The Shadowkiller (41 page)

“Guess it's a good thing I came along. Your buddy's lookin' pretty banged up,” blithered Roland. “By the way, name's Roland, Roland Simms. Whad'you say yours was?”

Ty looked back. The angry behemoth had reached the roadway and was only two or three steps from catching them.

“Behind you! Hit it!” Ty screamed,“Punch it!
Go, go, go!
”

Roland Simms looked in the rearview mirror, choked,“Holy Jesus and Mary!” and his foot nearly slammed the gas pedal through the rusty floorboard.

Fearing it would get its hands on Mac in the truck bed, Ty watched helplessly as it gained on them, but in a few seconds the old truck—its pollution-control-free V-8 singing—put distance between them. For a quarter mile it gave chase, then disappeared into the trees. Roland Simms's eyes were bigger than saucers, his chest pumping like he'd just carried the truck himself.

“Jesus H. Christ, mister, what in the blue blazes of perdition was that?”

Ty gloomily looked back into the truck's bed at Mac, a mass of crumpled bones and clotted blood. “Let's get to a hospital, ASAP,” he said, feeling his wet clothes again but not caring. He looked at the blurred scenery. After a moment, he answered Roland Simms.

“That, Mr. Simms, was what we were looking for. And he found us.”

O
nce they were far enough away from the beast, Ty had Roland pull over and together they managed to heft Mac into the cramped cab. Ty turned the heat up full blast. He knew Mac's injuries were life-threatening and keeping him warm just might save him. On that hurried drive to Bellevue, Ty's phone finally made a connection. He reached 911 and was advised that the hospital would be ready and that they should drive all the way in instead of rendezvousing with an ambulance. After learning the injured man was a cop, the dispatcher told them to carefully use whatever speed was necessary and that the police would try to divert or control traffic.

That done, Ty explained to his new best friend Roland Simms what it was that had nearly ruined their day. By the time they reached the emergency entrance to Bellevue's Overlake Hospital Medical Center and Mac was laid onto a gurney and raced into the ER, Roland was a changed man. He'd driven faster than he'd ever driven and his system hadn't felt so much adrenaline since he'd been under enemy fire more than sixty years before.

Ty shook Roland's hand. “Thanks, Roland. And watch out for the press. They're as bad as that thing.”

While being treated for cuts and bruises, Ty tried to locate Ben on his cell phone. Failing to find him at the hotel, he called the office of the security firm guarding his home and had them dispatch some men to Mac's Malibu to wait for Ben.

“Send at least three,” he said, then added, “and make sure they're armed, heavily armed.”

Then he called the police to report Ben missing and drew an immediate response. He was told that they “were currently a little overtaxed” but at least one search and rescue team would be dispatched. Ty wondered if the “overtaxed” part had anything to do with their quarry and its handiwork from last night. He assumed most police departments had been alerted after the Channel 7 slaughter and were now being more responsive to missing person reports.

Ty checked in with his hotel's switchboard and got a message to call Ronnie. Then he noticed his cell phone had registered a voice mail from Ronnie from hours earlier. He checked it and all she said was a cryptic,“Call me.” His heart leaped at the thought she might be opening the door, but he didn't want to worry her that he was in the hospital, so he decided to wait until he was discharged. He could tell her everything in person, that is, if she really wanted to see him. Knowing his wife, he thought she might be regretting her decision to throw him out as well as not believe him about Kris Walker. A brief vision of Kris crossed his mind, and a chill shot across his shoulders as he saw her in the grasp of that thing. He hoped it had been quick.

Ty wanted more than anything to see Ronnie and his kids. As he sat bundled in a blanket on the examination table, waiting for the doctor to return to sew up a four-stitch cut on his cheek, he had a life-altering revelation: he was free. He realized that the last three years of hell hadn't really been about clearing himself, or proving anything to the press, or even retaining his credibility.

Ty realized it had all been about one thing: proving to himself he wasn't crazy.

That incident in Idaho had set off a chain reaction of other events, but its essence was always about convincing himself he had seen what he'd seen. He felt like Wilbur Post, trying to get Mister Ed to talk to someone—
anyone
—when even he didn't believe Mister Ed could really talk. Were they voices in his head or was that goddamn horse really saying something?

