“P.I. same as a cop?” Bryce asks.
“Not even close,” Nate says. “I'm working on behalf of Raina Smith. Her mother hired me. She's one of the young women you were sent out to help.”
“It's all I was doin,” says Bryce.
“He knows that,” Jim says. “He's wonderin you went out there with Russ or not?”
“What's Russ got to do with it?”
“More just out of curiosity,” says Nate. “There were a few eyewitnesses mentions seeing someone near the RV when the girls were still in it.”
“Wouldn't have been us,” Bryce says.
“So, your buddy Russ, he was with you.”
Bryce nods. “Some of the calls. You never know who you're dealing with. Good to have a partner.”
“I understand. Anyway, what time they call you?”
“The RV place? Hang on.” Bryce disappears into his trailer. Nate's instinct is to follow. Goes back to his police days. Never let 'em out of your sight. You let a shitrat disappear into some other room, next thing they're coming back with a shotgun and you're wearing holes you weren't born with. P.I. work is different. You can't really assert yourself into people's homes in that way. “Reasonable suspicion to believe” isn't really a thing on the civvie side.
Bryce reappears holding his smart phone, scrolls the screen until he finds the date and time of CanadaPlus RV's service call. “The 13th,” Bryce says. “That was the day.”
“Sure he knew that,” says Jim, sarcastic in tone. The kind of sarcasm you reserve for immediate family.
“5:04 p.m.,” Bryce says. “That's when they called me to go out.”
“Where were you when they called?” Nate says. “You don't mind me asking.”
“Me and Russ, we was at the Dairy Queen.”
“This boy can't roll past a burger joint without stoppin,” Jim says. “Russ neither.”
Nate casts a sideways glance at the old man's prodigious gut. Looks who's talkin', pal, Nate thinks. “You guys leave right away?”
Bryce nods. “Yeah, headed out there soon as they called.”
“No stops along the way?”
“No.”
“What time was it you arrived at the rental vehicle?”
Bryce looks at his phone screen again. “Got it here.” He points it out. “Twenty after six.”
Nate calculates the math in his head. The time works out. “What'd you see when you got there?”
Bryce leans against the door frame. “Not much, tell you the truth. Those girls weren't around.”
“But the RV was there.”
“Oh yeah. She was just sittin there. Empty.”
“And you were driving that gray tow truck? The one sitting out in front of your parent's place there?” Nate points back in that direction.
“Yeah.”
“You and Russ together. No other vehicle, right?”
“Right.”
“You see anyone else around. Anybody drive by you looking suspicious?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“You see anything on the ground around the motorhome? Anything look out of place on the side of the highway, either side?”
“Well, I told the cops, there was that lawn chair. Kinda yellowish. Like a really light yellow color.”
“That was beside the RV?”
“Yeah. Just sittin there off the shoulder next to the thing. Like someone had been using it.”
Nate remembers back to what Noreen Pluth had said.
“Anything else?” Nate asks. “What about when you went into the rig?”
“The RV? It was unlocked. Thought maybe when I showed up the person or whoever called would be waiting inside.”
“You didn't know it was these girls when the call came in?”
Bryce shakes his head. “No. They tell ya the name, not much else.”
“You remember whose name they gave you?”
He squints, trying to remember. “Kelly, I think it was. No, wait.”
“It'd be in your log,” Jim says.
“That's in the truck.”
They wander out around the front of Jim's house to the tow rig. Bryce fishes the service call log from the driver's side door pocket. He shows Nate the entry he'd block-printed onto the page marked July 13th. “Carly,” Bryce says, correcting himself from before. “Not Kelly. Yeah, I thought I mighta been remembering it wrong.”
“But you and Russ didn't know the other two women were with her?”
“We only get the name of the person calling for service most times.”
“Gotcha. And inside the RV?”
“It was kinda messy. You know, looks like people been using it a bunch. Clothes layin around. Snack food was out.”
“Of course he'd remember that,” Jim chides. Bryce gives him the side-eye.
