The Missing and the Dead: A Bragg Thriller (28 page)

"No, not quite. Only another mile or so for you."

I wriggled the comb around like crazy, got a slight hold on the leather holster and gave a tug. I managed to drag it up about an inch before it snagged on something. I jammed the comb down for a better bite. My back was getting damp. I had the worried sweats.

"What about Emil Stoval earlier today? I take it you killed him too?"

"Certainly. He was another investigator, from the same company as the other one, Lind. Unfortunately, I was late getting on top of this latest development. I was out running errands this morning. When I arrived back home I found a rather desperate message from Allison pinned to the door. She said Joe Dodge
wanted to avoid some man in town looking for him. So she was taking him up into the hills, to the cabin. I had shown it to her once, and where we kept a spare key hidden, thinking she could go there to work when she felt like a change of pace. The note apologized for her presumption, but said it was very important and begged me to keep it a secret.

"I was trying to absorb this jolting message when I received a call from Minnie telling me about this Stoval. There could be little mystery as to what he was up to. He was trying to find Joe Dodge, but it must have been as a step toward finding Lind. I couldn't think what that connection might be, but I hardly had time to dwell on it. Things were moving too fast. I stewed about it, then decided to run over to Joe's place to see if I could intercept Stoval. And I did. He was inside, snooping. I went in through the back and confronted him. I didn't want to shoot him there in the house. I ordered him outside, but the crazy man attacked me. He fought savagely for a moment, then broke off and tried to escape through the kitchen. I could no longer afford the niceties. I put a bullet through his back, dragged him up behind the house and left him."

"But you also left his Cadillac parked out front."

"Yes. I wanted his body found as soon as possible."

"I don't get it."

"It doesn't matter, Mr. Bragg," Big Mike said with a sigh. "It really doesn't matter."

"Maybe not. But you're a real curiosity. How many people do you figure you've killed?"

"I don't know. Tried to sort it out once. Four hundred, anyway."

"Jesus Christ." I got another bite on the holster with my comb and tugged, but nothing gave. My fingers were getting numb. I rested a moment, then tried to rotate the holster to get it around whatever had snagged it.

"But time is now short for you as well, Mr. Bragg. Because of the great threat you pose. It is my respect for your prowess as a
hunter that condemns you. I am not, after all, quite the monster you might suppose. I have mellowed with age. Take Joe Dodge, and Allison, for instance."

"What about them?"

"It is one of the reasons I wanted Stoval's body found as soon as possible. To make it safe for them to return home. I don't want to have to kill them. I like them. But young Lind's body was hastily concealed. Curious animals could have unearthed it by now. I only hope we shall be in time. That they haven't found the body yet. Otherwise, much as I like them both..."

I made one last, herculean effort to dig up the holster. It was too herculean. The thing slid around and fell deeper into the crease between the cushions, and my near-paralyzed fingers lost the comb as well.

"It is why I must dispose of you before we get to the cabin, Mr. Bragg. So that if they haven't discovered the body, I can allow the two of them to live."

I kept flexing my fingers to bring them back to life. There wasn't any more to be done around there, I decided. I only had one move left. It was foolhardy and a longshot, but so was the whole rest of my life right then. The car I drive has both lock and latch mechanism embedded one over the other on the door panel. I sat abruptly, tugged lock and latch levers and was tumbling backward down out of the car before you could shout four hundred and one.

I slammed hard onto the dirt roadway, rolling as best I could with my arms trussed behind me. Dirt and pebbles scraped skin off one ear and the side of my face, and inflicted varying injuries to my knees, leg and elbow. My head took a painful whack and my body made one last jarring flip, but I came to rest still conscious and heard the skidding of braked tires, both on my car and on the one Minnie was in just before she rear-ended her husband. I gave blessings for the moment of confusion down the road, dragged myself up and pitched headlong down a brushy
gully, banging into this and tripping over that, but scrambling as hard as I could, across the bottom of the gully and up the far side until my wind gave out and I had to sink to one knee and gasp for breath.

TWENTY-TWO

M
y lungs felt raw. Not even hauling Tuffy down off the mountain had cut into my wind the way scrambling up and down with my arms roped behind me did. But as soon as I could get a half breath, I was up on my feet and climbing and slipping and pumping my legs toward the high ground. Over my raspy breath and the conga beat of my heart I could hear Big Mike and Minnie across the way. They were talking loudly. I know the sound of domestic argument when I hear it. Minnie let out a little cry. Parsons countered with a barely suppressed bellow. It was fine with me. The longer they stayed there spatting, the farther away I'd be. I made the top of the far rise and crashed on through the wooded brow of the hill, then was surprised to stumble out onto a dirt road. We weren't in the sort of country apt to support a grid of highways. I reasoned it was the same road Big Mike was on, and that it circled the far end of the gully I'd just crossed. That put me closer to the cabin and Jerry Lind's body and Allison and Joe Dodge. I was ready for some different company. I started trotting up the road. A few moments later, just before rounding a bend, I heard the spin and whir of tires on dirt back across the gully. They were coming. I kept on running, studying the roadside areas ahead of me to pick out likely spots for me to roll into when I heard them approach.

It took two or three minutes before I heard them again. The gully loop must have been a lengthy one. Down at the end of it must have been where they intended to plant me and my car. I trotted around another bend and saw a column of smoke rising
above the trees about a quarter mile ahead. It had to be the cabin. The distance was too far for me to get there before the people behind me. I was pressing my luck and I knew it. I lumbered heavily off the road into the brush and trees, only to have a shadowy root catch one foot and send me spilling onto my belly.

