Lake Country

by Sean Doolittle

  Toby looked out his window. Nothing there to see but trees. Probably like eleven thousand freaking trees.

  “Second,” Bryce said. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Toby looked at him.

  “It could be a dollar for all I care,” Bryce said. “It could be a cheese sandwich. Hear what I’m saying?”

  Toby heard him.

  “Nod if we understand each other.”

  Toby didn’t understand at all. But he nodded anyway.

  Silence.

  Bryce pulled his door handle, eased the door open, and slipped out of the truck. Toby heard rocks crunch under the guy’s boot soles as Bryce turned back and leaned in, bracing an arm on the door frame over his head. “Follow me and stay close,” he said. “And, you know. Try not to slam your side when you get out. Right?”

  “He could have guns,” Toby said. A last-ditch effort. “Potter. He could have hand grenades for all we know. I told you before, the guy’s crazy.”

  Bryce hung his head like someone had snipped a string in his neck. He stayed like that for a minute. Toby sat where he was and waited. When Bryce finally looked up, he was grinning.

  “Dude,” he said, inflecting the word in a way that didn’t seem entirely necessary. “Were you not even listening to that story about me I told you before?”

  31

  Upon reflection, Mike Barlowe figured it was just about par for the course that after everything—after all he’d been through in the past fifteen hours—his day would end the same way it had started: with Toby Lunden coming through the door.

  He’d spent maybe ten minutes in the bathroom. If that. Only enough time to take a leak, scrub his hands, clean and bandage his wrist, put all of Hal’s first-aid stuff back the way he’d found it, take a brief look at the red-eyed, raggedy-assed individual in the mirror, and give Juliet Benson a chance to put on the clothes he’d left for her.

  He was about to lean out the door, call to check on her progress before he went waltzing in on her, when she cried out from the front room: a high, startled-sounding hoot, followed by pounding footsteps. Before he could react, Mike heard another cry. A male voice this time. More thudding.

  He bolted out of the bathroom into the main room without thinking, as fast as his stiff knee would carry him, and what he saw dumbfounded him: Juliet sprawled on the floor by the couch, looking wild-eyed; Toby Lunden standing over her, prancing in place, shaking his open hand in the air. Somehow, without understanding what the hell was going on, Mike got the picture that she’d bitten him. She’d yelled, Toby had tried to cover her mouth, and she’d bitten him.

  “Toby?” he said, and had just time enough to see the kid’s eyes dart to one side, hear Juliet call his name in warning, and sense movement behind him. All his internal alarms went off, and in that split second Mike recognized the position he’d put himself in. Shit, he thought.

  “Say good night,” the voice behind him said.

  Before Mike could turn, something hard and heavy slammed into his head. He was a three-million-candlepower spotlight flaring white, then fading to dark. He was an empty gun floating to the bottom of a cold black lake. Then he was nothing at all.

  32

  They were almost to Little Falls before Maya could get Roger Barnhill to pick up his phone. “I’m here,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Listen, I know how this is going to sound,” Maya said, “but I think Morningside may know where to find Juliet Benson.”

  “Who?”

  “Buck Morningside.” Met with silence, she recalled one of the first things Detective Barnhill had said to her in Jerry Spilker’s office at the jail. I’m new to this county. She said, “From all the billboards. The jackass running around your search site with a TV crew, dressed like Marshall McCloud?”

  “Oh, him,” Detective Barnhill sounded distracted. “I was informed about him, yes. What about Mr. Morningside?”

  “I think he’s found something. I don’t know how or what, but I think he’s found something.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “A hunch,” she said. What else could she tell him? That the man had winked at her?

  “A hunch,” Barnhill repeated.

  “Reporters get them occasionally.” Maya didn’t mean to go on the defensive, but she’d been trying to reach him for an hour and a half, and her impatience got the better of her. “Detectives too, I hear.”

  “I’m sorry,” Barnhill said. “I don’t mean to sound skeptical, but—”

  “Last time I shared one of my hunches,” she reminded him, “I heard you found a pickup truck registered to some guy in the hospital.”

  From behind the wheel, Justin Murdock raised his eyebrows. Maya knew this last comment went over the line, and in the dead silence that followed she could imagine the detective bristling on his end. She didn’t want to break his balls. She only wanted him to listen to her. “Sorry, that was shitty,” she said. “But I think I’m right about this.”

  Barnhill sighed in her ear. “All right,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “All I know is that Buck Morningside left your park an hour and a half ago doing his best impression of a guy who didn’t want to get caught talking to anybody with a news camera,” she told him. “If you’re new around here, you might not realize how out of character that is, but believe me, it’s out of character. When I talked to him, he was acting like he’d just come back from screwing the next-door neighbor’s wife, and now he and Twin Cities Public Television are tearing ass up Highway 10 like they’re late for a party somewhere.”

  “Twin Cities Public Television.”

  “They’re filming some idiot reality show,” she said. “American Manhunter: Northstar Justice. If you can believe that horseshit.”

  “I was informed of that, too.”

  “So then you know they’re busy shooting their big Juliet Benson episode.”

