The Black Silent

CHAPTER 31

She put the papers back into Sam's bag. It was cloth, not designed for papers, and it tended to bend and mix the already damp documents. Thinking about the problem, she went into a study, found a big briefcase, stuffed them all inside, and crammed the lid down. It was a wooden briefcase. A little unusual, but it would work.

"I wonder about driving to Ben's," Sam said. "By now they may have heard about the Blazer and there are liable to be cops on the roads, roadblocks." He paused to let that sink in. "How else can we get to Ben's?"

She thought for a moment. "If we want to try hiking the forest at night, we can walk. It's about a mile through the forest along Aleck Bay. There's forest everywhere on the way, with houses intermixed, especially along the beach." Then she paused again, an idea having obviously crossed her mind. "I think there's a boat here we could use."

"We could hide the Blazer down the way from here and walk back," Sam said.

They walked through the living room, passed the table where they had eaten a little ham, to the side of the house. Sam watched her smile when she led him right to the boat.

"They have a beautiful dory. We can put it in, row out of the bay, down the coast a bit, and around the point, down the beach, and we're there."

Sam had had enough time in the ocean for one night, but he agreed that the sea approach would be best. It was turning into an unusually calm night, if the present lack of wind was any indication. Earlier, the wind had been building from the southwest but now was calm out of the northwest, unusual for this time of year, so the sea in this area at the southern end of the islands might have calmed outside the bay. If it hadn't, this dory idea would not work.

The Williamses had a well-constructed steel track to get the dory to the beach. Once at the beach they would have to take the boat from its cradle and carry it.

They carefully turned off every light, leaving the place just as they had found it. They needed to get the Blazer well down the road and completely hidden. Haley drove.

They put a blanket between Sam and the wet seat. Haley imagined Sam's hand touching her, rubbing her back in reassurance. She groped for an excuse to touch him over the center console, but wouldn't allow herself.

He turned and looked at her. For a second she switched on the interior light, then turned it off. His eyes were amber and earnest, keeping with the rock-solid nature of him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine." She started the truck.

Frick had ruined or threatened all she knew. Maybe she saw Sam as the human embodiment of desperately needed proof that she really was okay, even desirable. She wanted to believe there was more than that behind her feelings, but life at the moment was such a tumbled turmoil that she couldn't think clear thoughts, much less feel unadulterated emotions.

She still felt the great sense of caution, but now she wanted to overcome it. Precisely because he seemed unreachable, because he had gone away, because of the summer of

'94, because he had married Anna Wade, and even more important because her whole life had seemed designed to prove that she was a born loser-Haley had been angry.

Now, at least, she could look at all that, even if she wasn't over it. Maybe this thing with Sam was something so boring as having to prove herself, and in this condition, how could she discern love from desperation? It was a question that she had begun asking herself.

Abruptly she realized that she was perhaps, on top of everything else, struggling with falling in love. People who thought this way got soft in the head and interpreted every little gesture as proving some great attribute in the beloved. But history was intervening.

Her emotions were twisting in the wind.

Oh, my God, this is confusing.

Then her mind returned to the problem at hand. "These people are gone for the entire winter, normally," she said. "Can't quite think of their names." She pulled into a driveway, drove back past a shed, past the house, and on a narrow grass strip drove behind a woodshed. They seemed to be well hidden under a tree.

They were quiet for just a moment, and Sam was acutely aware of her hand, of her body. He thought about taking her hand, but didn't. They had to go. Without speaking, they each hurriedly exited the Blazer. Walking in the dark and talking were not mutually conducive. They forced themselves to jog back to the house along the road. Fortunately, they saw no cars and did not have to jump in the bushes.

The calm in the weather seemed to be holding. Sam was grateful but still worried about the wind resuming a strong southerly or blowing in a westerly direction in the midst of their short voyage. He was acutely aware that they might have to escape Ben's with papers and the wind could resume during their return and oppose them or create a serious beam sea. On their return they might be required to land on a different part of the shoreline. In places it was steep and hard to make the shore.

When they arrived back at the house, they went inside for a moment to reexamine a chart on the wall and raid the kitchen one more time. The unspoken truth was that they could end up back in the water, and if that happened, they would need great energy.

They found a can of tuna and some frozen whole wheat bread.

"We gotta leave, but we have to eat," Sam said.

"I don't want to go back in that ocean," she said, reading his mind.

