Cuddyer and his crew were in the unique position of being both vital to, and knowing far too much about, the operation to just let things go and hope for the best. They either needed to be assisted, making sure everything continued moving as it should, or they needed to be eliminated.
It was no secret that the FBI had been poking around The Dogs for a number of years, predating his own involvement in the organization. Over time ATF and INS had also taken a run at them, both times finding just enough to confirm suspicions but not enough to make anything stick.
This was different though. It was only recently that his group had grown from dabbling in the drug game into a full-blown player, turning an opportunity in a remote location into a lucrative business. Until now they had been fortunate to stay off the radar of the DEA, but if they were to ever come close enough to get a good look at what was going on, there would be no way to avoid a trip to prison, compliments of the federal government.
The entire organization would go down, and it would be ugly.
He hadn’t bothered to share those thoughts with Maria when he finally made it to bed, nor with Trick that morning. He had an inkling that both would already understand anyway with their uncanny ability to read him.
“It letting up at all?” a voice asked, pulling Wood from his thoughts.
Trick walked up beside him, already dressed in puffy arctic gear. Thick boots covered his feet, pulled high over the bottoms of his snowsuit, the black material reflective under the overhead lights. It stopped just short of his chin, a knit balaclava covering his face.
Perched on top was a pair of orange ski goggles, ensuring not one inch of him would be exposed to the cold.
Turning to look past Trick, Wood glanced into the cavernous barn behind them, one of several The Dogs kept throughout the area. This one in particular was used simply as storage most of the year, several black Arctic Cat snowmobiles and a pair of modified vans converted to snow coaches always ready for their use.
Four men worked quickly as Wood paused to watch, loading a small trailer hitched to the back of one of the coaches with a pair of snowmobiles.
The plan, as Trick had explained that morning, was to take the snow coach as far as they could, hoping the treads on it would be sufficient to get them to Glasgow.
If not, they would disembark, leaving one man behind with the vehicle while he and the other man took the snowmobiles.
Using the coach meant sacrificing a bit of time, traveling just half the speed of the smaller machines, but it offered the benefits of warmth for the men and space for needed supplies.
While effective at covering distances quickly, the snowmobiles were limited in hauling material that might be needed to get the operation back up and running – if that was even a possibility.
If not, the coaches provided ample room for those supplies as well.
“Weather report this morning said things might break sometime late today,” Wood said.
He knew that Trick was overdressed for the larger vehicle, but would be able to move quickly if the time came for them to switch modes of transportation. Whatever discomfort he might endure would be worth it in potential saved time later.
There was no way of knowing what state they might find Cuddyer and his crew in, or even if they would find them at all, but Wood needed answers, fast.
“You good on directions?” Wood asked, already knowing the answer but needing to run through the list in his mind just the same.
“Yeah,” Trick said. “GPS in the van, Mac riding shotgun just in case.”
Grunting softly, Wood nodded. “Who else you taking?”
“Barnham,” Trick replied, keeping his explanation to just a single word.
Again, Wood nodded, glancing over his shoulder to pick Barnham out of the crowd, easily distinguishable as he stood several inches taller than the others.
The two selections had been made with care, both filling specific purposes. Mac was brilliant with navigation, had directed the crew more than once when they found themselves isolated, far from base and in need of supplies. Barnham was one of the only members who had any real experience with the meth making process, a quasi-chemist nowhere near the level of Elias, but who would be able to give a hand in the short term to ensure demand was met.
Once more a litany of things Wood could say came to mind, each one getting pushed aside. He was not a parent seeing a young child off on a road trip, did not need to remind Trick to call and check in or to be careful crossing through the heavy snow bogs.
To be sure to pack enough firepower should Cuddyer decide to get any ideas.
The man by his side was someone who had been through just about everything with him, was chosen for this assignment for that very reason.
He would succeed, just as he always had, and then he would return. There was no need to insult him now.
“I’m going over to see Chance right after I leave here,” Wood said. “Ask him to up the order in the short term, just in case.”
He could see Trick arch an eyebrow in his direction, saying nothing.
“I know he’s not as good as Elias, but most of those guys can’t tell anyway. We can’t run the risk of coming up short, you know that.”
Trick nodded, reaching out and patting Wood on the arm.
“We’ll find him, get this thing squared away soon enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sam Cuddyer had decisions to make, none of which he was especially keen on making. The first was how to handle the request from the doctor who made it clear that if they were ever going to get Elias back on his feet, she was going to need more than some old bandages and whatever creams and ointments Jasper had been able to find around the house.
Once the original surprise at her change in demeanor and the anger at her audacity had passed, Cuddyer realized she was right. Living in a farmhouse with two other men, any medical supplies they did have on hand were limited.
If two of the three bathed on any given day it was a miracle, let alone stopping to apply antiseptic or a Band-Aid to every knick and scratch that occurred.
