Chapter Fourteen

 

At that moment, Summersby lay in his room, the bed sheets tangled beneath him. He could not sleep. He knew he was near his goal. It had been so long. The trail leading him here and there across the country for such a long time. But this was the source. For the first time in all the years of looking he felt certain of it. In the darkness he watched the glow of a passing car headlight arc across the ceiling. Saw the fall of light flicker through the half open blinds in a cascade of rushing bars. He remembered Bo. His brother, Bo Summersby. And tears filled his eyes. With a sudden rush of rage, Summersby leapt from the bed and threw on his trousers. He went barefoot into Stoeffel´s living room and headed for the bar. Spinning the top from a bottle of rye, he poured himself a large shot.

The front door opened as Stoeffel came in.

“Drinking in the dark, buddy. What’s wrong?”

Summersby downed the glass in a single mouthful.

“Bad dreams, Chief. Just bad dreams.” He slumped down heavily into the settee.

Stoeffel was not in the mood for more confessions. He was tired and Leroy had taken his time get- ting back from Mrs. McGaddy. She had offered him hot tea and cakes, so Leroy had said by way of excuse. But Stoeffel guessed it was a delay made more from spite at being caught out at his nocturnal meanderings than anything else.

“Any more on the Links thing?” Summersby asked.

“Not directly but there is another possible suspect. A woman with the right kind of record.” Stoeffel was not sure he should go into this but in a way Summersby was the perfect listener. He was a stranger and only here for the duration. He knew no one here and soon he would move on again. Summersby looked up from his glass, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.

“So. Who is it?”

Stoeffel strode across the room and snapped on a side lamp, then picking up the bottle poured himself a shot.

“I was with her tonight.”

Summersby waited, sensing Stoeffel´s discomfort.

“It was my dinner date. Jenny Lowell. Something came up in conversation and I ran a check on her.”

“Wow!” Summersby snorted. “You ran a check on her. Remind me not to go out on a dinner date with you.”

Stoeffel took a swallow, ignoring the snipe.

“So what was the brief?” Summersby pressed.

“A young girl killed. Throat cut. Manslaughter was the ticket.”

“She killed a kid with a knife?” Summersby asked slowly.

“Uhuh. It was juvenile offense. She was seventeen at the time.”

Summersby twisted a disgusted lip. “And you think she´s a repeat offender now, come on Chief. Get real, what is she, forty, fifty years old. I don´t think so.”

“No, neither do I,” Stoeffel shook his head tiredly, the bitterness rising in him. “It´s just the job. You have to look.”

He fingered the rim of his glass, sliding the forefinger in circles.

“I know how it seems to outsiders. I understand. Like you are some kind of ogre poking around in dark places just looking for trouble. But this is a woman convicted of a killing, she has a record for all kinds of other stuff one of which just happens to be drug misuse.”

Summersby could see the Chief was hurting inside. Whether from disappointment or shame, he could not tell.

“Don´t let it eat you up, Paul. Okay, the lady has a past. That doesn´t mean she´s going out on a side road with a long knife to cut up little black girls.”

“Shit! Do you think I don´t know that? I even like the woman. It always gets to be this way, where I´m torn between the job and my life. Maybe you don´t see it from where you are, the continual watching. Never knowing where any relationship will lead. Anybody could be a wrong `un. That guy who offers you a drink in a bar. What´s he after, is it a favor or just a kind gesture? It gets so you where you lose sight of humanity and that’s the first step to becoming inhuman.”

Summersby got up and refilled both their glasses.

“Wait a while, Paul. Sit on it and see where it leads. It’s pretty doubtful that it’s connected with what we have here.”

Stoeffel nodded, wishing it was Leonora he was talking to and not this young man, but then, there was no way he could have talked about this to Leonora anyway.

“Just gets to me now and then.”

“Get some sleep, buddy. You´re tired out.”

Stoeffel drew himself up slowly. “Yeah. I think I will hit the sack. Good night, and keep this to yourself for the time being, will you?”

“Sure.” Summersby watched Stoeffel move slowly to his room and suddenly realized that for a moment there he had forgotten all about his brother Bo.

Stoeffel lay on his bed still fully clothed. His mind was still running over the evening and although he felt physically tired his mind was racing and awake as it ever could be. Admissions poured into his brain.

From the moment he felt pity for the little dead black girl to his sense of caring for Jenny. Something was happening inside him that he did not quite understand. It unsettled him. He tried to clear the thoughts and shut down the intrusive waves of emotion. But it did not work. Jenny was there with all her past behind her like a shadow. He realized though it was not what she had been but what she was now that counted. And so far he had seen nothing that set her apart as anything other than a hardworking mother and an upright woman.

