The Night Crew

by John Sandford

  ‘‘There’d be some prints in your car, his behavior . . .’’

  ‘‘But that won’t get Pam out.’’

  The phone rang in her lap and she picked it up, ready to switch it on, already hearing Wyatt’s voice, when Harper swatted it out of her hand. ‘‘No, no,’’ he said urgently. ‘‘What if it’s him?’’

  But there was no second ring. Then five seconds later, it rang again. She didn’t wait for the third time, but said, ‘‘Hello?’’

  Wyatt said, ‘‘You were supposed to wait for the third ring.’’

  ‘‘No time,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘What’s happening? Where are you?’’

  ‘‘We’re running up to Ventura to check on something . . . just in case,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Listen, a woman’s going to call you from a place called Cut Canyon Ranch, up in Oregon.’’

  She explained the circumstances, and Wyatt said, ‘‘You think they did something weird with the call?’’

  ‘‘It’s not weird, if you’re wired right,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You just push a button. No big deal. But if they were faking it, then there’s a lot better chance that he’s the guy.’’

  ‘‘All right, I’ll talk to her.’’

  ‘‘Are you heading for Pasadena?’’

  ‘‘We’re on the way, but we’re still getting people together.’’

  ‘‘Good luck. And gimme your number.’’

  Wyatt dictated a number; Anna rang off and said to Harper, ‘‘Still getting people together. Damn, damn, damn, there’s no time for that.’’

  Anna sat in the car while Harper ran inside his house. He was back a minute later, carrying a short rifle, fumbling with a box of shells. ‘‘Gimme,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You drive, I’ll load.’’

  ‘‘You know how?’’

  ‘‘I can figure it out.’’

  ‘‘Just feed them in the bottom, there’s a release just in front of the trigger guard.’’

  ‘‘Think it’s enough gun?’’ Anna asked, looking at the magazine mechanism.

  ‘‘It’s an old Ruger forty-four,’’ Harper said. ‘‘It’ll do the job.’’

  They slewed out the end of his driveway, Jake driving with both hands as Anna fed the short fat shells into the rifle. The rifle was short, with a smooth walnut stock: comfortable. And then the phone rang. Once, twice, three times: not Wyatt.

  Anna passed it to Jake, who listened, said, ‘‘She’s not here . . . Yeah, but she just left it in the car. Who is this? Well, probably about a half hour, I’m on my way to pick her up. Okay. Message from Pam. Do you have a number? Okay. Yeah, half an hour, you know, give or take.’’

  He rang off, looked at Anna and nodded: ‘‘Message from Pam.’’

  ‘‘That was him.’’

  ‘‘Yeah. No number.’’

  ‘‘Shoot.’’

  ‘‘Call Wyatt, tell him, see if they got a record of it.’’

  Anna nodded, but asked, ‘‘How long to the ranch, do you think?’’

  He glanced at the car clock, then said, ‘‘Half an hour, maybe.’’

  ‘‘Got to be a few minutes faster than that,’’ Anna said.

  He nodded, and Anna took the phone to call Wyatt. But as she was about to punch in the number, it rang again. ‘‘Give it to me,’’ Harper said. Anna handed it to him.

  ‘‘Hello? Hello?’’ He shook his head, clicked off, handed it back. ‘‘Check-up call,’’ he said. ‘‘He was calling to see if the phone was busy. To see if we turned right around to call somebody.’’

  ‘‘No dummy,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘Crazy as a loon, but not stupid,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Drive faster,’’ Anna said. She sat with the gun upright, the butt of the little gun resting on the seat between her thighs, looking out the window.

  ‘‘Most likely a wild-goose chase,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Most likely,’’ she said.

  She waited another minute, then tapped Wyatt’s phone number in. ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘We just got a call from the guy, within the last minute or so, if you’re doing a trace.’’

  ‘‘Nothing’s working, but I’ll check,’’ he said. ‘‘The woman from Oregon called: you were set up. He was somewhere down here when you called for him.’’

