Spider mountain

6

In the event, Special Agent Carrie Santangelo did not make it up to Marionburg until late Monday afternoon. Greenberg went back to his motel over on the Tennessee side after returning Mose’s gear. I heard via the grapevine in town that there had been a brush fire over in the Crown Lake area, and that a Robbins County fire truck and bulldozer team had been needed to contain it. The cause of the blaze was unknown, but careless four-wheelers were suspected. I had checked in with the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office before going to dinner to see if anything was scheduled for the next day, but they had had no word back from Robbins County on the supposed fight victim or any warrants. They’d told me to check in again later.

Carrie had returned my call first thing Monday morning and said she could be up there by one or two. She arrived at the lodge at five thirty instead, having been delayed by the usual Monday morning crises in Raleigh. I called Greenberg over, went out for beer, and ordered in pizza, and then we debriefed her on our exciting excursion to Robbins County.

“How much of this have you told your bosses in the DEA?” she asked Greenberg immediately. He said he hadn’t reported anything. Yet.

“And you?” she asked me. “Have you talked to Sheriff Hayes?”

I shook my head. The sheriff had been unavailable all day, and my status as a potential manslaughter suspect had apparently lost a lot of traction.

She popped the top off another beer and sat back in her chair. She was wearing a dark business pantsuit and looked older than when I had first met her, but still entirely streetable. Older is a relative term.

“Sheriff Hayes reported the business of the fight at the Creigh cabin to SBI headquarters,” she said. “But less to indict you than to report the unorthodox way M. C. Mingo was handling it.”

“Fireproofing himself?” Greenberg, the bureaucrat, asked.

She nodded. “As you know, we have standard procedures for dealing with incidents like this between county jurisdictions. Mingo’s off the reservation on this one, so reporting to SBI was a smart move.”

She turned back to me. “Hayes did tell you to stick around?”

“He did, but so far, nothing seems to be happening. What about our little adventure? What will SBI do with that?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” she said with a bright smile. “But that’s why my boss gets paid the big bucks. You guys sure that was Mingo standing there when she crumpled the kid?”

We both nodded.

“We can’t exactly take this before a judge,” I pointed out.

“But surely you can fold what we’ve told you into any ongoing investigation of Robbins County, right?” Greenberg asked.

She gave him a cool interagency look. “Assuming there is such an investigation,” she said.

“Oh, c’mon, Carrie,” I said. “This guy Mingo the governor’s long-lost illegitimate brother or something? What’s the big reluctance in Raleigh to just going in there and kicking over the anthill?”

Carrie appeared to choose her words carefully. “Because some senior people in the SBI think that the meth business is a cover for something a lot worse.”

We looked at her expectantly, but she shook her head. “I can’t tell you any more than that right now.”

We groaned in unison.

“Look: Let me make some phone calls. In the meantime, don’t tell anyone what happened up there this weekend.”

“What if Mingo delivers up a corpus delicti between now and the meantime?” I asked.

“Call me if that happens. You do not want to be taken into custody in Rob-bins County.”

“Then I should get out of Carrigan County,” I protested. “If there’s going to be an extradition hearing, I’d want that to be held back in Triboro, not here.”

“Let me make my phone calls,” she repeated. “I’ll get back to you tonight.”

After she left, Greenberg asked if me we could make some coffee.

“This is not the SBI I know and love,” I said, as I fixed up a percolator. “When it comes to local sheriff’s operations, they’re usually more of a consulting organization. This definitely sounds like they’re running an op of their own.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable keeping my office out of the loop,” he said. “Her boss calls my boss, catches him off base with this story, he’s gonna want to know why I didn’t brief him first.”

“No longer having a boss, I don’t have that problem. On the other hand, I’m all alone out here, so I may talk to Sheriff Bobby Lee Baggett back in Triboro.”

“She told us not to talk to anyone.”

“I don’t work for her,” I said.

Greenberg nodded. “Me neither,” he said.

My phone rang at ten thirty that night. Greenberg had gone back to his motel a few hours ago to make his own calls, and I had talked to Bobby Lee, who’d suggested that I get the hell out of there as soon as possible, as in tonight. He’d pointed out that Sheriff Hayes had no evidentiary basis for holding me, I hadn’t been charged or even arrested, and I could always drive back if they did produce a corpus, but this time with shyster in tow. Or, if I elected to turn myself in to the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office back in Triboro, I could force an extradition hearing, which would be conducted back on my turf and not in Robbins County, where the magistrate was reportedly yet another Creigh.

After hearing about the events of the past few days and now this SBI mystery, Bobby Lee had been even more emphatic. “You did what your friend asked you to do,” he’d said. “Now get out of there while you still can. Let the alphabets play their games.”

It had all sounded perfectly reasonable to me. On the other hand, I was curious now, and decided to wait for Carrie Santangelo to call back. I had heard that curiosity killed the cat, but, of course, I wasn’t a cat.

Carrie was on the line when I picked up. “You’re a licensed PI now, correct?” she began.

