Reapers (12 page)

"What if you keep doing things right but things keep turning out wrong?"

"Then you question whether the process is right in the first place."

They crossed the churned-up dirt to the road and biked through Saranac Lake en route to Lake Placid. The wind was frigid, numbing Ellie's ears and nose. In Saranac Lake, a flagpole chain clanked senselessly. Neither of them spoke until they were on the other side of town and the pines enclosed the road.

"So what
is
our process?" Quinn said, as if the silence had lasted ten seconds instead of ten minutes.

"Ask Mort Franklin what happened."

"Thieves don't lie?"

"People with something to hide don't react well to direct questions," Ellie said. "Most aren't professional liars. Their emotions get the best of them."

Quinn glanced at her from under her brow. "Does Dee know all this stuff?"

"Are you asking me whether you can get away with lying to your wife?"

"Well no, I was just wondering if you'd trained her. Like if someone tried to swindle us."

Ellie chuckled. "See?"

Quinn pushed his brows together, then flushed. Mountains framed the town of Lake Placid. The trees had gone red and orange like living flame. Ellie biked past the quaint downtown to Millie Perkins' lakeside general store. It was early in the morning but the old woman had already opened shop, a fire crackling in the proud hearth of the converted resort.

"Mort Franklin," Ellie said. "Know where he lives?"

Millie pulled her hand from her apron pocket and gestured east. "Thereabouts."

"Perfect. See you next year." Ellie bit her tongue. "You deliver. I thought you knew the address of everyone upstate and half of Vermont."

"Franklins always pick it up themselves."

Ellie began to curse and halted mid-syllable. Like many of the locals, Millie swore with homespun euphemisms that felt pickled and preserved from the 1820s. In the face of real obscenity, she got curt in a way that implied you'd best be on your way.

She tried again. "Know anyone who might know where they live?"

"Well." Millie leaned over the counter and planted her chin in her palm. "They tried to run services a few years back. Dan Beavers might have thought to attend."

"The guy who makes the shoes? Thanks, Millie." Ellie led Quinn into the cold autumn street. Brick shops and stolid New England homes stared them down. "Beavers is an honest-to-god cobbler. I don't get it. Every closet in town has a dozen pairs of shoes in it."

Quinn glanced at the clouds moving in from the mountains. "People do a lot more walking these days. There's something to be said for getting fit for a pair made just for you."

Dan Beavers tanned his own leather and had been considerate enough to locate his business upshore and generally downwind from town. Ellie headed up the road through the trees to his home, another faux log cabin with bay windows and a separate multi-car garage Beavers had converted into a workshop. The doors were open and he sat inside bent over a bench, hands full of leather and an oversized needle.

"Dan?" Ellie called from a polite distance. "My name's Ellie Colson. I'm looking for the Franklin home. Millie thought you might know it."

The man straightened from his work and threw back his head for a good look at her. "Mort Franklin? Lives on Holcomb Pond. What do you want with him?"

"Just a few questions."

Beavers had wild white hair and a gnomish face. He poked his tongue in his cheek. "Unless they're the burning variety, you might want to skip the trip."

Ellie stepped inside. It smelled like fresh leather and honest sweat. "Why's that?"

"Few years back, he began a revival. Don't have much in the way of church these days. Thought I'd drop by. But if he's quoting scripture, the man's got a different Bible than I do."

"Oh?"

"He's one of those 'dangling by a spiderweb over the pits of Hell' types." Dan cracked a smile. "Haven't heard words like those since my grandpa took me to see the Finneys."

Ellie smiled helplessly. "I appreciate the warning, but I don't have much choice."

"Take Riverside south from 86. Trail's about a mile in, left-hand side."

Ellie thanked him and turned to go, but her curiosity got the best of her. "Dan, why do you make shoes? Not that they're not good..."

"But anyone can loot as many as they need?" He smiled and gazed across his workshop. "It won't be like that forever. Best we start preparing for that day. Anyway, people like to get things made special just for them. Things they know will last. Not everyone wants to be a cobbler, you know? There's something fine about not having to do
everything
for yourself."

She returned to the road. Soon, all signs of civilization disappeared besides the pavement, swallowed by a forest that suddenly felt pre-Columbian. Wind sifted through the pines. Birds twirped to each other, disinterested in the pair of cyclists hissing along the road.

