RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King Read online

  “When?”

  “About a week ago.”

  “Why isn’t this on the news?”

  “It’s not a confirmed ID. Witness saw the tattoo but no sign of the vehicle. He bought groceries in her store. Little Mom-and-Pop place near the Somerset exchange on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Bureau’s convinced he’s still in the area. Looks like he’s set up house and is raising some kids.”

  “Because?”

  “He bought cereals, milk and candy. Even a package of mousetraps. They haven’t told anyone yet. Not even the local authorities.”

  “Uh, hey, nothing for nothing, Johnny boy, but people don’t keep secrets like that anymore.”

  “Listen, Marty. What matters is that they’ve narrowed the search to three counties instead of three states. You can appreciate that, right?”

  “If he did it,” Marty said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lazarus retorted.

  “I just can’t shake the doubt.”

  “That what, Marty?”

  “That an immigrant made it to the top of Iron Mountain and returned on the same road without being seen.”

  “Why not?” Lazarus asked.

  “Oh, come on, Johnny. They think I’m an alien up in Kettle Hollow. Do you really believe they wouldn’t have noticed a Latino male driving a gray pickup truck with Tennessee tags?”

  “You sound just like that idiot down in Tellico Plains.”

  “What idiot?”

  “Oh, some sheriff who keeps talking about a bum seen around town.”

  “Tell me more,” Marty said.

  “Pretty short story. Locals saw a derelict along a highway around the time of the murders. Ragged clothes, straggly hair, carrying his life on his back, you know the kind. Just a little more common down south.”

  “Not too common to mention,” Marty said.

  “They’ve seen him before. Didn’t sound like a big deal.”

  “The FBI checked it out?”

  “Of course they checked it out. Tennessee broadcast a ‘wanted for questioning’ just a day or two after the murders. When they learned the victim’s credit card had been used and saw the video of the truck, they changed their focus. Not much point in pursuing it after that.”

  “So what’s next?” Marty said.

  “What’s next? Well, we’re moving the office picnic to Heather Park so we don’t have to share a ball field with the Mitzelhoff reunion. Bring Sarah and come as our guests. There’s going to be fireworks this year.”

  Marty’s jaw tightened at the mention of Sarah.

  “What I meant was, what’s the FBI doing?”

  “I know what you meant,” Lazarus growled. “They’ll be concentrating on the area in Pennsylvania, hoping he comes back to the store or someone spots his truck.”

  “Or kills someone else,” Marty said.

  “Or that,” Lazarus admitted.

  “Hey, if you want to call the state police barracks commander and start crying wolf over a runaway, be my guest. Call in everyone you can find. But I’m telling you it wasn’t him that took her and you know what happened to the boy who cried wolf.”

  “Okay, fine,” Marty said. “You remember the name of the Sheriff down in Tellico Plains?”

  “What on earth would you want to know that for?”

  “I’m intrigued. I’ve got time on my hands.”

  “And the FBI’s already been there and done that. For what it’s worth, it’s not your jurisdiction.”

  “Free world,” Marty said.

  “Hey, if you think some hobo is hitchhiking up and down the Appalachians butchering women and successfully disposing of their bodies, I salute your creative mind.”

  “Jesus, Johnny. There are thirteen-year olds that hike the Appalachian Trail and a man who knows his way around could have waltzed between Tennessee and West Virginia in ten days.”

  “That’s just crazy.”

  “No crazier than an immigrant driving through the backwoods of Appalachia without being seen. I always thought whoever kidnapped Annie Myers in Durbin marched her through the woods to Lake Nawakwa and killed her there. Check a map, Johnny. We’re talking eight miles on foot versus a forty mile drive.”

  Lazarus sighed, and there was another moment of silence which served to ease the tension between them.

  “Anyone else ever known for oral mutilation?” Marty asked softly. “For taking dental work from their victims.”

  “I asked the same question when I first heard about it,” Lazarus replied. “The FBI arrested a young couple in the sixties, name Rothenburg. They roamed Texas and Oklahoma killing old people and pawning their fillings and jewelry.”

