Just a Walk in the Woods - Ep2
Dafydd and Sarah continue to review a past case in their heads while spending time on break up on the north shore of Lake Superior
Just a Walk in the Woods - Ep2 (A Dafydd Owen Story)
Dafydd and Sarah are taking a break up at the cabin, their last case didn't end well and it's made a little soul-searching necessary for them both.
Breakfast was quiet. I'd cooked slapjacks, a kinda cornmeal pancake from an old native recipe. We'd pretty much demolished the entire batch and a significant quantity of the maple syrup boiled down from the trees on this property, along with an entire pack of bacon. Everything's better with bacon, right? Except nothing was "better" this morning. We'd only thought through the beginning last night and now we had to follow it through or it was going to eat at us. Sarah was the first one to broach the subject. She just looked up from her plate and stared at me. "Why did we think we had a chance here, Dafydd?" I didn't have an answer for her. It was too confused
Terry came through for us a couple of days after we'd visited his "office." He told us that there was somebody trying to market a girl of about the right age that matched Anne's description. This presented us with a problem. Neither Sarah nor I could pose as a buyer, they'd take one look at either of us, we'd be made in a second and then it would all go to hell. I needed a straw buyer in a big hurry. That was potentially a problem, because the only option I had was to call Adam.
Adam was a guy I tried not to use that often. He was a high functioning alcoholic - meet him anytime you'd never guess he was a drunk. However, he was ideal for this job because he really looked the part, a slightly overweight Komodo Dragon that could get away with wearing a suit but as soon as he dressed down at all everything about him screamed "sleaze". He was perfect when he was "on his game." He was also unreliable as hell. The last four jobs I'd had to use him on he'd screwed up two of them, but he hadn't fucked up badly enough to get anyone killed yet so I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt.
"Ok, Adam. Here's the deal. Your job is to get in on that 'sale' - we need to know if it's actually Anne or if it's some other poor cub but either way you're going to be offering them, through Terry, a hundred k for an 'undamaged delivery'. Ok?"
"What if they wanna see the cash?"
"Terry will provide it, in untraceable bills. He'll keep hold of it until you need it."
"Geez man, you know you can trust me."
"Yeah, trust you to skim a chunk off the top and go on the bender of your life!"
"Well, maybe." He shrugged and looked away for a second. "I'll do it, Dafydd."
I called Terry and had him make the arrangements for an introduction. Adam was supposed to contact me later that night after the meet. When the sun came up the following morning with no word I started getting antsy. Around 8am the phone rang. Not Adam, but Terry. This wasn't going to be good.
"Dammit Owen! What kind of shit were you trying to pull siccing a psycho like that on my business?"
"The same kind of shit I'll pull siccing a psycho like me on your ass, Terry, if you don't just chill and tell me what went down." I didn't know what Adam had pulled but I guess he'd freaked out during the meet. I wasn't far wrong.
"They showed him a girl - not the one you're looking for but another 6 year old canine. This one was a chow, not a malamute. Way I heard it he ripped everybody in the room to shreds and is now in the wind with some unknown girl and my money."
"Then he's pissed in one of his regular bolt-holes and if she's got any sense she's still running." I thought for a moment and then pulled the phone close to my muzzle again. "Terry, I can find him and get most of your money back, but if I see any of your goons hunting him I'll waste 'em. Got me?"
"Not my guys you need to worry about. If Kparsi finds him before you do, all you'll find is a corpse."
"Liberian connection, he's from the Kpelle people and he's hunting my dragon. Got it."
"Listen, Dafydd, you need to..." I cut him off with a rumble deep in my throat that goes to a kinda visceral level on a rodent.
"I need to do nothing. In this case, however, I will. Nothing will be traced back to you or your operation here." I hung up and starred at the ceiling while I contemplated our next moves.
Fuck. What had I missed in Adam's background that could set him off that way?
We didn't say much after breakfast either, just wandered out the door onto the same old hunting trail we'd taken the previous evening. Sarah took the lead this time. After the incident up here with the Mitchell family, I'd encouraged her to become as familiar with the trails and tracks on my land as I was. She took the left fork - I suspected she wasn't heading for the old mine so I guess we're on our way up the hill to the old fire watchtower. As she stepped out ahead of me I couldn't help but admire her... The further we walked, the more fluid and relaxed her movements got, like she was getting more in touch with her feral side. She became part of the woods as she walked through them. Ye Gods, how did such a beautiful woman end up with a ripped up old tom like me? I had no idea but I wasn't objecting. I let the woods flow over me as we walked, letting the instincts that in cities and towns I worked so hard to suppress run free. Suddenly she was running and I fell into place to her left and half a pace back, ready to back her up on anything she flushed out of the brush... but she wasn't hunting, she jumped up on a rock by the side of the trail and I landed beside her half a heartbeat later and gathered her into my arms.
"This is why you love it up here so much, isn't it Dafydd?"
"Yep. I've done this run naked more than once when I need to just let go and clear my head."
"Ever done more than just run?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dafydd, it got to ME and I'm not like you, I mean... I don't fight against it taking over every minute of every day. Ever lived out here as a predator?"
"You mean running wild up here, eating only what I catch and even that being raw? Yeah, I've done that. Mostly only for a week or two but once I did it for over six months."
"Christ on pogo stick, Dafydd! Six months?"
"Yeah, I really needed the break. I did an entire winter up here that way, with no way for anyone to contact me or pull me back. Liz drove up to the cabin and found me in the spring, it was after the Morrison kid case."
