Dead Man Running

by Steve Hamilton

  I took a moment to recover from the shattered silence, then I climbed up the stairs and into the attic, smelling the dust and the mildew. There was barely enough room for me to stand up straight, if I kept to the center. There were two small windows, one on either end. Both were covered with curtains. I went to one end, opened the curtains and looked outside at the backyard. I saw my own footprints in the snow.

  As I turned, I saw boxes and a standing clothes hamper with an old Army uniform sealed in plastic. Then at the other end of the attic, another small window. As I moved closer, I could see the car still parked across the street, the same man behind the wheel. I stood up and walked back through the attic, slowing myself down, looking at everything carefully. Someone had built out this room for storage, the rough ceiling running from the roofline down each slope until it hit a short wall on either side of the room, maybe three feet high. It made sense to cut off the tight angle, but it also left a small space behind the wall. Perfect for a young Livermore to hide things.

  I pushed my way through some boxes and saw the old wooden paneling that was tacked to the short wall. I tapped on it, and it felt solid. Moving down the course of the wall, I tried to find a spot that might look or sound different, until I came to an old wooden trunk that had been pushed back against the wall. A hundred years old, and it weighed a ton as I tried to move it. There were old caster wheels on the bottom, but they had seized with age, and they made a loud scraping sound on the wood floor as I pulled the trunk away from the wall. I stopped and pushed it back a few inches, got down on my knees and looked at the grooves the old wheels were making in the floor. I saw the old tracks, from years of use, running roughly along the same line. The lines I had just made looked fresh, the wood newly gouged. That told me one thing: if someone else had been up here recently, looking for something, they hadn’t moved this trunk.

  I pulled the trunk away from the wall again, far enough for me to kneel down behind it. As I felt along the paneling, nothing felt different, but it was that old, cheap paneling that came in sheets, with grooves running vertically to make it look like actual boards. A perfect way to cut a door into the sheet without making it obvious. I tapped along the wall until I came to the hollow spot, then felt along the grooves.

  Yes. A thin line cut here. There’s something hidden behind this.

  I didn’t have much light to see what I was doing, and I wished I had a knife to pry open the piece of paneling. I worked along the edges with my fingers until I finally gave up and started tapping it hard on one side. It finally separated on the opposite edge. Then I pulled the little door open and looked into the darkness behind it. Another moment of apprehension as I imagined a young Livermore booby-trapping his hiding place, maybe setting some kind of spring-loaded spike that would impale the hand of anyone foolish enough to put his hand in there. The hell with it, I thought, and reached inside and pulled out a shoebox.

  I took it back to the little window to give myself enough light to see what was I was doing. Then I opened the box.

  This is it, I thought. This is where he shows himself.

  I pulled out the first photograph, an old-fashioned film snapshot with white borders, the kind you’d pick up at the drugstore a few days after you’d dropped off the film. I didn’t even recognize the figure I saw in the first photograph. I moved to the second.

  Everything stopped.

  My heart. The spinning of the earth. Time itself.

  No, I said to myself. No way.

  I went to the third photograph.

  Then the fourth.

  I took the fifth photograph out of the box, held it up close so I could see it clearly.

  That face.

  “This can’t be right,” I said, breaking the silence.

  After days of chasing Martin T. Livermore across the country, wondering how I could be connected to him . . .

  I finally had my answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  AS LIVERMORE watched the house, his mind went to that dark and quiet place again. The single red light inside his head flickered. Then it turned green.

  He’d been parked on the street for an hour, watching the workmen replacing the roof. They had already taken off all the old shingles by the time he pulled up. A hard, dirty job, made all the harder by the cold weather. There was a Dumpster sitting next to the house, and it looked like they had spent the entire morning filling it. Now they were putting on the new shingles, starting from the crown of the roof and working their way down. They had a good three-man system going—one man bringing the shingles up the ladder, the second man holding them in place while the third man worked the nail gun. If they kept a good pace, even on a short February day like this one, they would have the new roof completely installed by nightfall.

  It was Livermore’s job to make sure that didn’t happen.

  He grabbed his bag and his clipboard and walked up the driveway. He was wearing a good sturdy winter coat, work boots, a new pair of reading glasses. When he got to the house he stood there looking up at the roof, until one of the men came down the ladder for more shingles.

  “What can I do for you?” the man said.

  “You can stop working. Immediately.”

  “And you are?”

  “The state building inspector.”

  The worker scratched his head for a moment, then he called up to the other two men on the roof. A minute later, all three of them were standing on the ground. None of them looked happy.

  “I’m sure we can work this all out,” the man said. He gave the other two men a look, like This is just what we need, huh? “Just tell me what you need so we can get back to work.”

