“You think he put Clancy up to spying on the Chief?” She nodded, inhaling a drag.
“I’d put money on it.” I agreed with her, but still wondering how he was getting him out.
“Can you believe it? Harry Lightman, 3 different personalities. I wonder if that’s the reason there has been two distinct differences between the killings. You know, the angry one and the controlled one.”
“All I know is that Lightman is the killer and Levinson has been feeding him. We have to get back to town and tell the Chief,” Steph said, stubbing her cigarette out on the log then getting back to her feet. I did the same and we resumed our walk, the sky now growing brighter as the first hints of orange began seeping around the edges of the dark purple night sky. Dawn would be less than an hour away and that meant it was close to 7 in the morning.
8.
By the time we reached the edge of the car park, the sun was beginning to break, the first rays striking the trees above our heads. I was walking towards the lonely vehicle sitting at the far end, but saw Steph making a beeline for the small office we had sat in when talking with the mill owner.
“Steph?” I called out to her.
“Gonna try the phone,” she called back over her shoulder. When we reached the door and tried the knob, it surprised us both to find it swing open. We walked in and found the phone on the desk beside the door. Steph picked up the receiver, listened, then pushed the cradle buttons a couple of times. She listened a second longer then returned the receiver back to its cradle.
“It’s dead,” she said. She walked into the far office, tried the phone in there and found it to be as useless as the one in here. As we walked out of the office, I saw a tree that had fallen behind the building, a tangle of cables caught within its branches.
“There’s our problem,” I said, pointing at the tree.
We walked back to her car and got in. Steph inserted the key, turned it and groaned when the car remained silent. She tried again, then again. She was about to try it a fourth time when I noticed our problem. In our haste to go and find Clancy, neither one of us had noticed that the headlights were still burning and during the night, had completely drained the battery. Steph punched her fist against the steering wheel, screaming.
“Of all the stupid things to do,” she said when she got herself back under control. We climbed back out, pondering our options. As we were standing there, I heard an approaching car driving along the main road. The car park was mostly hidden from the road by a thick line of trees but the entrance was clear. Without needing me to point it out, Steph began to run towards the entrance, already waving her arms about. The man never turned towards us, his eyes remaining firmly fixed on the road in front. I could see his hat pulled down tight over his ears, both hands on the wheel. As the noise of his engine began to dwindle, Steph launched into a new tirade. I walked towards her, then gave her a squeeze as I walked past, heading for the road. With luck, another car would pass by shortly. But that morning, luck was definitely not on our side.
9.
It was almost an hour and a half before another vehicle came slowly ambling up the road behind us. Behind the wheel of the truck sat the oldest man I had ever seen. We had to shout into his face for him to recognize our words. He looked foreign and his words were as alien to us as ours were to him, some foreign tongue neither I nor Steph understood. But he was happy for us to climb into his cabin, his final destination unknown to us. He was however, wearing a wristwatch and when we motioned the universal hand signal for the time to him, he turned his wrist toward Steph.
“8.52,” she muttered. “How can there be no traffic at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning?” Her question was answered around the following bend, as first the rear end of one car, then another and then another began to show. All up, there was a line of maybe a dozen cars. There was a large gum tree that had been brought down through the night and we could see as many cars on the other side of it, some of which were workers from the mill. Most of the cars were small European ones. They wouldn’t have the power to budge the tree, but if we could somehow find a strong enough rope or cable, we had the vehicle that could do the job.
Turns out our driver knew exactly what we were thinking. He never slowed down, driving past the line of cars, then turning the truck in an arc and finally reversing it so that it was parked in front of the tree’s lower branches. Another driver approached the truck and as we climbed out, began to shake hands with our driver. We found out his name was Jacob and he was an Italian immigrant. The man followed Jacob to the back of the truck and removed a large chain.
10.
What we didn’t know, and what I can tell you thanks to writing this in the future, is that Richard Lovett was living up to his reputation and was about to make the “fuck-up” of his career. A monumental mistake that would cost more lives. The Chief had called him a “pit-bull” and true to his name, wasn’t letting go. For the previous 5 days, Lovett had been busy on the phone, waving his flag about and spreading the word that a free man had been locked
