Wolfwraith (30 page)

“If it’s stronger than Hugo was a few years back, we’ll probably have to come in along the beach,” Mark said. “There were so many trees down in the park that we were closed for a month.”

“I remember,” Alex answered. “So make sure the Gator is ready to go.”

Alex turned to Steve and Shadow. “As for you two,” he said, “Steve, you get all the boats in the boathouse up here. Shadow, you get everything battened down at the E.E.C. and the Wash Woods dock. Don’t forget to check the tie-downs on the Taj...the trailer. Check the other structures down there too. I’ll take care of Mark’s trailer and mine, then I’ll be down to help you at Wash Woods.”

“Christ,” Steve said. “That’s a hell of an order for jus’ the four of us. Ain’t anybody comin’ to help?”

“Sorry.” Alex shrugged. “The rangers from First Landing are going to be busy enough, since they’re in as much danger as us and they still have to evacuate the campers. Remember how big their campgrounds are? At least our campers are already out.”

“Yeah, I guess we was sort of lucky,” Steve said with a grin. “The killer done cleared the park for us, didn’t he?”

“I don’t think that’s funny,” Alex snapped. “Let’s get to work.”

As they walked to their trucks, Shadow asked, “What about Hugo? That was before I got here.”

Mark Wilson answered. “Hugo hit way down in North Carolina, then roared right up the Albemarle Sound. There was a lot of flooding inland. All we lost in the park was trees, but it was a hell of a mess.”

“Flooding?” Shadow had experienced hurricanes a couple of times when he was a kid, but his grandparents had lived farther inland and he retained only vague memories. “I thought a hurricane was all wind.”

“A storm surge comes in with it,” Alex answered. “This cape could be mostly under water if Adelaide stays strong.”

“No shit?”

“No shit, Shadow. You do know why it’s called Wash Woods where you live, don’t you?”

“Shit.”

He got into his truck and drove south. It was difficult to imagine a major storm being so close on such a hot and sunny summer day.

Shadow hardly noticed the police combing the park. He was thinking. If a rainstorm had washed away many of the signs of yesterday’s killing, a hurricane would obliterate any clue that might have survived the rainstorm.

He took a quick detour through the False Cape campgrounds, but there was nothing he could do in the way of preparation. If the outhouses or the heavy picnic tables blew away, they’d have to be replaced. Driving down to the dock, a quick check of the area showed there was nothing to be done there, either. He was about to pull away when he looked out at the duck blind. Suddenly he remembered the sensation of being watched from the blind on the day when he had found the first body.

Still thinking about that day, he continued down to Wash Woods, parking the truck outside his house. The cops were still in his yard—although they’d better finish up before long or he wouldn’t be able to pack his stuff before evacuating—so he walked by the Taj Mahal and Jenny’s cottage and on to the E.E.C. By the time he finished securing everything there, it was well past noon. His shirt was soaked in sweat and he still had the boathouse to ‘batten down,’ as they’d called it when he’d been on navy ships.

It was time for a lunch break. He wasn’t really hungry, however, and the duck blind had been on his mind all morning. Jumping down off the dock into the smallest boat, he cranked up the engine.

In moments, he was skimming over the flat surface of the bay. The skies were clear, the water was flat, and a run out to the blind and back would only take a quarter of an hour. The wind evaporated the sweat from his shirt as the boat sped along.

The duck blind was a simple structure built on pilings sunk into the soft bottom of the shallow bay. Really only a framework with a floor, the sides had been covered with reeds so hunters could crouch down to hide from waterfowl. There was also a hidden nook where a boat could dock, Shadow eased the johnboat inside. He tied it off and climbed a short, wooden ladder to the hunters’ platform.

The blind was unoccupied, of course, and there was nothing to show hunters had ever been there but a couple of paper bags, crumpled in a corner. Disappointed, Shadow turned to leave but stooped down and picked up the sacks as he did. No use leaving trash to float away in the storm. He felt the weight of something inside and opened the bags to find empty sardine cans. He re-closed the bags and chucked the whole mess into the johnboat so it wouldn’t end up blown into the bay. Then he climbed into the boat and headed back toward Wash Woods, disappointed.

