Primal Threat (15 page)

“I’m going for help,” said Scooter.

“I’ll go with you,” said Ryan Perry.

“No. We need people here in case they try something.”

“I don’t like guns. Let me go with you.”

“I’ll move faster on my own,” said Scooter, jumping into Kasey’s Porsche Cayenne.

24

A
s soon as he got out of sight of the camp, Scooter realized he was agitated and needed to calm down if he didn’t want to kill himself in Kasey’s Cayenne, if he didn’t want to die of a heart attack. His father and uncle had both incurred heart attacks at a young age, and even though he was only nineteen, for years his mother had been nagging him to change his diet. He wasn’t sure what it was—the beer, the sleepless night, or the drama on the bluff—but when he held a hand out to check his nerves, it trembled like a cello string toward the end of a crescendo.

He didn’t know where he was headed, but he knew he had to skedaddle before a horde of angry cyclists came swarming down the hill. By now it had to be obvious he’d gone up there intending to do Polanski harm. All that attempted grabbing he’d done after Polanski took his hand back had to have made it obvious.

Why had Chuck sneaked up on him from behind? And why had those bastards tried to blame him? All Chuck had to do was stand still and look big and tough, but he tried to squeeze past Scooter on that narrow ledge. And then Scooter grabbed Polanski’s shirt, not realizing Polanski was trying to help Chuck recover his balance. Fortunately, Kasey had seen the retard rush in, otherwise his story would seem even lamer than it was. It didn’t matter now, because everyone was on the same page, and just to make certain, they would rehearse it one more time before the cops showed up, although not too carefully. It was always better if there were slight variations in a story. Cops were suspicious when everybody was word for word.

Once he crossed the river, he slowed. Driving back into Seattle would give him time to think. He figured he would head for his mother’s house and call an attorney from there.

There were two gates, one five miles away with a guard on it, and this one. The gate barring the main county road had been dutifully closed by the girls the night before. Idling the Porsche, Scooter stepped up to it. On their way in, Chuck had jimmied the lock, then put it all back into some semblance of order, but Scooter hadn’t paid attention to how he’d done it. He remembered the lock assembly was inside a metal box attached to the gate, but that was all. He rattled it and kicked it, and then he got angry and picked up a rock and began battering it, which made the metal of the long crossbar across the road sing like a whale. If he couldn’t get the gate open, he couldn’t leave, because this gate was the only way in or out of these foothills.

Those bastards must have come down and rifled the lock so they couldn’t get their vehicles out. After throwing more rocks and kicking the gate and cursing, he finally peered under the base of the box, which had no bottom. Inside was a simple locking device fastened by a broken padlock. What a dummy he was. The lock was still broken and still open. All he had to do was remove it and swing the gate open. He started to do so and then thought better of it.

He’d been furious when he thought the cyclists had jammed the gate, and he knew if he went back and relayed that information to the others, they would be furious, too. Maybe stirring up some more anger wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He was so amped right now, he was driving erratically enough to get pulled over by a trooper, and if they pulled him over they were bound to discover that he was still full of beer. If they gave him a Breathalyzer test…Frankly, it wasn’t safe to be on the highway. The right course of action was to stay in the hills until he was stone-cold sober. Scooter put the lock back the way he found it and turned the Porsche around.

When he got back to camp, the others were still waiting for Fred and Jennifer to return. “That was fast,” said Kasey. Scooter had found them at the cramped outlook, where they were all looking down the mountain at Chuck’s body.

“We’re not getting out,” said Scooter.

“What?”

“The gate’s locked. Somebody jammed it. We’re going to have to get a cutting torch or something.”

“Who would do that?” asked Bloomquist. “Lock the gate.”

“Who do you think?”

“I saw the retarded guy riding down the hill earlier,” said Kasey. “I wondered where he was going.”

“You think they sent him to jam the lock?” asked Perry.

“Why the hell would they do that?” said Bloomquist.

“To keep us here,” said Scooter. “Don’t you get it? They planned that thing with Chuck. They don’t want any of us getting to the cops.”

“That’s nuts. We have cell phones.”

“They know those don’t work out here.”

Bloomquist was in worse shape than any of them and was breathing hard now from the tension. “I mean, what kind of sense does it make? They didn’t know Scooter and Chuck were going up there this morning. Why jam the gate?”

“Maybe to get even for that dusting we gave them yesterday,” said Kasey.

“No,” said Scooter. “It’s bigger than that. This was planned. It was
all
planned.”

