Deep Down (I) (26 page)

“Yep, and he’ll be our guest until he writes out a statement for me. Junior, I have to put you in the cell for a few minutes, but you can just look straight out down the hall through the bars, not at the other three walls. I’m going to phone Highboro and make sure you’ll have a lawyer and a doctor when we get there. You’ll write down everything you told me about Peter, right?”

“Ain’t got no choice now.”

“As soon as you do, you can call your wife, and we’ll get her in to see you.”

He walked Junior down the hall and, though he felt him tense up as if he’d balk, he put him in the larger of the two cells and locked him in. Like in some cartoon, the man stood with his hands gripping two bars and his face pressed between them, staring out.

“Drew!” Emmy called to him and motioned before he could even stop in the john.

“What?” he asked, following her down the hall toward her workstation. Although they were the only two in the room, she kept whispering.

“Cassie was here, and she said something you should know.”

“Tell me. Hey, have you been crying, or are those red eyes from staring at the PC screen?”

“She said I could tell you that Ryan Buford is Pearl’s father. He’s been harassing her, talking to Pearl. He—She wanted me to know before I got in too deep with him.”

“Damn him! I’m sorry, Em,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and giving her one gentle shake. “For her and you. Well, one mystery solved. So she wants to file a complaint or get a restraining order, or have me talk to him? Actually, I’d like to put my fist to that handsome jaw—maybe once for her, once for Pearl and once for you. Where is she now? I can phone her before I take Junior to Highboro for safer keeping this time.”

“I told her some places he might be. I don’t really know where she went. But something else,” she said, tugging him toward her desk. “I decided to use Google to find Rat Ryan through the Department of Transportation that he said he works for—but he doesn’t. Look.”

He leaned over her shoulder to see what she had on her screen. He studied the crowded Web site page for a
minute. “But that’s a list of operatives for the logging industry—their on-the-field lobbyists and information brokers,” he said.

“Yes, but see, his name is listed here as the senior aide to the Lumber Logging Lobbyists, the LLL. I can’t find him listed as an employee or aide or anything for Transportation. In south Florida—at least that wasn’t a lie—he oversaw the clearing of large tracts of forest to make way for resorts, condos and golf courses. You know, I overheard him on the phone once laughing about some motto—‘Cut out and get out.’ But I had no idea he meant trees.”

Drew felt as if he’d been sucker punched in the gut. Just a few driveways and retirement cabins, my foot! Timber theft or tree poaching was small potatoes compared to what Buford’s cronies must have in mind for the Deep Down area. Wouldn’t that mean that Buford had a vested interest in keeping the sang count low? If the government slapped a moratorium on digging and exporting sang, locals would be more likely to want to sell land and the timber on it. Maybe he saw Mariah as someone who would lead a campaign against any serious logging.

“Get Jessie on the line over at Vern’s Trader,” Drew told her. “Then try to track Cassie down somehow. Try her home phone, too. Tell them both to stay put, and patch them both through to me.”

“Drew, if Ryan lied about who he worked for, I can see why. People would have hated him, maybe hunted him down around here. You—you don’t think he hurt Mariah?”

“I’m not sure. I still think Peter Sung hurt Mariah, so I’m going to call the Lexington police from my office. If Peter’s home, they can take him in for questioning. Get on the phone, because I want to bring Jessie up to speed and
keep Cassie from facing down Buford alone. Same for you with him—keep clear for now. You understand?”

She nodded grimly as she reached for the phone. “When I heard what he’d done to her and Pearl, I knew my dream with him was over. Truth is, I’d like to kill him with my bare hands, but I don’t think I’ll have to once word gets out what he’s really doing and who he really is.”

26

T he muted chiming of keys and coins inside her mother’s denim bag accompanied Jessie’s steps as she jogged the path Drew and Seth had taken. She figured she’d catch up with them before she came to the clearing along Bear Creek. She wished they would have waited for her, but they were obviously on to something big, maybe evidence that could degrade or be taken by someone else. She couldn’t wait to tell Drew what she’d learned about Vern.

