The Walking (7 page)

: That came out of nowhere.

She looked at him expectantly, and Miles maintained the strained smile on his face.

A God-fearing woman.

Why would a woman who defined herself as Cbxistian fear God? Shouldn't she love God? He never had been able to understand the bizarre system of interlocking, overlapping rewards, promises, and prohibitions that born-again Christians used to guide their lives.

He considered replacing Audra, asking for someone else. That was why she'd warned him, and it was a considerate thing to do. Especially in this situation. A born-againer, he knew, would really annoy the hell out of his dad. Of course, he and his dad would annoy the hell out of anyone even remotely religious, and Miles thought that maybe his father

would like that. It might boost his spirits to be involved in a little bloodless battle now and then.

He smiled at the nurse. "Audra?" he said. "I'm glad you'll be here.

The next day was the second Sunday of the month. Miles had learned from Marina Lewis that although her father wasn't going to be there this weekend, he ordinarily sold Amberolas at the Rose Bowl's monthly flea market. He'd worked for forty years as a lathe operator in a machine shop, but after retirement, looking for something to do with his time and in need of a few extra bucks, he'd started buying and restoring antique phonographs. Marina said that most of his friends these days were fellow antique sellers.

She had no specific names to give him, and once again her father was being peculiarly uncooperative, so Miles' barebones plan was to go to the swap meet and ask around until he found someone who knew Liam Connor.

He stopped by the hospital first to see his dad, stayed until he'd had a chance to talk to Dr. Yee, and then headed up the side streets toward Pasadena, avoiding the freeways : that were being earthquake retrofitted.

Wind overnight had blown away most of the smog, and the sky above the Rose Bowl was actually blue. Miles paid an outrageous six dollars to park in a vacant lot next to the Bowl, and when he got out of the climate-controlled car, he found that the outside air was cool and reasonably seasonal.

He walked through the gates toward the gigantic jumble . | of vendors, customers, and browsers that ringed the stadium. He felt like a real detective today, as though he was actually doing some investigating, and that, combined with the clean cool air, gave him a rare feeling of well-being.

He pushed through a wall of morns with strollers and

stopped in front of the first table. "Excuse me," he asked the hunched old man standing behind a display of glass milk ........ bottles. "Do you know Liam Connor?"

The old man looked at him, through him, then tttmed away, not answering.

Miles resisted the temptation to knock one of the milk bottles to the ground and instead looked around the collection of dealers to see if there were any sellers of antique phonographs in this area. He figured vendors were probably grouped by category. Unfortunately, this section seemed to be mostly knickknacks, bottles and china, and he made his way through the crowd, glancing around as he headed down the east side of the Rose Bowl.

The placement of sellers followed no logical order, he discovered almost instantly. It was pure luck that the vendors near the entrance had exhibited similar wares, because as he moved deeper into the flea market, he saw furniture next to jewelry, vintage clothing next to farm implements. And the place was massive. It would probably take all day to fred someone who knew Marina's father.

Still, he thought his idea of finding another seller of phonographs was a good one, and he walked up and down the aisles, looking for Victrolas or Amberolas or other types of old record players.

He passed a lot of tables covered with antique toys--apparently a hot trend among current collectors--and several of the so-called and ques were things he'd had as a child. He saw his old James Bond lunch pail selling for fifty dollars, his Hot Wheel Supercharger for thirty-five.

He wandered past boxes of Life magazines, stacks of old Beatle albums.

Next to an Aurora Wolfman model he saw a Fred Flintstone Pez dispenser.

One of the small candies was pushed halfway out, and Fred's head was tilted slightly back, making it look as though his throat had been slit.

Miles looked away. Montgomery Jones' death the other

day had affected him more than he'd thought. Now he was even ascribing malevolent meaning to Pcz dispensers.

Which reminded him that he should call Graham. He hadn't talked to the lawyer since leaving the crime scene, but the murder had somehow been kept out of the papers and off the TV news, and Miles wanted to know if that was Graham's doing or if Thompson had pulled some strings. He also wanted to know if the lawyer wanted him to pursue his investigation of the company or if everything was now in the hands of the police.

