Blunt Darts

TWENTY-FOURTH

– ¦ I realized the throbbing was gone. Then I heard a bird sing. Two birds. I opened my eyes, and it was full morning. Plenty of clean, bright sunshine in the room, but no Stephen.

I rolled up and went too far and keeled over onto my right side. The throbbing resumed. After a few more tries, I was sitting upright but hunched over. Stephen had run a connecting rope between my hands and my feet. I assumed he knew his knots. Walking, much less descending, the ladder was out of the question.

I edged backward until I could rest against the wall. I was hungry, but the thought of Blakey tracing my steps fast eroded my appetite.

There was nothing I could see in the room that would help me get free. No sharp edges, no drawers I could reach. All the broken glass from the windows had been swept up by Stephen's cover-up. Which left the broken windows themselves.

I rolled onto my back and tried to stretch my legs. They were pretty numb, but even if they hadn't been, the rope connecting my hands and feet prevented me from stretching my legs high enough to reach the lowest of the broken windows.

I rolled back to a sitting position and tried to stand. No good. Feet and legs too numb. I squirmed and flexed until I could feel the pins and needles signaling the return of blood to my legs. Then I got a cramp in my left calf that left me munching on wool gag again. Finally, I edged my way up into a stooped position. I leaned back into the open window, but my hands behind me were still a good six inches from the sill. I didn't like the possible consequences of trying to assume a sitting position on the window shelf itself.

Then I heard the first footstep on the ladder. I had never heard Stephen climbing the steps. But I was pretty sure he didn't weigh enough to make the room above shake the way it was.

A cross-piece gave way, and a muffled curse filtered up through the closed hatch. A minute later the hatch flew back and slammed as it hit the floor behind. The barrel of a. 357 Magnum appeared, followed by the beefy hand holding it and the beefier face directing it. Blakey looked surprised when he saw me. Then he smiled. He came up one more step, sweeping the Magnum around the room. Then he pulled himself up, leaving the hatch open. He was dressed in now-dusty dark slacks and a light green shirt.

"Christ," he said, "am I glad to see you, asshole. Where's the kid?"

I did not dignify him with a reply.

"Aw, what's the matter? Kitty-cat got your tongue?"

He holstered his gun and reached into his pocket as he came toward me. "Maybe this'll loosen things up a little."

He produced and opened a pocket knife. He cut the piece of rope around my head that was keeping the gag in place. Then he fished in my mouth with the blade and drew out the gag. A very damp gray sock. I could feel the wool hairs in my mouth but decided it would be impolite to spit. I swiveled my head and worked my jaws.

"Now," he said, "where's the kid?"

"He went out for Eggs McMuffin."

Blakey backhanded me on the left side of my face. I rolled awkwardly down the sill and banged my elbow hitting the floor. Blakey then kicked me hard in the back of my left thigh.

"I figure it's about sixty feet to the ground, wise-ass. A fall like that'd cover a lot of bruises."

My leg wouldn't work. "I don't know where he is, Blakey."

"I thought maybe he was gonna burn you at the stake, like a babysitter on TV."

I decided to try a smile. "He may yet."

Blakey smiled and crossed his arms, coplike. "You know, he's a fuckin' crazy kid. You know that."

"Then why do you want him back?" I asked, then clenched, fearing I'd unintentionally hit close to a nerve.

"What would I want him for?" he said warily. "It's the judge who wants him back. Back in the nuthouse where he belongs."

I unclenched and pursued the matter a little. "Then why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why didn't the judge just let me help you find him?"

The smile passed. "None of your fuckin' business."

"Wouldn't have anything to do with a midnight swim four years back, would it?"

The lips curled back into a smile I didn't like. "The judge told you to stay out of this. The judge and me both. I warned you." His smile grew wider. "Remember?" he said huskily.

"I meant to tell you, you've got a sweet phone voice, pal."

Blakey stopped smiling. "This time the kid takes the blame. This time some local cop and I find you at the bottom of the ladder, with six slugs from the kid's twenty-two in you. Then I bring the kid to the nuthouse and call the judge. The judge takes it from there."

