Deception Cove

by Owen Laukkanen

“I’d rather be looking at a body, Dale, and I don’t see one.” Harwood turned and stalked past Whitmer and out through the empty room to the parking lot. Pulled out his phone and made a call. “Bryce.”

  “No sign of them,” Whitmer’s brother reported. “I kept my eyes open, but I ain’t seen hide or hair of that Winslow bitch since last night.”

  “Well, she isn’t here, either,” Harwood told him. “They got a motel room, but they didn’t stay long. They’re on the move again, and I need you stopping everyone who passes by your place.”

  Whitmer snorted. “On whose authority? You never did bother to formally deputize me.”

  “You have a gun, don’t you? Flag ’em down and search ’em, damn it.”

  “Okay, boss. Whatever you say.”

  “Find them, Bryce,” Harwood said. “Shit.”

  He ended the call. Slid the phone into his pocket and turned back to the motel room. He’d have to head back inside and drag Dale out, get back on the road, search the rest of the town on the off chance Jess and Burke were still here. But then his cell buzzed in his pocket, played its electronic tune. Incoming call.

  “You forget something, Bryce?” Harwood said, answering.

  A beat. “Good morning, deputy.” This was Okafor, his voice soft and smooth and lethal. “Have you recovered my merchandise?”

  Harwood turned, slow. Took a couple of steps out into the lot. Wet his lips. “Ah, we’re working on it, Mr. Okafor. Getting close. I got a real solid lead.”

  Okafor chuckled. “Ah,” he said. “A solid lead.”

  “That’s right. We’ll track it down soon, sir. I can promise you that.”

  “I certainly believe you,” Okafor replied. “But just in case you do not, I will need to meet with you and your men this evening. Say, five o’clock?”

  Harwood felt suddenly sick. “It isn’t the end of the month yet. We still have two days to keep working on this.”

  “I understand, Deputy, but I’m losing confidence in your ability to handle my business. Perhaps the search will go smoother if I provide some assistance.”

  Harwood said nothing. His mouth was dry again.

  “Five o’clock,” Okafor repeated. “I’ll come to you, Deputy.”

  Okafor ended the call before Harwood could reply. He stood there in the center of the lot for a while, his phone to his ear. Stood there until Dale came out of the room behind him, walked up, circled him, looked at him funny. “You all right?”

  Harwood lowered the phone. “No, I’m not all right, Dale,” he said. “And neither are you. We’re all of us in some really deep shit.”

  * * *

  Bryce Whitmer set down his phone and stared across the front porch at the highway beyond. He’d been up all night, Kirby’s orders, keeping himself upright on Red Bulls and strong coffee, a gram of crank for when his eyelids got really heavy. He’d sat on his front porch with his guns close at hand, a Colt Python .357 revolver on the little table with the crank and the coffee beside him, a Bushmaster XM-15 across his lap. Wasn’t much going past on that highway out there, hadn’t been much the whole night. A few cars, an SUV or two, a couple of newer pickups, and a Shell tanker truck. Nothing that rang any alarms in Bryce’s head, nothing that even remotely resembled the Winslow bitch and her boyfriend.

  Bryce had been looking. Now he just wanted to crash for a while.

  But Harwood and Dale hadn’t flushed them out of Neah Bay yet, and that meant the bitch was still at large. Whitmer downed the last of his coffee. Stood up and gathered the Python and the crank, holstered the revolver and hoovered the last of the good stuff. Shouldered his rifle and walked down to the driveway, where his own Ram Heavy Duty sat parked.

  Flag ’em down and search ’em.

  Shit.

  Whitmer climbed in behind the wheel, fired the truck up. Put her in reverse and backed down the driveway toward the highway. He’d almost made blacktop when something crossed his rearview, a vehicle headed east, away from Neah Bay.

  “Damn it.” Whitmer stopped the truck, climbed out with his rifle, ran for the road. It was another SUV, he saw, a black Chevy Blazer. He couldn’t see inside, but when he walked out to the center line, he caught a glimpse through the rear window, saw one head sticking up and it belonged to the driver. No one else in the vehicle. Couldn’t be them.

