The Subway ; The Debt ; Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  With the hawksbill still in hand, I touched at the butt of the Beretta stowed away in the backpack, ready for come what may.

  No matter how many, no matter how heavily armed.

  Taking up a post alongside the front windows, I had stood in wait, nerves dancing, entire body poised for an impending encounter.

  As fast as those thoughts had arrived, as my ache for action had arisen, they abated with the blinking out of the headlights.

  Of a large handful of people spilling out from the vehicle and going straight to work, the emblem for their media affiliate stenciled across the side.

  For as much open hostility as had surged through me a moment before, equal amounts of realization and self-flagellation come next.

  Just because nothing had come up in my media searches the night before didn’t mean that they wouldn’t soon catch wind of what had happened. In a community as small as Monroe County, a person going missing – even one as reclusive as Uncle Jep – couldn’t be hidden forever.

  Especially if it was as bad as the crime scene tape and scent in the air seemed to indicate.

  Retreating away from the front windows, I went to the room that used to be my parents, the layout of furniture different, everything outfitted in a clear North Woods motif.

  If I had to guess, I would peg the place as a vacation rental, the type of place my parents were already openly bemoaning decades before.

  The type of place they would have never let the place succumb to, had they not met their own end far too early.

  Walking in a low hunch, I kept both weapons out, slipping past the bed and on into the back corner of the room. Putting my frame flush against the corner, I angled my body so I could see out, the natural hang of the curtains giving me a three-inch gap.

  Outside, the sky lightened just barely as the crew went about their work, putting in place a makeshift setting and filming their segment. Five people in total, four of them moved quickly and efficiently, a swirl of activity with a single blonde holding a microphone at its core.

  With my knees locked, I kept my body tight in the corner, ignoring the growing heat inside the sealed home, the renewed perspiration coming to my skin.

  For twenty minutes, that was where I remained, waiting until a second set of headlights appeared. Trusting they would be enough to draw whatever of the crew’s attention might be aimed my direction, I nudged the curtains open just a bit further, craning to see out.

  On the far end of the open plot of gravel that served as a combination driveway/parking lot out front, the vehicle drew closer. Angling to the side, it came to a stop, allowing me to get a full look at the official star stenciled on the side, the lettering announcing it to belong to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department framing it.

  Feeling my chest draw tight, I retreated back a few inches, weighing the admittedly few options I had.

  A few nights before, I had met with a federal marshal and had then boarded a plane to Chicago. These things were verifiable, an ironclad alibi should anybody get twitchy.

  Not only that, I was the sole heir to everything Uncle Jep had, and used to live in the very cabin I was now standing in.

  It would be messy, and take a lot of time and explanation and even a few phone calls to Lipski, but I could wiggle free without being charged with a major crime.

  Even if I would be in endless trouble with WITSEC and immediately have my ass pulled back to Portland.

  Those were all long-term points to be made, though.

  In the short term, I was an armed man stowed away after breaking into an active crime scene.

  My heart rate increasing, I peeked forward another few inches, a woman in uniform with her back to me standing with her hands on her hips, watching as the media van did a k-turn and started in the opposite direction.

  If ever I was going to have a chance to get out, this was it.

  Dropping to my knees, I circled the bed, staying well beneath the eyeline of the window.

  Making it just to the threshold, I rose to my feet, my weight rocked forward, my footfalls as silent as possible as I stole through the living room and back into the kitchen.

  Retracing the path I’d used moments before, I extended just my hand, twisting the knob and easing the door open a couple of inches. Once a gap was wide enough for me to slip through, I ventured a sidestep out, still facing into the home as I cleared the space and pulled the door shut behind me, the door no more than latching before I heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked behind me.

  My heart leaping into my throat, I paused, my hands rising a few inches to either side as I checked the reflection of the glass doors before me, seeing just the silhouette of the same deputy I’d spotted out front a moment before.

  She had me dead to rights, escaping a crime scene, carrying weapons that had never been registered.

  I was dicked, in every way possible.

  “Real slow, drop the bag, put your hands up, and turn to face me.”

  The voice was younger than I expected, the tone exactly as I would have anticipated.

  Holding my left arm at waist height, I let the nylon strap slide from my grasp, the bag landing heavy against the wooden floor.

  Rotating a few inches at a time, I kept my fingers splayed wide, turning to face the woman square.

  For a moment, there was not a word shared, not a single sound made between us, two sides measuring the other, trying to determine how this was going to play out.

  In the next, recognition seemed to hit us both at once, my hands dipping at the same time the front end of her weapon shifted to the side.

  “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “Tim?”

  Nodding only slightly, I said, “Hey, Lou.”

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The front façade of the home was anything but what Deputy Marshal Abby Lipski had expected. Judging by the way Tim Scarberry had fought so hard to secure his one blessed phone call a month, she would have thought it was to some grand Gone with the Wind style plantation home, with thick columns and sweeping meadows surrounding it.

