and published every Thursday.
Back in the car, Haynes turned the page until he came to the obituaries. “He made it.”
“Who?”
“Steady,” Haynes said and began reading aloud. “ ‘Steadfast Haynes, 57, of Route 1, Berryville, died Monday in Washington, D.C., where he was to have attended the inauguration.’
“Paragraph. ‘Born in Philadelphia, Haynes served in the Korean conflict, later attending the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He subsequently joined the U.S. State Department, serving in Africa, Central America, the Middle East and Asia. Mr. Haynes had lived in the Berryville area for the past several years.’
“Last paragraph. ‘He is survived by his son Granville Haynes of Los Angeles, California. Interment was scheduled for Arlington National Cemetery.’ ”
As Haynes refolded the paper and placed it on the rear seat, Erika McCorkle pulled out into the traffic and said, “I didn’t know he was Phi Beta Kappa.”
“He wasn’t. Turn left at the next light, go one mile, turn right and go another mile.”
She glanced at the odometer, turned left on green and said, “But he did serve in all those places.”
“I’m not sure ‘serve’ is the operative word, but he was there, although not for the State Department.”
“The CIA, right?”
When Haynes only shrugged, she said, “That’s what I figured,” and, one mile later, turned the Cutlass onto a narrow county blacktop that ran straight as a knife past small farms of not much more than thirty or forty acres. Some of the farms boasted orchards. Others seemed to grow mostly alfalfa, now baled into fat rolls that would feed the dozens of horses who, standing behind barbed wire or split-rail fences, marked the car’s passing with indifferent stares.
Exactly one mile from where they had turned off was a crooked, left-leaning oak post that supported a small box on whose side someone had painted “S. Haynes” in neat black letters. The mailbox was at the foot of a long drive that could have used another load or two of gravel.
The drive swept up a gentle slope to a six- or seven-room two-story house. Painted white, although not recently, the house was shielded by a stand or grove of winter-bare trees at least forty or fifty feet tall. To the left of the house was a large pasture of ten or fifteen acres. Behind the house was a sturdy-looking brown barn built of wood. A white board fence, in need of both paint and repair, marked the property lines.
Dead grass and weeds decorated the center of the long drive that ended in front of the house, where a big blue Ford pickup was hitched to a horse trailer.
“Whose truck and trailer?” Erika McCorkle asked.
“I don’t know,” Haynes said.
She drove slowly up the drive, which was at least seventy-five yards long, and parked behind the empty horse trailer. They got out and went up seven steps to a covered porch. As Haynes took from his pocket the front door key Howard Mott had given him, he noticed a large thermometer. Its reading was thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit.
Out of habit, Haynes tried the door before using the key. It was unlocked. He looked at Erika McCorkle, who shrugged. Haynes opened the door and they went in to find themselves in an entry hall. To the right was the living room. To the left, an old mirrored hatrack, possibly an antique. From it hung a duffle coat. Just ahead were stairs that led to the second floor.
Haynes called, “Anyone home?”
He was answered by a thumping sound that seemed to come from a closet built beneath the staircase. When they reached the closet door, Haynes tried the knob and found it locked. He knocked on the door and was again answered by the thumping noise.
“Pick the lock,” Erika McCorkle said.
“With what?”
“A credit card.”
He ignored her and inspected the door, which seemed to be a thick, solid one that had been hung by a craftsman who had left the usual three-quarters-of-an-inch clearance at the bottom.
He looked at Erika McCorkle and said, “Ever change a tire on that car of yours?”
“Sure.”
“You know the thing that takes the nuts off the wheel?”
“The lug wrench.”
“I could use it.”
She was back with the lug wrench in less than two minutes. Haynes was relieved to see that one end of it formed a jimmy, useful for prying off hubcaps. He used the lug wrench to knock the pin out of the door’s top hinge, then repeated the process on the lower one. After slipping the fingers of both hands beneath the bottom of the door, he gave it a tug and it came off its hinges.
A woman lay on her back in the closet among the rubber boots, old shoes and two pairs of ancient galoshes. She wore a blue knitted watch cap. Across her mouth was a two-inch-wide strip of industrial duct tape. She also wore an old zipped-up leather flight jacket and a pair of straight-leg blue jeans that were stuffed into expensive riding boots. The boots were taped together at the ankles. Her obviously bound hands were beneath her.
“Take the tape off her mouth while I go find something to cut her loose,” Haynes said.
Erika McCorkle nodded and knelt beside the woman. Haynes turned and entered the living room that contained mismatched pieces of sixty-to-seventy-year-old furniture, much of it gathered around the fireplace. A pair of open sliding doors could divide the living room from the dining room, which had been converted into an office furnished
