Scare Tactics (10 page)

“I believe it is unlawful for you to search my knapsack without my permission.”

“May I have your permission, Mr. Flynn?”

“By all means. I have nothing to hide.”

Hero stood patiently. The dog growled, but not at him; a squirrel perhaps. There were mourning doves in the nearby trees, a buzz of boats on the sunset lake below, the shouts of children.

“Been in this country a little more than three weeks?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“How long have you been camping at Shoulderblade?”

“I believe I arrived on 27 July.” Hero heard the click of the blade on the horn-handled knife he carried with him. “Have any other weapons in your possession?”

“I don’t consider the knife to be a weapon—only a tool.” The Lieutenant grunted skeptically. Hero’s bedroll was shaken out.

Hero said, “She
is
dead, isn’t she? But why on earth should you suspect me of doing harm to Taryn?”

Silence. He heard the Lieutenant walking up behind him. “You can turn around, son.”

Hero turned slowly and looked into the eyes of the gray-haired deputy.

“How well did you know Taryn Melwood?”

“I talked with her several times at the restaurant where she’s employed.”

“You been here in these woods all day?”

“I moved my camp this morning. I was closer to the public area before.”

“You don’t appear to have a radio. Maybe you overheard something about it while you were down there using the crapper.”

“The—? Please, would you tell me what’s happened?”

“Taryn Melwood was killed last night. A maniac got hold of her and cut her to ribbons.”

Hero’s eyes rolled back in his head, but this time he’d had sufficient warning and was able to block the seizure.

“Hey! Hey, sit down, Mr. Flynn, take it easy. You on some kind of medication for this epilepsy you got?”

“No,” Hero said, but he accepted the invitation to get off his feet. The shepherd pulled Deputy Maxwell a couple of feet closer to Hero. “Medication interferes with my efforts to effect a healing through holistic and cosmic means. It could only delay or abort my progress. I’ve become sensitized to the onset of seizures, and quite often I am able to—”

“I don’t feel like you’re making perfect sense, Mr. Flynn. I’d like for you to explain how you knew Taryn Melwood is dead.”

“I intuited the fact of her death during an Occurrence last night, and then again very early this morning.”

“Explain what you mean by—”

“In everyday terms, I frequently have clairvoyant and clairaudient experiences.”

“Oh, well, that flat does it. Mr. Flynn, you’re going to have to come along with us.”

“What do you mean? Are you arresting me?”

“No, sir. We just want to ask you some questions in town. But first I need to have a look at that campsite you occupied before you moved up here on the hill. Think you can remember where it was?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll show you.”

“Bring your backpack and your bedroll with you.”

Hero gathered up his things and led them, in the lingering dusk, down the hill toward the lake and the public area. The caravan park was full. Men were pitching horseshoes to one side of the children’s playground.

“Do any fishing while you were here, Mr. Flynn?”

“No, I don’t kill creatures for sport. Nor do I eat their flesh.”

“Must have been tough on you, finding something to whet your appetite at the All-Niter.”

“Not at all. I ordered bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, and had them hold the bacon. Here we are.”

The deputies looked around. They saw nothing to indicate that anyone had camped there recently: the area was immaculate.

“Didn’t you ever build yourself a fire?”

“Fires aren’t allowed away from the public area. But I seldom have need of a fire, no matter where I am.”

“Donnie, turn Sugarpie loose here a minute.”

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as the shepherd was off the leash, she came up to Hero, sniffed at his desert boots and frayed jean cuffs. Hero regarded her with a relaxed smile. When Maxwell snapped his fingers the dog wheeled and began coursing through the area, pausing only to pee next to a stump. Maxwell snapped his fingers again. Sugarpie began doubling back, suddenly broke off, and stopped to sniff the needle-covered ground by a mossy boulder.

She barked, then began digging with both front paws at the base of the boulder.

The Lieutenant glanced at Hero, who was paying no attention to the shepherd. His gaze was fixed on the shining surface of the lake, as a powerboat towed a pair of skiers in the direction of the dam.

“Let’s heave that rock out of the way,” the Lieutenant said. “Mr. Flynn, you just stand quiet there. Move without my permission and I’ll have to put Sugarpie on you, and I guarantee you won’t find her as friendly as she’s acted toward you so far.”

“I can probably budge it myself, Harve,” Maxwell said, inspecting the boulder. “Looks like it’s been moved already. There’s pine needles stuck to one side here.” The deputy squatted, keeping his back straight, and slowly turned the boulder over. He whistled, and Hero returned his gaze from the distant shoreline of the lake. There was a lump in his throat, a tingling in his hands.

“Harve, come have yourself a look at this!”

Maxwell rose and took his revolver from the holster, stood facing Hero while the Lieutenant walked over to the boulder and snapped on his flashlight. He studied what had been concealed beneath the boulder.

“What are you looking at?” Hero asked them.

The Lieutenant reached for a stick and lifted a pair of heavily soiled, lime-green panties from the ground.

“I reckon you never have seen these before?” he said to Hero.

Hero shook his head.

“Or that knife that’s lying there all gobbed up with her blood?” The Lieutenant’s face was reddening from outrage. “Mr. Flynn, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Taryn Melwood.” Hero heard the click of the hammer on the other deputy’s revolver as he cocked it. “Donnie, will you kindly read this son of a bitch his rights after you cuff him?”

“Hands behind your back,” Maxwell said, circling Hero carefully.

“This is a mistake,” Hero said, his voice calm though his heart was hammering. “I could not have killed Taryn Melwood, or anyone else for that matter. I am not capable of violence.”

“Maybe you had some help,” the Lieutenant suggested.

