The mutts and I went back to the cottage for one last walkthrough. The night was humid, and the sky was running a low overcast. Once again there were flickers of heat lightning over on the Virginia side. I decided to leave the Suburban at the cottage and take the utility vehicle. It had lights, and I wasn't going very far. Frick, being senior, rode on the seat next to mine. Frack sat on the deck in front of her seat. Kitty was relegated to the back compartment but seemed to enjoy it just the same. Nothing much fazed that dog, and I was beginning to really like her. Frick, too, was getting old, and I needed Kitty to take aboard some more of Frick's tactical spirit.
I made a camp of sorts in the house at Glory's End. I kept all three shepherds inside with me, and we severally conducted a recon of the house from top to bottom to make sure we were alone and that the various doors and secret passageways were all secure. The television monitor showed nothing afoot outside, and, it being past two in the morning, I turned in. I made a mental note to get Tony to research Major Courtney Woodruff Lee, AUS. As I lay there, watching the heat lightning caress the distant Blue Ridge Mountains through the wavy glass of the back windows, I still wondered if Callendar might not be a figment, and perhaps my real stalker had been riding around the countryside right in front of me. Patience might tell me anything to get Cubby out of the crack he was in.
Sometime just before dawn I was awakened by a rumble of thunder. I got up to look outside and was rewarded with a sharp stroke of lightning hitting down by the river, followed by a thunderclap that had all three dogs wrapped around my ankles in two seconds. Then the rain hit, and I watched as the trees writhed in the wind and tiny, bright pellets of ice danced on the brick walks below. I wandered through the rooms, looking outside as the lightning flashed and illuminated the lawns, the big oaks, the springhouse, and the smokehouse. My brain kept looking for the image of some lurking bad guy to imprint on my vision, but if anyone was out there, he was hating life right about now. I couldn't remember if the house had lightning rods, but if it didn't, it soon would have. It was a really impressive storm, and it took over a half hour for it to dissolve into just plain rain. I went back to my mattress and waited for sunrise.
I woke up to cold noses touching my cheek and a blast of sunlight coming through the freshly scrubbed windows. It was almost nine. The mutts wanted chow, and I needed coffee. I got everyone back into the utility vehicle and rambled back over to the stone cottage to retrieve the Suburban and go to town. I threw the dogs in back and went to sit down in the front seat. There, on the passenger seat, was another of those white death-mask faces that I'd discovered taped to the cottage windows. Written in black Magic Marker ink across the forehead was a message. Enjoy the day. It will be your last.
I drove on into town, focusing on first things first. I don't drink a lot of coffee, but I really do need that first line of caffeine to get my brain going. I hit the local Waffle House for breakfast and then carried three doughnuts out for the piranhas in the back of my Suburban.
So today was my last day, and of course the mask picture was confirmation that Willard was not the great shot he thought he was. While driving back to Glory's End, I called Tony and gave him his research assignment. I added Callendar Lee to the slate because Patience had said he'd been in the army, too. Tony's contacts in the Manceford County Sheriff's Office could get access to military personnel records if it involved a homicide investigation. If Tony hit any walls, I'd get Sheriff Walker to give it a try. Which reminded me: I needed to talk to the sheriff.
Another call revealed that he was at the county hospital, so I diverted from my trip home and went to the hospital to see the Sheriff. He was visiting Valeria Lee, so I wrote out a note and asked a nurse to pass it to him. He came down to the hospital cafeteria twenty minutes later, where I was indulging myself in a second cup of coffee and listening to the night shift people talk about their lively Friday night in the ER. It had been a payday, with the usual consequences.
"Mr. Richter," he said as he slid into a chair. He was in full uniform, and he looked tired.
"Sheriff Walker," I replied. "Does that 'mister' mean something? As opposed to 'lieutenant'? Am I in hot water again?"
"Absolutely," he said with a grin. "Ms. Hester wants your skin. Ms. Valeria wants your skin, stretched and salted. Apparently she will have to lie on her side for a while and stand up a lot."
"I didn't shoot her," I said. "That was Mommy."
"Yeah, but you started it," he said. "What did you find out last night, if anything?"
I filled him in. He was as surprised as I had been that Callendar, the son who'd been "banished" for so many years, was probably our guy.
"Do you believe Patience?"
"I do, if only because she wants a deal for Cubby."
He nodded. "I guess I need to call Ms. Hester into the office," he said. "Formally. With her attorney."
"I explained the notion of an accomplice to Patience last night," I said. "I'm guessing that wasn't exactly news."
"Problem is, Hester hasn't been home since Valeria got her ass air-conditioned," he said. Three young nurses sitting nearby had been eavesdropping, and one of them started laughing. He gave them a brittle look, and they decided to finish their breakfast and go in the away direction.
"Hester claims you caused Valeria to come off her horse," he said.
"True. I thought it might be Callendar trying to escape, so I got right in the way. I sent the dogs in first, but when her horsie tried to kick their heads off, I fired my scattergun."
He rubbed his eyes. I wondered if he'd slept at all last night.
"Well," he said. "What fun."
I told him about my theory that Callendar and the night-riding major might be the same person. He shook his head.
"I asked an old friend in the SBI to run a check on Callendar, who I assumed was a Lee. He's real enough. He was a Citadel grad. Went into the army and got cashiered after a training accident that killed three of his soldiers. They fired him for lying about what happened, not for what happened."
"I wonder how that sat with the major."
"Not well. He came home in disgrace; the old man declared him a nonperson, threw him out, never to darken the doorway at Laurel Grove again."
"What's he do for a living?"
"That gets interesting," he said. "His credit records give his employment as a hunting guide down east of New Bern."
"Hunting guide."
"Yeah, but one who lists his income for the past year in the low six figures."
"Pretty good for a hunting guide."
"I asked my contact if he could access his tax returns, and he said no, he couldn't, but what was my question. I told him. Next day he told me he'd discovered some more information that might be pertinent."
"You, of course, did not ask him where or how he got it."
"There you go. Anyway, some of his income was tax free. Now you tell me: Whose income is tax free?"
"Military guys in a war zone, for one," I said.
"And some of those security contractors, say, like in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"Wow," I said. "He's one of them."
"That was my contact's general impression, based on records he did not see."
"That would explain some of the toys and methods he's been throwing against me. Any local records?"
"The local sheriff knows him but says he's never been a problem. He has a driver's license, so I've requested a photo from DMV."