The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller

by Dustin Stevens

  Standing several inches shy of six feet in height, he made up for any vertical shortcomings through sheer width. Total mass coming in well above three hundred pounds, all of it wrapped tight in denim and flannel and held up by thick suspenders.

  Easily into his sixties, the beard distending several inches from his chin was equal parts red and gray, as were the twists of hair peeking out from beneath the trucker’s cap he wore.

  A freebie handed out by Tracker Boats long ago, now stained by time and use.

  Despite the man’s introduction being rife with sarcasm, Reed took no exception to it. Recognizing the same sort of dry humor his father was known to employ, Reed allowed a faint smile to rise as he grasped the man’s hand.

  “I’m hoping that list of adjectives extends to subject matter expert as well.”

  Releasing the shake, Jim Bob grabbed the bill of his cap. Pushing it back to reveal a few inches of bare scalp, he scratched at the pale skin before returning it to place.

  “Well, now, that depends on the subject matter and who you ask, I suppose.”

  “Fair enough,” Reed replied. “Ammo. Namely, .300 Winchester Magnum.”

  Barely were the words out than the man’s demeanor shifted. Whatever mirth or playfulness might have existed a moment before faded. Replacing it was an expression that bordered on grave, his features falling flat as he stared at Reed.

  “Oh, Jesus. Why do I have the feeling you’re not asking me this because you’re about to go looking for bears?”

  Drawing his lips tight, Reed gave a quick shake of his head. Letting that serve as the answer for a moment, he asked, “Did you know her?”

  “Sure,” Jim Bob replied. “Town this size...heck, I sold her husband his first fishing pole when he was six years old.”

  In line with the first reactions of every other person Reed had spoken to, he nodded. “Feel like I’ve been apologizing since I first got here.”

  “Naw,” Jim Bob said, the tip of his beard dragging across his chest as he shook his head, “you’re here and you’re trying. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

  Taking a step back away from the counter, he turned his body to the side. Raising the hand closest to Reed, he waved toward the rear of the store and said, “Come on. I don’t know how much of an expert I’ll be, but I’ll give you everything I got.”

  Walking in a gait that was as much side to side as it was straight ahead, he circled out around the glass case. Aging floorboards creaked beneath him as he led Reed and Billie back toward the rear of the store.

  Grasping a set of keys attached to a coiled leash on his belt, he selected a small silver implement and used it to unlock a gate on the counter running the entire length of the building. A combination gun case and partition, separating the firearms from the rest of the floorspace.

  Audibly breathing as he went, he let the gate swing closed in his wake.

  Along the wall behind him, shotguns stood on end. One after another in various lengths and calibers, running from BB guns all the way up to big game rifles. Weapons of polished wood and steel lined up every couple of inches, well over a hundred in total.

  An impressive display for any shop, but especially for one of this size and in this location.

  Lining the base of the case were boxes of ammunition. Packaging of various colors and sizes, every manufacturer Reed had ever heard of represented, along with several others that he was unfamiliar with.

  Bullets lined up in correspondence to the weapons they were meant for, Jim Bob going clear to the far end of the spread – the area reserved for weapons standing nearly as tall as the man himself – before grabbing up a single box.

  Turning back, he slid it across the glass top of the gun case, the package coming to rest just short of Reed’s outstretched fingertips. Solid gray in color with the name Winchester stamped across the top in block letters, the italics font tilted slightly to the side.

  “.300 Winchester Magnum,” Jim Bob said, coming to a stop directly opposite Reed, the box between them. Reaching down, he popped open the cardboard top and extracted a single shell.

  A round nearly three inches in length, dwarfing the bullets used in the Glock Reed carried for work each day.

  “First introduced in 1963, it is a magnum cartridge redesigned for use in a standard rifle. Extremely versatile, favored by hunters, targets shooters, even the military and your law enforcement brethren.

  “Not the most powerful .300 round out there, but don’t let that fool you.”

  Returning it to the package, Reed heard the metal cartridge ting lightly against the others stowed inside.

  “These things are still capable of taking down 95% of the animals walking the planet today. Primarily used for ungulates – that’s your elk and moose families – it can knock down a critter all the way up to fourteen hundred pounds in the hands of someone that knows what they’re doing.”

  Accepting the information in silence, Reed thought back to the previous afternoon. Seeing Doc Blum pull back the white sheet to reveal Cara underneath, the girl’s frame covering a fraction of the table she rested on.

  If forced to guess, Reed would say she tipped the scale at – on the high end – a buck-twenty.

  Making the choice to use such a round either a lack of options or a desire for excess.

  “How many people would know what they’re doing with something like this?” Reed asked.

  Seeming to pick up on the underlying meaning for the question, Jim Bob said, “As I said, this bullet was customized for use with a rifle, meaning someone that either had training or has grown up with them.”

  This time, it was Reed’s turn to pick up on the unstated. The part Jim Bob didn’t come right out and say, but was heavily hinted at.

  Whoever was handling a weapon like this wasn’t some kid roaming The Bottoms carrying a .38 with the serial number filed off. This was somebody proficient handling a serious weapon.

