by Diane Capri
She heard no telltale cracks from the twigs breaking underfoot. The end of the trail was half a mile away. She had a good lead, and she was a runner. She took a deep breath. If it came to a straight chase, she could prevail. She rolled the jacket under her arm.
The trail twisted and turned, opening up new sightlines. She saw a figure. Ragged clothes and long hair. A gray beard. He moved away. She breathed a sigh of relief. A vagrant. Probably as scared of her as she had been by him.
She made it to her car, started the engine, and ran the heater.
A vagrant? He certainly had the weathered skin of someone who lived outdoors. She frowned. He hadn’t seemed dangerous.
She drove into town and stopped at a burger chain. She bought the largest meal they had, and five minutes later she was back, walking through the woods to where she had seen the eyes.
There was no sign of him. She followed the direction he had taken. There was no real path, but there were telltale signs he had passed that way.
Black plastic glinted from under a mountain of vegetation. She moved around the mound until she saw an opening. “Hello,” she called.
“Don’t want no visitors,” called a man’s voice that was deep and rough, as if it had been steeped in smoky bars and hard liquor.
She poked her head under the exterior of the shelter. It was a small space lined with plastic bags and old clothes. He was huddled on a log in the corner. He stared at her.
He had thick eyebrows, a wild gray beard, and matching gray ponytail. He looked to be wearing three coats and woolen gloves. The gloves were different colors.
She kneeled down and held out the bag from the burger chain and a large coffee, steam curling from the lid into the damp air. “For you.”
He moved forward an inch.
She placed it on the ground between them and backed away.
His eyes darted between Jess and the brown bag.
“Better get it while it’s hot,” she said.
He shuffled forward and opened the bag. The scent of fried food filled the air. He removed his gloves and wedged the palms in his pockets, the fingers waggling comically.
She waited as he unwrapped the burger and fries and ate his way through what she guessed was his first hot meal in a long time. In a couple of minutes, the food was gone, and he sat cradling the coffee in his hands.
“What’s your name?”
He eyed her a moment. “Max.”
“I’m Jess.” She thought better of explaining who she was. “A boy fell from a tree in these woods—”
“Don’t know nothing about it.” His gaze darted around, refusing to make eye contact.
“I was wondering—”
“I said, I don’t know nothing.”
“He must have passed your home.”
He shrugged.
Jess smiled. “You saw me earlier.”
“Maybe.”
“I saw you watching me. But you didn’t see the boy?”
Max shuffled the leaves under his feet. He inched back into the vegetation. “No.”
“Max, this could be—”
Max pointed. “He was that way. On the ground. Must have been early. I didn’t see ’im fall. I was here. He was a long way away.”
“What was the boy doing out there Max? Before he fell from the tree?”
Max shrugged.
“It’s important, Max.”
He shifted his weight and looked away.
“You did see him, didn’t you?”
He shook his head, slowly. “No…but I heard him.”
“Heard?”
He kept his head down. “It’s cold, see. An’ I don’t like to get up so much no more. But there was a noise. He were flying a kite or something.” He jerked his thumb toward Meisner’s mansion. “That way.”
“Did you see it?”
He shook his head. “I stayed here until after he fell.”
“What kind of kite, Max,” Charlene said.
He shrugged, keeping his gaze down.
“Do you have the kite, Max?”
He shook his head very slowly.
“Really?”
He sighed and placed the coffee on the ground, checking it for stability before letting go.
He dug his hand into a pile of leaves and produced a small black and silver object. He licked his lips before holding it out.
Jess took the object and frowned. “A remote control?”
Max shrugged.
The buttons on the remote were smeared with mud. The antenna was broken. She flipped the power on. A red light glowed.
“Doesn’t work,” Max said. “Doesn’t do anything.”
“Was it his?” Jess asked.
Max slunk back. “I found it. After the doctors took him away.”
“Near the tree?”
“In the weeds.”
“What does it control?” Jess asked.
Max shrugged.
Jess pushed buttons and moved the small joystick. Nothing moved around them. She turned the remote off.
“The police didn’t find a remote control toy.”
Max nodded. “I didn’t neither. Must have gone.”
Jess gestured in the direction of Meisner’s place. “Up there, maybe?”
“Could be.”
“Did you find anything else?” Jess asked.
Max shook his head.
“Sure?”
He nodded. He kept eye contact with her this time. He knew he’d been caught lying and might have been sorry for it. She couldn’t imagine living his life, but perhaps finding the remote had been a moment’s excitement in his world. Whatever his reason, he was telling the truth, now.
Peter had left a clue, but there was more to be uncovered. She would have to find the rest on her own, and she had an idea where she needed to look. She held up the remote control. “You’ve been a big help, Max.”
He shuffled back into the corner of his shelter and hugged his coffee. He nodded toward the food bag. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jess drove back to the resale shop. A different woman occupied the checkout desk. Her name tag said Camilla.
