Alex Glauberman Mysteries Vol 1-3

Home > Other > Alex Glauberman Mysteries Vol 1-3 > Page 43
Alex Glauberman Mysteries Vol 1-3 Page 43

by Dick Cluster


  Alex tried to make sense of the motor sounds he’d heard, to plot them in terms of north and south, of valley and hill. He gave up. There were too many contours, too many possibilities to hold in his head. There was nothing to do except push on toward the cabin, hoping Suzanne would still be there, hoping she would still be unharmed, alive. But Meredith pointed down the side trail to something, a small dark blue something on the snow. Alex thought it was just a torn square of plastic, a property marker tom by the wind from the place it had been stapled. Yet it lay there more heavily than a scrap of plastic should. He skied closer, found the hood of a parka, padded, 60-40 cloth, navy blue. He felt the padding, loose rather than spongy— goose down.

  “Suzanne’s coat,” he said. It sounded like Hansel and Gretel. “I mean, I think it might be her hood. Look, you go on to the cabin, and I’ll go this way, okay? Whoever doesn’t find her, go the way the other one went.”

  “Right,” Meredith said. “Be careful.”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “You too.” He didn’t watch her this time, but hurried off. He kicked, and reached ahead with arm and pole, and kicked, and pulled. He hoped he wasn’t, or Meredith wasn’t, rushing down a wrong road they would regret.

  His road wobbled first right, then left, through the evergreens. Then it emerged into a thinner forest of maples and birches all bare of leaves. Here it straightened out, and Alex could see an orange snowmobile, small and round like a bulls-eye, straight ahead. He slowed and caught his breath, approaching noiselessly, scanning all the whiteness between the trunks of all the trees. He saw nothing and no one, but as he got closer to the snowmobile, he saw it had two parts, the machine itself and a trailing sled. When he reached it, he found deep footprints, legprints, leaving the trail. He followed these tracks into the soft snow between the bare trees.

  The tracks did not go straight into the woods, perpendicular to the trail. Instead they followed a curving path, as if the walker or walkers were intent on making a semicircular tour. The trees were widely enough spaced to allow for skis, but their branches tore at Alex’s coat and beard. The branches made brittle scraping sounds, sometimes cracking as he pushed them aside. Still he saw nothing that didn’t belong.

  Until at last he did: two foreign colors, silver and blue. The silver was metallic, synthetic, not a dull gray or whitish hue of bark. The blue was dark, navy. Alex skied closer, crouched low, feet flat on his skis. He stopped and held the solid trunk of a maple for balance. The two colored figures were about fifty feet ahead. They were stationary, not struggling through the snow anymore.

  Suzanne stood facing his way but not seeing him. A scarf was tied around her mouth to make a gag. The other figure, the silver one, had its back turned. It seemed like a robot, an alien, in its high-tech coveralls, silver with orange stripes, topped by a hood with the colors reversed. Dennis had a snowmobile, Alex knew this, but the figure did not seem big enough to be Dennis. Whoever it was turned sideways to place a rifle— no, it was a shotgun— to place a big shotgun stock-down in the snow. The gun was out of Suzanne’s reach, but close to the silver figure’s hand. Now the robot bent to pick up something else, a gas can, one of those flat-sided, five-gallon gas cans you strapped to the back of a jeep. How the hell had they carried it this far, Alex wondered, another thirty-forty pounds along with the gun? Maybe Suzanne had been forced to carry it. That wasn’t fair, with her weakened shoulder. Carrying forty pounds through the snow could ruin the shoulder for good.

  Alex didn’t even have time to snort at the incongruity of his thought. The silvered arms lifted the can and methodically splashed its contents over Suzanne’s head and face and clothes. There was nothing for him to do but yell. Maybe a sudden sound, a scream in the forest, could stop the snowmobiler in the act of lighting the match, of snapping the lighter. A stench of burning flesh came to Alex, but it came from inside, from nightmare, not yet from Suzanne Lutrello here in the New Hampshire woods. The sound seemed to take forever to issue from Alex’s throat.

