by David Stout
“Today?” Will said.
“Today. Now, Mr. Word Person, tell me again what you see.”
“Lord. He really thought this out, didn’t he? Assuming there’s one mastermind.”
“Yep. Very detailed. He wants delivery made just as it’s getting dark.”
“Do you think he’ll be watching?”
“My hunch? Yes. That area is deep woods. If he gets set up in a spot, and he has binoculars, he’s pretty safe. Especially, say, if he’s wearing camouflage clothing. Besides, they still have the boy, so he probably figures we won’t get too cute. And he’s right. But tell me what you see here, Will.”
“Damn, Jerry. What do I know?”
“As much as me, probably. We’re nowhere on this, Will. I’d roll the dice to make something happen, except I don’t know where the dice are. What do you see here?”
“It’s more like the second note than the first. He’s no fool. By comparison, the writer of the first note sounds unintelligent. You’re probably way ahead of me, but he must know this whole region pretty well. A hunter, maybe? An out-doorsman?”
“Or at least someone who knows the land around here. What else, Will?”
“He’s, well, he’s fairly literate. There, the possessive your in front of the gerund finding. The misspelling of tricks is a deliberate shortcut, nothing more. See, he gets tired of clipping and pasting. ‘His life your hands.’ He leaves out is in because he’s getting impatient with the cut-and-paste task.”
“Tell me more.”
“Hmmm.… The same crazy-quilt of typefaces. Ordinary, commonly used newspaper fonts. Oh. Where he says ‘quarter mile,’ he managed to find the entire word quarter somewhere in a headline, so he pasted it intact. Saved himself some snipping.”
“The impatience you spoke about, Will.”
“Instead of cutting letters, he cut corners.”
“Nicely put, Will. We’ll do tests on the paper and paste, but I’ll bet my mortgage it’s like the other paper. Ordinary five-and-dime stock.” Graham bit his lip, as though deciding something important. “Will, you’re one of the few newsmen I trust totally. That’s why I’m inviting you right now to come with me, if you’d like. On the stakeout, I mean. When the ransom is delivered.”
Will filed his story early, called the Gazette to verify that it had been transmitted intact, fielded a few routine questions. The thrust of it, of course, was that there had been a third ransom note, with instructions, and that the authorities intended to comply.
Will almost lied when Tom Ryan asked him whether he knew any details of the ransom delivery. Will said he had written everything that officials were willing to say with certainty. That was true enough, technically, and Will felt honor-bound not to go further.
He left the motel before anyone at the paper could phone him back with sharper questions. He found a decent diner and ordered the pasta special. It turned out to be simple spaghetti and meat sauce, but it wasn’t bad, and it would give him the body warmth he’d need later on. Then he found an army surplus store, where he bought a thick sweatshirt with a hood, a pair of flannel-lined hunting pants, rubber and leather hunting boots and socks to go with them, and a water-repellent canvas hunting jacket.
Will put it all on his credit card, but he would damn well put it on his expense account.
He went back to the motel to change into his new outdoor gear, and by three o’clock he was in a car with Jerry Graham, who was dressed the same way.
“I’m getting too old for this stuff, Will. That’s what I think sometimes.”
“Me, too, Jerry.” In fact—and there was no hiding it from himself—Will felt invigorated. He might pray to God (and he had) that the kidnapped boy come home alive, but it was still exciting to be at the center of events as they unfolded. It was what had first drawn him to the newspaper life, years ago.
“I’m sorry about your friend, Will.”
“Thanks. I got the funeral arrangements made. Fran’s body is on its way back to Bessemer. Maybe he’s home already, in fact.”
“He’d gone off the wagon in a big way just before the wreck, I guess?”
“It looks that way. I mean, his clothes smelled of beer and everything, and he tested high on blood alcohol.…”
“Any reason to have doubts? Other than wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt because he was a friend?”
