Blood Runs Cold rb-1

by Alex Barclay

  Ren wondered if all this thinking, the inability to switch off her brain, was the thing that one day would take her down. Something so terrible would happen that she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it, and she would implode. Shut up. She looked at the map again. On the west side of South Main: Wardwell’s. One block north – Mountain Sports. On the east side of South Main, opposite Wardwell’s, Reign on Main. She grabbed another map and traced the line from Breckenridge south to the Brockton Filly and Quandary Peak. Jean didn’t make or receive any calls on her cellphone from that time, but if she’d had a throwaway phone, this wasn’t relevant – she could have made calls, then dumped it or someone else could have dumped it for her.

  Ren ate her Cinnamonster in half the time it should have taken her. She used a sticky thumb to dial Mike.

  ‘Hey, it’s Ren. Where would I find Salem Swade if, say, I wasn’t quite in the humor for hiking up Quandary?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Mike. ‘Between nine a.m. and eleven a.m. at the Gold Pan. How lazy are you?’

  Ren laughed. ‘Thanks. Gotta go.’ She checked her watch. It was ten a.m.

  Salem sat in the Gold Pan reading the Summit Daily News. It was in every bar, restaurant, hotel and inn all over the county. He nodded when she walked in.

  ‘Hello …’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Salem. Remember me? Ren? Nice to see you.’

  ‘My pod is out of juice,’ he said. It lay dead beside his plate.

  ‘I can charge it for you,’ said Ren, pulling out her laptop.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. With suspicion.

  ‘It’s safe with me,’ she said, plugging it in.

  Salem nodded. ‘That’s good news. I’ve a long walk ahead of me.’

  ‘I could give you a ride.’

  ‘No thank you. You going to have breakfast?’

  ‘Just coffee. Mind if I join you?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  The waiter came by with coffee.

  ‘This place is great,’ she said to Salem.

  ‘This place was built the same year they struck gold in the Blue River,’ he said. ‘Oldest bar around. Never even closed in Prohibition times.’

  ‘Really?’ said Ren.

  He nodded. They sat in silence for a little while.

  ‘Salem,’ said Ren, ‘I was wondering if you could do me a favor …’

  ‘Maybe. Go ahead.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘If I ask you some questions about some people, can you keep it to yourself?’

  ‘You mean not tell anyone you asked me, or not tell them you asked me?’ said Salem.

  ‘Not tell them and not tell anyone,’ said Ren.

  Salem nodded. ‘Not necessarily.’ He paused. ‘Well, if you asked me to kill them, for example, I’d be obliged to let them and your bosses know.’ He fixed serious eyes on her. Then broke out in a laugh.

  ‘It’s safe to say I have no desire to kill anyone,’ said Ren. She smiled. Then noticed Salem’s faraway eyes.

  Oh shit. ‘But I signed up to what I signed up to’ said Ren, and, if placed in a situation, I would have no problem using my weapon and taking the necessary action.’

  Come back to me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally.

  He turned to her. ‘Me too.’

  The breakfast arrived with the silence.

  ‘So,’ said Salem, when she had finished eating. ‘What is this secret question?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ren. ‘OK, I was just wondering who brings you stuff up to the cabin? Is there someone who comes up with, say, food or clothes?’ Like the Wardwells.

  He nodded. ‘Sure. The Wardwells from the store down there.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Most times.’

  ‘OK. When?’

  ‘Could be any day.’

  ‘Any particular time?’

  ‘Six p.m. Seven.’

  ‘Do they stay long?’ said Ren.

  ‘’Bout an hour.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. Thank you.’

  ‘Can’t see why that’s such a big secret.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Ren.

  ‘I would, if you hadn’t just stood up and grabbed your computer with my pod hanging out of it.’

  ‘Oops,’ said Ren. ‘Here you go.’ She turned to leave. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘let me get this –’ She took the bill from the table.

  He shook his head. ‘Mine’s free. I get free breakfasts here.’

