An American Bullet

by John Stonehouse

“I'm guessing you don't have good news?”

  “We searched all night, we found nothing,” the marshal says. “Till thirty minutes back. Somebody reported their vehicle stolen. Taken close to the rail yard, overnight.”

  “A car?”

  “Police here say they don’t get auto thefts—I want to put out a stop order.”

  “If somebody attacked her,” McBride says, “why take a vehicle?”

  The marshal puts a hand to the cup of coffee, turns it once. “I can’t rightly say. But somebody broke in a house to get the keys to a car.”

  “What time was it taken?”

  “Sometime between ten-thirty last night and seven this morning. It's a white Ford Taurus, eight years old, nondescript, not the kind of thing worth stealing.”

  McBride stays silent at the end of the line.

  “It’ll be covered in snow,” Whicher says, “including the plates.”

  “You think there’s any chance she could still be there?”

  “We checked every place anybody could think of.”

  “If she’s gone, you think there's any point in you staying? She may be dead already…”

  The marshal leans forward, takes his weight on his elbows.

  “Where are you now?” McBride says. “You might as well go ahead and tell me.”

  “Nebraska. A place called McCook.”

  “Give me the license plate of the car, I’ll get the stop order put out.”

  Whicher stares at the desk.

  “And I’ll need your number there,” McBride says. “I’ll have to get back, I got to make some calls.”

  Out on the sidewalk, Whicher leans into an ice cold wind. In his pocket a pack of razors and a can of foam from a druggist on Main.

  Beneath a hard blue sky, the store owners are out with shovels—clearing the wide, stone paving.

  At a diner on the corner, the marshal orders breakfast—scrambled eggs and biscuits and country ham.

  He sits a long time. Thinks of Lauren DeLuca. Thinks of a long night, mind turning, going over everything—the train stopping, people getting off and on. Lauren wanting to make a call.

  Nobody had attacked her; nobody could’ve been there.

  Not a single person knew they’d be on that train.

  She must have walked.

  He thinks of her in the Denver station before they set out; placing a hand on his—letting it linger.

  Remembering the feeling. Was she just waiting, all along? Looking for a chance to come her way?

  The stolen car didn’t fit; Lauren DeLuca was white-collar, an accountant—would she know how to break into a house to find the keys?

  Maybe she knew a lot of things.

  He swirls coffee grounds at the bottom of his cup.

  Calls the waitress for the check.

  Footsteps in the corridor pull him out of a half-sleep.

  Whicher sits up.

  Sergeant Tierney is at the door. “There's a call for you.” He points at a phone on the desk in the corner. “You want to take it in here?”

  The marshal stands, shakes himself awake.

  Tierney squints, “Line three,” he says. He turns on his heel.

  Whicher pushes the door closed. The police department washroom had been cold to shave in, dozing in a back office better than no rest at all.

  He picks up the phone.

  “Is it snowing out there, marshal?”

  Whicher looks out of the window.

  “There's a ticket waiting for you at the airport,” McBride says. “At McCook. They're flying today unless it comes in bad again.”

  “Flying?” Whicher says. “Flying where?”

  “I'll get to that,” the inspector says. “I just got done talking with Sheriff Dubois, back in Las Animas County. She sent the canine team up to Millersburg? This morning they found the body of Officer Kyle Guillory in the woods.”

  Whicher glances at the deer camp coat on the back of the chair. Guillory’s coat.

  “He was underneath a lot of snow,” the inspector says. “Close to a hunting cabin, a family place. They searched the whole area, they found tire tracks up some side-road in the forest. There was a bunch of drag marks, they sent the dog team in, they found a second body.”

  The marshal takes a turn around the room, phone clamped against his neck.

  “There was no ID on the second victim,” McBride says. “They lifted fingerprints, they had FBI run them through IAFIS. Half an hour ago, they got a hit on a Jimmy Scardino.”

  “Y’all know who he is?”

