The Third Hill North of Town (21 page)

Mary Hunter sized up the two strangers, trying to determine if they might pose yet another threat to her son. The older man seemed harmless enough; his voice had been deferential, and his steps were fearful and wobbling as he approached the bristling rottweiler. He had a round, jowly face and a substantial paunch, and his bald head glistened in the starlight.

He looks like a walrus,
Mary noted to herself.

The other man was even larger than his companion, but much of his bulk appeared to be muscle. He had wide, round shoulders and thick, sturdy legs, and he moved easily over the rough earth. He planted himself squarely in front of them, and there was something about him that disturbed Mary. He was close enough by then that she could make out his face. He was an attractive man, with sharp, regular features and probing, alert eyes, but he looked both angry and worried, and under a great deal of strain. She intuitively grasped he was there for a reason similar to her own, and this scared her more than she wanted to admit.

This man could be dangerous,
she thought.
Someone he loves has been hurt.

“Sit, Lucy,” Orville ordered, responding to Edgar’s query. The dog obeyed with gratifying haste. Orville glanced at Mary to see if she’d witnessed this demonstration of his authority, and was disappointed to find her glowering at the younger of the two strangers instead.

“I’m Mary Hunter, and this is my husband, Samuel,” she said. Her tone was polite, but for some reason Orville got goose bumps on his arms listening to her. “Who are you?”

The driver answered, but he addressed Orville, clearly not understanding who the small woman was or why the fire marshal was deferring to her.

“I’m Gabriel Dapper, and this is Dr. Reilly,” he said curtly. “My mother was attacked and kidnapped by the same two sons of bitches who did this.” He jabbed a thumb at the ruins of the Stockton house.

 

Until he and Edgar arrived at the dairy farm, a part of Gabriel Dapper had still believed he might find his mother in time to save her, but he now realized, with a wrenching grief, that this wasn’t going to happen. The savage thugs who had murdered Bebe Stockton and burned her house to the ground would also murder Julianna the instant they no longer needed her as a hostage. The ashes and rubble might just as well have been the cremated remains of Julianna’s body, spread in mockery on the earth before him. He stared blindly at an overturned, blackened milk pail and fought to control his breathing as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Hello, Gabriel. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” the small black woman said quietly, “and I’m very sorry to hear about your troubles.” She paused, sighing. “But regardless of what this
gentleman
here may tell you”—she indicated Orville Horvath with a disdainful flick of her wrist—“our boy wouldn’t dream of hurting your mother.”

She now had Gabriel’s full attention.

“Your son was the one who took my mom?” he asked, stunned. The middle-aged black couple standing before him looked like ordinary, decent people; they didn’t look to him like the type to raise a homicidal maniac for a child.

Mary shook her head firmly. “Our boy would
never
do such a thing,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I promise you Elijah is not to blame.”

The flashlights of Horvath’s coworkers were sweeping across the front yard a few feet from the ruins of the front porch, nosing for evidence in the badly scorched grass. A cow lowed mournfully in the milk house, then fell silent again as Gabriel studied Mary in the semidarkness, his throat working.

“Then what’s he doing with my mother?” he asked at last, making no attempt to hide either his anguish or his skepticism. “Why did those people this morning say they saw him attacking her?”

Mary held up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know,” she said. “All I can tell you is what I’ve already said: Our son would not do any such thing. He’s the sweetest, gentlest boy in the world, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

Next to Gabriel, Edgar Reilly fumbled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and stared with anxiety at the sad remains of the dairy farm. Now that he’d seen the devastation firsthand, his fears about Julianna’s role in all that had occurred—and his guilt for his part in her escape from the hospital—were beginning to overwhelm him. What if there really had been some kind of colossal misunderstanding? What if the Hunter woman was right, and her boy was somehow being made into a scapegoat for crimes that Julianna Dapper had committed?

He tasted bile in his throat and came close to vomiting up all the M&M’s he’d eaten in the past few hours.

“Do we know any more about the other man who was seen in my car with Gabriel’s mother earlier tonight?” he asked, lighting his cigarette with trembling fingers.

Surely Julianna couldn’t be responsible for
everything
.

