Wolf nodded.
“And you know what?” she continued, letting the question dangle in the air for a moment. “I’m pretty sure that deputy lied through her teeth to you about the sheriff being gone ’til tomorrow. Just like she lied to me. See, while I was sitting there, I heard a call come in on the radio. I’m certain it was the sheriff, because that sourpuss deputy got up in a hurry and hustled her ass back into his office and slammed the door behind her, thinking I couldn’t hear what she was saying. But, I was able to pick out a few words, and it didn’t sound like the sheriff was leaving town anytime soon. It sounded more like he was headed home for the night. And, when she came back out—in a huff, I might add—she told me to leave and not to return until tomorrow, which I chose to ignore, knowing what I knew. It was all just bullshit, I’m sure, and I figured if I hung out there long enough, I’d get something I could go on. And I did. You.”
Wolf grumbled out a small grunt. He did not appreciate being lied to by the deputy, but he could see the logic partly made sense. Positions reversed, he would have done the same thing. Still, his gut was telling him there was something else going on, something a little more than what it appeared to be on the surface.
She looked up from the table at him again. “Maybe if you help me, we can pin down that deputy, or find the sheriff, and I can figure out what he knows about the girl I’m looking for. I’m sure he knows something. Maybe these two girls are tied together somehow. I just have this funny feeling about the whole thing, you know?”
He knew, but he said nothing.
She took a sip of water. “Can you help me with this? You’d be doing me a favor. And… Well, I know I really have no right to ask, but…”
Wolf drew a sharp breath that whistled through his teeth. “What kind of help do you need, specifically?”
She took another sip of water and swallowed an ice cube. “See, you’re a big guy. I’m thinking that just your presence alone might serve to sway these people. You could just stand there and look intimidating. Think you could do that?”
She grinned. Wolf frowned.
“Plus,” Pearson continued, “what do you know about that other girl? The one you were asking about. She might be involved somehow. Where did you come across her?”
“Here,” he said.
“Where?”
“Here.” He tapped his index finger on the tabletop.
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she do that?”
He shrugged.
“That’s curious.” She thought for a moment. “You think she was trying to get away from someone?”
“No, not directly.”
“Then, what?”
“There was a guy from the bus that stopped in here earlier. He was watching her. Maybe a little too closely.”
She leaned forward and put an elbow on the tabletop and cupped her cheek, and asked conspiratorially, “Go on.”
“The guy was about five-eleven, maybe one-fifty. Skinny guy with greasy blond hair slicked back. Mirrored sunglasses. Real winner type.”
She tilted her head to one side, and her fingers slipped off her face as she leaned back. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Sounds like your typical douchebag type.”
“Whatever he was, the sheriff interrupted us before I could find out. Told me to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“And since you are part Indian… Yeah, yeah, I checked. Sorry, I meant Native American.”
“Indian is just fine.”
“Is it? I always thought that was an offensive term for…your people? Is it not?”
“For some, maybe.”
“Doesn’t matter, I guess.” She glanced down at the table. “And Columbus was just some lost idiot, right?”
“I don’t know,” Wolf said, “I never met the man.”
“Funny. So you’re a half-breed? Part Cherokee?”
He stiffened and rubbed his knuckles. “My mother was part Cherokee, yes. And, so you know, half-breed is a highly offensive term.”
She choked and sputtered on the water, spitting an ice cube back into her glass. “Oh? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Please, accept my apology.”
He gave her a long stare with the hint of a smile at the end of it.
She squinted and then smiled too, genuine. “And I’m sorry about your mother. I saw that she had passed.”
“Not much to be sorry about. I never knew her.”
“Then who raised you? Wait—I’m prying. Never mind. So that cowboy sheriff told you to get the hell out of Dodge by noon, or what?”
He shrugged.
“Why’d you come back then?”
“The birds sent me,” he said.
“The birds sent—?”
“Crows.”
Her lips scrunched together, and she sucked them between her teeth, then snorted. “I don’t get it.”
He waited for a beat. “Crows are known tricksters, and they are often malicious deceivers. When I went to visit a place just south of here, I found an old dumpsite filled with them.”
“And…somehow they told you to return?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? I see.” She nodded, glancing away and then back at him. “Why?”
“Because I smelled something dead out there.”
She thought about it for a moment, and then her eyes suddenly went wide. She had figured out what he had been thinking all along—but hadn’t wanted to say.
“You don’t suppose…?” she said. “No…no, that would be—?”
- 12 -
CLUSTER BUCK
STANDING IN A Walmart parking lot, resting against the big Crown Victoria they’d rented in Denver, Antonio Montez lit an unfiltered cigarette and took a drag from it and let the smoke boil out around his head as he asked, “That him?”
Eddie Donato, his kid partner in the cheap suit, nodded. “Yeah, think so.”
Montez pushed away from the car.
