A single, loud crack lit the woods with sound. Karen doubled at the waist but didn’t fall. Another shot, then another. Someone yelled. In an accelerating density of deafening noise, the shots came in a torrent. This volley was like the one that took out Hoss.
DON’T HURT HER!!
But it was like the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde. Karen collapsed. It was the end.
Ted used his last bit of energy jerking his head away, his face in an anguished, open-mouthed frown. The men with guns all seemed to shout at once. Kathryn’s death played through Ted’s mind, then what he’d begun to imagine happened to Neil. Then Zeke. Hoss. A clear image of young Karen at the typewriter flashed before him. In it, she looked deep into his fractured soul.
Ted heaved and vomited onto the back of Sunny’s head.
CHAPTER 66
The gunshots diminished in frequency, in more or less the reverse of how they’d begun. As the last few rounds discharged, foul language in male voices erupted from behind Cabin 6. Ted lifted his head, half wondering why all the gunshots didn’t hurt, and half wondering why the McDaniels had so targeted Karen. He wanted to look her way, but he couldn’t.
“Holy shit!” said an officer with a thick Michigan accent.
“Burned up ammo!” said another.
Burned up ammo?
A dozen or so armed, uniformed men emerged from the south side of Cabin 6. Ted realized the gunshots were the Black Jackets’ unspent ammunition discharging like popcorn in the heat of Cabin 7. No one had targeted Karen at all. Ted’s gunshot wounds didn’t hurt, because he didn’t have any, other than the one Trashcan Face had given him days, weeks, or months ago.
The officers’ yelling stopped, and booted footsteps approached Ted in a run.
While still on the ground, Karen lifted her head and trained her eyes, wide with surprise, on Ted. She looked like she’d had quite enough.
You gave her one hell of a morning, didn’t you, Ted?
“You hurt?” asked an officer towering over Ted. The man carried a black riot gun.
“No,” Ted said. Not too bad, anyway.
“What’s goin’ on in that cabin?” the officer asked. “I mean, before the fire.”
In the last four days, Ted had shed enough fear for a lifetime. He was spent, wouldn’t be able to fear anything else if he could. He craned his neck to see the officer, who held his shotgun with both hands, not particularly pointing it.
“My wife’s funeral is today,” Ted said in a stream of semi-consciousness.
“What’s that now?”
“My wife… my friends… they’re…”
The officer shouted into his shoulder mic. “Get a rig down here now… gunshot wound and burns, both critical… Let’s get him away from this fire.”
Ted was still lying on Sunny’s back and holding pressure on the gunshot wound. He’d all but forgotten about it.
Sunny whimpered and seemed to want to say something.
Ted jerked on Sunny’s wound, and the man shut up.
“What’s your name?” the officer asked. “Tell me that, and we’ll go from there.”
“Ted.”
“Ted what?”
“Gables.”
The officer mumbled something into his radio, then knelt down. He hung the shotgun by its strap on his shoulder. When the wind blew open the man’s coat flap, Ted saw the nametag: Lt. Jacobi.
“Okay,” Jacobi said. “Ted Gables. Good. Who’s this guy?” he asked, pointing to Sunny’s burned, lacerated, and vomited-upon head.
“He’s bleeding,” Ted said. “He needs help.”
“We’re working on that. Who is he?”
“I want this man to live.” Ted woke up, as though from some deep dream, and leaned down to Sunny’s ear, smelling gasoline, cologne, bile, and maybe a little something like a forensic crispy-critter. “You hear that, Sunny?” Ted jerked on the gunshot wound, and Sunny cried out.
“Easy, now,” Jacobi said.
Ted hissed, “I want you to live, you son of a bitch.”
A deputy sheriff arrived, ushering two EMTs with a cart. One of them held gauze in a gloved hand and took over holding pressure on Sunny’s wound. Two more ambulance crewmembers arrived with a backboard. The responders took control of Sunny.
Ted worked up to his knees and struggled to put one foot flat on the ground. The fire’s heat had become nearly unbearable. Jacobi took a spare towel from the EMTs and gave it to Ted, who wiped the blood from his hands. Slowly, Ted stood up. He was lightheaded.
