Read One Careless Moment Online
Authors: Dave Hugelschaffer,Dave Hugelschaffer
Tags: #Fire-fighting, #Series, #Murder-Mystery
One Careless Moment (29 page)
I didn't think I'd be able to sleep but at some point I must have dozed off because the ringing phone jars me out of a blurry dream. I scramble off the floor, paranoid I've slept in and Hutton is calling to tell me it's too late â Harnack is dead â but it's just my wake-up call from the front desk. I hang up and collapse into a chair. Del props herself on her elbows and looks at me.
“Is it time?”
I nod and she pushes herself up, swings her legs out of bed. She's quite an attractive woman, long legs and red hair, even first thing in the morning. No wonder Lyle is so obsessed with her. No wonder Telson was jealous. I notice the way her lacy bra cups her breasts, the way her panties cling to her thighs, and force myself to look away, give her time to dress.
“What now?” she says from behind me. “Do we just wait for them to call?”
“No, I have to go to the bank. Keep up appearances. They may be watching.”
I slip out while she's in the washroom, before she has a chance to ask more questions. Or ask to come with me. I park the van in the lot next to the log bank, wait for Carson United Trust to open its doors. At exactly nine o'clock I head for the bank, glancing around as I walk across the warm pavement. I don't see anyone watching. I ask the teller if I could use the washroom; I must look guilty because she gives me a suspicious glance as I cross the lobby. I wait in the can for a few minutes, then leave the bank. Still no visible observers. I peer into the van from the back, in case Hutton or Dancey have snuck inside to surprise me and take the diary, but it's empty.
As I pull into traffic, an old Ford pickup swings in behind me. I make a few random turns and the truck follows. I can't be certain, looking back through the dusty windows, but it could be Dancey following me â the profile looks about right. He could be following to take the diary from me before the meet, but there isn't a lot of time to fool around and I head for the motel. The Ford slows behind me, like it's going to follow me in, then accelerates down the highway, showing its buckled tailgate. Del looks tense when I step through the door.
“How'd it go?”
“Fine,” I tell her. I don't want to mention the truck. “They call yet?”
She shakes her head. The clock says quarter past nine. The phone rings at twenty past.
“You're late,” I tell Hutton.
“Fuck you too. You got the package?”
“Yeah, I got the package. Let me talk to Lyle.”
There's a moment's pause, then Harnack comes on the line. “Porter?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He sounds far from certain. “But come quickly. They're gonna burn me.”
“Relax, Lyle, they're just playing with you. You'll be home in no time.”
But Lyle doesn't have the phone anymore. “We're not playing,” Hutton growls.
“Neither am I. Where's the meet?”
Hutton gives me directions instead of an address. It's someplace out of town, down a series of back roads, and the instructions are complicated enough that I write them on a little pad next to the phone, shielding it from Del's view. After I'm done â and Hutton makes the usual threatening overtures about involving the cops â I hang up and shove the piece of paper with the directions into my pocket.
“Is it set?” says Del, her features etched with concern.
“Yes.” I head for the door. “I've got fifteen minutes to get there.”
“Where is it?” she says. “In case something goes wrong.”
“Nothing's going to go wrong.”
“Porter, wait â”
I hesitate, expecting Del will ask me to reconsider, or call the cops, but she surprises me by pulling a revolver out of her handbag. “It was my father's,” she says, urging me to take it.
I take the gun. It's loaded. “Thanks.”
She gives me a hard look. “Don't be afraid to use it.”
I tuck the gun under my jacket and head out to rescue Lyle Harnack.
The directions lead me south, out of town again, then east. I follow a gravel road, which begins to narrow as the ground rises toward a distant ridge. Spur roads take off everywhere. This looks like an old logging area. I take the third spur road to the right, little more than a set of dusty tracks between dense forest. In places, the trees are younger â second growth over an army of rotting stumps. The road splits in three directions in a small clearing, littered with rocky fire rings and broken bottles. I pause to check the directions, take the trail on the left. It rises steeply then levels out. A grey flash of boards around a curve in the trail and suddenly I'm there.
An old clapboard shack squats in a small clearing. The windows are gone, as are many of the wooden shingles. A veranda over a narrow front porch sags dangerously. An outbuilding has been flattened by a toppled tree. The rusting bed of an ancient sawmill sits in front of the shack. The grille and hood of an old Ford is visible at the rear of the shack: the truck that followed me. At least I know I have the correct address. I turn around so I'm facing back down the trail for a quick getaway, then walk into the clearing in front of the shack and holler for Hutton.
