The Legend of Devil's Creek, page 33
FORTY-SIX
It was seven days since their steelhead fishing expedition, and seven days since Riddley, or anyone else, had last seen Sandhurst. Riddley assumed he was depressed again, dealing with memories resurrected on his mysterious late-night walk with Chapman. But if Chapman knew anything specific about what was behind Sandhurst’s disappearance, he was keeping quiet about it. Both Riddley and Catherine called his room, but got no answer. Again, Riddley was tempted to at least go knock on his door to make sure he was okay. Again, Chapman talked him out of it, saying they should all just leave him alone to let him work things out for himself. But privately, Riddley continued to worry about his friend. He’d never dropped out this completely or for this long.
It was also seven days since the weather had turned to shit again—a ceaseless, cold rain falling from an endless conveyor belt of dark cloud rolling in off the Gulf of Alaska. The Pacific Northwest winter had arrived, no mistake.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel for indoor entertainment, a cabin-fevered Riddley sat playing spades with Chapman, Boyd, and Lazko around the dirty old kitchen table at Boyd and Lazko’s house. They were drinking cheap, warm beer Chapman found behind the seat of his truck to wash down a lunch of oily delivery pizza. Riddley thought it was dull as dishwater compared to what they served down at the Frigate Bird. But the Frigate didn’t deliver, and nobody wanted to go out in the rain.
They were comparing spectacular pet stories, and Chapman was in the middle of telling one about his roommate’s dog, Oso. “The thing was always chewing on this one cord that ran to the floor lamp next to my recliner in the living room. So one day Tracy and I are making spaghetti in the kitchen when we start to hear this sort of growling coming from the living room. But it wasn’t normal growling. It was half grunting. Like an animal, or even a person, was really straining or pushing trying to move something heavy. I don’t know. Anyway, it doesn’t stop, so we’re looking at each other like what the fuck is that? We peek around the corner, and I can see Oso’s nose sticking out from behind my recliner. Then it hits me that it totally smells like fresh dog shit in there. The odor is so strong I almost retch. The dog is still grunt-growling, and I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I’m wondering if the thing has caught a squirrel or something. So I finally walk across the room to get a full view of the dog. And when I come around the corner of the chair, I see Oso’s tail sticking straight out over a fan-shaped area of mixed dog shit, both hard logs and soft diarrhea-looking stuff. And there’s Oso, his jaw locked onto the floor lamp power cord that he’d finally chewed through to the live wires. His eyes were wide open, and he was still growling as shit kept shooting out of his ass in spurts.”
“Holy shit,” Boyd.
“Exactly.”
“Did the dog live?” Riddley asked, laughing.
“Yeah, he was fine. He laid low for a few hours after I unplugged the cord, and one lip was a little bit burned. But other than that, he was fine. Hey, but speaking of nasty shit, are you guys still fucking with each other’s rooms?”
“No, we have a truce, right Riddley?”
“A truce. Sure, Boyd.”
No more than an hour later, Boyd couldn’t help himself and made a snide comment about Riddley’s pants being too short. The next time Riddley went to the bathroom, he stood in front of the toilet, beginning to urinate, when an idea popped into his brain. Turning his hips a couple inches to the left, he let his piss flow right into the small garbage can that sat next to Boyd’s toilet. Once a half inch or so built up in the bottom of the can, Riddley turned his hips a few more inches until his piss was streaming into Boyd’s bathtub. Smiling from ear-to-ear, it was all Riddley could do not to burst out laughing. Here’s your truce, asshole.
*****
Quintrell couldn’t believe he’d drawn surveillance tonight, of all nights. He’d been assigned as duty officer the night before as well, so aside from a lousy forty-minute nap he’d taken in the station dispatcher’s chair, he hadn’t slept in 36 hours. For whatever reason, the fatigue seemed to be hitting him in his upper back, in his ribs—soreness just below the shoulder blades. He was certain he hadn’t done anything to injure his back. Hell, he’d been sitting in a chair all day. But that was where it got him.
