Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

The enormous number of cars parked along the roads gave the night an eerie feeling, as if scores of people had deserted the area in a mass exodus. Boldt took a dirt road shortcut, saving himself five minutes and coming up to his suspect stretch of road from the backside. As he approached the paved intersection, another dark field of headless flowers enveloped the landscape to his left, several feet of which had not been harvested. He slowed and rolled down his window. Drooping dead daffodils, their heads slumped toward the pungent earth in silent prayer, kept vigil by the side of the road. It told Boldt that the entire forty-acre parcel had, quite recently, been a sea of daffodils in bloom. Yellow daffodils, he thought. Yellow, with yellow pollen. Knee height.

In the distance, a cluster of small sheds and the western slant of a metal farmhouse roof glowed a wet pale gray in the moonlight. The dead field rose slowly toward the outbuildings, and Boldt recognized immediately that the rise would elevate the farmhouse above the paved road.

Boldt steered the Town Car through a left turn and drove at a decent speed to avoid arousing suspicion. A large sycamore standing surprisingly close to the upcoming farmhouse spread its branches luxuriously over and down the small knoll toward the paved roadbed. Still a hundred yards off, Boldt knew intuitively that a large window would exist immediately behind that tree, that the living room walls inside would be painted a cream yellow. He knew the positioning of the furniture inside and the name of the man who had locked and now guarded its door, and that this same man ached to see a brown Taurus pull into the driveway and a woman climb from behind the wheel. He was to be disappointed that night, this man who stood sentry. The Taurus was never to come.

Boldt drove past, the dash lights dimmed, his eyes fixed on the road, not allowed to wander or stray toward the farmhouse to his left. He had seen all there was to see from the outside.

He needed inside now, and he needed Lisa Crowley in one piece.

Boldt ran through the moonswept field toward the distant barn, the cut stems of the headless flowers slapping at his pants legs, his shoes engorged with wet, sticky mud so that his legs weighed ten times their normal. The faster he tried to run, the heavier the mud, the slower he moved. He stopped and scraped the rich-smelling earth from his shoes, soiling his hands in the process.

As he came upon the barn, he listened into the stillness for her voice, hoping for any such sound at all. Greeted only by the silence, he sank into a pit of despair, confident that the only card they held was the life of Lisa Crowley, that her husband would cut any bargain to save his accomplice from torture and death. Flemming had jumped the gun.

Boldt checked the three doors he could find and finally knocked on the huge barn’s wood door, gray from decades of weather. Flemming must have had a peephole, for he removed the wooden bar and opened the door without a word spoken. Boldt stepped inside and stopped cold.

A pale flashlight beam stretched from a tractor’s tire across the barn’s aisle to a large square post that helped support the hayloft above. Lisa Crowley’s bare back and naked buttocks caught the light looking like a side of beef hung in a freezer. Her clothes were strewn in the dust and dirt of the aisle. Flemming had looped the cuffs over a rusty spike pounded into the cedar post well above head height, stretching her so that her toes just barely touched the dirt floor. Her head sideways, Boldt could see the left side of her face, smashed and swollen from the car accident. He walked toward her slowly. Flemming had removed the tape from her mouth and had stuffed her underwear there so she could make noise if she so chose, and he could evaluate her information by simply removing the underwear, restuffing her, if he went unsatisfied. The bright red blotches from the stun stick glowed violently red near her breasts and across her buttocks and the backs of her thighs. A dozen or more.

“Dress her,” Boldt said, disgusted with the man.

“We’re just getting warmed up.”

“I’ll do it then,” Boldt said, approaching her. “I found the house. It was exactly as I said. The driver took his lunch hour in La Conner. He drove past the farmhouse shortly after noon, on no particular route, unlisted on the manifest.”

Removing the woman’s underwear from her mouth, he told her, “I’m going to help you get dressed. I’m going to lift you now.” He stepped behind her and reached his hands up under her sweating armpits.

“Leave her.” Flemming had hold of the shotgun in his right hand, its barrel hanging toward the dirt floor, but its presence very much felt by all. His eyes revealed a man void of thought or reason. Revenge had sunk its teeth into him, and he had tasted its blood. He wanted more.

“I found the farmhouse,” Boldt repeated.

“Then we don’t need her,” Flemming said. “Step away.”

Her damp back pressed to his face, Boldt still supported her. “I’m taking her down,” he said.

Flemming engaged the shotgun in a sound all too familiar to the cop he faced.

Boldt gave another heave and Crowley’s bound hands came free of the spike. She crossed her arms in front of her bare chest in modesty, her breasts riddled with stun gun burns, and sagged to the dirt, cowering under the threat of the shotgun. Boldt pushed the underwear into her hands, crouched close to her, placing himself between her and Flemming and said gently, “Dress yourself. Hurry.”

She struggled with the underwear. Boldt snagged the purple dress. Flemming had torn the arms out to get it off her. Boldt helped her into it, the black hole at the end of the shotgun barrel boring down on him, and tied a ripped length of fabric behind her neck to cover her chest.

He turned to Flemming and said, “We’re going. The three of us. We’re going to get our daughters.”

“No.”

“She’s our bargaining chip. If you’re going to kill her, at least wait until we’ve used her to get our girls back. Don’t throw them away for the sake of some score that can never be settled.” Boldt wondered how Daphne would have handled the situation. She understood the Flemmings of this world, he thought. And then Boldt realized that with Flemming being a cop, he understood him as well. Knowing the answer, Boldt asked, “How many years do you have?”

Flemming looked confused.

“With the Bureau. How long?”

The man’s expression sobered.

“How many agents, black or white, look up to you? Model themselves after you?”

“Save it and the violins. Let her go, and step away.”

“You discharge that weapon and we’ll never make it to that farmhouse. A community like this? Forget it. Sheriff’ll be all over us before we make it to the car.” This appeared to register on the man’s face. Boldt held Crowley ever closer. Indicating the variety of weaponry that Flemming had laid out on a hay bale, Boldt said, “Collect that stuff. We may need it.” Crowley leaned her weight into him, weak, her stretched and cramping legs unable to support her. Boldt turned his back to Flemming and walked her out of the barn.

Boldt cut through the field of headless daffodils, bent at the waist, staying as low as possible, hoping to avoid the glare of the moonlight. The investigator in him knew that he was, in some form or another, retracing footsteps taken by Andy Anderson some weeks before. Mindful of Anderson’s fate, Boldt paused randomly and sank down into a crouch, like a swimmer ducking into a wave. His decision to leave Crowley alone in the car with Flemming had come with great difficulty, but better that, he had decided, than leave it to Flemming to approach the farmhouse. Gun happy, and crazed with the thirst of revenge, Flemming felt more like a time bomb than an ally. Boldt hurried-the fuse to that time bomb was lit and burning.