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Chapter 14

Amelia Harding sat at her desk, gazing out the window and battling a monster of a headache. This is, without a doubt, the worst day of my life, she thought. After enduring Detective Gregory’s grilling on her working relationship with Darrow, she had returned to the office only to find that the place had been burglarized. The alarm had been turned off, and the door was unlocked, but Darrow’s office had been ransacked. She had called Gregory, who had arrived with two technicians in tow, and had been subjected to another round of questions. His attitude towards her was even more apparent and it took every ounce of restraint she could muster to keep from decking the patronizing son of a bitch.

After they finally left she had collapsed into her chair. She thought about trying to call Cambry again and started to reach for the phone when it rang.

“Pine Mountain Sheriff’s Office.”

“May I speak to Amelia Harding, please?”

“Speaking.”

“Officer Harding, this is Sherri Watson from the Winstead Sheriff’s Office. I believe you called earlier for Mr. Brian Cambry?”

Amelia gave a sigh of relief. Finally.

“Yes, I did. Could I please speak to him? It’s urgent.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Cambry has been in an accident. We are trying to locate next of kin, and since you used to work with him we were hoping you could help.”

Amelia felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

“Officer Harding?”

Finally Amelia found her voice. “I...what happened? Is he...?”

“He’s at the hospital now, and they’re still working on him. We were trying to get the information just in case.”

“He...he doesn’t have any family. His wife died about a year before he retired. They didn’t have any children. I think he was an only child since he never mentioned any brothers or sisters.” She took a deep breath. “What happened, exactly?”

“It appears he lost control of his vehicle on a steep hill and went off the road.”

“No one who spent as much time driving in the mountains as Brian did would lose control on a hill. There has to be something more.”

“The officer who examined the scene suspects it may have been some sort of mechanical failure.” Amelia could hear the doubt in the woman’s voice. The feeling of unease she had experienced since she entered the office this morning surged.

“I see. Please, when you find out anything, let me know.” She gave Sherri her cell phone number. “Brian is a good friend. Just a minute, please.” She opened her desk drawer to get a note pad and pencil and was startled to discover a small picture had been placed within. She looked at it for a few seconds and was horrified when she recognized the place in the picture. First Darrow, then Cambry. That accident is no goddamn coincidence, she thought. It can’t be.

“Officer Harding, are you still there?”

“Uh, yes. Which hospital is he in? Could I have the address in case I need to...send something?”

“Good Samaritan, 5501 West Maple Street, Winstead. We can let you know more as soon as we hear anything.”

“Thank you.” Amelia placed the phone back on the receiver and picked up the photograph. It had been taken at night, but the light from a burning shed illuminated a white two story farmhouse in the background. She turned the picture over, and a single line was printed on the back in neat block letters. As she read the words, she felt something she hadn’t truly felt in a long time: fear. The message on the picture was brutally clear: THE EASTMAN CASE IS CLOSED.



Charlie Quinn got out of his cruiser and walked towards the front door of the Sheriff’s Office. Just before he made it to the door, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller’s number and answered.

“Hello, Frank. Have you found out anything else?”

“We took samples from the stain, but will take a while to analyze it. It looks like brake fluid to me, but we’ll want to be sure. After I left the Shoemaker’s, I stopped by the garage where we took the truck. The mechanic says it appears that the brake line was cut. Looks like this might not be an accident after all.”

“I suspected as much. Keep the whole thing under wraps, will you? I need to look into this. As soon as Cambry is up to it I’ll see if I can get any more information. Thanks, Frank.” He snapped the cell phone shut and opened the front door of the office. Sherri looked up, and he walked in.

“I called Amelia Harding. She said Cambry doesn’t have any family. The hospital just called and I gave them what information I had. They said he’s out of surgery and he should be fine, but it will be awhile before he’s ready to talk.” She turned, grabbed a page from the printer, and held it out to him.

“I checked up on your ‘person of interest’. There wasn’t much.”

Quinn scanned the printed sheet. It didn’t contain much more than he already knew.

“See if you can dig deeper. I need to talk to Mathies.” He knocked on the office door, waited for Mathies’ reply, and entered the office, closing the door behind him.

Sherri looked at the closed door with a puzzled expression on her face. Why was Charlie concerned with a girl that was declared dead five years ago?



“Miss Eastman...”

Tigg abruptly rose from the table, walked to kitchen area in the far corner of the cabin and stood with her back to Pendergast. He watched her for a moment, and tried again.

“Eleanor...”

“Don’t call me that. ‘Eleanor Eastman’ is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Not to sound melodramatic or anything, but I left that name and that life a long time ago. There wasn’t much left to it anyway. No big loss, right?” Her voice was bitter. “Call me Tigg.”

“A shortened form of ‘Antigone’, I presume. It is an interesting choice for a name.”

Tigg turned and glared at Pendergast. “I see your choice of reading material was not random.” Pendergast nodded. Tigg turned back to the wall and began removing items from a cupboard. She worked in silence for several minutes, and then turned back to Pendergast.

“How did you know?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must have gone to the general store to get a camping permit. They would have told you about the ‘crazy artist who lives on Black Mountain’. That’s who you should have expected to find here. How did you know that I wasn’t him?”

Pendergast gazed at Tigg for a moment.