“Was the vehicle running?”
“No,” Bryce says. “She was off. It was dead silent out there. Almost eerie like.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don't know, hard to tell ya, but it was like… there was a breeze ya know? This kinda whistle through the empty RV. You could hear it. And there wasn't much traffic right when we were there. It was so quiet. Hard to put into words. I just got a weird feelin when I was there.”
Nate understands what he means, he's heard similar things numerous times on investigations. A lot of it he attributes to witnesses and others ascribing feelings or a narrative to a scene or a situation after the fact once they learn what it was they'd actually been party to. Easy to think of the motorhome as being haunted when you find out days later that scene you'd been prancing around in had been the site of a potentially evil act.
“Anything else you can recall, sticks out in your mind?”
Bryce shakes his head. “Not really. I mean, I wish I could tell ya more. Be nice to find out what happened to them.”
“They're pretty young things,” Jim says, in that non-self-aware way an older man would, especially in the company of other men. “Real cuties. A shame they can't seem to find 'em.”
Nate's a bit put off by the comment, as though the young women were any more worthy of being found had they not been perceived as physically attractive. He knows that isn't purely the domain of a pervy old man either. The media loves the optics of the whole thing. Flash image after image of beautiful college girls, mercilessly gone in a harsh wilderness environment. Ratings manna from heaven.
“I'm sure they're hard at it, the RCMP, the FBI,” Nate says, scarcely believing it.
“You gonna find 'em first?” Jim asks.
Nate grins slightly. “That's the idea. Sure. Like I said, appreciate your time.”
He shakes both their hands, turns and walks towards his beat-up Taurus. Without consciously articulating to himself why, his attention catches on a white Pontiac Grand-Prix parked alongside the white garage building on the other side of the dirt lot in front of Jim's house. Might be the pink object in the back window. He walks past his car and towards the Pontiac, something nags at him, wants him to see what that object was. He hears footsteps on the gravel behind him. Nate glances back over his shoulder, sees Bryce come up quick.
“What ya after over there?”
Interesting, Nate thinks.
“Nothing,” he tells Bryce, “just noticed this car here.”
Jim walks over to where the two men stand. Nate sees the pink object more clearly as he leans close to the Pontiac's rear. It's a child's toy. Looks like maybe a rubbery oversized hat meant for a Barbie doll.
“You can see my ride,” says Nate. “It's in pretty rough shape. I've always liked these Grand-Prix's.”
He hopes the lie passes muster, because there isn't anything particularly appealing about this rather run down Pontiac that looks to be in no better shape than his Ford.
“You in the market for a car?” Jim asks. “I could help ya out. I got tons. Could help ya fix em up too. I charge modest.”
Jim suspects nothing. Bryce is definitely more wary.
“You like this car here?” Bryce says. “It's a couple years older than yours. Not that it matters.”
“Why's that?” Nate asks.
“This is Russ's,” Bryce says.
“Oh, I didn't realize. He here?”
“No, he's in town.”
“But his car is here?”
“This ain't his usual car. He drives a truck most of the time.”
“What kind of truck?”
“You want to talk to Russ about that. But, it's weird.”
“What's weird?”
“You seem awfully curious all of a sudden.”
Nate can barely comprehend his own level of suspicion about that car. Still, something rings all his bells. A cop's sixth sense. No amount of Cream can dull it.
“I'd talk to him, sure,” says Nate. “Sounds like he wouldn't have much to tell me given all you've said.”
“Probably right.”
“No, I just thought I'd ask, I mean if he's happy with the ride he's got, maybe he'd think about selling me this one.”
“It's a Silverado, Russ drives,” Jim says. Nate reads annoyance on Bryce's face hearing his old man say it.
“Late model?”
“Thought you were interested in Russ's car?” Bryce says. “What you care about his truck?”
“What's up your ass?” Jim says, still tasting a cut of any sale he could make. “The man's curious is all. Answer your question, Russ's truck's fairly old. Two-door. He bought it from me. I might be able to talk him into selling it to ya. Unless you're set on something like this here Pontiac.”
