Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories - 3 Read online

  *

  TEN MINUTES LATER he'd shelled out big bucks for the premium and bought himself an extra fifth of Knob Creek, just to be safe. Two Stouffer's frozen lasagnas, too. They were both for him. He didn't think Hannah would stay around for dinner.

  Don't get married. Ever.

  At first he'd thought that was a warning, not an invitation. But seeing her on the bed he wasn't so sure.

  The wind kept up its insistent buffeting and Pellam walked with his head down, eyes squinted to slits. He'd spent a lot of time in deserts and it seemed to him that the grit in Colorado, Gurney in particular, was the sharpest and most abrasive. Imagination probably.

  He lifted his head and oriented himself, then adjusted course. Pellam walked past an abandoned one-story building that had been a video store. You hardly saw any of these anymore. As somebody in the Industry, he'd never really liked videotape or DVDs. And he didn't like streaming movies on your computer or through your TV, however gargantuan was your Samsung or Sony. There was an intimacy about going to a theater to watch a movie. Lights going down, the hush of the crowd, then experiencing the images big and loud and awash with the reactions of everyone else. That was how movies should be--

  Whatever hit him weighed fifty pounds easy. It shattered the vodka and whiskey and sent Pellam tumbling into the street.

  But stuntman instincts never quite go away. He rolled rather than impacted, diffusing the energy. And in a smooth motion he sprang up, flexing his right hand to see if it was broken--it wasn't. Two fists and he was ready to fight.

  The assailant, however, wasn't. He was already sprinting away from the attack, through the brush. Pellam couldn't see him clearly, but he noted that it seemed the man had a backpack on.

  Interesting...

  Pellam was about to go after him, but glanced toward the camper, about a hundred feet away, and saw the body lying on the ground.

  In dark clothing.

  Hell, was it Hannah?

  He ran forward and stopped fast.

  No, it was the State Patrol trooper. He was lying on his back, one leg straight, the other up, knee crooked. His throat had been slit, deep. A lake of blood surrounded his head and neck. His holster was empty. Bootprints led from the body into the woods behind the service station.

  Then a man's voice from nearby: "Help me!"

  Pellam spun around. From the repair shop Rudy staggered toward the street. He'd been stabbed or struck on the head and blood cascaded down to his shoulder. He was staring at his hand, covered with the red liquid. "What's this? What's this?" He was hysterical.

  Pellam ran to the mechanic. The wound wasn't deep--a blow to the back of the head, it seemed. He eased the man to the ground and found a rag, filthy, but presumably saturated with enough petrochemical substances to render it relatively germ free. He pressed it against the wound.

  Hannah?

  Pellam ran to the camper and flung the door open.

  "Any sign of--?" Hannah's question skidded to a halt as she looked him over, covered with the aromatic dregs of whiskey and vodka, which glued dust and dirt to his body.

  "Jesus. What's going on?"

  Pellam opened the tiny compartment beside the door. He took out his antique Colt .45 Peacemaker, a cowboy gun, and loaded it. Slipped it into his back waistband.

  "Trooper's dead, Rudy's hurt. Somebody decked me. I think it was your hitchhiker. I couldn't see for sure but I think so."

  "The poet?"

  "Yep."

  "You have a gun? Where'd you get a gun?"

  "Wait here."

  Recalling that Taylor would have the trooper's weapon, he opened the camper door slowly and stepped into the wind.

  No shots. And no sign of the man. Where would he have fled to?

  He pulled out his cell phone and hit 911.

  He got the operator, but five seconds later he was patched through to the sheriff himself.

  Pellam didn't think that was the sort of thing that ever happened in the big city.

  *

  TEN MINUTES LATER Hannah joined him outside as Werther showed up.

  Hannah Billings was not the sort of person who stayed inside when she didn't want to stay inside, whatever threats awaited.

  The sheriff jumped out fast and ran to the trooper first, then saw there was nothing he could do for the man. He went to his brother-in-law, sitting on a bench in front of the service station. After a word or two with the man he returned to Hannah and Pellam. He made a radio call to see about the ambulance and to call in several other state patrol cars.

  And then he pulled his weapon out and pointed it toward Pellam. He arrested him for murder.

