The Reckoning (20 page)

Boonie looked out the Starbucks window.

He could see the glittering tip of the Memphis pinnacle. There were lights on in the penthouse suite.

“Jeez,” he said, looking predatory. “You can put all three of them right up there right now?”

“Yep. Two warthogs and a buzzard.”

“What?”

“I was being colorful.”

Boonie was gazing hungrily up at the Memphis. “Well, don't.”

Raylon Grande—whose real name was Special Agent Kurt Pall—went back to his undercover role as a shoe clerk at Neiman Marcus. From the interior of the Fountain Square First Third Bank about fifty feet away, Delores Maranzano watched him cross the cobblestones, noticing that his walk was getting more and more theatrical the closer he got to the Neiman Marcus store.

She looked back at the Starbucks, where Special Agent Benjamin Hackendorff, who had been all over her after Frankie's death, was just coming out the door, talking into his cell, looking urgent.

She smiled down at Frankie Twice, who was also staring out at the square. “Told you,” she said. “Didn't I?”

Frankie Twice trembled and then he licked his lips, staring back at her with his big buggy eyes. He trembled some more and then farted.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

There being no other useful course of action, Kate and Eufaula sat in the conservatory in silence and stared out at the flowers in the garden and the sunlight shimmering on the lawn, and they waited for the phone to ring.

They had waited about fifteen minutes when Beth came home. She walked through the living room and down the hall, sensing something wrong in the house, something pending and heavy. She found Kate and Eufaula in the sunroom, surrounded by flowers and ferns, looking like women at a wake.

“Hello—oh dear, what's up with you two?”

They both looked up at her and Beth caught her breath. She was an older and less sunny version of Kate—living with Byron Deitz takes a toll—but she was every bit as quick.

“Oh, Christ. It's the boys again, isn't it?”

Kate stood up, took her purse and coat, got her to sit down on the couch. Beth, a fully crisis-conditioned woman, started to vibrate. Kate put her hands over Beth's, knelt down and looked up at her.

“Calm down, Beth. Yes it's the boys, but they've just done another scamper.”

“They're missing?”

“Not
missing,
Beth. Just avoiding some well-earned consequences.”

Beth looked slightly less frantic. “Wait. Where's Hannah?”

“She's still at her playdate,” said Eufaula. “Remember? She won't be back until eight.”

“Of course. Sorry. Thank you, Eufaula. I am not myself. The boys? What have they done now?”

“Not
they
, Beth. Just Rainey.”

“What did he do?”

Kate told her, the walkie-talkies, and what Rainey had said to Eufaula. When Kate was finished, Beth looked down at the tea set, shook her head. “Fuck tea. This calls for booze.”

Eufaula cocked her head at Beth. “You really want a drink, Beth?”

“What Rainey said, Eufaula, I think that's perfectly vile. I hope you can find a way to…put it out of your mind.”

“I already have. Do you really want a scotch? You never drink before five.”

“It's five somewhere, and it's either booze or heroin. Get one for yourself too.”

Eufaula laughed. “I would, but I'm supposed to drive up to VMI tonight to see Bradley. But I'll get some for you? Heroin or scotch.”

“Do we
have
any heroin?”

“No. I could go across and borrow a cup from the Sheridans.”

“I'll have a scotch,” said Beth.

“Straight up or rocks?”

“Rocks. And maybe some branch?”

“Right back with branch,” said Eufaula.

Beth turned to Kate. “You have the police looking?”

“I do. I made the mistake of calling Rainey and telling him to come home at once. With Axel. I should have just waited and let him walk into it.”

“When he does get back, what are you going to do?” She put a hand to her throat. “Oh my, does Nick know about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I haven't decided yet.”

“Kate, you can't go on keeping things from Nick. He's part of this family and you're shutting him out. That's not good.”

“You know how he feels about Rainey?”