They waited for the microwave to thaw and ruin the bread, while struggling with impatience. Haley seemed energized, alert, and attentive, especially in her face, and that was strange for such a late hour and such dire circumstances. He imagined her in one of her hats, smiling on the dock, and then he studied her in the softer light and decided she was beautiful everywhere, all the time.

They yanked the bread from the microwave and found some mayonnaise.

Sam didn't usually like watching people eat, but not Haley. Next he knew he would be telling himself that she was unique among women and that there would never be another like her. Finally he would think her worthy of poetry and special gifts. Of course, he knew that this was the beginning of a strange chemical change in his brain that mankind had dubbed love. It could be fed or starved; he could come close or walk away. He had made promises to himself about these sorts of feelings.

There was a look in her eye, even in the soft light.

"We're in the middle of more than a bad tuna sandwich," he said. "It's crazy to even think about what we're thinking about. It needs a long talk and we don't have time for one."

"Yes. No one knows that better than I." Then she seemed to agree, or at least relent.

They could talk about it later.

"How can we help Sarah?" she said. "I feel so helpless. We're just running around, not really doing anything to help her. It's frustrating."

"Find Ben and his secrets. It's the only reason they have to keep Sarah. Maybe we can feign a bargain. Aside from that, after Ben's we'll try calling her friends and see if she's shown up. We'll call Rachael and tell her to tell the state. But the odds of them letting her go before somebody finds Ben, or brings in the state, are very bad." Sam didn't tell Haley his belief that they would kill Sarah once she was no good to them.

"Why is Ben working on all these topics at once?" she asked. "That's the key question for me. I mean, he seems to give them all equal space and emphasis. This is not all about youth retention."

"You're absolutely right," Sam said, "and there's a reason why we can't put it together.

We don't understand his motive."

"Let's get rowing," she said.

Frick drove to Sheriff's Boat 1 in Friday Harbor with Rafe Black. It was dark and swathed in winter quiet, the streets relatively deserted. A few residents scurried into the waterfront pub. There was no one in the marina parking lot, no one coming or going from the public showers at the head of the dock. They were headed to Fisherman's Bay at Lopez Island, and from there they would drive to Ben Anderson's beach house. After walking in silence down the wide main dock to the boat, they climbed in as the deputies cast off.

The big diesels purred, a marvel of mechanical achievement taken for granted like gravity.

They had Sarah James at Ben Anderson's Lopez place. Things were getting organized and starting to work at last.

Frick had a large leather bag in his lap containing his drugs and instruments: tools of his trade. Rafe Black drove.

"We were lucky to catch her so fast," Rafe said.

Frick didn't reply. He was debating how exactly he should squeeze her. He planned to use drugs, which he did not like because she would go off into a sort of stupor. Thinking about having her under his control was like the excitement that a hunter feels when he's very near his quarry, combined with another kind of feeling like a boy on his first date.

"I'd like to be there when you question her," Rafe said.

"Like the last time, when you lost Haley Walther? You and the others will remain outside the house while I question her. I'm in a hurry and I don't have time for games. So shut the hell up about turning this into entertainment. We've got to find Ben Anderson and get out of here before we end up on death row. You got that?"

Rafe sat surly and silent.

Speed in getting the information was everything. Frick ordered them to sail at maximum speed. He was in a hurry to get started on Sarah James.

Sam picked up the boat, which was stout and heavy, and he turned it upside down to put it on his back. When he looked like he would founder because of the bad leg, she got under and helped lift. Haley was strong for a slight woman.

It required great strength to move it to the water and it meant getting cold again. His limp was terrible and so was the pain, but with her help he managed to get it launched.

Sam rowed with a steady rhythm, and the pull on his arms and the flex of his muscle was familiar and good. His bad legs only interfered slightly with the movements, and even in his terrible weariness he found the exercise oddly comforting.

As they rowed past the silent yacht he'd spotted before, he listened for the sound of the generator and heard none, which was a clear indication on a yacht this size that there was no one aboard.

He had set into a regular rhythm and knew that his mind could separate from the physical task at hand. He looked at Haley, wondering about her thoughts.

"Nervous stomach, before the battle?" he asked, remembering his own encounters with what amounted to war.

"Uh-huh," she said. There was an understanding between them. They had shared battle.

"A sip of Dewar's about now would really hit the spot," Sam said.

"You don't need Dewar's," she snapped.

The emotional intensity came out of nowhere. He thought about it in the ensuing silence.

"I'm sorry I went off like a cannon," she said.

"Nobody much needs a Dewar's," Sam said.

"Now you're trying to be polite."

"People fly off the handle. Usually a reason."

"My mother drank Dewar's."

