Jack Pine, page 15
“What’d the girl say?”
Bruce rolled his shoulders.
“Didn’t give her name and said she would come down to my office last evening but never showed.” He looked up. “Thought maybe it was the girl who was in the shed, but she didn’t sound like she was from the lower forty-eight.”
Bruce tapped the cigarette, caressing the filter with his thumb.
“So then…you really think these environmentalists are killing loggers then?”
Reuger opened his hand. “I follow the evidence, Bruce, you know that.”
“Ya…” He inhaled deeply. “But what do you think?”
“I think we shake the tree and see what falls out.”
“Should know better than to ask you that,” Bruce muttered, nailing the cigarette dead. “I’m just saying here we can’t have any funny business here with these environmentalists. So, if it says what you say it does here…but Reuger, you get me in court with these high-priced environmental lawyers here, and this thing goes south then I’m not going to look to do business with you after that.”
He slid over the egg salad sandwich and the large drink. Reuger motioned to Gus and opened the door.
“Have I steered you wrong before, Bruce?”
“Oh, ya, plenty of times,” he muttered, getting his hands around the sandwich. “But this isn’t Floyd beating up Emmy Lou, here. We’re taking on a national movement.” He lowered his head. “So I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if you’re wrong, or mine for that matter.”
“Warrant?”
Bruce hefted the sandwich the fly landed on.
“I’ll get the judge to sign it here this afternoon.”
* * * *
At about three o’clock, they pulled up in front of the old Ely Grocery and charged the door. The desks of college kids froze with phones plastered to ears. The voices died like a drowned fire at the site of the two armed men. The office door in back opened and Tom Jorde stepped out with Patricia. Reuger noticed the dark pants suit of shiny material and the heels.
“Ya, Reuger, you at Earth First? Sheriff wants to know if you need any backup there?”
“Can do her, Hector.”
Reuger clipped the radio and walked toward Tom Jorde. He stood open-mouthed in a blue nylon coat over a T-shirt with sandals and white socks. The planks groaned under the weight of the two men. There was a jingle of keys and the leather slap of the Colt. Jorde glared at Reuger hotly.
“So the Gestapo is right on time!”
Reuger stopped in front of him and tipped his hat to Patricia.
“Tom, I have a warrant here for your arrest for the murder of Foster Jones.”
Patricia stepped forward with hair curled under and makeup deep in her eyes. She snapped the paper out of his hand. She unfolded the white document as Reuger watched her eyes dart back and forth. She finished and handed back the warrant.
“My client will come peacefully,” she stated in a cold voice. “Just give us a few moments, and we’ll follow you.” She paused, directing her eyes. “We’d prefer to not make a spectacle.”
Reuger nodded. “Wait for you outside, then.”
They retreated to the lot of heated tar and put the shotgun in the jeep and clipped the Winchester. Reuger leaned against the bumper, squinting in the glare from the store windows. Gus hooked his thumbs in his jean pockets, sniffing the oily tar.
“Now, I ain’t one for questions Reuger, but ain’t that the lady from Pine Lodge you seen?”
Reuger shifted his weight and hooked a boot on the fender.
“Oh, ya.”
“Then she’s a lawyer for this Jorde and you…”
“That’s right.”
Gus held up his hand, grappling his white beard, rolling his shoulders.
“What yer do is yer business, but it could make it a bit warm for yer down the road, if yer know what I mean.”
“Here he comes,” Reuger nodded, unsnapping a pocket on his vest.
They heard clapping from inside the building. Tom Jorde gaited stiffly out with Patricia holding his arm. Workers surrounded them clapping and chanting, “FASCISTS! FASCISTS! FASCISTS!” Patricia walked toward him with eyes like cut glass. Reuger remembered the feel of her wet hair as he clicked the manacles open.
“Tom, put your hands on your head, please.”
His face was red as he glared. “How long have you been sucking Ben Johnson’s dick, Reuger?”
“Turn around, Tom.”
He patted him down while Patricia watched.
