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.”
It all came to the surface in a flash of pain. Martin Fletcher was the man who had had him shot. Fletcher had escaped from federal custody and vanished even as Paul had fought for his life in a Miami hospital’s trauma unit. He had masterminded the hit on Paul’s team from his prison cell and then had escaped the same day, before anyone could put it together.
“Far as I can find out, nobody’s ever come close to catching him,” Joe said.
Thorne sighed. “The family killings started four years back. That gave him a good two years from his prison break to plan it.”
“I don’t remember all of it. It’s kind of fuzzy. I remember he escaped. If he was retaken, I never heard about it.”
“Remember when he said he’d eat our hearts out?”
“Sort of. Yes. I know he was berserk last time I saw him. At the trial.”
“What is this if not a way to eat our hearts out?”
“I remember sitting on the stand and his eyes as I testified. And the outburst when he was sentenced.”
“He set us up, remember?” Thorne turned and looked out at the stream. “You know what he did to you… tried to kill all of us.”
“I know what he did to me.” Every time I look in a mirror or try to use my left hand or gauge depth.
“It’s retaliation, Paul,” Joe said, breaking in. “The ultimate twisting of the blade. Better than blowing our brains out.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Paul said. “Some people still owe me, I guess. Maybe I can do something.”
“I’d trade my life for two minutes alone with him,” Thorne Greer said. “Look what he did to you, for Christ’s sake. How long has it been since you left this goddamned cabin? Look around. You’re stuck in a calendar shot. The closest town is a cluster of log huts. He’s already fuckin’ killed you, you just ain’t noticed yet.”
Paul looked out the window. “Five years since I came back here. Month since I even went to Aaron’s store. I’m no good outside here. I just can’t… you got to understand…”
“Goddamn it,” Joe exploded. “You owe us. He fuckin’ did it because of what you did. You nailed his ass to the cross. You set him against us.”
“Come on, Joe. Fletcher’s nuts,” Thorne said.
“What?” Paul stammered. “I just arrested him.”
“Nobody bothered to tell Martin it was merely an arrest and that you didn’t mean anything by it,” Thorne said.
“Martin left a note on Doris’s body. Wanted you to know it was him. Said he’d leave you alone if you’d leave him be.” Joe realized Paul was confused and frightened. But they had to have Paul to get Fletcher. Paul was once
