Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel)

by D. A. Keeley

  Water rhythmically slapped the rocks that guarded the thicket-and-tree-lined river embankment. The water, she knew, was far too cold for swimming now, and for a split moment, she recalled her father’s words: The fish are deep now. Let the lure sink.

  A Northern Harrier startled her, diving low and skimming the land between the potato house and the river as if traversing the dark barrel of a firearm, before rising and heading north over the river, the flapping of its wings resounding like a snare drum.

  The ten-thousand-square-foot potato house was used for storage and as such, its design was unique to its purpose: It looked as if it had fallen from the sky and sunk nearly to the roofline. Potato houses utilized two natural resources Aroostook County had in abundance: space and dirt. The building’s foundation couldn’t be seen. Earth rose to the tin roof on the sides and in the back, providing the insulation needed to store the potatoes until a buyer was found and they could be shipped. An oversized garage door for transport trucks dominated the front of the building. And she remembered the look of relief on her father’s face each time a truck had pulled away from the loading dock.

  “Where the hell is Miguel?” Jackman said, rounding the corner of the potato house. “I’ve gone over the inside twice. Lights were on when I arrived.”

  Peyton stood, pulled the night-vision goggles down around her neck, and switched on her flashlight. The goggles tinged the landscape green. She’d been back and forth along the river’s edge.

  “I staked out this area the other night,” she said.

  “This is where you found the baby?”

  “About two hundred yards east. But I was here because a tip said pot was coming through in this area.”

  “Still think that’s the case?”

  She looked across the Crystal View River. Youngsville, New Brunswick, was sparsely lit like layers of twinkling lights on a distant Christmas tree.

  “Canada’s just across the river. Only house around here is Monty Duff’s. That’s a half-mile away, and he goes to bed by seven. It would make sense.”

  “By boat?” Jackman said. “Think we heard an engine backfire?”

  “No. Sounded like a rifle to me.”

  “Those Canadians you guys nabbed last night, they come from here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But the baby was found here?” Jackman said.

  “Yeah. You call for backup?”

  “I did, but I’m not sure I heard a gunshot. Sounded like a car or a boat backfiring.” In the dim light, she saw him look away. “But I trust your instincts more than my own right now.”

  She understood what he meant. He simply hadn’t been the same since his late-wife Karen passed, as if she’d taken his confidence with her.

  “I think I heard a rifle,” she said again and swept her Maglite over the terrain. Nothing.

  The original plan had called for her to roam the field’s two-mile perimeter, sweeping west to east, while Jimenez and Jackman remained at the boundaries, working separately. But the sound had led her directly east.

  “You know, Miguel has struggled with this terrain,” Jackman said. “Maybe he got lost.”

  “Why don’t you wait for the backup? I’ll head east for ten minutes or so.”

  The recent snow had been heavy and wet. She’d killed the flashlight, pulled on night-vision goggles, and was moving slowly, trying to register both sights and sounds. Sign-cutting here meant looking for footprints in the slush or any irregularity or deviation among the natural habitat that registered with her experience and intuition and signaled that something was out of the ordinary.

  Jimenez was young, twenty-six, an El Paso native who longed to return to the southern border, where he knew the terrain and had family. And she knew he had struggled since arriving. In this climate, things only got more difficult. Where El Paso’s desert winds blew sand and covered tracks, Garrett’s winter days grew dark by 4 p.m. Icy temperatures dropped to thirty, even forty below, making the countryside brittle and treacherous. She’d heard the woeful tale of a southern agent who’d come north and, early in his tenure, had studied the same frozen track for a week before realizing what he’d thought to be a pattern of nighttime activity was nothing more than a useless week-old footprint. On other occasions, nighttime activity was quickly concealed by a fresh white coating. Timing, therefore, had to be perfect for one to even locate a print. When it didn’t snow, gusts whipped through open farmland not only covering tracks but peppering agents’ faces with icy needles. And traversing knee-deep fields of snow left agents exhausted.