  “I don’t. But FBI in Chicago know him—he’s linked with organized crime.”

  Whicher waits for the inspector to go on.

  “So there’s more than one person involved here, somebody dragged this guy into the woods…”

  “There’s at least two,” Whicher says.

  “You know that?”

  “They used Guillory’s unit to come at us, at least two people were inside.”

  McBride grunts into the phone. “Colorado State Patrol found this guy Scardino’s car about ten miles away—by the side of a highway, a Toyota pickup.”

  “That was us.”

  “Come again?”

  “I found the pickup,” Whicher says. “It was in the woods when they took off. We drove it to a highway, to get out, to get away from Millersburg.”

  “They're throwing everything at this,” McBride says, “that’s for damn sure. They’ve killed two peace officers—it looks like they got to your witness last night. But here’s the next problem we have; she has a younger brother—also under protection. You need to head for the airport, right now. We need to move the brother. Today.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Outside the one room terminal building at McCook municipal airport, a truck sprays de-icer on the wing of a twin-prop plane.

  The liquid flares, showering against a sun high in the sky. No cloud. No precipitation. Nothing forecast till late in the afternoon.

  On the seat beside Whicher is Officer Kyle Guillory's winter coat, neatly folded.

  Lauren DeLuca’s been gone twelve hours.

  The marshal stares into the glare of light from the white-covered ground beyond the window. Tries to bring to mind anything he knows about his destination—Rapid City, South Dakota.

  Two hours later, FBI Agent Janice Rimes stands in arrivals at the regional airport in Rapid City. She looks up at him, five-three in a pair of Timberland boots.

  “Do you want to get a drink?” She's swamped inside a mountain fleece jacket, black ringlet hair, an asymmetrical face. Her eyes are bright, tough. “I mean, you look like you could use one.”

  She grins at him, lop-sided.

  The marshal eyes her from under the brim of his hat.

  “I'm not saying you look like a lush. You look like you could maybe use a shot. Know what I mean?”

  He doesn't answer.

  “Where you from? You know, you have melting snow on that big hat?”

  “Texas.”

  “You're going to freeze your longhorns off out here.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “So, no drink, no coffee. You all ready? You want to roll?”

  “I look ready?”

  She runs her eye fully up and down him. Twists her mouth. “Let's roll anyway.”

  Agent Janice Rimes steers the Chevy Cavalier down a loop road away from the city airport. “Your boss is coming up,” she says, “to South Dakota.”

  Whicher glances at her.

  “McBride,” she says.

  “You know when?”

  “This evening. Flying in from New Mexico.”

  Whicher scans the snow laying either side of a plowed highway. The road skirts south of the city, retail parks and sub-divisions just visible beyond the frozen trees. “He’s not my boss.”

  “Whatever,” Rimes says.

  “This here situation is a one-off.”

  “Well, he’s flying in, I’m supposed to take you out, find the brother
.”

  Beyond the roadway, the ground rises in long sparse grades—condominiums dotting the outlying hills.

  “Tell me about him,” Whicher says.

  Rimes signals, moves lanes to pass a slowing logging truck shifting down for the drag.

  “FBI offered protection back in Chicago,” she says. “Under the victim support program. Marshals Service ran with it, Anthony being young it was a struggle to get him placed.”

  “Is he a witness,” Whicher says, “as well as being related?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  “You spend any time with the kid?”

  “Almost never.”

  Whicher looks at her.

  Rimes shrugs. “They told him where he could relocate—the places they could find for him. He picked this. Chicago FBI made contact with our field office. We’re responsible for the western quarter of the state. We said okay.”

  The marshal lets his gaze run out to the Black Hills, thoughts forming, stringing themselves together; like a chain pulled from dark water.

  Fifty miles west of the airport, a forest road runs through high woods—dense pine on the hillside throwing day-long shade.

  Snow is in the road, a bank fallen from a cut through the rock. It’s spread, piled thick, covering the asphalt for thirty yards.

