Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  “They were looking for something small. Something that could fit in the cover or behind the spine.”

  “But what?”

  I felt a sudden pit open up in my stomach. I’d felt it before. It was fear. Her son was in real danger. Whoever did this was serious, playing for real. It could be that Shane knew someone was coming for him and decided to run. I hoped that was the case. Because the other option was that he’d been kidnapped by the people responsible for the directed chaos beneath my feet. And if they had him, I found it hard to believe they wouldn’t be able to get a seventeen-year-old to tell them where whatever they were looking for was. And that frightened me. If they had him, he was most likely dead.

  I heard a sound at the front door and a good looking man with sandy blond hair, wearing a suit coat, white shirt with a blue tie and slacks walked into the living room. The look on his face said it all. I’d seen the same look on hundreds of victims of crashes and fires and burglaries like this. The stunned expression of incomprehension, of disbelief. A dawning realization that something vital in your world has just changed, and not for the better.

  He went to Lisa, stepping over and around the rubble that had been his family’s cherished possessions a few hours before, but he didn’t hug her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She responded by breaking out in tears and holding a hand to her temple. She didn’t touch him and he didn’t touch her. I remembered the twisting of the wedding ring.

  I saw him scan the room. His eyes lit on me and he stopped. “Are you from the police?”

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  “A private…?”

  “I hired him,” said Lisa.

  “When… why?”

  When a dog’s ears go one this way and the other that way, it’s a sign of conflict. The dog is torn between two or more drives and can’t make up his mind. Tom’s ears didn’t go in different directions, but I saw similar mannerisms manifesting. A flexing of the jaw, the eyes darting back and forth between us, a little shine of sweat starting on his forehead.

  Couldn’t say I blamed him. I decided to spare Lisa the hard part. “I’m Gil Mason. Your wife hired me this morning to find Shane. I think what happened here is related to his disappearance.”

  Her husband’s face grew stern. His eyes narrowed and his jaw flexed. To his credit, he let it pass; took a deep breath and nodded. He didn’t yell or berate her. I liked him for that.

  “Related how?” he asked.

  “Whoever took your house apart was looking for something very specific. Something that could fit in the spine of a book or be stored on a computer. Could be a name, an address, a code, maybe a bank account. Whatever it is, I think Shane knows. So either Shane is on the run from these people, or they took him to get whatever information he has.”

  The two of them looked at each other, then back at me. Lisa’s face was crumbling; Tom’s pale, but strong.

  “We need to find your son, and we need to find him fast.”

  9

  I know a lot of Lakewood cops from my days back on the force, but the two kids that showed up at the door were strangers. Neither of them looked old enough to shave and both were crisp and shined and gung-ho. With high and tights that would make a Marine D.I. proud.

  They couldn’t have been out of training for more than a month.

  Lakewood P.D. requires a four-year degree just to get hired. After hearing these two talk, I figured ‘em both for masters at least, maybe even PhDs. I dubbed them Brainiac and Luther, after Superman’s smartest arch enemies.

  While Lakewood’s Finest asked all the standard questions of the Franklins, I busied myself by checking the outside perimeter of the house and yard. I found a partial shoe-print in the back where someone stepped off the thin ribbon of sidewalk that led from the side of the house to the back porch, into the flowerbed. The imprint was in fresh dirt and, although only half a foot, bisected from toe to heel, it was picture perfect and would make a great cast. It was a size twelve and looked to be a dress shoe of some sort.

  I checked the broken back door, but there was no impression from the kick. The windows were all clear of prints and the grass in the backyard was virgin; absent footprints and alkali trails.

  My black Escalade was parked along the street a few houses down from the Franklins; cops never park in front of the house they are going to, it’s an officer safety thing. Like the girl at the deli said, I’m not a real cop anymore, but old habits die hard.

  Max lay comfortably in the back seat and looked up at me with a disinterested raising of an eyebrow.

