by J. A. Kerley
Jeremy said something to one of the agents. The guy looked at me and laughed. My brother shot me a wink and a wave.
No handcuffs.
The agent patted Jeremy on the back, nodded at me. They both laughed like I was the butt of a joke.
“Doctor Charpentier came to us an hour ago,” Krenkler explained. “He said you were at his home earlier. You were looking for some place tucked way in the north of the county. You couldn’t raise McCoy on your cell and you thought a hiker like the doctor might know how to get here.”
I shot a glance at my brother. “I, uh … yes, that’s right.”
“The doctor also said you were acting pretty squirrely. He began to fear for your safety and called us. You owe him big time.”
Rourke extended his hand and I let him pull me to standing. I closed my eyes with my hands on my knees for a few seconds, getting my bearings. My brother had walked into the lion’s den to save my life.
Krenkler shook her head at me for a final time, then trotted over to inspect the body, snapping orders to the agents like they were errant bellhops. I went to Jeremy, now alone.
I said, “Thanks, Doc.”
“This has been very instructive,” he said quietly, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning against the wall, totally at ease. “I’ve been quite the curious fellow on the way here, asking the boys how they dig into people’s backgrounds and so forth.”
“The boys?”
“And, of course, dear Miss Krenkler. They’ve been most informative without realizing it. With a little more work I can harden my identity.”
I shook my head in amazement: My brother had once again fallen upwards. I went outside and found Cherry about to be taken to the hospital for a checkup. The paramedics were kind enough to allow us a few quiet moments together, and I followed the ambulance to the hospital.
Cherry’s exam and several X-rays took a half-hour. McCoy stopped by for a few minutes. After she was pronounced in remarkable shape, given her ordeal, we retreated to her home and stood in a steaming shower until the water ran cool. She poured us bourbon over ice, enlivened with a few ounces of seltzer. We sat on the porch as the stars wheeled overhead.
“How well did you know Horace?” I asked.
A long pause. “He laughed a lot. Bought me birthday gifts, graduation gifts. Things Mama couldn’t afford. I loved to be close to him because he smelled so good, his aftershave or cologne. I’d sit in his lap with my arms around his neck when I was little. One time I … he …”
She fell silent, her eyes far away and looking inside.
“Talk to me,” I said. “Don’t hide it.”
“I-I must have been ten, eleven. My birthday party. I was sitting on his lap and spooning ice cream into his mouth. I felt his hand on my legs, then … something tickled and I wriggled away. The ice cream fell on to him. I remember seeing this startled look on his face. I thought I’d done something wrong.”
“Do you think—”
“I think he was testing something, that he might have even scared himself. From that point on he started telling me I’d gotten too big to hold. For a long time I thought it was because I’d spilled ice cream on his lap. Then time sped up and it was junior high school and I was in the band and on the newspaper and then high school and I was in clubs and there were boys, whoopee. College and studies came next. I really didn’t see him much after I was thirteen or fourteen, too much happening in my life.”
“But he left you his home.”
“Horace had changed over the years, become a recluse. His big laugh went away. He had an enlarged heart that was expanding. I’d come to visit and he really seemed to appreciate the company and, uh, and …”
Reality crashed in and her words choked into tears. She stood and wiped them away with the back of her hand. She paced the porch until her voice was steady.
“I can’t believe what a monster he was, Carson. What a disgusting monster. I can’t live here any more, knowing what he was. I can’t.”
“Maybe Horace changed at the end,” I said.
“People like that never change, Carson. Their souls are too broken.”
She fell into the chair and put her head in her hands. I moved close and put my arm over her shoulder.
“Did you know Lee McCoy was on the recovery team when your uncle fell?” I asked.
Her face turned to me, puzzled. “He never mentioned it.”
“There’s something else Lee didn’t mention.”
I told her a brief story about a ranger rappelling to a body in a tree and finding a scrap of paper pinned to the corpse’s ice-cream suit. I handed her something McCoy had kept for three years, figuring it might someday be needed. I’d asked him to bring it to the hospital.
Donna Cherry stared at four words written in a whisper:
I’m sorry for everything
She folded the note, closed it in her hand, and we walked to the edge of the precipice, lit in the soft light from her porch.
“Two men involved in the fight camps died down there, Carson. One created horror, the other was trapped in it. Both were looking for freedom from their pasts. Why did they both die here? What does it mean?”
“Whatever you need it to mean,” I said. “Whatever it takes to work the magic.”
“Magic? What do you mean by …”
But I was already climbing the steps to her porch. I went inside and stripped her walls of the half-dozen implements used in training dogs. I took them outside and told her what they were.
“They’re all that remains of the bad,” I said. “If you kill them properly, you can set your home free.”
Cherry stared into my eyes for a long moment, nodded understanding. She went inside, returning minutes later in a simple gown of white. Her feet were bare in the warm grass. She was wearing Horace Cherry’s hat.
Cherry stood at the precipice with her eyes closed for five minutes, praying or chanting or simply wishing … it was only hers to know. She bent and picked up the bite stick and flung it high and away, watching it dissolve into the night sky. One by one I watched the other angry tools disappear into the dark. They reminded me of old knives sucked beneath green waves.
When the last device was gone, she pulled the hat from her head and launched it out over the valley. It floated on the breeze for a two-count, then tumbled into the depths. She turned to me.
Asked, “How’d I do?”
“Not mine to judge,” I said. “How do you feel?”
She pulled me close. Whispered in my ear.
Said, “Free.”
Chapter 56
It was nine a.m. before Cherry and I rolled from bed, Cherry answering the strident phone. “Good morning,” she said. “Uh –huh. Not long, I expect. Take care.” She hung up.
