Clint chuckles, pointing a finger at me. “And there’s another thing you LA people are always doing.”
“What’s that.”
“Selling something.”
“Touché,” I reply with a grin.
We have our breakfast, fend off Laurie Ann’s flirtations, and it’s 8:45 when we walk back to the station and climb into the Bronco. The drive out is the same one we took yesterday, right up to where we pass the dirt road leading out to the abandoned ranch. As we drive past it, Clint doesn’t even slow. Our conversation has been sporadic, banal, nothing really to do with the case, or anything that relates to Sloane Finley. I almost want to bait him about his obvious fascination with her, but I don’t. I was the one to offer the truce, and I’d really be showing my asshole colors if I was the one to break it.
We drive on for another few miles and I notice Clint is leaning forward now, hunched over the steering wheel, scanning the area to either side of the road. We’re cresting another slight rise when I finally ask, “Any idea how much further?”
“Like I said, I ain’t never actually been to the Christiansen place…” His voice trails off for a moment. “But I know it’s out this way.” His head continues its back-and-forth pattern. “And I’m pretty sure we ain’t too far.”
We’ve gone silent again when I finally spot a break in the fence line at the same time I feel Clint slowing the truck. He eases to the side of the road as we come up to a much more modern-looking gate than the one we came to at the abandoned property. Clint brings the truck off the pavement, and comes to a stop.
“This the road to the Christiansen place?” I ask.
“Yep. Has to be.”
He shuts off the truck, and climbs out of the cab. I follow, looking the gate over. “It’s locked.”
“Yep.”
“Cut it.” I don’t ask if he’s carrying bolt cutters in the vehicle, I just assume it.
He frowns at me as if I’ve asked him to steal a man’s lunch. “Ain’t no need for that…” He moves past me to the gate post, inching up his lanky frame until he can look at the top of it.
“Five R minus two.” I hear him say the words softly as he comes back down off his toes, and then he’s turning to his right, walking down the fence line. I watch him as he moves off a short distance and comes to a halt by one of the steel stake fence posts. I watch as he kneels, rooting around at the base. A moment goes by then I see him nod, rising with something in his hand. He walks back to where I’m standing, and with a tight smile he takes the key and opens the lock.
“Interesting.”
“You didn’t see nothing,” he says with a grin, swinging the gate open. “Come on.” We return to the truck, and he pulls through to the other side and stops, leaving the truck idling. I turn and watch out the back window as he swings the gate closed, locks it, and then returns back down the fence line to hide the key at the third post where he’d found it. Once everything is in place, he jumps back in, and we begin moving once more.
“Never seen that before.”
“Rancher’s trick. That way your neighbors can get up your road if you need help, but people who ain’t from around here can’t.”
“Duly noted.”
Clint chuckles. “Like I said, you didn’t see nothing.”
We drive up the dirt road, kicking up a rooster tail of dust behind us. Mr. Christiansen, if he’s here, or anyone else who may be ahead of us, is going to know we’re coming. It’s not exactly the approach I’d like to take, but Clint seems unperturbed, and I realize that for him this is just natural. An exclamation point of dust rising into the air must be the West Texas way of ringing the doorbell.
The road goes on for miles from the county road before we crest a small rise and I see a group of buildings ahead of us. As we get closer, they resolve themselves into a ranch with a house, a barn, two silver metal feed silos, and the ubiquitous windmill. It’s an older place. A white clapboard house that is something straight out of Norman Rockwell, and though the barn is maintained and neatly kept, the weathered boards belie any notion that it’s of newer construction. I’m taking all this in when I notice another thing.
A man is standing in the large dirt area between the buildings. A very, very large man.
Clint slows the truck as we get closer, letting the trail of dust we’ve been dragging behind us settle. I don’t look over at him, but keep my eyes on the man, sweeping the area to either side of him for signs of anyone else. As we pull to the edge of the larger area I say to Clint in a low voice, “Daniel Christiansen?”
“Yep.”
“Big boy.”
“Now you see why they called him ‘The Wall’ back in high school. Best damn lineman Stockdale ever had.”
“Well, I guess it’s true what they say. You do grow’em bigger here in Texas.”
Clint doesn’t even chuckle at the joke as he pulls the truck to the side of where the young man is standing and shuts off the motor. We both get out and move to position ourselves opposite Mr. Christiansen. He stands motionless, eyes moving back and forth between us as we take our places. His hands are at his sides, fingers spread wide, not clenched. He doesn’t seem tense, even though he’s standing rigidly. For whatever reason the posture seems natural on him. As if this is the way he’s always stood before smaller creatures below him.
Finally, when we’re all arrayed under the heat of the late-morning sun, Mr. Christiansen breaks the ice. “How’d you get onto my property?”
I might have expected outright hostility, especially given the abruptness of his question, but the voice, though deep, is surprisingly quiet. Flat.
“Afternoon, Daniel.” Clint keeps his own voice blandly pleasant, neutral.
“My gate was locked.”
“I know that, but we needed to come talk to you.” Clint motions toward me. “This here’s Agent Jones of the FBI. He’s come out from California, looking into a case that took place ’round here awhile back. He has a few questions he’d like to ask you.”
