Borderlines (29 page)

Bishop grinned. “Right-back and forth. That’s why the top’s off this light, so you can see it from both directions. The first guy must have told the second two to bring a flashlight, and to pick their way from light to light.” %189 “Why not just escort them from the road? Or just meet at the road d have done with it?” Hamilton asked, half to himself.

“He’s a wanted man,” I answered. “This rig allows him to see if re’s more than his guests coming.” “And it lets him fade away into the night while the other two’re king their way back,” Spinney added.

“It didn’t work, though,” Hamilton said. “There’s the fourth y.

There was a moment’s silence. Bishop filled it quietly. “I think t’s because the fourth guy was trailing the first one, not the other 0. He didn’t need this,” he pointed at the light in the tree, “because could see the first guy’s flashlight as he set this whole thing up. Also, ‘s a natural: From what I can find of his tracks, he’s spent a lot of e in the woods; knows just where to walk. He barely left a single n behind, even in that muddy area he rigged a rope with a grapng hook on one end from one tree to another and went hand over nd there.” Bishop headed off at a faster clip, surer now of what he was iling. He still made occasional side trips, but obviously for confirmation only. In fifteen minutes, we stepped out of the woods onto a large, ss-covered rock outcropping, stuck like a giant’s foothold onto the e of the mountain slope. To our left, the slope continued up; to our ht, it angled past and below the rock ledge, creating a twenty-foot p straight down to a tangle of thick brush and small trees. The entire e had taken us almost an hour, although we had probably covered more than four hundred feet.

The view extended due west for almost a mile, its dramatic effect omily heightened by the low, threatening cloud cover. Bishop had stepped ahead, not far from the edge, and now dropped one knee. “You better stay where you are for a bit here, while I look und.” Hamilton picked up on his cautious tone. “What’d you find?” “Blood.” Again, he began moving in ever-widening circles around the spot ‘d marked with a red handkerchief. I noticed he had several more of er colors sticking out of his two back pockets. He stopped right at the edge of the cliff and looked over for a while. you want, why don’t you stand over here and keep an eye on me. going to cut around to the bottom and see what I can find.” The three of us did as he asked, as he moved left toward the untain, gained the slope, and then cut around to the area below us. went very slowly, muttering into his tape recorder, once or twice %190 A7c~~

Mo9~ taking a picture, while we scanned the bushes and undergrowth for any movement. None of us had missed the possibility that if two people had come and gone, and another was fatally lacking the blood Bishop had found, then the fourth, whose return to the road still hadn’t been documented, might still be out here, watching.

Bishop finally stopped directly below us, where the brush was particularly thick. Had it not been for his movements, we might have lost sight of him entirely. We saw his face look up at us.

“Lieutenant, I think you better get down here. You, too, Lieutenant Gunther.” During our slow-motion trek through the woods, we had filled him in on our suspicions about Rennie, along with the fact that he and I had almost grown up together. There was little doubt in my mind now that Bishop wanted me as well as Hamilton because I knew best what Rennie looked like. I was no tracker, but I had seen the torn moss at the cliff’s edge, and had recognized from the broken shrubs and twigs sticking from the rock face that something heavy had brushed against it on the way down.

It was Rennie, of course, at least most of him. His body had been sliced from belly to mid-chest, giving him a crude similarity to a gutted deer.

He was lying on his side, facing me, his head pointing downhill, his eyes half open and dry. There was brush and dirt in his mouth and left ear, and I noticed a tiny insect crawling across his pupil. Even during the war, where I’d seen more dead people than I’ll ever see again, I didn’t remember anyone appearing quite so lifeless. Rennie looked tossed away, like some ancient discredited rag doll that had been thrown from a passing car.

Bishop was watching my face. “Wilson?” “Yup.” I squatted down, my forearms on my thighs. Because of his position, the blood had pooled to his head, giving him a florid color, much as he’d had when he’d gotten angry in the past.