“Okay â I'm here. Let's get this over with.”
No response. Birds twitter in the trees. I holler again with the same result. They want me to go in â a bad sign. It's always better to do things in the open, but I'll be damned if I'm going in through the front door, where they'll be expecting me. I stay close to the wall instead, where it'll be difficult for them to see me from inside. If they are inside. The weathered boards are coarse beneath my hand as I creep along the side of the house. I glance through a low, narrow window frame. A dry, musty smell wafts through the opening. The house has several rooms â this one holds only an ancient table, caked with a layer of grey pigeon droppings.
“Lyle?” I whisper through the window. “Are you in there?”
Nothing. I don't like this. If they wanted to trade, they should have come out already. They could be watching and waiting, ready to pick me off and just take the diary. Or they might not even be here â just booby-trapped the house. They don't really need the diary, just need to get rid of it. Hairs on my neck begin to rise as I glance at the surrounding forest â plenty of cover for a waiting sniper. Despite my assurances to Del, I don't have much up my sleeve. I'd expected to confront Hutton. I move quickly around a corner to the back of the house. A door, pushed in, hangs on its hinges. I dart over to the truck to see if there are keys I can steal, but it's locked. Maybe I should take the distributor lead so they can't get away.
A sound â a scrape, coming from the house.
I freeze, my heart thumping. It comes again, like a chair grating on a floor. Then I see movement, ever so slight, through the open back door. Past another doorframe, deeper in the house, I see cloth â an arm. Harnack. I abandon the truck, pause at the weathered doorframe, looking and listening. I can smell diesel, faint but unmistakable, and I remember what Harnack said on the phone.
“Come quickly. They're gonna burn me.”
Nerves prickle down my spine as I step across the threshold into the gloom. The ceiling is low and dark. Ragged strips of peeling paint hang like fly paper. Patterns on the wall, faded, barely visible under the grime: flowers and bunches of grapes. A smell of pigeon droppings and dry rot. The waxy odour of diesel. Gun in hand, I move toward the narrow, vacant doorframe leading to the next room.
Harnack comes into sight. I see him from behind, framed by an empty window. He's seated, tied to an old wooden chair, hands bound behind his back, ankles lashed to the legs. The floor creaks beneath me and Harnack moves his head, trying to see who's behind him. I pause, taking a good look around. This is the main room, perhaps fourteen feet square. Other than Harnack, the room is empty. There's another vacant doorframe on the far side of the room and I'm willing to bet Hutton is waiting there. He'll come out as I try to untie Harnack, but it's too obvious. I should go outside, look for a view into that other room. Maybe a crack or â
“Don't fucking move!”
Dancey's voice. I look around â the room is still empty. Then a trail of powdered pigeon shit drifts down. When I look up, Dancey is staring down at me from the ceiling, his legs straddling a hole between the rafters. I have a fleeting urge to lift the revolver and start shooting, but the double-barrel coach gun pointed at my head makes a pretty convincing argument.
He grins. “Lay the piece on the floor. Real slow. This here gun don't have no choke.”
I do as he says, squatting, setting the revolver carefully on the floor.
“Kick it away.”
I nudge the revolver hard enough it goes halfway across the room
â not as far as it could, but out of Dancey's sight. Harnack struggles to look over his shoulder. In profile, I can see his mouth is duct-taped shut. “Now, lie on the floor,” says Dancey. “Face down. I wanna see your hands.” Reluctantly, I spread out on the floor. An odd thought occurs to me
â the floor is grimy, but there's no dust, no loose bits of bird shit here. Like they swept the floor. There's a creaking of boards and Hutton towers above me. He squats, rolls one knee painfully into my lower back, does a quick search. He finds the diary, a Swiss Army knife, my wallet, and credit card. He takes everything but the wallet, which he shoves roughly back into my pocket.
“Might help identify the body,” he says, grinning. He walks behind Harnack, picks up the revolver. “You can get up now, but stay right where you are.”
I stand up, glance around. Dancey is gone from the hole above me. I hear him making his way down a staircase in the next room. He walks though the far doorway, on the other side of Harnack, levels the gun at both of us.
“Why are you involved?” I ask Dancey. “You getting paid? Or just another wannabe?”
“Fuck you,” he says flatly.
“I was afraid you might be bullshitting me,” says Hutton, flipping through the diary. “But damned if the little bitch wasn't writing it all down.” “You got what you wanted, Hutton. Now let him go.”
Hutton snaps the diary shut and shoves it into his coat pocket. “Be my guest.”
