Here is the most bothersome part about the men in permanent lockdown: They can hear each other’s thoughts. They network; they exchange kites with pieces of string the way pen pals might; they share stories that could have been invented by a medieval inquisitor. They’re shunned and reviled by the rest of the prison population, but among themselves, they rejoice in their iniquity. Check out the video of Richard Speck getting stoned in a cell with some of his buds, his naked breasts enlarged by hormones, while he makes a joke about the nurses he raped and murdered.
Halfway up the lake, my cell phone chimed. It was Molly.
“I’m sorry we took off,” I said. “I thought you understood that the sheriff wanted to see us before we headed up to Flathead Lake.”
“Do you think I’m going to allow my family to expose themselves to risk without my being there?” she replied. “Is that what you think of me, Dave?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then why did you leave me behind?”
In my frustration, I took the phone away from my ear, then replaced it. “Maybe I didn’t want you to see something.”
“Like what?” she said.
“Maybe Surrette’s not going to be around much longer.”
“I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”
“That’s the way it is.”
“No, it is not. We don’t do things that way.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“We just passed a marina. I didn’t catch the name. There’s a house down the slope with a couple of junk cars in the yard. There’s a shed with an auto repair sign on it.”
I had no idea where she was.
“Let me call you back,” she said.
“No, listen to me—”
She broke the connection. I tired to redial, but we had gone around a curve on a high spot above the water and had lost service.
“She’ll be all right,” Clete said.
“Albert is with her.”
Clete scratched his cheek. “I guess that’s a little different.”
I was trying to concentrate. I had missed a detail in Molly’s conversation. What was it?
Clete put his hand on the wheel. “Watch where you’re going. There’s an eighty-foot drop on the other side of that rail.”
“The wrecker,” I said.
“What wrecker?”
“See if you can get the sheriff on the phone,” I said.
“Are you kidding? I can’t stomach that guy.”
“For once, don’t argue, Clete,” I said. “Can you do that? I know it’s hard. But try. I’m sure you can do it if you work on it.”
“Who lit your fuse?”
A tractor-trailer rig passed us in the other direction, then a truck pulling a camper and what looked like a Cherokee. Up ahead, I saw Gretchen’s brake lights go on. I followed her to the bottom of the grade and into a parking area by a guardrail overlooking the water. It was almost midnight, and the heat lightning had drained from the clouds and disappeared in a dying flicker beyond the mountains. Small waves were capping on the lake, slapping the beach with the dull regularity of a metronome.
Gretchen stepped out of her pickup. “Did you recognize the guy in the Cherokee?” she said.
“I didn’t pay any attention,” I said.
“I think it was Jack Boyd,” she replied.
“Are you sure about that?”
“I should be. I kicked his ass today,” she said.
“I got the sheriff on the line,” Clete said.
* * *
Felicity’s eyes had been bound when he laid her down on the bedsprings and secured her hands and feet to the four bedposts. She assumed the electric current came from a wall socket, but she could not be sure. The first jolt knocked her unconscious. When he threw water on her and shocked her again, she heard a grinding sound inside her head that could have been a generator or the vibration of the bedstead against the concrete floor.
There were interludes when he went away, stomping as he climbed the wooden stairs, not unlike a resentful child. While he was gone, she drifted in and out of consciousness and experienced dreams or hallucinations she could not separate from reality. He had gagged her and left a window open, probably to clear the air of the sweaty odor that seemed painted on the basement walls. At first she thought she heard the wind blowing through a copse of thickly leafed trees; then she realized the sounds were not leaves rustling together but the voices of human beings, many of them talking at once, creating a drone that made her think of a beehive.
The cotton pads taped over her eyes admitted no light, but she believed she could see tropical plants and flowers and palms, and she wondered if her ordeal had not bought her passage to the place where her father had died among the Indians in South America.
All her anger toward her father had disappeared. She wanted to reach out and touch his fingers and tell him that her life had not been bad after his death. She wanted to tell him that she had gotten by on her own, and she was proud of the sacrifice he had made for others, and that as long as he was in the basement with her, no harm would come to either of them.
Then she realized she was not in touch with her father. Instead, she was in an arid country where date palms grew along the roadways and the stone in the amphitheater was hot enough to scald the hands of the spectators in the noonday sun, and the only shade was over the box where Roman nobility sat.
Her warders had been Nubians who were so black, there was a purple shine on their skin. They herded her and her companions with spears from the dungeon below the seats into the brilliance of the day, and only then did she smell the blood that had dried in the sand and see the array of executioners with trident and flagellum and gladius and a metal-sheathed instrument she had not seen before.
They’re going to scrape you first, a voice whispered close to her ear. Then you’ll be given a chance to reconsider. A flick of incense on the fire, and you’re free.
I won’t do it, she answered.
Many of the others have. Are you too proud? Do you think you’re special?
Yes.
Don’t mock me. I can hurt you very badly.
I want to die.
