JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  I quickly pulled back the blanket Earle had rigged across the open window, flooding the place with light. Taped to the iron bed’s headboard, facing the door, was a barely smoldering cigarette. Without pausing to admire the man’s style, I quickly tied one end of the rope around the leg of a side table and passed the rest of it out the window.

  Then, poking my head outside to see if the coast was clear, I sat on the %233 windowsill, swung my legs out silently, and let the curtain drop closed behind me.

  Without a sound, my gun in one hand and the end of the rope in the other, I moved along the wall, below the windows, until I was just shy of the front corner of the house. Just a few yards away, around that corner, I heard Earle quietly open the front door. I pulled gently on the rope. Barely audibly, I heard a scraping sound come from the back of the house. I counted to three, and looked quickly around the corner.

  Earle was gone and Spinney was still at the car, his eyes fixed on me.

  With the rope still in hand, I scurried to the door and very carefully looked in. Earle was in the kitchen, crouching by the living room entrance. Again, I pulled on the rope. He tensed and levelled the rifle toward the rear of the building, turning his back to me completely.

  Using the doorframe as cover, I pointed my gun at him and spoke softly.

  “Don’t move, Earle-not a muscle.” There was that inevitable slow count of three, that endless moment in which fateful decisions are made between life and death. I wasn’t sure of Earle. I didn’t even know the man. He’d had a hard life, had his brains twisted around by the very person who should have lent him guidance, and he’d finally given in to the ultimate act of violence. I was fully expecting him to turn that rifle on me to put his misery forever behind him.

  But he didn’t. He laid it on the ground beside him and placed his hands on top of his head. He was smiling when he turned around. “How the hell… ?” I showed him the rope and pulled it. The table moved a bit in the dark beyond him. “Lie down on the floor-hands behind your neck and ankles crossed.” He did as he was told and I put my handcuffs on him. “I didn’t expect your buddy to come out so fast. I was going to nail both of you inside.” His voice was utterly calm, as if he were sorting out the details of some minor housekeeping mishap. I decided to take advantage of what might be just a temporary state of mind.

  “Why’d you kill Rennie?” He snorted. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that.” “Why now?” “Dumb luck. I saw him pull into Lemon Road when I was coming down Radar. I was feeling bad, thought a drive might clear my head. It sure did. I saw him, followed him, watched him rig a meeting with those fruitcake bastards, waited ‘til they left, and then I cut him open.

  %234 I’ve wanted to do that for more years than I can remember. It felt great. You should have seen him go.” I watched him lying on his stomach, his cheek pressed against the cold wood floor, a smile on his face. Now I knew why he hadn’t challenged me-the life had already gone out of him. He didn’t give a damn anymore.

  “The fruitcake bastards was one of them Edward Sarris?” He cocked an eye at me, surprised. “Him and some girl. You got all the answers, don’t you?” Didn’t I wish. “I’m getting there.” Hamilton stopped the car halfway up the hill and watched Sarris’s building. Most of it was dark, with only the windows to the far left brightly lit.

  “Looks like somebody’s still at home,” Spinney murmured. “Son of a bitch never leaves the place,” Smith said. I looked at Smith out of the corner of my eye. For the first time, I sensed a small bounce to his voice. And earlier, while Spinney and I were being debriefed on the Earle Renaud bust, I’d felt somehow that the rigidity with which he’d addressed me from the start had melted a couple of degrees. It was nothing measurable, but it was more than my wishful thinking. For some reason, I’d finally been elevated from being a mere 5A investigator and a thorn in Smith’s side. It shouldn’t have mattered to me one way or the other, but I was pleased nevertheless. It justified the number of times I’d resisted simply writing the man off, as I always sensed Spinney had, perhaps to his own loss. We continued up the hill, drove around the edge of the building, and parked next to the Cherokee with the “ORDER” license plate. It was only six at night, but already pitch-dark. Sarris answered our knock with a flashlight in his hand. He led us without uttering a word through the gigantic gloominess of the meeting room to his private inner sanctuary. Hamilton and Smith had never been in that part of the building before, and were obviously surprised by its Greenwich, Connecticut gloss.

