Shadow of Death (12 page)

Authors: William G. Tapply

Tags: #Suspense

BOOK: Shadow of Death

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So. Burlingame died “accidentally,” while this Mark Gorham Lyman died “suddenly.” Keene, New Hampshire, Lyman's
birthplace, was maybe a half hour's drive from Southwick. Lyman, like Burlingame, was about Albert Stoddard's age.

And the two men had died within a couple weeks of each other.

I started to reread the Burlingame obitâand that's when Henry jerked his head up, barked, uncoiled himself, and went skittering on his toenails across the linoleum floor.

He pressed his nose against the door and growled deep in his throat.

“Cut it out,” I said to him.

He continued to growl.

I hastily refolded the two clippings, put them back in the envelope, and slid the envelope into my jacket pocket.

I picked up the lantern, went over to the kitchen door, and knelt beside Henry. “What the hell's the matter with you?” I said.

I thought of porcupines and skunks and raccoons. I didn't want Henry to tangle with any of those critters. Bird-dog genes might've flowed through Henry's veins, but he was still a city dog.

The Goff brothers had mentioned bears. Black bears, our New England species, were notoriously shy. Still, all bears were territorial. A Brittany spaniel would be no match for a bear.

I told Henry to
sit
, which he did, and to
stay
, which I knew he would do. Walt Duffy, his previous owner, had trained him well, and so far my haphazard commitment to discipline had not untrained him.

I opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the screened-in porch. I held up the lantern and looked around. I saw nothing except the darkness under the pine trees, heard
nothing except the soft early-evening breeze rustling the branches.

The light from my lantern didn't penetrate the dirty old screening very well, so I pushed open the screen door and started down the back steps â¦ and then something hard smashed against the bony knob of my right ankle.

I yelped, felt myself falling, dropped the lantern, flailed my arms, and crashed onto the ground. I landed flat on my chest, and the wind blew out of my lungs.

The lantern flared and then died when it hit the ground. All was darkness.

I curled fetally on my side, grabbed my throbbing ankle with both hands, and tried to suck breath into my lungs. Sharp fiery pains were shooting up my leg and my chest burned. My mind whirled with confusing thoughts and images.

Then I became aware of movement close behind me, the merest whisper of soundâthe smooth sole of a shoe scraping over a soft blanket of pine needles, and then the slow, calm exhale of a breath.

I sensed that someone was standing close to me.

I turned my head and looked up. The figure of a man, silhouetted against the silvery night sky, loomed over me.

“What's your problem?” I said. “Albert? Is thatâ?”

He kicked me in the ribs. He grunted with the effort.

It felt like I'd been shot. Red lights flared like sudden flames inside my head.

He put his foot on my chest and rolled me onto my back. Then something pressed hard against the middle of my forehead. It felt like the side-by-side ends of two sharp, slender metal pipes cutting a figure-eight into my skin.

It took me just an instant to realize what it was.

It was the muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I figured my head was about to be blown off.

Then the pressure on my forehead went away. The gun barrel traced a slow, sensuous line down the side of my face and over my chest and belly. It stopped at my groin and prodded me there.

My scrotum shriveled. I took a deep breath, started to speakâand that's when he smashed the gun barrel down on the very center of the top of my head, and white lights blazed for an instant before everything went black.

TWELVE

I
n the movies, when your hero gets whacked on the head, he might lose consciousness for five minutes or an hour or all night, whatever serves the needs of the story. When he wakes up, he shakes his head, grins ironically, leaps into his car or onto his horse, and sets off to chase down the bad guys. He's angry, maybe embarrassed, and he probably sports a manly dribble of blood running down the side of his face, but otherwise he's none the worse for the experience.

In real life, it takes a mighty blow to the head to knock you out for more than an instant. A blow hard enough to do that will leave you with a concussion, at minimum. More likely a fractured skull. It can kill you.

I was out for only an instant. He had hit me squarely in the sensitive center of the top of my head, and waves of pain radiated from that spot all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.

Through the dizzy blur behind my eyes I watched his shadowy figure move into the the darkness, and a minute
later I heard the engine of a vehicle start up. Then I saw headlights flash on and slice through the dark forest and disappear.

In the movies I would have growled an angry vow, spit blood and teeth out of my mouth, and then sprinted to my car and sped through the woods after the villain who'd bushwhacked me.

But this wasn't a movie.

