Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 13 - Hard Truth

by Hard Truth(lit)

  Snippets of information gleaned from conversations with Molly; her psychiatrist sister, floated haphazardly through Anna's mind. Challenging a psychotic's delusion could produce violence in the subject. A symptom of attachment disorder is the inability to care about anything or anyone except as it relates to the subject's own needs or desires. Sociopaths are incapable of feeling compassion for others.

  None of it helped. Anna went with her instincts. "Cut the crap, Ray," she said into the darkness. Rav. His name wasn't Ravmond Bleeker. He wasn't a ranger. Anna felt an idiotic rush of relief as if a stain had been removed from her people. Before she'd come to Rocky there'd been a rot-ted corpse found on the northern end of the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Battery acid had burned hands and face and been poured in the mouth. Evidence of the murders of two boys in Pennsylvania and notes to the dead boys had been found on the body. The suspect in the Pennsylvania killings had jumped bail and run, the notes were in the suspect's hand-writing. Descriptions of the suspect and the measurements of the corpse were a match. Lacking any indication to the contrary, the official theory of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was that the murderer had either killed himself in a gruesome manner or gotten his just reward from an outraged accomplice.

  No one fitting the corpse's general description had been reported missing. But then a seasonal backcountry ranger wouldn't be. Family and friends were accustomed to them dropping off the face of the earth for months at a time.

  Raymond Bleeker was undoubtedly lying in an FBI morgue some-where in Tennessee, rotted beyond recognition, dental work and finger-tips destroyed by battery acid.

  "You took Ray Bleeker's identity," Anna said more to herself and Rita than to the killer in the woods. "How'd you do it? Befriended him, then killed him? What?" Only silence came back. For once, Anna hated silence. Feared it. "You couldn't hope to fool people very long. You were too piss-poor a ranger for that," she goaded.

  Rita started to move. Anna sensed rather than heard or felt it-maybe Rita only thought about moving. Anna put a hand on her arm to keep her still.

  There was a stirring in the duff to the left and slightly uphill.

  "I fooled you," came a high-pitched singsong, the tune of quintes-sential derision recognizable on any playground from Miami to Nome.

  "You fooled me all right, buddy," Anna admitted. What had inspired her to call him "buddy" she had no idea but it got a reaction.

  "Don't fucking call me Buddy, you pushy faggot whore," exploded through the still damp air, followed by what sounded like the whimper of a child. It might have been one of the wolf pups frightened by the uncharacteristic noise.

  A hand clutched Anna's wrist and she almost screamed. It was Rita. "It's okay," Anna breathed. It wasn't. She knew it. Rita knew it. But it had to be said for some reason. Maybe to see if God-or the fates-would laugh out loud.

  "What should I call you?" she asked in the direction from which the fury had come, knowing Ray, Buddy-whoever-was probably no longer there. For a man who had lived most of his life in cities-according to the news reports the school where the boys' killer had done his hunting was in Philadelphia-he moved through the dark forest with remarkable stealth.

  Maybe he isn't human, Anna heard a whisper in her brain and suffered a terror so ancient it could not be stilled with logic. Navajo skinwalkers, vampires, werewolves: nothing but the rising of the sun could banish them. With a mental jerk so pronounced her head shook like a comic doing a double-take, she ridded herself of the thought before it could take root and blossom into panic.

  "What's your name?" she asked, to keep him engaged. Like she had to amuse him to keep herself and Rita alive until a better plan presented itself. Once they weren't fun anymore, their life expectancy would shorten considerably.

  "Buddy. My name's Buddy."

  Maybe his name was Buddy. Maybe she'd hit on it by pure dumb luck. Whether good or bad remained to be seen.

  "Yeah. Old Buddy boy," he added. "I'll be your pal. We'll have such fun."

  The voice moved. Now Anna could hear boots or, more likely, sneakers shushing over the duff. As he talked she unsnapped the keeper on her pancake holster and eased out her semiauto. Straight-armed, both hands supporting the weapon, she aimed at the sound, pivoting slowly as the words trailed down to the right.

