by Steven James
Margaret, as pernicious as she could sometimes be, was thorough, there was no question about that, and I did respect her for it. So although I was impatient, I knew that for the moment I had everything I was going to get. “Call me as soon as you find out anything.”
“I will.”
We hung up and I looked over Donnie’s arrival times at work.
If, as his emails had indicated, he checked his messages just before he left home every Monday and Friday, then it apparently took him nearly two hours longer to clock in at the sawmill on those days than it needed to.
He might just take a scenic route.
Or, he might have another stop to make.
I pictured the trails in my mind, evaluating the most likely routes he might have chosen and their relationship to his house.
My thoughts raced back to the Navy and their interest in this case.
Why here?
Why now, this week?
I needed to take a closer look at a topographic map of the region to see what areas the trails from his house might have passed en route to the sawmill.
While I was pulling them up on my cell, Deputy Ellory phoned.
“Pat here,” I said, “what’s up?”
“We have a suspect in the Pickron slayings.”
27
“It’s not Donnie,” Ellory told me.
“Talk to me.” Holding my cell against my ear with one hand, I collected the time cards and personnel files with the other.
“Twenty minutes ago we got an anonymous call to look for prints on a knife at the Pickron residence, and that it would point to a man named Neil Kreger-but that ‘Neil’ was just a name he was going under. They gave us the tag numbers for his rental-”
“Hold on. An anonymous caller told you all this?”
“Yes. Natasha was in the area. She checked the knife, found the prints, and apparently this guy’s real name is Alexei Chekov.”
“Who is he?”
“A ghost. No one really knows. She said the Bureau has a name, but no photo, no background. But he’s a person of interest in half a dozen murder investigations worldwide.”
I was on my way to the door. My next course of action clear: call Quantico, get Angela Knight in Cybercrime on it. She can find out anything about any “And,” Ellory went on, “we have a location on his rental car.”
“What? Where is he?”
“That’s the thing. A state trooper pulled him over, then we lost radio contact with him. I sent a car and I’m on my way myself. The GPS signal on the officer’s cruiser just went off the grid.”
I stepped outside. Snow shot crazily past me into the room. The storm was picking up. I was really glad Tessa wasn’t on the roads.
“Where exactly was the cruiser’s last known location?”
“Two miles south of the river.”
About six miles away.
“I’m at the sawmill,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Close. Only a couple minutes out. Just south of you.”
“Where’s Jake?”
“Still at the sheriff’s department in Woodborough.”
A quick calculation. “All right. Swing by. Pick me up. Put out an APB on the rental car and the cruiser.”
“Already done.”
End call.
In the white fury of the storm I could just make out the snowmobiles across the yard, near the entrance to the sawmill. I contacted Angela to get her started pulling everything she could on Chekov, then jogged through the stinging curls of snow toward the sleds.
28
Three minutes ago, in order to avoid drawing attention to himself, Alexei had parked the cruiser at a pull-off a few hundred yards down the road from the entrance to the Pine Shadow Sawmill, then he’d disappeared into the woods so that he could approach the property undetected.
Now, he neared the edge of the lumberyard. In a moment he would emerge, grab a sled, and be gone. Once he hit the trails that led to the national forest there was no way they’d be able to track him, not with this snowstorm covering his snowmobile tracks.
My thoughts scampered forward, backward, studying the case from a myriad of angles.
The shooter at the house used one of Donnie’s rifles. Removed the spent cartridges.
I could feel my heartbeat quicken.
Timing. Location.
The lights in the study were off when the officers arrived.
Web pages had been accessed.
But the rest of the residence’s lights were on.
All of them were on.
I put an immediate call through to Natasha and asked her to check for prints on the light switch in the study. “He may have unconsciously turned off the lights when he left the room.” If I was right, the prints wouldn’t match Alexei’s but would match the real killer’s.
I heard a siren close on the road and figured it was Ellory.
Hurried to the road.
Alexei peered between two thickly bristled white pine trees. A man stood about fifty yards away near one of the log piles in the lumberyard, but he appeared to be watching the road rather than observing the sleds.
After a quick review of the snowmobiles, Alexei decided on a sled, a newer-model Yamaha with the key still in the ignition, left the forest, and headed toward it.
Ellory swung to a stop at the entrance to the sawmill not far from me and leapt out of his cruiser.
“He’s close,” he hollered. “I found Wayland’s cruiser just down the road. Wayland was…” Ellory’s voice trailed off. “His hands. I don’t know, this whack job Chekov. He attacked him.”
“Where?”
“His hands, like I-”
“Where is the car!”
He pointed south. “About a quarter mile down the road.”
I considered the typical flight patterns of suspects fleeing on foot.
No, not on foot. Not in this weather.
My eyes landed on the line of snowmobiles.
A man was striding toward them. Jeans, a dark blue parka, a black stocking cap and gloves. I ran through the clothing of the men I’d seen at the sawmill, didn’t recognize him as any of the employees I’d seen so far. Caucasian. Stocky frame. Six feet tall. Gait and posture indicated early to mid-forties.
