The Shadowkiller (32 page)

I
n less than four hours, Ty's dream of getting through Christmas without hassles evaporated. Three cars and a van congested his parking plaza as a cable news truck rolled up the driveway. The mysterious dispersal of documents from the Snohomish County Sheriff's Department concerning their chief suspect, himself, among other juicy details, plus his apparent teaming with that beloved old Native American actor, was whipping the media into a frenzy. Ty instructed Greta that if she decided to answer the door, she should inform them “Mr. Greenwood is unavailable for comment.”

Ty then warned her, “Make sure you don't say anything else, because they'll use your words against you and make up whatever they want,” which properly scared her. Ben stepped next to them in the living room window and took in the gathering throng.

“He's right. They're just like wild dogs, they'll eat ya.”

A wide-eyed Greta quickly exited, terrified of the role of spokesperson.

“Here's a nutty idea. How about a news conference?” Ty suggested.

Ben looked at him quizzically.

Ty continued, “Tell them we're going to hold a news conference. That'll get them out of here for the time being. Then we'll actually have a news conference and announce what we're doing. Maybe I'll call that cop, see if he'd bring the casting over. That'll be our centerpiece. We'll show it off as evidence.”

Ben shook his head. “First off, he didn't wanna work with us. I think he's got ideas of bringing the thing in by himself. Plus, we need a body 'fore anybody'll believe us. What you're talkin' about would hurt us worse than lettin' 'em make stuff up.”

Ben patted Ty's shoulder and continued,“And you're the one with something to lose. You gotta family. Now you're hangin' out with some old Indian who went AWOL from his movie. Who knows what kinda hay they'll make offa that.”

Ty looked out the window at the reporters milling around. Some were pointing cameras in the windows, but he and Ben stayed back far enough in the living room so they couldn't get a good shot.

“I can take it,” Ty grated.

Ben looked him in the eye. “But can your family? You don't wanna make Ronnie a joke in her own company, do you? How 'bout the kids? They go to school and kids can be mean.”

Ben's words weighed heavily on Ty, but he rationalized that his end result would exonerate them all. They headed to the office. Ben worried about the toll on Ty. He knew the depth of Ty's commitment and feared that he was betting the farm on it.

“What do you think our chances of finding it are?” Ty asked Ben.

The old man's solemn expression answered him.

Kris's life had officially changed. It was only two weeks since her first reports on the missing men, and in the seven short days since airing her tape of Mac, Kris had become a media darling, seemingly everywhere. The night before, she had ascended to the national news stage when the network had called and had the national anchor throw it to Kris for a live update on “Murder in the Mountains” for the evening news. Since then, everyone from the TV news magazines to the actual tabloids had been either calling or digging into her past. Kris thought of the littered trail behind her. She swelled with pride that there would be no shortage of talking wounded.

Kris had been changing her assignment schedule to fit in interviews for her series as well as something new, interviews of her conducted by other media. The demands on her time, as well as her growing celebrity, were starting to cause problems with the other reporters. Many were finding themselves shuffled over to assignments Kris had dropped at the last minute. But none of them made any formal complaints because rumor had it she was protected by someone big. Many had their suspicions but no one knew for sure. But the fact that Doug Gautier, a highly respected newsman, had gone down in flames battling Kris was all they needed to know.

Mac clicked the TiVo and froze Oprah in midsentence. She was five minutes into a home makeover segment and Mac was bored. Mainly he was stir crazy. In the last two days he'd been to Top Foods five times. It wasn't that he loved grocery shopping so much, but it was a relief from sitting around at home thinking about what he should really be doing. He had driven into the mountains every day for the last three days, and the first day he'd sat in the car unable to get out. He would pull the big Desert Eagle pistol out of its shoulder holster, set in on the seat, and think about his last encounter up here. He wondered what he'd have seen had he turned.

Mac always began these moments with his mantra
if this thing is real, then this gun should kill it.
But the same doubt always snuggled back up to him and squashed his resolve. This doubt was in himself, he was convinced of it. His encounter that day in the woods had left him rattled. On the second day of his one-man search he'd had a hard time just getting out of the car, and when he finally managed it he couldn't venture more than a few hundred yards up the trail. That day he drove home and cleaned his new gun even though he had yet to fire it.
Gotta be ready.

Mac wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He stared at the contents for more than a minute, not seeing anything. Then the phone rang. Lately the phone had brought nothing but bad news, except on the few occasions when Suzy Chang called to give him covert updates from the department. He had a better phone in the bedroom, with caller ID, but the kitchen phone was a no-frills wall unit.

“Mac Schneider.”

“Detective Schneider? Ty Greenwood.”

Mac had to admit to himself he wasn't disappointed to hear from Greenwood. But he played it cool. “Yup.”

“You and I know this thing is still at work.”

Mac said nothing and Ty paused, waiting for a response. He continued,“Ben and I've been out looking for it. I think it's just a matter of time until we find it.”

Mac's anger rose because here you had two amateurs, one of them eighty years old, and they were actively looking for it, and he instantly hated himself for not even being able to get out of the car. But he remained silent, partly because he knew what was coming and wanted desperately to resist. Mac needed to buy a moment to think through what his response might be. It rattled him a bit that Ty had managed to find him. That was supposed to be his job.

“How did you get my number?”