  ‘Oh. I forgot. I’m sorry.’

  He nodded.

  ‘But I doubt I’ll be extended the same privilege,’ said Ren, smiling.

  The waiter was on his way over. ‘This is on me.’

  Ren looked back and forth between both of them. ‘But –’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘If Salem has a date, we’re going to cover her too.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Ren. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘If I’d known I could bring a date here for free …’ said Salem.

  The parking lot of the Brockton Filly was almost deserted. Ren got out of the Jeep, wondering what had happened to all Billy’s customers. The new green neon sign looked too bright and shiny for a dead bar. She pushed in the door. Apart from the hum of the air-conditioning, it was like being back in January. There were a few people dotted around, mainly dirty-looking truckers.

  Ren went up to the bar. ‘Hey,’ she said.

  Billy’s face was stony. ‘Hi.’

  ‘What’s up?’ She looked at him and around the bar.

  ‘Like you don’t know …’

  ‘Don’t know what?’

  ‘I was raided last night for serving alcohol to minors.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really not know this?’

  ‘No, how the hell would I?’

  ‘Well, you’re working out of the Sheriff’s Office aren’t you?’

  ‘Um, yeah, but it’s not like my priority is underage drinking right now, I’m not in there drawing up a hit-list of bars.’

  He let out a breath. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just pissed off. I’m going to get fined; they rounded up a load of kids and brought them to the Sheriff’s Office, so they’re going to be really bummed about that and tell everyone. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to stay quiet for long. But still …’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought you knew.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I can understand how you might think I know everything …’

  He smiled.

  58

  The door to the ladies room burst open and Jo da Ho staggered out.

  ‘Damn you, you son-of-a-bitch,’ she shouted, as she fell briefly on her hands, then pushed her weight back up again. The man ran around her and out through the door of the bar.

  Billy ran to her. Ren ran too.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ said Billy. ‘I will –’

  ‘No,’ said Jo. ‘But damn him, he broke my damn necklace in two.’

  ‘Oh, your pretty necklace,’ said Ren, bending down to pick it off a floor she realized too late was very wet.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jo. ‘Thank you.’ She held out her hand.

  But Ren didn’t hand it to her. ‘Where did you get this, Jo?’

  Jo looked at Ren, then Billy, then down to the necklace.

  ‘Jo?’ said Ren. ‘This is not a big deal. It’s just out of curiosity.’

  ‘I found it in the bathroom,’ said Jo. ‘A woman dropped it. She’d been in here before and I knew she’d be back, so I kept it for her. But it was pretty, so I wore it. Otherwise I would have just sold it, wouldn’t I? My plan all along was to give it back to its rightful owner.’

  Good point. ‘I know that,’ said Ren. She closed her grip on the necklace and put it into her pocket before Billy or Jo could see what she really had in her hand. She took out a photo of Jean Transom that she kept in her wallet. ‘Is this the lady who lost it?’

  ‘Exa
ctly,’ said Jo. ‘Exactly.’

  Billy and Ren looked at each other.

  ‘Did you see any pictures of this woman on the news or on the posters around Breckenridge?’ said Ren.

  ‘I don’t have a television set,’ said Jo. ‘But I did see a picture something like that, now you mention it. But that woman in the pictures was an FBI agent, it said. The woman who dropped the necklace didn’t look like an FBI agent. An FBI agent just wouldn’t come into the Filly. So I thought they kind of looked like each other, but it couldn’t be the same person.’

  Maybe if you had read the poster and seen that the last sighting was here …

  ‘That is true,’ said Billy.

  ‘Well, Jean was a friend of mine,’ said Ren, ‘so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang on to this necklace for her family.’

  Jo nodded. ‘OK, sure. You do that. I knew I’d only have it for a little while. And I’m sorry I broke it.’

  ‘You didn’t break it,’ said Ren.