"I see."

"Maybe this is just an excuse to talk about it. I don't know."

"I'm officially asking-if that helps."

"Just before she gave me to Ben and Helen, her sister was coming over. Really, it was an inspection. Mother was completely drunk after two o'clock every day at that stage.

Gertrude, her sister, wanted to take me. She had boys. No girls. So I try to keep Mom sober, so Gertrude won't go to court. It was a struggle. I clean. I straighten the house out.

I do all the old dirty dishes, throw out all the old garbage, haul a ton of bottles out back.

I work very hard to make it look normal."

"I think I got the picture. You always were type A."

"She's coming at six. At five forty-five Mom gets the shakes really bad and throws up all over the living-room floor and all over herself. I stick her in the shower and go after the floor.

"At about five fifty-five my mother screams at me. I go in the bathroom. She wants her Dewar's. I went and got it, brought it in the bathroom, and at age nine I defy her and pour it down the toilet. She freaks and stumbles out of the shower. She runs through the house naked and gets another bottle, which she has hid, and starts chugging. About then, Gertrude shows up and she's got my cousin with her. He has a really big mouth. Next day it was all over school. My mother was standing naked in the living room, in the middle of a bunch of vomit, drinking. Everybody looked at me."

Even with the moon, the oars disappeared into water that looked like black silk. On Iceberg Point, the flashing red beacon offended the soft hues of the night while giving Sam a clear bearing by which to row. The water boiled around the boat and the silence made even the oar drips a noticeable part of the water symphony. On the hard pulls the bow dipped slightly, making its own regular swish.

"How did your mother get you to Ben?" Sam asked after a moment of peaceful silence.

"The next day I told my mother what happened. Told her the rumors that Aunt Gertrude was going to get a court order. She took me over to Ben and Helen's. She begged them.

Helen had already taken care of me, and I think even then she loved me. Ben's love came later, but when it came, it was a torrent. My mother managed to stay sober just long enough for the court proceeding. I said I wanted to be with Ben and Helen and the judge agreed."

Sam let a minute pass.

"So I guess we could say that despite the alcoholism, at the moment you needed it most, your mother overcame the disease and was your champion to give you a good life."

"Funny I never looked at it that way."

"Might try it out for size."

They drove toward the south end of Lopez Island in borrowed automobiles that were being used to supplement the five squad cars in normal use. Frick and Rafe rode in a Yukon lent to the police by a resident anxious to help with the manhunt for the cop killer. Behind them in a borrowed Ford Taurus, which was actually a retired sheriff's vehicle loaned by one of the Lopez officers for this particular occasion, rode four of the Las Vegas men. These were the roughest of the rough.

Frick again looked through his leather satchel containing his tools and his drugs. He was figuring which drugs and how to administer them, hoping that just with the beginnings of physical torture, she would spill her guts and give him what he needed.

Then perhaps he could trade her for Ben or his secrets or just go get what he needed.

Time was wasting.

His cell phone rang. Irritated and in a hurry, he answered it. It was Nash. The surprise of the call immediately got his attention. This was not like Nash.

"We need to talk."

"Well, I am terribly occupied at the moment trying to solve your problem."

"I need you to go to a public phone and call me now."

"This is interfering with my job."

"I've got to insist unless you are at this moment rescuing Ben Anderson."

"All right." He hung up, seething. "Divert back to the nearest public telephone." He still might need Sanker's money.

Sam and Haley rowed past Aleck Bay and a small island that was a faint shadow in the night, headed just outside the flashing beacon. Without incident they came around Iceberg Point, the sea calm but for gentle rolling waves a foot or so high. At the point they saw only occasional lights from the residences nestled in the shoreline trees. They were in the homestretch to Ben's.

Frick stood at Fisherman's Bay, at a pay phone. Frustrated. Angry. He was just about to make progress and they insisted on a stupid-ass phone call. He couldn't imagine what could be so important.

"What do you want?" he snapped at Nash. "What is so damn important? Just when I was getting someplace."

"We have a hunch that Sarah James might know something."

"That would be no surprise. She's missing. If I find her, I'll let you know what she says."

"You don't know where she is then?"

"I have a good lead. What about it?" Frick countered.

"You'll tell us if you find her? Tell us what she says?"

"Well, of course. I'm working for you, aren't I? When I'm not chasing murderers. Is that all you wanted?"

"Yes. We want to be informed," Nash replied.

"Why in the hell are you all of a sudden so interested in Sarah James? I thought we were trying to find Ben Anderson."

