Good Day to Die (29 page)

“Problem, sir?” Bouton asked.

“No, no. I was just wondering …” He slowly drifted away.

“Get on with it, Means,” she said, turning back to me. “I think this guy wants to close.”

The first thing I did was look up Owl Creek in the index, then turn to “Map Number 45.”

“This is Owl Creek here,” I said, circling it several times. “And here’s the road that runs past Kennedy’s private driveway.” I circled that, too. “See this dotted red line? That’s an unimproved road, probably an overgrown logging road. We passed it about fifty yards from Kennedy’s driveway. That road’s gonna be my landmark.” Once again I circled vigorously. “And this little blue dot here is the actual building. Let’s call it Point Zero.” Another circle. “All right, now we need a hiking trail that comes within striking distance. This one here ought to do the trick. It runs up to the summit of Black Mountain. From this point on the trail, I can intersect the logging road and use that to pinpoint Kennedy’s house.”

“It sounds too easy.”

“Captain, for you it would be impossible. But I grew up in those forests. Here, take a look at this. You see these irregular concentric ovals? Look close, they’re faint.”

She bent over the map for a moment, checking me out all the way. She needn’t have bothered. This was one area where I didn’t have to bullshit.

“Okay, I see them.”

“They show changes in altitude. The fainter lines mean twenty feet of elevation from the larger to the smaller. The darker lines represent a hundred feet. Now, when you see dark ovals real close together, that means the way is very, very steep. You want to avoid that whenever you can.”

“The trail goes right through those lines.”

“That’s because the view from the summit is spectacular and there’s no way to get there without going up. But me, I don’t plan to make it that far. I’m only going about half a mile on the trail, then I’m gonna cut down into the valley and follow this stream to the logging road. They intersect right over here.”

“All right, enough.” Bouton closed the book. “I’m convinced that you
can
do it.”

“Thank you, Captain.” I bowed my head. “I appreciate your confidence.”

“But that doesn’t mean you
should.
”

I looked at her for a moment, trying to read her mind. Trying to guess what I should say next. When I couldn’t think of anything really clever, I settled for the merely practical.

“I’m going to need a good deal of equipment, Captain—sleeping bag, backpack, compass, canteen. I mean, as long as we’re in a sporting goods store. …”

She heaved a deep sigh, then shook her head. “Can you do the job in one day?”

“C’mon, Captain, how would I know when the house’ll be empty? Plus, it’ll take me four or five hours just to get there.

She continued to stare at me, continued to shake her head. “I may be crazy enough to do this, but not so crazy that I’ll let you go by yourself. No, I’m going with you. Not into those mountains. I’m going to drive you to that hiking trail, find a decent motel, then come back every afternoon at six o’clock to pick you up. I don’t want you making any side trips, no matter what you find. Is that a problem?”

“Not with me.” I kept my voice calm, despite the fact that my adrenals were shooting pure electricity into my veins.

“And while you’re in the woods, I’m going to have a long talk with Sheriff Pousson about Deputy Kennedy. That means you’ll only have one shot at the house. Is that a problem?”

I answered by displaying my one credit card.

“The only serious problem, as far as I can see, is what we’re gonna do if I don’t have enough room on my Visa to pay for everything I’m gonna need.”

I
ARRIVED BACK AT
my loft an hour and a half later. Loaded down with packages (my credit card having, in fact, held up), it was all I could do to slide the key into the lock and push the door open. I failed to notice Marie Koocek sitting in the dark until I’d closed the door and switched on the light.

“What are you doing, Means?”

“What are
you
doing, Koocek?”

“I asked you first.” She was holding a piece of charcoal in her left hand, waving it like a baton. A sketch pad lying on her knees fell to the floor, landing on the heap of discarded pages scattered about her feet.

“True,” I said, “but it’s my loft. And right at the moment, you’re the intruder.”

“Intruder’s not the right word. Being as you gave me a key. You might want to try ‘unwelcome guest.’ Or, ‘material witness.’”

“Okay. Tell me what the hell you’re doing, Unwelcome Material Witness.”

“I’m sketching out an idea for a new piece.”

“In the dark?”