  Once she had found out the number was actually along the coast of Maine, she’d had visions of a Nantucket mansion, the outer edge of the property made from sea cliffs, whitewater spraying against it, a lighthouse visible in the distance.

  Never would she have imagined the small, dilapidated clapboard just outside of Bangor with the sagging front stoop and peeling paint.

  Same for the pair of trucks sitting on blocks in the driveway, weeds poking up through the opened hoods where engines were supposed to have been.

  “Thoughts?” Marshal Les Burrows asked, turning in the front seat to look at her.

  In the rear of the cramped rental was a marshal from the local Maine office, protocol mandating they call and let the locals know when visiting a new jurisdiction.

  A young guy with a square face and a crewcut, Lipski couldn’t help but think he looked young enough to still have acne, his face not even bearing the requisite outline of full facial hair.

  Which, to be fair, was about the same as she would assign if Maine had sent a team into her backyard.

  Beside him in the rear was Jessica Marlucci, the remainder of the contingent they’d brought along staying behind on the plane.

  With any luck, this would be a short stay.

  “Not what I expected,” Lipski said, “but, they never are.”

  Beside her, Burrows grunted in agreement. A moment later, some form of sound she couldn’t quite decipher came from the backseat, the new guy trying entirely too hard to jump into the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Burrows agreed, the word cut off so it sounded closer to yut.

  “Figure, we’ll roll up to the front door,” Lipski said, “give a knock, ask where Tim is.”

  “Just like that?” Burrows asked.

  “Just like that,” Lipski replied. “This a military family, they’ll know when we start flashing badges and threatening sanctions that we mea
n business.

  “If Scarberry isn’t here, they’ll at least be able to tell us where to go next.”

  Without waiting for any further comment – or strange form of animal sound the local marshal seemed to prefer – Lipski exited the car. As she did so, a blast of arctic air swept over her body, flapping the lapels of her jacket, brushing her hair back from her shoulders.

  Much colder than it had been in Portland, she clamped her jaws closed and leaned forward into the stiff breeze. Circling around the front of their SUV, she pushed through a rusted wrought iron gate and walked down a short row of cracked concrete, Burrows hustling into position behind her.

  With wind moving across her body so fast it brought water to her eyes, she kept pushing on, leaning into it, until growing close enough that the body of the house was able to block it out.

  Instantly, the world grew ten degrees warmer, her body practically pitching forward without the invisible hand helping to support her.

  “Damn,” Burrows whispered, earning a nod from Lipski as he fell in beside her, the two of them stepping up the trio of wooden steps onto the porch.

  With each one, the structure moaned, the amount of peeling paint growing worse as they got closer, the smell of something rotten in the air.

  “You want the honors?” Burrows asked as they stopped a few feet from the front door, staying well back from a welcome mat with smears of what looked to be mud and animal feces sprawled across it.

  Not exactly where she would have thought to find Scarberry, but not entirely surprising either, given his occasional descents into being crass.

  At least she knew that there was no way Vic Baxter would have ever tracked him here either.

  Reaching out to ring the doorbell, her finger made it no more than halfway to its destination before the door flew open, stopping her cold.

  Filling the space was a woman that stood a few inches taller than Lipski and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. With tight red curls wrapped around her head, her cheeks glowed rosy, though it was the only thing on her person that gave even the slightest hint of warmth.

  “Don’t you dare ring that bell and wake my baby,” the woman said, her expression and tone making it clear it was non-negotiable. “I just got him down and I am not going through that again.”

  Her eyebrows rising in surprise, Lipski looked to the woman before attempting to see past her into the home, the entirety of the doorway blocked by her girth.

  “Well?” the woman snapped, catching Lipski looking. “Who are ya, what do ya want? I know ya ain’t CPS, cause I passed that last week, and the Mormons know better than to come round here.”

  This time, Lipski’s mouth sagged to match her raised eyebrows as she glanced over to Burrows.

  Of the myriad ways she’d envisioned things playing out, this was far from any she’d expected.

  Reaching to her hip, she extracted her wallet, flipping it open to display her ID and shield.

  “Good morning, my name is Deputy Marshal Lipski, this is Marshal Burrows, U.S. Marshals Service. We’re here about Tim Scarberry.”

  She stopped there, waiting for a flicker of response from the woman, still clinging to hope that their interaction could be quick and painless.

  Judging by the scrunched expression the woman wore, the likelihood of that didn’t seem real high.

  “Who?”

  “Tim Scarberry,” Lipski repeated. “The man that has been calling this number once a month for the past six years.”

  Her face growing more twisted, the woman looked at Lipski as if she had an appendage sprouted from her forehead. “Lady, I don’t even know if Scarberry is a real name. All I know is I’ve never heard it before, and I’ve only lived in this house for a year and a half.”

  Feeling her mouth go dry, Lipski dared a glance to Burrows, a quick flash that was more than enough to see him intently studying the tops of his shoes.

