Riptide

13

Sheriff Gaffney said, “Well now, what we got was an anonymous tip, Mr. Carruthers.”

“That’s rather odd, don’t you think, Sheriff?” Adam had his arms folded over his chest and was leaning against Jacob Marley’s screened front porch. Sheriff Gaffney looked tired, he thought, a bit pasty in the face. He wanted to tell the sheriff to lose fifty pounds and start walking the treadmill.

“No, sir, not odd at all. Folk don’t like to get involved. They’d rather tattle in secret than come smartly forward and tell you what they know. Sometimes, truth be told, folk are just shits, Mr. Carruthers.”

That was true enough, Adam thought. “You said the girl’s name is Melissa Katzen?”

“That’s right. It was a woman with a real whispery voice who said it was Melissa. She didn’t want to tell who she was. She said everyone believed at the time that Melissa was going to elope right after high school graduation. So when she up and was just gone, everyone figured she’d done it. But she thinks now, what with the skeleton, that Melissa didn’t go anywhere.”

“Who was the boyfriend?” Adam asked.

“No one knew, since Melissa wouldn’t tell anyone. Her folks didn’t know what to think after she was gone. They didn’t know about any elopement talk, came as a shock to them. I’m thinking that maybe one of Melissa’s family called in this tip, or a friend and that friend is afraid she’s in danger if she tells us who she is. Now, if that skeleton is Melissa Katzen, then she didn’t elope. She stayed right here and got herself murdered.”

“Maybe,” Becca said, “she decided she didn’t want to elope after all and the boy killed her.”

“Could be,” said Sheriff Gaffney, shaking his head. “A bad way to end up.”

He got no argument.

The sheriff adjusted his thick leather belt that was digging into his belly and said on a sigh, “As the years passed, most folk just forgot about her, figured she was in another state with six kids now. And maybe she is. We’ll find out. We’re talking to all the people who remember her, went to school with her, things like that.”

“You don’t have any idea who called this in, Sheriff?”

“Nope. Mrs. Ella took the call, said it sounded like someone with a doughnut in her mouth. Mrs. Ella believes it’s a relative, or a chicken-shit friend.”

“You’ll do DNA tests now?”

“As soon as we can locate Melissa’s parents and see if they have anything of hers we could use to get her DNA to match against what they have in the bones. It’s going to take a while. Science-all this newfangled stuff-it’s all iffy as far as I’m concerned. Just look at how poor O.J. was nearly sent away because of all that flaky so-called DNA evidence. But the jury was smart. They didn’t believe any of that stuff for a minute. Well, it’s something to do. We’ll know in a couple of weeks.”

“Sheriff,” Becca said mildly, “DNA is the most scientifically solid tool that law enforcement has going for it today. It’s not flaky at all. It will clear innocent people and, hopefully, in most cases, put monsters in jail.”

“So you think, Ms. Powell, but you force me to tell you that yours is an Uninformed Opinion. Mrs. Ella doesn’t like all this fancy stuff, either. But she thinks it’s real possible that the skeleton is poor little Melissa, even though she remembers Melissa as being all sorts of shy and sweet and so quiet you’d have thought her a little ghost. Who’d want to kill a sweet kid like that? Even old Jacob Marley, who didn’t like anybody.”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know, Sheriff. I go for the boyfriend. Hey, at least there’s something to go on now. Won’t you come in?”

“Nah. I just wanted to fill in you and Ms. Powell. I gotta go talk to the power company, hear they accidentally cut a sewage pipe. That’d be no good. You pray the wind doesn’t blow in this direction. Now, Mr. Carruthers, you going to hang around with Ms. Powell much longer?”

“Oh yeah,” Adam said easily, looking over at Becca, who hadn’t said a single word since Sheriff Gaffney, button sewn back on, bemoaned poor O.J.’s treatment. “She’s still real jittery, Sheriff, jumps whenever there’s a sound in this old house. You know how women are-so sensitive it makes a man want to coddle them until the sun’s shining again.”

“That was well said, Mr. Carruthers. We got us one of our perfect summer days. Just smell the air. All salty ocean and wildflowers, and that sun smell. Nothing like it.

