Committed

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Rooms one-eighteen and –nineteen. This way.” Beth walked toward the hallway beyond the restaurant entrance, pulling her suitcase behind her.

  I followed. We entered the hall and passed rooms starting at one hundred. We found our room doors a little ways down. Beth stopped at her door, across from mine. “What time are we headed out?”

  I pulled up my sleeve and glanced at my watch—the time was a couple minutes before one in the morning, which was wrong. I pulled out the crown on my watch and dialed the time back an hour. “Let’s try to be out of here by eight or so. We’ll make contact with the local law enforcement and the Great Falls resident agency.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Beth said.

  “Don’t stay up all night on the phone,” I said.

  Beth smiled and entered her room. I slid my keycard and walked into mine. The door clicked shut at my back.

  I flipped on the lights and took in my room. A pair of queen beds with bedspreads somewhere between the colors pink and brown stood before me on the right, just past the open bathroom door. A pair of paintings hung on the wall just above each headboard, and a nightstand with an alarm clock and lamp separated the two beds. I walked farther in and glanced at the television on a set of light-brown cabinets across from the beds. A small table with an ice bucket and a couple plastic-wrapped cups sat on the table’s surface. The hotel room was the standard side-of-the-freeway fare for around seventy dollars a night. I wheeled my suitcase against the wall near the television, slid out a chair at the table, and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed Karen, who’d instructed me to do so when I’d spoken to her earlier when leaving the Omaha hotel.

  “Hey, baby,” she said. Karen’s voice was groggy, as if I’d waken her.

  I quickly did a little mental math and figured it was about two in the morning where she was. “Hey, yourself. Sleeping?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I just lay down a little bit ago. I was waiting for you to call. So you’re there? Everything good?”

  “We’re here. All is well.”

  “Okay.”

  Karen yawned into the receiver of her phone. “How was the flight?”

  “We had a quick layover in Minneapolis. Hit the ground here about an hour ago. Just checked into the hotel.”

  “Did you guys get anything new on the investigation?” she asked.

  While I’d talked to her earlier, I didn’t give her anything from the day’s investigation. I knew if I gave her the part about the son of the couple from the farmhouse, our phone call would drag on for hours. It was late for me and later for her—that wasn’t the time.

  “We can talk about it in the morning. It’s late by you, and I just wanted to let you know I was here, as instructed.”

  “Okay, I guess.” She yawned again.

  “Get some sleep, babe. I love you, and I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Okay. I love you, Hank.”

  “Sleep well. Bye, babe.”

  Karen clicked off.

  I let out a breath, set my phone down on the nightstand, then readied myself for bed. My mind went into thought. My wife could get carried away when something was especially bothersome. I figured a recently orphaned boy being turned over to child services was one of those topics she would possibly run with, eventually leading to a conversation regarding adoption.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was up by six, showered, and made contact with an Agent Kronke from the Great Falls resident agency. Beth and I were to meet him at his office at nine o’clock. I glanced over at the LED clock on the nightstand—just before seven, local time. I took a sip from the coffee I’d acquired from the front lobby and decided to call Karen, who would just be leaving for work. I scooped up my cell phone and dialed.

  “Hey, hon,” she said. “I’m just hopping in the car. Are you just waking up now?”

  “I got up a bit ago. Got ready and grabbed a coffee. I had to call the local branch here and get us something set up.”

  “Set up for? You still never told me why you needed to go to Montana.”

  “We have a tree here we need to go and shake.”

  “So you guys got something new?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, fill me in.”

  I let out a breath, briefly debated again not giving her the details about the boy, and finally gave her the events of the prior day—all of them.

  Karen went silent for a moment, and as I expected, her first question came.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” she asked.

  “It was late. I actually debated not telling you at all, but I’m not a big fan of keeping things from you.”

  “That’s probably a good thing. So what’s going to happen with the boy?” she asked. “You said his name was Mark?”

  I rubbed at my eye. “Yeah, Mark, and I don’t know. The last I heard, they were trying to find a family member.”

  “Oh my God, Hank. That is horrible. That poor boy…” Karen paused again.

  I thought if I continued on a slightly different topic, I could steer her off the current one. “So we’re thinking that we should bring in the guy the couple called and…”

  “And he was just left with social services?” Karen interrupted.

  I cracked my neck from side to side. “There was nothing that we could do, Karen. If they can’t find a family member to take him in, I’m sure they’ll place him somewhere, with some good people. I think the days of bouncing from foster home to foster home are kind of over.”

  “How would you know that?” she asked. Her tone said that anything that came out of my mouth other than ‘I’m personally going to do something about it’ wasn’t going to be acceptable.

  I shook my head. My first thought of not giving her the information seemed like the better one. I tried giving her a dose of reason. “Babe. Honestly. There’s nothing that we could do other than what we did. I mean, you understand that, right?”

  She let out a puff of air into the receiver. “I know. It’s just… I don’t know.”

  “How about this: I’ll make sure we get an update. Would that make you feel better?”

