We were on the shoulder of the road, looking down over the tops of cherry trees at the shadows playing on the cottage and the mechanic’s shed. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and farther down the shore, I could see a two-story house constructed of what appeared to be yellowish-gray stone. There was a marina by the lake and a number of sailboats rocking in their berths. I looked in the rearview mirror. Gretchen and Alafair were parked behind us, the engine running.
“I’ve got to find Molly,” I said.
“Okay, big mon,” he said. “Let’s go do that.”
Chapter 37
Asa Surrette climbed the stairs to the first floor and looked out the side window at the driveway. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He jerked open the side door. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?” he said.
Jack Boyd and one of Caspian Younger’s security men were herding Albert and a woman inside. “They were onto you, Asa,” Boyd said.
“What do you mean, they were ‘onto’ me?”
“Why else would they be here?”
“A thousand reasons, you stupid shit. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“It was a judgment call,” Boyd said.
“What happened to her?” Surrette said.
“She fell on the gravel when Terry was helping her out of their truck.”
“That’s your name? Terry?”
“It was when I woke up this morning.”
“Who am I?” Surrette said.
Terry flexed his neck. “I’m not big on names. I hear you’re a guy who leaves a big footprint.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Surrette said.
“Where do you want these two?” Terry said.
Surrette could hardly contain himself. “Where do I want them? I want them on the moon. But that can’t happen, because you’ve brought them into my house.” He looked into Albert Hollister’s face. “Remember me? Wichita State University, 1979?”
“Hard to say. I remember a pervert in my seminar who wrote a short story that was artless and filled with misspellings. Was that your work?”
“Love Younger is dead,” Boyd said.
Surrette looked at him, blinking, not sure what he’d heard.
“Somebody cut off his head. It was probably Wyatt Dixon,” Boyd said. “It was on the news.”
“Where’s Caspian?”
“Probably cleaning out his old man’s accounts,” Boyd said.
Surrette’s lips were crimped, his eyes busy with thought, his breathing loud enough to echo in the room.
“Think your meal ticket is about to blow Dodge?” Boyd said.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Boyd replied.
“Where’s Wyatt Dixon?” Surrette said.
“How would I know?” Boyd said. “Who cares? The guy’s nuts.”
“He knows who I am,” Surrette said.
“Everybody knows who you are. What are you talking about?” Boyd said. “Oh, he knows about your mission or whatever? That biblical crap on the cave wall?”
“Take them down to the basement,” Surrette said, breathing through his nose.
Molly was sitting in a chair by the door. She clutched a wadded tissue speckled with blood. “My name is Molly Robicheaux,” she said. “I saw the death squads at work in Guatemala and El Salvador.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Surrette asked.
“They had your eyes,” she said. “They always smelled of alcohol when they came into the village. They never spoke in any voice except a loud one. They chose their enemies carefully — innocent villagers who had no weapons. You remind me of them.”
“Take them downstairs, Jack, and don’t try to think,” Surrette said. The heat seemed to go out of his face. He smiled. “No judgment calls.”
“Sure,” Boyd said. “I’m with you all the way. You know that.”
“What do you want me to do?” Terry said.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready. In the meantime, there’s no need for you to speak.”
Albert looked at Boyd and Terry. “I got a question for you fellows,” he said. “Do y’all think this man is going to let you walk away so you can extort him down the road?”
“Asa is a kidder. He knows who his friends are,” Boyd said. “You bet on the wrong horse, old-timer.”
There was a beat. Terry was silent, his concentration turned inward, as though he were examining a flyspeck inside his head.
“Right, Asa?” Jack Boyd said. “Mr. Hollister shouldn’t be placing any bets in Vegas, should he? You got any snacks in the refrigerator? I’m starving.”
We drove back up the two-lane, slowing at the driveways that led down to the houses on the lake or up the hillsides through the cherry orchards. We went over a rise and down a long grade into an unlit area where there were no houses and the shoreline was dense with trees and underbrush. In my high beams, I saw a large rock partially broken on the asphalt. It looked like it had been dragged under a vehicle.
“That wasn’t there when we went up the road earlier,” I said.
“No, it wasn’t,” Clete said. “Pull over.”
I drove around the rock and parked on the north side of it. Gretchen and Alafair pulled in behind me. Up ahead was a dirt road that cut back up the hillside and disappeared inside trees tangled with vines and shrubbery. “Did you guys see this rock earlier?” I said.
“No, it wasn’t here,” Alafair said. She picked it up and set it on the shoulder. “Somebody ran over it. See the powdered spot about ten yards back?”
I took a flashlight from the glove box and walked to a dirt road that angled back up the hill. Stenciled in the dirt were the fresh tire tracks of a heavy vehicle. I shone the flashlight’s beam on a bend about forty yards up the grade. At first I saw only the trees and their shadows moving in the wind; then the beam reflected off a bright surface, perhaps a bumper or a windshield or a strip of chrome.
I walked up the incline. The behemoth-like outline of Albert’s diesel rig, sheathed in dried mud, was unmistakable. Whoever had left it there had backed it up and parked it with the engine pointed downhill. “Up here!” I shouted at the others.
There was nothing in the cab, no keys in the ignition, no signs of a struggle. But I knew my wife. She was not only intelligent and brave, she never went with the flow. I opened both doors of the cab and searched under the seats and behind them and in the glove box. I knew that somewhere, somehow, Molly had left me a message.
“Call it in, Clete,” I said.
“You know what those cocksuckers are going to say, don’t you?” he replied.
“Yeah, I do, but call it in anyway,” I said, feeling down in the seats.
“It’ll take at least a half hour for them to get a guy out here. Then he’ll tell us to file a missing persons report.”
“I know that. Just make the call,” I said.
“Then wait for somebody to show up? I say fuck that.”
I took out my cell phone and started to punch in 911.
“All right, I’ll do it,” Clete said, walking off with his phone to his ear.
I had found nothing in the cab. My heart was beating, my eyes stinging with moisture even though the night was cool. Where are you, Molly? I thought. I stood erect and closed the passenger door. Where could she have left a clue? It’s there someplace, I know it, I know it, I know it. I turned in a circle. On the truck itself, I thought. I shone the flashlight on the door. There it was, right in front of me, two initials on the outside panel. She had probably hung her arm out the window and used her thumb to furrow the letter J, then the letter B, in the muddy splatter that had dried on the panel.
“You were right about Jack Boyd, Gretchen,” I said. “He’s got them. How bad did you work him over?”