The brat could have even taken the 4 x 4. Run it up one of the trails deep into the mountains. It wouldn’t be found for weeks.
Slater tried to puzzle it through but came up with no answers that made any sense. He’d been attacked by a superhuman kid, one who had no hesitation to steal but was too stupid to steal what mattered.
He took the wallet and locked the truck. He thought of the remaining half mile he’d have to walk to his house at Seven Springs. He thought of his bare feet.
Slater sighed. Not a great way to start a day. Bloodied, throbbing head. Purple-paisley boxer shorts, without pockets, of course. So, wallet in one hand and keys in the other. And a half-mile hike in this condition. Sure he’d cut his feet on the way. But regardless of the pain, he decided that if a car or truck did happen to pass by at this unlikely hour, he’d be behind some trees, not out on the road hitchhiking.
He lost his sardonic humor in a matter of seconds. That’s how long it took to retrace his steps to where he had lain through the night,
Scattered tracks were obvious in the soft sand of the road’s shoulder. Any tracker could read most of what had happened in the beam of his headlights the night before.
Slater’s bootprints – toes pointed away from the 4 x 4 – led in long strides to the grass at the edge of the road. He’d been in a hurry at that point but not frantic enough to run.
Another set of bootprints – toes pointed toward the 4 x 4 – led from the grass a couple dozen yards up from the truck. He’d been running then. Scared, with a fear he could still taste if he chose to remember his feelings before the chunk of wood had struck him.
Smaller footprints, the boy’s, led to and from the truck, evidence of the looting that had taken place during Slater’s unconsciousness.
Almost to the truck, there were the irregular depressions that blurred the tire tracks from traffic that had passed by earlier. These showed how his body had been dragged to and fro as the boy had worked his clothing loose. Small, barefoot tracks, some smudged, some clear, remained where the boy had walked around his body.
There was, too, a deeper depression in the sand, where Slater had lain undisturbed after the boy had finally finished removing his clothing. This resting place was made obvious by the clumped and dark sand from the blood that had leaked from his head during the night hours.
What disturbed Slater was what he learned from the dew on the tracks, for most of them showed tiny beads of moisture. These were the older tracks, made before the air’s moisture condensed.
It didn’t take much more than a glance at the ground to see the obviousness of his more recent tracks, his staggered barefoot prints. These tracks were much paler, where his weight had pushed through the surface sand to reach the dry sand below.
Trouble was, Slater’s barefoot prints weren’t the only ones fresher than the dew. Around the depression where his body had lain, he saw several fresh sets of his own bootprints. As if the boy, wearing Slater’s boots, had returned more than once to stare down at his body.
Slater could guess at what the boy had been considering.
Resting in the sand, very near the dried blood where his head had been, was a rock the size of a cantaloupe. Slater wondered how long that rock had been poised above his head and why the boy had finally decided not to crush his skull.
***
“Oh, dear Lord. Hasn’t enough already happened?”
Paige Stephens wasn’t aware that she’d spoken aloud to the silent house, her words barely more than a trembling moan. Not with what faced her as she stepped from the white glare of Florida heat into the air-conditioned dimness of her front hall.
The first half of the day had stretched into a continuing nightmare, a blur of numbness. Cops, Lawyers. Friends, Faces that loomed in and out of her vision as she staggered like a zombie through the day. And with every conscious thought, she grappled with the incomprehensible: Darby was gone. A single piece of lead had torn out the back of his skull, a single piece of lead triggered by his own hand.
Going through the details at the funeral home had been an event her body mechanically attended and her mind dimly registered but nothing she grasped as reality. Friends had offered to return home with her, but she’d declined. Nothing mattered. Conversation and condolences would be as empty as she felt.
And now this. She’d only been gone a couple of hours. Is this what should happen as you pick out a coffin for your husband, that your house gets ripped apart?
Step by slow, disbelieving step she moved down the hallway. Her high heels barely clicked on the floor tiles. She was forced to step around paintings that had been thrown down, canvas slashed and frames splintered. Clothing from the front hall closet lay scattered in all directions.
A few more steps brought the living room into view. She couldn’t find the energy to gasp.
All the cushions from the couch had been ripped apart. Stuffing covered the floor like snow. The television screen had been kicked in. The television lay on its back. All the paintings had been thrown from the walls, each suffering the same fate as the ones in the front hallway.
A thought occurred to her, one that should have been frightening but wasn’t because she did not have the capacity to care. Am I alone in the house? Or is someone lurking in another room?
With no haste, she turned back to the front hallway and step by slow, disbelieving step, she walked back into the sunshine, toward the cellular phone in her BMW. She didn’t bother closing the door behind her.
***
The cop’s name was Robert. She knew because she could see it clearly on the nametag pinned to the chest pocket of his blue uniform.
Robert sat on one of the kitchen chairs, its padding and upholstery as shredded as the chair Paige used. He sat so close that Paige could not only clearly read the white letters of his nametag but could also smell stale sweat past the mint gum Robert chewed as he leaned toward her.