  Agent Rimes slows the car, moves the shifter down on the transmission.

  “Think we could get through that?” Whicher says.

  “There’s no other way up.”

  The car hits the snow on the road. The wheels start to spin.

  The grade is steep, the vehicle sinks, Rimes comes off the gas, bangs her hands against the wheel.

  “Tell me you got a snow shovel?” Whicher says.

  “In the trunk.” She lets the car stop. Moves the shifter into park.

  Whicher eases out from the passenger seat, steps around to the back of the car. Opening the trunk hatch, he sees the folded snow shovel, takes it out.

  Rimes lights a cigarette, steps out to stand by the hood.

  Whicher opens out the shovel, starts to clear snow from under a front tire. “How much further?”

  “About another ten,” she says.

  “Ten more miles?”

  “The county was looking to keep all the roads open...”

  Whicher digs around the tire, body warming, sweat breaking at his brow. “How high are we?”

  “I don't know. Six.”

  “What makes a kid from Chicago want to live out on a horse ranch in the Black Hills of Dakota?”

  Rimes takes a draw on the cigarette. “How do I know?”

  Whicher moves around to the other side of the car, the smell of smoke sharp against the dense sap in the air.

  “Chicago are going nuts over this,” Agent Rimes says. “The sister’s considered a flight-risk.”

  Whicher drives the tip of the shovel hard against the road.

  “FBI and the DA suspect her of concealing evidence. Plus possible concealment of assets.”

  “Assets?” Whicher says. “As in—money?”

  Agent Rimes puts the cigarette to her mouth. “As in.” She takes a pull.

  Whicher pauses, looks up from the wheel. “The DA and the Chicago FBI thought she might try to run?”

  Rimes stamps her feet up and down in the road.

  The marshal scrapes the edge of the shovel against the tire.

  “People I’ve talked to in Chicago think she could’ve stashed away enough to make a go of it,” Rimes says.

  “People?”

  “Bureau people. If she has money, she could wind up anyplace.”

  Whicher lets the thought sit.

  “She could make another life.” Rimes grins. “Someplace warm.”

  The marshal stands, steps back from the hood. “You want to give it a try? Keep the revs low, inch out.”

  “Tex,” she says. “I'm from South Dakota.”

  He tips back his hat.

  “We know about snow. Driving in snow.”

  “Y'all know how to handle a shovel?”

  She winks at him, flips her cigarette onto the ground. Gets in behind the wheel.

  “Why hold back evidence?” Whicher says.

  “Insurance, maybe?” The FBI agent puts the car into drive. “Something to bargain with in case she needs it in the future.”

  She raises the revs, the tires grip, then spin.

  She lets the car roll back, tries again, the same maneuver three times, four.

  She shuts off the motor, steps out.

  “You carry chains?” Whicher says.

  Rimes spreads her palms. “It's out of the pool at the law enforcement center. I don’t know.”

  Whicher walks back around to the trunk.

  Underneath a liner is a jack, a wheel wrench, a spare tire. No chains. A length of rope is coiled by the wheel arch, a tow rope.

  Rimes looks at him over the roof of the car. “Do you think she's dead?”

  Whicher doesn't answer.

  “I'd hate to be the one that has to tell Anthony...”

  Whicher stretches the tow rope between both hands, holding out a foot-long length. “Put your lighter under that.”

  Rimes fishes out her cigarette lighter. She sparks a flame, holds it under the mid-point of the rope. “Tell me about the sister?”

  The marshal watches black smoke then flame taking hold of the nylon strands.

  “You know, there was quite the rumor mill about her,” Rimes says. “She’s hot, right? Half the guys on the case in Chicago took more than a professional interest...”

  Whicher pulls the rope into two pieces. “You ever meet her?”

  “I went up to Chicago,” Rimes says, “to pick up Anthony, escort him here. I didn't meet her, but I saw her.”