“Questions about what?”
I take a few steps toward him and stop. I’ve never thought myself small, but I have to bend my neck back to look up into his face. ‘The Wall’ is a completely apt description for him. He is solid, muscular, a wall of flesh carved into a young man. I stick out my hand. “Afternoon, sir.”
He looks at my hand stoically, then stares into my face. He looks neither unfriendly, nor angry. Just a blank slate with a monotone voice that reveals nothing about what’s going on in that head, or behind those dark eyes that stare back into mine. At worst, he appears mildly perturbed that his privacy has been invaded unannounced, and that is discernible mostly in his words. It’s just as Braddock had warned about people out here. They value their privacy.
“Afternoon.” He takes my hand, engulfing it until it disappears completely within his. Now that I’m close, and in physical contact with him, it seems almost unnatural how big he is.
“Do you have a moment to talk?” I follow Clint’s lead, keeping my voice politely professional and neutral as I pull my hand back from his.
He looks down at me, then over to Clint, his expression never changing. “What do you want?”
I pull the image I grabbed from the truck out of my pocket and offer it toward him. “Do you recognize this picture?”
He looks down at the picture for a moment, his head slightly cocked. I watch, but his expression doesn’t falter for an instant. When he’s done, he turns his face back to mine. “Never seen it before.”
“Okay.” I nod understandingly. “Do you recognize the young woman in the picture? Where it was taken?”
“That’s my property.”
“That’s what we thought. Do you recognize the woman?” I repeat the question, keeping my voice even.
“No.” Mr. Christiansen says it firmly, without inflection. He turns to look at Clint. “Is she from town?”
Clint shakes his head. “No, Daniel. She ain’t from Stockdale. She’s an actress. From
out there in California.”
“An actress?” For the first time I hear inflection in his voice. It sounds like confusion. That term — Clint calling her an actress — seems to baffle Daniel. “What was she doing on my property?”
“She was taking a picture,” I answer the question, indicating the piece of paper in my hand. “This picture.”
“A… picture? Why’d she want a picture?”
“Well, as Deputy Nolan said, she was an aspiring actress.” I watch as his eyes come up to mine, and the confusion hasn’t faded. “She was on a cross-country trip. To promote herself. She stopped here, where this picture was taken on your property, and after she took it, she posted it to her Facebook page.”
His eyes narrow as I go on, the confusion growing even more pronounced. What Braddock explained at the station yesterday flashes back to me. The entire reason we are out here right now. No phone. No technology. This young man doesn’t know what Facebook is. He has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. I might as well be the man in the moon for all the nonsense I’m spewing.
He doesn’t look back at the picture at all, keeping his gaze firmly on me as he says, “She was trespassing.”
* * *
Her
At first I’m not sure that the murmur of voices I hear is real. It’s like a television on in another room, a rumble of different tones that leaks into my ears slowly as I lie on the table, but then it clicks.
There’s no TV here.
I whimper as I push myself up from the wooden surface, standing slowly, and even though the sight of the basement windows makes my stomach twist, I still reach for it to pull it open. As soon as I do, I can hear men talking. But Daniel’s voice is there too. Low, monotonous, but there.
With people. Real people.
He’ll just kill them if you make a sound. The thought invades as I try to build up the energy to scream, but then I hear the words ‘Deputy Nolan’ and my heart skips a beat. The police. This is it. This is my chance. My only fucking chance.
Shoving the window open as far as it will go, I look at the narrow space and then down at my body. I’m in a thin shirt that I can feel sticking to my back, but I know I’ve lost weight here.
I just don’t know if I’ve lost enough to make it through the window.
Putting my arms on the ground outside, I kick up off the table and have to bite down the scream as my back hits the window. The voices continue, and even as fresh pain rakes down my back, I drag myself forward. Squeezing, digging my fingers into the dust and the thin grass.
Breathe out and do it, Sloane. Do it or you’re dead.
* * *
Mason
‘Trespassing.’ That’s all this wall of a kid has to say about Sloane Finley, and I knew it.
I realize with a crystalline clarity it’s the full extent of what he knows and will ever know about Sloane Finley. ‘She was trespassing.’ That’s all it will ever be. Probably the last note I’ll have to make in any report on her. Daniel Christiansen never saw Sloane Finley. She came, took her picture, and was gone without him ever being the wiser. And whoever did take her, wherever that may have been, the only thing he would know of her now is that she was the girl who trespassed on his property.
What a fucking waste of time.
“So you don’t recognize her. Never saw her here on your property at any time?” I ask, even though I know it’s pointless.
“No, sir. I don’t recognize her. I know I never seen her, that I’m sure of. Don’t really get many visitors out here.”
“And her car, maybe? A blue Honda Civic. Ever see that around here or on your property?” Clint pushes, but I’m done. We’re both done here.
“Nope. Blue car woulda stood out. Most folks out here drive trucks.”
We stand in silence as the wind whispers around us, kicking up a small eddy of dust that swirls past us toward the barn. Clint scuffs the toe of his boot into the ground, then looks up at Daniel.
