Fatal Harbor

CHAPTER TWENTY

Back at the Laurentian Peaks Motel, there was just a moment of awkwardness when Felix and I stood there, just outside my room. He looked at me and I looked at him, and no words were exchanged, but there was the thought that this was it, the very last time we’d ever see each other. Not because of what had happened, but what was going to happen.

He shifted from one foot to another. His voice was soft. “Don’t be a hero out there. Be careful.”

“Be as careful as I can.”

“You get into it, you feel like the odds aren’t in your favor, get out. Don’t be fancy, don’t be pretty, just get out. If it means breaking things, running over things, or shooting whoever gets in your way, you fucking do it, Lewis. Capisce?”

I managed a slight smile. “Very capisce.”

He moved quickly, suddenly, and he shockingly gave me a full embrace, slapping me on the back, murmuring “Good luck, all right?”

Felix stepped back, and he turned and strolled away.

I went into my motel room.

It took a long, long while before I fell asleep, and the sleep was light and restless, the hum of the Interstate traffic a constant background. More often than not, I was on my back, staring up at the ceiling, the sight of my burned-out home always in my mind.

And when sleep finally came, the sound of a ringing phone made me sit straight up, blankets and sheets around my waist.

The phone rang and rang, and I fumbled in the dark, switched on the light.

The phone was my loaner from Lawrence Thomas.

“Cole,” I said, checking the clock. It was four A.M.

“Got it narrowed down,” he said.

“Hold on, let me get pen and paper.”

I swiveled around in my bed, found what I was looking for, and said, “Go.”

“The second trace on that incoming call places him in a town called Osgood. Are you familiar with it?”

“No, but that’ll change. Any address or location?”

“Unfortunately not, but I do have a search area, based on the cell tower the call went through.”

“Go on.”

“My… associates say that the call went through a cell tower on the top of a mountain called Flintlock Peak. From that cell tower, my associates say, plot a triangle from the tower, using a base point of magnetic north. From zero degrees to thirty-five degrees, you’ll get a triangular-shaped search area, reaching to a lake called the Wachusett. That’s your boundary.”

“Could be a big area.”

“I’ve already done a preliminary. It’s a fairly rural town, and from Flintlock Peak to Osgood, from what I can tell, is farmland and forest. That narrows it down. There’s not many businesses or residences in that triangle.”

I yawned. “I’m on it.”

“Are you leaving now?”

“No, I’m not.”

“And why the hell not?” he nearly shouted.

“Because I’ve got work to do, supplies to retrieve, and breakfast to be eventually eaten,” I snapped back. “Because I’m going in slow, but I’m going in right. This isn’t going to be a Desert One fiasco, got it?”

He started talking again and I talked right over him. “That was early on in my career, when the hostage rescue mission to Iran failed. Lots of things made it fail, including too many fingers in the proverbial planning pie, and a commander in chief that insisted on being in the loop from start to finish. As of now, Lawrence, you’re out of the loop.”

“The hell you say.”

“The hell I don’t. You’re in Virginia. I’m in New Hampshire. Based on those last two calls I received, Curt Chesak is on my turf, not yours. So I’m taking care of it. You got a problem with that, then go rely on somebody else. But I want this done too. And I’ll do it right.”

No words, just the sound of his breathing. I went on. “If I get another phone call from him, I’ll let you know. Maybe that will help your folks narrow the search territory even more. But you’ve got to let me do this, Lawrence. I can’t do it with you calling every hour or so, asking for updates. If all goes well, you’ll get just one more phone call from me, telling you the job is finished.”

He breathed some more. Coughed. I thought I heard a woman’s voice in the background, no doubt asking why her husband was up at such a rotten hour. “All right,” Lawrence said, voice shaking. “All right. I understand what you’re saying. It makes sense. So go out there and do it, Lewis. But by God, do it.”

“I will,” I said, and that was that.