  It all made Peyton wonder whose side Mother Nature was on.

  She continued slowly, head swiveling, eyes sweeping back and forth over the furrows of frozen dirt and slush to the brush and trees lining the river’s edge, mind gathering and sifting data.

  Then something registered.

  TWENTY-ONE

  PEYTON KNELT TO EXAMINE the rock.

  Amid the frozen dirt row, the glistening rock stood out in the moonlight, a diamond on wet tar. She removed her night-vision goggles and switched on her flashlight.

  Fresh blood.

  For an instant, everything slowed. She became cognizant of all surrounding sounds—her breath rasping in and out, the earth crunching beneath her, the water lapping the shoreline.

  She drew her .40 and shone her light on the ground near her. The trail of darkened soil spots wasn’t easy to follow, but she needed only four spots. They led to a cluster of bushes at the shoreline. A black, high-laced boot was the first thing the flashlight’s beam hit upon. Freshly polished. Metal lace holes shining in the moonlight. She recognized the boot as government-issued.

  She inhaled deeply. Calm. Then exhaled slowly.

  Miguel Jimenez lay, as if beneath a crown of thorns, under a wind-ravaged bush. The center of his leather aviator jacket was darkened, his throat blood-spattered, his eyes open, as if to look at something in the distance.

  “Miguel, can you hear me?” She was on her knees beside the bush.

  No response. No movement.

  The flashlight dropped to the ground as she fumbled for her radio.

  “AGENT DOWN! This is Bobcat Nineteen. AGENT DOWN!” She rattled off her location.

  The response came quickly: Help was on the way.

  She was facing the river, back to the open field. She pressed her hand to his face. Still warm. His blinking eyes strained to focus on her. He opened his mouth. No words came. A slow stream of blood coursed his bottom lip and ran down his chin.

  She unzipped his jacket. No Kevlar vest. What the hell had he been thinking?

  Blood flowed from a nickel-sized hole near his right shoulder. It hadn’t been a shotgun. She glanced once behind her. No one. She needed her other hand and reholstered her pistol. With her utility tool, she cut a large strip from Jimenez’s shirt, balled the fabric, and pressed it firmly against the wound.

  Two fingers against his wrist registered a faint tap. A warm bead of perspiration ran down her cheek as an eternity passed before the next beat.

  She thought she heard something move behind her and pulled her hand away from Jimenez’s wrist. Grabbing her gun again, she glanced over her shoulder. Nothing.

  She turned back to Jimenez.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  She didn’t believe that, but if she was on the ground, it’s what she’d want to hear.

  “The potato house …” Jimenez’s words came as if funneled through sludge, his breath grating against his throat like an old man suffering emphysema.

  Were his lungs filling with blood?

  Jimenez shifted weakly, trying to free himself from a twig. Protocol dictated an agent not move a shooting victim unless in harm’s way.

  But Miguel Jimenez, Garrett Station’s youngest agent, was drowning internally.

  And there was a stick digging into his side.

  Screw protocol. She raced to remove her own field coat and spread it on the ground near the bushes. Jimenez wa
s barely five-foot-nine and weighed only 165 pounds, but that was four inches and 40 pounds more than Peyton. It took all her strength to carefully position him atop her coat.

  “It’s going to be okay.” She cut a fresh strip of fabric, pressed it to the wound.

  And waited.

  Minutes later, the sound behind her was unmistakable: the sweep and crunch of boots scuffing the dirt floor. When the steps drew nearer, she heard labored breathing. Her flashlight swept over Jackman’s turnip-red face, and her pistol fell to her side. His flashlight’s beam crossed hers, shone onto Jimenez, and he froze.

  “Oh, God! Peyton, you get a pulse?”

  “Barely.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” He knelt next to Jimenez. “Let me see the wound.”