Beth paused, framing an answer. “Well, he's not all that wrong, is he? And you and he are letting your marriage suffer over this. And you have a terrific marriage. Trust me, I know about bad marriages. As much as you want to help Rainey, you cannot sink your relationship with Nick trying to help a young boy who may not want to be helped. Nick's already moved out once. Next time he might not come back. It happens.”

Eufaula was back with Beth's scotch and a glass of white wine for herself. Beth sipped at hers while Eufaula took a chair by the window

There was a silence.

Consequences
, thought Eufaula, looking at the sisters.
There have to be consequences
.

“There have to be consequences,” said Beth.

Kate was nodding.

“I know. I'm just not sure what they should be. Dr. Lakshmi thinks—”

“Kate, this doesn't feel like schizophrenia,” said Beth. “This is just too…organized. Too calculated. And now he's off again, and Axel is with him. Have you heard from the police yet?”

Kate shook her head. “No. And that means they haven't found them.”

“Do they have any money?” asked Beth.

“I gave them both ten dollars,” said Eufaula. “And I think Rainey has money in his bank card.”

“So they might be hiding out at the Thalia, watching movies and munching popcorn.”

“With their phones off,” said Eufaula.

“Consequences,” said Kate in a whisper.

“I agree,” said Beth. “And this time they have to count. You need to read Rainey the riot act. Rainey's running off the rails and if we don't get him under control…I'm afraid he'll take Axel with him.”

“Axel's no fool,” said Eufaula. “He looks up to Rainey, but he wasn't taking any of the blame for the radio thing. That was all Rainey, and I could see that Axel didn't approve of it.”

“Yes,” said Beth. “Don't worry, Kate. Axel can take care of himself.”

They heard the front door open, the silver doorbell tinkling.

“They're here,” said Kate, looking at once relieved and angry.

“Remember,
consequences
,” said Beth.

“Oh, trust me,” said Kate. “I will.”

But it wasn't the boys.

It was Nick and Mavis.

When they got down to Boudreau Park there was a huge crowd of people stretched out along the riverbank, all of them silent, everyone watching the police boats: big white Boston Whalers with light bars and
NICEVILLE MARINE PATROL
in large blue letters along the hulls—five of them in a ragged line, backing water, going slowly down the Tulip, officers with long poles in the bows, looking down into the churning water, their faces set and grim.

Farther down the river, officers were walking the banks, looking into every tangle of weed or branch or vine. On the decks of the Pavilion the crowds stood silent along the railings, every face turned to the river, the music shut off, the day turning slowly colder as the sun moved down in the west and long violet shadows began to creep out from the trees and grasses along the river.

The only sounds were the muted burble of the patrol boats out on the river, the rumble of the current, the wind hissing in the trees, and the flap and flutter of bar umbrellas.

Mavis parked the Suburban next to a row of squad cars and they all got out, Kate and Beth and Eufaula, the women looking scalded, shocked and silent and frightened, Nick pale and white with anger, worried sick, holding it all in.

They all walked down to the riverbank, where a patrol supervisor named Bob Mullryne was talking to a small group of girls, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, all of them wrapped in towels or blankets, all of them looking up at Mullryne.

Mullryne turned as they reached him, looked back at the girls. “You were very brave, all of you. Thank you for being so observant too. There's some hot chocolate in that truck over there.”

He nodded to a PW standing nearby, a muscular blond with her hair in a ponytail, and she gathered the girls up, herded them toward a large red van with
NICEVILLE FIRE
in gold letters.

Nick noticed one of the fire captains standing talking to a patrol cop. It was Jack Hennessey. Hennessey saw Nick, lifted a hand. He had something in his ears. They looked like earphones.

What's with this earphone thing?
he wondered, and he made a note to ask Hennessey about it when he got a chance. Mullryne came back to them, and Nick introduced Kate and Beth and Eufaula. Mullryne, a big pale expat Brit with careful eyes, tried for a hopeful smile and fell a bit short.