He was almost back to the pier when he absent-mindedly rubbed a tickling on his upper lip. The odor of sardines on his finger reminded him of the last time he’d smelled the preserved fish. Had False Cape Frank been using the blind?

Shadow looked up at the approaching dock and saw Alex there, waiting for him. “Where the hell have you been?” Alex asked. “You’re supposed to be getting ready for the storm.”

“Catch.” Shadow threw him a line. “I went out to the duck blind off False Cape.”

“What for?” Alex walked with the line, pulling the boat into shore, rather than tying it to the dock.

“Just one of my hunches.”

“Find anything?”

“Some trash, that’s all.”

“Oh. Better not waste any more time. I brought you some sandwiches, chips and a soda. The volunteers brought in food again, like they always do for a search or a disaster, bless them.”

“Great. I finished the E.E.C. Let’s put the boat away and then I’ll grab a quick bite before we tackle the rest of the gear around the boathouse.”

They stowed the boat and motor, then Shadow wolfed down the food, using the hood of his truck as a table.

“What did you think—son of a bitch!” Alex swatted a deer fly that had bitten his neck, “—you might find, out at the blind?” He looked down at the smear of blood and insect on his hand. “Little vampire.”

“I don’t know. I remembered having a feeling once, like someone was watching me from out there. Figured it would be a good idea to check it out real quick, in case the city-boy cops didn’t think of it.” Shadow waved a wasp away from his open soda can. “Be a good place for someone to hide out.”

Alex changed the subject. “What’s left to do?”

“Let’s go see.”

They spent an hour or so putting everything away. While they were at it, the detectives, apparently finished with their investigation, took the yellow crime-barrier tape from around Shadow’s yard.

“We’re out of here,” one of them called to the two rangers. “They’re going to need all of us for traffic control. You’d better clear out, too; the roads out of town will be packed tonight.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Alex called.

He and Shadow finished soon after. “Want any help packing?” Alex asked.

“No, I don’t need much.”

“You sure? Lillian has everything packed up and ready at my place. I can spare a few minutes. We’re going up to a hotel in the mountains—way out in Charlottesville. Lillian said she was lucky to get a room anywhere, what with everyone leaving the coast.”

“Naw.” Shadow shrugged. “I’ll be alright.”

Alex looked at him suspiciously. “Do you have some place to go? I mean, we could share a room with you if you’re in a bind.”

Shadow hadn’t thought about where to go, but he didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah, I keep that little pop-up trailer in a storage lot, remember? I’ll drop by there, hitch it up, drive far enough west so the wind won’t blow me and the trailer into Oz like Dorothy and her little house, then take it easy for a day. I’ll come back as soon as they give the all clear.”

“Just be careful. Even though the hurricane’s been downgraded to three it’ll still be a hell of a blow.”

“You go ahead and get Lillian out of here. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay. See you in a couple of days.” Alex went to his truck and drove away, giving a wave.

Shadow knew he should go directly to his house and begin packing, but he’d been thinking about the sardine tins the entire time he had been working alongside Alex. It was a clue, but not much of one. It didn’t tie False Cape Frank into the murders in any way, but he knew it was important, and he wouldn’t have found it if he hadn’t gone back to investigate one of his earlier hunches. Hmm, what other things might he have overlooked, he wondered.

There was another place he had experienced a strange sensation besides near the women’s bodies. The cemetery. And that was where Steve Slocum had said he’d seen footprints going across the old road. Hmm, footprints, not tire tracks. Hadn’t False Cape Frank carried his bike out of the grove, back when they’d first met? Carry a bike and there are only footprints. There was no way Shadow was going to evacuate the park without looking into it. Since it wasn’t far away, he decided to walk rather than go back to the house for his truck.

