by Bud Crawford
"I was stationed in Charlotte, watching the cyber operation. When the Aldens came here, I followed, thinking it might have heralded an enlargement of the operation. We hadn't anticipated Alden's trip, hadn't thought that he was a player. The black truck that Ickes used belongs to an out-of-town neighbor. We definitely weren't watching it. Alden's death seemed accidental, and Ickes' story of visiting the widow was plausible."
Sprague said, "Under the front seat of the truck we found a baseball bat. Also a grocery bag with a yellow dress, a pair of lady's shoes, a padded bra and a wig."
"We saw a woman in a yellow dress go upstairs the morning Mr. Alden died, didn't we?" Beth-Ann said to Mary-Beth.
"I saw her, too. I assumed it was a 'her,' moved like a woman," Honoria said. "But it was just a peripheral glance, never a good look."
"Why keep the disguise?" Marti asked, raising her hand, "that doesn't seem very smart."
"Maybe," said Geoff, "he thought he might need it again. Maybe he thought nobody had seen him wearing it the first time."
"We found another witness, on our way here this morning, Patrolman Apple did, on a second try," Sprague said. "Tell them about the little girl."
Apple flushed, closed her notebook and looked up. "Yessir. We saw her standing on the sidewalk, red t-shirt, blue shorts. She's a second-grader, lives next door, her school's on spring break, so she rides around the block all day on her tricycle. She's not allowed to cross streets. We had talked to her before, when the yellow dress first came up. We asked if she saw a lady in a yellow dress go into Juniper House. She said, no, she hadn't. On a hunch, this morning, I asked again. I asked her if she had seen anybody wearing a yellow dress last week. This time she said yes, she had: the fat man in the black truck."
"But," Honoria said, "how did he kill Harold?"
"You're the medic," Geoff said, "but how about asphyxiation? He knew about the bad heart valve, knew a half-minute or so of no breath could trigger an arrest. A latex glove over nose and mouth, a gentle choke hold, then let go and watch the heart attack happen. For James, possibly it was just a push, or maybe he snapped his neck first, as he planned to do with us."
Ellen said, "I don't envy your prosecutor, Detective Sprague, on those two murders."
"Well," Sprague said, "it's a solid circumstantial case, a developing pattern. I'm also hoping she'll have access to Agent Ross. His testimony if possible, a detailed deposition at least. Basically, I hope DHS will step aside, now it's clear it's not their case."
"I'll have to do what I'm told. And I know we'll want to be as low profile as possible," Ross said. "But I'd guess you'll get what you need. At least we'll tell you where to look to find out what we found out. Tracking through Metrocor's books should be a snap when you know what to watch for."
"I've got a question," Sprague said. "Mr. Fletcher, how did you happen to be wearing a concealed and quite illegal automatic knife yesterday?"
"Just a hunch," Geoff said, "when I got dressed. I considered strapping on a pistol, I do have a carry permit, but it seemed silly. I underestimated David. I assumed I'd be alright as long as I didn't turn my back on him. The knife was a compromise. 'Illegal,' you said. Really?"
"Yeah. Anything spring-loaded, front-opening, automatic," Sprague said, "anything with that long a blade, illegality compounded by concealment. Illegal by federal law, also in forty-something states. I'd guess you knew all that. Saved your life, though."
"I'm an army vet, a licensed collector, a deputy sheriff in my home county. There might be a path to mitigation for my crime," Geoff said. "In the event, things resolved quickly, without a lot of violence, but it was the cascade of rescuers that finished David. He was fine hunting Ellen and me in the brush, where we had nothing but that four-inch blade. We got a little distance and separation when we rolled out of the cab, but until Honoria and Alistair showed up, we had rotten odds, all cramped up and drunk as we were. David didn't have much chance fighting Alistair, unless he got his other gun out, but he intended to try. Then, suddenly, headlights and cops with guns were everywhere. Asheville police, Homeland Security, Madison County deputies. He went from a good chance, to a fighting chance, to no chance at all, in about two minutes. Master-of-all to meltdown, it was delicious to watch. Meanwhile, Honoria had long since taken out Madison. Thanks, by the way, to all our rescuers. We might have survived, but there would probably have been a lot more damage without you-all."