He felt like he'd had a fever that had been building for three years, then the things that happened this day caused it to break, and just like that it was gone. He couldn't believe his salvation was that simple, to just see it again and go on about his life. He wondered briefly if he was simply in shock and the obsession would return the next day, but Ty searched his feelings and found nothing inside. The madness had passed. He was more certain of that than he'd been of anything in the last three years.

While the doctor stitched him up, two men pulled back the curtain. “Mr. Greenwood?” one of them asked. “We're with the Bellevue Police Department. We have some questions.”

As dusk settled in over the Greenwood home, wind began to whip their one-hundred-sixty-foot cedars with the promise of a storm. Ronnie strolled down their driveway at four p.m. and gave each of the security guards a bottle from the wine cellar and merry Christmas wishes before sending them home early. Then she called the Red Lion and asked for Ty. She also had the desk ring Ben, assuming he'd know where Ty was. Neither Ty nor Ben was available, according to the desk clerk, “though Mr. Greenwood did call in for his messages a while ago.” She left him a message to call.

Hitting their problems head-on was a concept both Ty and Ronnie practiced in business but not in their personal lives. Ronnie couldn't explain why she had spent so many years mastering avoidance and denial in her own affairs. If she conducted business that way, she would have been lucky to have risen to stock clerk. She asked herself why it was so hard to talk to her own husband.

She also wondered why Ty hadn't responded. Ronnie overflowed with regrets at tossing him out, then storming off in a fit after finding Kris Walker in his room. She turned on the TV in the kitchen and was surprised to hear Kris's name all over the media, not just on her own station. Lurid rumors were beginning to fly on the national media that Kris and her news crew had been the victims of everything from a group of angry survivalists to an organized team of serial killers. Ronnie wondered if there was a relationship between the incident from last night and this startling news. She kept an open mind and expected Ty would be able to explain.

For now, she anticipated his call and mentally practiced her apology. She resolved to change things for the better. Then doubts formed that perhaps he was enjoying his freedom and maybe what she saw had been the Ty she didn't know. So what had happened to Kris Walker, and was Ty somehow involved? She forced those thoughts from her head. She didn't believe Ty had changed. Lately he may have become weird and unpredictable, but he was still Ty, wasn't he?

“Ronnie? You want to eat now?” Greta asked, having held their Christmas dinner per Ronnie's instructions.

Ronnie had expected to have spoken with Ty long before this, so she finally gave in. “Yeah, we might as well. The kids are probably hungry.”

The two cops were considerate enough to stop at Ty's hotel so he could be questioned in dry clothes. Ty's apprehension about Ben grew after the desk clerk told him Ben hadn't appeared yet. On the bright side there was a message from Ronnie to call her. Unfortunately the cops had taken away his cell phone. Ty also didn't need to tell Ronnie once again that he was in the custody of the police. He would wait until they were through and call her on the way home.

Even now, most local police agencies were getting their information about the killings from the television as news leaked out. The Bellevue cops were very curious why Ty Greenwood was investigating the series of murders with a Snohomish County Sheriff's detective who had been removed from the case. They also knew Ty's name had been all over the media as a suspect in the case. Yet it appeared to the police that Ty had saved Mac's life, which didn't really match up with his being a suspect. Why would a suspect save the guy who had been investigating him?

They entered the station and the two detectives took Ty to a locked but windowed interrogation room. One of the cops sat while the other leaned against the wall.

The sitting cop began the interrogation. “So what were you doing up there?”

Over the next twenty-five minutes, Ty unfolded his tale in an orderly and calm fashion and took them through the main events, from the time he saw the article about the broken trees to being rescued by Roland Simms. The cops occasionally looked at each other with poorly concealed smirks and eye rolling, which Ty noticed but ignored. At one point the station lights flickered. Leaning cop looked at sitting cop. “Lightning.”

When Ty felt he had given them all the salient details, he sat back in his chair. There was a long pause and leaning cop chuckled. “So, Mr. Greenwood, when we arrest Bigfoot, do you think you could ID him in a lineup?”

