Nightwalkers cr-4

by P. T. Deutermann

"Right," I said. "I'll be down early afternoon."

  "What now?" Carol said after I closed up the cell phone.

  "No more bodies, if that's what you're worried about." I looked around. It was a beautiful day in the country, and I would have much preferred to stay out there with Carol. "Something's come up," I said. "Let's get back to the house before that marauding Union cavalry shows up and hangs us."

  A bullet with your name on it. I'd heard the expression, but this was the first one I'd ever seen. The guys had slipped it into a clear plastic bag, and I held it in my hand like a baby snake.

  "Notice the rim?" Tony said.

  I looked. There was a tiny dent on the back edge of the cartridge. "That's an extractor nick," I said. "So it's been in a rifle, but not fired."

  "Maybe the same rifle that sent Billie Ray to the big trailer park in the sky."

  "Quite a calling card you got there, boss," Horace observed.

  We were sitting around our informal conference table in the coffee room. Tony, Horace, and Pardee were present for duty, along with my two fuzz balls, who were hoping for a doughnut.

  "So some guy broke in here, without activating the alarm, and went around to all the desktop computers, looking for-what?"

  "Your new address, maybe?" asked Tony.

  "I took that tracking device out to the plantation, so what's he need an address for?" Then I remembered I'd sold that Suburban.

  I asked them to tell me what they were working on and how things were going with H amp;S Investigations. There was nothing exciting to report. Then I filled them in on what had been happening out in the countryside, including the sheriff's fascinating inventory of dangerous features at Glory's End, and said that I was beginning to have second thoughts about life as a country squire. Tony didn't say I told you so, but he was clearly thinking it.

  "On the other hand," observed Horace, "you can't stay in Summerfield, not after you whacked that Guatemalan guy. You might as well hole up in Rockwell County. At least there, a Guatemalan with a thirty-aught will stand out."

  "Whereas in Triboro, he wouldn't?"

  Everyone smiled except the mutts, who still hadn't detected any doughnuts.

  Pardee picked up the plastic bag with the thirty-aught round in it. "This is personal," he said. "He told you that you owed him a death, remember? So who's died in the recent past who was tied to you? Or to whom you were important?"

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "My ex-wife and your favorite judge, Annie Bellamy, courtesy of a bomber or bombers unknown. Then, let's see, White Eye Mitchell, up in the mountains, when his pet mountain lion kicked his guts out after I wounded it."

  "There's Allie Gardner down in Wilmington," Pardee said, leaving unspoken the fact that we had almost added his own name to that list.

  "Or that crooked sheriff whose daughter was all set to knife you, up in Carrigan County?" Tony said. "Except he died, too, when he and his partner shot it out with street sweepers."

  "And Kenny," Horace said. "Kenny Cox."

  That name rocked me. I could still picture his dying moments in that icy river up in the Smokies, his face getting whiter even as the water got redder. Kenny Cox. Probably my best friend on the Job, until I found out he'd become a vigilante cop.

  Who had a brother. No, wait: His brother had committed suicide. I myself had heard the shot up there in that mountain cabin, and Bobby Lee Baggett had said he'd get Surry County to pick up the remains.

  "Anybody know somebody out in the Surry County Sheriff's Office?" I asked.

  Horace did.

  "See if you can find out whether or not they ever picked up the remains of one James Marlor, who shot himself in a cabin out there."

  The three of them looked at me. They all knew who James Marlor was, or had been, and it brought back some bad memories of the cat dancers case.

  "I know," I said. "If they retrieved a body, then we can scratch him. If they didn't…"

  "I thought you saw him ice himself," Tony said.

  "I heard him do it," I replied. "From a hundred yards away, on a dark hillside, with snow blowing. One shot, sounded like a. 45."

  "You didn't go back to check?"

  "It was dark and a blizzard was moving in. There was nothing I could do for him at that point, one way or the other."

  "So he could have faked it," Pardee said.

  "Or Kenny could have taken care of the body, once he found out."

  "Go make the call, please," I said, suddenly hoping that I didn't have a Kenny Cox loose end here. If my ghost was James Marlor, I was in truly deep shit.