“A truck,” Nate says, pretending to seriously mull it over. “Could be a handy thing, my line of work. What color is it?”
“Maroon,” Jim says. “Reddish, you know.”
“I like that color.” Nate's mind swims circles, but he doesn't let on. Then he focuses again on the toy in the window. “Doesn't sound like much of a family vehicle either.”
“Family vehicle?” Bryce says.
“Suppose it doesn't,” Jim agrees.
“Your buddy Russ might wanna hang on to a car like this,” Nate says, “better for carting around the kids, that kind of thing.”
Bryce frowns. Nate senses he's about to swallow the bait. “Russ ain't got kids.”
Those spidey-senses are seldom wrong.
“Oh no? Nieces, nephews maybe?”
“No, nothin like that,” Bryce says, eyeing Nate with suspicion. “What gave you that idea?”
“Somethin you said, a while back there. Somethin gave me that impression.”
“Something I said?” Bryce asks, confused now more than ever. “About Russ having kids or some such?”
Nate feigns confusion. Shakes his head in fake absent-mindedness. “Yeah, it's possible I heard you wrong. I've been talking to a lot of people lately too. Sorry about that. Got our wires crossed up maybe. Mixing things around.”
He hands Bryce his card. “I'd appreciate it if you could give this to Russ next time you see him. Now that you mention it, I'd like to talk to him about your service call. See if he remembers anything himself. The more accounts of that day, the better.”
“He didn't even go in the RV,” Bryce says. “Only me. He mighta stepped outta the rig long enough to stretch his legs or somethin.”
“I understand,” Nate says. “Still, I wanna cross all my Ts on this, you know? I'm working for one of the moms. She's a real ball buster. Any little thing anyone might have seen or can remember. It all helps. If you could just have him give me a call.”
Bryce shoves Nate's card into his pocket. Did so in such a way, Nate wasn't convinced ol' Russ would ever come to be in possession of his phone number.
“What about that truck?” Jim says. “Or this Pontiac? You wanna see if maybe Russ would sell one of 'em to ya?”
Nate shakes his head. “You know what? I think I'm good, the more we talk about it. I'm bad with the impulse purchases sometimes. Think I just saw that Grand-Prix there and it got my blood going a little and I wondered. I mean, you've got a lot of cars around here. Looks like the place to go to find something I might be interested in at some point in the future.”
“You got that right,” Jim says, none-the-wiser. There's a tinge of disappointment in the man's tone. Like he'd had a trout dangling and couldn't quite set the hook.
“Guess I won't have to tell Russ you were about to sell his Chev out from under him,” Bryce says to his father.
Jim chuckles, and Nate joins in.
“Well,” Nate says, “I won't take up anymore of your time.”
As he drives off Tobin's lot, he watches the two men in his side mirror watching him go.
There's something else going on, Nate tells himself. Might not even be anything to do with these girls. Drug related? Doubtful. There's something though. He repeats the words. There's something. There's something. He murmurs it bobbing up and down over the potholes. Something about that toy plucks at a raw nerve. It isn't right. Again with the repetition. It isn't right. Over and over. Out of place. The intuition grips him hard.
Soon after, his phone buzzes in his pocket and tugs him mid-thought as he pulls onto the main drag. He pulls over long enough to see a missed call. What the hell area code is that? Caller ID has the location.
“New Jersey?” He says aloud.
Who the hell do I know in New Jersey?
CHAPTER NINE
Questioning Russ lands high on the priority list. Might find him around town tomorrow. Nate rolls over in his bed, pushes the covers off in the midst of a hot flash. Stress? Something else? His money is starting to wear thin. Belinda hasn't come through with her next payment. A text he sent her had thus far gone unanswered. Maybe I should call back that number. New Jersey. Gotta be telemarketers. Belinda's in West Virginia. Where's her son live again? If she's visiting him, that's a possibility. Maybe a call from there.