“Where are you taking him, Deputy?”
“Down to the station,” he said standing up. “You can follow me; it isn’t far,” he nodded, bringing Jorde’s hands down and slipping the handcuffs on.
“I’ll meet you at the station, Tom,” Patricia murmured, squeezing his arm.
Reuger helped him into the back of the jeep, but his foot caught. He sat him up and pushed his legs around and buckled him in. Tom stared at him with hot red eyes.
“You’re such a dirt bag. You’re just another lackey for Ben Johnson.”
He spat and Reuger felt saliva warm and slimy on his cheek.
“You fucking phony,” Tom yelled hoarsely, tears welling.
Reuger took off his hat and wiped his face with his sleeve.
“You shouldn’t do that, Tom,” he said steadily, stifling the urge to slap him across the face.
“Fuck you!”
He was crying now as Reuger climbed into the jeep.
“Better calm down there, boy,” Gus said handing Reuger his handkerchief.
“Yeah, well fuck you, old man!”
Reuger waved Gus off and started the jeep. He heard a car engine turn over once then a clicking like two plates. He glanced over at the minivan and heard the solenoid click again. Gus shut one eye.
“Dead battery there, Reuger.”
“Oh, ya,” he muttered swinging out of the jeep and walking through the chanting people.
He kept one hand close to the Colt and leaned down to the driver-side window.
“It won’t start,” Patricia murmured, staring straight ahead.
“Release your hood.”
The hood popped and Reuger lifted it, looking at the battery, seeing the fuzzy green and white corrosion on the cables. The volunteers surrounded him like a posse.
“FASCISTS, FASCISTS, FASCISTS.” He rubbed away the corrosion and twisted the clamp on the battery post. He scraped his hand on the latch then glanced around the hood.
“All right, try her now!”
Patricia looked out the window.
“Now?”
“Now!”
Sparks arced the post and shot blue smoke. The solenoid clicked and buzzed.
“She’s arcing,” he called out. “Hold on.”
Reuger twisted the clamp on the post crowded by volunteers clapping and chanting. “FASCISTS, FASCISTS, FASCISTS”
“All right,” he shouted, one hand on the pistol.
“Now?”
“Now!”
She turned the ignition again and the engine roared to life. He dropped the hood and pushed his hat back with the audience behind him.
“Battery is all right, but your cables are loose.” He lowered his voice. “I’ll come by your cabin and tighten them up for you.”
“How embarrassing,” Patricia muttered, then her eyes changed like a veil. “Thank you, Deputy, I will follow you now to the station,” she shouted.
He touched his brim and walked back to the jeep. Gus hooked an eyebrow and tilted his head back.
“Her battery there?”
“Cables corroded and loose,” he said sitting down and shoving the jeep in gear. “Shorting out when she turns the starter.”
“That’ll do her for sure.”
Tom Jorde glowered, shaking his head.
“The auto-mechanic sheriff, fucking great!”
Reuger drove onto the highway then pulled off to the side. He hooked a boot on the jeep and waited.
“What’d we stop for?” Jorde demanded.
Reuger watched the rearview mirror and saw the minivan. The blinker was on and several cars drove past. Patricia nosed into traffic cautiously.
“Give your lawyer a little time to catch up here.”
29
REUGER SAT IN his jeep and watched a motorboat drag skiers across the lake. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, enjoying the light breeze. The smooth blue of the lake rippled in large circles. A cloud passed over, and he felt the discomfort of hours before, when Riechardt closed the door to his office.
“Just checked Jorde’s print against Foster Jones’s .45.” He tilted his head up and crossed his arms. “It didn’t match, but we got him anyway,” phsit bing phsit bing,” nailing the trashcan with seeds. “Good work,” he said, his eyes hard as nickels.
Reuger stepped out of the jeep and began walking the lodge road. He smelled pine sap then wood smoke from a fire by one of the cabins. The whine of a saw drew him along until he saw wood chips spraying out of the open door of the woodshed. There were no crickets or cicadas or loons or frogs; just the click of gravel under his boots and the sound of his breathing.