The headache she’d lied about to Vern clamped her forehead like a metal band. Even as she ran, she fumbled for her bottled water and plastic bottle of aspirin in her mother’s bag. Having something her mother valued and carried with her on her last day was comforting. Besides, now they had answers. Thank God, the man who had killed her—no doubt while wearing that terrifying costume—was locked up and would soon enough be locked away for good. Solving her mother’s murder had eased the guilt she’d felt over never quite forgiving her for sending her away with Elinor. She understood it, yes, was even grateful for it, but deep down forgiving was something diff—

What was this in her bag? Her hand seized on something
long and leathery. She shuddered. It felt so much like a stiff snake that at first she gasped and stopped to open the bag and look inside.

A dog tracking collar! She was carrying one of Peter Sung’s dog tracking collars!

She glanced all around but saw nothing, no one. When could he have put this here? Oh, yes, he’d been so eager a couple of hours ago to carry her bag into Vern’s office for her. But was it just a gift for her or Drew, or was it secreted here so he could stalk her?

She could not take the chance. If it was a harmless gift, she’d retrieve it later. She dug it out of her bag and wedged it in the crotch of a maple tree just off the path. A large rock marked the tree, so they could retrieve the collar on their way out. It would be something else to tell Drew. Let him decide what its purpose had been.

Her next thought shocked her so that she almost stopped running. Could Peter be guilty of her mother’s death, too? Vern and Peter were obviously close friends. If they were in collusion for Mariah’s murder, maybe they were responsible for Beth’s, too. Peter, of course, had the perfect alibi for the second murder, since she and Drew were with him at the time in Lexington, but he’d been in the general area the day her mother was killed. As for Beth—Jessie had not had a shadow of doubt that Beth had been murdered, too, and by her mother’s killer.

Anxious that she’d fallen farther behind the men now, Jessie pushed herself even harder. Ryan had said Seth wasn’t walking too fast, though she knew he was usually quite sprightly, even for his age. Maybe his losses had really gotten to him.

Despite the sporadic sunlight bleeding through the trees,
even with the bird sounds, Jessie suddenly felt alone and afraid. Her heart pounded, echoing her footsteps through the rustling leaf litter. At least, she told herself, when she got to the clearing and the creek, she’d be able to spot the men. She could hear the creek and the muted roar of the more distant falls already. She was almost there.

Sprinting out of the forest into the clearing, she looked in the direction the men must have gone. No one. Behind her, not a soul in sight. But she couldn’t see as far as the ancient tree that had cradled her mother’s body, so she pushed on.

The wind chilled her perspiring skin, as if looming Snow Knob breathed down on her. For the first time in her headlong rush to tell Drew about Vern and to be a part of his and Seth’s discovery of another piece of proof, she began to shake. Surely Ryan had not been mistaken about the way Drew and Seth had gone. Besides, Seth’s note had backed up what Ryan said. But with Drew’s concern about keeping her safe, wouldn’t he have waited for her?

Maybe they were on the other side of the tree up ahead. “Drew! Seth!” she shouted, then switched to screaming. “Sheriff! Sher—iiif!”

Something was very wrong. She could feel it, taste and smell it. She was getting out of here. Ryan had misunderstood.

As she shaded her eyes with one hand to scan the area, she realized she was close to the spot where she and Drew had seen the sang patch with the spade’s slash marks and the strange berry designs that were echoed in the cuts on her mother’s face.

Hair prickled on the nape of her neck, and gooseflesh iced her skin. The headache she’d meant to treat got worse. The boulders being gnawed on by the waters of Bear Creek,
swollen by the rain, seemed to waver before her eyes. Had she run so hard that her brain was oxygen-deprived? She’d never fainted in her life, but she felt woozy now. Too little sleep, too much exertion, pressure, grief and fear.

