Chill Factor (34 page)

"I don't
make
anything of it," Burton
replied.

"No need to take umbrage."

Burton snorted into his coffee mug, took a sip, then asked,
"What
did you make of it?"

"Wes and Dora Hamer are a long way from Ward and June Cleaver,
and
there's something the matter with their kid."

"You deduced all that after only thirty minutes with them?"

"More like three."

"However long it took, it was a waste of time, as well as an
invasion of their privacy. We've tagged our man. It's Ben Tierney."

"At this point, Mr. Tierney is wanted only for questioning.
Nothing
more."

"My ass," Burton said. "You were searching his rooms at Gus
Elmer's
place. Harris told me so. What did you find that gave you a hard-on for
him?"

Begley refused to acknowledge the question.

"If that's the way you want to play it, fine," Burton said
angrily.
"I'll go out there and see for myself."

"Listen to me," Begley said, his voice low but vibrating with
menace, "you tamper with anything out there, you even step foot in
those rooms, and I'll personally see to it that you won't be able to
buy yourself a job in law enforcement, and I'm talking goddamn game
warden. I can do it."

"Why aren't you trying to get up there and apprehend Tierney?"

"Because a jealous hothead ruined all chance of that this
morning,"
Begley fired back.

Burton was so irate, the corners of his eyes were twitching.
"Leave
it to the fucking FBI to pester my best friend and his family about
some pissant high school romance that has no bearing on the case while
issuing empty threats to me. Meanwhile, the likely perp is—"

"Excuse me." Hoot practically wedged himself between them.
"You'll
both be pleased to learn that we've been guaranteed a helicopter and
small tactical rescue team as soon as the weather clears, which,
hopefully, will be tomorrow morning."

"I want Lilly rescued. I want Tierney
arrested
,"
Burton
declared. "You've got all the fancy equipment, but this is still my
jurisdiction, and he's my prime suspect."

"Kidnapping is federal. We can—"

Begley raised his hand, stopping Hoot from saying more.
"Understood,
Chief Burton," he said, surprising even himself with his calm.

He wasn't backing down, he was simply trying to pacify a man
on a
ledge. It was only a matter of time before Dutch Burton
self-destructed, either on purpose or accidentally. Either way, Begley
didn't want him further provoked before Tierney was in custody and the
former Mrs. Burton was safe.

"Between now and when the chopper arrives," he continued, "I
suggest
you get those cuts on your face treated by a medical professional, then
go home and rest. You look done in. Whatever tomorrow holds in store,
we'll all need to be sharp."

Burton looked angry enough to spit in his face, but he said
nothing.

Begley pulled on his gloves and asked Hoot if he'd gotten what
he
needed from Perkins.

"Here, sir," he said, holding up a folder. "I took notes by
hand."

"Good. I'm ready for a hot toddy and a crackling fire. I'd be
willing to bet Gus Elmer can supply both." As he moved toward the door,
he shot Burton a look that warned him against even trying to search
Tierney's cabin at Whistler Falls Lodge. He would be watching.

A few minutes later, he and Hoot were back in the cold car,
skidding
along the deserted streets of Cleary. Begley said, "Dutch Burton is a
calamity waiting to happen. My guess? He'll eat the barrel of his
pistol one of these days."

Then he ran his hand over his face to wipe away the disturbing
thought. "Give me the condensed version of your conversation with
Perkins. Unless it's something rock solid, then I want details."

"Perkins has been searching for any linkage between Tierney
and the
other missing women."

"And?"

"Carolyn Maddox—"

"The young, single mother."

"Correct. She worked at two local motels prior to where she
was
working when she disappeared. As of now, it's unknown if Tierney ever
stayed in those places. Perkins is still checking his credit card
statements."

"He could have paid cash."

"In which case we would have to depend on the motel
registries."

"Where he could have signed in as Tinkerbell."

Hoot nodded grimly.

"I don't suppose she ever worked at Mr. Elmer's lodge."

"No, sir. That was the first thing Perkins checked."

"Goon."