  His heart revving to redline in his chest, Whitmer returned to the Ram. Shifted back into reverse, eased it onto the highway, and left it parked perpendicular to the flow of traffic, blocking the eastbound lane. Then he climbed out of the truck again, taking his rifle with him. Circled around to the passenger side and leaned against the door, looking westbound up the highway, rifle at the ready.

  Flag ’em and search ’em.

  So be it.

  Twenty-Seven

  Jess peered up from the floor of the Blazer. “Did we make it?”

  Burke’s mouth was a thin line as he drove. He glanced in the rearview. “Not sure yet,” he said. “That old boy was out there when we passed, and he had a pretty big rifle in his hands when he came to take a look at us.”

  “I guess I’ll stay down a little longer, then,” Jess said, pulling Lucy closer.

  Burke said, “I think that’d be wise.”

  Jess stayed on the floor, her arms around the dog, as Burke navigated the road into Deception Cove and out the other side. Lucy wasn’t much for car rides; she panted nonstop, drooled a small lake, and licked Jess’s face obsessively whenever she made the tactical error of coming within range.

  “It’s okay, girl,” Jess told her. “We’re almost through, I promise.”

  Lucy licked at her face again, regarded her with worried eyes, clearly unconvinced.

  Finally Jess felt the Blazer slow, though she could see only treetops from her vantage point. The road got rough; she could hear gravel pinging the underside of the truck, and she surmised that Burke had found the forestry main line. He stopped the truck.

  “Should be all clear now,” he said.

  She sat up, the muscles in her legs protesting. Leaned forward and pushed the passenger seat up, released the door, and managed to slip out to fresh air without tripping on the seat belt and falling on her face. She stretched, breathed in deep, the damp, loamy smell of the rain forest, the sun, actual sun, on her face.

  Then she came around the front of the Blazer to Burke’s side. “Okay, out,” she told him. “It’s my turn to drive.”

  He frowned but said nothing.

  “This road’s bound to be muddy,” she said. “When’s the last time you drove a four-by-four, Burke?”

  A pause. “Been a while.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, I’m sick of being chauffeured. Your turn.” She hooked her thumb. “Out.”

  Burke smiled a little bit and did what she said. He went around to the passenger side and made himself comfortable while she adjusted the seat and the steering wheel.

  “Right,” she said, shifting back into gear. “So how far up this road are we headed?”

  “Past the big clear-cut” was Burke’s only input, then up a side road. Jess set the trip monitor anyway, watched the miles count up. The road was in decent shape, actually; it had been graded recently and didn’t show signs of too many washouts. She made good time, encountered no other drivers. Found the front of the clear-cut within five miles and the back end another mile past, a spur road heading up into the bush just beyond it.

  “Must be up this way,” she said, and Burke grunted in agreement like the world’s most stoic GPS. She turned the wheel and pressed the gas.

  The road got shitty real fast from there. It could hardly be called a road, more a pair of twin trails through the brush. The woods got denser, encroaching on all sides, and winter runoff gutted the tracks, sending the Blazer yawing this way and that, forcing Jess to take things extra slow.

  Five minutes of this and Lucy crawled over the center console and into the front seat, dropping herself unceremoniously into Burke’s lap. She exhaled a long, put-upon si
gh and stuck her nose in the gap between the seat and the passenger door.

  Burke groaned. “Dang, you’re a heavy dog,” he said, but when Jess glanced over, she could see he was smiling. He had his arms around her, stroking her flank.

  “She’s a big, fat baby, all right,” Jess said. “If you weren’t in the truck, she’d be crawling on my lap.”

  It took twenty minutes of climbing on that muddy trail before the land leveled out and the grade eased off. Jess guessed if the overgrowth weren’t so dense, you could probably look out and see Deception Cove and the water, but as it was, you could barely see sky, much less make out where you stood in the grand scheme of things.

  Whatever this road had been used for, the rain forest had reclaimed all but the bare basics. Tall pines and Douglas firs, western red cedar, spruce, deadfall draped with lush carpets of moss, ferns of all variations. This was a primeval place; it was quiet here, it was wet, and it was alive. This was what she’d missed when she was overseas. Even after she’d quit missing Ty and quit missing her town, the rain forest had kept her homesick, and Jess imagined it always would.

