Final Disposition (15 page)

      “Who is ’we’?”

      “People I know ... people who think they’ve got an interest in what you and your buddy are doing … or what you’re s’posed to be doing,” the old man added accusingly.  “Fact is, everybody really believed in you guys … up ‘til you both disappeared.  All a part of the greater federal government conspiracy, that’s what a lot of good folks was saying.  Then you show up out of the blue, eleven days later, on the Sky Search Show, in your fancy uniform with your fancy ID card, all quiet like … not hardly saying three words … lettin’ everybody else talk.  What’s everybody s’posed to think?”

      Cellars hesitated for a long moment.

      “Okay, what do you think?” he finally asked.

      “What do
I
think?”  The old man seemed to ponder that question for a long time.  Then:  “What I think is you don’t remember what happened eleven days ago, or ten … or maybe even five or six.  That’s why you wasn’t talking much.  You didn’t know what to say.”

      “And why would you think that?” Cellars pressed, feeling a hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach.

      “’Cause everybody knows there were one hellacious explosion at the Bancoo Reservation six days ago — big enough to turn a mountain into a lake, I hear — and a lot of folks out that way say they saw a bunch a’ bodies being medivaced out in ambulances and dark-painted choppers with no markings.”

      “And you believe that?”

      “Hell, yes, I believe that,” the old man retorted hotly.  “Why shouldn’t I?  It makes sense that you was out there … ‘cause it were your job to be out there … and look how beat up you are now.  All bruised and cut up.  Only somethin’ else happened to you out there … not just the explosion.”  The old man’s hands were shaking now.  “Just like something happened to —”

      The waitress burst out of the kitchen with a pair of steaming plates, scurried over and placed them in front of Cellars and the old man.

      “Can I get you boys anything else?” she asked.

      “No, this will do fine,” Cellars said softly, staring down at the enticing food, his mind racing again.

      “How ‘bout one of them big bottles of ketchup?” the old man asked hopefully.

      The waitress came back with two bottles and sat them in front of the old man.

      “Okay,” she said, “looks like I’ve got to clean up after myself back there, so why don’t you two just sit here and enjoy your dinner … and just give out a holler if any other customers show up?”

      “Wait a second,” Cellars said as he reached into his pocket, and came up with a pair of twenty dollar bills that he handed to the waitress.  “Just in case we have to leave before you get done back there.”

      She took the two bills, looked at them closely, and then started to hand one back.  “That’s way too much, hon.  Shoot, you’ve still got a lot of change coming back from the first twenty.”

      “Keep them both,” Cellars said.

      “Are you sure?”

      “Why not?”  Cellars shrugged.  “Look at it as getting some of your hard-earned tax dollars back.”

      “I heard that,” the old man mumbled agreeably, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.

      “Well, hey, long as you put it that way, thanks a bunch,” the waitress said with a wide smile as she stuffed the two bills into her apron.  “You boys take your time, now, and let me know if you need refills on those drinks.”  Then she hurried back into the kitchen.

      “That woman is a fine cook,” the old man said, looking down at his plate appreciatively.  “Maybe I should check in on her, see if she’s got herself a man to take care of in her spare time?”

      “You really think she’s that kind-hearted?” Cellars asked.

      “Can’t never hurt to ask.  That’s one of the few things my pappy taught me turned out to be useful … more or less,” he added ruefully.

      “So what’s your name, old man, in case
she
asks,” Cellars said with a smile as he continued to load the hot scrambled eggs onto his fork.

      “Carter.  Jeremiah Carter, at your service, Major … or Detective-Sergeant … or whatever dad gum rank you are today.”

      “Still think I’m part of a government conspiracy, Jeremiah Carter?” Cellars asked as he popped the last of his eggs into his mouth.

      “Well, sir, you’re definitely a part of some government, so I guess the ‘conspiracy’ part goes without sayin’ … probably just a question ‘a which one.”

      “Which government, or which conspiracy?”

      Carter shrugged.  “Hell, if I were a bettin’ man, I say both … but what do I know?”

      “Maybe a lot more than you think … at least I hope so,” Cellars replied as he stood up from the table.  “Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.”

      “Oh, don’t you worry none, I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Carter said with a chuckle as he reached for another biscuit.  “Fact is, I’m startin’ to like it here.”

*     *     *

      After relieving his straining bladder, Cellars paused at the sink to wash his hands and then stare in the mirror.

      
Okay, which is it?
he asked himself, looking closely into his hazel eyes that he decided looked far more tired that he actually felt.

      
Major or Detective Sergeant?

      
Or, more to the point: soldier or cop?

      From a logical standpoint, all of the direct physical evidence so far — the VA clinic, nurse Marcini, the perfectly-fitting uniform and the ID card — pointed to the idea that he was some kind of investigating Army officer seriously injured during a local training exercise.  The varying details of that scenario that he knew about — or at least
thought
he knew about — all seemed to fit together nicely … as they all should if it was the truth, he told himself.

      But all of the other verbal evidence he had been gathering over the past few hours, specifically the impassioned comments of Eleanor Patterson, Ace Bellringer and now Jeremiah Carter — unfortunately all nut-cases of the first order, and thus hardly reliable as testimonial witnesses — clearly pointed in an opposite direction: that he was really an Oregon State Police crime scene investigator sent down to Jasper County to … do what?

      He had no idea.

      And then there were the other maddening gaps in his memory … the frustrating fact that his entire personal past life seemed no longer to be there, if it ever was, he reminded himself.

      But then there was his seemingly unique ability to clearly and specifically recognize voices out of his past — like Jody and Bobby — even though he had no idea at all who or what they were.  ‘Seemingly unique’ only because no one else he’d talked with since he’d woken up in the MRI room had claimed to be able to do it —

      Cellars blinked in sudden realization.