  “How about your husband?” she asked. “Was he in the army? Might keep in touch with somebody from his days in the service?”

  Resting a meaty hand on the doorframe, the woman glanced down, showing them the top of her scalp as she shook her head. “Now I know you two are just here messing with me.”

  Looking up, her face had twisted into something resembling a snarl, her entire visage bright red, as if she might explode at any time.

  “I got no man, let alone a husband. If I did, I sure as shit wouldn’t be living in this house.”

  From behind her, the sound of an infant wailing erupted, jerking the attention of all three to the side.

  “Dammit, now look what you two have done.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  There was no way to know how long the two of us stood there, locked in a surreal sort of standoff, processing what was before us.

  I hadn’t noticed from the bedroom who it was standing on the driveway, only that it was a woman, a braid of dark hair running down her back. Not until I heard her voice, turned to see her face, did it click into place.

  Judging by the look on Lou’s face, it seemed that a similar sort of internal monologue was playing out for her as well.

  I wouldn’t say we were ever close, or even what one might call friends, but we knew who each other was. Growing up in the rural confluence of east Tennessee and the western Carolinas, there were only so many schools to go around.

  You got used to seeing the same faces year after year, of having friends that would date, the sorts of things that often occurred in small-town America.

  Talula Davis was, bar none, the best basketball player I’d ever seen – male or female. When we were kids, she had played on the boy’s teams, a fierce competitor with a chip on her shoulder that didn’t back down from anything.

  That’s where we’d first met, me on the receiving end of a hard foul that left my nose running and my vision blurred, her telling me something about not bringing any weak stuff into her house.

  The next time we played, suffice it to say I more than returned the message.

  “Tim?” she asked again, her face scrunched slightly.

  “Uh,” I said, using my chin to gesture toward the weapon still gripped in her hand. “You mind lowering that thing?”

  Glancing down, a look of apology came over her features as she dropped the front end of the gun, tracking it toward her hip.

  “Oh, right, sorry.”

  With my hands still raised, I wagged them in unison before dropping them to my side.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’d do the same if the situation was reversed.”

  Those seem to be the words she needed to hear, the shock of the initial encounter wearing off. Shaking her head, her features cleared, the deputy in her rushing back to the fore.

  “Yeah, what are you doing here?”

  Drawing in a breath, I let my chest expand, my shoulders rising, before slowly exhaling.

  “It’s a long, long story.”

  “Does it start with the part about you’re supposed to be dead?”

  Letting the top of my head dip to either side, I said, “Yeah, we can start there if you’d like.”

  Making a face, the underlying meaning not quite discernible, she asked, “Does it include explaining why the hell you’re breaking into my crime scene?”

  Nothing she was asking was wrong. Again, if in her position, I’d be firing off the same exact questions.

  Still, it didn’t mean I was quite wanting to get into things at the moment, not without yet knowing where Uncle Jep was, not while having the aching suspicion that we were being watched, even in that moment.

  “Okay,” I said, “I know how this must appear. All of it.”

  “Like a shit show on steroids,” Lou replied.

  “Like a shit show on steroids,” I repeated, having never heard such an expression before, but having no need to reinvent the wheel. “But before we get into any of that, let me ask you a couple of questions.”

  All of the initial shock, the surprise of seeing me standing b
efore her, seemed to melt away, taking with it any wiggle room I might have. In its place was a look of steely resolve, Lou reaching to her hip and tapping at the butt of her weapon.

  “I know you’ve been gone a while, but the way it works here is the one with the badge and weapon does the interrogating.”

  “I know,” I said, my mind working fast, pushing everything I had before me into order, “I know. And I’m not trying to pull one past you, I swear I’m trying my best to answer your question.”

  The glare remained in place as Lou rolled the top of her head from one side to the other, peering at me.

  “You better start making sense-“

  “Jessup Lynch,” I said, spitting the name out before she was even done administering her threat, knowing where it was going, just as sure that I had no interest in hearing it through.

  “What?” Lou replied, her features falling blank as she stared at me, her hand again rotating back toward her hip.

  “He’s my uncle,” I said. Flicking my head back toward the cabin behind me, I added, “And this was my house growing up.”

  Hitting her with so much information at once was probably unfair, a diversion to get her off balance, to make her think on the fly.

  At the same time, it seemed to have worked, a host of thoughts and emotions playing out across her features.

  “Get inside,” she eventually managed. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Forty

  Walking directly back into the house wasn’t a good option, for a variety of reasons, but that didn’t stop us from doing just that.

  Standing on the back deck, open to anybody that might happen past, sunrise just minutes from arrival, was not a place either one of us wanted to be. Not in general, and certainly not with the media having pulled out moments before, with the very real possibility of them returning soon.

  Going to Lou’s Bronco would have been a risky play for me, could end up getting her fired, so that was scratched off the list as well.

  In their stead, the only feasible thing was doing something that neither one of us wanted to, and that was heading back inside.