  ‘‘All right. We’re building a picture, and he fits,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘Better’n that. I just talked . . . Jesus watch out . . .’’ Wyatt-broke away, speaking to somebody else. ‘‘Just missed a goddamn truck by about an inch,’’ he said, talking to Anna again. ‘‘Listen, a woman named Daly called about three minutes after the Oregon woman, wanted to know what was going on. She said you screwed them on that animal rights protest, and you might be out to frame Judge for some reason.’’

  ‘‘Bullshit.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I know. Anyway, I asked her when she’d last seen him, and she said she saw him this morning. And I asked if he showed any signs of injury from a fight.’’

  ‘‘His cheek,’’ Anna said, remembering the fight in the parking lot.

  ‘‘Exactly,’’ Wyatt said. ‘‘She said there was something wrong with his cheek and she looked at it and he got mad— she said there was a bruise covered with makeup. He told her he’d been bitten by a cat that he supposedly was trying to pick up.’’

  ‘‘Goddamn, he’s the guy,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘He looks good: and we’re getting some people together up in Ventura, head out to that ranch. We’ll be ready in a couple of hours.’’

  ‘‘Right,’’ Anna said. She pulled her face back from the phone, and started rubbing her hand across the mouthpiece. ‘‘We’re on the way there, now. If you don’t get something from Pasadena . . .’’

  ‘‘Anna, you’re breaking up.’’

  ‘‘Can’t hear you,’’ Anna said, blocking most of what she said with her fingers. ‘‘Can’t . . .’’

  She punched the ‘‘end’’ button: she would not be told at this point to wait for a few hours.

  ‘‘What?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘‘He’s the guy,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘But he might not be at the ranch.’’

  ‘‘Oh, he’s there,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He’s there, all right. I can smell him.’’

  She bared her teeth, and Harper stared at her for a second, then jerked his eyes back to the dark road. Anna felt like she did on those nights when she and the crew were really operating, when everything was turning in their favor: like the night of the raid, and Jacob’s leap. She was on, and she could feel the attraction of the ranch.

  The ranch was pulling her in.

  twenty-nine

  The night was so deep that it seemed like a piece of black velvet had been folded over the car; the only relief came from the dark-walled tunnel carved out by the BMW’s high beams.

  Anna punched Louis’ number into the phone, at the same time saying, ‘‘I’d like to talk to Daly. I wonder if she knows where Judge is?’’

  ‘‘She would have told Wyatt,’’ Harper said.

  Louis’ number got no response at all: now they were out of range.

  ‘‘I thought those fuckin’ towers were everywhere. They’re building one on the hill over my house,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Not everywhere,’’ Anna said. Harper slowed at a gravel intersection, and they peered up at a road sign. ‘‘Right,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Two miles.’’

  Harper didn’t hesitate at the ranch gate. He passed it by, still climbing the gravel road, over a rise, down the side of a canyon, up the rise on the other side, around a turn.

  He pulled over against the mountainside, killed the engine. ‘‘Five-tenths of a mile,’’ he said. ‘‘Five- or six-minute jog.’’

  ‘‘Let’s go,’’ Anna said, popping her door.

  ‘‘There’s a flash in the glove box,’’ he said. His voice was tight, edgy. ‘‘Better get it. Give me the rifle.’’

  Anna handed him the Ruger and found the fl
ash, a black aluminum cylinder about the length and diameter of a fat man’s cigar.

  On the road, Anna found she could cup her fist around the flash, and project a needle-thin beam of light, enough to keep them on the gravel. As their eyes adjusted, moonlight began to show. Anna turned, looking for the moon, and finally, below a break in the hillside, found it lurking in the trees above them, a quarter-crescent.

  ‘‘There’ll be more light up on top,’’ she whispered, as they jogged.

  Harper grunted, then put up a hand, touching her chest. ‘‘Coming up,’’ he said. Anna slowed, felt the slope of the road easing beneath her feet. The drive had started up from a short flat stretch; they should be close.

  ‘‘There,’’ she said. The galvanized gate was a gray shadow in the darker brush around it. ‘‘Let me check it.’’

