As I followed them, I walked back and forth several times, finally coming to a stop beneath our window. Based on the length and depth of imprint, they were too big to be Maggie's and-I placed my bare foot inside the outline-too wide to be mine. I knelt, crawled around, and looked more closely. They couldn't be Amos's, because these had a defined arch and Amos was flat-footed. Maggie had been back here yesterday afternoon to turn on the faucet, but these prints covered hers.
All this told me two things: I didn't know what Peeping Tom had made these prints, and they had been made sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning. I looked over to the porch where Amos and I had talked, just ten feet away, and felt cold.
THE PHONE RANG AND BROUGHT ME OFF MY KNEES. I poked my head above the azalea tops and listened. It rang a second time. Chances were good that a phone call this early had to be Caglestock. He rarely slept-one of the self-inflicted disciplines of managing Bryce's millions. "Hello?"
"Dylan, it's John." He sounded as if he'd been up awhile, and based on the speed with which he spoke, as if he'd already consumed a pot of coffee.
"Morning to you. How're things?"
"Good. Thanks for getting us those documents." Caglestock paused. "Hey, Dylan, how much do you know of Bryce's past? I mean, how much do you really know?"
I considered his question. "Ummm, only what you and he have told me. Really, just the highlights. Bryce plays his cards pretty close to his chest."
John stalled. "Help me with that one."
"He only tells you what he wants you to know, or doesn't bother you with what he thinks you might not be interested in."
"That's my experience too. Which got me to thinking. We've done some digging, asked a few questions, and I wondered if you could come have lunch with us. Can you do that?"
"Sure. When?"
"Today." His tone had changed.
"Everything all right, John?"
"Don't know, but it'd be good if you were here. Still no word from Bryce."
I hung up the phone to the sound of Blue licking my toes and Maggie walking down the hall, covered in sleep. Her weight made the boards creak, and her calloused heels scuffed the bare floors. She walked up and leaned against me-sign language for "Good morning. Love you. I need a hug." Her hair was sticking in fifty different directions and floating on static electricity. If I hadn't known her, she might have scared me.
I hugged her, thought how warm she was, how soft her breasts felt and yet how firm her back had become, and finally, how perfectly she fit in the space between my shoulders.
"Who was that?" she mumbled.
"Caglestock. Wants me to have lunch with him."
She nodded, pulled the OJ from the fridge, and drank straight out of the jug. Then she pulled the bread out of the hamper, made two PB&Js, began eating one, and simultaneously started scrambling some eggs. While spreading cheese over the eggs, she ate the other sandwich. Every few seconds she'd take another swig from the OJ jug.
I leaned against the counter, hovering over my coffee mug and watching. Maggs wasn't entirely awake yet, but in the last week or so, her appetite had become voracious. If something was edible and wasn't nailed down, she'd eat it.
When the eggs were fluffy, hot, and steaming, she ate them-directly off the skillet. She stood over the sink, scooped up a forkful, and blew across it. Not waiting long enough for it to cool off, she bit down, then stood with her mouth open trying to blow out the hot air. When she bit into a bite that was still too hot, she'd dance around a little like someone who'd swallowed a jalapeno.
Her short cotton nightgown fell an inch or so below the fold where her thighs met her bottom. Her long legs had begun to tan in the sun, and every day I marveled at the transformation. Her dance continued for several minutes while she polished off the eggs. After she'd cleaned the skillet, she peeled a banana and ate it in three bites. She washed that down with another swig and then stood holding the fridge door open.
She shook her head. "I need to get to the grocery store. There's nothing to eat here."
I raised an eyebrow and blew steam off my cup. "Tell me about it."
Eyeing the newspaper on the table, she pulled out ajar of pickles, sat down, and began reading the front page and fingering pickles into her mouth. She ate like a chain-smoker.
I tried not to laugh. "Honey, you want me to get you something to dip those in?"
She was reading the headlines and didn't pay me much attention. She shook her head, shoved another pickle into her mouth, and didn't look up. "No thanks."