“Hey,” I yelled to him. “Hang on.”
Alexei heard the man near the road call to him.
Time to go.
He snagged the helmet that was hanging by its strap on the back of the snowmobile, put it on, took a seat, squeezed the throttle, and hit the trail.
“Stop!” I ran toward him, but he disappeared across the road.
By the time I’d made it to the line of snowmobiles, Ellory had already found one and was firing it up. “That’s him. Fits the description of our suspect!” Sean was on his way toward the sleds as well. Ellory took off.
“Stay here,” I called to Sean, hopping onto his snowmobile. I gave him the files, grabbed his helmet rather than Amber’s, and tossed him my phone. “Call for backup.”
I envisioned the labyrinth of snowmobile trails that I’d memorized last night. Analyzed them. Played them out in my mind.
“What are these?” He was staring at the manila folders.
I didn’t have time to explain. “Hang on to them and don’t read ’em. I’ll get them from you later.”
He pointed at the sled. “I know how to handle a sled at high speeds. I know these trails.”
“So do I.”
I tugged on the helmet, cranked the ignition, and headed into the storm.
29
The suspect rode directly toward Tomahawk Lake.
Ellory was still ahead of me, and I wished I had a way to radio in our position because with the snow falling as thickly as it was, it would be hard to follow our trail.
I hit the ice and felt the engine whine as I squeezed the grip and leaned into the wind.
On the flat surface of the lake, throttling all the way, it didn’t take me long to hit 70.
But I
wasn’t gaining on Ellory or the suspect.
Then 80.
It’d been years since I’d pushed a sled to these speeds, and I could feel a thread of apprehension run through me as I passed 85. I tried not to think about what wiping out on the sled at a speed like this would feel like.
The speedometer fluttered to the maximum speed of 90, then edged past it.
The far end of the lake was approaching fast, and the suspect aimed his sled for the flowage that led to the Chippewa River. Ellory looked like he was gaining on him.
They disappeared into the marsh.
Slowing to make the turn, I let go of the throttle but still nearly flipped as I cornered around a tree and swung back onto the trail that wound into the frozen marsh.
I tried to evaluate, with each of Alexei’s turns, his most likely destination.
The national forest.
Maybe the Chippewa River.
The swirling snow decreased the visibility, but I could see the taillights of the sled that Ellory was riding a couple hundred meters ahead of me on the trail that led into the national forest.
Marsh grass flicked under the sled, whipped past me.
With the limited visibility and the number of trails in the national forest, if Alexei made it to the forest surrounding the Chippewa River, we might never catch him.
No longer worrying about the speed, I kept my eyes on the taillights in front of me and whipped along the serpentine trail through the frozen marsh.
And then they were at the woods.
A moment later, so was I.
I hopped onto a well-used trail. Positioning my snowmobile into the tracks, I felt the ride smooth out.
Ahead of me Ellory slowed, then disappeared around a sharp downhill bend.
I followed, but only too late did I see the fallen tree that blocked half of the trail, thick branches bristling across the path.
I swerved to the left to avoid it and felt a branch snap across my neck and shoulder, almost throwing me from the sled. My neck stung, and the snowmobile thrashed and fishtailed, but I held on.
Straightened out.
Sped up.
Alexei was heading for the Chippewa River.
A stand of pines rose in front of me, and though I saw the taillights flicker through the trees on the far side, I couldn’t tell if Ellory and Alexei had gone right or left around the trees.
I chose right.
Chose poorly.
For a moment I lost the trail, and as I swept into a small meadow, I saw an eight-foot drop-off just ahead of me.
There is no good way to stop a snowmobile.
Speed up and jump it, or swerve and roll the sled!
Speed up or swerve.
Swerve No.
I sped up.
You do not want to do this!
But I did it.
I squeezed the accelerator and was going 60 when I left the edge of the drop-off.
The snowmobile took to the air, giving me a strange sense of weightlessness even though I had six hundred pounds of machine humming beneath me.
But in a fraction of a second I realized the skis hadn’t been positioned squarely when I left the ground, and I wasn’t going to land on the trail but smash into a looming oak to my right. I dove off the sled, tumbled violently through the snow, and heard the deafening sound of impact even before I turned and saw the snowmobile, smoking and crumpled at the base of the tree.
In real life, crashed vehicles don’t typically explode like they do in movies, but I didn’t want to chance it. Bruised, sore, and more than a little disoriented from the fall, I managed to scramble to my feet and get away from the wrecked machine.
Great, now you owe Sean a snowmobile.
Tossing my helmet to the side, I whipped out my SIG. Scanned the area for Ellory and Chekov.
At the top of the hill a hundred meters away I could just barely make out the two stationary snowmobiles. I ran in the direction of the sleds as fast as I could, but the forest was blanketed with nearly two feet of dense snow, beneath another rapidly forming layer of fresh powder, making any kind of progress exhausting.
Neither Ellory nor the suspect was in sight.
No gunshots. Good news.
