Shadow Dragon

by Horton, Lance

  After they had returned from Montana, Kyle and Lewis had spent days questioning the family, friends, and coworkers of the victims in an effort to dig up leads on people who might have had a reason to kill the men. They had reviewed the backgrounds of the men and interviewed dozens of employees at the three body shops that James Darrell owned, but they had yet to find anything that suggested the murders had been committed by anyone working there.

  Darrell had been the sole proprietor of the business, and therefore, no one outside of his wife, Bobbi, stood to gain anything from his murder. According to everyone they had interviewed, Darrell and his wife had been happily married for thirty-one years.

  Kyle knew she didn’t have anything to do with it simply from the look of utter devastation on her face the first time they had met with her. It was a look he had grown accustomed to seeing over the past few years.

  Kyle followed her into the living room. It was tastefully decorated in warm earth tones, with a watercolor of the Pacific Northwest coastline hanging above the fireplace. Several photo albums lay on the coffee table along with a box of Kleenex. Videotapes with handwritten labels that read “Wedding Video” and “Paris” and “Christmas ’03” were scattered across the floor in front of the TV.

  Bobbi picked up the rumpled afghan lying on the sofa and folded it. She laid it across one of the arms before she sat down. Her movements were slow, mechanical.

  Without sitting, Kyle took the small envelope from his pocket. Bobbi looked at it for a moment as if afraid to touch it and then slowly held out a trembling hand. Kyle gently handed her the envelope. She opened it, and then tilted it upward so that the contents slid out into the palm of her other hand.

  The only thing they had recovered of James Darrell had been his severed left hand. In spite of evidence to the contrary, a part of Bobbi had clung to the hope that her husband might still be found alive. But now, looking at the gold wedding band in her hand, it was as if the finality of his death suddenly hit home.

  “No,” she whimpered, clutching the ring against her chest as she burst into tears.

  Kyle sat next to her, and she slumped against him, sobbing. He held her gently, waiting until she cried herself out.

  Finally, with tears streaking her face and her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, she leaned back and looked at him. “What am I to do now?”

  Not knowing what else to say to her, Kyle said, “We’ll find out who did this. I promise you.” It was the best he could do.

  They had yet to locate Larry Henderson, and determining his whereabouts, whether dead or alive, was currently their top priority. It had been almost two weeks since the murders, and more and more, it was beginning to appear that either Henderson had killed the other men and then disappeared, or else he was also dead. The border patrol had been provided with photographs and descriptions of Henderson. With the cooperation of the media outlets, his photo had been printed in the newspapers and broadcast on the evening news in virtually every city in the Pacific Northwest. He had also been featured on the FBI’s “missing persons” website.

  The report from the behavioral profiling team in Quantico—while not ruling out that the murders could have been committed by an individual staying with the men—had suggested that the crime had most likely been committed by a small group of people. The serial killer theory didn’t fit the pattern, because almost all serial killers acted alone and their victims were predominately female. Also, it seemed unlikely that a single individual could have overpowered four grown men—at least one of which had been armed.

  All indications were that the attack had come swiftly, in a militaristic strike, perhaps by a paramilitary group like the Montana Freemen or other domestic terrorists. Marasco, with the assistance of the sheriff’s office, was in the process of investigating those organizations that fit the profile, but so far, he had not managed to come up with anything substantial.

  After he promised to keep her informed of the status of the case, Kyle returned to the car as more of the cold rain fell on him.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, he used his hand to brush the water from his hair. He then took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial number for Angela. He got her voice mail. “Hey, Angela, just called to see how things are going. Give me a call when you get a chance. I could use the sound of a friendly voice.”

  Kyle sighed as he hung up. It had been at least a week since they had talked, and then only briefly. With both of them having such hectic schedules, they kept missing each other. Fortunately, Angela was in the last year of her residency. Once she finished, the plan was for her to move to Seattle, but Kyle had sensed something different about her lately. She had seemed more distant and aloof when they had talked, as if she was having second thoughts.

  He flipped down the visor and looked at the picture of Angela he kept there. He had taken it on a catamaran trip from Cancun to Cozumel. Her head was tilted back as she laughed, her golden hair shimmering in the sunlight. Even though he wasn’t an experienced sailor—he had never owned anything over twelve feet long—it was still a dream of his to buy a sailboat someday and to move to the southern coast of California or maybe Florida. At times like this, he would look at that picture and imagine himself and Angela on the deck of his boat, basking in the warmth of the midday sun while Jimmy Buffett played in the background.

  After he started up the car, he turned on the heater and sat there while the drizzle trickled down the windshield.

  CHAPTER 10

  Denver

  “To Brandi!” someone called out, and everyone at the table lifted their glasses for at least the third time in the last hour. Carrie joined them in the toast, careful not to spill any of her green apple martini. There were eight or ten people from the office around the table, all gathered to give Brandi Utley a fond farewell—but mostly to take advantage of the boss’s open tab. They were in a trendy, new bar in Lodo called Lime Bar, which was a few blocks from their office and just down the street from Coors Field.