It took an enormous amount of willpower just to push myself into a sitting position. My ankle was throbbing, and a sharp pain jabbed in my chest whenever I took a breath.

But mainly, my head just hurt like hell.

I crawled over to the steps that led up to the porch of the camp, rested my back against them, and squeezed my eyes shut. Everything hurt less with my eyes shut.

So I slumped there against the wooden steps with my eyes closed, waiting for the pain and dizziness to pass and drifting on weird images and disconnected thoughts â¦

The whole time he was hitting me, I kept thinking, he never said a word. For some reason that made it even more frightening.

Ten or fifteen minutes later I became aware of a bright light shining in my face.

I opened my eyes experimentally. The dizziness and blurriness seemed to have subsided.

I blinked and shielded my eyes with my hand.

Somebody was holding a flashlight on me.

“Move that thing, will you?” I said.

He moved the light a little to the side so that it wasn't shining directly in my eyes. I looked around. A police car, a
square SUV of some kind, had pulled up in front of Albert's camp. “Limerick PD” was painted on the side, and a light bar was attached to the roof.

The man with the flashlight wore a khaki-colored police uniform. The brim of his cap was pulled low over his forehead so that his eyes were in shadow. He had one hand resting lightly on the holster on his hip. “What's happening there, pardner?” he said. “You drunk?”

“No,” I said. “I fell down and hit my head.”

“You okay? Can you stand up?”

“Of course.” I braced my hand on the steps and pushed myself to my feet. A wave of dizziness made me stagger and reach for the railing for balance. I took a deep breath. The pain in my head had subsided to a dull, deep ache.

The cop moved beside me and patted me down. He found me unarmed. “You fell down coming out of the camp?” he said. “That what happened?”

“That's right,” I said. “Must've tripped on the steps. Lost my balance. Banged my head.”

“Right,” he said. “Who are you?”

I turned to face him. “My name is Brady Coyne. Who are you?”

“Huh?”

“I asked your name,” I said.

He blinked at me. “Munson. Officer Paul Munson. Looks to me like you've been snooping around inside the camp. Is that right?”

I thought, absurdly, that while he couldn't nail me for breaking and entering, he had me dead to rights for breaking and exiting. “I came up from Boston to see if Albert Stoddard was here,” I said.

“Let me see your wallet,” said Officer Munson.

I moved my hand to my hip pocket.

“Slowly,” he said.

I withdrew my wallet with my thumb and forefinger and handed it to him.

He moved over to his vehicle, flipped my wallet open, and shined his light on my driver's license. He shined his light back on me. “So what do you want with Mr. Stoddard?”

“I'm a lawyer,” I said. When in doubt, give 'em a non sequitur. “It's business.”

“Lawyer, huh?” he said. “Mr. Stoddard in some kind of trouble?”

Officer Munson looked like he was playing dress-up in his khaki-colored uniform. He had a smooth, pink face and clear blue eyes. Sometime when I wasn't looking they'd made puberty a qualification for becoming police officers and brain surgeons and had started distributing Glocks and scalpels to children.

“I don't know if he's in trouble,” I said. “I was hoping to ask him.”

“Friend of his, are you?”

“Yes.”

He narrowed his eyes as if he'd just made a smart deduction. “So you're his lawyer and his friend both, then.”

I shrugged. “I can't really talk about it. I've already told you too much.”

“So was he here?” said Officer Munson. “Mr. Stoddard, I mean?”

Somebody had been here. He'd whacked my ankle and kicked my ribs and poked at my testicles and smashed the top of my head with the barrels of a shotgun. It could have been Albert.

I considered briefly explaining to this small-town cop how
I'd been assaulted. But that would require other explanations that I couldn't ethically give even if I wanted toâto Officer Munson, or to anybody.

“No,” I said. “Nobody was here.” I looked hard at him. “Have you seen Mr. Stoddard around lately?”

“I'll ask the questions, sir,” he said. “You got a key for this place?”

“No.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You said you fell coming out. That means you went in. What'd you do, break a window?”

“The door was unlocked,” I said. “I opened it and went in.”

“No, sir,” he said, “that's not what you did. Mr. Stoddard keeps the place locked.”

I shrugged. “I don't have a key, and I didn't break a window. Take a look if you want.” I suddenly remembered Henry. “Look,” I said. “My dog's inside. Do you mind if I let him out?”

“What kind of dog?”

“Brittany spaniel. He might want to sniff your pants, but he's gentle and loving.”

