Homefront. Part 32

Ca.s.sie said, "Well, it was his shirt, it got-"

"Blood on it," Nina said, nodding, extemporizing. "Probably ruined it."

"Well, yes, it did."

"Ms. Bodine," Nina said carefully, "we've had quite a talk with Kit about playing too rough, and we'd appreciate it if you let us replace Teddy's shirt." She glanced down the store. "I don't suppose they have anything suitable here?"

Suddenly animated, Teddy tugged at Ca.s.sie's sleeve. "Mom, they got those X-Men in the back."

"There is a small kid's section, but it's on the pricey side," Ca.s.sie said. Grinding her teeth, that jerky eye movement again.

"X-Men's cool; right, Kit?" Nina flashed a warning to Kit, who was struggling to contain the mortification creeping up her neck and reddening her cheeks. "Let's take a look."

They followed Ca.s.sie and Teddy to the rack of specialty T-shirts. He selected a black one, boys' extra-large.

Nina said, offhand, "Maybe you should get the red one-if you get skinned up playing hockey, won't show as much."

Ca.s.sie blinked, not sure if there was a discreet stinger in the remark. Teddy stuck with the black. They walked back up to the sales counter, and Nina explained to the clerk that she was starting a tab. The clerk removed the price tag, set it aside, then folded the shirt and put it in a bag.

Nina shook hands with Ca.s.sie a second time, saying earnestly, "We're real sorry about what happened. Let's hope things work out for the best."

Ca.s.sie shrugged, eyes and facial muscles flitting. Not entirely certain what had happened here. "We'll see...how it goes," she said. And they left it at that.

As Ca.s.sie and her son walked from the store, Kit elbowed her mother, "Mom, I am so embarra.s.sed embarra.s.sed. He's a bully, and his mom is mean. his mom is mean. She was yelling for his dad to hurt my dad in front of the school..." She was yelling for his dad to hurt my dad in front of the school..."

"Calm down. You'll learn that sometimes you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."

"I don't know what that means," Kit said.

"It's a cliche. Sometimes when you deal with dumb people, it helps to say dumb things. That's a cliche." Nina brightened, turned Kit by the shoulders, and pointed her into the store. "Now, let's buy some frivolous stuff."

"I don't know what that means either."

"Fun. It means fun," Nina said.

Chapter Thirty-six.

Nina and Kit returned to Griffin's house with their new hairdos and the backseat of the Tundra stuffed with shopping bags. They collected Broker and b.u.mped away down the rutted driveway. to Griffin's house with their new hairdos and the backseat of the Tundra stuffed with shopping bags. They collected Broker and b.u.mped away down the rutted driveway.

Griffin showered, shaved, then started pacing his house, smoked one cigarette, then another; made another pot of coffee. Antsy. The thing was building up momentum. He reined himself in. Wait on J. T.'s call. If the check comes up empty, forget it. Wait on J. T.'s call. If the check comes up empty, forget it. But just in case, he laid out his pack, unfolded a county map, and studied the solid green bulge where the Washichu State Forest dipped into Glacier County. Traced County 12 where it entered the green and petered out into a secondary gravel road... But just in case, he laid out his pack, unfolded a county map, and studied the solid green bulge where the Washichu State Forest dipped into Glacier County. Traced County 12 where it entered the green and petered out into a secondary gravel road...

Where Gator lived.

He threw on his jacket and went back out on the deck with the cordless phone, to enjoy the soft afternoon. As he drank his fresh coffee, he smoked and watched the clouds slowly drift together over the northwest horizon. Like the gathering clouds, pieces of a plan scudded in his mind. Simple, organic: a variation on a poetic justice theme that Gator Bodine himself had scripted.

Okay. Don't go jumping to conclusions...

Finally, the phone rang.

Griffin picked it up, thumbed the power b.u.t.ton. "h.e.l.lo."

"Harry, it's J. T.; I got a read on the license plate and talked to some people. You, ah, gonna tell me what this is about? Like, does it involve our friend?"

"Not directly. Fact is, they were all three just here, looking like Ozzie and Harriet; you ask me, they're getting close to packing up and coming home."

"Yeah?" J. T. said, waiting.

Griffin opted to be straight with J. T., up to a point. "Look, you been up here, the sheriff is spread kind of thin."

