by Robin Lamont
* * *
Jude sat at the edge of one of the molded plastic chairs in the bare reception area of Amaethon Industries, reviewing her own cover story: she was Tyler’s big sister, Emily Jeffries, come to break the tragic news of their father’s death – not something you did over the phone.
The woman at the front desk informed her that Tyler wasn’t at the lab. She had already made that clear when Jeffries’ sister was patched through from the security gate. But Emily had been persistent, demanding to see the person in charge.
Taking stock of her surroundings, Jude noted that everything Tim had described was accurate. She knew enough about testing labs to be familiar with the one-story building, a nondescript, concrete box, surrounded by an electrified fence. She’d experienced the same indoor filtration system that kept the temperature constant at 68 degrees and the humidity low as it silently inhaled and exhaled scentless, hygienic air through vents in the ceiling. Beige walls and ceilings muffled voices and swallowed any color that drifted by. In the middle of the rich, green landscape of Vermont, it felt like landing on a barren planet.
Tim had grown increasingly troubled as the weeks wore on, and she understood. It was painful to be a dog lover and see what they endured here.
They were animals with a capacity for scent forty times that of humans, able to smell fear, anxiety, and sadness in people or other animals. They could tell by a sniff of old pee which dog buddy had recently visited the park and what they’d eaten for breakfast. But here in the lab, they lived out their days surrounded by the savage bite of the disinfectant used throughout the kennels. Even for humans, it was so strong it could make your eyes sting.
“He’ll see you now,” said the receptionist, a woman as bland as her surroundings.
She led Jude down a hallway to meet Dr. Stuart Ostrovsky, the Chief Scientific Officer in charge of Amaethon’s animal research. His office was cramped and messy. Boxes of files were stacked everywhere, monitors and hard drives spread out as though he repaired computers for a living. There was no exterior light in the office save a glimmer from a small window begrudgingly cut into the wall close to the ceiling, as if sunlight were a guest that no one wanted at the wedding but had to be invited.
The man who stood to greet her was younger than Jude had expected, with a sandy-colored, thick mustache that hid his mouth. “Hello, Miss Jeffries,” he said. “Margaret told me why you’re here, but I’m afraid it’s a waste of your time.”
Jude cleared a stack of files from a chair near his desk and sat, letting him know she had time to waste. “I hope you didn’t say anything to Tyler yet. I really must be the one to do it,” she said crisply.
“I thought Margaret told you, he doesn’t work here anymore.”
“She just said he wasn’t here,” Jude said, feigning surprise. “I was going to wait for him. What happened?”
Ostrovsky furrowed his brow and rubbed his mustache. His fingers twitched slightly. “He hasn’t come to work since Tuesday.”
“And he didn’t tell you he was leaving? That doesn’t sound like my brother,” said Jude, twisting a button on her brown cardigan. She’d dressed in shapeless earth tones to be as unmemorable as possible.
“Perhaps he heard about your father from someone else?”
“Dad only died yesterday. I’ve been trying to reach him, but he hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts.”
“Oh.” It would have been the moment for Ostrovksy to offer his condolences, but social grace didn’t seem to be his forte.
“Did he work closely with anyone who might know where he is? Any of the other techs? Maybe I could talk with them.”
“That would be difficult.”
Jude wasn’t accustomed to playing the victim, but she did her best to look as though she was on the verge of tears, even getting her voice to crack as she said, “I have to find him. He and Dad had their differences, sure. But he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t make it to the funeral.”
Stroking his mustache uncomfortably, Ostrovsky reconsidered. “Okay, wait here. I’ll see who’s around.” He brushed past Jude and headed down the hall.
Jude darted up from her seat and poked her head out the door. She had maybe a minute or two. There were several piles of colored folders on the table. A quick glance inside the top folder revealed charts filled with data in the form of equations, seemingly organized by date. She moved to another set of papers and was met with more scientific data. Voices came down the corridor.
Ostrovsky entered, finding Jude in her chair. With him was a tall corporate type in his mid-to-late thirties. He wore confidence like strong cologne. “Hello, Ms. Jeffries,” he said. “I’m Dillon Byer.”
Right away, Jude noticed his wristwatch – a brand advertised as one you never really own, you merely look after for the next generation. He was modestly attired in khaki pants and a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up. Even so, he carried an air of privilege which, along with strong, handsome features dominated by arched full lips, many women would find sexy.
He pulled up a seat and leaned toward Jude, resting his elbows casually on his knees. “Stuart told me why you’re here. I cannot tell you how sorry I am about your father,” he said earnestly. “And I’m sure Tyler will get in touch with you soon. I’ve asked two of the techs who worked with him to come over.”
She figured Byer to be the senior official that Tim had told her about. She was dying to ask what his position was, but she folded her hands in her lap and thanked him for all his help.
The first tech was an older man named Lester, a retired veterinarian. Because he worked alternate shifts with Tyler, he was unable to say much about him. The other was a woman in her late twenties named Sylvia. She had an insolent curl to her lip and under her plastic head covering, long hair colored a rebellious shade of red.
