by Nora Kane
“Why?”
“Well, if it’s Hayes, my work here is done.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking. So far, it’s unknown. It certainly could be Evan, but something got to the body. Honestly, there’s not much left. We might be able to get a fingerprint, but before we do that, we have to let the crime scene guys do their work. They’re loaning some to us out of Grand Junction.”
“Something got to the body?”
“Probably a mountain lion, though it could have been a wolf or a bear. He didn’t have any identification—or sadly, a face—when we found him.”
“So, I might be looking for a dead man.”
“Yeah, but it could be Gene.”
“Which would make Hayes the suspect and move his bail skip way down on the priority list.”
“Yeah, though it could be the other way around.”
“Or Gene wasn’t even there. It looked like four chairs around the poker table. Does Gene live on the same road?”
“No, why?”
“Whoever was driving the truck drove past the house.”
“No, no one does. Not anymore.”
“They do landscaping, could they have been working up there? Someone with a vacation home or something?”
“Unlikely. There’s a house back there, but I don’t see them hiring anybody to do the yard.”
“That’s kind of weird. No one came back either, at least not while we were there.”
“You’re right, that’s odd, especially considering both of them would know no one has lived up there since Old Man Porter died.”
“You said his house is still there though?”
“Yeah, why?”
“It might be a good place for a fugitive to hole up.”
“I suppose it might. Kind of close to the crime scene though.”
“Is it common knowledge no one lives there anymore?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Then why would anyone check?”
“Are you going to check it out?”
“I figured you would. Looking for murder suspects is your job.”
“Yeah, I guess so. We don’t get many murders up here, so I forgot. It’s going to be a while. State cops are all going back to writing speeding tickets and until the crime scene boys from the city get here, we’re kind of swamped. Nobody I’ve got, including myself, has as much experience as you do with this kind of thing anyway.”
“You know, the normal thing to do is for you to tell me to stay the hell away from your investigation.”
“Really? Like I said, I don’t do this a lot. I could deputize you, if that would help.”
“Are you serious?”
“I need all the help I can get right now.”
Margot sighed. “Alright, I’ll check it out but the moment you find out who the third victim is, you let me know. My involvement begins and ends with Hayes.”
“You want to be deputized?”
“I’m good. Like I said, I’m just here for Hayes. If looking for him helps you then I’m here to serve, but otherwise? Sorry, sheriff, this is your problem.”
“You aren’t curious who did this?”
“Only if it’s Hayes. Otherwise, it’s your problem.”
“You sound a little jaded.”
“Nothing little about it.”
Chapter 6
Margot made the drive for the second time that day. She waved at the deputies. They were watching the crime scene until the crime scene technicians from Denver arrived. They waved back. It felt weird that they were being friendly. Normally, with the notable exception of her homicide detective boyfriend, she and the police didn’t get along. Howser had just asked her to do something that she was normally warned off of. She laughed as it occurred to her that she’d be more enthusiastic about going to check out Old Man Porter’s place had Howser told her not to.
The road got curvy as she got close and the hard-packed gravel was quite a bit looser. Once more she wished she’d gotten the four-wheel drive instead of the economy sedan. She got the feeling no one went up this way anymore.
Following tracks never came into play for a big city detective, but even Margot was able to spot the tire treads in the soft clay at the beginning of Old Man Porter’s long driveway. Margot stopped the car and wondered about the wisdom of what she was doing. If it was Hayes who had used the truck to get away and was hiding out, she was confident she could handle the situation. If Hayes was behind the bloody mayhem at Gabe’s mobile home, however, he was a lot more dangerous than they’d thought.
The tire tracks confirmed the truck was there, which she thought might be enough to get some backup out here. The deputies could watch the road to see if anyone took the truck back this way. She didn’t have to go in.
Margot tried to call Howser to see if he could spare a deputy watching the house to back her up, but she wasn’t getting any service. She decided to play the odds and pulled into the driveway. It was at a slight slope so she coasted to the front of the house. The pickup truck was nowhere to be seen. Margot wished she had more firepower, but she doubted they would have let her check a sawed-off shotgun or an AK-47 into baggage, so the Smith and Wesson would have to do. For the first time, she regretted not letting Howser deputize her. They probably had some good stuff in the armory, body armor, too.
“It’s not like at this point it even matters,” Margot said to herself. That she even thought this, let alone said it out loud, caught her off guard.
