Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 7-9: Buried Alive, Her Last Scream, The Killing Game. J. Kerley A.
see flames back here in the hollow, and the smoke wouldn’t show on a clouded night. It was probably destroyed before the rain hit.”
Cherry walked over and stood above McCoy, looking into the wreckage. Her shoulders were slumped.
“That’s one thing about old trailers,” she sighed. “They burn two ways: hot and to the ground.”
Cherry returned me to my car and waved off my offer of conversation to pass the time while she did paperwork. I went back to the cabin to empty Mr Mix-up, passing Charpentier’s house. A lone figure was visible behind the cabin, hoeing in the garden. I waved, but the psychologist was too absorbed in his task to notice.
I’d been back at Road’s End all of ten minutes when McCoy appeared. I held my fingertips an inch distant from my ear holes. “If you tell me there’s another cache on the site, Lee, I’m not gonna listen.”
“No, thank God. But I got to thinking about the, uh, unusual aspects of the crimes. Do you think Dr Charpentier could help? He’s a psychologist.”
I thought a moment and shrugged. “He may be a clinician who specializes in smoking cessation or phobias, or autistic children. There are all sorts of specialties, Lee, few helpful when dealing with monsters.”
“Are we missing a chance by not asking, Carson?”
The ranger had a point. I hopped in McCoy’s SUV and drove the thirty seconds to Charpentier’s cabin. The doc was still in his garden, bent over with his back to us, weeding a potato mound. His waist was slender, suspenders running from loose khakis to shoulders broader than I remembered from our near-meeting in the forest.
“He looks in good shape,” I noted.
“When he arrived in late winter, Dr Charpentier removed an acre of trees. Cut them, split them into firewood. He rented equipment to pull the stumps. The soil is clay, and he had truckloads of topsoil brought in, all for his garden. He seems a natural at backyard agriculture, a man given to nurturing. When he’s not in his garden or working on his land, he’s in the forest, studying.”
“The cabin looks older than a few months.”
“It was built a decade ago by the Brazelles, a pair of retired optometrists from Dayton, Ohio. Beautiful folks, but Mr Brazelle, Theo, developed Alzheimer’s and it became too dangerous for him in the woods. Sad. The property was on the market for less than a month when Doc Charpentier bought it. The land extends behind the cabin for a couple thousand feet, almost as wide. The cabin sits on thirty acres overall.”
“Charpentier lives there full time?”
“He travels occasionally. I think he’s writing a book. Though he mostly keeps to himself, he can be surprisingly social. I’ve seen him at the park lodge talking Plato with vacationing philosophy profs from Western Kentucky University. The next afternoon he’s drinking beer and trading off-color stories with the crew cleaning out his septic tank.”
“Doctor Charpentier?” McCoy called as we stepped closer. “Hello … Doctor?”
The hoe kept its rhythmic pattern, Charpentier oblivious to our presence. “He’s wearing a headset,” I said, seeing the telltale white cord trailing from his ears. “An iPod or something.”
Charpentier kept his back to us as we approached, the hoe chopping merrily away. A dozen feet distant, behind chicken-wire fencing, I saw stands of tomatoes and rows of cabbages. Sugar baby melons vined along the ground, looking like green cannonballs peeking from the leaves. There were hutches to the side, chickens perhaps, or rabbits. Further back, along the tree line, I saw white boxes nestled in the trees: bee hives. Charpentier seemed a man who enjoyed being self-sustaining.
When we were within a dozen feet of the Canadian psychologist, McCoy called out.
“Doctor? Doctor Charpentier?”
Charpentier half turned and saw us. He was wearing a red bandana under the floppy white hat, a sweatband. His face lit with the prospect of visitors and turned away as he set his hoe against a nearby wheelbarrow and pulled the buds from his ears.
McCoy said, “Doctor, I want you to meet one of your temporary neighbors. He’s renting Road’s End.”
Charpentier turned fully to me. He stripped away the sweatband, then removed his sunglasses. My knees softened and a hiss rose in my ears.
Charpentier was Jeremy Ridgecliff. My brother. Two years gone from the Alabama Institute for Aberrational Behavior, an escapee.
Jeremy grabbed my hand in his right hand, his left hand under my forearm, steadying me. His palm was as hard and dry as oak. His eyes twinkled with delight.
“So pleased to meet you, Mr Ryder,” he said, his voice inflected with a French accent. “Have you journeyed far?”
My first attempt at speech was a dry hack.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Charpentier smiled. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Our guest is from Mobile, Alabama,” McCoy offered. “He’s a police detective. Part of his work involves psychology. A subject we’d like to talk to you about. We have a problem in the Gorge area, and may be able to use your expertise.”
“My, my … I’m so infrequently useful these days. Anything I can do to help will be an honor, Detective, uh … I’m sorry,” he said, flicking the ear buds at his neck. “I play my music too loud and my ears take a few moments to recover. You said your name was Carton? Is that like Sydney Carton in the Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Brothers?”
“Carson,” McCoy corrected. “It’s Carson Ryder. And wasn’t that A Tale of Two Cities, Doctor?”
Jeremy clapped his hands. “Of course. My subconscious mingled the title with two characters in the story, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. They were close as brothers.” Jeremy looked at me with amusement. “I forget, Mr Ryder … which man sacrificed himself for the other?”
“I don’t recall,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
My brother struck the exaggerated profile of a ham actor. “’Tis a far far better thing I do now than …” He turned back to me. “Or something suitably noble. Now then, Mister Carson Ryder, what sort of detecting do you do that involves psychology?”
“Homicide. Plus I also work a special unit that tracks psychopaths and sociopaths.”
“Oddly enough, I’ve had a bit of experience there,” my brother said, innocent as a starling.
Ten minutes later, Jeremy and I stood side by side on the porch of a fictitious Canadian psychologist and watched as McCoy drove away, Jeremy waving and calling adieu! Claiming other duties, McCoy had dismissed himself after the length of a glass of iced tea.
When I heard McCoy’s vehicle finish grinding up the steep lane to the top of the ridge, I turned to Jeremy.
“Explanation time, brother,” I said.
I followed Jeremy inside. The living room was a huge space, stone fireplace holding one end, bookshelves the other. Windows reached from the shelves to the vaulted ceiling peak. The wood walls shone softly, polished to a buttery gloss. The furniture was more delicate than the cabin; a couch, sofa and chair set on a braided rug inscribing an oval on the oak floor. A low table set centered the grouping. A chrome lamp arched fifteen feet from its base in the corner to the shade floating over the table. To the rear I saw a well-appointed kitchen with hanging pots, a beaten copper counter.
Though the exterior proclaimed rustic, the interior said Manhattan loft, reminding me that, in Manhattan,