Jess headed for the table filled with toys. The box she wanted was still there. She dug it out of a jumble of phone chargers and set it upright.
It was a big box. The picture on the front was a boy with a broad smile on his face holding a small white drone with four propellers. A quadcopter. Under the picture was a list of selling points, including the built-in camera capable of recording full HD video. The screen for watching the camera’s view was on the remote.
“You have a child who might like this?” said Camilla.
“Yes,” Jess said as she handed the woman the box.
Camilla placed it on the checkout. “It works good. The manager tried it out the other day.” She pointed upward. “Flew it right over the roof. The video is real clear.”
Jess paid with her credit card, thanked the lady, and returned to her car. She plugged the drone into the electrical socket and drove back to the trail.
By the time she arrived, the display on the top of the drone had indicated the battery was three-quarters charged. Maybe that would be enough.
She moved her Glock from its protective case into her bag. She didn’t have a license, but she didn’t care. Sleepy Randolph was turning out to be a more dangerous place than it first appeared.
She put the remote control in her pocket, tucked the drone under her arm, and headed back to the tree.
She walked inside the tree line, keeping her back to the woods, facing Meisner’s estate and his mansion up the hill. She paid closer attention this time and noticed that this was one of the most open areas of the forest. She could see side to side across his estate.
She pulled the drone from under her arm. It had two tiny switches on top, one marked on, the other video. She clicked them both. A light on the top glowed red.
She laid the drone on the ground and took two steps back. Despite the co
mparative openness of the woods at that point, this wasn’t a great place to fly a drone, either. She should have conducted her first flight in a big, open space
She switched on the remote. There were two joysticks, one for height, the other for direction. The tiny screen on the remote displayed a view of grass and leaves. The camera was underneath the drone.
The drone stayed on the ground. She leaned forward and tapped it. It didn’t move. She shook the remote control. The drone remained stationary.
She turned the remote control over in her hands. There were no instructions. She pushed the direction lever forward. The drone buzzed but didn’t take off. Of course. She rolled her eyes and pushed the elevation joystick.
The drone shot upward. She took her hand off the joystick, and the drone dropped to the ground.
Gingerly, she pushed the joystick again. The drone rose ten feet in the air. She eased it forward, stopped, and reversed it back to her. She pushed the joystick left, and the drone banked around in a tight circle. The picture on the tiny screen became a blur of green and brown.
She stopped circling and pointed the drone at the tree. The camera focused on the trunk.
She stepped closer to the tree and pushed the joystick. The drone rose up slowly. The camera lens remained fixed on the tree, even though she needed it to look in the direction the drone was moving. She walked backward, reaching a compromise between losing sight of the drone in the tree’s foliage and her ability to judge the proximity of the branches.
She eased the drone left and right, working for higher altitude. The drone reached the gash on the tree—the long strip of bark and wood that had been torn away as Peter’s weight overcame the tree’s ability to support him.
She stopped the drone and stared for a moment. He certainly had guts to climb that high. He must not have been looking down, or he might have turned back as she did.
She returned her attention to the drone. It jerked to different angles. The remote’s screen showed the fields around the mansion then, as she continued to turn the drone and the camera, the mansion itself.
There was no great revelation in the views. The cheap camera had a wide-angle lens. The mansion looked tiny compared to the surrounding green.
She rotated the camera back to the tree and pushed upward. Once or twice the propellers gave a loud buzzing noise as they clipped overhanging leaves. The drone shook, but always regained its level.
The elevation joystick reached the end of the drone’s travel distance. She pushed it hard into the end stop, but the drone didn’t climb any higher. She guessed it had reached twenty feet above the point Peter had climbed. Sixty feet. Six stories high.
The remote buzzed. She took her eye off the drone. A red light flashed on the handset. The batteries were almost exhausted. The drone’s propellers buzzed. She looked up. The drone was barely visible. She pulled back on the joystick. The tiny screen showed leaves and branches and a glimpse of clouds. The buzzing stopped. The screen showed a jumble of colors before coming to a stop.
Jess recoiled from the image before realizing she was looking at a black plastic, insect-like creature. The creature had legs that extended forward and aft, and on the ends of the legs were propellers.
She drew the remote closer, studying the picture on the tiny screen. She looked up. Peter had been flying a drone.
Jess cycled the joystick back and forth. Far above, her drone made short, weak buzzing noises. The drone’s camera inched closer to the artificial insect.
In the distance, an angry gas engine roared. She looked toward the mansion. A four-wheeler was heading her way.
She pushed forward and up on the remote’s controls, the drone buzzing with each effort. The black insect’s proportions became wildly distorted as the drones closed the distance between them. The insect lurched with each push she made from her drone. She glimpsed the edge of a branch.
The sound of the four-wheeler angled to her right, still closing, but not headed directly toward her.
