Chapter 15
W hen John opened the door of the cabin, Mutt scurried past him to be the first one inside to join the party.
Beth and Mitch were in the kitchen. She was laughing at something he was saying while he juggled oranges. Apparently they’d taken a break from putting away groceries. Still on the dining table were canned goods, boxes of brand-name food, a pallet of bottled water, a packet of Mutt’s treats, and sacks yet to be emptied.
The whole scene pissed John off. He slammed the door.
Both turned at the sound. Beth’s laughter ended abruptly. Mitch dropped one of the oranges. After a moment of silence that seemed to reverberate, Mitch bent down to pick up the orange, and Beth welcomed an ecstatic Mutt with a scratch behind his ears.
As John stalked in, he removed his slicker and threw it into the chair with the ugly throw. “An army led by Tom Barker could have marched up here, and you wouldn’t have heard it.” Addressing Mitch, he said, “You should have had your weapon ready for whoever came through the door. You’re damn lucky it was me.”
Beth stared in shock over his tone. Mitch looked amused, which further infuriated him.
“I heard you coming,” Mitch said. “I knew it was you. And my gun is within arm’s reach.” He pointed to the shelf where John had placed his own pistol last night.
He blinked to clear his eyes of a red haze of anger. For the time being, that’s how he was going to label the surge of emotion, and blood pressure, he’d felt when he’d walked in on such a lighthearted domestic scene.
“Was everything at your house all right?” Beth asked.
“If anybody’s been there since I left it this morning, I couldn’t tell it. How’d you two do?”
“I made certain no one followed us,” Mitch said. “I left my pickup at the camo garage. Took us two trips to cart all this stuff here.” He motioned toward the crowded dining table.
John walked over to it. In addition to the grocery sacks, white plastic bags had been piled in a chair. He flipped back the handles of one. Inside were articles of women’s clothing.
“I’ll pay you back what I spent on the credit card,” Beth said. “I didn’t bring that many changes of clothes with me, and most of them were—”
“It’s fine.”
“I took the liberty to create us a workspace.” Her laptop had been placed next to his. “I’m ready to begin whenever you are, but I need to call Max first.”
“Sure. But better if you don’t make any more calls on your own phone.”
“I figured that. Mitch removed the battery for me.”
John could hardly feel sour toward Mitch for taking that precaution. He walked over to the drawer of phones, got one out, and passed it to Beth. She thanked him and headed toward the bedroom.
Mitch said, “Hey, I’ve got to be pushing off, so I’ll say goodbye now.”
She smiled and extended her right hand to him. “Thank you for the ride, for getting me here safely, for everything.”
“You bet.”
“Angela sounds lovely. Good luck with the baby.”
“Thanks. Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” To John she said, “I won’t be long.” She went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
A rare and awkward silence extended between the two friends; then Mitch gestured toward the refrigerator. “I got you a six-pack.”
John look toward the appliance. “Thanks for the thought, but from here forward I need to keep a clear head.”
Mitch waited for a count of five, then said, “Look, John—”
“Don’t say it.”
“What?”
“What you were going to say.”
“Oh, so you’re a mind reader now?”
John pulled in a deep breath. “Okay, what were you going to say?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
John gave his friend a forbidding look. Mitch remained impassive. Then John lowered his head and massaged his forehead with his middle finger and thumb. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have dragged her into this.”
Mitch gave a short laugh. “I think it’s the other way around. You wouldn’t have touched that case again if it weren’t for her.”
“Not true.”
“Bro, come on. You should’ve seen your face when you walked in just now. I feared for my life. You wanted to clobber me with a club and drag her off by the hair to your cave, there to dwell.”
John lowered his hand from his face and looked at Mitch with exasperation. “What the hell?”
“You know what I’m saying.” Appearing hesitant, Mitch stroked his mustache several times before continuing. “She’s great. Awesome. But is she why you’re going out on this very skinny and unstable limb? Are you…? Are you doing it just to…”
“Get her into bed? If that’s what you think, then you’re insulting her and me.”
“Sorry. But I’m your friend, so I had to ask. You’re raining down hell on yourself, John. Again. I just want you to be doing it for the right reason.”
“I want to see justice done.”
“I get it. But you almost didn’t survive that case.”
“No ‘almost’ to it, Mitch. I didn’t survive it. I’m still struggling to survive it. I didn’t do right by that girl, and I drag around that guilt like a ball and chain. And what about Billy Oliver?”
“Nothing that went down was your fault.”
“Feels like it.”
“Only to you.”
“I’m the one that counts. If I can get answers to the questions I should have asked back then, if I can save another woman from the same fate, then maybe, maybe I can live with myself.”
Mitch chinned toward the bedroom door. “What if she’s wrong and there is no moonstruck bogeyman lying in wait?”
“Then the only thing this hell-raining has cost me is a work situation I despised. You said yourself that I should have walked out a long time ago. You asked me why I stayed. Well, this is why.”
Mitch still looked doubtful. John said, “Let me ask you a question. What if it turned out that Beth’s prediction was right, and another woman was taken, and I had done nothing to try to prevent it?”
Mitch sighed. “Damn. Why’d you do that? Valor leaves me no argument.” He snuffled, then took his pistol from the shelf. As he slid it into a holster hidden inside his threadbare jeans, he looked toward the closed bedroom door. “You have my permission.” John took umbrage, but before he could say anything, Mitch raised his hands in surrender. “Just sayin’.”