  Just as the yell was about to come out, Alex strangled it. Because there was no match, and now the snowmobiler was pushing Suzanne down in the snow, rolling her around in the white dampness. And as he did so he turned around and, flushed from his exertions, pulled the hood from his head. Graham Johnston. Suzanne by Sunday, Scat’s father had demanded, and here it was Friday and he had what he wanted. But what was he doing? He retrieved the gun and pointed it at Suzanne, who sat up and raised her arms, wrists together, in obedience to a command. He put the gun down again, carefully placed, and began to tie her hands in front of her. When that was done he tied her legs at the ankles too. Then he pushed her flat again, rolled her face down, and kicked her one, two, three times in the ribs. Again Alex wanted to yell, but he was stopped by the fact of the shotgun, and by the fact that he did not understand what was going on. He watched Johnston pick up the empty gas can and shake out the last drops onto Suzanne’s motionless form. Then the father looked around carefully, studying the snow where he’d been doing his work. Apparently satisfied, he turned his back and began walking away.

  One minute Johnston’s behavior made no sense, and the next minute it made everything clear. Graham Johnston the architect was putting a design into action. He was building an accidental death, just as he had built one a week ago. What had worked for Caroline might, with boldness and decision, work for Suzanne as well.

  It was not the same accident, though. Suzanne’s would be a slower and perhaps more terrifying death. The can had been full of water, not gas. Scat’s father was staging hypothermia, the accident that every year took the lives of a few unwise or unlucky adventurers in the New England woods.

  The plan was diabolical in its thoroughness, Alex saw. There could be only one reason why he’d tied her hands in front rather than in back: he wanted her to succeed in working the rope loose. He counted on her struggle for life, a struggle that would exhaust her but would result in her ending up free of bonds. Then she would stagger, disoriented by lack of oxygen, slowly making her way to nowhere through the clinging deep snow. At last she’d quit, and then she’d lie down and go into a peaceful, endless sleep. If the murderer was lucky, if his victim wasn’t found for a few days, winter would send a new blizzard to cover all tracks.

  Cover his tracks, that was the design, and it had been the design before as well. Paul and Scat had killed Nilda, apparently, though Alex had no idea why. Caroline had discovered this, but her evidence, so far, had been circumstantial. Scat had run to Dad, and Dad had determined that Caroline had to die. A perfect accidental death, no witnesses, no proof to the contrary, only Scat had not been able to keep it secret. He had talked to Suzanne, and she could testify as to what he had said. That was why Graham Johnston wanted her. And somehow he had found her, surprised her at the cabin, and brought her here, probably trussed up in the sled.

  Caroline might have died quickly— a sudden attack, unexpected, when she thought they were just sitting down to talk. But Suzanne would understand everything that was coming. It would all be so clear to her, right now, as she lay chilled and half choked from the gag and the snow. She would understand, and she would know she had no choice but to make the plan work.

  Alex crouched on his skis, his knees and ankles cramped, aching to be in motion, to let Suzanne know that she wasn’t alone. He wanted her to know that however she’d contrived to leave her hood as a marker, snagging it on a branch or whatever she had done, it could still save her life. He wanted to cut her loose from her bonds, to peel off the soaked and useless coat, to wrap her up in his own so her temperature would not plummet as Johnston had planned. But he didn’t move. He knew he would only have one chance. He knew he had to take into account time, and surprise, and his skis, and the snowmobile, and the gun. Those were the parts, the tools at hand. Somehow he had to fashion them into something that would work. He had to do it before Graham Johnston got back to the snowmobile and saw ski tracks, because at that point surprise would be gone.

  He held his pos
ition, waiting to see which way Johnston would go. The best thing would be to surprise him and get possession of the gun. Then he could get the snowmobile and drive Suzanne to the cabin, which would be warm from the fire she had left. The worst thing, though, would be to try and fail. That would leave Johnston in possession of both weapon and transportation.

  To Alex’s relief, the man did not retrace his steps the way he and Alex had both come. Instead he continued the semicircle he and Suzanne had begun. Meticulous to the last detail, he wanted anyone traveling the trail before the next snow to see footsteps going into the woods and footsteps coming out. So Alex turned his back to Suzanne and skied toward the snowmobile. Did the damn things have keys, he wanted to know. If they did, the cautious bastard probably had the key in his pocket. That meant extras precious minutes spent hot-wiring the switch. Battery to coil, and battery to starter, too, if Graham Johnston, fearing heart attack, had paid extra for a starter motor instead of a manual cord.

