by C. J. Box
“Smells good,” she said.
He poured her a mug of coffee.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope you don’t take it personally if the girls don’t dive into that big ranch breakfast you just created. Don’t forget-they’re getting older and more health and weight conscious all the time. It’s a struggle to get them to eat a banana or cereal in the morning before school. Most of the time I’m giving them something as they dash out the door.”
“That’s because you don’t tempt them with bacon,” Joe said. “Bacon is magic.”
She let that pass. “Any sign of Nate?”
“Nope. My guess is he’s out at his old place on the river or staying with Alisha.”
“I’d guess Alisha.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
She said, “I’m glad we talked last night.”
“For starters,” he said.
She smiled and looked away. He watched as she peered through the front room toward the picture window, squinted, and turned to him. “Who is parked in front of our house?”
“What?” There hadn’t been any vehicles in front when he’d gone out earlier to collect the weekly Saddlestring Roundup. Now, though, there was a massive red Ford Expedition with Colorado plates blocking Marybeth’s van in the driveway.
Joe walked to the front window in his apron with a spatula in his hand, just in time to see the passenger door open and Bobby McCue swing out. McCue was talking with someone inside. Although the windows were darkened, Joe could see at least two other heads besides the driver.
Marybeth joined him at the window, and they both watched as a man and a woman got out of the Expedition. The man was tall and red-faced, and his movements were swift and purposeful. He slammed the door shut and strode around the front of the vehicle. He wore an open safari jacket, jeans, and heavy boots, as if he planned to traverse the Outback later in the day. The woman, in a knee-length navy blue jacket, wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to make herself smaller. She was short, thin, dark, and furtive. She appeared uncomfortable or nervous, and she looked to the red-faced man for their next move. He gestured toward the house with a brusque nod and walked right by her, swinging his arms. She followed him up the concrete walkway in front of Bobby McCue.
“Do you know them?” Marybeth asked.
“I know the guy in the back. He’s the one who came to see me in the hospital and lied about being from DCI.”
“What do you suppose they want?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said, “but if they want to talk, I’ll steer them into my office. Do you mind feeding the girls?”
Marybeth said, “That’s what I do every day, Joe. I think I can handle it.”
The red-faced man said, “Brent Shober” and stuck out his hand.
Joe reached out and shook it. “I was wondering when I might hear from you.”
“This is my wife, Jenna.”
“Hello, Jenna. I’m Joe Pickett.”
She smiled tightly and looked away from him.
“And our investigator, Bobby McCue.”
“We’ve met,” Joe said, nodding toward McCue. McCue shrugged and winked, as if he and Joe were brothers in arms in law enforcement subterfuge. Joe shook his head, denying the bond.
Joe had to clear papers from his two office chairs and fetch a folding chair from a hall closet so all three could sit down in his cramped home office. They filled the room. He closed the door and sidled past them and around his desk and sat in his office chair. Joe didn’t want any of them seeing his girls as they went about their morning routine getting ready for breakfast and school.
“You gonna wear that?” Brent Shober asked, indicating Joe’s apron. Joe flushed. He’d forgotten about it. But he didn’t feel like taking it off, either. He put the spatula on his desk next to his pen and pencil set.
“What can I do for you?” he said.
Brent snorted and sat forward, putting his elbows on Joe’s desk. He glanced quickly toward McCue and Jenna before forging ahead. “We’re here because Bobby got a hold of the statement you made to the sheriff in Carbon County, right?”
Joe said, “Now before you jump to conclusions, I never said I positively identified your daughter. I’m sorry to say that, but. ”
“Look, Pickett,” Brent said, cutting Joe off. “I’m not one to beat around the bush. We’re here because we need you to help us locate Diane.”
“Didn’t you just hear what I said?”
