by C. J. Box
Carey called for the waitress to box up his breakfast.
“Who’s on it? Are the kids on it?”
Newkirk looked quickly around the room before answering. He seemed suddenly agitated, and Jess followed his line of sight. Newkirk was looking at the dark man in the booth who was eating his breakfast, the man who had been startled by the bear across the street.
AFTER NEWKIRK ushered the sheriff out, Jess withdrew the sketch. There he was, the one in the ball cap. He stood, threw down two dollars, and slid off his stool. He was clamping his hat on his head and leaving when the man in the booth intercepted him.
“I didn’t introduce myself earlier. I’m Eduardo Villatoro.”
“Jess Rawlins.”
“May I buy you a cup of coffee?” Villatoro asked, gesturing to the empty seat in his booth.
“I’m kind of coffeed out, thanks.”
“May I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“I overheard you talking with the sheriff. He mentioned the name of a man he’s working with, an ex-lieutenant. What was the man’s name again?”
“He said it was Singer.”
Villatoro’s eyes narrowed. Singer. Now there were three.
“You know him?”
“Yes. This name I know for sure.”
Jess tried to read Villatoro’s face, wondering what he meant by that.
“I guess I will have that cup of coffee,” Jess said.
Sunday, 9:55 A.M.
THE FIRST THIRTY seconds of the videotape was of a Seattle Sea-hawks football playoff game from the previous season. As the quarterback pulled back to pass, the screen faded into snowy static, there was an audible pop, then it was filled with a starkly lighted head-and-shoulders shot of a man in an otherwise dark room.
“My name is Tom Boyd….”
They were in the command center with the door closed. Newkirk stood in the back of the room, watching over the sheriff’s shoulder. Newkirk’s belly was on fire, and his eyes watered from the taste of acid in his throat that wanted to come up. He had not seen the video before now because he had refused to watch it being filmed the night before. Instead, he had stayed upstairs on the deck drinking Wild Turkey and looking at the reflection of the stars on the faraway lake. All he knew was that it had taken a long time. Nine tries before they got it right, Gonzalez said later. Newkirk had rolled home at 4:30 A.M. His bedroom door was locked, blankets and a pillow on the couch in the entertainment room. Even his dog avoided him.
“I work for United Parcel Service here in Kootenai Bay, and I got to get something off my chest before I split the country for good….”
Boyd looked terrible on the tape, Newkirk thought. His face was white and drawn, his eyes gleamed and looked vacant at the same time. Newkirk noticed that either Singer or Gonzo had buttoned the man’s shirt up to the collar to hide the Taser burns. But when Boyd turned his head slightly while talking, Newkirk thought he could see the top edge of one. Would anyone else see it if they weren’t looking for it? He felt a hot surge in his throat and turned away. He needed cold water fast.
“I didn’t mean to hurt those kids. I don’t even remember how it happened. I mean, what caused it. It was like I was there one minute, and I didn’t wake up until after it happened. Like I blacked out, or something. I feel real bad about it….”
The sheriff moaned, “Aw, shit.” Newkirk looked at Carey. The man had looked bad at breakfast, but nothing like he did now. It was as if the sheriff were collapsing into himself. His shoulders slumped, and his hands fell limply to his sides.
“I ain’t saying where the bodies are at, only that you won’t likely ever find them. All I can say is they didn’t suffer nearly as much as I am now. I’m sorry, of course. They didn’t deserve it. Maybe if their mother would’a taught them not to steal, but I ain’t completely blaming her, either. She needs help, but I ain’t the one to give it.”
Boyd paused, swallowed as if it hurt him, then continued.
“Don’t bother looking for me, either. By the time you see this, I’ll be so far away you’ll never find me. All I can say is I wish it never would have happened, and it’ll never happen again. I’m through with the drugs and the alcohol.”
For the first time, Boyd glanced away from the camera lens, then returned to it. To Newkirk, the reason was obvious: Boyd was looking for approval. But would anyone else see it that way?
