Forests of the Night

by James W. Hall

  Farris stood up. The two poodles rose and stood behind him, waiting, watching his movements.

  “Do you have to go so soon? Did Nancy do something wrong? I’ll fire her if you want. I mean if she did something wrong in any way. I’m very strict with the girls. Those Indians are so scatterbrained. If there’s something she did, just say the word and she’s gone.”

  “I need to know,” Farris said, “if Nancy Feather has any association with Lucy Panther.”

  “Oh, my, so that’s what this is about. Of course, of course. The Panther investigation. Yes, a terrible thing, all the banks. Just terrible. But of course, I have to say, with all these federal agents coming and going, it’s provided a healthy uptick in business around here this last year.”

  “Julius.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sorry. Nancy Feather and Lucy Panther. Yes, yes, I’ve heard talk that they were friends. Went to school together way back when.”

  “And do they have contact currently?”

  Julius drew a wadded hankie from his rear pocket and dabbed his throat.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, Farris. I mean, I realize Lucy Panther is under suspicion for aiding and abetting her son. In cahoots, as they say. But Nancy never speaks about her. Very tight-lipped.”

  “You understand, Julius, not to speak of police matters. No gossip.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  He hurried around the desk, prattling as he came.

  “I told Nancy, I said, Nancy, men like Martin Tribue don’t come along every day. And you’re no homecoming queen, Nancy. I said that. I said that to Nancy.”

  Farris turned to the door, opened it, and stepped outside.

  “Once again, Sheriff, my deepest condolences. And tell your father I send my very warmest wishes for continued prosperity.”

  Farris parked his cruiser along the shoulder of Stillwell Branch Road, let the dogs out of the backseat, and locked the doors, then cut through an open field and, with the poodles tagging along at a respectful distance, crossed Little Bear Creek at the footbridge he’d built with his own hands nearly thirty years earlier.

  For a hundred yards the trail ran level, then dipped into a small basin where the white double-wide trailer sat among the freshly leaved maples. His son, Shelley, was sitting in the tall weeds just outside the door, scratching with a twig at the ground between his outstretched legs. He wore a yellow T-shirt and baggy diapers, and even from thirty yards away, Farris could see the bug bites pimpling his bare flesh.

  The two large white poodles trotted over to the boy and stopped ten feet away, lifting their noses to catch his scent. Farris had trained them not to approach his son. He trusted the dogs, for he and Martin had trained them rigorously. But he also knew what violence they were capable of, so it was only prudent to keep a buffer between the boy and the animals.

  Hunched forward on an aluminum lawn chair a few feet away from the boy, Margie Hornbuckle spooned lemon yogurt into her mouth. She looked up as Farris broke through the bushes and stepped into view but said not a word to this intruder in her small encampment.

  Farris went over to the boy, thirty years old, with the milky, translucent skin and dreamy green eyes of his mother. His head was shaved, and the silky black hair on his arms and legs waved in the cool breeze like the tentacles of some undersea creature.

  Farris squatted down beside the young man. In the red dust between his legs were a dozen oval shapes.

  “And what are you drawing today, boy?”

  The lad looked at Farris and smiled the crooked way he could manage. He stammered something, but as usual Farris had to await Margie’s translation.

  “Flowers,” she called over. “He’s been a-drawing flowers all week long. One flower after the other. ’Cause of it being springtime, I reckon.”

  Farris peered at the boy’s handiwork and spoke his approval.

  “It’s a beautiful bouquet,” he said. “You’re becoming quite an artist, Shelley. Quite gifted.”

  Margie got up from her chair and came over. In her toothless old age, yogurt and soft-boiled eggs made up the bulk of her diet. He’d hired the woman shortly after Shelley’s condition became apparent and Farris’s young wife decided she wanted none of it, deserting both husband and child. For nearly thirty years Margie had been the boy’s caregiver, Farris making visits whenever he felt a need to peer again into the boy’s depthless eyes.

  “Got another of them postcards from your missus,” Margie said.

  “Have I not made it clear? I want to hear nothing about the postcards.”

  She ran her spoon around the inside of the yogurt container and licked it clean.

  “Care for any yogurt? I got all the flavors.”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “You happen to bring along anything with you today?”

  The boy continued to draw in the dirt, the petals of roses and lilacs and daisies. Circles within circles within circles, a field of endless blossoms. Once more Shelley lifted his eyes to squint at Farris, this tall man who had appeared from thin air.

  “Good work, lad. Good work.”

  The boy grinned, and when he had his fill of Farris, he took a new grip on his stick and applied himself with fresh enthusiasm to his sketching.

  Farris stood up and reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet and peeled out three hundred-dollar bills. Margie took the cash and stuffed it into the pouch of her apron.

  “Don’t imagine you notice, living up in the big house, but prices is going up and up. Them groceries is about to break us little people. ’Lectricity, too, damn, you wouldn’t believe the cost of current. And diapers, yes sir, I go through near five a day. They ain’t cheap either. Those ones you got me using.”

