The Long Count (17 page)

Back to the wall, he waited for silence to descend. Then he made his way around the side of the garage and stood staring at the hole in the floor. Shotgun yoked across his shoulders he stood above the ladder and looked down. Jungle boots on metal rungs, he was in the darkness of the walkway and a moment later in the storm shelter
itself. Shelves lined the walls, moulded concrete forming the lowest bank where a man could make doubly sure.

Something on the wall caught his eye: the first aid kit lying open with the tray fixed in the horizontal. For a moment he studied the contents, bottles of antibiotics and painkillers, syringes sealed in polythene bags. He noticed one polythene bag was empty and lying across the top of the fold-down tray. He stared at it for a moment then moved across the room, listening intently as he passed into the passage through the open door.

No sound, nothing at all, and yet he could feel a hint of movement like the faintest of breezes disturbing the otherwise stagnant air. Sweat worked his brow. Shifting the weight of the shotgun his hands were clammy and he wiped them on the legs of his jeans.

He was halfway down the passage before his eyes grew accustomed and he could see that the wooden panel was standing open and that’s why he could feel movement in the atmosphere. He stopped; he was trembling, swallowing hard as if there was some blockage in his throat. He could hear no sound from the study beyond.

Inside, he had to wipe perspiration where it burned his eyes. He stared at the desk and chair, his gaze attracted by a few dark spots on the floor. Footfall above his head, he cast a short glance at the ceiling and closed the panel in the wall. Then he moved to the door.

There he paused. He could hear Beale moving around above him and he stepped into the passage walking on his toes. At the bottom of the stairs he checked. Still he could hear Beale up there and he stood very still. Slowly, inexorably almost, he climbed to the top of the stairs. Again he paused. The hallway a little dim, he could see one of the bedroom doors was ajar.

Beale did not hear him approach. He was in the living room with a metal box before him on the coffee table and the lid open; he was leafing through a stack of documents inside.

Fifteen seconds, thirty maybe, then, as if Beale felt his presence rather than heard anything, he swung round. Panic in his gaze, the pallor of his skin was wax as he took in the twelve-gauge pump and the pistol grips and the look in the young man’s eyes.

Pious caught up with Quarrie before he left the ranch. The Riviera fully gassed up and ticking over, he was letting the engine warm up.

‘Wanted to get a-hold of you before you-all took off,’ Pious said as he came over from the cottage he shared with his mother and sister. ‘Georgia, Ike Bowen – I made those calls like you wanted and a buddy of mine from the old 2nd Company called me back last night.’

‘What did he say?’ Quarrie was adjusting the straps on his shoulder holsters.

‘Not a whole lot as it goes,’ Pious stated. ‘Not much to say about Ike Bowen except he was a pretty good soldier.’

‘Yeah, well, that part I figured already.’

Pious made an open-handed gesture. ‘That shelter he’s got going underneath the garage: all that stuff backed up in case of a hurricane or whatnot, they reckon he was always one of those survivalist types. As far as the service goes he had something of a reputation as a point man, never missed a booby trap once. A little paranoid maybe, but they said he was pretty tough.’

‘Pious, all tough guys are paranoid. You ought to know that by now.’

Pious cracked a smile. ‘Anyways, there is one thing struck me as a little odd maybe. Back in the day Ike was something of a lady’s man apparently. It wasn’t as if he had a girl in every port or anything, but he did like to fool around.’

At that Quarrie raised an eyebrow. ‘Lady’s man, uh? That don’t seem to square with him living way up there in the grassland all on his lonesome.’

‘No, it don’t,’ Pious agreed. ‘But it might account for his wife leaving out when she did. That feller you mentioned from Oklahoma, he was 82nd with Ike when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor.’ Pious fished in his back pocket for a slip of paper. ‘Sergeant name of Morley. They gave me this address. Came through that little town myself, John Q, after I got out of Leavenworth and found me that grabbling spot.’

Walking around the car he checked the tailpipes where a little moisture was leaking out.

‘Sounds like she’s running OK.’

‘Sweet as a nut; you know how she always is.’