That meant the first major decision facing him was who was going to make a supply run. The thought of leaving his truck in Jasper’s hands, asking the man to take the treacherous route they’d traveled the night before, now with even more snowfall piled on it, made his stomach clench.
Trusting him to enter a store and get the specific list of items the doctor was requesting without arousing suspicion caused that clenching to increase.
For all of Jasper’s abilities, most of them stemming from his unfailing loyalty and intense eagerness to please, being smart was not one of them.
On the flip side, asking him to stay behind and finish setting up the equipment was also too much to ask. They were behind schedule, the reservoirs complete and ready to go, but the burners were still not working correctly, the piping needed to connect them all not quite assembled.
Trusting Jasper to stay behind and handle the torch, or do much else without his supervision, could lead to a disaster worse than what Elias had caused the day before.
As much as he hated the notion of being stranded there without a means of escape, The Dogs knowing full well where it was, having paid for the thing and stocked it themselves, he had no other choice.
Jasper would have to make the trip.
That instantly led to the second decision of when was the best time to go. While it was true that every minute that passed without the medical supplies was another one that Elias was not getting the help he needed, making it that much longer until he was up on his feet, they had to be careful how they approached town.
The night before had been a stroke of luck they could not hope to duplicate, finding the doctor standing outside, even believing they were in need of aid and stepping out to them. That ensured they didn’t have to enter the hospital, meant that nobody saw them or the truck.
That bit of good fortune had worked only because the hospital was open. Anywhere el
se that would have the supplies they needed would be closed in the middle of the night under normal circumstances, definitely with the late season blizzard howling outside.
Waiting until morning was the only option.
The decisions gnawed at Cuddyer through most of the night, chewing at his thoughts, continuing to pull his attention away from what he was doing. Twice he had been forced to cut away a botched weld, starting over, his impatience rising, the pressure of the situation beginning to assert itself.
Minute by excruciating minute the night had worn on, Cuddyer doing his best not to lash out at Jasper, or storm over to the room and smash Elias for putting them in this situation. One piece at a time, he discarded the heavy clothing he wore, sweat dotting his exposed skin, dripping from the end of his nose.
Forcing his attention on the task at hand, he made it just past 7:00, the faintest light starting to show through the skylights above, before turning off his torch and tossing it aside. Pulling the thick welder’s gloves from his hands, he dropped them to the floor, motioning with a finger for Jasper to follow him.
Digging the list the doctor had made from his pocket, Cuddyer stopped just short of the truck.
“You know the Albertson’s on the edge of town?” Cuddyer asked, watching as Jasper approached, his uncertainty obvious.
“Yeah?”
“I need you to go there and get these things,” Cuddyer said, shaking the paper once, motioning for Jasper to take it.
“Cuddy, if you’re hungry, we’ve got canned goods in the back,” Jasper said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
Feeling the venom within him rise, Cuddyer’s eyes slid closed, a loud sigh escaping.
Of course he knew there was food stacked up in the back. He and Jasper had gone to Billings to buy it months before, had sweated their asses off piling it inside the metal building that was like an oven in the August sun.
Still, he pushed past that, not wanting to put Jasper on his heels again, needing him at his best to have any hope of making this work.
“I know,” Cuddyer said. “This isn’t for food. These are things for Elias.”
“Oh,” Jasper said, his eyes and mouth all three forming into perfect circles as he looked at the list and back up to Cuddyer. “And you want me to go?”
“Yes,” Cuddyer replied, his molars clamping together, veins beginning to bulge in his neck. Every bit of him wanted, needed, the conversation to end quickly, to get back to work before his anger grew into something he could no longer contain. “I need you to take the truck into town and get these things while I finish up here.”
The same look remained on Jasper’s face as he stood rooted in place, his fingers fidgeting without stopping.
“You know the way, right?” Cuddyer asked.
Jasper remained rigid, his head finally rocking forward just slightly. “Well, yeah, but...”
“So I need you to take this and go,” Cuddyer said, again pushing the list toward Jasper. “The keys are in the ignition, there’s cash in the glove box. Don’t talk to anybody you don’t have to, be sure to keep an eye out for cops.”
Still there was no movement from Jasper, seeming much more a small child than a man in his 40s, his entire demeanor displaying he would rather do anything else in the world than the errand he was being tasked with.
“Can you do that for me?” Cuddyer asked, walking forward a step and pressing the list flat against Jasper’s chest. “Can you do it for Elias?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The previous six hours were spent in a haze of internet searches and taking turns brewing coffee, neither Ferris nor I saying much of anything. The tension that had started with Baker had only grown in the time since, both of us feeling the pressure of time, not particularly adept at sitting still and waiting for things to happen.
After much debate it was decided that the only logical thing for us to do was wait for Ned’s to reopen, to go back and lean on everybody we could and hope something shook loose. Already, we’d spent half the night driving around town, discovering nothing, the snow limiting visibility and wiping away any trace of someone passing through.
