Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (33 page)

While Patten Mirandized Boileau, Hadley frisked him. No other weapon. She was unsurprised to find a pipe and a section of the
Albany Times-Union
that, unfolded, revealed a dozen glassine envelopes, each containing several grams of what looked to be crystal meth. The envelopes were all stamped with the same design. “Branding,” Patten said, when she showed him. “Even with drug dealers, it’s all about the branding.”

The sidewalk in front of d’Oiron’s was crowded with rubberneckers by the time she and Patten perp-marched Boileau back up to Flynn’s Aztek. Flynn was standing there, still pale, and Hadley knew she looked like she had gotten into a fight with a Zamboni. They exchanged a kind of wordless check with one another—
You okay? Yeah, you?—
before he clamped one large hand over Boileau’s head and guided him into the backseat. The door made a satisfying thunk as it closed. Patten climbed into the seat next to Boileau, and Hadley took shotgun, tossing the evidence in the glove compartment until they had a chance to label it properly. She turned around when Flynn fired up the SUV. “Mr. Boileau,” she began, “it looks like you were carrying over ten grams of methamphetamine. That’s a felony-level offense.”

“You can cut the act,” Boileau said. “Nobody on the street can see inside with the tinting on those windows.” He looked around. “Jesus. They gave you an Aztek? That’s like the Chevy Nova of SUVs. Who’d you manage to piss off?”

“What?”

He nodded toward Patten and leaned forward. “You can take these off now, old man.”

Patten smiled at the perp. “Kevin, you got any problem if I open the door back here and let this guy’s head bounce along the road for a couple yards?”

Boileau stared at him. Then he looked at Hadley. His eyes narrowed. “You guys aren’t from Narcotics, are you?” He laughed. “Jesus, you have no idea, do you?”

Hadley gritted her teeth and tried to sound patient. “No idea about what, Mr. Boileau?”

“It’s Agent Boileau. Special Agent Mike Boileau of the DEA.” He glanced around the vehicle. “You three stooges want to tell me why you’re blundering around in the middle of our investigation?”

7.

Clare was trying to talk her way into the bathroom. “Look,” she said to Travis, “I really have to go. Just cut me free for a minute. You can retape me when I’m through.”

She had gotten him to let her out of the locked shed by pleading the cold. The rest of the house wasn’t exactly warm—around fifty-five and cooling fast—but sitting on a chair in the kitchen was a damn sight better than stretching out on that frigid floor.

Travis turned to her from where he’d been looking out the window. It had been at least half an hour since his partner had left, and he was jangly and jittery. He kept banging a pipe that Clare was sure wasn’t meant for tobacco against his thigh. “How stupid do you think I am?”

Pretty damn stupid.
“Come on. You can’t possibly think I’m a threat to you.” She wiggled her stockinged feet, emphasizing her lack of boots.

“I didn’t say—”

“I’m one pregnant woman. You’re a strong man with a gun. Your boss is holding my husband hostage. Do you think I’d do anything to jeopardize him?” Travis narrowed his eyes like a bull who didn’t understand why someone was annoying him by waving a cape around. “Put him in danger,” she clarified. “Please. Just long enough to go to the bathroom. You can stand guard outside.” She was trying very hard to believe that Russ and Lieutenant Mongue would be able to take care of Hector.
Please, God, please let them be safe.
But it wouldn’t do any good if she and Mikayla were still here, to be used as human shields.

“Hows about I pull down your pants for you. You won’t need your hands then.”

“You want to wipe up after me?” She looked doubtful. “That’s … well, I guess you could. You probably already know about a pregnant woman’s”—she dropped her voice—“discharge.”

Travis recoiled. “Discharge?”

“You know. The mucus and the um, meconium and perinium.” She was whispering now, as if the fictional leakage were simply too disgusting to be spoken about aloud.

Travis looked horrified. “No way. God.” He dropped his pipe on the table and opened a drawer for a pair of scissors. “Turn around.” She did so. He cut the duct tape around each wrist and pulled it away. “Okay. There you go. Into the bathroom.” He gestured toward the door with his gun.

The agony of her newly freed shoulders immobilized her. She breathed slowly and silently, her mouth open, blinking back tears.

“Go on.” Travis sounded impatient.