Lifting the hood, Pious checked underneath. ‘So you’re headed back to East Texas again then, are you? What’s up with that? Don’t you have any Rangers over there?’

‘Sure we do, but they’re tied up with all the protests right now.’ Opening the driver’s door Quarrie slipped behind the wheel as Pious settled the hood. ‘Blame it on the students, bud – them or LBJ.’

‘You sure you don’t want me to fly you back over there?’ Pious said. ‘It’d be no trouble.’

Quarrie shook his head. ‘No sir, thank you. I’m going to need wheels when I get there and I already gave Marion County theirs back.’ He cast a glance towards his cottage. ‘What I need is to get quit of the Rangers and find me a sheriff’s job.’

‘James is it you’re thinking about?’

‘No momma around all these years and his dad on the road all the time. You know that can’t be good.’

‘John Q,’ Pious said, ‘if we laid you down and cut you open we’d find the word
Ranger
stamped right through your marrow. James knows that. He’s always known it and he’s just fine. Got him a black man to learn life’s lessons from, and in this day and age that ain’t any bad thing. You might not be around as much as you’d like but they’s plenty good folks looking out for him – Mama and Eunice,
Mrs Feeley and Nolo, not to mention all the other hands. Think on her this way: your son’s got a whole bunch of different influences to study on, and I never knew Mary-Clare, but from all of what you told me, I reckon she’d settle for that.’

Quarrie drove back to Fannin County and the Bowen house. When he got there he found both the Pontiac and the pickup truck parked in the driveway and the trapdoor open in the garage. As he parked the Riviera he saw Isaac peer out the front door. He did not say anything but the expression in his eyes was hollow.

‘You OK?’ Quarrie called. ‘Isaac, are you all right?’

Isaac did not speak. He just stood in the doorway, dressed in his uniform with his tie loose at the collar.

Inside the house Quarrie could see that the furniture had been shunted around, marks in the carpet where the couch had been, the coffee table was standing askew as well as one of the armchairs. The card table was on two legs where it leaned against the bar. The fire was burning, though it was warm outside, and he could see the family photograph lying on the mantelpiece with its glass smashed.

‘What happened here?’ he said. ‘Looks like there’s been a fight.’

Squatting down beside the fire Isaac stared. ‘My brother happened,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

Isaac did not look at him.

‘Isaac, what do you mean
your brother happened
?’ Quarrie indicated the uniform. ‘You told me you’re done with the service. Why are you dressed like that?’

Getting up, Isaac set the card table back on its legs. ‘I was going to Shreveport,’ he said, ‘on my way to see Dr Beale. He didn’t call, so I thought I’d go over there anyway and figured I’d feel more confident if I was dressed like this. I’ve been in so long I still can’t get my head around being a civilian.’ He looked back. ‘Dad had to have a soldier in the family – did I ever tell you that? It was a given right from when me and Ishmael were kids. There’s always been a
Bowen serving, firstborn usually, and I guess with this generation that should’ve been Ish.’

‘Isaac,’ Quarrie looked at the fragments of broken glass that seemed to float in the strings of the rug. ‘You said you went to Shreveport. What happened?’

‘Nothing, I never made it.’ Isaac shook his head. ‘Fact is I only got as far as the H-E-B in Paris. Went in to take a leak and I swear …’ His voice seemed to fail him suddenly.

‘What?’ Quarrie said.

Isaac stared into space. ‘I thought I saw my brother. I thought I caught sight of Ishmael standing at the door, but when I looked I couldn’t find him, not inside the store or out in the parking lot.’ He worked the heel of a hand through his hair. ‘Gave me one hell of a shock because I’d already resigned myself to the fact he was killed in that fire. But he wasn’t. Ishmael didn’t die in the fire; he was there at the grocery store.’

Arms folded, Quarrie stared.

‘I figured he’d come here so I drove on back.’ Isaac gestured to the way the furniture had been shifted. ‘He must’ve made it ahead of me though, because this is how I found the place. Like you said just now, it looks for all the world like someone had a fight, and Ishmael fights with himself.’