She had more to offer about her co-worker, which still wasn’t a lot. Tyler was great to work with, super nice guy. Funny, too. He was nuts about the dogs. Jude asked if she spent time outside work with him. Not really. Did that mean occasionally? A couple of times we ran into each other at Galvey’s. What’s that? A music joint in Montpelier. And that’s all? Like I said, we didn’t really hang out. Did she have any guess about where Tyler could be? Nope, uttered quickly and emphatically.
With Ostrovsky and Byer hovering nearby, Jude could hardly mount a challenge. But she was sure that Sylvia wasn’t telling her everything. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 6
From the lab, Jude drove around in search of Tim’s car.
The center of Half Moon was a blend of hopeful restoration and small-budget neglect. It had its fair share of shops, banks, and cafés on either side of the main drag. Some of them were in renovated three-story brick buildings that might once have been wool or cotton mills, and they were well-kept, the wood trim painted in antique-style hunter green or beige. Still, a mega CVS and a few fast food joints were evidence that commercial America was encroaching. Similarly, the surrounding side streets were a mix of picturesque white colonials and rundown prefab homes with junk littering the yards.
She tried to put herself in Tim’s shoes. He might feel vulnerable and a little paranoid. It came with the territory. And if that were the case, thought Jude, he might have found another motel and kept the first as a decoy; drive to the Riverside Motel after work, then later, if all looked clear, slip out to get a decent night’s sleep somewhere else. Maybe even at the girl’s house. As Jude cruised the residential roads, that thought was a constant sore that left her with a blurred sense of disappointment and relief each time she turned a corner and his car wasn’t there.
By the afternoon, she gave up and went back to the Riverside where she had taken over his room. She got on the phone and tried the area hospitals. After that, with her heart hammering in her chest she called the morgue in Burlington. Nothing.
There were various po
ssibilities. The first was that Lucas was right and the undercover work had become too stressful. Tim couldn’t take anymore and packed up, or he believed his cover had been blown again, either of which he might have been too embarrassed to admit. There was another possibility – one that she didn’t want to think about. But she did and after consulting with Gordon, went to the police.
Brenda Ramirez, a heavy-set woman in a dark blue uniform, commandeered the front desk at the Half Moon Police station, a squat, brick building next to the Community National Bank. She was eager to offer motherly advice. “You know, young men at that age do crazy things. They always turn up and with any luck, they’ve learned a thing or two.” Her tone changed, however, when Jude got to the part about Tim working as an undercover investigator for an animal protection organization. No surprise – most people didn’t immediately understand the connection between animals and undercover operations.
“What was he doing there?” demanded Ramirez.
“Documenting violations of the Animal Welfare Act.”
Ramirez silently mouthed the words “Animal Welfare Act,” then asked aloud, “Is that a law in Vermont? Because I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s federal law.”
“Well, that’s not our jurisdiction.”
Jude suddenly had an overwhelming desire to stumble back to the bench in the vestibule and go to sleep. She rubbed her eyes. “Is there a detective I could speak with?”
“There is not,” replied Ramirez, with more than a hint of irritability. “We have a chief, a lieutenant, two officers, and a victim’s assistance coordinator – which would be me. Besides, we don’t generally handle missing persons. That’s the state police. He probably wouldn’t appreciate me telling you this, but Sergeant Haydon is in the back. I suppose you could talk to him.” After fielding a couple of phone calls, she finally wandered off to find him.
The sergeant had chocolate skin and refined features. His light brown eyes radiated an intellect that seemed out of keeping with his heavy leather gun belt. He held a broad-brimmed campaign hat in his hands.
“My name’s Hugh Haydon, Ms. Brannock. I’m with the Vermont State Police. Why don’t we go to the office where we can talk?”
He led her to an empty cubicle in the back where she repeated what she had told Officer Ramirez.
“And why do you believe he’s missing?” he asked.
“We stay in touch with our undercovers on a daily basis and the last spoken contact I had with him was this past Sunday. He texted me a few days ago, but I can’t get him on the phone.”
“Any mental health problems that you’re aware of?”
“No,” replied Jude adamantly.
“Personal problems?”
“He told me he’d met a girl up here, but I don’t know who it is. I didn’t get the feeling it was a serious relationship, in any event,” she added hastily.
“Have you checked with his employer?” he asked, as if reading off a checklist.
“Yes, I went there this morning. They say he didn’t show up for work on Wednesday.”
Haydon looked at her. “Just curious, but how did you walk into a testing laboratory and broach the subject of Tim being an undercover investigator?”
“I used a pretext. Animal activists are not generally welcome in such places.”
“That’s an understatement. You folks break into labs, don’t you?”
“You’re thinking of another group.”
“Okay. Any reason to believe they found out who he was?”
“If they had, I hardly think they would’ve let me waltz in there this morning, claiming to be his sister.” When the corners of Haydon’s mouth twitched in a near smile, a wave of irritation hit her and she said, “You know, just because we investigate animal abuse, doesn’t make our undercover work any less dangerous than going deep with a bunch of white supremacists or a drug cartel. Not where there’s big money involved.”