  “Don’t be grumpy,” I said. “It’s time to work.” I jerked my head toward the house. Max gave me the eye, then stood and jumped down from the car. I didn’t need to give him the heel command. Max knew what to do.

  When we got to the back gate at the side of the house, I gave him the command to search for evidence. If I’d had Pilgrim instead of Max, I would have had to go through the process of putting him in a sit, then stand in front of him and pretend to toss invisible objects out to the side and behind me, and give him the German verbal command to find, which is finden.

  Max isn’t big on process, so I just gave him the command.

  It took him about three minutes. He went up to the bushes on the side of the house, just after the gate, and lay down. He looked back at me, as if to say, well?

  Going over to him, I saw the space between his front paws was empty.

  That wasn’t right.

  The concept of an evidence search is for the dog to look for anything with fresh human scent on it. Fresh is a relevant term of course. I trained Max to consider four hours as the threshold. Once he found something, he was trained to lay with the object between his front paws. So why wasn’t it there? Could be buried, but the dirt and leaves under the bush looked undisturbed.

  I leaned closer. Max looked at me, an action that sent a tingle traipsing up my spine. With Max you could never be sure if he was just bored, or if he was looking for the right spot to kill you with the least expended effort.

  Leaves and dirt and a couple of rocks. That was it. Only it wasn’t. I knew Max better than that. I looked higher. Branches, leaves, sticks, buds. Bushy things.

  I looked back at Max. He smacked his lips, a sign of annoyance. A deep, rumble sounded from somewhere in his chest. It was low and long, like Lurch used to do on the Adam’s Family when someone said something stupid.

  “You’re not being a big help here,” I said.

  Max smacked his lips again and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He leaned forward; taking short sniffs with his long snout. The tip of a branch touched his nose and he stopped, swiveling one eye to look back at me. I put my nose right next to his and peered into the clump of bushes. And there it was. A chewed piece of grayish gum.

  I turned back to Max. “Well you could have just done that in the first place, Mr. Smarty Pants.” Max smacked his lips and yawned. I pulled a small, plastic zip-lock bag from my pocket; I always keep a few on hand, and used a pen to nudge the little ball into the bag. Technically I had just broken the law, removing evidence from a crime scene. But it’s not like on TV shows where every case gets handled by crime lab CSI techs. Colorado’s fairly advanced in crime detection and a couple of departments, like Denver, Aurora, Jefferson County and Cherokee County have modern facilities with good equipment and personnel. But compared to big cities and counties, like L.A. or New York, or Broward, they just can’t compete. It’s not their fault; they just don’t have the crime or budgets to warrant the staff and equipment of larger agencies. So even though I was removing evidence, it wasn’t like it was going to break the case for the police, because they would never have it tested anyway. Not on a burglary. And even if they did, it would take CBI six months to get the DNA test results back to Lakewood. By then it would be too late for Shane, if it wasn’t already. I had a friend at CBI that could get me the results a lot quicker.

  Max and I searched the rest
of the perimeter but found nothing else. After letting him mark every tree in the adjoining neighbor’s yard, I put him back in the car and returned to the house.

  Another police car pulled up to the driveway and a uniformed officer got out carrying a big, black tackle box. Lakewood dedicates certain officers to lifting prints and collecting evidence on minor crimes. It would be a waste of time on this case. Like I said before, the guys that did this job were pros. No way they weren’t wearing gloves. But this guy I knew from way back. It was Fred Monique. I caught a few bad guys with him when he worked a beat. He looked a little grayer, and there was a noticeable paunch that bulged out from under the bottom of his bulletproof vest, but other than that he was the same old Fred.

  “Gil Mason,” he said, smiling and holding out a hand, “haven’t seen you in years.”

  I shook his hand. “How you been, Fred?”

  He patted his tummy. “Eating good. The wife’s trying to kill me off so’s she can collect on the insurance.” He gave me a once over. “I thought I’d heard something about you going the PI route after you got fired; that why you’re here?”