  “It would, but I wish you wouldn’t have even mentioned it to me. Now, it’s all I’m going to think about.”

  “I know. It’s the worst possible thing that can happen in something like this, but it will be taken care of by the people who are in charge of taking care of things like this.”

  “I know. I know. That doesn’t mean that I have to like it,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t like it either.”

  “Let’s, um… Let’s talk about something else,” she said.

  We did, for another half hour, before getting off the phone when Karen arrived at work. I left my room and walked across the hall to Beth’s. I gave her door a knock, and she pulled it open. Her brown hair was styled in a way I hadn’t ever seen—parted down the middle and straight as could be.

  “Went out and had your hair done in the middle of the night?” I asked.

  “Nope. Just straightened it while I was on the phone with Scott last night.”

  In the past, I’d seen my wife complete that process, which always took forever. I imagined that Beth didn’t get much sleep and probably completed the overhaul while she was on the phone all night with her ex.

  “So, just morning hair talk, or do we have something to do?” she asked.

  “Yeah, get your shit. We’re supposed to meet our contact from the resident agency in a little bit.”

  “Okay. Give me five. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  “Sounds good.” I turned back to my room, picked up the things I’d need for the day, and headed to the lobby to get a refill on my coffee and wait for Beth.

  There, I pulled up the resident agency’s address on my phone—the map said it was a nine-minute drive. Beth appeared from the hallway a few minutes later.

  “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  I headed for th
e sliding front doors and outside to the parking lot. We walked toward the car.

  “What’s our contact’s name?” Beth asked.

  “Agent Kronke. The office is only ten minutes away or so.”

  “And the plan?” Beth asked.

  She hit the button to unlock the car, and we got inside.

  “He said he’ll have someone with the local police department meet us, and then we’ll head out,” I answered. “We’ll bring Mr. Gormon back to the resident agency and see what he knows.”

  “Sounds easy enough.” Beth started the car and headed for the parking lot’s exit. “Going to need some directions here.”

  “Oh, um, sure. Hold on.” I brought the map back up on my phone, hit the button to navigate, and handed my phone to Beth.

  She looked at the screen and turned left toward the interstate. My phone buzzed while Beth was holding it. She glanced down and passed it back to me.

  “Looks like you got a text,” she said.

  I took the phone and read the message, which was from Karen. It read, “Remember to check in on Mark when you can. Don’t forget.” I brought the navigation screen back up without responding to Karen’s message and passed my phone back to Beth. We rode in silence for a few miles.

  “I told Karen about the boy from the farmhouse this morning,” I said. “That’s what the text message was about. She wants me to check in for an update if they found a family member or not. Hear anything?”

  “No. And don’t make me start thinking about that again,” Beth said. “The boy—everything that happened there—is just awful. He was clinging to me when the social services lady was trying to take him. I just hope that, with time, he can forget what happened. I’m hoping they find someone related to place him with. I’d hate to think of him in the foster system.”

  “Remind me to never let you speak to my wife about the topic,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Beth asked.

  “Nothing. We should be pretty close here.” I pointed at my phone’s navigation screen. “Look for a place to park.”

  Beth found us a parking spot along the curb half a block up from where my phone said the address was. We got out of the car and headed back toward the buildings we’d passed.

  “The office has to be down this little street here,” I said. I motioned toward a block-long road that ended with what looked like some kind of courtyard.

  Along both sides of the road were five- or six-story red-brick buildings. The one on the left was a large bank. To our right was a hotel. An elevated bridge with a clock in the center, above the courtyard, connected both buildings. We started down the street and found the Bureau office was on the upper floors of a building on the left, beyond the bank. Beth and I walked inside and headed up. We found ourselves in a gray hallway with an FBI logo taking the center of the hall’s back wall. The left wall was six windows facing the alley and the red-brick bank—the right wall held a single frosted-white glass door set back a few feet from the hallway itself. The door had a black FBI logo. We pulled the door open and walked into a small lobby the size of a normal bedroom. Four metal-and-plastic chairs lined each wall. The back wall was gray, like the hallway, with a sliding glass window and security door.

  Beth and I walked up to the window—a woman at a desk on the other side noticed us and slid open the glass. She was a brunette and looked far more office worker than FBI agent.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  I pulled out my credentials and handed them to her. “Agents Rawlings and Harper to see an Agent Kronke. I believe he’s expecting us.”

  I looked past her and her workstation to the room at her back, which appeared to take up the better part of the entire floor of the building. Cubicles filled the center, and people rummaged about. A couple of glass offices took up the right and left sides of the room. The back of the room was windows.

  “Sure. Let me buzz you through and show you to him,” she said.

  The woman allowed us entry and took us back to an office on the left side of the room. We passed other agents, office staff, and the like on our walk. I took a quick count of cubicles, eight, and figured that was about how many agents the place would allow for. I assumed the offices were for leads.

  She knocked on an open office door. “Russ, the two agents to meet with you,” she said.