  "I'll be your friend. Like Mister Rogers. Okay, everybody, take your buddy's hand!" A few bars of the television theme song were hummed, then a scream: 'Are you out of your fucking mind?" and Anna went blind. The beam of a powerful flashlight was trained in her eyes. She'd been spotlighted as sure as a hapless doe by an illegal hunter.

  "Put the gun down like a good little ranger." The voice had gone back to singsong. Anna found the screaming less disturbing.

  "What's in it for me?" She squinted past the glare.

  He pulled the trigger. The report hurt her eardrums. Rita cried out and fell. Anna squeezed off three shots in quick succession. One at the light. One just left of it and one to the right. The beam went wild as the flash-light fell, then rolled. Rita was panting. A child cried piteously. In the spill of the fallen flashlight Anna could see what she'd shot. Not a monster but a little girl. Buddy had been too clever to make a target of himself. The underweight girl with the punked-out hair who'd alibi'd him had been holding the light.

  "Sweet Jesus," Rita said, as Anna said:

  "Candace."

  "What's in it for you is you get to live a leetle teensy-weensy scoche of a bit longer." Buddy was to Anna's left. By the time she turned and aimed she'd be dead. Dead she was no good to anyone. And she had shot a child. Anna let go of the gun.

  "I'm going to check Rita and Candace," she said.

  "Leave them."

  "Not happening."

  "Move and I'll shoot you."

  "Then fucking shoot me. I'm getting the flashlight." Moving unhur-riedly, she stepped to the light, crouched and retrieved it.

  The bullet she expected to plow into her back didn't come. Buddy Bleeker wasn't an altruist; he didn't give a damn about any life other than his own. Sure he might want them alive to play with, but only so long as they weren't a nuisance. Anna had been a definite pain in the neck. That he didn't kill her maybe meant she was useful to him. The thought gave her courage.

  Careful not to do anything sudden and to stay away from the gun that lay temptingly close, she shined the light on Rita. The ranger was curled down over her left foot, both hands a gaudy red, shockingly celebratory in this night landscape. Blood dripped from beneath her fingers.

  'Are you going to live?" Anna asked.

  Silence.

  "Rita?"

  "I guess. It's my ankle. God but it hurts."

  "You'll live," Anna said firmly. "Remember that. Don't go shocky on me." Following the light, she went to where Candace lay. The girl had not made a sound. She did not move. The light picked up a crimson banner of blood down the right side of her T-shirt. The horror of the law enforce-ment officer's nightmare-to cause the death of an innocent-was visited upon Anna. Her knees grew weak. Her insides heaved.

  Falling more than kneeling, she collapsed by the child's side. "Can-dace?" she murmured as she played the light over the small head and flat-chested torso, trying to see where the bullet had entered. Candace's dark eve was open but staring blind. Anna's heart made a palpable lurch, as if a dying fish lay trapped beneath her ribcage. She'd killed Candace.

  "Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death," she whispered, wondering as she did so from which antique Catholic school closet those long-forgotten words had come.

  The eye blinked.

  Not dead.

  "Hallelujah."

  "Cut the fucking revival meeting. Leave her," said the man who'd stolen Ray Bleeker's life. Indifference flattened the high notes. He might have been talking about a pebble fallen from a gravel truck, a nothing.

  Quickly Anna searched the child's neck and shoulder. When she'd fired into the dark she'd been aiming for the body mass of a s
ix-foot-tall man. Candace, small for her age, was scarcely five feet. Anna's bullet had caught her across the top of her left shoulder, cutting a groove an eighth of an inch deep and two long. Six inches to the right and it would have ripped out her throat. While Anna pulled at clothing, poked at wounds and felt the girl all over for any peripheral damage from the fall or, as unlikely as it seemed, the other two shots, Candace lay as one dead: limp, quiet, eyes open but not in focus.