“By Polanski?” said Kasey. “Well, he’s certainly got enough motive. You embarrassed him bad last night when Nadine was leaving. Was that true? That he said my sister was just a fling?”

“Damn rights it was true.” Scooter took the rifle from Ryan Perry’s hands, levered a cartridge into the air, and caught it before it hit the ground. He’d gotten his nerve back, he noticed, because his hands were steady now.

“I don’t think you should have that,” Kasey said, pulling the rifle out of his hands.

“The hell.”

“I mean it.” Kasey held his hand out until Scooter dropped the cartridge into his palm.

“Here they come,” said Bloomquist. “They’re coming.”

They watched as Jennifer and Fred climbed the final rock escarpment to the lookout point, both breathing heavily as they reached the landing. Scooter glanced down and saw that Chuck’s body hadn’t budged since the last time he looked. Jennifer’s eyes were red and swollen and wet, though her shorts had dried in the hot wind. She had a different look and demeanor, Scooter thought. She’d gone down in a daze, but now all he saw was fury. Fred was even angrier.

“Well?” Bloomquist asked.

Jennifer wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. “They murdered Chuck. Are the cops on the way?”

“There won’t be any police,” said Kasey. “Not for a while. Our phones are on the fritz, and the first gate is jammed.”

“We’re not getting out. None of us,” said Perry, stepping from foot to foot. “They’ve got us trapped.”

“What?”

“It’s true,” said Kasey. “They fixed the gate so we can’t get through.”

“We could drive as far as the gate and walk,” Jennifer said.

“Sure,” said Scooter. “What is it? Ten miles from there to North Bend? Fifteen?”

“At least we’ve got guns,” said Fred, grabbing the rifle out of Kasey’s hands and walking toward camp. “We can protect ourselves.”

A few minutes later in camp, Scooter heard somebody calling out to them from the main road. After Ryan peeked over the top of a tent and announced that it was one of the cyclists, the six of them gathered behind Kasey’s Porsche to talk it over. “They’re here,” said Bloomquist, even though it appeared only one man had come down the hill.

“Let’s blast the fucker,” said Fred, shaking his rifle.

“What if he’s not the one who killed your brother?” Kasey cautioned.

“It was Polanski,” said Scooter. “Polanski killed him. I was there.”

“With the help of the retard,” added Kasey.

Perry spoke up. “We need to get the police out here.”

“Hey, you guys,” yelled the cyclist. “Let’s talk. It’s me, Morse. At a time like this, we need to open our lines of communication.”

“It’s a trick,” said Fred.

“Like screwing with the gate,” added Scooter. “They’re full of tricks.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked Bloomquist.

“Let’s go out and talk,” said Kasey. “Nice and easy.”

“Keep your eyes peeled for his friends,” said Scooter. “They’re probably up the road with guns.”

“Or hiding in the trees,” said Ryan.

Scooter thought they were starting to sound like kids working themselves into a panic over ghosts.

They walked out to the road warily, Scooter, Kasey, Bloomquist, and, hanging back several yards, Jennifer. Just as Scooter might have predicted, that little chickenshit Perry hid behind Fred, who was standing on the far side of the Land Rover, holding the rifle so that it couldn’t be seen from the road.

They hadn’t spoken to any of the cyclists since it happened, and now here was one virtually at their front door. Morse was one of the older bikers who’d spent the past evening talking money with Kasey and Bloomquist. Scooter, who’d felt a need to keep his eye on Polanski and Nadine all evening, barely remembered him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Scooter asked.

25

“
W
hat the hell’s going on?” Stephens asked. “What were those shots?”

Muldaur and Zak had chased Scooter through the camp but were back now and visibly shaken. Zak looked at Muldaur, conscious that neither of them wanted to talk about what had just happened.

“Where’s the big guy?” Giancarlo asked. “Two of them went out to see you. Where’s the other guy?”

Muldaur took out his fake teeth and doffed his helmet. “At the bottom of the mountain.”

“What? He found a trail down there?”

“Finnigan fell,” Zak said.

“Which Finnigan?” asked Morse.

“The one with the girlfriend. Chuck.”

“Prince Valiant?” said Stephens. “With the bad haircut? How far did he fall?”

“I thought they both had bad haircuts,” said Muldaur.

“He fell about a hundred feet,” said Zak. “Maybe more. And you’re right. They both had bad haircuts.”

