Dead Fall

by Matt Hilton

  Millie nodded: a single hard slash of her jaw. “My sister died because you wouldn’t believe him.”

  She turned away before I could reply, her tread heavy, then quickening as she fled up the stairs to a bedroom. Overhead a door slammed and I listened to the young woman sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Shit . . .”

  I pulled the cap off and jammed it into a coat pocket. Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I took the stairs down to the basement, counting the steps. With each one it felt like I was descending into the abyss.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I HEAR YOU’RE supposed to be some kind of knight errant, these days.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not the way I’d describe myself.”

  Don Griffiths was sitting in an old chair with sunken upholstery and faded patches on the arms. How many hours had he spent sitting in this selfsame place over the years? How many memories could that old chair recount if it was given a voice? Over Don’s shoulder an archaic cine-camera projected some of those memories onto a makeshift screen. The flickering images were the only source of light in the otherwise dark room, two small girls playing in a paddling pool while first a younger Don and then his late wife, Sally, mugged and danced for the camera.

  Don didn’t look at me. His gaze was lost among the images on the screen. “How would you describe yourself? I thought you were someone I could rely on. Where were you when I needed you?”

  I exhaled, and turned to view the girls happily playing. Even back then Millie was distinctive. Her slightly older sister, Brook, was pretty as well, but with the elfin qualities inherited from her mother. It was difficult coming to terms with the thought that the little girl—who was so full of life and wonder on the screen—was now dead and buried.

  “I was injured.” Though no excuse, it was the only thing I had to offer.

  “I noticed you were a bit lame when you came down the stairs.” Don wasn’t interested in anyone else’s pain, only his own. “But you’ve been injured worse than that before. Wounds never stopped you then, Hunter.”

  “I was younger.”

  “Yeah,” Don agreed. “We both were. But my daughter won’t grow any older, will she? Her children will never know their mother’s love again.”

  There was no answer to that. I could only watch as Don shuddered, his chin dipping on his chest. The man wept silently. Laying a consoling hand on his heavy shoulder wouldn’t help. Don wouldn’t welcome my pity. Always pitiless to others, he saw emotion as weakness. Maybe it would do him good to experience some of the grief.

  It was as if Don could hear what I was thinking. His head came up and he fixed his gaze on me. “I know you don’t owe me a damn thing. In fact, if you told me to go to hell, I guess I’d understand. But I didn’t think Joe Hunter was the type to turn his back on a woman or her children.”

  “I’m not.” Even as I said it I realized how ineffectual my words sounded. I turned back to the screen. Millie and Brook had moved on to chasing each other around the garden with buckets of water. There was no sound accompanying the home movie, but by the rapture of their faces both girls were squealing in glee. Closing my eyes didn’t help.

  The chair creaked, and there was a grunt as Don stood up. He turned off the projector and the room was plunged into darkness that was evident even behind my closed eyelids. Only at the click of a light did I turn and look at the older man. Don had both hands folded across his bulging stomach, his head dipped: he looked like a monk in prayer. But I recognized the stance for something else—it showed an old man shattered by the loss of his child.

  “Tell me again what happened, Don.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Because I’ve traveled days to get here.” I stopped. I didn’t care for Don one bit. Not after what had occurred between us all those years ago, but it was like the man had already said: I wasn’t one to turn my back on women or children in need. “Look, Don. Let’s put our differences behind us for now. Tell me what happened . . . maybe there’s still something I can do. If what you originally told me is true, then this may not be finished with.”

  Don probably wasn’t even conscious of chewing the end of his moustache. He was too busy studying my face for a sign of insincerity. He must have come to a favorable conclusion because he slow-blinked like an old bull frog. “It is true. As crazy as it sounds.”

  Three days on the road had left their residue on me. Perspiration had dried on my skin, my clothes were grimy and uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the reason for the prickling sensation in my flesh. It was as though my nerve endings were charged with static. “It just takes a little coming to terms with, Don. How could a dead man be threatening your family?”

  “It’s gone way beyond threats, Hunter. Didn’t you hear what I told you? Brook is dead.”

  The tingling in my skin was becoming painful, and a seething rush shot through my veins. I resisted the urge to scratch and bunched my fists in my pockets. “Brook was killed in a car crash. The police ruled it an accident.”

  Don grunted. Next to his battered chair was an equally worn cabinet. He pulled open the top drawer and drew out a folder which he opened and held out. I was still thinking about the gleeful faces that had only moments before flickered on the screen and didn’t want to see what Don offered.

  “Take it,” Don said. “Have a good look and tell me if you still think my daughter died accidentally.”

  I’m no stranger to death in any of its horrible forms. To some I’ve inured myself, but not all. Once, I bore witness to the aftermath of an attack by guerrilla fighters on a village of innocents. Some of the victims—mostly women and children—had been burned alive. The images of their bodies twisted into blackened husks still occasionally plagued my nightmares. I didn’t want to see Brook like that.

  But I looked. The rushing heat in my veins went cold. There were photographs from the accident scene.