He sat down heavily in a chair. In the kitchen doorway Quarrie stood with his arms still folded. Isaac not looking at him, he was staring into the fire. Warm in the room, Quarrie slipped off his jacket and sat on the couch with his holsters pouched against the walls of his chest.

‘Isaac,’ he said. ‘Why I’m here – there’s something I have to tell you, something you’re not going to like.’

Isaac snorted. ‘I swear to God, there’s nothing you can say that’ll piss me off any more than I am right now.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Quarrie said.

Taking a moment, he drew a breath. ‘I’ve been working down in
Marion County. I told you, on account of a couple of murders?’

Isaac nodded.

‘One of them was a woman called Mary-Beth Gavin and she used to work at Trinity Hospital. She ran the office down there but took off right after the fire.’ Quarrie was quiet for a moment before he went on. ‘The thing of it is the National Crime Information Center has picked up on a set of fingerprints. That’s the forensics department the FBI put together, and they discovered that the prints found in Mary-Beth’s house match a set from a motel room in Fairview, as well the sawn-off barrel of a shotgun. The same prints were also found at a Baptist mission cottage in Marshall, Texas, where a young maid was murdered. I’m sorry, bud, but another set were recovered from right here at your daddy’s house.’

As if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was being told, Isaac stared out of half-closed eyes.

‘The lab team from the sheriff’s department,’ Quarrie went on. ‘They sent all the prints they recovered back east, but they didn’t know about Marion County. The NCIC picked up the match and sent a teletype to my captain in Amarillo.’

Isaac lifted a palm. ‘So what’re you telling me? What does all that mean?’

‘It means that the coroner got it wrong. Isaac, whoever it was killed those other folk, they murdered your dad as well.’

Isaac was trembling where he sat. Eyes closed tightly, his lips no more than a scar against the pallid shades of his face. He did not say anything; he just sat there with his hands clasped in his lap. And then he looked up.

‘John Q,’ he said. ‘You remember how I told you that whoever it was killed him they came in through the garage?’

Quarrie nodded.

‘You told me that wasn’t possible.’

‘It isn’t, not unless they knew how to open that panel.’

Together they went downstairs to the study where Isaac sat in
his father’s chair. His expression haunted, he studied the confines of the room then swivelled the chair all the way around. For a moment he stared at Quarrie then turned back to the wall where he opened the panel.

‘That is how they got in,’ he said. ‘And they didn’t need to have a gun because there were plenty already here. Nobody came knocking on the door, John Q. Nobody forced Dad down the stairs.’

Closing the panel again he cast a glance towards the study door. ‘There.’ He pointed. ‘He was standing behind the door. He had the twenty-two from the cabinet and Dad didn’t know he was there. He came down to do some paperwork or something and he didn’t turn on the overhead light. He hated that light, always said it was way too bright, couldn’t figure why he ever put it in.’ Reaching across the desk he switched on the lamp. ‘He wouldn’t have known that anyone was there, not till he was sat right here.’

He got to his feet and hovered for a second then paced the width of the room. Features taut, he opened the door to the basement passage and stood in the shadows it cast. ‘He was right here.’ Again he pointed. ‘Dad was at the desk and he stepped out from behind the door.’ Crossing the floor once more he walked around the desk and paused by the side of the chair. Briefly he looked at Quarrie. Then he formed the shape of a pistol with his thumb and index finger and pointed at the empty chair.

Quarrie considered him carefully. ‘Isaac,’ he said. ‘What’re you telling me?’

He saw Isaac swallow. His saw his Adam’s apple working up and down.

‘Ishmael,’ Isaac said. ‘It was my brother with the gun down here.’

A couple of hours later they turned off Fairfield Avenue in Shreveport, Louisiana, and drove up to the checkered barrier ahead of the hospital gates. In the passenger seat Isaac had half a smile on his face.

‘Man,’ he said, ‘that didn’t take hardly any time at all.’

Quarrie winked at him. ‘Perk of the job, that red light. Means nobody’s going to pull you over and under that hood is a 425. Pious hooked her up to a supercharger and replaced the old tailpipes with 2.5s. Get a kick every time I drive her, bud. Be a liar if I to said otherwise.’