  Sarris seemed totally distracted, which made me wonder what might have happened during the few hours since Spinney and I had last %235 sat in this room. It might have been that Sarris had had time to mull over Spinney’s dire prediction of his fate and that of his organization, but I sensed there was something more, something tangible that had made him realize just how thin the ice was beneath him.

  After we were all seated, he fixed me with his large, dark eyes. At some early point in this case, he had focused on me, first as his primary antagonist, and now I thought, almost as a personal nemesis.

  “What do you want?” I looked at the others. Hamilton gave me a slight nod to go ahead.

  “We arrested a man named Earle Renaud a few hours ago, for the murder of Rennie Wilson.” “Good for you. Of what interest is that to me?” Sarris crossed his legs nonchalantly, but I felt the gesture belied a subtle tension in his features.

  “It turns out Earle had been watching Rennie for quite some time before he stuck him with a knife, long enough to see him meet with you and Julie Wingate.” Sarris remained silent.

  “Do you admit to meeting Rennie the day he died?” “You’re the one with the witness, Lieutenant.” “What did you three talk about?” Sarris propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and made a steeple of his fingers in front of his mouth. I recalled his earlier comment that he’d had a lot of practice appearing in court. He had to walk a fine line with us-to appear accommodating and yet stay clear of self-incrimination. But I sensed from his curtness he was also running on limited reserves, and that the game of cat and mouse was becoming increasingly less rewarding. It was a weakness I hoped to work on.

  He finally cleared his throat, opting for a half-truth. “Our meeting was clandestine, not illegal. Mr. Wilson invited us there.” “Why?”

  “Oh, he was concerned that Julie Wingate was somehow involved in implicating him in her father’s death.” “By planting his lighter under Wingate’s body.” Sarris hesitated. “He did mention a lighter.” “Why did you agree to meet with Rennie at all? You were under no obligation to him, were you?” “Of course not, but Julie was quite upset over her father’s death. I thought this meeting might be of some help to her, maybe shed some light on why Bruce Wingate was killed.” “Weren’t you a little nervous about being alone in the woods with a suspected murderer?” “I had no quarrel with Wilson.” %236 “You had no quarrel with a man who’d been blackmailing you for months?” Sarris sat absolutely still.

  “A man to whom you’d been supplying women, including Julie Wingate, because he had information that would shut the Order down overnight?

  Seems to me that might constitute grounds for a quarrel, even a rather violent one.” “You said yourself you’d captured Wilson’s murderer.” “But Rennie Wilson had been framed by the man who killed Bruce Wingate.

  Wilson wasn’t supposed to die; he was supposed to take the fall for the death of a man that had caused you grievous harm. In fact, Bruce Wingate was a challenge to your credibility within the Order.” I paused here for a theatrical mix of fact and bluff. “He had killed five of your followers, burned one of your houses to the ground, and was intending on kidnapping his own daughter from under your protection.

  With Wingate’s death and Rennie taking the blame, you took care of two major problems with one fell swoop. Very efficient.” Sarris’s eyebrows shot up, in what I was afraid was genuine surprise. “You’re saying I killed Wingate?” “It fits. We have a witness to
his murder, and another who will testify that Rennie Wilson was blackmailing you.” Sarris was now visibly perturbed. “You have a witness who says I killed Bruce Wingate?” “Paul Gorman was also at the bottom of that ravine. Wingate had asked him to come along for backup. He saw the whole thing.” “Well, he didn’t see me. I was nowhere near that ravine. Do you think I’d be stupid enough to jeopardize all I’ve built to kill Bruce Wingate?

  He wasn’t undermining my credibility. The idea’s absurd.” “I hardly thought you’d like it. A jury probably will, though, especially when they hear how far you went to keep Rennie quiet, first by paying him off in sexual favors, and then by framing him for murder.’z My mind was whirling by now, flipping though the facts we’d built up over the past several days, looking for the connections that would widen the cracks in Sarris’s composure. Rennie had begun blackmailing Sarris six months ago, more or less. He’d also lost his lighter to Julie Wingate at that time, and she’d been the first woman Sarris had supplied. What had happened six months ago that gave Rennie the ammunition he needed to put the squeeze on Sarris?

