by Scott Pratt
It happened quickly. Mucci and Maldonado pulled their hands from behind their backs simultaneously. Yeah, they had guns. But instead of gunshots, Johnny heard two clicks. His body exploded with pain, his muscles tightened into knots, and he felt himself falling forward onto his face. He realized he’d been tasered. Time seemed to drag from that moment forward. He was helpless on the sidewalk, became conscious of more pain, this of a different kind. He tried to move but couldn’t. They were kicking him now, stomping, cursing. He felt a rib crack, saw a flash as one of them caught him flush in the temple. At some point he was able to control his body again, but by that time all he could do was draw his knees up to his chest, try to cover his head with his arms, and wait for it to be over. He could hear men close by doing the same thing to Carlo that these men were doing to him. The blows kept coming and coming and coming. There was another flash, and then, mercifully, darkness.
But the darkness didn’t last. Johnny floated back into consciousness. The taste of blood was on his tongue, pain like fire stung his back, his jaw, his arms and legs. Someone was pulling his hair, lifting his face. He opened his eyes. A blurry image appeared, Maldonado’s face. Johnny smelled stale beer, tobacco.
“You do business here, you pay the money.” The voiced hissed like a poisonous snake. “You don’t pay, you’re gonna end up like your old man.”
Chapter 28
ON Monday, Charlie put the map and the letter that had accompanied Roscoe’s will in a safety deposit box at Elizabethton Federal Bank. Then she drove to Jonesborough to Joe Dillard’s office, which was now also her office. Joe and Jack had set her up with a nice little desk, a personal computer and a land line phone that she doubted she would ever use.
She and Jack had talked for hours, deep into the night. Jack was torn between following his father’s advice to turn the gold over to the court and smuggling it out of the cave and converting it to cash, or at least some of it. Both of them were planning on spending the morning doing research on setting up off shore businesses and bank accounts. Although she didn’t believe anyone would ever find the gold, Charlie still wanted to get it out of the cave, converted to cash, and then get the cash out of the country into an off shore account. She believed she would be far better off than having the gold in a place where someone might be able to take it from her, legally or otherwise, although she just didn’t see how anyone else could have a legitimate legal claim. She had Roscoe’s will, it made her the sole heir to his estate, and his estate included the gold. She also had the letter and the map, both of which proved that Roscoe intended for her to have the gold. Why should she allow Zane Barnes and his lawyer to drag her through the court system for years, maybe even a decade? It wasn’t fair. It just didn’t make any sense to her.
Jack had agreed with her, to a point, but he’d been more cautious. He had suggested that she leave the gold right where it was. It had been there for decades, he said, it wasn’t going anywhere. He had suggested that Charlie at least wait until she learned what Zane Barnes and his lawyer were going to do before she made any decisions about the gold. From what Charlie had described about where the gold was located, Jack believed she couldn’t find a better hiding place. Why not just leave it there for a while? Let things calm down, see what happens with Zane, and then figure out what to do. Charlie had reluctantly agreed to wait before removing any more bars from the cave, but she had insisted on figuring out a way to cash in the bar she had already removed. It was worth more than half-a-million dollars. With that money, she could hire the best probate lawyer in the state to fight Zane Barnes and Nathaniel Mitchell, if that was what she ultimately decided to do.
There was a diner just around the corner from the office called “Granny’s.” Mr. Dillard had told her it was owned and operated by his sister, Sarah, and that the food was good, so Charlie decided to stop in to get some breakfast. She parked her battered Ford Ranger pick-up truck in front of the office and walked around the corner. She sat at a table near the far wall and ordered blueberry pancakes, bacon and milk from a college-age black girl who introduced herself as Rosemary. A pretty, dark-eyed brunette was collecting money at the cash register, and Charlie heard one of the other waitresses call her Sarah from across the room. Charlie got up and walked over.
“Are you Joe Dillard’s sister?” Charlie said.
“Depends on what he’s done to you,” the woman said.
