“The point is, an understanding was reached. And Agent Voorhies did what he needed to do. He’s been a productive agent ever since.”
Pine said, “What did he do?”
“Let’s just say he crossed the line,” said Dobbs. He sat back and his features grew pensive. “How about this: How about I go and have a chat with Mr. Rogers and convince him that filing a formal complaint against you would not be in his best interests?”
“I don’t want you taking any heat for what I did, sir,” said Pine.
“Which is why I’m offering to do just that. You’re a good agent. I don’t want this to derail your career.”
Blum asked, “Do you think he’ll agree to that?”
“Last time he was in prison he got solitary confinement because he begged for it. He goes into gen pop with the rep of a child rapist and killer, he’ll last about five minutes. And he knows we can make that happen.”
Blum looked at Pine and said, “Okay. That sounds like a plan.”
“But surely there will be an internal investigation,” noted Pine.
“You didn’t discharge your weapon. The guy didn’t die. Rogers isn’t going to make a complaint. From what I hear from the locals in Colorado, the mayor wants to give you a key to the city.”
“Okay,” said Pine doubtfully.
Dobbs straightened up. “But I’m not going to beat around the bush, Pine. What you did was way out of bounds. In my book, you get one free card, and you just burned it.”
“Does this mean I’ll face no disciplinary action?”
“It does. This time.”
Pine glanced down. “I appreciate that, sir. I…I expected far worse.”
He stroked his chin. “You haven’t taken a vacation in God knows how long, right?”
“A vacation, sir? Well, actually, I was given time off just—”
“That wasn’t a real vacation. You know it and I know it. People don’t almost die several times during a vacation.”
“Okay, it has been a while, yes.”
“Me, I go fly-fishing every year. Never catch a damn thing and I love every minute of it.”
“And for how long is my vacation to be?”
Dobbs rose, buttoned his suit jacket, and headed to the door. “For as long as you need, Pine.” He looked back at her. “How did your visit to ADX Florence go, by the way?”
“It wasn’t very productive.”
“Well, maybe you can use your vacation to make it more productive.” He stopped and looked down at the floor. “This Rogers creep remind you of anyone?”
“Yes, but in only one way.”
“Daniel Tor is a few levels above, I would imagine.”
“NBA versus a high school team.”
“Well, he’s locked up for life. You’re not. But in a way, I believe you really are, too. What do you think?”
“I…have some issues to work through, clearly.”
“Good answer.”
Blum spoke up. “And I think I should be there to assist her in this.”
They both looked at her. Dobbs said slowly, “That’s up to Pine.”
Pine said, “Carol, you don’t have to—”
Blum interjected, “Yes, I do.”
Dobbs said, “Well, I’ll leave you to figure it out.” He nodded to the women and left.
Blum looked at Pine and Pine stared back at her assistant.
“It was a long time ago, Carol. A very long time ago.”
“And I’ve seen you go into every case and come out with a solution. And maybe it’s time you took a crack at it.”
“I’ve been to see Tor three times now.”
“But there is no guarantee that he had anything to do with your sister’s disappearance.”
Pine looked down at her hands. “I…I don’t know if I’m up for this, Carol.”
“Well, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you are. At the very least I think you have to be. Like Agent Dobbs said, you just burned your only free card. And you can’t leave the Bureau involuntarily or otherwise. You were meant to be an FBI agent.”
Pine rose from behind her desk. “But this is not your problem.”
“I’m your assistant. I’m going to help you. And that’s just the way it’s going to be.”
Pine smiled at her. “That’s very kind of you.” Her gaze grew distant. “Well, then we’ll need to pack for the trip.”
“The trip?”
“Back in time, Carol. Back in time.”
Chapter 4
BLUM SAID, “I know you said we were going back in time, but it looks like we stepped back into the past, literally.”
Pine was driving the rental SUV and Blum was riding shotgun. They had flown into Atlanta and then driven a little over two hours pretty much due south to Sumter County, and more particularly to Andersonville, Georgia, population around 250 people. They were now passing through the faded main street of the small town.
“Sometime back in the seventies, the mayor and some others decided to turn the clock back and make Andersonville into a tourist attraction by making it look like it did during the Civil War. We’re on Church Street, which is the main drag. The train tracks running perpendicular to it are where the prisoners were brought in on their way to Andersonville Prison. It was the last trip many of them would ever make.”
“The prison is close by?”
Pine stopped the car and pointed to the street. “See all those footprints painted on the street? That represents the prisoners walking the quarter mile to the prison. Longest walk of their lives, probably.”
Blum shuddered. “How horrible.”
“The town put together a seven-acre area called Pioneer Farm, just off here. They have a smithy, a jail, a smokehouse, and a sugar cane mill, among other attractions. You can see the sign overhead from here that says, ‘Welcome to Andersonville Civil War Village.’”
Blum read it, nodded, and added, “And an RV park and restaurant.”
“About eighty thousand people visit a year, so I guess the mayor’s plan paid off. The really big event is coming up shortly.”
“What’s that?”