Her black, Slavic eyes narrowed under heavy brows. “The ideas come from the darkness of the void, and I use the darkness to trap them in matter.”

“Bullshit.”

She grinned happily and stretched out, arching her back like a lazy cat. I noted her small breasts punching into the fabric of her blue T-shirt and wanted to jump her bones on the spot. There’s nothing like the prospect of a good hunt to get the testosterone flowing.

“Okay, it’s bullshit,” she said. “What I’m doing now is very preliminary, and the streetlamp gives enough light for what I want to accomplish at this stage. Besides, I like to work in the dark. It’s peaceful.”

I couldn’t argue with that, because I also liked to work in the dark. Although I preferred a .45 to a piece of charcoal.

“What’s the piece called, Koocek?
Moonbeams ’n I-beams?
”

“I’m going to call it
Crushed Bird.
”

“Oh, Jesus!” I shivered, the sensation flashing up my spine hard enough to jerk my shoulders. Marie Koocek had a way of surprising me (which might have had something to do with the fact that she was much smarter than I was), but on that particular night, she couldn’t get more out of me than a single, involuntary shudder. I had better things to do. Much better.

“You all right, Means?”

“Who are you supposed to be, Sigmund Freud?”

“
Anna
Freud. If you don’t mind.”

There was no point in arguing with her. And no point in convicting myself of bird murder when I couldn’t remember what had actually happened. If
anything
had happened. I was beginning to think the whole incident was a dream. How else could it be so vivid and not have an ending?

I crossed to the dining-room table and began to lay out my gear—heavy-duty frame backpack; wide, rectangular down sleeping bag; emergency first-aid kit; hard-soled Timberland hiking boots; waterproof, strike-anywhere matches; jellied charcoal starter (for those moments when life’s choices boil down to
make a fire in the rain or die);
two plastic water bottles and a package of water purification tablets; very light, very expensive compass; camouflage T-shirt with matching wool sweater; canister of pepper spray; ten freeze-dried meals (just add boiling water and puke); hooded poncho suitable for a ground cloth; small hatchet and smaller canvas daypack; extra-large bottle of Cutter’s bug juice.

“You going hunting, Means?”

“That’s exactly right, Marie. I’m going hunting.”

How
she knew I was going hunting, since I hadn’t unpacked anything resembling a weapon, didn’t occur to me until she added, “Who’s the lucky prey?”

That stopped me. I turned to her and said, “Do you think you could limit yourself to defaming my childhood and lay off the mind-reading act? I really want to get this right.”

When I was reasonably sure she wouldn’t interrupt me again, I took one of my rifles off the wall, a bolt action Anschutz 1700D. I’d given a lot of thought to just what sort of weapon I wanted to pack. My Thompson had enough power to cut down trees, but it weighed more than eleven pounds (not counting the ammo) and wasn’t accurate enough for me to trust it beyond fifty yards or so. The Anschutz, on the other hand, would shoot the eyes off a mosquito at a hundred yards, but the bolt action was relatively slow and it only held five .22LR cartridges in its small clip. What I’d decided, as I’d listened to Bouton chatter on about when she was going to pick me up and what car we should use, was to carry the Detonics (on a holster and not tucked behind my belt) for close-up work and rely on the accuracy of the Anschutz to compensate for its slow rate of fire and small-caliber ammo.

I carried the rifle over to the table, then retrieved a mounted ANPVS-2 starlight scope from a cabinet built into the wall behind the couch and brought that to the table as well. Using the screwdriver blade on my Swiss army knife (which was all I’d have when I reassembled it), I removed the Anschutz’s barrel and rolled up stock, barrel, scope, sling, and Detonics in the sleeping bag, then strapped the bag to the top of the backpack. The rest of the junk, except for the compass, went inside the backpack, along with several changes of underwear and three pairs of socks.

“Here’s the choice, Koocek,” I said, sliding a pair of very lightweight binoculars, the compass, and a Buck folding knife, each in a nylon holder, onto a heavy leather belt. “You’re investigating two individuals, husband and wife, suspected of killing at least twenty-one people, mostly for the fun of it. You break into their home and find absolute proof of their guilt, but, unfortunately, you can’t use this proof, because you’ve obtained it illegally. Now, do you replace this proof, then back out and wait a month or two until you’ve accumulated enough evidence to make an arrest and maybe obtain a conviction? Or, do you ‘take arms against a sea of troubles’ and eliminate them from the face of the fucking earth before they go out and kill again?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she walked across the room and laid a hand on my arm.

