The Paper Detective

by E. Joan Sims

  “How about a midnight snack?” he asked.

  “Are you trying to change the subject?”

  “Desperately,” he smiled sheepishly. “The truth is, I don’t really know how long it will take us.”

  He picked up a piece of unlit kindling and drew in the dirt in front of the fire.

  “As near as I can guess, we are about here where this ‘X’ is. The lake is here and the hotel and marina over there. We’re going in the direction of Wieuca City, which is about thirty miles that way.” He pointed the stick away from the fire. “This is a wildlife conservation district, so we won’t run into any farms or homes on the way. There’s nothing but woods and more woods between here and civilization.”

  “Thirty miles,” I gasped. “Thirty miles? That’ll take me forever.”

  “I know,” he answered solemnly.

  “You’re not planning on going without me?” I asked with alarm.

  “Paisley, I have to…”

  “Please, can we talk about this tomorrow?” I begged. “We’re both too tired to make any really coherent decisions. Let’s wait and see how we feel in the morning.” I smiled up at him. “For all we know, the sun may come out and melt the ice and snow before we wake up. There may be snow plows on our doorstep clearing the path back to the hotel where Mother and Horatio will be waiting for us with pheasant under glass, hot sudsy baths, and champagne.”

  Bert laughed and gave me a gentle hug. “Now I know you’re hallucinating.”

  “Well, maybe hot chocolate and a meat loaf sandwich.”

  “Sounds good,” agreed Bert as he got up. “Why don’t you try and get some more sleep. I got a big log for the fire. It’s right outside. I’ll be right back.”

  The part of me that Bert’s body had been holding felt cold and empty. I realized I could get used to being by his side without much effort at all. I thought briefly about Dora Nick and all her lonely years in an empty bed.

  “Poor thing,” I muttered.

  “Who me?” laughed Bert as he crawled back inside pulling a huge log behind him.

  “Good grief!” I teased. “That looks like a squirrel condo.”

  With Bert’s help I straightened out our blanket and leaf mattress, then we settled down for the night.

  “I could get used to this,” murmured Bert, echoing my thoughts. “You’re a very warm and cozy woman, Paisley Sterling.”

  Some time later it occurred to me to ask Bert if the cigar band I found on the patio was his.

  “I had to come and see if you were okay after the accident,” he explained. “Ernie Banks had already established a habit of sneaking off on occasion. I made sure of that right away. They didn’t think anything of it when I disappeared again.”

  “But how did you know what happened?”

  “Ta’Ronda came to camp the night after your visit to Fort Morgan. She was pretty shaken up. And she was coming down from a coke high. Callard found out about your visit. He made her tell him everything that happened.”

  Bert threw back his head and laughed. “Whatever made you hit on her? I almost lost it when I heard about that,” he chuckled.

  “I did no such thing!” I protested. “That was all her idea. I just wasn’t very dressed up that day, and she jumped to the wrong conclusion.” I finished lamely.

  “Well, the Sergeant didn’t buy it either. He took one of the trucks from the motor pool and went after you. He had a friend who was willing to make any repairs the truck might need to cover up signs of the accident. He was furious when you escaped.”

  Bert pressed his lips against my forehead. “I borrowed one of the four wheelers and took the back roads into Rowan Springs. When I got out to your place by nightfall and didn’t see any lights, I got worried. But then I saw the back door open and your wonder dog run out to…”

  I laughed aloud. “My wonder dog! Great watchdog, too. She never even noticed you, even on the patio.”

  “Let’s just say she was preoccupied,” he chuckled.

  “Bert?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry about Murphy. He really was a great dog.”

  Bert was silent for a moment, but I could feel his muscles tense against my back.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “He was a great dog, all right. And that’s just one more thing that somebody’s going to pay for before I’m through.”

  I hesitated to ask, but there was something else I needed to know. “Andy said you came into a large sum of money last year. Was that part of the ruse or is it true?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a gold digger?” he laughed, as he nuzzled my neck.