He passed Cliff Johnson’s jacked-up pickup with a gun rack in the back window and a bumper sticker. Johnson Timber brandished the right side of the bumper. The son of a timber baron, Reuger thought to himself as he saw another sticker, Save a tree, kill a tree hugger on the left side. He passed the cant hooks and other logging tools from the turn of the century mounted outside the woodshed. The saw started again and he noticed the clean scent of his own aftershave as he went into the shed with the screech like a wave crashing down.
Cliff Johnson was bent over the woodworking table with his shirt stained dark and his jeans coated yellow. Sawdust sprayed out and stuck to the bristles of his short hair. When he looked up, Reuger saw silver had rubbed off his sunglasses in spots. The saw ran down like a slowing train.
“How’s she go, Cliff?”
He shrugged and spat.
“Repairing cabin four here.”
Reuger leaned against the workbench and the phone rang. The phone was old with paint splattered on the receiver and part of the dial missing. Cliff kicked away some two- by-fours with his boot.
“Pine Lodge.”
He squinted with the phone to his ear.
“No, we don’t have any Chinese food here. This ain’t a restaurant.”
“Fucking swampys,” he muttered hanging up the phone.
Reuger picked up a miner’s hat on the bench then some old oilers for chainsaws. He squeezed out a bead of oil then set the oiler down. The phone rang again then stopped. He stared at a Drink Coca Cola sign from thirty years before with people waving from a boat.
“Heard you paid Tom Jorde a visit.”
“Ya.” Cliff grinned with the Skoal stuck on his front teeth. “Gave that murdering tree hugger something to think about.”
“Stick a deer rifle in his face then?”
“Ya, weren’t loaded, but he sure pissed his pants.” He kicked a board away on the floor. “Should a done worse to the murdering sonofabitch.”
Reuger turned and faced him in the dim light of the shed.
“Stay away from the Earth First people, Cliff.”
Cliff leaned down to the saw.
“Long as they don’t get in my way.”
He watched him saw three boards with dust sprouting out the door like bright confetti. The saw whined down, and Cliff threw the wood across the shed.
“So…a little trouble on Center Island the other night?”
“Ya, no doubt.” He leaned over the table, a lightning bolt on his bicep. “That stupid swampy from Chicago got lost there, said he could canoe when he didn’t know a damn thing.”
“You mean Kurt Helpner.”
“Ya, right, the kid.” Cliff stood up from the board. “I took Tim and the girl from cabin nine there back to the lodge when Tim said that Indian was out there, you know. Figured it was better to get the girl to safety and go back and look for the swampy kid.”
“Kurt. His name is Kurt.”
Cliff shrugged and grinned.
“Ya, whatever. You seen one swampy, you fucking seen em’ all.”
Reuger picked up an ax head by the grinding wheel.
“You went back and looked for him then?”
“Sure I did.”
He set the ax down and watched Cliff line up the saw.
“He was sitting by a fire outside the island there.”
Cliff raised his head and smirked.
“Oh, ya? You don’t think I went back for the kid? I wouldn’t just leave him there, you know.”
Reuger continued along the bench past the three chain saws without chains. He spoke with his back to Cliff.
“You wanted to get rid of him to be with the girl, right?”
Cliff stood up and raised his sunglasses.
“Don’t you have some poachers or something to go chase here?”
Reuger picked up a Hills Bros. can of spent brass shell casings. He shook out some of the shells and thought they were mostly .45 caliber and a couple .38 jackets. He looked up in the dusty light.
“Still reloading your own, Cliff?”
“Nope.” He spat a line of tobacco juice on the planks. “Store-bought.”
The saw whined again as Reuger stared out the back door at the old refrigerators and toilets and stoves and hundreds of pop cans. There were old trucks and an earthmover and a small building on two logs for ice fishing. There was even an old phone booth. He turned back in.