Sitting cop cracked up and Ty sighed patiently. Ty figured it was only a matter of time before his story was corroborated. He assumed Roland Simms would be talking soon, and certainly DNA from the scene of the news crew slaughter would prove something other than a human being had been their killer. Ty's thoughts turned to Ben and he said a prayer that the old man would be all right. Then it occurred to Ty that every time he tried to think about Ben, his thoughts seemed to automatically go to Mac. It was as if he did not have control over his own thoughts, as if something were bending his concerns for Ben and pointing them back to Mac. Ty didn't understand it, but he was feeling a growing anxiety about getting to Mac.

The two cops shook their heads, got up, and left the room, figuring a few hours of cooling his heels might soften Ty up to telling the truth. Ty glanced at his watch—almost seven. He was beginning to worry he wouldn't get home, until he reminded himself that he hadn't even spoken to Ronnie and wondered if his returning home was what she had in mind. She had not said that in her messages. He wanted to call her, but the cops had not yet allowed him a phone call.

T
he unseasonably warm yet powerful wet front off the Pacific collided with the cold, weaker dry air out of Canada, and the resulting battle of air masses created a growing electrical storm and spotty downpours throughout Puget Sound. Five miles above Ronnie and Ty's home, Arlo Westmeyer looked out the window into his backyard and saw rain streaking through the illuminating floodlight. Occasional flashes and thunder in the distance grew louder and more frequent.

“Honey,” he yelled to his wife, “I'm goin' out to cover up the mower.”

Arlo grabbed his parka and exited the sliding glass door toward his workshop. He had mowed their acre that day and had been called into the house before covering his baby, a deluxe Sears Craftsman twenty-two-horse riding mower. Arlo found the plastic cover and wrapped it around the mower tighter than usual because the winds were forecast to get worse.

As the wind beat him with spitting rain, he had a sudden terrible dread come over him. It was as palpable as the wind. He instinctively melded into the lee of his large shop to conceal himself. He stood motionless for a moment and looked around into the dark woods nearby, then at the warm glow of his house. Just as he told himself it was silly and was about to step out and head to the house, something came out of the shadows and passed him less than three yards away. Arlo shrank back as the tremendous form drifted by, momentarily blocking his view of the house. Its stench permeated the wet air and Arlo nearly fell to his knees, his face tightening with fear, his breath bottled up. And then it was gone.

Petrified and fearing any movement would call attention to himself, Arlo managed to unlock his legs and run hard for the loving womb of his home. That night Arlo's wife called her sister in Cleveland with news that Arlo had fallen off the wagon.

“On Christmas night, can you believe it?”

Karl Carillo had spent all day trying to make heads or tails of the scene in the mountains. His CSIs were even baffled over what had happened when they couldn't really find fingerprints on the van where prints should be. They also couldn't figure out, even from an exacting field investigation, what had killed the crew members and how. There was blood and evidence everywhere, but they literally had never seen anything like it. The head of their crime lab, Brett Miller, told Carillo they would have to take everything back to the lab and run further tests to tell him anything of value. Carillo finally went home around six to have what little Christmas he could with his family.

When the phone rang at the Carillos', it was Karl's wife, Kelly, who grabbed it. She summoned her husband as their children, filled with Christmas excitement, yelled in the background. Carillo took the phone, put his hand over the mouthpiece, and narrowed his eyes at his wife.

“Would you get those fuckin' kids to shut up?”

Kelly nodded dutifully and moved to stifle her children.

Carillo spoke gruffly into the phone,“Yeah?”

“Hey Karl, it's Bailey.” Chet Bailey was a fellow detective. “Bellevue police just called and said they were holding a guy for questioning.”

“Yeah, who?” Carillo said, not particularly excited to talk shop at that moment.

“Your guy Greenwood.”

Carillo's eyes lit up. “What? Why? What do they have him on? I've had a tail on him all day. He hasn't moved.”

“Well, he did. He was with Schneider, doin' some kinda weird shit in the mountains, not far from where the TV crew died. Mac's in the hospital. Heard he's bad. Can you believe it?”