“Look, the good news is there's no sign of him along the river—”

“That's
good
news?” said Beth in a tight voice, her face white and her eyes shining with tears. Mullryne stayed with positive.

“Well, it means there's still hope.”

“How far down have you looked?” said Nick.

“We've got boats and people as far down as the Armory Bridge. We have to go slow because there's lots of places where…”

“A body can get snagged?” said Beth. Mullryne winced and then nodded.

“Yes, ma'am, but if we haven't found one…that's not a bad thing—”

“How'd he get in the river?” asked Kate.

“Nobody saw him go in,” said Mullryne. “It was the girls who spotted him going by. They started yelling, got everybody's attention. They even threw him a line, but the current took him—”

“Was it Axel?” said Beth.

“Well, it was a little boy with long brown hair and big eyes. He was fighting hard, ma'am.”

Beth lost it there and went to her knees in the grass. Kate and Eufaula knelt down beside her, holding her. There wasn't much to say.

Nick came back to Mullryne. “Was there another kid with him?”

Mullryne nodded.

“Yes. An older boy, thirteen or fourteen, long blond hair down to his shoulders. The girls noticed him because he was throwing rocks at the ducks and they told him to stop.”

“That's Rainey,” said Nick. “Anybody holding him? Any of the squads here?”

“No. And they've been looking. But it was the young lad who was getting most of the attention, you see, so the other boy could have gotten lost in the crowds. Everybody was shouting and pointing, everybody was looking at the river, trying to see the boy—”

“The boys rode bikes down here,” said Eufaula. “I'm looking at Axel's right over there. I'm not seeing Rainey's.”

“What sort of bike was it?”

“A Gary Fisher mountain bike. Red and gold, with those big fat tires,” said Kate. “Cost a fortune. He loves it. If it's gone, he's on it.”

Mullryne had his note pad out. “What was he wearing?”

Eufaula said, “Navy blue sweatshirt with a gold crest on the right side and
Regiopolis Prep
under it, blue jeans with the left knee torn, black high-top sneakers with red laces, a North Face backpack, navy blue with gold straps, and Ray-Ban sunglasses on a gold braid keeper.”

Mullryne's pen was flying. Kate and Beth were staring at Eufaula, who shrugged and said, “I notice things. What can I say?”

“His name is Rainey Teague,” said Nick, now in full cop mode. “DOB January 17, 2000. He's five-seven, weighs one forty, blue eyes, blond hair shoulder-length. On the muscular side. I want that kid found,” said Nick with an edge they all caught. Kate looked at him, but she said nothing.

Mullryne looked uneasy. “Jesus. You don't think he—”

“I have no idea. It's possible. I really want him found. Found soon.”

Mavis said, “I'll get some squads in from Tin Town and down from North Station. These units here,” she said, taking in the cars and the cops who were standing around, “can we spare some of them?”

“We can,” said Mullryne, and he went off to make things happen. Nick turned, got down on his knees beside Beth, put his hand on her chin and turned her gently so that he could look into her eyes. She looked like hell, but she was listening.

“Beth, that sergeant was right. Until we find him, you don't have to go all the way down.”

“This is bad, Nick, it's so
bad
—”

“Yes. This is bad. But something's telling me that Axel is okay. He's had two years of Safety Swimmers. He's a wiry little guy in terrific shape. He doesn't panic. He's been through a lot and he's a real tough fighter. You know that. Everybody said he was keeping his cool in the water. He wasn't screaming. He wasn't thrashing around. Everybody said he was—”

“Going with the flow?” said Beth, tears streaming down her cheeks, her lips blue.

Nick kissed her on the cheek, tasted salt, looked at Kate, who got his message.

“Come on, Beth,” she said. “Let's go to the van, get some hot chocolate, let these people do their job. Okay, hon?”

Beth got to her feet, shivering, unsteady. Kate and Eufaula led her across to the fire truck, got her a folding chair, and wrapped a red blanket around her. Kate looked back at Nick and her message was clear.
Find him, Nick. Find him.