“Been seeing the girl?”
The boards chunked across the shed.
“Some.” Cliff grinned picking up a two-by-four. “Sixteen-year-old, big tits, right?”
“Sounds like the one,” he nodded, walking into the shed. “Give you some advice, Cliff?”
“You going to tell me to use a rubber?”
Reuger stopped just short of the saw. He tapped his gun belt with his forefinger.
“Going to tell you to let this one go.”
“What the fuck for?” He muttered, bringing up another two-by-four.
“She has problems. This isn’t some logger’s daughter whose father works for Ben.”
Cliff stood up, his blue eyes luminous in the deflected light.
“At least I’m not fucking some tree-hugger lawyer.” Cliff grinned again and brushed sawdust from his arm. “She must be something for you to go to the other side like that. She give good head or…”
Reuger grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him close.
“Watch your mouth, Cliff.”
He turned red and looked down at his shirt.
“I’d appreciate it if you let my shirt go, Reuger.”
He pushed him back, and Cliff bent down to the saw, kicking boards out of the way.
“Should have left the little shit out there on Center Island, little tree-hugger kid…give that lawyer something to think about. Come up here and stir up a bunch of shit,” he grumbled.
Reuger stood in the doorway of the shed and felt his heart pounding. He had let Cliff get the best of him and cursed himself for letting his emotions play in like that. The little shit knew right where to fire. He would be on guard next time. Cliff bent down to the saw.
“Yeah, maybe, I’ll go on over there and get a little tree-hugger ass myself.”
Reuger stepped near Cliff then leaned down to the woodworking table. He spoke into Cliff’s right ear.
“Go near her or her son and I’ll give you the beating you never got.”
Cliff leaned back and held his hands up. “Whoa…big talk, Reuger,” he said flexing his arms over his head. “But I don’t think you could whip me and if you tried, I might just have to kick your fucking ass. You take off that gun sometime and I’ll show you.
Reuger unclipped the gun belt and laid it on the workbench. He turned and faced him.
“All right, then.”
Cliff spat a brown line of tobacco on the planks.
“I got some wood to cut Reuger, and then I have to talk to my father about the way the deputy sheriff hassles me and keeps me from my work. Maybe he’ll tell Riechardt to get rid of your ass, and you can go back to being the lowlife you are.”
Reuger picked up the gun belt and stood in the door.
“Just let me know, Cliff, when you’re ready.”
He spat again.
“Ya, you bet.” ”
30
THE SEAPLANE SHADOWED an underwater missile on the lake. Irene Peters sat close to the windshield with a black headset, black aviation sunglasses, and blond hair ponying out of a baseball cap. She throttled the plane down, skimming the pines with a flock of geese before dropping like a brick and hydroplaning on the lake. She cut the engine as a bald man in a uniform paddled with the slip-slop ricocheting the canyon. Reuger unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door.
“Want me to wait here?”
“Appreciate it, Irene,” he said stepping into the canoe.
“Think we have a John Doe, Deputy,” the balding man in the Forest Service uniform nodded, swishing away from the plane.
Reuger picked up the other paddle.
“See him, Bill?”
Bill Henderson’s angular face darkened, and he smiled the thousand smiles of a man who lives in a wilderness.
“Haven’t gone in the water here, but the fellow up there is convinced there’s a skeleton down in those shallows up ahead.”
They paddled the water cliffed by shadow and saw two people in hiking boots and matching sweatshirts. The man had three day’s growth and dark circles under his eyes. The woman’s short blond hair was tied up tight in a scarf. She watched the two men paddle the still pond of the lake.
“I hoped to have a diver up here,” Reuger called back.
“Water shouldn’t be too cold,” Bill said, steering toward shore.
The bottom rutted, and Reuger pulled the canoe onto the granite. Bill Henderson splashed ashore and gestured to the blond woman.
“This is Deputy Sheriff Reuger and this is…I’m sorry…”
The man jumped forward.
“Jack Higgins! I saw the body.”