  You can’t leave this place, she thought. You can’t let those boys drive you out of here. You’ll never survive somewhere else.

  The time for that decision had come and gone already anyway. She was into it now, and she’d brought Burke along with her. One way or the other, they’d be seeing this through.

  She was contemplating this notion when the road widened out and the forest grew lighter by a degree or two. Up ahead, lodged in between the tall trees, she saw signs of humanity: a collection of trailers, a vehicle. A mountain of junk she couldn’t begin to identify. The whole spread looked deserted, abandoned. It looked like a mess, and Jess knew better than to be surprised.

  “Yep, this was Ty’s space,” she said, stopping the truck. “Let’s go poke around, and maybe we get lucky.”

  * * *

  Mason and Jess split up. Not on purpose, just kind of wandered off in different directions. Jess took Lucy along the left side of the little clearing, toward a couple of moldy, mossed-out trailers on the fringes of the forest. Mason bore right, toward the rusted-to-shit carcass of a Jeep Wagoneer and a couple of burst-open bags of trash, mostly fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes. There was a trailer back there too, looked in slightly better condition than the two by Jess. A couple more cars scattered around.

  The whole place stank of cat piss and something chemical. It overpowered the smell of the rain forest such that Mason could taste it whenever he breathed. The ground was mud and pine needles, and there were tracks in the mud, boots and tires.

  Mason didn’t see anything that looked worth killing over. He figured if Ty Winslow had brought the spoils up here, whatever they were, he would have had to hide them somewhere dry, protect them from the elements. Hell, it was already raining again, that irritating drizzle that wormed under your jacket if you let the hood down but wasn’t cold enough to not make things claustrophobic with the hood up. Mason left the hood down—he couldn’t hear with it up—but he didn’t like the idea. He was running out of dry things to wear.

  He was halfway to the third trailer, the one in the far back, when the kid stepped out from behind the junked Lincoln Continental, holding the pistol. “That’s about far enough,” he said. “Don’t you come any closer.”

  He was young, early twenties maybe. A shock of blond hair underneath a dirty ball cap. Rail thin, acne scarred, his eyes wide, his movements electric. High on something, Mason surmised, and that didn’t bode well.

  “Now hold on,” he said, keeping his hands where the kid could see them. “I don’t mean any trouble.”

  “This is private property,” the kid replied. His voice was as shaky as his gun hand. “I’m within my rights to shoot you. Best you leave before it comes to that.”

  He kept the pistol aimed in Mason’s direction, though his hand swayed enough that he had Mason in his sights only about half the time. But that didn’t make Mason feel much better.

  “I just have a couple of questions,” he said, slow. “You answer them for me, and I’ll be on my way.”

  The kid’s lip curled. “Does this sound like a negotiation?” He took a couple of steps forward. Turned the pistol sideways, Hollywood style. “I’m telling you, get off my property or I’m gonna shoot you.”

  “Are you going to shoot me, too?” That was Jess, come out from in between the two dingy trailers. She carried the shotgun with her and had Lucy by her side. “And the dog?”

  The kid spun, waved the gun around in her direction. “You ain’t got but one gun between the both of you,” he said. “I’m supposed to be scared?”

  Jess gestured at Mason with the shotgun. “Burke over there just finished doing fifteen years for first-degree murder, and he’s never pulled a trigger in his life. He doesn’t need to be armed to mess your shit up, kid.”

  The kid looked at Mason. Swallowed a little, wet his lips.

  “And this dog beside me is mighty protective,” Jess continued. “She’ll tear your throat out soon as you make a move.”

  Now the kid looked at Lucy, who stood at attention beside Jess, watching him, her ears cocked. The dog wasn’t pissed off yet, Mason could tell, probably thought this was some kind of game—but the kid didn’t need to know that.

  “You’ll get one of us, sure,” Jess said, and her voice was dead calm. “You won’t get us all. And if it’s me you decide you want to take down, you’ll want to make sure your aim’s good.” She leveled the shotgun at his chest. “Because if I have any life left in me after you pull the trigger, I’ll perforate your shit on my way to the ground, you hear?”

