The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER SEVENTY

511

While Farr and Spellman gathered the police equipment from the Jeep that would be needed once the helicopter from Fort Dillman made its arrival Special Agent David Mabry continued to sit at Chief Townsend's desk and ponder the information they had come up with during the course of the investigation. He looked at the word he had written on the legal pad and for the life of him he could not comprehend where he had seen it before. It meant something, but what? He now looked at the white leather bound Bible that Skeeter had found near the bus. It was not that a minister would have a Bible, but he had to wonder why at such a moment he had drawn it out. Was he reading it when the violence had begun? Surely a minister read the good book often, but would have been reading it at this awkward time? Of course he could have been reading it. It was foolish of him even to be trying to envision the scenario in his mind's eye.

But where had he seen the word before? He decided to go over his notes completely. They were the notes he had made at the various crime scenes connected to this mayhem once he was on the case. He shuffled through the papers there on the desk. After going over all that he had transcribed thus far he saw no reference to it. But he had seen it he knew, he was certain that he had seen it or something similar to it.

He reached down to his briefcase and sat it on top of the desk. He opened it up once more and began rifling through the side pockets of it. And then he found his original notepad, the notepad that held his preliminary notes. These were the hand written observations he had initially made at the crime scenes, the ones he'd used when transcribing it all into a workable format. He had forgotten them when he had spread all the other notes out on the desk.

He turned back the title page and there it was. He felt like the proverbial person who was searching for something he had lost and it would have bitten him had it been the proverbial snake. He had thought it was inconsequential to the case and had given it little notice when he had written it down. He had not bothered to write it down when he was transcribing his observations. Oh he had meant to look into it, but only because he thought it had some historical significance relating to something other than this case and was only going to do so out of historical curiosity.

512

It had been carved into the giant oak tree at the Reese farm nearby the town of Billings. As he had gone about the downed tree with the other two men Sheriff Trumbo had pointed it out to him. He had quickly scribbled it onto his pad, but at the time of seeing the word MANTAQUE he could not even remotely see that it was in any way related to this case. But now he wasn't so sure. This talk of the ghost man, as the waitress had referred to him during the course of her recorded statement, being able to shift himself into something resembling a dog may indeed have something to do with this word.

It seemed the minister Locklear was calling him that, designating him as being this Mantaque, letting anyone capable of hearing his last words and able to survive know that that was what he was. But why did he think others would know? It was obvious he didn't have time to explain it with his impending death.

He picked up the Bible, which Skeeter Branch had tossed onto the desk. He slid it out of its plastic cover and using his pen he opened it to the salutary page. He quickly found the phrase Locklear had written "Mantaque back!"

He compared it to the construct of the word as he had first written it at the farm, as it was there on the tree. There was a Q U E after the second A, and then he compared it to how the minister had composed it in the Bible, which Skeeter had given to him. It was the same. But he had written it differently when the waitress had quoted it to him. But she probably only heard it differently, he was sure it was the same thing.