The Ridge (10 page)

Even now, decades removed, Roy felt something thicken in his throat. He looked away from the article. He didn’t need to read it again. He could recite it if he wished.

Time to get back to the task, back to the story. He knew his
parents had died on Blade Ridge Road, but what had sparked Wyatt’s interest in the others?

He returned to the morgue shelves to find out, began hauling down bound volume after bound volume, and after hours at it he had no more sense of the truth than when he’d begun.

There were connections between the names on Wyatt French’s maps—some of them, at least—but the parts simply did not fit together to make a whole. Roy had expected something more coherent, even from a mind as admittedly disconnected as Wyatt’s. All the time the old man had spent laboring over the odd list suggested at a linkage that did not appear—at least to Roy’s eyes—to exist.

At first he thought it was simple: they were victims of car accidents at Blade Ridge. Several others besides his parents qualified for that category.

That idea, though, vanished as soon as he tracked down one of the names, Sam Fielding, and discovered that he’d been a high-voltage repairman, electrocuted while attempting to repair downed lines in a summer storm.

That fatality had occurred near Blade Ridge, in the woods west of County Road 200, which was close enough to count, but the nature of the death blew the car-wreck theory out of the water.

So then Roy shifted, thinking that the man had been looking for any deaths,
period,
in his strange little pocket of the mountains. Fielding’s case wasn’t unique. In several circumstances, Wyatt had noted deaths that had occurred near Blade Ridge Road. Emphasis on
near.
Because, as Roy discovered as he went deeper into the county’s history, pulling down volumes that billowed out dust when opened, the pages so stiff and yellowed that you had to turn them with infinite care or the paper would flake into pieces, the accidental deaths were certainly not limited to the road. In 1978, two boys died when they fell from the railroad
trestle. In 1975, one woman drowned in a canoeing trip on the Marshall River with a friend. In 1958, a Marine who’d seen tours in Korea and the South Pacific shot himself in the head while deer hunting. That one could have been suicide—newspapers always had masked such stories in ambiguity—but Roy doubted it. In 1922, two men and a woman were trampled to death when a strange and violent panic took hold of their horses.

All of those names—they were the red-ink names—could be linked by two factors: death and proximity to Blade Ridge. The manner of death, though, those tales of trestle falls and stampeding horses and electrocutions, turned any legitimate concern about the road’s safety into a bizarre raving about… what? Some sort of cursed ground? A karmic disaster zone?

“What did they mean to you, Wyatt?” he mumbled, staring at the two lists, deciding that he’d wasted enough time on this endeavor. “Why did they matter?”

It would be impossible to say. And, Roy reminded himself, the old man had been losing his mind there toward the end. Yesterday’s ravings were a clear indication of that.

I’m getting scared of the dark. I’m getting scared of what I could do in the dark.

Roy was halfway to the morgue door when that thought slipped into his mind, and when it did, he stopped walking and turned to look at the rows of old newspaper volumes as if they’d just told him something.

Hell, maybe they had.

He’d been looking for parallels, the same as Wyatt ostensibly had. For connective tissue between the names, and coming up empty.

Except for one thing. They’d all taken place at night. Without exception. Every fatality Wyatt had recorded from Blade Ridge’s lengthy history had occurred when it was…

“Dark,” Roy said aloud.

K
IMBLE WANTED TO FOCUS ON
Wyatt French, but the sheriff interrupted him in midmorning by entering with Nathan Shipley and saying they needed to have a talk about the accident.

Shipley’s cruiser was beyond any hope, so far gone that they just had it towed directly to the salvage yard where the sensitive equipment could be removed, not even bothering with a body shop. Shipley himself, however, had emerged from the terrible wreck with a few minor abrasions and bruises.

“Sore,” he told Kimble and the sheriff when he sat down. “I’m sore as hell, but considering… well, it really could have been bad.”

“I saw the car, son,” Sheriff Troy Black said. “
Bad
isn’t the word. Damn good thing I always see that this department has quality insurance.”

The implication being that they might operate without insurance if not for his savvy management. Kimble rolled his eyes, and Shipley saw it and cracked a small smile. The department was of a unanimous opinion on “Sheriff Troy,” as he insisted on being called. He excelled at politicking, handled the department’s public face well enough, but when it came to actual casework he’d
gone past the point of being a broad-assed desk jockey and become an almost laughable figurehead. He insisted on wearing custom-made, chocolate-brown cowboy hats with his badge affixed to the crown, he was a partner in a horse farm that had yet to produce anything better than a dead-last finisher in a small-time race, he talked like he’d just fallen off a hay wagon, and everyone in the department knew damn well that when it came to investigative work, Kimble ran the show. That was fine by Kimble—he had autonomy within the department, and he also had Troy out there doing all the work that Kimble would never have been any good at. Kimble didn’t have to deal with the mayor’s office or the county council or campaigns or oversee the jail. The system in place in Sawyer County worked well; Troy glad-handed his way around town, keeping the public satisfied, and Kimble and his team got the policing done.

“Yes, son, it was a mighty bad wreck,” Troy continued. “That cruiser is totaled, you know. Less than a year old.”

“Like you said, it’s a good thing we have quality insurance,” Nathan agreed, and now it was Kimble’s turn to hide a grin.

“It surely is. My understanding is that you were well aware that the ten-zero was a probable suicide, that there was no shootin’ or stabbin’ in progress. My understanding is also that you were driving like Barney Oldfield when you flipped that car.”

Kimble had not the faintest idea who Barney Oldfield was, and it was clear that Shipley didn’t either, but they both kept quiet. Troy let his young deputy muse on things for a moment and then said, “Just need you to get the lead out of that foot, kid. But we also need to talk about your report.”