  “Dead, I presume?”

  “Woman is, but the man’s still alive. Doing life in Florence, Colorado.”

  “FBI’s alerted all the pawnshops?”

  “Yep,” Lazarus said. “But the price of gold continues to skyrocket. You know it from your days on the streets of Pittsburgh. We can only guess at how much stolen gold is out there and melted down. The Sheriff’s name in Tellico Plains is Reeves. Now I’m pulling into my garage so why don’t you sleep on it and call me in the morning.”

  “Goodnight, Johnny,” Marty said, and cut the call.

  The mailbox was empty when he got home. He pulled his Jeep into the driveway and killed the lights. His boots crunched across the bluestone drive until he reached the door and there he stopped with his hand on the knob. The door was ajar!

  He drew his weapon and pushed the door open quietly, seeing dim fire light glimmering on the pine floors of the hallway. A fire was burning in the living room.

  Sarah had a key! Was she back?

  He left his shoes by the door and moved quickly through the kitchen, hopes rising as he holstered the pistol, approached the archway into the living room and came around the corner. A candle was burning on the stone fireplace mantle, and a flimsy black bra hung from a kettle hook. His mail was stacked neatly on the coffee table.

  He felt a lurch in his stomach and turned toward the bedroom, heart pounding in his chest.

  Sarah!

  The light was on, the door was closed. He put a hand on the knob and pushed it open.

  The sheets of the bed had been pulled down. A pair of black panties hung from the bedpost and there was a tented note on a pillow.

  He took the note and opened it.

  Sorry about the breaking and entering, but I couldn’t find a key. You do have one hidden don’t you? I waited over an hour ...

  Kirsten.

  P.S. Hang on to the underwear. I’ll leave mine at home next time.

  Chapter 9

  Tellico Plains, Tennessee

  Marty gassed his Jeep and headed south on Interstate 81; it was a six-hour drive to Tellico Plains, Tennessee. He told himself it was just to kill time, but it was truer that he didn’t want to be in town on the day he was to have married Sarah.

  It had been months since she had moved to the state capital and he was sure that the story of her and Representative Stanton had gotten around. He could hardly believe it himself. Five months of jumping every time the phone rang, and that nauseous feeling that came over him every time he picked up the mail.

  Then there were the reporters who had been calling his office every day, and blue-collar towns like Marion, West Virginia and Tellico Plains, Tennessee were becoming household names to loyal viewers of the six o’clock news.

  He crossed the Tennessee border just before ten. Two hours later he parked in a one-intersection town opposite a plate glass window bearing the Tennessee state seal. A half dozen Cherokee Indians were watching him suspiciously as he crossed the street and entered the door below a sign that read MONROE COUNTY SHERIFF.

  The room was dusty. The floor was oak and smelled of horses. The only furniture was a wooden desk that supported a broken antique lamp. In the corner a black German Shepherd raised an ear and growled.

  “Morning,” a man said without looking up from writing. He wore an old gray s
weatshirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The dog stopped growling.

  “Afternoon,” Marty said, checking his watch. “You’d be Sheriff Reeves?”

  The man peeked up through wire rim glasses, looked at a clock on the wall, then back down.

  He was sixty-something, Marty thought, with a great sorrel mustache that covered his upper lip. His hair was somewhere between red and gray and pulled back into a ponytail. There was a frayed red kerchief tied around his neck and what he assumed was a wad of chewing tobacco stuffed in one cheek.

  “I’ll be Reeves, if you’ll be Sheriff Wayne.” He banged his pen against the pitted desktop. “I was surprised to get your call since the FBI left town. Say, you got a pen that writes?”

  Marty handed him one from his shirt pocket and the Sheriff started scribbling signatures across three half-page documents.

  “Why’s that?” Marty asked.

  “Oh, the FBI didn’t seem too impressed by us locals.”

  Marty smiled.

  The Sheriff tossed his papers in a wire basket and returned the pen to Marty, pushing himself away from the desk. “Payroll crap, most importantly my own. If I don’t send them in on time, they figure I died and won’t cut my checks any more. Damn government idiots.”

