Gray Ghost (8 page)

“We could do that.”

“I’m serious,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“Good.” She stood up, reached down, and picked up her bag.

“You actually carry a black bag,” said Calhoun.

“I do, yes.”

“I didn’t know doctors had black bags anymore.”

“Doctors don’t generally make house calls anymore,” she said. “You don’t need to lug your instruments around if you only see patients in your office.”

“You make house calls?”

She smiled. “Only when there are dead bodies. The bag was my dad’s. He was a country doctor up in Presque Isle. Drove all around in his Oldsmobile, visiting sick people who were too poor to come to him. He retired a few years ago, gave me his bag. I got his stethoscope in here. Also the mallet he used for testing your reflexes.”

Calhoun looked past her and saw two of the men coming toward them. One of them was the state detective named Gilsum.

Dr. Surry glanced back, then said to Calhoun, “I’ll be in touch. About fishing.” She reached over and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Well,” she said in a loud voice meant to be heard by the two approaching men, “I’m about done here for now. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Calhoun. Don’t let these sons of bitches give you a hard time.”

“I’m not all that worried,” he said.

She held out her hand. “I hope your dog comes back.”

Calhoun took her hand. “Thanks. Me, too.”

He watched Dr. Sam Surry intercept the two men who were approaching him. She spoke to them, cutting the air with the side of her hand, making some point, and the two guys shifted their weight back and forth, looking uncomfortable.

He could still feel the burning imprint of her fingers where she had given his shoulder a squeeze.

As Dr. Surry walked over to her vehicle, the two men turned and watched her. Then the bearded guy said something to the guy in the windbreaker, and they both smiled.

The two of them came over to where Calhoun was sitting on the rock and stood there looking down at him. The man wearing the blue windbreaker and chino pants said, “Mr. Calhoun, I’m Lieutenant Gilsum. I’m a homicide detective with the state police.”

Gilsum was a beefy guy with a round face and round glasses and a small, mean mouth. He looked more like a banker than a cop. “This,” he said, jerking his head toward the bearded man, “is Mr. Enfield. He’s the county DA.”

Neither man showed any inclination to shake hands, never mind use their first names, so Calhoun just sat there.

“We’ve got some questions for you,” said Gilsum. He sat on the boulder next to the one Calhoun was sitting on, the same one where Dr. Sam Surry had been sitting. Enfield remained standing.

Gilsum fished a notebook out of his pocket, flipped it open, and studied it for a minute. “There’s a .30-30 up there on the deck,” he said. “It’s yours?”

Calhoun nodded.

“Deer rifle?”

“Guess it could be, if I wanted to go deer hunting.”

“You don’t hunt?”

“Not deer. They’re all over the place around here. I could shoot ‘em from my deck. But if I started doing that, they’d stop coming around.”

“You like having them around.”

Calhoun shrugged.

“So what’s the rifle doing there on the table, then?” said Gilsum.

“That’s where I put it when I was done with it.”

“Done with it.”

“Turned out I didn’t need it,” said Calhoun.

Gilsum glanced at Enfield, then turned back to Calhoun. “Why’d you think you might need it?”

“When I came home from work and turned into my driveway tonight, I thought I might have company.”

“What made you think that?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

Calhoun was thinking that Gilsum was the kind of guy who’d been fat and unathletic as a kid, probably been bullied on the playground by the other third graders, and that’s why he decided to become a cop. “That’s right,” he said. “A feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?” said Gilsum.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I get feelings about things. Mostly they’re on target.”

“You mean you noticed something? Picked up on some kind of clue? Maybe you smelled burnt gunpowder or something?”

“Nope,” Calhoun said. “Just had a feeling.”

“Do you always greet visitors with a deer rifle?”

“If I’m in the house, I got a Remington twelve-gauge.”

“That’s not very hospitable.”

Calhoun shrugged. “So far I haven’t had to shoot anybody.”

Gilsum and Enfield exchanged glances. “Maybe,” said Gilsum, “you better just tell me what happened when you came home today.”

“Not much to tell. When I pulled into my driveway, I got a feeling, like I said. So I took out my rifle and snuck back here and found Mr. Vecchio dead in my chair.”

“Your rifle was in your truck?”

Calhoun nodded. “Behind the front seat.”

“You travel with a loaded deer rifle?”

“I keep the chamber empty. There’s some bullets in the maga-zine.

“That’s your truck,” Gilsum said, “parked in the bushes off your driveway?”

“I tried to pull way over. You were able to get by okay, weren’t you ?”

Gilsum smiled quickly. “I’m interested in this … feeling of yours, Mr. Calhoun. You sure you didn’t have some kind of information that led you to believe that somebody might be waiting for you, or that you might find a dead body at your house ?”

“I’m sure,” said Calhoun.

“You have feelings like this often?”

Calhoun nodded. “Now and then.”