Brent shook his head as if it didn’t matter. “We’ve spent the last week in agony while that search team went up into the mountains to check out your story. We waited for any kind of word from them. When they found nothing-nothing at all-it was like another twist of the knife in my back, right? And I’m getting sick and tired of having my hopes raised up and smashed back down. You’re the only one, apparently, who knows where to find her. We need you to do just that. If necessary, I’ll hire you. Just name your price.”
“It isn’t about money,” Joe said.
“Everything’s about money, right?” Brent said. “I can see how you live here,” he said, gesturing vaguely around Joe’s cluttered office. “I also know your personal situation from Bobby here. You’ve been put on the shelf. You’ve got nothing to do and who knows if you’ll even get your job back. Right?”
Joe didn’t like talking to people who ended statements with the word “Right?” for the reason of preempting any possible disagreement. But before he could speak, Brent said, “For two long, hard years, Jenna and I have done everything we could to get the word out that our daughter was missing and doing everything we could do to find her. I personally spent two weeks this summer talking to law enforcement to remind them she hadn’t been found and putting fliers in every public place I could in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Finding her is my obsession, Pickett. I know she’s alive and well. I just know it, right? And up until Bobby got a hold of that statement of yours, I was starting to think about giving up hope. Not that I did give up, but I was considering the possibility, if you know what I mean, right?”
Joe had learned not to even try to talk to Brent Shober, so he didn’t.
Brent stood up. He clearly wanted to pace, but there was no room. So he bent over Joe’s desk so his face was even closer.
“My little girl was on a schedule to go to the Olympics, something her old man barely missed out on. I was a one-thousand-meter man. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of me or not, but no matter. A month before the trials, I screwed up my knees. Still, I missed qualifying by only six seconds. Diane, though, she was on track. She was getting stronger by the month. That’s why we moved part of our company from Michigan to the mountains out here, so she could train at high elevation and gain endurance and strength. She was on track, right?”
“Right,” Joe said.
“Then she goes for a long run and never comes back. We haven’t seen her or talked with her in two years. Think about that. It’s been eating us up, Jenna and me. I nearly lost my company-I build superhigh-end office parks-because I spent so much time talking to local yokels and listening to every crackpot who said they might have seen her. That’s because I put out that half-million-dollar reward, right?”
Even though Brent’s eyes burned into him, Joe let his return gaze slip away. McCue sat in his chair like a good hired soldier, betraying nothing. There was a slight smile on his face, as if he enjoyed seeing someone else on the other end of Brent Shober for a change. He’d likely heard the story twenty times, but he didn’t betray his boredom or familiarity. Jenna, on the other hand, made a point not to look at Joe or her husband, even when he referred to her. No doubt she shared his pain, Joe thought, but she didn’t share his bombast.
“So,” Brent continued, “for two years this has been our quest-to find our Diane. We’ve hired private investigators, I’ve gone personally to meet with the FBI in D.C., Denver, and Cheyenne, and we’ve even listened to hack psychics tell us she is definitely alive, and definitely
waiting for us to rescue her. Her no-good fiance used to work with us, but he’s given up the fight. That little rat bastard picked up and moved to Baja and we haven’t heard from him in months. But I’m not giving up, Pickett. I know she’s still up there somewhere, that somebody’s got her, right?”
Joe felt pummeled and somehow at fault. “Mr. Shober, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose your only daughter.”
Brent stuck out his palm to stop Joe from talking. “No, Pickett, you can’t imagine what hell feels like.”
Joe wanted to say, But I have a pretty good idea. when Jenna Shober spoke for the first time. She said, “Diane is our youngest. We have an older daughter and an older son. But they aren’t. ”
Brent cut her off, said to Joe, “So we need you to go back up there. Take as many men as you need. Hire experts, if you have to, and send me the bill. But you are the only soul alive who has seen her in the past two years, and you are the only one who has a chance of finding her again, right?”
“Wrong.” Joe felt as if he were being screwed into the floor with guilt. He wished he’d never have mentioned her name.