“That’s it. I’m gone.”
You sure are, Newkirk thought.
The tape once again faded into snow before the game returned. The room was filled with the sound of the announcers describing a replay. No one else spoke for several minutes.
Finally, Singer walked to the VCR and monitor and paused it. “Do you want to see it again?” he asked the sheriff.
“Jesus,” the sheriff said. “No, I don’t want to see it again right now.”
“Looks like we’ve got our guy,” Singer said. “Whether we’ll be able to find him is another thing.”
“Those poor kids. My God.”
“The tape belonged to Boyd, no doubt about it,” Singer said. “He kept a library of Seahawk games from last year. Eighteen tapes, all the same brand, lined up in order on his bookshelf. The last one was missing, which is the one we just looked at. So was his video camera, but he left the case for it.”
“Maybe we should get some dogs,” Gonzalez said. “We could get the scent from clothes at the mother’s house and send the dogs out near the river. I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find the bodies. I don’t know the situation around here, but we used to have some dog guys available we could call in.”
Carey seemed incapable of moving or speaking. He stared at the frozen screen.
“Sheriff?” Singer asked gently.
“The mother needs to know,” Carey said. “I don’t look forward to that conversation.”
Singer screwed up his face in sympathy. Newkirk felt another violent surge. Again, he fought to keep it down. He looked away, at the empty council chambers, hoping that not seeing Singer, Gonzalez, or Carey would settle his flaming stomach.
“We could call Swann,” Singer said. “He could break the news.”
The sheriff looked troubled. “No. That’s something I should do.”
“Swann knows her,” Singer said. “It might be better coming from him.”
Carey considered it. “You’re probably right.”
Coward, Newkirk thought.
“Time to issue an Amber Alert and call in the FBI,” Carey said. “We’ve got a suspect now, but this is beyond us. Boyd is probably halfway across Nevada or in Canada by now.”
Singer’s eyes flared, but so quickly that Newkirk wasn’t sure the sheriff even noticed.
“No FBI,” Singer said. “Do you know how they come in and completely take over a case? I’ve been there, believe me. The most dangerous place to be on earth is between an FBI spokesman and a television camera. They make the locals come off as incompetent and lame. There’s nothing the Feds can do that we’ve not already thought of.”
Carey shook his head. “We need somebody to analyze the tape. Maybe they can figure out where it was shot, or see something in it we can’t see.”
Newkirk was surprised by the sheriff’s determination and mortified by the sudden turn things had taken. Singer had been sure Carey would defer to him.
“Why does it matter where he took it?” Singer asked. “What matters is what he said. He confessed, Sheriff. We’ve got our man. Now we’ve got to concentrate on finding Boyd and locating those bodies. The FBI can’t really help with that here. You know this county better than they ever will.”
Carey cleared his throat. “It doesn’t feel right to me that Boyd here would confess on a tape and, in effect, dare us to come find him. He doesn’t seem proud of what he did. He feels like shit, and he sure looks like shit. Maybe he had to do it to clear his conscience, but why not just turn himself in? He’s no hardened criminal. He’s just a local boy gone bad.”
&n
bsp; “Sheriff …”
Carey looked at Singer. “That’s right. Last I looked, I was still the sheriff around here. It makes sense to me to bring in some expertise.”
To an outsider, Newkirk thought, it might look like the sheriff had won. But Singer’s face was calm, impassive. As if he were considering what the sheriff said and thinking it over. But Newkirk knew Singer and knew that Singer was at his most dangerous when he appeared serene.