“Ah, here’s Tyler and little Sam. Good morning. Just running down possibilities on Ms. Powell’s skeleton. Could have been Melissa Katzen. Don’t suppose you disguised your voice like a woman’s and called in the tip?”

“Not me, Sheriff,” Tyler said, raising an eyebrow. “Who did you say? Melissa Katzen?”

“Yep, that’s right. You remember her, Tyler? Didn’t you go to school with her? Your ages are about right.”

Tyler slowly lowered Sam to the porch and watched him wander over to a low table that held a stack of books, some of them very old indeed.

“Melissa Katzen.” Tyler frowned. “Yes, I remember her. A real sweet kid. I think she might have been in my high school class, or maybe a year behind me. I’m just not sure. She wasn’t really pretty, but she was nice, never said a bad thing about anybody, as I remember. You really think she could be the skeleton?”

“Don’t know. Got an anonymous call about her.”

Tyler frowned a bit. “I think I remember hearing that she was going to elope, yeah, that was it. She eloped and no one ever heard from her again.”

Sheriff Gaffney said, “Yep, that’s the story. Now DNA will tell us, at least if what those labs claim is true. Well, it’s time for me to see the power company. Then I’ll call that Jarvis guy in Augusta, see what they’re doing.”

Sam was holding a small, thick paperback in his hands.

Adam dropped down to his knees and looked at the little book with a fancy attack helicopter on the cover. He said, “It’s Jane’s Aircraft Recognition Guide. I wonder what Jacob Marley was doing with one of Jane’s publications?”

“Jane?” Sam said.

“Yeah, I know, that’s a girl’s name. Hey, they’re Brits, Sam. You’ve got to expect them to do weird things.”

Becca said, “Hey, Sam, you want a glass of lemonade? I just made some this morning.”

Sam looked up at her, didn’t say anything, but finally nodded.

Tyler said, his chin up, a hint of the aggressor in his voice, “Sam loves Becca’s lemonade.”

“I do, too,” Adam said. “Now, I’m out of here. I’ll be back tonight, Becca.”

She wanted to ask him where he was going, who he was going to talk to, but she couldn’t say a blasted thing in front of Tyler. “Take care,” she called out after him. She saw Adam pause just a moment, but he didn’t turn back.

“I don’t like him, Becca,” Tyler said in a low voice a few minutes later in the kitchen, one eye on Sam, who was drinking his lemonade and looking for the goody in the box of Cracker Jacks Becca had handed him.

“He’s harmless,” she said easily. “Really harmless. I’m sure he’s gay. So you knew this Melissa Katzen?”

Tyler nodded and took another drink of his lemonade. “Like I told the sheriff, she was a nice kid. Not real popular, not real smart, but nice. She also played soccer. I remember once she beat me in poker.” Tyler grinned at some memory. “Yeah, it was strip poker. I think I was the first guy she’d ever seen in boxer shorts.”

“Rachel makes good lemonade,” Sam said, and both adults looked at him with admiration. He’d said four whole words, strung them all together.

Becca patted his face. “I’ll bet Rachel does lots of really good things. She rented me this house, you know.”

Sam nodded and drank more lemonade.

After they’d left ten minutes later to go grocery shopping, Becca cleaned up the kitchen and headed upstairs. She made her bed and straightened the bedroom. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Adam Carruthers, but she sighed and walked down to his bedroom. The bed was neatly made. Nothing was out in plain sight. She walked over to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer. Underwear, T-shirts, and a couple of folded cotton shirts. Nothing else. She pulled his dark blue carryall out from under the bed. She lifted it on top of the bed and slowly started to pull back the long zipper.

The phone rang. She nearly leapt three feet in the air. The phone rang again.

She had to run downstairs, as that was the only phone in the house. Her cell phone had run out of power and was recharging. She picked it up on the sixth ring. “Hello.”

Breathing. Slow, deep breathing.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“Hello, Rebecca. It’s your boyfriend.”

Her brain nearly shut down on her. She stared at the phone, not believing, not wanting to believe, but it was him, the stalker, the man who murdered that poor old woman, the man who shot the governor in the neck.

He’d found her. Somehow he’d found her. She said, “The governor’s alive. You’re not so great after all, are you? You didn’t kill him. You were so ill informed, you didn’t even know there would be a bunch of doctors around him.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“All right, so the bastard is still breathing. At least he won’t be climbing into your bed anytime soon. Hear he’s having a tough time talking and eating. He needed to lose a few pounds anyway.”