“S’pose you tell me,” Jacobi said, “what’s going on here, Dr. Gables?”
Doctor Gables. Word had apparently made its way up to Michigan. How it did, Ted didn’t have a clue.
Three officers attended to Karen, two men and a woman. The two men stood on opposite sides of her. They interlocked one set of arms beneath her knees and the other behind her back, then picked her up in a sitting position. She said something, and one of them told her, No… you’ve been shot… how ’bout we just carry you? That sound okay? Karen seemed to oblige.
“Dr. Gables?” Jacobi said.
The men carried Karen in the direction of Cabin 1. When she said, Get that board! Ted lost sight of her behind Cabin 6. And just like that, she was gone. On top of everything else, a vague anxiety washed over him.
A moment later, the third officer, the young woman, stepped over to the board. Ted thought for a second she might pick it up and toss it through one of Cabin 7’s blown-out screen windows to let it burn. And then, maybe, she’d open fire on everyone else, emerging for all to see as one of Hugh McDaniel’s secret weapons. But the officer didn’t do any of that. Instead, she regarded the board for a moment with something that looked almost like reverence. Or maybe just plain curiosity. She bent and touched it, appearing to test it for heat. Then, using Ted’s discarded truck stop jacket the way he might use a dishtowel as an oven mitt, the officer picked up the board.
Jacobi beckoned her over and asked Ted, “What’s with the board?”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Redhead in the, uh, undergarments, you mean?”
“Yes. I really need to speak with h—”
“No, you don’t. At least, not right now. All parties involved are going to want independent and complete statements from you both before you get to talk to her again. Even the feds could figure that one out. Besides, you have much bigger problems right now.”
Ted dropped his chin. Karen seemed to have vanished. In an instant, she’d become an old memory again, just a cute girl winking at a twelve-year-old boy from the helm of a typewriter. Or holding his hand, or sending him a letter about her dead pedophile uncle. Maybe Karen really was and should be nothing more than a memory in an old cigar box, buried to protect Ted from himself.
“Dr. Gables, I’m going to cuff you, and if you promise to cooperate, I’ll let you keep your hands in front.” Ted complied, holding his hands together just above his navel. Jacobi ratcheted the cuffs in place and said, “Let’s walk and talk, shall we?”
Still watching Cabin 6, deciding Karen was not going to poke her head around the corner and wave goodbye, Ted finally decided to walk with Jacobi. The deputy followed, and the female officer with the board fell in alongside them. The patch on her jacket’s shoulder said Michigan State Police.
“What happened in that cabin?” Jacobi asked, his voice just a tad more demanding this time. “I know a few things. One, you just saved the life of a man you don’t seem too fond of. Two, you’re the primary suspect for the murder of your wife in Indiana, a murder which, I will add, has no other suspects but in which you have not yet been charged. The local detective in your hometown is convinced you are not responsible for said murder.”
“The men who did it are dead and in Cabin 7.”
“The cabin in flames, I presume.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, well, well. We’ll sort that one out later. Item number three. At least for a few hours, you were wanted by the
entire Ohio State Police force for the murder of one of their own.”
“What?” Ted gasped.
“Don’t know anything about that?”
“Where? That truck stop?”
“Outside of some small town north of Cincinnati.”
“No…” The trooper who held the door as Ted put on his factitious limp. Ironman and Trashcan Face shot him.
“Some kid cleared you of suspicion for that one.”
Jason. “It’s still my fault.”
“Oh? You pull the trigger?”
“No.”
“Then tell the feds about it. For right now, I have to hear as much as you’re willing to tell me about that cabin.”
They passed the bench on their left. Ted felt an inexplicable pressure to look back at Cabin 7. Maybe it was because it would be his last time seeing it. Maybe he needed to look back to bury the hatchet, to make sure an army of McDaniel Security Black Jackets was not coming. Either way, he did turn. The first thing to catch his eye was the midnight-blue pick-up truck parked safely northeast of the fire, its headlights staring down the length of Cabin Row.
What did Ironman and Trashcan Face do with the gray van?
