“So naturally, you put up some graffiti.”
“Of course.”
“We say that every year, Ted. About the graffiti. Helps minimize the vandalism.”
“Is that what you people call graffiti these days? Vandalism? The campers’ birthrights?” Ted shook his head. “I want the old Karen back.”
“Pffft,” she said, smirking.
Ted marched straight through the main living space and back to the concrete floor of the sink room. He looked up, between the separated, one-by-six slats that made the floor of the loft. “It’s on the very last rafter before the back wall,” he said, craning his neck. “I can’t quite see it from here.” He pulled on the string to turn on a naked incandescent bulb fixture in the sink room. It didn’t help, so he pulled the string again to switch it off. Karen stepped back into the main room. Facing Hoss’s bunk, she jumped into the air, grabbed a cross-tie board, and lifted her feet onto Hoss’s bed. After another quick move, she stood on the bed, then weaved her way through the struts and into the loft. Ted watched her go.
She groaned. “That used to be the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s hard to haul these old bones up here now.” Karen sat in the loft, her legs dangling toward the bed. She peered over a strut like a kid trying to see over a fence. “What are you waiting for, Ted? Come on up.”
Ted pulled himself into the loft. The dog on his left side bit down, and he wondered if he was bleeding again. ‘Old bones’ was right.
As he tried to navigate the rafters, Karen said, “I get why you didn’t tell anyone about Lloyd. Why didn’t anyone else?”
“Not sure, really. But Hoss said he was worried about Buck. Told this whole story about his brother, Jake.” Ted bobbed his head back and forth, rolling his eyes, sing-songing the story’s bullet points. “Jake was a quiet, unassuming kid, got into a fight at school, etcetera, etcetera. So this Jake horribly injures this other kid…”
Karen tented her eyebrows. Ted planted his feet in the loft and crouched to avoid hitting his head on the roof’s underside.
“They put Jake in this psych hospital,” he said. “Gave him a bunch of druuugs, fundamentally changed his person-AL-ity, and on and on, and then he turns into this crim-inal, would never be the saaame, woe-is-Jaaake and all that.”
“The argument being that Hoss was worried the same would happen to Buck?”
“Yep. Only I was pretty sure there was never any Jake, and Hoss was just being Hoss. Fact is, or at least I think it is, Hoss was just trying to save his own butt. Because he didn’t care about anybody else.” Ted stopped for a moment and said, “I guess that was why Hoss was invincible.”
“How so?” Karen asked, scooting toward the back rafter.
“He just didn’t care.”
CHAPTER 54
“You think he was invincible?”
“Yeah. Except for one thing. He hated Lloyd.”
“You said that before,” Karen said. “What’s the story?”
Ted ducked under a rafter and launched into story mode. “One day—graffiti day, as a matter of fact—Zeke and I are up here in the loft. Lloyd comes in, looking for something. We freeze, you know, worried he was gonna catch us. Then Lloyd goes to my area and ransacks it. Then Neil’s, then Zeke’s, then everybody else’s, one by one. Zeke and I keep quiet.” Ted pointed a finger to describe Lloyd’s progress through the campers’ areas. “Lloyd moves up this way and over here to the last bunk, which is Buck’s. Right? He finds something there. Turns out to be Buck’s knife. And not just some folding pocket knife. A big hunting knife.”
Karen nodded. “Big trouble at this camp… what next?”
Knives at camp were prohibited to a degree of strictness that made kids rethink how easy-going Mr. Dinwiddie was. Get caught with a knife, said the policy, and you go home. Period. No investigation, no trial. No refund of camp fees. “Huh,” Ted said, thinking.
“What.”
“I never really thought about it this way, not consciously, but Lloyd came damned close to confiscating the knife that killed him.”
“Eww. How’d Buck wiggle out of that?” Karen asked. “I mean, with the knife. Dad would have sent him home.”
“A singing voice comes along outside, headed in. It’s Hoss. You know that song he always sang? Whistled? Whatever.”
“No.”
“‘Floatin’ Down the Mississippi.’ You remember that? He was crazy about that song. So anyway, Hoss comes in, singing that song, sees Buck’s in trouble.”
“Yeah?”