“Okay,” Singer said, chancing a small smile. “You’re the sheriff. We’re here to help, not to tell you what to do. But please realize that when the FBI comes in, it will no longer be your show. The Feds will look at everything. The way the investigation was run, how you manage your office, everything. If they don’t find Boyd or those bodies, they’ll say it’s because the investigation was botched in the early stages. They’ll hold hourly press conferences to feed the networks their raw meat, and you’ll end up getting the blame. You don’t deserve that, Sheriff Carey. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve worked your ass off, just like we have. But in the end, however it goes, there will be people out there, voters, who will think you waited until the case was botched before you called in the cavalry. Didn’t you say you won with fifty-one percent of the vote? How many votes would swing it back? Less than a hundred, I’d guess. How many people will think you fucked up, even though you didn’t? I haven’t been here all that many years, but I’ve been around long enough to know that the citizens aren’t fond of federal involvement. They’re an independent bunch up here. Why elect a sheriff when all he’s going to do is bring in Federales when he doesn’t know what to do next?”
Carey listened in silence, never taking his eyes off Singer. Finally, Carey shifted and looked at Gonzalez, who was sitting back in his chair, arms crossed, obviously disappointed with him. The sheriff turned back to Newkirk, who said, “Do what you need to do, Sheriff.”
“Twelve hours,” Carey said, standing up. “You’ve got that time to clear things up. There’s a guy down in Coeur d’Alene with bloodhounds we contract with. And we’ll need to reissue the APB for Boyd along with the Amber Alert, to make sure everybody in the country is looking for him. We’ll say we suspect him to be armed and dangerous. But if we don’t have Boyd or those bodies in twelve hours, I’m calling in the FBI.”
“Fair enough,” Singer said.
Newkirk found himself staring at Singer. What was he thinking? What did a day really matter?
Carey left the room and shut the door, only to reopen it and lean in.
“You’ll ask Swann to break the news to the mother?”
“I will,” Singer said. “I’d hold off on any public announcement about the confession, though. At least until tomorrow, if we can.”
“I’ll tell the press about the alert,” Carey agreed. “Until then, we’ll have to see more and more stories about the white supremacists who used to be here.”
SINGER WAITED until the sheriff was back in his office down the hall before addressing Gonzalez and Newkirk.
“That means we’ve got today to find those kids.”
“Son of a bitch,” Gonzalez said. “Maybe the tape was a bad idea.”
Singer shook his head. “No, no, it wasn’t. There’s no doubt in that sheriff’s mind who did it now. That was the purpose of the tape, after all.”
“What if the FBI looks at it?” Newkirk asked. “What if they figure out where it was made? Or they see Boyd looking to Gonzo to see if he’s said everything right? I thought I could see that stun-gun burn when he turned his head.”
Singer responded with a cold stare. Newkirk stopped talking.
“We’ve handed the sheriff a confession, Newkirk. We gave him a fucking slam dunk. He’ll think about it and realize it’s better to close this thing than to keep it open.”
“What if he doesn’t? He seemed pretty determined.”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” Singer said. “We’ll stay ahead of him. It’s not that hard.”
“Where are those fucking kids?” Gonzalez asked rhetorically, looking at the map of the county pushpinned to the wall. “Maybe they are dead by now. How long could a couple of kids survive out there in those woods and not be seen by anybody?”
Singer’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It could be that somebody is hiding them. If so, we’ve got to find out who.”
“What if they are found?” Newkirk asked.
Singer snapped back, “If they show up, we’re in perfect position to take care of it. We’ll be able to get to them before they can yap. We’ve got a man with their mother, remember? You think they’d talk if they knew what could happen to her if they did? There is no way they’d be out of our control long enough to fuck us over.
“But I’d rather not have to go that route,” Singer said, abruptly changing his line of thought. “It’s too messy. Someday, one of them would talk. So we’ve got to get out and find them, now. They’re out there somewhere, we know that. We’ve got to deal with this now.”
Gonzalez agreed. Newkirk said nothing.
“Gentlemen, make sure your cell phones are charged up. After we take care of the package, I want both of you out in the field. Start with where we last saw them, Swann’s place. I’ve kept the volunteer search teams out of that area so far. They’ve all been concentrating on the river, where we know those kids can’t be. So start at Swann’s. Go house to house. Start checking buildings. They could be hiding in some old shack or abandoned barn.”