"Laureen Elliott, the nurse. Her only surviving relative is a
brother, who lives with his wife in Birmingham. They're snowbound, too,
but Perkins reached him on his cell phone. If his late sister knew
anyone named Tierney, she never mentioned him."

"Tierney is a name you'd remember because it's not that
common."

"My thought, too, sir."

"The widow?"

"Betsy Calhoun. Her daughter still lives here in Cleary.
Perkins was
unable to reach her."

"Do you have an address?"

"I'm headed there now. It's in the next block."

Begley smiled. "Excellent. And last?"

"Torrie Lambert, the teenager."

"Who was probably a random selection."

"More than likely. But I'd hate to assume that, and then have
there
be a previous connection we overlooked. Perkins is still trying to
contact her mother."

"In the meantime…"

"What, sir?"

"Do we stay on Tierney to the exclusion of all others?"

"Scott Hamer, for instance?"

"Is it like Burton says, Hoot? Should we take the Hamers and
everything they said at face value and end that line of thought
entirely? Reasonably, Scott could have a motive for doing Millicent
harm. Love affair gone awry, et cetera. It's even conceivable that he
chanced upon Torrie Lambert in the woods that day. But what would a
good-looking young man like him have to do with an obese nurse, a
single mom with a sick kid, and a widow lady older than his mother?"

"Which brings us back to Tierney."

"To whom the same question applies. Say Tierney has a lech for
teenage girls. Even Carolyn Maddox would fit if we fudged a couple of
years. But the other two?
Goddammit
! Why can't we
find a
connecting thread?"

Begley appreciated Hoot for not trying to produce an answer
just to
fill the silence.

Eventually the senior agent sighed. "Until that conmmonality
becomes
obvious, give me an educated guess, Hoot. Is Tierney our man?"

Hoot stopped the car at the address he'd jotted down. The
frame
house was little more than a cottage, its small yard enclosed with a
white picket fence, now half buried in snow. Smoke was curling out of
the rock chimney covered in a dormant wisteria vine. A fat, yellow cat
was sitting on a windowsill staring out at them through lace curtains.

The two men sat in silence as they looked at the house
belonging to
Betsy Calhoun's daughter. Begley was thinking that the house looked so
innocent, so Norman Rockwellian, one couldn't imagine tragedy visiting
the people who lived there. Yet Betsy Calhoun's daughter went to bed
every night without knowing her mother's

"That has to be pure hell." Begley didn't realize he'd spoken
the
thought aloud until he saw the vapor of his breath swirling i of his
face. "We gotta get the bastard, Hoot."

Hoot seemed to have followed his train of thought.
"Absolutely, sir.
We do."

"So, the Hamer family's jitters and evasions notwithstanding,
does
Ben Tierney still look good to you?"

"Yes, sir," he replied. "Tierney still looks good to me."

"Well, hell. He looks good to me too." Begley shoved open his
car
door, and as he stepped out, he glanced in the direction of the
cloud-enshrouded peak and said another brief prayer for Lilly Martin.

CHAPTER  23

Each time Lilly exhaled, the tendrils of breath became finer.
She
was chilled to her bones but had neither the strength nor the
initiative to get up and place another log on the coals. What would be
the point?

She wasn't one of those people who dwelled on death and dying,
fretting over it until the worry hastened the worrier's demise.
However, after Amy died, she naturally had contemplated death,
wondering what the passage was like from this life into the next, newer
questioning if there was a next. That sweet, vital nova of life and
energy that her daughter had been couldn't simply have ceased to exist.
Amy had merely moved from a dimension governed by physics into a realm
of the spirit.

Believing that had helped Lilly survive her bereavement. Yet
she had
anguished over the nature of the journey between the two worlds. Had
Amy glided into it peacefully on a carpet of light? Or had her passage
been dark and terrifying?

That was when Lilly had come to think about her own death and
ponder
whether it would be serene or traumatic. But only in her nightmares had
she died of suffocation while alone.

At least she would depart knowing that Blue would be caught.
Before
she became too weak, she used a paring knife to etch TIERNEY = BLUE
into one of the kitchen cabinets, believing that would be more
effective than a note written on one of her blank checks, which could
easily be overlooked in the hubbub sure to arise during the discovery
and removal of her body from the cabin.

