Deadline (27 page)

The stranger said that was kind of her. He didn’t offer to find it himself; didn’t offer to do anything but let her lead him off into the woods. She got her coat and again thanked her hostess. The old woman asked her to come back.

She came down the steps, and Walker could hear her clearly. “The shortest way is straight out there, through those trees and across the river. Come on.”

The stranger lagged a few steps behind her. They went through the gate and started across the field.

They had reached the edge of the woods before Joanne’s alarm sensors went off. Suddenly something about the man didn’t ring true. Once she grasped that basic fact, everything seemed to go wrong at once. The man’s appearance, the strange looks on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Miller as she left with him. Perhaps most of all, her own instinct. The spell of the land had dulled it. The Amish life-style coaxed, soothed, assured her that everything was all right. Walker’s departure had meant the end of all that running, all that hiding, all that fear.

Now she saw the truth of what Walker had told her. There was no escaping the past. She was fooling herself. All she knew at this moment was that she didn’t want to go through the woods with this man. She stopped and looked back, hoping to see someone in the Millers’ backyard. All she saw was him, coming along about ten yards behind her. She smiled uneasily, but he didn’t smile back. His eyes were black and bottomless, his hands fine and delicate as they hung limply at his sides. “It’s right through there,” she said, pointing. “You follow the path and cross the bridge, then follow the river path on the other side. When it blends into the field, you turn right and go up the hill. You can’t miss it.”

“But I did miss it. That’s the way I came, and the people I talked to said they’d never heard of Michael Yoder.”

Now she was alarmed. “That’s crazy. Even if you’d gotten the wrong house, everybody around here knows Michael.”

“Maybe they just don’t want to tell a stranger.”

She thought about that. That was feasible. There was so much about these farmers that she didn’t know. They might not tell this stranger anything. He might be telling the truth.

“Can I ask you something? Something that’s none of my business?”

“If it makes you feel better.”

“What’s your business with Michael?”

“I’m with Internal Revenue. We’ve been trying to contact Michael Yoder for months, but he has no phone and doesn’t answer our letters. Would you like to see my identification?”

She nodded. “No offense.”

He took out his wallet and withdrew a plastic card. It looked official. It identified him as an IRS investigator whose date of employment was March 3, 1973. His birthdate indicated that he was in his mid-twenties. The picture in the upper corner was a good likeness. The name of the bearer was Samuel A. Stoner.

Still she hesitated.

“Your friend isn’t in any trouble,” he said. “In fact, he’s overpaid his taxes for three years running. He’s got money coming back. That’s why I’m here.”

She nodded, but her heart wouldn’t calm down. “Yes,” she said. Her mouth was dry. “I’ll show you.”

She hurried into the woods. Behind her, he had to hurry to keep up. She reached the bridge before she looked back. He was there, about twenty yards behind. She rushed across the bridge and took to the path. The marshes closed in, then the field, stretching away to her right. She started up the hill at a half-run, leaping gingerly across the rows of earth. Slowly, the house appeared on the horizon.

“That’s it straight ahead,” she said. “You can make it on your own from here.”

She had stopped and so had he. His eyes never left her face. She pointed to Michael’s house, but he didn’t move. Nestled under the trees, just outside Michael’s front door, was a black car. One man sat in front, on the rider’s side.

“You’re not from the IRS.”

“No,” he said.

“And your name isn’t Stoner.”

“No, my name isn’t Stoner.”

The horror of it came over her slowly. The accumulation of years spent running and hiding knotted up inside her, and now at the end she couldn’t even cry. “Oh my God,” she said. She backed away toward the house. He stepped into the furrowed earth and came toward her.

By the time Walker reached the bridge, they were gone. The vastness of Michael Yoder’s rented field stretched out before him, as empty as a great ocean. He had no trouble finding where they had gone. Joanne had taken those long, careful strides, while the stranger had made a mess wherever his feet had come down. He saw the place, about a hundred yards from the house, where they had stood and talked. Then they had gone up the hill, through the gate and into Michael’s yard.