"She's his assistant. She might know how to find him."

This was a complete waste of Frick's time. "I don't know where she is. All right?"

"Just checking. We want her safe."

"Don't ever call me again about nothing. Ever."

He slammed the phone down. But it was unnerving. They knew something. He wondered who told them and why. Something was amiss. He jumped in the car and drove at top speed. The whole call was strange, as if choreographed. He told himself that they wouldn't be stupid enough to work with the government. And he told himself that he would find out all about what Sarah James knew and didn't know.

He ordered them to drive fast.

Frick knew some would say that he was a psychopath. That was patently untrue. He had feelings of guilt and he overcame them through an act of the will. Pyschopaths were immune to the irritations of the conscience. Sometimes he'd get a case of nerves after a killing, but with Ativan pills it dissipated. Usually it didn't return even after the medication wore off.

Khan had remained at Friday Harbor in the conference room to manage things, but Frick thought the guy had a weak stomach. Rafe was up the road at Anderson's, no doubt frying in his own lust. Having any witnesses to the interrogation was out of the question.

Frick would have to kill Sarah James, of course. South America was looking better and better.

After arriving at MacKaye Harbor Frick took a private drive to the Anderson family retreat. It was a large, old New England-style two-story home with blue-gray siding whose charm lay in the studied look of old and weathered. In fact, the seams and finish quality were nearly new. Once in the house he donned a black mask and a voice modulator. He knew that Rafe was trying hard not to give him a strange look. As instructed, Rafe went in the kitchen and sent the other men away. After they had gone, Frick walked straight in and found Sarah James sitting, handcuffed with her hands locked behind a straight-back chair. She looked grim but defiant, and her eyes shone with righteous anger.

Sarah James was gagged, but it scarcely muffled her scream.

It was as if she had peered into the bowels of hell. And indeed she perhaps saw hell in his eyes. Frick knew it was there to find. He would begin by tying her tighter than she had imagined possible. Then he would start with the drugs. And the rest.

They rowed hard down the rocky coast, and it was a sad surprise, though not unexpected, when Sam saw Ben's beach house lit up in the distance. They rowed silently past the house, which was located in the bite of a tiny cove. There were no other houses on this stretch of beach. When they spotted a good landing place, some one hundred yards past Ben's property, they hit the beach with only a whisper of an oar stroke and bumped aground in the fine gravel.

Above the high-tide line the foliage grew densely, as high as a man, between the house and its environs. After pulling the boat in the bushes, they crept slowly down the beach, listening and watching, much like nervous deer.

There was a covered porch, with white posts against the blue gray of the wooden siding.

At night only the white of the posts was discernible. Windows were lit like one of those intensive paintings. It was a neatly kept, older two-story structure with three dormers on the second story. Looking through a back window beyond the covered porch, one could see into the kitchen. Sam could see someone in a chair in the middle of the room. A redhead. Sarah. They crept a little closer.

It was obvious that Sarah was somehow tied to the chair. No doubt there would be guards around.

"That's Sarah, isn't it?" Haley asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes, it is," Sam said. "Somehow we've got to get her out of there. If I crash through a window and someone is in there with a gun, they are liable to get me before I get Sarah.

And even if I get them, there will be more. Sarah's trapped in a chair. Getting her without one of us getting shot will probably be very tough."

"What are you gonna do?"

Sam considered the options.

"Oh, my God, Sam. Look."

A man with a weird-looking hood over his face was putting a blindfold on Sarah.

"Damn," Sam muttered. "Makes it that much harder."

The hooded man approached her with what looked like a line.

"What's he doing?" Haley asked.

"He's probably binding her. In itself, it inflicts pain."

"We've got to stop him. Look, he's starting with the line."

"I have an idea," Sam said.

"Do something," Haley begged.

Sam input the code to conceal the caller ID on any phone receiving a call from his cell.

He didn't know if it would work with the sheriff or not.

"I need the name of the people where we left the Blazer," he said to Haley.

"I can't remember. Let me think. Let me think. Nisky, I think. I think it's Nisky."

Sam dialed the sheriff's dispatcher on San Juan.

"You looking for Ben Anderson?" Sam asked the dispatcher.

"We sure are."

"I just saw him on Lopez. I've known him for twenty years and there is no question.

Tall. White hair, dressed like a farmer. Southern end of the island on Mud Bay Road.

End of the road. Nisky is the name. He's at the Nisky house right now. Came in a red Blazer. Parked it out in back by the woodshed. Good luck." Sam hung up. If they could see his number despite his turning off the caller ID, they would know it was him and it would have only limited effect. Unless, perhaps, they were so excited, they got careless.