  At least Johnston’s circling put his back to Alex for now. Alex skied in his own tracks, bending low under branches, letting them scratch him but careful they did not break with a crack. He left his skis at the edge of the woods and plunged through to the far side of the snowmobile. With luck, even if he was still at work, the machine would shield him when Johnston emerged farther down the trail.

  As he expected, there was a key-operated starter switch, and no key. However, his heart rose at the sight of a toolbox, locked but no doubt forceable with his penknife, built into the floor. On a hunch, he slashed at the padded vinyl dashboard around the key switch first. The brittle synthetics parted easily under his knife blade. He didn’t even need tools or jumper wire now. He ripped out the leads and studied the controls of the machine: a throttle on one handlebar, and a brake lever on the other. Was it in neutral, he needed to know, but he saw no sign of gearshift or clutch. He peeked up through the windscreen and saw Graham Johnston just making his way out of the woods. He did not want to start the engine in gear, noisily, only to have it stall out. Then the shotgun would become more important than this machine. Varidrive, a voice shouted from some forgotten corner of his brain.

  Varidrive, that’s what it would have— a conical drive pulley activated by a centrifugal clutch. Someone had told him about this, sometime, or he’d read a manual when he had nothing better to do. Hans probably had kept one lying around the shop. The snowmobile would be in neutral, automatically, at idle; as the engine picked up speed, the pulley would engage and the gearing would change. With his knife, Alex cut off sections of woolen glove liner, using one for protection as he twisted the ignition and battery leads together. He touched the starter lead to the juice and the engine sputtered, then caught. He tied the cloth around the twisted wires for insulation. He did not want a short to cause the engine to quit while he was in Graham Johnston’s sights. He grabbed both handlebars, advanced the throttle with his thumb, and suddenly was roaring down the trail. Johnston, in his silver robot suit, looked up. He tried to duck back into the woods, and fell wallowing in snow in his haste.

  Alex bore down, watching Johnston recover and rise to a sitting position, watching the barrel of the shotgun come up. He hung on to the handlebars while dropping to his knees behind the windscreen. The gunpowder boom clashed with the engine’s roar. Alex closed his eyes instinctively, and then fought to regain control of the machine. He thought he heard pieces of shot thud off the plastic screen. He opened his eyes, saw Johnston eject the shell, fire again, but blindly, and then suddenly turn and try to run out of the way. Just as suddenly, Alex felt the snowmobile lurch over a drift and tilt forty-five degrees.

  The shotgun reports still echoed in his brain. His movements felt slow-motion, as tree trunks went sideways and whizzed by. He found himself squeezing the brake lever and wrenching the handlebars in an effort to straighten out the steering skis. Then he was lying on his side in the snow. He jumped, panic-stricken, but the shotgun lay two yards in front of him. Graham Johnston was crawling off, a silver armadillo, his fat behind waving in the air. The snowmobile rested sideways, with its treads up against one birch and its skis snapped off against another.

  He picked up the gun, which felt heavy in his hand. It was a twelve-gauge with a long barrel and pump action— for ducks or trapshooting, not for carrying long distances through the woods. Alex pumped in a third shell, calling for Johnston to stop running. He aimed toward the treetops and fired. Johnston did not stop. Alex checked the ejected shell. Number-8 shot was not going to do much damage to a human outside of close range. Alex took off after the gun’s owner, the weight of the weapon costing him some of his advantage in youth and size and strength. Suzanne would be shivering, straining at her bonds, hearing the gunshots and hoping they meant help. Alex knew he should give up this chase. It only sapped his energy, and cost minutes that Suzanne might not have.

  Yet he struggled through the deep snow, he didn’t know why, at last tackling the fleeing man from behind. He felt in the pockets of the silver suit until he found the coil of nylon cord. He told Johnston to cooperate if he didn’t want to be left with a leg full of birdshot to bleed and freeze. Quickly he tied the legs together and the hands behind the man’s back. Then he turned to stare at the wrecked snowmobile, now many yards behind.