      Except for one crazed old man.

      Cursing at himself, Cellars quickly splashed water on his face, dried off, and then hurried back out to the table.

      The first thing he saw was Jeremiah Carter slumped down in his chair, looking exactly the way he had when Cellars had first spotted him outside an hour or so earlier.

      “Hey, old man, wake up,” Cellars said as he walked up to the table.  “That waitress might actually like you now, but she’s sure as hell not going to let you sleep here all night.”

      No response.

      “Hey, Carter … come on, man, wake up, we’ve got to get —” Cellars started to say as he tugged at the old man’s thin shoulder, and then hesitated as he felt the now familiar chill ripple down his spine again.

      
Oh shit, no.

      He tried for a pulse twice, pressing his fingers against the carotid and wrist points reflexively, as if he done so many times before in many similar situations.  But some inner sense in the depths of his mind told him there wouldn’t be a pulse this time; that the fierce spirit that had once inhabited this scrawny and dirty body was now gone, forever.

      Then a tangential thought flashed through Cellars’ mind, and he found himself lunging outside the door of the restaurant with the Baretta pistol clenched tightly in both hands, looking for — what, a fleeing figure?  A shadow?

      He could feel his ‘shoot-don’t shoot’ instincts primed for the kill, and he wanted nothing more right now than to be able to center the high-lighted sights of the cold pistol on the entity that had dared to deprive him of the information he so desperately needed.

      But there were no fleeing figures — and no flickering shadows — visible anywhere in the surrounding darkness.  Only the steadily falling clumps of snow that seemed to be growing bigger every time he looked outside.

      
Now what?
  he asked himself as he hurried back inside, retuning the pistol to its snug nest against the small of his back. 
Can’t leave him here.  What do I do with him?

      Which brought him right back to the basic question that seemed to have been haunting his every move during the past few hours:

      
What am I … an Army Major or a Detective Sergeant?

      He had the sense that his frontal lobes might be trying to reach a consensus, but if that was the case, they weren’t revealing anything about the process.

      
Come on, Cellars, one way or the other.  What’s it going to be: soldier or cop?

      Then, finally, a single word popped into his mind.

      Cop.

CHAPTER 10

      It took Cellars a little less than ten minutes to drag Jeremiah Carter’s limp and nearly weightless body outside to the Humvee, transfer all of his assorted gear from the storage compartments under the rear seats to the floor of the front passenger seat, shove the old man across the rear seats, slam the rear door shut, hop into the driver’s seat, and then flip the starter switch over to ‘RUN.’

      It was only when the glow plug light finally went out, and he felt the diesel engine running smoothly, that he allowed himself to relax and think about the next decision … one that he guessed would probably be critical in determining whether or not he ended up back in custody within the next twenty-four hours.

      The closely-related question, of course, was in
whose
custody.

      
Definitely not in MacGregor’s
, Cellars told himself. 
Not with our ongoing history
and
the body of a supposedly disabled vet in the back of his pilfered Humvee.  That’s not going to work out very well.

      And neither was the presence of this particular disabled-vet body if he didn’t do something with it pretty soon, Cellars realized, quickly unrolling his side window as the truly ripe smell of Jeremiah Carter, et al, began to build up in the closed vehicle.

      He was tempted to just go back up Crater Lake Highway, find some deserted side road, and leave Carter there.  Sorely tempted, in fact, as he leaned across the wide front seats and rolled down the passenger side window.  Army uniform and ID notwithstanding, he knew he’d never be able to explain the presence of a dead transient in his vehicle to any State or local law enforcement officer if he got stopped; especially if they’d been receiving any All Points Bulletins from MacGregor and his MP buddies during the last hour or so.

      But Cellars had enjoyed Jeremiah Carter’s feisty spirit a little too much to simply dump him out in the wilderness; especially in some dark portion of that wilderness where shadowy figures might start showing up again.  Carter had been a fountain of possibly valuable information to Cellars in the short time he had seen the old man alive, and he wasn’t about to mistreat the spirit of the ornery character in death.

      And besides, Cellars reminded himself, Jeremiah Carter’s body was now a piece of physical evidence that might actually tell him something more if he could just get it to the right people.

      
And if I’m going to start thinking of myself as a cop, or, more accurately, as a CSI, I need to start acting like one
, he reasoned. 
So, what would a real crime scene investigator do with a dead body?

      Once again, the beckoned response rose instantly up from the depths of this mind.

      
Take it to the coroner’s office.

      Aware that his frontal lobes were finally starting to get into the game with whatever chunks of information they could dredge up from his ‘common knowledge’ memories, Cellars smiled gratefully.

      
Okay, fair enough, where do I find the coroner’s office?

      His frontal lobes had no idea, so Cellars quickly grabbed the phone book off the floor, turned to the Federal/State Government section in the front, and quickly discovered that there were a lot of things about local law enforcement that he didn’t seem to know.  Such as:

      Where would they list the coroner’s office?  Under State or County Government?

      Having no idea about that either, Cellars quickly scanned down the pages, and discovered — to his amazement — there was no listing for a coroner’s office in Jackson County in either section.  There
was
a listing for a Coroner’s Office in Siskiyou County, but none for Jackson.

      
Wait a minute, what kind of sense does that make?
Cellars wondered. 
There has to be a coroner’s office somewhere around here, doesn’t there?  I mean, what do the Jackson County investigators do with all of their bodies?  Take them to Siskiyou County?

      Cellars didn’t think so, but he also didn’t know for sure.  And the only way he was likely to find out, at two o’clock in the morning and in the middle of a snowstorm, was by calling the listed Jackson County Sheriff’s emergency number and asking … which didn’t strike him as being a very good idea at all.