Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(88)

She said, “Just after 19 crosses over the headwaters, you’ll see an old logging road going off to the right. It starts off parallel to Black Run, but then it heads south again. It ends in a clearing maybe a hundred or so yards from Schofield Run. Kids have parties there, so you’ll see lots of litter and old campfires and such.”

“You’re doing fine. Just keep going.” As he talked he crossed toward the back door. His car was gone but he knew that Inman had not arrived at his house by taxi. Bonnie’s car, maybe with an unsuspecting Bonnie still waiting patiently inside, was parked somewhere nearby, probably within a couple blocks of DeMarco’s garage.

Rosemary O’Patchen told him, “You can’t see Schofield Run from the clearing but if you stand very quietly you can hear it. Just make your way to it as best you can. There’s no path to speak of but it’s mostly red pines, so the brush isn’t heavy. Then just follow the run downstream to where it feeds into Lake Wilhelm, a couple tenths of a mile maybe. Then you have to cross over the run—it’s only a few feet wide and a foot or so deep—and pick your way along the lakeshore another fifty yards or so. That’s where the campsite is.”

DeMarco was standing behind his barn now, squinting through the darkness as he surveyed Lawson Street in one direction and then the other. He told Rosemary, “That sounds like a difficult place to get to,” and thought, Especially frog-marching Inman and carrying two cement blocks.

“That’s why Thomas liked it so much. He wouldn’t allow so much as an MP3 player along on those campouts. He took one cell phone just for emergencies, but otherwise it was family only. No outside world allowed.”

“And there’s no easier way to get to it?” A dark shape that was either a vehicle or a couple of garbage bins was visible a block and a half to his right. DeMarco started toward it.

“None,” she said. “But if he’s hiding somewhere near the lake, that will be the place.”

“Thank you,” he told her. “I’m sorry to have wakened you like this.”

“You won’t hurt him, will you?” she said.

“Never.”

“Please promise me that you won’t let him be hurt.”

“I swear to God,” he said. Then, “He didn’t do it, Rosemary. You can tell your husband that for me. Thomas would never harm his family in any way. I know that now.”

“Oh God,” she said and started to sob. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

And now he recognized the distinctive shape of the Mustang’s backend, the taillights and spoiler. Bonnie’s car. “I’m sorry, Rosemary, I have to go now,” he said. And he shut off his phone.





Sixty-One


DeMarco held the handgun against his leg as he approached the Mustang. There were no streetlamps along Lawson and all the houses were still dark. He doubted that Bonnie would draw a gun on him, but on the other hand, he would not have believed she would participate in a multiple homicide. He told himself that love makes fools of us all and moved quickly from one front lawn to the next, staying far enough to the right that he could not be seen in the Mustang’s side mirror.

Only when he was nearly parallel to the car could he distinguish a silhouette in the passenger seat. Bonnie was sitting with her head laid back against the headrest. Awfully relaxed for a murderer, he thought. Maybe she doesn’t know what her boyfriend was up to.

He raised his weapon to a ready position and moved forward. She did not turn his way. He moved closer and looked at her through the passenger window. Still she did not move. She’s sleeping, he told himself. He tapped the barrel against the glass. No response. He tapped again, harder. No movement from within.

With his weapon aimed at her now, DeMarco put his free hand on the door handle, then swung the door open. The dome light had been turned off, and in the predawn darkness she remained no more visible than a shadow, but he was able to see that she did not move in any way. He leaned forward and put a finger to her cheek. Her skin was not cold, but it was cool enough that he felt something catch in his chest. “Oh fuck,” he said.

He slid his hand down the jawline to her carotid artery. Instead of a pulse, he felt the sticky smear of blood that had flowed over her blouse, and immediately the coppery scent reached him too.

He leaned away from her, softly closed the door, stood there breathing deeply. “What a fucking mess,” he told the last dim stars overhead. He hunkered down low to rub his fingers clean in the wet grass.

He knew he should not proceed on his own now, knew that if he did he could end up manning a radar gun the rest of his career, or putting in long hours doing traffic control at a construction site, sitting on his hemorrhoids and trying to stay awake. But he also thought he knew what Huston had planned. The cement blocks were probably to slow Inman down should he attempt to run. In all likelihood, Huston intended to take Inman’s life exactly as that psychopath had taken away Huston’s family. And then to use DeMarco’s revolver on himself.

What Huston did not know was that the first three shells in the .22’s cylinder were filled with birdshot. What would a load of birdshot do to the inside of a man’s head? DeMarco didn’t want to think about it.

He hurried around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Inman had not locked the car because he’d had no intention of returning to it. The keys were in the ignition. The smell of blood was thick, its scent of rusty metal. DeMarco turned on the dome light and looked at Bonnie. The front of her white blouse was soaked with drying blood. The blood had run over the top of her jeans and soaked her to the thighs. Her hands were bloody and there were bloody handprints on the dashboard.