“I suspect it’s not about personal gain,” I said. “His wife is apparently desperately ill, and I’m guessing their health plan has run out. Something like that. Or it could be that what we saw was just Hayes hassling Mingo for being in Carrigan County.”
“But you don’t think so?”
I shook my head. “I think he knows what Mingo is up to and is probably on the payroll, if only to look the other way. That’s when I decided it really wasn’t safe to be there anymore. Carrie wouldn’t leave, though—which is why I telegraphed the fact to Hayes that I’d seen him and Mingo in the parking lot. Once that gets back to them, I’ll be their main problem, not her.”
“How chivalrous,” Baby said. “But in the end, if they’re partners, they’ll whack you both if they can. That report you sent in to the Bureau—that’s going to stir up a shit storm, I think.”
“If it gets through the mailroom and the SAC’s palace guard,” I said. “You know how that goes. They get a lot of crank mail.”
He sipped some scotch. “Yeah, but I got a call from Sam King at the SBI, after those hillbillies did their Buddhist monk interpretation in the parking lot? He confirmed the Bureau had something going on this kid thing, although not specific to Robbins County. Said he’d told the both of you to get out of the way before you really fucked things up.”
“Well, then,” I said. “My report ought to just corroborate their suspicions. Maybe now they’ll move in force.”
“I wonder, Cam. You know those guys—they don’t play well with others. I used to think it was really good operational security. Now I think it’s because they want the option of saying, ‘Hey, everybody, that wasn’t us,’ should whatever they try happen to go south. If they do know about this alleged child-sex-slave deal, my guess is they’re probably working the other end.”
“Meaning?’
“Meaning, they’re trying to find out who the buyers are. You mention your theory that it’s going overseas?”
I said I had, but that of course I had no real data. “It isn’t likely they’re selling into the U.S. in places like Washington,” I said, “New Orleans, now, I’d believe that, although Katrina might have slowed that down a little. But D.C.? That town’s one big piece of flypaper for anything like this these days.”
“I’m with you on that,” he said. “Too many tripwires in Washington right now. This has to be an overseas deal, and I like your theory on diplomatic immunity channels.”
I cleared the plates and threw steak scraps to the two fuzzy piranhas hovering discreetly near the table.
“I’m kind of conflicted on this whole gig,” I told him. “As an ex-lawman, I can see perfectly well how we could screw things up for some operation we don’t know about. Sam King is right—we should knock it off. On the other hand …”
“On the other hand, you’re a civilian now,” he said. “These animals are in your face. Remember all the times when you were on the Job that you wanted to pick up a club and invoke Father Darwin on some walking pustule? Well, now you can, as long as you do it right and don’t get caught.”
“You ever get that urge in your business?’
“I rarely harbor such thoughts, or at least no more than hourly,” he said, pouring some more scotch. “At least you took that bitch Rowena Creigh off the boards.”
“That was pretty awful,” I said. “I acted instinctively and, trust me, I felt that .357 round with my left ear. But still, a double-ten to the face makes for some vivid memories.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he said. “That skank compromised one of my guys. Got him all hot and bothered, went to some no-tell motel in Rocky Falls, took him around the world, only she was making movies the whole time. Had to transfer the guy out of the area and his wife found out. You did the world a service.”
“And stoked the Creighs’ revenge ethic,” I said. “We’re not going to have any more polite conversations on the front porch.”
“Hell, that just clarifies your position,” he said with a grin. “See a Creigh, pop his ass. Self-defense, a priori. Guaranteed clean shoot. I’ll testify for you.”
“What do you think about all this?” I asked.
He sniffed. “I’m at the stage in my life where I’m focused on getting off this bus with enough money to be comfortable, the Neanderthals up in the hills notwithstanding.”
“They’re selling kids, man. To kiddie porn monsters.”
“You know what?” he replied. “That’s probably a better fate for them than dying of worms in their front yards.”
Both shepherds, who had been listening raptly to our conversation and hoping for more scraps, got up suddenly and went to the front door, ears up. Baby had all the lights out and I had the shotgun in hand in about the same five seconds. We each took a window. It was full dark by now, but the campground lights down below the cabin gave us a good look outside. The shepherds weren’t growling, which I finally realized meant that they might know who or what was outside. I couldn’t see the area right in front of the door.
Then I remembered who’d brought me to this cabin in the first place.
“Lemme guess, you’re desperately seeking some decent scotch,” I said softly.
“Open the freaking door, please,” Carrie said from the other side. “It’s getting cold out here.”
Baby, his gun pointed down at the floor, opened the door and she stepped through, both arms full of gear. “Having a nice chat, boys?” she asked as she dumped her stuff on the floor. The shepherds greeted her warmly. “You’re lucky I wasn’t a creeping Creigh, with all those lights on and a clear shot right through my window of choice.”
“This is a federal reservation,” Baby declared self-righteously, putting away his gun. “A national park, even. A treasured heritage. A Vanderbilt tax write-off. They wouldn’t dast.”
She snorted and asked where the glasses were. In our haste we’d forgotten to hide the bottle, so, unfortunately, we had to share. We sat back down at the table.