  Pardee handed me the rifle bullet. "You ought to keep this," he said. "It might ward off the evil it represents."

  I drove out to Summerfield after rush hour to check on the house. The lawn had been mowed, so my money-hungry teenager was still on the job. One neighbor waved as I went by; another just stared. I had half a mind to go into the backyard and unload the SIG into the hillside, just to keep them all on their toes. On the other hand, who could blame them?

  I let the dogs out and told them to go check out the yard. They both went up on the porch and curled up. So much for canine discipline. There were no signs of forced entry or any other disturbance in the house itself. I'd left the power and the security service on. The mailbox was full, but it was all junk mail addressed to Current Resident or Dear Occupant. I told the mutts to get back in the Suburban, but now they decided to go check out the yard. I was getting ready to yell at them when the neighbor across the street, another retired cop, came over with a package in his hand.

  "Messenger guy on a motorcycle brought this out, asked me to give it to you the next time I saw you."

  The package was the size of a fat FedEx envelope, entirely covered in brown shipping tape, with my name and address handwritten on a stick-on label. I took it from him and felt the weight.

  "Classic letter bomb is what that looks like," he said. "I kept it out in the potting shed."

  "I agree," I said. "The messenger an older guy?"

  "Nope. Young kid. Riding a Kawasaki crotch-rocket in spandex bike shorts and a T-shirt. All I could think of was the road rash, he ever had to lay that thing down."

  "They're invincible," I said. "Thanks for taking this. I think I'll take it over to the bomb boys downtown."

  "You know what?" he said. "You should have them come out here, pick that thing up. They got the gear for that."

  "The bomb squad shows up in this neighborhood, I'll never be able to show my face again. I'm already getting stink-eye from Mrs. Jameson."

  He laughed. "That's not stink-eye; that's her usual expression, caused by going around with a corncob up her ass. Let those guys transport it. That's the smart move."

  I thanked him again and made a call to Manceford County Operations. I told them it was not an emergency, but this thing needed checking out. They said they'd send the boom box and a crew.

  Forty minutes later the bulky truck and an operations van showed up. They hadn't arrived with lights and sirens, so most of the neighborhood remained blissfully unaware. I handed over the package, which the bomb guys treated with far more respect than I had. They had a portable X-ray machine in the van. A tech brought it out, and they examined the package right there on the front lawn. The tech set up the machine, and then we all backed away before he turned it on. He went back to the van to look in the remote monitor.

  "Hello-o-o, Houston," I heard him call from the back of the van. "We've got wires."

  I felt another little shiver go down my back, especially since I hadn't really expected it to be anything more than-well, what? Surely my ghost would anticipate that I'd recognize the profile and not just go ripping off a dozen winds of package tape, finally getting to the one attached to the pull cord. The bomb crew put the thing in the truck's armored transport box. The lieutenant came over as the truck pulled away. I didn't know him, but he greeted me by name.

  "A little obvious, wasn't it?" he said, taking off his vest and face shield.
>
  "That's what's odd," I said. I told him about the motorcycle messenger, and we agreed we hadn't seen any of those in Triboro. Everyone used one of the usual package services. Messenger bikes were for big cities with big traffic.

  "Your ghost again?"

  I shrugged. "Who the hell knows," I said. I showed him the thirty-aught round and told him about finding it on my desk downtown.

  He shook his head. "We'll try to take that thing apart, see what's what. Although I have to warn you, with all that tape it's just as likely to go off."

  "Well, don't put anyone at risk," I said. "I'm cool with just assuming it's exactly what it looks like."

  He laughed. "Us chickens won't be within a hundred yards. Igor von Robot will do it, and we'll watch via remote TV. Sometimes these guys, you know, if it's their first device? They make mistakes and we can ID a component, maybe link it with a source. We'll let Bobby Lee Baggett know what we find; you can check with him."

  I thanked him, and they took off. The shepherds were waiting back on the front porch.

  "I should have considered that thing dog food, let you guys open it," I said.

  They wagged their tails. I'd said the food word. Useless mutts.