  A siren whined. Red lights flashed in the distance. Peyton waved her light in the directions of the speeding vehicles. Then she removed the balled shirt from Jimenez’s wound and realized the bleeding had slowed. Three balls of blood-soaked fabric lay discarded around her.

  “Look quickly,” she said. “I want to keep pressure on the wound.”

  Jackman nodded, leaned closer, face contorting, registering the severity of the wound. A tiny nod, then he straightened.

  Peyton replaced the makeshift compression bandage, and they were silent. Jimenez, in shock, lay still, his breath rasping like sandpaper on flint. A ten-minute eternity had passed since she’d left the potato house.

  The night air blew hard off the river.

  Jackman stared down at Jimenez. “He’s just a kid. I shouldn’t have let him go alone.”

  “He’s a man and a professional, Stan. Don’t do that to yourself.”

  Jackman went on as if she’d not spoken, his eyes never leaving Jimenez.

  “ … just a kid. And I knew he was having a hard time with the terrain.”

  “Stop it.”

  Jackman stood and coughed once, a deep, low sound. He spat and used the toe of his boot to cover the sputum.

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” she said.

  The siren grew louder.

  Jackman sighed. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. He tried to say something about the potato house. But he’s too weak.” She reached over and patted Jimenez’s cheek lightly. “You stay awake, Miguel.”

  Jimenez blinked. Then his eyes pinched as he squinted in pain.

  “He’s lost a shitload of blood.” Jackman looked at the discarded makeshift bandages then coughed again. The low rumble grew to a half-minute hacking fit. When he stopped, he turned to Jimenez: “Keep fighting, Miguel. Hear me, kid? Keep fighting.”

  This time, Jimenez didn’t blink.

  Peyton panicked, slapped his cheek several times. The young agent’s eyes rolled toward her. She exhaled. “You’re going to be okay, Miguel.”

  The siren was a shriek now; headlights bounced as the ambulance stopped near them.

  Two paramedics leaped from the vehicle and took over. She watched as they quickly carried the gurney to the back of the ambulance and slid it inside. The ambulance left, traveling slowly over the rough terrain toward the road. Jackman started coughing again.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure, fine.”

  “You ought to get looked at. Sounds like pneumonia.”

  Jackman waved that off. “It’s called a smoker’s hack.”

  “I’ll go write the report. You waiting for the state police? Crime-scene unit should be here soon.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll stay. Go get a jacket and get warm. In ten minutes, this place’ll be a zoo.”

  She knew as much and gladly headed to her truck. Where Jackman cursed and wore his emotions on his sleeve, Peyton, a female in a male-dominated profession, never felt allowed that luxury. For a male, an emotional display at a time of crisis relieved him of seeing a shrink for trauma stress. For her, it would play to every stereotype.

  In front of Jackman, she’d kept the lid on her feelings. But walking toward the barn, she replayed Miguel Jimenez’s distant gaze, his eyes rolling toward her. The pool of inky blood on his chest, the merlot-colored flecks on his neck, his helpless thrashing when the twig had dug into him.

  Though cognizant of her job’s dangers, she’d returned to Garrett because of Tommy, because Garrett Station offered a slower pace and a safer work environment. Garrett had seemed a place where she could finally be both a single mother and an agent. The shooting of Miguel Jimenez had shattered that perception.

  Would there ever be a place where she could safely manage her dual roles?

  She reached her truck ten minutes later and put the heater on High. As she slid the gearshift into reverse, the radio sounded.

  “This is Houlton Sector.”

  She took the receiver.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Your motion sensor got a hit less than a minute ago.”

  Peyton jammed the truck into Park and was out the door before signing off.

  Peyton was sprinting back to the place where her evening had started. She didn’t use the flashlight; its beam would have been flashing blue lights to a fleeing suspect. Night-vision goggles only now.

