Day Into Night (34 page)

The lights are off at Carl’s place by the time I drop by for my mountain bike. I should have stashed it somewhere else because as I draw near the ranger station I notice a car parked across the street. It’s a Caprice Classic, a newer model, which looks harmless enough. I doubt the used clothes store it’s parked in front of is open this time of night and if I looked closer I’m reasonably certain I’d find blue and red lights in the rear window, radios in the dash, a shotgun between the seats. Not that I plan on getting that close — I can’t tell if anyone is home; it’s parked just beyond an oblong of visible road illuminated by a weak streetlight.

I take the low road, through bramble along the creek.

Plenty of shadow. I watch and wait, perfumed by the night scent of willow. There’s another scent mixed in, one I doubt would sell at the local drugstore. Odor of dead cat. Mice drag race enthusiastically at my feet, rustling under dead leaves. No other sounds — seems safe enough. Except for that Caprice. And Special “O.”

We’ve got shit you’ve never dreamed of Cassel —

I’m thinking it’s not worth the risk; I can borrow a bike somewhere else. Suddenly there’s a flash of light near Carl’s back porch and for an instant I can see everything: picnic table, lawnmower, fence. The beam swings like a lighthouse warning over my head and across a wall of dense green spruce. Then darkness comes again, much thicker, and I remain motionless while my eyes become reacquainted with the night. The cop with the flashlight is taking his time sauntering across the lawn. Then he’s invisible, swallowed by shadow, a light crunch of gravel signalling his progress down the alley.

When he turns onto the road I run softly across the lawn.

The bike is where I left it and I fumble with the combination lock, feel for the raised numbers like a blind man reading Braille. The story is familiar and the lock gives. I walk the bike down the alley away from the road. In no time I’m across town.

I don’t like the exposure along the highway but the bordering brush rising out of the valley is too thick to negotiate. There’s nothing to do but wait for a dark stretch with no traffic then pedal like mad for the top of the hill.

I make it to the top with only one interruption — a semi-trailer forces me to drop the bike in the ditch and crouch just inside the tree line. Then it’s cross-country over farm fields. In the dark I jolt and wobble over gopher burrows; there are more than 18 holes on this golf course and plenty of hazards — bovine land mines can cause a nasty skid. For navigation, I use the thin picket of fence-line trees marking the boundary of each quarter section.

Headlights ahead — the secondary road leading to Brotsky’s.

The vehicle is long gone by the time I make it to the road. I heave my bike over barbed wire. At this time of night, traffic should be minimal, but I pedal hard, stash the bike in the ditch and walk the last few hundred yards.

Brotsky’s place is dark, no vehicle visible. But there’s a garage and I feel for my watch. It’s gone — I must have lost it on the back nine. Brotsky is on early night shift and I should have plenty of time to do what I have to, but it makes me nervous to be without my watch. It has sentimental value — I got it at Mohawk with a fill and it’s lasted more than a week.

I’m crossing the yard when there’s a pop and I’m suddenly blinded — the yard lighting up like a prison compound. I dash into shadow beside the garage, wait for the sound of an opening door. For my heart to stop thumping. But the yard lights must be automatic, rigged for movement, because no one comes out. I sit tight; they’re probably on a timer.

After about five minutes, the lights switch off. I slip into the garage.

The garage isn’t empty and the occupant is familiar. Creases in the side of the old, blue Plymouth look in the shielded beam of my flashlight like the scrape of shark’s teeth. In the gloom, the car’s tail fins throw long shadows — like I’ve found the carcass of some dead marine animal. The door opens with an arthritic groan, triggering the car’s interior light. I quickly close the door.

The keys are in the ignition. Not that anyone would want to steal it.

The glove box yields two treasures — a rare collector’s edition of the operator’s manual, still in its plastic slipcover, and a registration in the name of Alvin J. Brotsky. The manual is still good; the registration expired three months ago. I check under the seat and in the trunk but find nothing further.

The house I approach from behind, avoid triggering the yard lights. The back door is locked as are all the windows within reach. A basement window caves easily against the steel-toed tip of my boot. I wait a moment but there are no alarms, no more lights. I put on leather workgloves, pick jagged shards of glass from the bottom of the sill, lower myself through the casement.