  “You talk to this woman about your drifter again?”

  The Sheriff shook his head. “Nope. I only go up there every now and then and it’s a rarer day yet when Sally comes to town. Anyhow, I figured you wanted to hear the story first hand. Got to grab something first from across the street. Meet me at the gray Jeep at the curb.”

  The Sheriff took a heavy revolver from his desk and slipped it into a cracked leather holster that he slung over his shoulder.

  “Bathroom’s in the corner if you’ve got to pee. When you leave, lock the door. Damned Indians will a rob a man blind.”

  He pulled the door closed and was gone.

  Marty stood staring at the window and then looked around the dusky room. The dog bared its teeth and growled.

  The Jeep was an old open top with rotting matting and seats sprouting coils. The top was down, the doors had been removed. Marty no sooner reached it than the Sheriff stepped out of a windowless brick building with an arm full of blankets that he tossed onto the rear seat.

  “The government sends me military surplus to hand out to the destitute,” he said, sliding behind the wheel. “Gulf War MREs are like momma’s own cooking compared to what we had in Vietnam.”

  The windshield was strapped forward on the hood. The air was crisp and it struck them full face, bringing tears to Marty’s eyes on the road out of town.

  After a few miles the Sheriff slowed and turned sharply uphill. There were no signs, no guardrails, no flags or cones to warn where the road had begun to erode away. They climbed switchbacks into sparse scrub pine and felt a noticeable drop in temperature. The forest was thin near the top and strewn with ferns and pale boulders. Stunted thorn trees grew in between.

  “I looked up your mountain on Google Earth.” Reeves leaned over to spit tobacco on the road. “Lake Nawakwa’s quite a ways off the beaten path.”

  Marty nodded. “That it is.”

  “Makes you wonder how a migrant worker finds his way up there.” Reeves looked at him. “But that’s probably why you’re here, aren’t you?”

  Marty shrugged. “Hard to beat a surveillance video of the suspect using the victim’s credit card,” Marty said. “So you knew them?”

  “Couple of kids, from Connecticut. Bought an outbacker’s franchise and hoped to make money off the white-water rafters and fly fishermen come here.”

  “Tell me about the Latino community.”

  “Oh, we’ve got a lot of crop-pickers move around eastern Tennessee and a kind of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy in Tellico Plains. One winter the state stepped in and converted an old motel into a shelter, after a woman and her baby froze to death in the back seat of a car. We know they don’t all have papers. When the FBI found out they were looking for a Latino they put on their helmets and flak vests and stormed the motel threatening deportation. You know how far that got them.”

  Marty grunted. “A gift they teach at Quantico.”

  “You said on the phone you’ve got another woman missing.”

  Marty nodded.

  “You think it’s him? The Butcher?”

  “Probably not,” Marty said. “My girl’s got some history as a runaway. Just intrigued by the story about your drifter.”

  The road circled the edge of the mountain then ended abruptly at a rockslide of boulders.

  Reeves made a tight U-turn and shut off the engine. There were broken beer bottles on the ground and graffiti on the rocks.

  Right away Marty noticed the unnatural silence.

  “A little unnerving, isn’t it?” Reeves stepped out of the Jeep. “Like a vacuum. No nuts, no berries and where there’s no food there’s no animals.”

  “What happened here?” Marty’s eyes roamed the landscape as he came around the Jeep.

  “Quirk of nature,” Reeves answered. “Glaciers shoved a pile of slate together and things don’t grow so well in shallow soil. Only them thorn trees and ferns you can kick up with a boot. One dismal place, huh?”

  “Where are we headed?” Marty asked.

  “Just across that hill.” Reeves pointed through the trees. He grabbed an armful of wool blankets and started walking.

  Marty happened to look at his watch, which read twelve-thirty. He was supposed to be getting married at one.

  “Careful of the thorns,” Reeves cautioned. “They’ll tear you like a razor.”

  Marty nodded and ducked under a limb. “This Sally woman, she lives on cans of military rations?”

