Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (74 page)

“That means Alena is in danger. We have to go to the police.”

“Alena is safe as long as no one knows about her involvement. You said it yourself: News travels fast in a small town. If we tell the police, how long will it be before everybody else knows? No—right now our best chance of keeping Alena safe is to keep her out of it.”

Gunner thought about that. “If you're right, then you took a big chance even telling me. What if I turned out to be the town gossip?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so. I have to trust you, Gunner—I need your help.”

“Tell me what I can do.”

“Look—I understand ‘clergy confidentiality' and all, but is there anything you can tell me about Alena? This isn't just idle curiosity. If I'm going to figure all this out, then I need to understand what's going on here.”

Gunner took a minute to consider his words. “I've known Alena since she was a little girl,” he said. “I knew her father—his name was Ken Savard. The land on the top of this mountain has been in Alena's family longer than anyone can remember. Ken and Alena moved up there when she was just a little girl—just the two of them.”

“And the mother?”

“Divorced, I think, maybe deceased—I never got the details. I'm not sure Alena even knows.”

“What did her father do for a living?”

“He worked over in Front Royal at the Canine Enforcement Training Center—that's where the Customs and Border Protection people train all the drug-sniffing dogs that they use along the borders; ATF trains bomb-sniffing dogs there too. How much do you know about detection dogs?”

“I've worked around them; I've seen what they can do. I know they can be trained to find narcotics, people hiding in cars, large amounts of currency—things like that.”

“Most of that started in the '70s—before that, dogs didn't really specialize. If you had a convict on the loose, you sent for a bloodhound; if you had a body to find, you sent for a bloodhound. It was sort of a ‘one dog fits all' approach—but Alena's dad helped change all that. He thought dogs should specialize—he thought they could be more effective if they concentrated on detecting only one thing. That's what he did at the CETC: He developed methods for training dogs to perform specialized tasks. They say he taught them to do some amazing things.”

“Is that where Alena learned to train dogs? From her father?”

“That's where she got her start—but to tell you the truth, I think she's done things her father never dreamed of.”

“I've seen a sample of what she can do,” Nick said. “Those guard dogs of hers—and that three-legged cadaver dog—I've never seen anything like them. She never says a word to those dogs, but they seem to know exactly what she wants them to do.”

“People around here say she can talk to animals. She can't, of course— she just knows how they think. It's a gift, in a way. I suppose it's what happens when you withdraw from people and pour your life into dogs; you learn to think like a dog instead.”

“What happened to her father?”

“He was quite a celebrity around here for a while. The newspapers picked up on what he was doing, and pretty soon people started coming to see him. Then one day he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Vanished without a trace—Alena was about ten at the time. There was a big storm one night. Her dad heard a noise in the woods and went to check on it. He never came back.”

“What happened to Alena? What did she do?”

“She stayed up there.”

“Alone? She was only ten years old.”

“I know—talk about impressive stuff. Alena practically raised herself, with a lot of help from people like me and my wife—Rose is her name. We heard what happened to her father and we went up to see her. We tried to get her to come down to Endor, but she just wouldn't do it.”

“Don't you have Child and Family Services out here?”

“Sure. They placed Alena in a foster home—she ran away. They put her in another home—she ran away again. She'd head back up to the top of the mountain and hide out in her woods for weeks at a time. That's awfully hard on a little girl; after a while the authorities got tired of chasing her down, and we started to realize that we were doing her more harm than good. Social Services sort of forgot about her, so Rose and I took over; we decided it was best to let her stay in her home and just try to take care of her there. It's all we could do; you can put a kid in a foster home, but you can't make her stay. Alena just refused to live in Endor.”

“Why?”

“Because she hates the people here. When her father vanished, no one called; no one raised a finger to help. They left her up there to take care of herself; she might have starved if Rose and I hadn't gotten to her first.”

“Why didn't anyone help?”

“The stories.”

“What stories?”

“These are the mountains, Nick. People are deeply superstitious here—it's sort of in their blood. There were too many stories about Alena's father: the man who could talk to animals, the man who could raise the dead—”

“I've heard the same stories about Alena.”

“Exactly—but when her father disappeared the stories got worse. Some people said that he turned into an animal himself and ran away; some said that he was like Enoch in the Bible, only it was the devil who took him away and not God.”

“That would be pretty tough on a ten-year-old girl.”

“The stories almost killed her. It's hard to blame her for hating Endor—I guess maybe I would too. She's been living up there ever since, just her and her dogs. That's the same trailer she lived in with her father, and those are the kennels he built.”

“Did her father leave her any money? How does she live?”

“Her father didn't have a dime—just a thousand acres of Virginia mountaintop. Alena makes a living finding dogs for the CETC. About four times a year dog breeders from all over the country bring their puppies in. The trainers there test the dogs and buy the ones that have the qualities they're looking for.”

“Can you make a living that way?”

“A good pup is worth about forty-five hundred bucks, and Alena knows what they're looking for. She manages to sell quite a few— enough to get her by.”

“She seems to have a few of her own.”

“Thirty or so, last time I counted.”

“Where does she get them all?”