I managed to get some sleep, and in the morning I went back to Chez Vachon, where I consumed about a half-dozen crepes and half-dozen sausages, along with a couple of cups of coffee. I wasn’t sure when or where my next meal would be; I wanted to make sure my tanks were topped off. Back in my motel room, I scratched furiously at my chin and under my neck, where an unfamiliar beard was growing. Time to take care of business.

I took a nice long shower, soaping up, and, with a couple of disposable razors in hand, did what I could do, shaving in the shower. A couple of times, the drain clogged up and I had to clean things up. When I had gotten dried and dressed, I opened the duffel bag that Felix had brought me, following my shopping list to the letter. I also checked my Beretta and my Bianchi holster, and then put it on, put my coat over it, and picked up the duffel bag and got going.

Outside it felt quite cold, and from the duffel bag I took out a Navy-style black watch cap, which I easily slipped over my head. I got in the truck and drove about twenty minutes to the Mall of New Hampshire, right near Route 101 and Interstate 93. I took my time wandering through the mall, admiring the Halloween decorations and displays, and then I ducked into an EMS store. EMS stands for Eastern Mountain Sports, and once upon a time they had three stores: one in North Conway, New Hampshire, the second in Boston, and a factory store at their headquarters facility in Peterborough. Now they had scores of small shops like this one in malls and shopping plazas, and some oldtimers still groused about how the whole feel and style of the place had changed over the years, probably with every change of ownership.

Me, I didn’t care that much. I spent about thirty minutes in the store, getting what I needed, and in one corner of the store — past displays of crampons, ropes, and mountain-climbing gear for those brave folks who want to fight against the law of gravity — there was a wooden bureau with thin drawers. A few minutes later, I found what I was looking for: a U.S. Geological Survey map for the town of Osgood, with roads, rivers, streams, and mountain peaks listed, especially Flintlock Peak.

A woman came up to me. “Help you with something?”

I gently rolled the map in a tube so she couldn’t see what I was examining. “I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.”

She smiled. “Let me get a rubber band so that doesn’t unwrap on you.”

I kept my eye on her as she walked to the service counter and came back. Most of the employees in the store were just a few years over the state drinking age, and both the young men and young women sported tattoos, body piercings, and odd hair colors and styles. But this woman — whose nametag said PAMELA — was much older, nearly coming close to my demographic range. She had on hiking boots, socks, khaki shorts, and a black T-shirt depicting a Hubble Space Telescope shot of the Horsehead Nebula, with a caption stating “So much exploring, so little time.” Her eyes were light blue and her hair was blond, with a few streaks of white along the side.

Pamela took the tube, snapped the elastic around it, and looked at my other items in a wire shopping basket. She smiled, revealing thin smile lines about her eyes and lips, which made her that much more attractive. “Going orienteering? Or hunting?”

Among my purchase pile was a compass, a small gas stove, a pair of 7 × 50 binoculars, a small knapsack, and some freeze-dried food packages, along with a couple of other things.

“A little of both.”

She frowned, just a bit. “Really? Deer season’s coming up. Is that what you’re interested in?”

I shook my head. “No, no,” I said. “I don’t mind those who hunt, but it’s just never been my thing.”

“So what are you hunting for?”

I laughed. “Justice, what else?”

She laughed back at me. “C’mon, I’ll take care of you up at the counter.”

At the counter, Pamela rang up my purchases, asked me for my phone number and e-mail address, both of which I declined. She took that in good stride, put my goods in a plastic EMS bag, and then slid over a business card that had her full name: Pamela Howe.

“If you have… any questions about your gear,” she said, her eyes bright.

I took the card, gave it a closer look. “If I do, you can count on it.”

I walked out of the mall, the bag suddenly weighing heavy in my hand. Pamela’s world was that of the outdoors and being in good shape and flirting with the occasional male shopper, with each day effortlessly sliding into another.

