Thomas Prescott Superpack (20 page)

Chapter 41

I ran back to the house and said to the awaiting assembly, “Two-twenty was page 220 of
Eight in October
. The fourth woman was found on October 11th at roughly 5:00 P.M. but her time of death was approximately 10:00 P.M. on the evening of October 9th.”

We all looked at the clock, it was nine-fifteen. Holly said, “Oh, my God.”

“We still have forty-five minutes. Tristen wouldn’t have called if the woman was dead.” I hit mute for a terse commercial break, we still needed to know where tonight’s murder site was? Where did Kellon’s eyes see?

I assumed Caleb had briefed them on his eye theory and said, “The last victim’s eyes were baited on a hook and slung out to sea, so think about that in terms of Tristen in relation to me.”

I looked at Caleb and could see from the look on his face he knew where. He said modestly, “The cliff you fell off. Where you drowned in the Atlantic.”

I nodded, “The east bluffs.”

I looked around, everyone was waiting for the play. “Caleb you ride with me. Fat Tim and Holly follow behind us. I want the rest of you to stay here.”

They all nodded.

Holly yelled from behind me, “I just tried Kim’s cell. She’s not answering.”

The east bluffs run for about twenty-five miles northeast on US 1. US 1 curves along the entire Atlantic coast of the eastern United States, but in Maine its treachery is unrivaled. This had greatly to do with the limited number of streetlights in the state. I think the Federal Government allocated Maine something like a thousand streetlights and they used them all up in a four-block radius of Bangor.

It was curvy and black, not ideal conditions to be zooming along at eighty-five. I nearly missed the exit for the Roque Bluffs, screeching across two lanes at the last second. Caleb closed his cell phone and said, “Kim’s still not answering her phone. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Really, because I was strangely optimistic. We were driving through pitch-black going close to ninety; Kim Welding was MIA and would probably be DOA and Tristen Grayer was watching me run around like a dog chasing my tail. It all looked rather upbeat if you ask me.

We made our way through Columbia Falls and into a narrow inlet running to the Roque Bluffs. A few lane reflectors had fallen off at a sharp right turn and the Range Rover hung on the guardrail before fish-tailing back onto the road. I looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see Fat Tim finish crossing himself in Holly’s white Accord passenger seat. I guess Holly had a bit of trouble with that turn as well.

I slowed down a bit, seventy-five, and took the majority of the turns on four wheels. I hadn’t seen a streetlight in ten miles and nearly ran headlong into the Roque Bluffs sign. I pulled the Range Rover over on the side of the road, the white Accord parking directly behind me.

Caleb pulled out his phone for the fifth time and shook his head, “No luck.”

I was going to say, “It’s difficult to answer a phone when the hand your cell phone is in and your head are fifteen feet apart,” but decided on, “She probably turned it off so she could study without interruption.”

He threw me a skeptical look as the two of us hopped out of the car and walked to Holly’s Honda. I instructed them to call Caitlin if they didn’t hear from us in the next ten minutes. And by no means to leave the vehicle.

Caleb and I walked across the street, resting for a moment straddling the guardrail. I could smell the ocean, taste the ocean, and hear the ocean, but I could not for the life of me, see the ocean. And I hoped I didn’t touch the ocean. The last time I touched the ocean in this spot, I’d stopped breathing for fifteen minutes. Which a doctor once told me isn’t healthy.

I didn’t turn on the flashlight. Half the reason being I didn’t want to alert Tristen to our presence, the other half, I’d forgotten the flashlight on the kitchen table. From the guardrail to the bluff face was less than thirty feet in some places and as much as seventy in others. From the cliffs to the water was about a twenty foot splash if the tide was in and about a forty foot smack if the tide was out. The rocks jutted out on both sides and converged without touching, resembling something of a horseshoe. I had my apparent brush with death halfway down the left side of the horseshoe and that’s where Caleb and I were headed.

We reached the rocks at the edge of the bluffs and stared down. I knew there was water down there but I still couldn’t see it. Caleb sidled up next to me and whispered, “How far down is it?”

“About twenty feet. We have to get down there. I can sense Tristen’s presence. He’s down there. I’m sure of it.”

“So what do you want to do? He’ll hear us climbing down and that could take five minutes.”

More like half an hour. Plus, the prospect of the two of us climbing down the rock ravine without falling into the lagoon was about as likely as Michael Jackson landing a day care license. I enlightened him, “We have to jump.”

“Hell, no.”

I guess we both knew where Caleb stood on the jumping issue. I patted him on the back, “So you’re in. Good. We go on three.”

Caleb came to terms with the issue quickly, “What if he has a gun?”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’ll have an ax.” Duh.

I set the walkie-talkie on the rocks and said, “One.”
I hope this is the same lagoon I fell in and not a rock museum.
“Two.”
It’s almost ten, the tide should be in by now. Right?
“Three.”
I can’t believe he jumped.

Caleb went right, I went left. I didn’t see the water until I was inside it. My feet didn’t hit bottom, and I kicked hard, neutralizing my body in the freezing water. My head broke the surface and I shook my eyes open. My eyes had started to adjust and there was a touch of
hibernating light nestled just above the waterline.

I could barely make out the shadow of a figure about fifty feet up a rock strip against the horizon. I caught an incoming break and rode the small wave the fifteen feet to the rocky shore. The figure was unmistakable now. This cove was a hot spot for fisherman setting up illegal lobster cages and since the figure was clad in a yellow slicker I didn’t discount the possibility.

Caleb was pulling himself from the surf a foot to my left, his eyes trained on the ghost in the darkness. We hushed across the loose rock, closing the gap to a mere twenty feet. The figure was moving diligently, bent at the waist, looming over what appeared to be a lobster cage. I didn’t like the odds of your average Joe being out here on this exact date and time, but better safe than sorry.