Ted shook his head in sincere wonder. “In almost no time, Hoss has Lloyd by the balls.”
“By the balls? That’s figurative, I hope.”
“Sorry. Anyway, Hoss gets into his own stuff—to a place Lloyd missed—and produces Lloyd’s pint of whiskey.”
Karen gasped.
“It was what Lloyd was looking for all along.” If Ted’s life had a pivotal moment, it was then. Hoss’s grip on that whiskey bottle pushed the lever and sent the old train down the track to the place it should never have gone. “That’s right. Hoss had smelled the alcohol on Lloyd ever since they met. Hoss came from a family of alcoholics, and he recognized the smell of the freshly drunk and the hung-over. So at some point, Hoss went through Lloyd’s stuff and found the bottle. Either to use the booze as blackmail or just to screw with him. Or both. But either way, that’s what Hoss did. He set people up, you know, to use. Just in case.”
Karen’s feet were flat on the floor of the loft. She sat still, listening, hugging her knees.
“One minute, Buck’s going home, and the next, Hoss has Lloyd quiet and begging for mercy.” Ted heard the wonderment in his own voice. “Twelve years old. He was an absolute master. After the bottle incident, Lloyd had it in for Hoss, but he couldn’t say a word.”
“Why not?”
“Part of the deal Hoss struck with Lloyd that day was that Buck stays, keeps his knife, Hoss hides the whiskey where Lloyd’d never find it, and the cabin gets a canoe trip.” Ted reached and touched the rafter. “Here’s our graffiti.”
Karen kept her eyes on Ted, not the rafter. “You look up to him.”
“I guess so. He was a criminal mastermind. Belonged in a comic book. He’d make a good politician.”
Karen read the graffiti. “Theodore Gables, Blue River, Indiana.”
Ted read aloud slowly. “1 - 9 - 7 - 0. Zeke Yasko. Cornelius Shepherd.” He glanced through the remaining proper names he didn’t recognize. Bones, Coach, Bud, and Sunny. Willard “Hoss” Cartwright and Denton “Buck” McDaniel stood out in black marker that had never seen a ray of sunshine.
Ted hesitated. All right, Ted. The graffiti’s here. Now what?
“What?” she said.
“Do you have a pen?”
“I didn’t know I’d need one.”
It dawned on him that a list of names, even if they could memorize them, might not mean very much. Could they leave the proof in the cabin? He didn’t like it.
“Shit,” Karen said. “There might be something in Headquarters… but we clean house pretty well at the end of the summers. Box up everything in the desks, and all that. But it’s worth a look. Take just a few minutes.” She scooted her way out of the loft. Ted followed.
Headquarters. Cabin Row’s Headquarters was just behind Cabin 1. Ted hadn’t even thought of getting in there. They wouldn’t have to go back to the camp office to call with the records. They could just call from Headquarters.
In another minute, they stood in the sink area again. Karen headed for the emergency door on the far corner of the sink room. She reached for the knob. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
I’ll? Red flags went up in Ted’s mind. She was leaving him alone there. She’d call from Headquarters. In under a minute, she could be dialing 911.
“Dammit,” Karen said.
“What?”
“Bradie has a digital camera at the office. I could call her from Headquarters—”
No!
> “—but we pack up the phones, too. I’ll have to get a pen and paper, if I can find them.” Karen opened the emergency door. “Leave it unlatched for me. Be right back.”
Ted thought to protest, but it was too late. Karen took off toward Headquarters, her pace somewhere between a jog and a sprint.
The cabin became eerily quiet. Ted pulled the door almost to the point of latching. She sure was running fast. He darted in between a couple of sinks to peer out the back window. He couldn’t see her from his angle, but she went exactly the way he would have gone. Cabin-to-cabin, and quickly between each. She’d make it up to Cabin 2 and steal past the big birch, between Headquarters’ north wall and the bell tower, toward a half-mile of woods. Then she’d jimmy some window in back and return in a few minutes. He hoped. What if she’d lied about the phone? He stayed by the sinks, quiet and still, weighing options.
Then something in the cabin creaked.
~~~
“This guy,” Maddox said, holding pages of Karen’s 1970 letter in both hands. “This Lloyd? Can you believe him? I hate to say it, Frank, but I think I agree with Karen. Lloyd did the world ‘a great big favor’ when he croaked out there in the woods.”
