“Just squatting there,” she said.
I picked up my own walkie-talkie, and called Borman, sotto voce.
“We have a man on the grounds,” I said, “but I believe I recognize him. Whiskey Charlie.”
“Ten-nine?” he crackled back.
“Initials Whiskey Charlie.”
There was a pause, then, “Ah, ten-four. The expert, then?”
“Ten-four. That's the one. Heads up, he might know more than we do. Ah, and let's go code sixty-one on this… ” No names, no locations.
“Ten-four.”
I placed the walkie back in its carrier. “What's he doing, now?”
“Hasn't moved.”
My mind was flying, trying to evaluate our situation. It occurred to me it was possible that if Chester wasn't Peale, he may have followed Peale to the house. If we approached, we would cause some sort of commotion, especially if we confronted him on the porch. If Peale were in the house, he could well take off.
But the actions of the people in the house, at least those we'd seen, seemed very normal.
Which left me with Peale not in the house, but meant that Chester could be Peale and just be waiting for the residents to go to bed before he entered.
That didn't add up, really, either. I completed my little circle of reasoning.
“Bullshit,” I said, “it's just Chester.”
“I know it's just Chester,” answered Sally, “and now he's moving,” thereby relinquishing her right to the night scope.
“Give me the scope,” I said.
She did, and I picked him up as he crossed the porch and kept going left, toward the far side of the house. He hesitated at the corner, then disappeared around the side of the house.
“Shit. He went around the other side.”
What to do? Move, and possibly reveal our position? Stay put and never see where he went? One set of night-vision gear didn't help, although I probably wouldn't have split us up, regardless.
“Okay, Sally. We gotta go to our right. We'll go about a hundred feet, then head toward the house. Maybe fifty feet, to the big tree that's in the yard, there. We'll be out of the trees, so we lie down. Got that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. We stay on the ground, and we look at the back side of the house, and this side, and I think we also get the front from there.” I began moving. “Keep it quiet,” I said, “and just hang on to my coat.” I had the scope, and could see very clearly, indeed. Sally would be moving into darker ground without that benefit.
It took us about a long minute to cover the distance. I glanced at the house through the scope, and saw that we could see the back and the near side. Just the edge of the front porch. That would have to do.
“We're at the tree. It's on your right.”
“I can see it when we're this close,” she said.
I looked up, without the night scope. The tree loomed large, and distinctly. I cleared my throat quietly. “Okay. Well, then… ”
With that, we both lay down in the wet grass, in the rain, and waited.
I handed the scope to Sally. “You watch, I'm going to try to contact the office from here.”
“Right.” She eagerly took the vision gear from me. As soon as she started looking, she said “Nothing.” That at least let me know the equipment was still functioning.
I tried the office three times on the INFO channel, to no avail. Then I tried Borman on the OPS channel. Damn. We were now way over his radio horizon, and had even more trees between us. I'd probably have to stand up to get either one of them.
We lay there in complete silence for a good fifteen minutes, and I was beginning to believe that Chester, or whoever he really was, had either gotten into the house, or left altogether.
“You think Mr. Chester could be Dan Peale?” whispered Sally.
“Possible,” I whispered back. But I'd had a little time to think about it. “Don't think so, though. I don't think the timing's right for some stuff.” But I was tired, and I couldn't be absolutely sure that there hadn't been time for him to be in both Nation County and in Lake Geneva. “Not sure, though.”
“How do we find out for sure?” she asked.
I hate whispered conversations. If we're supposed to be quiet, then, by God, shut up. In this case, however, it had a benefit. Because she'd asked the question, I stopped planning alternative approaches to reacquiring Chester, and realized that Borman was the only person on our side who'd actually ever seen Dan Peale. And I didn't think Borman had ever actually seen William Chester. How do we find out, indeed?
“We let Borman take a look at him,” I said. “Now hush up.”
I got a sharp little fist in the ribs for that.
We lay there in the rain for another five minutes, as I tried to persuade myself that patience was, indeed, a virtue. We'd already moved once. Twice might be pushing our luck too far. I was a little concerned, though, because the area where I thought that elevator shaft into the mine was located was now more behind us than to our right. All I needed was for Peale to emerge from the ground at our rear.
“You might use the scope,” I whispered, “and check behind us once in a while.”
I could almost hear her mental relays click into place. “Shit,” she whispered. “Shit, shit, shit… ” as she rolled over, and raised her head to see behind us.
After a second, I made out, “Clear.” There was a rubbery rustling as she rolled back onto her stomach, to see ahead again.
It was relatively quiet for almost a minute, with only the heavy dripping of the tree to listen to. Then, Sally made a subdued noise that sounded like a cross between a balloon with a slow leak, and a frog with sinus trouble. As she did, I caught a faint movement at the far end of the Mansion. It had to be Chester, coming around to the rear.
“Give me the scope,” I hissed. Reluctantly, she did. I pressed it to my eye, and sure enough, there was William Chester in all his green glory. As he crept under the rear kitchen window, the interior lights suddenly came on, and framed him in a brilliant rectangle. He ducked back, and I blinked, because of the “bloom” of the night scope as it failed to adjust instantly to the light.
I lost sight of him. At first, I thought he'd stepped back around the corner, but as I made a precautionary sweep of the area, I caught a glimpse of him moving to our right, toward the bluff and the trees. Toward the same area where Old Knockle had spotted him and the illegal car on the day of Edie's wake. Of course. He must have parked down there again, and was on his way back to the road.
I stood, to get a better view of him as he faded into the wet woods, and said to Sally in a normal tone of voice, “Call Borman. Have him go to the face of the cliff, down at the highway. He's heading for the highway!” I hated to move Borman, but we needed him to get a look at Chester, to make sure he wasn't Peale. We also needed him to make sure that Chester didn't get away in a car.
I started off toward the bluff, a good distance behind Chester, but I knew where he was headed. I could hear Sally behind me, telling Borman to get moving.
Running while holding a night scope to your eye is about impossible. There's no compensation for the bouncing you do as you move, and everything is just a blur. I put the scope at my side, and kept moving, but slower, since I couldn't see much in the natural light, and I didn't want to run smack into a tree. The damned night scope had degraded my night vision for a few minutes.
“Where are we going?” asked Sally.
“He went into the woods just ahead of us here,” I said. “It'll take him a few minutes to get down a ravine that's just ahead here somewhere.” I put the scope back to my eye, and looked around. I thought I could see the upper reaches of the ravine just to our right.
“Tell Borman to shut his headlights off before he gets to the highway. We don't want our boy seeing him coming.”
Sally was a good dispatcher. She repeated exactly what I'd said into her mike. While she did, it occurred to me to try the little infrared searchlight that was a part of the scope. It only had a range of about twenty-five yards, but it made everything within that distance much clearer through the scope. It also drained the battery about four times as fast.