Continuing to circle around would be futile, only asking for us to get stuck and end up stranded, unable to help should something new arise.
Sitting and waiting had never been my strong suit, a feeling I sensed was matched by Ferris. Always erring on the side of action, to be the aggressor in any given situation, were maxims that I believed in wholeheartedly when conducting an investigation, knowing it was always easier to redirect on the fly than to try and get moving from a standstill.
Never before, though, had I found myself in an investigation like this, with zero leads existing in a suspect pool that was microscopic to begin with and confined by the elements intent on keeping us grounded.
Resigned to our situation, Ferris had taken a desk on one side of the office, me on the other, each of us going to work on the internet, seeing what we could find. As a member of law enforcement, he opted to begin with trying to pull any kind of record on Yvonne, the search coming back negative, just as we knew it would.
From there he moved on to NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, and ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, both national repositories supported by the FBI, to determine if any individuals with criminal pasts had relocated to the Glasgow area.
While he did that, I went to work on the web, going through every possible permutation I could for Yvonne Endicott, just to make sure we hadn’t overlooked anything or jumped to the wrong conclusion. I found some bio information but not a great deal more.
It wasn’t uncommon for witnesses to speak highly of a victim, especially just minutes after something as traumatic as a kidnapping, but in this instance the online evidence really did play out much the same way. From what I could piece together, she was 31-years-old, had been a lifetime resident of Georgia. She had attended the University of Georgia on a track scholarship and stuck around for med school, graduating summa as an undergraduate and magna in the MD program.
Upon completion she had moved on to Cobb County General, working as an emergency medicine resident before leaving abruptly to head to Montana to care for her sick father.
She had no Facebook account that I could find, no Twitter, the only sniff of a social media presence being something called LinkedIn, which looked to be some sort of online resume service.
Nowhere did anything resembling a threat or an enemy of any kind surface, though that didn’t necessarily mean they didn’t exist, maybe even being the reason for such a small online footprint.
Despite that longshot existing, I couldn’t help but think I was wasting my time.
Rising from my chair, I walked back toward the same small conference room that I had first entered earlier, the smell of coffee and cleaning solution fighting for supremacy in the air. The combination made for a curious scent that tickled my nostrils as I filled a white Styrofoam cup, took a long pull of the standard law enforcement swill, and stared at the darkened screen of the television.
One frame at a time I played the clip back through my mind, having already seen it a handful of times, knowing there was nothing more to be gleaned from it.
“Believe me,” Ferris said, entering the room behind me, “I’ve stared at that thing three times tonight. If it knows anything, it’s not talking.”
The statement pulled the right corner of my mouth up as I turned to face him while retreating toward the table and leaning against it. A few feet away he refilled a camouflage mug and took a drink, seemingly unaware of the taste.
“If that damn camera had only been angled a few inches to the left,” I said, letting my thoughts play out loud, “we’d have a look at a license plate...”
“I know it,” Ferris said, nodding in agreement. “Or if she hadn’t been standing outside, what then? Would they have come in looking for someone? Would Breckman have woken his ass up long enough to notice something was going on?”
Like
him, I nodded, having considered the alternatives a dozen times myself, knowing that every last one was nothing more than wishful thinking.
“Okay,” I said, placing my cup down beside me and folding my arms over my chest, “we need to find someone who needed a doctor, wherever they are.”
In the front of the office we heard the door open, a bevy of footsteps entering, wet rubber soles stomping against the floor.
“Hello?” Azbell called out. “Anybody home?”
“God, I hope not,” Baker said a moment later, his voice loud enough to be heard but pretending to be in a whisper.
Feeling the same hostility I’d had hours before, I glanced to Ferris and asked, “What would you say to splitting up for a little while? Letting me have a run at Ned’s, off the record?”
Chapter Thirty
It was still well before 10:00 when I entered the bar, but already there were a handful of patrons spread evenly around the room, confirming the impression I’d gotten the night before that the place was the kind of neighborhood hangout that didn’t really have set hours. So long as the owner was around, people were free to come and go, a real life Cheers without the witty one-liners and overused laugh track.
Every person in the room turned and openly stared as I walked in, leaving the snow caked along the outside of my jeans and covering the tops of my shoes as I walked across the floor to the bar, Ned spotting me halfway across, meeting me there.
“Morning,” he said, adding just a bit of false bravado to his voice, raising it for the benefit of the onlookers in the room, “your sandwiches will be up in just a minute. You want to come on back while you wait?”
He fixed his gaze on me as he asked the question, the entire thing clearly a scam, a bit of showmanship for the crowd.
A moment later he flicked his eyes to the side without saying another word.
“Yeah, that works,” I said. “Appreciate it.”
He led the way through a swinging door I had not noticed the night before, the smell of fried food hitting me in the face as I passed through.
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