Nelson DeMille - Spencerville

The bathroom was empty now, and Keith cleaned up, then took his things downstairs.

Stewart was in the kitchen having a glass of orange juice, and Keith poured the last of the juice into a glass for himself. He said, "Sorry I have nothing to offer you for breakfast, Stewart."

"Oh, that's okay." He looked around. "This is a real old house."

"About a hundred years old. Can you find your way back to Washington?"

"I think so."

Keith took four hundred dollars out of his wallet and said, "This is for gas, food, and tolls. Stop at a farm stand and get some fresh produce. Mrs. Arkell will love it."

"Thank you, Colonel. I had a good time."

"I knew you would. We'll do it again sometime."

"Can I use your phone, sir?"

"No, it's tapped. No one knows I'm here. Call from the road."

Stewart had been around long enough not to be surprised or to ask questions. Keith steered Stewart toward the door, and Stewart carried the suitcase out to the porch. Keith gave Stewart directions to Route 23 and said, "The cops in this county are tough. Take it easy."

"Yes, sir. Hope I see you in Washington again."

"You never know." They shook hands, and Stewart left.

Keith ran through a mental checklist, then closed and locked the front door, and carried his luggage out back to the Blazer.

There was a note on the front seat, and Keith read the printed message: You was supposed to be gone by Friday, and I see your car still here. I'll be coming around Monday to see if you're gone.

The note was unsigned and not written in words that could be construed as threatening in a court of law. But Keith had no intention of going to the county prosecutor. He was either going to kill Baxter or let him live. The choice was actually Baxter's.

Keith wondered why Baxter was waiting until Monday, then realized that Baxter was away on his Saturday hunting or fishing trip. And tomorrow being the Sabbath, even Police Chief Baxter might want a day of peace and rest. It didn't matter. Keith would be gone before Monday. In fact, by tonight, when Cliff Baxter returned home and didn't see his wife there, he might figure it out and realize that indeed Keith Landry was gone, and so was Mrs. Baxter. Keith wondered if she would leave him a note.

Keith got in the Blazer and turned the ignition switch. Nothing happened. Completely dead. He popped the hood release, got out, and lifted the hood. The battery was gone, and in its place was a note that said, simply, "Fuck you."

Keith took a deep breath. The man was making it difficult for Keith to keep his promise to Annie. All in all, the last few days hadn't been good days, starting with Charlie Adair driving up to his house. The White House was no treat, either. Neither was Hurricane Jack. Now this. "Okay, Landry. A new transportation problem." He thought a moment, then walked to the barn. The garden tractor had a 12-volt battery, and it should have enough amps to kick over the Blazer.

He slid open the door and sat on the tractor. He was going to start it, ride it over to the Blazer, let it charge awhile, then put the tractor battery in his car. He pushed the starter button. Dead. But he heard a clicking sound and looked at the dashboard. Someone had turned on the headlight switch, and the battery had run down. "Cliff, you're getting on my nerves."

He got off the tractor and looked out across the road at the Jenkins farmhouse. He could borrow a battery from them, but he noticed that both their vehicles, the car and the pickup truck, were gone. He could borrow their tractor battery, with or without their knowledge, but you didn't do that around here.

He went inside and tried the Jenkinses' number, but, as he thought, no one was home. The Muller farm was about a half-mile walk down the road. "Damn it."

He looked through the phone directory and called a service station out on the highway, and they said they'd be there in half an hour with a new battery. The man added, "Damn kids probably stole it. You ought to call the cops."

"I will." He gave them directions to his farm and hung up. "Maybe I should have called Baxter Motors because that's where my battery is."

He considered calling Terry. Annie was there now, waiting, and Cliff Baxter was presumably out of town. But what if his calls did actually go through police headquarters? No matter how guarded he tried to be with Terry, or whoever answered, the call would be like a four-alarm bell ringing at police headquarters. All his instincts, as well as his tradecraft, said, "Do not use the phone."

He used the time to shave, shower, and change into casual clothes, all the while trying to put these bad omens into a happier context. The course of true love never did run smooth. "Tonight, Washington, dinner with the Adairs, Sunday, maybe the National Cathedral, Monday, Charlie's tour of Washington, then submit a written turndown of the job offer, get the passport, and fly to Rome no later than Wednesday." Sounded good. "Where's the damned battery? For want of a nail, the king sat in Dumferling Town." Something like that.

About forty minutes after he'd called, a pickup truck came into the driveway, and within ten minutes, he had a new battery. He started the Blazer while the serviceman was still there, and everything seemed to be all right.

Keith pulled out of the driveway, and within a few minutes was heading south on a straight country road toward Chatham County. It was one thirty-five P.M., and he'd be there in less than an hour.

A blue and white Spencer County sheriff's car fell in behind him. At this point, Keith couldn't care less. There was only the driver in the car, and Keith decided that if the sheriff pulled him over, the sheriff would find himself hog-tied in the trunk of his own car.

At the southern end of Spencer County, Keith got onto an eastbound highway, giving the impression he was heading to Columbus and points east, in case the man was wondering why Keith Landry was taking the rural road to Chatham County.

The sheriff's car kept following, but as they approached the Dawson County line to the east, the sheriff's car turned off. Keith continued on, out of his way, for another ten minutes, then turned south, then west again toward Chatham. He suspected that the Spencer sheriff had radioed to his Dawson counterpart to track the Blazer, but Keith didn't pick up any tails. The rural sheriff's departments were small, and the counties were big. Compared to the drives he used to make from the West German border across East Germany to Berlin, this was easy. But when you were avoiding the police, whether they were rural sheriffs in the American heartland or the Stasi on the prowl in East Germany, luck played a big part in the game.

Within fifteen minutes, he crossed the county line into Chatham. He didn't know exactly where he was, but it was easy to navigate the grid squares of roads, which ran almost true to the cardinal points of the compass.

Eventually, he found himself on County Road 6 and continued west, reading the road markers of the intersecting township roads numbered in descending order until he got to T-3, the road where Terry lived, where Annie was waiting. He didn't know if he should turn left or right but flipped a coin in his mind and turned left. He drove slowly, looking for the red brick Victorian house, which he saw up ahead on the right. Truly, he thought, some sixth sense had gotten him here without a wrong turn, and he remembered with a smile what Charlie had said about following his reproductive organ, though Keith believed he was following his heart, which was beating rapidly now.

He slowed down and turned into the gravel drive. The first thing he noticed was that there was only one vehicle in the driveway, and it was a pickup truck. The next thing that disturbed him was that the side door of the house opened, and the woman who came out to meet him, though she looked like Annie, was not Annie.