The Spies That Bind

by Diane Henders

  I wiped my fingers on the napkin and reached over to squeeze his hand. “Will they let you do that? Will they be done there?”

  “They’ll let me.” His face was grey and grim in the inadequate light, and I spared a moment of sympathy for any hapless police officer who might oppose him.

  A short time later we hit the highway, following Kane’s Expedition while the eastern sky lightened to dawn behind us.

  The sun peeked over the horizon as we turned south on the forestry trunk road, and Hellhound groaned and swung the visor to the side to block its rays. It hadn’t seemed wise to initiate conversation earlier, but now I turned to regard his sleepy features.

  “Do you want me to drive?” I offered. “You could catch a bit more sleep.”

  “Nah,” he croaked. “Then I’d just hafta wake up all over again.”

  “How did you ever survive the army? Aren’t they all about early mornings?”

  He squinted blearily at me before returning his attention to the road. “I can wake up early. I just really fuckin’ hate it.”

  After that we drove in silence until Kane’s brake lights glowed through the plume of gravel dust we’d been trying to avoid for the past half hour.

  “I’m leadin’ the way when we go back,” Hellhound grumbled. “His turn to eat dust for a while.”

  Despite his grousing, he looked wide awake and alert when he pulled off on the side of the road and parked behind Kane’s SUV. We got out and hurried forward to join Kane where he stood at the edge of an embankment. The road sloped downhill before veering off to the right, and somebody had obviously missed the curve.

  The path of Buck Murphy’s final ride was marked by crushed undergrowth, gouged earth, and snapped saplings. I held my breath as I leaned over the edge, but it wasn’t a sheer cliff. Steep but navigable by foot, the hillside fell away into a small valley. The wrecked truck had been removed, and its destruction was evident in the remaining twisted trim mouldings and glitters of broken glass. Streamers of police tape fluttered from the trees near the road but none stretched across to seal the site, so we moved forward cautiously.

  Kane halted at the edge, his gaze sweeping side to side. “I’d like to walk a large perimeter first,” he said. “Let’s start twenty yards or so outside the damage zone and do a search pattern. Yell if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

  I eyed the dense forest around us. “We might want to do a bit of yelling anyway. This is bear country.”

  “Good point,” Hellhound said, and unleashed a ringing yodel that would have done an alpine herdsman proud. The echo bounced back on the clear morning air, and he promptly engaged the echoes in an enthusiastic yodelling competition.

  When he finished, grinning, Kane squinted at him as though peering through a blinding headache. “Good God. If there were any bears around earlier, they’re long gone now. That sounded like Tarzan being slowly roasted over hot coals.”

  Hellhound feigned injured pride. “What d’ya mean? That was my best Franzl Lang imitation.”

  Kane shook his head. “I don’t know who Franzl Lang is, but I hope I never meet him. Let’s get started.”

  As he turned away, I reached up to give Hellhound a kiss. “You sounded great to me. I’ve always loved yodelling.”

  “Really? I didn’t know ya were a yodeller, darlin’.” He waved an expansive arm over the quiet valley. “Let’s hear ya.”

  “Oh, jeez, no! I didn’t mean I love to yodel myself. I meant I love listening to yodelling.”

  “Aw, go on. Give it a try,” Hellhound urged.

  “No way. John might have thought you sounded bad, but he’d think somebody was strangling a cat if I got going. Come on.” I hurried over the edge of the embankment, but halted when a police car pulled to a stop on the road above, blipping the siren.

  Kane emerged from the woods and the three of us trekked up to where the uniformed officer stood beside his car. “This site is part of an active investigation,” he informed us. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “I’m investigating,” Kane said shortly, and flashed his badge at the officer. “This is my team.” He indicated Hellhound and me.

  The officer gave the badge a cursory glance, then nodded and left, obviously focused on wherever he’d been heading before he spotted us.

  “Was that, um… a good idea?” I asked hesitantly. “Isn’t that kind of like impersonating a police officer?”

  Kane just shrugged and turned to plunge into the forest again.