  “Is Anthony safe?” Whicher says.

  The FBI agent presses her lips together.

  “I mean, right now?”

  “Nobody in the office has been able to speak with him.” Rimes looks around. “It’s not easy country out here. You can’t just whistle a person up. As soon as I heard Anthony had to be moved, I telephoned this morning. I spoke with the owner of the ranch.”

  Whicher eyes her.

  “Anthony wasn't there—I mean, not to hand, not at the ranch. They said they'd have him call back.”

  “That's how y’all left it?”

  “My boss told me to come get you, cowboy.”

  Whicher thrusts the melted ends of the rope into the snow. “And he didn’t get back?”

  Rimes steps to the car, leans in, picks the radio off the hook on the dash.

  Whicher moves to the front of the Chevy, squats at a wheel.

  A static hiss bursts from the radio.

  “Dispatch,” a voice says.

  “Agent Rimes, FBI. Can I get a line to my office?”

  “Switch to channel two,” the dispatcher says. “I'll try for you.”

  The marshal threads a length of rope through the wheel’s alloy rim. He pulls the rope over the tire, against the tread.

  The radio's silent, nobody picking up.

  Whicher threads the rope through the next open lug in the rim.

  “Nobody's answering,” Rimes says. She replaces the radio transmitter. “I can try ‘em again, later.”

  The marshal weaves the rope around, ties off the ends. He moves on to the next tire, starts over again.

  “That a rope chain?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Pretty neat.”

  “Army trick,” he says. “You want to get in? See if we can get this moving?”

  He finishes lashing the rope to the tire and rim.

  She starts the motor, shifts into drive.

  The tires bite, pull the Chevy forward, the car picks up momentum.

  She drives thirty yards to where the road’s clear again.

  Whicher runs forward, throws the shovel into the trunk.

  Rimes pushes open the door, leans out. “Nice goin', Tex.”

  He stoo
ps to the front wheels. “I’ll get these off, case we need ‘em again.”

  “Tell me something,” she says. “Chicago told us you picked up Anthony's sister out at the Raton Pass. The train she was traveling on collided with a car?”

  The marshal works his fingers into the cold, wet rope.

  “Some folk think it might not be what it seemed,” Rimes says. “Folk in Chicago.”

  Whicher strips the rope out from the tire. “You going to fill me in?”

  “Maybe it was a set-up.”

  The marshal stops. He leans out, where he can see her.

  “You know?”

  “No,” he says. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The train colliding. Like it did. Maybe she had somebody park a car across that rail line. Maybe it was her set the whole thing up?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Janice Rimes stares out from behind the wheel—focused on the climbing, twisting, two-lane.

  In the passenger seat, Whicher thinks of thirty hours with Lauren DeLuca. Thirty hours trying to keep her alive.

  Beyond the windshield, glare and shade mark the road ahead. The marshal searches in his mind, back along the trail of moments with Lauren; snatches of conversation, images flashing half-seen—striated, like the light through the trees.

  Ahead is a junction with a forest track—a galvanized sign standing proud at the side of the road: Tigerville—Mystic.

  “That a place?” Whicher says.

  “It was. An old mining camp.” Rimes cuts him a look. “Beyond Mystic, where we’re headed.”

  The road crests a rise before leveling. A quarter-mile section stretches out.

  White-over mounds mark the stumps of trees where the ground has been logged. A crossbeam and twin uprights form the gateway to a property—a ranch.

  Agent Rimes slows, lifts a hand from the wheel. “Right there...”

  “Anthony lives out here?”

  “They have horses, a bunch of trails,” Rimes says. “People come up to ride.”

  She turns the car from the road, steers through the lodge pole gateway.

  Through the steep-sided gulley, a low sun throws shadows across the slopes. Boulders lie among the patches of scree and snow. Where the gully opens out, the Ponderosa are cut to form enclosed pastures—high meadow surrounded by forest, all of it blanketed white.