by Margaret Kay
“We’ll want to take a look at their homes ourselves,” Mother said.
“I can meet you there tomorrow morning. I have the keys to both places.”
“Very good, thank you,” Lambchop said.
“Was there anything disturbed here besides the door appearing to have damage?” Mother asked. “Any unusual tracks in the snow?”
“It snowed overnight on the twenty-fourth, about four inches and we got another six inches Christmas Day. But there was not anything disturbed inside the research facility.” He pointed to one of the cars in the lot. “That’s her car, nothing disturbed there either.”
“Does Keeling have a car?” Mother asked.
The Trooper nodded.
“Where is it?” Mother asked.
“Dunno. It’s not here, not at his home.”
“Are there many security cameras at businesses around town, any red-light cameras or cameras along the highway?” Lambchop asked.
The Trooper chuckled. “You’ve got to realize; this isn’t a big city like you’re used to. We don’t have any of those things. There are only two businesses in town with security cameras, the bank, and the Gas-n-Grub, and I already looked at their recorded footage. It didn’t show me anything suspicious.”
“Okay, thanks,” Lambchop said.
The team drove to the motel and checked in. Brielle had gotten them a family suite with two bedrooms, a small living room with a kitchenette. There was a diner beside the motel. They ordered meals to go and brought them to the motel to eat. They dialed into Ops to check in, surprised that Garcia was still there. So much for him being on leave.
“Neither of the missing researchers have used bank or credit cards in the past four days,” Garcia said.
“The State Trooper says that nothing appears to be wrong or missing at their homes, either,” Lambchop reported. “We told him we wanted to get a look inside their homes too.”
“What about their phones, Garcia?” Mother asked. “Did you get into their records?”
“I found nothing in Annaka Sanchez and Patrick Keeling’s phone records to indicate that their communication outside of work was greater than they each have with any other member of the research team. If they’re having a secret affair, their phone records do not indicate it,” Garcia said. “The only thing their phones do have in common is that they both went dead within an hour of each other on December twenty-fourth, Keeling’s at twenty-one hundred, Annaka’s an hour later around twenty-two hundred.”
“That was right when I was messaging with her,” Mother said. He wished he would have asked her about a phone call sooner. If they had been on the phone when whatever happened to Annaka happened, he may have heard it, or she could have gotten off a verbal description or report for him to go on.
“I’m going to run a history on both their phones, to see if I can track their movements over the days prior to their disappearances based on the local towers their phones pinged off of. Remarkably, there are a lot of towers on the peninsula, the majority near Anchor Point, Homer, and running along Highway One towards Anchorage,” Garcia said.
Mother chuckled. “What part about being on leave do you not get? Smith and the rest of the digital unit that is in the office can handle it, I’m sure.”
Garcia laughed his low, gravelly chuckle. “I don’t mind putting a few hours in. We’ve already painted the nursery and shopped for the crib and all that. There’s really nothing more to be done until the furniture is delivered tomorrow. Sienna’s taking advantage of the quiet to binge watch some Hallmark movies I have no interest in.”
“Go home and be with your wife, Garcia,” Lambchop said. “It’s nearly twenty-one hundred there.”
Garcia laughed again. “I plan to walk through the door in thirty minutes just as her movie ends. I’ll have Smith review the results and get back to you tomorrow. I am taking tomorrow off unless something important comes up.”
They disconnected the call. “Well, this proves what I’ve always thought. Sienna is a saint,” Mother said.
The others laughed.
The next morning in the predawn light, the team met Inspector Alfrejd at Annaka’s house. It was a small wood frame house on a partially wooded lot set back from the road. The exterior was painted blue. A small front porch faced the Kenai Mountain range. A swing on the front porch was flanked by a window on each side of it. Mother envisioned Annaka curled up on the swing under a blanket, sipping hot tea and enjoying the view. It was a better vision than her broken and battered body dumped in the snowy, frigid woods, an image that had crept into his thoughts overnight.
The State Trooper produced keys and opened her door. “Ayla Jones from the research office had a spare set of keys she gave me.”
Mother stepped inside, eager to view Annaka’s home and learn more about her. The front door opened into the main living space. A small living room with a couch, an armchair, end table and a television in front of a window were on the right. The kitchen was on the left. The sink was under the other window. A counter ran along the side wall with the stove and refrigerator on it as well. A square kitchen table with four wood chairs clustered against it filled in the room. It was neat and uncluttered. The room couldn’t have been more than four-hundred square feet. The walls were wood planks, and wood beams ran the length of the ceiling.
Along the back wall, two doors lay beside each other. They were both open. A large cast-iron stove was visible straight in the door to the right. Stepping inside, Mother saw it was the bedroom. The head of a double bed adorned with a burgundy comforter butted up against the wall to the living room area. A nightstand was on one side of the bed, closest to the door, a desk with neat stacks of papers and files on it, on the other. A chest of drawers and a freestanding closet were on the wall opposite the bed. There was one window near the desk.
