JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  %225 We stepped into a brightly lit room, very woodsy and warm, which looked like something torn out of an Aspen real estate brochurebright ponchos on natural wood walls, beige wool u~holslered ~rrnchairs and a sofa, a thick hand-woven rug in front of the fireplace, a huge slab of polished maple as a coffee table. There were watercolors hanging about, a couple of wooden duck decoys on the mantle, odd pieces of quaint metal farming tools propped about as decorations. The air was filled with soft classical music.

  “Is this the cutting edge of anti-materialism?” I asked. “Please, no polemics. Have a seat.” He gestured to the various seats.

  “Electricity too?” He settled into an armchair opposite us and crossed his legs. He looked only at me. “What do you want?” I glanced at Spinney, who merely nodded. I was to kick off. “A few more questions.”

  “I’ve already answered your questions.” He was definitely more peevish than before, his polished, urbane patina worn down by current events-a good sign, I hoped.

  “More have come up.” “I’m afraid that’s your problem.” “Not really.

  You’re in very hot water.” “It can’t be too hot, or you would have arrested me for something.” “There are seven dead bodies out there, all of which have ties to you and the Natural Order. I wouldn’t be too optimistic, if I were you, or so cocky.” “I have broken no laws.” “We have evidence that suggests otherwise,” Spinney murmured gently.

  “You know one of the things that threw me oIl?” I asked, to stop him from asking us to produce Spinney’s “evidence.” “It was why you were being so coy. If Julie killed her father, why didn’t you just hand her over? You said your opposition was philosophical, but it’s been forcing us to chip away and chip away, looking for a way to crack your whole organization wide open. She couldn’t have meant that much to you.

  Besides, you’ve cooperated in the past. You helped the State Police when that child went over the bridge, and you supplied the identifications to the five people who died in the fire.” Sarris sighed. “I apologize for making you tax your brains unnecessarily. I’m not sure I understand why you choose to continue doing so here and now.”

  Spinney spoke up again. “We want you to understand your posi %226 tion.

  Picture yourself on top of a mountain, with all of us climbing up in order to nail your hide. Each time we establish another fact, we take another step in your direction, and you’ve got nowhere to go-you’re stuck where you are.” Somewhere, in the back of my brain, a bell was beginning to sound.

  “I’ve committed no crime,” Sarris repeated. I was lost in my thoughts, digging furiously through a mental index file, trying to match two separate pieces of information.

  Spinney kept going. “That’s not true. Julie, for instance. Now there’s one hot potato. As soon as we get our hands on her, your world is going to fall apart. But even if you’ve buried her in some ditch, and we never get to lay a legal hand on you, you’re still out of business. Because what we can’t do to you, the bad publicity will.” He hunched forward in his chair, warming to his task. “This is no Island Pond. We’re the good guys this time. Have you been reading the papers?” Spinney looked at him impassively. “Not good. Questions are being floated about your being the next Jim Jones. In fact, there was an editorial this morning that suggested we ought to close you down right now to protect the people under your thumb. In fact, your only chance of survival is if you start cooperating with us.” I stood up, the adrenaline pumping, a previously negligible tidbit of information suddenly large in the front of my mind. That I was about to pull the rug out from under Spinney was of little consequence at that moment, and I was convinced that in the long run, Spinney would agree with me. I made a lame attempt to end the interview with the upper hand by fixing Sarris with a stern eye and saying, “Think about it-if you meet us halfway, you might be able to salvage something.” Spinney looked at me, his mouth half open in stunned surprise. He struggled quickly to his feet so as not to look completely left out.

  I led the way to the door. ‘We’ll show ourselves out.” Spinney waited until we’d both gotten into the car. “What the hell was that all about?

  I hadn’t even started with him. He must think we’re out of our minds.”

  For the first time since we’d met, Spinney was truly upset.

  “You can sweat him later, and you can pat yourself on the back now.”

  “Why?” His voice was incredulous.