I’d been preparing for this, certainly since I’d heard his truck had been found and maybe, subconsciously, even before. But this was a death in fact. I realized, watching this dead body, that I’d been mourning his loss long before that knife had ripped him open. Still, now that it was real, I missed him, and what he represented to me, terribly.

“You okay?” Hamilton asked.

I nodded. Dead people have such a different look to them, even if they’ve been tidied up. I could see where the concept of the soul had won acceptance over the centuries; it really did look as though something had fled this man, something that had once given him more than %191 hat lay before me now. N0~~ he was something busted up and filled with dirt; then, he’d been an active, cantankerous, opinionated, obscene d very honest friend. That man was gone and maybe had been gone r years.

I stood back up. “Yeah, I’m okay. What do you think happened?” “The tracks of the two that came together never show any speed.

ey stumbled around a lot, not being used to the dark and the woods, they came in slow and left slow. Remember their tire marks? They ove away slow, too. I’d guess they had their meeting with your friend re, and then left him alive, picking their way back to the car following ose lights. It wasn’t ‘til after they’d gone that the fourth guy came of hiding.” Bishop pointed to the rock shelf above us, from where Spinney was ill watching us. “They didn’t have much of a fight up there. It looks etty much like the fourth guy just came up and let him have it with enough force to pitch him right over the edge.” “From the front or the back?” “I didn’t want to move him or mess around much, but I don’t see y blood on his back. ‘Course, he may have a big hole on his right e the M.E.’II have to tell you that.” “What else?” Hamilton asked.

“The killer came down here, probably to check his work. His acks lead off back toward the road, but lower down the mountain than e way we came. While there’s light left, I’d kinda like to find out here he headed. I’m betting we’ll find tire tracks further back on the ad than where the other two cars were.” Hamilton gestured in that direction.

“Be my guest.” We returned to the ledge and Hamilton told Spinney what Bishop d found. We radioed Wiley and told him to activate support troops, e Crime Lab, and the local medical examiner. The three of us then turned the way we’d come. I figured if everyone got here in an hour, which would be pretty surprising, they’d only have an hour or two left daylight in which to work.

Some unhappy troopers were going to wind up pulling all-night and duty in the cold, in the dark, and in the middle of nowhere. As r Rennie, he was beyond caring. The gloom and the frost would settle him and lay claim to a body whose soul, I now believed, had been ing for a long, long time.

%192 It had been dark for over two hours before Hamilton and I finally left Lemon Road ourselves and headed back to St. Johnsbury. He wasn’t a man prone to chattiness, but I could tell by his grim demeanor that Hamilton was distinctly unhappy. The hope of nabbing Rennie and putting this entire case to bed had just turned into smoke, and the latest crime promised to whip the press into a frenzy. Indeed, it was partially in an effort to control what information might reach the media that he’d called a mandatory, all-hands meeting at State Police barracks.

But before we even pulled off Route 5, I knew the lid had already blown sky-high. The entire front of the barracks was bathed in television lights, and a crowd of people was standing around the parking lot, forming a gauntlet I would have paid money to avoid.

Hamilton gently nosed the car into a space, moving through the crowd like a farmer among chickens. As soon as we’d slammed our doors, the lights swung over to blind us.

“Lieutenant, apparently you and the deceased were old friends.

How are you taking his death?” “What about the cult, Lieutenant? This murder was reported as having ritual overtones.” “No comment.” “Are you close to solving this? Or are you still all in the dark?” “Is anyone under arrest yet?” “How is the cult involved?” We finally made it to the door and stepped into the front foyer. A trooper was standing guard, keeping people out. “Everyone else here?” Hamilton asked.

“Yes, sir-conference room.” We walked down the hallway to the conference room. The smoke, the noise, and the smell of too many bodies stopped me dead at the door; Hamilton plowed ahead to the front of the room. The place was packed; every chair around the long table was full, others had been brought in from every corner of the building, people were lining the walls. The shades were drawn across the windows-the nervous lights and shadows outside played across them like gigantic moths wanting in.

%193 I parked myself next to the door with my back against the wall.

from that distance, Mel Hamilton was wreathed in a mist of tobacco moke.