  I opened the back door of the Suburban, and they jumped in. As I walked around to get in the driver's side, I dropped the rifle bullet. I made a clumsy grab for it and ended up catapulting it into the air instead. It arced out on the concrete of the street, and I winced when it landed, but it didn't go off. When I went to retrieve it, I found that it had broken at the neck of the cartridge, exposing the smallest printed circuit board I'd ever seen. Then I started laughing.

  It wasn't a bullet. It was another tracking device, and I'd been carrying it around in my pocket all this time. My ghost had a sense of humor. I drove back to the country.

  The next morning I got up at six, made some coffee, and wandered over to the barns behind the mansion at Laurel Grove, looking for Cubby Johnson. I found him in the stable, grooming what looked like the major's big horse. The uncomfortable-looking cavalry saddle and a bridle were sitting on a saddle rack. There were two other horses in the barn, busily doing what they apparently do best. Carol had pointed out that the most active muscle on a horse was its jaw muscle.

  "Morning, Cubby," I said. "I'm getting the impression that you must live here."

  He laughed and told me that he got here every day around seven, but that he and Patience lived over on Mill Street in town, next to the abandoned textile mill.

  "Major getting ready for another scout?" I asked. The shepherds snuck off, hoping I wouldn't see them grubbing for horse apples.

  "Ain't no tellin'," Cubby said without looking up. "He rides out, he rides back in, and he don't tell me nothin'."

  "Are there days he doesn't ride out?" "Oh, yeah. Sometimes, Ms. Valeria, she'll come down here, say the major feelin' poorly. He gettin' old, you know."

  "I saw him last night, as a matter of fact," I said. "Doesn't look that old."

  Cubby looked up from his work. "You seen him at night? Over there?"

  "Couple of times," I said. "You won't like what he calls me."

  "What's that?

  "Overseer."

  "You shittin' me."

  "First time we met, I told him I was the new owner of Glory's End. He said that was ridiculous, that the property belonged to the Lees, and that I must be the new overseer. I went with it."

  Cubby nodded. "Overseer," he said, chewing on what had to be a highly charged word. The big horse moved around a bit and stomped at a fly. Cubby resumed the brushing.

  "He seems locked into that last month of the war," I said. "Keeps talking about Union cavalry roaming the neighborhood, General Lee gone to ground, Sherman's hordes on the way up from the Carolinas."

  "An' he's talkin' to you? Straight up?"

  "Yup. Got that faraway look in his eyes, though. If he were to pull that hogleg of his, I'd be putting myself in motion."

  Cubby nodded. "Yeah, me, too. Ain't nobody outside of us caught sight of the major, not close up, anyways, for years now. An' here he's talking to a stranger. Ain't that somethin'."

  "Exactly how old is he, Cubby?"

  Cubby thought for a moment. "Oh, sixty-something."

  I was astonished. The man looked to be in his late fifties, maybe sixty. Which meant that Valeria had to be older than she looked, too. Cubby saw my surprise.

  "Yeah, they can fool you," he said, putting away the brush. "They preserved. In more ways than one."

  "Who rides these other horses?"

  "Ms. Hester, she rides most every day, and Ms. Valeria, too. You talk about overseers-ain't nothin' goin' on they don't know about, the two of 'em."

  Then he looked over my shoulder and grinned. The shepherds had encountered the duty barn cat, who was giving them some unmistakable visual cues.

  "Better get them dogs up," Cubby said. "That cat right there? He'll tear their asses up."

  The cat looked to me like he was enjoying the confrontation with the two circling shepherds. "They're German shepherds," I said. "There's only one way they learn anything."

  A moment later the lesson was duly administered. One enormous hiss, a blur of fang and claw, stereo shepherd yipes, and then both dogs were running for the barn door with bloody noses. It was funny, although probably not to the shepherds. The cat sat back down in the barn aisle, licked a paw, yawned, and waited for a rematch.

  I asked Cubby for his cell phone number in case I ever encountered the major in some kind of problematic circumstances. Then I took my unruly dogs back to the cottage and rubbed their snouts down with some hydrogen peroxide from my Suburban's first aid kit. That nearly got me bitten. Then my cell phone went off.

