Read Online A Plunder by Pilgrims by Jack Nolte - Free Book Online Page A

if I put it that way."
    Garrison shook his head.  "Are you sure, Mattie?  I mean, kids, you know . . ."
    "Oh, I know.  Ain't something you ever saw yourself doing.  But here's the thing.  There's nobody I know I'd trust more than you, Garrison.  Nobody.  There's something about you.  You're just decent right down to the core.  Ain't nothing in the world could corrupt you, I think.  I wonder sometimes if you know how rare that is."
    "No," Gage said, "no, you've misread me.  I'm selfish, Mattie.  I'm about as selfish a person as there is."
    "I think that's just an act."
    "No.  No, it's the real me."
    She sighed.  "I'm not going to argue with you.  But I'm not changing my mind either.  I realized on the way down here, I got to do this now before I miss my chance.  You wouldn't turn me down, would you, Garrison?  It's my last dying wish.  It'd make me happy."
    Garrison stared at her, bemused at her chutzpah.  "I thought you were going to use that line on Zoe?"
    "Oh, I will.  But it's the kind of line I plan to get plenty of mileage out of."
    He laughed.  He couldn't help it.  "I don't know, Mattie.  I just don't know if it's a good idea or not."
    "Well, think quickly, okay?  Maybe if you thought a little about that girl on the beach, and imagined it being Zoe, it would help."
    He took her hand and squeezed it back.  He didn't want to tell her, but he'd already done exactly that.
     
    * * * * *
     
    When Zoe came back, they visited with Mattie another hour, then Gage asked if Zoe wanted him to drive her home—since the hospital wanted to keep Mattie overnight.  Zoe told him she had a friend who worked as an orderly and she'd catch a ride with him later.  She'd said it with a fair amount of bite, as if she knew what Gage and Mattie had discussed.  Gage imagined many years of such biting remarks from Zoe and left the hospital more depressed than when he'd entered it.
    Back in his van, he glimpsed the lake through the openings in the firs and the spruces, as smooth and blue as painted concrete.  The cool breeze whistled through the gaps in his windows.  Even a half mile away from the ocean, there was less salt in the wind; the air was fresher.
    He pulled out the manila folder under his seat, the one containing the autopsy photos.  Flipping through them, there were about a dozen in all, computer printouts on glossy white paper.  Somehow seeing her in the stark fluorescent lighting of the morgue was even more gruesome than seeing her on the beach that first time.  She was so pale and white, and her surroundings so monochrome and sterile, that the bruises and cuts on her body leapt off the page.  Who would do such a thing?  It was the question that always flitted through Gage's mind when he witnessed such cruelty, but he never let himself dwell on it.  He'd learned early on that it was madness to do so.  He'd seen too much evil in the world to try to make sense of it. 
    Evil was like Mattie's cancer—a foreign invasion into an otherwise healthy body.  Why was it there?  There was no why.  It just was, and the only thing to do was to destroy it before it destroyed you.  At least, that's all Gage could do.  He'd leave it to the social workers and the psychiatrists and the politicians to look for evil's cause.  Maybe some good would come from that sort of thing, but he doubted it.
    Because he was dealing with a Jane Doe, Gage knew there were lots of potential places to begin.  It was like having a map without a destination.  You could start walking in any direction and hope that where you were supposed to go would occur to you along the way.
    He lingered on the photo of her ankle, the one that showed her ring of dolphin tattoos.  It was the sort of tattoo a girl who loved the ocean might get.  It was also the kind of tattoo a girl might get when she'd moved to the coast.  There were also all the piercings.  He knew there was no guarantee that she'd gotten any of it done in Barnacle