Beside him sat a uniformed State policeman with more bangles nd baubles than I’d seen since the service, obviously a bigwig from aterbury. I noticed Ron Potter nearby, too, which gave me a jolt. while I’d been dropping by the office to help FIo Ginty keep things unning and write reports, I hadn’t actually seen him over the last orty-eight hours. It made me wonder whether he’d been busy, or trying 0 avoid all this.

Hamilton surveyed the room, checked his watch, and banged on he table with a glass. “Quiet down everybody. Sorry I was late let’s et this started.” What had been a roar shrank to a general muttering and finally ubsided altogether.

“Thank you. Before we start, I’d like to welcome Major Imus, ead of the Criminal Division. He came down here from Waterbury on ery short notice and would like to say a few words. Major Imus?” The man I’d thought of as a human Christmas tree stood and miled. Being head of the Criminal Division put him about third or ourth from the top of the State Police hierarchy, the kind of guy the ower ranks saw either at ceremonies, or after the shit had truly hit the an.

“Gentlemen, you have a great deal of work to do here and I don’t ant to get in your way. This has become as heated a situation as some f you will see in your careers, and it’s liable to get worse. I am not here 0

breathe down your necks or to supersede your present chain of ommand.

You have all been doing an excellent job so far, and I am nly here to let you know that we are aware of your efforts. Please nderstand you have our full support. Whatever you need, we will ttempt to supply.

Keep up the good work and thank you. You make proud.” He sat back down.

Had the audience been larger still, or had it een comprised of fresh Academy graduates, I would have expected pplause.

Here, everyone just watched him.

Hamilton cleared his throat. “Thank you, Major. You probably all now by now that Rennie Wilson was found dead this afternoon. rofter Smith will give you what we have so far.” Smith rose from the crowd and opened a file before him. When e’d appeared at the Lemon Road scene at the head of the troops, he’d oked a little piqued, half visible in the gloom. Now, under the fluoescent tubes, I doubted I’d ever seen a man look so exhausted. He had ags under his eyes I could see from across the room. As case officer %194 on the Wingate murder, his compulsively rigid personality probably hadn’t allowed him to catch more than two hours sleep at a time, and then only when he was sure no one was around to catch him napping.

“This is going to be a little unusual. Because of the time factor, I haven’t been able to condense all our findings into a single report.

So, I’ve asked several of the people directly involved in the investigation of Rennie Wilson’s death to give verbal reports tonight, with the understanding that tomorrow, you will all be issued written versions after some of us have had some sleep. I’d like to start with Fish and Game Lieutenant John Bishop.” Bishop stood up slowly and began to speak in a gentle, measured tone, as if he were addressing a group of keenly attentive children. He described the process he’d used to discover Rennie’s body, and what the tracks had told him. He had indeed traced the killer’s footprints back to the road. Apparently, the vehicle had arrived after Rennie, but before the other two, and had been parked farther down the road, out of sight, disguised with leaves and branches, just as Rennie’s had been.

Bishop stuck to a recitation of the facts, but I was struck by a pattern-as if the killer, having followed Rennie to Lemon Road, had followed his every move thereafter, from hiding the car to creeping through the woods to awaiting the arrival of Rennie’s mysterious guests at the rock outcropping. It struck me that the killer had bided his time, waiting not just for the proper moment, which must have presented itself again and again in the isolated woods, but more out of curiosity.

One by one, Smith called on his witnesses, including the local M.E. Dr.

Hoard-who confirmed what Bishop had told me, adding that the weapon had probably been a large hunting knife, and who reported that an autopsy was being performed as we spoke. Various members of the Crime Lab, here on their way back to Waterbury, gave preliminary reports on their findings and on the samples they had collected for analysis. Of immediate interest was the fact that while the killer’s footprints did not match any of those found at Bruce Wingate’s murder scene, the smaller of the visiting twosome did conform to the small ones found at the ravine-the ones that had been colored yellow on the sketch of that scene.