“If he tries to bite me, I'll shoot him.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I went back onto the screen porch and opened the door.

Henry was sitting there. He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at me. It was the look he always gave me when I returned home after going someplace without him.

I patted his head. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Come on. Heel, now.”

He followed me off the porch. I went over to my car and opened the door. “Get in,” I told him.

He got in.

“How'd you do that?” said Officer Munson.

“Do what?”

“Get your dog to obey like that?”

“I'm firm and consistent with him,” I said. “Dogs are like children.”

“I've got two hounds,” he said. “They pay no attention to anybody. Gotta keep 'em chained outside.”

“That explains it,” I said.

“So you didn't answer my question,” he said.

“Which question was that?”

“Mr. Stoddard. You said he was in trouble.”

“I didn't say that. You inferred it. I just said I was looking for him. What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Just because I haven't seen him,” he said, “that doesn't mean he hasn't been around. You sit over there for a minute.” He shined his flashlight at the porch steps. “I've got to call this in, have them run your plates, see what we're going to do.”

“What do you mean,
do
?” I said.

“You were trespassing, sir. I caught you red-handed.”

“Red-handed,” I said. “Wow.”

He frowned at me. “Pardon?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Go ahead. Check me out. I hope it won't take too long.”

“Oh, we've got computers,” he said.

I went over to the steps, trying not to limp, and sat down.

Officer Munson slid behind the wheel of his cruiser and used his two-way. He left his door open so he could keep an eye on me.

Ten or fifteen minutes later I heard him say, “Okay, right. Ten-four.” He looked over at me. “You're free to go, sir.”

I started to thank him, then decided not to. “Tell me something,” I said.

“Sir?”

“Why did you come here.”

“Here to Mr. Stoddard's camp, you mean?”

“Yes. Did you get a call?”

“A call?” He shook his head. “Why would there be a call? Who'd call?”

“Are you saying you just happened to drive all the way down this particular dirt driveway at this particular time on this particular evening just at the time when I happened to be here?”

He shrugged. “We keep an eye on all the unoccupied places in our jurisdiction.”

“There must be dozens of them, huh?”

He nodded. “Oh, sure. Hunting camps, summer cottages, places up for sale.”

“And you keep an eye on all of them?”

“Right. One of our main jobs this time of year.”

“So this place here,” I said, “it's on your rounds, is it? You come by here every day about this time?”

He laughed. “You kidding me? There's only six of us on the whole force. There's about three hundred square miles to cover in this town. No, we pretty much do it random.”

“Random,” I repeated. “So finding me here was just a lucky coincidence for you.”

“Me, lucky?” He grinned. “You're lucky I'm not arresting you.”

“And I do appreciate your leniency,” I said.

“You go get into your vehicle now, sir. I'll follow you out,
make sure you don't get stuck. That BMW of yours, it's pretty sweet, but it sure wasn't made for dirt roads.”

“That's very kind of you,” I said.

“Protect and serve,” said Officer Paul Munson, and I didn't detect the slightest hint of irony in his tone.

I drove out the long driveway and turned south on the paved road, heading home. The headlights of Officer Munson's cruiser followed me all the way to the town line, where in my rearview mirror I saw him make a U-turn.

I drove on for a few minutes before I remembered the envelope with the two obituaries that I'd found in Albert's camp. I patted my jacket pocket where I'd put it.

It wasn't there.

I figured the man with the shotgun had taken it.

I pulled to the side of the road, opened my glove box, found a pen and a pad of paper, and jotted down everything I could remember from those obituaries. I was pleased to observe that despite the throbbing on the top of my head, my mind was clear and my memory was sharp.

By the time I'd wended my way through the maze of dark country roads through some sleepy New Hampshire villages and found my way back to Route 101, it was approaching eight o'clock.

My head and ribs and ankle hurt, but aside from bruises that would be tender to the touch, I figured I was okay. No broken bones, none of the building nausea or persistent dizziness that were signs of a concussion.

He could have killed me if he'd wanted to. I wondered why he didn't.

I realized that my stomach was growling.

That reminded me that I hadn't eaten for a while, which reminded me that it was Evie's turn to take care of dinner.

Normally we eat around seven.

I assumed she got my message. I'd told her I might be a little late.

I was still two hours from home. By the time I got there, it would be later than anybody's definition of “a little.”

I'd been a bachelor for a long time. I still wasn't in the habit of accounting for myself to somebody else.