“You killed Dick McCallum. You made him tell those lies about me and then you killed him. How much did you pay him? Or did you threaten to kill him if he didn’t do as you asked?”

“Where did you get all this information, Becca?”

“It’s true.”

Silence.

“Nobody could have found me. The FBI, the NYPD, nobody. How did you find me?”

He laughed, a rich, mellow laugh that made her want to vomit. How old was he? She couldn’t tell. Think, she told herself, listen and think. Keep him talking. Use your brain. Is he young or old? Accent? Listen for clues. Make him admit to murdering Dick.

“I’ll tell you when I see you, Becca.”

She said very deliberately, very slowly, “I don’t want to see you. I want you to go someplace and die. That or turn yourself in to the cops. They’ll fry you. That’s what you deserve. Why did you run down Dick McCallum?”

“And just what do you think you deserve?”

“Not this bullshit from you. Are you going to try to kill the governor again?”

“I haven’t made up my mind just yet. I know now that he isn’t sleeping with you, but only because he doesn’t know where you are. An old man like that. You should be ashamed of yourself, Rebecca. Remember Rockefeller croaking when he was with his mistress? That could be you and the governor. Best not do him again. But you’re a little slut, aren’t you? Yeah, you’ll probably call him so he can come sleep with you some more.”

Why hadn’t she had the phone tapped? Because neither she nor Adam dreamed he’d find her here in Riptide and call her.

“You murdered Dick McCallum, didn’t you? Why?”

“You’re all confident again, aren’t you? You’ve been away from me for only a couple of weeks, but you’re all pissy again. Too confident, Rebecca. I’m coming for you very soon now.”

“Listen, you bastard. You come anywhere near me and I’ll blow your head off.”

He laughed, throaty, deep laughter, indulgent laughter. Was he young? Maybe, but she couldn’t be sure. “You can try, certainly. It’ll add some spice to the chase. I’ll see to you soon. Real soon, count on it.”

He hung up before she could say anything more. She stood there, staring blankly at the old-fashioned black phone, staring and knowing, knowing deep inside her that it was all over. Or it soon would be. How could anyone protect her from a madman? She’d done the best she could and yet he’d found her, nearly as easily as Adam had.

How had he found her? Did he have as many contacts as Adam? Evidently so. No, she wasn’t going to give up and let him come to kill her. No, she would fight.

She laid the phone into the cradle and walked slowly from the living room. She was tired, infinitely tired. She couldn’t just stand there in the middle of Jacob Marley’s house, she just couldn’t. She felt itchy from the inside out, and cold, very cold. Nearly numb.

She loaded her Coonan.357 Magnum automatic, slipped it in the pocket of her jacket, and walked to the woods where she’d confronted Adam two days before. Had it really been only two days? She sat down in front of the tree where he’d been doing his tae kwon do exercise. She looked at the spot where she’d stood, pointing her gun at him, so afraid she’d thought she’d choke on it. But she hadn’t had time to shoot or to choke. He’d kicked the gun out of her hand before she could draw two breaths. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the tree. Would the stalker have just as easy a time with her as Adam? Probably so.

She closed her eyes and let her mind shut down. She saw her mother, laughing down at her-she couldn’t have been more than seven years old and she was trying to do a cheerleading chant. Then her mom had showed her how to do it and it had been so wonderful, so perfect. Her mother’s laughter, so sweet, filling her, making her warm and happy. She rubbed her wrist where Adam had kicked the gun out of her hand. It didn’t hurt, but there was memory of the cold numbness that had lasted for a good five minutes. Where was he? Why had he left?

Adam was back at Jacob Marley’s house and he was so scared for a moment he couldn’t think. She was gone. The door was open but she was gone. There were even two lights on but she was gone. The stalker had gotten her. No, no, that was ridiculous. He was the only one who had found her.

He searched every damned room in the house. He saw his carryall lying on top of his bed. It looked like she’d started unzipping it and then, for whatever reason, had just walked out of the room, leaving it there for him to see.

Why? Where had she gone? Her car was in the driveway, so she couldn’t have gone far… unless someone took her.

