“All he has to do is read his own ER report,” I said.
“He will,” John said patiently. He was looking at me, as if he were waiting for me to get something important. I really needed my coffee.
“You telling me we should get our asses out of Carrigan County while the getting is good, Deputy John?”
He smiled. “There you go,” he said. “Sheriff’s in court until noontime. Then he’ll go to dinner, then back to the office.”
“And do his paperwork,” I said. “Okay, got it. We’ll get down the road directly. Now, let me ask you something. Did the sheriff mention having any kind of run-in with M. C. Mingo last night?”
He shook his head. “I ain’t heard that,” he said. “Why you askin’?”
I almost told him. I trusted the Big brothers, mostly because they had played fair and square from the git-go-and saved my ass from being burned up like Laurie May Creigh. But since I suddenly had an inkling of why Hayes might be consorting with the likes of M. C. Mingo, I changed my mind.
“You should mention to him, when and if he gets around to asking about us, that you did some checking after seeing that ER list. That you located us, talked to me, and urged us to get a move on. It’ll show initiative, and he’ll like that.”
He eyed me from that vast height. “And what else should I be tellin’ Sheriff Hayes?” he asked. Not missing much at all, I thought. Like many really big guys I knew, this one kept his brains quietly out of sight, a tactic that probably allowed him to surprise lots of people.
“Just that we are leaving the area,” I said, and then I paused.
“And?” he prodded.
“And that I was in the parking lot last night,” I said. “Behind the hospital.”
“Aw shit, what y’all gettin’ at now?” he asked.
“I do believe he’ll know what that means. Now: We will leave town, but not until I’m sure Ms. Santangelo can travel safely, okay? No more Marshal Dillon games. She was in a bad way last night and she’s still out. We’ll leave as soon as possible, but the more time we have for her to rest, the better, okay?”
He said he understood and asked if I needed him to get anything from the store or pharmacy. I told him I’d take care of it and he left. I poked my head back into the room, but Carrie was still out for the count. I went down to the motel office and cadged some coffee and a complimentary greasy doughnut. When I got back to the room she was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking shot at and missed, shit at and hit. I told her so and she thanked me sincerely. Then she swiped my coffee, so I figured she must be feeling better. I went back for more coffee. She was dressed and had both eyes open when I got back. I told her about my conversation with Bigger John. She was alarmed when she heard the part about telling the sheriff we’d been in the parking lot last night.
“Was that wise?” she said. “If he’s Mingo’s partner, we might get to do our own Bonnie and Clyde scene right here in this motel.”
I didn’t think so. “I guess it’s possible he might sic Mingo on us, but I think he’s mostly interested in getting us the hell out of here. I didn’t say we saw Mingo and his pet quack in the hospital doing their thing. Just that we were in the parking lot last night. He’ll have to wonder what we saw. That way, I’ve got leverage on him, just like he’s got leverage on me. That’s a good reason to just let us go away.”
“I don’t know, Cam-you might be outsmarting yourself there. These mountain people favor direct action most of the time.”
“I outsmart myself all the time,” I admitted. “So if you are ready to roll, let’s get out of Dodge.”
She sat down on the edge of her bed. “I’m physically better. I think my fever’s down if not gone. But I’m not ready to be run out of town or this county. I want to get those bastards, Mingo, Nathan, Grinny Creigh, and the honorable Mister Hayes if he’s really part of this. And I want to save as many of those kids as possible from what probably happened in that lab last night. I still want to know what happened to my baby sister all those years ago. I am determined on that point.”
Lots of I-wants there, I thought, but her expression evoked some of the more thunderous stuff I’d read in the Old Testament. You can take the girl out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountains out of the girl. I did have the sense not to say that out loud.
“I ran out on you once already,” I said. “I’m not ready to do that again, just yet. Unless, of course, you start fooling around with other guys.”
She softened her expression for a moment, but then shook her head. “You’re the one who’s technically a fugitive from Robbins County,” she said. “The one who’s got bench warrants out, and the guy who removed Rowena Creigh’s least useful part. You’re the one who needs to get out of here. Hayes could solve his problem by handing you over to Mingo, and it would be perfectly legal, if not his sworn duty.”
I picked up the pages of my handwritten report. “I’m Fed-Exing this to the Bureau’s Charlotte field office today. I think you should do one, too, if you’re up to it.”
“Fine,” she said. “I will. And if I get into trouble, I’ll make sure Hayes knows that you’ve done that. But lemme tell you what: I want personal satisfaction here. And now I don’t have a career or anything else standing in my way anymore. I should have done this years ago.”
“All of us, you, me, Greenberg and his crew, all of us have bounced off every time we’ve gone into Robbins County,” I said. “Speaking from personal experience, I don’t recommend any more frontal attacks.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I’m going to send my report to a couple of television stations in Raleigh,” she said. “The legislature’s still in session, so that ought to stir up some noise. Really, it’s time for you to get out. You’ve done more than your share.”
It was my turn to smile. “Okay, Carrie. I get the picture. You don’t love me anymore.”
She made a rude noise and looked around for something to throw. Then she grinned.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll leave you to it. You’ve got my cell number.”