  I nodded. “The son’s missing.”

  “Yeah, I saw we’d taken a missing person report when I checked the call history. But he was listed as a probable runaway. You think this burglary’s related?”

  “I do. The kid’s mixed up in something. I don’t know what yet.”

  “You think there’s any latents?”

  “I doubt it. These guys were good. I did find a partial shoe-print in the back.”

  “That won’t help much on a case like this,” said Fred. “Simple second degree burg, the detectives won’t give it a lot of time.”

  “Would you cast it for me anyway?”

  “Oh sure. I do my job either way. If the boys upstairs or in the D.A.’s Office want to blow it off, that’s their business. Me, I do my best and forget the rest.”

  “Thanks.” I hesitated, pulled the zip-lock from my pocket and handed it to him. “My new dog found this in the bushes out back. It’s fresh.”

  Fred scrunched his eyes at it. “Gum?”

  “Yeah. I think maybe one of the burglars spit it. Send it special attention to Sarah Gallagher at CBI and mention my name. She’ll take care of you.”

  Fred took the bag. “You shouldn’t have moved it. I need pictures.”

  “I know, sorry. If I’d known you were processing the scene I would have left it.” I looked toward the backyard. “Third bush from the kicked door near the garden path. Pick your branch and take your photos. Close enough.”

  Fred nodded. “Guess it’ll have to be.” He snorted. “You still got that killer dog Samson?”

  I shook my head. “Had to put him down about nine years ago. Hips went. He couldn’t even get up to eat.”

  “Shame,” said Fred, “quite an animal. ‘Member the time he caught that weenie-wagger that tried to grab the two little girls outta the park? Man he ‘bout tore that perv apart. Probably the most justice that scumbag ever got. It was a sweet sight.”

  “He was a good dog,” I agreed. I did remember the case. Samson snapped the guy’s femur and nearly severed the femoral artery. The molester took a year on a plea bargain, with two months credit for time served and another three off for good behavior.

  Go figure.

  A week after getting out he snatched a little girl off the street on her way to school and sexually assaulted her. He got nabbed a week later when he tried to kidnap another girl from a park. Her father heard her scream and was able to catch him before he made it to his car. The father did a job on him, but not as good as Samson. Samson was the reason the girl’s father was able to catch him in the first place. He’d given the scumbag a permanent limp.

  The perv was sentenced to ten years this time. Better — not great — but better. I couldn’t help but think that if only Samson had caught the guy a little more center and two inches higher, he wouldn’t have had anything to rape the other little girl with.

  Missed opportunities. That’s life.

  As I held the front door open for Fred, I felt someone eyeballing me. I couldn’t see anyone, but my hackles were up and I’d learned to trust my instincts over the years. Someone was watching. And whoever it was, didn’t want me to know it.

  10

  Max

  Riding in the car was enjoyable for Max. It was so unlike the first trip in a car Max had taken. In that instance he had been locked inside a cage, beaten, muzzled and near death. This was much better.

  The whooshing wind that rushed past the partially opened window was soothing, and combined with the air conditioner felt good running through his thick coat.

  He’d been asleep when the Alpha came for him back at the house, curled up in a tight ball on one of the Escalade’s backseats. He’d been dreaming of his old home and hadn’t wanted to wake up. But his instincts for self preservation were stronger than his desire for comfort so he awoke even before the Alpha opened the door, his scent giving him away.

  Max had hopped out, landing lightly on the sidewalk, the thick pads of his paws instantly registering the temperature, texture, contour, and solidity of the surface beneath him. He obediently walked alongside, moderating his gait to the terrible slow pace the human set. The undeniable genetic drive of the pack had pushed Max to obey when commanded to find the thing with fresh man-smell on it. It didn’t take long, just a few seconds. The man-smell rose like heat from the little ball on the branch of the bush. There had been other smells too: peppermint, rubber, the green blood of grass, but Max had ignored them. It was the man-smell the Alpha wanted.