  A veteran or a hunter going back a number of years.

  “You move a lot of these?” Reed asked.

  “Some, mostly in the fall. Guys that come in looking to nab a trophy buck for the wall.”

  “But not much this time of year?” Reed asked.

  “There’s a gun range just outside of town,” Jim Bob said. “Couple of the locals like to go out there, fire the big boys.”

  After driving through dense forest the last couple of days, Reed had suspected the area was big for hunting. Knowing that, he’d expected that there would be at least a few people using the round in the area.

  That wasn’t so much what he was concerned with.

  “Right,” Reed said, “but nobody new? Nobody you didn’t know personally?”

  “Son,” Jim Bob replied, “you and your partner here are the first people I’ve had walk in who I didn’t know personally since bow season ended back in the winter.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The first video up on Valerie Meig’s computer screen was taken from an ATM outside of the Gallia County Credit Union on the west end of Main Street. A pinhole camera aimed upward at an angle, meant to get a full view of anybody that was standing directly over the machine. A design that worked well for its intended purpose, but offered precious little usable data for the investigation.

  A fact that was clear after just the first couple of seconds, hammered home time and again in the minutes thereafter. An interminable spell of watching the video at three times its normal speed, scrawling through more than an hour of footage immediately following the estimated time of Cara Salem’s death.

  “This was from the Credit Union, you say?” Reed asked. Having swapped places with Meigs from the meeting with Harrison earlier, he leaned against the door frame.

  Inside the tiny office, Meigs was in her desk chair, Billie lowered to a seated position on the floor between them.

  His gaze fixed to the screen, Reed watched as more of the same scrawled past. The occasional person walking by with lunch in hand or a purse over their sh
oulder. People that looked and acted like locals, everything from their attire to their lack of urgency intimating it was just another day along the sleepy Main Street.

  Barely giving them any mind, Reed kept his focus on the road running behind them. With so few traffic options in the area, his hope was to spot something out of place. An oversized truck with tufts of grass stuck into the tire wells or a car with out-of-town plates.

  Vehicles with especially dark window tint or moving much too fast for the small street. Even just something that Meigs didn’t readily recognize that they could zoom in on.

  A search that, thus far, had rendered nothing.

  “Yeah,” Meigs replied, letting the last of the video play out before closing the window and bringing a matching one up to screen. “This one is from First Ohio Bank on the opposite end.”

  Having been to the Gallipolis Police Department multiple times, Reed was a bit more familiar with it than the credit union. Needing no more than a few seconds to place the image before him, he saw that it was affixed to the brick awning extended from the side of the bank branch. A cover from the elements for the pair of drive-thru lanes feeding from the alley behind it and exiting out onto Main Street.

  Tilted at an angle, it was meant to see directly down on any transactions taking place. A clear view to customers using the tube system to make deposits or receive cash back that provided little beyond that.

  A decent enough view of the sidewalk, but virtually nothing of the street beyond. The occasional stray tire rolling past along the top of the screen, but no more.

  “Great,” Reed muttered. “Unless our shooter stopped to pick up some cash...”

  Letting the smart remark fall away there, it was still enough to evoke a snort from Meigs.

  Reaching out, she closed the window barely a minute after opening it. Turning away from the desk, she spun to face Reed square.

  “Option three was even worse,” she said. “The Gulf station in town has cameras watching their pumps, but they rewrite themselves every twenty-four hours.”

  “So even if they did see anything, it’s already gone,” Reed replied.

  “Yup.”

  Not once had Reed expected the cameras to reveal anything, though he still couldn’t deny the acrid taste that rose to his tongue. An ingrained response not to this particular avenue not panning out, but more to the fact that thus far, nothing had.

  One more errant swing that a day ago wouldn’t have been so bad, but after thirty-plus hours they were starting to accumulate fast.

  “Thank you for doing that,” Reed said. “I know it probably felt like scut work, but-”

  “No, no,” Meigs said, waving the comment off. “We both knew it was a long shot, just like we both knew it had to be done.”

  “If it helps any,” Reed said, “our afternoon was equally fruitless. The library and the yoga studio were both dead ends as well. Stopped by and talked to Jim Bob, who was able to give us a good overview on the bullet used, but said he hadn’t sold one to anybody he didn’t know personally since last hunting season.”

  The information seeming to bear no surprise at all, Meigs simply nodded. Her focus shifting to the side, she let it sit for a moment, processing the various activities that had taken place, before asking, “Where’s that leave things?”

  A question Reed had been debating since exiting Jim Bob’s the better part of an hour before, he still had only a loose idea of what the next fourteen or so hours held. A handful of different possibilities that could shake out, all dependent on who was able to get back to him first and the information they had to share.

  Deke. Lieutenant Schoen. Chief Scott.

  Wain and his crime lab crew, still processing whatever remained from the scene the day before.

  “I think we’re going to stay in town tonight,” Reed said. “There’s one last name Jim Bob gave us that I wouldn’t mind speaking to this evening, and with the plan being to stop and see Aquino again in the morning, there’s no point in continuing to ping-pong back and forth across the state every day.”

