by Rachel Ford
Tanney had done more fighting than Ted. He was surprisingly full of piss and vinegar for an old fart. He got a good right hook in on one of the guys. Ted was pretty sure he heard the guy’s jaw crack. But either way, chewing was definitely going to hurt for a while.
But they were big guys, and young, and they all had guns. And Tanney fell into line soon enough – with a blackeye for his efforts.
At that point, Ted hadn’t quite made up his mind on the cops or not cops front. And he’d been too busy protesting that he had nothing to do with Tanney and Day to give it as much thought as he might otherwise.
Then the guy with the tattoos made a call to Day. By which point, Ted was pretty sure they weren’t cops. Cops didn’t take hostages and set up mysterious meetups.
So, also by which point, Ted started to panic. Cops would have been bad enough. Cops would have meant possible charges. And not all cops were as understanding as Halverson. But he’d managed to argue his way out of tight spots with the cops before. He’d take his chances again.
These guys, though, didn’t look like they meant to listen to anything he had to say. Especially since they threw around words like kill and dead.
Ted didn’t want to be killed. He didn’t mean to die for years. Whatever it was Owen Day had gotten mixed up in, whyever someone might want to kill him, it had nothing to do with Ted Walters.
A point that he made, several times, but to no avail. The guys with the guns ignored him, and when he got particularly vocal about his point, they threatened him. So Ted was in a miserable state as they rolled out of town.
Tanney – the old bastard – seemed to be taking it much better, the blackeye notwithstanding. He sat calmly on the backseat, watching their guard – a big guy with a gun in his hand. A gun trained directly on the pair of them.
“I got nothing to do with these two,” Ted tried again.
He didn’t know who these men were, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist or brain surgeon to figure out that they were bad news. And that Owen Day and William Tanney were up to their eyeballs in that same bad news.
The guy with the gun ignored him. The driver said something else to Day. “I want to hear your engine start, Owen. My friend back there is getting awfully twitchy with all this silence. And when he starts getting twitchy – well, sometimes people end up shot.”
“Maybe in the arm,” the guy with the gun said. “Maybe in the leg. Or maybe I slip and shoot the mouthy guy, right in the face.”
“Jesus Christ, start the car already,” Ted called.
A faraway roar of an engine sounded through the phone, and then a brisk, hollow thump, like a car door closing. Day’s voice followed. “I started the engine.”
“Good. Now you know what to do. You stay on the line. Both hands on the wheel. And Owen – don’t try anything stupid. If my guy sees you move your hands, or pick up your phone, or detour anywhere – we start taking potshots at these friends of yours.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The guy on the other end of the line sent Owen an address on Red Lake Road. He had no idea where that was, but his phone’s GPS showed him a little plot about fifteen minutes out of town. A rural property, with not many addresses in the vicinity.
That had been his impression at a glance. He didn’t dare look beyond that, though. If the guy on the phone really did have a tail watching, using his phone – even to check an address – might get Tanney shot.
That, of course, was a big if. Owen didn’t see anyone watching – not from a window in the diner, and not from another vehicle. He didn’t see anyone pull out after him when he got onto the road.
But, of course, that didn’t really mean anything. These guys, whoever they were, would be better at this than him. Maybe they could go unseen. And it would make sense to keep an eye on him, to make sure he wasn’t texting or calling anyone for help or backup.
Then again, why go through the complex charade if there was a second team on the ground? Why grab Tanney, but leave him? Why not pick them both up at once? That seemed to indicate limited manpower: they didn’t have enough guys in the area. Which probably meant, no tail.
Then there was Ted Walters. Grabbing Tanney, he could almost see. They’d gone up to Sean Abbot’s house together. They’d been seen around town. But why involve Walters? That made no sense.
Anyone who knew anything about his interactions with Walters would know they couldn’t stand each other. Yet the guy on the phone had referred to friends – plural. More than one.
So he didn’t have a second team in the area. He didn’t have someone who could do reconnaissance. He didn’t have anyone to tail him.
Owen was almost certain of it. But was he certain enough to bet lives on it?
Ted’s? In a heartbeat.
Tanney’s? He hesitated.
Owen was pretty sure these were the guys who had killed the AG, and the judge too. He was pretty sure they were the guys who tried to kill Halverson the night before. So if he and Tanney got it right, if they’d targeted the sheriff for asking about Reed Hill, they were here to kill them too, and for the same reason.
He needed to figure out what to do. He needed to get the guy on the phone talking, and keep him talking. And he needed to send off a text message to Halverson, as soon as he was one hundred percent certain no one was watching.
Owen didn’t know if they’d get out of this alive. But knowing nothing seemed to be their best bet. So he played dumb. Not dumb enough to be an obvious fake, but dumb enough maybe to buy them some time.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know who you think we are, or what you think we’ve done, but we had nothing to do with Wynder’s death, or Abbot’s. We got nothing to do with any of this. We don’t know what’s going on.”
“Don’t shit yourself, Day. We’re not here for vengeance. We just need to talk.”
Which was a lie, of course. But he played along anyway. “Okay. I’m talking.”