  They showed a vehicle on its roof, so consumed by fire that even the tires had been burned clean off their rims. The distance shots weren’t so bad; only when the camera had zoomed into the interior did it became apparent that the bundled form lying amid the ashes and molten components had once been human. That was nasty. But nowhere near as horrific as the follow-up photographs from the morgue where Brook’s remains had been taken. Under the stark glare of lights, surrounded by dull steel, the extreme charring of the woman’s corpse was shocking. There was little left of her, just a blackened skull and the withered husk of a torso. The larger bones of the upper arms, the pelvic girdle, and legs had survived, but all the lesser bones of her extremities had gone to ash. She had been twisted by the intensity of the heat into the classic pugilist pose, but it wasn’t that evident with her hands gone.

  My blink was slow, and I held my lids shut for a time afterward.

  “Well?”

  Well, what?

  I handed the file back to Don.

  “It’s a terrible thing,” I said. “I can’t begin to imagine the terror your daughter must have gone through. But, Don . . .”

  “It was no accident.”

  “The car rolled, the fuel tank erupted. A spark from the engine ignited the spilled fuel.”

  “That’s what it looks like.” Don opened the file, thrust the photographs under my nose. “That’s what it was made to look like.”

  “The report is conclusive.” I gently closed the flap on the file, covering the images. “Before you say anything, I’ve read it. I already had Rink get me a copy of both the police and ME files.”

  “And you believe a couple of hick cops and a washed-up medical examiner over me?” Don snorted. “They only saw what they wanted to see.”

  “Nevertheless, they didn’t find anything suspicious. No evidence that Brook’s death was anything other than a tragic accident.”

  “But now that you’ve seen the photographs?”

  “
It doesn’t change a thing, Don. Your daughter died by the flames that also burned out the car she was trapped in.”

  Don chewed his moustache again. After a few seconds he lifted a hand, pointed at the stairs. “I want you to leave. If you don’t want to hear my take on what happened, then just go. I’ll find someone else who does give a damn.”

  The old man’s words were like a slap in the face. I squinted at him, anger riding on my tongue. But I let it go. I headed for the stairs. I ignored the tug of scar tissue in my thigh, in a hurry now to get away before I said something that I’d regret. There were enough regrets for me to contend with without hurting a grieving father.

  Don’s next words halted my hand on the door handle.

  “I got an email, Hunter. It said: ‘Who must you lose next?’ ”

  Without turning, I pressed on the handle and tugged the door open and went up the stairs. “He’s dead, Don. How could he send you an email?”

  “Whether it was him or not, I was still sent the goddamn thing.” Don walked to the base of the stairs but he didn’t follow me up. “It was a direct threat to my family.”

  I slipped into the dark hallway, hearing the rage building in the old man like the rumble that precedes an earthquake.

  I made it all the way to the front door, but for a second time in less than a minute my hand was halted by words.

  “You’re just going to walk away from this, Joe? Do you hate my father so much?”

  Millie was standing in the hallway, her arms wrapped around her body as though she was freezing. Strands of her hair were plastered across her face and clinging to the tears on her cheeks.

  Hate is such a strong word. I didn’t hate Don, just what he’d once led me to do.

  “He’s hurting and confused, Millie. You both are.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re all confused. But so are you. When will you open your eyes and see what’s really happening here? He is back.”

  I gnawed my bottom lip. It wasn’t possible. The bastard’s body was ravaged by flame, immolation of his corpse as complete as what had happened to Brook. Carswell Hicks had fallen over the precipice into his promised eternity in hell.

  But then there were the emails. Someone must have sent them.

  I opened the door.

  “Tell your father I’m sorry for his loss.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WAS AN ache in my right hand which was compounded by the cold, and more than the slight tugging in my leg, this concerned me the most. When adrenaline rushed through my system the wounds to my leg were no hindrance but I required the full range of movement and dexterity of my fingers. My hand had been shattered during the same battle where I’d picked up the other injuries, and I’d had to undergo microsurgery to put it right. As I walked, my fists in my pockets once more, I periodically flexed the hand to promote movement.

  I had the feeling that I was going to need it in fully functioning order.

  For someone in my line of work, speed of hand is the difference between life and death.

  I hear you’re supposed to be some kind of knight errant these days.

  Don Griffiths’ words had been meant as sarcasm. Right now they elicited the required response: a wry smile. Knight errant? That was just one fancy term that had been leveled at me. I suppose it was better than vigilante, which was more often the case. At least the term carried the honorable connotations that I hold dear. Without my sense of decency, I accept that I could very well be labeled alongside those other balaclava-clad hooligans who take the law into their own hands. But then—it’s all a matter of perspective. To some I’d still be seen as a man of questionable morals. Perhaps I was the type of knight who wore tarnished armor.

  As I walked a cat kept pace with me.

  It was a gnarly old tomcat, and judging by the scars that crisscrossed its body, it had fought a number of battles during its lifetime. We had a lot in common. It watched with luminous yellow eyes from the opposite sidewalk, perhaps recognizing its human familiar.