My world had been reduced to a simple one, where in a matter of days I was going to encounter Curt Chesak, and at the end of that day one of us would be dead.

More errands were run that day in Manchester. I got some more clothes at a JCPenney, found some more clothing at a hunting supply shop — where I had to slip the store owner an extra twenty dollars to get what I needed — and lunch was a quick stop at a Papa Gino’s. I ate a small cheese pizza and drank a large Coke, and after washing up in the restroom, went to my borrowed pickup truck, out in the shopping plaza parking lot.

It was a fine fall day. I leaned against the warm truck fender, crossed my arms, and just let myself bake in the sun for a few minutes. Even though I was in a parking lot, there were fall leaves at my feet, gold and red and orange. They looked beautiful. Traffic was moving at a good pace over on the Interstate. I could be on the Interstate in less than five minutes, on the way up north, where the town of Osgood waited for me, along with Curt Chesak.

Or I could head south, and then east, try to pick up everything and just go on.

“Like hell,” I said, and I got into my Chevy, and then got going to where I had to be.

Nearly two hours later, I was approaching Osgood. Nearly forty minutes earlier, I had taken an exit off Interstate 93 and followed a state road through two other towns before getting to Osgood. It was a type of New Hampshire town that looked great on calendars, Christmas cards, and presidential primary ads. It had a small downtown that consisted of a diner, a Citizens Bank branch, hardware store, town hall, a combination police station and fire station, as well as the usual and customary town common with its Civil War statue in the center.

I took my time going through the town, driving along a couple of side streets, before I kept on driving and left Osgood. To the left I could make out the far waters of Wachusett Lake, and off to the right were the low peaks, one of which was Flintlock Peak. I could make out a cell phone tower at the top, and the backs of my hands tingled, thinking about the voice of Curt Chesak going through the airwaves and bouncing right off that tower and coming to me.

I made my way to the lake, and there was a picnic area that was empty. It had two swing sets, some stone fire pits, and a half dozen picnic tables. I pulled into a finely packed gravel lot, rummaged through my belongings, and went out to the near table.

I unrolled my topo map and found four rocks to anchor the corners of the map. With my compass, I located the top of Flintlock Peak, and I put the compass adjacent to the peak, and then swung the compass around so the needle matched the true magnetic north indicated on the map.

There you go. Using the edge of a guidebook and a pencil, I drew a triangle that encompassed zero degrees and thirty-five degrees. The lines ended on the shores of Wachusett Lake. I stared down at the triangle I had just made, tapped my pencil in the middle. There were about a half dozen roads that were in the triangle. Somewhere Curt was hiding out there.

“Got you, you son-of-a-bitch,” I whispered.

I started writing down the names of the roads. Spencer Lane. Tucker Road. Roscoe Street. Eric Street. Mount Vernon Street. Gibson Lane.

Then there was the crunch of tires on gravel, and I swiveled around.

A police cruiser was pulling in behind my borrowed Chevy truck.

I stood still, waited calmly, not making any moves. The cruiser was white and dark blue, with the markings of the Osgood Police Department on the side. A slim police officer came out, put on his uniform hat. He was about early thirties, which comforted me. A guy in his thirties has been on the job for a while, doesn’t need to prove himself. A guy in his twenties would be full of himself, wanting to do something to show his chief and the police commission or whatever that he was an asset to the force.

Too much thinking. He approached. A slight smile. He had a prominent nose, bushy eyebrows, and black-rimmed eyeglasses.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Just taking a break.”

His nametag said TEMPLAR, and Officer Templar said, “A break from what, if you don’t mind me asking.”

So it began. The gentle questioning, leading down to a not-so-gentle conclusion. If it got to the point where he asked for the truck’s registration, I’d be hard-pressed to explain how I was driving a truck registered to a farm in Bedford, belonging to a farmer whose name I didn’t know. And then it could get really interesting.

“My work,” I said. “I’m a magazine writer.”

