He continued with a steady stream of soothing babble as he inched forward, making no sudden movements as he bent his knees and reached out with his right hand, hoping he wasn’t reaching out with it for the last time. “That’s right, sir, just keep calm, keep still-”
The man pushed against the floor with his feet in a sudden movement that added ten years to Jim’s life. “Sir. Sir. Please stay still. You might cut yourself, and we don’t want that, do we?” He continued to move forward and the man continued to cringe away, his face buried in his arms, the knife clenched in his left fist. Jim’s hand was two feet away, one foot, six inches. “That’s it, sir, stay very still.”
He took hold of the knife at the part of the handle protruding above the man’s hand. More whimpering, more cringing, but to Jim’s infinite relief, the man’s grip relaxed and the knife slid free.
Jim took a deep breath. He took several. “Okay. That’s of the interior of the cabin. It was tiny, ten feet to a side, with twin beds pushed against two walls, a small table and a captain’s chair set against a third. A small cast-iron wood-stove stood in one corner next to a nearly empty wood box. Scrolled wooden shelves were fixed to two walls, and there were three windows, all of them iced over on the inside. To the right of the door was a counter with a two-burner propane hot plate, a tin bowl, and a plastic jug half-full of what looked like water. There was a kettle on the hot plate. A box of Lipton’s tea bags, a container of dried lemon peel, and a jar of honey sat on the counter. On the wall above was a propane lamp.
One of the beds was neatly made, the other heaped with an olive drab duffel bag stenciled us army in black Marks-A-Lot, white T-shirts, a couple of plaid men’s shirts, a pair of jeans, shorts, and a few pair of thick wool socks, which looked uncomfortably like the ones on the body of the woman in the cabin down the hill. Everything was neatly folded and laid out with almost geometrical precision in relation to everything else.
The stove was giving off very little heat, which was probably why the man was crouched down next to it, wedged against the wall between the stove and the table, and why Jim almost missed him. He was a little man, very thin, and Jim would have mistaken him for a heap of clothes had the man not whimpered again.
His hair was dirty blond going gray and hadn’t been washed or cut in a while. His eyes peered out from behind it, feral, shifty, shy, not meeting Jim’s. He whimpered again.
“Sir,” Jim said, lowering his weapon. “I’m Alaska state trooper Jim Chopin, and…”
His voice faded out as he took a step forward. The front of the man’s clothing was covered in a dark substance that looked like dried blood.
So was the knife he held.
Without realizing it, Jim raised his gun. “All right, sir, could you put the knife down, please?”
Another whimper. “Sir, put the knife down. Now.”
The man pushed himself into his corner, drawing up his knees and hiding behind his arms. He mumbled something.
“What? Sir, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”
Dazed eyes blinked up at him. He mumbled something else.
It sounded like “angels,” “angels” and something else. Jim swore to himself. He didn’t want to put himself within striking range of someone who was seeing angelic apparitions, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of choice, other than shooting the man outright. He transferred the Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter automatic to his left hand and took a step forward. “I’m going to take the knife, sir, all right? That’s it, just relax. No one’s going to hurt you. That’s right, just hand it over. Let’s everybody stay calm and no one will get hurt.”
He continued with a steady stream of soothing babble as he inched forward, making no sudden movements as he bent his knees and reached out with his right hand, hoping he wasn’t reaching out with it for the last time. “That’s right, sir, just keep calm, keep still-”
The man pushed against the floor with his feet in a sudden movement that added ten years to Jim’s life. “Sir. Sir. Please stay still. You might cut yourself, and we don’t want that, do we?” He continued to move forward and the man continued to cringe away, his face buried in his arms, the knife clenched in his left fist. Jim’s hand was two feet away, one foot, six inches. “That’s it, sir, stay very still.”
He took hold of the knife at the part of the handle protruding above the man’s hand. More whimpering, more cringing, but to Jim’s infinite relief, the man’s grip relaxed and the knife slid free.
Jim took a deep breath. He took several. “Okay. That’s good.” He backed away and stood up. He always kept a couple of gallon-size Ziplocs in his inside pocket, and he placed the knife in one of them. He wrapped a second bag around the first and stored the bundle in a pocket. “Sir? Sir? Could you stand up? Come on, sir, I won’t hurt you.” He took a chance and holstered his weapon. “Come on. Stand up now.”
He pulled the man to his feet. The man came up without resistance. His hair fell back and Jim saw that his face was stained with tears. “Did you hurt the cat?” the man said.
“No, sir,” Jim said, surprised at the intelligible sentence. “She’s down at the main house by now.” He devoutly hoped he was telling the truth. “Sir, what is your name?”
The man stared at him. “What?”
“What is your name? Who are you? What are you doing in this cabin?”
The man looked around him, a sudden wide smile that was as bright as it was meaningless spreading across his face. “Isn’t this a nice place? The nicest I ever stayed in.” He shivered. “Cold, though.”
He was older than Jim had first thought. His face was lined and his beard and hair were an untrimmed tangle of curls that fell to his shoulders and chest. He looked like a cross between a mad scientist and the Count of Monte Cristo before the escape. He smelled of wood smoke and urine. Jim looked down and saw that the man had wet his pants.
“You shouldn’t entertain angels unawares,” the man said suddenly.
Jim looked at him askance. The man flashed his mad smile again. “You know why?”
“No,” Jim said. “Why?”
The man’s voice dropped to a confiding level. “Because they can turn out to be the devil.”
Come to think of it, the guy looked more like Rasputin than the Count. “Okay, sir, let’s go back down to the lodge.”
The man cringed and tried to pull free. “No! No, I don’t want to go there! The devil’s there!”
“Not anymore,” Jim said.
On the way back, all he could think of was how relieved he was that Dan O’Brian was off the hook.
And how not wrong he had been to let him go with Ruthe.
6
The news of the attack on Dina Willner and Ruthe Bauman and of Dina’s death swept around the Park faster than if it had been broadcast on Park Air. The news that Trooper Jim Chopin had a suspect in custody swiftly succeeded it.
Kate heard it from Johnny, who came home from town with the news the following afternoon. She sat down hard and stared at nothing for several long moments. Johnny shifted from foot to foot, uneasy at the vacant expression on her face. “Kate?” he said tentatively. “Are you all right?”
She said nothing.
“Kate,” he said, and stepped forward to touch her on the shoulder.
She looked at him. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
Two of her grandmother’s oldest friends had just been butchered, one of them to death, the other to near death. “Yes,” she said, summoning up a smile from who knew where. “I’m all right, Johnny.”