It had been just shy of a year since she herself had gone undercover in Idaho, trying to ferret out fraud and deception in the secretive federal agency Wildlife Services. She’d pushed too quickly and too hard, and they’d caught on. Being outed had nearly cost her life. She knew well that operating covertly on a long-term investigation carried a much higher level of risk. It meant hanging out in the wind alone for weeks. No backup. No one at the listening end of a body wire to hear the dreaded words, Who the fuck are you? Moreover, her experience taught her that once the target discovered he or she had been scammed, they harbored an intense animosity. It was often humiliating for them. They hadn’t merely been hustled, they’d been stabbed in the back by someone they thought was a colleague, an employee, maybe a new friend – and that someone had been looking for the right place to thrust a knife the whole damn time. It could get ugly.
Haydon nodded his understanding. “I didn’t mean to minimize your work. I was impressed with your brazenness.”
“Oh, well, I … I just notice that you’re not taking notes.”
Haydon looked at her levelly. “Miss Brannock, most people Tim’s age go missing because of mental instability or because they’re trying to escape family or relationship problems. That’s probably the case here.”
“I think I would know–”
“People will surprise you,” he broke in. “They take a runner for reasons you can’t even guess. Given that he’s only been with your organization for a few months and much of that time, he’s been here in Half Moon, maybe you don’t know all that’s been going on in his life.”
Haydon had a point. She never imagined that Tim would take a lover while he was on assignment. She thought that the two of them were … No, she didn’t know what the two of them were.
Refusing to give in to the self-doubt, Jude took a new tack. “I found blood in his bathroom,” she stated.
At this, the Sergeant’s eyes sharpened.
“On bunches of tissues on the floor. It was a lot.”
“You still have them?”
“I bagged them up myself.”
The possibility of violence seemed to change Haydon’s mind. “Okay. I’ll come over and have a look.” He checked his watch. “Do you have a picture of him?”
“I do.” Jude rummaged through her canvas bag and handed him a photo of Tim playfully posing on a pitcher’s mound at Rock Creek Park. He had the sleeves of his trademark NY Mets t-shirt rolled up, revealing muscular arms.
Haydon scrutinized the picture. “Looks like he can take care of himself.”
Jude looked again at the picture, remembering that spring day.
They had walked with Finn happily off-leash down the lesser paths of an urban park until they wandered onto a deserted baseball field. Tim pulled a tennis ball from his pocket and like an excited kid, ran onto the field, taking up position on the pitcher’s mound.
He dug his toe into the soft dirt, rolling the ball in his hand as if to find its seams. It had only been a few days, but he was tired of talking about laboratories and hidden cameras and how to keep your face from giving away what you were really feeling when you had to watch dogs shake with fear. It was a beautiful day in the park and he wanted to enjoy it.
“Here we go, Finn. Here we go, boy!” Adopting a pitcher’s stance, he squinted toward the empty home plate. While the big dog danced in anticipation by his side, Tim shook off his imaginary catcher behind the plate, telling him, “No way, he wants the curve.” He checked the runner on first, then looked to his catcher again. This time, he offered a slight nod and went into his wind-up. He let the ball fly and it caromed off the backstop fence. Finn deftly caught it on one bounce and ran into the outfield.
“Dang!” declared Tim with mock dismay. “He’s reading my fastball.” With that, he dashed after Finn to get the ball back and try again.
Jude laughed and followed at a leisurely pace, giving in to the sun’s warmt
h and the scent of sweet viburnum coming into flower. They’d been hard at it for hours, and Finn could use the exercise.
But as she watched the two play, she reverted to mentally reviewing and prioritizing the points she wanted to convey on the next topic: living in the community. He could be friendly with co-workers and the folks in town, but he had to think of himself as a seasonal worker – he wasn’t going to stick around after the testing was over, so there was no point in getting close to anyone. And in fact, it could be dangerous.
If, on the other hand, he felt it was crucial for his cover that he be sociable and go out for a beer with the guys on occasion, keep the alcohol to a minimum. You could never be sure something wouldn’t slip after a few too many. And rule number two: no girls. Like alcohol, sex clouded the thinking. Get used to watching the Red Sox on the hotel’s cable TV.
When Finn galloped back to greet her, she realized she’d lost sight of Tim. She spotted him on his knees in the outfield.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, hurrying over.
“Shhh,” he cautioned. He was holding on to a gray squirrel whose head was caught in a discarded plastic jar. The squirrel was fighting both Tim and the jar. “Come here, I need your help,” said Tim.
When Jude knelt beside him, he instructed her to hold the jar firmly. With one hand he kept the squirrel from forcing himself deeper inside, and with the other, he fumbled for a swiss army knife in his back pocket. Managing to get a thin blade out with his teeth, he made an incision into the throat of the jar to widen it.
“Okay,” he said. “Hold tight. I’m going to pull him out.” Tim tugged the body of the squirming animal until his head came free. For a moment, the squirrel seemed stunned, unable to move. Then he promptly turned and clawed Tim’s hand before running off.
With a yelp, Tim cried, “Hey, buddy, I did you a favor.”