the far side of the asylum. Since I'm a reasonably faithful jogger, the run was easy. The hard part was dodging the two shots that were directed at me, the second of them pinging off a small pile of native stone and stirring up a whirl of dust.
Hitting the ground so fast and hard shocked my bones. It took me half a minute to adjust to the impact. The sunburnt grass smelled dusty. Hard nuggets of animal feces were almost decorative. A 7UP bottle cap glistened in the sunlight.
The ruins and the surrounding forest—where the shots had come from—were silent. So were all the humans.
I listened to the wind. The Mesquakie, Iowa's indigenous people, believe that the wind speaks to those who know how to listen. But if the wind was speaking, it was whispering. It gave me neither information nor solace.
I don't know how long I lay on the ground. Enough to feel the dampness just beneath the surface of the soil from a recent rain. The crow started up, that lacerating caw that is somehow half joyous and half mournful. Druids believed that crows were divine messengers.
I got to my feet.
No gunshots.
I started around the back of the asylum.
Tandy had managed to crawl inside the foundation and hide behind a line of broken concrete, only inches from the lip of the hole which was filled with debris from the fire.
She said, "God, those were gunshots, weren't they?"
"They certainly were."
"I can't believe it. Who'd want to shoot me?"
I held out my hand and helped her over the rubble. "That's something we'd better find out."
Laura joined us, breathless from her run up the hill. "Oh, Lord, hon, are you all right?"
She grabbed Tandy and held her tight, the irony being that she seemed far more upset than Tandy did. Perhaps she was holding herself by proxy.
"Those were really gunshots," she said. She tenderly stroked the back of Tandy's head. "I just don't understand why anybody'd want to hurt you."
I said, "Maybe they didn't."
They both looked at me.
"There's the possibility that this was just random."
"Random meaning what?" Laura said.
I shrugged. "Two high school kids with a rifle out hunting and deciding to have a little fun."
"Not even knowing who Tandy is?" Laura said.
"Right."
"You really think so, Robert?" Tandy said.
"Not really. But it's a possibility that can't be ruled out. Sometimes, there really are simple explanations for things."
Laura looked around at the forest to the west of us. "I was going to go for a walk in there when we wound things up here. I used to love to walk in woods when we were little girls. Remember?"
"I used to leave bread crumbs on the trail," Tandy said. "I was very taken with 'Hansel and Gretel.'"
"Now it looks scary," Laura said. "No woodsy walk for Laura today."
"Or Tandy."
"I'll have to take a little stroll," I said.
"Really?" Tandy said.
"Yeah. See if I can find anything. First, I want to walk around up on the hill."
"How come?"
"Look for shell casings." Then, "Either of you know anything about guns?"
"Laura does a little bit," Tandy said.
"Dad gave me some lessons when I was a teenager. Tandy always hated guns."
"You two go down to my car and lock yourselves in. There's a police special thirty-eight in the glove compartment if you need it. Think you can handle it?"
Laura nodded. "One of the guns Dad taught me on was a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight."
"Then you won't have any trouble."
"You want us to go with you?"
I shook my head. "Faster if I go alone. If I'm not back in half an hour, use my cell phone and call the local law."
"God, Robert, you sure you want to do this?" Tandy said. She sounded young and fresh again. The old Tandy. Not the celebrity Tandy.
Nice to see you back, I wanted to say. "I'll be fine."
Two towering, gnarled bur oaks formed an entrance to the woods. A broad, sandy path wound through sections of golden maples and sycamore, then hackberry and elm. The land on either side of the path was busy with squirrels and foxes and rabbits and tangled up in shrub stratum that ran from gooseberry to viburnum to dogwood, brightened with coralberry and hazelnut. Gray prehistoric bedrock could be seen beneath its cover of autumn-rotted vegetation, lichen-like beards of growth that had likely first appeared soon after the Ice Age. The forest smelled of birth and death and a baffling ten million years of history. An angled beam of sunlight streamed down through the canopy of leaves above me. It was so lovely and powerful and mythic, I wondered if it might beam me up to heaven, if you'll forgive me mixing Star Trek with Christianity.
There were a lot of caves in this part of the state. I'd assisted in two manhunts over here right after leaving the FBI. An escaped killer had been able to hide out in a cave for more than a month. He'd been caught through his own stupidity. He just couldn't resist firing at a deputy sheriff who was getting too close. He must have studied the Watergate manual on how to conduct successful burglaries.
A mother raccoon and one of her babies watched me from a branch above. For me, they're the nobility of the forest, combining as they do intelligence, cleanliness, inventiveness, and the occasional tendency to the comic pratfall. Jim Carrey has nothing on these folks. I wanted to stop and look up at her. But this wasn't the time for it.
In all likelihood, the shooter had fled. Then again, since we knew nothing about him, maybe he had a reason to wait for me in the woods. Unarmed, uncertain of the geography, I'd be easy prey.
I had an instinctive sense of the general direction where the bullets had been fired from. I wondered if I'd gotten myself lost. Then I started seeing the clear, cleated impressions on the damp path.
The shooter made it easy for me. Near a small clearing, I saw a pine tree that heavy hiking boots had chafed. Whoever had shot at us had climbed up seve
ral feet on the lightly branched tree. The tree was next to the path. The angle gave him a good, almost direct shot at the asylum. The boot wound on the pine was damp and fresh.
The prints showed three rows of deep V-shaped rubber cleats on the soles. Whoever it was had left a clear impression. I'd never seen this particular formation before. I doubted it was common.
I spent ten minutes rooting around in and off the path looking for shell casings. A rifle had been used. A bolt action, the shooter could easily keep track of the casings. A semi-automatic, they'd kick out and be difficult to find. I worked deeper off-trail, scattering a number of animals in the undergrowth, foliage and shrubbery rattling frantically in their wake.
I reached down through years of rotted vegetation. Sort of like reaching into a corpse. The undergrowth held an amazing number of pop bottles and Twinkie wrappers and exploded firecrackers. There were even a few mud-streaked photos from some of the more downscale men's magazines. Apparently, the male forest animals had a great interest in the siliconed ladies of the human species.
I gave up. The gods never allotted you two pieces of luck in the same day. I was starting back toward the path when it glinted, winking, in a stray angle of sunlight. There was just one of them but that was all a lucky man needed.
It was bottleneck shaped and the same chamber as the M1 bullets used in WWII, 30.06. I wasn't an expert, but I'd seen enough Ruger 77 shell casings to recognize it with no trouble.
I dropped it in my pocket. Then I pushed the hell out of my luck by looking for another piece of evidence. Maybe he'd dropped his wallet. Or maybe he'd even left me a note: I DEEPLY REGRET FIRING AT YOU PEOPLE. HERE'S MY ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER.
A few minutes later, the gods no doubt chiding me for my foolish luck-pushing, I walked back to my car.
THREE
"Of course Robert needs to tell the local police," Laura said on the way back to town.
"I just want to go back to Chicago," Tandy said from the backseat. "I just want to forget this whole thing."