“I had nothing to do with her murder! Someone, obviously, wants it to look as if I did! Given time, I should be able to discover who that person is.”

“Is that a fact?” The Lieutenant walked back to Hero as the cuffs went on. He stared belligerently at their suspect. Youthful, despite the gray in his beard, his sun-parched face. “You are some piece of work, Mr. Flynn. I don’t believe I’ve ever run across any such as you before.”

“No,” Hero said. “I’m quite sure you have not.”

Sheriff John Stone, Please Leave Me Alone

T
hey booked Hero at the Sheriff’s station, a one-story brick building on West Fourth Street, opposite the County Courthouse, at 8:45
P.M.
He was made to shower and given a starchy prison coverall to wear—white cotton, a size too small for his six-foot, three-and-a-half-inch frame. He was placed in a holding cell, one of six, in the basement of the building. Hero was by himself; other cells were occupied by a couple of crackers sleeping off prolonged drunks.

He asked for and received his pocket-sized ephemeris, and a thin paperback book on the Sabian symbols.

At ten minutes after ten jail deputies came for him and he was escorted, handcuffed, to the office of Sheriff John Stone. There were two other deputies, in plain clothes from the department’s homicide division, in the room with the Sheriff. Their names were Boodleaux and Tucker. Boodleaux had a sandy complexion and a cliffhanger of a nose over a thick mustache. Tucker was portly, liver-spotted, and balding.

There was another German shepherd in the office, lying on a rag rug. Tucker called him “Beauregard” and fed him french fries from a McDonald’s carton. Beauregard looked old and infirm, too old for active duty. He glanced at Hero without curiosity, lost interest in the french fries, and put his gray muzzle down between his front paws to doze.

Stone said, “Mr. Flynn, this is a formal interrogation pertaining to the murder of Taryn Melwood, eighteen years of age, resident of the Walking Ford Trailer Park, Carver County, Georgia. Before we begin, I would like to be sure that you’re aware of your rights in this investigation. Were those rights read to you by the arresting officers?”

“Yes, they were.”

“And you understand that you have the right to remain silent prior to obtaining legal counsel?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish to make a statement at this time?”

“I have been apprehended for and falsely accused of a crime I did not commit. I fully intend to cooperate with you in finding the true murderer.”

“Is the identity of this person or persons known to you?”

“Not yet, I regret to say.”

“How do you intend to cooperate with us?” Boodleaux asked him.

Hero tried to make himself comfortable in the metal folding chair they’d given him, but the crotch of his jumper was tight and there wasn’t much he could do with his manacled wrists except keep his hands in his lap.

“It would be most helpful if I could be released from jail immediately. Then, if I had something of Taryn’s—an article of clothing, a piece of jewelry perhaps, something she was wearing just before she was killed—I might then be able to visualize a likeness of the one who killed her.”

Stone idly scratched the top of his leonine head, staring perplexedly at Hero.

“There’s no way you’ll be released from jail before the arraignment next week. Once you’ve been formally charged, I frankly don’t see any possibility of bail. You’re a long way from England, Mr. Flynn. Without friends or relations in Carver County. No visible means of support.”

“I had four hundred dollars in traveler’s checks when I was arrested.”

“You still have them, in safekeeping. What I mean is, you’re thirty-three years old according to your passport. You’re not a student and you don’t currently hold a job. Bail bondsmen wouldn’t touch you, in the unlikely event the arraignment judge sets bail for your crime, which is one of the most vicious I have beheld in all my years in this office.”

“I see. Then, if I may have something that belonged to Taryn—not to keep, just to hold in my hands for a few moments—I believe her soul has not yet left the earthly sphere, and she’s tried to contact me—”

“Mr. Flynn, you are an epileptic, isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“Subject to fits.”

“Seizures,” Hero amended.

“Have you been treated for any other form of nervous or mental disorder?”

“I was—neurasthenic as a child. The debility was made worse by recurring nightmares. You see, in my most recent lifetime prior to—”

“Say again, please, sir?”

Hero licked his sunburned lips. “In a previous lifetime, in late eighteenth-century France, I was also falsely accused of criminal activity, and guillotined. As a child in England I recalled—too vividly—this experience.” Hero paused, looking at each man in turn. He shrugged at their skepticism and expressions of bitter amusement. “But this wouldn’t be relevant to my present circumstances.”

“Because you were nervous, and had these nightmares, you reckon they caused your seizures? What kind of treatment did you have?”

“I was eventually subjected to electroconvulsive therapy.”

“Calm you down some?” Stone asked.

“To an extent. But the treatment also opened certain pathemic channels, to both the past and the future, that had significant influence on my spiritual development.”

“Are you a God-fearing man, Mr. Flynn?”

“I fear no gods. I enjoy the serenity that reverence for all life has given me.”

“I’d like it if we could get back to the matter at hand,” the Sheriff grumbled.

“By all means.” Hero tried to smile. “That is the important thing.”

“What precisely was your relationship with Taryn Melwood?
Was
she your girlfriend?”

“Oh, no, no, it was a platonic friendship. Taryn had—well, she was obviously a crude little person, but she was not unintelligent despite a limited education. She was always curious, open to ideas. I think she was fascinated by the fact that I had traveled to so many countries. She yearned to travel herself, to be more than just a waitress. I felt—rather protective of her, actually. My sun was well-placed on Taryn’s Ascendant, you see, and my Saturn was posited in the Tenth House of her ill-fated nativity, which gave me a powerful but benign influence over her.”

“What do you mean, ‘ill-fated’?” Stone said.

“She had given me her birth date and time. Then—quite early this morning, I was warned in a vision that serious harm had come, or was about to come to Taryn.”