Not really. You think you’re better than others. Your pride wants to live. You’ll beg. I guarantee it. Here’s another little reminder of reality.
She knew the pain had driven her mad. She didn’t care. The next shock was so great, it seemed to rattle the entire room.
* * *
I took the cell phone from Clete’s hand. The moon was down, and the lake looked as dark as oil. “What are you guys into now?” the sheriff said.
“The gumball who was killed up here, what’s-his-name, he was dragged by a wrecker?” I said.
“The gumball? You’re talking about Kyle Schumacher?”
“I don’t remember his name. He was down on a child molestation beef of some kind in California.”
“What about him?”
“He was dragged by a wrecker, wasn’t he?”
“We’re not sure. There was only one witness, a man driving back from a bar. He was pie-eyed when he called 911.”
“Did you find the vehicle that dragged him?”
“The sheriff there checked out a place where the killer may have boosted it.”
“The killer?” I said.
“Okay, Surrette. If he boosted it, he returned it. So we’re not sure.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Thanks? That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. We didn’t mean to cause you trouble, Sheriff. You got any idea where Jack Boyd might be?”
“What’s he got to do with this?”
“Gretchen Horowitz thinks she just saw him go by in a Cherokee. Is that what he drives?”
“As a matter of fact, he does.”
“We’ll be in touch,” I said.
“You guys covered up for Bertha Phelps.”
“I didn’t get that.”
“Her perfume. Both you and Purcel smelled it.
It’s her logo. You lied about it. I won’t forget that, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“I think Love Younger got what he deserved. I hope Dixon and Bertha Phelps get away.”
“You’ve got some damn nerve.”
“Not really. On my best day, I’ve never earned more than a C-minus at anything,” I said.
My last statement probably didn’t make much sense to him, but I couldn’t have cared less. I folded the phone and handed it back to Clete.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Molly said she passed a mechanic’s shed and some junk cars south of here. Maybe the mechanic has a wrecker service. Maybe that was the wrecker that tore pieces off Kyle Schumacher for two miles down the highway.”
“Sounds like a long shot, Dave,” Clete said.
“Surrette got the wrecker from somewhere. If not here, where?”
Clete pinched his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and peered down the road. It was completely dark. He looked at the luminous dial on his wristwatch. “What’s keeping Molly and Albert?” he said.
* * *
They were driving in Albert’s diesel truck, one so caked in mud that no license plate or logo was visible. It was the same truck that a number of hunters wanted to put a bullet hole in after he began chain-dragging logs across public roads to block access to the national forest. As he came down a long grade through an unlit area, he ran over a large chunk of rock that had fallen from the hillside. It wedged under the frame, scouring sparks off the asphalt. Albert pulled onto the shoulder.
A Jeep Cherokee approached from the opposite direction, the driver not bothering to dim his high beams, slowing down to look into Albert’s face as he passed. Then the Cherokee’s brake lights went on, and the driver began to back up.
The driver was a dark-complected man. His face was bruised, and there was a strip of white tape across the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he said.
“Not much. Trying to avoid some of the riffraff that’s floated into the state,” Albert replied.
Another man was sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing a black polyethylene raincoat. He leaned forward to get a clear look at Albert. “I asked you a question,” the driver said.
“I know you did. I also know who you are. You were fired from your department. Your name is Boyd.”
“Maybe you know more than you should,” Boyd said. “Maybe you never learned how to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”
“That’s because he’s a smart guy,” the passenger said. “A college professor. I’ve seen him.”
“This is Terry,” Jack Boyd said. “You don’t want to meet him.”
“Let’s go,” Molly whispered.
But the transmission was jammed. Albert tried to back up to free it and heard something clank loudly and vibrate through the undercarriage.
“Did I say you could go somewhere?” Boyd said.
“I’ll have a look at the problem,” Terry said.
“See? You get to meet Terry after all,” Jack Boyd said.
Terry got out of the Cherokee and walked to Albert’s window. His raincoat was flapping like torn vinyl in the wind. He had a small, tight face and tiny eyes and wore no hat. The hair on his head looked like wheatgrass growing on white stone. “You’ve been down on the water, snooping around, bothering family people when they’re trying to sleep?”
“You need some breath mints, son,” Albert said.
“Step out of your truck. You, too, lady.”
Albert opened his cell phone. Terry slapped it from his hand. He was wearing a jersey and a pair of navy blue workout pants under his raincoat. He reached into his waistband and lifted a .25-caliber semi-auto into view and rested it on the windowsill. He looked back down the road, his expression relaxed, drumming with his left hand on his wrist. He smiled into Albert’s face. “All quiet on the Western Front,” he said. “I read books, too. I read one of yours, Professor. I think you should stick to teaching.”
“Give me the title and your name and address, and I’ll make sure the publisher sends you a refund,” Albert said.
“I already wiped my ass with it,” Terry said. “Get in the back of the Jeep.”
“You’ll last about thirty seconds with my husband,” Molly said.