“You forgot the most important part,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“‘Eliminate them from the face of the fucking earth’ while loving every minute of it.”

I turned to look into her eyes. We were getting to the point where there were no more secrets left. Koocek had been an institutional child, moving from foster homes to group foster homes to out-and-out orphanages.

“Whether you love it or hate it, you still have to choose, Marie. Even if the point of choice is entirely your own creation, you still have to choose. Even if you originally thought the whole deal was a piece of shit, you still have to choose.”

I took the bottom of her T-shirt, pulled it over her head and halfway down, pinning her arms. She kept her eyes on mine, a quizzical half-smile playing with her lips. I rubbed the calloused heel of my right hand over her nipples, back and forth across her chest while my left hand yanked open the belt of her jeans and slid the zipper down. She began to breathe heavily, her eyes fluttering for a moment before they closed. I dropped to my knees and tugged her jeans and panties down.

“Open your legs.”

She obeyed, moving them as far apart as the jeans around her ankles would allow. When I ran my finger down between the lips of her cunt, her knees buckled. She was sopping wet, her clit as hard as any male erection. I circled it with the tip of my finger, so gently the contact was almost imaginary. Her T-shirt fluttered to the floor and she pressed her hands against the back of my head.

“Lie on the couch and pull your legs up into your chest.”

She was into it now, kicking her jeans away as she crossed the room. I watched her buttocks rise and fall as I followed. Already tasting them. She lay on the couch, shivering slightly at the cool touch of the leather, hesitated just a moment, then lifted her legs. I left her in that position while I slowly undressed. Until my own state of arousal was more than obvious.

“Don’t move; don’t make a sound.”

I began with the tip of her spine, with her coccyx, working my tongue in a slow half-crescent to her navel, then made the return trip, hesitating briefly as I crossed her clit, taking her to the brink of orgasm, only to let her fall away. She lay completely still, though the muscles on her belly hardened into thin flexible ridges and her breath hissed between clenched teeth.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, when my own heat threatened to set my hair on fire, I lifted her into a sitting position with her ass on the very edge of couch, then knelt in front of her and pushed inside. That was the end of the self-control, the end of the game. Somehow, I found myself on the floor with Marie pounding into my crotch, determined to get what she wanted. Her breasts danced above my blurry eyes as she leaned into it; they bobbed madly. I watched drops of sweat roll from her throat down across her breasts and nipples to fall on my face. At the very end, as I slid into oblivion, I heard a scream that I thought was hers, then knew to be my own.

We slept and fucked and slept and fucked, until it was six o’clock and time for me to get into the shower. Marie crawled in after me, bleary-eyed. We took turns soaping each other, but neither of us had the heart for any more sex. Or for any superfluous talk. After we’d toweled off, I went back to the living room, double-checking every item in the backpack, then taping my heels and toes to avoid the otherwise inevitable new-shoe blisters.

At seven-thirty, the buzzer from the lobby sounded. It was Bouton come to pick me up. I told her I’d be down in a minute, then turned back to Marie.

“Did you make a choice?” I asked. “Did you choose for me?”

“What difference does it make? You’ve already made up your mind.”

“Not true, Marie. All this?” I raised the backpack. “Well, as the Boy Scouts say, it ain’t smart to go into the forest unprepared. But as for what I’m actually going to do? I haven’t gotten to the point where I have to choose. Until I get in the house and actually find something, it’s all hypothetical.”

She gripped my arm as I opened the door, her fingers digging into my bicep. “You be careful, Means. I don’t need you dead. Or in jail.”

I turned to go, but she pulled me back again. “You have to take arms against a sea of troubles, Means,” she hissed. “You
have
to. There’s no glory in submission.”

Y
OU SEE HOW IT
is, Lorraine Cho thought, just when nature seems to be forcing you to make a decision, nature forces you to stay right where you are. In purgatory.