  She tried to move swiftly but was slowed by the uneven ground, which was becoming slick. Slipping on a rock, her sore ankle burned. She ignored the pain. For the first time since arriving in Garrett, she was close enough to a tripped sensor to utilize the damned thing. Score one for Hewitt.

  A hundred yards from the device, something moved.

  Her Smith & Wesson was immediately unholstered, the unlit flashlight in her other hand. She slowed to assure she wouldn’t fall.

  The dark figure treaded slowly across the field.

  Thirty yards away, she removed her goggles, clicked on the flashlight, and yelled, “Freeze!”

  “What? Who’s that?”

  “Stop where you are,” she said. “Put your hands up.”

  She moved in. The man was tall and thin, wearing a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck and black jeans.

  His jacket still had dirt on the sleeve.

  TWENTY-TWO

  STANDING RAMROD STRAIGHT, JONATHAN Hurley seemed to go lax at the recognition of her voice. His thin almond-skinned face broke into a smile.

  “Peyton, it’s just you. You frightened me there for a moment.”

  “Yeah, it’s just me, Jonathan. What are you doing here?”

  “Seriously, what’s with the gun? Put that thing away.”

  He smiled like he’d lucked out. She kept the pistol drawn.

  “I mean,” he said, “you really scared me there for a minute.” He reached inside his coat casually.

  She leveled the .40 at his chest.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” she said.

  His empty hand came out of the leather jacket. He held both hands out to show her.

  “I was getting a smoke,” he said. “Don’t point your weapon at me.”

  “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

  “Huh? I’m taking a walk.” He stepped forward as if to go around her. “Your tone is accusatory.”

  She moved in front of him.

  Probable cause could be a bitch—they were a half-mile from where she’d found Jimenez—and an arrest couldn’t be made without it. A half-mile away didn’t exactly place Jonathan Hurley at the scene of the crime. On the other hand, he’d had plenty of time to walk to where they now stood. So Hurley was a suspect who required questioning.

  “There’s been a shooting here tonight,” she said, knowing here was vague, checking for his reaction.

  “Really?” He looked away. “Hunters? Poachers?”

  “You hear the shot?”

  “I’ve never fired a gun,” he said. “I did hear something like a firecracker, though.”

  He didn’t seem curious as to who had been shot. What interested her most was why he wouldn’t look her in the eye. For years, she’d
watched him glare at Elise until her sister caved, regardless of the issue—eye contact had always been essential in those situations, but now the roles had been reversed. Ex-cons often felt stress around uniformed law-enforcement officers. However, Hurley knew her personally. So what led to the aversion of his eyes?

  “Look at me, Jonathan.”

  He turned from the river to face her, squinting into the light. His narrow face no longer seemed eased by her voice. His cheekbones were clenched.

  “When did you arrive at this field?”

  “I need to get home, Peyton.”

  If he didn’t wish to be interviewed, she had two choices: let him walk or bring him in for questioning. The latter required probable cause. When she had discovered him, he’d been coming from the east, the direction where Jimenez had lain fighting for his life.

  Professor Jerry Reilly had implicated Jonathan in the Tuesday-night poker game at Mann’s Garage. She had some questions for him on that front, too. The only BC Bud found to date had been inside the back seat of a Dodge Neon, but she’d also found a lost or abandoned infant. And now an agent had been shot.

  Something was going on near the river.

  “What’s with the gun, Peyton? Please put it away. And get that light out of my face.”

  She pointed the beam and her .40 toward the ground.

  “When did you arrive here?” she said.

  “Not long ago.”

  “What time did you hear the loud bang?”

  “What time is it now?”

  This was progress; he was participatory.

  “Midnight.”

  “Maybe a half-hour ago, maybe a little longer,” he said.

  “Where were you when you heard the sound?”

  “Over there.” He pointed east.

  “At the potato house?”

  “Near it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Just walking.”

  “See anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Hear anything other than the loud bang?”

  He shook his head.

  “See anyone else out here tonight?”