Giles Blunt: Crime Machine

“Did you see anyone else?”

“A girl. Girl maybe thirteen.”

“Was she with him? Was she a hostage? What was the situation?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, man. My brother was in a fucking trap, I was in total panic mode. I just wanted someone to come and help.” Burwell squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into his knees. When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. “She called him Papa.”

“Papa.”

“Papa. ‘You want me to go, Papa?’ But he said no. He throws on a coat and comes with me.” He collapsed once more into sobs.

Cardinal found a bottle of whisky and poured some into a glass. He handed it to the man and he drank it down in one shot. He poured him another and offered some to Delorme, but she shook her head.

The man started to calm down. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to get hysterical.”

Cardinal went to the door and opened it a crack. “The storm’s easing off a little. I’m going over there.”

“Don’t do that. I can’t go back there! You can’t make me go back there!”

“You don’t have to.” Cardinal pointed to the other tiny room. “There’s another bunk in there. You’d better lie down. You’ve had a terrible shock.”

“Oh, man. Shock is not the word. I think I’m gonna go out of my mind.”

“So go lie down.”

The man went in to the other bunks and threw himself down on the bottom one.

“John,” Delorme said in a low voice, “you can’t go alone.”

“They won’t know I’m alone-and they won’t be expecting police anyway. They won’t be expecting anyone. Not in this weather. You’ll be all right with him.”

“I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about you.”

“They have an old man hostage. I have to at least take a look.”

“John, we have to call for backup.”

“They won’t come. Look, it’s one man and a girl. And they don’t know we’re out here.”

–

Once Cardinal had closed the door, the only sounds Delorme could hear were the hiss of the lamp, the wind outside and the occasional crackle from the stove.

From where she was lying, she couldn’t see into the darkened other room. She called out, “Are you okay?”

No answer. She lay listening, the pain in her leg a deep throb. The sounds of the wind and the stove reminded her of camping trips she had taken with her parents as a little girl. The guy in the other room began to snore.

After a time she realized she was hungry and very thirsty. There would be nothing to eat in this bare-bones shack, but there were a couple of large bottles of water on a shelf near the stove. Beside them, a box of Lipton tea.

She pushed herself into a sitting position and nearly passed out from the pain. She gripped the iron frame of the bunk and waited for it to settle back into its former throb. She pushed herself to a standing position, putting all her weight on her good leg and leaning against the wall. It wasn’t much worse than sitting down.

The stove and the water were a couple of hops away. The first hop got her as far as the door frame between the two tiny rooms. She gripped the frame, sucking air through her teeth.

The man was flat on his back, his mouth open slightly. He was not that old, maybe thirty, but his features bore the bruised look of the utterly exhausted. He still had his coat on, the orange hunting vest closed over it.

Delorme took three deep breaths and made the next hop. She nearly fell, and had to grab onto a wall stud. A sliver bit into her hand.

She reached for a water bottle and got it and twisted the cap off. She poured water into a saucepan and put it on the stove. There was a tremendous crack of thunder and there must have been lightning, but through the boarded-up windows nothing of the outside world could be seen.

–

Cardinal stopped to wipe snow from his eyes. There were ice pellets mixed with it now that stung as they hit his face, but visibility had improved. He could see the hydro wire again, much farther away than he had thought. His feet were wet and cold, and he wondered how long he would have before frostbite set in.

An odd shape materialized amid the diagonals of snow, about twenty yards off. Dark grey on light grey, hanging like an ink blot among the trees.

As Cardinal approached, he saw that it was human, a man dangling upside down, his hands hanging as if in surrender toward the forest floor. One of his legs was folded down, the other was held fast by a rope that stretched upward into the higher limbs. The body swayed and turned.

Cardinal gripped his Beretta. The man’s face, inverted, was at the same height as his own. Cardinal took hold of one of the arms to stop the swaying. The eyes were open, a black, gleaming hole in the forehead.

Off to Cardinal’s right, faint depressions in the snow led in the direction of the trapper’s shack. Impossible to tell if there had been one set of tracks or two. He turned back to his original direction. There was something orange on the ground-possibly the hanging man’s safety vest. Cardinal went to it and started brushing snow away.

It wasn’t just a vest. Cardinal reached under the shoulder and turned it over. The hat fell off, and snow slid from the features. Again a bullet wound between the eyes. Cardinal found a wallet buttoned in the man’s cargo pants. Tony Burwell. The similarities to the hanging man beside him were those of a sibling: same widow’s peak, same dirty blond hair, same slightly protuberant eyes, long upturned nose, small ears. Brothers.

Cardinal reached into his parka for his cellphone. Not there. He found it in his outside pocket-not good in this weather. He hit the speed-dial for Delorme’s number. He listened to it ring five, six, eight times. The tiny screen showed strong signal, weak battery. That would be the cold; he had charged it the previous night.

“Delorme.” Her voice was all but lost in static.

“What’s your guest doing? Can you talk?”

He didn’t get much of her reply. He thought he heard the word “sleep.” Cardinal spoke as quietly as possible. “Can you get outside? Signal’s breaking.”

The phone crackled. Delorme’s fractured voice: “hear you.”

He repeated his message. “The hunters-the Burwells-are both dead. They’re both dead. Murdered. Can you hear me? Get cuffs on him if you can. I’m heading right back.”

No response except the hiss of dead air.

He put the phone in his inside pocket. Maybe his body heat would revive the battery.

Snow was jammed in the tops of his boots. He knelt to tie a lace, and as he did so, a sudden burn on his ear. He heard the crack a second later. A powerful weapon, fired from some distance. The snow had dropped for the moment, improving visibility. Cardinal ducked behind a tree that was not big enough to cover his entire body.

The shot had come from somewhere between him and the trapper’s cabin. Gusts of wind kept changing the visibility. He thought he saw a hooded figure bent low and moving. He took aim and fired. Cardinal was a good shot in a controlled environment, but he had no confidence in his talents under these conditions. What are you going to do now? he asked himself. What’s your next brilliant plan?

He scanned the trees. Nothing moving but snow and sleet. A stump and a fallen tree about ten yards up the trail. If he could get past that, he might have enough cover to get back to Delorme. Keeping low, he moved back slowly, keeping the tree between him and where he thought the shooter was positioned. When he was close enough, he jumped across an open space and landed hard behind the stump.

Another round whizzed by. The crack of the shot. Closer. Making a run for the cabin-left or right made no difference-would put him in plain view.