He refused to say anything to Marshall. For one, everybody was working hard, and he didn’t want to come across as a complainer. But more importantly, he didn’t want to make Marshall feel bad. Secretly, Quintrell worried that Marshall might actually be losing it. He’d been looking worse and worse by the day, ever since the Staley murder. His thinking seemed slow, some of his decisions odd. It even looked like he was losing weight, and not in a healthy way.
Quintrell had kept his mouth shut, so here he was, pulling to the curb a block from Chapman’s house in an unmarked patrol car they’d borrowed from County. He stopped, glanced over at the target house, then slowly rolled forward three more feet before shifting into park. From this vantage point he’d be able to see anyone enter or leave Chapman’s house from either the front or back doors. He killed the engine, let out a long sigh, and then keyed his mic. “Unit 5 is 10-8 at the Eiffel Tower.”
“Copy that, Unit 5,” came the answer from dispatch—some numb-nut they’d detailed up from Kingston.
He had two extra-spicy pulled pork sandwiches from Mephistopheles Real Pit Barbeque, along with a thermos full of his personal elixir for keeping awake. He called it the “black dragon”—four shots of espresso, two tablespoons of brown sugar, and the rest of the thermos topped up with his favorite strong, black, aged Sumatra coffee. Only then did it occur to him that spicy barbequed pork and the black dragon weren’t a great pairing. And he hadn’t brought anything else to drink. Shit.
The evening’s interminable drizzle grew to a downpour as Quintrell tried to make himself comfortable in the failing light. Though he’d brought along good night vision binoculars, he doubted he’d be able to see much through his rain-covered windshield. He could turn the key for battery power to run the wipers, but if he left them on, he’d eventually kill the battery. And worse, running the wipers would make him conspicuous. So screw it, he would just watch through the blur of his wet windshield.
The pitter-patter of heavy rain was mesmerizing. Worried it would lull him to sleep, Quintrell donned his headphones, popped a CD into his portable player and hit play. Then he poured himself a cup of his piping-hot coffee, took a big sniff of its steam and sipped. Perfectly brewed. He’d save the sandwiches for later.
First, he listened to one of his favorite old Seattle bands—as with so many of them, its singer long dead. Then he played some old-fashioned country. After finishing both CDs, he ate one of his sandwiches. The hot spices of the barbeque sauce warmed his stomach.
Since his arrival, the only activity he’d observed at Chapman’s house was a second-floor light—probably the bathroom—being switched off.
After a while, his tailbone began to ache from sitting on the hard vinyl of the bench seat, so he turned sideways, redistributing his weight so that some of it rested on his left hip. The car was getting stuffy and the windows were fogging up on the inside. But Quintrell didn’t want to open a window because of the rain, so he continued to breathe the warm, stuffy air, periodically wiping the fog from his windshield with the extra napkins that came with his barbeque. He put in another CD—this one a presentation by a motivational speaker—and settled his focus back on the house. The speaker was discussing the benefits of having a positive self-image. It was the key to a happy life. But to get there required the reprogramming of your subconscious through the use of daily positive-thinking mantras. The speaker droned on and on. Quintrell’s mind began to drift to other matters. He was overdue for a teeth cleaning at his dentist. Should he grill burgers or brats this weekend when his buddies came over from Seattle to watch the ballgame? Or was the weather going to be too crappy for grilling? Would this rain ever end?
*****
Dale Vickers was jolted conscious by the reek of ammonia. It was raining like hell, the drops beating on his head. A bright light shone in his eyes—perhaps the beam of a flashlight. He blinked away the blur and confusion and looked around to see where he was. The woods. He was somewhere deep in the woods. And he was bound to a tree, immobilized, his arms taped to a two-by-four that ran behind his shoulders. Holy fucking shit! He’d been reading the papers. He knew the Devil’s Creek Killer had him.
“Hey! Hey!” he screamed to the surrounding darkness. “I—I’m not a child abuser. I’m the wrong guy! You’ve got the wrong guy!”
His head hurt like hell. Someone must have hit him with a club. The last thing he could remember was bending down to look at his flat tires. Now he was here.