Margot got out of the car. Her ambivalence toward the prospects of her own death didn’t mean she was going to make it easy. She put the gun in her right hand and the baton in her left. Everything was boarded up, including the front door. Kids in small towns need places to party too, so she figured Old Man Porter’s place had seen its share of underage drinking and illicit drug use before someone nailed plywood over all the entrances. The stairs to the porch creaked as she went up the steps. The wood was rotten in multiple places, and Margot worried she might fall through if she stepped on the wrong board.
The boards on both the front windows and the door didn’t look like they’d been tampered with. If someone had broken in, they hadn’t done it here. The porch extended around the house so she stayed on it as she went to check out the back of the house.
Margot was working her way around to the backside of the house when she heard the sound of a board creak. She stopped and listened. Part of the problem was that the way Porter's house backed up to the hill made everything echo. She couldn’t tell if the noise she heard was coming from the front or the back of the house. Not knowing if she was walking into a threat or if the threat was coming from behind, Margot put her back against the wall and listened.
The sound of footsteps on rotting wood filled the air, but then quickly stopped. She figured they were listening to her walk as well and her stopping had them stopping too. What she had heard, however, made her think the footsteps were coming from behind her.
She stayed against the wall and took a careful sidestep back the way she came. Her footsteps were nearly silent this close to the house where the weather-beaten slats didn’t have any room to sag. She kept shuffling carefully, stopping and listening after each step. As far as she could tell, the person stalking her hadn’t moved. She reminded herself to stay ready since her stalker might be doing the same thing she was.
Margot reached the edge of the house and decided she was done sneaking around. If her hearing could be trusted, they were right around the corner. She came around, staying low with the gun out in front of her, looking for targets.
She saw nothing but her car parked in front of the house. She was wondering if her hearing had been thrown off by the echo off the mountain when she caught some movement by at the far end of the porch. She moved her gun in that direction as a fox scampered away.
Margot didn’t think a fox could make that much noise. They weren’t very big; she would have been surprised if this one weighed more than twenty pounds. There wasn’t anyone else out the
re though, and maybe the way the sound had bounced off the mountain so the footsteps were amplified. Either way, there was nothing on the front side of the house. She thought about the way the fox ran away and considered it wasn’t her who had spooked it. It just might be that the person she’d heard was waiting right around the other corner. Like before, Margot got close to the house and started toward the other side of the house.
She was in front of the boarded-up door when she heard movement again. It was the same sound of creaking boards she’d heard before when she was on the side of the house. Again, just like before, it sounded like it was coming from the front of the house. Since Margot could see the entire front porch, she realized the footsteps she was hearing were coming from inside.
Margot was turning toward the front of the house when the board over the front doorway flew forward into her. She turned just enough to take the plywood on the shoulder instead of the face, but she still was knocked to the ground as whoever was behind the door kept pushing, driving her into the wooden railing that broke in half, sending her and the person pushing the door onto the gravel driveway.
Margot could feel the board on top of her, but the person pushing it lost their grip when they hit the ground, allowing her to roll away so she wasn’t trapped underneath it. She sprung to her feet and realized she’d lost the gun when she hit the ground.
She looked to see her attacker rise to his feet as well. She was surprised to see it wasn’t Hayes standing in front of her. This guy was bigger than Hayes, both taller and wider. Unlike Hayes’ inked up flesh, the bare arms of the man in front of her didn’t sport a single tattoo. She couldn't see his face because it was covered by the tinted face shield of the motorcycle helmet he was wearing.
With the flick of his wrist, the blade from a large folding knife snapped into place.
“You might have had a chance with the gun,” he told her, “but not now. You should accept your fate.”
“Fuck you and my fate.”
He said, “This will make my master proud,” as he came at her.
Margot swung the baton and it extended to its full length as he took a step toward her with the knife raised. She hit him in the knee as she stepped to the side of the knife swing. His leg buckled and she swung for his forearm.
The way he yelped and dropped the knife made her think she might have broken his arm. She sent the next blow to his head, but due to his helmet, she didn’t do the damage she hoped to. She went for the ribs next but he pinned the baton to his body after taking the blow. Margot realized her mistake; the leather vest had some built-in plates to give a motorcyclist some added protection, so just like the blow to his head, she didn’t do much damage.