"Uh-huh. And you help out, is that it. The Community Watch." More waiting.

"Okay. I think we got a guy way back in the woods cooking meth. I come up with a license on a silver-gray Pontiac. This mystery lady visits him-"

"Bingo," J. T. said, his voice on surer ground. "Sheryl Marie Mott. Caucasian female, thirty-six, goes five feet eight, one-thirty pounds, dark hair, blue eyes. Drives a 2001 Pontiac Grand Am GT. And Harry-watch the cowboy s.h.i.t. She's a.s.sociated with the OMG motorcycle gang, some real bad-news bikers."

"She got a record?"

"Nothing that resulted in convictions. She was looked at a few years back on suspicion of smuggling dope into the prison. Nothing that would stick. And dig this. Under identifying marks on her sheet, it says 'red Harley wings tattooed under her belly b.u.t.ton hip to hip.'"

Griffin chuckled, "Talk about getting your red wings, huh?"

"There it is. And to answer your question, to quote my unimpeachable source; she's the perfect chick, strictly likes to f.u.c.k and cook. Cook meth, that is."

"Thanks, J. T. Now when I talk to Sheriff Nygard I got a little more to go on than just my overactive imagination."

"I can make some more calls-BCA's got a flying meth squad could help out the sheriff-"

"I'll let him know."

After a pause, J. T. asked, "So they're all right, huh?"

"Hey, when I saw her an hour ago she just came from getting her hair done."

"I guess. Question is, what's she gonna do next? She goes back in the Army...," J. T. said.

"It'll kill Broker, she does that," Griffin said.

"He won't admit it, though; dumb f.u.c.k. Maybe nothing changes. Okay, look, Harry; you watch your a.s.s, hear?"

"Lima Charley. Thanks again."

Griffin switched off the phone, stood up, and stretched. Looking around, he thought, Not a bad day for a walk in the woods. But first he went in the house and sat at his desk computer, connected to the Net, and Googled "meth labs." Got some book t.i.tles, clicked to Amazon.

Christ, lookit all this s.h.i.t: Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture, Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture, by Uncle Fester. by Uncle Fester. The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories; Second Edition, Revised & Expanded, The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories; Second Edition, Revised & Expanded, by Jack B. Nimble. by Jack B. Nimble.

After almost two hours clicking his way through the sites, he thought he had a basic fix on the kind of equipment to look for. Okay. Let's do it.

He pulled on silk-weight long underwear, a fleece sweater, tan wind pants, and a pair of wool socks. Then he laced on his Rockies. In the bedroom, he reached behind the books on the first shelf of the bedside table and withdrew a folded chamois cloth, unwrapped it, and removed the cla.s.sic 1911 Colt .45 semiautomatic and two magazines, one loaded with seven rounds, the other empty to rest the spring. He inserted the magazine, racking the slide, and set the safe. Then he felt behind the socks in his top dresser drawer, took out a box of ammo and a shoulder holster, loaded the second magazine, slipped it in the leather carrier on the holster, and shoved in the pistol.

No big thing. Most of the locals carried a sidearm when they ventured into the big woods. They didn't believe the tree-hugger propaganda about wolves never attacking humans.

After he'd strapped on the pistol, he pulled on a bulky fleece sweater and a lightweight Gore-Tex windbreaker and emptied the coffeepot into a thermos. He put the thermos in his pack with a plastic bottle of water, two energy bars, and a pair of binoculars. The pack already contained a first-aid kit, a compa.s.s, and a small but powerful halogen flashlight.

His mind at this point was still relatively empty. Whatever he found would dictate taking it to the next level.

His gear a.s.sembled, he went out, started up his Jeep, and drove north though the Barrens. When he came to the intersection where County Z crossed 12, he turned right, following Teedo's directions. Checking the tenths clicking off on his odometer, he watched the tree line along the left side of the untracked road, alert for the overgrown logging trail. About two miles. One-point-nine...There.

He slowed, shifted into four-wheel low, and turned left through an opening in the trees. Branches batted the windshield, snagged at the fenders. Fifty yards in, the wheels started to spin, so he stopped. The snow was deceptive, the ground beneath it thawed and wet. He unfolded the county map again.