He heard a metallic rustling from behind the tree he was bound to. But strain as he might, he couldn’t turn his head far enough to see what was going on. He began to tremble uncontrollably. “I didn’t do anything. Please. You’ve got the wrong guy.” Then, the sound of footsteps coming around the tree. Dale looked up into the eyes of a balaclava-masked stranger. “I’m not, I’m not—” He looked at the stranger’s right hand. It held a bow saw. He felt nauseous, bile rising up his throat. “Please,” he whispered just before vomiting into his own lap.
The stranger stared down at Dale, breathing hard, maybe hyperventilating. He seemed to be psyching himself up. Dale couldn’t breathe. He dropped his gaze to the ground and began to mumble, “No, no, no, no, no … .”
The stranger squatted down until he was at eye level with Dale, grabbed his chin, and forced him to look up so that they were face to face. At first, Dale kept his eyes closed tight. But then something compelled him to look. He opened his eyes a crack to see those of the stranger no more than six inches from his own face. The stranger’s eyes shone with intense fury, wide, bloodshot, and blue. Then, the stranger took a deep breath, opened his mouth wide and howled into Dale’s face—demonic, nerve-shattering and guttural, his neck shaking, flushing red with exertion. He howled and howled until Dale lost control of his bladder and bowels and squeezed his eyes tight shut with no intention of ever opening them again.
The howling stopped. Dale waited, sitting in his own stink with gritted teeth and clenched abdomen, for the saw. For the inevitable feeling of the cold steel blade tearing into the soft flesh of his naked shoulders. He wiggled the fingers on each of his hands, paying careful attention to how they felt, trying to commit the feeling to memory though he knew he’d be dead soon after his arms were severed. He waited and he waited. Nothing was happening, but he didn’t dare peek. What is he waiting for? “Come on, fucker!”
Then, he thought he heard the stranger walk back around the tree behind him again. More rustling, like someone digging through an equipment bag. Then, three steps closer and a white flash that shot across his vision despite his tightly closed eyes.
*****
Dale came to again—this time slowly. His head felt even worse than before, the throbbing now seeming to come from two different points on the back of his skull, and it took him a moment to remember where he was and what had been happening. As soon as he did, terror retook him. Wondering what the hell was going on, he opened his eyes. The flashlight was gone. But for the sound of raindrops showering down on the surrounding forest, all was quiet. He sat in near-total darkness. He was still shirtless, still leaning with his back against a tree, and it was still raining. But were his arms still attached to his body? He thought he could feel his fingers, his hands, but he was afraid to look. At last willing himself to do so, he turned, slowly, to his left. His arm was still there! He turned to his right. Yes! And the duct tape restraining his right arm had been cut. Was it an illusion? Had the fear driven him to mad hallucination? He gently bent his elbow, drawing his arm in toward his body. Then he flexed the fingers on his right hand, slowly, fearfully, not yet convinced he was still intact. He touched his fingertips together, and then clenched them into a fist, savoring every detail of the feeling.
At last satisfied he wasn’t hallucinating, he glanced around, straining to see if his captor was still nearby. It was impossible to tell in the darkness. Was he being let go? Was he being toyed with? Was the stranger standing behind the tree sharpening his saw? He wasn’t going to wait to find out.
Still disoriented, moaning like an injured animal, he tore at the duct tape binding his left arm. His moans grew to frenzied wails as he clawed and pulled at the tape with maniacal, clumsy movements, tearing hair from his arm in large patches. His left arm free, he worked to un-tape his abdomen. Then, without bothering to look for either his shoes or shirt, he jumped up and ran off, blind, directionless, and screaming, through the pitch-dark forest. He ran and ran, hitting branches, hitting tree trunks, tripping and falling, time and again. Branches whipped at his face, his arms, his naked torso, leaving deep, bloody scratches in his bare skin. But he was too crazed to notice. He didn’t stop running. And he couldn’t stop screaming.
He kept on going, bloody, disoriented, and burning with fatigue, until at last he saw a light. A house! He ran straight for it. He emerged from the trees into some sort of farm field, row after row of raised earth tripping him to the ground several more times before he arrived at the farmhouse, tilled soil now clumped to his bloody wet body. Lights had already come on inside, on the second floor. People waking up to his mad screaming. “Help me! Help me!” He ran right up the steps, tried to open the locked door, then began pounding on it with both fists. “Help me!”