  At first Anna was afraid she'd gone into shock. Shock could kill just as surely as a chunk of lead. The quick examination revealed an answer even more unsettling. Candace had learned to lie still, keep silent, retreat within herself while being handled, hurt, dressed and undressed. Given that after weeks in the hands of a man who possibly had tortured and mur-dered at least three other people, Candace still survived, Anna knew she'd learned her lessons well. What kind of life she would be able to make for herself should this streak of luck continue through the night, Anna couldn't hazard a guess.

  "You crazy bastard," Anna said, not because she thought it would do any good but because she couldn't help herself. Having eased Candace into a sitting position she grabbed Rita's pack. The first-aid kit rangers were required to carry on duty had accompanied Rita on her off hours, as Anna had figured it might.

  Pretending Buddy Boy Bleeker wasn't standing in the darkness, his sick mind deciding whether they were to live or to die, she put a commer-cial Band-Aid over Candace's wound. Then turned her attention to Rita. During the brief time she'd worked on the girl, Rita had recovered some-what. As Anna trained the flashlight on her leg, she began reporting, "Near as I can tell by feel, the bullet hit square in the ankle and passed through. It's probably lodged in the tree or dirt behind where I was stand-ing. Bones are broken. More than one. Bleeding can be controlled. It missed the main artery."

  Anna looked up from the mess Rita cradled in her hands. The ankle would never be as strong as it once was, as supple. There was a good possi-bility it would cripple Rita, take away her job as a park ranger in summers and a basketball coach in winter. Yet Rita's eyes were clear and dry, her gaze steady, if a little too fixed.

  "You're a rock," Anna said sincerely.

  "Leave this shit," Buddy warned. Indifference had become irritation.

  "Soon as I dress Rita's ankle."

  Quick as a snake, a running shoe flashed into the tiny operating the-ater illuminated by the flashlight and struck Anna's hand. The light went spinning. Rita screamed as the shoe smashed into her injured ankle. Metal collided with the side of Anna's head. She went down on her side in the blood and the dirt. Before the world quit heaving, the light was in her face.

  "We'll go now." The same flat voice, almost bored sounding. "Put these on. Hands behind your back." He threw his handcuffs at Anna.

  "We" clearly didn't mean Rita. There was no way she could so much as hobble, let alone walk. The ankle was shattered. It was hard to tell about Candace. Buddy neither spoke nor looked at the child. If she could stand, she would probably follow like a beaten dog follows her master: mindlessly, hopelessly. Should she falter, slow them down or simply clog Buddy's vision at an inopportune moment, Anna knew he would shoot her and never give it a second thought.

  Rita he would shoot the instant Anna put on the handcuffs. Buddy was a tidy fellow. That was evident in the way he kept Fern Lake Cabin. He wouldn't be a man to leave witnesses scattered about.

  She held up the cuffs. "I put them on; Rita lives."

  "Sure."

  'At the lake. I'll put them on when we get to the lake."

  "Now." Buddy put the pistol to Candace's temple.

  "The lake, or not at all." Inside of Anna, bits and pieces were shaking. Quivering viscera sent waves of weakness out to her extremities. She held tight to the cuffs so he'd not see her hands shaking and locked her knees to keep them from buckling. What did Buddy-the-psycho need a ranger for? How much did he need her? If she were of greater cost than value, she wouldn't outlive the equation.

  The two women and the child watched him decide whether they were to live or to die. How often, Anna wondered, were such choices made, the victim never knowing her life turned on the idle whim of an unseen predator.

  Buddy was thinking it over too long.

  "Rita's crippled. She's not going anywhere." Anna tried sweetening the deal. 'And she can't radio out from here. You know that."

  The moment the words left her lips and entered the Ray creature's ear. she knew how big a mistake she'd made. In the spill of light she saw it on his bland face: he hadn't thought of the radios.

  "Take yours off," he said, and again held the gun to Candace's temple. Little girls were his victims of choice. He was careful never to get that close to her or Rita. This was wise.

