The Wrath of Angels

41

Later that mornng, Angel, Louis and I traveled to Falls End with two intentions: the first was to find out if there was anything more that Marielle Vetters could tell us about the location of the plane, anything that she might have remembered, however irrelevant it might seem. If she could not help us further, then there was someone else I might ask, although it would mean leaving Falls End temporarily. Marielle had not returned my call from the previous night, but I had not yet started to worry.

Second, we had to plan for the eventual expedition into the woods. With that in mind, I’d called Jackie Garner and asked him to head up to Falls End as soon as possible, because Jackie knew the woods. Andy Garner, Jackie’s old man, had left his wife when Jackie was just a kid. There were irreconcilable differences between them: she thought Jackie’s old man was the biggest asshole who ever lived – a serial screwer of women, a deadbeat who had never met a steady job he liked, and an oxygen thief – and he disagreed, but he’d continued to be a part of his son’s life until he died, and his wife had continued to love him, despite her better judgment. Andy Garner had that rare gift of charm, a charisma that enabled him to skate over the pain his failings caused others, and inspired a degree of tolerance, and even forgiveness, in those whom he hurt. Jackie’s mother, who knew his weaknesses better than anyone, had sometimes been known to take him back into her bed after they had divorced; it was she who had nursed him during his final illness, and she remained his widow in all but name.

Andy Garner kept his head above water by working as a guide in the Great North Woods during hunting season. He was a premium hire, with regular sports who came back to him year after year. They were wealthy businessmen and bankers, and Andy always ensured that they returned to their city lives content with their hunt, and boasting of the animals they had killed. In lean years, where others struggled to find bear or trophy bucks for their clients, Andy Garner would break records, and his bonuses would increase. He was a man who was only truly happy when he was in the forest, a man profoundly in tune with nature but lost in cities and towns. Away from the woods, he found solace in alcohol and women, but during hunting season he was sober and celibate, and happier than at any other time.

As soon as his son was old enough, Andy began taking him into the woods with him, trying to pass on what he knew and develop the instincts for the forest that he was sure lay in the boy. He was right, to a degree: Jackie had his father’s understanding of, and empathy with, the natural world, but he was softer than his father, and cared little for hunting.

‘You’ll never make money from nature walks,’ his father would tell him. ‘It’s hunting that will put bread on your table.’

Jackie Garner found other ways to put bread on his table, some legal and some illegal, but he still returned to the woods whenever he could, sometimes just to escape his mother, who had always been a very demanding woman. He had that in common with his buddies, the Fulcis. It was probably part of the reason why the three of them got on so well together.

Jackie didn’t have a camp of his own in the woods, but relied on the generosity of friends. When that was not forthcoming, he was happy to pitch a tent. When I called him from my car and asked him to join us in Falls End, he jumped at the chance. I did not tell him what we were looking for, not yet. That could wait.

‘How’s your mom doing?’ I asked. We still had not yet had the chance to talk properly about her illness.

‘Not so good. I ought to have told you about her before but, you know, I think I was in denial.’

‘About what exactly, Jackie?’

‘I can’t even pronounce it, and I’ve heard it often enough in the last month: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Does that sound right to you?’

I told him that I didn’t know. I’d heard of the illness, but I wasn’t familiar with its symptoms, or its prognosis. Unfortunately, Jackie now was.

‘She’d been acting strange,’ he explained. ‘Well, stranger than normal. She was getting angry for no reason, and then she’d forget that she’d been angry to start with. I thought it might be Alzheimer’s, but the doctors came back to us a couple of weeks ago with a diagnosis of this Creutzfeldt-Jakob thing.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘She has a year, maybe a little longer. The dementia is progressive, and her vision is starting to suffer. Her legs and arms are spasming. She has to go into a home, and we’ve started looking at places. Look, Charlie, there’s money for this job, right? I need to get some cash together. I have to make sure that she’s cared for right.’

Epstein had agreed to cover all expenses. I’d make sure that he paid well for Jackie’s guide skills.

‘You’ll have no complaints, Jackie.’

‘And it’s a short job?’

‘Two days at most, once I get the information that we need. We’ll have to be ready to spend a night in the woods if we have to, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.’

‘Then I’m good to go,’ said Jackie. ‘Some time out in the woods will help me to clear my head.’

I told him where to meet us, and the call came to an end. I felt a deep pity for Jackie. He might have been a little screwed up, and with an excessive fondness for homemade munitions, but he was unswervingly loyal to his friends. While he had complained about his mother more than any man I’ve ever met, he loved her too. Her illness and eventual death would hit him hard.

Angel and Louis were following me to Falls End in their own car. I informed them of my conversation with Jackie when we stopped for coffee along the way. Both of them immediately told me to keep whatever Epstein was paying for their time and expertise, and pass it on to Jackie. I planned to do the same.