  One idea came to him, something he’d heard once with half an ear on a radio talk show. The show must have been about survival tips, or blizzards. Some expert had explained that to survive while waiting to be rescued from a stranded car, you should soak one of the seats in engine oil and light it. You’d have a kind of super-candle, a miniature industrial fire, that would keep you warm enough if you kept close.

  Only halfway back to the snowmobile did Alex’s thoughts settle enough for him to see why this admirable plan wouldn’t work. The vehicle ran on a two-cycle engine, like a lawnmower. The oil would be mixed, at a low ratio, with the gas. There wouldn’t be any oil reservoir to drain. The combined fuel would burn hot but fast.

  Still he kept going and, when he got there, forced the toolbox latch with his knife. He found a hammer and a screwdriver, laid them aside, and stripped all the upholstery from both driver’s seat and sled, like a whaler stripping blubber from his kill. Then he pounded the screwdriver into the gas tank. The fuel flowed onto his pile of foam and fabric. At last he stuffed the soaking mess inside his jacket like a great belly. It would take him a long time to flounder through the snow like this, but the stuff ought to stay flammable. When he got there, he would have to gather wood before lighting the mess up. A long time, too long, was going to pass before Suzanne got warm.

  “Suzanne,” he cried. “Hang on. Fire is on its way.”

  A voice answered, though not Suzanne’s. He had never been happier to hear Meredith call out his name.

  24. CONFESSION

  When Alex arrived at last with his prisoner, the air smelled of industry and campfire at once. The flames were bright orange and the smoke a deep black. Meredith sat on Alex’s jacket, spread as a groundcloth on top of the snow. The sodden goosedown coat from the Burlington Mall lay useless beside it. Meredith cradled Suzanne, wrapped in her own parka, on her lap. Alex could see steam beginning to rise from Suzanne’s jeans.

  “She’s stopped shivering,” Meredith said. “We ought to get some hot liquid into her, but I think she’s going to be all right. Here, you take her. I’ll gather some more wood, and then I’ll go get help.”

  Alex sat, glad to get close to the warmth himself, and helped Meredith to shift Suzanne onto his lap. He kept his grip on the shotgun, though. “Over there,” he told Graham Johnston. He pointed to the opposite side of the fire. Alex wanted Scat’s father within conversational distance, but not within a hand’s grasp of his gun. None of this would have accomplished anything unless he talked while still at his most vulnerable.

  “Dead standing wood is the best,” he reminded Meredith. She had told him about vacations spent tramping in Wales years before, but Alex didn’t know what kind of wilderness they had in
Wales, or how much roughing it the English did when they tramped. Still, the fire she had built was throwing out a lot of heat. In fact, it was melting the snow beneath it like a nuclear reactor out of control. The minor meltdown had formed a white fire pit. Additional branches, nice big ones, would fit easily over the top. If a kettle and leaves miraculously appeared, they could boil up a pot of tea. When she returned with a new load of branches, Alex asked Meredith to tie up Johnston’s legs again. She bound them with grim efficiency. Then she knelt by Alex, kissed him quickly on the cheek where his beard ended, and talked quietly into his ear.

  “I’ll be back with whoever I can find as quickly as I can,” she said, “but there’s something you should know. Suzanne thought she was imagining me. She might have hoped you would come, or Natalie, or even the police, but she didn’t think I was real. That’s why she told me now, trusted me with the truth.” Suzanne moved her head up and down, in assent. Alex nodded too, but said nothing, because he didn’t know what to say.

  He had known this— guessed anyway— possibly since Meredith’s arrival the night before, and certainly once he saw the identity of the man in the silver suit. But he hadn’t wanted to let the knowledge into his consciousness, and he didn’t want to now. The woman on his lap had killed, but he wanted to focus on the man across the flames, the man who had fired at him, who had crafted the plan to leave Suzanne to find her own cold and lonely death. He watched Meredith ski off, weaving between the bare tree trunks. When Meredith disappeared, he asked Suzanne whether she was warm enough. He had heard that hypothermia victims tended to slur their words, and he wanted to hear her speak. She nodded once more, that was all. “At this range,” he said to Graham Johnston, “the spread of the shot is a pattern about the size of your heart.” He leveled the gun at its owner and added, “Tell me how you and Scat killed Caroline Davis— and why.”

 

‹ Prev