Despite being out of state, he carried his badge on his jacket and Isaac still wore his uniform. A young guard with a crew cut waved them into the parking lot and the two men got out of the car. They had to wait for the hospital Jeep to come down from the main building and pick them up because patients were roaming the grounds.

Inside the building they were greeted by an orderly who ushered them into an elevator. On the third floor they found another orderly who walked them to Dr Beale’s office where his secretary greeted them with a slightly nervous expression on her face. She came around from behind her desk and considered Isaac first and then Quarrie.

‘Gentlemen, I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘Somebody should’ve told you at the gate. Dr Beale isn’t here.’

Quarrie furrowed his brow. ‘Probably we should’ve called ahead of time, mam. I guess we figured he’d be back.’

‘Well, I’m afraid he’s not.’ In her forties with short bobbed hair, the secretary shook her head. ‘The fact is I don’t know where he is.
I wasn’t here when he left and he didn’t write me a note. Normally he writes a note but he didn’t leave one this time so I can’t tell you when he’ll be back.’

Quarrie nodded. ‘This is Isaac Bowen, mam. He’s next of kin to Ishmael Bowen who was a patient of Dr Beale’s at Trinity Hospital. I’m not sure if Dr Beale mentioned Ishmael at all. Would you know anything about him?’

Gesturing for them to take a seat, the secretary went back to her desk. ‘I don’t know anything about any of the patients I’m afraid, though I remember Mr Bowen from the other day.’

Isaac sat forward. ‘After I left here Dr Beale came to my father’s house.’

‘Did he? He never said. But then he doesn’t always tell me where he’s going and that’s due to patient confidentiality. Not all his patients are in sanatoriums, he has people he treats in their homes.’

‘Ms Barker,’ Quarrie said, glancing at the name plate on her desk, ‘this isn’t actually a sanatorium as such, is it? Technically, I mean: it’s an asylum for the criminally insane.’

The secretary looked a little puzzled.

‘As was Trinity,’ Quarrie went on. ‘A secure facility. You know about Trinity I imagine, back in Texas?’

‘Of course I know about Trinity.’ The quizzical expression hadn’t left her face. ‘As you say, it was one of the other hospitals where Dr Beale’s expertise was required.’

‘So what exactly is his expertise?’

‘Well, he’s a psychiatrist; he helps people with mental conditions.’

‘I understand that, mam, but what kind of conditions are we talking about?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t explain that to you. I’m not a doctor, Sergeant. You’d have to ask him.’

‘We’d like to,’ he said. ‘But he’s not here and you can’t tell us when he’ll be back.’

She lifted her shoulders then a little helplessly. ‘I don’t know what else I can say. I wish I could tell you where he is because it’s not just you who wants to know, it’s the trustees. Normally he checks in every day but so far he hasn’t been in touch.’

Quarrie was holding her gaze. ‘And you have no idea where he might’ve gone?’

‘No sir, it’s as I already said.’

Quarrie got to his feet. ‘Ms Barker,’ he said, ‘it’s the fire at Trinity we want to talk about. I spoke to the caretaker down there and he told me that some members of staff were relocated here to Bellevue as well as a few of the patients.’

‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘But, I can’t disclose anything about any patient. Even if I knew anything, I’m only a secretary.’

‘I get that, mam,’ Quarrie said. ‘But what about the staff? How many came up here? If we can’t speak to Dr Beale, maybe we could speak to one of them?’

Taking off her glasses now the secretary wiped them on a tissue she plucked from a box on her desk. ‘Once more I have to apologize,’ she said. ‘But only two members of staff were actually relocated, a nurse and an orderly, and neither of them are here.’

‘Not here?’ Quarrie said. ‘Can you tell us where they are?’

‘Nurse McClain called in sick this morning and Mr Briers …’ She faltered. ‘Mr Briers – well it’s a fact his car is in the parking lot but he’s not been seen for a couple of days.’

Quarrie exchanged a glance with Isaac and then he turned back to the secretary. She was looking really flustered now, shifting awkwardly in the seat.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is really nothing to do with me. Dr Beale is in charge of this hospital and—’

‘That’s all right, Ms Barker. Don’t worry.’ Getting to his feet Quarrie crossed to the window where he looked the length of the narrow road. ‘You say the orderly’s car is here but he didn’t show up for work.’

