A pause, then the second man: “ … orders to unfuck the operation.”
“What are you trying to say?” Kingman again, his voice loud and combative. “What you gotta unfuck?”
White noise and, distantly, murmuring.
The audio ended.
“That was them,” I said. “Kingman and the buyer. In the barn. Can’t you get better audio? Enhance it or something?”
“No,” Oyinwe said shortly.
“What are you talking about?” I said quickly. “You’re the FBI, for Chrissake.”
“I said, no,” Oyinwe snapped.
I threw up my hands. “You’re missing everything. Everything important.” I searched my memory, but it was fuzzy at best. “They … they fought. The second guy, he was really pissed about Patrick leaking information. He said—”
But I couldn’t remember what he said, couldn’t remember much more than what had just played on Oyinwe’s laptop. So, hurriedly, I repeated that: “He just said he had orders to unfuck the operation. You heard that, right? Don’t you see? He was gonna shoot Kingman, tie up loose ends. Make sure you couldn’t get to him and his boss through Kingman.”
Oyinwe stared at me, unblinking. “Try this one.”
Another audio file played, a man and a woman speaking urgently about a grocery list with bizarre quantities, some kind of amateur code. I didn’t recognize either voice. Oyinwe played another and another and another. Fifteen, twenty recordings, the sounds washing over me. The rumbling of engines and whirring of fans. The distortions and skipping of microphones placed too closely to electronic equipment. On one, the steady ping of an open car door with the keys left in the ignition. And voices, lots of voices. But I didn’t recognize any of those.
When Oyinwe was out of audio, she shut the laptop and sat back in her chair.
Lucky, his eyes still closed, said, “Did you see his face?”
I hesitated, searched the corners of my memory. I shook my head.
Lucky’s eyes opened a crack. “Was that a ‘no’?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t see his face.”
Lucky’s jaw tightened. Oyinwe’s head dropped. With one short magenta nail, she scratched her scalp between two braids.
“You said you saw the second man leave. Did you?” Oyinwe said. When I nodded, she asked, “Are you sure it was him?”
“No,” I said, my jaw rigid.
“Did you kill Kingman?” Oyinwe said it quietly, but her brow was creased, her lips tight and pointed. Sparks ignited in her eyes.
“No.”
“The problem I have, Ms. Waresch,” Oyinwe said, leaning on her forearms and carefully twinning the tips of her long fingers, “is that my key target, the man I was trying to turn into an informant, is dead, and I have only guesses about who killed him. My problem is that I no longer have an entry point into one of the largest domestic cartels my colleagues and I have ever seen. I no longer—”
She closed her eyes, interlaced her fingers, and clenched her hands so tightly that light-colored blotches rose on her skin. “I no longer have a case at all.” Oyinwe’s eyes burst open. “But I do have a stupid person, a civilian, who thinks she knows better than I do. Who thinks she alone can solve a murder, eliminate one tiny, insignificant manufacturing operation, and bring some kind of vigilante justice to the O-ka-no-gan. And that stupid person, Ms. Waresch, is you.”
My fists shook and my legs screamed with tension, with the sheer effort of holding myself back. My vision shrank to pinpricks. At the center was Oyinwe, vibrating, shining with righteous anger. Breathe. I forced my eyes closed. Breathe. Let it go.
“Camille.” Lucky’s voice. The kind of voice you want in commercials for condoms or caramels. But hardened. Like there would be consequences if you didn’t buy the candy. “We have one more photograph.”
Slowly, I lifted my eyelids. “Hit me.”
The last one. The last photograph. It was grainy, a shot from a surveillance camera like the one I had at the mart. Black and white. Pixelated. Distant. The person in the photo was male, wearing sunglasses, the cheap wraparound kind. Bony. Shaggy-haired. Looking away from the camera, only his profile visible, the rest of his body in shadow.
“Who’s he?”
“That’s a good question,” Oyinwe said.