Voices outside.
Nate plants his feet on the floor, strides across to the front window, sees that shitty Corolla out in the lot again. No sign of anyone around. Bug expecting company? Bug doesn't have friends. Could be the couple in Unit 5. Younger. Strung out, but both working. Last he knew the guy works at a lube shop, his girlfriend at Boston Pizza. Nate checks the time. 2:47am. Voices again, but still no sign of anyone. Probably smoking outside one of the units downstairs. Whatever, shitheads. Whatever you're doing in the middle of the night with your shithead lives, keep me out of it. He crosses back to the bed and plunks down on the mattress.
The room's just dark enough to play tricks on your eyes. The charcoal ceiling, barely illuminated by a sliver of orange from outside, swirls at the corners while Nate stares up, straight ahead. He lets his pupils glaze over and he thinks about Bryce Tobin stopped at the RV. Imagines him inside the motorhome, taking a look around.
He'd gotten wind from Gray that blood speck was the only physical evidence they had inside the rig once they'd eliminated prints, hair, fibers and DNA from the girls themselves.
In other words, the Task Force has fuck all to go on.
Their bodies'll turn up.
What the fuck is with that toy though?
He doesn't like Bryce Tobin at all. There's something with him. He's off. All wrong. Right for this thing with Raina, Carly, and Zoe kinda wrong? Doubtful. Involved in something else though that makes him nervous as he was? He was nervous to be talking to me, that's for sure. Something Jim Tobin doesn't know about, obviously. Another thing coming down the track that his kid's gonna put him in the jackpot for. A train wreck Nate could see coming fifty miles away. Without even meeting Russ he knows he's up to his neck involved, might even be the sticky wicket gets Bryce jammed up.
And Grady Willard Barnes?
If only I could see him. Look him in the eye. No way in eighteen hells the Task Force will allow that to happen. Unless they kick him loose. Odds of that? Is there a nineteenth hell?
Fuck, what else? The feelers are out. Irons are in their proverbial fires. Flyers, cards, voicem
ails. If you can keep your bank account from going tits up long enough, something's bound to shake loose. Earlier that evening he'd already swallowed his pride enough to shout Sam Gray's way. Called him about eight, half-apologized in a voice message on the constable's office line. Getting the Task Force lackey back on-side would be helpful. Was it going to happen? When does anything go right?
Nate rolls to his side, lights up the room with his cell phone. He types in a message to Belinda. Another one to her. What time is it there where she is? Almost 5 in the morning? She gets it when she gets it.
“Hoping we can talk,” he texts her.
“Money's tight, I get it. Hoping for next payment.”
He sits his phone back on the night stand and closes his eyes. Has them shut for all of thirty seconds when the thing vibrates to life, shoots a ray of light across his pillow. It's her.
“Sorry,” are the first words back.
Nate pictures her laid up with a breathing tube and he's struck by pangs of guilt.
“My boy was away...squared away now Nate...wire u tomorrow?”
Nate texts her back. “apologies if i woke you”
“I was awake. Tomorrow work?”
“It works. Thx.”
“Thought maybe I'd pay you when I see you. Was thinking that too.”
Nate squints at the message. When I see you? What is she talking about? She's coming back here?
“I don't understand.”
“When you come for the dinner,” Belinda answers back.
“Dinner?”
“Anastasia Lewis's house. Bianca told me she called you. We r going 2. Me and Bianca.”
Damn, Nate puts it together. New Jersey. Anastasia Lewis.
Sure enough, 8:30 in the morning, his phone rings with that number lighting up his display. He answers, and a male voice speaks before he even has the chance to say hello.
“Nate Striker,” the male voice says. “Please hold for Ms. Lewis.”
Jesus, it's like I'm receiving a call from the Prime Minister or something. Nate shakes his head.
“Mr. Striker,” comes a firm, female voice. The practiced one Nate recognizes from the press conference on TV. “Anastasia Lewis speaking.”
The Highway Girls Page 6