About twenty after nine, a young officer walked up to the cubicle and said hello. Maddox’s phone rang, and the officer said to Frank, “No phone number on Ms. Dinwiddie yet, but we know she lives in a place called White Birch Village in Michigan.” Frank glanced and nodded at the young officer. He lifted a single finger as a wave of thanks before opening a computer search engine. Before he could type in White Birch Village, his partner called his name.
Maddox looked terribly serious, nowhere near his usual. “Betsy Yasko from Montana.”
Frank stood instantly, knocking his chair back several feet. He grabbed the phone from his partner.
“This is Frank Bruska.”
~~~
Ted kept still through another howl of wind and another creak. Something skittered across the cabin’s roof. Twelve-year-old Ted saw a cat-burglar dressed in black. Forty-two-year-old Ted, however, heard the claws of a squirrel, probably a (White Birch Magic) black squirrel, on the roof.
He decided to trust Karen. Ten minutes to salvation. They’d report those names, and consequences be damned. Ted was tired of the big lie. He was back at White Birch, and who knew? Maybe he could—some day—like the place again.
A sudden thought. A certain piece of graffiti. From 1938. It had been on the ceiling, above his bunk all those years ago. CAL OWEN’s name was the graffiti that started it all. It wasn’t just the record. It was the proof, and Ted aimed to see it again.
Feeling that silly White Birch Magic, he put a smirk on his face and headed to where he slept in 1970, suddenly so excited he couldn’t think.
He took one, sure step onto the wooden floor of the bunk area. He saw the open barrel of the gun first, then the man pointing it at him.
CHAPTER 55
Lights out. That was it. Ted wouldn’t see Cal Owen’s name after all. He’d never be able to tell his dad, would never be able to expose the truth. He’d been beaten at this awful game. He’d never see—
Karen!
“You don’t think she’s actually coming back, do you, Ted?” the man said.
Ted’s mouth moved, but it only issued a couple of faint choking sounds. The first thing he could say was, “Please don’t hurt Karen.”
“Looking for the nineteen seventy plaque?”
The man had no expression on his face. He didn’t so much as blink. Hidden deep in the black abyss of that gun barrel were Kathryn, Blue River, Zeke, Neil, and Ted’s parents. And Karen. It was over.
“Lost for words, are you, Ted? Worried about how to say hello to me? Don’t be. Just because it’s you, you can still call me Hoss.”
The mastermind of the killings. Ted thought about making a break for it. It would be two or three steps back. The emergency door was still unlatched. All he’d have to do was burst through it and run, serpentine. But there was no way. Hoss could pull the trigger ten times before Ted could even get out the door.
“I won’t lie to you, Ted. It’s damned good to see you. Alive and otherwise.”
“So you can be the one to shoot me?” Ted glanced to both sides, figuring his chances had to be better, slim as they’d still be, if he chose running over just standing there.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. I need you to tell me what you’re doing here, though.”
Ted shook his head. “How’d you get in here?”
“Before you. Been in the cabin for almost a half hour. I watched from in here while you and Karen talked by the bench. Then I hid in the stand-up locker they built into the wall up front.”
Ted’s gaze shifted from Hoss’s face to the gun, to the lockers. Post-fab closets. He’d noticed them, too, when he and Karen entered the cabin. Ted thought about pointing somewhere and saying, What the hell is THAT?! and pushing Hoss down when he turned to look. But that kind of sophomoric crap wouldn’t have even worked on Hoss when they were twelve.
“Give me a reason to put the gun away, Ted.”
“Why are you here?”
“You first.”
“Now look. If you’re here to k—you say you’ve been in the cabin for a half hour?”
“That’s about right, yeah.”
“So you’re not here to kill me?”
“No. In fact, I didn’t expect to see you at all. Didn’t even know if you were alive.”
“Why wouldn’t I be alive?” Ted felt the old cat-and-mouse games with Hoss beginning again.
“I’ll give you one guess.”
Ted nodded in a tired way.
“I’m here for the same reason as you,” Hoss went on. “As long as you’re not the one running around the country killing our old cabin mates.”
Ted dumbly shook his head.