“So what’s the plan, Stan?” she asked no one in particular.
Baby made a by-me gesture with his hands. “I was just invited over for dinner,” he said. “You know, just passing through the neighborhood?”
Carrie looked over at me expectantly. She was wearing jeans, a sleeveless blouse, and a too-large ball cap, presumably to cover up the new sideways part in her hair. But her eyes were clear and she seemed to have regained some of her normal spunk.
“Beats the shit out of me,” I said. “I was just taking the night off.”
“He lies,” Baby said helpfully. “He didn’t want to slink away back to beautiful downtown Triboro and leave you alone up here with all these black hats looking for you. Watch yourself, Carrie—it might be true love.”
I gave him the finger and Carrie started laughing. That was a pretty sight, actually.
“You write up something to send in?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“I did,” she said. “Between naps. It’s over there in that pile of stuff. You mail yours?”
“FedEx overnight to the Stick People down in Charlotte,” I said. “Baby here thinks it’s actually going to stir up some shit.”
“Like the subtle message you sent along with Bigger John this morning did?” she said.
“Somebody get upset?”
“Sheriff Hayes has apparently disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Deputy John came back by this afternoon. Said Hayes left his badge and a letter of resignation on his desk, citing personal reasons.”
“Did Deputy John confirm he’d given him my message?”
“He did. Said the sheriff got a funny look on his face, closed his door, and made a long phone call. Then he came out, told his secretary he had an urgent meeting, took his cruiser out of the sheriff’s office lot, and drove away. She didn’t find the resignation letter for another hour, by which time he was long gone. No sign of him since. No radio contact. No nothing. And he kept his weapon.”
“And what was this little love note you sent the sheriff?” Baby asked. I’d neglected to tell him that part earlier, and when he heard it, he whistled. “That old boy may be sucking on his Glock as we speak,” he said.
“If he’s been involved in a scheme to sterilize young girls and then sell them to Arab potentates, that’s the least he could do,” I said.
“Or,” Carrie said, “that really was an argument we were watching, and now Hayes has gone to settle something with Mingo.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He may have been operating under the assumption that impoverished young women in Robbins County were getting abortions and Mingo was the gatekeeper, using a moonlighter at the Carrigan County hospital. Once you told your story about seeing Grinny handing over a child, and then talking about kids and airports, well, that may have been an epiphany for Mr. Do-nothing Hayes.”
“That would explain the way he turned as hostile as he did,” I said. “Up to that point it was him and us against the face of evil in Robbins County. Then all of sudden it was Get out of my county.”
“Whatever, they can’t find him, and they’re worried.”
“Did you tell John that you were coming here?” I asked.
She said no. “I told him I was checking out this afternoon and let him draw his own conclusions. He does have my cell number. Oh, and he said that Laurie May had been moved before her boys went to war and the Creighs burned her cabin down. One of the other brothers came and got her. She’s alive and well over in Tennessee at his place. There were two old dogs that did not get out.”
“You know what?” Baby said, getting up. “You guys are starting to scare me. I’m going to go back to the relative safety of chasing down homicidal druggies.”
“Okay if we camp out here for a while?” Carrie asked him.
“Oh, hell, yes,” he said. “We’re not using it, and after what I’ve heard tonight, none of us peace-loving narcs are going to get anywhere near this or the neighboring county. If the Park Service rumbles it, you’re on your own, though.”
“Can you help with that report I sent in to the Bureau?” I asked. “Like maybe call someone down there, tell them to be looking for it?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I can give the ASAC a heads-up. But he’ll invite me to butt-outsky, and for once, I’m going to oblige with a smile. You two really ought to take a vacation and wait for the heavies to get into this.”
We both looked at him and he shook his head, knowing that probably wasn’t going to happen. “All right, at least keep your cell phones on, then,” he said, as he slipped into his windbreaker and headed for the door. He stopped before opening it. “No way I can talk you out of this crusade?” he said. “Either of you?”
“They’re selling children, for Chrissakes,” Carrie said.
He looked like he was going to argue with her, but then waved and left.
Carried stared at the closed front door. “What’s the matter with that guy?” she asked in visible exasperation.
“Baby doesn’t think very highly of the people up here,” I said. “He acts like this isn’t the worst thing he’s seen some of these people do.”
She sat down and rubbed her head. “That getting better?” I asked.
“It’s itching,” she said. “That’s supposed to be a sign of healing. I think this scotch is helping a lot.”
“Better go easy,” I said. “Remember your seven days of pills.”
“You just don’t want to share,” she said.
“That, too,” I said. “Let’s see if this fireplace works. Maybe fool around a little?”
She gave me one of those you-gotta-be-shitting-me looks. I’d seen those before. I grinned at her. I went to get some firewood and water the shepherds. At least the cabin could be warm.
I got a fire going. It really wasn’t all that cold outside, but the fire was nice, just the same. I pulled up a chair and sat down, ready to just watch the fire burn. Carrie was doing something behind me, so I sort of zoned out.
Then she handed me a wee dram and sat down on the floor, her shoulders between my legs. She rested her head back on my lap. The ugly scar was right there, but somehow, it seemed like an intimacy I wasn’t supposed to see. I put my hands on her temples and pressed gently in a massaging circle. She made an appreciative noise.