‘That’s right; he’s not been seen in a couple of days.’ Leaving her desk, she came over to the window. ‘His car isn’t down there,’ she said. ‘That parking lot is only for the doctors, visitors and trustees. There’s another one across the way.’ She pointed beyond the dividing wall and Quarrie could see women on their own or in small groups, wearing the same loose pajamas as their male counterparts. ‘The other side of the perimeter wall,’ Ms Barker explained, ‘there’s a parking lot for the staff that’s accessed from Ockley Drive.’

Five minutes later Quarrie and Isaac were pacing a pathway through the grounds where women were gathered and the sight of two strangers caused quite a stir. En masse they tried to crowd around them but the orderlies ushered them away. Isaac walked alongside Quarrie with an orderly in front and another behind. The age of the women seemed to range from those in their twenties with sad faces and even sadder eyes to well beyond middle age.

Quarrie noticed one woman walking by herself. She had an orderly right behind her, mirroring her steps as she made her way across the lawn. Her downcast face was skeletal, lips pinched; hair so thin he could see her scalp like a ball of wax. She was pushing a pre-war metal baby stroller, and every time she passed another patient she would cast a savage glance their way.

The orderlies led them through the outside gate and into a copse of poplar trees. They were younger men and neither of them seemed to know a great deal about Briers.

‘He came over from Texas though, right?’ Quarrie asked as they approached the parking lot.

‘Yes, sir,’ the first orderly said. ‘Along with Nancy McClain.’

‘The nurse off sick right now?’

‘Is she?’ the man glanced back at him. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘So what’s Briers like?’

The orderly shook his shoulders. ‘We didn’t see him much. Big guy, real meaty – which helps when you’re doing this job. Looked after the male patients mostly, the only time we’d see him on our
side of the fence was when they sent him over to walk Miss Annie.’

‘Who’s Miss Annie?’ Isaac asked.

‘That old crone you saw just now pushing the stroller.’ The orderly glanced at him. ‘Normally it would be Briers watching her. She came up from Trinity at the same time he did. Pushes a doll around in that stroller, and the way she is, you’d think it was a regular baby.’

Hand on his arm Quarrie made him pause. ‘That woman we saw on the path just now?’

The orderly nodded. ‘She’s one of the meanest we’ve ever had here. Don’t know much about her but she’s been in isolation ever since she arrived.’ Looking from Quarrie to Isaac he gestured. ‘She’s only just now been allowed outside. For the first few weeks she was kept locked up in her room.’ He glanced back the way they had come. ‘You saw that orderly walking right behind her? Well, if he was here right now that’d be Charlie Briers. It’s the only way Miss Annie is allowed outside, and she’s not allowed to mix with the other patients, she has to keep well away. She might be skin and bone but one wrong word and she’ll kill you.’ He glanced to his compatriot for support. ‘Or at least that’s what they say.’

The orderlies led them to the parking lot and a 1961 Chrysler with an oval-shaped windshield and squared-off steering wheel. Quarrie walked all the way around the vehicle, studying the door locks, the trunk lid and hood. Nothing struck him as odd though, and he turned his attention to the parking lot itself where a mishmash of tire treads and various different footprints broke up the dust.

Taking his pocket knife he jacked the lock on the trunk lid. There was nothing in there however but an aged-looking tire and a pile of old newspapers.

The trunk lid fastened again, they walked back to the perimeter wall, but halfway along the path Quarrie stopped. Something caught his eye, a patch of dirt off to his left, a piece of open ground
at the bole of a tree. He moved closer and Isaac made to follow, but Quarrie lifted a hand indicating for him to stay where he was. A partial print, no heel, just the ball of the foot, but it was flatter than it should be. He recognized the pattern on the sole and moved around to the other side of the tree. There he spotted a second print, full this time; the earth much softer, he could see a nick in the heel.

Back on the path he exchanged a glance with Isaac and spoke to the orderlies.