It was clear that something was wrong in Falls End as soon as we reached the town. There were patrol cars from the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department parked on the street, along with state police cruisers and the MSP’s mobile crime scene unit. Parked on a side road to the east, just at the edge of the forest, I saw a concentration of vehicles, among them one from the Maine medical examiner’s office, and standing beside it the medical examiner herself, talking to a couple of detectives whom I recognized.

I knew that Marielle Vetters lived at the northern end of town, and it was there that a second group of law enforcement vehicles had congregated. Because it was still hunting season the town was filled with strangers and their vehicles, so we did not stand out, but I was concerned about being seen by any lawman who might recognize me. I still didn’t know for sure that something had happened to Marielle, but I feared the worst.

‘Damn,’ I said, and I spoke out of concern not only for Marielle but also for myself. My message was on her answering machine, assuming that she hadn’t erased it after listening to it. Being connected in any way with what might have happened to her wouldn’t be productive. I parked in the municipal lot, and Angel and Louis pulled up alongside me. Angel went scouting for information while Louis and I waited in my car. Angel returned half an hour later carrying coffees in a cardboard tray. He got in the back of the car and passed them around before speaking.

‘Marielle Vetters is alive,’ he said. ‘So’s her brother, but they’re both in comas. It’s all anyone is talking about in the local diner, which seems to be ground zero for gossip. I just had to sit and listen. Two people are dead, both shot. One is a guy called Teddy Gattle. Marielle’s brother was staying with him, and there’s speculation that they may have got into an argument at Gattle’s place, and maybe Grady Vetters shot Teddy there before heading over to his sister’s house to commit the second killing. He and his sister might have had some falling out over money and the house, but the Grady-Vetters-as-killer theory is coming from the cops at the moment, not the locals. Most folk don’t believe that Grady Vetters could have shot anyone, but there are rumors that a gun was found beside him, and if it’s the murder weapon, well . . .

‘But, Charlie, the other dead man is Ernie Scollay. He was found shot in the back in Marielle Vetters’ house.’

I said nothing. I had liked Ernie Scollay from the moment I’d met him. In his careful, cautious way, he’d reminded me of my grandfather.

It was a set-up; it had to be. Marielle Vetters might have been having difficulties with her brother, but she had given no indication that she was worried about him becoming violent. Then again, there were a lot of victims of domestic killings who had never seen it coming, never suspected that someone of their own blood would turn against them. If the potential for violence was that easy to spot, there would be far fewer dead people. Was it too much of a stretch to imagine that, on the same evening attacks were launched on two other people connected with the list, the Vetters family, also linked to the list, should become embroiled in a domestic dispute that left two people dead and two others apparently in a coma?

But if Grady Vetters was not, in fact, a killer, how had he and his sister been found by those who had also sought to silence Eldritch and Epstein? Both Marielle and Ernie Scollay had known the risks involved in telling anyone else of what they knew. Ernie hadn’t even wanted me to be brought into their little circle. That left Grady Vetters, because he had been with his sister by their father’s bedside when the story of the airplane in the woods had been told.

I had to make a decision. Unless Marielle had erased my message after listening to it, it would only be a matter of time before the police came knocking on my door. I could come forward immediately and tell them what I knew, or try to avoid them for as long as possible. The second option sounded best. If I spoke to them I’d have to tell them about the plane, and that would mean the fact of its existence becoming public. I recalled Epstein’s refusal to share what he knew even with SAC Ross in the FBI’s New York office for fear that it might reach the wrong ears, and Ross was his tame federal agent, a man whom we both trusted, even if I didn’t trust him quite as far as Epstein. For now, telling the police anything about that plane was not an option.

I went for the worst case scenario: Grady Vetters had not killed his friend Teddy Gattle, or Ernie Scollay. He and his sister had been found by those who were seeking the plane, and Gattle and Scollay had been killed because they were in the way. Marielle and Grady had probably been forced to share whatever they knew, and then silenced. The decision not to kill them was odd: if someone was trying to frame Grady Vetters for murder, having him shoot his sister and then himself would have left the police with a tidy murder-suicide. Instead, according to gossip – and who knew how true that might be? – there were two potential witnesses still alive, but in comas. On the other hand, leaving them breathing but incapacitated would concentrate the focus of the investigation on the survivors, and muddy the waters for a while. If Marielle or Grady had revealed some new information about the location of the plane, whoever was responsible for what had just occurred in Falls End wouldn’t need to distract the police for long: just until the plane was found and the list secured.

‘What now?’ said Louis.

‘Find us a couple of rooms at a motel, and tell Jackie Garner where you’re at. I’ll be back here by evening.’

‘And where are you going?’ asked Angel, as they got out of my car.

I started the engine.

‘To ask an old friend why he lied to me.’