And that smell! Out here in the fresh air, could she have carried the scent of that badger fur on her hands? She lifted them for a deep sniff. The stench seemed the same even when her nose was right up to her palms.

She spun around into the wind, heading back toward the path she’d taken coming in. But ahead, blocking her way, stood The Thing that had haunted her from Tyler’s picture.

She gasped and froze. Shook her head and blinked. No, she wasn’t hallucinating again. But—but Vern was locked in his storeroom, and she had the Siberian sang hunter’s costume locked in her trunk! Or could Peter have had an outfit like that, too?

It lumbered toward her, surely a human beast, not a feral one. She wondered if she could be dreaming, but this was pure nightmare. Staring wide-eyed at it, she felt she was seeing double, the vision both here before her and in the unrolling thoughts of her mind’s eye. She knew she must find the courage to let the vision of her mother’s death reveal itself, but not now. Now, she shoved the vision away and faced the reality of The Thing in front of her.

Think! she screamed silently at herself. It wants fear and panic to devour you. That’s why he—but who was he?—had gone to all this risk and trouble. Think!

If only she hadn’t exhausted herself running in. If only she could get back to the creek, maybe scramble over the boulders to the other side. The creature, with its size and bulk, would find it hard to follow. But she could be trapped against the rocky sides and pounding water of the falls.

It came closer, stiff-legged on those big feet—yes, skin wrapped and tied around raised shoes. That and the headgear made it seem gigantic. It was a monster meant for the midnight hours, but the fact it dared to appear in the slanted shadows of daylight made it more real.

This must be about the same time of day it attacked her mother. The sun was in her eyes but she edged along the creek, trying to get a good angle to flee into the forest a different way from the path it blocked. The beast must have emerged from near the spot Tyler had taken the picture of it.

When it came closer, still without a word or a sound beyond heavy breathing—only its distinctive smell preceded it—she saw it carried a long, silver knife in one fur-gloved hand and a crude sang-digging spade, maybe of wood tied to bone, in the other. The murder weapon!

Under the huge hat, its face was covered with a dark hood of fur cut with four holes, two for eyes, one each for the nose and the mouth. The leather apron, which hid its body, and the cape of badger fur and claws swung from side to side as it—he—came closer. It’s a person, she told herself, not some mythic beast! And yet it was a beast, maybe more horrifying because it was a human being under all that, a human being doing this. He must be demented, but who had she met in Deep Down that was this much of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Her mother had fled from this, and that tough, tenacious Beth Brazzo must have fought it. The results of both had been fatal. Somehow, she had to outwit him. She had to survive.

Despite Junior’s pleas to Drew to not leave him in the cell, Drew tore out of his office to the Fur and Sang Trader.
The window sign said Closed, but he banged on the door to be sure. No wonder no one had answered the phone. He frowned at the finality of the word Closed. Damn, he wished his murder cases were solved and closed.

Fists clenched, he stalked back toward his office. Bringing Jess up to date and helping Cassie keep Ryan Buford off her property and out of her life should be secondary to arresting Peter Sung. He hadn’t even had time to phone the Lexington police when Emmy said she couldn’t locate either Jess or Cassie. Neither had answered the phone at her house. Where were those two? Man, he was in a black mood. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be sheriff here, because the things he should do right now—get Junior’s statement, run him into Highboro and arrange for Peter to be picked up and questioned—were going to have to wait.

Maybe Cassie had come to the Trader to find Buford but had only found Jess, who had agreed to go with Cassie to face him down. Yeah, that was a likely scenario. Emmy said the women weren’t at Audrey’s B and B, so could they have gone out to the other place Emmy had told Cassie to look for Buford—the old logging road under Snow Knob?

He didn’t even go back into his office. He’d call Emmy on his two-way. Maybe Seth hated Buford not only because he wanted change around here, but because the wily old guy had guessed he was the one who had deserted Cassie and Pearl. At any rate, he hoped he found Buford before the women did.