Terry was still smiling when he walked to the other side of the truck and dragged Molly from the passenger door, flinging her onto the gravel, the .25 auto tucked inside his waistband again. “I look forward to meeting your husband. But right now it’s just me and you. So please don’t give me a bad time.”
* * *
Asa Surrette took the gag from Felicity’s mouth and the tape and cotton pads from her eyes. He fitted his hand gently under her chin and moved her head back and forth. “Are you awake?” he said.
She wasn’t sure. Maybe she was dreaming. She had heard a rattling or cascading sound in the basement, like ice being poured into a large receptacle. She had also heard the girls whimpering. Now there was no sound in the room except the steady breathing of Asa Surrette, drawing air into his lungs like an asthmatic and savoring it as long as he could and releasing it only because he was forced to.
“I taped over the window,” he said. “I’m going to turn on the light now. Don’t let it hurt your eyes.” He pulled a beaded chain on a lightbulb. “See? I put a leaf bag across the window. That way the sunrise won’t bother you, and you can rest up, get some extra shuteye, so to speak.”
“Where are the girls?” she said.
“Right over there. They’re fine. You know you can’t get away from me, don’t you? The girls are not really part of the relationship between you and me.”
“I’m going to die soon. Then what will you do?”
“Keep you. Over there in the bathtub full of ice. You’ll always be mine. At least until I decide to dispose of you. No one will ever know what became of you.”
She closed her eyes against the glare of the electric bulb. “You were in my dream.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You were standing inside a conduit that led through a cloud, blocking the ascent of others. Then you were flung into a place that had no bottom.”
“If I were you, I’d be careful about what I say.”
“Everyone felt sorry for you. But after you were gone, no one remembered or cared. You weren’t worth hating.”
He fitted his hand over her mouth, squeezing her cheekbones. “You will not speak to me like this.”
“People are coming for you. They’re going to put an end to your misery,” she said.
“They’d better not find me.”
She turned her head. She could see the two girls in a corner. They were inside a wire cage of some kind, the bottom padded with a quilt. “The girls called you Geta,” she said.
“That’s a name I sometimes use. I think you know why.”
“Yes, you have delusions of grandeur.”
He went to strike her, then withdrew his hand. A vehicle had just come up the driveway and stopped close to the house, the vibration of its engine coursing through the basement wall.
* * *
I called Molly on her cell phone, but it went directly to voice mail. We drove south along the lakeshore, with Alafair and Gretchen behind us. Almost all the houses on the lake were dark. We went over a rise and down the other side and saw an auto repair sign on a shed near some junker cars. There was a cottage close by, the lights off. I turned my truck’s spotlight on the yard. The lawn was uncut, the front porch of the cottage blown with leaves and pieces of newspaper, the screen door flapping. I moved the beam across the property until it fell upon a blue wrecker parked by a barn.
“Looks like nobody has been there for a while,” Clete said. “Surrette might have taken this wrecker because he knew it wouldn’t be missed. Maybe he’s holed up not far away.”
I thought Clete was right. The problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Molly and Albert. I didn’t have Albert’s cell number; I wasn’t sure he had o
ne. I tried Molly again. No luck. Clete knew what I was thinking.
“Dave, Gretchen can’t be sure that was Jack Boyd in the Cherokee,” he said. “Besides, what are the chances of Boyd recognizing Albert and Molly on the highway?”
“Then where did they go?”
“Maybe they saw something on a side road and pulled off.”
“Why would she turn off her cell phone?”
“She probably lost service. This is a lousy area for cell phones.”
We were on the shoulder of the road, looking down over the tops of cherry trees at the shadows playing on the cottage and the mechanic’s shed. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and farther down the shore, I could see a two-story house constructed of what appeared to be yellowish-gray stone. There was a marina by the lake and a number of sailboats rocking in their berths. I looked in the rearview mirror. Gretchen and Alafair were parked behind us, the engine running.
“I’ve got to find Molly,” I said.
“Okay, big mon,” he said. “Let’s go do that.”
Chapter 37
Asa Surrette climbed the stairs to the first floor and looked out the side window at the driveway. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He jerked open the side door. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?” he said.
Jack Boyd and one of Caspian Younger’s security men were herding Albert and a woman inside. “They were onto you, Asa,” Boyd said.
“What do you mean, they were ‘onto’ me?”
“Why else would they be here?”
“A thousand reasons, you stupid shit. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“It was a judgment call,” Boyd said.
“What happened to her?” Surrette said.
“She fell on the gravel when Terry was helping her out of their truck.”
“That’s your name? Terry?”
“It was when I woke up this morning.”
“Who am I?” Surrette said.
Terry flexed his neck. “I’m not big on names. I hear you’re a guy who leaves a big footprint.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Surrette said.
“Where do you want these two?” Terry said.
Surrette could hardly contain himself. “Where do I want them? I want them on the moon. But that can’t happen, because you’ve brought them into my house.” He looked into Albert Hollister’s face. “Remember me? Wichita State University, 1979?”
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