“Yup. And also, let’s see, president, CEO, chairman of the board, secretary, and chief hygienic engineer of Hide and Seek Investigations, LLC.”

“Wow, all that. Listen, the SBI wants to hire you, as an operational consultant.”

“We’re terribly busy,” I replied, Bobby Lee’s good advice still echoing in my ear.

“If Mingo produces a body, Sheriff Hayes will have to act,” she said. “If, on the other hand, you have been working for us, your status would be different. They’d have to come through us to get to you. Ultimately, of course, we’d have to produce you. Which, of course, we would, in the fullness of time. Emphasis on the ‘fullness.’”

“Have been? As in, for some time now?”

“The start date may be left somewhat vague. Look, Hayes doesn’t want to turn you over to Mingo, and he doesn’t want to get into any more pissing contests with that crowd, especially if some black hats decide there’s the possibility of getting a genu-wine mountain-man feud up and running.”

“I’m really expensive,” I said.

“We’re really cheap,” she replied. “But you get a badge and a secret decoder ring. And more importantly, you might be uniquely positioned to stop something really bad from happening.”

“Which is?”

“Which will be the subject of a formal briefing.”

“In the fullness of time?”

“There you go. And not on the damned open telephone, Lieutenant.”

“How quickly one forgets,” I said. “Okay, let me think about it.”

“Take as long as you want,” she said. “But once Mingo produces an arrest warrant, we can’t make this offer.”

“My instincts are to pack up and beat feet,” I said. “As Bobby Lee Baggett pointed out earlier, I’ve done what I came up here to do.”

“But aren’t you just a little bit curious?” she asked.

The lady was a psychic. “Not fair,” I said.

“Hee-hee,” she said, and hung up.

Damn all women and their intuition, I told myself. I dumped my coffee and steadied up on the scotch. I called the shepherds in, and we all went out to the creekside porch. The night was clear and cool, with a waning full moon trying hard to light up the hills. The creek was shiny black and somewhat subdued because of the lack of rain. Frick sat watching the creek; she’d hidden that damned dog leg somewhere in the cabin and I had to find it before housekeeping did. Or worse, didn’t. Frack curled up at my side and went back to sleep. He’d been limping a little after our noisy jog through the mountains, and I had given him a pain pill. I sipped my own version of one.

Bobby Lee was right-I was way off my home turf and would probably be a whole lot safer back in Manceford County. The manslaughter charge had to be bogus: I hadn’t killed anybody that night, and that guy had been breathing when I walked away. He could have croaked after that, of course, but if so, why couldn’t Mingo produce a body?

On the other hand: Carrie’s proposition sounded a lot more exciting than running down writs and warrants for the court marshals. Baby Greenberg had surprised me up in the hills; for a city boy he’d carried his share of the load quite well. And, of course, I was intrigued by Carrie’s guarded references to a crime beyond methamphetamine sales and service. That mean old woman had almost smothered a kid, much as one might wring a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner. That dramatic gesture with her arms made me think maybe she’d done that before. M. C. Mingo certainly hadn’t seemed shocked; he and Nathan had dumped the child’s unconscious body into his backseat like a sack of potatoes. The cuffing indicated that the kid wasn’t dead, but she sure wasn’t healthy.

I heard footsteps approaching out on the gravel walkway. Frick padded out to the front door. It turned out to be Mary Ellen Goode, of all people. She was wearing jeans and a light sweater, and she ran her hand nervously through her hair when I appeared at the front door.

“I know. I should have called,” she began, but I waved off her apology.

“Come on in. It’s always good to see you.”

That got me a sweet smile. We settled on the porch after she declined the offer of a drink. She still looked very tired, and I wondered what it was going to take to pull her out of her depression. She told me that Janey Howard had finally made a full statement to the sheriff’s office, confirming what the coroner had already concluded, namely, that the man in chains in the lake had been hanged. She’d also given a description of the two men she saw doing the hanging.

“Did you get to hear the description?” I asked.

“Yes. One was older and thin; the other she described as being a heavily bearded fat man. He’s the one who beat her up, among other things.”

“That sounds like the runner I saw taken down by the dog pack,” I said. “Robbins County, taking care of business, perhaps.”

She gave me a sad look. “It depresses me that the only things you and I ever talk about are murder and violence,” she said. “I guess, well, I guess that’s why I dropped by.”

I waited, although I was pretty sure I knew what she was about to say. I think we’d both had high hopes in the past about a possible relationship, but time, distance, and some unholy memories had proved toxic.

She took a deep breath. “I think it best for my mental health that we don’t see each other anymore,” she said. “And I’m truly sorry about that. I had hoped…”

Suspicions confirmed, I thought. “I understand,” I told her. “I wanted the same thing. But I worked a violent profession for many years, and now it looks like I’m right back in it.” I told her that the SBI wanted to hire me to work a problem in Robbins County.

She nodded, as if not surprised. “And I’m the one who asked you to come up here,” she said. “So my problem is partly of my own making. Not your fault at all.”