  Occasionally cats have questionable morals, too. Some people judge them as cruel killers, but not all their kills are for fun. Sometimes they have to kill to survive, or to protect their young.

  This took me right back to Millie, and to Brook’s children. My friend, Rink, who runs a successful PI outfit down in Tampa, had brought me up to speed on Brook’s death and the family she’d left behind: her husband, Adrian Reynolds, and nine- and six-year-olds Beth and Ryan. Don was an ex-cop, and, judging by the photograph I’d seen of his son-in-law, Adrian was no stranger to a gymnasium, so they could look after themselves. It was only Millie and the two kids I was worried about.

  I was uncomfortable about walking away from them. But I couldn’t believe that there was any truth in Don’s concern. How could a dead man be a threat to him or his family?

  Don was hurting; he was stricken with grief and grasping at anything that would make sense of Brook’s seemingly pointless death. In the same circumstances, some people raged at the world, or at their cruel god, while others looked for excuses. Don was clutching at old hatreds in order to add reason to his pain.

  But then he wasn’t the only one allowing hatred to shadow his judgment, was he?

  Someone must have sent that bloody email.

  I stopped walking and looked across at the cat. The old tom mirrored my movement. We stared into each other’s eyes. I was the first to blink. The cat sat down and began licking its old wounds. In my pocket, I again flexed my fist.

  The cat stood up and slunk forward, and now I was the one who matched it step for step.

  I got the message. The time for licking wounds was done, and I should get back to doing what I did best.

  I was near to the 7-Eleven where I’d left my car. On my right was an open lot full of weeds. Beyond it the forest that encircled Bedford Well swayed under the bitter wind, undulating like a pitch-black sea. Across the way, the cat was all that stood between me and the forest on that side. The cat had come to another standstill, but this time it was staring past the convenience store to where I’d parked the Audi. Its shoulders hunched and its ears flattened on its head; its mouth opened in silent challenge, baring teeth that glinted red under the moon.

  Suddenly the cat bolted, heading away into the cover promised by the forest. But I wasn’t going to run.

  I continued forward, to meet the two men who were resting their weight on my car. Once again I flexed my hand, pleased to find that the bubbling warmth flooding my body had anesthetized the pain.

  It was near to four in the morning: too late for revelers and too early even for day-shift workers to show up at the convenience store. Their black SUV was parked a dozen yards away, and yet they chose to sit on the hood of my car. They were waiting for me and there was no good reason for it. I didn’t need the cat’s reactions to tell me that these men were dangerous.

  “You mind, guys? The car’s a rental and I have to pay for any damages.”

  Both men pushed off the Audi, one of them, stocky with a shaved head, leaning back as though inspecting the paintwork for scratches. The other, a tall man, who looked like he’d been constructed from too many bones and sun-dried leather, lifted his chin, his nostrils flaring.

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum . . .” he said in a surprisingly melodious voice.

  I smell the blood of an Englishman, I finished the thought. I’d heard plenty like it since my move to the States.

  The second man finished his inspection of the paintwork, then used his sleeve to buff out an imaginary scratch. Then he turned his attention to me, holding an empty palm toward the car. His smile was wide but colder than the wind gusting around the parking lot. “No harm done, buddy.”

  “No harm, no foul,” the tall one echoed as he picked at a patch of dry skin on his bald head.

  Taking the car keys from my pocket, I aimed them at the Audi and disengaged t
he locks. Nodded amiably at both men, then moved to go around them.

  “A moment if you please.” The second man was shorter than me, but he was heavier built, and I noticed he had self-inflicted prison tats on his fingers. He stepped in the way, barring me from the car. He raised his ink-mottled hand and touched it to my chest. The contact was little firmer than a caress, but it sent a jolt through my body. Not because he held an electrical device—or any weapon—but because I’d allowed him to do it. The rule I’d always followed was that if an enemy could touch you, then they could kill you. This man was without a shadow of a doubt an enemy.

  Subtly I stepped back, knowing that the next time he tried to lay hands on me would be the decisive moment. I watched the man’s eyes and saw the same thought flashing through his mind.

  “Ease up, buddy,” the man said. “I’m only being friendly. You’re not from around here, right? England is it? Just wanted to say hi and ask you a question or two.”

  He was obviously lying, but I wasn’t averse to playing that game. “Look, fellas, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got to get on my way.”

  “On your way already?” The stocky man shook his head. “Why, you just got here. Surely you’ve a minute or two to spare? Especially when we’ve gone to the trouble of turnin’ out to say hello.”

  “Wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee, I bet?” The tall man leaned close, and his breath, stinking of garlic and something sour, washed over me. “Not at this time of night, huh? You shouldn’t be surprised: I never sleep. I’m up before the roosters. Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

  I didn’t reply to either. One was a liar and the other was crazy. But both were very dangerous. Instead I held the stocky one’s gaze as I maneuvered the keys around in my grip.

  The stocky man nodded in the direction I’d just come from. “Who did you visit with in town?”

  “Who says I visited anyone?”

  “Can’t see any other reason for you being in Bedford Well. Not like there’s much to see in the dark.”