“How would you describe them?”

“Describe my feelings?” He hesitated. “I don’t know. Feelings, that’s all. You start feeling jangly and tense, and you know something’s going on. You never had a feeling like that?”

Gilsum shrugged.

“You’ve got to pay attention to those feelings,” said Calhoun.

“So,” said Gilsum, “on the basis of this—this feeling—you took out your rifle, jacked a cartridge into the chamber, and sneaked up on your own house.”

“That’s right.”

“And what did you see?”

“Just Mr. Vecchio’s vehicle and him sitting there with bullet holes in him.”

“You saw nothing else. No other person or vehicle.”

“Nope. Just Mr. Vecchio and his vehicle.”

“Did you happen to pick up any spent cartridge cases?”

“I looked,” said Calhoun. “Didn’t see anything except Mr. Vecchio’s sunscreen, which I didn’t touch. I wouldn’t’ve picked up any cartridge cases.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

Calhoun narrowed his eyes at Gilsum. “You think I plugged Mr.Vecchio?”

“Why would you do that?”

Calhoun shook his head. “I wouldn’t. Didn’t.”

“Tell us about that argument you and he had.”

“Huh?” Calhoun frowned. “I didn’t have any argument with Mr. Vecchio. We got along pretty good.”

“At the dock the other morning,” said Gilsum. “You wouldn’t let him go on your boat out to Quarantine Island. He didn’t like that.”

“That was the sheriff, not me. He’s the one who said he couldn’t come with us.”

“That’s not exactly how we heard it, Mr. Calhoun.”

“You think he came here because we wouldn’t let him ride in the boat with us, and he made me so mad I shot him ?”

“That is a plausible scenario,” said Gilsum.

“No, it ain’t,” said Calhoun. “That’s plain stupid. Anyway, we didn’t have any argument. It wasn’t like that.”

Gilsum smiled quickly. “Did you go through his pockets?”

“Dr. Surry, she asked me that. I told her no.”

“Do you have any idea what he might’ve had in his pockets?”

Calhoun shrugged. “Wallet. Cell phone. Car keys. The usual stuff, I guess.”

“You know this how?”

“I don’t know it,” said Calhoun. “I know it’s what he had in his pockets the morning I took him fishing, that’s all.”

“How well did you know Paul Vecchio?” said Enfield, the DA. It was the first thing he’d said.

“I spent a couple hours with him in a boat,” said Calhoun. “That’s about it. He seemed like a nice guy.”

Enfield was stocky and strong-looking. He had a sharp nose and suspicious eyes. “Catch some fish, did you?” he said.

“It wasn’t bad.”

“Mr. Vecchio, was he a good angler?”

“He got better after a while.”

“You gave him some pointers, did you?”

“Only when he asked.”

“How did you happen to hook up with Mr. Vecchio?” said Enfield.

“He called the shop, talked to Kate, said he wanted to go fishing. It was my turn, so I took him.”

“He didn’t ask for you?”

“I don’t think so. But you should ask Kate. She’s the one who talked to him.”

Enfield nodded. “Did Mr. Vecchio mention anything about problems he might be having? Troubles with other people?”

Calhoun shook his head. “We just talked about fishing.”

“So,” said Enfield, “how did you happen to stop off at Quarantine Island that morning?”

“I already explained all that the other day. When we found that burned-up body out there.”

Enfield nodded. “Explain it again, please.”

Calhoun shrugged. “Mr. Vecchio had to take a leak, wanted to stretch his legs. We’d been into stripers pretty good. I guess he got kind of cramped up.”

“Yes,” said Enfield, “but why that particular island?”

“It was there, I guess.”

“There are several islands in that area.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “you’re right. As I recall, Mr. Vecchio pointed to that one, Quarantine, and asked about it. I told him the stories, and he said that’s the one he wanted to stop off at. He was a writer. I suppose he was interested in things like that.”

Enfield nodded as if he’d heard something significant. Then he turned to Gilsum. “I don’t have any more questions for him right now.”

Gilsum nodded. “Me, neither.” He stood up, then looked down at Calhoun. “We might need to talk to you again. You’re not planning to go anywhere?”

“Just to the shop. Probably have another guide trip or two coming up. I’ll be around.”

“I understand your dog ran away.”

“Ralph would never run away,” said Calhoun.

“I meant, he’s missing.”

Calhoun nodded.

“Well,” said Gilsum, “I hope nothing happened to him.”

“That’s what’s got me worried,” said Calhoun.

The two started to walk away. Then they stopped and Gilsum came back to where Calhoun was sitting. “We’re trying to keep a lid on this,” he said.

“This?” Calhoun waved his hand around indicating his property.

“What happened tonight.”

“Good,” said Calhoun.

“So don’t talk to any reporters,” said Gilsum.

“Don’t worry about me,” said Calhoun.