John mumbled an obscene insult, but they walked together to the door, where Mitch turned to him. “Call me if you need me.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to rain down hell on you, too.”
Mitch poked him in the chest. “Call me.” Then he turned and jogged down the front steps.
“Mitch.”
Mitch stopped and looked back, and for several seconds the two communicated only with their eyes. Then Mitch said, “You, too, buddy.”
And without anything more, he left.
Beth gave Max a thorough and candid account of the day. This time she didn’t omit or sugarcoat anything. She summed up by telling him without apology that she was hiding away with John Bowie in a fishing camp in a swamp.
“Jesus,” Max said. “That’s a thing?”
“It’s a thing. This one has been in his family for generations. It’s like a museum with very unique exhibits.”
“None I’d pay to see.”
She laughed. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said, noticing a length of twine attached to the wall at both ends. Dangling from it was a row of aged Christmas cards. “Before, I lied by omission because I didn’t want to upset you. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. I know you don’t approve, and that you’ll—”
She was interrupted by a gurgling sound that alarmed her. “Are you strangling?”
The alarming sound continued. She came up on her knees on the bed. “Max? Max! ” Then she realized that he wasn’t choking. “You’re laughing?”
“Well, it’s funny.”
“Funny? You scared me half to death. What are you laughing at?”
“How long have you worked with me?”
“What?”
“Answer me.”
“Five years.”
“Right. For five years you’ve sat in on meetings, listened in on telephone conversations, seen me at my worst, which is actually when I’m at my best.”
“Yes, and so?”
“How could you not see my manipulation for what it was?”
She dropped back onto her bottom, making the bed springs squeal.
He was still laughing a phlegmy laugh. “You’ve seen me do it to unsuspecting people a thousand times. From postmen to producers to politicians. But when I used it on you, you were blind to it.”
She sagged against the pillows on the bed, too dismayed to speak.
“You came into my office with your cheeks flushed, asked for a minute and then spent thirty advancing the possibility that something was wormy about that Mellin investigation. Ineptitude, or a cover-up, or whatever.
“You insisted the case, ergo our story that documented it, warranted another look. And why? The main reason why? Because of a blood moon, a phenomenon shrouded in mystery and superstitious bullshit.” He paused for a beat. “I was riveted.”
“ What? ”
“It’s juicy. It’s blood-tingling. But even if the spooky moon stuff doesn’t amount to anything, I can smell the stink of corruption in that PD all the way up here. The more I warned you not to meddle in it, the more hell-bent you became to fly down there and talk to Bowie. ”
“You bastard.”
“Would you rather me not have needled you into it?” He waited, then said, “I didn’t think so.”
“Why didn’t you intercede with Brady? Wouldn’t that have been simpler? You could have advised him to postpone the broadcast until—”
“Because that suck-up wouldn’t have agreed to anything I suggested. And even if he had agreed to hold off until we’d done more investigating, he’d have sent someone else down there to do it. One of his flunkies, not you. You discovered the tantalizing hook that everyone else had missed; you deserved to be the one to pursue it.”
“All right. So, knowing that, why didn’t you just say, ‘Here’s your ticket, Beth, be on the next flight?’”
“I had to test your conviction. If it was only a fanciful idea that had fired your imagination, I had to know it. I had to save you from committing professional suicide.”
“And protect your own butt in the process.”
“You’re damn right. I’m nothing if not self-serving. I’ve never pretended to be otherwise. But the more I pushed you, the harder you pushed back. In the end, you were willing to risk your job and reputation on this theory that the next blood moon is going to spell doomsday for some young woman.”
“What if nothing happens and I’m proven wrong?”
“What’s the harm? You may eat some crow, but only in front of me, and I won’t tell. We’ll sell Brady on the lie about your vacation with old friends, and he’ll be none the wiser. Not that he’s all that wise to start with,” he added under his breath.
“You’re not taking John Bowie into account,” she said softly. “Whether I’m right or wrong, he’s already suffered severe consequences because of my meddling.”
“True. By busting his boss’s nose, he’s probably screwed his future in that police department, but if he has as much grit as you’ve implied, he’ll land on his feet.”
“I hope you’re right.”
After a thoughtful moment, he said, “I should have paid more attention to his disgruntlement back when we started considering that case as an episode.”
“Is this another manipulation?”
“No. I swear on my next cigarette. I think I missed an opportunity. If I’d contacted Bowie myself, and handled him right, he—”
“Handled him right? We could have sold tickets to see you try.”
He barked a laugh, coughed, and spat. “Well, if I’d gotten him to open up, we’d have had another story with a different ending.”
So would John , she thought. Perhaps a happier one.
Max took a few gravelly breaths. “Just how mad at me are you?”
“I want to be, but how can I be? Your maneuvering got me here. I’m mad at myself for not seeing through your bluff.”
“Cut yourself some slack. I’m an unprincipled, cagey son of a bitch with decades of conning to my credit.” Then in all seriousness, he said, “You’ve got the makings of a great story here. Tom Barker, asshole extraordinaire, whose malfeasances need to be exposed. Bowie, the dour, reluctant hero with integrity. Plus a blood moon and the spookiness that conjures. Jesus, gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.”
“The blood moon or the story?”
“The Emmy. Get it for me, Beth.”