Rescue

used that on the burns. It helped a little. The rest of the camp was pretty rustic, except for the slaughterhouse scene in the center of the room.
    Severn’s eyes were open, but I couldn’t reach them to close the lids without wading through the draining lake of blood in front of him. The light from the woodstove flickered over his features. He’d gotten a haircut since I’d seen him on Route 93, and his skin also looked less tan, though I chalked that up to loss of blood. The jug-handled ears stuck out more with less hair around them, and the buck teeth had bitten through the lower lip as he went down.
    Keeping my shoes out of the blood by walking up to the body from behind, I patted a bulging rear pocket that yielded a wallet. I went through what Lonnie Severn carried on him.
    A fifty, two twenties, and a five in cash. A Red Cross donor card with blood type on it, New Hampshire driver’s license, no credit cards. Some prayers in handwriting, and a poem of sorts in the same. The poem read,

    Better to take a life there or here,
    Than live the rest of yours in fear.

    I drew in a breath, continued on. Social security card, calendar from a bank in Manchester, and a scrap of index card. The last had on it, in the same handwriting as the poem, what looked like names and telephone numbers:

    Rev. Royel off. 305-555-7500
    comp. 305-555-7550
    Axel 305-555-7591

    I figured “off.“ meant office, “comp.“ probably company. “Axel“ I couldn’t do much with, but the “Rev. Royel“ part sounded consistent, if not inviting, especially given the area
    code.
    I put the index card scrap in one of my pockets and Severn’s wallet in another. Sitting on the closer cot, I watched the fire instead of the body and went over what I knew.
    Melinda gets wind—probably through Eddie—of his parents’ plans to send him to some “Christian Institute.“ She’s streetwise, and that doesn’t feel right to her for some reason Melinda also has “spunk,“ as Oswald Finn called it, so she takes the old Dodge Swinger and spirits Eddie away.
    Severn pursues Melinda and Eddie down from New Hampshire . Spotting their car while I’m changing the tire, he hides his pickup farther south and follows them into Boston . Severn kills Melinda and leaves her to be found pretty easily, but there’s no sign of Eddie. Given the way I was handled in the truck, Severn could have taken the boy somewhere. Maybe here and into the dry well, although the camp had the feel of not being used for a while before we arrived. Also, if Severn’s coming back up here to do something with Eddie or to him, why not bring Melinda, too, rather than dump her body in Boston where it would be found?
    No, more likely Severn takes Eddie to that “Christian Institute.“ In Elton, Eddie’s parents say he’s gone with their blessings, their old pastor and the boy’s recent principal both feeling he was leaving the area. Severn has lots of stuff in his trailer on Rev. Wyeth’s operation down in Florida and some telephone numbers from it in an otherwise thin wallet. Last Thursday to late Monday would be enough time to drive to Florida and back if he didn’t do much else and lived on caffeine. And a working arrangement with the Church of the Lord Vigilant might explain the cache of cash and new truck
    Then I got around to me. Chief Pettengill knew I was looking for Severn, and I broke into the trailer before Severn sapped me and brought me here. My car’s sitting two hundred feet from the home of the man I just killed. I don’t have any idea where I am, other than Severn’s saying we were ten miles from other people. Even if that was an exaggeration, I sure as hell can’t find my way out to recognizable landmarks at night over the cowpath we bounced along to get here.
    I lay back on the cot, the adrenaline fading fast. I didn’t like the image of me explaining to Pettengill how all this came about. And I couldn’t see him letting me out of the state to go looking for Eddie Haldon, especially fifteen hundred miles south. I didn’t even know enough about New Hampshire law enforcement to be sure how many shots Pettengill would get to call once he learned of Severn’s death. At my hands. After I’d broken into the man’s trailer.
    No, I didn’t like any of it, but I fell asleep thinking about it, all the same.

    I awoke at close to first light, shivering since I hadn’t pulled any blanket over me and the fire had gone out. I was pretty hungry, but not