“Animal shelters—she takes the ones they're about to put down. She brings them back to her place and trains them. The ones that are good enough she sells to the CETC; the others she keeps or finds homes for. They're a mangy lot—there's not a purebred in the bunch—but brother, the things they can do. Alena can look in a dog's eyes and tell you its gift—the natural ability it has that can be developed with the right training. It's spooky sometimes.”

“She told me her dogs pick their own names.”

“That's right. They tell her who they are—get the idea?”

Nick shook his head. “She's an amazing woman.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Beautiful too.”

Gunner stared into Nick's eyes.

“I just meant—I couldn't help but notice, that's all.”

“My wife and I love Alena as if she were our own daughter,” Gunner said. “I go to her whenever she sends for me. I sit with her; I talk to her; I let her take Communion. You put her in danger, Nick.”

“I didn't mean to.”

“That doesn't matter. The point is, you did—and that makes you responsible for her safety.”

“I understand.”

“I'm not sure you do. Alena is vulnerable—she's lonely, and she's isolated, and someone with the wrong motives could take advantage of her. She's been deeply hurt all her life; I don't want to see her get hurt again. I have to trust you too, Nick—I have to know you'll look out for her.”

“That's why I'm here, Gunner—that's why I was at Alena's last night. I'm not sure what happened to Marge yet—maybe she took a trip somewhere, maybe she got depressed and just took off. Who knows? Bosco the Wonder Dog just got his butt whipped by a three-legged mongrel—maybe she went shopping for a new dog. It's only a hunch I have about Marge, but I wanted Alena to know—just in case.”

“She needs more than a warning.”

“I know that too. I'm going back up there tomorrow morning—after I talk to the police about Marge.”

“You won't mention Alena to the police.”

“Not a chance. Marge kept Alena out of the picture—I want to leave it that way.”

“So how can I help?”

“You can help me think,” Nick said. “If I am right about Marge, then we've got a killer loose—and the same guy who killed Marge knows the story behind the bodies at the Patriot Center. It looks like the murders there were spread out over a period of thirty years, and that graveyard isn't far from here. That means the perpetrator was almost certainly a local—someone from Endor or one of the other towns nearby.”

“That makes sense.”

“You've been around here a long time, right? You must know just about everybody in town.”

“Everybody in Endor—half the people in Front Royal too.”

“Then help me out here. Who do you know who might be capable of murder?”

Gunner began to chuckle.

“Did I say something funny?”

“To someone in my profession, yes.”

“So what's the joke?”

“You know what I like about being a pastor, Nick? I don't have to go around spouting some nonsense like ‘Human beings are basically good.'”

“I thought pastors were supposed to believe that.”

“Not the ones who read their Bibles. I'd like to believe it—unfortunately, there's just too much evidence to the contrary. The Bible treats people as
fallen
—made in the image of God but corrupted in a fundamental way. Fatally flawed, you might say—that's the human dilemma, and nobody is exempt. You asked, ‘Who do you know who might be capable of murder?' The answer to your question is, ‘Everybody— every man, every woman, and even the children by a certain age.'”

“Must be a tough town.”

“No tougher than anywhere else. People are people, Nick. That's the problem; that's the human dilemma.”

“Everybody,” Nick said. “That doesn't help me a lot—I'm trying to narrow the field.”

“Maybe you shouldn't.”

“What do you mean?”

“Keep an open mind—especially when it comes to the human capacity for evil. That's what I try to do; there are fewer surprises that way. Everybody has the capacity to do evil—all they need is the right frame of mind.”

“Okay,” Nick said. “Then who do you know who might have the frame of mind?”

“Let me think about that one,” Gunner said. “I have to be careful. Pastors tend to hear a lot of confessions. If I start pointing the finger at everyone who's ever admitted a bad attitude to me, I'll be pointing out half the people in town.”

“I'm not interested in bad attitudes,” Nick said. “I'm looking for someone who has a reason to kill.”

“Who doesn't?”

“Excuse me?”

“I know people who've been robbed of their life's savings; parents who've lost kids to drunk drivers; wives who've been abandoned by husbands after thirty faithful years of marriage. Everybody has a reason to kill somebody; most people don't do it. It isn't just about reason—it's about what's going on in your heart, and that's what God wants to change.”

“Now you're starting to preach.”

“You're in a church—what did you expect? To believe what I believe and not want to tell you about it would be the worst kind of hypocrisy. If you had cancer, wouldn't you want the doctor to tell you? And if there was a cure, wouldn't you want to know? That's what I tell people: You're a part of the human dilemma too, and I think there's a cure. Let's grab that beer sometime; we can talk more about it then.”

“Thanks.” Nick got up from the pew and stretched. “You said you go to Alena whenever she sends for you. How does she send for you if she doesn't have a phone?”

“She sends a dog—a little one, about so high. Ugly little cuss. His name is Ruckus.”

“The dog knows where you live?”

“He knows what I smell like. He stops here first; if I'm not home, he'll search all over town until he finds me.”

“Sort of like ‘call forwarding,'” Nick said.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“What about that three-legged dog that always seems to be with her?”

“That's Trygg—she's the most special of all.”