Chapter 12
The front had come in overnight, leaving an inch of rain whipped against the window by the northwest winds. Having slept most of Monday afternoon, Frank lay awake part of the night listening to it. He was still awake when the phone call came at 5:30 am.
Not unexpected, no, but news none the less.
Tuesday morning it was still overcast, though the rain had stopped. Hardcastle had said they'd be home. He hadn't asked if there was a particular reason for the visit. If Mark had answered, he fully expected the question would have been asked then and there.
No one was in sight as he came up the drive, and the garage doors were closed. It made perfect sense on a day like this, but it gave the impression of the drawbridges being pulled up.
But, despite the look of abandonment about the place, Milt was at the door before Frank even had a chance to ring. Hardcastle took his coat, and ushered him into the den. Frank had half expected to see Mark already ensconced there, and yet not seeing him was not surprising either. He raised an eyebrow at Milt, who knew the question without being asked.
"He went for a walk on the beach," Hardcastle grumbled. "Said he needed to get out."
Frank made a face. "A little nippy for that, don'tcha think?"
Hardcastle nodded and looked out the window at the wind playing havoc with the tree branches. "Happened right after I told him you'd called, been gone almost forty-five minutes already. I was about to send out a search party."
Frank looked concerned, "He's okay, isn't he?"
"Oh, pretty okay." The judge sat down at his desk and fiddled with a pen lying there. "He wouldn't go to the ER but I got Charlie to take a look at him yesterday. He'll be okay. Needs some time, though," he added with another worried glance out the window.
"That's understandable," Frank replied, filling the silence with as few words as possible, but Milt did not add anything else. Finally, Frank added, "He's dead. I got the call about five-thirty today. Never woke up."
"Good," Hardcastle replied, hard but quiet, without looking up.
Harper waited for something else, but the judge had managed to pack enough cold relief into the one word. Now he sat back in the chair, eyes fixed on a point a little to the left of Frank. The silence stretched out; with anyone else Frank would have become uncomfortable, but the two of them had enough shared years to fill in the space between them. He merely waited.
And, finally, Hardcastle added, "He's not saying much, Frank. He's not talking about it at all. Just gets skittish and says, 'I'm okay'."
"Yeah," Frank allowed himself a small smile, "well, that's how you know he's normal, right?"
The judge gave him an impatient look. "I think he needs to talk about this."
"Okay," Frank sighed, "you're probably right." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper in a plastic bag. "I never logged this in. Found it in the shed."
Hardcastle looked at him, puzzled, "You're walking around with evidence in your pocket?"
"It's addressed to me; Mark wrote it."
Hardcastle froze for a moment, then held his hand out without a word.
"I dunno, Milt; maybe Mark doesn't want to say what you don't need to hear."
"Dammit, Frank, I already know what happened; I need to know what happened to him."
Harper nodded once and passed the bag across the desk. Hardcastle seemed to hesitate for just a second before picking it up and decisively removing the contents--a half-page size sheet of heavy paper, covered with Mark's handwriting, legible but hurried. Some of the pencil was a little thick, as though he'd been bearing down on the tip and had worn it dull by the end. All of it was readable.
Frank,
I don't have a lot of time here, but I figured you'd want a statement. It's Sunday night—I don't know what time exactly, sorry. It's been dark for a while. I know he's killed two guys already and I'm not sure about the other one, but I didn't see him at all after the first morning and I don't think there was a gold watch involved. The one guy is buried in back of a small house up around here, east maybe, one of those dirt roads north of 18. I know, Frank, I should've paid more attention. It's white with brown trim and a shallow grave out back--how many of those can there be? I hope he was dead--
The non-sequiter took Hardcastle momentarily by surprise, then the scene, with all its nuances, snapped into clearer focus. 'He practically asked me to do it this morning.' Mark dug the grave, but he didn't know who he was digging it for. Hardcastle swallowed once; the words were getting a little blurrier.
--The other guy was Riley, back at the gatehouse. You probably found him already. Riley was in on it with him all along. Tilton said the police were onto Riley but--no disrespect--I'll bet it was Hardcase, right? Anyway, Tilton shot him. Riley didn't see it coming. Hell, I didn't see it coming. And then we came here, and I don't know where this place is either but it belongs to Tilton so I figure you'll find it.
The words had gotten closer together, pressured, tight, like a man who knows he doesn't have a lot of time left and still isn't finished.
