Donald Harstad: Code 61

I looked up at the assembled faces. “Anybody happen to have a flashlight?”

The second trooper handed one down. I stooped a bit, leaned over the black square, and shined the light downward.

Instant vertigo. The shaft descended what had to be at least eighty or ninety feet. As I lurched back I caught a glimpse of two things. A vertical, rusty track with shiny edges; and a big, rusty wheel with what looked to be a very large bicycle chain running in a channel.

“What you got?” croaked Lamar.

“Just a second,” I said. “I hate heights.”

“In a hole?” asked Sally.

“It's a high damned hole,” I replied, irritated. “Just give me a minute.” I took a deep breath, and got down on my stomach, and crawled forward, toward the edge of the shaft. As I did, I heard Sally wondering aloud how you could have a high hole.

Being so solidly supported, I could look down. Sure enough. The wheel, chain, and rails were part of the elevating mechanism. As I looked all the way down, I thought I could see something at the bottom. Probably the car Toby referred to. I also noted that the chain seemed to be oiled. I backed out.

“It goes way down, there's rails and a chain, and I think I can see some sort of car or box thing at the bottom.”

“That's it,” said Toby.

“Can we climb down there?” asked Lamar.

“No,” I said emphatically. “No way.” I simply wasn't about to try a climbing descent to the bottom of that shaft. Not at any price.

“Use the box,” suggested Toby.

“What box?”

“Inside the door, to the left.”

I looked in again. Sure enough, in the corner was a dark gray electrical box, labeled “Square D,” with a lever on its right.

“How does it work?”

“Just pull the lever up or down… whatever way it ain't now,” advised Toby. “It'll bring the car up for you.”

The problem with simple solutions is that they sometimes hide complex problems just under the surface. That was the case here. First, I wasn't sure that I wanted to alert Dan Peale that we were coming after him. If he heard the elevator, and if Huck was still alive, that could easily cause him to kill her. Second, I had no idea what we would find at the bottom, so I didn't know how many of us should be going.

We stationed Borman and Byng at the top of the shaft, as the rest of us backed off and questioned Toby.

We were in a hurry, but we really needed the basic layout of what Toby called “the crypt.”

He said the elevator shaft went to a section of the sand mine that had been closed off for years. There were five big chambers, and Dan had appropriated two of them.

“They're both on your right as you get off,” said Toby.

“Dan got any guns down there?” asked Lamar.

“Guns? No way. He doesn't need guns. You'll see.”

“Knives, though?” I asked.

“Yeah. He's got knives.”

I wanted to ask why the knives if he didn't need guns, but didn't. Time was short.

“How do you see down there?” I asked.

“Turn on the lights,” he said.

“What?”

“Yeah. I mean, nobody uses the mine, but it still has power. For inspections, I guess. We just tapped into the wires in the main part of the mine. That's all.”

Well, sure. “And that's what powers the elevator?”

“Yeah.”

“How loud is it?” asked Lamar.

Toby looked bewildered. “I don't know… compared to what?”

“Can Dan hear it coming down, Toby?” I asked, as patiently as I could.

“Oh! Oh, I think so. Yeah, unless he's in the far chamber, and then if he has the music on, probably not… ”

“Music?”

“Yeah. Dan plays the music really loud when he gets into a mood. Hey,” he said. “He's got all the comforts of home. You're gonna be surprised at what's all down there. It's beautiful!”

“I expect I will,” I said. Then I tossed him a tough one. “Is that where Edie was killed? Is it the crypt?”

He went pale. I think he'd been getting into the whole pursuit thing, and had lost his sense of the real situation.

“Is it?” asked Lamar.

Toby nodded, but didn't speak. That was probably just as well.

“Well,” I said, “let's get going.”

Lamar called one of the troopers back at the house, and had him collect flashlights from the assembled cop cars, and bring as many as he could. They were all rechargeable, and good for at least three hours each.

Lamar took me aside. “You sure he's down there?”

“Nope. But Huck's gone, and didn't have to be if he wanted to off her on the spot. Okay… and she's not anywhere in the house. So that would either leave here, or he's got her to some transportation, and they took off.

They didn't go by us last night at the gate. Nobody did. So the egress point to the house is here. The elevator's at the bottom, but that doesn't mean much. They seem to be able to get out the main entrance, too.”

“Okay.” He really sounded horrible.

“I think he got into the mine last night, or at least yesterday sometime. We were trying to track his progress with stolen car reports, but they could have lagged a couple of hours or more.”

Lamar nodded. “Two hours, easy.” It was almost funny, the way he tried not to talk, and lost.

“Last night, Mr. William Chester made an appearance. Up in here.” I pointed to the general area, and then to the ravine. “Came up that ravine where we spotted him Monday. His car was parked down at the bottom. We followed him, not too far from this place, and Sally and I went down the ravine, and we sent Borman around the bottom. We lost him.”

Lamar looked surprised.

“Yeah. Well, anyway, while we were chasing the goddamned vampire hunter, the vampire was paying a visit to the house. Far as I can tell.”

Lamar shook his head. “Too bad,” he managed to get out.

“No shit. I dunno, though. The silver lining might be that I don't think Dan Peale knew we were up here last night. I think he might think he's gotten away with something. That he has some time to play with.” I looked at him squarely. “But, no. No, I don't know if he's down there. But I think he is.”

We decided that Byng, Borman, Sally, and I would go down, two at a time, via the shaft. Another group headed by Lamar would try to enter at the main mine entrance, about a mile south of the shaft, at the bottom of the bluff. We'd have two troopers at the house, and two troopers at the upper end of the elevator shaft to the mine.

“Hey, Lamar?”

“Yeah?” He barely got it out. He really should have been home in bed.

“If you run across that idiot William Chester, super vampire hunter, see if you can arrest his ass for something, will ya?” I meant it. “Anything. Just keep him the hell out of our way.”

“Sure, Carl.”

“And, if somebody can get ahold of Hester or Harry, get 'em headed back here, too. If we get our boy, they're both gonna want to talk to him ASAP.”

As we waited for the night scope, I thought about what we'd been told earlier about Dan wanting to “experience” Edie's death secondhand. The more I thought about that, the more I thought I knew why he'd taken Huck out of the house. He needed the time to “experience” her terror, by ingesting her blood while he… Jesus. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

The briefing at the top of the shaft was short and sweet.

“Okay, listen up,” I said. “We won't have any radio contact down there. Don't even try. There also might be blasting caps and stuff in the mine, and radio transmissions can set them off. Got that?”

Sally, Byng, and Borman nodded.

“We're in a real hurry, here. I think she's being kept alive for a little while, but I can't say for sure. If we find her, don't move her unless you have to. She might have an IV stick in her neck, or something, and she could bleed to death if it pulls out. Understood?”