As a precaution, in the wake of what Twyla was calling the Bloody Beach Smackdown, she and Coker had pulled out of the shore house and checked into the Casa Monica Hotel in downtown St. Augustine.

The hotel, built in 1888, looked like a film set for a thirties musical with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a sprawling, block-long, vaguely Moorish-looking Spanish Baroque mansion in gleaming white stucco with ornate terra-cotta towers and carved Juliet balconies, stained glass and flowers and ferns everywhere, a massive vaulted lobby walled with polished mahogany and studded with original art, and an Old Hollywood courtyard pool surrounded by medjool date palms.

They checked into the Flagler Suite under one of Coker's alternate IDs, Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Quirk from Atlanta, Georgia, made it a point to decline the turndown service each night, and let it be known to all parties that they were there for
privacy
, not
attention
, which they were promised they would get, or not get, or…well, yes, sir, and you have a real nice stay.

The Flagler Suite took up an entire tower of the hotel, with three separate floors, the bedroom being on the highest level, two kings, and a wraparound view of the town, even a sliver-glimpse of the sapphire-blue Atlantic.

Twyla, a dedicated sybarite, found her jagged nerves soothed by the old-world luxury. She was feeling pretty tentative right now, having been the Predicate Cause of the Bloody Beach Smackdown, although Coker wasn't the kind of guy to blame others for his own excesses.

And they both agreed that beating the living daylights out of those two dim-witted college boys had been in retrospect a tad excessive.

Not to mention
expensive
.

So they settled in to await events, should there be any events to develop, having decided that when there was nothing to be done but wait and see, it was best to do that in comfortable seclusion.

Right now they were down in the main floor living room, both in their bathrobes, Coker sipping a single malt with a bandaged right hand—punching a guy in the teeth has consequences—and Twyla with her glass of Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, a habit she had picked up from Charlie Danziger, who drank enough of it every year to warrant a personal thank-you note from the mayor of Valdadige.

A moment of relative peace after a hectic interlude, and a time for quiet reflection on the future. Until Coker turned on the big flat-screen.

The news was on, but the sound was muted, apparently a taped repeat of a news story broadcast earlier on Fox, and what was filling up the screen was Mavis Crossfire, looking splendidly Wagnerian in her harness blues, talking to a reporter from Cap City CNN, a stainless-steel blond with bee-stung lips and gunfighter eyes. Under the video a news feed was spooling across the screen:

…serial killer stalks southern town…police baffled…two officers down…officials struggle to cope…citizens arm themselves and barricade their homes…

The reporter was holding a mike up to Mavis Crossfire's face while Mavis, clearly working hard to hold her temper, was talking down to her.

Literally. Mavis was a tall girl.

In the background was a Federal-style stone townhouse with yellow crime-scene tapes strung all over it and two plainclothes cops standing in the doorway, a big black man in a dark brown suit and a shorter white guy with a hard face and salt-and-pepper hair.

“That's Tig and Nick,” said Coker, turning off the mute button. Mavis's voice—a Virginia-tinted baritone—filled the room. “…not a fair description—”

“But there are two officers down, Sergeant Crossfire, in the house behind us, both shot—”

“Lady I have already told you twice that they were
not
shot—”

“Is it true they were answering a call and were ambushed by persons unknown?”

“They were on duty, yes, and answering a call, but so far—”

“We understand you have a suspect at-large?”

“We do, and we'll be putting out a description of him in a few minutes.”

“One white male?”

“That's our assumption, but we are not limiting it to that.”

The interviewer pounced on that like a chicken on a bug. “Are you saying there may be other killers loose? What steps are you taking to protect the citizens while these serial killers remain at—”

Mavis got a lot chillier and even the stainless-steel news chick got the message. “It's irresponsible of you to put out that kind of misinformation. We have only one suspect, we have a clear ID of him, we have been looking for him, and we have at this time no reason to believe that he's being assisted by anyone else.”