“No,” I said. “I mean, what is he? Another dealer?”
“A courier,” Lucky responded.
I studied the photo again. When I had seen enough, I shook my head, looked up at the agents, and lied. “No idea.”
* * *
Another agent—young, barely out of training wheels—brought back my phone and my gun. Lucky and Oyinwe shook my hand, but neither meant it. I understood. I didn’t either.
* * *
Midafternoon heat hit me like a sandstorm when the kid agent opened the door to the back lot of the Sheriff’s Office. I squinted into the orange light, shielded my eyes as a black Suburban pulled into a parking spot fifty feet to my left. A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a blood-red tie stepped out of the driver’s door, then held the back door open for a passenger. A woman in her Sunday best emerged. Christine Beale. And behind her, Ed, his too-long hair combed and curling, his white buttondown open at the neck.
“Christine!” I shouted before I could stop myself.
She turned, her face surprised and scared. When it crumpled, her hand was halfway up and cupped like she was about to wave. Ed wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tucked her under his wing. She folded into him and he glanced at me. His eyes were hollow, his face haggard and pale and warning.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. And I was. I am. Sorry for Patrick. For Kingman. For having no one to rail against, to condemn or hate. Or forgive. For their emptiness. For having my child still.
Then, from the other side of the vehicle came Todd, playacting. Pretending to be the dutiful child, the grieving brother. The good boy with red-rimmed eyes, placing his strong hands on his parents’ arms as they shuffled to the gray door of the Sheriff’s Office. When he looked over his shoulder at me, he didn’t smile or nod or anything, but when his eyes met mine … there was that sick gleam, that triumph. That evil.
“Ms. Waresch?” the kid agent said.
“What?” I demanded, swiveling toward him.
“Could you please get in the vehicle?” he said impatiently, gesturing to a black sedan parked nearby. “I have to be back in an hour.”
I frowned more deeply, took a step toward him. “Look, junior detective. Those people—”
“Camille!”
Startled, I looked right. Across the street was a spotless green Four Runner, and leaning against the hood was Darren Moses.
“Need a ride?” he shouted.
I squinted, shielded my eyes again. I didn’t trust him, wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to trust him again, but he was still better than a disrespectful kid. And worse come to worst, I had my Beretta back. I nodded and jogged across the street without a backward glance.
“You’re not out with the troops,” I said when I had buckled my seat belt. The AC was on high, but sweat prickled on my brow.
“Just got back,” he said.
“That was fast.”
“Naw. That compound is crawling.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, we just got the fire out a couple of hours ago.”
I snapped my head toward him. “Fire?”
“Yeah, whole clearing burned. We thought we were going to lose the whole mountainside. Looks like someone threw a tiki torch into one of the houses. Dry as tinder.”
“What about the lab?”
“Untouched. Wind was going the opposite direction.”
“Lucky.”
“Yeah. He was relieved.”
Darren drove; I rode and silently rejoiced. Forest fires burned hot. Hot enough to cover up anything Sophie had left behind. Hot enough to bury whatever I had left behind too. I didn’t know then—still don’t—exactly what happened to Ibensen. Exactly what I did to h
im. Not that it mattered, because either way, I was glad.
But that gladness comes with a sickness. You can tell yourself hundreds of times—millions of times—that you did the right thing. You can tell yourself that inflicting death is human nature, that you won by staying alive. But words don’t get the taste of blood out of your mouth, the feel of it off your fingers. Not even time can do that.
The town sign came into view. “Little Falls, Population 72.” Darren slowed down. I tensed up.
“Listen,” Darren said. “About the other night.”
My jaw tightened.
“I meant it.”
My neck was rigid, my eyes fixed on the parade of rundown houses, the scrubby yards of my two-street town.
“This has been tough,” he said. “Keeping things from you, I mean.” The truck slowed, the turn signal chirped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”
The front of the mart, then the side, then the rear came into view as he steered into the back lot. The truck rolled to a stop, idled. My hand was on the door handle. My fingernails needed to be filed.