Miles kept walking. Ahead was a blanket spread on the ground atop which were old Victrola speaker horns. A heavily bearded, grossly overweight man with a long, greasy ponytail sat in a metal folding chair behind the blanket, polishing what looked like a miniature speaker horn.

"Excuse me," Miles said. The man looked up. "Do you know Liam Connor?"

"Liam? Sure. You want his card?"

"No, I want to ask you a few questions about him."

The man's expression shut down. What had been willing helpfulness became blank neutrality. "Sorry. Can't help you."

"I'm not a cop," Miles quickly explained. "I'm a private investigator.

I've been hired by Mr. Connor's daughter to investigate a possible stalker. Mr. Connor has apparently been followed and harassed recently, and his daughter is worded. I was wondering if he'd talked to you about any of this or if he'd mentioned any enemies that he might have."

"Liam?" The man let out a loud, gruffly obnoxious laugh that caused most of the browsers nearby to look in his direction. "Liam doesn't have an enemy in this world!"

Miles smiled thinly. "Apparently he does."

The laughter died. "Seriously? Someone's stalking him?" "We think so."

"Why? To... kill him?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. If you could just tell me whether he's talked to you about--"

"Wait a minute. Why are you asking me what he talked about? Why don't you ask him?" The man looked at Miles suspiciously. "You're investigating him, aren't you?" "No, I assure you, his daughter hired me--"

"His daughter's probably after his money or something." The man shook his head. "Nope. If Liam ain't talking, I ain't talking." He picked up the rag he'd placed on his lap and started polishing the small horn he'd been working on.

Miles knew better than to press the man, and he peeled off a card, dropped it on the blanket. 'ais is legit. Call Mr. Connor and ask him if you want. And if you think of some thing, give me a call."

The man just looked at him. He didn't reach down to pick up Miles' card, but he didn't tear it up either. Miles hoped that the man would keep it and change his mind.

Several other vendors knew Liam, and two of them were more than willing to talk, but neither of them seemed to have heard anything or noticed any unusual behavior on his part recently.

It was nearly three o'clock when Miles made his way dejectedly back out to the car. He knew no more now than he had when he'd first arrived.

The whole day had been a waste, and he wanted to just go home and take a nap. But instead he stopped by the hospital, and he held his father's hand and listened to his unintelligible whispers and lied to the old man that everything was going to be all right.

Derek Baur woke up knowing that he would die today.

He'd dreamed the night before about Wolf Canyon, and in the dream the people in the water had been his family: his parents, his sister, his brothers. He hadn't thought of Wolf

Canyon for year; decades, and that should have tipped him off that there was something amiss, but the premonition was not so logical, was not tied to a story line or a series of images or a specific dream scape. It was not something he had been told, not sOmething he had concluded or deducted. He just knew. And he was ready.

He'd turned eighty-six last March, and his wife, his friends, even his son, had all died years before. He was the last, and he had long since given up all pretense of interest in this life. There was no longer anything he enjoyed, nothing he looked forward to. Death was the only thing left.

How would it comes Derek wondered. Gently, in his sleep? Violently?

Or somewhere in the middle, like a heart attack or stroke?

He had given a lot of thought to the subject, and he had concluded that there was no pleasant way to die. In his midfifties he had almost choked to death on a piece of steak in a restaurant, before Emily had pounded him on the back and dislodged the obstruction in his throat.

Though the entire incident had lasted only a few seconds, to him it had felt interminable. Time was subjective, and he had realized ever since that while a death might be considered "quick" if measured objectively by the clock, to the victim it might seem to take forever.

So while he was ready to die, he did not relish the process. He rolled over, pulled open the drape. Outside, the Michigan landscape was covered with snow. In the rest home's parking lot, the cars looked like a row of igloos more than motor vehicles.

He was still staring out the window when Jimmy, the new attendant, brought in his breakfast. And he had not moved by the time the attendant returned to collect the tray and untouched dishes a half hour later.