Getting out, shouldering his pack, he oriented to the map and visualized the vector of the trail cutting across the acute angle formed by 12 and County X. Maybe three miles to Gator's farm. He folded the map, tucked it in his parka and started to walk.

Soon the tall paG.o.das of red and white pine boughs blocked the sky, and he moved in limbo light, hemmed in by balsam and black spruce. Since the sun didn't penetrate in here, the snow still clung to branches, not soft and fluffy but thawed and refrozen into thick chains that weighted down the boughs.

Sweating now, he unzipped his parka, removed his hat and gloves. The silence played tricks with his ears, sometimes buzzing, sometimes ringing. Nothing moved, no birds, no squirrels; just the hushed tramp of his boots in the snow.

Then, when it seemed the dense tangle of trees would never end, the trail opened ahead and dipped. The sky returned, and he picked his way down the granite shoulder of a wide ravine. Coming up the other side, he saw the four-foot-tall cairn of small boulders that marked Camp's Last Stand.

He stopped, removed his pack, took out the thermos, unscrewed the cup, and poured coffee. Then he lit a Lucky, and as his sweat evaporated, he revisited the story of local legend Waldo Camp. Desk clerk in the Granite Falls Post Office, Camp had trudged out here all alone on deer opener in 1973 to hunt this wide ravine. He had constructed such a perfectly camouflaged blind up on a granite shelf that they didn't find him for three days after he went missing. The temperature had been mild on opening day when The Big One crushed his heart. A much younger Ed Durning, doctor at the town clinic and acting medical examiner for the county, made this deduction when they found Camp sitting on a stump, slouched against a pile of deadfall. His trousers and long underwear were tangled down around his boots. To a man, the search party swore that Camp had never looked so good; eyes locked wide open, and this beatific grin frozen on his parted lips.

Underscore the frozen. A serious cold snap had moved in, and Camp was slumped, petrified, in a sitting position, left hand holding his .243 perfectly erect, and his right hand clamped around his limp frosty p.e.c.k.e.r.

His family took it in stride and put Waldo's other claim to fame on his tombstone: "Sold a joke to Reader's Digest, Reader's Digest, June, 1969." June, 1969."

Griffin finished his coffee, stowed the thermos, and hiked up the ravine. Just like Teedo said, the trail forked. Griffin took the left path, and soon the canopy and thickets of spruce closed in, plunging him in dim silence broken only by the rush of a stream coursing through the granite boulders.

Then, up ahead, the skeletal white trunks of the paper birches shimmered in the gloom. Walking closer, he saw the dull twinkle of three tin buckets hooked to the trees.

Close now. Just a few hundred yards.

Moving more cautiously now, he caught glimpses of a clearing to his left. He left the trail and worked his way to the edge of the tree line. A collapsed s...o...b..und barbed-wire fence bounded an overgrown pasture. Must've run cows in here once. Crops were hit-and-miss, just alfalfa in the open s.p.a.ces; go down ten inches, and you hit the solid bedrock of the Canadian Shield.

Griffin settled in, took out his binoculars, sat on his pack, and studied the layout of the farm. Slow memories of watching other houses in other climates informed his patient scrutiny.

Gator's red Chevy truck was parked in front of the house. As the sun settled on the western tree line, the lights were more p.r.o.nounced in windows of the square cement-block shop. No lights on in the decayed story-and-a-half house or the barn. Then. Boop. The display light came on, highlighting the restored red antique tractor set next to Gator's sign.

Griffin ran the binocs over the tractor graveyard that spilled off the back of the shop. Made a note. Gator was smart. Don't underestimate him. Like Rumpelstiltskin, he had figured out a way to spin that rusty old iron into gold.

No sign of a dog. Looking down the field, toward the road, he saw the windbreak of pines. Set in orderly rows, the trees extended from the woods to within fifty yards of the shop.

In the fading light he tried to examine the ground between the pines and the shop. Looked worked over, hints of shadows forming in tire ruts. Get a little colder, it might harden enough to let him go in without worrying about making tracks.

Then he popped alert. He had movement. Gator coming out of his shop. Just pulled the door shut, didn't look like he was locking it. Then he walked toward the house, carrying something in the crook of his arm.