The dead came to visit him then, in the darkness of the unlit room. Units of them. Dog-dirty soldiers in camouflage green and dusty dwarfs in black flitted in and out of the shadows. The men he had served with and the ones he had killed. They hung there accusingly in the shadows and seemed to be asking him just who the hell did he think he was to be judging anyone anyway. The blood on his hand was just as red as that on Jenny´s. But was it as red as that on little Epsie? Where did you draw the line? It came to him that some things in this life were just not right and that they demanded protective retribution and yet there were others that could be forgiven. The problem was eternal and there was no statutory law that could fulfill this equation, it took something more human than that. He guessed you could call it just plain common sense.

Stoeffel got up and changed into his uniform. He left the house quietly and got into his car. It took him half an hour to reach the Jobin place. There was no moon tonight and the house was in darkness. Stoeffel had planned to just drop off the groceries on the porch and leave. But as he mounted the wooden steps, holding the armful of boxes, a voice creaked from the shadows.

“Why, Chief Stoofel. What on earth are you doin´ out here at this time of night?”

Mother Jobin was standing there like a statue in the darkness, hands crossed on a crooked hardwood walking stick.

Stoeffel froze on the top step, then relaxed when he recognized the old woman.

“I could ask you the same thing, ma’am.”

“Ah, well,” she said. “At my advanced years you don´ need so much sleep. When it ain´t too cold I come out here and listen to the night. Watch the stars. It´s peace-afying.”

Stoeffel set down the cartons.

“I had these here supplies for you in my trunk all day, reckoned I should leave them here tonight before I forget them again tomorrow.”

“You lead a busy life, Chief Stoofel.”

Damn it, thought Stoeffel, will she never get my name right.

“Like most city folk,” the old lady went on critically. “Too busy to set and think a while.”

“True enough, ma’am,” Stoeffel agreed, fetching more boxes.

“Lord, you got enough stuff there for a legion. I ain´t got any money for all this and I never ordered nothing, so where is it all coming from? Cain´t be Reverend Clitus, he already been past a day or so back.”

“No, ma’am. This is just a small offering to help you get by. There´s no need for any payment; it’s all taken care of. And look here, there´s this pot of flowers for you.”

Mother Jobin stood there silently a moment. A shadow amongst shadows.

“You done this, didn´t you, Chief?”

Stoeffel sighed. “It´s nothing, Mother. Look I´ll take these inside for you and be on my way.”

“I reckon you´d better come inside with me and take a glass or two, son. I see something’s troubling you.”

Stoeffel felt like an admonished child under the old lady´s stern invitation but he obeyed her and carried the cartons into her small kitchen. She lit an oil lamp and fetched a bottle and two glasses.

“This here,” she said, raising the bottle which glowed red in the lamplight. “Is my own special liquor, I make it myself from the wild berries I find in the woods. An´ I´ll be mighty surprised if you don´t think it´s the cat´s whiskers.” She poured with a shaky hand and offered the glass to Stoeffel. “Set there, Chief. And take it slow, that’s powerful stuff.”

Stoeffel sat down awkwardly in the high backed wooden chair. “I´m obliged, ma’am.” He sipped the drink and found it sweet and full, rich with flavor. “Why that is a mighty fine wine, Mother Jobin.”

She sat down in her rocking chair and holding her glass in both hands savored a mouthful.

“The one blessed pleasure I have left,” she cackled.

They sat silently for a while watching the shadows dance in the lamp flame.

“I´ll tell you something, Chief. Might ease your mind some.” She paused momentarily then hawked and spat casually into her cuspidor.

Stoeffel watched her wondering how she could tell his heart ached so.

“That cabin out back there, you know it?” Stoeffel nodded affirmation. “Well, when I was a young woman I was a damned pretty little thing an´ lived out here quite happy with just my folks, didn´ have no siblings, I was a only child not wanting or expecting much out of life. Up one day, a young woodsman passes by the house and my Ma civilly asked him to join us for supper. In them days these boys would live out in the woods for months all on their own away from town. They didn´t have much and just worked the wood, felling and stripping the trees for the lumber mill. He was a handsome devil an´ I was a young girl going on sixteen years old who knew next to nothing about anything `cep caring for livestock and such.”

The drink tasted good and Stoeffel indicated the bottle, not wishing to interrupt the old lady´s tale.

Mother Jobin nodded and as Stoeffel refilled his glass she took up her story.

“Well, to cut it short I fell head over heels for this boy. Peers Longridge was his name and he came from out of State somewhere, I never did find out where. It seemed Peers was just as interested in me as I was in him and he came to call pretty frequently after that. My folks liked him. He was an easygoing fella, polite and attentive. I guess they saw him as a good match for their daughter. So, we would set there on that porch outside. We had a swing seat then and we would drink lemonade and when we thought no one was looking we would hold hands. You´ll never know, you youngsters, how just holding hands can be the most exciting thing a person can experience. Nowadays it has to be the whole kit-`n-kaboodle, but back then it was enough.”