"Not hungry, Mr. Baur? I'm gonna have to report you, yOU know."

Derek did not even bother to respond.

Why eat when he was going to die?

He would be glad to put an end to this existence. He was not mistreated here, but he hated the rest home, hated the indignity of it and the cold feeling of having paid caretakers rather than family sun'ounding him.

At least he could still get around---even if it was with the aid of a walker. Plenty of other residents in the home, many younger than himself, could not even get out of bed and were stuck full-time in their rooms.

He would have taken his life long ago if that had beth his situation.

Of course, most of those people didn't have any way to take their own lives.

He spent the morning staring out at the snow. Sometime before noon one of the doctors came in to speak with him-apparently Jimmy had made good on the threat to report him and since Derek was not in the mood for a lecture or lengthy discussion, he agreed with everything the doctor said and promised to eat his lunch. Jimmy returned soon after with a food tray, looking smug, and Derek ignored him. He ate his lunch and was once again silent as the attendant took the tray, leaving him alone. After a short, painful trip to the bathroom, Derek relocated himself to the room's chaff and spent the afternoon looking through magazines. Waiting.

He wondered how it was going to come.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would die today. He was not a religious man, but he knew there were things in this world that he did not understand Wolf Canyon

--that he would never understand, and he trusted the knowledge that had been supplied to him. He waited for death to arrive.

But sleep arrived before death and as the magazine slipped from his fingers, as he felt himself beginning to drop off, he wondered if he was going to wake up again or if this was it.

He did wake up. He awoke from another Wolf Canyon dream, one in which he was trapped in a house as the waters rose, his feet stuck to the floor as if they had been set in cement, resisting his efforts to pull them free and escape. He jerked awake just as he was starting to swallow water and drown.

He opened his eyes to see Joe, the night attendant, standing in front of him with a dinner tray. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Baur, but it's suppertime. You want to eat here at your chair today?"

Derek nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was surprised to be alive, and for the first time he questioned whether his premonition was correct. Maybe he wasn't going to die yet. Maybe his mind was just going.

He picked at his food, then pushed the tray aside and, after another trip to the bathroom, settled back into his bed, staring out at the snowy landscape until he fell asleep.

The room was black when he awoke--pitch-black much darker than he had ever seen it--and he wondered for a moment if he had gone blind. The darkness was uniform, with no light anywhere, and only by reaching over to the nightstand, feeling for his watch, and pressing the button on the timepiece to illuminate the numbers, did he know he still possessed his sight.

He felt for the curtain, pulled it aside. He understood that the lights in the home were all off. But where were the lights outside?

The streetlamps were out and the house across the road was dark. There was no noon. It was as if every possible source of illumination--save for his watch--had been extinguished.

Maybe there'd been a blackout.

A blackout. It made sense, but but it didn't feel right

He didn't understand why, but in the same way that he knew he was destined to die today, he knew that this darkness had been brought about for his benefit.

In fact, the two were related.

Yes, they were. How he didn't know, but he did know that the lights were off because of him, for him, and that his death would take place in the darkness.

For the first time he felt fear. He was afraid to die, he realized. He did not want to die. Not this way.

He pressed the buzzer next to his bed to call an attendant. He waited for what seemed like forever, pressing the buzzer several more times in the interim, but no attendant came. He did not even hear the sound of anyone in the hallway. The entire rest home was silent, and the lack of noise seemed ominous to him. Maybe death had come for them all tonight. Maybe everyone else in the building had been killed, and he was the last one left. Maybe the murderer was playing with him, toying with him, before coming in to slit his throat.

Derek sat up painfully. His muscles always seemed to be at their lowest ebb in the middle of the night. As usual, he'd laid his walker against the side of the bed, and he reached for it, bending awkwardly, trying to grab hold of the cold metal top bar. It took him several moments to find it, and by the time he did he was sweating--not just from exertion but from fear. Something was definitely wrong here, something was fundamentally off. There was no sound in the room, in the building, save his own labored breathing, and there was still no light either inside or outside the rest home.