I shook my head, kissed her on the cheek, and walked to the shower.
When I got out, I heard two women giggling and talking. The hyena laugh mixed with the muted snicker told me all I needed to know. I poked my head around the corner and saw Maggs and Amanda arm in arm, tears streaming down their faces, sitting on the floor of the den with a pint of Haagen- Dazs between them. Each was armed with a spoon and a handful of Kleenex.
"You girls okay?"
Amanda worked her spoon into the hard frozen ice cream and spoke over her shoulder. "Hey, Professor."
Despite the many changes in our lives and the multiple times I'd told her otherwise, Amanda just couldn't get past calling me Professor. By now, it had become a term of endearment.
"Hey, Amanda. How're things?"
"Good," she said, stuffing a spoonful into her mouth.
Maggs swallowed and pointed a loaded spoon at me. "You and Mr. Clean better get ready, 'cause dirty diapers don't change themselves."
I dressed, lifted our bedroom window, and, looking over my shoulder, quickly and quietly slid the long-barreled shotgun out and leaned it against the house. Blue looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
Then I kissed Maggs, who'd decided to stay and talk children with Amanda, and waved to them both as I slipped out the back door. They had finished off the ice cream and were now standing in the nursery talking about window treatments. I walked around the house, grabbed the shotgun, slid it along the floorboard behind the backseat of my van, and idled out of the drive.
The air had turned hot, reminding me of things I missed. I turned off the AC, rolled down the windows, sped up, and remembered things I loved. The scanner sat beside me on the seat, crackling with numbers and codes that I was slowly learning to translate.
With sweat soaking through the back of my shirt, I drove the long way to town. It was Monday, Pastor John's day off, but when I drove by the church, his Cadillac was parked by itself around back. I looked in my rearview, saw nothing, and kept driving. A few more back roads and I drove by Bryce's locked gate. The chain and lock were still shiny with that just-off-theshelf look. In the last year, confederate jasmine had grown across the gate and was now thick with fresh green leaves. It blocked any sight beyond the gate.
I drove by, felt the tug, and realized how much I missed seeing Bryce. I missed his deep, resonating brogue, his unshaven face, his reddish hair, his fat, burly chest, and our one-sided conversations that I seldom made sense of. I missed the sound of his pipes, his emerald green eyes, the taste of a cold beer shared in a Styrofoam cup. And, I'll admit, I even missed the comical look of him in a kilt or next to nothing at all.
Bryce was his own person, and to his credit, he didn't care what the world thought. There were times when I admired him for that. I didn't have time to stop then, but I told myself I would on the way back.
Lorraine met me at the door and led me to the conference room, where Caglestock introduced me to a man decked out in military dress and covered in medals.
"Dylan, this is Colonel Max Bates. He works in the Pentagon."
Colonel Bates wore a beret and a face that told me he'd seen more than his share of barrels pointed in his direction. He was in his midfifties and erect with a lifetime of military discipline. It seemed hardwired into his DNA.
The colonel extended his hand and nodded. "Dr. Styles, good to meet you. John's told me about your friendship with Sergeant McGregor."
I shook his hand.
"Yes, sir, Bryce is ... well, he's someone I consider a friend, as much as Bryce is friends with anybody."
While we ate, Caglestock retold Colonel Bates of my friendship and working relationship with Bryce-how I handled his funds, how Bryce had given me power of attorney over most of his affairs, and how I tried to check in on him regularly.
The colonel listened, ate, and seemed to make mental notes. When Lorraine delivered a plate of chocolate chip cookies, Caglestock turned the conservation over to Colonel Bates, saying, "Max, I think it'd be helpful if you'd tell Dylan, tell us both, what you know about Bryce."
Colonel Bates swallowed, sat back, and thought for a moment. Finally he spoke. "Much of Sergeant McGregor's record is confidential. Top secret. Not even I, as his commanding officer, have enough clearance to read it, but since I saw most of it personally . . ." He shrugged and then shook his head. "When it comes to the psychological exams and reports, I won't have much for you." He picked a strawberry off the side of the cookie plate and ate it.