  “Buy some antiseptic for his bites. Then remember to apply it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that. The boy’s got such sensitive skin, you know. Flares up over just a chigger. Then he scratches at ’em till they’re bloody. I try to stay after them, but he gets such a kick out of rolling around in the grass, you know.”

  “Antiseptic,” Farris said.

  He drew out two more hundred-dollar bills and held them out while he watched his son draw garlands in the red Carolina dust.

  Eighteen

  In the bulkhead seats of first class, on the three-fifteen Delta flight to Atlanta that connected to Asheville, Charlotte studied the FBI field report on Jacob Bright Sky Panther while Parker buried himself in one of the Cherokee reference books crammed in his carry-on.

  He was wearing scuffed hiking boots he’d hauled out of the recesses of his closet, along with heavy khaki pants and a flannel shirt, an outfit that was grossly out of place for the muggy Miami afternoon. He’d badgered her into swapping her summer lightweights for a pair of dark jeans and a medium-weight sweatshirt over a cotton blouse. And good, heavy tennis shoes for the rough terrain. Spring weather in the mountains was unpredictable. They were going on a hike tonight. Up to Camp Tsali to get Gracey back.

  About a half an hour into the flight, she set aside the legal pad she’d been using to take notes on the FBI report, and nudged Parker’s elbow.

  “How’d he do it so quickly?”

  He looked up from the text, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

  “Do what?”

  “Gracey left you and Panther on the patio and came into the house, then a little later Panther goes to the John. Gracey and I were in my office for a couple of minutes, which means she and Jacob only had a couple more alone.”

  “So?”

  “Jacob sells her on the diversion with your car, and he manages to make enough of an impression on her that the first chance she gets she runs off to join him. Three, four minutes he accomplishes all that.”

  “So what’re you saying? He had it worked out ahead of time? His sole reason for being there is to get Gracey alone and seduce her into running off?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. It just seems fast, that’s all.”

 
; “Jacob’s got a forceful personality.”

  “Bullshit. Gracey is ill. She’s not responsible for her actions.”

  “I don’t accept that diagnosis.”

  “Jesus, I can’t believe you, Parker. Everyone’s innocent, and no one’s sick. How can a smart man like you have such a simplistic view?”

  He swallowed back his first response and drew a long breath.

  “Our daughter ran away from home, okay, it’s upsetting, sure, but it’s not that uncommon. She’s almost legal age—another year she could go anywhere she wanted without our permission.”

  “She’s a year and three months shy. And she’s ill, Parker.”

  “You ran away from home. Same age.”

  Charlotte cleared her throat and drew a calming breath.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And look what happened.”

  “It didn’t turn out so badly, did it?”

  Charlotte felt the old refrain crawling up her throat: I’m grateful, Parker. I wouldn’t be here today without your help. You saved my life.

  “Difference is,” she said. “I didn’t run away to join up with a killer.”

  “Even if it wasn’t your intent, it is what happened.”

  “Oh, so this is karmic payback. She’s repeating the sins of her mother.”

  “Never said that. Never entered my mind.”

  “Sure it didn’t.”

  “You keep saying I believe everyone is innocent, but that’s not true, Charlotte. I would have to be an idiot to think that. Totally out of touch.”

  “That’s how it comes across.”

  “I take people for who they are. Innocence, guilt—that doesn’t come into it. People deserve a second chance. That’s my job, to see they get it.”

  “And Gracey?”

  “I’m not blind. I see what you see. I just deal with it differently.”

  Charlotte was silent. Not quite fuming, but getting there.

  “Diana said all I had to do was love Gracey and everything would be fine. Is that what you believe?”

  “Yes,” Parker said. “Yes, it is.”

  “That would cure her? A big dose of uncritical love?”

  “You’re talking about fixing Gracey. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what?”

  “Changing her school isn’t going to fix her. Changing her meds won’t do it either. The only thing you can fix is yourself, how you’re dealing with it.”

  They stared at the bulkhead. Charlotte’s ears were ringing. She reached down and picked up her backpack and found a Kleenex and blew her nose. As she was setting the backpack back on the floor, Sheffield’s gadget spilled out and bumped Parker’s right boot. She unsnapped her seat belt and bent forward and palmed the thing, checked it quickly to make sure she hadn’t activated the green light, then dropped it back into the bag.

  When she arose, Parker was still staring straight ahead.

  She drummed her ballpoint against her notepad. Watched the flight attendant delivering another Bloody Mary to the guy across the aisle. Already soused and getting louder by the minute.

  “We should call Frank. This is too risky, Parker. Waltzing into some cave in the middle of the night.”

  “You want to get Gracey back, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be a shit, Parker. You know I’d do anything.”

  Parker polished the lenses of his glasses with the edge of his shirtsleeve.

  “If Jacob Panther wanted to kill us, he could’ve done that in Miami.”

  “He got scared off before he could.”

  “No, Charlotte. He was there to warn us of something.”

  “This guy leaves a note about a red war club, the next night Diana is murdered by a hatchet. What more proof do you need? And by the way, you’re withholding again. Not telling Sheffield about the red war club note.”

  “It’s not relevant.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That was not a war club. A Cherokee war club has a two-sided blade. The weapon that killed Mother had only one. A garden tool for cutting firewood.”