  It was designed to come apart. Otherwise you couldn’t plug it into a USB port.

  Ren turned to Billy. ‘I’m just going out to the Jeep for a little while. I’ll be back.’

  ‘Sure, no problem. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She turned to Jo. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Jo, sitting down on her corner stool, looking down at her vast, bare cleavage.

  Ren grabbed her laptop from the trunk of the Jeep and sat in the front seat. She turned on the heating in the car. She dropped the bottom half of the damp pendant – the cap of the USB flash drive – into the driver’s door and held the part with the USB drive against the vents.

  What files have you saved on to this?

  Ren’s fingers started to burn in the hot air. She shook the drive. Please dry. After a little while she checked it. There was no way of telling. She plugged it in and a little white disk icon appeared on her screen. Ren clicked on it. There were three files. The first was a Word document called ‘listassaults’. The second was a jpg, numbered. The third was just called ‘letterforpsych’. The list of names was no surprise to Ren – the young girls, the abuse.

  The jpg stalled when she tried to open it. When it did open, it was a small, blurred image taken with a cellphone camera. It looked pixilated – a mess of shapes and colors – but it wasn’t. Ren stared at it closely. She had seen it before: in a drawing on the little girls’ file in her office, signed Ruth XX. Here in a tiny, badly lit photo. And also at exactly the location the photo had been taken in. Her heart pounded.

  I know what this is.

  Suddenly, a face appeared at the driver’s window.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ She rolled down the window. ‘Are you fucking insane?’

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ said Billy. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m working,’ said Ren, pulling down the laptop screen.

  ‘I was worried, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘OK. Jesus. You just ran out –’

  ‘See you inside.’

  She opened the last file, ‘letterforpsych’. The heading was ‘Jennifer Mayer’:

  Jennifer Mayer sat in the last pew of the condemned church, her eleven-year-old body starved and bruised and torn. Her hazel eyes were vacant, but held more than she ever wanted to know. She slid to the edge, gripped the rail and walked slowly up the aisle, her steps off, her toes pointed; a tiny, broken ballerina. She wore nothing but a flower girl’s tight smile as she strew blood-stained petals from a basket that hung on her forearm.

  On the altar, in a wreath of fresh lilies, was her last school photograph. She took the three long steps up the soft red carpet to the altar. On a marble plinth in front of her stood a baptismal font with a drying pool of holy water. She reached in and splashed it on to her face, wiping away dirt, revealing wounds she couldn’t feel.

  In God’s safe house, a strange parody of disordered sacraments: baptism, marriage and death, communion with evil and confirmation that she would never be the same again.

  She looked into the eyes of all the statues around the church. In an alcove was a portrait of the French saint, St Jean-Marie Vianney. She had learned about him at school. He had found strength in going without food or sleep. He could heal the sick, especially children. Jean. She turned her head to face the huge cross that hung behind the altar. Transom: the horizontal beam on a cross … or gallows.

  So … I can come back to life. Or I can die.

  Ren closed the file. It was therapy. A letter to a psychiatrist, written in the third person, to help her get through it. Jean Transom was Jennifer Mayer, the pretty little girl who had been abducted with her friend, Ruth Sleight, and held for three weeks in a place where they should have been discovered.

  She called Paul Louderback. Then she re-read the last line of the letter: “So … I can come back to life. Or I can die.”

  And Jean Marie Transom did both.

  59

  Salem Swade’s cabin was in black mountain darkness, but inside, a muted light glowed. Ren walked around its neat, rotted log walls and boarded-up windows, the beam of her Maglite low on the ground. On the east side, the one remaining window revealed nothing of what lay on the other side. Ren rubbed her forearm across it and got nothing but a sleeve covered in dirt and a spider hanging from her cuff by its silver thread. She paused, sucked in by its manic search for purchase. Holding the flashlight between her teeth, she pinched the thread from her cuff, setting the spider free on the dry earth.