  Initially Anna had been swept away on the tide of emotions, the first and foremost being staggering, mind-numbing guilt. Not at shooting the girl, though that hadn't helped matters, but because through her blind dim-wittedness she'd gotten them in this mess. A little self-incrimination is a good thing. It spurs one onward, inoculates against the stupidity of arrogance. A lot of self-incrimination was deadly, causing paralysis so all-encompassing the only course of action is no action: abdication of responsibility. Anna hadn't sunk that low, but the sense of inadequacy, of failing others, had made her mind sluggish.

  Now that it had passed she nearly glowed with the need to do some-thing, and that something was get her hands on Buddy. When his foot flashed in and struck Rita's ankle, it had taken every drop of her self-control not to grab it, wrench it upward, lay into it with tooth and claw. The SIG Sauer pointed at Candace's head was all that had dissuaded her.

  "The radio," Buddy said. "Give it to me."

  "By the lake," Anna promised. "Everything. I'll do it by the lake. That or kill us all and be done with it." She was kind of sorry she'd added the last. It was the second time in as many minutes she'd suggested he shoot her. Even in the feeble glow of the flashlight's backwash she could see how much the idea appealed to him. His face took on the happy perky look dogs get when their masters walk toward the treat cupboard, Anna made a mental note not to tempt him further.

  "By the lake," she said and moved slowly away from Rita toward the western shore of tiny Loomis Lake.

  "Can she walk?" he asked indifferently.

  Anna stopped, looked back. Buddy aimed the flashlight beam at Can-dace. Like a doll, played with then abandoned, she sat exactly as Anna had arranged her when bandaging her shoulder. Not even her eyes had moved.

  In Anna's peripheral vision, light flashed; the shine of the pistol barrel. Buddy was waving it, conducting a macabre symphony in his head, com-posing a death sonata for Candace, Rita and her. He was a man in need of a fix; a vampire jonesing for a blood meal.

  "Candace can walk," Anna said matter-of-factly. She used the girl's name to remind Candace that she was a person, deserved life. Maybe it would shift Buddy a degree closer to that view as well, make killing her a little less appealing, but Anna doubted it. Buddy was too far gone into monster. He might have been born too far gone.

  Grasping Candace's upper arm, Anna pulled her to her feet. The child's skin was cool to the touch and she weighed next to nothing, eighty-pounds at most. During her weeks in captivity Buddy must have fed her only enough to keep her alive. This cruelty was probably done for the entertainment of the perpetrator. That it weakened the victim in mind, body and spirit was just a bonus. With a gentle shove, Anna got Candace walking and put herself between the child and the gun.

  "I'm taking off my jacket," she said as she tried to walk over uneven ground in dancing light without stumbling.

  Buddy made no reply. Taking that to mean he wouldn't kill her for dis-robing, she took off her rain jacket and draped it around the girl's shoul-ders. Candace showed no sign of noticing. Oddly sure-footed in the dark, she followed the erratic jerk and twitch of the flashlight, a mindless moth-child. This wasn't the first time she'd been forced into this mode of night travel with her captor.

>   A quarter of an hour in which Anna tried to think and could not, tried not to feel the bullet rip into her spine and could, crackled away beneath her boots.

  Her insistence on complying only at the lake shore had nothing to do with a plan for escape by water. Her motive was to get Buddy away from Rita Perry before she handed him all the cards. Had Anna done as he asked up in the forest, she believed he would have broken his promise not to kill Rita as soon as she'd obligingly cuffed herself. One of the mysteries Anna had pondered over half a lifetime of dealing with victims was why they put faith in the promises of bad people: rapists who promised not to hurt them if they didn't scream, kidnappers who promised not to kill them if they didn't struggle. To her it was obvious a man who'd kidnap, kill or torture probably wouldn't balk at telling a lie.

  Her hope was that after getting Buddy to the lakefront he wouldn't bother to walk back uphill for a quarter of an hour just to spill a little blood.