As I crested the hill I saw the Chippewa River sixty meters below me, frozen except for a stretch of open water on our side of the river. It was along the shoreline’s outer bend where the current would have been fastest and deepest. From my college river rafting days I knew that swift water never freezes, even when it’s supercooled in weather like this. A ghost of frigid fog hovered above the churning waves.
The suspect and Ellory stood on the edge of the riverbank. Ellory appeared dazed and wasn’t resisting Alexei, who was standing beside him, grasping the collar of his coat and somehow supporting him with only one arm.
But Alexei Chekov wasn’t looking at Ellory. He was staring up the hill, directly at me.
30
“Stop!” I had to shout to be heard over the storm. “Step away from the river and let go of him.” I leveled my gun and descended the hill through the thick snow.
Chekov didn’t move.
As I got closer I could see that Ellory’s face was a smear of blood, but he was conscious. Ellory was missing his weapon, and I had to assume Alexei was armed.
“I’m with the FBI.” I approached them carefully. “Hands away from your body.”
“Drop your gun, Agent Bowers,” the suspect called, keeping his voice calm.
How does he know your name?
Maybe Ellory told him.
It doesn’t matter. Deal with that later.
“I need you to drop your gun,” he repeated. Surprisingly, he didn’t sound out of breath despite the fact he’d just come down this hill, running through knee-deep snow-and then fought and subdued a police officer. “Or I will throw him in.”
That was a direct threat on a law enforcement officer’s life. I could take the shot. I could No.
Too close to the water, they’re too close “Help me!” Ellory yelled.
By now I was close enough to see why he wasn’t standing on his own: his left leg was buckled, bent sideways at the knee. With the strength of the current, if Alexei did throw him in, I doubted Ellory would be able to regain his balance on his own. He’d be dragged under the ice downstream.
However, if I shot Alexei, both he and Ellory would end up in the river, and from this distance I’d never be able to get to Ellory in time to pull him out before the current swept him toward the ice. The only way to save him was to buy time, play Alexei, and hope backup arrived quickly.
But in the storm, how’ll they find you?
I had no phone or radio with me, no GPS signal for the state patrol to track. Alexei had been attentive enough earlier to disable the police cruiser’s GPS, so I anticipated he would’ve also taken care of Ellory’s cell phone and radio by now-probably tossed them into the river. If that were the case, there was no way for backup to find us in time to do any good.
The strip of oil-black water roiled behind them as it rushed downstream.
“I need you to put down your gun, Agent Bowers,” Alexei called again.
Think, Pat. Think.
Fierce snow gusted through the air between me and the other men, blurring everything, making it all seem like a wicked watercolor dream.
I eyed down the barrel of my SIG, evaluating if I could get the shot off without sending Ellory into the water, and I decided to give Chekov one more warning. “Step away from the river, Alexei. I won’t tell you again. Pull the deputy away from the water and hold out your hands. I’m a federal agent and I will shoot you if I have to.”
“Then Ellory will drown,” Alexei replied. He didn’t sound rattled at all.
We both stood our ground.
“I did not kill the Pickrons,” he called unexpectedly.
“I know.”
A pause. “How?”
“You’re a professional-you wouldn’t have used a rifle in the close quarters of th
e house or wasted any shots. Now step away from the water.”
He didn’t move, just said, “I have no quarrel with you.” Most of his words held a generic Midwestern dialect, but when he said the word quarrel, I caught the faintest hint of a carefully buried Russian accent.
Time, buy more time.
“Who killed the Pickrons, Alexei?”
Rather than replying, he dragged Ellory even closer to the riverbank. “Drop the gun,” he repeated. “Or Deputy Ellory is going in.” Everything this man said was matter-of-fact. No sadism or malice in his voice. All calm. Controlled. Business as usual. “His left kneecap is shattered. The current will take him under. Do it now, Agent Bowers.”
“Don’t let him!” Ellory cried. His eyes had flicked toward the water and the ice that stretched past a bridge over the river a hundred meters downstream. I believed Chekov was telling the truth, that he would not hesitate to kill Bryan Ellory if he thought it would increase his chances of getting away.
Alexei glanced toward the river. “Time’s up.”
“Wait!”
Hastily, I calculated my options, but there weren’t any good ways to play this.
I noted a tree beside me, its girth, its height, memorized the branch pattern and location on the hillside so I’d be able to find it again, then I tossed my SIG toward its base and held up my hands, hoping Alexei wouldn’t shoot me.
“All right,” I said. “Now walk away from the river and let him go.”
“Step away from the gun. Come closer.”
I did, until I was less than ten meters away from him and at least fifteen meters downhill from my SIG.
“There’s no need to hurt him. My gun’s up the hill. Listen”-I gestured toward Ellory-“he’s hurt. Let me help him.”
Alexei ignored me, edged closer to the water. “I’m sorry to have to do this-”
“No!”
“-but you’ll have to believe me when I tell you it’s necessary-”
“Don’t!”
Get there, Pat. Now!
I sprinted forward.
But before I’d even taken three steps, Alexei had yanked Ellory’s jacket backward, sending him flying into the raging black water of the Chippewa River.