  True to its name, virtually everything in the bar, including the walls, was painted a brilliant lime green. The exception was the furniture, which consisted of white plastic tables and chairs that looked like something straight out of the sixties. Large flat screens were mounted around the bar, showing an endless loop of computer-animated images.

  Brandi was one of the graphic artists on the staff. She had just gotten a job with a big advertising firm in LA, and tomorrow was her last day. Brandi was one of the more colorful characters in the office, quite literally. She wore dark eyeliner, had a nose ring and a pierced tongue, and wore her short, spiky hair in virtually every color of the rainbow, depending on her mood.

  Across the table from her, Charlie ordered another vodka and Red Bull. It was his fourth or fifth one, and it was beginning to show. He seemed to be vacillating between morose and loud and obnoxious. Although he had never said anything, Carrie could tell Charlie had a crush on Brandi—in spite of the fact that she was a lesbian—and although he was trying to hide it, he was clearly distraught.

  Then Carrie caught a glimpse of someone across the bar that caused her heart to freeze. The place was so dark that she wasn’t sure, but she thought she had seen Bret. The guy picked up his beer from the bar, turned around, and leaned against the counter, his face lighting up briefly in the ever-shifting light. It wasn’t him. Carrie quietly sighed in relief. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she had spent the entire evening watching for him, afraid of running into him, even though she knew he would never come to a place like this.

  She checked her watch. It was a little after 9:30. She decided she had had enough fun for the evening. She leaned over and thanked Allan for the drinks and told him she was going home.

  “Are you sure?” He practically yelled to be heard over the loud music. “You know I told everyone they don’t have to come in until ten tomorrow.”

  “I know,” Carrie yelled back, issuing a fake yawn. “But I’m getting tired, and I need to go check on my cat.”


  “All right, you be careful now,” he said with a pat on her arm.

  Carrie stood and waved at Brandi across the table, wishing her luck in LA. Brandi blew her a kiss and winked mischievously.

  Carrie was still smiling as she walked outside. She loved working with the quirky but talented staff that Allan had put together. There was a youthful energy and a sense of family about the place that she knew would be missing at any of the big papers. That was why she had turned down the offer from the Post.

  Her car was parked along the curb on the same side of the street about a half a block down. As she neared, she pushed the button on her remote. The horn bleeped twice, and the yellow turn signal lights blinked as the door unlocked. She was about to open the door when someone behind her said, “Carrie.”

  It was Bret. She didn’t know where he had come from; he had just appeared from the darkened shadows beside the building. He’s been there waiting for me all this time.

  “Bret, what are you doing?” she asked, trying not to sound terrified.

  “Me?” he said. “What the fuck are you doing? You going out, getting drunk, looking to get laid? Is that it? If that’s what you want, I can give you that.” He spoke quickly, excitedly, as if he was jacked up on something.

  He was upon her before she could even think to do anything. He grabbed her and squeezed her arms painfully as he tried to kiss her. His wild eyes shone with an unnatural light. His breath stank of booze and cigarettes.

  Carrie tied to pull away, but his grip was too tight. She could feel his fingers grinding against the bones in her arms. She gasped in pain, but this only seemed to excite him. He tried to turn her, to pin her against the car. They were illuminated in the headlights of an approaching car.

  Please … stop. Please stop, Carrie’s mind begged, but the car continued on, tooting its horn as it passed as if in encouragement.

  Carrie continued to struggle against Bret, trying to push him away. “No,” she stammered, more of a plea than a command.

  Finally, the frustration became too much for him. Bret shoved her explosively, the palms of his hands slamming into her chest. She stumbled backward and fell, scuffing her hands on the pavement as she tried to catch herself.

  Before she could gather herself, he was coming at her again, his hands clenched in rage. She knew what was coming, and she turned her head in anticipation of the blows.

  Someone coming out of the bar called out, “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Bret looked their way and then turned and took off, disappearing down the darkened alley.

  Carrie picked herself up off the street as two guys came running around the car.

  “Are you okay?” one of them asked.

  “Yeah … I think so,” Carrie said dazedly.

  One of the guys put his hand on her arm to help her. She flinched in pain and jerked away and then quickly climbed into her car. She didn’t want anyone touching her.

  Inside the car, she locked the doors and sat there as she struggled to catch her breath. She felt like she was going to puke.

  CHAPTER 11

  Montana

  Five miles south of Poulson on Highway 93, the Flathead County sheriff’s Yukon slowed as it neared the Salish-Kootenai People’s Center. It was easy to miss if one wasn’t looking for it among the string of billboards for lakeside campgrounds, antique stores, business parks, and car dealerships, or one of the numerous new casinos that had sprung up along the road since he had last been here. Sheriff Greyhawk looked out the window, his cold gray eyes expressionless as he passed the large tepee set up alongside the highway for the benefit of the tourists. It had been many years since he had been here, and he might never have returned had it not been for the call from someone claiming to have information about the Hungry Horse murders.