  “Your flowery images do you justice.” I turned on the wipers to brush the snow off the windshield. “The hypothesis so far is that the guy who killed Wingate wouldn’t have killed Rennie because he’d framed Rennie for Wingate’s murder in the first place.” %227 “So?” “What do we know about Rennie’s killer?” Spinney pursed his lips, still mentally switching gears. “He’s a woodsman, or at least an outdoorsman, good at tracking, good at keeping quiet.” “And athletic-probably slim and fit.”

  “Okay.” “I think I’ve seen him before.” With no cars parked out front, Nadine’s house looked abandoned. Spinney and I walked up the long ramp to the front door and pressed the buzzer.

  The snow had stopped as abruptly as it had begun, leaving the entire countryside blanketed in a thick, white, sound-absorbing shroud.

  We waited a long time before the door opened. Nadine looked up at us from her wheelchair and gave us the ghost of a smile. “Hi, Joe.” “Sorry to bother you, Nadine. Are we interrupting anything?” “Just television.” “We can come back.” That was diplomatic; I had no intention of leaving.

  She retreated a little from the threshold. “No, please. Come in.” We entered the house, closing the door behind us. I was again startled at how good the air smelled in here, especially in contrast to the Beirut-like front yard. “This is Lester Spinney. He was here earlier.”

  Spinney bent over and shook her hand. “I apologize for not introducing myself then. We tend to lose our manners sometimes. I’m sorry about your husband.” She nodded and let her eyes drop to her lap. We were still standing at the door-the high, tinny sound of a television came from somewhere down the hall.

  “We were wondering if we could ask you some questions,” I said. “Of course.” She still didn’t move or look up. Her voice was just above a whisper.

  “How about over here?” I gestured to a living-room gathering of armchairs and a sofa near the large window I’d sat at before.

  She raised her head then, embarrassed. “Of course, I’m sorry. Turn on some lights.” She wheeled over to one of the lamps and switched it on.

  I did the same with another, shoving back the gloom of the overcast day outside. Spinney and I settled on the sofa, facing her.

  “How’re you holding up?” I asked.

  %228 “All right, I guess. I daydream a lot. It’s hard being interested in anything. Buster’s a help.” “He’s been coming over a lot?” “Oh, yes.” She smiled that smile again. “I’ve had to throw him out a couple of times.” “He’s very fond of you-I know that.” I was aware of Spinney staring at me, wondering why I had made a total fool out of him in front of Sarris so that we could both come chat with Nadine about my uncle.

  Nadine got a soft look in her eyes. “Buster’s like a surrogate father.

  My own father was aloof and judgmental-he’s dead now. But when he was alive, Buster would come over to drink and play cards. On the surface, that made him Dad’s friend, but I always had the feeling that Dad wasn’t the reason Buster came over at all. I think he did it for us, to see how we were doing.” “He had reason to be concerned?” It was an open question, possibly innocent, but we all knew what I meant, and Nadine didn’t duck the darker connotation, even while a faint smile played on her lips, an homage to lost innocence. “Looking back, I think he did.

  Earle and I didn’t know it, though; life was what was handed out to you.

  Dad yelled a lot, sometimes he’d give me the back of his hand. Earle usually caught worse. I never understood what fueled Dad’s rages, but he never let up. Buster
knew what was going on he became our guardian angel.” She chuckled briefly. “Buster’s no saint, of course. He talks too much and drinks too much, and I would guess he’s a terrible businessman, at least that’s what Rennie always said.

  But he was a godsend to us.” “How did Buster and Rennie get along?” I had to go slowly here, despite Spinney’s growing restlessness. What I wanted from Nadine had to come naturally; I didn’t want her to later blame herself for what her information would help me to do. “It’s funny you should ask… I think Buster looked at Rennie like a son who’d never measured up. That always made me sad, because they were the two men I loved most. They both had very good qualities that I could see, but which they couldn’t see in each other. Still, there must have been something good between them, or they wouldn’t have spent so much time together. Maybe their problems had to do with competition.” “What about Earle?” I asked, finally getting to where I wanted to be.