Fire Marshal Horvath’s lips parted and he seemed to stop breathing as he watched the sensuous yellow flame blossom on Edgar’s cigarette lighter. “The Edsel belongs to you?” he asked.

“Yes.” Edgar released an unsteady stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth and wished he’d brought some lemon drops with him. “Julianna Dapper is my patient at the state mental hospital in Bangor. She stole my car this morning before she was assaulted.”

“I see.” Horvath glanced at the Hunters as if debating how much to reveal in their presence. “We believe the second kidnapper’s name is Jon Tate,” he replied hesitantly, “but I’m afraid that’s all we’ve been able to learn. The state trooper who was run over by your car this afternoon is still unconscious, and he’s the only one who’s actually seen him.”

“How do you know this Tate person’s name, then?” Mary Hunter interrupted.

Horvath answered even more reluctantly this time. “We found his underwear beside the tractor in the barn,” he muttered.

Mary raised her eyebrows. “You found his underwear.” The sarcasm in her voice was lacerating. “Is there some sort of national underpants registry I’m not aware of?”

Horvath flinched and his speech became indecipherable. “The wise Manhattan ate egg!” he blurted, confusing Edgar mightily.

Mary’s face froze. “You had best shape up, mister,” she grated. “And I do mean right now.”

The menace in her words conspicuously frightened Horvath, and Edgar sympathized with the man, even though he had not understood whatever it was the little fire marshal had mumbled, nor why it had angered Mary so. His own throat had gone a little dry from simply observing Mary’s demeanor, however, and he was very grateful she wasn’t upset with him.

“The waistband had a name tag!” Horvath now squealed with exaggerated clarity, stepping backward a full two paces.

Gabriel Dapper shook his head in frustration. “Can we stop chitchatting about
underwear,
for Chrissake?” He rounded on Mary, giving up on Horvath. “If it wasn’t your son who attacked my mom, then who was it?” he demanded. “Where was your kid when that cop got run over, and where was he when this place got burned to the ground? Where is he now? If he’s as innocent as you say he is, why doesn’t he just turn himself in?”

Gabriel knew he was badgering Mary but he couldn’t help it. Samuel Hunter—obviously not liking the way Gabriel was behaving toward his wife—opened his mouth to intervene but Mary shook her head slightly, stopping him.

“As I said before, we’re just as much in the dark as you are,” Mary answered Gabriel calmly. “Elijah has never gotten in any trouble in his life, and if you knew him you’d understand just how ridiculous it is to suspect him of being behind any of this. He could no more set fire to a house or run over a police officer than he could jump over the moon.”

Edgar Reilly was only half listening to the conversation. He’d just remembered the bags of junk food he’d purchased that morning on his way to the hospital, and he was wondering if Julianna had left them in his car. When he and Gabriel had arrived at the dairy farm and seen the Edsel sitting on the highway, he’d been too upset by the damage to his beautiful, powerful automobile to think of anything else. The Edsel’s shattered rear window and crushed bumper had made him gasp aloud in sorrow, as if its injuries had been inflicted on his own body. But now that he’d absorbed the initial shock of that tragedy—and been subjected to the far graver spectacle of the ruined farmhouse—he badly wanted to see if he could at least salvage a 3 Musketeers bar from his battered vehicle to help soothe his nerves.

“Orville?” One of Horvath’s subordinates, Dick Gopp, called to the fire marshal from the darkness of the front lawn. “We’ve got something over here.”

“What is it?” Orville responded, looking delighted to have an excuse to turn away from the tension between Mary and Gabriel.

“Just an empty soda bottle,” Gopp said. “Should I bag it for prints? It looks like it was far enough from the fire to not get tons of shit all over it.”

“Bag it,” Orville answered shortly. “But then let’s knock off for tonight, shall we?”

Gabriel broke in on Orville’s conversation. “So are they on foot, Horvath, or did they steal another car?”

Orville turned back to them with an anxious expression on his face. “Where’s Dr. Reilly?” he asked, in a transparent attempt to evade Gabriel’s question.