  “I need to see that the vapor barrier has been properly installed,” Livermore said. “As well as the flashing around the chimney. I need to see that you’re using the correct grade of nails, and that your gun is set at the right pressure.”

  “Wait a minute . . .”

  “And as long as you’re making renovations to the roof, you need to bring everything else up to code, including the net free ventilation area.”

  “Just hold on,” the man said, putting his hands up in surrender. “The net what?”

  “What’s going on?” a woman’s voice said.

  Livermore turned to look at the homeowner. She had grabbed a coat to wrap around herself, but was still shivering as she stood on the front porch.

  This is why I practiced, he told himself, to be ready for anything. He had total confidence that his heart rate was unchanged. That the command in his voice had not diminished by one degree.

  “This is a state inspector,” the head worker said to her. “We were expecting our guy to stop by, but—”

  Livermore put up a hand to stop him and addressed the woman directly. “Are you currently living here, ma’am?”

  “No,” she said. “I came up for the day.”

  “These men need to stop working,” Livermore said. “If I go over everything, they should be able to start again tomorrow morning.”

  “We need to get this roof done,” the man said. “We can’t just leave it.”

  “My call.”

  All three men threw their hands up in exasperation, and the homeowner turned away from all of them, muttering something under her breath.

  “All right,” the man said. “For God’s sake . . . We’re gonna clean some of this stuff up first. I mean, if that’s all right with you.”

  “By all means,” Livermore said.

  All three men moved away and started picking up the last of the old shingles.

  “Is this really necessary?” the homeowner said.

  “I’ll check out the rest of the house,” Livermore said, “as long as they’re still here.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and turned to go inside. Livermore followed her.

  “Knock yourself out,” she said, taking of
f her coat. She was wearing a thick sweater underneath, because the only heat in the house came from a kerosene lantern set up in the center of the kitchen.

  She saw him looking at it. “I hope this is acceptable,” she said, “unless you want me to freeze to death.”

  “It’s fine. Is there anyone else staying here with you?”

  “No, just me.”

  He nodded. “Maybe we can start upstairs . . .”

  She shook her head again and led Livermore up to the second floor. He went through each bedroom carefully, making check marks on his clipboard. He took a look out the window and saw the men outside, putting away their tools and covering the new shingles that were still stacked on the ground.

  Livermore worked his way back down to the ground floor, taking a few minutes with the fireplace, then finally coming back into the kitchen to inspect the outlets and the plumbing. Through the window, he could see the men still finishing up outside.

  “GFCI outlets within six feet,” he said, making another check mark.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she said.

  “Is there a full basement?”

  She nodded toward the door. Her arms were folded, and she let out a long, tired breath.

  “Oil burner?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But no oil in the tank.”

  “Where’s the emergency shutoff?”

  She let out another breath and went down the stairs. Livermore followed her. When they were at the bottom of the stairs, Livermore could hear a cell phone ringing in the kitchen.

  “It’s right here,” she said, ignoring the phone. She showed him the red switch mounted on the wall.

  “This should be at the top of the stairs.”

  She turned away from him, shaking her head.

  “The workmen can move that for you. When they come back tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Why not?”

  They both went back upstairs. Livermore went to the living room and looked out the window. The men were finally in their truck and backing out of the driveway.

  The cell phone rang again.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she left the room.

  Livermore took the gun from his bag and, moving quietly, followed her into the kitchen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I HELD THE PHOTOGRAPH in my hand, trying to breathe. Trying to convince myself that it was real.

  Everything that had happened to me that week, from the moment I was taken onto that plane and flown to Phoenix, the trip to the canyon where seven men died, then two more dead women as I chased this man across the country, another agent with a bullet blown right through him, his blood still on my clothes . . .

  It all came down to this.

  To this faded image hidden in a shoebox behind an attic wall in Columbus, Ohio.

  A young woman standing at the shore of a lake.

  Jeannie McDonald, who would someday become Jeannie McKnight.

  My ex-wife.

  She looked like she was maybe sixteen years old in this picture. A few years before I’d met her, but there was no mistaking that face.

  The next photograph was another candid shot of Jeannie, from around the same time. She was looking up, like she was surprised by the shot.

  Then another photograph of Jeannie sitting on the edge of the dock, like she didn’t even know someone was looking at her. Then more like that one, distant shots of a young Jeannie, seemingly taken without her even knowing it.

  I took out my cell phone and looked through the history. She had called me just before I’d started any of this. That night I was sitting in the Glasgow, listening to her voice from across the miles and the years. Something about the stuff her grandmother had left her . . .

  A car. A house.

  A house.

  I stopped for a second and grabbed that first photograph again. I had only been there once, not long after we were married. A little house on an inland lake, north of Grand Rapids. I couldn’t even remember where it was exactly.

  But this is the house, I said to myself as I looked at the porch and the siding, and the yard that sloped down toward the lake. This was taken at that same house when she was just a teenager.