I yelled, “Excuse me sir, can I speak with you for a moment?”

He didn’t turn and I saw him stuff something in the cage. Who puts things in a lobster cage? Aren’t you supposed to take lobsters out of them?

Caleb yelled, “Sir, would you please turn around. A lot of people have been getting sick from the lobsters in this area. We really need a minute of your time.”

Good thinking, but no.

We were within ten feet of the man when I noticed him place something else in the trap, then secure and latch the top.

I yelled, “There’s a gun trained on you this very second. I’ll give you until the count of three to turn around and state your business or I’m gonna start shooting. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. If I get to six you’re a dead man. Six. Seven. Eight. Don’t let me get to nine. Nine. Ten. Eleven.” Shit, I was a terrible bluffer.

I looked at Caleb and he shrugged.

Splash. Splash.

I whipped my head around. The figure was gone. The cage was gone. And my suspicion was they were censurable for the succession of splashes. I ran forward and gazed out on the water, but couldn’t distinguish a humpback tail from a fugitive sneer.

Caleb dove in and began scanning the ocean ten yards out. I watched as he swam back and trudged from the surf. He looked me squarely and said, “That was him, wasn’t it?”

I hadn’t dismissed the possibility of a neurotic, self-conscious, lobster-trapper, but all fingers were pointing towards Tristen Grayer. I let his question slip and asked, “Did you see the cage?”

He nodded.

Neither of us came out and said, “Kim,” but we both thought it loud enough to scare off two osprey resting on a rock nearby. I walked over to the edge of the surf and found the beginnings of a thick yellow rope. Caleb and I pulled the cage, which was roughly the size of a small aquarium, from the surf. Before it was completely void of ocean, it was evident the cage did not house lobsters. The cage lolled to its side, a finger poking out one hole, a bone splintering through another.

I unlatched the top and saw sitting atop the pile of limbs, a soiled copy of
Introduction to Forensic Psychology.

Chapter 42

Caleb was glaring over my shoulder and saw the book. I helplessly watched as his patellas turned to jelly and he crumpled to the rock bed. This would have been the time I took out my cell phone and called in the cavalry to search the shores for Tristen Grayer. That would have been a realistic possibility if either Caleb or I had been smart enough to remove our cell phones before plunging into the Atlantic. I’d had the sense to leave the walkie-talkie on the edge of the cliff, why hadn’t I thought to take out my cell.

Caleb yanked on my ocean saturated pant leg and told me to be quiet. I asked, “What? Do you hear sirens already?”

It’d only been about five minutes since I’d chatted with Tim and Holly at their car window, the police couldn’t be on their way. Unless, the FBI had stumbled on the same information we had. But the chances of that were about as slim as the remains in the lobster cage not being Kim Welding.

Caleb said, “Listen closely. I think I can hear your walkie-talkie.”

I blocked out the sound of the swirling Atlantic, the whining osprey, and the eroding rock, only to hear the distant sound of rumbling laughter. Caleb looked into my eyes and said, “He’s laughing at us.” Then added, “But how?”

There was absolutely no way Tristen Grayer could have made his way to land and to a walkie-talkie. It was a half mile swim to any point feasible to exit the ocean. Plus, I could see for at least a quarter mile and there wasn’t a boat in the general vicinity. I was mystified. I was also mystified as how to proceed. Caleb and I were cut off from the world. There was no way either of us could climb the rock wall. We would have to sit and wait for the world to find us.

Twenty minutes passed before we heard the first siren. The whirlwind of lights gave the image of a sun rising from the west. Another five minutes passed when a large spotlight shone down from where it had been erected at the bluff’s edge. A large silhouette shouted, “How in the piss did you get down there?”

It was Gleason. I was in an odd mood and replied, “Pencil to can opener—full pike.”

After a quick conversation with someone his shadow disappeared. Seconds later, there was a large splash. Gleason’s head popped out of the water and Caleb and I helped him from the water. He brushed his hands over his bald pate like he had a long flowing mane and said, “Damn, that water’s cold.”

Gleason peered upward and yelled, “Come on Todd, it’s nothing.”

I yelled, “Not yet.”

Gregory’s annoying voice echoed into the cavernous ravine, “Why?”

I cleared my throat and screamed, “
It’s adult swim. I’ll blow the whistle when you can come in.” The manner in which I had decided to channel my anger could be construed as childish and antiproductive.

Gleason, Caleb, and I made the short ten steps to the lobster cage and Gleason peered at the contents, a steadfast aura about him. I heard noises behind us and turned to see Caitlin and Gregory, clad in bright yellow harnesses, shimmying their way down the bluff. Gregory had a spotlight similar to the one at the top of the bluffs clutched in his palm and set it high on an arbitrary rock, illuminating the small inlet.

Caitlin reached the epicenter and asked, “Who is she?”

“Kim Welding.”

I didn’t have to tell her Kim was one of my students. In another life, Caitlin had frequently popped in on my class sessions. Gregory made a final adjustment to the spotlight and joined the party. He had a butterfly strip over the bridge of his nose, which as much as it pains me to say, looked about as perfectly symmetrical as before. Shucks.

I ran through the story for them, letting Caleb take over when I reached the point of his consequential discovery, and took back the reigns at my
Eight in October
revelation. I could almost see Gleason mentally slap himself on the forehead. He stamped his foot, “How could we be so stupid. The hot dates are when the women were killed, not when they’re found. What were we thinking? Good catch, Thomas.”

I was going to tell him that I never would have thought differently had Tristen not communicated via walkie-talkie, but I liked them thinking I stumbled on the marvel while sitting on the pot. Todd Gregory did not show his adulation as outwardly as Gleason, and if another one of my students hadn’t just been killed, I think he may have shot me.