The guy they’d been waiting for was hard to miss. He had a real dirtbag look to him, like he’d just come from an all-night porn shop. They’d been waiting for him for almost an hour. Plans had changed, and not for the better. The guy was supposed to have stayed and kept watch on the girl, but instead, he’d gotten back on the bus, saying the girl had been right behind him. But she wasn’t, and Montez was pissed as hell when that little weasel had told him so. But he’d seen through the lie right away. The guy probably knew more than he was letting on, and Montez planned to find out just what that was, one way or another.
When the guy drew near and jutted his hand out, Montez stared at that hand as if it were toxic. Who the hell knows where it’s been? The guy didn't even bother to remove his mirrored sunglasses, either.
Two strikes.
“So, you are Rodney?” Montez asked and took another hit from the cigarette.
The oily-haired man dropped his unwelcome hand and turned up the collars on his coat, looking off at something in the distance.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So what can you tell me about her?”
“Better I say it on the way back.”
“Why?”
“‘Cuz they are holding her for us.”
This took Montez by surprise. Maybe the guy wasn’t such a finocchio after all. “Do you know who is holding her?”
“Yeah, think so. Got it all figured out now. Gotta be the sheriff. Saw him take her off some big guy and march her out of some shitty diner. Think the sheriff must be Vaughn’s contact. It makes perfect sense.”
“You know this for sure?”
“No, never even met the guy. Vaughn wouldn’t say nothing about it, either.”
Montez hated all the secretive shit and all the layers that guy Vaughn had left behind. Nothing was easy. Nothing was straightforward. The damn guy was turning out to be just as much of a problem dead as he was alive. Can’t be helped, though. Dead was dead.
Montez motioned for Eddie to get behind the wheel of the Crown Victoria. He cli
mbed in after him and took shotgun while the shitstain in the sunglasses took the back seat and kept silent. Montez was glad for that and was glad he didn’t have to work with the guy for long. He’da never hired such a sleazebag in the first place.
Best to keep up appearances.
And the guy was just another mess of Vaughn’s he’d have to clean up later, given that the boss wanted everything neat and tidy when the job was done. And yet another greaser like Rodney planted out in some farmer’s plowed field didn’t bother him too much. Hell, he could probably get the guy to even dig his own grave. Wouldn’t that be nice? Or, maybe he could just have the kid do it. And, the kid—he’d really begun to impress. So, Montez figured he might even help the kid out if it came to that. Hold a shovel for him, at least.
The smooth-riding Vic turned out of the parking lot and onto the street, accelerated, and Eddie wrapped one hand on top of the wheel and leaned back in the seat like some kind of badass gangster.
Montez didn’t slouch. Never did. Didn’t like the way it made him look. No, he sat up straight and narrow and watched the road unfold, watched the side mirror to his right and the road behind, and then borrowed the rearview mirror to look at the guy in the back seat and assess whether or not the guy would beg for his life before he got shot in the head.
Yeah, he would.
Montez liked the big Crown Victoria. Roomy. It was much like what the cops and government types drove. He’d once imagined himself as an FBI agent, riding around in a big car, wearing those jackets with the yellow lettering on the back and asking pointed questions, such as, “You get a good look at the perpetrator, ma’am?”
He liked big words like ‘perpetrator.’ Words that demonstrated class, and education, and breeding. One he had, the others he didn’t. But he knew enough to get by.
He also liked the car because it would mean they’d not be hassled so much. The hick sheriffs where they were now would all take them for some big-shot government types driving fast to get to an important crime scene, or to do important government business, which meant they should be left alone, under penalty of law. And that all suited him just fine.
He was soon distracted when the kid started pointing at the GPS on the dashboard. “Got about four hours to go before we get there.”
Montez could tell that by looking himself. He’d already known. He’d figured it out the moment he got in the car in Denver and saw the same numbers. See, he was also smart. Wisdom was a kind of smart. And that meant the kid needed a little lesson in wisdom and assuming that his betters knew their shit and not to be such a dumbass about it.
Sighing through his nose, he blew smoke as he adjusted himself in the seat and flicked the used-up cigarette out the side window. Then he glanced in the rearview mirror again at the guy in the back.
“So,” he said, “tell me everything you know about the girl and who she has come in contact with. And don’t leave anything out.”
- 13 -
WHERE'S THE SHERIFF?
WOLF SIPPED HIS coffee. It was growing cold. “No, I don’t think so,” he said grimly.
Pearson gave him a skeptical shake of the head and leaned harder on the elbow she’d planted on the plain white tabletop.
“Shouldn’t we at least check to be sure? Eliminate the obvious?”
“It was an animal,” Wolf said. “I am certain of it. Probably a stray dog, or a deer.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“I could tell,” he said.
“Well, I’m not that sure.” She kept shaking her head. “So how do you know?” Her head stopped shaking, her eyes narrowed, and she got icily serious. “Did you actually see what it was? You said some sort of animal. How can you be so sure about that?”
“It was an animal.”
“Okay,” she said, still not showing she was entirely convinced. “Okay,” she repeated, “then, I want to go out there and see for myself. Just to be certain.” She pulled back and drew a whistling breath through her nose. “Good God, I hope it’s not what I fear it is… You think there is even a chance that it could be…?”