Tierney.

Just thinking the name jerked a sob from her constricted
chest. She
was outraged over her own culpability. With self-scorn she thought of
how easily she'd fallen for his rare combination of ruggedness and
sensitivity that day on the river, of how she had pined these last
months over the sacrificed opportunity to see him again.

From the start, he had seemed too good to be true.

Take note, Lilly: What seems that way, usually is.

She was a little old to be learning that valuable lesson, and
unfortunately she wouldn't have an opportunity to apply it to her own
life, but it was worth noting anyway, wasn't it? Maybe she should leave
it etched into the cabinet as well, the way prisoners leave moral
messages on the walls of their cells for future occupants.

But now she didn't have the strength even to hold the paring
knife.
Bouts of mucus-producing coughing had left her so weak she could no
longer sit up. She was out of energy, to say nothing of time.

There was one advantage to dying. Imponderable questions were
finally answered. For instance, she now knew with certainty that one
wasn't propelled into the afterlife in a blaze of dazzling light. On
the contrary. Death stole over one like a softly gathering dusk. The
darkening was gradual, the shrinkage of vision almost imperceptible,
until only a pinpoint of light and life remained.

And then that too was swallowed by the blackness that was
absolute
and all encompassing.

Desperately she looked for Amy in the impenetrable darkness,
but she
couldn't see her. She couldn't see anything. Her ears quickened,
though, at the sound of a voice coming to her from far away.

It was her daddy. He was calling her home from where she was
playing
in the next block.

"Lilly! Lilly!"

I'm coming, Daddy.

She could envision him standing on their porch, hands cupped
around
his mouth, calling anxiously until she called back and told him that
she was on her way home.

"Lilly!"

He sounded afraid. Frantic. Panicked.

Couldn't he hear her? Why couldn't he hear her? She was
answering
him.

I'm on my way home, Daddy. Can't you see me? Can't
you hear me?
I'm here!

"Lilly! Lilly!"

Tierney tilted her upper body over his forearm and thumped her
hard
on the back. A glob of mucus was expelled onto the blanket covering her
lap. He struck her between the shoulder blades again, forcing out more
mucus, which dribbled from her mouth. When he released her, she flopped
back lifelessly onto the sofa, her head lolling to one side.

He tore off his gloves and slapped her cheeks, arguing with
himself
that her face was warm. It was his hand that was cold, not her gray
skin.

"Lilly!"

He worked his hand inside her coat, beneath her sweater, and
pressed
his palm against her chest. When he felt her heartbeat, an involuntary
cry issued from his raw, dry throat.

Rapidly he unzipped the coat pocket in which he'd placed her
pouch
of medications. It was a green silk bag with crystal beading
decoration, just as she'd described. When he opened it, the bottle of
pills fell onto the floor and rolled out of sight, but it was the
inhalers he was after. He scanned the labels. They might just as well
have been written in Greek.

One, he remembered her telling him, was used to prevent
attacks. The
other was to provide immediate relief to a patient suffering a severe
attack. But he didn't know which was which.

He shoved one of the short nozzles past her bloodless lips,
worked
it between her teeth, and depressed the canister. "Lilly, breathe."

She lay perfectly still, unresponsive, gray as death.

He slid his arm under her shoulders and lifted her up again,
shaking
her viciously. "Lilly, breathe! Inhale. Please, please, please. Come
on, take a breath."

And she did. The drug did as it was supposed to do, instantly
relieving the muscle spasms that had closed her airways and, by doing
so, reopened them.

She drew in a whistling breath. Another. As she exhaled the
third,
she opened her eyes and looked at him, then clasped her hands around
his where they still held the inhaler inside her mouth. She depressed
the canister again. Her inhalations were gurgling, wheezing, awful
noises.

Tierney said, "Music to my ears."

Suddenly pushing the inhaler away, she coughed into her hands.
"Here." From the other sofa, he snatched up the towel he'd used the
night before to support his head and thrust it at her.