I’m standing on something — a washing machine or dryer. Metal pops and sags. Glass crunches under my boots. I flick on my flashlight. It’s a dryer; I’m in the laundry room. I jump down, inspect a shelf filled with junk and half-empty boxes of detergent. The next room is a den of sorts with a couch, TV, dartboard and pool table. The furnishings are old, the basement only half-finished, rooms roughed in. Full ashtrays everywhere and enough empty beer bottles to put a Boy Scout through college. It’s a redneck speakeasy — the posse from The Corral must relocate here after last call.

There’s another room, with a locked metal door I’ll return to later.

Upstairs, the house is a little more civilized; the kitchen is clean, newspapers piled in a corner. The living room coffee table is scattered with magazines, Field & Stream, Deer Hunter, Guns & Ammo, and survivalist magazines — chubby urbanites dressed in fatigues recommend the best all-around sniper rifle, how to build a recreational bunker. When I was a kid, bomb shelters were just going out of style. Nice to see fashion is still predictably cyclic. The bookshelf shows a wide divergence of tastes — Nancy Drew sits next to an old version of Gray’s Anatomy. Brotsky must have bought the books at a garage sale to fill shelf space.

A child’s room is obviously unused. Pluto and Minnie Mouse share a dusty lampshade. A baseball bat and two gloves in a corner evoke memories, guilt for breaking the window. Is the room for Brotsky’s kid? Relatives? I close the bedroom door, move down the hall. Bathroom to the left, master bedroom at the end. Big bed. On the wall, a motel-quality painting of a sailing ship in stormy weather. Three dressers — nice taste in antiques; pictures on top show a family of three, Brotsky smiling. The woman is attractive, younger than him. Then more single pictures of a boy, progressively older, culminating with a high school grad picture. The storyline isn’t hard to imagine — away on duty, covert manoeuvres at home. A battle, which Brotsky apparently lost.

In the closet, rifles stored without trigger guards. The Mounties wouldn’t approve.

Not much to go on — you could find unsecured rifles and gun-related magazines in any house around here. I move back to the kitchen. A clock in the microwave glows green numbers. Forty minutes until Brotsky gets off work. Plenty of time. Downstairs, the locked metal door doesn’t give until I find a toolbox and pry bar. Still, it takes a lot of work to get past the three deadbolts.

The room has no windows. I flick on the lights.

I’m in a military surplus store. Camo netting hangs from the ceiling, making the room resemble a large tent. Metal ammo boxes are stacked in neat rows. There’s a reloading press on a workbench, enough gunpowder to keep Yosemite Sam in business. Guns in an open rack line one wall, chained together through their trigger guards. Three or four rifles are hunting models with wooden stocks. Thirty or forty of them are assault weapons. Most disturbing — a 50-calibre machine gun sits on a heavy tripod. I don’t think it’s a replica.

I don’t think Brotsky will report this break-in.

A small bookshelf displays much less variety than its counterpart topside — reloading manuals, guerrilla warfare, tactical procedures. Next to a cluster of hand grenades I hope are duds is a photo of a younger Brotsky, black-haired and in fatigues, posing in front of a helicopter.

— they offered him a desk job, which he declined —

I rummage through metal cases, lettered on the outside with cryptic codes, looking for c4 or dynamite. A case of high explosive would make a nice parting gift for a disgruntled grunt. Or is grunt the right term for Airborne? Probably not. But there’s no high explosive — the cases are filled with dried food, foot powder, spare fatigues. He’s well prepared for the end of the world.

There’s nothing here which directly connects Brotsky to Petrovich or Hess’s death. If there is, I don’t have the time to find it myself. This dig needs a full team: grids, photos, screens. But on another level, there’s plenty here. Some of those guns have got to be illegal and taken in the context of recent events assume a deeper significance. Brotsky is trained in military tactics, sabotage, counter-intelligence. Explosives. He’s good at his job, then he’s injured and can’t go out with the boys anymore. Like a football player — an injured free agent — he’s suddenly all washed up. So he quits, gets another job. But he likes the toys, wants to keep up with the rest of the class. Whitlaw, his new boss, his commanding officer, tells him there’s mutiny in the ranks, offers Brotsky a special mission — talk to the troublemaker, make him understand. Persuade him, for the good of the unit. Brotsky recruits Petrovich but they’re a little too persuasive and there’s a body to get rid of. Not to worry: Brotsky the seasoned veteran, thinks this through. The Lorax has been in the papers for years, the crimes never solved. Time for a Lorax comeback. Plop Hess in a machine and load it with high explosive. There won’t be enough left of the body to prove anything.