“I don’t feel like I’m at fault, Mary Ellen,” I said gently. “My life was going pretty well until we uncovered the cat dancers. My ex and I were getting back together, I was leading an exciting and productive police unit, and life was pretty good even if I was just a cop. All that changed when someone started frying bad guys. If I made a mistake, it was getting you involved in all that.”

“I thought I could handle it,” she said. “Now I know better.”

“You need to find a nice guy who’s not wearing any kind of uniform,” I said. “I think maybe you should get out of uniform, too. You have that Ph. D. Go back to the campus. Change your life. Run with some civilians for a change.”

She smiled. “You haven’t been around academia much lately, have you?” she said. She looked away for a moment and then swore softly.

I got up, took her hand, and pulled her up out of her chair. For a moment, I wanted to kiss her, just to see if this was all talk. But the look in her eyes signaled apprehension, not desire. “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll walk you back to your car.”

When we got out to the almost empty parking lot, she surprised me with a warm embrace. I kissed the top of her hair and told her I’d miss her. I was surprised to discover how true that was. Frick had come outside with us and was hovering anxiously, ever sensitive to charged human emotions.

Mary Ellen recomposed her face, slipped into her car, waved, and drove off. As she neared the ramp back up to the hotel’s main entrance, there was a flare of headlights and a rumble of tailpipes as Rue Creigh’s pickup truck popped over the hump at the top and slewed down into the parking lot. Rue’s window was open and her long hair was blowing in the breeze. Her widelipped coloratura face was clearly visible in Mary Ellen’s headlights, and it was my turn to swear. Talk about lousy timing. Rue Creigh’s late-evening arrival was precisely what I didn’t need to happen just then.

Rue drove over to where I was standing with my shepherd and shut the noisy truck down. The engine was powerful enough to literally shake the truck when it stopped.

“Hey there, lawman,” she said brightly. “Did I show up at a bad time?”

I shook my head. “Hello, Miss Creigh. What brings you out at this late hour?”

“Late?” she said. “This ain’t late. This is about when I get goin’.”

I almost thought I could smell alcohol on her breath. Her face was flushed and her pupils were unusually large. Then I wondered if maybe she was riding a meth horsey, since that was the family trade. I mentally chided myself for making a cop’s observations. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Frick was watching this woman carefully.

“Well, it’s my bedtime, Miss Creigh,” I said, trying to keep it light.

“Works for me, honey,” she said with a leer. “Best believe I know all about bedtime.”

I kept a smile on my face. “I do believe,” I said. Then I had an idea. “The problem is that first I’m gonna have to get on the phone with that young lady who just left and do some serious fence mending.”

“Aw,” she said. “Can’t that wait? Besides, she didn’t look none too happy to me. Y’all have a fight?”

“Something like that,” I said. “We go back a ways, and the history has some bumps in it.”

“So you’re tellin’ me that you ain’t gonna invite me in for a drink?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

She shifted herself in the truck and then opened her door. “You want to check out my outfit before you make up your mind, lawman?” She pushed the door wide open and stretched those long legs out into the night air, revealing that all she was wearing below her waist was a pair of panties that would make the girls down at Victoria’s Secret blush. She raised one leg and ran her hands down its full silken length just to make sure I got the point.

I stared for a second. What man wouldn’t-she radiated sex.

“We don’t have to go inside,” she said, her voice husky. “You could do me right here. More exciting that way. Somebody might even see us.”

And then the moment was broken when Frick advanced and started barking. It was an urgent, rapid-fire, shepherd warning bark, and as Rue turned to look at the shepherd, I saw the knife on the seat right next to her. It was a long boning knife of some kind, with a wooden handle and a glinting, slightly curved blade nearly eight inches long. She moved her hand to push it out of sight, and Frick jumped at her. She quickly withdrew into the truck and slammed the door.

“Well, my goodness, lawman,” she said breathlessly. “That there dog is downright im-po-lite. What a party pooper.” Her voice was still teasing, but the look in her eyes was something entirely different. She knew that I’d seen that knife, and that I had to be wondering.

I cleared my throat. “That dog is telling me that you’re a dangerous woman, Miss Creigh,” I said. “I think you’re gonna have to find another party tonight. Nice seeing you. So to speak.”

She tried to laugh off being rejected, but there was a flash of pure hatred in her eyes. I waved and turned away to go back to my cabin. Frick put herself between the truck and me until Rue fired it up and drove off. On the way out of the parking lot she deliberately sideswiped a brand-new SUV parked in the lot, carving a nasty crease down its full length with the truck’s rusty back bumper.

Well, well, I thought, that would have been a ride. Then I reminded myself of Bobby Lee’s little maxim that served to douse any physical regrets at missed sexual opportunities: If she’ll do you, handsome, she’ll do anyone and probably has. Besides, I told myself, I had some serious thinking to do. And then, of course, there was that knife, right there on the seat. Do me here in the parking lot, she’d suggested. And while you’re at it, I’ll plant this steely beauty somewhere between your liver and lights. If we can’t get you one way, we’ll try something a lot closer up.

Mose Walsh was right-I hadn’t appreciated the danger.