“I'll be right there,” snapped Carillo. His former partner's being gravely injured didn't really register on his emotion meter, nor did he wonder what his business was with the prime suspect. He'd always liked Mac, but Mac had somehow gone bad. What dominated Carillo's thoughts was his fixation on nailing Ty Greenwood. Though it was the waning hours of Christmas, he quickly put on his dress shoes and sports jacket and ventured into the windy night. If Bellevue PD had Greenwood, Carillo would quickly fill out the paperwork to allow him to transfer Greenwood for questioning. He was licking his chops to get his hands on him. He had a feeling he'd have this thing solved before he crawled into bed later.

An older gentleman in a tuxedo walked down the hall at the Bellevue Police Department to drop off a gift for his friend the chief of police. On his way to a party in Newport Shores,
Snohomish Daily News
publisher John Baxter had stopped off to dole out some Christmas cheer to his pal, whom he knew to be an aficionado of fine Kentucky bourbon. As he passed the windows of the interrogation room, Baxter saw Ty sitting alone. He cornered a passing cop.

“What's that guy in here for?” Baxter asked.

“I think they're trying to find out what he has to do with the killings,” said the cop. “He was with a Snohomish Sheriff's detective today and they got in some trouble in the mountains.” Then the cop added, “I think they're buying time to figure out something to charge him with.”

A few days before, John Baxter had finally found the time to do a background check on Ty Greenwood. From what he had learned about the former computer magnate, Ty Greenwood possessed the funds to meet any bail they threw at him. But that wasn't John Baxter's concern. What bothered him was that he had also discovered a sad tale of a man who reported on a rather bizarre encounter in the woods of Idaho and was pummeled by the media for doing so. Happening upon Ty's Web site, Baxter had been fascinated by the detail of the reportage and the determination he read between the lines, and his newsman's senses told him Ty Greenwood was a very misunderstood man.

Baxter waited until no one was around—most of the skeleton staff was in the break room having an impromptu Christmas party—and he opened the locked door to the interrogation room. Ty looked up, surprised.

“So,” said Baxter,“they think you did it, huh?”

Ty nodded. “I'm afraid the truth was a little too bizarre for their taste.”

Baxter paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. “When I was a young man, about twenty-five or so, I was a hunter. Used to go up in the mountains every weekend—deer, bear, antelope, grouse, chukars, even gophers. Hell, I shot anything that moved. Then one day I crossed a meadow, west o' Marysville—was nothing then like it is now, it was wilderness. Anyway, I saw some movement and I shouldered my Marlin. Had a three-oh-eight and figured I'd bag a nice buck or something. I put my Leupold—a military model, one of their first—anyway, I swung my scope onto this thing, and I'll be damned if it looked like, well, it looked almost human. Honest to God, I didn't know what to make of it. I just…froze. I watched it through the scope for a good minute or so as it grabbed some berries and then left.” Baxter stopped and his eyes seemed to unfocus, as if he were still there. Then he took a deep breath and his eyes returned to Ty. “That day I drove home, hung up my rifles, and never took another shot at a living thing again.” The two men looked at each other for a moment. “I believe you, Ty.” Then the older man gestured toward the open door. “C'mon, a man needs to be with his family on Christmas.”

A moment later, as they quickly walked to the parking lot, Ty turned to Baxter. “Could you just take me to Overlake Hospital? My house is too far for you. I'll catch a cab out there.”

Compound fractures of both legs; both the radius and ulna of the right arm broken; a cracked and dislocated right shoulder; a concussion; a fractured skull; a broken nose; one dislocated and two broken fingers; and a variety of contusions, lacerations, and abrasions was the battle tally on Mac's chart. While one team of doctors and nurses had worked to repair the compound fractures, another group examined Mac and found no internal damage, but they did find evidence he had experienced brain trauma.

After his operation, Mac was upgraded from grave to critical, as his life was no longer in immediate danger, but the chief of neurology, who had been trying to leave for a party when Mac arrived, gave him only a slight chance of emerging anytime soon from his deep coma. As the nurses hooked Mac to the monitors and IV, his absolute lack of responses caused the physician to remark, “Looks like we might have a Karen Ann Quinlan here. Page me if you see any sign of consciousness.”

Later, while Mac lay in that sterile room with the lights dimmed for the night shift, a visitor drifted in. An old man in the bed next to Mac was out like a light and didn't notice the caller.

The guest spoke softly to Mac but didn't stay long.