She pushed her drone on. The last vestiges of its tiny battery thrusting it and the insect toward an edge.
She heard the four-wheeler stop near the fence a couple of hundred feet away.
She looked up. There was no sign of either drone. She kept up the steady pressure on the joysticks. Each successive push resulting in a weaker and weaker buzz from high above.
She heard shouting and the crash of a gate onto the metal fence.
The screen on the remote showed nothing but trees. She pushed forward and upward. The camera’s view became a blur.
A knot of black and white plastic tumbled through the air. She ran hard and caught it before the drones touched the ground. The big black plastic insect was as unpleasant up close as it had been the first time she’d seen it on the screen.
The shouting grew closer.
She pulled the memory card out of her drone, but the black plastic insect wasn’t so easy. She turned it over twice before ripping a panel off the top of its back. There was a small socket to charge the battery and a slot with a memory card poking out. She ripped the card out and swiftly tucked both cards down her collar and into her bra.
Fifty feet away, two men appeared between the trees. The first of the two shouted, “Halt!” He pointed a long gun in Jess’s direction to back up his demand.
Jess eased the panel on the black plastic insect closed and tossed the pair of drones to the ground. “What’s this?”
The two men approached quickly, gazes sweeping the area. They wore black ski jackets that made them seem even bulkier.
One man circled the area, the other stood in front of Jess, his gun lowered. “What are you doing?”
“Who are you?” Jess said.
“Senator Meisner’s security team. You’re trespassing on private property.”
“I thought this was a right of way.”
The man kicked at the drones with his boot. “The right of way is for crossing the land. It doesn’t extend to spying.”
“I wasn’t spying…I was trying to recover a toy caught in the tree.”
The man turned over Jess’s drone with the toe of his boot. The camera’s lens clearly visible. “Toy, huh?”
“You can’t—”
He pointed his gun at her bag. “Open it.”
She released a long, exasperated sigh and held her bag open. “I have a license for the Glock.” She just hoped he didn’t demand to see it since it wasn’t legal for Washington State.
The man pointed a micro beam flashlight into her bag. He pulled the Glock and clicked the magazine out. “I’ll return this back on the main road.”
“You don’t have—”
“Put your arms out.”
Jess glowered. “If you think you’re going to search me, think again.”
The man glowered. He looked her up and down. “You’re the reporter, aren’t you?”
“I’m a reporter.”
“You’re on private property.” The man scooped up the drones. “You’ve no right to be here.”
“Give me my property.”
The man gestured along the path, toward her car. “Tough luck. We’re confiscating it. You want pictures, you ask the press office.”
She glared at him another moment, but he clearly held the upper hand. She turned and walked back to her car. Both men followed.
She stood by the car with her hand out.
“Take a hint. Don’t come back.” The man returned her Glock’s magazine. “Next time, we’ll have you arrested and charged.”
She saw them in her rearview mirror, watching her until she drove away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jess drove to The Montpelier and went up to her room. She slipped the memory card from Peter’s drone into a slot on the side of her computer. The insect drone’s recorded video was far superior to the grainy image she’d seen on the remote control’s tiny screen.
The images were shot in the early morning. Very early. Not yet sunrise at the beginning of the video. The
video had no time stamp, but she guessed the time was before seven o’clock.
The drone soared across the grounds around Meisner’s mansion, sweeping left and right over the ankle deep verdant grass. Definite trails crossed the fields, early morning animals tracking through the dew.
The big building flitted in and out of view. The drone swept around the structure at roof height, frequently turning sideways, and staring in through windows. Jess could easily see how a resident might get upset at such an intrusion.
A watery sun began to peek through thin clouds close to the horizon. The camera turned down. The chalk white gravel that surrounded the building glowed. A dark blue Cadillac was parked by the main entrance, a chauffeur stood beside it. He looked up.
The drone banked away. The green fields came into view again. There was no soaring this time. The drone traveled straight, the grass whipping by below. Peter must have been spooked by the chauffeur.
The fence came into view. The drone pitched up, using its thrust to brake. It did one last 360-degree sweep. The mansion was far off, the man and the Cadillac barely visible. The sun glinted off the damp grass and the metal fence.
The camera pointed into the forest. The drone descended before twisting right. The camera spun. Fleeting images of ground and sky raced by, a blur of leaves and trees then a static image of a thick tree limb. The image appeared frozen, but after a few moments, a bird flew by. The drone was stuck.
Jess fast forwarded through the rest of the video. The picture didn’t change. The image ended abruptly when the drone’s battery ran out.
She exhaled slowly. Peter had flown his drone more than half a mile from where he stood. He’d circled Meisner’s mansion, far beyond visual range. He’d swooped and soared over the fields. He was an expert pilot.
He must have loved flying his drone. It was obvious now why he’d climbed the tree to find it. He would never have left it behind.
Which left one question unanswered. Why had he chosen to fly it around Meisner’s mansion?