“World’s briefest survey?” I asked.
“That was Lee. He wants to, uh, meet up for supper tonight or tomorrow, maybe turn it into drinks.”
“I’m up for it. I’m hoping for another hike with him.”
I had time remaining in my vacation and planned to spend the bulk of it with Cherry. She drove me to Road’s End for fresh clothes, passing Jeremy’s cabin. He was in his garden, pruning something or other. He looked up and grinned, making the OK sign. Cherry waved back and yelled a greeting.
“You still think he’s weird?” I asked as she pulled her head back into the vehicle.
“He saved our lives. If he’s weird it’s the best weird ever.”
We rolled down the lane to Road’s End. Turning the bend for the last hundred feet, I noted motion on my porch. Saw a wagging tail. Heard a triumphant bark.
Mix-up had returned.
He bolted for the car as we drove to the cabin. I bailed out the door while the car was in motion, thumping, patting, petting, all at once. I couldn’t stop laughing. I threw a stick, he ran and fetched. I ran in a circle and he darted between my legs, knocking me to the ground. I tumbled him over in the weeds and thumped his huge chest as he pedaled his feet at the
sky.
Something struck me as strange. Mix-up’s coat was mat-free and as shiny as fresh silk, not expected of a furry beast lost amidst a forest’s brambles and burrs. I found no mud on his feet. No ticks in his fur.
Had he been bathed and brushed? Perplexed, I went to the kitchen and filled his food bowl. He finished half of the meal, then wandered outside.
The way he acted when recently fed.
I followed Mix-up outside to the porch, where Cherry was smoothing the fur on his broad back. A strange thought touched my head. I’d handed Cherry two dozen LOST DOG posters to disperse. But the only posters I’d ever seen were ones I’d distributed. The only calls I had received were from people who saw posters I’d put in place.
And why was Cherry always so optimistic about Mixup’s return?
“Good doggie …” Cherry said, now scruffing Mix-up behind the ears, his favorite site for attention. But I had been with Cherry when Mix-up disappeared, my mind reasoned. We’d been on the run all day.
“He’s a good doggi-woggie …”
But … that six-second call from McCoy a half-hour ago. Was it really about going out to eat? Just saying How about we all head to a restaurant for supper some night this week? took about six seconds. And that was as stripped down as a telegraph message, without the standard pleasantries associated with Lee McCoy. And how did Cherry’s response – “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect” – fit with McCoy’s message?
My head tried a sample dialogue.
McCoy: “I’m sneaking the dog back to Road’s End. You’ll be at your place a while, right?”
Cherry: “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect.”
Was I over-analyzing? Had my Detective Meter gone to overload mode?
I watched Cherry smiling and patting Mix-up’s flank. His tail whisked at her face; his clean, fluffy tail. She scratched him between his cow-sized eyes. Patted his belly, which he loved. She rubbed Mix-up’s ears. My mutt looked ready to ascend toward canine Nirvana. When had Cherry found time to learn his special spots?
“Uh, Donna,” I said, swallowing hard and walking closer. “I’ve got a question …”
But if Cherry and McCoy had dognapped Mix-up, it was because they needed me on the case, doing what I did best, right? It just made sense: I was, after all, the hotshot hard-on from Mobile. In hindsight, I expect I’d have done the exact same thing if faced with the prospect of losing me.
“What, Carson?” Cherry said, turning the beautifully idiosyncratic eyes my way. Was that a shadow of guilt in the left one?
“I, uh – say, how about we head over to the skylift for another ride?” I took her hand and lit up my most sincere smile. “I just purely love that thing.”
COMING SOON
THE DEATH BOX
DECEMBER 2013
Carson Ryder thought he’d seen everything …
A specialist in twisted crimes, Detective Carson Ryder thought he’d seen the lowest depths of human depravity. But he’s barely started his new job in Miami when called to a horrific scene: a concrete pillar built of human remains, agonized expressions forever frozen in stone.
Finding the secret of the pillar drags him into the sordid world of human trafficking, where one terrified girl holds the key to unraveling a web of pain, prostitution and murder.
But Ryder’s not the only one chasing the girl. And the others will kill to keep the secret safe.
Click here to buy The Death Box.
Acknowledgements
To the librarians in the Powell County and Wolfe County Public Libraries in eastern Kentucky, keepers of the lighthouses. To the exceptional folks at the Aaron Priest Literary Agency. To Julia Wisdom at HarperCollins UK for her overview and suggestions. To Anne O’Brien for sharp-eyed editing. And to the professional staff at Kentucky’s Natural Bridge State Resort Park, whose multi-faceted programs are instrumental to my knowledge and appreciation of the Red River Gorge.
About the Author
J. A. Kerley spent years as an advertising agency writer and producer before his wife demanded he quit work and write a novel, which he thought a fine idea. The result was The Hundredth Man, the first in the Carson Ryder series. An avid angler, canoeist and hiker, Kerley has traveled extensively throughout the South, especially coastal regions such as Mobile, Alabama, the setting for many of his novels, and the Florida Keys. He has a cabin in the Kentucky mountains, which appeared as a setting in Buried Alive. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, where he enjoys sitting on the levee and watching the barges rumble up and down the Ohio River.
Also by the Author
The Hundredth Man
The Death Collectors
The Broken Souls
Blood Brother
In the Blood
Little Girls Lost
Her Last Scream
The Killing Game
Copyright
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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First published in Great Britain by Harper 2010
Copyright © Jack Kerley 2010
Jack Kerley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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