“Didn’t think you’d be the one,” Hoss said, reaching into his jacket to holster his gun, but Ted kept his eyes on it.
“You like it?” Hoss said, displaying the gun as though it were a prize on a television game show. “Walther PPK. Classic James Bond piece.”
Hoss holstered his gun and looked like he realized something. “Hey, Ted. I’m really sorry about your wife.”
Anger spiked. “How’d you know about that?”
“Through your very own Blue River Bugle.”
“How?” Ted put his hands on his hips. “What’re you doing reading The Bugle?”
Hoss reached for his gun again. Ted’s knees bent a little in fight-or-flight response, his pain soaring. But Hoss’s move, while casual, was quick and lithe. Ted didn’t have a chance to react.
“Here,” Hoss said, taking the Walther by the barrel and presenting it to Ted, grip first. “Take it.”
Ted didn’t move.
“Seriously. Take it.” Hoss looked sympathetic. “You look so twitchy, Ted. It breaks my heart that I’d scare you that badly. Take the Bond piece. Maybe you won’t be so nervous if it’s in your own hand.”
Ted took the gun, careful to keep his index finger off the trigger. Hoss opened his jacket, turned his pants pockets inside out, and held up his open hands for Ted to see.
“Okay,” Ted said. “So you’re not part of this whole… thing with—”
“The senator? Denton McDaniel, the Golden Boy, America’s new hope? No. Not at all. I haven’t exchanged so much as a word with him for fifteen years. He got into politics around the same time I got out of the business of being a Cartwright.”
“I asked you. What are you doing reading The Bugle?”
“Technology makes the world smaller. You can half-way live in the south of France from Illinois if you have a computer.”
“But why The Bu—”
“I check up on you regularly, Ted.”
“What? Why?”
“From time to time, anyway, although I’ve never been able to dig up an e-mail address, website, or even a cell phone number on you. I subscribe to your Bugle. Somebody ther
e’s really on top of things, you know. Town that small. Since about ninety-seven, I’ve read The Bugle online. Cute little paper.”
Ted wondered whether Hoss had deficits in attention or was deliberately trying to distract him. In the old days, when Hoss was excited, he could spill words—like that bullshit story about his made-up brother, Jake—with inhuman fluency. Ted decided he’d tolerate a little of it and put the gun in his coat pocket.
Sounding a little pressured, Hoss went on. “Anyway, last night, I’m watching TV and checking on an e-mail account. A lot of things happen all at once. On my desk, there’s a USA Today, with the Ann Arbor riots on it. Neil’s name was there, or at least it had me thinking the dead professor was Neil. Right? Then I see Buck on TV, for God’s sake, running for president. Damned near peed my pants. But it was him. No doubt about it.
“Somebody on the cable news says ‘McDaniel is clean as a whistle,’ that he’s ‘not the type to attract scandal.’ I, of course, know otherwise, right? God knows Buck has at least one skeleton in the closet. And standing there on the TV screen, next to Buck?”
Hoss pointed to the top bunk in the cabin’s northwest corner. Ted saw the kid’s face.
“Damn it all,” Hoss said, “if it’s not Sunny. First thing I think of makes me ashamed of myself. I have this horrible thought that Neil’s death was too close in time to be a coincidence. You know? Horrible thing to think. But, as I read the USA Today again, my e-mail starts up. I keep this phony America Online account to see if someone’s after me. Long story, don’t ask. Let’s just say I have a good—Hey, Ted? Can I put my hands back in my pockets? I’m feeling a little silly here.”
Ted nodded. Hoss reversed his inside-out-pockets, leaving his hands inside them and rolling back on his heels.
“Thanks. So I have good reason not to be Willard Cartwright anymore. And somebody sends me this bogus message impersonating Buck. I don’t buy it at all, ’cause a McDaniel would never be caught dead putting his signature on shit like that. I look back at the USA Today, then at the TV. Right there, during the campaign announcement, there are four of us in the room. Two on the screen, and one of us murdered. Add me. And with somebody impersonating Buck to get at me? That’s Buck running for president and three more of us contacted at the same time. Contacted, I mean, in one way or another. Now that I know is no coincidence.”
White Birch Graffiti (White Birch Village Book 2) Page 22
