A Shadow Fell (12 page)

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
26

             
I was mowing the neglected patch of lawn in front of our house when I saw Con coming through the trees carrying two beers by the bottle necks with one hand and holding
a folded piece of paper
in the other. He took a seat on the verandah and waited for me to join him.

             
I had worked up a pretty good sweat and the beer looked good.
I cut the motor on the mower and took a seat beside him.

             
“Figured
maybe
ya could use one
a
these
,” Con said passing me a bottle
dripping
with
icy dew.

             
“You’re a master of great timing, ” I said before tipping my head back and draining half the bottle.

             
We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes which was more often than not the way it went with us.

             
“You been wondering about my wife,” he finally said. “Thought ya might be interested ta know she wrote me a letter. She’s in Portugal.”

             
Once again Con had surprised me. I had been under the
erroneous
impression that my casual enquiries
had
not even register
ed
with him
but this was obviously not the case.
“Portugal?”

             
“
Yeah. That’s where
her family was from originally
.
Says she
misses me and
wants ta know if she c
an
come back for a visit. See how things are with
us
.”

             
“
Is that what you want, Con?
”

             
“Yeah
,
of course
.
It
wasn’t her fault
that we didn’t make it
. Every time I came back from Nam I was a little
worse
. After my third tour I had changed a lot. I was sullen and sharp-mouthed with her all the time.
And drinking too much.
When I woke up one morning and realized she’d left I wasn’t surprised at all. I remember thinking it was a miracle she
had
waited as long as she did.
”

             
             
“
I hope it all works out,” I said.

             
“Thanks. You know the cops figured I had
killed
her. She was reported missing
and when they didn’t find
her things didn’t look so good for me.”

             
“Well, now you’ll be able to clear that up. When is she coming home?”

             
“
Pretty soon, I hope.
She gave me her number
in a little town near Lisbon. I’ll
call
her to
morrow around noon
and tell her to get here as fast as she can.”

             
“I look forward to meeting her.”

             
“
You’ll like her
,” he said.

             
             
             
             
             
             
*
             
*
             
*

             
The next day I
arrived at the hospital
to find
Callie in the middle of a
nother
therapy session. I watched from a distance so she wouldn’t know I was there. I wanted to see for myself just how well she was doing. It was amazing watching her fight to build strength in her withered legs. I couldn’t help but reflect on how much she had changed. She was much thinner now, more ethereal, gaunt in the face. She was
still
very beautiful, but her beauty now was of a different variety. Having been such a strong
woman before, with a voluptuous figure, she had been transformed into a frail creature in need of protection.

             
There were a number of
small
changes in Cal
lie that had come to light as well. Nothing monumental, just curious.
For one thing, h
er tastes in certain foods had undergone a tran
s
formation
.
I brought her in a pizza one day covered with
green peppers
, something she had always loved. She seemed to enjoy the pizza well enough but she systematically picked off and discarded every
green pepper
after tasting one.
When I asked if she didn’t like them she scrunched up her face and made a sound something like ‘blaaaauuck.’
It brought quite a round of laughter from the nursing staff, all of whom adored her.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
27

             
“So, did you get through to your wife
yesterday?
” I asked as we took up our customary seats on my verandah, beers in hand.

             
“
Yeah, I got through to her just as she was getting up.
She
should get here some time next week.”
I had always liked Con’s easy ways and enjoyed his company but
now that the black cloud about his past had been lifted I was
unquestionably
more at ease.

             
“So you going to do a little house cleaning before she gets here?” I asked.

             
He looked at me like the thought had not even remotely crossed his mind. “Might not be a bad idea I guess.”

             
“Probably not.”

             
“That’ll only take me a minute or two,” he said, vastly understating the project’s requirements. “
We should use the time b
efore Yolanda gets here to do some more
scouting around up in Virginia.
”

             
“
You sure you don’t want to put that on hold? With your wife coming back and all?
”

             
“
Not a chance
,” he
said
. “There ain’t nothing more important than getting that
taken care of.”

