John Miller - The Last Family

“My God,” Thorne said. “Takes your breath.”

“Do make a man feel small,” Joe said.

They turned the corner, and as well as they knew Paul Masterson, they would not have recognized the man who stood on the porch in faded jeans, his right eye covered by a patch of black glove leather. The military buzz cut Masterson had always worn had grown into a flowing mane that cascaded helter-skelter over his shoulders. The unkempt beard was long and shot through with white hairs. The only thing that was familiar to the agents was the left, undamaged side of his face. The horseshoe-shaped scar that touched the edge of the eye patch looked like a piece of twine that had been stitched under the skin. Despite the surgeons’ best efforts, the skull was indented on the side where the round had shattered the bone. His left arm hung at a strange angle, the hand trembling like a grounded fish.

“Hi, boys,” Paul said. “You want to come in?”

“Paul. You’ve changed a little,” Thorne said.

“You look like a mountain man,” Joe said. Grizzly Adams scrambling out from under a derailed train.

“Don’t get many visitors up here,” Paul said.

The men shook hands.

Thorne said, “Wondering why?”

“First time I had a twelve-gauge tucked under my chin in years. Then we had to walk through the haunted forest unarmed. That old coot’s some guard dog,” Joe said.

“My uncle Aaron. I got some coffee on. Might as well warm up for the trip back out. And hope Aaron hasn’t got an offer on your pistol. Said you were carrying a forty-five. That impressed him.”

The cabin was larger than it looked from the outside, but the door was barely tall enough to allow Joe to pass without having his scalp nicked. It was built of square logs and hand-hewn beams with large windows in the kitchen and the den that framed the breathtaking view. The furniture was covered with Indian-style wool blankets. The walls presented dozens of Indian artifacts and antique weapons from the 1800s: bowie knives, skinning knives, a few Henry and Winchester rifles, twin Colt Peacemakers. There was a bow and a quiver of arrows with feathers that looked ready to disintegrate. The bedrooms were in a loft over the kitchen and the bathroom. The den’s ceiling was vaulted, and one wall was covered by a bookcase, filled to bursting.

There were three coffee cups on the kitchen table, which Paul began to fill with black coffee from a fire-blackened coffeepot that looked as if it belonged on a Great Plains campfire.

“How’d you know we were coming?”

“Radio.”

“How do you pass the time?” Thorne asked, sitting at the table.

“Read. I write a few articles on bear behavior, elk hunting, and fly fishing.”

“I didn’t know you were a hunter,” Thorne said.

“I’m not a trout fisherman either. But I get exposed to a lot of sportsmen, and they talk a lot. I listen and write a lot down.” Paul treated them to a ruined smile. The muscles moved slowly, testifying that it was a foreign maneuver. “Novel in progress… for three years.”

“About the agency?” Thorne smiled.

“No, about a boy growing up in the mountains of Montana. Ought to try it sometime. Great for the soul. I write awhile and tear it up and write it again.”

For a few minutes they made small conversation. Then Paul asked Joe McLean about his family.

“Dead,” he replied. “All three.”

“Jesus, Joe. I didn’t know.”

“My wife, Jessie, died of a heart attack almost four years back… Least I thought heart attack then. My son Robert died the following spring wiring a two-twenty line. A month later my daughter Julie bled to death in her kitchen. Looked like she cut her ankle open with a jar she’d dropped. Looked to be a freak accident. Just sat there and died. It didn’t make sense. Robert was a master electrician and Julie was a psychiatric nurse, trained for emergencies. I never believed they were accidents, but try and convince the cops of that unless there’s a trail a four-year-old could follow. The FBI boys looked real hard but found nothing.”

“Christ,” Paul said, shaking his head slowly.

“Thorne’s, too,” Joe said.

“What?” Paul looked at Thorne Greer.

“Ellen and my boy Scott were killed when their car went into a canal in Deerfield Beach two years back. Drowned. Someone spotted a tire protruding from the canal next day,” Thorne said.

Paul stared at the two men in turn. The color was a few seconds returning to his face. “God, I don’t know what to say. It’s terrible.”

“Gets worse,” Joe said. “Last week.”

Thorne said, “Doris, George, and Eleanor Lee. Eleanor burned up four months ago. Other day George went off a cliff, and Doris was overdosed. Same day, same guy. Disguised professionally.”

Paul felt a hot flash sweep over him. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How could”-he counted the passing faces in his head-“eight people die like that? Eight out of the one group. The odds of that happening are insane. Didn’t anybody notice?”

“The agency should have caught it sooner, but we’re all spread out since the Miami days, Paul. Thorne retired to Los Angeles doing bodyguard work. I’m with Justice as a field investigator,” Joe said. “The deaths all took place over a period of time scattered across the country. We honestly thought the first couple were accidents. Couldn’t prove anything at all until the killer showed his hand with Rainey. Then we knew… because he wanted us to know.”

“He wanted you to know?” Paul repeated. “Some nutcase murdered eight innocent people and bragged about it? Why?”

“To punish us, obviously,” Thorne said. “He hates us that much.”

“We came all this way because we need you to help us get this guy, Paul,” Joe said as he stood up and washed his cup in the sink using an ancient handle pump.

“You need to get the FBI involved. Come on, guys. This calls for a major effort by the authorities. If you have the proof…”

“We’re dealing with different jurisdictions… be a red-tape nightmare,” Thorne said. “No federal crimes involved unless we can prove state lines were crossed. By the time we get the deaths reclassified, if we can, and get the proper authorities working to solve this, it’ll be too late. He knows that. In ten years we’ll be on that Unsolved Mysteries program asking for people who might have seen someone driving away from the scene.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“We want to get this animal and we need your help.”

“Want me to call someone and-”

“Physically, Paul,” Thorne said. “We need you to be involved.”

“Me? Jesus, guys.” He laughed nervously as he shifted his head from one to the other slowly. “Look at me. I got one eye, I have epileptic seizures sometimes, and if I walk without my cane for long, I fall over and flail like a belly-up turtle. Half of my body is stainless steel or plastic, my left hand shakes like a Mixmaster, and I’m carrying an extra thirty pounds of flab from sitting here and watching that creek wear the rocks down. Plus there’s things I can’t remember at all, and I can’t smell gun oil without breaking out in a cold sweat. There isn’t a weapon in here that’s been fired in my lifetime.”

“It has to be you, Paul. No one else has got the thunder it would take. Senators and congressmen know you. If it hadn’t been for the shooting, you’d be the DEA or FBI director by now, and they all know it.”

Paul walked to the door, his shoulders rolling from side to side as he went. “I can make some calls. Think it’s someone we hurt in Miami?”

“It’s Fletcher,” Joe McLean said.

“Martin Fletcher?” It was as if Paul had been kicked in the chest. He all but staggered back against the doorjamb. His lip quivered and he blinked rapidly. “God, I had hoped he was dead.”