James Burke - Light of the World

Gretchen stepped out of her pickup. “Did you recognize the guy in the Cherokee?” she said.

“I didn’t pay any attention,” I said.

“I think it was Jack Boyd,” she replied.

“Are you sure about that?”

“I should be. I kicked his ass today,” she said.

“I got the sheriff on the line,” Clete said.

Felicity’s eyes had been bound when he laid her down on the bedsprings and secured her hands and feet to the four bedposts. She assumed the electric current came from a wall socket, but she could not be sure. The first jolt knocked her unconscious. When he threw water on her and shocked her again, she heard a grinding sound inside her head that could have been a generator or the vibration of the bedstead against the concrete floor.

There were interludes when he went away, stomping as he climbed the wooden stairs, not unlike a resentful child. While he was gone, she drifted in and out of consciousness and experienced dreams or hallucinations she could not separate from reality. He had gagged her and left a window open, probably to clear the air of the sweaty odor that seemed painted on the basement walls. At first she thought she heard the wind blowing through a copse of thickly leafed trees; then she realized the sounds were not leaves rustling together but the voices of human beings, many of them talking at once, creating a drone that made her think of a beehive.

The cotton pads taped over her eyes admitted no light, but she believed she could see tropical plants and flowers and palms, and she wondered if her ordeal had not bought her passage to the place where her father had died among the Indians in South America.

All her anger toward her father had disappeared. She wanted to reach out and touch his fingers and tell him that her life had not been bad after his death. She wanted to tell him that she had gotten by on her own, and she was proud of the sacrifice he had made for others, and that as long as he was in the basement with her, no harm would come to either of them.

Then she realized she was not in touch with her father. Instead, she was in an arid country where date palms grew along the roadways and the stone in the amphitheater was hot enough to scald the hands of the spectators in the noonday sun, and the only shade was over the box where Roman nobility sat.

Her warders had been Nubians who were so black, there was a purple shine on their skin. They herded her and her companions with spears from the dungeon below the seats into the brilliance of the day, and only then did she smell the blood that had dried in the sand and see the array of executioners with trident and flagellum and gladius and a metal-sheathed instrument she had not seen before.

They’re going to scrape you first, a voice whispered close to her ear. Then you’ll be given a chance to reconsider. A flick of incense on the fire, and you’re free.

I won’t do it, she answered.

Many of the others have. Are you too proud? Do you think you’re special?

Yes.

Don’t mock me. I can hurt you very badly.

I want to die.

Not really. You think you’re better than others. Your pride wants to live. You’ll beg. I guarantee it. Here’s another little reminder of reality.

She knew the pain had driven her mad. She didn’t care. The next shock was so great, it seemed to rattle the entire room.

I TOOK THE CELL phone from Clete’s hand. The moon was down, and the lake looked as dark as oil. “What are you guys into now?” the sheriff said.

“The gumball who was killed up here, what’s-his-name, he was dragged by a wrecker?” I said.

“The gumball? You’re talking about Kyle Schumacher?”

“I don’t remember his name. He was down on a child molestation beef of some kind in California.”

“What about him?”

“He was dragged by a wrecker, wasn’t he?”

“We’re not sure. There was only one witness, a man driving back from a bar. He was pie-eyed when he called 911.”

“Did you find the vehicle that dragged him?”

“The sheriff there checked out a place where the killer may have boosted it.”

“The killer?” I said.

“Okay, Surrette . If he boosted it, he returned it. So we’re not sure.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thanks? That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. We didn’t mean to cause you trouble, Sheriff. You got any idea where Jack Boyd might be?”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“Gretchen Horowitz thinks she just saw him go by in a Cherokee. Is that what he drives?”

“As a matter of fact, he does.”

“We’ll be in touch,” I said.

“You guys covered up for Bertha Phelps.”

“I didn’t get that.”

“Her perfume. Both you and Purcel smelled it. It’s her logo. You lied about it. I won’t forget that, Mr. Robicheaux.”

“I think Love Younger got what he deserved. I hope Dixon and Bertha Phelps get away.”

“You’ve got some damn nerve.”

“Not really. On my best day, I’ve never earned more than a C-minus at anything,” I said.

My last statement probably didn’t make much sense to him, but I couldn’t have cared less. I folded the phone and handed it back to Clete.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Molly said she passed a mechanic’s shed and some junk cars south of here. Maybe the mechanic has a wrecker service. Maybe that was the wrecker that tore pieces off Kyle Schumacher for two miles down the highway.”

“Sounds like a long shot, Dave,” Clete said.

“Surrette got the wrecker from somewhere. If not here, where?”

Clete pinched his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and peered down the road. It was completely dark. He looked at the luminous dial on his wristwatch. “What’s keeping Molly and Albert?” he said.

They were driving in Albert’s diesel truck, one so caked in mud that no license plate or logo was visible. It was the same truck that a number of hunters wanted to put a bullet hole in after he began chain-dragging logs across public roads to block access to the national forest. As he came down a long grade through an unlit area, he ran over a large chunk of rock that had fallen from the hillside. It wedged under the frame, scouring sparks off the asphalt. Albert pulled onto the shoulder.

A Jeep Cherokee approached from the opposite direction, the driver not bothering to dim his high beams, slowing down to look into Albert’s face as he passed. Then the Cherokee’s brake lights went on, and the driver began to back up.

The driver was a dark-complected man. His face was bruised, and there was a strip of white tape across the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he said.

“Not much. Trying to avoid some of the riffraff that’s floated into the state,” Albert replied.

Another man was sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing a black polyethylene raincoat. He leaned forward to get a clear look at Albert. “I asked you a question,” the driver said.

“I know you did. I also know who you are. You were fired from your department. Your name is Boyd.”

“Maybe you know more than you should,” Boyd said. “Maybe you never learned how to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

“That’s because he’s a smart guy,” the passenger said. “A college professor. I’ve seen him.”

“This is Terry,” Jack Boyd said. “You don’t want to meet him.”

“Let’s go,” Molly whispered.

But the transmission was jammed. Albert tried to back up to free it and heard something clank loudly and vibrate through the undercarriage.

“Did I say you could go somewhere?” Boyd said.

“I’ll have a look at the problem,” Terry said.