The other door led into a room that was a combo bathroom laundry room. The furnace and hot water heater were also in this room. A door on the back wall opened to the outside. The room was oddly oversized. It too was clean and uncluttered.
Mother went back into the bedroom and searched through the papers on the desk. He didn’t find anything of interest, and he didn’t find anything that supported the theory that there was a personal relationship between her and Keeling. Sherman joined him and searched the nightstand drawers as well as through her clothes in the chest and closet. He didn’t find anything either.
Lambchop and BT searched the remainder of her home. They came up equally empty. The inspector relocked the door when they were done. Patrick Keeling’s house was their next stop. It was on the other side of Anchor Point, on the road that led out of town towards Homer.
Keeling’s home was even smaller than Annaka’s. It was a two-story shack. A cast-iron stove sat in the middle of the main room, with stairs leading up to his loft bedroom beside it. The bed was made, and everything was neat and orderly in the bedroom. A small bathroom and utility room were in their own room behind the stairs, otherwise the remainder of the home was in the three-hundred square foot main room. He had no television. The kitchen was small, the kitchen table oversized. It dominated the room. One end of it was set up as a desk with charts, maps, and other papers stacked on it.
A couch with a bed pillow and quilt draped over it ran along the length of the far wall. Mother suspected he slept on the couch more nights than not. A search of his home yielded nothing as well. Inspector Alfrejd relocked his door when they were done. The sun was just rising. For now, the sky was clear, but the forecast was for snow that afternoon.
“If I can ask, what is your next move? I was asked to make myself available to assist you in anything you may need,” the State Trooper said.
“With the erroneous report entries coming up yesterday, the owner of that oil platform is the only one with something to gain,” Lambchop said. “We intend to pay them a visit.”
“That is on my agenda as well,” Alfrejd said. “I’ve already inquired at the Carstairs Gas and Oil Company’s mai
n office in Anchorage. Troy Davis, the operating manager for the well, is out of town through the new year.”
That’s right. It was the holiday season, Mother remembered. “Certainly, there has to be someone else there who’s in charge in his absence.”
The State Trooper shrugged. “The main offices are running with a skeleton crew over the holidays. The highest-ranking person I could get in touch with was the HR Assistant.”
That person wouldn’t be helpful, Mother knew. He was frustrated, having encountered one dead end after another. And in the meantime, Annaka was still missing.
“So, I guess we should be asking you, what is next on your agenda?” Mother asked Alfrejd.
The Trooper chuckled. “I’m out of roads to go down. I brought in a blood hound. Started him at the research facility. He didn’t catch a scent at all, didn’t lead us anywhere. My gut is telling me this is one of two things. Either these two slipped away someplace private and are just holed up enjoying each other, or someone got them both and took them someplace up on the mountain that we’ll have no way of finding them at, that’s if they’re still alive. No bodies have washed up anywhere near the coast, not that they necessarily will. Outgoing currents could sweep them out and into the Gulf of Alaska.”
Alfrejd’s commentary disturbed Mother. He didn’t need anyone to confirm that Annaka could already be dead. When he spoke, he knew his words were clipped and curt. “If someone did take them, there is a reason. Did your background checks come up with any other possible reasons than the altered report? If we establish motive, we may be able to identify the perp.”
“Look,” Alfrejd said. “I don’t see any motives. We don’t have much crime in Anchor Point, domestic disturbances dominate the police blotter. Once in a great while we get someone up here running from the law in the contiguous forty-eight or Canada. Besides you boys, there hasn’t been any new faces in town in months. This isn’t exactly a hopping Christmas destination.
“So, no new faces, even with the platform workers?” Mother asked.
“No. The majority of them live up near Anchorage, at least those with families. There are a few local boys who work on the rigs. They rotate on for two weeks, off for two weeks, weather permitting the chopper to switch out the crews. I could put you in touch with a few of those local workers. But I think it’s a shot in the dark.”
The Shepherd Security Team thanked him. They returned to the motel. Hopefully, the digital unit would come up with something. Mother pulled his computer tablet back out and reread through the dossiers on both Annaka and Keeling. Lambchop contacted the home office for the Carstairs Gas and Oil Company. He learned that the Assistant Manager of Operations for all their local platforms was due back in the office the next day. He got his name before disconnecting the call.
“If nothing else turns up, we’ll pay him a visit tomorrow,” Lambchop said.
BT looked over the report that Annaka filed the night she disappeared, comparing it to what Remi Ipsen said should have been entered. “Well, the one thing I am certain of, if she was forced to make this report is that whoever was calling the shots knew exactly what information should be entered in which field. That indicates someone with knowledge was involved.”