It got better. Five minutes later Gator reappeared, got in his truck, started it up, and rumbled around the horseshoe driveway in front of his shop. As he turned toward the road, his headlights swept across the field, and Griffin watched them travel across the brush where he sat, touching his face.

Up in a crouch now.

As the taillights faded down the road, he started toward the pine windbreak, moving sure and steady.

d.a.m.n. Like going in on a raid.

Chapter Thirty-seven.

Driving back from the pay phone at Perry's, bouncing in his seat. Man, it was happening. Sheryl had talked to a big-time hitter. The Shank. Get ready, she said. at Perry's, bouncing in his seat. Man, it was happening. Sheryl had talked to a big-time hitter. The Shank. Get ready, she said.

Okay.

So first thing-he had to start arranging his alibi. Just in case. He'd need some trading material. Wanted to be sitting back talking in the sheriff 's office, handing some meth trade over to Keith, if Broker got hit up here. Be good if he had more than just some lights moving around the old houses on Z in the dark. What he needed was something tangible, like some names Keith could go slap the cuffs on.

Driving into town, he'd seen those lights again at the Tindall place. Now was the time to make a check. So go trolling. Work his pattern.

As he slowed for the crossroads and turned west on Z, he was curious, strictly from a professional point of view, what Shank would use on Broker. Would he take the wife and the daughter, too? Wondered if the guy would be willing to compare notes with an amateur. Always wondered what he was like. A young guy? Older? And how much did he get paid for a job like this?

Then the saw the flicker of light in the windows of the Tindall place. He switched off his headlights 300 yards from the house, then cut the motor and rolled up to the driveway. Yep. Somebody in there with a flashlight. He reached under the seat, withdrew the Ruger .22 pistol, his own flashlight, and a two-foot length of one-inch pipe wrapped in electrical tape.

So who we got? Go see.

He eased open the truck door, left it ajar, and stuck the pistol in the back of his waistband under his coat. Then he hefted the pipe and padded up the drive. A rusted-out '89 Chevy Nova was parked in front of the house. Car he'd seen in town. Some kid driving. Miracle he got the piece of s.h.i.t up the drive in the snow.

Silent on the snow, he eased up to the porch, starting to remove the pistol from under his coat. He could make out a single figure moving in the strobe of the light beam. Uh-huh. This was no beer party. One guy, looked like he was searching for something on the baseboards of the musty living room. Flimsy plastic bags, some containers, tubing, and what looked like a hot plate appeared in a flash of beam near the guy's feet.

Gator slid the pistol back under his coat and gripped the pipe. The beat-up Nova was a clue; this was strictly Beavis and b.u.t.thead Beavis and b.u.t.thead hour. He went through the open door fast, switching on his light, holding it up at arm's length in his left hand, angled down like cops do. hour. He went through the open door fast, switching on his light, holding it up at arm's length in his left hand, angled down like cops do.

"Hi there," Gator said. Closing the distance fast. The person froze in his light. Neither getting ready to fight or run. Stone froze. Like he thought: a kid, maybe eighteen, nineteen. A kid as rusted out at the car he drove. Gator immediately saw there was no threat in him. Definitely starting to get the look: circles under his bugged-out eyes, pinched face, unkempt hair, dirty jeans and jacket. Dumb s.h.i.t, wearing tennis shoes in the snow. Gator even noticed his filthy fingernails. "Drop the light, get your hands up," Gator yelled, grinning in the dark as he tried his best to sound like every pumped-up, control-crazy cop he'd ever met.

The kid's flashlight clattered to the floor, illuminating a corner of peeling wallpaper, backlighting him. "Who's there?" he blurted. His voice sounded like he looked-skinny and desperate.

"I'll ask the questions. Now slowly lift your coat and turn around." Gator put the light in his eyes.

The kid did as he was told. "I didn't do anything...," he whined.

"Shut up," Gator ordered. "Empty your pockets. Real slow. Drop everything on the floor."

Car keys, a wallet, some crumpled bills, change. A pipe for smoking meth wrapped in a red bandanna. Gator noted that the pipe and the scarf were the only items that came out of the pockets that appeared tidy and well cared for. Reluctantly the kid let a folding buck knife fall.

"Kick the knife toward me." The knife skittered across the floor. "Now turn around, approach the wall, and get on your knees."