“I’m Charlie Story.” Charlie offered her hand. “I’m working with him now.”
“Ah, so you’re the one Caroline told me about. The one that sets little Jack’s heart all a flutter. She was certainly right about you being pretty.”
Charlie felt herself blushing. “I don’t know about—”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sarah said. “Joe was in here a couple of days ago. He told me about you, too. He said nice things.”
There was another person waiting behind Charlie to pay so she walked back to her table. She settled into the comfortable buzz around her and opened the Quarter Horse Journal that was folded in her purse. She read an article about training and ate slowly. When she was finished, Rosemary the waitress surprised her by telling her that her bill had already been paid.
“Who paid it?” Charlie asked.
“That guy at the end of the counter.” Rosemary pointed, then shrugged. “He’s gone. Don’t know who he was. Never seen him before.”
“What did he look like?”
“Creepy lookin’. Shaved head.”
Charlie had been engrossed in her magazine and hadn’t noticed him. She folded her magazine and was walking past her truck toward the office when she noticed a standard-sized, white envelope stuck under a wiper blade on the windshield. On the front of the envelope, handwritten in red ink, was “cHarlEston sTorY.” There was no address, no return address, no postage, only her name. She picked the envelope up and opened it. There was one sheet of paper, torn from a yellow legal pad.
“dear mIss charleston Story you take my breath aWay. I have admired you for so long from afaR. I want to be with YOU alone and forever we will be TOGEtHER. just YOU and mE!!!!! this moRninG i was looking at the sun RisE and it made me Think of how you SmiLe and how pretty you are in the morning and at night!!! i can NOT get YOU ouT of my Head even if i trY to do IT does not work.
DiE SLut!!!
i did not mean that you KNOW because all i Can tHink about is you. i am fine and how are YOU???? you are the prettiest girl i HAVe EvEr seen there i SAID IT!!! and i am wishing we will bE ToGether so SOON it can make my heAD Spin! and I will MaKe you SpIN toooo…!!! so gOOdBye for now ta ta i wiLL SEe you…... SLuT not really before you Know it!!!!”
Charlie looked around the parking lot and out to the street, scanning in every direction. She re-read the note as a feeling of terror crept through her limbs like a rising tide. She thought about going back into the diner but decided to go on to the office, which was only a short distance away. She stuffed the note in her purse and felt her hands shaking as she turned the key in the lock of the front door of the office. Joe wasn’t there yet, and neither was Jack. She looked over her shoulder and scanned the lot again.
Clyde Dalton, the paranoid schizophrenic client she’d been appointed to represent, was the first person that had entered her mind as she read the note. Could it be him? She hadn’t seen Clyde since she had appeared in court with him. Mr. Dillard had helped her make the arrangements for Clyde’s mental evaluation, which was to have taken place the day after his court appearance at a mental hospital in Johnson City. Was he focusing on her now? Obsessed with her?
On the other hand, maybe it was a scare tactic being employed by Zane Barnes. Perhaps he was terrorizing her in the hope that she’d become so frightened she would abandon her claim to his father’s property. She had no doubt that Barnes was capable of such a campaign. After observing first-hand what he’d done to his own father, she believed him capable of anything. But that would be too much of a coincidence. It had to be Dalton.
She step
ped inside the office and locked the door behind her. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Joe Dillard’s number. She read the note to him, described the strange spacing and punctuation and capitalization.
“Go straight to the Jonesborough police department,” Joe said. “Go see an investigator named Mike St. John. He’s a good man. He probably won’t be able to do a thing, but take the note in and show it to him. Tell him I sent you, and ask him to make a copy and start a file.”
“Should I tell him about Clyde Dalton?”
“He already knows about Clyde. He’s arrested him twice on stalking charges.”
“Have you seen or talked to Clyde?”
“I talked to the doctor that did the evaluation. He called him a garden variety paranoid schizophrenic, whatever that means. They gave him his medication and his mother picked him up and took him home.”