I got up and shook my brains back into place in time to see the Parsons' trail vehicle roar past. They'd abandoned my own car. Big Mike was driving, staring grimly ahead with his hands clenching the wheel, and Minnie sitting upright beside him chattering a streak, as if she were continuing the argument. Probably it was over whether to continue on to the cabin or just to make a run for it. I figured Big Mike wanted to see if Lind's body had been found. Minnie wanted to cut their losses and get out. She was the smarter of the two, I decided.

I worked my way back out onto the road and started trotting again. The road made a couple more loops then ran straight for about a hundred yards before ending in a clearing that surrounded the cabin. I got a glimpse of the four of them—Mike and Minnie, Joe and Allison, standing in the clearing with Parsons going through one of his windmilling arms and gosh and by golly routines. I left the road and tried to make my quiet way through the woods toward the cabin. I felt a brief wash of relief. Parsons wouldn't have gone into one of his routines if they'd found Jerry Lind's body. Allison and Dodge would have been dead already, I was sure of it.

I circled around until I was behind the cabin, near the edge of the woods about thirty feet from the structure. I could hear just some of the conversation in the clearing. Big Mike was talking about Stoval's body being found. Allison sounded disappointed. She said something about looking forward to spending a night in the woods with dinner already on the stove and some other things that made me wish I could clamp a hand over her mouth.

I didn't dare cross the open space to the cabin. I kept tugging and hauling on the ropes that bound me. There was more
indecisive chatter from the clearing. Then Allison turned toward the cabin and said something about water boiling. Big Mike had one arm around Dodge's shoulders and was gesturing and carrying on his hayseed act. Minnie stood there with a tight little smile.

I knew that with my tumbling out of the car and the ensuing scraping along the road, then the clambering through the brush with my arms tied, I couldn't have presented too good an appearance just then. I didn't want to startle Allison into a yelp, but I had to get her attention, so I stayed back out of sight. Minnie had turned back to their wagon. I hissed at Allison just before she entered the cabin, then nearly strangled in an attempt to suppress a sneeze.

Allison hesitated and looked toward me. I whispered as loudly as I dared. "Allison, it's Peter Bragg. Don't make a sound, but come around in back. I need help, and you're in danger."

She stepped around the side of the cabin appropriately astonished. "Whatever on earth..."

"Shhhh! Please keep it quiet. Come back here. I'm not a pretty sight. The going's been tough. And my arms are tied behind me."

When she got back to where she could see me I thought she was going to cry out or laugh nervously or turn and bolt, in about that order.

"My God," she exclaimed. "What happened to you?"

"Keep it down or I'm a dead man. I've been running for my life. From them," I told her, jerking my head toward the clearing in front of the cabin.

"Mike and Minnie? Come on..."

"Allison, it's true, I swear to God. I don't have time to go into it. But Mike is a killer. He has been for years. He admitted to me that he killed Jerry Lind and buried his body around here somewhere. That's why they drove out here, to see if you and Joe found it. If you had, he was going to kill the both of you too."

"You are insane," she said slowly.

"Okay, I'm insane. But at least I didn't tie myself up like this. There's a knife in my right front pocket. How about getting it out and cutting me loose?"

"I think you're safer tied up."

"Come on, Allison. I can prove it. And they want to kill me because I'm on to them. They were bringing me out planning to kill and leave me back down the road a ways. I jumped out of the car and ran like hell. That's why I look the way I do. Please, the knife."

She was skeptical, confused and maybe still angry. But she finally roused herself and got the knife out of my pocket to begin working on the ropes. "I still don't believe you."

"You had better start to believe me if you want any of us to get out of here alive. Parsons isn't their real name. For years Big Mike made his living by killing people. He almost was caught about five years ago down south, and the two of them changed their identity and dropped out of sight. Now don't tell me Big Mike and Minnie are an old, established family around here."

"No," she admitted, looking up at me. "But they came here from the Midwest."

"So they told everybody, and for God's sake keep working on the ropes." She continued to saw away. "Big Mike started killing people again just recently to protect his gory past. He killed the cop I found up on the Stannis River, he killed Jerry and today he killed the man Joe Dodge was running from."

She cut the last piece binding me and I shook myself free like a dog just out of the washtub. I now had another dimension of pain to enjoy as the blood flowed back through restricted artery and vein. "Does Joe Dodge have any sort of weapon with him?"

"Of course not."

"How about—did he bring an axe?"

Allison took a step backward. "You are really out of your ever-loving skull crazy."

But at least she was keeping her voice low. Perhaps it was the beginning of belief, but I was one running-scared man and I couldn't stand around any longer trying to interpret the day's events.

"Allison, before I ruined the evening for both of us the other day, I felt something very strong and very special for you. And you've just got to believe I still do. And the only reason I'm telling you is because I sincerely don't want any harm to come to any of us—but especially I don't want it to come to you. I could die tonight and it wouldn't matter much to anybody. It's not the same with you. I'm a hard old rock. You, lady, are a piece of the sky."

She glanced away.

"Go back there, now. Don't tell them you've seen me, and get cracking to do what they want. Get your stuff together in a hurry and you and Joe get out of here as soon as you can. And don't take any last looks around."

She turned back with a little shrug. "There's no harm in that, I suppose. But what about you?"

"I'll get by."

She nodded and turned back to the cabin. I started my great circle route back around through the woods. They were the same old woods I'd staggered through on my way in, but I felt as if I were floating. I had two arms swinging as I went, a little the worse for wear, but they were free, and their movement made everything a lot easier.