Ellen said, "Me, too, thanks to everybody. I sort of know how the story got passed from Agent Ross, hearing the recording, to Detective Sprague, and then to the County Sheriff. There was a tracking transmitter, satellite triangulation and all that. But, Honoria and Alistair, were you guys running on witchcraft?"
"Standard vehicular surveillance techniques, ma'am," Alistair said, smiling broadly, "nothing unusual. Keeping back, as far as possible, lights off mostly, got some honks from oncoming traffic."
"You followed us?" Ellen asked him, then looked at Honoria. "Okay, I get that. But why? I said we were going to try to see Madison at her office, I sent you an e-mail about it. But why mount a posse? I'm glad you did, obviously, but how did you know we'd need it?"
"Lucky guess, dear," Honoria said. "You told me about the black truck trying to run you off the road. The driver pretty much had to be David, and that meant he was ahead of you."
"You got it right, we got it wrong, on that score, Honoria," Geoff said. "I figured he'd taken his shot, so he'd turn off next exit to go home and think up his next move. We couldn't prove he was in the truck. The license plate was covered with mud. I was ninety-several percent sure it was him. The theoretical possibility existed that he'd outthink us, beat us to Asheville, figure we were going to see Madison, and have a plan ready to go. But that was so many unlikely things stacked up, the probability seemed about zero to me. It was a good thing you reckoned the odds better."
"Well," Honoria said, "twice each day the frozen mechanism of my imagination gets things right. I wasn't sure of anything, but it was easy to check out, and the stakes possibly were high. I sold Alistair on the idea that we could go to over to Metrocor, see if you were there and who else was. We waited across the street, I tried to call you, I thought of calling Detective Sprague, but I just had a long-shot guess."
"What did you see?" Sprague asked.
"Nothing, for an hour and a half," Alistair said. "We could see the van in the parking lot through the trees, then hardly that because it started getting dark, and no lights came on. We surmised that Geoff and Ellen had got in to see Madison, but there was no sign of anybody else. Lights were on upstairs, but we couldn't see in."
"Alistair wanted to climb up and take a look through the window," Honoria said, "and then go check out the other side of the building. I thought we should sit tight to be ready in case somebody drove off. I was wrong on that, there was plenty of time. But for some reason he listened to me and we waited."
"You could have called me," Sprague said.
"We assumed Ellen told you her plans," said Honoria. "All we had was a van in a parking lot. Then somebody got into the van and drove around the building, where we couldn't see. Alistair drove across and we waited at a side street that the rear parking lot had to open onto. There were no lights. David must have left before we got to the corner, because we didn't see the truck. But half-a-minute after we parked we saw the van pull out. Alistair followed as inconspicuously as possible, all the way up the mountain. We drove past when we saw the van park. Alistair thought he spotted the truck behind the trees. We stopped and turned around a hundred yards later, hoping it would make us look like we were a different car coming from the other direction, Alistair hopped out and I drove back, headlights on high, I parked where my lights lit up as much of the shoulder as possible. I wasn't sure light was a good thing, but it made the dark places darker, and that's where Alistair was."
"You could have called me," Sprague said.
Alistair said, "She tried to, actually, as we were coming up the mountain, but
she couldn't get a steady signal. And we could have been following Geoff and Ellen out for a drive in the country. It was odd their phones were off, but maybe they wanted to be alone. There were bad possibilities we could think of, obviously, but we had nothing that would have been convincing on a 911 call. Suddenly, there they were, and it looked like there was no time to waste, with help an hour away. We had to do what we could."
Marti asked, "What about Madison? Was she in on all this?"