  She shined the needle of light on the post side of the gate, sliding down the metal joint between the hinges. Nothing.

  ‘‘All right?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘‘Just a minute.’’ She checked the opening side, and found the contact: ‘‘No, it’s alarmed,’’ she said. Harper came up, squatted, looked at the light. Anna aimed it at the patch of ceramic insulator set in the post. ‘‘We’ve got one like it on the farm,’’ she whispered. ‘‘There’s a magnet in the gate and a needle in the post. When you move the gate, the needle goes with the magnet and hits a contact, and that sets off the buzzer inside.’’

  ‘‘Can’t even climb over?’’

  ‘‘Nope. That’ll push the gate down. Let’s look at the fence.’’

  The barbed-wire fence showed a single strand of electric wire running along the top. ‘‘Bottom should be okay,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Let’s find a low spot, where we can squeeze under.’’

  They found a spot fifty feet down the road, the desert brush ripping at their jackets as they slid under the wire. Anna stood, pulling pieces of dead brush from her hair.

  ‘‘You okay?’’ Harper whispered.

  ‘‘Yeah. Let’s go.’’

  They jogged the first couple of hundred feet up the hill, but Harper was enough out of shape that he caught her arm and told her to slow down. Impatiently, she walked ahead of him, urging him along.

  The hill seemed to go on forever, gently sinuous, always climbing. After ten minutes, they topped the first rise and saw the orange glow of a yard light. Harper caught her arm and said, ‘‘Stop for a minute. We’ve got to talk.’’

  They squatted beside the road, looking slightly down at the ranch yard. The house was ahead and to the right, with an open yard further to the right. A light showed in what they knew was the office window, along with the blue glow of a computer monitor or television. Another light showed behind that, but from the same window, adding a slightly warmer glow. There was no movement in the window with the light: and the light had the stillness of an empty room.

  To the far left of the house, they could just see the hulk of the barn; between the barn and the house, two buildings— a garage, Anna thought, and what must once have been a machine shed.

  A hundred yards behind the house were two long graywhite structures, almost too far out to recognize; but Anna thought that they must once have been chicken coops. Directly behind the house, a hundred feet back, the beginning of the corral complex.

  As Anna squatted by the road, picking out the main features of the ranch, she could smell the broken brush beside the road, and the dirt beneath their feet: like Wisconsin on a dry summer’s night, but with the special peppery pungency of the desert.

  ‘‘Don’t see your car,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Maybe he ditched it in town. Wherever he unloaded the kayak.’’

  ‘‘But then he’d have to transfer Pam.’’

  ‘‘Yeah . . . unless he killed her at your place, and left her in the car.’’

  Harper said it thoughtlessly, but the image of Pam curled in the trunk of the Toyota struck Anna with a vivid force, and she groaned, a soft exhalation.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘God, if she’s dead . . .’’

  ‘‘Let’s cross behind the barn, check the outbuildings,’’ Harper whispered. ‘‘That’ll give us cover coming up to the house.’’

  ‘‘All right.’’

  They slid to the left, staying close to the underbrush as they moved into the opening around the house. Once away from the driveway, the land opened up into sparse pasture, dotted with clumps of brush. Anna used little squirts of light to guide them past the house to the barn, around the barn to the back, and then, crouching, with Harper’s rifle hovering over her head, into the barn itself.

  The barn was empty, but redolent with the odor of horse manure and hay. They checked the ground floor, found a range of horse-keeping equipment and stacks of feed supplement on a line of pallets.

  ‘‘All right,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Machine shed.’’

  They went out the back of the barn again, around the side, crept across a short open space to the machine shed, knelt by a window, listening. After a minute, Anna put her head up, peeked through the window. Could see nothing at all. Squeezed the flash, caught a quick glimpse of red.

  ‘‘I think it’s there, the car,’’ she breathed in Harper’s ear. ‘‘Something red in there.’’

  ‘‘Jesus . . .’’