There was no one at the house. A faint smell of exhaust hung in the air, as though a car had just left. So they had her, then, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was jump ahead to the next step, snatch the files and run. As long as he had the files, they all still had a chance.

Trudy had reached the narrow blacktop highway and had gone about a quarter mile west toward Abe’s place when the car came. She stood in a thicket and watched the car turn in her driveway. It was just as Walker had said, and it frightened her. She clutched her hand against her throat and waited, but the car didn’t come out.

At last the fear got to her. She climbed the rise to the road and set off again toward Abe’s, driven now by a new sense of urgency. She wouldn’t soon forget that look in Walker’s eyes as he told her about Joanne.

She reached a bend in the road. Far ahead, she saw the dirt road that led back to Abe’s farm. She began to run. Soon she heard the pounding of a dozen hammers. The sounds intermingled with her racing heart as she came into Abe’s yard. A handsaw was biting through wood as she came around the house and beheld Abe Yoder’s new barn. The framing was complete, and fifteen Amish men were hard at work on the roof. There wasn’t a woman in sight, and suddenly she knew she could never keep Walker’s secret, that the need to explain herself would be thrust upon her. Even now, Jacob Yoder had seen her and had stopped sawing. He came toward her, his eyes narrowing to slits.

“Well, miss, what brings you here?”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Jacob put a gentle arm over her shoulder and led her to the water dipper, but even after she had drunk deeply, her voice would not come. Jacob took her over near the house, under a shade tree.

“Take your time,” he said. But there was alarm in his eyes as he waited for his daughter-in-law to speak her piece. She never did get it all out. She made him understand that two men had come and had frightened her. He patted her shoulder in a rare display of affection and told her to go inside and rest.

From the window in Abe’s room, she watched as he said something to one of the men, then hitched up his buckboard and drove away alone. She had seen it in his face, that alarm that came and went and came again. He was thinking about Diana, alone at home. He was going to pick Diana up.

She took comfort from his involvement, and she did rest then. She sat in a chair in the cool, dark room and closed her eyes. Jacob had always been like some giant to her, some invulnerable god. Everything would be all right now.

Fog still shrouded Jacob Yoder’s house as Walker arrived. He crept along the fence toward the barn, watching for any movement, listening for any noise. There was nothing. Donovan’s car was gone, and Walker didn’t know if that was a good omen or bad. He hurried across the yard to the barn door and slipped inside. The station wagon was where he had left it. Inside, Joanne’s cloth bag rested in the middle of the back seat.

He ripped it open. The gun was gone. He dropped to his knees and looked under the front seat. The files were gone too.

So they had it all, the files, Joanne, all the missing pieces. Everything but Walker. Maybe they didn’t care about Walker anymore. Maybe now he could be marked past tense and forgotten. Without the Dawes file, he had no real bite. But that could also be said of Joanne. Even more so of Joanne. Her word alone would have less than zero credibility. It seemed pointless to kill her and leave Walker alive. Far better, from their viewpoint, either to kill them both or leave them both alive. If alive, they could simply destroy the files and deny everything. Stonewall it. Who could prove anything? On the surface, that seemed like the best bet, until Walker stopped to consider the human element. Their hatred for Joanne must be immense. It had colored everything they had done for years.

He remembered something she had said, somewhere along the way. They never kill for revenge. They don’t work that way. But really, what did Joanne know?

Just now, Walker wasn’t so sure.

He opened the door and stared out at the house. It looked quiet, deserted, in the early morning fog. Nothing moved anywhere.

He hesitated for less than a minute, then he walked out of the barn and up the front porch steps. His soft knocking sounded hollow inside, as if the house had been empty for a long time. Houses were something like people that way. Leave them alone for any length of time and they began to sound different. Then they began to look different. And they began to decay.

But no, he heard something. A single movement, a creak of board as someone moved inside. Someone trying very hard to be quiet. He remembered his first day here, how the floors creaked when he walked on them. There was no way to move in this house without making noise. He backed away toward the steps and saw a curtain flutter, just enough for someone to look out without being seen. He saw a flash of hand and a white cuff. A man’s hand.