Shadow strode away from the boathouse, walked past Jenny’s cottage and turned south along that section of road from long ago. He broke into a sweat again, walking through the dry, shifting sands. A quarter of a mile later, he turned off the road, wondering if the wind was beginning to pick up slightly. Then, he went among the moss-covered oaks and it was dead calm, as if the breeze had been forbidden to enter the hallowed ground.

Looking left toward the tombstones, with Mamie Bunch’s marker beyond, he wondered again if his guess about False Cape Frank’s relationship to her might be correct, but his destination was the remains of the old church. Without hesitation, he stepped over the low brick foundation.

He’d expected to be overwhelmed by the same feeling of evil as before, but he wasn’t. True, he felt uneasy, but not like the last time. The tiny animal skulls were still there, perhaps even more of them than before, but they didn’t seem so threatening. So, what was different?

Shadow walked around inside the perimeter and studied it. Most of it was loose brick, set back on the original foundation by park rangers and volunteers when they’d restored the old cemetery. Jonesy had told Shadow that the steeple had been on its side in the weeds, where it had fallen, but had been set upright inside the foundation. All other unsightly remains of the church had been hauled away.

When Shadow had decided the bricks and skulls held no secrets, he turned and faced inward. The steeple—actually, only the peaked roof of the original steeple—was a steep, twelve-foot high cone that appeared circular at a casual glance, but actually had twelve equal sides. Now that he considered it, the ramshackle structure seemed to be the source of his disquiet. He stepped closer. His discomfort increased.

Yet there was nothing unusual about this last vestige of the old church. The weathered, gray wooden shingles were old and ragged, some of them fallen off. Since it sat in shade most of the year, green moss had grown on all sides of the structure. He walked around and suddenly noticed something unusual. Two of the shingles, a couple of feet apart but in a vertical line with each other, were raised on one side and something showed beneath each of them. He stepped closer and lifted one of the clapboards slightly. A hinge! There were three hinges in all, he soon discovered. Now why would the church’s builders have put some type of door in a steeple that would have been far above ground? The hinges were not old and rusty, but fairly new. Someone had smeared mud over them so they wouldn’t stand out.

He took a few paces back, until he was at the brick foundation again. He was now on the far side of the steeple from the marker and the cemetery, where no one was likely to stand. As he looked at the area in question, he could clearly see some clapboards had been cut in half, but left attached. The line of cut boards resulted in a trapezoid pattern turning one of the twelve sides into a narrow door. Now that he knew what to look for, it was easy to see.

He went back to the structure and examined it even more carefully. What appeared to be a knothole in a shingle was actually a drilled opening at the edge of the door, away from the hinges. The new wood exposed by the drill bit had been darkened with dirt or mud. Although it didn’t look recently done, it must have been bored out within the last year or two. It would double as a peephole for anyone inside, he realized.

It dawned on him, if someone was inside they would know he was there.

He took his gun out and cocked it. Holding his pistol ready, he stuck the thumb part of the claw into the fake knothole. Nothing held the door, but he had to pull hard since it was built into a slanted wall and gravity held it shut. It was as much hatch as door. There was no squeal from the hinges or any other sound as he eased it open. When the door had moved perhaps six inches, he suddenly yanked it the rest of the way, pulled the claw free and jumped back, aiming into the dark opening.

Nothing moved inside. After a few seconds he stuck his head in.

The first thing he noticed was False Cape Frank’s bicycle hanging vertically on an inside wall, tied so it was out of the way, front tire toward the ceiling. He looked carefully at the tread pattern on the tires, comparing to his sharp memory of the marks where Helen had been killed. The rear tire matched.

The chamber was fairly large, almost ten feet across, and packed with gear. A sleeping bag covered a section of the ground, several cardboard boxes beside it. A battery lantern and a portable radio sat atop one of them. In another area was an electric trolling motor and a car battery. There was also a cook stove with a propane bottle attached, a pile of clothing, a pair of boots and a well-worn Bible. Leaning against the wall was a surveyor’s scope on a tripod, beside a long measuring stick. A board with a hook on it had been attached to one wall, but nothing hung from it.