“All right. I won’t deny my emotions might be getting in the way. If I’d been in the office, I never would have sent him over here. The kidnapping is a big, big story, and I would have worried about the pressure being too much for him.”
“He didn’t have what it takes?”
“Once, he did. Quite a long time ago. Quite a few drinks ago.”
Will knew the geography well enough to tell when they had crossed into Deer County. The day was raw, damp, windy. Now and then, Graham worked the windshield wipers. Some of the gusts were strong enough to push the car to one side or another.
“We’ve all known sad cases, Will. I know some talented agents who rubbed someone’s ass the wrong way, ran afoul of some federal chickenshit. So they crashed and burned. When that happens, people get out or they get bitter.”
Will waited, sensing that Graham would say more.
“This guy Fran, Will. You knew him way back when?”
“For a while, he was a mentor. When I was new, he taught me a lot. So the years went by—more than I want to think about, actually—and things went a certain way for him, another way for me.”
“And suddenly you’re the guy in charge, watching over him. Role reversal.”
“Yes. And I suppose”—Will was about to share more than he’d intended to—“I suppose I’m operating on some not-quite-resolved baggage from years ago. My father committed suicide, and there was a sense of shame attached to it, back then. Which I can’t do anything about. Now, Fran will always be the drunk who crashed into a car and injured a young woman as his final act.”
“The gutter reaching up to drag him home?”
“Something like that. So I’ve been sort of snooping around to see if there could have been any mistakes. Or anything else. Off the record, Jerry, this is an angry little town in some ways, and I’m not sure how much I’d put past the cops.”
“Meaning what, Will?”
“Meaning I don’t know what. I did wonder if the young woman had a friend in the police department who was going to help her collect a big insurance settlement off a stranger.”
“Pretty farfetched.”
“I know. And the young woman doesn’t seem like that kind of person.”
“You went to see her about this?”
“About the wreck, I did. Just to try to satisfy myself. And there were a couple of other things.”
Will told Graham about Fran Spicer’s old drinking habits (whenever possible, schnapps first, then beer) and his lingering suspicions about the blood test.
Graham listened—skeptically, Will thought. Finally he said, “Be careful, Will. You’re right about one thing. Long Creek is an angry little town. Isolated, suspicious of strangers. Don’t get on the wrong side of the cops, if you can help it.”
After a while, they turned off Route 126 and started uphill on a narrow two-lane road that was asphalt in some stretches, dirt in others.
“We’re going roughly parallel to Logger Hill Road, Will. It’s over that way.” Graham gestured to his right with a thumb. “About three-quarters of a mile, actually. You in shape?”
“For my age, not bad. I jog a little.”
“Good.”
Jerry Graham found a hard spot by the road and pulled over. Will stood next to the car, flexing his legs to get the warmth started. The turf under his boots had lost some sponginess; the ground would soon freeze, and might not thaw again until April.
Graham opened the trunk, took out two pairs of binoculars. “One for day vision and one for night, Will. Do me a favor and carry one pair.”
Then Graham took a rifle out of the trunk and
slung it over his shoulder. “An old three-oh-eight Winchester semiautomatic, Will. Stop anything on the continent. The telescopic sight that’s on it right now”—Graham took a foot-long tube out of the truck and put it into a deep pocket—“can be replaced with this night-vision sight in a few seconds.”
“If you see someone picking up the money…?”
“I’ll just try to see where he goes, that’s all. Get a general description, if I can. But it’s a good bet the kidnappers, or one of them anyhow, is in the area, and we want to be ready.”
Graham took out a small compass and held it as far as possible from the rifle barrel so that the needle wouldn’t be affected by the metal. Then he pulled up the back of his coat and took a black radio off his belt. “This is Eagle Visitor,” he said into the radio. “I’m moving in now.”
The agent took a path up a hill, through thick underbrush, then into a stand of old evergreens. Will had been able to see the top of the hill from the road, and it hadn’t seemed like such a steep climb. But it was plenty steep enough, Will decided after a few minutes.