He moved down the steps, but the door opened before he had reached the bottom.

Donovan.

For much of a minute they stood there like that, looking at each other. Donovan’s right hand was partly hidden behind his leg, indicating a weapon of some kind, and Walker’s eyes went from that to the old agent’s face and back. Donovan didn’t move, but there was something in his manner that wouldn’t let Walker move either, some vague threat that Walker had never seen in his friend’s face. Was that why he had run when he first saw Donovan as he came across the field? He didn’t know. He only knew that suddenly, somewhere between Chicago and Pennsylvania, he had begun thinking like Joanne. Everyone was the enemy. Now his pulse ran fast and his face felt flush as they waited for each other to speak.

Donovan broke the silence. “Better come in, Walker. We’re liable to have more company.”

He went up the steps and inside. Diana sat against the far wall, in one of her father’s straight-backed chairs. On the table between them was the Dawes file, opened, its pages sorted and turned back in various places. Walker turned, and saw that Donovan’s hand was empty. But his coat hung open, and the gun was in easy reach.

“I’ll have to be more careful,” Donovan said. He motioned Walker to a chair near Diana. “I thought I’d know if anyone came here, but you snuck up on me.”

“You can’t look out of every window at once, Al,” Walker said. He gestured toward the files. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit it’s a fascinating story. What do they call it in the newsroom?”

“A helluva story.”

Donovan smiled. “Anyway, I had to see what Armstrong was so rabid about.”

“Now you know. So what are you gonna do about it?”

“Take you back. All three of you. And these.” He gestured slightly toward the open file.

“Why me?” Diana said. “Why do I have to go back?”

Donovan looked at her for a long moment before replying. When he did speak, his answer was no answer at all.

“I think you know why.”

He moved to the window and looked out, then crossed to the side of the room and looked down the road toward the highway. His nerves seemed to be building as he came back to the table and turned a page of Dawes’ journal. A moment later he closed the book, unable to concentrate. Walker guessed, from the number of pages turned facedown on the table, that Donovan had read enough. Walker looked at Diana. In the dark room, her features were vague and noncommittal. The light from a far window made the fine hair under her jaw stand out like some silver frame. And Walker found himself wondering what she could possibly be thinking, and how she felt about things now. He wondered if he would ever know.

“Where are your people?” he said.

“My father’s at Abe’s. They’re building a barn. Mother’s over at Susan’s place. They’re working on a quilt.”

“Then you’re home alone.”

“Yes.”

Again, Donovan checked the windows. He seemed dissatisfied and did it again, going all around the house. Walker’s sudden arrival had unnerved him, and he stepped softly, like a cat, but still leaving those telltale creaks wherever he walked.

“Expecting somebody, Al?”

Donovan looked at him without amusement. “Keep still,” he said.

“Oh, sure. You act like I don’t have any interest in how things work out. Just keep still and let whatever happens happen. You don’t think they’re going to let you do what you’re planning to do?”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

“What happened to the Donovan who always played it safe?”

“He’s right here, Walker. Still playing by the book.”

“I don’t see any book.”

Donovan tapped his head. “It’s in here.”

Walker was silent for a moment. “Al,” he said. “They’ve changed the rules on you. Don’t look now, but the book doesn’t cover this.”

“Sure it does. You just don’t know it like I do.”

“There’s no arguing with you,” Walker said. “They’ll use your goddamn book to bury you. I hope you’re ready to retire, old friend.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Donovan moved to the side window and stood watching the long, empty road.

“You haven’t asked me about Sayers,” Walker said.

“I assume they’ve got her.”

“You don’t seem too excited about it.”

Donovan shook his head. “They won’t hurt her. Even Armstrong isn’t that stupid.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Nothing’s going to happen until they’ve got their hands on these papers. You can be damned certain of that, Walker. I know how minds like Armstrong’s work.”