Ted thought immediately about their gear, the evidence in the truck. Did the truck hold any more handguns? Were Ted’s prints on all four of the guns he and Karen had taken off the two men? Were Ted’s prints on the gun that shot the Ohio State Trooper? Did the truck hold a certain high-powered rifle?
He wanted to talk to Frank. Frank would know what to do, what to search, wouldn’t give up until they matched the rifle to the bullet that killed Kathryn. The questions flooded Ted until the image of Kathryn’s dead body came to him. His eyes stung as his lacrimal glands squeezed and filled them with fresh tears. The sting was the same as in 1970 when he watched two different cars take his two best friends away, when Mr. Dinwiddie told him Karen had already gone home, and when he still wondered, after all his cabin mates were already gone, whether his dad truly wanted to take him home.
Ted tore his eyes away from the truck.
As he faced back toward Cabin 1 and the spinning lights beyond it, he noticed the confluent and almost blinding gray-white, snowy abyss down the bluff. The far shore was invisible through the driving snow.
“This kid who cleared you?” Jacobi said. “You hijacked his vehicle at gunpoint last night and almost got him killed.”
“That’s right,” Ted said in a monotone voice. “I did that.”
“The kid who cleared you of the officer’s murder. He said if you hadn’t gotten in his car, you’d be a dead man. The kid himself said what you did was in self-defense.
“Rumor has it he said you were long gone by the time the trooper left that store and got shot.”
The big lie killed an officer. And Kathryn. And Zeke and Neil. And a whole bunch of people.
“I need to see that board,” Ted said suddenly, facing the White Birch Village officer. “May I, please?”
“Sure,” Jacobi said. “Tell us about it. They say the kid in Ohio told a whale of a story, that two men were after you.”
“Want to know what I heard?” the deputy sheriff offered.
“Why not?” Jacobi said.
“Sheriff’s been talking to some detective down in Indiana since early this morning.”
Jacobi: “About the doctor here, I presume. That’s where I got my news.”
The deputy: “Yeah. He learns from the detective that some judge in Indiana”—Thayer, Ted thought—“calls the detective and wonders why he hasn’t sought probable cause for the arrest. And the detective? The one on the case? Tells the judge the doctor here didn’t do it. And that’s why he wasn’t after the arrest warrant.”
Frank… really?
Jacobi: “Oh. Didn’t hear that part. So the judge offers up an arrest warrant, and the detective says no. Never heard of anything like that.”
The deputy: “And a couple hours later, that same detective finds out T—Dr. Gables is up here and then calls us in a big hurry.”
Jacobi stopped walking, hands on his waist. The shotgun strap held his coat flaps open. “All right,” he said to Ted. “So you didn’t kill your wife. Didn’t kill any officers, I hope. You flee your wife’s funeral because a couple guys are trying to kill you. You hijack a kid and his car at gunpoint, and that kid seems to think you did nothing wrong. That much I understand. But then you come up here and meet…”
“Karen Dinwiddie,” the young state police officer said. “She writes the Loon Lake Sloth books. I’ve been reading those since I was thirteen. Lives right in The Village, not too far from me.”
“The man who killed my wife…” Ted said. “Karen knocked him unconscious with that board you’re carrying. She saved my life.”
The young officer’s mouth made a big O shape, and her eyes filled with wonder. A triumphant grin overtook her face.
This girl’s no McDaniel secret weapon. She’s a Karen Dinwiddie fan.
“An author, huh?” Jacobi said to the young officer. “This is making less sense every minute.” He and the officer had a brief conversation Ted ignored.
How the hell did Frank…? Ted felt more lightheaded than before. The entirety of what Frank had to know even to think about calling the area stymied Ted. But one way or another, Frank Bruska had saved him, too.
And so did Hoss.
Hoss gave his life for Ted and Karen both. And the kid, Jason. I’m gonna buy him a new car, Ted thought.
And the truck driver from Sparta. Ted could hardly imagine the goodwill he’d been extended. Just twenty-four hours before, he would never have considered it possible.
Karen. How do you even begin to apologize for something like this? He didn’t know, but he’d call her the instant he could. He could only hope she’d listen.
And Dad.