“Where will you go?” she asked immediately.
“What you don’t know can’t be forced out of you,” I replied, semi-facetiously, “but probably back to Triboro. My lawyer keeps telling me to get back to civilization or his fees are going to double.”
“Smart lawyer,” she said.
I went over to her. Removed the coffee cup. Sat down and gathered her into my arms. “You’re okay, for a girl,” I said. “You’re smart, gutsy, and easy on the eyes. If I’m slow on the uptake, it’s because I’m a guy.”
She folded into me and put her hand on my face. We sat like that for a while.
We spent the rest of the morning resorting all our equipment between our two vehicles. I still had Nathan’s ten-gauge, and Carrie had her nine. I went to a nearby grocery store and brought her back some light food from their salad bar, and then we said good-bye. She said she’d find another place to stay, and one perhaps not quite so easily available to police inquiries.
As I drove off, the whole thing, of course, felt wrong. Part of it was my own sense of duty telling me not to abandon a fellow cop, even if neither of us was officially a cop anymore. But she was tough and she had no illusions about what she was doing, even though I didn’t think much of her plan or her chances. The same arguments that she’d made about Hayes solving his Richter problem applied to her, and she had to know that. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out any way to go into Robbins County and do something to or about the Mingo-Creigh Axis of Evil. Mailing in my report to the Bureau would either provoke something or it wouldn’t, and I had no leverage there, either. Her idea of throwing some sensational stuff into the media pipe might be more effective than my sending in a report to the boys in the seriously gray suits.
I stopped by Marionburg’s version of a mail store, looked up the Charlotte field office in a federal directory, and fired off my saga of battle against evildoing in the Carolina mountains. I�
��d addressed it to the special agent in charge, whom I knew by name, in hopes that at least an executive assistant would read it. Otherwise it would go to the mail room and into the Letters-from-Santa pile. Which provoked a thought.
I called Carrie on her cell phone and got voice mail. I told her to make sure she said in her submission to the Raleigh media that a report had been filed with the FBI in Charlotte. If my magnum opus did get lost in the mailroom, there’d be the scramble from hell to find it down in Charlotte once that tidbit came out in public.
As I came out of the mail store I was nearly run over by a Park Service Jeep backing out of a parking place in the crowded lot. The driver was Mary Ellen Goode, who was, somewhat to my surprise, glad to see me. She looked much better than the last time I’d seen her. The circles under her eyes were much diminished, her expression was sunny, and she was well on her way to regaining her status as one of the brightest objects in Marionburg again. Since it was getting close to lunchtime I suggested we go grab a bite. We ended up in one of the tourist cafes along the main drag, surrounded by lots of flatlanders with aching feet. We took a table in a back corner and ordered lunch.
“You look terrific,” I said. “What’s changed?”
“Believe it or not,” she said, “this is my last official day with the Park Service. I was actually in there mailing a box of my desk stuff to Wilmington.”
“Wilmington.”
“A new chapter in my life, I hope,” she said. She’d resigned from the Park Service and accepted a faculty position at UNC Wilmington down on the Carolina coast. No more unruly tourists, guns, pepper spray, grouchy bears, budget cuts, lovesick bosses, and other adventures in the western mountains.
“That’s great,” I said. “As I remember, we talked about this back when, well, you know.”
She nodded. “I resisted the whole notion at first,” she said. “But then, just for the hell of it, I went online and took a look. My first application was accepted immediately. Pay raise, my federal retirement transfers, and totally new surroundings.”
“And no more cat dancers, mountain lions, or ex-cops ripping up your life, either,” I said.
She frowned for just a second, and I mentally kicked myself. Then she waved it off. “That’s all in the past,” she said. “Besides, I took a look at the faculty picture gallery. I do believe I might do some damage down there amongst all the women’s-studies, post-post-deconstruction sisterhood.”
I laughed. This was more like it-she was a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, and she absolutely ought to go break some hearts. Our food came, and she asked what I’d been doing since we’d last met. I told her not much, not willing to resurrect all the Sturm und Drang of the last few days. I could just imagine how the rest of lunch would go if I described taking Rue’s head off on that dirt road, or how I was actively avoiding not one but two local sheriffs who were interested in arresting my interfering ass, if not worse. This wasn’t the kind of place cops would frequent-I hoped, anyway-but I’d noticed that the courthouse was only a few blocks away.
Then I remembered something. I asked her how things were going at the ranger station and, as casually as I could, whether or not the DEA still had that cabin up in the park. Turned out that, yes, they did. I moved the conversation on to other things while wondering if I could find that cabin again.
We said our good-byes in the parking lot, after which I drove over to the local supermarket. From their parking lot I put a call into Baby Greenberg and, for once, got him. No, they were not using the cabin, and, to his knowledge, neither was anyone else. He said that I was, of course, not authorized to use that cabin, and I promised him solemnly that I would never do such a thing. He was glad we had that cleared up. I told him that I’d been ordered to get out of Carrigan County, but that Carrie Santangelo planned to stick around and I was nervous about leaving her alone. He immediately wanted to know why she was staying, and I suggested he might want to come by said Park Service cabin this evening. I promised him a steak and some scotch, which he said sounded appealing, even if it did involve my being in the very cabin I was not authorized to be in. I asked him if he was working anything over on this side of the park, and he said no.