  Several hours later, I stretched the sleeve of my T-shirt to mop the sweat off my forehead while I trudged up the embankment for what seemed like the hundredth time. At the top I flopped down to sit on the ground, stretching out my legs.

  Crackling in the undergrowth made me jerk to attention but it was only Hellhound emerging from the woods, brushing spruce needles out of his beard.

  “Hey, darlin’,” he said as he strode over. “How ya doin’?” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I figure you’re due to pass out pretty soon if ya don’t get some lunch.” He lowered himself to the ground beside me and I leaned into him despite our mutual sweatiness.

  “I’m starving,” I agreed. My stomach let out a rumble of complaint, and I massaged it absently. “But mostly I’m thirsty. I didn’t realize we were going to do a marathon hill-climbing session here. I already drank my bottle of water, and I should have brought more.”

  “Yeah.” Hellhound frowned downhill to where Kane was still methodically pacing back and forth across the accident site. “I shoulda known he’d do this. If we don’t stop him, he’ll spend the rest a’ the day here without food or water.” He let out a halloo and when Kane looked up, he beckoned and shouted, “Come on up. Time to go back to town. Aydan’s gotta eat, an’ you do, too. We can come back after lunch.”

  “You go ahead,” Kane called in return. “Just bring me back something when you come.”

  Hellhound sighed and rose, extending a hand to pull me up. “Come on, darlin’. No point arguin’ with him, an’ the sooner we go, the sooner we’ll get back. It’s gonna be stinkin’ hot pretty soon so he’s gonna need more water.”

  “It’s already stinking hot.” I trailed after Hellhound on legs rubbery from exertion and hunger.

  A shout from behind made us pause, and a moment later Kane jogged up over the lip of the embankment. Not for the first time, I marvelled at his fitness as he approached, his breathing only slightly accelerated after running up the steep hill.

  “Changed my mind,” he said. “I don’t have a cellular signal out here, so I’ll go back to town, too. I want to call Mayweather and see if there are any new developments.”

  “Okay,” Hellhound agreed. “Meet ya at the Burger Baron.” He hustled over to his SUV and put it in gear seconds after the passenger door closed behind me. “Ain’t gonna eat any dust this trip,” he said smugly as we pulled away.

  A logging truck surged into view over the crest of the hill.

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” I replied as a giant dust cloud enveloped us.

  With a burger and fries nestling comfortably in my stomach, I leaned back in my chair and sipped the remainder of my milkshake while Kane dialled Mayweather’s number.

  After a terse greeting, Kane asked, “Anything new?”

  At Mayweather’s response he sat up straight in his chair, his eyes narrowing in concentration while he listened.

  Mayweather seemed to be giving him a lengthy report, because Kane sat in silence punctuated only by mutters of acknowledgement. Suddenly the colour drained from his face.

  “So… you’re searching downstream?” he asked, obviously trying to hold his voice steady and not quite succeeding.

  Mayweather’s response was short, and Kane cleared his throat and added, “All right. When the forensic team is finished, I’d like to look over the campsite. Then I’ll join the search team.”

  He pressed the disconnect button and leaned his elbows heavily on the table as if holding himself up
by sheer will. “They found the campsite uphill about a mile from the accident site,” he said. “It was hidden back in the woods. We drove right past it this morning without even seeing it.”

  Hellhound and I exchanged a worried glance. “And…?” I asked, my stomach clenching.

  It had to be bad news. I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Daniel had definitely been there. They found his toy soldiers in the tent.”

  We waited in silence while he gathered himself.

  “They brought the dogs in, and they picked up Daniel’s trail leading away from the campsite.” Kane swallowed. “Toward the river.” He drew a ragged breath. “They found Murphy’s missing boots neatly lined up beside his tent. Tracks matching those boots overlaid Daniel’s footprints in the soft soil at the edge of the river. Murphy’s prints went down to the river and back again. Daniel’s…” He swallowed again. “…went down to the river and ended there.”

  Sick silence enveloped us.