*****
Quintrell blinked his eyes open. The CD was done. That was abrupt. Uh-oh. Was that it, or did I nod off? He decided he just hadn’t really been listening. Regardless, he felt drowsy, so he slapped his own cheeks hard with both hands. Then he popped another CD in—one with fast tempo music—and resumed his vigil. He squinted at Chapman’s house through the nighttime rain. A dull yellow light bulb illuminated the front porch. Otherwise, the house was totally dark. Probably because they’re all asleep, like I should be. A county patrolman detailed to the task force wasn’t scheduled to relieve him until 5 a.m. This was murderous. At least tomorrow was his day off.
Quintrell sat and sat, doing everything he could think of to keep himself awake, even holding his urine to deliberately maintain an irritating urge to piss. He cranked his music. He drank more of his black dragon. But his blinking grew more and more labored. And every once in a while, he would lose track of what he’d been thinking about or listening to on his headphones. Still, he didn’t think he ever fell asleep. Or did he?
At 1:30 a.m., the radio crackled to life. “Unit 5, you copy?”
It was the voice of Marshall himself. He was sure up late. But then again, he had been coming in earlier and earlier, and staying later, complaining of difficulty sleeping. Quintrell shook the drowsiness from his head and keyed his mic. “Unit 5.”
“Q, you were duty officer last night, weren’t you?”
Uh-oh. Did something happen on my watch? Did I fuck something up? “Uh, yes sir, I was.”
“Shit,” Marshall muttered over the radio. “I’m sorry, Q. You must be wasted.”
“Pretty tired, but squared away, sir.”
“I’m going to come over there and relieve you myself. I’ll be there inside of thirty minutes.”
“Copy that. Thank you, sir.” He loved his boss. The guy was a rare breed. Even when he was exhausted to the point of losing his grip, he still put his men ahead of himself. Quintrell would follow him to the gates of hell if he asked.
He poured himself another cup of coffee and flipped through his CDs looking for something that would do a better job of keeping him awake. Nothing appealed. He’d been listening to the same bunch of CDs for the better part of a year now, and was sick of all of them. The rain continued its endless pitter-patter on the roof of his car.
No more than ten minutes after Marshall’s call, the radio sprang to life once more. But this time it was the night-duty dispatcher they’d borrowed from Kingston again. His voice was tense and he spoke quickly.
“All units 10-63, 10-63. Units one and four proceed 10-40 to 274 Center Island Road. Unit 2 is 10-76.” Come on! Speak English, dickhead! “Static posts to remain in place. All units be advised of possible 10-10. Suspect Rodin believed to be in the vicinity of 274 Center Island Road within the past hour. Standing orders to stop all vehicles and pedestrians on the island until further notice. Will advise. Over.”
*****
“So, somehow Vickers found his way through the woods to Yamamotos’ strawberry farm here,” Carson said as he and Marshall stood on the front porch of a 1920s farmhouse, staring out across a wide tilled field and toward the forest. “Scared the living shit out of the poor Yamamotos, coming screaming half-naked out of the woods at 1:30 in the morning like that, all covered with blood and puke and piss.”
It was now 2 a.m. Marshall hadn’t slept a wink in twenty-two hours. And before that he’d gotten, what, maybe three hours of sleep? At best. He yawned. At least the activity was keeping him from his nightmare.
“Anyway, Davis and a couple guys from County are walking through the woods with Vickers right now, trying to backtrack to the tree he was bound to. They’ll radio as soon as they find anything. Vickers is pretty whacked out right now though. Says he couldn’t see much as he ran and isn’t really sure where he came from, so it might be a while. But, his footprints show that he entered the farm from the south, so they’re at least starting off in that direction. Q is still sitting on Chapman’s house. And I called in five more county patrol cars. One is cruising the island looking for anything, one is looking for Vickers’ car, and one is blocking the bridge off the island. The other two have set up roadblocks at each end of Center Island Road. But I’m sure the perp is long gone.”
