by Josh Lanyon
In the face of my silence Kevin burst out, “They’ve confiscated all our guns. Amy’s .45, Livingston’s Ruger and my rifle. They think one of us might have shot him.”
“Why?”
Kevin shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it at first, but now ....”
“Now what?”
“Well, somebody shot him. I guess — I mean —” He gave me a funny look. “You didn’t ask where they found him. You already know, don’t you?” His tone was accusing.
I admitted awkwardly, “That Livingston’s was the body we found in the barn? We sort of — Jake sort of put two and two together.”
“Why would someone hide him in your barn? That’s what we’re all asking ourselves.”
Among other things, I bet.
I said, “There’s a good chance he wouldn’t have been found for a long time. It seems like Harvey didn’t go in the barn much.”
“Harvey has to be the one who killed him.”
I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking, then who killed Harvey? To give myself time I offered Kevin a chair and asked if he’d like a beer. He accepted the chair, declined the drink, and then changed his mind.
I brought him a beer and he took it from me, saying, “It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. And another thing: there were a couple of nights when my truck was taken without my knowing. Probably someone just borrowed it, but what if — what if —?”
“For what reason?” I asked neutrally.
“None. There is none.”
“Think about it. There has to be some reason. When was your truck taken?”
“I don’t remember for sure. Last week. Maybe Thursday.”
Thursday night was the night Harvey had been killed.
My expression must have been odd because Kevin rushed on, “Livingston was shot with a .22 hollow point. My rifle is loaded with .22 hollow point.” He shook his head, looking sick and scared. “A long-rifle cartridge is a hunting round, you know? It’s not like I’m the only guy around here with a .22 caliber. And that’s not the only weird thing.”
“Let me guess. More ghostly chanting from the caves last night?”
Kevin looked puzzled. “No, but some bastard dumped our tools in the lake. Every shovel, pick, ax, you name it. We’ve been fishing equipment out all morning. The water’s like ice this time of year.”
“Don’t you keep watch at night?”
“Sure, but no one saw anything.”
“A likely story. Who was the sentry last night?”
Kevin drank his beer and then said, “Melissa took first watch. A guy named Bob Grainger took the second.” He put his head in his hands. “Adrien, what am I going to do?”
I was afraid he was going to cry. I shifted over next to him on the sofa and put my arm around his shoulders. It was the big brother brand of hug, mind you.
But then Kevin wrapped his arms around me, and his mood seemed less fraternal than mine.
“Er … Kevin,” I began, trying to pry him loose.
And then with the timing of a French farce, Jake opened the door. He stood stock-still. I could hear the clock ticking on the mantel. I hadn’t heard him drive up. I hadn’t heard the front door. And I hadn’t, off the top of my head, anything to say.
Jake did though. Right on cue he drawled, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...”
Chapter Eleven
“Kevin was just leaving,” I said, managing to detach myself from Kevin.
“Did he mistake you for the door?”
“It’s not what you think,” Kevin chimed in. Not really a helpful remark.
Jake said, still cool but suddenly dangerous, “How would you know what I think?”
Now that I had Kevin on his feet, I steered him toward the doorway. He and Jake sidled past each other like tomcats from rival gangs. Jake was wearing the sort of sneer that begs someone to take a swipe at it.
“Does that asshole bully you?” Kevin demanded as I slid him across the polished floor.
I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” Handing Kevin his jacket, I thrust him out onto the porch.
“We have to talk,” he protested.
“Later.” I closed the door in his face.
“Kevin’s worried about being arrested,” I informed Jake finding him in the kitchen chugalugging from a milk carton — a habit I hate.
Jake slam-dunked the empty carton into the trash bin with what I’d call a controlled use of force.
I rattled on to fill the silence, “The body in our barn was Livingston’s. The cops are checking everyone’s guns at the site for a ballistics match. Livingston was shot with a .22 caliber, and Kevin owns a .22.”
“Maybe Kevin shot him.”
I shook my head.
“I see, Mr. Pinkerton. And you base this deduction on the fact the kid has a nice ass and a freckled nose?”
“I base it on the fact that I don’t think he did it. What motive would he have?”
“Maybe he didn’t like the guy. Maybe Livingston was failing him in class or kicking him off the dig. Maybe the good doctor found out the kid was buying and selling pot from Ted Harvey. Maybe the professor tried to put a move on the kid; sexual favors for GPA points. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the world.”
I felt my jaw drop. “Where are you getting this from?”
“Hey,” said Jake, “I’m just throwing out possibilities. One thing about a homicide investigation: you can always find a motive. If the rest of the case fits — opportunity, means — go with it. The motive will show eventually.”
I chewed this over. Jake was the expert here, but I didn’t peg Kevin for a killer. Not that I was dumb enough to say so.
I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve got an idea or two of my own.”
“I knew that was coming.”
“But I need your help.”
Jake raised his eyes as though seeking divine intervention. “Hell, I live to serve,” he assured me, closing the fridge door with a little bang.
No doubt he was waxing sarcastic, but two hours later there we were, Mr. Pinkerton and Inspector Bull hot on the trail. Or, to be precise, off the trail and on the cliff overlooking Spaniard’s Hollow.