Clare crossed the kitchen floor. The bathroom was centered between the kitchen and the living room, at the head of a short hallway interrupted by three closed doors. Bedrooms. “How is Mikayla doing?” She managed to keep her voice close to normal.

“You don’t need to worry about her.” Travis gestured with the gun. “Get in there and do, you know, whatever.” Clare did what he said. “Don’t lock it,” he said as she shut the door. Not that the cheap push-tab lock would have stopped him.

Clare examined the space while she did her business. Tub and shower on one side, counter and sink on the other. There was a window high on the wall behind the toilet, but even if she hadn’t been five and a half months pregnant, she couldn’t have fit through it. Finished, she stood up and stretched, rolling and flexing her arms. The pain was abating to fiery prickles in her shoulders and a dull ache in her elbows and wrists.

“Hurry it up,” Travis shouted through the door.

“Sorry.” She turned on the water, but without electricity to fuel the well pump, only a trickle came through the faucet. She pulled out the console drawers as silently as she could, scanning each one for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Nothing but toothpaste and over-the-counter medicines and three-quarters-gone bottles of sunscreen.

She flushed the toilet, letting the sound mask the click-click as she opened the doors beneath the sink. Scouring powder and tub-and-tile cleaner and extra-strength mildew spray. A package of toilet paper. Maybe she could bean Travis with a roll of TP, then polish and shine him. Behind the cleaning supplies was a scrub brush and, lying on its side—she felt a surge of hope. An old-fashioned, wood-handled plumber’s helper. She eased it around the sink pipe and pulled it free. Two feet of solid hardwood and a thick rubber plunger that must have weighed five pounds. Produced in the forties or fifties, she guessed, designed to last a lifetime. She hefted it in her hand.
Yes.
She could use this.

She picked up the mildew spray.
Warning: Contains bleach. Keep away from nose and eyes.
Okay. She took a breath. “Travis? Do you have any talcum powder?”

“Talcum powder?”

“The duct tape irritates my skin. I wanted to sprinkle some on before you tape me up again. But I can’t find any.”

“Oh, for chrissake—”

Clare didn’t find out if he stormed into the bathroom to help her or to haul her out. He was still swinging the door open when she squirted the mildew cleaner in his eyes, once, twice, three times, until the liquid was dripping off his chin and he was screaming and flailing, trying to find her blind. She swung the plunger in a full backward arc and smashed the wooden shaft against his forearm. He screamed again. The gun flew out of his nerveless hand. She dropped the spray bottle and grabbed the plumber’s helper with both hands, ramming it into his stomach, putting her whole weight behind it.

Travis folded over, retching. She bashed the door into him and he staggered. She did it again, and again, until he slipped and fell to the floor, and she fell heavily onto his back and bared her teeth and grabbed his long hair and smashed his head into the floor, smashed it and smashed it until her body registered his limp stillness and her mind caught up and she let go, trembling, her blood roaring in her ears.

She tipped back and staggered to her feet. She was shaking so violently it took her two tries to step past his prone body into the kitchen. Her breath was coming in short, hard pants, and it took a minute for her to realize she was crying. She wiped at her face and bent over, letting her head hang down. She stayed that way for a long moment, trying to gain her bearings, trying to find a thought, a plan, to anchor herself to.

The attached shed. It had a real lock on the door. She returned to the bathroom, bent, and grabbed Travis by the ankles. She dragged him across the floor and into the shed. She crouched over him, taking in his bloody nose and mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Pray God she hadn’t given him a concussion.

There was enough water in the kitchen faucet to wet some paper towels. She cleaned the blood from Travis’s face, then retrieved a pair of sofa pillows and several woolly throws from the living room. She laid him against the pillows, elevating his head and hopefully maintaining a clear airway. She tucked the throws over and around the unconscious man. That should keep him warm enough. She retreated to the doorway. There wasn’t anything more she could do.

You could stay around and make sure you haven’t given him a life-threatening injury.

She pushed the thought away and locked the door. Her first duty was to Russ. Her baby. Mikayla Johnson.

Testing Jesus, the lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

She pressed her hands against her face. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “please forgive me for hurting this man. There was no mercy or justice in what I did. But if I don’t help Mikayla, she’s going to die. Please keep me strong. Amen.”

The voice in her head fell silent. Her adrenaline rush had ebbed, leaving her tired and discouraged. She found her boots by the door and slipped them on. Shrugged on her parka. Then she went to find Mikayla.