  Barnhill seemed to have a bunch of things demanding his attention, and local television programming did not top his list of concerns. Nor did this phone conversation. Still, he said, “How do you know where they’re going?”

  “I don’t. That’s my point.”

  “I mean how do you know where they are? You said Highway 10. How do you know their location?”

  “Because I’m right behind them,” Maya said.

  “You’re following them? Right now?”

  “In a Toyota Yaris, if you can picture it.” She rolled her eyes at Justin, who smirked and held up his middle finger. “It’s like riding around in a milk carton.”

  “Miss Lamb, I’m not sure what you think you’re doing,” Barnhill said. “Whatever it is, I’m advising you to stop.”

  “I’m not breaking any laws,” Maya said. “And we’ve driven a hundred miles already. I’m not going anywhere. And you’re still not taking me very seriously, are you?”

  She heard Barnhill take a deep breath. “Where are you specifically?”

  “Morrison County. South of Little Falls.”

  “Are you still in verbal contact with Morningside?”

  “No,” Maya said, and at that moment—after all this time cooped up in Justin Murdock’s uncomfortable toy car, watching the rear bumper of the Suburban in front of them, needing to pee like crazy, and yet still struggling to keep from falling asleep in the passenger seat—Maya wanted to slap her own forehead. She said, “Hang on a minute. I’ll call you right back.”

  “Miss La—”

  Maya hung up on the detective and plunged one hand into the front pocket of her hoodie. She felt all around. Watching her instead of the road, Justin said, “Was that the sheriff’s investigator?”

  “That was him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Tell you in a minute.”

  “This is still my story, you know. You gave it up.”

  “Just keep driving,” she said. “Don’t lose them.”

  She rummaged past the drugstore lighter and Deon’s nearly empty pack of
cigarettes, finally closing her fingers on the thing she was looking for. Until this minute she’d forgotten all about it. She was so tired her brain must have stopped working. Maya pulled out the business card Buck Morningside had given her and dialed the number embossed on it.

  He answered after three rings. “That you back there, darlin’? I wondered.”

  “Right behind you,” she said.

  “Hell, you coulda rode with us. This rig seats nine up here. Who’s your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “Driving that little old thing behind us.”

  “That would be News7’s Justin Murdock,” she said. Mistaking the sound of his name for an introduction in progress, Justin eagerly reached out for the phone. She batted his hand away. “This is his story now.”

  “Trainin’ your replacement, are you?”

  “Something like that.”

  Morningside chuckled. “That was a trick question. Can’t replace you, darlin’, but what the hell. The more the merrier, I say.”

  Cut the crap, Hubert, she almost said, but held herself in check. “I’ll admit it, I’m impressed,” she told him. “I just got off the phone with the lead investigator on this thing. You’ve got ’em paying attention, Morningside, let me be the first to hand it to you.”

  “Well, that’s all right. I got a feeling they’ll be paying real close attention soon enough.”

  “So where are we going?” Maya asked.

  “Follow right along. We’ll all see when we get there.”

  “Oh, come on. I can’t stand the suspense.”

  Morningside didn’t take the bait. He was enjoying himself, she could tell.

  “Fine, be that way,” she said. “At least tell me one thing. One manhunter to another.”

  “Shoot.”

  “A hundred cops out beating the bushes, and somehow you’re the one with the hot lead,” Maya said. “What’s your trick?”

  “Oh, now, I know you can do better than that. I already told you I’m too old for flattery.”

  “Fair enough. But I’m still dying to know.”

  “Well, let me put it to you this way,” Morningside said. “While all them cops were running around beating bushes? Me, I had my two best guys finding out where Potter and Barlowe do their drinking.”

  Maya processed the information on the fly. Michael Barlowe: the owner of the Buick Skylark police had tracked to the shabby little house in St. Paul. Darryl Potter, his roommate. She said, “Your best guys, huh?”

  “Well. My best guy and my half-blind nephew. Point is, cops think like cops. My guys think like guys. No real trick to it.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “You’d be surprised what all a regular old neighborhood bartender can tell you,” Morningside said. “If you know how to ask.”

  Maya had opened her mouth to ply him for more when the connection snapped into place. A sick thrill crept into her belly. It felt like victory and defeat combined.

  She said, “Did you just say bartender?”

  “That’s what I said, darlin’.”

  “You mean like the bartender they’ve got over at United Hospital?”

  “What’s that, now?”

  Maya felt her blood heating up. “You mean that bartender from the North End with his head busted? Is that the kind of regular old neighborhood bartender you’re talking about?”

  For once, Buck Morningside lacked an immediate reply.

  “What did you do, Morningside? Have a couple of your goons go to work on the poor bastard? Is that what you mean by knowing how to ask?”

  There was a long silence. Morningside came back sounding noticeably less pleased with himself. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know anything about any of that.”

  To her amazement, Maya believed him. “I am so all over your ass,” she said. “Darlin’.”

  Before he could reply, Maya hung up on him, called Barnhill again, and told him everything she’d just heard. Morningside had been right about one thing: The detective was paying very close attention now.