  It was the lead detective on the Summerfield shootings. He had the bomb squad report. "Everything there but the bang," he said. "Wires, battery, trigger, just no explosive. The lieutenant said it was tailor-made for a sheet of Semtex. Guy apparently forgot to include the good stuff."

  Or, I thought, he was telling me that he could have if he'd wanted to. I thanked the detective for calling me and asked if they had anything more on Billie's shooter. Nothing.

  "Working it hard, are we?"

  "Absolutely," he said. "Important guy like that. Hell, yes. His junkie girlfriend has disappeared, by the way."

  "Displaying a moment of good sense, sounds like." I told him about the electronic bullet, and he asked that I turn it in.

  "You think there's something you can learn from that?" I asked.

  "Na-ah," he said, "but it'll give me an excuse to go see that little blond number over in forensics."

  "She's married," I said.

  "But reportedly not serious about it," he said, and hung up.

  I got another cup of coffee and went out to a tree swing on the lawn to watch the sun come up.

  What in the world was I going to do about this ghost? Shooting into my house, triggering a flashbang on my back porch, breaking into our offices, bugging my vehicle and then me, dropping Billie Ray, and now a messenger-delivered letter bomb, conveniently minus the bang.

  Hodge Walker said I needed to go on the offensive, but against whom?

  Suppose it was James Marlor? You owe me a death, he'd said. No-I owed someone a death. If it was Marlor, then he was seeking revenge for the death of his brother, Sergeant Kenny Cox. I hadn't killed Kenny, though-a mountain lion had done that, and then only after Kenny had provoked the encounter in that bizarre ritual of the cat dancers.

  Perhaps Marlor didn't know that. If he'd gone off the grid after faking a suicide, he'd have had no access to the final police report regarding Kenny. Maybe some of the other vigilantes had gotten word to him that Kenny hadn't come back from the mountains and that I'd been with him. That might be sufficient to set a revenge plot in motion, but then, why all the screwing around? You want to take a man down and make sure he knows who did it, you show up in his face and get to it.

  I decided to go over to Glory's End and do some more
exploring. The shepherds' noses were swollen and they weren't feeling all that great, so I put some baby aspirins in a hot dog and then left them to sulk in the cottage. I did take my SIG, along with my hiking gear-belt and a walking stick. The day was shaping up to be sunny and even warm. I wondered if I'd encounter the major again, or if he'd stay on his own lands today. Depended on where the Union cavalry was operating, no doubt. The first guy who rode up in Union blue, though, I was out of there.

  After two hours of tramping through increasingly assertive weeds and briars, I made a mental note to get some kind of vehicle for doing this, no matter what the Auntie Bellums might think. I'd seen a place over near Danville that sold golf carts that had been reconfigured as farm utility vehicles. Carol's protestations notwithstanding, I needed to be able to cover the ground more efficiently than by doing it on foot. I'd already dosed the dogs with Frontline, having picked three ticks off my own body.

  I'd gone from the house down toward the river again, and then east, along the riverbank until I hit what I assumed was Bad Whiskey Creek, location of the reported quicksand. I didn't see any ground that looked like it would be treacherous. The banks were rocky and heavily forested, and the stream joined the river at an acute angle. I turned right, back toward the two-lane road, and walked up the west bank of the stream, pushing through lots of sprouting mystery bushes and causing many frogs to plop into the water. The long ridge rose up the other side of the stream; that was the one supposedly containing the coal mine. About a quarter mile back from the river I encountered a beaver dam, and there was a sizable pond behind it. When I tried to get around it I found the quicksand, or at least enough of a bog to cause my boots to sink almost to their tops before I was able to extract myself. I pushed my walking stick down into the muck and hit solid bottom at about three feet. Time to turn around.

  I cut across what had been a large crop field and headed back up to the house. The next time out I'd stick to the farm roads and explore that coal mine ridge, and maybe see if I could find signs of a caved-in entrance. Once back at the house, I stood in the brook coming down from the springs and let the water melt the muck off my boots. Then I went up to the front porch, took the boots off to dry in the sun, plopped down in one of the ancient rockers, and did another tick check. When I looked up I saw two very large Dobermans walking calmly up the front steps, looking at me the way I look at a rare steak.