“That’s about a two hundred foot drop,” Jake was saying, evidently triangulating in his head like a well-trained Eagle Scout. His nose was pink with cold or allergies. He wiped it on his sleeve.
“It’s pretty steep,” I agreed, squinting down at a dizzying panorama of treetops, grass, and the tarn shining like a mirror in the late afternoon sun. “There must be a path.”
Keeping hold of the branch of the scrub oak growing over the drop at a gravity-defying angle, I leaned further out. Pebbles shifted under my boots and bounced down the mountainside, clacking off boulders.
“Watch it, for Chrissake!” His fist fastened in my collar and hair, dragging me back. I landed sprawled in his lap — which in other circumstances I might have relished.
“Easy! Take it easy.” I freed myself, yanking my shirt collar back into place. “I know what I’m doing.”
“My mistake, Sir Edmund Hillary.” Jake took my place at the edge and cautiously peered down. “There’s no path.”
“Well maybe not a path as you and I would recognize the word.”
The edge, apparently only held together by the tree roots and tiny wild flowers, began to crumble beneath Jake. I yelled a warning.
Jake did a kind of reverse salamander as I grabbed for his legs and hauled, lying all the way back in the grass and pine needles. His boot heel grazed my jaw as he kicked around trying to save himself, and I had to let go of his shins.
With amazing agility in one so large, Jake rolled over and snapped into a crouch like a kung fu fighter.
“This is a lousy idea!” he snarled. His face had a mal-de-merish tinge.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No!”
Uh huh.
I thought it over. “I can do it.”
His mouth worked b
ut nothing came out. “You are fucking nuts,” he managed at last, glaring at me.
“I’m also about fifty pounds lighter than you.”
“What does that have to do with it? You can’t fly. Not to mention you’ve got a bad heart.”
I wished he hadn’t brought that up because, despite the stress and strain of the past week, I was feeling healthier and stronger than I had in years. Maybe it was all that fresh air and exercise. Or maybe I was kidding myself. Whatever, I didn’t want Jake thinking I was less of a man than he was.
“Forget about my heart. We can tie the rope to that tree.” I pointed to a sturdy looking pine. “If it comes down to it, you can pull me up a hell of a lot more easily than I can pull you up.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No way, Adrien. Absolutely not.”
“I can do this, Jake. Don’t — I don’t have trouble with normal physical exertion.”
“Scaling cliffs is not normal physical exertion!”
“I’m not planning to climb up. I’ll follow the trail to the bottom.” The more he argued against it, the more important it was to me to do it. I urged, “Come on, Jake, we’re going to lose the light.”
He wasn’t budging.
I cajoled, “I’m just going to walk down this trail. How much of a strain could that be? Look, you spent how the hell many hours hunting for tire tracks and spent bullets and shell casings? And we’ve got nada to show for it.”
Temper turned his eyes almost yellow. “So we start exploring Indian caves? Adrien, no secret Indian sect is hunting us. No ghostly Kuksu shot at us last night.”
“You can’t say that these things are unconnected. Kevin said that only last night someone dumped all the shovels and tools at the site into the lake.”
He raked a hand through his crisp hair in a barely restrained movement. “Listen to yourself.”
“It would be nice if someone would! I’m not saying I expect to find a ghostly assassin lurking in the cave. Although, you know, no one has ever seen a subconscious yet scientists believe in the subconscious. No one has seen the id, but Freud and plenty of psychiatrists believe in the id. Why is it so hard —?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Jake interrupted. “I don’t believe in extraterrestrials. You can find people who do believe in these things, you probably believe in these things.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“God is different.”
“Why is God different? Nobody has ever seen Him. Her. It.”
Jake yelled, “I’m not going to sit on a mountaintop arguing theology, psychology, what-the-hell-ology with you! I don’t think we have probable cause to risk our necks exploring this cave.”
“I disagree.”
“Then you can risk your neck.”
I shrugged and turned back to the cliff edge. Jake grabbed my arm.
“Now wait a goddamn minute.” His fingers dug in.
“Ow … what for?”
“You can’t do this on your own!”
“Watch me.” I tried to stare him down.
Jake held my gaze for a long moment and then his mouth twitched. He gave my arm a shake and then released me. “You’re supposed to give up now.”
“We’re wasting daylight.”
“Shit!” Swearing under his breath, he tossed me one end of the line we had lugged up the mountain, and fastened the other end around the stalwart-looking pine.
I knotted my end around my waist. Tested it. I might not have been a boy scout but I did know how to tie a decent knot.
“This is a bad idea,” Jake growled.
“You said that.”
His scowl was my parting gift as I stepped carefully over the edge.
The rope was only a precaution; I figured I could find a way down the slope finding footholds among the rocks, and hanging on to the branches and wayward roots of hardy shrubs. But the first thing I discovered was that the incline was sharper than it looked; more suitable for repelling than strolling. Leech-like I clung to the mountainside and considered Plan B.
Sweat prickled along my hairline, trickled between my shoulder blades and dried in the crisp forest air.