“In person.”
“Look, I’m telling you, we really don’t know anything. We were trying to figure it out – that’s the truth. But we didn’t kill them. I don’t know who did, either.”
A voice sounded in the background – Ted’s voice. “Bullshit. They’re the ones you want. They killed Rick. I had nothing to do with it. Rick was my friend.”
He glanced left and then right. He was getting close to the edge of town. The congestion, such as it was, of buildings started to thin. Traffic was sparser.
There was a car about two hundred feet behind him, an old silver Altima. He couldn’t make out much about the driver, but it looked like a man in a big coat. Maybe someone bundled up for warmth. Maybe someone trying to hide their appearance.
He kept his hands on the wheel and went on talking. “Ted’s an idiot, but you can believe him when he says he has nothing to do with us. Unless you mean serial harassment.”
“Don’t worry about Ted,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “As long as you do what you’re told, he’ll be fine.”
Owen watched his rearview mirror. The Nissan was still behind him, keeping up a steady speed.
“I think it’s a serial killer,” he said. “The Midwest Interstate Killer.”
The guy took the bait. “What?”
“That’s what I call him. I’ve been following it for years. Someone’s been killing people along the Midwest interstates: I-35, I-94, I-29, I-39.”
“The crap that was on the news earlier?” the guy asked. “That was you?”
“I know it sounds farfetched, but I’m telling you: he’s the guy you’re looking for.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything?”
“I don’t. I mean, that’s a theory, right? I don’t ‘know’ it per se, right?”
Silence for a beat. “Alright. You can tell me your theory when you get here.” Then, the guy added, “But if you’re pulling my leg, I’ll shoot you myself.”
Owen tried to sound scared – which wasn’t hard, in and of itself. He was s
cared. He’d have to have the IQ of a stump to be anything but scared. He was walking into a trap. That was clear.
But he needed to sound the right kind of scared. He needed to sound like a hapless dope, scared for his friend, thinking honesty was the best policy. Thinking he could persuade them, and all would be well. “I’m not. God as my witness. I’ll show you my research. I got files and files: I got it all.”
He passed the city limit sign. The Nissan was slowing.
“Alright,” the guy said again. “Let’s see what you got.”
“Okay,” Owen said, his eyes glued to the rearview. The Altima put on its left blinker, and then turned into a roughly plowed driveway.
The road was clear in front of him and behind him. Owen reached for the phone.
“Keep talking to me, Day,” the voice said.
“What?”
“Keep talking. I need to know you’re taking this seriously.”
“I am. Jesus, I am.”
“Then keep talking.”
“About what?”
“About your killer. This Interstate Killer.”
“The Midwest Interstate Killer,” Owen corrected.
“Yeah, him. Tell me about him.”
So Owen did. He knew why the guy on the phone wanted him to talk. He wanted to distract him. He wanted to be able to hear if there were any changes in his tone, any absent umms or ahhs – the kind of filler words people inject into a conversation when their attention wanders. Like, when they’re looking at their cell phone.
And it might have worked, if the guy had picked another topic. Tell me about your childhood, Owen. That would have sunk him. Tell me about your favorite movie. Game over.
But the Midwest Interstate Killer? Owen had been thinking about nothing else these last days. He’d been eating, breathing and sleeping the killer. So he lifted the phone, ever so gently, and copied the address.
He didn’t have Halverson’s cell number, so he opened his email application first, and shot off an email. The application remembered the email address from his prior messages. He kept it short and sweet, pasting in the location on Red Lake Road and adding:
Tanney is a hostage here. Going there now before they kill him. Send help.
And all the while, he went on talking about the killer. He talked about Mary Koehler, the model widow. He talked about Eugene Cooper, the abusive sexual deviant. He talked about trying to find a link between them. He droned on about trying to understand the mentality of someone who could pull the trigger on a complete stranger.
He went on, and on, and on.
He browsed out to the sheriff’s department website. He brought up the page on Halverson. It had his face plastered across the top, smiling uncomfortably – like a mugshot of the man, a few years younger.
Owen started talking about Ricky Manilow, and his mysterious passing. He found Halverson’s cell number listed underneath his office phone. He tapped out a similar message and sent it.
He mentioned Ray Danielson, and the crossbow – the aberration in the pattern, and his internal uncertainty if Danielson was a victim of the serial killer or not.
Then, he put the phone back in the console, still droning on; and he hoped like hell Halverson would check his phone or his email sometime soon.
Back in town, Halverson’s phone sat charging at his desk. He hadn’t had a charger with him at the hospital, and the battery had almost run dry by time he got back to town.
He was in conference with the detectives, Brady and Davis. They’d pulled the records on the plates, just like Halverson had requested. And at first glance, it looked like a bust.
The car was registered to a nonagenarian named Albert Wixcomb. Wixcomb had been moved to a nursing home five years ago, but his property – including his car – remained in his name.
Either old Mr. Wixcomb maintained some delusion about returning to his own home someday, or he simply meant to leave the problem of disposing of his property to his heirs.