  “You know better,” I answered quietly.

  “Yeah, I guess I do.” He kissed my ear and continued. “Do you remember that little clapboard house we parked in front of while I told you about the guy who tried to kill me?”

  “Back off the street? Sure. What about it?”

  “That’s where I grew up.” He was quiet for a moment and then went on. “A company from up north made me an offer I couldn’t refuse for the house and the twenty acres it sits on. Seems they couldn’t find a better place to locate their big discount store.”

  I closed my eyes and drifted in and out of sleep several times before I finally felt him relax against me. His soft snores ruffled my hair and tickled my ear but I didn’t move for fear I would disturb his rest. This man really was my protector and my hero. I prayed for his safety as I enjoyed the shelter of his arms.

  In the early hours of the morning, I fell into a very deep sleep. When I awoke my hero was gone.

  At first I thought he was outside getting more wood, then I noticed a stack of kindling and logs piled up high next to the opening of the dugout. He’d left me well provided for, but he had left me. The rest of the biscuits and the candy bars were beside me on the blanket. What was missing was Bert.

  I was enraged. He had underestimated me again. Maybe I couldn’t have made it to Wieuca City, but I would like to have been in on the decision that left me behind.

  I angrily threw a new log on the fire as I considered my options. Somehow I wasn’t that surprised that he had gone. I knew that to him it seemed the best thing to do, but he didn’t know how abandoned and alone I felt.

  I tried to calm down. All I had to do was wait until he returned. But patience had never been one of my virtues. I had to find something to keep myself busy.

  First, I melted some more snow and had a meager breakfast of half a candy bar and a biscuit top. I saved the cheese and the bottom half for lunch. The other half of the candy bar, I reasoned, would make a satisfying dinner. Bert would probably make it to the main highway sometime today. Without me slowing down his pace, he would make pretty good time even in the snow.

  I decided to take a bath.

  I scraped as much snow as I could into the cracker tin and dumped it in the big metal container several times over. Then I pulled it closer to the fire. When the snow melted, I stripped down and wet my undershirt and wiped everything I could reach with the warm water. It felt heavenly.

  I considered wetting down my hair but decided I might catch a cold waiting for it to dry. I settled instead for rinsing out the rest of my underwear. I wrapped myself in one of the blankets and stoked up the fire until it was blazing.

  The bright flames flickered over the walls of the enclosure and illuminated the second metal container. In our original excitement at finding the Cheese Whiz in the first we had forgotten to open the other one.

  This one wasn’t as heavy, but I still had to pull and tug with all my strength until I tipped it over the ledge and onto the blanket. Bert had taken the knife with him but I found the top of the cracker tin under some leaves and used it to pry away the wax seal. I took a breath to calm my excitement and tried to open the lid.

  The blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders slipped down to my waist with my exertions. I felt the cold air on my breasts before I saw the barrel of the gun push aside the hide over the opening of the dugout.
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  “Well, will you look at this!” said a smooth and educated masculine voice.

  I grabbed the blanket and pulled it up to cover myself, then scrambled towards the back of the dugout.

  “Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide, little lady. You might as well calm down. You’re in no danger—not right now, anyway,” he added with a sneer.

  The man pushed his way carefully inside, making sure as he entered that I was alone.

  “So he really did go off and leave you by yourself. How very unchivalrous. A pretty girl like you can find a better man than that. I’m glad I got rid of him for you.”

  The man sat down in front of the fire and nonchalantly crossed his legs. He unzipped his hooded jacket and pulled it off while keeping the rifle aimed at me. Underneath he was wearing overalls made of the same funny material as the jacket. It looked a bit like tree bark and was in camouflage colors unlike any I had seen before.

  “It’s for hunters,” he said, answering my unasked question, “deer, geese, that sort of thing. Hunting is my hobby, and my avocation. My vocation has become much too tame, thanks to the early end to the war and our unit missing out on the fight. Hunting fulfills my need for outsmarting my prey—tracking him down and making the kill.”