Still, they might know about the Blazer by now and that should intrigue them.

They watched through the window.

"Can't we do something?" Haley moaned. She was beside herself and he knew he would need to act soon or he wouldn't contain her. Frick kept wrapping the line.

"I can't stand this," Haley said. After a couple more wraps of the line, the man in Ben's kitchen went for his cell phone. "Stay here," Sam ordered in his biggest command voice.

"Get down." She did as he said. Thank God.

Sam focused like a stalking cat, staying low, watching the man that stood over Sarah.

The man was moving, looking impatient, and agitated. He dropped the end of the line.

Then he left the room.

Then Sam noticed that Haley was down, but staying right behind him.

"I need to go in alone."

"No."

"You don't want to go in there," he said. "We're going back out and put you on the beach." He turned on her.

"Okay, we're wasting time. I'll go back," she said.

Frick stood in front of Ben Anderson's beach house, speaking on his cell phone in the deep shadows thrown by the moon.

"I can't believe someone just called in to tell us where Ben Anderson is."

"It's detailed," Khan said. "They told us exactly where and they told us he came in that Blazer from the resort. We know Chase and Haley Walther took that vehicle. There's really nobody good over there yet. You better take your guys and go."

"James is going to spill her guts. I was just about to inject her and the mere thought of the chemicals was disintegrating her will. I had the instruments laid out and she was going to become hysterical just looking at them. I can't stop now."

"You do what you want. I understood that what we're doin here is finding Ben Anderson. What does it matter if you can break his assistant."

"Damn it. The timing sucks," Frick said.

"This Nisky place isn't far at all. Down near those three bays."

"Did you give the address to the guys?"

"One of them knows right where it is."

"I'll go over there for two minutes. If it's another wild-goose chase, it's the asshole Chase all over again. Listen, if we jump every time he gives us a false trail, we'll never get anything done."

Frick hung up without giving him a chance to reply. Ripping off his hood, he called for two men out on the road, who were already apprised. "Stay away from that woman," he growled at Rafe Black. "I mean it." Then he realized that he should shoot her up with a pentathol cocktail. He hesitated, then jumped in the truck. He would be fast.

He leaned out the window. "You assholes be sure no one steals her. This could be a trap." They all nodded.

Frick's mind was sinking into a warm, sensuous place and he was enjoying a certain feeling that came over him when he was about to start a job. Odd that the feeling came even when things were going to hell.

Sam kept calm, the only alternative to reckless rage. He had to work fast. Whoever was doing this-no doubt Frick himself-would be back shortly. Sarah was crying, even before the binding had started. She had been cuffed tightly to the chair, feet and hands.

Quickly he unwound the rope, which had been unmercifully tight. There was a weird ball gag in her mouth and he removed that. Then he picked up the entire chair with Sarah in it and walked out the door, down the beach trail, and through the shrubs. Sarah was a svelte woman; so despite his physical limits, he was able to carry her. His pumping adrenaline gave him strength he didn't know he'd had. In fact, he felt no pain at all as he walked out onto the beach, with Haley somewhat amazed at the chair business.

"Be quiet," he said, once on the beach.

Sarah managed to calm herself, at last convincing herself that she was in the middle of a successful rescue.

She was more or less in possession of her faculties. Haley tried to cover her with more clothing, against the cold November air.

"We can't leave without getting those files," Sam said. "Coming back will be impossible. You row down the shore. If I can make it to the beach with files, I'll bring you into the beach. If not, I'll do the best I can."

"Check the garage. I'm thinking those files are in the filing cabinets in the garage. Go right out of the kitchen, into the hall, then into the garage," Haley said.

Sam hobbled back across the beach and into the kitchen, recklessly hoping that Frick would come back so that he could kill him on the spot-or die trying. Quickly he slipped into the garage and, using a penlight, found the cabinets. They were locked.

Risking a lot, he flipped on the garage lights and observed metal storage cabinets standing along the wall. He turned the light off, went to the cabinets with a penlight, and began searching. The first had boots and rain gear, but the second had tools. He took out a small pry bar. Against the wall he found a pipe and fit it over the pry bar. With the added leverage he easily snapped the lock bars on the file cabinets.

Two entire file drawers dealt in one way or another with methane. Quickly he took a huge armload of files and ran out the garage's back door. Limping as best he could, he made his way to where Haley had rowed.

From behind he heard shouting at the house. Someone had discovered that Sarah was gone.