Then Will figured it out: Instead of taking the most direct route to the top, Graham was deliberately varying his path. “You’re trying to stay out of sight, Jerry.”
“More like not wanting to go in a straight line, in case someone’s drawing a bead on us. Whoever he is.”
Wherever he is, Will thought.
Soon, they emerged from the evergreen stand and were climbing up a steep slope carpeted with decayed leaves and dead limbs. Will could see the sky overhead—gray, cold, wet—and then they were back under evergreens, but shorter ones this time.
Except for the wind, which rocked the evergreen boughs and rattled the bare branches of the leaf-bearing trees, the woods were quiet. So fear shot through Will like a current when he heard the rustle in the brush just up the hill from them. Graham heard it, too, because, as fast as Will could flatten himself against the slope, the agent had unslung the rifle and was aiming it uphill.
“Shhhh,” Graham said softly.
Will could smell the rotten leaves as he pressed his face to the slope.
The noise from above came again, louder and closer. Will raised his head very slightly, enough to see Graham squinting into the rifle sight. Suddenly, Graham lifted his face off the rifle stock and smiled broadly. “Go home, Bambi.”
Will looked up in time to see the white tail just before the deer bounded out of sight. Of course, he thought. It had to be an animal, for God’s sake. But Will’s legs were shaking.
Graham stood up, slung the rifle over his shoulder again, and they went the rest of the way to the top. The agent checked his compass, then pointed to his left. “If I’m right, Will, we just have to walk a couple hundred feet this way. Then we can hunker down.”
Will followed Graham along the ridge line. To his right and below, Will heard a gurgling creek. They picked their way through decades-old pine trees. Then they came to a small clearing.
“As promised, Will. This little open space. A deputy from Deer County gave me pretty good directions. Their sheriff has three guys planted around here. Plus six guys from Hill County and Long Creek, if you count me.”
Looking down from the clearing, they could see the tops of trees, and beyond them a short expanse of brown field. And beyond the field, clearly visible, a stretch of dirt road.
“That’s Logger Hill Road over there, Will. In a while, a police car is going to come by and toss a bundle off to the other side of the road. Just about dead center in our line of sight.”
The view reminded Will of the vista from a hole on the Bessemer Country Club golf course. The road was a good quarter of a mile away. Anyone on the road, or near it, would probably not see anyone on the ridge line above, yet Graham and Will had an unobstructed view.
“I didn’t see anyone else, Jerry.”
“The idea was for people to get in place well ahead of time.”
“So there’s a lot of eyes looking where we’re looking?”
“Yep. Seems all the cops and deputies around here hunt and fish. Easy for them to do a stakeout like this and stay out of sight, Will. I’m just a city boy.”
“Me, too.”
After scrounging a bit, they found places to sit that weren’t too wet or uncomfortable.
“Thanks for keeping your word on the stories, Will. Not breaking confidence. Not that I thought you would.”
“You’re welcome.” Several seconds went by before Will realized something. “You’ve seen copies of the Bessemer Gazette, then.”
“A place on the main drag, about three blocks from police headquarters. They sell out-of-town papers. Not to mention numbers and cheap cigars.”
“That’s good to know. About the out-of-town papers, I mean. I know my paper has had distribution problems over here in Long Creek.”
“You still don’t know how long you’ll be around here, Will?”
“No. I’ve been here longer than I expected. I need to do some laundry, in fact.”
“I’ll point out a laundromat when we get back. Maybe we can have dinner and a couple of drinks later.”
“I’d like that.” Sitting in the wet almost-quiet of the woods, Will knew he would have to decide for himself when to go home. There was no one at the Gazette, except for the publisher, who would decide for him.
Lord, he thought. My problems are nothing. I worry about When I can go home, and Jamie Brokaw’s parents are wondering whether their child is alive.
A car came into view on the road, and Graham tensed as he peered into his binoculars. “Just an old clunker, Will.”
