Archer Mayor - Bellows Falls

I did, but I kept it to myself. Latour was finally in movement, showing he knew what to do. If this was redemption in the making, I wasn’t about to impede it. “No.”

He gave me a surprised, appreciative look. “Thanks. Then if you don’t mind the suggestion, I think we should just contain the building, wait till the crowd disperses after the show, and go at this nice and peaceful. The only problem is the people already inside-all potential hostages.” He hesitated and then added, “How good is your information that Bouch or his wife are actually in there?”

That wasn’t something I wanted to discuss. “Good enough. I also don’t think we can wait, as reasonable as that sounds. If we do, all we’re likely to find is Jan Bouch’s body. We may anyhow… But I agree with you about the potential hostages.”

Latour shook his head unhappily, and I immediately began reconsidering my decision to leave him in command. But he didn’t disappoint. “All right. How ’bout you and Jonathon go in with Greg and Emily, and I’ll send uniforms to cover the areas you clear as I get them.”

“And if we find spectators, we’ll herd them into secure rooms and post someone on the door,” I added. “It’ll be safer than escorting them through the building.”

“Okay.” He pointed to a far corner. “The entrance is around there. Davis and Doyle are already waiting. Good luck.”

We found them pacing nervously before the front door, both wearing civilian clothes. I told them of Latour’s plan.

Emily looked incredulous. “Jesus Christ. That place is huge. The four of us could be in there all week checking it out.”

I ignored her complaint. “That’s if we approached it conventionally, which we can’t do. Jan’s kid told us her hangout was a room on the top floor, facing the river. Jonathon and I will head there first, while you two and as many others that show up work the problem from below. Emile’ll give us what he can when he can.”

Greg Davis squatted down, picked up a thin stick, and drew an outline of the building’s interior in the dust. “Three floors, more or less.” He pointed at the double doors facing us. “The ground floor’s a mess. Lots of rooms, junk, storage vats, equipment, hallways-a ton of places for someone to hide. The good news is it’ll be totally empty-no windows facing the fireworks. There’s a central corridor right down the middle, with a staircase at the far end. Get there without being ambushed, and it’s almost home free.”

He shifted slightly to sketch a second plan. “Next floor is the creamery proper. Wide-open, high ceilings, lots of windows, none of them facing where the fireworks’ll be. The best viewing areas,” he added a rectangle to the north of the square he’d just drawn, “are in three big rooms separated from the main floor by three doors. That’s also where people are on the roof. Those rooms only have ten-foot ceilings, so from the outside, that whole part of the building’s kind of stepped-down from the rest. Access to the roof is by fire escape on the north wall. The third floor is more like a mezzanine or catwalk. It’s where the executive offices used to be, right over the factory floor, high against the ceiling. The corridor feeding the offices is only equipped with a railing, so from below, it’s like the bridge of a ship, overlooking the deck. All the offices are on the side facing the river, away from the show.”

I glanced at Jonathon. “That must be where we’re headed.”

Searches like this are always tense. No matter how many people you have keeping you company, the feeling is always one of total isolation. You become convinced that behind every door, lurking in every shadow, is the guy with the gun who’s about to take you out. For a moment only, all three of us gazed at the enormous building before us, no doubt sharing those very thoughts.

“Okay,” I finally murmured. “Let’s get it over with.”

Jon and I entered first, walking virtually back-to-back, a flashlight in one hand, a gun in the other, and our radios muted by earpieces. We walked slowly and quietly, pausing occasionally to listen and get our bearings. Greg’s directions had been schematically accurate, but they hadn’t prepared us for the mood of the place. Dark, cool, and crowded with industrial paraphernalia, to us it became a lethal house of horrors.

It was with considerable relief that we reached the stairs, gave our position on the radio, and headed up.

The next floor was in stark contrast to the threatening muddle of shadows below. As described, it was an enormous room, high-ceilinged, lined with ten-foot-tall windows, cluttered with old, dust-covered equipment clustered into regularly spaced workstations. Bundles of pipes and conduits shot up from each of these to the ceiling and spread out to all four corners like huge metal straws, crushed over against the inside cover of a too-small box. Bathed in the remnants of the departed day, and tinged by the glow of the town all around, the room looked like an abandoned movie set of some abstract, industrialist nightmare.

I immediately noticed the far wall with the three doors, behind which, even from where we stood, we could hear people talking and laughing, gathered together in excited anticipation.

Jon looked at me and pointed at the doors quizzically. I shook my head and indicated the gallery tucked up against the ceiling and running the length of one wall-the executive aerie Greg had likened to a ship’s bridge.

Jon nodded and followed me silently up the metal staircase attached to the far end.

Flashlights now off, we paused at the top landing, taking in the catwalk ahead, a railing on one side, offices on the other. Aside from the muffled sounds from below, we couldn’t hear a thing. The dull light seeping through the huge windows across the chasm made me feel I was in a tunnel instead of twenty feet in the air, and gave the whole setting a claustrophobic feeling.

We crept to the first office and found the door open. Normally, I would have had a long-handled mirror to safely check the room from around the corner. But circumstances were far from normal. Harking back to the old days, I stuck my head out into the doorway and instantly withdrew it, listening and waiting for any response. There was none. I repeated the gesture-more slowly this time-with similar results and finally did it again with my flashlight on. The room was bare-and empty.

Throughout this exercise, Jonathon stood back slightly, prepared for attack from either direction.

Room by room, we progressed in this stealthy manner, sometimes switching roles, but finding nothing until we reached our first closed door, three-quarters of the way down.

My back against the wall, I tried the doorknob gently. The door soundlessly loosened against the jamb. Switching on my light, I nodded to Jon opposite, who followed my example and prepared to enter low and fast. On a soundless count of three, I threw open the door. Jon barreled past me and rolled to the right, I half fell in after him and cut to the left. The halos from our lights dashed around the small room, desperately searching for a body in motion.

They found one who would move no longer. Confident the room was otherwise empty, Jonathon stepped back into the doorway to stand guard.

“That her?” he asked over his shoulder.

I was surprised he didn’t know and then realized they’d never met. “Yeah. Jan Bouch.”

She was lying sprawled on the floor, her torso propped against the wall under the window. Her eyes were half open, seemingly lost in a daydream, her face, so tense in life, was slack and hopeless in death. As I approached her, there was a sudden, frightening explosion from outside, and the room filled with violent, shimmering color. I glanced out the window and saw blazing streamers falling from the sky like stars, plunging toward the ghostly froth of the river below. The colors played dimly on Jan’s skin and hair as I turned my light away.