  “You think that’s what this comes down to?” Meigs asked. “Aquino?”

  His eyes narrowing slightly, Reed twisted his chin to one side. A non-committal gesture that was completely reflexive, indicative of the various thoughts he’d been having since speaking with Harrison earlier.

  Even more so after talking with Jim Bob.

  “I don’t know yet,” Reed admitted. “Lot of things that still don’t fit.”

  Occam’s Razor stated that the most obvious answer was often the correct one. A maxim that did have its place and usefulness in the investigative setting, but could also become an impediment to those who put too much stock in it.

  The proverbial red herring that someone could become obsessed with, refusing to acknowledge any other possibilities, no matter how obvious. A trap that Reed had allowed himself to become ensnared in a variation of just weeks before.

  A path he was now taking great pains to avoid, with little overall reward to show for it.

  “On one hand,” he said, “it sounds like Cara was beloved. Cannot imagine anybody local having reason to do something like this.

  “On the other, Aquino has been out of the game for years. Coming after his sister, now, and in the way they did, doesn’t make sense either.”

  Articulating things out loud, again Reed felt his agitation start to rise. Aggravation at the fact that they were clearly missing something. Some aspect tucked just out of sight, refusing to reveal itself no matter how hard they pressed.

  Something that he feared would only reveal itself with time or – more likely – another crime scene.

  A feeling that resonated, simmering just under the surface until the moment Meigs asked, “Who’s this person Jim Bob told you to meet with?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The first person to get back to Reed was Deke. A response even faster than he expected, though given the relative simplicity of the request compared to some of the other things he’d seen the man pull off before, he wasn’t terribly surprised.

  Especially considering the fact that, courtesy of their new role with the state, they were allowed direct access to most databases instead of being forced to slide in through the back.

  A problem that never actually blocked them from getting in, but did require the extra time needed to hide any trace of their presence.

  Seeing Deke’s name pop up on the screen of his phone just as he was stepping out of Meigs’s office, Reed had asked for five minutes. A quick pause to allow him to load Billie into the sedan and run them both a mile and a half back across town to the park abutting the public library.

  An open patch of grass where his partner could relieve herself and burn off a bit of pent-up energy after a long day spent either driving or in interviews before fueling up for whatever came next.

  A release Reed almost wished he could join her in, watching as she tore across the recently mowed lawn with the same fervor she attacked some unknown scent behind the farmhouse a day before.

  “Sorry about that,” Reed said in greeting as Deke answered his return call. “Was just leaving the sheriff’s office and needed to get relocated.”

  “And you’re there already?” Deke asked, bypassing the apology entirely.

  “Clearly, you’ve never been to Gallipolis.”

  Grabbing for the pair of matching silver bowls stowed in the open trunk of the sedan, he balanced them side by side on the concrete by his feet. Starting with the Ziploc bag of kibble he’d brought along, he popped the top open a couple of inches and filled the bowl halfway.

  Not a full meal by any means, the rest would be doled out later this evening whenever they got to where they were staying.

  More of a quick snack, the canine equivalent to the pair of leftover donuts Reed nabbed on the way out of the sheriff’s department earlier. Means for both of them to keep going for the next couple of hours before a proper dinner could be found.

  “Fair en
ough,” Deke replied before pushing straight on to the reason for his call. “Alright, so I was able to dig into the record of Junior Prosecutor Harrison Salem, esquire.”

  Thus far, both Deke’s tone and his delivery were perfectly in line with his usual self. Everything from being willing to wait five minutes to share what he found to the quip about never making it down to Gallipolis.

  Signs that whatever he had unearthed had not been especially groundbreaking.

  Despite his every outer appearance being of a guy laid back to a fault, Reed had worked with him enough to know that when things mattered, he was just as susceptible to adrenaline as anybody else. Someone whose cadence picked up and his volume rose, matching the importance of the case they were working or the information he’d been able to uncover.

  A trait mirroring that of Reed’s old partner Riley, through her being how Reed first met Deke years before.

  “Nothing doing?” Reed asked, snapping the top of the food bag closed and tossing it back into the grocery sack tucked into the corner of the trunk.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Deke replied, “but I’m not going to lie, most of this is pretty bland stuff. He was only there a few years and has been gone now for just as many.”

  Reaching next for a bottle of water to fill the second bowl, Reed nodded. “Yeah, doesn’t leave much of a window.”

  “No,” Deke agreed, “and most of that was spent just getting his feet wet. A lot of moving violations and minor possession charges before eventually beginning to work his way up.

  “By year two, he was starting to get into possession with intent, unlicensed firearms, stuff that was actually resulting in jail time.”

  “Anything glaring?” Reed asked.

  “A few big-ticket items,” Deke said, “but as the junior guy, my guess is the head man was poaching most of the good stuff.”

  Grunting softly, Reed allowed the information to resonate as he bent to fill Billie’s water bowl. Bringing it up even with the kibble beside it, he glanced to the grassy expanse beside him, his partner still in the midst of her daily laps.