“Someone with a shaved head bought my breakfast at your sister’s diner a few minutes ago. It has to be him. He must have followed me.”
“Go see Mike, and then get your butt back to the office. I’m on my way, so I’ll be there when you get back.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“You should be careful, Charlie. I don’t know that much about Clyde yet, but I’ll make some calls. Just watch your back.”
Joe was correct in his assertion that the police would be unable to help. Charlie spoke with Mike St. John, the investigator Joe had mentioned. He made a copy of the note, started a file, and expressed concern that Clyde Dalton could become violent. St. John said Dalton’s disease seemed to be progressing and that he had become bolder with his latest stalking victim, a television weather woman named Veronica Simpson. Dalton had showed up at the television station twice and his notes had become progressively more threatening. They talked briefly about the legal elements of a stalking charge and agreed that the note, while frightening, didn’t quite rise to the offense of stalking, even if they could prove that Clyde wrote it. Another note, perhaps, or a couple of incidents of unwelcome contact with Clyde, would probably classify as a misdemeanor.
Charlie left the police station and drove back to the office in a state of agitated paranoia. Her eyes moved constantly, her senses seemed heightened. Every person she saw was a potential enemy, every vehicle contained a potential danger. She’d never felt seriously threatened in her life, but now, in less than a week, she’d received two veiled messages of imminent harm.
“The cost… will be higher than you can imagine.”
“DiE SLut!!!”
As she parked in a space on the street in front of the office and got out of her truck, Charlie saw an old, faded-green Mercedes rolling through the parking lot in her direction. She ran to the door, ducked inside, and watched as the car approached. Her breath came in short gulps as it crawled by. The driver stared straight ahead until he was right in front of the door. The car stopped and the driver’s head, a cue ball with eyes, turned toward her.
This was no scare tactic by Zane Barnes. It was Clyde Dalton, staring at her maniacally, smiling the same devious smile that Reynard the fox wore when he was eating Charlie’s grapes.
Chapter 29
THE more Charlie thought about it – and she thought about it constantly – the more she leaned toward getting more of the gold out of the cave as quickly as possible. The morning after her encounter with Clyde Dalton, as soon as the sun peeked over the mountains to the east, Charlie saddled Sadie and headed for the cave. She was in awe, once again, of its size, its luster when exposed to light, its incredible mystique. It took her about two hours to retrieve four more bars of gold. She packed two in each saddlebag. A million bucks an hour, she thought as she climbed into the saddle. Not bad work if you can get it.
The morning was bright and breezy. Gauzy, white puffs of cirrus clouds floated across the blue sky above purple mountain ranges in the distance. Charlie decided to take a closer look at a couple of things. First, she rode Sadie around the west side of the mountain until she found the spot where the stream came out of the rocks. She followed it about a hundred yards where it fed into Tempest Creek. She rode back and climbed from the saddle, knelt and inspected the area where the water emerged from beneath the rock. It was moving slowly and was three, maybe four feet deep, about six feet across. She wondered how far it was beneath the rock to the lower chamber of the cave. Ten feet? Fifty? No way to tell.
She also wanted to check out the split oak. She passed the cave entrance and rode around the eastern side, found a way she could manage, and climbed. She emerged from a thicket of scrub pines into a clearing on top of the ridge near the oak. She reined Sadie in and stopped. The view was spectacular; the mountains stretched off into the distance all around her, almost glowing beneath the morning sun. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the cool, clean air. She imagined herself on top of the entire world.
The wind began to carry a faint sound, one she didn’t recognize but one that definitely didn’t belong in this place. She listened carefully; it grew louder. Still quite a distance away, but definitely coming closer from the northeast, the direction of Roscoe’s house. Charlie jumped down off of Sadie and led her back to the scrub thicket. She recognized the sound now, the unmistakable rumble of an internal combustion engine. A four-wheeler and a motorcycle were the only two vehicles that could possibly get around in this terrain, and the pitch of the engine was too low for a mountain bike.