“You remember what was going on around here about two and a half months ago? You out here all by yourself, or was anyone else around?” Clint scratches his cheek, staring at the man with interest.
“Two and a half months ago we was finishing bringing in the head to pasture up.” He glances over toward the fenced-in pasture area that we can see just beyond the barn. “I hired the Hernandez brothers to help out. You could ask them if they saw anything, but we was all together most of the time, so I doubt it.”
Clint stares at Daniel, nodding slowly. “And after that?”
Daniel gazes back, face blank, devoid of any emotion. “Just fattenin’ ’em up.”
For a moment it almost appears like some sort of bizarre imitation of a showdown Clint is engaging in with Daniel Christiansen, except it’s completely one-sided. The young man has no idea what we’re here about, or why he’s being questioned in regard to the disappearance of a young woman he knows nothing about. That much is perfectly clear to me. At best I had hoped he might have a tiny scrap of information about Sloane Finley’s whereabouts on the day she disappeared. Maybe an ‘I saw this blue car heading over the hill as I was coming back in from town,’ or something of that nature. Instead, we’ve gotten exactly what I’d expected.
Nothing.
“Deputy Nolan, I think I have everything I need.”
Clint’s face snaps toward me, his mouth coming open for a moment before he speaks. “That’s it? You… you sure you got all your questions answered?”
“As I said, I have everything I need.” I give him a pointed look. “We can go now.”
Clint’s hand comes up, and for a second I think he’s going to argue with me. But he drops it, mouth becoming a tight line of frustration. I face Daniel and give him a nod.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Christiansen. Sorry to have disturbed you.”
The boy says nothing in return, just gives me another of his emotionless stares. I turn and walk back toward the truck, leaving Clint standing there, still facing Daniel, unmoving. Looking into the window of the truck as I approach, I can see in the reflection that Clint is still in place, rocking on the balls of his feet as if he can’t quite decide what to do next.
“I’ll… I’ll see you ’round, Daniel.”
I stop at the door of the truck, watch as Daniel says nothing, does nothing but stare back at Clint in return. I put my hand on the door handle, waiting until I see Clint spin around and begin moving in this direction. Once he is, I climb inside, closing the door behind me. Clint comes around the vehicle, his face grim as he opens the door and climbs in, slamming it behind him. For a moment he just sits there, gazing out the window at Daniel, who remains immobile, staring back at us.
“That’s it?” Clint’s voice is strained and he doesn’t look at me.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’”
“That’s all we’re gonna do? That’s all the questioning you got for him?”
“Clint, there’s nothing here. That kid doesn’t know shit about Sloane Finley. Goddammit, he doesn’t even know what Facebook is, much less anything else that might pertain to her.”
His jaw is working. I’m waiting for him to pull out the keys and start the truck. Turn us around and head us out of here. Instead, he’s just sitting there, fuming.
Jesus. Christ.
“Did you really think we were going to discover something out here?”
He doesn’t respond, so I press on.
“This is exactly what I expected. He doesn’t know anything about Sloane Finley. He didn’t see anything, because there was nothing for him to see. At best she was out there on his property for fifteen minutes, and after she took that picture, she climbed back in her little car and drove off. She was miles away from here and long gone when it broke down or whatever happened, and then whoever it was came along and found her and then killed her.”
His head whips around as I say that.
“That is the truth, Deputy. That is the reality of what happened to Sloane Finley. And you
need to stop fantasizing about this fucking dead girl”—I wave the paper photo in his face—“and come to terms with it.”
His eyes blaze at me, and I know I’ve jabbed a coal into the nest of nerves I laid open last night.
“I didn’t come out here to find Sloane Finley. And damn sure not to save her. I came out here to flesh out a few paragraphs on a fucking report to give to the grieving father of a corpse.” I slap the paper down on the center console, and then jab my finger into it. “And I’ve got what I needed to do that. Now start the truck and let’s get the hell out of here.”
He’s angry. Maybe furious. But he doesn’t say another word. He fishes the keys out of his pocket, jams them into the ignition, and turns the motor over. He shoves the shifter into drive, and then wheels the SUV around in a tight turn, pointing us back the way we came. I look back in my mirror and see Daniel standing there, dust slowly shrouding him as we drive off. Soon the cloud becomes denser, then opaque until he disappears completely.
For his part, Clint does nothing but grip the wheel and point the truck forward, but I can see his eyes vacillating between staring down the road and glancing back in the rearview mirror to the fading form of Daniel Christiansen. I’m biting my tongue from saying anything more, even though a part of me says he needs it, when suddenly he slams on the brakes.
“Jesus Christ, Clint!” I shout, catching myself on the dash. “What the hell are you doing? Why are you stopping?”
“I…”
“What? You… what?”
“I thought I saw something.”
“How the hell could you see anything through all that?” I motion towards the rearview mirror, and the cloud of dust behind us.
“I just thought I saw something,” he snaps back at me. We sit there, the truck idling while the wind catches our own dust plume up to us, surrounding the truck in a filthy cloud.
Jasmine Page 22