"Why not just kill the kid?" I asked, to gain some time.

Blakey laughed. "Boy, you are a cold-hearted bastard. I'll tell you why. It makes it tougher to explain why you're dead. And once I figured, sittin' by that broken-ass shed all night, that you'd spotted me, you had to get dead."

I thought I should argue that point. "What about the clerk in the hardware store? He can identify you."

Blakey unfolded his arms, and his face darkened.

"How did you…?" Then he laughed. "Oh, I get it. You figured out that's how I found you. Well, you're right, but that clerk won't know whether I found you here alive or dead."

I definitely didn't like his tone, but I was running out of deflections.

"Just in case you might try and warn the kid, you're gonna hafta go to sleep for a while. But first," he said, as he wrapped a handkerchief around his knuckles, "a little warm-up for your swan dive."

I got my left leg, the one he'd kicked, to bend a little. "I've got a secret about the kid that I'd like to share with you first."

"Nice try, asshole," he said as he cocked his fist.

"You think the kid'll climb up when he sees the open hatch?"

Blakey straightened up. He looked at the hatch and pursed his lips. "Maybe you're right." He ambled over and lowered the hatch. What I didn't mention was that Stephen, who must have made the climb a dozen times or more, sure as hell would notice the broken rung on the ladder. I was banking that with the hatch shut, Blakey wouldn't notice him noticing. Blakey walked back to me, and I tried to think of more episodes of the Arabian Nights. No luck.

"I've got another secret about Stephen," I said.

"What is it?" he replied.

"If I keep telling you secrets, will you keep me awake?" I thought about what Thom Doucette had said regarding Blakey's sensitivity.

"What the fuck is it?" he demanded.

"Well," I said, fluttering my eyelids, "Stephen told I me that big, strong court officers really turn him on." Blakey bent down and gave me a wicked shot at the back of the right side of my jaw and front of my ear. The other side of my head bounced off the floor. He then grabbed my shirt with both hands and lifted me to a semi-standing position. I'd known my only chance was to get him mad enough to treat me as harmless. He held my shirt with his left hand and let fly with his right. Before his fist could connect, I used his left hand as an anchorpoint and flipped back as violently as I could. With his left holding me, that brought my feet up toward his groin, and I lashed out with all the kick I could manage.

I cracked my head against the sill as I came down. My eyes wouldn't focus. I could see one and a half of him doubled over, with his three hands futilely trying to stem the spread of a dark stain at the crotch of his pants.

I shook my head as clear as I could and then levered onto my back. I swung my legs at his head and connected, but I got the impression that I'd only distracted him from his more immediate concern. As I flopped around, he swung backhand at my side, and I felt a rib break. The pain was incredible, and I prayed that it hadn't punctured a lung. Then he clouted me in the face with another backhand that sent me back into the sill. I could feel the room slipping away, and I knew I was going under. Thenheard a clacking noise, like a softball player opening a pop-top beer can. Then another and another and… A tree fell and pinned my legs under it.

Twenty-Fifth

– ¦ I couldn't move my legs, but I could rub them against each other a little. They felt sticky, as if ice cream had melted on them but hadn't quite dried. I opened the one eye that would open. The room was still light. The tree across my legs was Blakey. He was half on his side, and his blood had soaked through his pants. And mine.

His head was about fifteen inches from my eyes, but his face was turned away from me. The back of his neck looked funny. There were round, raw holes in it, two just above his hairline. It was as if someone had thrown large, blunt darts at him, darts that had first stuck in, then had fallen away. There was one downward trickle of blood from each hole. I fell asleep again.

The next time I woke up, someone was pouring water into my mouth. Just a little. It tasted salty, probably from the dehydrated blood flakes in my mouth. I opened my eyes. It was nearly dark. Stephen was over me. Blakey was not in sight. Stephen's hands were dirty.

"Blakey?" I croaked.

"I took care of him," he answered.

I dropped back off to sleep.