He took her right hand in his meaty fingers and rolled Paige’s index finger across ink on a square glass plate then lifted her hand and pressed the finger on a standard form. He squeezed her index finger and held it a fraction of a second longer than necessary before releasing it to take the next finger.
She could hear the other police moving through the house.
“The rest of the boys should be gone real quick.” He popped his gum. “We’ll be comparing your prints with any that the boys pick up around here. You’ll find our fingerprint dust everywhere, but compared to the rest of the mess...” He shrugged.
The rest of the mess was as thorough as the damage in the living room. Here in the kitchen, all the cupboards had been emptied. Jam scooped out of the jam jars, dishwasher detergent powder splashed across the linoleum, cereal scattered from the cereal box. In the bedroom, the mattress had been savaged with a butcher knife. Drawers had been pulled open, clothes thrown in all directions. The bathrooms had received the same treatment. Toilet lids shattered, towels strewn, medicine cabinets trashed. Even all the cans of shaving foam had been sprayed empty.
Robert rolled two more of her fingers. With each one, the squeeze became more pronounced, the suggestiveness more obvious.
“You should think of a hotel,” he told her. He gave her a leer that might let her misinterpret his suggestion. He let that hang there, then, just enough of a pause so she couldn’t claim it had been anything but professional advice. He continued, “They managed to bypass your security system. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, they might be back.”
“Looking for?” Paige didn’t have the strength to be anything but a weak echo. From her BMW in the driveway, she’d dialed 911 and given her address, then waited with the same numbness that had been draining her since Darby’s death.
“Looking for,” Robert repeated. “Thieves don’t do this kind of damage. Vandals aren’t smart enough to get past a security system. They were obviously looking for something.”
Paige thought of the conversation she had overheard. Darby had mentione
d protection. Disks. Had they been hidden in the house? Had the disks been taken? And if her protection was gone ...but why was she in need of protection?
The cop took her other hand and squeezed slightly before rolling the First Anger through the ink.
She frowned at another thought. "You were here before, weren’t you? Last night?”
He nodded and gave her that dirty smile. “A long shift, lady. I could use a hotel myself.”
She placed his voice from the jumble of voices that had surrounded her as cops and ambulance attendants had crowded in and out of the bathroom where Darby’s body had left a blood smear as it had fallen against the side of the bathtub.
One cop had been asking her in the living room if she’d found a note, if she’d been cheating on him, if Darby’d been cheating on her. The other voice, Robert’s, had floated clearly from the bedroom where that champagne still fizzled. Why would anyone want to check out of a pad like this, ’specially when it had a broad with her kind of legs?
He squeezed her next finger, rubbed the sides of it, leered faintly.
Paige had heard others describe how they felt violated after a break-in, hated the creepiness of knowing a stranger had been through their belongings. She had no such feelings. This, to Paige, was no longer her house. Sure mortgage insurance would give her clear title to the house, but in her heart it was no longer hers. She had already decided she was moving out as soon as possible to rid herself of the ugly memory of the blood-smeared bathtub. This destruction bothered her little. Once she stepped out of the house today, she would never return. New wardrobe, new furniture – everything within the walls of this house was disposable. Someone else could come in and clean it and absolve her of the situation. That’s how little she cared, and that’s why she felt no sense of violation.
But something finally stirred inside her at Robert’s leer and at hearing in her mind again the words he’d spoken even as Darby’s body cooled. “A broad with her kind of legs...”
Anger.
Darby had been running from something. Something he could only escape through death. She could be angry at that.
Their marriage – and her love for him – had slowly been dying because of it. She could be angry at that.
Someone had ripped her house apart, choosing to wait until she was arranging Darby’s funeral to do it. She could be angry at that.
And this sweating, mouth-breathing cop kept trying to look down her top as he leaned forward and caressed her fingers. That’s where the anger could start.
She waited until he’d finished taking all her prints. Before Robert rose from his chair, she stood, moved to the kitchen table where the bottle of fingerprint ink rested, lid beside it. Politely, she reached for it and began to hand it to Robert.
“Oops,” she said as it tilted from her fingers and fell into his lap. The ink spread in a huge wet circle on his pants.
“What a mess,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t get on my floor.”
She smiled sweetly. As revenge, it ranked at the effectiveness and maturity level of a kindergarten student. But it was a start. Next she had to find the man who’d spoken with Darby during his final conversation on earth. Paige was quite certain it would take a little more than spilled ink to satisfy her anger then.
***
“Let me get this straight, mister. A naked boy? Running across the road? What was your name again?”
Slater took a deep breath, a sound that seemed magnified in the phone booth just outside the Los Alamos hospital. He’d expected the disbelief and suspicion he now heard in the trooper’s voice.
“The name’s Clive Stewart,” Slater said without hesitation. “Look, some poor kid is lost. In the canyons up near Fenton State Park,” Slater said. “Cut north on 126 from Highway 4 –”
“I know Fenton State Park,” the voice said curtly.
“About two miles after the pavement ends is where I saw him.” No need to mention Seven Springs specifically. Not if he was pretending to be a tourist who had taken an errant shortcut down the road that led to his house.
“And?”
“And I’m reporting it. You’ve probably already heard from his parents, and I imagine they’re worried sick. I thought this might help you in your search.”