  The past week and a half had been spent chasing down leads in relation to the killings only to be frustrated time and time again as they all proved fruitless. To make matters worse, a local man had disappeared while he had been skiing last week. Search teams had been organized, and his car had been found at a lookout point near Swan Lake; however, they had yet to find any trace of him. While it wasn’t uncommon for someone to become lost or wounded in the wilderness, the man had been an experienced skier, and there had not been any sudden storms that might have caught him unprepared. His disappearance had only served to fuel the growing paranoia among the area residents. Leads had been pouring in from all over the valley, people reporting everything from a headless skier to Bigfoot himself.

  George felt certain this one, like all the others, would turn out to be nothing as well, but when he had seen the name of the person claiming to have information, he had decided to check it out personally.

  The reservation wasn’t in Flathead County, and therefore, it wasn’t under his jurisdiction; however, because he knew the caller, he hadn’t bothered to request permission from the Lake County authorities. There was no law prohibiting a county sheriff from visiting his grandmother.

  Just past the visitor center, he turned off the highway onto a gravel road. A collection of rundown trailer houses wedged between the visitor center and a lumber company formed a small neighborhood of a sort. A group of mangy dogs ran loose, barking and snapping at each other while several kids played in the dirty snow. As George made his way down the road, he fought to keep the memories of his childhood here at bay. Things had been a lot different back them.

  At the end of the block, he pulled up in front of one of the houses, a faded, yellow-gold one with aluminum foil covering the windows. Up close, it was evident that the place, like most of the others in the area, was in serious disrepair.

  The view beyond the trailer was that of a large, sheet-metal barn and a junkyard full of discarded refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, and dryers, all of which were slowly rusting away, their doors hanging open or missing entirely.

  As he got out of the truck, George noticed a thin young boy he guessed to be about fifteen or sixteen standing in the doorway and watching him. George was certain the boy was his cousin, Joseph, but he had just been a baby when George had left the reservation. He didn’t see him as a cousin. To George, he was just his aunt’s son. The boy opened the door as he approached. His hands trembled slightly, and his eyes darted about nervously as George walked up. In spite of the cold, a fine sheen of greasy sweat covered the boy’s face. The muscles in his jaw twitched, and he licked his dry, cracked lips incessantly.

  George was sure the boy was on crystal meth. On the reservation, addiction among the younger generation had been a big problem for years, and it didn’t appear to be getting any better in spite of the anti-drug programs and frequent busts.

  With a dejected sigh, George pushed past the boy. Inside, incense burned in a holder on top of the TV and filled the room with its cloying scent.

  “She … she’s in the back room,” the boy stammered.

  George stepped through the living room and down the narrow hall to the small bedroom at the back. A curtain of colored beads hung across the doorway. George paused for a moment and then parted the beads and stepped inside. The room was musty and smelled of urine.

  His grandmother lay on her back, her eyes closed. Her breathing was faint and shallow. Her brown, wizened skin gave her face the appearance of an apple that had been left in the sun to dry and shrivel. Thin wisps of silvery-white hair spread across the yellowed pillowcase.

  “It has been a long time, Little Hawk.” Even after so many years, the voice was still the same. He looked down and found her half-open, rheumy eyes looking up at him.

  “It has.”

  “Sit.” She lifted her frail arm to point at the wooden chair beside the bed.

  George sat down and waited for her to speak.

  “I did not know if you would come,” she said.

  “I almost didn’t. Why did you call?”

  “I know what killed those men at Hungry Horse.”

  George remained silent. He knew that when the
call had come in, she had professed to have information about the murders, but he had suspected it was just her way of asking him back. He knew that her health was failing and that she refused to be treated by any doctors. She was steadfastly loyal to the old ways of the tribe, clinging to the last remnants of her heritage to the very end. The same headstrong refusal to accept the modern world had kept his mother from going through with the cancer treatments that could have saved her life. After his mother had died, George left the reservation. Today was the first time he had returned in over fifteen years.

  “Coyote came to me in a dream,” she said. “He came to tell me the monsters have returned to the mountains.”

  George remembered the stories from his youth. Coyote was the wisest of all of the Great Spirit’s creatures, left to watch over all the other animals when the Great Spirit returned to his home in the sky. He could remember sitting on the floor of his grandmother’s house in the middle of winter, listening raptly while she taught the children the legends of their tribe. That was long ago. He had been so young that he didn’t remember the stories, just the sense of warm feelings and happiness.

  Perhaps because she knew he had forgotten the old stories or perhaps because she wanted to tell them to him one more time, his grandmother began speaking.

  “Many ages ago,” she said, “two monsters lived in the mountains. On windy nights, the sound of their howling could be heard all the way down in the valley. During the long winters, when food became scarce, the monsters would come down the mountain in search of food. They would kill some of the tribe’s people, carrying their bodies high into the mountains where they would eat them. One day, the members of the tribe came to Coyote and asked him to protect them from the monsters. Coyote agreed, asking the hawk to go with him, for he had a plan. Together, they went high into the mountains where they came upon the two monsters. The monsters chased Coyote to the top of the mountain, and just as they were about to fall upon Coyote and devour him, the hawk swooped down and lifted Coyote to safety. The monsters fell from the top of the mountain. They struck the ground so hard they were swallowed by the stone, turning into two tall rocks. ‘And you shall stay there forever,’ Coyote said.”