"Oh, yes," Geoff said. "Absolutely. She was in Charlotte when David was working out his scam, and she had started up the Centurion apparatus in Asheville. Whether she was completely in his confidence, I'm not sure. Like where the off-shore accounts were, how much was in them, who the dummy vendors were. Probably most of it, in outline. Whether David intended she would join him when he left to join his money, that I don't know."
"I'll bet he planned to dump her," Ellen said, "leave her to take the fall. They weren't honorable thieves. Ugly egomaniacs, both of them. I'll bet she'll turn on him if she's offered any kind of a deal. He's going down anyway, she's got nothing to lose, and she knows he'd do it to her. That could be how you nail the bastard"
"I'd have thought," Sprague said, "you'd want her locked up as much as him."
"Locked up?" Ellen asked. "Locked away safe, where I can't get at her? That's the last thing I want."
"You're kidding, I'm almost sure," Sprague said, "but if you don't mind I'll suggest it to the prosecutor as one more reason against allowing bail. Yes, Apple, that can go in the notes. Fix the phrasing." He turned to Marti. "Miss Spence?"
Marti looked up. "What?"
Sprague said, "You know, for a few days there, we thought you were right in the middle of this case. Looks different now, but we'd still like to talk to your boyfriend, Harper. He doesn't seem to be in Asheville. Do you know where he is?"
Marti said, "He sent me a text, about an hour ago. His sister lives in Maryland. She's the only family he has. She checked him into a rehab place up there. He wasn't supposed to call anybody. They're, what do they call it? incognito? the first two weeks. But he asked me to tell you where he was. And he asked me to ask, could you wait, for the two weeks?"
"Probably not, but I'll see. Maybe we could have a word with the local cops, monitor where he was. We don't usually give head-starts, like hide-and-seek."
chapter fifty-fifth
Ellen slowed almost to a stop, then rolled the van gently off the pavement onto their gravel driveway. "The last mile," she said. "The good one."
"Should we check the mail box?" Geoff asked.
"It's six-thirty, what's the chance Mimi or Carl hasn't picked up?" She shifted into first gear and let the engine pull them up the hill. The edges of the road, and the center strip, were fresh cut. When they reached the fork where their road split from the Hagen's, the neat trim extended both ways. Their yard looked like a team of landscapers had just left, grass short and even, bushes trimmed, beds weeded. At the last bend before their garage, a narrow view opened up to the high pasture. Ellen stopped abruptly. "Look, Geoff, look! Carl's heifer. She's beautiful, look at that happy happy twirling tail."
Selassie bounded out through the cat door as they parked by the kitchen. He bumped his head into Geoff's leg, before Geoff could reach down, he sprang away and bumped Ellen, then back to Geoff. Callisto emerged through the door, stood watching them as the cat door flapped down behind her. Ellen snatched Selassie off the ground mid-bolt, spun him around, lifted him straight over her head, then touched his feet to the ground, lifted him again and handed him to Geoff.
"Hello, milady," she turned and bowed to Callisto. The cat raised her tail straight in the air and stepped carefully, unhurried, towards the new arrivals. Geoff set their bags on the driveway; Ellen picked up the computers from behind the front seats and let the cats into the kitchen, through the big door. She was surprised for a second to find it was locked, but her key turned easily in the cylinder. She set Geoff's computer on his desk, hers on her desk. Geoff lifted out the bicycles and rolled them into the garage. Ellen led the cats back to the car, grabbed the cooler and the carton of wine. Three bottles were left. Geoff draped himself in bags and worked his width inside as Ellen held the door.
She emptied the cooler on the counter, put silverware, cups and dishes in the sink She flattened the wine carton, and put away the remaining food. Geoff lugged the bags into the bedroom and set them on the brightly striped bedspread. Ellen ran the dryer to fluff the clothes Mimi had dried a week ago and loaded the dark clothes Geoff handed her into the washing machine. She piled the light load on the dryer and joined Geoff in the bedroom to put away their bags and contents. She emptied the drier, folded and put away the clothes while Geoff washed and dried the dishes.