She sipped her glass to ease all the talking.

“One time I let him kiss me,” her voice drifted off softly at the memory and became young again.

“Like angels wings, it was. I felt as if my heart would stop beating altogether.”

Stoeffel smiled kindly at her words. A remembered passion that must have been over seventy years old and still as fresh a perfume as flowers in the old woman´s mind.

“We set to marry. My Pa and him shook hands on it and all was taken care of. Then though, them little fellow’s invaded Pearl and the war started. I wanted us to wed before he left to go fighting but he wouldn´t have it. Just hold yourself for me, he said. Just wait `til I get back. So I did as he asked and listened to the radio each night to hear what was going on. Remember, Chief, I had next to no schooling. I didn´t know where they was talking about on the radio. All them South Pacific islands. Iwo Jima and such. Didn´t mean nothing to me, I didn´t even know what a ocean looked like let alone where it was. Well, they dropped that terrible bomb an´ it all finished. I waited for Peers to come back. I waited a long, long time. He didn´t come back for years. Neither of us was much good at reading an´ writing so not much letter writing went on. My Pa found out he had been shot up some but had survived okay. Peers had been in hospital for a while then he lit out on his own and just went missing. So time passed, then one day I seen him. Standing on the path to the house. He looked terrible. Like a ghost. Raggedy clothes an´ eyes sunk in his head. I remember dropping the pail I held but I couldn´t move and we just looked at each other across that space out there.

My Ma called out to me and I turned to answer her, when I looked back he was gone. I wasn´t sure if I had seen him or just imagined it. I never told my folks, so they never knew what happened. After that he appeared to me from time to time. Just flitting in an´ out of the woods, like a thing you catch at the corner of your eye. I began to think it was all my hopes conjuring up an apparition. I prayed, Lord how I prayed to make it real. Then one day, he spoke to me.”

Stoeffel waited in the silence. The old woman stared into the lamp flame, her eyes liquid with tears. The lamplight breaking the tears into pinpoints of light in the dark shadows under her brows.

“He called to me by my given name. Eleanor, he said. Eleanor, I´m sorry. I´m real sorry. That was the only time he ever spoke. He said that then he was gone. Moving in that forest like a wild animal, just drifting off as if he was autumn leaves. My heart broke, I can tell you. It was all real. He was here. Right next to me an´ yet untouchable. So I took to leaving out a covered basket of food on the porch, right where the swing seat was. Come morning it was always gone.

My Pa reckoned the things he done and seen in the war had broke him. He was no man anymore they thought, living like a forest creature out there somewhere deep in the woods. I´d wait for him to come fetch the food I left out but I never saw him, he was real good at moving in the woods without being seen. I reckon they trained him some in the army for that. Then I would call to him, go out there in the forest and call. I waited, I´d say. I waited for you, Peers. But he never answered. Lord forgive me but I wanted to die I was that heartbroke.

So, we hear this chopping an´ felling going on and we think the lumbermen are back at work. My Pa went out to see and came back telling us that someone was building a cabin over yonder back a-ways. We expected to have new neighbors soon. But no one came by, we never saw a soul, just heard all this banging and such. Each time my Pa went over there everything stopped. It was like some wood fairies was building the thing.

When it was done, the cabin looked real pretty, I know, I went over to see. All the wood seams were caulked and sealed. The doors and windows fit real good. Even had a chimney an´ stove inside. It was a home, you see, Chief. Peers had made us a home. An´ I tell you this true, after it was done I never saw or heard a word of him from that day to this.”

Stoeffel sat back amazed as she finished. “Not a word?” he asked.

Mother Jobin shook her head. “No, he was gone. I´ve thought on it a long time and I reckon he probably died out there all alone somewhere. He couldn´t face people no more, you see. Must have been all broken up inside and nothing made sense anymore. Just bits and pieces of it. Leastways though, I had that small thing, he did come back here an´ built us a home.”

She paused and took another sip of her drink. “Sad thing is, Chief… And you can take this and understand it how you will. Howsomever you might build the house you still have to live in it, otherwise it ain´t no damned use at all.”

Stoeffel set down his glass. “That sure is a sad tale, ma’am. I´m real sorry to hear it had to end that way.”

“I think you´ve been there, Chief. Ain´t that right? I feel it comin´ off you like steam on a skillet. But you know all that hurting ain´t going to change a thing, you have to try a little lovin´ to kill off the pain.”

Stoeffel nodded wryly. “You´re a perceptive old woman.”

She waved a withered hand dismissively and smiled. “Naw, I just been around a long time.”

“Well, thank you for your time and advice. I´ll certainly think on it.”