  “You’re incredible, Parker. You won’t accept the obvious.”

  “He came there to warn us, Charlotte, but when he needed to use the John, I sent him to the guest bath across from your office. And I assume you had your office door ajar, right?”

  She nodded.

  “He walked by, saw the FBI page on your screen, realized he was in jeopardy, and threw together whatever scheme he could to get out of there.”

  Charlotte drew a fierce circle on her legal pad. Round and round in the same orbit till she’d scratched a hole in the yellow paper.

  “So now I’m also responsible for Diana’s death?”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “If I hadn’t called the feds, Jacob could have told us the whole story and we could have done something to prevent Diana’s murder. That’s how you work, Parker. You don’t say things straight out. You leave things dangling, lead people right up to the edge. Then you back away and see if we poor idiots come to the right conclusion on our own. I’ve been watching you do it for years, in and out of court.”

  Parker clamped his lips, damming up the words he wanted to say until his neck seemed to bulge from the effort.

  It took a while for the swell to subside. Then, with the same subdued tone she’d heard him use on Gracey after some outrageous remark, he said, “So, you learning anything from the file?”

  “Seventy-five pages of padding, only a few facts.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Well, I am. A lot of generic bullshit about the lab results on the bomb materials. All this boilerplate about incendiary devices and explosive ones.”

  “Which were used on the banks?”

  “Combination. An explosion, then a fire. Nothing high-tech about this guy. He blows out a window with a shotgun, heaves a one-gallon ceramic jug filled with gasoline, a kerosene-soaked handkerchief for a fuse. Pretty damn crude. A moonshine jug, for godsakes. Redneck C4.

  “But most of the file is filler. Law-enforcement trivia. Of the twelve hundred bombing incidents nationwide last year, only seven were banks. Public high schools were bombed seventy-six times. Government offices twelve. Most common time of day for bombings—there is none. Morning, noon, and night in equal percentages. Useless stuff.”

  “It’s political,” Parker said.

  “What?”

  “The Most Wanted list. It’s about power, not crime.”

  “Power? What’re you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on. Who owns banks? Same people who make campaign contributions. A few well-placed phone calls from politically connected business types, Panther gets promoted to the list.”

  “Eight homicides don’t count for something?”

  “If it was five liquor stores in the Liberty City ghetto, eight African-Americans killed by the same suspect, you think he’d make the list? Or eight Native American victims for that matter? Of course not. It’s political.”

  Charlotte looked down at the FBI field report and shook her head.

  “So what if it is political. We’re still talking about eight homicides.”

  “Politics, banks, money,” Parker said. “The guy at the airport. He was a congressman’s son. There’s a pattern.”

  “You’re stretching.”

  “Tell me about the videos,” Parker said.

  She raised her feet and pressed her soles flat to the bulkhead.

  “Security cameras. On three occasions they show a large man with shoulder-length blond hair leaving the bomb sites. Cherokee, Waynesville, Bryson City. In all three there’s a pickup similar to Panther’s and a partial view of his plates.”

  Parker had to tangle with that for a moment.

  “They have Panther’s face?”

  “Profile in one, back in the other two. All of it’s pretty fuzzy.”

  “They include an outtake photo in the report?”

  Charlotte found the pages and showed him the black-and
-white stills taken from the video.

  “That’s not Jacob.”

  “Parker, give it up.”

  “This man is taller, thinner. It’s not Jacob.”

  “You saw him for half an hour max, and you can positive ID him?”

  “These are worthless,” he said. “Could be a wig. Could be anybody.”

  “It’s the sum of the evidence. The preponderance. Right?”

  “You get to the sum by examining the parts. If the pieces aren’t true, the sum can’t be either. Now what about the license? How partial is it?”

  “Three or four numbers. The others are obscured by tree limbs, shadows, other objects.”

  “Which is it? Three or four? Big difference statistically.”

  “Jesus, Parker. You’re a cop’s worst nightmare. Going for every chink in the armor.”

  “You’d rather live in a police state? Whatever you and your FBI pals say, that’s what goes?”

  “Those are the only two choices?”

  “Three or four, Officer Monroe? Which is it?”

  “It’s four, Counselor.”

  “Same four numbers repeat every time?”

  “Hell, I don’t remember. What difference does that make?”

  Charlotte paged through the document until she found the pages. Ran her finger down the margin. Then paged forward to the other two citations.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Same four—1773. Turns out there’s only one white Ford pickup registered in the entire state of North Carolina with those last four numbers. Registered to Jacob Panther.”

  “Well, that’s kind of coincidental, don’t you think? Same four digits. Others obscured in each of the videos. Doesn’t that have a funny odor?”

  Charlotte coughed out a half-chuckle.

  “So that’s your fancy strategy? This is all a grand conspiracy. Someone is setting up poor Jacob? Wearing a wig, phonying up license plates. Going to elaborate lengths to fabricate a case against him. That’s your defense? Some boogeyman hangs eight homicides on this guy? Why?”

  “Doesn’t matter why. The license wouldn’t stand up. Juries don’t like coincidences. Good cop like you, you shouldn’t either.”