‘Boys,’ he said, ‘as soon as you get to a telephone I want you call the police. Not the city but the state. Tell them your orderly has been abducted.’ He turned to Isaac. ‘He’s wearing a pair of jungle boots, Isaac, they—’

‘I know the boot.’ Isaac was staring at the bole of the tree. ‘I’ve worn it plenty. Steel shank in the sole on account of the sharpened bamboo.’

Upstairs in the office Quarrie spoke to Beale’s secretary. ‘Ms Barker,’ he said, ‘the Louisiana State Police are on their way up here and they’re going to want to speak to everyone who came into contact with Mr Briers. I’d like to speak to those people myself, but I don’t have the jurisdiction. This nurse, though – the one you talked about earlier, the one from Trinity?’

‘Nurse McClain,’ she said. ‘Nancy.’

‘Nancy, right. Mam, jurisdiction or not, I really do need to speak to her.’

‘She’s off sick, Sergeant. I already told you.’

‘Did she know about Briers?’

‘Of course. She was the one who reported it. She told Dr Beale and he had me call Mr Briers at home.’

Sitting on the edge of the desk Quarrie smiled at her. ‘Ms Barker,’ he said, ‘I’m reaching out here because I think Mr Briers has been abducted, and if Nancy called in sick it’s because she’s very afraid. I believe she’s hiding from the man who abducted Briers
and I can’t afford to wait for the state police. I need to get to her now. I know all about policy and how you’re supposed to act and everything, but you have to tell me where Nancy lives.’

She lived in the suburbs well away from the hospital, an apartment block overlooking the highway as it trailed south from the city. There was no answer at her door when they knocked and Isaac considered Quarrie as they stood in the silent hallway.

‘We could break it down,’ he suggested.

‘We could.’ Quarrie knocked again and still there was no answer. ‘I’ve been known to do that before, but I reckon there’s another way.’

He waited on the stairs while Isaac went back to the lobby and the building manager’s office. Five minutes later he stepped out of the elevator with the manager and Quarrie watched them walk the hallway through the glass panel in the door.

‘Just back from over there then, are you?’ The manager looked old enough to be a veteran. ‘Good to see you in uniform, son. Landed on Omaha Beach myself and I can’t be doing with how things are. This is America, for Christ’s sake. Those kids waving placards on the street right now, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, I swear.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Isaac nodded.

Quarrie looked on as the manager hunted down a pass key and fit it in the lock. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘when your mom gets home no doubt she’ll be happy to see you.’ Patting Isaac on the back he left him in the open doorway.

There was no sign of Nancy McClain. A bedroom and bathroom, a living room with a kitchenette, there was no evidence of an occupant at all. The closet in the bedroom was empty, hangers on the floor, hangers on the rail and the doors standing wide. The drawers in the bureau had been pulled out and emptied. The bed was unmade; no clothes, no jewellery, and nothing in the bathroom either. A moonlight flit, Quarrie stood there with his thumb
hooked in his belt and considered how swiftly the place seemed to have been vacated.

He told Isaac he was putting him on a train. By the end of the day he was pale in the face, dark circles crawling beneath his eyes; he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

‘I’m going to take this from here on out,’ Quarrie said as they walked back to the car. ‘I’ll need you when Dr Beale shows up though, so I’ll call you at the house later on.’

They split a pitcher in the station bar. Perched on a pair of stools they drank beer and Quarrie smoked a cigarette.

‘I really am sorry about all this,’ he said. ‘Real shitty how you came home to find what you did and how things have turned out since.’

Isaac did not say anything. He sat there toying with his glass. ‘I’m OK,’ he muttered finally. ‘What matters now is that we find Ishmael. If he’s been killing people, then any other cop that comes up on him will be so twitchy they’ll probably just shoot.’

‘We’ll find him,’ Quarrie stated. ‘We’ll get there before anybody else does, and nobody is going to shoot him. But listen to me: don’t start beating up on yourself, OK? Don’t start asking what you could’ve done different because the answer is
nothing
. When something like this goes down people start in on themselves with all kinds of questions they could never begin to try and answer. None of that does any good. You understand, Isaac? It ain’t your fault how your brother turned out and that’s something you have to remember.’