Ty sighed. This guy was playing hard to get. “I hired my own detective, who found out all about you. I know you were a cop in L.A. and had some tough times, so you've had your back up against the wall before. I also know you've been released on vacation pending an investigation into what happened with that reporter. You need us as much as we need you.”

Mac's neck and face flushed with anger. “My life is none of your goddamn business.”

“Now you know how it feels,” Ty said calmly. “Anyway, it doesn't matter. We need each other.”

Mac's head spun and his emotions overwhelmed his logic. Ty's prying infuriated him, and probably more so, he hated himself for his fears. “I'll think about.” He hung up.

Mac was angry that he was angry. He had always been able to keep his emotions in check. Was he cracking up? He thought about calling Ty back but didn't want to appear weak or indecisive. But after a moment he admitted to himself that Ty was right: he did need them.

Ty set down the handset and shrugged. “Guess I'm not the salesman I thought I was.”

“You made him mad.”

“The hell with him.”

Ben ran his hand over his thick, steely gray hair. He almost always tied it into a ponytail with a band woven by one of his grandnieces.

“He's a proud man.” He fiddled with the band as he thought. “But maybe we haven't heard the last of Mac Schneider.”

“Why's that?”

“I saw it in the man's eyes. He wants to know more than anything.”

“Know what?” asked Ty.

“If it's real.”

R
onnie drove down her road and the news van parked just outside the driveway got her attention. She pulled up the drive and saw nearly a dozen vehicles, including a few television satellite trucks, choking the entrance to her garage. She felt her blood pressure rising. Parking next to the porte cochere, she ran a gamut of reporters' questions as she hustled to the door. Without even removing her coat, she went directly to Ty's office.

Having already seen Ben a number of times, she dispensed with greetings or small talk and summoned Ty into the hall. She wasn't angry, just supreme in her resolve; her husband knew well that mode.

“Go out and make them leave or I will call the police,” she promised.

Ty had hoped they would eventually go away, but Ronnie's ultimatum settled it.

“Okay, they're out of here,” he said.

Ty left to broom the media riffraff and Ben went to the front of the house and looked outside.
Oh boy,
he said to himself,
I can see it now, “Old movie Indian seeks career advice from Bigfoot.”

Later that night after Ben left, Ty climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Ronnie was in bed reading. She set her book down as he entered. “What if I quit my job and we moved? Started over,” she said.

Ty was surprised. He went into his closet to remove his shoes and shirt. He reappeared a moment later.

“No,” he said. “You can't do that. You've worked too hard.”

She sat forward, serious, pained. “I've worked even harder to keep this family together and I won't see it fall apart.”

Ty sat on the bed and put his hand on hers. “You and the kids are everything to me.”

“Prove it. Give this up and let's go,” she said with hope. “We'll sell this place, take a loss if we have to. We're set for life, Ty, we don't need to do
anything.
”

Ronnie touched his cheek with her hand, her earthy eyes mirroring love, hurt, and fear.

“Honey?” she said softly. “We could do that. We could. Just say the word.”

It was tempting to Ty. Ronnie and their two beautiful kids were all he really needed. Or were they? He kept coming back to the terms under which he held these things that were so dear to him. If the terms weren't right, then nothing was right.

Ty kissed his wife lightly on the lips and got up. “It's a big decision. I'll think about it.”

Ronnie sat back, realizing Ty was stalling.
Tough love.
“Don't wait too long,” she warned. “We're running out of time.”

Ty heard her words as he went around the corner to shower.

Dave Christie was lulled by the chatter of a late-night radio talk show as he motored down McSwain Road, a dark lane high on the mountainous side of Snohomish County. Dave was a mechanical engineer who enjoyed his job in Woodinville as a designer of air-conditioning systems for office buildings. He had also just enjoyed five beers with his fellow engineers after a hard day of calculating cubic air volumes and BTUs. Thus hammered, he was the last person wanting to report a car accident.

So when his headlights illuminated something big walking out of the trees and onto the roadway, Dave's brain froze momentarily. Whatever it was crossed the road in two steps. When it turned toward him, his lights kicked back two shining rubies. Torn between the brakes, the gas, and sawing the wheel, Dave finally mashed the brakes and slid his Camry into the shallow ditch, where it kissed a tree, lightly crunching the front end. But Dave wasn't worried about the car right now. That thing, that shape, had vanished into the black thicket on the opposite side of the road. But it was nearby, that was for sure.

Despite the refuge of his leather-lined import that was actually made in America, the animated political babble issuing from his speakers, and the heater whooshing, Dave didn't feel too safe. If that thing wanted to get him, by the looks of it, it would have no problem.

Dave jammed the transmission into reverse, said a microsecond prayer to the gods of traction, and stepped on the gas. All he got was whining from his tires about the mud they were in. The car didn't move. He gave it more gas and whipped the wheel. After a few agonizing seconds at full throttle, the Camry slowly skipped and spun itself back onto the roadway. It was as he put the shift into
D
that he was most afraid. He visualized the thing crashing through his window and grabbing him. Flooring the accelerator again, he plowed two ruts before his rubber bit down and launched him.

Dave had always considered them just a quaint forest legend, but in the last twenty seconds that had changed. He remembered stories of shy, maybe even kindly creatures, but this one sure didn't look like that. No, not hardly.