"Bryce Kai McGregor joined the Marines in 1970 for reasons I never did understand. Back then, he looked a lot like you. Clean-cut, full of life, innocent to an extent." Bates swiveled in his seat. "Maybe he was trying to earn his inheritance-I've seen it before. Rich kids wrestling with how to handle Daddy's money. We put him through the ropes, trying to get rid of him before he got himself killed, and he proved us wrong. The harder we made it, the better he did. It was like the kid had never been tested and had been waiting his whole life to be discovered. We laid him out at the range on the thousand-yard targets, and he dropped a few jaws. The kid could shoot like nothing I'd seen before or since. Boy had a gift." He paused, scratched his nose, and said, "And sometimes I wished I'd never discovered it."
He swiveled again. "Fast-forward a few years. Bryce, or Scotty, as he became known, was leading an elite team of specialists. Kind of like the Green Berets or Rangers, but more like what we now call the Delta Force. We didn't really give them a name, but we sent them any- and everywhere. Before Vietnam got so ugly, they'd been on missions all over the globe. And just as he did in training, the worse the conditions and the more impossible the mission, the more Bryce excelled. Fast-forward again to Vietnam, 1975, right at the end."
He paused again and chose his words carefully. "We had inserted Bryce and his team of eight in a place from which they were not expected to return. We told them that, we explained to them the value of the target, and we gave them the choice. They voted-unanimous. They were just like that." Bates teared up and shook it off. "For several reasons we lost radio contact. At the rendezvous, Bryce and his team never showed."
"Do you know what happened?"
He nodded. "I do-but that information is found in that part of the file I can't talk about." He folded his hands. "This is what I can tell you. Five months later, some three months after the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam, I got a phone call. Three minutes later, I went straight to the top, we sent in two planes, extracted him, and brought the boy home-alone."
Bates took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. "I wished to God I'd never sent that kid in there. Of all of them, I should've . . . I knew he'd never leave a man behind. No matter the orders." He sat back, refolded his handkerchief, and stared out the window. "If you read the whitewashed version of his record, you'll find a highly decorated veteran who was and is missed by his country. If you read the version you can't read, you'll find a one-man killing machine, who's killed God only knows how many people, and who, in the end, saw and had to do things that few men in history have ever been asked to do."
Silence spread across the room as the picture of Bryce, passed out on his lawn chair before a John Wayne movie, flashed before me.
Bates continued, his voice falling slightly. "We tried to rehabilitate him. Tried therapy, drugs, electroshock, you name it. Anything we thought would help, we offered. Finally he left to face his demons alone. I guess he's been facing them ever since."
"You make him sound like Rambo."
"I wish it were that simple."
Caglestock spoke up. "Would you describe him as having post-traumatic stress disorder?"
Bates tilted his head and shook it. "If that were the extent of Bryce's problem, I'd be jumping up and down. The military can handle that. Bryce could too."
"If there's been a change in Bryce, why now?"
"If I knew the answer to that, I'd get my own talk show. In my experience, men like Bryce are ticking time bombs. Some just take longer than others to go off."
I didn't know what to say.
Bates looked at me. "I can see it on your face, so let me spell it out. Bryce can kill you or any other human a thousand different ways with his thumb. Give him this pencil, and he can kill you from the other end of the room. Give him a weapon, and, well ... if Bryce cracks or has already cracked, as we've seen in a few others just like him, I don't think you're safe going up to his place." He waited while the gravity of his words settled in. "Actually, nobody within hiking distance is safe."
"What's hiking distance?"
He sucked through his teeth and calculated. "Bryce has covered a hundred miles without sleeping."
"What do you intend to do?"
He shook his head. "I can't tell you that. But if he contacts you, you'd do well to keep your distance. And under no circumstances should you take your wife or any other female up there."