I woke up to birds singing, light again, and more water. I felt weak but not much pain. Then I noticed that my hands were untied. I started to get up, and it felt as if someone set off an A-bomb in my left side. I stopped breathing and clenched my teeth. As I eased back down, so did the pain.

"Do you think you can handle some bread?"

He was behind me in the room. "Yes," I said.

"You won't try to grab me?"

"No."

"Okay."

I looked down at my feet. Still securely tied. Given my present condition, I figured about two undisturbed weeks would let me get the knots undone.

He came into my vision. He was wearing a polo shirt and loose-fitting hiking pants, cut like baggy army fatigues. He stopped three feet from me and lobbed a hunk of bread at me. It landed on Blakey's bloodstain, which had already dried. There were about ten ants nibbling at the edge of the stain.

"Still don't trust me, huh?" I said as I picked up the bread.

"A1most," he said.

In real life, he certainly appeared much older than fourteen. His face was somber and intelligent and his movements measured and sure, with none of the awkwardness of adolescence. There were still traces of blond in his dark hair, as though the sun were shining on him.

The bread crust grated against a newly chipped molar on the lower left side.

"How did you find me?" he asked.

I regarded my bread crust and took another nibble, chewing on the other side of my mouth. I wanted time to review all the promises I'd made to people I'd spoken with, and my head wasn't reviewing as well as it might. "It's a long story," I said.

He hopped his bottom up on the desk and, crossing his ankles, swung his legs slowly to and fro under the desk top. "We've got time," he said without smiling.

"Well, I'm a private detective-"

"I know," Stephen interrupted. "I looked at your identification after I… while you were asleep."

"And, as I told you, your grandmother hired me to find you."

"How did she fund you?"

I gave him my warmest reassuring smile. "Your teacher. Valerie Jacobs. Valerie knows me from an earlier job I had."

Stephen smiled back. A nice, good-kid type of smile. "Ms. Jacobs is a nice person," he said. "Go on."

"Well, from what your grandmother said, you hadn't been kidnapped. She knew that, she said, because only you or she could have handpicked your survival kit."

Stephen smiled more vividly. "Grandmother's shrewd like that. I should have known she would guess."

I continued. "Once I accepted that you'd run away, I talked with your psychiatrist-"

Stephen's face darkened. "Which one?"

"Dr. Stein."

The smile returned. "He was kind of a jerk. I had the impression that he made a lot of money without really helping people much."

"Me, too," I said.

"Did he help you?"

"Not rea1ly," I said, trying to recall the chronology and not reveal anything I shouldn't. "But your stay at Willow Wood pointed me out this way."

He frowned. "I was afraid of that. But I didn't think going off someplace completely new would be a very good idea."

"That alone wasn't much help, but when Miss Pitts told me-"

"Boy," he exclaimed, "you went back as far as her?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm thorough?

"What'd she tell you?"

"About your mother's death."

Stephen darkened again and looked down. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Right," I said quickly. "Anyway, I thought it might have something to do with your disappearance, and I slowly traced you down through Ms. Moore at the library and-"

"Ms. Moore?" he said, quizzically. "What could she tell you?"

I explained about his copying the New England Outdoors article, including Ms. Moore's lingerie concerns. Stephen smiled sheepishly. "Did you check all the stations out before you hit this one?"

"No," I said. "I found out from Valerie that you had done a report on the meat distribution system, and then I had a… uh, little talk with the driver you hitchhiked with."

Stephen screwed up his face. "He was a pretty lousy guy?

I nodded.

Stephen unscrewed his face. "What did he tell you?"

I tried to keep old Sammy in and young Kim out. "He said you had a gun. And that he would be laughed out of the meat exchange if anybody found out you'd taken him."

Stephen laughed, and I did too. Then he said, "I guess I wasn't as careful about coming out here as I thought."

"Well," I said, "neither was I."

Stephen tilted his head in question. "What do you mean?"

"Blakey. Following me out here."

Stephen shivered. "What made Blakey come after you like that?" he asked.

"I made a comment about his sexual preferences," I replied.

Stephen smiled sheepishly again.

"And yours," I added.