I took out my wallet, passed over my press identification card from the N.H. Department of Safety, along with my business card from Shoreline. Officer Templar examined them both and said, “So you’re a reporter, then?”

“A columnist, actually.”

“And you write for Shoreline?”

Lots of questions. What was driving him?

“Used to,” I said, putting a mournful tone in my voice. “I quit last week. My editor was a real bitch. Couldn’t stand her. I’m trying to rustle up some freelance articles, make some contacts with other magazines.”

“Here in Osgood?” He handed me back my business card and press identification.

“Sure. I’m working on an article about various discrepancies in households and income, even in small towns like Osgood, which I think represents the status of the nation as a whole. You know, the one percent versus the 99 percent. What I do is randomly select some households, maybe interview the owners, and get a nice cross-section of small-town life.”

A slight smile from Officer Templar as he turned to walk back to his cruiser. “Sounds like a lot of work for a lot of nothing.”

“That’s what we writers do,” I replied.

When he left, I changed my clothes in the shadow of my truck. I still didn’t like the interrogation. In small towns like Osgood, it only took minutes for news of a stranger to zip through town.

Back in my borrowed truck, I drove back to the center of the town and went to the town hall. The parking lot was cracked asphalt, and I walked up the wide front steps of the town hall. The building was white; over the double doors, black letters announced OSGOOD TOWN HALL with the date 1858 underneath it. The doors were heavy, painted green. I walked in, the wooden floor creaking loudly as the door closed behind me. Before me was a bulletin board covered with notices for town meetings such as school board, planning board, and the selectmen. There were also notices for a ham & bean supper, a lost dog, two lost cats, and a flyer announcing a home cleaning service.

Up ahead was a waist-high counter, and a tall thin woman in her late fifties looked down at me as I approached. She wore round wire-rimmed glasses and had on a light yellow dress with tiny white flowers. I gave her my best inquiring smile, and she said, “Can I help you?”

“Gosh, I hope so,” I said. “My name is Lewis Cole, and I’m working on a freelance magazine article.”

I showed her my press ID, and she said, “My, I haven’t met a real magazine writer before. The only writer I know is Sarah Gebo, she’s a stringer for the Union Leader, lives over in Warren.” She held out her hand. “Abby Watkins.”

I gave it a quick shake. “Thanks, Abby.”

“So, what are you looking for?”

Poor trusting Abby Watkins. At some time I would have to think of a way to apologize to her, but first I gave her the same story I had given Officer Templar: about getting information on a cross-section of the town of Osgood to write an article about economic differences and challenges, thereby using Osgood as an example of the economic challenges facing not only our region, but the country as a whole. She nodded at the apparent right places and I think the excitement value of being with a writer was rapidly approaching zero. Even with her eyeglasses, I could see her eyes beginning to glaze over.

“All right, I think I understand,” she said. “What are you looking for then?”

“I was hoping to get some information on residences and businesses on these streets,” I said, sliding over a sheet of paper.

She peered down at the list. “An interesting collection of roads. How did you get it?”

“Random, that’s all.”

Abby looked down, hesitated.

I said, “I always thought tax records like this were public information.”

“Oh, they are,” she said, head still lowered.

“Then maybe I should talk to the tax collector, or the assessor?”

That brought forth a laugh. “Sweetie, you don’t know Osgood, do you?”

“True enough,” I said. “But it seems like a nice town.”

“Oh, it is, it is. But it’s a poor town. Besides being the town clerk, I’m also the tax collector and the secretary to the selectmen, the planning board, and the zoning board of adjustment.”

“Sounds busy.”

“Oh, it keeps me jumping.” She took the paper and said, “You’re absolutely right: this is public information. Give me a few minutes, but just so you know… ” She paused.

“Yes?” I asked. “What’s that?”

Abby seemed apologetic. “You’re not a town resident. I’m afraid I’m going to have to charge you a dollar a page.”