  Pellam blinked. "You're out of your mind."

  Werther was his typical calm, the statue of reason. "You told me you weren't where Jonas Barnes was killed this afternoon."

  "Well, I didn't know where he was killed. I told you as best I could."

  "Witness saw you standing over the body."

  Pellam closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. I didn't see a body."

  "And it looked like you were holding a knife. Which is how Barnes died. You started to drag him away into a cave and then you realized somebody was nearby. You ran."

  "Who is this witness?"

  "It was anonymous. But he described you to a T."

  Hannah said, "It was Taylor. It had to be."

  Pellam pointed to the ground. "Those footprints! Those're just what he was wearing. And he attacked me."

  "You say that. I didn't see it." He looked to Hannah. "Did you see it?"

  She hesitated. "He couldn't've done it."

  "Was he with you?"

  Before she spoke Pellam said, "No, I was just coming back from the store up there and I got jumped. Then I found them. Why would I call 911 if I was the guilty party?"

  "So you wouldn't look guilty, of course."

  "Jesus Christ. Taylor's getting away."

  "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

  Pellam turned around and gave it ten seconds for Werther to holster his weapon and get his cuffs out. He fast-drew the Colt from his waistband and touched the muzzle against the sheriff's belly, pulled out the man's Glock and flung it into bushes across the road.

  The man gasped. "Oh, Lord. Please, I got a family..."

  "And if you want to see 'em you'll hand the cuffs to your brother-in-law."

  "I--"

  Pellam stepped back and now aimed at Rudy. "Sorry, but do it."

  The big man hesitated, looked at the gun, then at the spreading lake of blood around the trooper. He took the cuffs. "Cuff him." Pellam then barked, "Now! I don't have time to wait!"

  The big man said, "I don't know how they work."

  "Mister, this's going to mean nothing but trouble for you for a long, long time."

  Pellam ignored the law enforcer and explained the cuffs to Rudy. Everyone, Hannah included, probably wondered why he knew this esoteric skill.

  Motioning Rudy back, Pellam frisked Werther and found plastic hand restraints. He bound Rudy's wrists behind him. Then, pointing his Colt Hannah's way, he said, "I'm taking your car...and you. You're driving."

  "Listen--"

  "No, I'm tired of listening," Pellam snapped. "Move now!"

  "Pellam," Werther called. "You won't get but a mile. Troopers already have roadblocks up."

  But he was gesturing Hannah into the truck. The big engine fired up and she skidded into the road, the fix-your-seatbelt light flashing but the chime disconnected. Hannah seemed like the kind of woman who couldn't be bothered with things like safety restraints.

  *

  PELLAM SLIPPED THE GUN AWAY. "Sorry. I didn't have any choice."

  "No," she said. The word might've been a question.

  "I didn't kill Barnes," he said. "Or anyone."

  "I didn't think you had. Why'd you kidnap me?"

  "It's not a kidnap. It's a borrowing. I need your car...and, okay, I needed a hostage."

  She snickered bitterly.

/>   He continued. "The only way to prove I'm innocent is to find your goddamn poet. He's not driving out of here either. He'll be hiding out someplace. The cops'll be checking all the motels. He'll camp out somewhere. Caverns or someplace like that, I'd guess. You have any ideas?"

  "Me?" she snapped, sounding insulted. "I'm not from here. I was just passing through this fucking place when you rear-ended me. Most I've ever done in Gurney 'fore today's bought overpriced gas."

  She took a turn at nearly fifty, inducing a slight skid, which she controlled expertly. Pellam's knees banged the dash. So she could reach the pedals, she'd moved the seats all the way forward.

  She was staying off the main roads.

  Pellam thought for a minute. "I've got an idea." He dug in his pocket for a business card.

  *

  THE OFFICE OF Southeastern Colorado Ecological Center was outside Gurney in an area that looked more like ski territory than desert: pines, brush, grass and scrub oak or low trees that looked like they ought to be called scrub oak even if they weren't. The building seemed to include offices, a small museum and an even smaller lecture hall.

  A sign announced that people could learn about the relationship between carbon dioxide and "our green friends" next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Pellam supposed the audience would be local. He didn't know who'd drive from Mosby, the next town north, let alone Denver, three hours away, for entertainment like this.