I hesitate, looking at Hutton and Dancey. Hutton gives me an impatient wave with the revolver. If they wanted to shoot me, they would have done it already, as soon as they had the diary. I circle around, in front of Harnack, watching the guns. Harnack's eyes are huge. He's breathing heavy, cheeks puffing against the duct tape. That's the first thing that'll come off. I step toward him, start to reach, when the floor gives way beneath me and I crash into darkness amid a clatter of boards, and see stars as a board hits me on the head. A cloud of dust rises around me. I'm in an old root cellar, half caved-in but still plenty deep. The floor joists above me have been cut, ends white and ragged against the aged wood. That's why there wasn't any dust on the floor â they cleaned up so the trap wouldn't be obvious.
Hutton looks down from the edge of the hole. “These old buildings are treacherous.”
“Yeah,” says Dancey, from somewhere overhead. “A real fire hazard.”
There's a scrape, then I have just enough time to grab for Harnack as they toss him into the hole, chair and all. Catching him is like getting hit by a two-hundred-pound medicine ball. The chair shatters and Harnack grunts through his nose. I lay him on his side, yank off the tape. He curses, breathing hard.
“Fuck â”
“You okay? Anything broken?”
His voice is ragged. “I don't think so. Get these damn ropes off me.”
My midsection is throbbing, pain blossoming across my back â I may have cracked another rib. I start to untie Harnack's hands, then glance up toward Hutton. He's watching, an ironic smile twisting his lips. He never planned on letting us leave. The hole isn't that deep â even with my cracked ribs I could probably climb out, but he'd shoot me first. Then I hear a gulping, sloshing sound, like someone pouring out of a large jug. The stink of diesel suddenly becomes overwhelming.
“You girls have a nice time down there,” says Hutton.
I start to work in earnest on the knots holding Harnack's hands. Diesel dribbles through the floorboards above, pattering on the dusty earth of the cellar. Hutton laughs down at us â a hollow, evil sound. He's in no hurry. Diesel isn't that volatile and has a high flashpoint. It burns slow enough he can hold a match to the spreading puddle on the floor and then jump out the big window, but not slow enough that I'll get out of here in time. And it burns hot. Very hot.
“I photocopied that diary,” I shout, tugging at the knots. “At the bank.”
“Sure you did,” says Hutton.
“I left a copy with the manager. In a sealed envelope, told him to give it to the cops if I wasn't back in an hour.” Finally, the first knot comes free. “How do think it's going to look if they find us dead, after they read those photocopies?”
“That's a bitch,” says Hutton. “But it's just a chance I'll have to take.”
The stench of diesel is sickening. The last knot slips free and Harnack can move his arms. I point to his feet, signal him to get to work, then glance around the dim cellar. It's just a big hole in the ground, slumped in â there must be somewhere we could dig out.
Hutton steps back from the hole above us. “See you girls later.”
“Fuck!” Harnack swears, struggling frantically with the knot at his ankles. I hear footsteps â Hutton and Dancey retreating, getting ready to light up. Then a curse of surprise, a scuffle, and a thud. It sounds like a herd of rhinos up there, thumping on the floor. Dust and bits of wood begin to settle around us. An arm flops suddenly into the hole and for a second Hutton is looking down at us, startled. Then I see an angry, hairy face above me and Hutton is dragged from view. The Sasquatch kneels, offering me a grubby hand. I gesture toward Harnack, still struggling with the knot. The Sasquatch pulls an immense knife from under his jacket, offers it handle-first. I take the knife, slash the cord around Harnack's ankles, and the Sasquatch lugs us out of the hole, one at a time. Erwin and two guys I haven't seen before â equally frightening â have Hutton and Dancey up against a wall. Erwin is holding Dancey's shotgun on them. He sees me and grins.
“These the guys?”
“Maybe,” I say, wondering what Erwin is going to do.
“You want to go back into the cellar?”
“These are the guys,” Harnack blurts out.
Erwin nods, signalling to his cohorts, who step forward and hit Hutton and Dancey low. The two men drop like melting candles, staring at their tormentors. Staring at me. It's the first time I've seen fear in Hutton's eyes. I take a step back, nearly slipping on the diesel-soaked boards. Erwin pulls a revolver out from his belt, hands it to me.
“I believe this is yours.”
I take the gun, not sure I believe any of this is happening. The Sasquatch is standing on a dry section of floor, lighting a small propane torch, adjusting the flame. Hutton is crab-walking backward, trying to get away. Dancey looks like he's in shock. Erwin's buddies have baseball bats â why didn't I notice that before?