Ted desperately wanted to see his dad.
Jacobi said, “You’re not going to clam up on us now, are you, Ted? Who’s in the cabin? Nobody knows but you. Why don’t you tell us before we have to hand you over to the federales.”
An ancient voice of paranoia suggested the law enforcement officers around him might be disarmingly nice at first, only to kill Karen and Ted in private, later. But that didn’t seem very likely. Not now.
If Uncle Hugh had organized a posse of murderous people in uniform, he wouldn’t have bothered coming to the camp himself. But Hugh McDaniel did come, Sunny in tow, probably in hopes of hiding the murders, and probably because he hadn’t told a soul—other than Sunny—about them.
“Hugh McDaniel,” was all Ted could say at first.
“Who?”
“Hugh. McDaniel. And the shoulder-shot man on the cart. They did this.”
“Okay,” Jacobi said, shaking his head and pointing at the board, which the young officer held so they could see it. “Who are these people?”
For the majority of his life, Ted had been trapped in layers of dreams and fears—some recurrent for three decades, and others for just a few hours. But now he’d awoken fully, from the inside out.
“I’m one of these boys,” Ted said, pointing to the board with his cuffed hands. “This kid here—this man. Zeke—he and I wrote these names back in nineteen seventy.”
“All righty. Keep talkin’.”
Spreading index and middle fingers apart, Ted pointed at the names Zeke and Cornelius. “These are my two best friends. Both of them have been killed.”
Two helicopters chopped the air across Loon Lake. They flew from the east—maybe from Traverse City—and took a minute or so to become visible through the thickening snowfall.
Jacobi, pointing out to the lake: “Speak of the devil. Here come the feds. Showin’ up like usual, after all the work’s done.”
Ted pointed to another name on the singed but otherwise legible record. “This guy. ‘Denny “Buck” McDaniel.’ He’s—”
“Running for president,” the female officer said.
Everyone froze for a moment, weighing the enormity o
f the young officer’s statement. Jacobi let out a pitch-dropping whistle.
“And this guy?” Ted pointed to another name. “Your gunshot victim on the cart. Name appears to be Paul Weatherby. He’s McDaniel’s campaign manager.”
Jacobi: “Oh, Holy God. You did say Hugh McDaniel, didn’t you? I didn’t know you were talking about him.”
Ted: “They’re trying to kill us. All of us who lived in the cabin that summer. And I don’t know how many of us are still alive. We need to find them.”
Jacobi asked the officer from The Village to run up to the other emergency responders and get to work tracking down the names Ted had mentioned. She took the board and ran.
“Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter,” Jacobi said. “Why in God’s name are they trying to kill all of you?”
“I will tell you everything,” Ted said, limping against his aching knee, lightheaded and holding pressure on his side with one cuffed hand. “I have nothing to hide any more. But what the senator has to hide? And what I’ve been hiding for thirty years?”
Ted glanced distantly across Loon Lake. Through the snow and wind, he couldn’t see a thing. But he knew it was there. He could imagine the far shore in a sunrise, lush, green and full of promise. Over thirty years, it had recovered and thrived.
He realized he could still take his dad to Lake Placid or anywhere else, but he doubted any of it would be half as beautiful as that far shore.
In a flash of brilliant hope, optimism, and a hundred other positive things he could hardly remember ever feeling, Ted knew no other place could be as breathtaking and serene as the one that had always visited him in his dreams.
He stopped walking and faced Jacobi. Snowflakes the size of cotton balls whitened the officer’s cap. “As for why the senator’s campaign is trying to kill us? I’m gonna save that story for my dad.”
EPILOGUE
Munson Medical Center
Traverse City, Michigan
The story made Roy Gables cry.
I wish I’d been stronger when your mom died, he’d said. I think I abandoned you for a while, Ted. And I’m sorry. If I hadn’t, maybe you wouldn’t have been so afraid. The first time Ted saw his father cry was when Jessie Gables died in 1969. The second was there in Ted’s hospital room. Ted had no idea how to act. So he defaulted on a tried-and-true, Roy Gables technique.
White Birch Graffiti (White Birch Village Book 2) Page 27
