Reichs, Kathy: Fatal Voyage

I didn't move. I didn't blink. I tried to reason.

Don't thrash into the trees. Don't turn your back on him. Maybe as he moves you can slip past him, run back toward the inn, scream for help.

Dead calm, broken only by his panting. Seconds passed. Or maybe it was hours. I felt dizzy from the blow to my head, couldn't track time or space or distance.

Where was he?

A voice from near the ground. “I have found the gun, Miss Brennan.”

A single shot exploded in the stillness.

“But we both know I don't need it now that that cur of yours is out of the way.”

His voice came to me as though under water.

“I'm going to make you pay for this. Really pay.”

I heard him rise.

“I have a necklace I want to show you.”

I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head. He was coming at me with the garrote.

Out of the corner of my eye, a glimmer. I turned. Three slivers of light were bobbing toward me. Or was I hallucinating?

“Freeze!” A gravelly female voice.

“Drop it!” Male.

“Stop!” A different male voice.

A muzzle flashed in the darkness in front of me. Two shots rang out.

Return fire from the direction of the voices. The ping of a bullet ricocheting off rock.

A thud, an expulsion of air. The sound of a body sliding down the rock wall.

Running feet.

Hands on my throat, my wrist.

“—pulse is strong.”

Faces above me, swimming like a mirage on a summer sidewalk. Ryan. Crowe. Deputy Nameless.

“—ambulance. It's O.K. We didn't hit her.”

Static.

I struggled to sit.

“Lie back.” Gentle pressure on my shoulders.

“I have to see him.”

One circle of light slid to the cliff where my assailant sat motionless, legs stretched in front, back against rock. Slowly, the light illuminated feet, legs, torso, face. I knew who he was.

Ralph Stover, the not-so-happy owner of the Riverbank Inn, the man who would not let me into Primrose's room. He stared sightlessly into the night, chin forward, brain slowly oozing onto a stain on the rock behind his head.

I LEFT CHARLOTTE AT DAWN ON FRIDAY AND DROVE WEST THROUGH heavy fog. The shifting vapors lightened as I climbed toward the Eastern Continental Divide, vanished outside Asheville.

Leaving Highway 74 at Bryson City, I drove up Veterans' Boulevard, past the cutoff to the Fryemont Inn, turned right on Main, and parked opposite the old courthouse, now a senior citizens' center. I sat a moment watching sunlight glisten on its little gold dome, and thought of those seniors whose bones I'd unearthed.

I pictured a tall, gangly man, blind and nearly deaf; a fragile old woman with a crooked face. I imagined them on these same streets all those years ago. I wanted to put my arms around them, to tell each of them that things were being put right.

And I thought about those who had perished on Air TransSouth 228. So many stories had only begun. Graduations not attended. Birthdays not celebrated. Voyages not taken. Lives obliterated because of one fatal voyage.

I took my time walking to the fire station. I'd spent a month in Bryson City, had come to know it well. I was leaving now, my work completed, but a few questions remained.

When I arrived McMahon was packing the contents of his cubicle into cardboard boxes.

“Breaking camp?” I asked from the doorway.

“Hey, girl, you're back in town.” He cleared a chair, gestured me into it. “How are you feeling?”

“Bruised and scraped but fully functional.”

Amazingly, I'd sustained no serious injury during my romp in the woods with Ralph Stover. A slight concussion had sent me to the hospital for a couple of days, then Ryan had driven me to Charlotte. Assured I was fine, he'd flown back to Montreal, and I'd spent the rest of the week on the couch with Birdie.

“Coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“Mind if I keep working?”

“Please.”

“Has someone regaled you with the whole strange tale?”

“There are still gaps. Take it from the top.”

“H&F was some kind of hybrid between Mensa and the Billionaire Boys Club. It didn't start out that way, was originally just a bunch of businessmen, doctors, and professors coming to the mountains to hunt and fish.”

“Back in the thirties.”

“Right. They'd camp on Edward Arthur's land, hunt during the day, drink and party all night. Applaud themselves on their extraordinary intelligence. The group got to be very close over the years, eventually formed a secret society which they called H&F.”

“The founding father being Prentice Dashwood.”

“Dashwood was the first prior, whatever the hell that means.”

“H&F stands for Hell Fire,” I said. “Hell Fire Clubs flourished in eighteenth-century England and Ireland, the most famous being the brainchild of Sir Francis Dashwood. Prentice Dashwood of Albany, New York, was a descendant of Sir Francis. Mama was an unnamed Hell Fire lady.” I'd done a lot of reading during my time on the couch. “Sir Francis had four sons named Francis.”

“Sounds like George Foreman.”

“The man was proud of his name.”

“Or the least creative progenitor in history.”

“Anyway, the original Hell Fires had a healthy skepticism for religion and loved lampooning the church. They referred to themselves as the Knights of Saint Francis, to their parties as ‘devotions,’ to their steward as ‘prior.’”

“Who were these assholes?”

“The rich and powerful of Merry Old England. Ever hear of the Bohemian Club?”

McMahon shook his head.

“It's a highly select, all-male club whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge. They gather for two weeks every year at a secluded campground in Sonoma County, California, called the Bohemian Grove.”

McMahon paused, a folder in each hand.

“That does ring a bell. The few journalists that have gotten in over the years have been thrown out and their stories killed.”

“Yep.”

“You're not suggesting our political and industrial bigwigs plot murder at these rendezvous?”

“Of course not. But the concept is similar: powerful men camping in seclusion. Bohemian Club members are even reported to use mock-druidic rituals.”

McMahon taped a carton, slid it across the floor, and placed another on his desk.

“We've netted all but one of the H&F members, and we're accumulating the story bit by bit, but it's slow. Needless to say, no one's enthused about talking to us, and everyone is lawyered to the gills. Each of the six officers will be charged with multiple counts of homicide, but it's unclear what the culpability is for the rest of the pack. Midkiff claims only the leaders participated in murder and cannibalism.”

“Has Midkiff been given immunity?” I asked.

He nodded. “Most of our info is coming from him.”

“He sent the code name fax?”

“Yes. He'd reconstructed what he remembered. Midkiff left the group in the early seventies, claims he was never involved in any killing. Didn't know about Stover. He says he reached a point last week where he couldn't live with himself anymore.”

McMahon began transferring papers from a file cabinet to the box.

“And he was afraid for you.”

“Me?”

“You, darlin'.”

I took a moment to absorb that.

“Where is he now?”

“The judge didn't think he was a flight risk or in personal danger, so he's out. He's still living in a rental cabin in Cherokee.”

“Why did Parker Davenport call Midkiff before shooting himself?”