  “How did he get along with Buster and Rennie?” “He and Buster got along to a point. I think he appreciated that when Buster was here, Dad left him alone. But after Buster left, and %229 Dad would start bad-mouthing him-just like he did everybody-Earle would go along, like a backup singer. Somehow the bad-mouthing kind of stuck, like some oil that won’t wash off.” “And Rennie?” There was a pause at that. Nadine had her head bent, apparently looking at her hands. Only after a few moments did I notice her shoulders gently shaking as she wept.

  “I’m sorry, Nadine. Maybe we should go.” I still didn’t mean it. By now, the stimulus that had put me in front of her was strong enough that I was prepared to be ruthless in its pursuit. She raised her head then and reached out to touch my knee, possibly sensing my dilemma. “It’s your job, Joey. It can’t be any worse than what I’ve just been through.” I took hold of her fingers and gave them a squeeze, looking into her tear-stained face. Her gesture allowed me to be more sincere with my regret. “I wish I could be more like Buster and help you, instead of adding to your troubles.” She shook her head and smiled weakly. “One Buster is enough.” I was impressed and touched by her strength. When we’d first met, when suspicion on Rennie verged on conviction, she’d struck me almost as a lost child, caught in her chair, swept aside by events. She’d spoken in a whisper, struggled morally to stand by her man, and had backed up his Wednesday night alibi. But during the course of this conversation, I’d totally changed my view of her. What I had thought was a fear of the unknown had now proven to be a firm grasp on reality: Her husband was dead, she was on her own, and she had the ability and the emotional wherewithal to deal with that.

  She took a deep breath. “What did Earle think of Rennie? He hated him.

  It was an irrational kind of thing, the kind of thing my father would do.” “Why the hatred?” She looked like someone trying to move a huge weight out of the way. She gave that sad smile and tapped the arm of her chair. “This had a lot to do with it-and those Wednesday nights.” I was stunned.

  “You knew what Rennie was up to?” She pursed her lips but her voice was steady. “I had my suspicions. It made me unhappy, but I didn’t blame him.

  “We hadn’t had much of a physical relationship since this.” She touched the chair. “And he was a very physical man. I knew he’d replace what we had with someone else, and I appreciated that he tried to spare my feelings.” I crossed the room to the picture of Earle I’d noticed days earlier, %230 the one of him with a looped bandolier of climbing ropes.

  “And Earle found out about Rennie’s infidelity?” She shook her head in frustration. “Nobody understood what Rennie and I had. They all thought he was a crude, short-tempered womanizer, and that I was a fool for putting up with him. Earle used to go on and on about him, telling me I deserved everything I got for hanging on. The funny thing was, I agreed with him. I did deserve Rennie, just as he deserved me. What people chose to see as major problems were nothing to us-little glitches, as we saw it. We loved each other. He didn’t change after the accident; people’s view of me did. Just because I was in this chair, people thought he was supposed to become a whole different person. Well, he didn’t and I loved him for that. The fact that life’s disappointments wore him down a bit, and that we no longer had in bed what we once had was our business, and we’d come to terms with it. I love Buster but he looks at me as a cripple. Rennie never did that, and to me that was worth putting up with a lot.” It was an eloquent and suitable note to end on, but I had one question remaining. I noticed Spinney was now sitting on the edge of his chair, watching us carefully.

  “What did you mean when you said your wheelchair had a lot to do with Earle hating Rennie?” Nadine took a deep breath and then lifted her eyes to meet mine. “Rennie pushed me down the stairs. It was an accident. He was drunk, didn’t know what he was doing. But Earle never forgave him.” “I never heard Rennie pushed you,” I said. “Word had it you just fell.” “Small town, Joe, you keep things like that to yourself.

  Even Earle did, which always surprised me. I didn’t think he had it in him.” I stood up abruptly, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Maybe he had his reasons.” Nadine had said we couldn’t miss it, a single rectangular building, alone among the trees, the only house within a ten-square-mile area, at the end of a rutted, dead-end track in the woods. I stopped the car about a hundred yards away, watching for signs of life.

  “No smoke from the chimney,” Spinney said. It was a one-story rectangle with one of the narrow walls facing us. We could see a door, with a small window on either side.