  The kid stared at her. Swung the pistol around, wild, toward an approximation of where Mason was standing, then back to Lucy and Jess. “Who the fuck are you guys?” he asked. “What do you want?”

  “That over there is Burke, like I said,” Jess told him. “The dog’s name is Lucy, and mine is Jess Winslow, and if we’re in the right place, I believe this whole sorry compound belonged to my husband.”

  The kid’s eyes got wider. “Ty?”

  “The very same.”

  “Shit,” the kid said. “Ty—he told me all this was mine if anything happened. You can’t just come up here and take—”

  “I don’t want it,” Jess said. “What I want is to clear up a few things about my dead husband, and it sounds like you might be the guy who can help. Now, are you going to put the gun away and we can talk, or do we have to keep measuring our dicks in this rain?”

  The kid made to talk. Stopped. Started again. “You first.”

  Jess lowered the shotgun. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  The kid gave another beat. Closed his eyes, like he was so messed up he was trying to remember. Messed up, or scared shitless.

  “Rengo,” he said.

  “Rengo, all right.” Jess gestured at the trailer behind him. “Invite us inside, Rengo, and let’s talk for a while.”

  Twenty-Eight

  They found the truck around two in the afternoon. Dale spotted it—that ugly puke-green paint job—poking out from behind a little one-stall mechanic’s shop on the highway into the Makah reservation.

  There was someone working underneath an old Buick in the service bay. Harwood walked in, stood by the bumper, Dale right beside him.

  “Where are they?” he said.

  There was a pause, and the sound of the man setting down his tools. Then he rolled out on a little trolley, looked up at them from the floor.

  “Beg your pardon?” he said.

  He was an older guy, Native. Salt-and-pepper goatee, ditto for the hair. Going soft around the middle, but his eyes were still hard. The name on his coveralls said DAVIS.

  “Jess Winslow and that convict she’s running with,” Harwood said. “The two who gave you that truck in the back. Don’t play dumb with me.”

  “That old Chev in the back?” Davis wiped his brow. “I t
hink someone’s misled you, Deputy. That truck’s mine.”

  “Bullshit it is. That truck’s been used in the commission of a crime. Hand me the keys, and I’ll take it off your hands.”

  Davis held his gaze. “You got a warrant?”

  Harwood stared at him, speechless.

  “You got to have a warrant, don’t you, being as you came all the way from Deception for that truck,” Davis said. “So you all show me the paperwork and you can do what you please, but until then—”

  “How about a big fucking gun?” Dale Whitmer, beside Harwood, his hand on his holster. “How’s that for your warrant?”

  Davis said nothing. Something moved in the back of the shop, and two more men appeared. Younger than Davis—bigger, too—but definitely his kin. One of the men held a torque wrench. The other held a goddamn camera phone, and it was aimed straight at Harwood.

  “You sure you want to go that route, Deputies?” Davis asked from the floor, his voice still infuriatingly easy. “Going to have a hell of a time explaining why two Deception Cove lawmen shot up an unarmed civilian on Indian land, aren’t you?”

  Harwood looked at the camera phone. The man aiming it at him smiled a little.

  “This is obstruction of justice,” Harwood said. “This is a mistake, what you’re doing here. You’re making one hell of a mistake.”

  “That may well be,” Davis replied. “And I suppose I’ll find out, one way or the other. But until you all have a warrant, Deputies, I’ll ask you kindly to step back off my property. I’ve got work that needs doing.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, slid back under the Buick again, and Harwood heard him pick up his tools. The man with the camera phone hadn’t moved, though, and neither had the other, with the wrench.

  “Son of a bitch.” Harwood spun on his heel, stalked out of the shop. Crossed to his truck and fired up the engine. Whitmer climbed in beside.

  “So what does this mean?” Whitmer asked as Harwood shifted into gear.

  “What does it mean?” Harwood repeated, gunning the engine and launching out of the mechanic’s lot. “It means Winslow and that asshole swapped out their ride. Means they probably slipped past the farm without your brother seeing, which means if they have any sense, they got the hell gone from Deception Cove and probably from this whole fucking county.” He slammed on the steering wheel. “Shit.”