After a while, an emergency wagon pulled into the yard, and a couple of men went up onto the deck. A few minutes later, they came bumping back down the steps with a big plastic bag strapped on a gurney. Calhoun was pretty certain the bag contained Paul Vecchio’s body. The men rolled the gurney over to the wagon, collapsed it, slid it into the back, slammed the doors shut, and drove off.

Calhoun sat there on his boulder while the forensic techs hustled into and out of his house. The uniformed state trooper leaned against the side of his cruiser more or less watching him, but he didn’t insist that Calhoun get back into the backseat. Dr. Surry had left after she finished talking with Calhoun. Gilsum and Enfield and Sheriff Dickman hung around the yard talking with each other. Once in a while one of them would talk on his cell phone. A couple of times a tech came out of the house and spoke to them.

They all ignored Calhoun, which was fine by him.

Calhoun guessed it was a few minutes before midnight when they all started climbing back into their various vehicles and driving away.

Gilsum came over to where Calhoun was sitting and said, “You can go inside now.”

“I expected you’d have that yellow crime-scene tape draped around my house for a week.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“I don’t watch TV at all, actually,” said Calhoun. “If you looked around in there, you’d see I don’t own one.”

“Well, whatever,” said Gilsum. “We’re all done, anyway.”

Then he got into the cruiser, and the trooper slid behind the wheel, and they drove off.

The sheriff was the last one to leave. He seemed pretty anxious to get going. He didn’t have much to say, and Calhoun wondered whether he’d changed his mind and decided that Calhoun might’ve shot Paul Vecchio after all.

He just said he hoped Ralph showed up, and they’d be in touch.

Then he left, and Calhoun was alone.

He went up to the deck. The floodlights lit the area like daylight, and Calhoun noticed that some black blood had seeped into the wooden seat of the Adirondack chair where Paul Vecchio had been sitting. He wondered how long it would take for the weather to wash away the stain.

His .30-30 was lying there on the table where he’d left it.

He stood at the railing and yelled for Ralph.

After a while he picked up the Winchester and went inside. The forensics people had moved around some chairs and left several drawers and cabinet doors open. Otherwise there was no evidence that people had been prowling around in there.

He closed the drawers and doors and pushed the chairs back to where they belonged. Then he found an apple in the refrigerator and a box of raisins in one of the cabinets. He poured himself a glass of water, went out on the deck, and had supper at the table.

Still no Ralph.

He went back inside and got the automatic coffeemaker ready for the morning. Then he made Ralph’s supper and filled his water dish and put them out on the deck under the table where Ralph liked to eat.

According to Calhoun’s internal clock, it was about quarter past one in the morning. He was supposed to be at the shop before nine to open up. He didn’t figure he’d sleep much, but he knew he should give it a try. So he went to the closet in his bedroom, got down his sleeping bag, grabbed a pillow off his bed, picked up his .30-30, and took them out to his pickup. He slid the rifle behind the front seat, then opened the sleeping bag on the truck bed and crawled in, leaving the tailgate down.

He stared up at the September night sky. He knew he should feel bad about Paul Vecchio. He had seemed like a nice guy, smart and mild-mannered and friendly, hardly the sort of man you’d expect to be murdered. Hell, he was a college professor and he liked fishing.

Well, that was all Calhoun knew about the man. Maybe he’d been a drug dealer or a pedophile. You never knew about people.

He would’ve felt worse about Vecchio, he understood, if it hadn’t been for Ralph. Ralph was a hard knot of worry in his stomach. The only thing he could figure was that whoever had shot Vecchio had snatched Ralph, although he couldn’t really figure out why they’d want to do that, or how they could manage it. The previous summer an enemy of Calhoun had kicked Ralph and hit him with the butt of a rifle, and ever since then, Ralph had been skittish around strangers.

Maybe they shot him like they shot Mr. Vecchio. But if they did, why didn’t they just leave his body there where he fell, the way they’d left Paul Vecchio where he’d been sitting?

Most likely Ralph had slinked away into the woods when Mr. Vecchio and whoever killed him showed up. Calhoun hoped that was it.

He tried to sort through things, to analyze what he knew about Paul Vecchio and his murder, to deduce the connection between him and the burned body on Quarantine Island, but the evening’s adrenaline and caffeine had drained out of him, and his brain was too fuzzy to think straight. Scenarios drifted around, and there seemed to be one thought in particular that he wanted to pin down, but he couldn’t conjure up the energy to focus on it any more than he could focus his eyes on a single star up there in the sky.

So he let his mind go wherever it wanted to go. There were images of making love with Kate, how she tasted and smelled and felt. It had only been the previous night, but when he remembered that it wasn’t going to happen again, at least not for a while, not for as long as Walter was in the nursing home, or maybe forever, it seemed like something that had happened a long time ago.