  Reeves laughed and shook his head. “The Cherokee bring her venison and vegetables. She makes medicines for them and their children. They feed her plenty well.”

  Marty caught a whiff of smoke and it was sweet. Then the vague outline of a shanty appeared.

  It had a stovepipe chimney and its walls were angled inward, giving the impression it was in a state of collapse. There was a fire burning outside and Marty began to cough as they neared. His eyes started watering and through the blur the woman appeared from the door, a small and willowy figure, chewing on something that looked like a finger. He stumbled, caught himself and then reeled against a tree. She was watching him with the palest eyes he had ever seen, slivers of white ice, the corner of her mouth leaking a dark tarlike droll.

  Sweat began to pour from his body, soaking the back of his shirt. He reached for a branch and sliced open the tip of a finger.

  Reeves grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into fresh air. He coughed and wiped his eyes and saw the woman still watching him. Next to her, waves of transparent heat rose from a trench of smoldering leaves.

  “You okay,” Reeves said, releasing him.

  He nodded, blotting his face with his sleeve. “What in the hell was that?”

  “Hemlock or snakeroot. God knows what she’s cooking. Over there.” Reeves pointed and they walked downwind of the clearing. Marty filled his lungs with fresh air and they sat on the ground.

  She came at them, grinning with teeth that looked like molten corn. Her skin was pale and stretched tightly across her cheekbones. She hiked her dress up and sat cross-legged in the dirt. Reeves held out army blankets and laid them on the ground between them.

  “You sick?” She pointed at Marty, spraying spittle through a broken tooth.

  He shook his head and saw that she still had the finger-like thing in one hand, only now it was a gnarly brown root.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m okay.”

  “This is Martin Wayne from West Virginia,” Reeves said. “He wants to ask you about the man you and Dan Nenetooyah saw walking across the highway last month.”

  “West Virginia?” She said the words slowly, emphasizing every syllable.

  Marty nodded, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact.

  “He’s a p
oacher.” She spat on the ground. “Digs up our ginseng and steals snakes. The Cherokee call him Rattleman. Wears a necklace of them.” She patted her chest below the throat.

  Marty looked at her. “So you know him?”

  She shrugged. “He visits the big flea markets at Sweetwater trying to sell snakeskins and ginseng out of season. Dan caught him digging around his farm once and told him he’d have him arrested.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Big man,” she said. “Long hair and bushy beard.” She scratched her chin and held up a hand. “Missing one of his thumbs. He was all dirty looking the day we saw him. Whites of his eyes like a raccoon.”

  The men didn’t speak until they reached the Jeep. Marty stopped and put a boot on the front bumper.

  “When did you first hear this?”

  “Two days after the bodies were found. I happened to be up here with some clothes from one of the charities. Sally told me what they’d seen and I called Dan Nenetooyah that night. He told me the same thing and I passed it on to the agents the next morning.”

  “What was their reaction?”

  “I think they were intrigued at first,” Reeves said. “But the moment they learned about that credit card and got a picture, they started looking for a man in a gray truck.”

  “Tell me about Dan Nenetooyah.”

  “Big family around here. Commercial beekeepers. They sell honey, soap and candles and all that holistic stuff on the Internet. One of the sisters has a store up Gatlinburg. Does quite well.”

  “He’s credible?”

  “Dan’s been a three time Alderman in Tellico Plains. Serves as a special deputy when we need him,” Reeves said. “I’ve known him for thirty-one years.” He reached for the dash and turned the key in the ignition. “If Nenetooyah said it was going to snow on the fourth of July, I’d be putting on my winter coat.”

  Chapter 10

  Washington DC

  Judy left the courthouse with a heavy satchel of trial transcripts. She had spent the week in the United States Attorney’s Office where her partner was immersed in a case, more or less avoiding inquiries from her boss, trying not to think about her impending date with the range. Not once during the week did she attempt to practice or even try to handle her pistol. Nor did she talk with her psychiatrist about what had happened. It was a form of self-sabotage, she knew, but her growing fear was that last week’s incident was only the tip of an iceberg.