“Best deal I’ve heard today,” I said. “No problem.”

Within ten minutes I got photocopies of what’s called the tax cards for each property listing, paid the Town of Osgood twenty-one dollars in cash, with a receipt for expenses for my nonexistent magazine article. In the parking lot next to my pickup truck was the Osgood police cruiser with Officer Templar sitting inside. He gave me a cheerful wave and I returned the favor. I got in the truck, drove down a block to Osgood Finest Pizza. Before going in, I popped open the glove compartment and memorized the truck’s owner: Bedford Pleasant Farms. I wasn’t going to give Officer Templar an opportunity to trap me with an inopportune question.

Osgood Finest Pizza, like most pizza places in New Hampshire, was owned and operated by Greek-Americans. Not sure why, but the food was always good. A chubby young lady with a thick black ponytail and a cheerful smile in a white uniform with red apron took my order, and within ten minutes I was sitting in a booth by myself eating a hot steak-and-cheese sub, with a nice cold Coke. Feeling a bit concerned about my current diet, I had decided to splurge, so I also had some low-fat baked potato chips.

The sandwich was hot, the steak well cut and tasty, and the Coke did its usual fine job of quenching my thirst. Unfortunately, my diet experiment didn’t end well, since the low-fat chips tasted like pressed cardboard sprinkled with salt.

A few minutes later, I was in my borrowed truck again. I started up and drove east, and I came upon a low-slung motel called Peak’s Paradise. I pulled into the parking lot. Waited. Looked around the lot and the building.

No.

Officer Templar seemed pretty interested in my activities. I didn’t want to be stationary in one place, to pen myself in one location to have to answer a lot more questions. Instead I backed up and drove down one narrow road, and then another. I found a hunting trail or path and backed the truck in, moving slowly and easily, a few branches scraping the side.

I sat and took stock of the tax cards I had received. There were twenty-one names, twenty-one addresses. Where to start? I started culling by going through the list, being brutal in eliminating properties that I couldn’t see Curt Chesak staying in. Each property card, besides listing the owner, address, and value of the property, also gave a description of the building: everything from number of bathrooms and bedrooms to a photograph. So residences that consisted of mobile home trailers, double-wide trailers, or distressed properties that had the cliché front yard of bathtubs, old cars on blocks, and truck tires were discarded.

Not fair, but I wasn’t looking to be fair.

After that first pass, I ended up with eleven possibilities. I checked my watch. About three hours before dusk came my way. Plenty of time to do a recon and see what I could learn. I started up the truck and started out on my quest.

All of the roads were built the same. A single-lane paved country road, with no sidewalk, no center yellow line, not much of anything except asphalt and drainage ditches on each side. Just like the roads back in Lee, where I’d had that wonderful encounter with Mister Marvel, philosophy expert. As I took my time going up and down the various roads, I made it a point to slow some as I went by the properties. There were a couple of working farms, with wide pastures, barns, with cows, sheep, and horses, and a couple of access lanes blocked by metal gates. Most of the other homes were single-family residences, up close to the road. There were kids at play, tossing balls around, riding bicycles or horses. It was a fine fall day. Halloween decorations were out on porches and at mailboxes, from skeletons to ghosts to witches to bundles of corn stalks.

And on the mailboxes were names from O’Halloran to Finch to Dupuis.

Nothing that said Chesak.

Nothing shouting out that Curt Chesak resided here.

Nothing.

Driveways and homes and everything so innocent and up-front. Hard to believe that a killer was out there somewhere, and as the hours slipped away, my frustration started to build. Maybe he wasn’t out here. Maybe he’d just happened to be in the area when he had made those phone calls.

Maybe.

The last house had the name Smith. In other circumstances, I would have found it hilarious. It was a nice-looking two-story home, on a slight rise, and in the front yard mom and dad and two young girls bounced around with a soccer ball while a white German Shepherd barked along and played with them.

No evil there.

I turned around and left.