  "No troopers. That's the good news." Pellam was looking over the three cars parked in the employee lot. None of them were hybrids; that was one of the ironies about the eco movement. Even many people in the field couldn't afford to practice what they preached. He counted four bicycles, though.

  Inside, at the desk, he found the woman who'd been bicycling along Route 14 when Pellam had slugged the rear of Hannah's truck. Lis, of Lis and Chris.

  She looked up with her official visitor-greeting grin. Then blinked as a wave of recognition descended over her. "Today...the accident...Hey."

  And no other reaction. Pellam looked at Hannah and the meaning was, So Werther hasn't been in touch asking her to report a kidnapper and kidnappee.

  "Sorry, I forgot your names."

  "John and Hannah," Pellam offered.

  "Sure. What can I do for you? Is this about the insurance?"

  "No, actually," Hannah said, delivering the spiel they'd come up with in the car. "We're trying to find that friend of mine? Was in the diner with me?"

  "With the crew cut?"

  "Right. He was talking about camping out, maybe around some caverns in the area. But my truck got fixed up sooner than I thought. I want to get back to Hamlin now. He'll want to come with me."

  "Camping, hm? Hope he brought his long underwear. Gets cold there."

  "So there's a place you think he might be?"

  Lis pulled a map out of a rack on the edge of her desk. She consulted it and pointed. "Here, I'd bet. Just past the old quarry."

  It was about three miles or so from where they were.

  "Appreciate that. Thanks."

  Pellam took the map. He noted the price was two dollars. He gave her a ten. "Consider the rest a donation."

  "Hey, thanks." She gave him a button that said, Earth Lover.

  This time Pellam drove, fast and just a bit recklessly. Hannah didn't mind one bit. If anything, she seemed bored. She fished under the seat and found a small bottle of screw-top wine, the sort they give you on airplanes. She untwisted the lid with a cracking sound. She drank half. "You want some?"

  Pellam wouldn't have minded a hit of whiskey, but his Knob Creek was history and there was nothing worse than airplane wine. "Pass."

  She finished it.

  In ten minutes they were at the quarry. A chain-link fence attempted to seal it off but even a sumo wrestler could have squeezed in through the gaps.

  Pellam looked at his watch. It was nearly six thirty. He checked the gun once more. Thinking he should've brought more shells. But too late for that.

  "You head on back. Tell 'em you escaped."

  "How'll you get out?"

  "I'll have to call our friend Werther, whatever happens. Whether I find Taylor or not I'm going to get busted. The only difference'll be how long it takes to recite the charges against me."

  *

  EERIE AS HELL.

  Devil's Playground had been plenty spooky but the Gurney Quarry at dusk on a windy day ran a very close second.

  Of course some of that might have to do with the fact that there was possibly a killer wandering around here. There'd been one at the Playground, too, it seemed, but Pellam hadn't known it. That made a big difference. In the failing light he could just make out the austere beauty of the place, the chalky bone-white cliffs, the turquoise water at the base of the quarry going from azure to gray, the sensual curves of the black shadows of the hills.

  Soon, in the dark, it would just be a maze of hiding places and traps. The wind howled mournfully over the landscape.

  Thinking about Taylor. Sheriff Werther. And about Hannah. He thought about Ed some, too. He moved forward slowly, nervously thumbing the hammer of the Colt and not hearing a single boot on rock as a killer snuck up behind him.

  An owl swooped low and snagged something--mouse or chipmunk--then veered off into the sky. The squeak had been loud and brief.

  For half an hour, he tracked along the ground here, looking for suitable hiding places. With the cowboy gun and the ambience here, he was thinking of his ancestor. Wild Bill Hickok--James Butler; no "William" was involved in any part of the name. The gunslinger/marshal had been murdered, shot in the back of the head by a man he'd beat at poker the day before. But what specifically Pellam was recalling was that Hickok felt bad for Jack McCall, the murderer, and gave him back some of what he'd lost.

  But McCall had thought the gesture condescending, and that was the motive for the murder, not cheating, not arrogance.

  A good deed.