  She grabbed the light, then moved around the front of the cabin to the door. She paused, listening to the two voices that were talking inside. She knocked and worked at the rusted doorknob until it gave way. Powdered wood fell from the frame on to the floor.

  The smell was pine pot-pourri over locker room, prison, hospital air. Her stomach shifted.

  ‘Hello,’ said Salem, raising his hand to wave. He was wearing a red, button-down long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of light cotton trousers. A little skinny Santa Claus.

  ‘Hello, Salem,’ said Ren. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d come to see you?’ She smiled. ‘I brought you up … some soda.’ She lay a cooler box on the floor by the table. A living room/kitchen ran the length of the cabin with two rooms off it to the rear, one with a door, one without. To her right was the kitchen area, to her left was the living area with a rocking chair, a generator, some candles and the rotted stumps of two trees. Across one wall, blocking the window she had tried to look through, were six ceiling-high stacks of the Summit Daily News. She closed the door to the fresh air behind her.

  Malcolm Wardwell was standing by the stove in the kitchen, heating food. There were some empty plastic containers beside him.

  ‘Hello,’ said Ren.

  ‘Hello,’ said Malcolm. He turned quickly back to the food. ‘Jason,’ he called out.

  Jason Wardwell came out from the back room.

  ‘This is …’ said Malcolm, turning to Ren. ‘I’m sorry, what was your name again?’

  ‘Ren Bryce. I’m with the FBI.’ She reached out a hand to Jason.

  ‘Hi,’ said Jason, giving her a firm handshake.

  What are you doing here? I thought you and your father had fallen out.

  Salem walked her way. ‘Everyone wants to feed Salem,’ he said. ‘People been trying to put meat on these bones since I was a boy.’

  ‘To be fair,’ said Jason, ‘you know how to put it away. Just where, though, is the thing. That’s one of those secrets the ladies would love to know.’ He glanced at Ren.

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ said Ren. ‘The only places I can think to put it are on my big fat hips and my big fat ass.’

  ‘Well … I wasn’t including you in the ladies,’ said Jason.

  Ren laughed. Oh dear – have you ever spoken to a woman before in your life?

  ‘Back out while you can,’ said Salem to Jason. ‘Slowly.’ He turned to Ren. ‘Take a seat,’ he said.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Ren. She st
ill stood by the door, scanning the room.

  Salem wandered away, half talking to himself. ‘You don’t leave people,’ he said. ‘You take hits. You take hits for yourself, you take hits for others. You take the bullets. You send ’em back. That’s the kind of shit that happens. That’s the kind of shit.’

  ‘You’re not wrong, buddy,’ said Jason. ‘Tell us about that time on the river, Salem.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ said Ren.

  Jason glanced at her. ‘It’s OK, it’s a funny story.’

  ‘Goddamn hilarious,’ said Salem, slapping a hand on his knee, then leaning on it to stand up, ‘Goddamn hilarious, the way they peppered those bullets across that water, crazy, deadly. Like stone-skimming – badam, badam, badam.’ He danced around in a circle, then sat back down.

  ‘Look at him dance,’ said Jason.

  Ren took a deep breath.

  ‘You just chill out, there, Salem,’ she said. ‘We don’t need any entertainment here this evening. You just relax.’

  ‘Can you smell how good this is?’ said Jason. ‘My mother makes the best –’

  He stopped. They all heard a loud noise out the back of the cabin.

  ‘Bears,’ shouted Salem, jumping up, grabbing a stick from against the wall and bolting out the door.

  ‘Well, shit,’ said Jason, ‘let me go get him.’

  ‘Let me go,’ said Ren. She didn’t give him a chance to argue. She ran around the back and grabbed Salem by the arm.

  ‘Salem, sweetheart, I need you to get out of here, OK? Do you know Billy down at the Filly?’

  Salem nodded.

  ‘Just go down to him,’ said Ren. ‘He will look after you. Don’t say anything to anyone about who’s up here, OK?’