“Get out of here,” says Erwin, glancing back at me.
Harnack doesn't need to be told twice â he heads for the big window, pausing long enough to urge me to follow, then jumps. I see him running across the clearing, then turn my attention back to the room. Hutton tries to stand and is knocked down again.
“Get the hell out of here,” Erwin says savagely. “Forget this ever happened.”
I take a step back, notice the gun is still loaded. The Sasquatch advances on Hutton and Dancey, a sharp little flame hissing from the torch. It occurs to me that I could stop them, hold them at bay while Harnack goes for the cops. Then I think of BB, beating me at cards. Walking with me up the slope. Dying beside me. And of Karalee and her correspondence course â trying to build a better life. I shove the gun into my waistband and follow Harnack out the window.
Harnack is silent as the van thumps down the narrow trail. His breathing is heavy and he's shaking â his big hands dance across his thighs. I glance in the rear-view mirror, not sure what to expect. Erwin's truck, a fireball maybe, but there's just trees â another peaceful day in the forest. We pass the clearing with the fire rings and broken bottles, head downslope to the secondary road. In ten minutes, we're on the highway, heading toward town.
“Where are we going?” Harnack says finally, his voice faint.
“I don't know. I haven't really thought about it.”
“Maybe we should call somebody.”
“Maybe,” I say, looking back again. “Maybe not.”
“What about the cops? We should call the cops.”
“And tell them what, exactly?”
Harnack thinks about this. I'm expecting to see smoke in the direction from which we just came, but when I see a dense column, it's in the wrong location altogether â in front of us and to the west, in the direction of Holder's Canyon. But that fire is dead. A flare up? No â the colour of the smoke is too dark and oily, the base too small. More like an industrial fire â tires or oil or something like that. Then it hits me: the squatters' camp is burning. One of those crazy hoses leeching off the old wellhead finally popped. Or something more sinister; maybe Hutton made a quick stop at the squatters' camp before meeting me at the shack in the woods. Or his brother stopped by to collect the pot and clean up the mess.
I think about the dusty little faces I saw hiding under the trailers and get a sick feeling. I pull the van around and head back toward the smoke. “Where are we going?” “To the fire. I have a bad feeling I know where it is.”
There's a helicopter circling when we get there and the trail is congested with vehicles. Two fire engines and an ambulance from the Carson Lake Volunteer Fire Department are parked a good distance back. The medics wait, leaned against the grille of the ambulance, watching the show. Firefighters pull gear from a Forest Service crew cab. “Jesus Christ,” Harnack mumbles as we get out of the van, his face glowing in the yellow light. The wellhead has blown, a jet of flame billowing straight up for a hundred yards, thundering like a waterfall. Trees at the edge of the clearing are burning. I can't see the trailers through the smoke and shimmering heat, just vague shadowy flickers.
“What should we do?” says Harnack.
I shake my head â he seems to think I have answers, a chronic problem around here â and approach a cluster of Forest Service men conferring in subdued tones. Most of them I don't know, except a local â Al Gunderson, from my brief sojourn on the Holder fire. They're talking about moving resources up from the canyon. I stand at the periphery, listen for some clue as to what happened.
“Cassel,” he says, recognizing me. “What are you doing here?”
“Just trying to help. Anyone hurt? Anyone home when it went off?”
Gunderson frowns â he's a big guy, with a heavy chin and goatee. He glances over his shoulder, toward the fire. “We don't know. Haven't been able to get close.”
“When did it start?”
“Twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago.”
“You see anyone drive past?”
He shakes his head. “We weren't really looking â”
“Just stay out of this, Cassel,” says one of the officers, staring at me. He's older, with dark bushy eyebrows and a lean, haggard face. I don't know him but that doesn't mean much â most of the Forest Service in Montana would recognize me by now. “We've got enough to worry about already,” he says, turning back to the others. I bite my tongue, retreat â the message is clear enough. I've become a pariah. An embarrassment. I stand for a moment, a few paces back from Gunderson and the fire gods, frustrated and more than a little angry. They ignore me. Belt radios blare tinny voices. The helicopter reports the fire is creeping into timber. The voice, which sounds a lot like Grey, asks for aerial support, dozers, water trucks, crew to cap the blow out, and to send an investigator. Gunderson shoots me a cautionary look and I turn away, find Harnack talking with the men by the vfd engines. They fall silent when they see me and I wonder what he might have told them. Then Doug Bradley gives me a friendly smile. “Hell of a thing,” he says. “Got any marshmallows?”
I shake my head. “You heard if there was anyone in the trailers?”