  I finally found my voice as I stammered, “Wha…what did you mean you got rid of him?”

  “Oh, we’re backtracking, hum? Miss him already?”

  The man’s narrow eyes gleamed in the firelight. He was clean-shaven with dark hair cropped close to his skull. It was impossible to tell for sure in the firelight, but I thought I could see a thin white scar under his chin, like someone had tried to cut his throat with a very sharp knife. He was not a large man, but he was compact and muscular. He looked dangerous and very much in control.

  “Please,” I insisted, “what happened to Bert?”

  “Oh, was that his name? I never like to know, really. It’s so much more fun to simply think of them as ‘the animal.’”

  He added nonchalantly, “I killed him.”

  My heart stopped. For a moment I felt as though my head would explode. Bert was dead? I had a hard time comprehending it.

  “Are you sure? How…how?” I gasped as I fought back tears.

  “Ah, the lady wants to hear the gruesome details,” he said with a sly grin. “Always glad to oblige with that.”

  His teeth were big and very, very white. I found myself staring at them as he told me about the fate of the man who had been my only hope.

  “This little place, humble though it may be, is mine, all mine. I built it a year ago just in case certain events should fall into place. As so often happens when one is forced to deal with fools, those events occurred slightly before their time; but never mind, thanks to prior planning I was ready. When I went to the camp…”

  “You’re one of them?” I interrupted with surprise.

  He laughed. His white teeth glistened in the firelight.

  “Not exactly. Let’s just say I let them play at being soldiers and armed that rabble as long as it suited my purpose.”

  “Which was?”

  “Patience, my lovely, patience. Don’t you want to hear about your friend first?”

  He reached over and put some more wood on the fire before he resumed his narrative.

  And he ordered me to start getting dressed.

  “Turn your back, please,” I asked.

  His harsh laughter ricocheted around the small enclosure and assaulted my ears. Then his dark eyes narrowed even more, and the points of his teeth gleamed as he clenched them.

  “DO IT!” he barked.

  My underwear was still slightly damp, but I struggled into it using the blanket as a screen. He watched my every movement with interest, but I could tell it was because he was enjoying my fear, not the sight of my body.

  “He never even knew I was stalking him until the very last minute,” he bragged as I zipped my jeans.

  I stopped dressing for moment as his words registered. He raised the rifle with one hand and leveled it at my heart.

  “Socks and boots, now. That’a girl. Left foot, right foot.”

  Then he sang out in a booming voice, “Left, left, left my wife and sixteen kids, right, right, right in the middle of…”

  He stopped suddenly and thrust his index finger into the middle of his forehead.

  “I missed the head shot. Damn! That doesn’t happen often, I can tell you that. I have the trophies to prove it. Got him through the lungs. I could tell from the pink bubbles as he floated downstream.”

  “Downstream?” I whispered, my voice hoarse with unshed tears.

  “Yeah,” he said with satisfaction. “I let him climb all the way up the cliff. A mighty effort it was, too. He was a worthy prey, I have to admit that. Just as he pulled himself up over the top of the bluff, I called out. He saw me and stood up to run. That’s when I squeezed off a shot. He fell over the edge and into the river. There are miles and miles of shoreline around the lake it empties into. With any luck at all, and I am a very lucky man,” he grinned wolfishly, “his body won’t be found until there’s nothing left to identify.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Controlling my emotions took an enormous effort, but I could not allow myself to break down in front of this man. I knew instinctively that it would give him far too much pleasure. I finished dressing and reached for my anorak, but he knocked it out of my hand with the rifle barrel.

  “Not just yet,” he ordered. “Finish opening that container first. We’re going to need the goodies I left inside.”

  The container was on the edge of the blanket. I got up on my knees and pulled it closer to me. The top was almost off. One mighty tug and it came away in my hands and sent me tumbling backwards. The man leaned forward with anticipation to see the contents.

