Friday, November 4, 2011
Fuck, Rath thought. That fuck.
Preacher. Weeks out of prison and Preacher was at it again. Who knew what he’d done to Dana Clark; but no doubt he was behind it. He had to be. Didn’t he? Fuck.
The microwave clock pulsed in the kitchen’s darkness.
3:12 a.m.
Rath had returned home an hour ago and insisted Officer Larkin remain on his detail in the farmyard until dawn. Rachel and Felix had been asleep, and Rath had been sitting here at the kitchen table ever since.
Rath wanted to believe Dana Clark’s car had broken down or she’d been forced to pull over in the fog and would reveal herself come morning or be found and helped by a state trooper or a fellow citizen.
He wanted to believe that if he found his daughter a temporary place in Johnson, close to her friends and campus, a place Preacher would not know about, she’d be safe.
He wanted to believe that Preacher had nothing to do with Dana Clark going missing.
He wanted to believe all of this.
But he couldn’t.
He’d be fooling himself, and he knew it.
It was said among cops that when it came to casework, there were no coincidences. This wasn’t true; meaningless coincidences happened all the time, and to believe otherwise was to believe everything was connected and everything had meaning and equal weight. It was a detective’s job to discern between coincidence and true connections in a case.
Was it a coincidence or a connection that the CRVK murders stopped after Vern Johnson had killed himself? Or after Dana Clark’s attack left her as possibly the sole living witness?
Was it coincidence or connection that the CRVK killings stopped after Preacher was arrested for the murder of Rath’s sister a week after Dana Clark was similarly attacked?
Coincidence or a connection that the day Preacher called Rath and stalked Rachel, Dana Clark went missing?
Since the different theories pointed to two separate killers—Preacher or Vern Johnson—some had to be meaningless coincidences.
The microwave clock changed to 3:15.
Rath crept down the hall to Rachel’s bedroom door, opened it a crack, and peeked in. She lay sound asleep on her back, snoring, a forearm tossed over her face. Felix lay beside her, asleep yet still clothed atop the bedspread, his head on her stomach, arms wrapped around her waist.
Rath needed fresh air.
Outside, he glanced at Larkin’s cruiser, lurking in the fog, invisible save for its blue flashing lights illuminating the fog.
The rain fell as a drizzle, for now.
Knowing his way blind, Rath picked his way across the back field to sit on a stump beside Ice Pond where he often sat to unkink his knotted thoughts. Out here, the night was so black the fog was rendered invisible
Until recently, Rath would have brought a bottle of scotch with him to help, and fail, to allay the back pain he’d suffered; however, a steroid shot had sent his back pain into hibernation, his thirst for drink along with it. He lit a cigarette and drew in a deep drag, smoke searing his lungs. Immediately, he crushed the cigarette on the bottom of his boot; it seemed he’d lost the taste for self-destruction and was glad for it.
In the distant northwest horizon, a pale yellow glow throbbed, even the dark night and fog unable to keep at bay the distant lights of Montreal, ninety miles away. A trout splashed near the shoreline of Ice Pond. Big wild brookies dwelled in there. Carnivores. They crashed baitfish and crayfish against the shore, stunned them, then fed on them ravenously. Rath had caught brookies up to seventeen inches in there, but suspected some bettered twenty inches, weighed up to five pounds. Nocturnal predators. One night, Rath would venture out here with his old Scott fly rod and strip a mouse pattern across the surface to discover what monster he could trick into attacking.
Thoughts of Preacher and Rachel and Dana possessed him. There was no forcing Rachel to stay here or to abandon her studies and leave the state. She was right: even in the short term she could not maintain her grades from here. Yet what purpose did good grades serve if she were harmed? For the first time, Rath regretted living so far out in the country that cell-phone and Internet service were as trustworthy as a politician’s campaign promises. His remoteness was costing him. If he lived where the twenty-first century reached him, where Rachel could Skype into her classes and research efficiently online, it would be easier to coax her to stay here, keep an eye on her.
If you can’t keep an eye on her at all times, keep an eye on Preacher. The thought sprang into Rath’s mind.
He needed to know where Preacher had landed after his parole, into what hole he’d slithered. Preacher would be listed online any day now as a registered, violent sex offender.
Rath couldn’t waste another hour.
He needed to know where Preacher lived now. He’d stick to Preacher like bluing on a gun. Whatever Preacher did, or tried to do, Rath would be there. And when Preacher committed the slightest violation of parole, and he would, he’d be put back behind bars, Rachel safe again, from a serial rapist and murderer, who, despite lack of hard evidence, may well have attacked Dana Clark and been the CRVK, too; and never paid for it.
Rachel was all that mattered. She was also the reason Rath had to be careful, resist his urge to hurt Preacher, or worse. If he succumbed, he’d be suspect number one. Caught and convicted. He would not shame Rachel like that, nor risk sabotaging a case to put Preacher away again, this time for good. He had to let the law run its course. Unless Preacher tried to harm Rachel, which he couldn’t do if Rath watched him.
Rath needed Preacher’s address. Test would have access to it. She’d want to know why he needed it. He had an angle worked out. Rath pulled his cell phone from his pocket. It was close to 4:30 a.m. Test had young kids. While she may not be up yet, she would be soon.
Test answered on the second ring, her voice hoarse, beleaguered. “You can’t sleep either, huh? I haven’t heard anything; Dana’s still missing.” She thought he was calling about Dana. Good. She was dedicated. Obsessive. Sleepless nights were status quo for a successful detective. Rath didn’t know how she managed it with two kids. A spouse helped, Rath imagined, and Test’s husband struck Rath as a solid guy.
“You’ve heard nothing at all?” Rath said, playing along.
“Not a thing.”
“Where’s he living?”
“Who?”
“Preacher.”
“Why?”
“He’s clearly a person of interest. If not the primary.”
“I know. I looked into it. He’s out at the end of Forgotten Gorge Road.”
“Way out there.”
“It is odd. It’s not so far from the Wayside Country Store, either. In the fog, thirty minutes tops. I want to speak to him, but, right now, Clark isn’t even officially missing. So we can’t. You can’t.”
Rath knew Forgotten Gorge Wilderness well. He’d deer hunted and foraged for morel mushrooms in those woods numerous times. It was equidistant to Johnson to the west and the Wayside to the east. Preacher could have easily been at the Wayside after leaving the pet shop in Johnson. But how would he know Dana would be there? Had he been watching her? Had he patterned her travel after work?
“Let me know if you get news about Dana.”
“First chance.”
They hung up.
A brook trout whirled on top of the water, devouring baitfish at the surface. Monsters lurked here, in the deep cold pond, waiting for the precise moment to strike as they took advantage of the cloak of darkness.