“I’m sorry about last night. About yelling at you. You understand, right?”
My gaze fixed on the door of his truck, I nodded. Once.
“I want to try again,” Darren said.
I raised my head, narrowed my eyes and met his.
“Why?”
I opened the door. I walked away.
* * *
In the mart, Rhonda Faye was sweeping the floor. Her head snapped up when my heels hit the concrete outside the door, but she didn’t stop.
“Everything okay, boss?”
I nodded. “How’s Sophie?”
“Okay. She came down for a while.”
“Did she say anything?”
Rhonda paused, shook her head. “Just sat on the stool. Watched TV.”
“She’s not feeling well.”
Leaning on the broom, Rhonda watched me, scrutinized me. “You said.”
“Where is she now?”
Rhonda jerked her chin up. “Upstairs. Conked out.”
“Good.” I fingered the keys in my pocket, their jagged edges. “Can you stay a couple more hours? I gotta run an errand. It can’t wait.”
* * *
Five o’clock in Riverside. Quitting time.
Kids were playing in the parking lot at Lyle’s apartment building. Some game with a bouncy ball and uneven squares chalked on the uneven pavement. They scattered when I swerved into the lot. Stared warily when the Bronco jerked to a stop and I vaulted out, took the stairs two at a time, and pounded on the door.
No answer.
I stepped aside to the window, M9 in hand, ready to crash through the glass, but stopped short. The curtains were open. Lyle never left his curtains open; he was a creature of shadows, just like in the last photograph the feds had shown me.
I cupped my hands around my eyes, pressed against the glass. The place had been ransacked. Cupboards, drawers open. Clothes and debris scattered over the floor. Sofa cut like a cadaver, its stuffing spilling out like intestines. I holstered my weapon, turned, and gripped the peeling railing. In the lot was his crappy dirt bike, but there was no sign of his junker car. Just like a courier to take only what he would need.
He was gone. Cut and run.
Just like his father. Just like his brother. It was the Scott way.
* * *
Back in Little Falls, I sent Rhonda home, then crept upstairs.
In front of the apartment door, my key in the lock, I listened for Sophie. Listened for her footsteps, her voice. But there was only silence.
In front of her door, I listened again, my hand raised, my fingers on the smooth white paint. Silence. I pushed the door open. Dressed in pink pajamas, on her white bedspread, she slept.
At the foot of the bed, I listened for her breath, held my own, watched her chest rise and fall. She slept like a baby. Like she did when she was a baby. Deep and quiet, her breathing so light, so faint, my ears strained for each gentle puff. In the golden evening, her face was smooth, calm. Her cheeks were still rounded, still dusted with freckles. My Sophie. My baby.
I slipped away. I closed the door.
In the living room, I stood at the table and cried.
I felt stupid. I felt frayed. Betrayed. Adrift. Broken.
Glad.
Time to reset.
For the third time in twenty-four hours, I sat down and cleaned my weapon. Methodically. Cleared it. Removed the slide. Removed the recoil. Wiped it down. Lubed it up. Then I put it away in the closet.
On the shelf was the case for the gun that had burned up with my truck a week before. It had been a Glock 19, a good weapon. A useful weapon. Maybe I would get another, teach Sophie how to shoot it, just like my dad had taught me. In my mind’s eye, I saw his weathered hands on the black grip, his strong finger pointing out the parts of the weapon while we huddled in the October wind in the back field, where there was a hill that ate the bullets even when they flew wide.
I would teach her how to kill.
NEW YORK
Author Biography
Elizabeth Lewes is a veteran of the United States Navy who served during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. An analyst and linguist by training, she now practices law in Seattle. Little Falls is her debut novel.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Crouse
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-506-6
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-507-3
Cover design by Nicole Lecht
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: August 2020
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