             
             
“
Maybe
there
’s
an easier way to do this
,
” I
said
. “I
could rent
a helicopter and
do
an aerial search
.
”

             
Con shrugged unenthusiastically. “
Nah, that ain’t gonna work. M
y guess is this guy is way too smart to
be spotted from the air. I think you’d end up spending a ton
a
money and have nothing to show for it in the end.”

             
“I suppose
you’re right
.
You know
Henderson
has to leave a vehicle somewhere before making his trek up the mountain. Maybe if we concentrated more on finding that we’d
have better luck
.”

             
“It’s a thought,”
he
said. “But there
has
to be thousands
a
places he could ditch a vehicle. He could be accessing the mountain from anywhere. And any vehicle he uses is
obviously
go
nna
be well concealed.”

             
“So we hope that he’s been back to the cabin site and this time left us a trail we can track,” I said.

             
             
“
That’s the way I see it, yup.
”

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
28

             
I didn’t’ want to leave for a week, or maybe more, without letting Callie know I wouldn’t be seeing her.
I found her in the e
xercise
room on a walking machine. S
he proudly showed me how well she was doing.
She wasn’t a hundred percent recovered yet but she was getting close to it
.
             

             
I
spent some time
helping her with
her exercises
.
When it was time for me to leave I walked her back to her room. “Callie, I have to go away
tomorrow
. So I won’t be able to see you for a
little while
.”

             
She didn’t seem particularly upset
by
this news, more
like
mildly surprised. I had visited her every day since she’d come out of the coma and I was someone she had come to expect to see daily. “
How come you’re going away?
” she asked.

             
“I have to see a friend who lives in another city. But I shouldn’t be gone for more than a week.”

             
“A week,” she said
, like she was computing what this meant in real terms
.

             
“Right.”

             
“
Y
ou
will
come back
though, Jack. Won’t you
?”

             
“Of course I will, Callie
.
And I’ll miss you very much while I’m gone. Will you miss me
a little
?”

             
She nodded shyly.
She looked thoughtful. “When you get back will you tell me about our life? Where we live and stuff?”

             
“
Yes, honey. I’ll do that.”

             
“And what happened to me?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“None of the people here will tell me much. They just say it was an accident, what happened to me. Is that true?”

             
I nodded my head. Lying to her was a distasteful thing for me even if it was for her own good. I took her hands and turned her to me. “I have to go now.
Can I have a hug?”

             
She
put
her arms
loosely
around me and
tapped lightly on my shoulders. It was
what
I imagined being hugged by the Queen
of England might
be like. But f
or a
very
brief moment
I was catapulted
back in time
:
I was married to a beautiful
, vital
woman
,
we had a wonderful daughter
, and nothing
bad would ever happen to
us.

             
When Callie
backed away
it took every o
u
nce of determination I could muster to keep smiling.

             
I wanted
to wrap her
in my
arms and never let go
.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
29

             
             
It was early August, j
ust shy of six months since Reuben Henderson had escaped from prison
;
Con and I were
again
slogging our way through the Virginia wilds.

             
At the end of our second day on the mountain we made camp by a stream, looking up at a particularly intimidating section of terrain with steep hillsides and a lot of loose rock that
, if we kept to the same route as in the past,
we had to face in the morning. I thought, not for the first time, how a
fall
from
t
here
could
end badly.

             
I was no longer a young man and, although I had always tried to maintain a reasonable level of fitness, with all that had happened in the last six months my regular exercise regimen had fallen by the wayside.
If there was an easier way to reach our destination I was all for it.
Maybe, I thought,
by following the stream
along its natural course as it meandered down the mountain, we
could
avoid
th
is
p
art
of
our
hike.
After all,
Henderson was
much older than I
was
and if he was making this trek there may, indeed, be a better way of doing it.

             
Something that had always bothered me about this climb was how Henderson – particularly in his later years – had been able to get his victims up the mountain. How was he able to deal with a child who would have been fighting him all the way? And if, as the prosecutor during his trial had contended, he carried his victims up the mountain unconscious, how was he able to handle the extra weight this would entail? Even a young girl of ten is going to weigh
eighty
pounds or
so
. Add this to the camping gear and supplies he would need to carry
and
the situation seemed impossibl
y difficult
to me.