That’s how we fell asleep. It wasn’t about sex. It was all about being close, sharing affection, trust, togetherness against the night outside and the terrible world of the mountain Creighs. I was disappointed with Baby Greenberg. All he could offer was a repeat of the Greek chorus we’d been hearing from everyone else: Go away.
14
We spent the next morning going through her version of the report to make sure it generally correlated with what I had said. We didn’t want them to be identical, but we didn’t want to leave any big discrepancies through which work-averse civil serpents could slither out, either. We kicked around several ideas for going after Grinny Creigh & Co., but none of them sounded like a winner. Just after noon, however, Carrie got a call on her cell from Bigger John. It seemed that Sheriff Hayes had contacted him and wanted a meet with Carrie at the Hayes family home place up in the mountains above Marionburg. She said she’d do it as long as both John and Luke came along. John relayed that stipulation, and Hayes apparently agreed to that. She said she’d meet John in town at four that afternoon.
I asked her if she wanted me to come along, too. She did, but not actually with her and the two deputies. “How’s about you play backup?” she said. “Follow us up there but stay out of sight. If we get into trouble, you ride to the rescue and cover yourself in glory.”
“You don’t mean try to tail you on a mountain road, do you?” I asked. I still remembered her version of a casual night drive in the mountains.
“No; you drive too slow. I’ll tell the brothers Big that you’ll be in the back-field. I trust them. I’ll keep you advised of what we’re doing and where we are, and maybe you can even get a tactical observation spot on us when we meet with Hayes.”
“Hopefully it’s just Hayes,” I said.
“Either way, it would be good to know you’re out there, and Hayes, of course, doesn’t have to know you’re there unless things get tense.”
“You know, you don’t really have the authority to deal with Hayes,” I said. “I mean, suppose he cops to being involved in this kid thing—it’s not like you can bring him in, or make any promises.”
“The Big brothers are sworn officers. They can bring him in,” she said. “Besides, I have a feeling he’s not calling to make any kind of a deal. I think he wants to get right with God over what he and Mingo’ve been doing.”
“I don’t know, Carrie,” I said. “I know you think that about Hayes. On the other hand, it could be a nasty setup, with Hayes on the porch and Mingo and his crew waiting in the weeds.”
“Why?” she asked. “You’re the one he thinks saw him at the hospital. You didn’t say anything about me being there, did you?”
“No, I didn’t, but he knows you were there being treated, and we’ve been operating together. If he thinks I’ve blown town, you’re the loose end at hand, so to speak.”
“I’ll chance it,” she said. “We’re not going to bust Mingo and his operation on our own, and so far the heavies, as Baby calls them, aren’t doing squat. If Hayes wants to repent, maybe he can get us in. I still have this terrible feeling there’s a clutch of children being held somewhere for one final ‘harvest.’”
On that happy note, we stopped yapping and made our preparations. I followed Carrie into town in a loose tail. She met up with John and his brother at the sheriff’s office, and she followed their cruiser out of town. I had the dogs, my Remington rifle, Nathan’s ten-gauge and a whole box of extra-dry shells, the spotting scope, and enough rifle ammo for a fair-sized firefight. I felt better that both the Big brothers were coming along. Carrie called me on my cell phone as we left town.
“We
’re proceeding to the Hayes home place,” she said. “It’s about ten miles out of town in the direction of the Robbins County line. Apparently there’s the original house, a modern cabin, and an abandoned mine on the property.”
“Have you talked directly to Sheriff Hayes?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “John called him and told him we were starting up.”
“And they know I’m in the picture?”
“The brothers do, Hayes does not. Luke and John were cool with that. They said they’re not expecting trouble.”
“That’s when trouble usually rears its ugly head,” I said, and hung up. She’d been an SBI bureaucrat for most of her career. I, on the other hand, had been a street cop and an operational major crimes detective for most of mine. She was expecting a civilized meeting. I was expecting an ambush. I would really have liked to be able to do a prebrief with the Bigs, but they were in a separate vehicle, so off we went.
On the way up I got a call from Mose Walsh. He wanted to know if I’d heard about the sheriff going walkabout. I said yes.
“I was sitting next to some off-duty deputies last night for supper,” he said. “One of’em said this supposedly had something to do with M. C. Mingo and Grinny Creigh.”
“That’s not news,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “But if people are talking like that, it’s gonna get back to Robbins County. And if this is about selling kids, whoever’s holding the product may just panic.”
“Good point,” I said. “Things are in motion, so, please, keep listening.”
I followed them up into the actual mountains, and finally they turned off onto a well-maintained dirt road. I lingered on the main road for about five minutes, assuming there was only the one road going up. I assumed wrong, as usual. A quarter mile into the woods the dirt road diverged into two branches, one going right and up, the other going left and down. I quickly tried to call Carrie. No signal. I got out and played Indian, trying to see where the fresh tire tracks were. I failed Indian. The shepherds were no help—they had no scent to focus on. I stood there, listening for the sounds of vehicles, but heard only a few crows laughing at my Indian act. I remembered why I used to like shooting crows.
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