  “He could have a bead on us right now.” Spinney scanned the trees all around. They were packed so close together that even without their leaves, they cut what feeble daylight there was in half.

  He took his shotgun from the backseat of the car.

  %231 “Think we ought to call in the troops?” He chambered a shell and looked at the house again. “We don’t even know he’s in there. I did tell ‘em where we were headed.” We got out at the same time and stood silently for a while on either side of the car, listening. The trees and ground were heavy with undisturbed snow, including around the front door of the house. It was so cold the snow creaked underfoot when we finally began to walk forward. The cold steel of my service revolver caused my bare hand to ache slightly. We kept about fifteen feet apart until we reached the wall. Then, ducking under the windows, we reconvened on either side of the door. Spinney shifted his shotgun and pointed at the door frame.

  There was a slight gap-the door was slightly open.

  I reached out and pushed inward. The door swung back without a sound.

  “Earle? This is the police. We want to talk to you.” Nothing. We strained to hear anything beyond the occasional groaning of a tree and the isolated scurrying of an invisible woods animal.

  Spinney cautiously poked his head around the corner, his features etched in nervous strain. Then, slowly, gaining confidence from what he saw, or didn’t see, he nodded to me and made his move, gliding around the edge of the door and to the left, as I did the same to the right.

  We both ended up in a kitchen, crouched against the wall, our guns pointed at an empty room with an open doorway opposite. The place was as cold as the outside. On the floor before us lay a short jumble of climbing rope, an Army-type web belt with various pouches, and an empty scabbard. Next to it was an enormous bowie knife. The knife lay slightly to one side, as if thrown there, its otherwise gleaming blade tarnished with smears of dried blood.

  We crossed the kitchen to the other door and looked in. The curtains were drawn across the windows, but enough light filtered through to reveal a small, messy living room with an assortment of cast-off furniture and a short, dark hallway beyond. Now well inside the tiny house, we were cut off from even the rare sounds of the frigid forest.

  Spinney and I looked nervously at each other. As before, we split to either side and crossed the room to the cavelike opening of the narrow hall.

  Keeping our bodies out of sight, we craned our necks to see what lay a
head. The darkness was virtually total, a corridor leading to an absolute black void.

  %232 I shut my eyes briefly and then reopened them. What lay ahead was not entirely blacked out; there was something there. I could sense from Spinney’s sudden stiffening that he’d seen the same thing. In the midst of the gloom, barely visible, there was a single tiny red point of light-the tip of a burning cigarette.

  “Earle, this is the police. Come on out with your hands up.” Nothing, not a sound nor a movement.

  Spinney began to back toward the front of the building. “This stinks.

  I’m calling for backup. I’ll bring back a flashlight, too. Wait here.”

  I nodded my approval. Not to have asked for backup earlier had been a judgment call, one on which we’d both agreed. Now, there was no alternative. Christ only knew what Earle had waiting for us in that bedroom.

  I stared long and hard at the small point of light. “Come on, Earle, give it up. This is stupid.” Again, no sound and no movement. And no brains, I thought suddenly. I grabbed a pillow off the couch beside me and tossed it like a Frisbee into the bedroom, directly at the cigarette. I missed, but not by much, and still the tiny red glow didn’t move a hair.

  “Shit we’ve.been had.” I still didn’t dare enter the bedroom; he might be standing in the corner, waiting for one of us to do just that, but I was also afraid for Spinney. If the cigarette had been a lure, it might have been rigged precisely to split us up.

  I ran back to the kitchen and looked out the window toward Spinney’s car. I was just in time to see him being handcuffed to the doorframe by a thinner, dirtier version of the man in Nadine’s photograph. As I watched, the man began returning to the house.

  He was about one hundred yards away, a distance he would take cautiously since he didn’t know whether I was still standing by the bedroom door, or waiting to blow him away. I didn’t want to kill him, but I thought about putting him in my sights and telling him to drop the rifle he was carrying. But Spinney was directly in my line of fire. If I had to shoot, my bullet could pass right through Earle and hit Spinney. I retreated toward the bedroom, scooping the rope off the kitchen floor as I went.