  “Maybe he got tired an’ Murphy carried him back,” Hellhound offered unconvincingly. “It’d be uphill from the river, right?”

  “They have preliminary autopsy results, too,” Kane went on, his voice tight. “Murphy was intoxicated. Double the legal limit, but investigators guess he was only going around twenty kilometres per hour when he went over the edge, so there’s no way he should have missed the curve unless he either passed out or swerved to avoid something. There were no marks indicating he’d swerved or braked, but that’s a well-travelled road so any marks in the gravel might have been obliterated by the time investigators got there.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. What the hell was he doin’ drivin’ around shit-faced in his sock feet?” Hellhound demanded. “An’ I ain’t ever known a drunk to drive carefully. He woulda been flyin’ down that hill, unless…”

  “Unless he was in shock,” Kane said tersely. “If he’d just seen Daniel being swept away down the river… he might have gone back to the campsite, tried to drown his sorrows, then driven away in a daze…”

  “Nah,” Hellhound objected. “He’d a’ freaked out an’ run for help. He’d a’ been drivin’ like a bat outta hell. An’ why would he take off his boots?”

  “Or he killed Daniel in cold blood and threw his body in the river,” Kane said grimly. “Then went back to his campsite and got comfortable. Took off his boots and had a few drinks…”

  “He wouldn’ta,” Hellhound said with certainty. “A murderer woulda gone screamin’ outta there an’ called the cops to make it look like an accident. An’ anyway, why would he take Daniel all the way out here to kill him? He had lotsa other chances that woulda been a helluva lot less trouble.”

  Desperately clutching at any semblance of hope, I blurted, “Wait, here’s a scenario that makes more sense. What if they were just having a nice camping trip? They go down to the river and play around a bit, then Murphy carries Daniel back. Remember, Daniel would be tired after the birthday party, and it would be getting late. So Murphy puts Daniel to bed and then he sits up drinking for a while…”

  “The cooler full a’ food an’ beer,” Hellhound said with a nod.

  “Right,” I agreed. “So he’s drunk when he decides to call it a night. Puts the cooler back in the truck so it won’t attract bears, takes off his boots, goes into the tent, and then realizes Daniel has wandered off. He panics, jumps in his truck and goes looking for him. Doesn’t bother with boots or seatbelt.”

  “Driving slowly,” Kane said, sounding more hopeful. “Maybe calling out the window. But because he’s drunk and his attention is divided, he misses the curve and goes over the edge of the embankment. The autopsy showed that he died of a broken neck. He sustained a couple of blunt-force facial injuries just prior to death, but his other injuries were consistent with being ejected from a rolling truck and the examiner believes they occurred post-mortem.”

  “So he smacked his face as he went over, which broke his neck, and he was dead before the truck ever rolled over him,” I translated, and Kane nodded.

  “If your scenario is right, they need to send those tracking dogs out again,” Kane said, already dialling his phone.

  Chapter 9

  In the passenger seat of Hellhound’s SUV again, I stared anxiously out the windshield at the back of Kane’s Expedition driving too fast ahead of us on the highway.

  “I don’t even want to think about a six-year-old out in the woods alone all this time,” I muttered. My throat closed and I swallowed hard. “If they find… a body… I don’t want to think about what that would do to John.”

  “Yeah…” Hellhound said absently, and I looked over see him scowling at the road.

  “What?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”

  He glanced over, his eyes dark. “I’m hopin’ your scenario’s right an’ Daniel’s still alive, but I’m thinkin’ about why a little kid would run away into the woods in the middle a’ the fuckin’ night. An’ I ain’t likin’ what I’m comin’ up with.”

  “Oh, God.” Nausea clenched my guts. “If Alicia was wrong…”

  “If Murphy was a child molester, I’ll hunt that fucker all the way to hell,” Hellhound grated. “An’ when I find him, I’m gonna make him think hell was a fuckin’ bible camp.” He glanced over again. “Don’t mention it to Kane. It’s prob’ly already in the back a’ his mind, an’ he doesn’t need to hear it out loud. An’ anyway, it’s still better than findin’ a body.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  Kane’s brake lights glowed through the dust again. He pulled over to park behind a police car on the shoulder of the road, and Hellhound pulled to a stop behind him. As the dust cleared I could see the long straight slope of road to the accident site nearly a mile farther on.