Misdirection. No evidence. Insurance pays for the machine.

Then along comes the ex-twig pig, nosing around, looking for the Lorax. So Brotsky gives me a Lorax. He steals the starter off Old Faithful so I’ll go to his buddy with the Land Rovers, who steers me in Petrovich’s direction. To make sure I believe that Petrovich is the Lorax, he has Petrovich harass me, plants the incriminating resumé. Then he kills Petrovich, who has too much of a temper to remain reliable. Two birds, one stone.

And I have motive up to my eyeballs. It’s such a perfect set-up, it’s chilling.

Maybe I should be a good citizen, make an anonymous call, report a break-in. Rachet might find this room interesting, might begin to make a few of the same connections. There’s a small locked filing cabinet I’m trying to jimmy when I hear the front door open. I lunge for the lights. Could I have been here that long or did Brotsky get off work early? Boots are kicked off, thump against the wall. Maybe he’ll go upstairs and have a beer, or better yet, go to bed. I listen hard, hope to hear the floor above my head creak but there’s only silence. Is he standing by the door, sensing something is not quite right, or has he padded upstairs in his stocking feet?

Is he coming down the stairs, silently, a gun in his hand?

I’m not waiting to find out, slip into the laundry room.

Shards of glass snap under my boots as I stand on the dryer. I hear the floor above me creak now — Brotsky running for the stairs — and heave myself up through the casement, scramble over the metal window well. Lights go on below, projecting a wide beam of light through the vacant window. I run sideways out of the light, to the rear of the house, away from the spotlights waiting in front. As I run, I hear the dim but unmistakable rattle of chain from Brotsky’s basement. He’s unchaining his guns.

My bike is several hundred yards up the road lying in the ditch and I run behind the garage, head into the scattered spruce. I’ll use the dark and trees as cover to carefully work my way to the road. Barely into the trees, I hear the front door of the house slap open and stop running, crouch behind a tree. The yard lights don’t go on. Has he killed them or is he coming around back?

The stars are magnificent but give only enough light to make out individual trees. The ground is black, obstacles hidden. I move slowly from tree to tree, crouching, straining to make out movement by the dark blocks of garage and house. There’s a series of muted slapping sounds and spruce needles drop down the back of my neck. It takes me a few dangerously long seconds to realize he’s using a silencer and those were bullets, at chest height — if I hadn’t crouched, I’d be dead. But it’s too dark for those shots to have been anything but a lucky guess. I make a short, crouched dash for another clump of trees and the slapping sound follows, wood chips hitting my cheek — he’s shooting lower now, clearly following my progress. A pause a half beat long and I dive, lay flat behind dense branches which suddenly come alive, whispering and crackling.

Branches fall — then silence.

He’s got a full automatic with infrared or some sort of starlight amplification scope and is in no hurry — he can see when I move and he’s not worried about waking the neighbours. But why shoot at me? He needs me as a scapegoat.

Unless he doesn’t realize it’s me. Maybe he thinks it’s the real Lorax.

In the quiet, my breathing sounds like Darth Vader. I could use some of the Force right now — even if I make it to my bike I couldn’t outrun him; he would have no problem driving across the cow pasture that surrounds his little patch of trees. If I knew where he was, I might be able to follow an obscured path toward the road. But with a gun like that? One wrong move and I get to see Nina again — assuming I’d be travelling in the right direction.

In the distance, I hear a motor — a car turning off the highway, headed this direction. The car needs a new muffler, the roar obscenely loud. Above me, light plays across tree branches. I feel around for a rock, find one smaller than I’d hoped for. When the car is closer, I run away from the road toward the rear of the garage, use the car’s noise as cover. I’m counting on Brotsky looking for me closer to the road — I don’t expect him to be distracted for long. The car passes, taking with it the light. As the sound begins to recede I throw the rock toward the front of the garage, hoping to trigger the yard lights.