Someone was coming toward her, toward the cave, toward her fortune.
Charlie’s heart began to race. Should she run? Sit tight and hide? Bury the gold bars? Who was it? No one was supposed to be on Roscoe’s land. Her land.
She stood still, listening.
The sound of the engine rose and fell with the terrain, louder when it topped a ridge, softer when it went into a valley. It came closer, three hundred yards away, maybe less, went silent. Suddenly, she saw it. A man sitting atop a four-wheeler, parked in a clearing on a ridge, panning the slopes and the valleys with a pair of binoculars. It was Zane Barnes. As the binoculars panned in her direction, they stopped suddenly. It looked as though Barnes was staring right at her. He stood on the running boards.
Charlie knelt instinctively. She was in the thicket, but she felt exposed, naked.
He saw me.
She didn’t move for several seconds, although Sadie kept shifting her feet and switching her tail. Her stomach began to churn as anger boiled inside her. Barnes wasn’t supposed to be on the land. She thought about confronting him, but she had two million dollars worth of gold in her saddlebags. She couldn’t risk him discovering it, perhaps taking it as he’d done from Roscoe. If he somehow managed to overpower her and take it, what could she do? She couldn’t go to the police. If she did, word about the gold would get out quickly.
The engine roared back to life. She listened closely. It was coming toward her. Charlie led Sadie out the far side of the thicket and climbed into the saddle. The north side of the slope was steeper and more treacherous than the south side where the cave was hidden, but Charlie had no intention of going anywhere near the cave. She leaned far back in the saddle as Sadie picked her way through scrub trees and loose rock. She could hear the rumble of the engine echoing off the slopes around her.
At the bottom of the slope, Charlie turned Sadie west and entered a stand of old-growth white oak. She loosened her grip on the reins, gave Sadie her head, and dug her heels into the horse’s ribs. Sadie immediately broke into a gallop. Charlie could hear the gold bars clanking against each other in the saddlebags. Sadie was carrying an extra hundred pounds, but it didn’t seem to matter. The horse was built for speed. Within minutes, Charlie was crossing Tempest Creek, back in familiar territory. Between the clanging of the gold, the beating of Sadie’s hooves and the rush of the wind, she’d been unable to hear the ATV. She pulled back on the reins and listened. The engine sounded far off, but the sound once again started to crescendo. He was still coming.
Charlie guided Sadie up a steep
slope into a stand of white pines, through a draw, up another slope, and along a ridge line covered in poplar. She could hear the ATV in the woods below her; Zane hadn’t followed her up the slope. She took a circuitous route across rough terrain and finally made it home. Jasper was standing just inside the barn door when she led Sadie in to cool and groom her.
“Why’s that horse in such a lather?” Jasper asked.
“I let her stretch her legs a little.”
“What’s in them saddlebags?”
Charlie sighed. The gold bars had stretched the saddlebags tight. They looked bloated, like the leathery stomach of a malnourished child.
“It’s a surprise,” Charlie said. She walked past him to the grooming area. Jasper followed.
“Why do you look like you just came face-to-face with a pointy-tailed devil carrying a pitchfork?”
Charlie stopped and faced him. “Why are you grilling me like I’m some kind of criminal?”
“Strange goings on around here, Peanut,” he said. He picked up a piece of straw and let it dangle from his lips like a skinny cigarette. “First ol’ Zane Barnes comes snooping around here threatening you, then you tell me you got some crazy man writing you notes and leaving them on your car. Just a little bit ago there was a man with binoculars on a four-wheeler stopped on the ridge up there looking this place over like he was planning an invasion. I ain’t positive, but I think it was Barnes. Now you show up on a horse that looks like she’s been sprayed with shaving cream, saddlebags that are stuffed with something you won’t tell me about, and a look on your face that tells me something’s bad wrong. So why don’t you do your old Uncle Jasper a favor let him in on what’s going on?”