  Flattened tire tracks in the vegetation of the ditch marked the trail that we’d missed when we’d driven by earlier, and as we got out of Hellhound’s vehicle a police SUV drove out of the woods. We stepped aside to let it pass, then hurried after Kane as he strode along the trail.

  When we caught up to him I reached tentatively for his hand. He gave mine a gentle squeeze but let go almost immediately with a grimace that was probably meant to be a smile.

  When we arrived at the campsite, Kane flashed his badge again and conferred briefly with one of the uniformed police officers before waving us over. “Forensics are still working,” he said. “So don’t touch anything, but we can look from a distance. The dogs are searching in circles around the campsite-”

  He broke off as a tech walked by, carrying a pair of hiking boots wrapped in clear plastic.

  “Wait,” Kane commanded. “May I see the treads on those?”

  The tech turned the treads toward him, and Kane whipped out his phone to take a photo, then thanked the tech and returned his attention to us.

  “Here, take this,” Kane said, holding out his phone. “Watch for any prints that match. I want to take a quick look around here, and then I’ll join the search team.”

  Hellhound glanced at the photo and handed the phone back to Kane. “Got it,” Hellhound said, and not for the first time I envied his phenomenal memory. “Come on, let’s go look at the prints down by the river,” he added.

  We stepped carefully single-file where the uniformed officer had directed, well to the side of the markers the forensic team had placed on the way down to the river. At the river’s edge we took up cautious positions, trying to get close enough to see the footprints without antagonizing the tech who bristled if we got too close to her painstaking work.

  Kane knelt, staring at the small footprints as if willing his son to appear in them. Reaching toward one of the prints, he whispered, “Not even as big as my hand…”

  He bowed his head as though struggling to control his emotions, and Hellhound clasped his shoulder in silence. I stood uselessly beside them, sickness coiling in my guts.

  “Look!” Hellhound’s voice rose with sudden hope. “Murphy’s prints are deeper where they lead back to the campsite. He m
usta been carryin’ Daniel like we thought.”

  Kane shot to his feet, his gaze riveted to the prints Hellhound indicated. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sure you’re right!” He bounded back up the path without a backward glance, and Hellhound sighed.

  “I sure as hell hope I’m right.”

  I eyed the prints. “I really think you are. Look, where there are two prints side by side, one going and one coming? The one going uphill is definitely deeper.”

  “Let’s go, then, darlin’.” Hellhound grabbed my hand and towed me back up the hill at twice the pace we’d come down.

  By the time we got back to the campsite Kane was reporting our guesses to the officer in charge, who listened with courteous attention and no expression whatsoever. When Kane was finished, the officer nodded and replied, “I’ll be sure to mention that to forensics. Mayweather will be in touch as soon as we have the report.”

  Kane thanked him, then strode rapidly away as if trying to dissipate pent-up energy. Hellhound and I trotted after him.

  When we caught up to him at the edge of the road Kane growled, “They’re humouring me. I feel like an idiot. Of course forensics will make a far more accurate evaluation than my half-assed eyeballing and desperate hope. When I was in the RCMP I dealt with people exactly like me dozens of times. People who wouldn’t back off and let me do my investigation; who always had to get in the middle of everything. Thought they had some crucial evidence and had to babble out every harebrained theory…”

  “Slow down.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him to a halt. “Take a breath. I promise, they’re listening to you. I bet you listened to those people, too, when you were the officer in charge. They won’t blow it off.”

  His hand clenched around mine and he drew a deep breath, then released me. “Thank you. You’re right.” He sucked in another breath and let it out in a long slow exhalation. “I’m going to walk this stretch of road. The crash investigators would have checked the area right around the accident site, but they wouldn’t have had any reason to look this far away. If Murphy was driving slowly downhill, I want to know why.”