“Jesus H.” Giancarlo jogged through their makeshift camp toward the bluff, trailed at a much more cautious pace by Morse and Stephens.

Once they were alone, Muldaur looked at Zak. “Scooter’s not going to accept the fact that he killed his buddy, is he?”

“It would be hard for even a normal guy to accept.”

“If either one of us had gotten ahold of him, we could have stopped it.”

“He must have still been drunk from last night.”

“Of course he was. They both were. Plus the big guy was afraid of heights. People who are afraid stiffen up. It makes their balance worse.”

“He had no business being out on that ledge.”

“No.”

“You think Scooter meant what he said about coming back to kill us all?”

“You know him better than I do. Does he calm down after a tirade, or does he just keep getting more wound up?”

“All I know is he can hold a grudge forever.”

“Then we better take what he said seriously.”

“He comes up the hill with a loaded rifle, how are you going to stop him?”

“Good point. Maybe we should hop on our bikes and ride out of here right now.”

“Ride where?” It was Giancarlo, followed in ragged succession by Morse and Stephens, both of them pale after having viewed the corpse. Giancarlo had seen lots of dead bodies in his career in the fire service and looked somber, but just as shocked as the others.

“Maybe we should put some distance between us and that group down below,” Muldaur said. “Scooter swore he’d come back and kill us all.”

“That’s just plain silly,” said Stephens.

“Not if we’re dead,” said Zak.

“I’m sure he didn’t…He couldn’t have…It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. He was upset.”

“When people with rifles get upset, bad things tend to happen,” Muldaur said.

“Why was he threatening you guys?” asked Giancarlo.

“He claims we caused it,” said Zak. “And he wasn’t threatening just
us
. He said
all
of us.”

Morse threw Zak a morose look. “People say lots of things after a tragedy. They get overwrought. We were talking to them for a couple of hours last night, and I didn’t see anything to lead me to believe any of them were homicidal maniacs.”

“You only need one homicidal maniac,” said Zak. “In fact, with a gun you only need one homicidal
moment
.”

“He was upset because his buddy fell,” said Stephens. “That’s all.”

“He’s pissed because his friend is dead, and he claims we did it.”

“Well, did you?”

“No, but that’s what he claims,” said Zak. “It was an accident, but
he
was the one who bumped Finnigan and nudged him off.”

“What were you guys doing on the bluff?” Stephens asked. Stephens had a habit of looking into Zak’s eyes as if he thought he could read Zak’s mind. When taken in conjunction with his complexion, which seemed too pale for somebody who spent so much time outdoors, Zak found it disconcerting; it was as if he had distant relatives who were vampires.

“I was out there enjoying the view. You’ll have to ask
them
why they showed up. If you want the truth, I think Scooter came to push
me
off.”

“You don’t actually think that? I mean, this paranoia of yours…Seriously, it’s gone far enough, don’t you think?”

“They were there to hurt me. I know that.”

“Come on. I mean, why would he want to hurt you?”

“Maybe because I’m going with his ex-girlfriend?”

“Oh, for gosh sakes. That’s just…Let’s go down and get this straightened out right now. And by the way, what were those shots we heard?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” said Muldaur, sarcastically. “Bullets coming up the hill kind of in our general direction. I don’t know what that could have been.”

“We need the cops,” said Giancarlo. “We need to call them anyway, because of the accident.”

“I’d call on my cell,” said Stephens, “but it’s not working way out here.”

“We could take this down,” said Morse, who suddenly had a pistol in his hands, gripping it in the careless manner of someone unaccustomed to handling firearms. Zak watched him violate two essential rules of weaponry: unwittingly pointing the pistol at Muldaur and placing his finger on the trigger.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Giancarlo stepped forward and shoved the muzzle toward the ground before relieving Morse of the weapon.

“I saw it in your gear. I was wondering why you brought it.”

“And I’m wondering why you would pick it up without asking. This is a .357, and it’ll blow a hole in you the size of a silver dollar.”

“Let’s hand it over to them,” said Stephens. “We don’t need it, and it would show, you know, good intent, don’t you think? Kind of like…uh, unilateral disarmament?”

Muldaur gave him a sour look. “You mean unilateral stupidity?”

“I’m not handing my gun over to anybody,” said Giancarlo. “Especially not to a bunch of yahoos who’ve been up all night drinking. And certainly not to a man who just threatened to kill us all.”

“Are you sure he really said that?” asked Morse.