Stephen laughed innocently. "I'm still too young to have preferences."

"Then why did you shoot him?"

His smile froze. "Two reasons. One, he was killing you. Two, he helped the judge cover up the death of my mother."

"How?"

Stephen straightened up and walked away. "That's for me to speak with the judge about."

He arrived at the desk. He was packing his knapsack, his back toward me.

"Why did you run away?"

"Because I knew the judge would be after me. I found the proof."

I decided I'd better not even bend my promise to Kim. "What proof?"

"The twenty-two. The gun. The judge had hidden it the night my mother was killed. He'd hidden it so well that it took me till now to find it, but I knew I would. And I did."

"Then why didn't you go to the police?"

"Smollett?" He laughed oddly. "He helped cover up my mother's death."

"Your father killed her'?"

"That's between us. Between the judge and me." He continued packing. I got the feeling we might better talk about the judge later.

"You going on a trip?" I asked.

"Yes. You, too."

"Where?"

"Back to Meade. To talk with the judge."

"Not without the county district attorney and maybe the state attorney general as well."

He left what he was doing and came around to squat on his haunches across from me.

"No, it'll just be you and me," he said. "I need you to drive me back. I was stupid to think that the judge wouldn't send people after me. After I found the gun, the judge must have realized it, he must have checked on it when I wasn't around. He probably checked it every day because of what it could do to him. He sent Blakey after me, and I panicked and ran. Blakey's dead, but he'll always send people after me. If Blakey could trace you here a day after you arrived, then somebody else knows about this place and can come back here after me. And every other place I try to go."

Something jangled. Something wasn't right, but I still couldn't pull it together. Then I thought about Blakey talking to the hardware clerk. Blakey had probably called the judge then, before he came out here again. I would have. So the judge would know about the hiding place.

"Why should I drive you? Because otherwise you'll shoot me?"

Stephen got somber again. He stomped over to his knapsack and came stomping back. I held my breath, but he tossed the knapsack down in front of me. "No more guns! I buried them! Go ahead and search it!"

I hefted the knapsack, then pawed through it. No weapons.

"Then I repeat, why should I drive you anywhere?"

He grinned. "Because of three things. One, I dragged Blakey out of here and down the hatch. I rolled him, really, across the floor with a rope around his belt, but I don't think anybody would believe I had the strength to do it. He hit the ground below us. Then I pushed him until he rolled into some soft weeds downhill. Then I buried him.

"Two, I took the twenty-two, wiped it off, and then put it in your hand. I squeezed your fingers around it and even fired a shot with your finger around the trigger. Then I buried the gun in a different place than I buried Blakey.

"Three," and he smiled broadly at this, "I hiked into town and mailed my grandmother a letter, describing how I saw you do all this."

I expect I failed to maintain a poker face. "I don't believe you."

His smile faded. "Then don't drive me anywhere. I'll be leaving soon. Eventually I'll be able to hitch a ride back to Meade. Meanwhile, I'll take the car keys with me, and I don't think you can hike out, hurt like you are. That leaves you to wait for the police. If they get here before you die from hunger or thirst."

"The police won't be coming."

"Oh, yes, they will," he replied. "My grandmother will call them when she gets my letter."

"You didn't write any letter."

"Yes, I did. But even if I didn't, I could still be gone and call the police before you could do anything about it. Or not call the police and leave you here to die."

I leaned back and faked a grimace to think it over. In his own organized way, Stephen had to be crazy, Dr. Stein to the contrary notwithstanding. Whether he had sent the letter or not, my past run-in with Blakey at the courthouse, combined with the hardware clerk's identification, would tie me in to his death. If Stephen had sent the letter or made a call, I doubted that I'd be allowed out on bail to try to find him to explain things. Especially if he had made his letter sound as if I might kill him, too. I decided that I'd better agree to drive him before he figured out how to drive himself. "If I do drive you back to Meade, can I go to the hospital?"

He brightened. "After we talk with the judge. I want you there." Then the brightness drained from him. "Without a gun, and without you there, I'm afraid he'd kill me."