  I went back to my phone, kept looking until I found her number. I dialed and waited for it to ring. Once, twice, three times. Then it went to voicemail.

  “Jeannie,” I said. “It’s Alex. Call me right away. As soon as you get this.”

  I hung up and hit the redial button.

  It rang once, twice. This time, she answered.

  “Jeannie,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Alex? Is that you? What’s going on? You sound like—”

  “Listen to me carefully,” I said. “You may be in danger. There is a man named Martin T. Livermore. You knew him when you were younger . . .”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Martin T. Livermore. He may be coming after you.”

  “Slow down,” she said. “That name’s familiar . . .”

  “At your grandmother’s house. On the—”

  “Yes! He was that boy on the other side of the lake. That one summer I spent here . . .”

  “What do you mean, here? Where are you right now?”

  “At the house on the lake. I’m having some work done so I can—”

  “Jeannie,” I said, my gut already tightening into a knot, “who else is there right now? Are you alone?”

  “No,” she said, “there’s a whole crew of men here. They’re working on the roof.”

  A whole crew of men. I let out my breath. She was safe, at least for the moment.

  “I mean, they were here,” she said, “until the inspector came and stopped them. Hold on . . .”

  I heard her footsteps over the line, the sound coming to me through the cell phone signal, over the span of three hundred miles. Then her voice came back.

  “They just left,” she said. “It’s only the inspector now.”

  One man, I thought. She’s alone with one man.

  “I know it’s been a long time,” I said, “and you may not recognize him now . . .”

  I flashed back to the park in St. Louis, seeing his face over Agent Larkin’s shoulder, just before he shot him.

  “He’s about six foot two,” I said. “His hair is short now. Dyed black. And he’s growing in his mustache. When I saw him, he was wearing glasses . . .”

  There was a long silence.

  “Jeannie, are you there?”

  “Alex,” she said. “He’s here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JEANNIE FELT the phone being taken from her hand. She was still processing the shock from that, how a stranger in her kitchen could do that . . . On top of the shock she was already feeling . . . Alex calling her . . . Everything he had said to her . . .

  Until she finally looked at the man standing in the kitchen with her.

  Really looked at him.

  She hadn’t seen him in years. In decades. But he matched the description, all of the details Alex had given to her. More important, now that he had taken off his glasses, she could see his eyes, see across the years to that summer, so long ago . . .

  It was him.

  It was the boy from the other side of the lake.

  “The last time I told you to come alone,” she heard him say into the phone, “that agent was right behind you. If anything like that happens again, anything, Alex . . .”

  He paused to look at her.

  “Then she will die in a way you can’t even imagine.”

  He ended the call and put her phone in his pocket.

  “What are you . . .” She didn’t even know how to finish the question. She was still trying to put everything into place, to reconcile him being here, in the kitchen. Inspecting her hous
e . . .

  He smiled at her as she looked down at the gun in his hand. He held it pointed toward the floor, like it was just another thing a man would carry around with him. A wrench, or a pencil.

  “I’ll put this away,” he said as he lifted up his shirt and tucked it into his belt. She saw the hair on his tight stomach. The muscles and the flesh of this real man standing in front of her . . .

  It’s really him.

  That was when Jeannie came back to herself, as one second passed into the next, like a hypnotist snapping his fingers in front of her face, every emotion and impulse catching up to her at once.

  She bolted from the room. The door was right in front of her, close enough for her to feel the metal brush against her fingertips, but then she felt one strong hand grabbing her by the back of the arm. She was spun around to face him again.

  “Jeannie,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  As she pulled her arm free and backed away from him, she saw something change in his expression, like a storm cloud suddenly forming in the sky. She kept backing away, thinking about her next move, trying to keep her panic under control, because she knew that panic would not help her.

  He stepped toward her, matching every movement she made with his own. She was back in the kitchen now. There was another door behind her. If she went for it, he’d grab her again. She needed to distract him.

  “I remember you,” she said. “That summer . . .”

  His face changed again, and now it was something that scared her on such a deep, primal level, she forgot all about panic and distracting him and everything else in her head except getting out of there right now, as she made a break for the door and felt his hand on her arm again, and then her head pulled back as he grabbed on to her hair. She turned and swung her fists at him, kicking with both feet and screaming.

  He threw her down and she slid across the kitchen floor. She saw the phone on the wall as she pulled herself up, grabbed the receiver, and tried to start dialing. But of course the rational part of her mind knew that the phone had been disconnected, and she only got to the nine anyway, one button before he was on top of her again. He grabbed the phone from her, threw it across the room, then took the base unit and ripped it from the wall. He left it swinging by a single wire as she ran back into the front room, got the door halfway open before he put one hand on it and slammed it shut.