  “I’ll notify the state patrol offices in St. Cloud and Brainerd,” he said. “I want you to keep your phone ready so that we can keep track of your position. We’ll send you some company and see what this piece of work has to tell us.”

  “He’s a piece of something.”

  “Just tell me if you copied everything I said.”

  “Oh, I copy,” she said. “Is there anything new on Barlowe and Potter?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Morningside talked about finding where Barlowe and Potter did their drinking. I’d say that makes them official, wouldn’t you?”

  Between the strange look Justin Murdock gave her and the momentary silence on Barnhill’s end of the line, Maya got the distinct impression that she’d missed something.

  Barnhill said, “Are you telling me you didn’t see your own station’s news report this morning?”

  “I’ve been in a car.”

  “So you have,” Barnhill said. “All right. Quickly. So that you understand who we’re looking for, and so that you can keep it in mind from here forward. Are you listening?”

  “Listening and waiting.”

  “Lily Morse called our hotline five minutes after receiving her morning newspaper,” Barnhill said. “Not long after you and I spoke at the restaurant.”

  Maya’s breathing quickened. “Lily Morse called you?”

  “We brought her in. Issued warrants on Potter and Barlowe as soon as we’d talked to her.”

  “You’ve named suspects?”

  “This is what I’m trying to explain, if you’ll listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Barlowe and Potter are Marine Corps buddies. Both saw combat in Iraq. One of them’s a stress case, the other was kicked out over misconduct. Neither one of them has a regular job, and Potter has a criminal record. We’re still backgrounding these two, but I don’t like what we know so far.”

  It felt surreal to hear all this. Maya couldn’t get past the irony. For the past six hours she’d wandering around inside this story, actively participating in it, and apparently she knew less about what was happening than if she’d simply gone home and watched the news.

  But that wasn’t what disturbed her. “You said these guys saw combat?”

  “Heavy combat, from what I understand.”

  “Where and when?”

  “Ramadi in ’05, according to Lily Morse.”

  “Lily Morse gave you this information?”

  “That’s right.”

  Maya squeezed her eyes closed. She felt dizzy and realized she was holding her breath.

  “Please don’t tell me,” she said, “what I think you’re going to tell me.”

  “Barlowe and Potter served with Lily Morse’s son. Becky Morse’s older brother.”

  “Evan,” Maya said.

  “That’s right.” Barnhill paused. “Are we on the same page now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep your phone ready. And stay clear of these yahoos. I’ll be in touch with further instructions.”

  After the detective hung up, Maya sat numbly in her seat, staring at her lap.

  Then she straightened and slapped Justin Murdock around the shoulders. He flinched and swerved the car, and she stopped before he lost control and killed them both.

  “Holy shit, why are you hitting me?” he said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Potter and Barlowe?”

  “You didn’t ask!”

  “All this time we’ve been driving, you couldn’t have filled me in on the new stuff? Professional courtesy? Personal courtesy?”

  “You were asleep!”

  “Bullshit I was.”

  “For like an hour,” Justin said, sounding thoroughly exasperated. “I figured you needed some rest. Damn.”

  So maybe she’d nodded off a couple of times, Maya thought angrily. Five, ten minutes, tops.

  Then why, now that she thought about it,
couldn’t she remember them getting off I-94?

  Jesus, she thought. I must be losing my mind. She looked at Justin. He was shaking his head slowly, eyes on the road.

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said.

  “And I thought Kimberly was nuts.”

  Maya looked out the windshield, noticing for the first time that Morningide’s Suburban appeared to be trying to put some distance between them. Justin was doing his best to keep pace. The little car’s engine whined as if in pain. She leaned over and checked the speedometer. They were doing almost 90 miles an hour. That was when she noticed the needle of the fuel gauge hovering just below the halfway mark.

  “If we lose these assholes because we have to stop for gas,” she said, “I swear to God, I don’t know what’s going to become of me.”

  Justin checked the gauge, glanced at her briefly, and put his eyes back on the road. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I can drive this thing from here to Winnipeg on half a tank.”

  Maya sat back in her seat. She took in a deep breath through the nose, held it for a five count, and let it out slowly through her mouth. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said.

  Justin kept his eyes in front of him. After a moment, he smirked. “How do you like my milk carton now?”

  33

  While Bryce cleared the rest of the house, searching the place upstairs and down for any sign of Darryl Potter, Toby stayed put with the girl and wondered what he was supposed to do.

  She hadn’t made a sound since they’d first come in the door. She just sat on the floor where she’d tumbled off the couch, propping herself up on one hand. She kept staring at Barlowe, still lying where he’d dropped like a sack of potatoes ten feet away. The back of his hair looked dark and sticky where Bryce had clubbed him unconscious with the butt of his gun.

  “Hey, I’m really sorry,” Toby said. The girl’s silence was making him nervous. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I didn’t want you to give us away, that’s all.”

  She turned and glared at him with such penetrating hostility that Toby wished he hadn’t opened his mouth. He tried to start over. “You’re Juliet, right?”

  She looked him up and down. “Who the hell are you guys?”