“Mock Civil War battles. Reenactments, they call them. There’ll be a parade and a marching band coming down this way. Soldiers in blue and gray. More bands playing, line dancing, clogging, lots to eat and drink. Quite the shindig. People selling uniforms and guns and flags and swords and quilts and other stuff. And only four bucks to get in.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s on that sign over there.”
The pair exchanged a quick smile.
“So all those tourists come here for that?” asked Blum.
“No, they also come because of the infamous Confederate prison that used to be here.”
“To visit a prison? That’s sort of weird.”
“Well, it was the most notorious prison in the Civil War. Around thirteen thousand Union prisoners died there. There’s a National Historic Site here and a huge military cemetery. And I read there’s some sort of prisoner of war center here too. The commandant of the prison, Henry Wirz, was hanged as a war criminal.” She pointed up ahead to a tall obelisk in the center of the street. “That’s the Wirz Monument.”
“Wait a minute, a war criminal gets a monument?”
“It was erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy. I guess they believed Wirz got a raw deal and was just used as a scapegoat.” She paused. “Tor knew about Wirz being hanged. He told me the first time I met him, when I said I was from the Andersonville area.”
“So he was here then?”
“He was operating in the state when my sister was taken. He committed murders in Macon, Atlanta, Columbus, and Albany. That was why it occurred to me that he might be involved in Mercy’s disappearance. But him knowing about Wirz might be because he read up on me before I visited him for the first time. He could have learned about it then.”
“You told me on the plane ride that he occurred to you as the abductor in your siste
r’s case after you’d gone to hypnotherapy?”
Pine nodded. “But there’s the chicken-and-egg problem. I obviously knew about Tor before I underwent hypnosis. So maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that I think he did it. In fact, he pointed out that possibility to me at our last meeting. But I had already thought of it.”
Blum shivered. “I can’t imagine being in the same building with someone like that, much less talking to him.”
“He definitely has the ability to get under your skin. Turn things around that you say. Appear normal, logical even, though he’s a monster.”
“Creepy.”
Pine thought back to the giant of a man who had so cruelly and violently ended the lives of so many innocent people. “Actually, that term doesn’t come close to covering it.”
“So is that it for the town? They all work in tourism?”
“No. In the sixties a mine and refinery opened. They ship out thousands of tons of bauxite ore every week from here on the freight trains.”
“Bauxite?”
“It’s found in the kaolinite clay soil here. Mulcoa is the company that mines it here. It was once used to make aluminum. Now it’s used for abrasives and in hydraulic fracturing to get to oil and gas deposits. With all the fracking going on now, the bauxite business is pretty good.” She pointed to a storefront as they drove along. “Drummer Boy Civil War Museum. They have uniforms and flags and guns and other artifacts from the war.”
“Well, it’s nice to see that the Civil War can still be a benefit for some. I really didn’t learn much about it growing up where I did.”
“It’s like a second bible of sorts in the South.”
“And where did you live here?”
“I’ll show you.”
* * *
The road leading to her old home was just as Pine remembered it, mostly dirt, potholed, curvy, and isolated.
Blum looked around. They hadn’t passed another house for nearly a mile. “What in the world did you and Mercy do for fun? I can see you didn’t go on many playdates.”
“And our mom didn’t have a car. My dad took the only one we had to work at the mine. So we walked or, as we got older, we rode our bikes. Most of the time we just played out in the yard. My mom would take us to Americus on the weekends to do the grocery shopping and other errands. The school bus picked us up right there,” she said, pointing out a spot in front of an aged, sprawling oak. “We were only in first grade when Mercy disappeared.”
Something caught in Pine’s throat and she coughed and slowed the truck, lifted her sunglasses and brushed at her eyes.
Blum looked at her cautiously. “How long since you’ve been back?”
Pine took a moment to compose herself and lowered her glasses. “We moved really soon after Mercy was taken. I haven’t been back here since then.”
“Not once?”
Pine shook her head. “There was nothing for me to come back to, Carol.”
“I guess I can understand that.” Blum put a supportive hand on Pine’s shoulder. “And your father committed suicide, you said?”
“On my birthday. He stuck a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”
“On your birthday? How awful.”
“I think it was his bizarre way of letting me know he was thinking of me. You see, my parents blamed themselves for what happened. Then they ended up blaming each other. That was the reason why they split up later. They were both apparently drunk and stoned on weed downstairs when Mercy went missing and I was attacked.”
Blum shook her head. “The guilt they must’ve been feeling.”
They navigated a curve and a dilapidated, falling-down, plank-sided house came into sight at the end of a dirt road.
“It looks abandoned,” observed Blum.
“No, it’s not.” Pine pointed to an ancient Ford pickup truck parked partially behind the house. It seemed to have more rust than not. And there was a chunky black Lab with a wide tan collar sleeping on the porch.
“Someone really lives in that? It looks like a good wind would knock it down.”
Pine frowned. “And how many broken-down homes do you see in Arizona in the middle of nowhere? People live where they can.”
“That’s true.”