Neither Gabriel nor the Hunters showed any interest in Edgar’s whereabouts; all three of them remained silent and unmoving, like models in a tableau. Lucy the Rottweiler, however, had been tracking Edgar’s progress down the hill toward the Edsel all along, and seemed to believe Orville had just commanded her to follow him. She darted down the driveway to obey, her heavy paws skittering on the gravel.

Orville attempted to call her back, but Gabriel stopped him by asking his question again, oblivious to the dog’s swift departure. “Do they have a car or not, Horvath?”

Mary stepped closer to Orville. “Answer him,” she hissed.

“We think they took Chuck Stockton’s Volkswagen,” the little marshal stammered immediately. “It’s a green 1957 Beetle, but we have no idea where they’ve gone.”

“JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY, GET IT OFF ME, GET IT OFF ME!”

Edgar Reilly’s petrified screams came from the vicinity of the Edsel, at the base of the hill. In the soft glow of the starlight, two large forms could clearly be seen running in frenzied circles around Edgar’s car. One was Lucy, growling and snapping in fury; the other was the pudgy psychiatrist, sprinting for his life with what looked to be only inches between his meaty thighs and the dog’s jaws.

“OH FUCKING HELL SAVE ME SOMEBODY PLEASE GET IT THE HELL OFF ME!” Edgar yelped.

Gabriel Dapper barely even noticed Edgar’s plight. Now that he knew what vehicle the kidnappers were driving, the only thing he was interested in was where they might be headed.

“Do you know where your son is taking my mother?” he asked Mary as Orville began to whistle frantically for Lucy.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WOULD YOU PLEASE GET THIS FUCKING DOG OFF ME!” Edgar wailed from the highway.

“You’re not listening to me, Gabriel,” Mary replied impatiently. “My son isn’t taking your mother anywhere. I believe
she’s
taking
him.
”

Orville Horvath at last managed to get the rottweiler’s attention. Tantalizingly close to catching her prey, Lucy broke off her pursuit with visible reluctance; Orville had to call her name four more times before she finally bounded back up the hill, looking disappointed. Edgar dropped to the ground by the Edsel, clutching his chest and retching.

“You can’t really be serious!” Gabriel snapped at Mary the instant Orville stopped yelling. “You’re actually accusing my mother of kidnapping your son?”

“It makes far more sense to me than
him
kidnapping
her,
” Mary said.

“And just how is she supposed to have accomplished that?” It was all Gabriel could do to keep from screaming. “In case you haven’t heard, my mom doesn’t even have a clue where she is, or what she’s doing! How in God’s name do you think she managed to kidnap an eighteen-year-old kid—”

“Fifteen,” Mary corrected.

“—who’s probably a lot bigger and stronger than she is? Those two eyewitnesses this morning SAW your goddamn kid attacking her, for shit’s sake, not the other way around!”

Mary’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Swearing at me won’t help your mother, or my son,” she said icily, supremely uncowed by Gabriel’s burst of temper. “So you may as well stop your huffing and puffing this instant.”

“I’ll swear at whoever I want to, goddammit!” Gabriel fired back. “You need to wake up and smell the coffee, lady!”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And just what exactly do you think it is I’m missing?”

“That your son has gone off the fucking reservation, that’s what! Isn’t it obvious?”

In Sam Hunter’s memory, he had never seen a man less afraid of his wife than Gabriel Dapper. Mary’s face was as cold and forbidding as a dead moon; anyone else Sam knew would have frozen solid by now under her gaze. But if Mary herself noticed that Gabriel wasn’t responding in the normal way to her considerable powers of intimidation, she gave no indication.

“No, it is
not
obvious,” she said. “And I will not allow you or anyone else”—her eyes briefly bored into Orville Horvath before returning to Gabriel—“to pin these crimes on Elijah based on the say-so of two strangers and a whole bucketful of guesses. So how about you just cool your jets, mister, before you make things worse than they already are?”

Gabriel bit back a scathing retort, but only barely. He badly wanted to keep raging at the small black woman, but something about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on made him think twice about it. As upset as he was, he was also forced to acknowledge, at least to himself, that at least part of what she was saying was true: He was indeed rushing to judgment. He took several deep breaths and forced himself to speak with less hostility.