“No.” He looks concerned. “Nothing left on that wellsite but hot metal.”
“When did you guys arrive?”
“A few minutes after the Forest Service.”
I nod, thinking about the Holder fire. Bradley must read my expression.
“We called ahead this time,” he says. “They asked us to lend a hand.”
Nice to see everyone working together, I tell him. He grins and we watch the fire for a few minutes. Harnack is silent and I wonder what he'll say if Castellino turns those X-ray eyes on him. Will he blurt out the whole muddled story, twist it around so he looks like a hero for Del? Or say nothing, in which case Castellino will probably never know we were there. Either way, it won't make a difference for Hutton and Dancey. I watch as the helicopter lands farther back along the trail, stirring up dust. A uniform steps out, crouches as the helicopter augers away. Then Deputy Sheriff Wayne Compton strides up the trail, green and officious-looking. I fade back as he passes, watch him talk with the Forest Service men. They nod their heads, move in separate directions. Compton watches the fire for a moment, a hand up to shield his face from the heat, then turns abruptly and sees me.
“Cassel â what the hell are you doing here?”
“I saw the smoke and came to help.”
“Just can't stay away from disaster, can you?”
“Not when it involves fire. Was there anyone in the trailers?”
“I don't think so. I was in the area before it went, looking for those pot gardens. I flew over the camp a few times, didn't see anyone. No vehicles either, just that shot-up old car.”
“The ignition source had to come from somewhere.”
He nods, staring at the jet of flame shimmering ahead of us.
“Did you find the gardens?”
“No.” He gives me a dubious look. I want to ask him where he searched, if he found anything at all â clearings, trails, any indication â but he walks away, talks with Bradley and his group. I watch the fountain of fire through the rifle sight of trees, cautiously edge closer, trying to see what's left of the trailers. Burning pine pop and crackle. Barely visible, metal frames waver in heat rippling off scorched earth. The roar of the fire is frighteningly familiar and suddenly I'm back in the fire shelter, surrounded by flame. I force myself to take a deep breath â my heart is surging â and fight the panic that threatens to engulf me. Slowly, the impression subsides and I'm back on the narrow trail, dizzy and faint from the spent adrenaline rush. I lean against a tree as the memory ebbs, watch the fire. My enemy gropes blindly outward, reaching for fuel. Always reaching. Forever hungry. Growing until someone stops it. I take another deep, steadying breath and make a short foray into the timber, to get a better idea of how quickly the fire is spreading. Smoke drifts among the trees, stinging my eyes. The pungent odour of burning pine fills my nostrils. Flame creeps through underbrush, snapping and sizzling. When I return to the trail, a lowboy bearing a dozer lumbers to a halt. Busloads of Forest Service firefighters are arriving â Brashaw's crew, now under the stern leadership of Brad Cooper. Harnack joins them, suits up. A burning tree crashes across the trail, sending a shower of sparks into the surrounding underbrush, igniting smaller fires, soon to be consumed by the larger conflagration, and it comes to me as I watch
â this fire is just a diversion. The pot is gone. The guilty are being punished. Soon, the squatters will be nothing but a memory. Fire will cleanse the area of clues, leaving only ash and twisted metal.
I can't help an ironic chuckle. I should have seen it coming.
The helicopter is circling again. On the ground behind me, men begin to unload equipment. Trucks jockey for position. Engines beep as they back down the trail. Harnack approaches, dressed and ready for action. “We've got to move these vehicles back,” he says. “Your truck is in the way.”
“You okay?”
He frowns, looking down, then nods.
“What are you going to tell them?”
“About what?” he says.
“Nothing. Go do your job.”
Harnack grins, returns to his unit. I watch him string hose into the bush. They'll stay back from the blowout, establish a perimeter, control the wildfire. The blowout will be left to another group of heroes. Soon, water is flowing onto the fire as firefighters stand face-to-face with the beast. Farther down the trail a familiar figure walks through the smoke. It's Grey, in fire gear and hard hat.
“Cassel,” he says as he approaches. “Just can't stay away, can you?”
I shake my head, point. “There's a lot of understory on the north side â”
“But you'll have to,” he says, watching me. “Stay away, that is.”
Our eyes meet and a look of sorrow crosses his face. I nod, to show I understand.
“It would be best if you cleared the area. Before the media arrive.”
I'm about to say something, apologize maybe, when his belt radio blares. He snatches it out of its holster. I hear him swear, then he comes over, snapping his radio back into place. “You better get going.”
“What's happened?”
“We've got another damn fire.”