  For one crazy instant I considered trying to grab the gun while his attention was elsewhere, but fortunately, my practical side intervened. This man was as dangerous as a cobra. I had to treat him with great respect and hope for a lucky break. He would not make a foolish mistake.

  He watched me warily out of the corner of his eye as he reached inside and emptied the container. He lined up several jars on the blanket. Two were the size of Mother’s pint canning jars, but the rest were smaller, and they were not glass but plastic.

  “These are a hunter’s best friend,” he said, pointing to the smaller bottles. “This is raccoon urine, this one is fox. A few drops on the bottom of my boots and my scent is masked. Deer won’t come anywhere near the scent of man,” he explained smugly. “This is doe estrus. Drives the bucks crazy. They’ll come running if they’re anywhere in the vicinity. But it’s really cheating. I only save it for when I’m bored. And this last one,” he said, “is extract from the tarsal glands of a buck. Strictly illegal,” he laughed. “Had a buddy of mine make it up for me.”

  He held the rifle up and insolently rubbed the cold barrel under my chin.

  “Bucks are very territorial. Can’t stand the smell of another male anywhere near their does. Sometimes I like to spread a few drops of this around just so I can see them go wild and fight each other,” he confided. “It’s a real high. None of that cocaine shit for me. I prefer a real primitive rush from the bottom of my guts.”

  His eyes glittered in the firelight as he talked. I sucked in my breath and held my chin still until he put the rifle down. If I had any chance of surviving at all it would be by staying as calm and reasonable as possible. Nothing would make him happier than for me to get hysterical and make a run for it.

  “And this,” he said, picking up one of the pint jars, “is the piéce de résistance. You know what Ricine is, little lady?”

  I shook my head and tried to look uninterested.

  “It’s probably the most potent poison know to man. Castor beans,” he laughed, shaking his head. “It’s made from castor beans. Isn’t that a kick?”

  He held the jar up to the fire and watched as the glass sparkled in the flames.


  “There’s enough here to kill every man, woman, and child within a hundred square miles.”

  “Wha…what are you going to do with it?” I asked as calmly as I could.

  “Put it in the dam reservoir, of course. How else could I get it into the homes of thousands of unsuspecting people so fast?”

  I sat dumbfounded at the horror this man proposed so matter-of-factly.

  “The area water treatment and distribution plant is a quarter of a mile away. Nothing they have can detect it, and there’s not a chance it will get too diluted. It’s six thousand times more powerful than cyanide. Four hours after I dump it, Mr. and Mrs. Kentucky and all their little kiddies will be dropping like flies!” he laughed with satisfaction.

  “But why? What possible reason can you have for killing so many innocent people?”

  “They’re stupid,” he shouted. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! They take men like me for granted all their lives until a war comes, and then all of a sudden, I’m cannon fodder. Kipling knew what he was writing about, ‘…savior of our country when the guns begin to shoot.’ But right now I’m an embarrassment, part of a bloated military machine. They want to close Fort Morgan like they have so many other bases. Ruin my career like they have so many others.”

  He slammed his hand on the stock of the rifle.

  “Well, not this soldier!”

  He leaned across the fire, his eyes shining with wild excitement.

  “You want to know how I’m going to stop them? Of course you do! And I’m going to tell you because then you’ll have a real good reason to try and escape. You’ll want to save the world, just like any red-blooded American hero. Like I did once upon a time, before I found out nobody gives a shit. And then things will get interesting between us.”

  In spite of all my good intentions I lunged across the fire and tried to grab the jar out of his hand. I felt the bright heat of the flames sear the top of my left thigh and screamed in pain. The man placed a booted foot on my chest and kicked me back against the wall of the dugout. I lay on the dirt, stunned and struggling for breath. The fabric of my jeans was singed and smoking on top of the burn on my leg. The acrid smell quickly filled the small space. I choked and sputtered.