None of Albert’s children worked for Reed Hill, or any of her sister facilities, or Reed Correctional Services itself. Brady had even pulled in-laws – a good call, since he had some two dozen married sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and even a few married great-grandsons.
None of the in-laws worked for Reed Hill.
And there they might have let it stay, if Halverson hadn’t asked, “What about exes?”
“What?”
“You looked at in-laws. But not all of his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids are married, right? Some of them are going to be single, and some are going to be divorced, and some are going to be widowed.”
That had led to a brand-new search – and a hit.
Ryan Campbell, thirty-four years old, employed by Reed hill as a Senior Strategic Security Adviser – whatever the hell that was. He’d been married to an Alice Wixcomb, granddaughter of Albert Wixcomb for four years, some ten years ago. Then they’d divorced and gone their own way.
“Looks like it had something to do with a domestic,” Brady said. “There was a call out to their house, but Alice didn’t press charges. The officer on the scene reported seeing multiple bruises on her. She filed for divorce two weeks later.”
“Troubled guy,” Davis agreed. “Served a tour in the Middle East. A good soldier, as far as I can tell. Purple heart. Survived a roadside bomb. Some trouble readjusting to civilian life afterwards though: multiple drunk and disorderlies in the first two and a half years following his return.”
“Plus the divorce,” Brady added.
“Right. Plus the divorce. Multiple calls out to their house before that. Concerned neighbors, hearing screaming and crying.”
“Then, three years later, he’s clean again. No more arrests. No more problems.”
“That’s when he started working for Reed Hill.”
“Reed Hill,” Halverson said. “Their stink is all over this thing.”
“Sheriff?”
And then a knock sounded at the door, and Karen poked her head in a moment later. “Sheriff? I’m sorry to interrupt. But I heard your phone go off, and – well, you got a test message.” He was about to say it would wait until she added, “It looked important.”
So he accepted the phone and thanked her. And then he saw the message, and his heart sank. “Fuck.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Owen didn’t reach the address on Red Lake Road. He was about five miles from the road when a big blue Range Rover came whipping out of a driveway behind him.
Weird? Yes. But he didn’t think much of it, because he was on the lookout for a black Cadillac. Not a blue Range Rover.
Then the guy on the phone said, “Pull over at the next turn.”
Owen said, “What?”
“You heard me. Next turn, take a right.”
Owen glanced at his rearview mirror, at the driver: a big guy with a grim face. “Are you…behind me?”
“You didn’t think I was going to give you the real address, did you? I want to believe you, Owen. I’m going to give you the chance to convince me. But I’m not stupid.
“Now pull over up ahead. And don’t waste time. You don’t have a lot of that twenty minutes left.”
“Hurry up, you son of a bitch,” Ted shouted in the background.
At the same time, Tanney called, “Don’t do it, Owen. It’s a trap.”
The guy said, “Don’t try to be a hero. Heroes get people hurt. Play ball, and we all go home.”
Owen didn’t answer immediately. His mind was racing. A detour meant that Halverson – when he finally checked his messages – would be chasing phantoms. He’d be miles off, looking for people who never showed up.
And the turn was coming up fast. Six hundred feet ahead, maybe. It was decision time. Keep driving, and risk them shooting Tanney and Walters – but losing their leverage – or do what they said, and risk everyone dying.
Because that’s ultimately where this was going. Owen knew that. These guys didn’t mean to hear him out. They
weren’t here to find a serial killer.
They were here to clean up Rick Wynder’s mess – starting with Wynder himself. That’s what this was about: Reed Hill. He was sure of it.
The judge had been compromised, somehow. So they’d iced him, and his wife. They’d taken whatever it was that endangered the mission. Then Halverson and Owen had asked Abbot questions about Reed Hill. They’d decided he was compromised too, and they sent a team to eliminate him – and Halverson.
And Owen and Tanney.
There was no way they walked from this. None at all. And if he pulled onto a side road in the middle of nowhere, it could be weeks, or months, or years before anyone dragged their bodies out of the undergrowth.
The gravel road drew closer and closer; the Range Rover loomed larger and larger in the mirror. The guy on the phone ordered him to turn, now.
Decision time.
“Change of plans,” Owen said. And he braked hard and swerved into the opposite lane in one, fluid motion. The Range Rover careened onward for a split second, until its own driver slammed on the brakes.
He was fast, the driver; but not fast enough. The split second of delay brought the Rover’s nose alongside Owen’s vehicle. He banked hard, swinging the SUV’s extended rear into the other vehicle’s front.
Owen had never driven a Range Rover. He didn’t know what kind of control the vehicle offered. But he figured he had a better chance vehicle to vehicle than man to man, since the guy on the phone had guns and backup – and he had neither.
All around him, Owen heard the screech of rubber, and the smashing and crushing of metal and shattering of glass.
On the other end of the line, hell itself seemed to break loose. The same sounds – the same smashing and screeching and crushing and shattering – screamed through the speakers. But other sounds came with it: screams and gunshots and the noises that bodies make when they break.
A noise that is at once dry and wet, like putting a dry stick inside a bag full of water, and then breaking it. The water would muffle the sound, but it wouldn’t hide it.