Cold Quarry (33 page)
Authors: Andy Straka
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery, #General, #Mystery & Detective
It snowed again the next morning. Heavy, moisture-laden flakes stuck to the branches and piled several inches high in the Carews’ driveway, the same way they had the night I’d talked with Chester by the fire a couple of years before. Betty Carew cooked up another big breakfast. I sat alone by the window in the dining room, drinking coffee and thinking of nothing for a change.
I was glad to be able to think at all. Both Toronto and I would have some explaining to do, with more to come;
but the fact that multiple law enforcement personnel had witnessed the boat drivers’ exchanging fire with us and that we’d been able to shut down the boat’s engines went a long way toward proving our intentions.
The small television in the kitchen was turned on. I could hear the steady drumbeat of sound vibrating through the walls. The media firestorm over the tugboat laden with explosives that had blown up just outside the chemical plant and the arrests involving the Stonewall Rangers was in full swing now. All the cable news and major networks had descended on Charleston, West Virginia, and the Kanawha River Valley like it was the next ground zero, which, come to think of it, it easily could have become.
The Feds didn’t want Jake’s, mine, or Nicole’s names brought to the media’s attention. I was more than happy to oblige. Kara Grayson had left a couple of messages on my office voice mail back in Charlottesville. I hadn’t gotten around to calling her back just yet.
Bo Higgins’s used-car dealership had been shut down, of course. Cameras were everywhere and eager-looking reporters and anchorpeople were running around looking for employees or customers or someone else to interview. Pictures of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington kept flashing on the screen as well, and there was even a news conference at the White House.
A lot was still being pieced together, but one thing seemed clear: Drew Slinger, the man who’d taken up falconry in order to become a killer, his neck already broken, had been blown to bits by the very bomb he had built. Colonel Patrick Goyne, the mastermind behind the plot to collect millions selling bogus chemical weapons while also conspiring to blow up a chemical plant, had managed to slip through the authorities’ fingers for now. And I had sat face-to-face with him only a couple of days before.
I couldn’t help replaying the events of the last few days in my mind to see if I might have missed something, if there’d been anything else I could have done.
For his part, Toronto, when I’d seen him out in the bam earlier, was already talking about how we needed to go after Goyne. But we still didn’t know if all his accomplices had been arrested or, for that matter, if anyone else in the government was involved, I reminded him. Besides, Goyne’s picture was plastered all over the papers, television, and the FBI Web site. The Feds and every other law enforcement agency in the country now had an APB out on the guy. If they couldn’t find him, it would be a long time before Toronto or I ever could.
The soft thud of the dining room door roused me from my thoughts. Betty Carew entered the room. She had a portable phone in her hand.
“Marcia’s on the phone,” she said. “For you.”
I thanked her as she stepped out again, put the phone to my ear, and said hello.
“Hello, Frank.”
“Hey. Good to hear your voice, Marsh.”
“I’ve been watching what happened on the news. I heard Chester’s name mentioned and I just wanted to make sure you and Nicky and Jake were all right.”
“We’re all okay,” I said. “Jake’s got a broken wrist, but I think he’ll survive.”
“So you were there then? You were involved?”
“We were.”
“I just can’t believe it. Poor Chester. And those other people too … and a bomb.”
“I know.”
“You doing okay with everything?”
“I’m sitting here watching it snow.”
There was silence on the line for a moment.
“For once, I have to say, I almost wish I could be there with you,” she admitted.
“Me too.”
I wanted to tell her I missed her and that maybe I loved her. I wanted to tell her a lot of things, but the words just wouldn’t come.
“I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to get to a class,” she said.
“Sure. Thanks for calling.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
“I’m glad you called.”
We told each other good-bye and hung up.
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
Jason Carew came scuffing into the dining room wearing his pajamas, his eyes still filled with sleep, his hair a tangled mess.
“Well, hello, pardner,” I said.
“Momma said you wanted to talk with me,” the boy said softly.
“That’s right, I do.”
He stood just inside the doorway and stared.
“Come on over and sit down.” I patted the seat of the dining room chair next to me.
He shuffled over and climbed into the chair with his back to the wall. We both sat and looked out the window.
“A lot more snow out there this morning,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I heard on the TV there’s no school today.”
“Uh-uh. I haven’t been back anyway since Daddy died. But Momma says I have to go tomorrow if they’re open.”
“Your momma’s right.”
“Momma says she wants you and Mr. Toronto to have Daddy’s birds so you can take better care of them and take them hunting when they need to and all that.”
I nodded. “How do you feel about that?”
“I can take them hunting. I know how, I went with Daddy.”
“I bet you could. But the law says you have to wait until you’re fourteen.”
“I know. That’s what Momma says.”
“Is it okay then if Jake and I take care of them for a while? Just until you’re older, that is?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it’d be all right.”
“It won’t quite be heaven.”
“I know.”
“But you wouldn’t want them to get sick or die or anything.”
“No.”
Outside, a squirrel carrying something in its mouth jumped across the lawn and scrambled up a tree looking for the safety of its nest to weather out the storm.
“You heard what happened last night?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.” He snuffled, turning to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his pajamas. “Momma told me. And I was watching the television too in the kitchen.” He bit his lip, still staring at the oversized flakes outside.
“Did you know a lot of it has to do with your daddy?”
His face went wide with expression and he turned and looked at me. “It does?”
My gaze met his. “You know what a hero is, Jason?”
He stuck out his chin as if insulted by the question. “Yeah. A course. I seen ‘em on TV.”
“Well, did you know that there are some heroes—a lot, in fact—who never get seen on television?”
“They don’t?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“It’s because only a few people know about them. And that has to be enough.”
He nodded.
“Your daddy was a great man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I think you should know something. He was a hero, one of those kinds of heroes I was just telling you about.”
“He was?”
“That’s right. The men you saw getting arrested on the TV were the men wearing the masks you saw up in your woods. If your daddy hadn’t started the ball rolling by standing up to them, a whole lot of other people might’ve died.”
The boy nodded some more and his eyes began to tear up.
“And you want to know what else, Jason?”
“What?” he asked, his Up trembling and his voice beginning to crack.
“That makes you a hero too.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, almost choking on the words.
He began to sob.
I let him at first. Then I held out an arm. He put one thin knee on my leg, wrapped his skinny arms around my neck, and climbed up in my lap in order to bury his face in my chest. I cupped my hand around one of his small shoulders and felt them shake against me. The snow made whispering sounds against the window. A storm was raging somewhere in the clouds above.
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