“You’ll have to stop by the sheriff’s office here in Los Alamos. We need a full statement in person.”
Along with my name, address, and a host of other things I’d rather keep to myself, Slater thought. Which is exactly why I’m using this pay phone.
“I’m clear on the other side of the mountains.” Slater spoke slowly, confident with the story he had rehearsed. “I drove as fast as I could to the First pay phone to call this in. But I’m heading north on 44 and in a hurry to get home. Family emergency. I don’t have the time it’ll take to get back to Los Alamos. Especially not back on that road. Last time I try that shortcut.”
The trooper’s voice suddenly softened. “Sir, we have a great deal of difficulty acting on just a phone call. If...”
“Nobody’s been reported missing?" Slater asked.
“If you would sign a statement, sir, we could begin a search.”
Slater shook his head. The trooper, of course, saw neither the movement nor Slater’s grimace of pain along with it. The gash had taken twenty-seven stitches, each one obvious on the shiny patch of skull where the nurse had so carefully shaved around the wound. “No statement,” Slater said. “I’m just trying to help out with this call.”
There was a pause.
“Certainly, sir. I appreciate that. Why don’t you give me as much information as you have. We’ll do our best from there.”
Something about the trooper’s sudden change in attitude bothered Slater. Suspicion first, understandable. But now friendly chumminess? As if the trooper was settling in for a long conversation?
Slater hung up.
Maybe he was being paranoid. Still, how long would a trace to this line take? Then for a patrol car to cruise up while he was still talking? But the last thing he wanted was any public knowledge of his whereabouts. If he ended up at the sheriff’s office, there’d be phone calls from journalists, headlines. He didn’t have anything to hide. Not from the state patrol. Not about this. But the other stuff...
Slater turned from the pay phone, cut across the parking lot of the hospital, and climbed into the 4 x 4.
He could call again, from a pay phone outside of Los Alamos. Far enough away that, if traced, he’d be clear before a patrol car could arrive. After all, some kid – brat or not – was alone in the mountains. But along with his worries for the kid, he had to look out for himself too.
***
“You heard me. I was doing the best I could. But he’s gone, Del. Hung up.”
Trooper Juan Martinez let the phone receiver dangle in his hand. The dial tone clearly supported his statement.
Del Silverton nodded but showed no happiness in his agreement. He reached across the trooper’s desk and grabbed the radio mike to speak to the dispatched patrol car. “Jim, you’ll find the phone booth empty. When you get there, stay put. Don’t let anyone inside until someone stops by to dust the phone. Got that?”
Del waited for affirmation, then set the mike back in its place.
“All right,” he told Martinez. “Send someone out there to dust and then get that call on paper.”
“Paper?”
“Transcribed. Tape was rolling wasn’t it? I want everything he said typed and on my desk by this afternoon.”
“Sure it was taped. Like everything that comes in. But...”
Del didn’t owe Martinez an explanation. At six foot five and so wide his olive-colored police uniform had to be tailor made, Del Silverton was not a weak man. He avoided the political correctness garbage that came down in directives, phrases like shared responsibility, horizontal authority, and management skills. Del didn’t believe in management, not when his size and temperament gave him the tools to remain a dictator.
This time,
however, it would be much better if Del headed off any questions the rookie trooper might have. After all, once Del had heard Martinez say “naked boy,” he’d moved to stand beside the desk, then written instructions on a notepad: STALL H I M.
All local calls that came in showed the number and location of the caller. This one was from a pay phone near the hospital. Del had hurried, actually hurried – and no one could remember the last time Del had moved faster than a walk – to a nearby office to dispatch a car to the phone booth. Then he’d hurried back to Martinez, getting there just as the caller had hung up.
All in all, it was an unusual enough event that if Juan Martinez didn’t vocalize his curiosity, it’d be there anyway.
“I heard rumors in Sante Fe about some weirdo getting kicks this way.” Del said in a clipped voice. “Trying to send cops out on a wild goose chase.”
Martinez pursed his lips. “He sure sounded sincere.”
Del gave him a dark look. Was Martinez actually doubting him? Del followed that with a shake of his massive head. “Any kids been reported missing?”
“No.”
“So it’d be nice to nail this jerk.” Del didn’t elaborate further. Elaboration would be out of character and might cause the same questions he didn’t want asked in the first place.
Besides, there was a number he needed to call.
Del went into his office and closed the door behind him. Although he had never been forced to call the number before, he had it well memorized. Del had no intention of making the slightest mistake.
He punched it in. He made a mental bet with himself that he wouldn’t have to wait more than one ring. Not with the organization on the other end.
“Five, eight, three, four.” Answered in one ring. The confirmation of the last four digits that Del had dialed. The strained whisper continued. “Who is it?”
“Nine, nine, two, three.” Dale gave the last four digits of his own number.
“Yes?”
Del speculated on the man’s location, as if maybe that would give him a clue to the identity of the spook. Since the connection was fuzzy, it couldn’t be anything but a cellular phone on the other end. Where was the man now? Restaurant in Washington? Walking the streets of London?
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