She turned south on Riverside. A mile later, the eastern trail was nearly as well-hidden as Bill Noesi's; it was Quinn who spotted the unmarked dirt path. Ellie sometimes suspected the young had the advantage on that front. She'd been spoiled by GPS, cell phones, Google maps.

The trail wound through the pines. When it grew too muddy and leaf-clogged, they dismounted to walk their bikes.

Quinn pointed ahead. "Suppose that's it?"

Past the thinning trees, a meadow lay in the overcast morning. Three fresh-hewn log cabins had been arranged on the banks of a modest pond, its wind-driven riffles glinting dully.

"Let me do the talking," Ellie said.

The voice came from nowhere. "You the law?"

Ellie whipped her gaze both directions and reached for her pistol.

"I wouldn't." The voice was accented with harsh vowels that lingered like the call of a predatory bird. On a bough to the side of the trail, a young man leered down at them, shoeless feet black on the soles. A rifle canted across his lap. "This is private property. So I say again: are you the law?"

"I'm here to see Mort Franklin," Ellie said.

"And he isn't here to see you," the young man said. Ellie stepped forward. The boy snapped the rifle to his hip and stared down steadily. "If you was to disappear right now, do you suppose anyone would know it?"

She grimaced. "We'll be back."

"Look forward to it," he smirked. She turned and walked her bike back up the trail. The voice followed them through the trees. "I know you, Quinn Tolbert!"

"Well, that wasn't cool," Quinn said to her. "What's the next step of our
process
?"

Ellie shrugged. "We bring the law."

The clouds hid the sun's true position, but by the time she rode to the rustic cabin on the point north of Paradox Bay, it was noon or later. In the day's first stroke of luck, Sheriff Hobson answered the door bearing a briar pipe and a look of eager curiosity.

"Ms. Colson!" he declared. "And young Quinn Tolbert. I hope there hasn't been another incident?"

Ellie couldn't force herself to maintain eye contact. "We need your help. Legal matter."

"Aha. And what would be the exact nature of these matters?"

"Theft."

"If I have to keep pulling your figurative teeth, I'll have to arrest
myself
for theft."

She let out a long breath through her nose. "A significant portion of George Tolbert's wheat crop has been stolen. I've ruled out Sam Chase. Now, signs point to Mort Franklin."

Hobson's gray brow rose with intrigue. He sucked on his pipe, enfolding himself in prodigious blue smoke. "The man of God forgets the Eighth Commandment, eh? What inclines you to read his name in the signs?"

Ellie wanted to vanish through the porch. "A while back, George sold him a piano. Franklin believed it was a Steinway. It wasn't."

The arch look crumpled from Hobson's face, replaced by bafflement. "A counterfeit piano? Why wasn't I notified?"

"Was a couple years back," Quinn said. "One of those 'he said, he said' deals."

Hobson withdrew his pipe from his mouth and examined the stem. "And you believe the chickens are now coming home to roost."

"Franklin is a Great Awakening-style doomsdayer," Ellie said. "The type to hold a grudge. After running into one of his brood this morning, I think I know who's been harassing the Tolberts."

"Your evidence seems..." He rolled his hand in the air.

"Shitty? That's because the Franklin boys ran us off their compound before we'd asked question one. He insisted we come back with the law or not at all—and he knew Quinn by name."

"Hardly a crime in itself," Hobson muttered. "However, the lakelands are blessedly quiet today. One might even call them 'placid.'" His eyes glittered as he waited for laughter. When none came, he dashed his palm against the bowl of his pipe, scattering dottle to the cold wind. "And duty is duty. I'll fetch my steed."

He disappeared inside, then came back with his bicycle. Given his Victorian affectations, Ellie was surprised its front wheel wasn't six feet tall.

The three rode back through town to the highway. Hobson peppered her with questions regarding the "case." She answered best she could, but it only highlighted how little she had to work with.

"My most significant question is why now?" Hobson's bowler fluttered in the wind. He tugged the brim to snug it over his long, graying hair. "Revenge is elementary, but delaying for so long is highly unusual."

"Unless you're a Klingon," Ellie said.