Frank, I found something in the wood chipper, a finger bone maybe?—it's in my pocket. Have your guys look at that machine. I'm sorry I took it apart. Well, I guess I'm not, but I'm sorry if I screwed up your evidence for you, moving things around, but it fell out of the chipper and I didn't want to just leave it there. I don't know who it's from but Tilton has been acting really weird since we got here and, oh Frank what the hell am I saying, that guy has been certifiable weird from the beginning. I don't know what made me think I could work him, I am so sorry--
The judge found himself laying the paper down on the desk, flattening it with one hand, to keep the words from trembling into unreadability.
--but I am glad you were there on the beach last night. Thank you for trying to get me out of this mess and thank you for being there with him, for being his back-up, even if he wouldn't let you call in the cavalry, huh? Wanted to let me try my scam? I'm not sure who was crazier, him or me--must be something in the water out at the estate. But, anyway, thank you from both of us.
The signature was just 'Mark'. Hardcastle picked the sheet up again and turned it over. It was the title page from an owner's manual—'The Bushmaster 1000 Wood Chipper and Mulcher, 10 HP, with eversharp blades'.
He looked up at Frank again, after a moment. "Do you want this back?"
Frank shook his head. "No case anymore, suspect's dead. Thompson isn't real happy but, hell, Thompson's never happy. Just try not to get in his face for a couple of months, will ya, Milt?"
Hardcastle, uncharacteristically compliant, merely nodded as he folded the sheet in half once and put it into his own pocket.
Frank stretched a little in his seat, still looking like a man who was short on sleep, "That IRS agent's son called me this morning, pretty upset about the start of the trial being delayed yesterday; Thompson hadn't given him any of the details. I told him what happened, not everything, just enough so he got the big picture. Anyway, he said to tell you 'thanks'." Harper sighed, sometimes people talked about justice, when what they really wanted was vengeance. "I'd better be going. Got a stack of paperwork down at the office." Then he hesitated before adding, "You okay, Milt?"
"Yeah," Hardcastle grunted, "I'll be okay." And he got up to see Frank off to the door.
00000
He watched the car pull away, barely out of sight down the drive before he turned to go back inside. The wind had died down a little, and the pavement had dried, but there was still a bite to the air. He grabbed his coat from the closet and, after a moment's thought, reached for McCormick's heavier one as well. Damn fool kid going out in a windbreaker; what was he thinking?
He headed out the back door and across the yard, stopping at the overlook and scanning the beach below. No one in sight, maybe he was still walking; he could've gotten quite a ways in the time he'd been gone. But he thought the most likely possibility was a spot not visible from this vantage point, and he headed down the beach path, spare coat slung over his shoulder.
He came out onto the beach above where he'd been the other night. Now that he was closer, the pounding surf was even more impressive, the storm surge was up past the place where he'd buried the file. The rocks were catching the spray, but it didn't seem to matter to the man sitting there, perched atop the long, flat one closest to the water.
The ocean sounds covered his approach and Mark was staring fixedly out to sea. The judge made it all the way to the dry side of the rock without an acknowledgement from the other man. There he hesitated, not wanting to startle him. In the end he settled for a grumbling shout, "What the hell are you doing out here, McCormick?" which had the benefit of being unmistakably familiar.
The kid looked over his shoulder and then scrambled to his feet and walked back to the shore side of the rock, peering down at him from his higher elevation. "Well, I'm looking at the waves. What are you doing here?" he answered mildly, in a tone that just carried over the surf and the wind.
Hardcastle frowned. "Looking for you, whadda ya think? You go out in this kinda weather all banged up and just wearing that jacket, and now you've gone and gotten soaked, on top of it all."
McCormick ran his fingers through his hair and looked down at them, astonished, before attempting to wipe them off on his equally sodden jeans. "Just a little damp," he muttered defensively.
Hardcastle, seizing the moral advantage, handed up the coat and watched McCormick fumble his way into it. The he waited a moment until the kid guiltily offered him a hand up. From this new perspective, the rock looked almost like the prow of a ship, breaking through the storm tossed waves. He could see why the kid had been mesmerized.
"Don't blame me if you get soaked, too," McCormick warned, stepping back over to the seaward side.
"You shouldn't stand so close to the edge," Hardcastle grumbled from just behind him. "A wave hits the wrong way and you'll be knocked in there."
"That's why I was sitting down before." Mark looked over his shoulder for a minute, smiling. "Anyway, it's . . . exhilarating."
"No, it's not," Hardcastle grumbled again. "It's wet and cold and dangerous. And I'm not going in there to fish you out, so stand back a little bit."
McCormick took one grudging step back just as a rogue wave slapped up onto the rock and dropped a packet of water where his feet had been. They both took one more step back. "Okay, well, it's a little wet," he admitted, still smiling.