A rock gave beneath my boot heel and I dropped down. It was only a few inches, maybe a foot, but my heart didn’t seem to travel with the rest of my body, and for a few seconds I had a scared taste of what it would feel like to really fall. The rope scraped painfully over my ribs, nipples, and caught under my underarms.
I kicked around till my foot found a place to lodge; my clawing fingers dug in, and I was steady once again with the entrance of the cave just below me.
I looked up. Jake was about fifty feet above, still lowering. I gave him the thumbs up. If he responded I couldn’t tell. Untying the rope, I jumped down to the cave ledge, landing in an awkward crouch. Picking myself up, I stood, brushed my hands off on my Levi’s.
There was a yellow jacket nest right outside the cave; bees buzzed around my head in angry bullets.
Ducking a couple of dive-bombers, I switched on my flashlight, turning toward the heart of darkness. A mere few footsteps in, I realized I needed a stronger flashlight.
The feeble beam played over the walls. Faintly, I could make out paintings, figures scrawled in rusty brown like dried blood: wavy lines and circles which could have signified spacemen as easily as anything else. Nothing conclusive, mind you, no stick figures with fangs.
I walked further into the cave. It tunneled deeply into the hillside. Instead of the expected shallow recess, I had found a real cavern.
Follow the bouncing ball. The white circle of the flashlight beam danced along. Several yards in, my flashlight picked out a small skeleton. I stopped, nudging it with my foot. Too big for a rabbit, too small for a dog. A fox?
“Feet start moving,” I said under-breath and was startled when my whisper came back to me in an eerie echo.
I went on for what felt like a mile or two.
The cave was as chilly as a cellar, and it stank with the decay of animal nests and animal droppings. I began to wonder why it had been so important to me to make this trek. The darkness seemed to press in from all sides.
After another dozen yards I decided that I had gone far enough; that there was no need to track the cave all the way to the end. I was losing my nerve, no doubt about it, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I tried to distract myself by analyzing it. It didn’t help.
Though I’ve never been claustrophobic, I began to feel trapped. The darkness was heavy, smothering.
I told myself to get a grip.
One more reluctant footstep. Then another shuffle forward. And right as I decided to call it quits, psych or no psych, the flashlight ray lit on something that at first glance I took to be a log. I stopped dead. It was not a log. It was a body, filthy, covered with yellow jackets and insects.
I recognized the bedraggled plaid shirt. That was all that was recognizable by now.
“Jesus.”
“Jeeeeeesuuuuuuus,” a whisper echoed.
I started backing up, stepped on something round and hard, and lost my balance. I hit the floor of the cave, and the light went out.
Feverishly I groped for the flashlight. My fingers closed on something round, not quite smooth, which crumbled in my hand. I knew what that had to be, and I swore, tossing it away.
More fumbling before I found the flashlight again. I shook it hard into life, my relief disproportionate to that watery light — which picked out the pieces of a small animal skull.
Scrambling to my feet, I ran for the mouth of the cave.
My boots pounded the hard-packed dirt as I chased the little white moon of my flashlight beam.
It seemed to take a long time to find the entrance. Too long. I stopped and tried to calm myself as the darkness closed in. That’s all it was: darkness. An absence of light. But it seemed to stand beside me like a hostile physical presence. Beside me and all around me, looming, menacing …
There were no branch tunnels. There was only the one way;
so I was either running toward the opening or I was running deeper into the cave.
My pulse skipped a beat. Had I got turned around somehow? Was I running deeper into the bowels of the mountain? Why wasn’t it getting lighter?
I stood there, huffing and puffing, my heart shaking with fright.
No damn way, I argued against my rising panic. No damn way did I lose my bearings so much that I ran further into this fucking cave.
When I had my breath back, I resumed walking, but slowly, fighting the conviction that with each step I was moving further from safety. Commonsense told me to keep going, to trust my instincts.
The longest journey begins with the first step, so the philosophers say, and so I said to myself over and over. Me and the Energizer Bunny, I thought. We keep going and going and going …
To my everlasting relief I saw that the blackness was thinning, giving way to milky gloom. I had been deceived by the simple fact that daylight was fading. It was dusk.
Reaching the cave entrance, I ducked back as something stung my hand. An irritable yellow jacket. I swore, sucked the back of my hand, and reconnoitered.
There had to be a trail leading up from the glen below. It would be too risky, not to mention difficult, to have lowered that dead weight over the cliffside. Working from this premise made it easier. The path was there; I just had to find it. I sat on my haunches, catching my breath and scanning the pine-studded mountainside. Finally, I spotted a dirt path trickling down through the trees.
“Jake!”
With gratifying promptness Jake leaned over the edge at my shout. I gestured that I was heading on down, not coming back up. He made some kind of complicated hand gestures and withdrew.
I started down the path, taking it as quickly as I could without breaking my neck. It took about twenty minutes. Loose rocks and pine needles slowed my progress, and required my full attention. If I’d been carrying a dead weight uphill it would have taken even longer.
At long last I found myself on terra firma. This was an improvement but not as much as I had hoped. The surrounding trees effectively blocked the remaining light. It was very quiet. Too quiet? There’s nothing like finding a decayed body to throw the old radar out of whack.
