Lillian located the cabin’s key without trouble or fanfare. It hung on a nail six feet above the creek on a tree whose roots splayed into the rushing water like a web of miniature piers. Thankfully, someone had strategically placed flat rocks to use as steppingstones to cross the creek. Lillian executed the ten-foot walk flawlessly. My right foot slipped into the cold water halfway across. I somehow avoided a complete dunk in the fast moving but shallow water. Without ridicule or sympathy, Lillian led us to the front side of a log cabin, sitting dark, silent, and lifeless. “Walk three hundred feet and hide.” She pointed away from the cabin along a tree-lined narrow gravel road. “Use this to warn me if you need to.” She unzipped her fanny pack and removed a set of walkie-talkies, something I hadn’t seen in half a century. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Wonder Woman had spent a career in the military.
I paused at the road’s edge and wanted to ask a dozen questions. Like, where are you going to put the recorders? What if they bugged the house with motion detectors, cameras, alarms? “Message me when you’re done.” Lillian nodded and shushed me away.
A football field’s walk brought alarm. I had just rounded a curve and saw lights in the distance. It took me a minute, but I finally figured it out. The three corners of Ted King’s house had floodlights, and they were on. I eased into a ditch and struggled to climb what, in my youth, would be a shallow embankment. I used a smaller tree to pull myself up. The pain from my hurt shoulder was the second thing that reminded me of my age. I found a large tree to hide behind and messaged Lillian. “Base to Alpha. Are you okay?”
“Damn, you scared me. Is something wrong?” I hoped she had already completed the mission and was making her way to her post across the road from the cabin’s front porch.
“Just checking to make sure we’re connected.” I rolled my eyes as I repeated my statement to myself.
“We are. Believe me.” I think I heard her sigh. “Okay, I’m finished. You can come back. We need to take our position and get ready to snap some photos.”
“Roger over and out.” I did not know why I was acting so silly. It made me wonder whether the Vicodin had a long-term effect.
I used the same sapling to return to the ditch and road. Ten steps toward Lillian I heard a sound, like distant thunder, but that seemed unlikely given the weather. Instead, a slow-moving vehicle came to mind. After making a 180-degree turn, I saw a dim, expansive light filtering through an ocean of trees. I removed my walkie-talkie and announced. “I think we’ve got company.”
“Hide. Now. Don’t come any further.” Lillian’s order matched my intent.
I jammed the walkie-talkie into my pocket and hustled back to my first hideout. By now, I could see a pair of headlights coming my way. I grabbed the sapling and pulled. A thin layer of ice had formed where I’d last gripped my hands. This time, I slipped and fell to my knees. When I regained my footing. I removed a bandanna from my back pocket and wrapped it tightly around the small tree. This time I made it up the embankment, but my walkie-talkie didn’t. It fell out of my pants pocket and tumbled into the ditch when I stood. I was out of time. I reached my hiding spot as a red Corvette rounded a curve a hundred feet from where I squatted. Damn, Lillian is on her own.
It felt like an hour before the second vehicle arrived. Although I couldn’t see the rear bumper and tag, I knew it was the same jacked-up blue Chevrolet that had tried to kill me. For the first time since the red car passed, I stood. I was the coldest I had ever been. Thankfully, the rain, now sleet, hadn’t penetrated my clothes. But only because of my windbreaker jacket and the pair of rain-pants Lillian had insisted I slip on before backing out of her garage.
I worried about Lillian but didn’t know what to do. So, I did nothing but follow orders, the last one being, ‘Hide. Now. Don’t come any further.’
Fortunately, Ray and Buddy opposed chattering. In less than ten minutes, I heard the blue truck rumble and figured the money exchange was over. I painfully eased to the other side of the tree and waited. The sound grew louder, and the truck picked up speed. I stayed put another ten minutes until the red Corvette crawled by. Hopefully, it was my imagination, but it seemed to slow down when passing my spot.
I waited another two minutes before repelling the embankment and mentally punishing myself for leaving my red bandanna wrapped around the sapling. I grabbed the walkie-talkie from the ditch and jogged the best I could toward Lillian.
Wonder Woman was sitting on the cabin’s front porch steps when I ended my sprint. “I thought you’d left me,” she said, standing and throwing her backpack across her shoulder.
“No, just a little clumsy these days.”
Lillian gave me a quick head-to-toe inspection. “I see you like playing in the mud.” At least she smiled.
I wanted to explain, but she waved me off and onward. I read her action as ‘shut up and follow me.’ “Don’t we need to remove the recorders?”
“Done. Now, come on. I can’t wait to weigh our catch.” Her last phrase gained clarity during our twenty-minute return trek to the Clausen’s. The sleet was now mixed with snow, and I was still freezing.