“After I visited the store and heard the stories, I called an associate of mine who is very good at obtaining information very quickly. He provided me with John Ravenwood’s rather, ah, interesting history along with his vital statistics. I must admit that is who I did expect to find, but when you accosted me at the edge of the woods, I knew from where you placed that shotgun that you were not tall enough to be Ravenwood.”

“And yet you didn’t try...to get the upper hand.”

“Glinn warned me that you were not the most ‘stable’ of people.”

Tigg gave a derisive snort. “Not stable? Eli doesn’t forget anything... What else did he tell you?”

“Very little. He said that this meeting was necessary because you have information about the case but refuse to leave your home.”

“Refuse to leave? Of course I refuse to leave. There’s nothing for me out in the ‘real world’ and here, at least, I am safe. Didn’t Eli mention that my being here was his idea?”

“No.”

“Ah, yes, typical Eli. Always plays his cards close, never trusts anyone with knowledge of his plans. He’s lucky that attitude hasn’t gotten him into trouble.” Tigg carried a flat wooden try to the table and set it down in front of Pendergast. She took one of two battered enamel cups, filled it with steaming liquid from an equally battered teapot, and set it down in front of Pendergast. He raised one eyebrow and gave her an inquiring look.

“Never let it be said I don’t know how to be a gracious host. There’s honey if you need it, and biscuits in that tin.” She indicated a small jar filled with a viscous amber liquid and flat metal container with a tight fitting lid. Pendergast raised the cup, sniffed it, and set it back on the table.

“Look, I haven’t poisoned the damn stuff. Here.” She poured herself a cup and took a sip. “I would never hurt anyone, even if I am ‘unstable’.”

Pendergast turned and looked over his shoulder at the small room where he had been locked in.

“Oh, that. I was busy, and I wasn’t sure what to do with you. I needed some time to think. Hey, I did let you out eventually.”

“So you decided to trust me.”

“I didn’t say that. I decided to hear what you had to tell me, and I wanted to know why Eli really sent you. In all the time I’ve been here, he hasn’t seen the need for any ‘information’ I might or might not have.”

“I believe your information can be very useful.”

“I don’t.”

Pendergast gazed at Tigg. Tigg glared back for a minute, dropped her eyes and looked down at the table. Pendergast spoke in a gentle voice.

“You have endured more than anyone should ever have to endure in their lifetime. I understand that remembering the past is painful, but this has gone beyond you and your family. Another family has suffered the same fate. The person who did this will not stop, and even more families will be killed. There will be no way to catch him unless we are able to find some way to link these crimes. When the killer leaves us no clues, or evidence is lost, we must look to the victims themselves to provide a link. If we can find a commonality, something that all of the victims have that somehow brought them to the attention of the killer, then we have a chance of finding the killer himself. You are the only one who can provide the information we need to make an accurate profile of your family.”

“I...ah, Hell.”

Tigg abruptly rose from the table, walked over to a small trunk standing by the small room, opened it, and retrieved several old books.

“Eli asked me to write down anything at all that I thought might help the case. When I first came here, I refused to do it. I didn’t think it would help since there was so much that I couldn’t remember. It only came back to me in...nightmares.” Tigg placed the books on the table. “Finally, John convinced me that if nothing else, it would help me to deal with what happened. He told me that by writing down my fears it would be easier to face them. I started out describing the nightmares. Eventually I was able to write down other things as I remembered them, observations about my family and the days before...the attack. The things that I thought might help if the real killer was ever caught. Not that any effort was being made to find him.” The bitterness had returned to her voice. “Five years ago I gave up. I didn’t see the point anymore.”

“Can you describe what you remembered?”

“No. You can read it all in these books. It’s not something I care to re-visit if I don’t have to. ‘Painful’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. I can answer questions after you read them, if it’s necessary.”

“How will I contact you again?”

“You won’t. You can read them here, now. I don’t want these books to leave this cabin.”

“Very well.” Pendergast opened the first book and began to read. Tigg looked at him for a moment, walked over to the closest window and opened the shutters. She took a coat and a hat from the row of hooks beside the door and turned back to Pendergast.

“I’ll be out on the front porch if you need me.” She grabbed a tool box that was sitting next to the door and walked out on the porch, closing the door behind.



Tigg took the stool from the center of the tarp on the front porch and moved it up against the cabin wall. With a sigh, she sat on the stool and opened the toolbox. She selected a smooth oval stone, several antler billets of various sizes, a copper flaker and a small abrading stone. She picked up a large rough grey cobble from the pile and examined it. As she did so, she thought back to the first time she had tried working stone many years ago. Tigg could almost hear John’s low gentle voice giving that first bit of advice. You have to see the shape of the blade in the stone. Plan what you are going to do. Think about each step. If something doesn’t go the way it should, look to see how it can be corrected. She had looked at him and asked, What if it can’t be corrected? What if one big mistake ruins everything? He had smiled and replied, you can learn to adjust. Don’t let your fear of mistakes dictate what you do. Do what has to be done to finish the job. It will all turn out fine. It will be good for something, even if it wasn’t what you originally wanted. Tigg gazed out at the woods beyond the clearing. What I originally wanted...

She draped a leather pad over one knee, placed the cobble on the pad, and brought the oval stone down on one edge of the cobble with a loud CRACK. As she started to shape the stone, she felt some of the tension that had been building since last night start to drain away.

I know what I originally wanted. Now I just have to figure out how to do it.

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