“Is this the same suspect as in the Thorsson killings?”

“No. That's a different case.”

“Any connection to the Morrison family?”

“It's too early to say.”

“But you're not ruling it out?”

“I'm not ruling it
in
, either, you follow?”

“But two fatal home invasions in two days and in both cases we understand there was—”

“Look and listen. I just told you these are
two different cases
. If it will help you to comprehend this, I can go get a whiteboard and some colored Sharpies. Now you can go ahead and make up stupid crap if you want to, kid. I have to get back to work. You have a nice day now.”

The reporter had more questions and she tried shouting them at Mavis Crossfire's back, getting nothing, so she turned back to do the direct-to-camera wrap. She was trying to do
solemn and portentous,
but all she was getting was
vampire in a blood bank
.

“This sleepy southern town of Niceville is locked in fear and horror today after the tragic events of the past few days as a suspected serial killer or killers stalk the streets and a total of six innocent citizens including two young children lie brutally slaughtered in their own homes. As you have just seen, these small-town police officers are baffled and confused, and they admit they have little to go on—only one unnamed suspect—while two of their own patrol officers were found inside this house behind me, the apparent victims of a savage attack by person or persons unknown. This is Sarah Band for—”

Coker flicked the mute back on as Twyla reached for her iPhone.

“Twyla, wait—”

“I've got to call Bluebell!”

Bluebell was Twyla's sister, the only family she had left after her father flew his Cessna into the side of Tallulah's Wall last spring. Bluebell lived in Niceville and worked as a psychiatric nurse at Our Lady of Sorrows hospital in Cap City.

“Yeah, but not on that phone, remember? Use the Motorola. And switch out the SIM card.”

“Oh, Jesus. I can never keep that stuff straight. Where's the SIM card holder?”

“In your purse, last time I looked.”

Twyla, flustered, disorganized, bustled around until she found her purse on the hall table by the suite door. She ruffled through it, pulled out a flat sterling silver card case, and came back to the couch, sighing theatrically.

“Now what do I do?”

“Pick a SIM card, put it in the cell.”

“I
hate
these things,” she said, fumbling at the lid lock. “I
never
remember to change them, or I forget which one I was supposed to use, and I can never get them in right. And why do they have to be so fucking
tiny
?”

“Just slow down, Twyla. Take a breath.”

Coker handed her the Motorola, an older model flip phone but unlocked and equipped for quad-band. She stripped out the battery pack and looked down at the SIM card holder, biting her upper lip.

There were fifteen different SIM cards in it, each one registered to a different user, all of them valid accounts. She pulled Chicago out of its case and, after dropping it a couple of times and getting it in backward once, and cursing all the while, she finally eased it into the SIM card slot, inserted the battery, flipped the phone over.

Coker stopped her there. “Before you call, what are you going to say?”

“I want to know if she's okay, Coker.”

“Yeah, I know, but get yourself under control before you call her. The way you are now, you'll just spook her. So be calm.”

Twyla gave him a modified death glare, but Coker had his reading glasses on, so it didn't fry his retinas. She was tapping keys and vibrating like a Cherokee Chihuahua.

“Hello! Hello, Bluebell, it's me!”

“Twyla. Thank God. Where are you?”

Twyla hit speakerphone and Bluebell's whiskey tenor came on against a background of murmuring voices, bells, and beeps, and someone talking over a PS system. Hospital sounds.

“Never mind me. Where are
you
?”

“I'm at work. The ward is going crazy. We're overrun. Are you okay? Is…can you tell me
anything
? I wish you could come home. I miss you!”

“I miss you too, honey. We're watching the TV. What's going on there?”

“We don't know. The whole state is going nuts. We've had five people admitted to the secure ward today. All of them are people who went missing—you know, the Niceville Missing that guy did the
60
Minutes
thing on—”

“The ones who got abducted?”