Don’t panic. She’d gotten a call, something of an emergency. She’d gone to Tyler’s house. It had to do with Sam. The kid was sick, yeah, that was it.

But she wasn’t there, no one was home. He drove by the Food Fort, the gas station, the hospital but he didn’t see her. Jesus, he could drive all over this damn town and not find her.

He drove slowly back to the house. He cut the engine and sat in his black Jeep, his forehead against the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

Where are you, Becca?

He didn’t know why he raised his head and twisted around to look toward the woods. He just did it. And in that instant he knew she was there. But why? It took him three minutes to find her.

She was asleep. He came up on her very quietly. She didn’t stir. She was leaning against the tree trunk, her right hand in her lap. She was holding the Coonan, its polished silver stock gleaming from the slashes of sun through the tree branches.

Had he seen that flash of silver? He didn’t know how he could have, yet he’d known she was there. Why couldn’t he have had this marvelous intuition before he’d scared himself spitless?

He came down on his haunches. He looked at her, wondering what had made her come out here. He saw dried tear streaks down her cheeks. Everything had gotten to be too much for her, and no wonder. She looked pale, too thin. He looked at her fingers curled around the trigger of the Coonan, at her nails, short and ragged. He touched his fingertips to her cheek. Her flesh was soft to the touch. He lightly stroked her cheek. Then, slowly, he shook her shoulder.

“Becca. Come on, wake up.”

She came awake instantly at the sound of a man’s voice, the Coonan up and ready to fire. She heard him curse, then felt the gun fly out of her hand. Her wrist was instantly numb. “Not again.”

“Shit, you nearly shot me.”

It was Adam. She looked up at him and smiled. “I thought it was him. Sorry.”

His heart began to slow. He eased down beside her. “What’s up?”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. I couldn’t find you and I nearly lost my mind trying to figure out where you were. You scared me, Becca. I thought he’d taken you.”

“No, I’m here. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. So how’d you find me?”

He shrugged. He didn’t want to tell her that he just knew very suddenly exactly where she was. He would sound nuts. She didn’t need anyone else around her sounding nuts.

“How long will my wrist be numb this time?”

“Not more than five minutes. Don’t whine. Did you expect me to let you shoot me?”

“No, I guess not.”

“You look tired. Better if you’d taken a nap in your bed than come out here to snore beneath the tree. It just might not be all that safe.” That was one of the best understatements out of his mouth yet.

“Why? The only one who was ever lurking outside here was you, and you’re not lurking out here anymore. You’ve moved right into the house.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I came out here. I just couldn’t stand to stay in the house alone anymore.”

He said again, “You scared me, Becca. Please don’t take off again without leaving me a note.”

She looked up at him, her face so pale now it was nearly as white as winter sleet, and said in a dead voice, “He’s found me. He called.”

“He?” But he knew. Oh yeah, the stalker had found her and he hated it, had dreaded it, but he’d known it would happen. This guy was good. Too good. He had contacts. Whoever he was, he knew people, knew how to use them to get what he wanted. Adam was sure he’d been on her the minute she’d left New York. Still, it surprised him. More than that it scared him to his soul. He hated that surge of fear, deep and corroding. He could almost smell the flames. The fire was coming closer.

“All right, so he called. Get a grip.” He stopped, grinned at her. “Oh yeah, I’m talking to myself, not you. Now, what did he say? Did he tell you how he found you? Did he say anything that would help us pinpoint him?”

He’d said “us.” She had felt utterly frozen inside, then he’d said “us.” Slowly, she began to feel a shift deep inside her. She wasn’t alone anymore.

She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, Adam.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

“Even though you’re gay?”

He looked at her mouth, then jumped fast to his feet. A man did better when temptation wasn’t one inch from his face. He looked down at her, then offered his hand. “Yeah, right. Now come on back to the house. I want you to write down everything you can remember him saying. Okay?”

She got a look on her face that was hard and cold and determined. Good, he thought, she wasn’t going to lie down and let this guy kick her like a dog.

“Let’s do it, Adam.”

They walked side by side up the steps to the veranda. They were nearly to the front door, and he was thinking that he needed to show her again that he wasn’t gay, when a shot rang out, and a knife-sharp chunk of wood flew off the door frame not two inches from Becca’s head and slammed into Adam’s bare arm.