The first bedroom was empty. The second had two sets of bunk beds, a wall of shelves filled with battered old books and thrice-hand-me-down toys, and two large windows overlooking the lake. Clare could see the exact spot where she and Oscar had stopped the night before.

Mikayla was huddled in one of the bottom bunks, hidden in a puffy down comforter, her eyes closed, her face flushed. “Mikayla?” Clare laid a hand on the girl’s forehead. She was throwing off heat like a woodstove. “Mikayla? It’s me, Clare. From last night. Do you remember?”

The girl nodded. Her lips were puffy, almost cracked. Clare picked up the bottle of water on the floor next to the bunk and slid her arm around Mikayla’s shoulders, lifting her into a seated position. “Drink some water, honey. That’s a good girl. That’s better.”

Mikayla finished off the bottle and sank back onto her pillow. “I’m going to get you some medicine to bring down your fever, okay, sweetheart? Then after you’ve taken that, we’re going to get you to a doctor. I’ll be right back.” Mikayla never opened her eyes.

8.

It was getting very warm in the cabin.

“How long do you think it’ll take before the fire breaks through that timber?” Bob Mongue was facing away from the burning wall, keeping guard on the lakeside front.

“Damned if I know.” Russ pawed through the pile of stuff on the floor. He tossed the chemical heaters, his fishing knife, and the insulated blankets into his empty duffel. A couple of heavy sweaters and some socks went in next. “The cabin’s made of whole logs, and they’re treated with something to make ’em bug resistant.”

“Does that make them fire resistant as well?”

“I have no idea.” Russ grabbed the bottle of acetaminophen—now seriously depleted—and threw it into the duffel. “I’m more worried about the roof.” He looked up at the ceiling. Smoke was hanging in a thickening pall, shrouding the loft where Clare had wanted the baby’s room. His gut churned.

“Your roof’s covered in four inches of ice. It’ll be the last to go.”

“We’re not going to stay long enough to find out.” Russ set the duffel next to Mongue’s chair. He crossed to the bedroom, dropping to the floor and belly-crawling around the bed until he had a clear view of the tiny patio and the narrow stretch of cleared land and the woods. He lay there for several minutes, scanning the area in slow degrees, south to north.

“Anything?” Mongue called.

“No.” The cabin had been carefully planned so that its windows and French doors opened onto pleasing views of the lake and the thick woods, and right now Russ would have paid double the asking price for one lousy look at the road.

“What’s the plan? Besides ‘walk outside, get shot,’ I mean.”

Russ backed away from the bedroom and got to his feet. “He’s one guy. He can only cover one side.”

“Unless he gets down to the lake. He’ll have a clear view of everything from there. Drill us right through the porch windows if he has a decent rifle.”

“Yeah. I’m betting he isn’t going to want to get too much distance between him and his vehicle. He doesn’t know how many people are in here or how well we’re armed. He’s got to consider that somebody could stay inside laying down cover fire while one of us hikes up the hill and gets control of the SUV.”

Mongue gave him a smile thinned by pain. “I like that idea. Why don’t we do that?”

“If he starts shooting at us from lakeside, we will.” Russ backtracked to the kitchen. Waves of heat were rolling off the rear wall, and the cabinet, when he bent to open it, was almost too hot to touch. He grabbed the box of thirty-gallon trash bags and brandished it to Mongue.

“Triple ply,” the trooper said. “Probably also not fire resistant.”

Russ settled the duffel across his back. “This is your way out of here.” He ducked down next to Mongue. The other man slung his arm around Russ’s neck and they stood together. Mongue held his Glock out. “Keep it,” Russ said. “You’re covering us.” They limp-walked together to the screened-in porch. Russ took a deep breath. “Okay. I open the door. The trash bag goes down. You go on the trash bag. I drag you as fast as I can down to the lake’s edge. We’ll be screened by the embankment there.”

“You’re completely insane, you know that? The odds of him hitting at least one of us are ten to one. In his favor.”

“You have a better idea?”

There was a whistling sound, like steam in a kettle, and a second later the fire finally broke through the far wall, licking and leaping along the rounded logs. One of the cupboards burst into flames. “Shit,” Mongue said. “Okay, Van Alstyne. Your plan is looking better. Let’s do it.”