Newkirk suddenly remembered he was supposed to pick up his sons after baseball practice that evening. Jeez …
Singer was on his cell with Swann. He gestured to Gonzalez. “Swann can meet you at his place in forty-five minutes. Can you deliver the package by then?”
Gonzalez nodded. “Same as before?”
“Yes.”
“How much can they eat, for Christ’s sake?”
Singer smiled. “They can eat a lot, Gonzo.”
“Isn’t it inhumane to feed them meat laced with steroids?” Gonzalez laughed. “It won’t be organic pork anymore.”
“Hold it,” Newkirk said, stepping forward. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Singer said, “Mr. Boyd expired on us.”
“He wasn’t so tough after all,” Gonzalez said. “He died of fright or something. I found him dead this morning.”
Newkirk let that sink in. Gonzalez put his hands out, palms up, in a what-can-you-do? gesture.
“You were too rough,” Newkirk said to him.
Gonzalez shrugged.
To Singer, Newkirk said, “You said you were going to keep him alive.”
“We’ll deal with it,” Singer said dismissively. Then: “Go fill in for Swann at the mother’s house while Swann is away. Don’t let her answer the phone or talk to anyone without you clearing it. In fact, just keep her the fuck away from everybody. Swann will be back soon enough to relieve you.”
Newkirk nodded his head. Like Gonzalez, he instinctively patted his weapon under his jacket and his cell phone in his shirt pocket. He had an urge to seat his nightstick in his service belt, but of course he no longer had one.
“Oh,” Singer said to Swann on the cell, “tell her Tom Boyd confessed. That ought to keep her locked away in her room for a while.”
He snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket.
“Newkirk, you with us?” Singer asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not wavering, are you?”
“No. It’s just that I had things to do tonight.”
Gonzalez snorted.
“This is a little more important, don’t you think?” Singer asked, stepping across the room and throwing an arm over Newkirk’s shoulder. Despite the gesture, Newkirk could feel Singer’s fingers digging hard into his neck. “I’ll get us through this, Newkirk. Then everything will be like it was, and we can forget about it and move on.”
“Okay.”
“Trust me,” Singer said. “It’s under control.” Newkirk
could feel Singer’s fingers stop digging and relax. Singer tousled Newkirk’s hair, knocking his cap off.
“Keep your cell phone on,” Singer said.
Suddenly, a thought came to Newkirk, something he had meant to tell Singer earlier.
“I saw that Barney Fife dude again this morning, at the restaurant. The ex-cop from Arcadia.”
“Villatoro?”
“He was sitting there watching everything. The fucker makes me nervous, Lieutenant. There’s something about him.”
“I’m running a check on him,” Singer said. “He’ll likely turn out to be trouble.”
Gonzalez actually laughed. “Good. More trouble. The hits just keep on coming.”
NEWKIRK MADE it to the bathroom before he threw up. As he cleaned his face with a wet paper towel, he looked in the mirror and saw the janitor trustee, the same one who had bumped the door with his mop the night before.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Newkirk asked.
“Nothing,” the janitor said. “I guess I gotta clean that up.”
“I guess you do,” Newkirk said, going out the door, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
Sunday, 10:15 A.M.
MONICA TAYLOR took the news with a calmness that surprised her, and told Swann, simply: “I don’t believe it.”
“What do you mean you don’t believe it?” Swann said, closing his cell phone. “He confessed on videotape.”
Monica shook her head. “No.”
Swann’s eyes were unblinking. “Why would he lie about something like this? What could possess you not to believe it?”
She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. And it wasn’t about Tom Boyd at all, she thought. It was about the feeling she had when she’d awakened that morning. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less to Swann. But she had awakened simply knowing that her children were still alive. It was as if, for the first time, she had recognized an invisible cord that connected her to Annie and William that had always been there. She was sure it hadn’t been severed. They were still out there. Probably scared, probably alone. Possibly hurt. But they were still out there.