  And then it came to me, like a bolt from the blue. It fit perfectly, gave a logic to it all. But it needed to be confirmed. Only Sarris could do that, and only if he believed I was already sure of my facts.

  I sat back in my chair and smiled at him, trying to hide my nervousness.

  %237 “That must have seemed like a nice piece of irony-framing Rennie for murder-since that’s exactly what he was holding over you.” The room was absolutely still. I could hear my own heartbeat thumping away behind my temples, its rapid rate belying my outward calm.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarris said in a flat voice, devoid of conviction.

  “The child that fell from the bridge, the toddler that supposedly shook off his companion and went running to his death on the streambed below.

  The child that was actually murdered, and whose murder you conspired to cover up.” “You’re bluffing.” “Really? Did you think Rennie would keep that information to himself, a good-ol’-boy redneck like that? Hell, the first thing he did was share some of those women with his best friend in East Burke. Discretion wasn’t his long suit-he had you by the balls and it tickled him pink.” Sarris dropped his eyes to the floor.

  His hands were on his knees, his feet flat on the ground. It was the posture of a far older man, browbeaten and tired, whose resistance had all but drained from his soul. He let out a long sigh. The bluff had worked. “That child was mentally retarded, did you know that?” “Yes, I did.” “In previous centuries, its death would have been seen as a blessing, God calling His own back to His breast. And in the animal world, it wouldn’t have survived its first day of life. We have surely turned the world on its ear, we civilized men.” His voice was bitter.

  “Who killed it?” I asked softly.

  “His own mother-so hopeful she’d produce something decent and pure, and so shattered when it turned out defective, like herself.” Considering the cast of characters we had, that could only be one person. The realization weighed in my chest like a stone. “Julie Wingate. ” He nodded.

  I thought of the monstrosity of Sarris forcing Julie to have sex with his own tormentor. The twisted psychosis that would have seen poetic justice in that arrangement could only have belonged to a colossal egomaniac. It was ironic indeed that the same ego had precluded Sarris from simply handing Julie over to the police at the time she killed her child, thereby washing his hands of the entire affair and making himself look like a responsible citizen to boot. The high price of playing God was that when you stumbled, you brought your world down with you.

  %238 I did some more mental mathematics, comparing the age of Julie’s child to when her parents had said she’d first told them of her “new friends,” almost three years ago.

  “Julie was pregnant when she joined the Order.” Sarris was still studying the floor. “Yes. I believe Fox overdid it a bit in the recruiting.” “She was living with Fox when he died. I thought you discouraged that kind of attachement.” He shrugged. “He was a close friend, more of a cofounder than a member of the Order. He fell in love with her; I wasn’t going to argue. I have to admit, though, I didn’t see the attraction.” “Where is Julie now?” “I let her go,” he said simply.

  I now understood Sarris’s odd mood when we’d first entered his house.

  Perhaps Spinney’s little chat earlier had made an impression. By letting Julie go, Sarris had finally rid himself of his major problem, or so he must have thought until we’d returned to his doorstep.

  “Where did she go?” Smith asked, speaking for the first time. “I don’t know. I let her loose like a minnow in the ocean, so that she might just disappear forever.” “How did she leave?” Hamilton asked.