“You do that. And you might like to take another look at Peers´ cabin. I heard a vehicle up there earlier, I wonder if them people is back.”

Stoeffel frowned darkly at the information. “Okay,” he said. “I´ll check it out.”

His dashboard clock read out a digital 03.30 by the time Stoeffel made it back up to the clearing in the woods. It was pitch black in the deep of a moonless night and nothing was visible outside the funneled beam of his headlights. Stoeffel parked and looked across the clearing as the high beams highlighted the destroyed cabin. Nothing moved. He called in.

“Leroy, you there?”

“Sure am, Chief. What’s up? Thought you´d be fast asleep by now.”

“I´m up at the burnt out cabin. There´s been movement reported up here by the old lady and I´m just checking.”

“You need backup, Chief?”

“No. Just letting you know.”

“Okay. By the way, Chief. I had a comeback from U.S. Customs on those toys.”

“Let´s hear it.”

“No one imports them. But Customs say they do appear on a manifest for a house contents movement over from Japan. A Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Loville. I checked it out and the house is here in Lodrun. The folks themselves live in L.A. (need periods for Los Angeles, because LA is the postal abbreviation for Louisiana) and this is their holiday home. Apparently this Loville guy is something to do with the movie industry. Lotta dough. He comes up maybe once, twice a year. Does some hunting with his pals, that sort of thing. Funny thing is, the family has no children.”

For once Stoeffel was grateful for the post 9/11 paranoia. Customs was real careful now about what came into the country and comprehensive manifests were order of the day. “Okay. That’s good work, Leroy. We´ll check it come daylight. You got the address?”

“Sure have, Chief. They´re at Boden Place Farm, bitty piece outside of town.”

“I know it. Call you back when I´ve had a look around up here. Out.”

Stoeffel hung up the mike and collected his flashlight. He stepped out of the car and ran the beam around the clearing.

The thing sat there. Propped upright in the middle of the clearing like an open invitation. A black plastic sack reflecting the flashlight beam in ripples of brightness The thing was big, the sort of thick plastic bag that an industrial boiler might arrive in and fastened at the top with a turn or two of plastic coated wire. Stoeffel moved over cautiously. The old lady had been right, whoever these people were they had certainly been here since he, Summersby and Jimmy Luke had been up. Stoeffel unbuttoned the fastening strap on his holster and took out his pistol. He clicked off the safety and kept his finger ready alongside the trigger guard.

He walked all around the sack, slowly checking the damp earth with his flashlight. There were large sized boot prints and he avoided them carefully, they would need to make casts later. He found the high tension fishing line around back. Almost invisible to the naked eye, only the run of torchlight along the gossamer length gave it away as a silver thread.

The line ran across the clearing to a dried up bush that camouflaged a positioned claymore mine. The curved box shaped anti-personnel device could spray a burst of shredding metal balls over anybody that triggered the booby trap by moving the sack. Stoeffel knew the story; he had seen enough of them in the army overseas. He freed the attached line and made the ugly looking mine safe. Whoever these people were they knew their stuff and were prepared to go to any lengths it seemed.

Stoeffel tested the hefty sack with the barrel of his gun. It squeaked and settled softly away from the pressure. He slipped a fold-up knife from his pocket and slit a line down the front of the plastic. The slash opened easily, forced by the weight inside and a river of polystyrene chips sprang out, flowing whitely onto the clearing floor. Stoeffel backed off before the white wave reached his feet. He ran his flashlight’s beam up quickly into the interior.

Fish dead eyed, the bloody face of George stared back at him. Curls of polystyrene sticking to the pale skin like snow on a statue. He was bound with packing tape, knees bent up to his chin and arms down by his side, the tape wound around the body fastening it like a mummy. Stoeffel stared, a cold weight settling in his heart as he noted the dark brown stain running out from under George´s chin down onto his soaked shirt.

As it silted out, the polystyrene load lightened inside the bag and the folded body moved forward, shifting weight from off the second hidden detonator. Stoeffel was tumbled backwards by a pressure wave as the clearing lit up in a sudden explosion of light. A white flash of sparkling phosphorus droplets climbed skywards and blazed there in a pyrotechnic display as they flew out from the vaporized sack.

Temporarily blinded, Stoeffel could only see a hazy blotch of purple before his eyes. He never knew it but the compact mass of George´s body redirected the blast away from him before it was incinerated. Miraculously none of the phosphorus particles struck him. Exploding into flame as they reach the air, they torched the trees around the clearing behind and spread little pools of fire on the ground. Dazedly, Stoeffel sat up, seeing nothing except the bloom of purple burned into his retina by the brilliant light. He could smell the fire and scrambled wildly backwards on hands and heels away from the roaring pyre at the center of the clearing.

He collapsed back against the wheel hub of his police cruiser, mind whirling as very slowly his vision began to clear.