Nobody replied as they all watched Giancarlo bury the pistol in the folds of the rolled-up sleeping bag.

“Listen,” said Stephens, in a moment of uncharacteristic clarity, “Morse is a professional negotiator. He does this for a living. What we’ve got here is a situation that needs negotiating. And whether it’s a business deal or trying to talk some maniac out of a tree, every negotiation is basically the same. Right, Morse?”

“It’s always about getting two sides on the same page. We go down the hill with the pistol, hand it over as a gesture of goodwill, and talk reason to them. I could do that…Giving it to them would be my selling point. I always like to have at least one major selling point. My persuader, I like to call it.”

They walked out to the road and continued discussing their options. When they saw the Porsche Cayenne appear at the head of the spur road below, Zak thought for a moment it was coming at them, but it turned down the hill.

Stephens said, “They’re going for help.”

“He might be going around so he can come back on some other road and get us from behind,” said Muldaur.

“I can’t believe how paranoid you guys are.”

Zak said, “You think about it. Scooter’ll tell his story to the authorities and we’ll tell ours, and they’ll see how drunk Scooter is and get a blood-alcohol reading from him and the dead man. They’ll test us and we’ll come up clean. It’ll be a no-brainer who to believe.”

Muldaur looked at him. “Maybe.”

Ten minutes later the Porsche climbed the steep road and turned back into the spur. It was Kasey’s vehicle, but the driver was William Potter III, aka Scooter. They were still on the hill discussing things. “He wasn’t gone long enough to get into town and back,” said Zak.

“Maybe he told the guard what happened,” said Giancarlo.

Stephens nodded. “It would accomplish the same thing.”

“I don’t think he was gone long enough even for that.”

They decided Stephens would wait at the road and Morse would remain in camp while Zak, Giancarlo, and Muldaur went to see what was going on at the base of the bluffs, if anything. When they got there, the body was just as broken and immobile as it had been earlier. Gazing south along the base of the mountain, Zak glimpsed two people near the dead man.

It was easy to tell from the desultory way they were moving that they had checked out the corpse and were making their way back up the cliffs. Even from where he stood, Zak knew the woman was crying, that for her this day would always loom larger and lonelier than any other. He had a day like that in his past. Almost everybody did.

When they got back into camp, Morse was gone, although his bike was still leaning against a tree. Zak put on his cycling shoes, packed his pockets with Clif Bars, filled his hydration pack from the store of creek water they had purified, and checked his tires and the air in his shocks. He kept thinking about how distraught Jennifer must be and how her story would influence Nadine’s thinking. Nadine might filter her thinking through Scooter’s murky viewpoint, too. The events of this morning would severely impact his relationship with Nadine, possibly in ways he had no control over. It shamed him to realize he was thinking about Chuck’s tragedy almost solely in terms of how it would affect his own life.

When the three of them reached the road where they’d left Stephens on watch, Morse was not there. Stephens stared at them guilelessly. “You can go back and get your gear ready,” said Muldaur. “We’ll keep watch.”

“Where is Morse?” Zak asked Stephens.

“He’s just going down to negotiate. Don’t worry. It’s what he does best.”

“He negotiates
business
deals,” said Giancarlo.

“All deals are basically the same.”

“We better go stop him,” said Zak.

“It’s too late,” said Muldaur. “He’s already talking to them.”

“What’s in the back of his waistband?” Giancarlo turned to Stephens, who stared at him blankly, then stepped into the road for a better view. “Is that my gun?”

“It’s a gesture of goodwill.”

“He’s got my gun.” Giancarlo stepped close to the smaller Stephens in a threatening manner.

“I don’t know anything…Okay. Yeah. Uh. I guess…he was thinking about it…I mean…
we
were thinking about it, and we, uh, we realized we were right and you were wrong.” Giancarlo grasped Stephens by the jersey and pulled him close. “I know you guys think it’s not necessary, but he thought it was, so he took the gun. Okay! He’s going to hand it over. He knows what he’s doing. It’s perfectly safe. It’s not loaded.” Stephens held his hand out, revealing half a dozen bullets.

“We have to stop this,” said Giancarlo.

“How are you planning to do that?” asked Muldaur.

“We leave him alone, he might calm Scooter down on his own,” said Zak. “I don’t think so, but he might. We go down there, and for sure all hell will break loose.”

“You guys just don’t get it,” Stephens insisted. “Morse is a professional negotiator. All this worry is for nothing.”

Five seconds later they heard the first gunshot.