Jessie continued to edge along the creek, trying to watch her footing on the stony bank but unable to look away from what Drew had called The Thing. She forced herself
to reason out who this must be. Dear God, she must have been wrong about Vern! But was this Peter Sung or Junior Semple? Why that tracking collar in her purse, if this wasn’t Peter?

Could it even be Ryan Buford? No, he could never have raced here in time from where she left him and have put on that outfit. It must have taken her almost fifteen minutes to run back here; he’d have to drive to beat that. Still, Drew and Seth must not have come out here at all, so Buford had lied. She’d trusted him, just as Emmy had and maybe Cassie, too. But if it was him, what was his motive? Peter and Vern, even Junior, had reasons to worry about a possible low sang count and the commercial promotion of sang by Beth Brazzo. But Ryan Buford? Still, why would he lie to her but to set her up for this? Somehow this wasn’t Peter’s style, and Junior wasn’t this clever.

She decided then to risk who it must be. You’re a smart girl, she urged herself on. Take your best guess and best shot. Try to sound rational, calm, in control.

“Ryan, stop it!” she dared in a loud voice. “The Halloween garb, your combination of Siberian sang hunter and Swamp Ape costume, is ridiculous! You don’t think I really trusted you enough to come back here alone, do you? Once I got in the forest, I called Drew on a two-way radio. He and Seth are right behind me!”

The Thing stopped, shook its furry head—in denial or rejection?—and growled, the sound so real it shocked her. Then it stalked her again, now only about fifteen feet away. Had she guessed wrong? She’d been praying her strong approach could buy her some time, even some conversation so she could try to reason with him.

She dropped her bag to free her arms. Her mother must
have done that when she fled for her life, for they’d found it abandoned and ransacked near here. Jessie bent to grab a tree limb as thick as her wrist and a stone, not a big one, but one she could grasp in one hand.

The Thing charged her. She leapt out on two small rocks in the water, then made a stand on the large one, which her mother had called her and Daddy’s island. She prayed it would protect her, but she soon saw she was wrong again.

Lifting both the knife and the spade, The Thing waded into the stream after her.

Her instinct was to flee, to plunge into the water, even to run toward the falls. But that might be his plan. He’d tried to make it look like Beth had fallen. Maybe he wanted it to seem that his third victim slipped and drowned or fell over Bear Falls.

Wait! she told herself. Hold your ground for another second. Do not do what it expects.

At least The Thing looked unsteady in the water. Its big shoes must have filled. Maybe the leather apron and badger cloak would get waterlogged. Steady, she told herself. Don’t run yet. She felt her mother’s common sense and Elinor’s cleverness pour through her. Draw it out into deeper, swifter water. Even if it somehow outran and overcame Beth Brazzo, conserve your strength. Wait until it’s almost here but not in range to swing that spade.

Ten feet away, as it went slightly off balance clambering onto a mossy rock, she heaved her stone at its head. She hit its cheek, knocking its headgear awry. It halted, then lunged toward her, splashing, swinging the spade she countered with her stick. The tree limb stopped the impact, but her limb cracked, splintered.

Jessie jumped off the rock, as furious as she was fright
ened. Her feet slipped on the next rock; she splashed knee-deep into the cold current but managed to scramble up the bank. She could hear it coming after her, sloshing through the water, breathing deep and hard. Dreading the next swing of that spade against her skull, she lifted one arm above her head.

The weight of the swing was strong; she heard her left ulna crack, even before she felt it. Red pain knifed through her, but she tried to concentrate, to keep going. If that thing jumped her, she’d never get it off.

With her good hand, she held her broken arm to her chest, despite the pain that caused her to scream through gritted teeth. Keep moving. Run zigzag. Take the trail toward the car. She stumbled back toward the logging road, then decided The Thing might have a harder time going in the thicker woods.