"All of a sudden," he said, "there was this whine, and something came whipping by down the road. Going like hell, it went right off the roadway and down a little bank, and off into a field. Goin' like a streak of shit. But really quiet. I mean, really quiet. Spooky as shit."
"I'll bet." We were turning off the highway, and onto gravel heading toward the general area of the Borglan farm. "What was it?"
"That's the really spooky part. I couldn't tell. I really couldn't."
"Did you get a look at his taillights? Any tire marks in the snow?"
"Sorry. Sorry, he didn't have any lights at all. God, I can't believe I forgot to say that."
"That's okay," I chuckled. "No problem."
"It was really dark, and I didn't want to shine any lights in case I'd fuck something up, you know? So I just sort of sat there for a while, and waited, but nothing came back down the road. So I walked over and tried to see, but there weren't any tire tracks, so I thought I was seeing things." In a major rush.
"Slow down," I said. We were slipping along at about 60, and the road was about 100 percent ice and snow-covered. "You're driving as fast as you talk."
"Sorry. I suppose it wouldn't look good to have a wreck with a superior officer onboard."
"Not with a big, ugly older one, either. Now, then, you have no idea what it was? How big was it?"
"I just got a flicker of it as it went by. I couldn't really tell. Isn't that the shits?"
"Yeah. So… what are we doing now?"
"Well, I didn't want to fuck anything up, so I thought the two of us could go back down there now, and look out into the field and see what kind of tracks we had."
"Sure. You could have done it yourself, though." I wasn't really resentful, or anything. But I had been so comfortable…
"Here we are," he said, shutting off his headlights and sliding to a stop. He began backing into the little lane where he'd been the night before.
"Boy, it sure as hell is dark down here," I said. Only starlight, and it was partly cloudy. If the landscape hadn't been covered with snow, it would have been like a black hole. As it was, it would take several minutes for your eyes to even begin to adjust.
"Let's just sit here a minute," he said, "and then we can walk over and look." He pointed as he talked. "It came from that way, and went off the road over there."
From the left, going right. We were about fifty feet back from the road, pretty well covered by trees and large limestone blocks that had rolled off the hill years before. From what John told me, whatever it was would have rounded a curve, gone by our location, and dipped right off the road, over a small bank, and out into a field. According to John, the place where it had gone into the field was about seventy-five yards from our parking place.
"It pretty much had to be a snowmobile," I said. "Don't you think?" That explained my presence. The troops in the department knew we were looking at snowmobile tracks.
"That's kinda what I was thinking," said John.
"But, it was quiet?"
"Yeah, that's what got me, too. Never heard a quiet one in my life."
I opened my door. I felt dark-adapted enough to walk across the roadway. "Let's go look. I'm getting really curious." I got out of the car, took one step, and was up to my knees in snow. Apparently, the little lane was elevated a bit. "I'm up to my ass in snow over here," I said, stomping my way back up to the surface of the lane. "Little ditch there."
"Shit, I'm sorry. There isn't one on this side."
"No kidding." Now my feet were cold, and going to get colder. The all-weather boots were great, but they sure weren't heated.
It's one of the peculiarities of the deep winter that the road is usually lighter than the surroundings. The paved roads are whitish with dried salt, and the gravels with packed snow. It makes it a lot easier to see the road in the dark. We squeaked in the snow as we walked across the road. Over to the bank. In darkness on the roadway, I became aware of the fact there was a bit of a moon, hidden from view behind the hill from our parking spot. The moonlight shadow of the hill reached out over the roadway. The field across the road was slowly lighting up, as a couple of clouds moved past the moon. It was like a postcard. We were standing on a roadway that curved very gently to our left, disappearing after about half a mile. It curved around a big flat field, maybe three quarters of a mile across. Like a quiet harbor in the Arctic.
We reached the bank, and I shone my flashlight on the area John indicated. Snowmobile track, all right. Fresh, with little crumbled bits and chunks of snow scattered on both sides. Straight out into the field.
I turned off my light. "Son of a bitch. Doesn't that track lead toward Borglan's and his hired man?"
"I think it does. Harvey Grossman, you mean?"
"Yeah."
I looked off in the direction of the track, letting my eyes readjust to the darkness. There was a discontinuity in the snow cover, about half a mile across the field. "You see that… that different sort of area… off that way, and just before the trees…?"
He did eventually. "Yeah, that's that lonesome machine shed of Borglan's. You know, the one with no other buildings anywhere…"
Oh, yeah. The one where some of the tracks led from Grossman's place.
I walked back up the roadway, in the direction the snowmobile had come from.
"Was it this dark last night?" I asked.
"Darker, the moon was down by the time he came by."
"Hmm." We stopped at the point of the curve, about a hundred yards from our car. I looked at it. "You say he had no lights?"
"None."
I could make out the exhaust plume of our car because I knew to look for it, but not the car itself. Well, not clearly, at least. Too much stuff in the way, like brush, trees, and rocks. I began walking toward it. About sixty yards from it, the left front fender became visible. By fifty yards, you could begin to see the area of the driver's door. At forty or so, a shrub began to block the view of the left front fender again. A narrow range of visibility, but…
"It looks for all the world like he was coming around the corner, saw you, and ducked off the road." I looked back toward the curve. "The distances are right if he's goin' about forty-five or so."
"But he didn't have any lights…"
"Yeah, I know." So how did he see John? Night vision goggles, that's how. "I'll bet you look good in green light."
"What?"
"Night vision goggles. NVGs."
"Oh. Yeah, that'd do it."
"Sure would," I said. "Let's get back in the car before I freeze to death."
I stomped through the snow again, trying to hit my original tracks and not succeeding particularly well in the dark. But, back in the car, the heat felt good. I'd left my parka in the backseat, of course. Just too much of an encumbrance. Besides, the heat would warm up the granola bars enough that they wouldn't break my teeth…
We each cracked a window, subconsciously listening. To hear a railroad train over the loud hiss of the heater/defroster and the engine would have been quite a feat, but we did it anyway.
"Granola bar?"
"Yeah, thanks."
We munched in silence for almost a minute.
"So," said John. "What do you think?"
"I think we got something really spooky here," I replied. "I don't know why, but somebody with a silenced snowmobile and NVGs is touring the countryside. Near a murder scene. Where the killer probably left via snowmobile."
"I never heard of a snowmobile like that, with the goggles and all."