Necessary Evil (27 page)

“How does the Vigenère code work?” Aunt
Susanna asked.

He turned the page and showed us all a
square filled with columns of the alphabet.

“It uses twenty-six Caesar ciphers in a
sequence with different shift values and a keyword or phrase to decode it. It’s
trickier to decode because simple frequency analysis can only be useful if the
code keyword is really short.”

We stared at the letters in defeat.

Frowning, Darlene turned the book and
leaned forward on the table to study the square.  Her long nails playing
over the columns, accompanied by the jingle of her bracelets, and I wondered if
she was on the brink of a breakthrough. I saw Gregory watching her carefully,
probably wondering the same thing.

I sat back in my chair and took a sip of
my now-cold coffee. Trusty jumped up from under Aunt Susanna’s chair and
wandered off to the back door. It was dark outside and I thought,
I should
take her out.
But I didn’t want to leave yet.

I pulled the copy of the Alexander Chase
letter closer and studied it. This time, instead of focusing on the words, as I
normally did, I looked at the letter as a whole, as though it were simply a
picture.

That’s when I saw the pattern.

My hand began to shake. It was easy to
see, once you knew where to look and everything pointed to it: the odd length
of the lines, the awkward phrasing,
the
obvious care
that went into forming the lettering... The cipher had been in plain view all
the time.

No one was paying attention to me. Gregory
and the teens were bent over an explanation of the Stager code while Darlene
whispered to Aunt Susanna. My heart pounded so that I could barely speak and,
when I did, it came out in a squeak that only Aunt Susanna heard.

“I found it,” I said.

She stopped and leaned toward me.

“Found what?” she asked.

Gregory heard and turned around sharply.
Shoving his glasses back up with his thumb, he whipped around the table and was
looking over my shoulder before I could even begin to form the words.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“It’s the layout,” I said. “Jacob had it.
It’s written weird – like a sonnet, only it isn’t a sonnet. It’s a cipher. And
it’s written carefully, oddly, so that…” I took my hand and covered the paper
so that only the first letter of every line was showing. “So that the cipher
would fit along the side of the paper, where no one would notice it. He even
emphasized the first letters ever so slightly, just in case Mary missed it.”

Lindsay gasped. Aunt Susanna put a hand
over her mouth while Jacob whistled low.

I turned in my chair to grin at the
wide-eyed Professor Randall.

“You were right, Professor,” I said.
“Alexander
did
leave a message. And it’s been here the whole time.”

He nodded at me, his dark eyes shining.

It was then that Trusty, who had been
pacing impatiently in front of the porch door suddenly threw herself at it in a
frenzy of fury. Her barks, sharp and angry, cut through the celebration like
shards of shattered glass and Aunt Susanna jumped, grabbing at her heart.
Darlene, the closest to the door, leaned to peer outside. She pulled back
quickly.

“Someone’s out there!” she gasped.

Instantly, Gregory was tearing open the
door, calling to Jacob. Jacob dashed for one of the cabinets, yanked open the
door, and pulled out the heavy flashlight we kept there. They were out the door
before I knew what was happening.

“What are they
doing
?”

My question came out as a panicked squeal.
I was on my feet, my head and heart pounding, trying to see out into the dark.

“They’re going after the diggers,” Darlene
said. By the time she finished speaking, I was out of the kitchen, heading in
the opposite direction.

I raced down the hall to the office, my
anxiety making me stumble when I entered the room. The gun safe was concealed
behind the door, where Gregory had left a rolling chair full of books. I threw
them aside, whipping through the combination with a hand so steady that it
surprised me. I was all too aware that I was running out of time.

I yanked open the door and was greeted
with the metallic scent of polished metal.

Uncle Michael wasn’t much of a hunter; but
having served a brief stint in the military, he liked his rifles and handguns
and kept a small, carefully maintained collection. I had learned to shoot while
I was a girl, and as Aunt Susanna didn’t much care for the sport, she left me
to take care of the collection. I hadn’t shot much since Michael’s death, but
I’d kept the guns clean and always made sure that there was ammo close at hand.

I grabbed the shotgun, loaded the shells,
dumped a handful into my pocket - and then nearly ran into Lindsay in the
doorway. I brushed past her, leaving her staring open-mouthed as I raced
through the kitchen, where Aunt Susanna was already on the phone.

It wasn’t until I was outside that I
realized just how dark it was. The moon was in its last quarter and its light
was barely able to penetrate the inky shadows cast by the trees.

I knew where to go. I raced for the path,
taking care to keep my fingers away from the trigger as I ran.

My heart was thumping, the blood pounding
audibly in my head. I was barefoot, but I barely felt the roughened earth under
my feet. Up ahead, I could hear Trusty barking hysterically, then she abruptly
cut off.

Gregory was shouting something. I couldn’t
make out what it was. I was running faster than I’d ever done before, but it
wasn’t fast enough.

I came upon the scene suddenly. Randall
was pulling himself unsteadily off the ground, calling, “Jacob,
stop
!”
in a terrible tone.

The flashlight was on the ground as though
someone had just flung it away, and in the near distance, my terror-heightened
senses picked up the sounds of someone running away - and then the sound of
someone in pain.

Randall whipped around at my approach.

“Gregory!” I cried. “Where’s Jacob?”

I tried to push past him, but he caught my
arm.

“Maddie, don’t.”

My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I could
just barely make out the fresh pile of dirt. My stomach lurched so violently
that I was nearly ill. Someone had been here, and I’d only just missed them.

When I tried to continue, he held on
tighter.

“He’s gone, Maddie. He’s gone. Let him
go.”