"Mort Franklin isn't normal," Quinn said. "If you expect his mind to act like yours, you're gonna be left holding your dick in your hand."

"Quinn," Ellie said, if only to hide her grin.

"A touch vivid," Hobson said, "but I shall bear it in mind."

This time, Ellie spotted the trail herself. At its head, Hobson moved in front and parked his bike. "I'll take it from here."

Ellie swung her jaw to the side. "This is my investigation."

He gazed at her, eyebrows raised. "If you were a homicide detective, would you take the victim's family with you to question your suspects?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You came to me because you've hit a block. If you'd like to move past it, kindly let me do my job."

"Damn it." Ellie folded her arms. "Get them to speak with me. And don't get shot."

"Thank you for the professional advice." He touched the brim of his bowler and picked his way down the path.

Quinn tried to make some talk, but Ellie just grunted. She had half a mind to follow the puffed-up duffer down the trail, but just before she'd made up her mind, a shot cracked across the forest. She bolted forward. Quinn's feet splashed mud behind her. A minute later, Hobson appeared on the trail walking back their way.

"What happened?" Ellie said.

He tilted his face at the muddy ground, brow creased with equal parts annoyance and embarrassment. "I was shot at."

"What?" Ellie said. "Are you okay?"

"I believe it was just a bluff." The sheriff looked over his shoulder. Weak light dribbled through the dwindling leaves. "But it was a crucial mistake. I am the official representative of lakeland law. With shots fired, they have elevated my power to act."

"Really? I'd say they called your bluff."

"We shall see. I'll try again—tomorrow. When a pot is boiling, one must let it cool before touching it again."

"Let me know how that turns out," Ellie said. "And what you'd like on your epitaph."

"'A man passed, yet his convictions stand immortal,'" Hobson intoned with zero hesitation. "You're too cynical, Miss Colson. If the Franklins reject the law, then they have confessed that the old world is lost forever."

Hobson was an idiot, but Ellie didn't have the breath to argue. It had been a long day and shots fired in her vicinity tended to make her cranky. Birds twittered back and forth, oblivious to the threat of violence hanging in the air more cloyingly than the earthen, maple scent of newly rotting leaves. At the highway, they biked back toward town. The overcast light dimmed, northern mountains going blue. Ellie's sweaty shirt was clammy on her skin.

They stopped at the edge of the quiet mountain town. Ellie's throat was so dry it took her two tries to speak. "Do you really intend to go back there?"

"They
shot
at me, Miss Colson," Hobson said. "It's my duty. If I refuse, everything I've built falls apart."

She nodded vaguely. "Still think our evidence is weak?"

"It's certainly been given a shot in the arm. No pun intended."

They parted ways, Sheriff Hobson heading downtown, Ellie and Quinn heading west for the Tolberts' farm.

"What happens if they drive the sheriff off again?" Quinn said once they were on the road. "We need that wheat to get us through the winter."

Ellie shook her head. "Can't go in guns blazing unless we know they stole it."

"Why else would they shoot at the sheriff? Do you think he grew a pair of antlers?"

"Check your assumptions. Mort Franklin is a religious extremist. Paranoid. He doesn't let anyone make deliveries to his home. It could be standing policy to shoot at anyone who comes close."

"They did it," he said. "I'm sure of it."

She saved her arguments, wagering she'd have to make them all over again to George. She was right. When they returned to the farm and broke the news, George went nuclear. Stamping around the house. Pulling open drawers. Dee sat on the couch, eyes frightened.

"What are you doing, George?" Ellie said.

He yanked open a drawer and shook pencils and paperclips onto the floor. "Finding my ammunition."

"You don't know where you keep it?"

"I intend to use a lot of it."

"Why don't you sit down and have a drink?" Ellie said. "In fact, that's not a question." She fetched a bottle of bourbon from the Tolberts' pantry and poured a glass and cut it with water. "God, I miss ice."

George wandered in and gazed at the brown bottle. "I had to sell the combine back, Ellie. If I don't retrieve my crop, I doubt we'll make it through the winter."

"We won't let that happen." She poured a second drink and led him to the coffee table. His couch smelled welcomingly of dogs. "Sheriff Hobson's going back tomorrow."