He accepted the cold bottle of beer and followed her to the porch. They stretched out on a pair of wicker chaise lounges, glugged beer and looked a mile down the cove at the green leaves stirring in the soft afternoon breeze. Callisto had been for some time curled on the table between the chairs, Selassie walked around the corner to join them. He meowed with a rising tone, inquisitive.
Ellen said, "Yes, I saw that your bowls were empty. Dinner will be at sundown, no more Mimi feeling sorry for you." Selassie walked past her and jumped up to lean his back against Geoff's leg, just below the knee, just out of reach. Geoff stretched enough to scratch Selassie under his chin, along the jaw-line. The cat lifted his head as Geoff lowered himself back into the chair.
"Home is good," Geoff said.
"Return is the ribbon that wraps up the gift of the journey," Ellen took a swig of beer.
Geoff lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head. "Aphorisms are metaphors of the mundane."
Ellen belched. "It've been poetry if you'd said it. I'm glad we stopped at Stef's. She seemed good. That was from Tolstoy, wasn't it? Her line, 'how much land does a man need'?"
"Yeah. You know the story? Leo's last period, the holy days, gentle sunset of genius. Siberia got homesteaded like the wild west here. One guy does a truly super job, plows a furrow miles long around the hugest claim of all, wins the sweepstakes. Then he dies from the exertion and gets buried in a plot three foot by six foot."
"Very apposite of her. Guess she does read now. David was rich without cheating, except he was in a fundamentally cheating business. Then he cheated a little and got much richer. Then he concocted his scheme and was on the edge of fabulous."
"Four murders, maybe, several more attempts, to keep the scam hid. Then crash, then burn. It was nice of Sprague to let us clear out Harold's room, after his second forensic. I'm glad we could finish that aspect of things for Stef." Geoff finished his beer, set the bottle on the table beside Callisto. "And, yes, I think she is good. A lot to handle, with a lot more coming, but she's up to it. I hope she stays in touch." He looked at Ellen.
"Yeah, she's like the first chapter in a book. You want to know how it turns out."
"So the jealousy's all gone?" Geoff swung his legs up and over the cat, and sat facing Ellen, hands on his knees.
"No way it's gone. Stronger than ever, now I've met her. But it's conditioned by realizing I may be more attracted to her than you are."
"I'm shocked," Geoff stood. "Shocked. Anyway, I feel like doing a little work, my alligator's been missing me. Carpe poema." He picked up the empty beer bottles and extended his other hand. Ellen took it and swung her feet over the chaise to stand facing him. Geoff felt no movement or pressure from her hand, but she grimaced as the right side of her body, where the worst bruises were, stretched long. He wrapped his arms around her gently, beer bottles clattering in his hand, supporting her a little as she pushed through her feet to a full pointe. Eyes at a level, wordless, unblinking, they looked.
Ellen rolled down, planted her heels. "Ya know, I still like what's in there." She stepped away as his arms opened. "Go build your song, smithy dearest. I've got to make a list of all the things I didn't get done in Asheville so I can decide what to research, what to fake an
d what to leave out." Geoff followed her into the kitchen. Selassie had bolted ahead. He held the door as Callisto stepped carefully through.
end
Table of Contents
prologue
chapter first — sunday
chapter second
chapter third — monday
chapter fourth
chapter fifth
chapter sixth
chapter seventh
chapter ninth
chapter tenth
chapter eleventh — tuesday
chapter twelfth
chapter thirteenth
chapter fourteenth
chapter fifteenth — wednesday
chapter sixteenth — thursday
chapter seventeenth
chapter eighteenth
chapter nineteenth
chapter twentieth
chapter twenty-first
chapter twenty-second
chapter twenty-third
chapter twenty-fifth