  They slid to the front corner of the shed. Like the garage, the shed was old, probably pre–World War II, and the sliding doors hung from rusty overhead tracks. Harper reached around the corner and gave one of the doors a shove, and it moved a few inches. He pushed again, and got another foot.

  ‘‘We can get in. Move slow, stay low,’’ he said. He went around the corner, and Anna followed, watching the window in the house. When she was inside the garage, Harper slowly pushed the garage door back in place.

  Anna turned, wrapped her fist around the head of the flashlight, and turned it on: the beam caught the fender of her Toyota, played down the side. ‘‘That’s it,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s mine.’’ She played the beam across the back, onto the plates: ‘‘Yeah, that’s mine,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Kill the light.’’

  Anna killed the light and they both moved toward the car. Harper touched a window, opened the passenger door, slowly, carefully, felt in front and in back. Nothing.

  ‘‘Can you pop the trunk?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. We’ll have to go around.’’

  Anna scuttled around the car, felt up the door to the window. The window was down three or four inches, enough to get her arm through the gap. She stretched into the car, trying to reach the dome light.

  ‘‘What’re you doing?’’ Harper whispered.

  ‘‘If you open this door an inch, the light comes on,’’ Anna said. ‘‘I’m trying to shut it off.’’

  She fumbled with the switch, said, ‘‘I think that’s it,’’ and tried the door. No light. The trunk-opener lever was just in front of the seat, and she pulled it, heard the trunk pop, and crawled behind the car. Harper was pushing the trunk lid up, and Anna shone the flash into it.

  The trunk was empty, but Harper ran his fingers the width of it once, twice, then stopped, pressed, and lifted his fingers toward Anna. They were black in the light. He pulled them back, sniffed, and he said, ‘‘Blood. Not much. So she probably was alive when he took her out of here.’’

  ‘‘How do you know?’’

  ‘‘Why take her out if she’s dead?’’

  Anna nodded, and crawled toward a window facing the house. ‘‘So he’s here. Now what?’’

  ‘‘I was afraid . . . What’s that?’’

  Anna looked to the right, saw the splash of light off the brush beside the house.

  ‘‘Car coming up the hill,’’ she said. Anna heard the slide on the rifle as Harper jacked a shell into the chamber. She fumbled the pistol from her pocket as the lights grew brighter on the trees.

  Ten seconds later, a pickup pulled into the yard, and a woman hopped out and stormed toward the porch. They could see her face whe
n she first opened the truck door, and her figure as she hurried under the yard light to the porch.

  ‘‘That’s Daly,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Jeez, do you think she knows?’’ Anna asked.

  ‘‘She looks mad about something.’’ The woman fumbled at the door, unlocking it, then pushed inside and flicked on a light. She slammed the door behind her, but before she did, they heard her shout, ‘‘Steve?’’

  ‘‘Wonder what happened?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know, but if he’s still in the house, and we want to move up, this is the time. If he’s in there, it sounds like he’ll have his hands full,’’ Anna said.

  They crawled back out through the garage door, circled back around the barn, into the darkness of the brush, and came up behind the house, near the corrals. An animal made a spitting sound as they passed: ‘‘What the hell was that?’’ Harper whispered.

  ‘‘I don’t know; I hope it doesn’t bite.’’

  They stopped at the side of the corral, and looked across the intervening fifty feet at the house.

  ‘‘Gonna have to decide something,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Whatever’s in the corral. Probably the llama. I don’t think they’re dangerous,’’ Anna said. ‘‘I’m gonna roll through there and work my way up to the gate. If I don’t see anything, I’m gonna make a run across the yard—you get ready with the rifle.’’

  ‘‘Maybe I oughta make the run.’’

  ‘‘No. You’ve got the rifle, I’ve just got this thing,’’ Anna said, holding up the pistol. ‘‘At fifty feet I might not be able to hit the house.’’

  As she said it, she slipped under the lowest rail of the corral. Whatever was in the corral stayed at the back. She could hear it stomping nervously, maybe the llama, maybe a pony, as she moved to the gate.

  Taking a breath, she glanced back at the spot where she’d left Jake, and stuck one leg through the gate.