“Who else in that research office besides Remi and Annaka would know that info? It might give us a few suspects to look harder at,” Mother said. “As a matter of fact, I think we should have HQ look into all six of those people we spoke to yesterday, look at their bank records, their histories.”
“I agree,” Lambchop said. “If it wasn’t someone associated with the platform, it could have been someone at that office.”
Lambchop received a message from Caleb Smith at HQ. He had some info and asked that the team call him when they were able to. Lambchop hit dial and put the call on speaker.
“Hi Lambchop, thanks for calling in so fast,” Smith answered.
“I have you on speaker. The team is here. What have you got?”
“I’ve analyzed the locations of both Keeling and Sanchez over the week prior to them going missing. Sanchez remained for the most part in Anchor Point proper, with just one trip up into the hills last Friday evening. But Keeling made several trips up into the hills. He too was pinging off the same tower that Sanchez was on Friday night, but he has three other specific areas that show activity, one earlier in the afternoon on the twenty-fourth.”
“Both Annaka and Keeling were at a coworker’s home on Friday night playing cards. I’d say eliminate that record and focus on the others,” Mother said.
“Can you focus in on a map of the area he was in on the twenty-fourth?” BT asked. “Maybe overlay satellite images to look for structures?”
“It’s heavily wooded, not sure any structures would stand out,” Smith said.
“Can Shepherd get a satellite flyover with thermal imaging?” Mother asked.
There was a pause on the line. “I can ask,” Smith said. “It would have to be a detailed pass. I’m sure there is a lot of wildlife out there, bears and moose that will register as human sized.”
“I’m sure if anyone is out there the cabin would be heated. Everyone in town has fireplaces or cast-iron stoves,” BT said. “You’d be looking for a larger heat signature than a few bears wandering around the woods.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Smith said and then signed off.
“He doesn’t think she’s in a cabin. He thinks she’s dead or near it, out in the elements someplace,” Mother said.
“Until we find confirmation of that we go on the assumption that we are going to find her,” Lambchop said without missing a beat. “We believe that God is looking out for her.”
“Amen to that,” Mother said.
An hour later, the team got the call from Smith they were hoping to. “There are four cabins with heat signatures in the area Keeling traveled to during the afternoon on the twenty-fourth. I’m sending you GPS coordinates on each cabin now,” Smith said. “Shepherd urges extreme caution while checking them out. They don’t like strangers trespassing out there. Even if a cabin you approach is not housing your Tangos, you could be fired on.”
Mother had to chuckle. He recalled an operation they’d taken part in several years back in the hills of Appalachia, going after moonshiners who had branched out into drug production. Those hillbillies didn’t like strangers trespassing. They were greeted with many shotguns during that operation.
“Should we notify Alfrejd?” Sherman asked Lambchop.
“No, not till we investigate. It could be a bust. If we find anything, we can notify him. Besides, I don’t want him getting in our way.”
Mother nodded. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Besides, if they did encounter the Tangos, Alfrejd was not trained as they were. He could be a hinderance.
They went to cabin number one. It was the one closest to the road of the four. There were electrical lines going from the road to the small cabin. Upon close recon, they identified a family with some chickens and other livestock in a barn. There were two children who appeared to be school-aged. No one was armed.
They checked out the second cabin further off the main road. Through his binoculars from the tree line a hundred yards away, Mother saw smoke coming from the chimney. There were no electric wires hooking up to this house. Through one of the windows, he saw an Alaskan woman. An Alaskan man came up behind her and embraced her. They shared a passionate kiss and then disappeared from view.
Foxtrot
The third cabin was even farther off the main road. There was what appeared to be a driveway winding up through the pines, but there were no tire tracks. They left the SUV at the bottom of the driveway. The area was dark and quiet. Dusk was falling on the mountain, the temperatures dropping with it.
Through his binoculars, Mother focused in on the cabin. There were no electric lights. A plume of smoke rolled out of the chimney and through a secondary pipe. Probably a cast-iron stove. He saw a glow through the windows. The lighting was low. The team
fanned out and circled in from four directions.
“There is a car behind the cabin,” Sherman reported through his comms. “It’s covered in snow, but I’m going to clear the license plate.” He approached the vehicle and disturbed the snow over the plate and on the back end of the car to see the model and color. “It’s Keeling’s car.”
“Roger that. This is the place,” Lambchop said. “Is there a back door?”
“Roger that,” Sherman replied.
“BT approach the front door with me. Mother, you and the Birdman breach through that back door when I give the order.”
“Roger,” Mother acknowledged. The others did too. He crept towards the back, joining Sherman up alongside the wood cabin by the door. He examined it. No deadbolt. The door didn’t look too solid, could be kicked in.