Brent Shober sputtered, “What did you say?”
“I said ‘wrong,’ ” Joe repeated. He pointed at McCue. “I told your guy and every investigator since I made the initial statement that I didn’t get a good look at the fourth person up there. It was dark, I was hurt, and I was influenced by all those fliers you put up. Her name popped into my mind, is all. I wish I could tell you different, but I have no idea at all who that woman was.”
Brent shook his head. “You’re backing out on me.”
Joe said, “I was never in. Look, at least let me ask you a couple of questions before we end here.” He was fully aware of his promise to Marybeth and he was honor-bound to keep it, even though the circumstances may have changed. But his curiosity was up.
Brent turned to Jenna, incredulity on his face, as if he were being confronted by madness.
Joe forged on. “Did you or Diane ever know a couple of brothers named Grim? Or Grimmengruber? Is there any reason to believe if this person I saw was your daughter that she’d be with them?”
Brent screwed up his face with utter contempt. “That’s the most fucking ridiculous question anybody has ever asked me. Of course we don’t know anybody like that.”
“What about Diane?”
“Jesus, are you deaf? We don’t know anybody like that. We’d never know white trash like that, right?”
Joe paused. He looked at McCue, then back to Brent Shober. “How do you know what they’re like?” Joe asked. “I never said a word about them. I never used the term ‘white trash.’ So how would you not ever know anyone like that if you don’t know a thing about them?”
Brent’s face got redder, and Joe could see the cords in his neck pull taut from his clavicle to his jawline.
McCue said, “He knows what’s in your statement and the report. I told him all that.”
Joe wasn’t sure. He looked to Brent’s face for clues but read only fury. Jenna wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Brent closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, obviously to calm himself. A full minute passed. Joe started wondering where his pepper spray was amidst the clutter. Just in case.
Finally, Brent said, “To accuse me of anything is beyond ridiculous. I love my Diane more than life itself.”
Joe felt ashamed. “Really, Mr. Shober, I didn’t mean to imply you were guilty of anything.”
Brent waved him off and continued. “Do you realize, Pickett, what a special girl she is? That she has the capability of representing her family and her country in the Olympics? Do you know how rare that is? Do you realize that in the life of a long-distance runner, you get maybe-maybe-two shots at the Games? That’s how short the window is. And if you miss your chance, you never get it back for the rest of your life. You grow old knowing you had your shot and you didn’t take it.”
Joe said, “Are we talking about Diane here?”
McCue was faster than he looked, and was able to throw himself in front of Brent Shober before the man could leap over the desk and throttle Joe.
McCue and Jenna managed to get Brent turned around, and McCue wrapped him up and guided him out the door. Brent yelled over his shoulder, “YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME! YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME! ” even as McCue pushed him across Joe’s lawn toward the Expedition. Jenna followed, her head down.
As they reached the SUV, he turned and looked back at the house, as if sizing it up for demolition.
After they drove away, Joe moaned, collapsed on the couch, and put his head in his hands. He ached for Brent and Jenna Shober. What torment they’d gone through. Torment like that would likely turn him into someone like Brent, or worse. He didn’t have to like the man to feel sorry for him.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the fourth person on the mountains, but her face became no clearer.
After clearing away the breakfast dishes and noting that the girls had eaten the magic bacon but little else, Joe called the FBI field office in Cheyenne and asked for Special Agent Chuck Coon.
When the receptionist asked who was calling, Joe gave his name. When she came back, she said Agent Coon was in a meeting and would have to get back to him. So Joe called Coon’s private cell phone number.
“Hello?” Coon said.
“It’s me, Joe.”
“Damn, I didn’t recognize the number. If I knew it was you, I would have let it go to voice mail.”
“You gave me this number last year, remember?” Joe said. “You said to use it if I couldn’t get through to you.”
“That was last year,” Coon said.
