Page 94 of Return of the Spider

No answer. Then a dog whined behind us.

A woman said softly, “Hey, if you’re looking for the pervs, they’re not in there.”

CHAPTER

77

The lady walking theAiredale had come up to what passed for a lawn in front of Diggs’s double-wide. She was a tired-looking brunette in her late forties.

“Where are they?” I asked just as quietly.

“Sit, Bernie,” she said, and the dog sat smartly at her side. She pointed to woods diagonally across the street. “It’s state land. They’ve got a blind back in there off the logging road. Bernie and I don’t go in there during hunting season, and we try to avoid them at all costs.”

“Them?”

“Diggs and his friend. My brother Jimmy’s a criminal lawyer. Knew all about them when they moved in here. Both of them convicted perverts.”

“We know.”

“Once I found that out, I had double bolts put on every door and an alarm on every window in my place. Bought a twelve-gauge too. And I wait until they’re at work or off in the woods before I take Bernie out in this direction.”

French gestured toward the woods. “How far is this blind?”

She shrugged. “Go down the logging road to the roundabout, then there’s three trails off it. I can’t remember which one is theirs. Bernie and I like to go for tramps off the path when we can, but anyway, it’s another sixty yards or so off that roundabout. You can’t miss it even with all the brush and branches they put on top of it.”

We thanked her, got her name—Penelope Harris—and started toward the woods and the entrance to the logging road. Halfway there, I noticed a two-by-eight board fixed high between two large pine trees.

A rope passed through a pulley bolted into the crossbar.

I pointed to it, muttered to Sampson and French, “What are the odds that’s a MFP utility-grade rope?”

“I’m thinking high,” John said as we headed for the opening where the logging road began.

The weeds and grass growing in the lane had withered and browned after a recent frost. The maple and oak trees were already bare.

The leaves underfoot were damp and quiet. Rain began to patter down. The wind picked up. A gloomy light seized the woods.

Sampson had his hand on his pistol. So did I. So did French.

We reached the place Ms. Harris had described about two hundred yards into the forest. The logging road dead-ended in acircle of sorts with three trails running off it at ten o’clock, twelve, and two.

The police detective whispered, “We each take one. Sneak in. Second you see this blind, get out of sight and squawk like a crow. We’ll come to you.”

I said, “I’ll take the trail on the right.”

Sampson gestured at the path straight ahead, and French went toward the one at ten o’clock. I saw him take out his pistol before he entered the trees.

I did the same, holding the pistol loosely at my side as I tried to make as little noise as possible with each step in those soft wet leaves and the pattering of the rain. Several small branches popped beneath my shoes about twenty yards in, and I paused.

I scanned the woods ahead for a mound of branches, saw nothing, and kept going. About fifty yards down the trail, I heard a crow caw to my far left.

French,I thought, and started to turn.

From high and back over my left shoulder came a soft, two-toned whistle.

I paused and looked up and behind me into the treetops. I saw a camouflaged Eamon Diggs on a metal tree stand about twenty-five feet in the air and twenty yards away. He was holding a bow and aiming a nasty-looking broadhead arrow right at me.

“Toss the gun, asshole,” he growled.