“For the moment, anyway,” he explained. “We’ve basically been told to stay out of the various goings-on over there in Robbins County. Did you really ice Rue Creigh?”
I told him that, yes, regrettably, I did.
“In that case, dinner is going to be well offline.”
“You’ll be on federal turf, not Robbins County,” I said. “Checking to make sure there aren’t any squatters abusing your hideout.”
“Sounds good. You find out what the hell that old woman is doing with children up there?”
“How do you like your steak?” I asked.
“Rare.”
“Define rare,” I said, mostly to see if he knew the formula.
“Cut off its horns, wipe its ass, and bring it to the table,” he recited.
“Good. Now I don’t have to buy charcoal.”
He showed up just after sundown in an unmarked Crown Vic. He might even have thought that no one would have ever suspected it might be a cop car, but as I watched his progress through the tourist campground from on high, I could tell that every teenager down there who saw the car knew precisely what it was.
He was calmer than usual-no wide-open eyes, rapid-fire speech, or twitchy hands. I gave him some scotch, briefly seared two steaks, and then debriefed him over dinner. He didn’t seem too surprised about what the Creighs were up to, almost as if this was what he’d come to expect from the Appalachian lowlife. The news about Hayes did dismay him.
“I suspect it’s not about personal gain,” I said. “His wife is apparently desperately ill, and I’m guessing their health plan has run out. Something like that. Or it could be that what we saw was just Hayes hassling Mingo for being in Carrigan County.”
“But you don’t think so?”
I shook my head. “I think he knows what Mingo is up to and is probably on the payroll, if only to look the other way. That’s when I decided it really wasn’t safe to be there anymore. Carrie wouldn’t leave, though-which is why I telegraphed the fact to Hayes that I’d seen him and Mingo in the parking lot. Once that gets back to them, I’ll be their main problem, not her.”
“How chivalrous,” Baby said. “But in the end, if they’re partners, they’ll whack you both if they can. That report you sent in to the Bureau- that’s going to stir up a shit storm, I think.”
“If it gets through the mailroom and the SAC’s palace guard,” I said. “You know how that goes. They get a lot of crank mail.”
He sipped some scotch. “Yeah, but I got a call from Sam King at the SBI, after those hillbillies did their Buddhist monk interpretation in the parking lot? He confirmed the Bureau had something going on this kid thing, although not specific to Robbins County. Said he’d told the both of you to get out of the way before you really fucked things up.”
“Well, then,” I said. “My report ought to just corroborate their suspicions. Maybe now they’ll move in force.”
“I wonder, Cam. You know those guys-they don’t play well with others. I used to think it was really good operational security. Now I think it’s because they want the option of saying, ‘Hey, everybody, that wasn’t us,’ should whatever they try happen to go south. If they do know about this alleged child-sex-slave deal, my guess is they’re probably working the other end.”
“Meaning?’
“Meaning, they’re trying to find out who the buyers are. You mention your theory that it’s going overseas?”
I said I had, but that of course I had no real data. “It isn’t likely they’re selling into the U.S. in places like Washington,” I said, “New Orleans, now, I’d believe that, although Katrina might have slowed that down a little. But D.C.? That town’s one big piece of flypaper for anything like this these days.”
“I’m with you on that,” he said. “Too many trip
wires in Washington right now. This has to be an overseas deal, and I like your theory on diplomatic immunity channels.”
I cleared the plates and threw steak scraps to the two fuzzy piranhas hovering discreetly near the table.
“I’m kind of conflicted on this whole gig,” I told him. “As an ex-lawman, I can see perfectly well how we could screw things up for some operation we don’t know about. Sam King is right-we should knock it off. On the other hand…”
“On the other hand, you’re a civilian now,” he said. “These animals are in your face. Remember all the times when you were on the Job that you wanted to pick up a club and invoke Father Darwin on some walking pustule? Well, now you can, as long as you do it right and don’t get caught.”
“You ever get that urge in your business?’
“I rarely harbor such thoughts, or at least no more than hourly,” he said, pouring some more scotch. “At least you took that bitch Rowena Creigh off the boards.”
“That was pretty awful,” I said. “I acted instinctively and, trust me, I felt that. 357 round with my left ear. But still, a double-ten to the face makes for some vivid memories.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he said. “That skank compromised one of my guys. Got him all hot and bothered, went to some no-tell motel in Rocky Falls, took him around the world, only she was making movies the whole time. Had to transfer the guy out of the area and his wife found out. You did the world a service.”
“And stoked the Creighs’ revenge ethic,” I said. “We’re not going to have any more polite conversations on the front porch.”
“Hell, that just clarifies your position,” he said with a grin. “See a Creigh, pop his ass. Self-defense, a priori. Guaranteed clean shoot. I’ll testify for you.”
“What do you think about all this?” I asked.
He sniffed. “I’m at the stage in my life where I’m focused on getting off this bus with enough money to be comfortable, the Neanderthals up in the hills notwithstanding.”
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