             
I
told Con about my concerns and asked what
he thought of my idea
of scouting out an easier way to go
.

             
“
W
hy don’t
we
take a little gander around the bend
up
there
,” he said pointing. “S
ee what things look like
.
I agree with you that making this trip with the added weight of a child would be pretty damn difficult. I ain’t sure I could even do it. I don’t see how Henderson would be able to manage it. At least not unless there’s a much easier way to get up there.
”

             
As
we struck out, with Winston eagerly leading,
the stream widened, large boulders rimming
its
banks, making
headway
both slow and difficult
. Accessed from a different direction, however, there was
at least a
possibility that an easier ascension of the mountain was possible.

             
We trudged on
for about fifteen minutes before the trees thin
ned
a bit
and we had a decent view of what lay ahead. Sure enough it looked
as
though,
if
we continued to follow the creek
a
less hazardou
s
alternative
likely
did exist
.
From where we stood it appeared that a long, gradual slope leading up the mountain from the west
might well
get us where we wanted to go.

             
“I
t looks like we got lucky
,” Con said.
“But w
e better get headed back. We’re starting to lose light.”

             
I looked around for Winston. At first I didn’t see him but when I called out his name I saw his head pop up from between two boulders
some distance ahead
.
He was a very well trained an obedient
dog
and seldom hesitated to respond immediately to the command to come. But obviously something had captured his attention and he was reluctant to leave it. When I called him again he stood his ground and barked at me. I knew from previous occasions that this was his signal he wanted me to help him capture some prize he had unearthed
,
and he could be stubborn about it. I decided the couple of minutes it would take to humor him was worth it.

             
“Wait here, Con,” I said. “This won’t take long.”

             
Winston was scratching at the patch of sandy ground where the boulders came together when I
got to h
im. “What’s so interesting, fella
?
” I said. Then
, bending down,
I saw what
was holding
his attention.
It looked like a piece of
white
cloth.
Not something terribly unusual if we were somewhere people were likely to have spent time
, b
ut we were
a long way from there.

             
It was impossible to reach
whatever it was
from where Winston was trying to get it.
I climbed
up on
one of the boulders and stretched out
, dangling my arm down. It took some maneuvering but I was eventually able to get it between two fingers and lift it up. By now Con had decided to join us and when
I lifted it free I tossed it to him while I climbed back down
from
the rock.

             
“It’s a cap,” he said. “Says Maricopa County
All Stars
on it.”

             
I took the cap from him and looked at the insignia myself. “Jesus,” I whispered.

             
“What?” Con said. “Does it mean something to ya?”

             
“Sun City, Arizona –
my parents home
– is in Maricopa County.
”

             
Con’s eyes went wide.
“
No s
hit,” he said
.

             
“The detective I spoke to
at the Phoenix hospital
told me
the
man who
arrived at my parents home
that day was wearing a white cap. It’s got to be him.”

             
“Could be a coincidence,” Con pointed out.

             
“Do you really believe that?”

             
Con took a moment to ponder in his usual style. “No,
I guess not
,” he finally said.

             
“Me neither.”

             
I looked up, imagining an access route to
Henderson’s
cabin
location
straight
along our line of sight
. It wasn’t hard at all to imagine a gust of wind blowing the cap off a climber up there.

             
“
I wonder if we’ve lucked out
,
” Con
said
, his eyes shining with a strange glint
.
“
Maybe the bastard’s actually
here
.
”

             
I looked at the cap
I was holding
again.
I was imagining what the outcome in Arizona would have been if my parents neighbor had not happened to notice the
bogus
delivery man walking up the walkway next door.
I
tried to keep
the anxiety
I was feeling out
of my voice
but
it wasn’t easy. Suddenly the possibility of coming face to face with Henderson was real
.
“
I
t’s only been two weeks since
he
was
wearing this
in Arizona
,” I said
quietly
.
“F
or
it
to be here now means there’s a
decent
chance
he
i
s
too
.”