“My report.”

“That’s right. I just read through it. Seems to me we could have had one hell of a problem on our hands. You say you almost hit someone out there?”

Shipley’s face went uncertain. He parted his lips, closed them again, then tilted his head and said, “I thought there was someone in the road, sir. I was
positive
that there was a man in the road. I was running lights and siren and coming fast, as you said, maybe too fast, but I saw this guy in the rain and I swerved and…” He spread his hands. “That’s all. A mistake, I guess. Thought I saw something in the road. Tried to swerve to adjust.”

Troy looked puzzled. “So there
wasn’t
anyone? I was of the impression that you damn near killed a man.”

“So was I,” Shipley said. “But everyone else seems to disagree.”

Troy turned to Kimble. “You were out there.”

“Quite a bit later, but yes.”

“Is he right? Were the witnesses in agreement that he just plowed the car into the trees?”

“There was only one witness, a young guy who works out there. I think he heard more than he actually saw, though. It’s quite certain that Shipley didn’t hit anybody, and as for the circumstances of the wreck, there’s nobody to say what happened except him.”

“Well, that’s a load off. I looked at that report and was thinking lawsuit. You remember that college professor asshole who sued us two years ago?”

The college professor asshole had been T-boned by a deputy doing eighty miles per hour through a residential neighborhood in response to a possible burglary in progress that turned out to be a man trying to get into his own home after locking the keys inside. Kimble found it a fair enough complaint, but it would hardly do to share that sentiment with the sheriff. He just nodded.

“I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.”

“That’s good to hear. Tell you what, Shipley. You take a day off, all right?”

“I’m good to work.”

“Not until tomorrow. Make sure there are no lingering effects. With the pictures I saw of that cruiser, there sure as hell might be.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry about the car.”

Troy nodded, then stood and looked at Kimble. “You got that suicide report wrapped yet?”

“Clearing up the details.”

“Good man. I’m not disappointed that we can shut that frigging lighthouse down for good. Had enough of a hassle over it when the cat people started to complain. Tell you what, crazy runs in the water out there. You got a lighthouse in the woods, and sixty damn lions right across the street? Would have been nice if they’d all crossed the river and ended up in Jasper County, you ask me.”

The sheriff left, and Shipley started to follow, but Kimble called him back.

“Hey—they check you out fully at the hospital?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Concussion tests?”

“Passed them, yes. Why do you ask?” Shipley had a way of discerning extra motivation, one of the things that made him good police. His understanding of the gap between what someone said and why they said it was well honed.

“The story you tell, it’s a strange one. Seems like the old brain stem might have gotten a pretty good whack.”

Shipley frowned.

“What?” Kimble said.

“I didn’t see a flash of something in the road,” Shipley said. “It wasn’t a deer, or a coyote. I saw a
man
. I locked up the brakes and swerved, and he ran the wrong way. Ran toward my swerve. Nothing I could do but hit him.”

Kimble said, as gently as possible, “Son, you didn’t hit anyone. Stop worrying about mistakes you didn’t make.”

“I saw it, though.”

“You
remember
seeing it. Big difference. Particularly after getting knocked around the way you did.”

“And when I came back around, when I could see again, there was a light,” Shipley continued, not content to dismiss his irrational memory.

“That lighthouse was right above,” Kimble said. “Would have been flashing like crazy.”

Except it wouldn’t have been, he realized. Because Shipley responded to the call from Darmus, and Darmus broke the light before he called. So it would have been darkness.

“Not the lighthouse,” Shipley said. “This was like a blue torch. That’s exactly what it was like.”

“A blue torch.” Kimble stared at him. “
This
is why I’m worried about concussions.”

Shipley forced a laugh.

“Guess I’ve got a creative imagination when I’m unconscious.”

“Be glad you imagined the worst and got the best.”

“Yes, sir.” Shipley pointed at the desk, where Kimble had spread out a full set of photocopies of the pictures and maps he’d pulled off the walls of Wyatt’s lighthouse. The originals were locked away. “What’s all that?”

“That,” Kimble said with a sigh, “is the disturbing collection left behind by your ten-zero.”

“The guy in the lighthouse?”

“Wyatt French, yes.”

Shipley picked up a few of the photographs, studied them. “Who are they?”

“I have no idea.”

“Strange hobby.”

“Strange man,” Kimble agreed. “You good, Shipley?”

“I’m fine.”

“All right. Go home and take some aspirin.”

“I was thinking I might run out to Blade Ridge first.”

“What?”

“I’d just… I’d like to look around.”

Kimble said, “You think it’ll help you clear your head, okay. But don’t get carried away worrying about it, Shipley. I don’t need a deputy who’s jittery behind the wheel, and the more you think about a disaster that didn’t even happen, the better the chance of nerves catching up with you.”

Shipley shook his head. “Of course not. I’m no superstitious sort, chief. You know that.”

Kimble did know that. If Shipley were a superstitious man, he probably wouldn’t have gone after this job. His father, Ed Shipley, a former Marine, had been in the department, too, had died in action in the summer of Kimble’s rookie year. Nathan Shipley had been twelve at the time.

Sixteen years ago,
Kimble thought, watching Ed Shipley’s son walk out of the office.
They pass by fast, no question about it.

Ed Shipley had beaten the fire department to the scene of a trailer fire because his car was a mile away when the call came. After he arrived, the hysterical family told him there was still someone inside.
Marlon’s inside, Marlon’s inside, Marlon didn’t come out.
Marlon turned out to be a cat. Ed Shipley, former U.S. Marine, hadn’t understood, and he went charging in after Marlon and never came back out. A day later the cat turned up at a neighbor’s house. Had probably been the first creature in the house to escape the inferno.