He grabbed the baton with both hands and tried to twist it out of her grip. Margot held on at first but surprised him by letting go. With his hands at his side, there was nothing he could do to stop her from lifting up the face shield and punching him square on the nose. She slammed the face shield back down as she pushed the helmet over his eyes. Margot grabbed the baton. She kicked him in the same knee she’d smashed with the baton and twisted the steel shaft out of his hands. She delivered the next blow to the face shield and shattered it. Whatever he was going to do next, he would have to do while looking through the spider web pattern Margot’s baton made.
She kicked him in the chest and he stumbled back onto the porch. She was moving toward him when he tore off the broken railing hanging on by a couple of rusty nails and threw it at her.
Margot ducked and let it fly over her head. While she was ducking, she spotted her gun. Instead of charging at her, the attacker chose to run back inside the house. Margot scooped up her gun and followed.
She was almost to the door when she stepped on some rotten wood and fell through the porch. Margot landed on her feet with half her body still stuck out above the porch. She looked up to see him coming back her way, thinking she was trapped.
When she tried to move, she thought he might be right. Margot tried to bring up her gun, but her arm was pinned. She looked up and saw her attacker had picked up a two-by-four with at least a half dozen long nails jutting out of one end. She tried to wriggle her way out but wasn’t making much progress as he came at her with the board raised above his head.
Instead of trying to go up, Margot went down, dropping under the porch as he brought the board down to puncture her brain. She was flat on her back in the dirt when the board hit the side of the hole she’d made. He raised it up and switched his grip so he could smash in her face with the end.
Margot fired up through the board in the general area he was standing, moving the gun slightly as she pulled the trigger four times. Instead of bashing her in the face with a two-by-four, he yelped in pain and stumbled backward. Margot heard him fall and hit the porch. As the boards bent and splintered underneath, she thought he was going to be down there with her in a second but the old wood held. She heard him roll over and get to his feet. She’d hit him but the wound was enough to debilitate him. Margot grabbed the edge of the hole she’d made and pulled up, but instead of pulling herself out, the board broke and she fell a short distance to her back again. She grabbed the other side of the hole that she hadn’t shot up and managed to pull herself up. With the hole wider now it was easy to get to her feet.
The man in the motorcycle helmet was trying to run, but with a hurt knee and a bullet through his foot, he wasn’t making much progress. With her taking so long to get out to her feet, he was almost to the other side of the house.
Margot yelled for him to stop, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed away the board blocking the back door and dove through the opening. Margot fired but she’d waited too long and sent a round into the woods instead of her attacker.
Even though she was standing with both arms free, it took some effort to get herself out especially since the first place she grabbed onto broke away. She managed to get herself up and out but she gave her injured attacker a good head start. If he wasn’t limping so badly, she might not have bothered following him since it had taken so long to free herself from busted floorboards. Still, with at least one bullet in him, she felt she had a chance.
Margot noticed he had left a lot of blood on the bare hardwood floor as she ran through the old house. As she went, she hoped the floorboards inside weren’t in as bad a shape as the ones on the porch. She reached the door and saw the vast woods that made up most of the backyard.
Margot looked down and saw the blood leading off the porch. Even if the man was hurt, she didn’t want to follow him into the woods. Even if he didn’t use the dark unfamiliar territory to ambush her, if she went too far in, getting lost was a real possibility.
Margot went to the edge of the porch and noticed the blood trail turned away from the woods and toward an old wooden shed behind the property. Or more accurately, a garage, since it was big enough to house at least two vehicles. She heard the engine fire up and then the truck burst through the wall, sending rotting wood flying everywhere. The driver must have seen her because he veered hard toward the porch.
Margot dove back inside the house as he plowed through more rotting lumber. She got to her feet as he went past. This time she noted the back bumper had the word Toyota painted on it. She lifted the gun and fired two shots as the truck sped toward the road. One of them put a hole in the tailgate and the other shattered the back window, but the truck kept moving. Margot took aim but decided with only two bullets left in the magazine, she wanted to save them in case he turned around and tried to run her over again.
He kept going until he reached the road. Instead of turning to go back toward civilization, he turned the other way, going in a direction that—as far as Margot understood—didn’t go anywhere. Margot wasn’t even sure the road went that way. She hopped off what was left of the porch and went around the house back to her car. She got in and drove to the edge of the driveway and turned in the same direction. Before long, she was slamming on the brakes. Her assessment that the road didn’t go muc
h farther was correct, at least as far as her car was concerned. She stopped the car and got out.