Gregory staggered and let go of my arm as
I called out for Jacob, relieved when he answered. I bent to pick up the
flashlight and played it slowly over the hole before bringing it up to Randall.
It was then that I noticed the blood.

“Gregory!” I gasped, and grabbed his arm
in a panic. But he shook his head.

“I’m all right,” he said, his voice thick.
“Find Trusty.”

“Trusty?”

I found her, faintly moaning, just as
Jacob came stumbling back through the unfamiliar terrain. Trusty was curled
inches away from a large stone that anchored the ancient rock wall. I handed my
gun to Greg, the flashlight to Jacob, and then gathered my faithful friend in
my arms.

Darlene and Lindsay took Trusty to the
emergency vet clinic while we waited in the kitchen for the police to arrive.
We treated Gregory’s bloody nose, a souvenir of his brief encounter with the
intruder. It took a while for the bleeding to stop and he seemed embarrassed by
the attention.

“All I need is a long shower and short
glass of brandy,” he said, his annoyance muffled somewhat by the cotton Aunt
Susanna insisted on shoving up his nose. “Where’s the police?”

For all of Aunt Susanna’s hysteria on the
phone, fifteen minutes passed before they arrived. The officer, who was
familiar with our trespassing problems, told us in no uncertain terms what he
thought of our trying to confront the burglar on our own.

“You were lucky to get off so easy,” he
scolded, taking notes as he spoke, holding the pad out so that he could read
his own writing. “Next time, call the professionals.”

“And you would have been here in time to
catch them, would you?” Gregory asked, and earned a scathing glare for his
trouble.

Jacob volunteered to show the officer the
scene of the crime, and he reluctantly followed the teenager out into the dark.
Aunt Susanna, too nervous to stand still, went out on the porch to watch.

Gregory and I sat in silence in the
kitchen. He pressed a wad of paper towels against his nose and looked at the
ceiling. He seemed as angry as I normally would have been.

But I wasn’t angry this time. I didn’t
feel anything. It was as though I was completely numb. I shredded a stray paper
towel and watched my phone, even though I knew it was too early to expect a
call from Lindsay. I knew if I thought too much about what happened tonight, I
would either become angry enough to do something stupid or I would break down
and sob, neither of which would help.

Gregory leaned over and grabbed another
wad of paper towels, muttering in an impatient undertone. His muffled voice
broke through my thoughts, and I turned and pinned him with a stare.

“You should go to the hospital,” I said.

We’d had this conversation earlier, and
his response was the same: a vehement shake of his head, a scowl, and, “It’s
nothing, I’m alright. Anyway, there’s too much to do here.”

He threw the used paper towels into the
trash with a sharp movement.

I looked away and my gaze fell on the
table, where only an hour before we’d been on the verge of a breakthrough.

As though he knew my thoughts, he said,
“The intruders don’t know either. They’re stabbing in the dark. They’ve figured
out that there is something here, but they don’t know where. We’ve still got
time.”

“Do you think they’ve figured out where
the cipher is?”

“If they had, they would have cracked it
by now,” he said. “These kind of ciphers are pathetically easy. We’ve got
time.”

I nodded slowly. I believed him, but I
knew something that he didn’t. Charlie White, the reporter, monitored all the
police calls in the area and had a mole in town politics. It would be only a
matter of days before word of this intrusion got out locally and from there,
who knew how far this would spread.

I thought about Joe Tremonti, out in
California, then shook the thought out of my mind.

One problem at a time,
I told myself
firmly.

I turned back to Gregory.

“We haven’t got much,” I said. “We’d
better crack this quickly.”

He nodded, gingerly pulling the paper
towels away from his face.

The bleeding had stopped, but his face was
a mess. I grabbed a wad of paper, wet it, and then surprised him by taking hold
of his chin. He tried to pull away, but I stopped him.

“Hold still,” I said firmly, and began
dabbing the blood away.

Funny how this little act did so much to
relax me. I suppose it was because of all the injuries on the trail, this was
the most minor and the one I could do something about.

But even as I worked, a new feeling began
to softly take hold of me, making me uncomfortable. It must have been the same
for Gregory, because instead of teasing me or making some kind of joke, he
stayed silent and looked everywhere but at me.

Then, when the blood was nearly gone and
the feeling had grown too uncomfortable to ignore in silence, I said, “That was
pretty stupid, you know. Running out there unprotected like that, letting
yourself get beaten up. What were you thinking?”

He shrugged, glanced around the room,
before focusing his dark eyes on mine.

My breath caught.

A lock of hair had drifted across my face.
Gently, Gregory reached up and tucked it behind my ear, leaving a trail of fire
where his hand brushed my face.

“I was thinking,” he said softly, his eyes
never leaving mine, “that I’d better get out there before you did.”

For the second time that night, my heart
started pounding.

D
earest Mother,

Y
our letter of the
12th arrived yesterday

A
nd I was glad to
receive it.

A
ny word from home
is always welcome. I

P
ray that you and
Avery are well. I al-

S
o wish to thank
you for your kind words of

B
lessing – they are
dew-drops to my soul. Marched

L
ong today and I am
exhausted by hours

O
f training and
miserable Poe-like terrain. We shall meet 

J
ohnny Rebel any
day and I am itching for the introduction.

T
o glory we go,
hungry and tired, but with

N
ew vigor and
eagerness. It may seem strange but I have no

F
ear, just regret
that I leave so little behind for my dearest

M
other – just the
earthy good contained in my home soil.

D
o pray for me, as
I always do for you, knowing our God is

J
ust and loving and
all is in His hands.

Y
ours, always,

Alexander.

PS: When I fear, I think on the August
words in my beloved psalmery, especially no. 29. Read on this and think of me.
– AC