Ray had arrived first. In a red Corvette. He had brought a friend. None other than Mayor King himself. Lillian had taken a dozen photos before the two had gone inside the cabin. Buddy had arrived in the blue truck ten minutes later. More photos. The money exchange had taken longer than expected. The second surprise arrived when Buddy exited the cabin and walked to the passenger side of his truck. Through a lowered window, a hand and half an arm emerged to secure a thick envelope and pull it inside the cab. More photos. Ray and the Mayor had ridden away a few minutes later. More photos.
It was nine-thirty before we arrived at Lillian’s. She’d insisted we buy coffee. I hadn’t resisted but was glad she removed her black face before entering McDonald’s drive-through. I’d kept a low profile in the passenger seat, semi-concealed under an overly stretched hoodie.
After the two of us changed out of our combat uniforms, we again settled around the kitchen table. Lillian removed the two recording devices from her backpack and shared how the two she’d concealed at the Lodge sent her updates because of Wi-Fi, something Ted’s cabin didn’t have.
It pleased Lillian that both recorders matched conversations. The extra cost had proved valuable. With one secured on a front porch beam and the other hidden inside on a bookshelf, the captured words were identical.
Ray: “Damn, it’s freezing out here. Let’s get inside.”
Ted: “No shit.” Pause. “That’s weird.”
Ray: “What?”
Ted: “The door’s unlocked.”
Ray: “You probably forgot.”
Ted: “I doubt it, but it has been weeks since I’ve been here. I’m calling Julie.”
Ray: “Forget it, just open the damn door.”
Rustling noises, including cabinet doors slamming.
Ted: “Shit. No Jack. Somebody’s been here.”
Ray: “Probably teenagers. Stole your booze. Forgot to lock up.” Thunderous laughter.
Ted: “I’m headed to the bedroom. Buddy can’t see me.”
Long pause. Minutes pass.
Ray (louder this time): “He’s here.”
Ted (faintly): “Roger.”
Lillian and I listened to the money-exchange scene three times. The conversation was as expected. Except for one part. There, through an angry back and forth, we learned the name of the tall man whose charred body was now lying on a cold stainless-steel table in Birmingham at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Eric Snyder was from Guntersville, and, like Buddy, an ex-con experienced in sophisticated detonation methodologies. Ray accused Buddy of being stupid and incompetent.
Buddy shared his theory, a hypothesis. A few minutes before eleven, Eric, as instructed, had reentered the Hunt House for one last inspection. Although the gas explosion was scheduled for midnight, something went wrong. Buddy blamed Eric and his steel-toed boots. Ray had repeated his demeaning accusation. A money argument ensued, with Ray threatening to pay only half. Buddy countered with his own threat, “You and me both will rot in jail if you don’t pay every fucking cent you promised.”
For the next two hours, Lillian and I bantered back and forth about the best course of action to pursue. We settled on a presentation of our evidence to Micaden and Connor with hopes one or both would connect the last and most vital link in the chain, from Ray and Buddy’s arson and murder to the halls of justice.
***
At midnight, I remained chilled from the night’s activities. Lillian’s central heat sucked. “I’ve got to go. Kyla’s propane heater is beckoning me home.” I stood, walked to the back door and reached for my duffel. When I turned back toward the table, Lillian was standing less than a foot away.
“Before you go, I have to say thanks. Unless something drastic happens, I’m on the quick road to my ultimate freedom. And I owe it all to you.” She stepped closer and placed her hands, palms out, on my chest. Our eyes met.
“Truth is, you didn’t need me. You’re a one-woman platoon. I just got in the way.” She laughed and shook her head, shifting strands of still-tousled hair away from her eyes. She laid the left side of her face against my cheek and slid her hands around my waist. Her lavender scent was mesmerizing. I almost put my hands in my pants pocket but connected them around her back slightly above her hips.
“Lee, I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?” I knew what she was thinking and subconsciously I’d waited for some arrangement of these words for over half a century. She pressed her body against mine.
“I can. And I do, but next time, I get to use the Nikon.” She raised and cocked her head sideways. Smiled. Her forehead creased.
“You dufus.” She released her grip slightly. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”
My body wanted to disconnect my hands, slide one up her back to the base of her neck, and pull her lips toward mine. But my mind questioned whether I was ready. “You retard, I know, and yes, I forgive you.”
Unlike me, Lillian responded to her body’s desire. She laid her palms across my cheeks, pulled me forward, and planted a soft kiss on my lips. When I didn’t immediately respond, she said, “Lee, I love you. I always have.”
My mind flashed forward to Lillian’s bed and her naked body. I was losing my struggle with temptation. But I knew I’d hate myself in the morning. I admitted to Lillian my lustful thoughts and ended our night with, “I’m just not ready.”
With that, I retreated through the back door, and across the porch and yard to the Hyundai. I drove home aching for Wonder Woman’s soft kisses, sexy words, and sensuous touches.
The Pencil-Driven Life 