  Pellam shivered in the wind. He moved more slowly now--dusk was thick and moonlight still an hour away. But he saw no signs of anyone.

  A moment later, though, a hundred yards away, the flicker of light. From one of the large caverns near the edge of the quarry. Pellam moved quickly toward the cavern where he'd seen it, dodging rocks and scrub oak and wiry balls of tumbleweed. The cavern was in a cul-de-sac. On one side a sheer wall rose fifty feet into the air, its surface scarred and chopped by the stonecutters. On the other side, the quarry fell into blackness.

  Twenty feet from the entrance to the cavern. The light seemed dimmer now.

  Moving closer, listening. Moving again. Hell, it was noisy, this persistent wind. Like the slipstream roaring through the window of the Winnebago that afternoon.

  Mountain, truck or air...

  He saw nothing other than the dancing light. Was it a fire? Or a lantern?

  And then: What the hell am I doing here?

  A question that was never answered because at that moment a man stepped from the shadows beside him and aimed his pistol at Pellam's head.

  "Drop that."

  "Can I set it down?"

  "No."

  Pellam dropped the gun.

  It wasn't Taylor. The man had salt-and-pepper hair. He was in his fifties, Pellam estimated, and he was wearing khaki hiking clothes. He gestured Pellam back and retrieved the Peacemaker. Into a cell phone he said, "He's here."

  "Where is he?"

  That being the hitchhiker/poet.

  Though Pellam knew the answer to the question: The ramblin' man was either dead or tied up somewhere nearby.

  Was this fellow in front of him, with the gun, Chris? The husband or partner of green-minded Lis, who had murdered Jonas Barnes near the Devil's Playground today--presumably because Barnes was going to rape the earth by putting in a shopping center along the spur to the interstate?

  If that was the case, then he reflected that it was rather ironic that they'd nearly run her down as she was returning from her deadly mission.

  And, sure enoug
h, he heard a woman's voice. "I'm here, it's me."

  Glancing toward the sound, Pellam realized that his theory about Barnes's demise, while logical, was in fact wrong.

  The murderer was not earth-loving Lis.

  It was Hannah Billings.

  Pellam turned to the man with the gun and said, "So, you must be Ed."

  *

  "DOES THAT THING WORK?" she asked her husband.

  The man was looking over Pellam's Peacemaker with some admiration. "Nice. I have a collection myself."

  Pellam had the bizarre thought that Ed Billings was going to start a genial conversation about antique firearms.

  With a neutral glance Pellam's way, Ed walked into the cavern and hauled Taylor to his feet. He was tied--though not duct-taped--which would, presumably, leave a residue that Crime Scene folks could detect. They were good at that. Pellam knew this from several movies he'd worked on. He'd known it, too, from an incident in his past, a manslaughter charge that had derailed his directing career and was responsible for his present vocation of location scouting. The police had been all over the evidence. Pellam's extremely expensive defense attorney hadn't bothered to try to sever the head of that testimony.

  "What the hell is going on here?" he pleaded. "Who are you?"

  Pellam could picture clearly what these two had planned: Oh, damn, we got it wrong, the sheriff would announce. That Pellam fellow wasn't guilty after all. It was that weird poet who killed Jonas Barnes. A hitchhiker, what did you expect? Pellam tracked him down--to prove he was innocent--and the man jumped him. They fought, they died.

  A shame.

  The poor hitchhiker was as baffled as he was terrified.

  Pellam nodded. "Was it the real estate?"

  Hannah was ignoring him. She was looking over the scenery, approaches, backdrops. Hell, she looked just like a cinematographer blocking out camera angles.

  But Ed was happy to talk. "Barnes had an option to buy the five hundred acres next to Devil's Playground."

  "Worth millions to whoever owned the land," Pellam said. "When the spur was finished."

  Ed Billings nodded. "Fast food, gasoline and toilets. That kind of describes our country, doesn't it?"

  Pellam was distracted, since the man's gun--a very efficient Glock--moved toward his abdomen, now his groin. There was no traditional safety on a Glock. You simply pointed and shot. And the trigger pull was pretty light. Pellam felt certain parts south contracting.

  "But his estate could exercise the option."

  "No, we know the wife. She wasn't interested in real estate."