  Beth and I stepped into the man’s office, and he rose from his desk.

  He rounded it to our side and extended his hand. “Agents Rawlings and Harper?”

  “Correct,” I said. I shook his hand, as did Beth.

  “Agent Russ Kronke.”

  I figured him to be some form of supervisory agent, judging by the office, yet he didn’t introduce himself as such. Agent Kronke looked the better part of fifty years old. His hair was brownish gray, short, and receding. He was slim and wore a black suit with a white dress shirt and a navy tie. I noticed a watch on his right wrist as I shook his hand, which suggested he was left handed. He retook his seat at his desk and motioned for Beth and me to take the guest chairs across from him, which we did.

  “So, we’re going to take a ride and pick someone up for a little questioning?” he asked.

  “That’s the plan as it stands now,” I said.

  He scooped up a pen on his desk with his left hand and bounced it up and down on a pad of paper. “And the thought is he’s connected with the pair you two are tracking?”

  “A phone call made from the scene of a homicide they were responsible for went to this Mr. Gormon,” Beth said. “The female we’re after used to work for him.”

  “At the barbecue joint,” he said.

  “Correct.”

  “Okay. I have a Lieutenant Whishaw, who’s apparently familiar with your Molly McCoy, that should be here”—he glanced at his watch—“hell, any time now. As soon as he arrives, we’ll shoot over to Mr. Gormon’s house. If we don’t find him there, we’ll try the restaurant.”

  “The lieutenant was familiar how?” Beth asked.

  “That I couldn’t tell you. I spoke with Captain Puck over there to request someone from his department to accompany us, to which he agreed. Then he called me back maybe twenty minutes or so ago and told me he was sending Lieutenant Whishaw, who was familiar with the girl. About the extent of what I got. I know Lieutenant Whishaw, though—first name is Marty. He seems like a straight shooter.”

  “Thanks,” someone said at my back.

  I turned to look over my shoulder. A wide, forty-some-year-old man with spiked hair and wearing a suit took up most of the doorway. Agent Kronke stood from his desk as Beth and I rose from our chairs. We had a quick round of introductions.

  “Agent Kronke says you’re familiar with our girl?” Beth asked.

  “I’ve picked her up a couple of times in the past. But I’ve—I don’t know what you want to call it—known her since she was a child. It was her parents that I dealt with, mostly. Dad was a bad drunk and into drugs pretty heavily. He used to beat on her Mom pretty good, who was also heavily into drugs. When I was in patrol, we’d get an almost standard weekly call out to their place. Molly would sometimes be taken to stay with a neighbor or relative. That went on until her Dad got sent up and her mom found a new guy that gave her a hot dose that killed her. Shortly after her mother died, I got a call to a grocery store where they’d caught someone shoplifting. Turns out they had Molly in the back room, waiting for the police to arrive. Apparently, while I was en route, she stabbed one of the managers that was keeping her in the room. Well, I get there and get the scene under control. The guy she stabbed was obviously injured, but it wasn’t life threatening. So when I’m taking her into custody, I find meth and condoms on her. She was thirteen at the time.”

  “Thirteen?” Beth asked.

  “Yeah. Thirteen. So she got into some trouble there. I guess she was living with her grandfather at the time. He died a year or two later, and she bounced around from place to place, getting in trouble along the way. The last known address we ha
ve on record for her was some little trailer on the south side of town. I checked with the owner when we got word on all of this. He said she was four months late on her rent and he hasn’t seen her in a few months. He moved her things to storage and changed the lock last month.”

  “Yeah, we got word that someone checked it out. That was you?” Beth asked.

  He nodded. “I also got a request to find out what she listed for employment when she’d rented the trailer. I made another couple of calls to the owner, but he hasn’t responded to my messages yet.”

  “We may end up needing to go through her things if this guy has them stored,” I said.

  “Sure. I can try the guy again or just give you his name and contact information if you need it,” Lieutenant Whishaw said. “Maybe the FBI asking will have more swing than the sheriff’s department.”

  “Okay. Let’s deal with this Mr. Gormon first. How far is the drive to his place?” I asked.

  “About fifteen minutes from here,” Agent Kronke said.

  Beth and I hopped in with Agent Kronke, and we left the resident agency. The lieutenant followed us in his marked cruiser. The ride was mostly quiet. We got on the interstate and traveled northwest, or so said the small globe compass suction-cupped to the windshield of Kronke’s new white Chevy Suburban. He exited the interstate a few minutes later and took us down a frontage road before turning off into a residential area. Each home we passed seemed to have acres of land. Agent Kronke slowed and pointed the nose of the truck down a long blacktopped driveway. At the driveway’s end was a large red-and-brown home that resembled a barn more than a house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Molly sat with her arms crossed over her chest in the passenger seat of a shiny new Chevy pickup truck. “This is just stupid,” she said. “I think we should try to reason with him first.”

  “You don’t have a say in this,” Nick said. “Which way?” He waved a finger right and left at the windshield as they sat at a red light.