Now they could hear the car’s grinding, sputtering engine. It took the sound a second or so to reach them, so that the car seemed to be ahead of its own noise.
The car passed out of view.
“Depressing around here, isn’t it, Will?”
“Yes. I can see why people want to leave. Are the cops really as bad as they seem?”
“Oh, yes and no. With some of them, their heart’s in the right place. Just not a lot upstairs. Some others seem pretty shrewd, but I don’t know how honest they are.”
“Do you have anything to base your suspicions on?”
“Other than the rumors that reach the bureau? Just my gut. It has a ping in it sometimes, Will. I believe in instinct. It’s got nothing to do with stars or sheep entrails. It’s the sum of all I know about law enforcement and people, from my life as well as my work, trying to tell me something.”
Will decided to wait until later to tell Graham about his clash with the police chief.
They waited some more. It grew dark in the woods behind them, even though they could still see clearly to the road.
“Any time now, Will.”
Just then, another car came into view. Graham peered into the glasses. “That’s him, Will.”
Graham’s radio crackled. “This is Messenger One. Slowing down.”
“Messenger One is the deliveryman, Will.”
The radio crackled again, one voice after another.
“Deer Watcher One here; we see you.…”
“Deer Watcher Two, I have you in sight.…”
“Long Creek Two, we see you.…”
Finally, Graham spoke into the radio: “Eagle Visitor here. I have you in sight.”
Graham handed Will the binoculars. “I can look just as easily through the gun sight, Will.”
Will peered through the glasses. Suddenly, the car was amazingly, startlingly close. The driver got out carrying a bundle, then kicked the door shut. The sound seemed to take forever to reach Will’s ears. The man looked up the road, then down it. Then he walked to the edge and tossed the bundle into the brush, where it rolled a couple of times before nestling to a stop in the tall, wet grass.
Through the glasses, Will watched the man get into the car; again, the noise of the door closing seemed a light-year away.
The car drove away.
“We’ll wait for a while,” Graham said. And into the
radio: “Eagle Visitor here. I have the bundle in sight.”
“Deer Watcher Two. So do I.”
“Long Creek One. I see it.”
Will breathed as slowly and evenly as he could to keep the glasses steady. He could see it clearly; if he ignored the distance distortion of the binoculars, the bundle seemed only half a football field away. A chill ran down his backbone.
“Jerry, the kidnapper could be watching right now. Just as we are.”
“Possible.”
“There’s real money in the bundle?”
“A quarter mil. Small bills, just like the note said.”
“Marked?”
“I can’t hear you, Will.”
“Are they mar—?” Will caught on, and shut up.
After a long moment, Graham said, “We have lots better technology for things like that than we did when I first joined the bureau, Will. Can’t tell you any more.”
Slowly at first, then rapidly, the gloom of the woods crossed over them, darkening the field between them and the road, then making it harder to see the road itself.
“Here, Will.” Graham handed him the other pair of glasses. “Funny thing about these, Will. They actually work better when it’s darker.”
Graham took out the other scope, put it on the rifle in place of the day sight, then settled back to watch.
Minute by minute, Will’s view through the night binoculars grew sharper. Will was looking at a world of sickly green, a world in which a few things stood out sharply and darkly. One of those things was the bundle.
Soon it was completely dark in the woods. Will was warm enough in his hunter’s clothes, but he could feel the descending chill on his face.
Time passed. Will put down the glasses now and then to relieve his eyes, but Graham squinted constantly through the rifle scope.
Will was about to ask how much longer they would wait when Graham said into the radio, “This is Eagle Visitor. I think I’m going to call it a day. Are we all clear on the surveillance?”
“Deer Watcher Two here. Roger.”
“Long Creek One. Heading home. I see my relief coming up the hill.”
Graham stood up. “That bundle will be watched constantly, Will. We have teams of watchers set up around the clock. Part of me wants to stay here and look through the telescope.”