Hardcastle was trying to adjust his mind to the unexpected. Well, why shouldn't the kid be happy? He was alive; he'd survived. No permanent damage. And yet he would have sworn this was not the mood in which he'd left the house this morning.
The judge frowned. It occurred to him that it was much harder to ask somebody "Why are you okay?" than "What's wrong?" He watched the other man's face from the side, turned into the wind, ignoring the cold. It was hard to tell where the bruises left off and the shadows began. The set smile did not include his eyes.
Hardcastle made a quick calculation and then leaned in closer, so he could speak in a more nearly normal tone. "Frank just left." The face did not change; Mark did not turn to face him, but he saw him stiffen up a little.
"What did he have to say?" McCormick asked tensely, the smile gone.
"Tilton," Hardcastle bit the name out, "dead this morning."
McCormick had blinked once and was looking down at the rock in front of him. After a moment he turned his head, looked at the judge, and asked matter-of-factly, "So who killed him, you or me?"
Hardcastle looked a little surprised at this, but took only a second to reply. "Hah, you didn't even slow him down, kiddo. He never regained consciousness after I shot him."
"Okay," McCormick thought for a moment, and nodded at this reasoning, "then thank you."
Hardcastle heard these words with no particular surprise. He'd been expecting them for a while now, the way Mark had clung to his hand in the cabin, like he was some sort of avenging angel back from the grave. He hadn't said anything then, whatever it took to get the kid out of that place in one piece. But he was damned if he was going to take any credit for it now.
"No," he said emphatically, "none of that. You're not going to thank me because I got you out of something you never would have been in, in the first place, if it hadn't been for--"
"For what?" McCormick interrupted him. "Because you spent years trying to get Tilton off the street? Judge, that guy was crazy evil. He made Weed Randall look like the poster child for good mental hygiene. I know you don't just go after the easy--"
"No," Hardcastle put one hand out, stopping the kid in mid-sentence. Mark had drawn back a little, looking puzzled. The judge went on, "Yeah, we deal with some bad stuff, and I guess that's okay, as long as you know what we're getting into. But this time you didn't and that's my fault."
"Tilton was before my time."
"All these guys were before your time, McCormick." Hardcastle fumbled for the next words, not making eye contact with the younger man. "I think maybe this time I wanted to put some space between you and . . . and that guy. Like I thought maybe somehow I could keep you out of it," he darted one glance up and then was back to studying the rocky ground between them.
"But . . . why?"
Hardcastle frowned. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about the reason; he must've done that a hundred times since Saturday morning; each time the answer had become more glaringly apparent, so that now it seemed as though his motives must be entirely transparent to everyone else as well. But McCormick was asking 'why?', and surely he deserved an answer.
"Because," he began simply. "Because I think I must've known he'd try to take from me what he thought I'd taken from him."
In the silence that followed, Hardcastle looked up cautiously. McCormick was looking back at him, a bemused expression on his face. Was it that damn hard to believe?
McCormick dragged his mouth shut, glanced down at his own feet again, and said, "Thank you." Just that, no smart ass remark to lighten the load. Then, "And I am sorry."
"What the hell for?" Hardcastle said in exasperation.
The kid looked briefly surprised, as though he were being asked to explain something obvious. Then he raised his shoulders fractionally and said, "Because I nearly got you killed. That was my goofy plan in action down here Saturday night."
Hardcastle put the palm of his hand to his own forehead, "Yeah, and the alternative was still me walking up to Tilton with the file under my arm, so just which part of the 'goofy' are you feeling responsible for?"
McCormick's response was immediate, "The part where you drew on two armed guys because you thought maybe you could save me."
"Well," the judge drawled, "there's nothin' you can do about that, kiddo. Live with it."
McCormick grimaced; the judge caught the look. Then the younger man smiled again, a little more grimly. "See, Hardcase," he jerked his thumb back over his shoulder at the still-pounding surf, "if I got knocked in that ocean you really would go in there to try and fish me out. Only we'd both drown." He spoke calmly, as if with certain knowledge. "But I'd probably last about five minutes longer than you, and feel guilty as hell."
It was Hardcastle's turn to shrug. "Just as long as you kept treading water."
"I would." McCormick looked back at the ocean for a moment. "I did."
They stood there a moment longer, until finally the judge clapped his hands together and said, "You cold enough yet? Maybe you wanna go inside and have lunch. I'll make some soup."
The laugh was totally unexpected and abrupt. Hardcastle waited patiently until McCormick stopped, then he quirked an eyebrow at the kid.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," McCormick clutched the left side of his ribs. "I think I can handle the saltines, just please, not clam chowder."