"Why? I mean, what's the-"
He held out his hand like a stop sign. "If he's in the state I suspect he's in, the sight of a female might trigger some things you don't want to trigger." He sat back and placed both hands on his thighs as though he were ready to leave. "I've said enough." He stood and extended his hand. "I thank you for all you've done."
I nodded and shook his hand, and Colonel Bates walked out to the click of hard heels on tile floor. Caglestock led him to the door, said a few words in hushed tones, and then returned to the conference table, shutting the door behind him.
John took a deep breath as if he were still trying to digest the story. He poured us each a cup of ice water and sat back down. "What do you think we ought to do?"
I didn't hesitate. "I have no doubt that Bryce can kill me a hundred different ways from Sunday, but I'm leaving here, making one stop, and then going by to check on him."
Caglestock nodded. "You want me to go with you?"
I shook my head. "No. No offense, but I think I'd better go alone."
He nodded. "Call me if you run into him."
I stood to leave. "And if I find him, and call you, are you going to call him?"
I nodded out the window at Bates's car backing out of the parking lot.
Caglestock followed the red taillights with his eyes. "I don't know." He shook his head. "I don't know."
I DROVE THROUGH AN OLDER SECTION OF WALTERBORO AND passed the hardware store where Papa had bought me the Model 69 so many years ago. I parked along the street, grabbed Papa's Model 12 shotgun, slid the chamber slide open so that it not only was unloaded but also looked unloaded, and walked into the store-barrel down.
This would have seemed abnormal except that I carried it in my left hand, and folks were always carrying weapons in here. Vince, a crusty Korean War veteran and one of the best gunsmiths in South Carolina, worked here three days a week. Guys came from all over the South just to pass him their valuables across the countertop and hire his magic touch.
Vince had been working on firearms since the military taught him how in Korea. He could and would work on most anything, but he was partial to fine custom shotguns and double rifles. He also did all the custom work for most of the police and SWAT teams in two or three of the surrounding states. He and Amos were on a first-name basis, and because of that, so were he and I.
In the far corner of the store, the gun counter was usually dotted with men leaning against it like a bar. Mostly they talked about guns they wanted, or if they got tired of that, they talked about guns they had-which only led them back to ones they wanted.
Vince seldom responded or initiated the conversation. He just nodded, lit another cigarette, and stared out the window of the store.
I walked up to the counter. "Hey, Vince."
"Dylan." He eyed the Model 12, and I passed it across the counter.
Vince, hanging the cigarette from his lip, took the shotgun and started looking it over. He worked the action, eyed the receiver, clicked the safety back and forth, slowly cracked the trigger, and then slid the action open once again. He said nothing, but the smile on his face told me he liked the feel of a fifty-year-old shotgun, and his eyes asked, Can I help you?
I looked over both shoulders and leaned closer. "I, uh ... I think I want to change the choke on that."
The choke of a shotgun does just what it sounds like. It chokes the flow of shot. Think of a brass hose nozzle with a twist stream. Squeezing it down makes for a tighter stream. Opening it wide makes for a spray. What I handed Vince was a squeezeddown stream. What I'd come to get was a wide-open stream.
There was only one way to get this. I knew this, Vince knew this, and he knew that I knew this.
He eyed the tip of the thirty-inch barrel. "It's full now." He moved the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. "With this barrel, even screw-in chokes won't make much of a difference."
Screw-in chokes were a development in late-model shotguns that allowed a shooter with a fixed barrel, or one shotgun, to screw in varying chokes to suit his or her hunting needs. The determining factor was the distance to be shot. In short, quail and skeet, usually close-in game, required a "skeet" or "improved cylinder" choke. Doves, a bit farther out, required more of an improved cylinder, while geese and turkey, sometimes shot from as far as forty or fifty yards, required a "full" choke.
I looked over my shoulder again and wrestled with what I wanted to say.
Vince read my face and asked, "You thinking about opening day of dove season?"
I shook my head.
He eyed the shotgun again. He knew no one in their right mind shot quail with a twelve-gauge, so he asked, "You taking up skeet shooting?"
(2008) Down Where My Love Lives Page 32