He wiped grit from one eye and took another sip from his coffee.
“What if I’m right?” she asked. “We need to get the sheriff involved. At least go see him about the other girl…Melody, right? Even if…even if he is involved somehow, we should be able to tell, right?”
“It will be dark soon,” he said.
“Then we’d better hurry the hell up and get out there.” She held up a hand and signaled for Tammy to come join them.
“More coffee?” the waitress asked as she drew near.
“No, thank you,” Pearson said. “Listen. I know this might sound crazy, but—” She stopped and dug into her purse. She produced the same card she’d shown Wolf earlier. “I’m an investigator looking for leads on a missing girl by the name of Rachael Stone. She might have come in here about a week ago? About five-three, straight dark hair, brown eyes. Maybe you’ve seen her?”
Tammy glanced down at the tabletop, ignoring the card. She refilled the two coffee cups on the table, right to the brim. “Sorry,” she whispered, “I can’t remember everyone who comes in here now, can I?”
“What if I showed you her picture? Then would you know?”
“Maybe.”
Pearson swiped a few times on her phone and held it up for Tammy to see. “Recognize this girl?”
The waitress bent forward and stared at the image for a long second. She sucked a fresh breath and let it leak out slowly while twisting her head side to side. “Sorry, no, haven’t seen her. We get so many kids coming through, I really can’t keep track of them all. Just, too many of them.” She glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen. “Is that all? Can I get you something else?”
Pearson touched the waitress on the elbow. “No, nothing else. But we really do need to know where the sheriff is. Right now. Can you at least tell us that?”
“The sheriff…?” Tammy asked as she withdrew out of Pearson’s reach. She glanced at the kitchen. “His office, up the street, I suspect.”
“We’ve already checked there. He’s avoiding us, I’m certain of that. And I think he skipped out the back. Listen, because this is very important.” She pinched her index finger and thumb together and pointed them at Tammy. “Please. I really need to speak with him as quickly as possible. Where else could he be?”
“I…can’t help you there—no—sorry.” Tammy turned to go.
Wolf leaned forward and laid his fingertips on the opposite elbow Pearson had touched. Tammy flinched. With his other hand, he dug in his pocket and came out with a wad of cash, unwrapped a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill, and set it on the bright white tabletop in front of her. Both Tammy and Pearson looked at the bill in confused surprise. The waitress inched closer and leaned a hip against the edge of the table. She again glanced at the kitchen while slipping the bill into the front pocket on her apron.
“I shouldn’t tell you anything at all,” she said. “I really shouldn’t. I could get in trouble.”
Wolf set his hands in front of him and interlaced his fingers. He rubbed his thumbs together. “But you will, won’t you?”
She nodded warily. “The sheriff, I mean Eugene, he lives two blocks south of here. 331 East Bidwell. Just don’t tell him I told you that, okay?” She pretended to refill the already full coffee cups and then walked away.
Pearson was typing on her phone again. “I could have saved you that C-note.”
He lifted himself to put the wad of bills back inside his pocket, saying nothing.
She watched him for a moment, then her head shook again and she began typing more on the tiny screen before finally holding up her smartphone for him to see. On it was a picture of the sheriff. The man’s full name was Eugene M. Andrade. Below his picture was an address, a telephone number, and a brief biography in tiny letters. It was the same address Tammy had just given them.
“See?” she said. “I pulled his name from the county’s website an
d cross-referenced it with another site I know. Should have done that earlier. Sorry, I guess I haven’t really been thinking straight. This whole thing has me a bit rattled.”
Wolf nodded. The money he had given the waitress did not matter much to him. He had plenty of it. Too much, in fact. More than he could ever spend in his entire lifetime. But, as he watched the magic Pearson coaxed from her smartphone, he wondered once again if he should get a smartphone of his own. Maybe he could even get one where other people would not be able to call him on it.
- 14 -
STATUS UPDATE
ONE OF THE two phones in Montez’s pocket vibrated insistently—the burner phone. Only one guy knew that number.
“Yeah?” Montez answered.
“Do you have her in your possession yet?”
“Almost.”
There was a long pause, followed by a blip of static as the cell tower changed from one to the next.
“How much longer?”
“We’re on our way there now to pick her up.”
“And Mr. Pinnock? Is he also with you?”
“Yeah, he’s traveling with us now.” Montez glanced at the side mirror. He couldn’t see the rear seat in the mirror where objects were supposedly larger than they appear, but he could sense the guy’s skeezy presence behind him.
“Why is he not with the girl?” the voice on the phone asked. “That was the understanding.”
“He was, sir. We’ve just had a slight…complication. It’s being resolved now.”
More silence. Montez winced. He realized he shouldn’t have said what he had just said, but there was no taking it back. Not now.
“Tell me about this…complication.” The voice was low and pressing.
Wolf Who Walks Alone: A Raymond Wolf Mystery Novel Page 7