When they were both working on the Stenko case, Coon wanted Joe to be in contact. Joe pictured the agent on the other end of the conversation. He had close-cropped brown hair, small features, and a boyish, alert face that didn’t jibe with his tightly wound manner. He had a young son and another child on the way. He’d worked for several years under Tony Portenson before Portenson got his wish and got reassigned. Joe assumed Coon and the entire FBI office had sighed a collective sigh of relief when Portenson walked out the door.
Joe asked about the baby on the way (she was due in a month) and Coon’s son (four and starting preschool), and he briefed the agent on his family and how things were going now that April was back with them. It all took two minutes. Then: silence.
Which said to Joe that Coon was being very cautious.
“You know why I’m calling,” Joe said.
After another pause, Coon said, “Why don’t you tell me just so, you know, I don’t start giving national counterterrorism secrets away or something like that?”
“The Grim Brothers,” Joe said.
“I was afraid that was what you’d say.”
“Tell me about them.”
“There’s nothing to be said.”
“Which means exactly what?”
“Joe,” Coon said with some finality, “the Grim Brothers don’t exist as such.”
Joe’s stomach hurt. “Please translate? As such?”
“Exactly that. They don’t exist.”
“Are you saying I made them up?”
“Not exactly. But I can’t go much further than what I already said. Let’s just leave it at this: it’s a matter we’re keeping our eye on. The bureau doesn’t comment on ongoing investigations. You, of all people, should know that.”
“Man, I’m confused.”
“So,” Coon said, “how is that dog of yours? Tube, wasn’t it?”
“Not so fast,” Joe said. “I need to get something straight. Are you saying they don’t exist because you can’t find them in your database? Or that you think I made them up?”
Coon sighed. “They’re not in the database, Joe. Caleb, Camish Grim, or G-R-I-M-M, or Grimmengruber, or any combination thereof. They gave you a false name, Joe.”
“Why would they do that?”
Coon exhaled, as if he were going to answer Joe, but he
caught himself. “I’ve already said enough, I think.”
“But I’m investigating them, too. So’s the governor and DCI. I thought we shared information these days?”
Coon laughed, “When did you come up with that one? Nice try, though. Besides, at some point in this conversation, were you going to let me know you’re on administrative leave? Did you think I wouldn’t know that?”
Said Joe, “Chuck, what is going on here? Why are you guys so interested in what happened up there? From what I know, it’s purely a local or state matter on the surface unless you got asked to assist. I know the state didn’t ask you to come in on this, and I doubt Sheriff Baird would. So that means there’s some other reason. I don’t buy it you have nothing else to do and you’re bored.”
“As I said, the FBI doesn’t comment on ongoing. ”
“Sheesh, I know, I know. But why is there federal interest?”
“I’m sorry, Joe. That’s the best I can do.”
Joe said, “You’ve done nothing.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Joe. My best to Marybeth and the girls. And don’t call me on my cell again.” With that, he punched off.
Joe closed his phone and stared out the window. Ed Nedney was back outside putting fertilizer on his lawn.
Despite what Coon withheld, he’d inadvertently confirmed a couple of things. There was an investigation going on, and it was obviously big enough he’d felt the need to play it coy. That the bureau hadn’t tipped off DCI or the governor of their investigation was suspicious. Even so, Joe was heartened they believed him and his story after all.
Joe spent the afternoon walking aimlessly though the house with his bucket of tools, but his mind was back up in the Sierra Madre. He tried scenario after scenario and came up with nothing plausible. When he tried to link up the Grim Brothers, the FBI, Terri Wade, the mystery woman, the UP. he got nowhere.
He realized he’d forgotten about dinner, and he looked at his watch. There was an hour before Marybeth and the girls got home. He’d told Marybeth he’d cook burgers on the grill, but he’d forgotten to get the meat out of the freezer and he hadn’t been to the store to buy buns or the other things on the list she’d left him. On the way to the kitchen to see what he could scramble up, the doorbell rang.