“Yeah. I'm hearing the total is up to twelve of them so far, and some of them are supposed to come here for evaluation. None of them have any memory of where they've been. The cops are still trying to figure it all out. We have one guy here, an old man named Barnaby Mills, he turned up on his wife's porch the other day and now he's like totally losing it…” A clatter of steel as somebody dropped a tray, and voices raised, female, edgy, and contentious…

“Damn, going nuts here. Can I call you back?”

“No, honey, you can't. Can you get to a quiet place?”

“Hold on…hold on…”

The background noise got muted, muffled, the sound of a door closing. “There…I'm in a supply closet. Can you still hear me?”

“I can…Bluebell, calm down. I can practically hear your heart racing…just tell me what's happening.”

“What's happening is Niceville is coming apart at the seams. This old guy here, you want to know what he's babbling about—and this is from an old
white
guy—he's talking about the Kalona Ayeliski—”

Twyla went silent, looked over at Coker, got her voice back. “A
white guy
said this?”

“Yes…this Mills person…we have his file here. Dr. Lakshmi has her staff doing a complete work-up on all these people. The FBI is on the way. Mills was an
insurance adjuster
, for Christ's sake—he was born in fucking
Newark
. What would a seventy-nine-year-old white insurance adjuster from Newark know about the Kalona Ayeliski? Nobody knows about the Raven Mocker anymore. Not even our own kids get told
that
story any—”

“Bluebell, you sound pretty shaky.”

“I
am
pretty shaky—there's just no place to hide from a Raven Mocker.”

“Bluebell, you've never even believed in one yourself.”

“Daddy did. Remember he used to talk about the Kalona Ayeliski that was feeding on our people up at Blue Stones? How they had to call on a spirit singer to hunt it?”

“He was telling us ghost stories around a fire, honey. There is no such thing as a—”

“There was a cop down here from Niceville. He was one of the guys who brought Mr. Mills down, and I heard him telling one of the Cap City cops that six people had been killed over the last two days and that all six of them had been—his exact words—
made to suffer
, like the killer wanted it to last as long as possible. What does
that
sound like? That's what a Raven Mocker demon does, she feeds on—”

“Honey, what about the ravens that are supposed to travel with her? There are no—”

“There are sure as hell
crows
. A flock of crows from Crater Sink
killed
Daddy last spring. Made him fly into Tallulah's Wall. They said the flock was huge, thousands of—”

“Honey, listen, you have to calm—”

“No! I'm not going to calm down. Look, wherever you are, can I come and stay with you? I mean it, I have to get out of here…These
yonega
morons—these
Europeans
—they have no fucking
idea
what they're dealing with and they never—”

“Honey—”

“Please! Let me come to you.”

“Look, have you got any money?”

“What…yes…well, not a lot.”

“Credit cards?”

“One. It's all maxed out.”

“Can you get online?”

“Online? Yes. I can.”

“Then I can e-transfer you some cash.”

Coker stepped up. “Honey, put her on mute for a second.”

Twyla gave him a crazed look.

“Bluebell, honey. Can you just hang up for a minute—”

Bluebell's voice was getting higher. “Will you call me right back? I can't see your number—wait, what's three one two? Is that Chicago—are you in Chicago?”

“Honey, I'll call you right back, okay? I promise…honey, just one minute.”

Nothing but Bluebell hyperventilating.

“Okay…one minute…don't forget.”

“I won't. One minute.”

She clicked off and turned on Coker, ready to fight. Coker backed away, lifted his hands.

“Relax, Twyla.”

“
Relax!
How the FUCK am I supposed to—”

“We can help her. We just can't send her any money. It's too traceable.”

“Fine. Then I'm going to go and get her.”

“Twyla—”

“Coker, I am
not
leaving her there. You heard her! She's falling apart. She's never been strong and after Daddy killed himself and then we…we left town…every time I talk to her she's getting…worse. She's coming apart. I can hear it in her voice. I
cannot
leave her there. She's all the family I have now. There's nobody else, Coker, nobody but you and Bluebell!”