They pulled to a stop in the dirt front yard and climbed out. Pine looked over the only home she had known for the first six years of her life. It was smaller than she remembered, but that was always the case, wasn’t it?
The front door stood open, and the porch sagged both from wood rot and gravity’s pull. One of the windows was cracked and the planks were warped. The painted surfaces were peeling. Trash was piled in the yard. There was an old fifty-gallon oil drum with smoky ends of debris sticking out. That was evidently the mode used to burn trash here.
The dog stirred, rising slowly to its feet on arthritic legs and letting out a couple of feeble barks. Its muzzle was gray, and it looked unsteady.
“Hey, boy, how you doing?” said Pine in a comforting voice.
She slowly approached the dog, her fist held out. She let him sniff her before she tickled his ears and received a lick in return.
She sat on the porch, looked around, and stroked the dog’s head while Blum stood next to her. “I wonder who lives here now?”
“That would be me.”
They turned to see a man who had just come around the side of the house. The shotgun was a Remington twelve-gauge side-by-side, and it was pointed right at them.
Chapter 5
PINE ROSE FROM THE PORCH. “You really live here?” she asked. Her eyes were calm and fixed on the man, even as her right hand slid in the vicinity of her holstered Glock.
The man was tall, lean, and he seemed, despite his white hair and matching beard, to be constructed out of granite. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. A sweat-stained Stetson was on his head, under which the unruly locks of his snowy white hair were visible. His face was sun and wind whipped, and the wrinkles there were pronounced and contained startling depth. Pine gauged him to be well over sixty, a fact belied by his ropy muscles, which were evident because of the short-sleeved shirt he was wearing. His jeans were faded and cut tight to his long legs and slim hips. The pair of crumbling boots he wore looked held together merely by prayer.
“I do, which means you gals are trespassing.”
“I used to live in this house,” said Pine, glancing over her shoulder.
The man lowered the shotgun, but just a bit. “When?”
“Beginning in the mideighties.”
He looked her over. “You must’ve been a baby then.”
“Me and my sister.”
He glanced at Blum. “This your ma?”
“No, she’s my friend.”
“So what are you doing back here? Sightseeing? Ain’t much to see. Cemetery and that old Confederate prison.”
“I came back to see my old homestead. How long have you lived here?”
“’Bout three years. Who are you?”
“Atlee Pine. That’s Carol Blum.”
Blum eyed him closely. “And what’s your name?”
“Cyrus Tanner. Friends call me Cy.”
“Can I call you Cy, even though we’re not officially friends?” said Blum. “And could you point that shotgun somewhere else? Because while my nerves and those of my friend are pretty strong, accidents do happen with weapons.”
“What? Oh, sorry ’bout that.”
He lowered the shotgun and looked at them nervously. “What do you want here then?”
Pine said, “Just to look around. Pure nostalgia. Are you from Andersonville?”
“No, came over from ’Bama. Mississip’ before that.”
“So you bought the house then?”
He chuckled. “Hell, I don’t have the money to buy no house, not even one as run-down as this. I’m, uh, renting.” He pointed to the chunky, aged Lab, which had flopped back down. “Me and Roscoe there. Ain’t we, boy?”
Roscoe gave a little show of yellowed te
eth as he looked happy at hearing his name.
“Me and Roscoe been partners for a long time. Best friend I ever had. Beats people by a long shot on that score.”
“Do you mind if I look around?” said Pine.
“Ain’t much to see.”
“Do you work at the bauxite mine?” asked Blum.
He shot her a swift glance. “The mine? No, I do some odd-job work ’round here. Good with engines and stuff. Anything like that needs tinkering I can most likely fix. Get paid in cash. Don’t like to pay no taxes. I get by and cover my bills. Keep a roof over me and Roscoe’s head. What do you gals do for a living?”
Pine took out her official creds. “I’m an FBI agent. Carol is my assistant.”
Tanner looked wildly at them. “A Fed? Look, I didn’t mean that stuff ’bout the taxes—”
“I’m not with the IRS, Mr. Tanner, and I don’t care about your philosophy on paying taxes. Or not.”
“Well, okay,” he muttered, not looking convinced. “What are you really doing here then? It’s not on the official Civil War tour,” he added with a weak grin.
Pine glanced at Blum before looking back at the man. “My sister was abducted from this house nearly thirty years ago. The person who took her was never found. And neither was she. So I’m back here now trying to find the truth.”
The cigarette nearly fell out of the man’s mouth. “Holy shit, you being straight with me?”
“Never been straighter in my life.”
He looked back at the house. “I never knew that when I started living here.”
“No reason for you to know.”
“You said they never caught the bastard?”
“Or found my sister.”
“So…are you here, what, looking for clues and stuff? Been a long time.”
“I’m not here to do a forensic scrub, if that’s what you mean. But I am here to try to sort some things out. And I thought coming here would be a good first step.”
He put the shotgun down on the porch. “You want to take a tour of the place then?”
“That’d be great. You sure you want to leave the gun there?” added Pine.
“Hell, it’s not even loaded. I just use it for show. You know, scare folks off.”
A Minute to Midnight Page 3