  Sarris looked up at him, his brow slightly furrowed. “I gave her the keys to one of those cars outside.” “Would you know which one?” “A white VW bus.” Sarris seemed totally disinterested in us now, and perhaps even in himself. The sense of caution which had made him guarded when we’d first begun to chat had vanished utterly, and he seemed content to answer whatever questions were asked of him. Hamilton and Spinney put handcuffs behind his back and escorted him from the room. “Well, that’s good news,” Smith muttered to himself. “What is?” “That she took one of those junkers. They’ve been sitting around for so long, they must be half-rotted inside. I doubt she’ll get very far before somethings breaks.” “Then we can ask her who killed Bruce Wingate.” Smith shot me a surprised look. “You don’t think Sarris did it?” “No, I don’t. I think he’s as much in the dark as we are.” %239 I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t even bother undressing. I just lay on the bed with a blanket over me, staring at the ceiling and playing it over in my mind, time and time again. The picture, as such, was almost complete. Like museum restorers cleaning an old and valuable painting, we’d painstakingly rubbed away the obfuscating layers. But what we saw now was confusing-abstract art where we’d been expecting realism. The missing element, we were convinced, had to be Julie, a fractured, self-abused psychotic. At the end of all our rational deliberations, of all our archaeological thoroughness, we were reduced to combing the countryside in search of a pathetically sick girl with a brain full of secrets.

  When Spinney called to say they’d found her vehicle, I was in my coat and out the door in under five minutes. Riding with Spinney through the predawn blackness, watching the icy sheen of the pavement racing beneath our headlights, I wondered what sad conclusion we were rushing to meet.

  “So where’re we headed?” “Graniteville, near Barre. Our guess is she was sticking to the backroads-Route 5 to 2; Route 2 to 302 via the Perkinsville town highway; something like that, maybe even more roundabout. No way of telling where she was headed in the long run, but she ran out of luck near Graniteville. Busted radiator hose; Smith was right.” “So she’s on foot?” “That’s what we’re going to find out.

  Bishop’s ahead of us with the others. I figured I ought to call you, considering.” “Thanks.” “Bishop’s got a dog with him, and some of Julie’s clothes from Sarris’s place-maybe they can pick up a scent.” We drove in silence for a while. Graniteville is aptly named, being the center for a handful of huge granite quarries, some of which have been producing tor well over a hundred years. I’d heard somewhere that if demand for the stone continued, the whole area could be productive for hundreds of more years. I didn’t see how they could miss, considering that much of their stone ended up marking graves.

  There was only the slightest hint of predawn grey in the sky when we pulled up next to a cluster of marked and unmarked police cars by %240

  the side of a narrow, black-topped country road. As soon as I got out, I saw John Bishop, surrounded by men with flashlights, holding a wad of clothing to the nose of an excited bloodhound. Keeping the clothes in place, Bishop then pulled the dog over to the driver’s side of a rusty, battered VW bus.

  “Why not just track her?” I as
ked Spinney as we approached the group.

  “Take too long. The engine was still a little warm when we found it.

  Unless she got another ride, she can’t be too far away.” Bishop released the hound to the end of a ten-foot leash. Everybody stood back as the now whining dog darted feverishly back and forth along the ditch bordering the road. As his lithe body flitted in and out of the bobbing flashlight beams, I thought of what it must be like in Julie’s position, hearing voices, seeing those stabbing points of light, and being aware that a dog was on her scent. Years earlier, I’d heard of how rabbit hunters in Scotland released ferrets into burrows to encourage the residents to flee into a hail of welcoming buckshot. The trick, apparently, was to avoid hitting the one rabbit that would have the ferret firmly attached to the back of its neck. Despite the obvious differences, I still didn’t envy Julie her position.

  The dog finally took off into the brush on the other side of the ditch, and with an increased babble of voices, the men crashed in after it.

  Spinney jumped the ditch and looked back at me. “Coming?” “I’ll be there.” He waved and vanished into the gloom and the undergrowth. To be honest, I hoped I wasn’t there; there were too many undertones to this kind of pursuit to make me want to join in. Instead, mostly to fight off the early morning chill, I walked up the road a piece, playing my flashlight along the side, not looking for anything in particular.

  Eventually, I came across a gravel road heading off to the same side the tracking party had taken. The dust showed the impressions of many wide heavy tires-and a single set of boot prints.

  Earlier, off Lemon Road, John Bishop had muttered a pet adage, “There are no sharp edges in nature,” meaning that it didn’t take long for a print’s outline to soften on its way back to becoming undisturbed soil.