  Max was a quick learner in all things and he learned how to find evidence very quickly after his healing. He had been cooped up for far too long, and at the first chance to get out he was ready for action.

  Gil would hold an object for a few minutes, say keys or a knife, or a wallet, making sure to get a good amount of his scent on it. Then he would throw the object a few feet in front of Max and tell him to “finden”. He would then allow Max to drag him to the prize, where Gil would pop the leash a few times to get him to lay down with the object between his paws. At first Gil tried food as a reward when Max found the object and lay down correctly, but when Max ignored the food reward, food was nothing to Max, all that mattered was the hunt, Gil changed tactics and just let him find it. Within a couple of throws Gil was tossing the objects into tall grass and then spinning Max in circles until he was dizzy before letting him go.

  Max found everything he threw, every time.

  After he found the ball of gum with the man-smell on it the Alpha took him back to the car and opened the door for him to jump up into. But just before he did, a familiar impulse surged through his blood. His eyes pivoted back, he shifted his weight to the rear in preparation — but the Alpha stepped behind him, almost as though he could hear Max’s thoughts. The fur rippled along Max’s back. He feared nothing of flesh and bone and blood, but this strange ability to know what he was going to do before he could act, was impossible for him to understand. It intrigued him. He had let his weight settle, and jumped obediently into the car.

  Max wanted to go back to sleep then, but the car was stopped and it didn’t feel the same as when it was moving. So Max waited until the Alpha had come back and now they were driving again. Max began to drift and doze and think back to before he was Max. Back when he was one of seven pups, only five months old. Back to the dark time when the Great Gray Wolf attacked and killed his parents and three of the other pups. Even then his blood had told and he tried to fight, but the wolf slammed him aside with one shoulder, throwing the small puppy into the side of the farmer’s house where they lived, knocking him unconscious. When he awoke, he found the carnage that lay around him. Only the intervention of the farmer saved the rest of them. From that time forward, Max took charge of the pack, hunting for the others, bringing them field mice and small birds, and protecting them from foxes and raccoons and other stray dogs.

  For
three months Max was the pack leader. Then came the night of the Gray Wolf’s return.

  Max was out hunting when it happened. The Gray Wolf slaughtered the rest of the pack, snapping their necks and then eviscerating them.

  When Max returned to the covered hutch attached to the farmer’s house they used as a den, he found the carnage that had been his family. The spore of the Gray Wolf sprayed everywhere.

  Max left the farm that night and never returned. It was the beginning of his search for the wolf.

  Max didn’t like remembering that time. But he held no control over his dreams and now he dreamed of the first time he saw Gil, the bear and the men.

  His body jerked and twitched and almost brought him completely awake, but the wind and the rumble and the softness of the cushioned seat all conspired against him and the dream took hold dragging him down to that cold winter’s day that had started so well and ended so horribly.

  The snow was deep and wet and helped to confound the bear as Max tore at its neck from behind. The giant beast had stumbled in between Max and the Gray Wolf, robbing Max of his revenge. The wolf used the chance to slip back into the lush forest and disappear, leaving Max to deal with the terrible fury of the surprised bear.

  It turned on Max, raking with a massive paw that missed, tearing instead into the bark of a sturdy oak and leaving four deep cuts in the white meat of the trunk.

  Max ducked under, shot forward, spun and slashed his canines across the bear’s right hamstring. He tasted blood and fur and then ducked and spun again as the bear roared and snapped with his own jaws, the incisors twice as long as any dog’s. The bear’s trap-like jaws slammed shut on empty air and Max ripped a set of narrow gorges in the flesh of the bear’s snout before jumping back to avoid another attack.

  The wind howled overhead, slipping down from the mountain peaks of the Great Alps, gaining speed as it pushed through the trees and whipping snow flurries into little blizzards that stung the eyes and ears, and made it hard for Max to see.