"Oh shit, Dafydd... I read about that one in the paper. You were involved?"
"Yeah, I was involved. Mike Olson, the homicide sergeant downtown? He was the one hung onto me and stopped me ripping that perp apart when we finally got him."
"Round about that time I was running around in the fucking desert, never knowing if the guy you just walked past was minding his own business or was a Hajji ready to take you into paradise with him."
"I was out there the first time around, eating sand and hunting scuds. Total waste of fucking time."
"Yeah."
"The woods make it easier."
"They do. Thank you for showing me that. Race you to the fire tower, lover... "
She was off and running. I sucked a lungful of air and followed, racing with my mate not because we wanted to get anywhere but because there was too much that we needed to leave behind.
It took me almost a day to work out where Adam was holed up. He was up in Hinckley, an hour or so drive north from town. He'd checked into a no-tell motel up there in the small hours of the morning after the aborted meet with his "daughter", so whatever else we were getting a girl out of that mess. Sarah hung back pointing her gun at the door as I pounded on it.
"Adam! Open up! It's Dafydd!" I didn't expect the small voice that answered.
"He asleep. Tell me not open door for anyone."
After a double-take, I changed my approach.
"Is he OK? Are you?"
"He my big hero. He got me out. He take me home."
I recognized the accent and switched to Cantonese.
_"And where would home be, little flower?"
"Hak Nam"
"Kowloon, heya? "
"Ah. You shouldn't call me little flower. Only Ah Sun calls me that."
"So what does everyone except your Gan Sun call you?"
"Caroline Yeung. He said he might know my mother."
"Is he ok, little one? I need to know."
"He's hurt. First Brother was hurt like that and he didn't wake up."_
Shit. Sarah was looking at me like she was watching a ghost and I needed to keep in mind she didn't understand a word I was saying.
_"Will you open the door for us, Caroline? He is my friend and I want to help him and you. So he doesn't sleep like First Brother did and so you can get home."
"I have his gun, he said to shoot the door if it breaks"
"It isn't going to break, Caroline. Please open it for us."
"OK"_
I drew a deep breath and signaled that it was ok to Sarah, she lowered her gun but kept it in her paw as the door lock clicked and it opened a crack.
As the door opened I slipped inside to see a tiny Chow girl, struggling to hold a .357 that looked like it was almost as big as she was. Lying on the motel bed was Adam. He had a dirty great hole in his shoulder and his shirt was a mass of red.
_"Be at peace, little one. Nobody will hurt you now."
"That's what he said."
"He was right. He works for me. Now I need to take care of him."_ I drew a breath and switched languages. "Sarah! Get in here! Adam's down!" She came through the door carefully and then ran to the bed.
"Dafydd, he needs a medic right now. He could bleed out at any moment."
"Would this be a good time to lean on Terry and 'doc Harris', do you think?"
"Can't think of a better. Maybe cut Terry out of the loop though."
"Sounds like a plan." I fished out my phone and dialed Dr Swanson.
"Mr Owen! To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"No pleasure, just business. I need 'doc Harris' at the Sunrise Motel in Hinckley about as fast as you can drive without collecting a ticket."
"I don't know anyone by that name"
"Sure you do. He patched up the bull I shot in the kneecaps in the warehouse district a couple of days ago. Did nice work, as I recall - apparently the steroid junkie isn't going to lose too much mobility in his legs. I need the same skill level for a guy that works for me that has taken a heavy caliber round in the upper left chest. Call him and get him here or else. Got me?"
"I think he might be there in less than an hour, Dafydd. And you're a total bastard."
"Fuck you too, Harry."
Harry Swanson kept his word. Adam made it. Now we had "Caroline Yeung", a six year old Cantonese lass from Kowloon and I really needed to get the background from Adam. After I did, I called Terry.
"Your sellers fucked up, Terry. They couldn't know but they tried to sell our buyer a kid that could have been his."
"What the fuck?"
"Adam spent a lot of time in HK. Monica Yeung, this kid's mother, could have been his sweetie while he was over there."
"Yeung is a common name over there, Dafydd."
"Be that as it may, I want you to tell folks that's how they screwed up and take the heat off. She's staying with Sarah and I for a while."
"And after that?"
"After that I take her home to Kowloon, all under the radar and you get to stay under your rock."
"Appreciated, Dafydd. Burn this number."
"Of course I will. Now fuck the hell off my phone line before I find out something about your operation I would have to do something about."
There was a trail that Sarah didn't consider - well, not a trail, barely a track to be honest. It led up onto the ridge and was a steep climb. When I caught her scent heading up the main trail I swerved aside and reached for the ground with my forepaws, feeling my claws digging in to the forest floor as I swarmed up the ridge. 20 feet above the old fire towers position, with the observation platform barely sticking up 10 feet over my head I watched her pounding up the trail, running like her life depended on it. Gods, she was beautiful. I waited until she was about to break through into the clearing that held the tower and gathered my muscles for a leap, throwing myself off the ridge and turning in mid-air to plant my feet as I landed between her and the tower, the impact drawing a snarl from me as it ripped up through my body. She stopped, then laughed.
"Damn it, Dafydd! How the hell do you do that?"
"If I could tell you, I couldn't do it. I just present the situation to the feral brain and let it take over."
"Kinda like Adam."
"Yeah, Kinda like Adam."
To be continued...