Cory knew he could never go home again, that he had seen his father for the last time. He was simultaneously depressed and delighted. He loved the man, at some level, but despised him, too.
The relentless belittling with a dollop of tenderness. “You should try harder to make something of yourself, but maybe you are what you are.” Followed by a look of resignation and disappointment.
He slipped into the cabin and closed the door silently behind him. Even though it had been dark outside, his eyes needed to adjust further to the gloom of the cabin. But he was able to make out the basic shapes of its contents. The wooden table and four mismatched antique chairs in the center of the room. The sink and counter along one wall. The wood-burning heater on the opposite side of the room, the chimney pipe leading straight up and through the ceiling.
And, finally, the two beds along the left wall. One empty, one not.
Yes, suffocation seemed the simplest way to go. Clamp a hand over her mouth, squeeze her nostrils shut, and wait until the life was snuffed out of her.
You did what you had to do.
He worked his way carefully across the darkened room and stood beside the bed.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” he said. “It’s all gone to shit. Someone else tried to do it, and he fucked it up. I’ve lost my chance. I have to leave.” He paused. “I can’t take you with me. At least, not... Well, I can’t. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand out to rest it on her back. He felt a strange need to comfort her before he did what he had to do.
But his hand found nothing. It went all the way down to the surface of the bed. Frantically, he patted the bed from head to foot.
“Where are you?” he shouted, turning sharply to look into the dark room.
His first thought was that if she’d managed to get loose, she wouldn’t have stayed around to await his return. She must be gone.
But then he thought he heard breathing.
Someone else was in the room.
“Where are you?” he said again, rising off the bed and whirling around, just in time to see a shadowy figure swinging something his way.
The steel poker from the wood-burning stove caught him across the side of the head and he staggered across the room. Feebly he raised his arm to ward off a second blow, but the poker hit him so hard he was sure he felt the bone in his forearm snap.
He dropped to his knees as the poker came around for a third time, this time catching him across the neck.
He hit the floor, writhing and gagging. He rolled onto his back, and as he looked up, a sliver of moonlight coming through one of the windows briefly lit up the face of his attacker.
What Cory saw was so unimaginably horrible he managed to utter a gasp between choking noises.
“Nice to see you again,” said Craig Pierce.
Fifty-nine
Cal
Barry Duckworth called me back more quickly than I had expected.
“Nothing on that phone,” he said. “It’s a burner. I can’t connect a name to it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get back to you.”
I had been talking with an officer named Higgins from the Town of Sandwich Police Department, filling him in on what Gregor Kiln had tried to accomplish. I wouldn’t let Kiln out of my sight, even as the paramedics examined him. I wouldn’t do that until someone had cuffed his wrists and shoved him into the back of a cruiser. If he left here in an ambulance, I was going to insist that a cop go with him.
“So this kid,” Higgins said, nodding his head toward Jeremy Pilford, who was standing a few feet away watching the fire department douse the flames that had engulfed Madeline Plimpton’s place, “is the one that was all over the news?”
“Yes,” I said.
Higgins pointed at Kiln. “So you shot that guy?”
“I did.”
“And broke his knee?”
“Possibly.”
“Maybe I should be arresting you.”
“I explained to you what he was trying to do.”
“Yeah, but you might be givin’ me a story.”
“See if he wants to file charges,” I said. “My guess is he’s got bigger things to worry about.”
Higgins pinched the top of his nose, as though trying to ward off a headache. “Look, I think I’m gonna have to bring the chief in on this. Arson, attempted murder, the Big Baby case? You shootin’ this guy. If the chief doesn’t hear about it till morning, my ass is gonna be in a sling.”
“Good idea,” I said. I asked for the chief’s name — it was Bertram — and contact info so that I could forward it on to Barry. While I’d been fairly forthcoming with Higgins, I’d not mentioned that Kiln’s cell phone was in my pocket.
Higgins excused himself to call his boss. I sent a message to Barry with the info about the chief. Jeremy wandered over and said, “Madeline’s not gonna be very happy. Have you called her and told her what’s happened to her place?”
I shook my head. “No, and I’m not going to.”
For all I knew right now, Madeline was the one who’d sent this guy, although I still couldn’t fathom why she would do that.
“And if you’ve magically managed to pull another cell phone out of your ass,” I said to Jeremy, “I don’t want you doing it either. We’re on radio silence for a while.”
“On what?”
“We’re not calling or talking to anybody. Don’t call your mother or Bob or your girlfriend Charlene or anyone.”
“Why?”
“Just go along with this, okay?”
Jeremy shrugged. “I guess.”
“No, no guess. Promise me.”
“Fine, I promise. What are we gonna do now? We’ve got no place to stay.”
“I think we’ll be heading home very soon. At least as soon as they’ll let us.”
Two more police cars had arrived, and four officers — two men and two women — got out. Higgins, a cell phone to his ear, waved over one of the women and started a conversation with her. He pointed to Kiln, and the woman nodded several times. As she walked over to where the paramedics were treating our shooter, Higgins resumed his phone conversation.
Then he called me over.
“Chief wants to talk to you,” he said.
I took the phone. “Hello?”
“Weaver?”
“That’s right. Chief Bertram?”
“Yeah. You’re private?”
He sounded very deeply pissed, and I didn’t think it just had to do with the fact that Officer Higgins had woken him up.
“Yes,” I said. “Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but before you begin, I’d like to offer my apologies.”
“Huh?”
“I just brought a shit storm of trouble your way. That wasn’t my intention. I came here with the Pilford boy because I thought he’d be safe here. He’s been the subject of countless death threats. It didn’t work out. I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t, actually, but I didn’t see the point in getting on the wrong side of this man from the get-go.
“Well,” he said, his voice sounding slightly softer than a moment earlier, “you sure got that right. I’m comin’ out there shortly, but in the meantime, I need you to bring me up to speed.”
I told him the same story I’d told Higgins. “You’re going to be hearing, any moment, I think, from Detective Barry Duckworth of the Promise Falls Police.”
“Where the hell is that?” Bertram asked.
“New York state. North of Albany. He’s going to ask you something on my behalf.”
“What might that be?”
“Nothing to the press for about twelve hours. Except that there was a fire.”
“Not likely to be any questions for that long anyway,” Bertram said. “This isn’t exactly Manhattan. We don’t have CNN watching our every move. But let me ask you why.”