“I’ll be in touch as soon as I have any information,” I told them as I set my card on the coffee table between us. “You can reach me here if you think of anything.”
“Can I have her crucifix?” Mrs. Briscoe asked my back. It was the first thing she’d said in half an hour.
I turned to look at her. “Ma’am?”
“Her crucifix. I want it. What good would it be to the police? I want it.”
“Ma’am, we didn’t find a crucifix.”
Mary burst into fresh tears and turned away from her husband to cry against the couch cushions. David Briscoe looked embarrassed but didn’t seem to have the strength for it anymore.
“It was a big silver cross,” he said. “Plain silver. It was a present. On the back it was engraved All Our Faith in You.”
I nodded and told him that if it was found they could have it back as long as it was not evidence. They stayed on the love seat as I let myself out.
Before I got into my truck I stopped to take a breath and I cursed my Uncle Orson. I was taking his name in vain because he had given me that jar of whiskey. I hadn’t opened it last night, but I had taken it with me and it was sitting in the console of my truck. I wanted it. I wanted it badly.
I wouldn’t have admitted to a problem, but I would admit that I liked the separation from my thoughts that a few good, long swallows could give. Never had I drank on duty, but honestly, I was tempted at that moment. Instead of opening my door and locking myself inside with Clare Bolin’s best, I crossed the road and knocked on the door at Carrie Owens’s home.
There was no answer, but I could hear movement within. I knocked again more firmly, like I meant business. Muffled giggles came through the door and more movement. Carrie was in there and she wasn’t alone. I couldn’t help but picture the Barnes kid in there with her, but I was afraid to imagine what that really meant.
After knocking one more time I pulled another business card and wrote Please call on the back. I wedged the card into the door crack and remained on the porch long enough to jot in my notebook the time and what I suspected. As an afterthought, I wrote down the information about Angela Briscoe’s crucifix as well.
* * *
The moment of need and self-pity had passed, replaced by a simmering anger at the Owens family. Where were her parents? What was she doing spending all her time with that older boy? It was probably the anger that allowed the jar of whiskey to remain untouched within the box between my truck’s seats.
At the sheriff’s office I shot off e-mails and made notes. One of the e-mails went to Michael Hamm, the detective who sat two desks away from me. He was our gang unit. I needed a meeting to find out all I could about the Ozarks Nightriders. Another e-mail went to our juvenile case officer for any information on Carrie Owens, Danny Barnes, or any of the other kids that might be in the same group. I had also asked the Division of Family Services for any information they might have that never made it to our files on the Owens family. There are a lot of confidentiality issues about queries like that, but if there is an obvious problem someone will find a way to let me know.
It’s funny, but in TV shows and movies you always hear cops talk about the difference between street cops and desk cops. It makes a good image: the solitary detective, out in the field finding clues and tracking suspects. The sad truth for most of us is that the tracking is often done from the desk. We investigators secure the crime scene and then delegate, delegate, delegate. We gather information and sort it out, looking for the things that don’t fit or for the information that holds all your ideas together.
That’s what I did for the next couple of hours. I made more calls and searched every database available for Leech. I learned the Nightriders were a new club limited to southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. There had been an arrest in Oklahoma, but the warrant was for domestic violence out of Arkansas. I developed a list of last known addresses for eight men known to ride with the club. The next step was door-knocking.
I had just picked up my phone to call Billy and check on his day at the crime scene when a shadow moved across my open door. I looked up to find the shadow had solidified, if not gotten any lighter. A tall black man, erect of bearing with coffee-colored eyes that never smiled, leaned against the door frame without slouching. He wore Army class A’s and a rod permanently up his ass.
Billy answered his phone and I said, “I’ll call you back,” before hanging up. “Major Reach” was all the greeting I gave.
“Hurricane Katrina,” he said, taking his shoulder off the door frame. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was ignoring you. Was I being too subtle?”
He laughed, but it was just for show. “It wasn’t social. It’s all business.”
“Oh? Let me guess: After all these years the Army is actually interested in what happened?”
“A lot of things happen. The happening to which you refer was investigated. And by the way, I’m not Criminal Investigations Division anymore. I’m with the Inspector General’s office working with the DOD.”
He stopped there and watched me, goading me with silence, inviting argument. I didn’t rise to that bait anymore. In fact, I gave as good as I got, sitting silently and waiting for him to go on. He did, dropping the false smile.
“There was another thing that happened, which is not to say that all things that happen involve you, but . . .”
He spread his hands wide and open in a presenting gesture. I leaned back in my chair and tried to make myself look as comfortable as possible. Neither of us even glanced at the two visitor’s seats in front of my desk.
“This one does,” he finally went on.
I answered with a nod.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I told him.
“Fine,” he said. “Major Rice was killed in Iraq.”
“It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” I said.
“You’re not surprised,” he noted.
“It’s been almost seven years. Word gets around.”
“I bet it does. What else do you know about it?”
I knew enough not to tell him what I knew. I asked, “It happened. . . how many years ago?”
“A long time ago. Long enough you were still holding a grudge and making a lot of noise.”
“Major Rice. I was still lieutenant. I remained lieutenant. My noise and grudge hurt only me. Isn’t that true?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. See, his death was written off as duty related. There were so many things going on in the conflict at the time, and he was killed working local tribal contacts. Funny thing, though . . .”
I kept listening without saying anything or even acknowledging his words.
“Your name came up.”
“My name came up in what official investigation?” I asked.
He smiled his shark smile again. “Homeland Security,” he said. “It seems a man named Sala Bayoumi applied for a special immigration visa based on his employment by the U.S. Army and intelligence services. Certain things about his story didn’t add up and State called Homeland. Turns out, Sala Bayoumi was the contact that Major Rice met with before he was killed.”
Reach paused and watched me. He was waiting for a reaction or for me to try to explain something I hadn’t been asked. I gave him nothing. I didn’t move forward or back, neither opened or narrowed my eyes, and controlled my breathing. He was fishing with the right bait but I’d spent years expecting someone to dangle this in front of me.
“You remember Sala Bayoumi. He mentioned that he’d had contact with you before he ever met with Rice.”
“No,” I said and let my response sit there between us. I knew about interrogation too.
“How is that?” he asked. “He remembers you so well.”
“I, and every other MP officer involved in information gathering, met with dozens of contacts. We worked tribal leaders, nationalists, Ba’a
thists, Sunni and Shia militias, smugglers and arms dealers, and criminals of every type, including U.S.-government sanctioned contractors. There are more of them I don’t recall than those I do.”
“Hurricane Katrina,” he said, dragging the phrase out and letting it drip with spite. Then, stepping back from my door, he spread his hands like he was displaying a title and said again, “Hurricane. That’s a good name for you because you’re a dangerous lady. I was just stopping in to give you a heads-up, a courtesy call, you know. I have an appointment to talk with Sheriff Benson and didn’t want you feeling . . . inappropriately targeted.”
Reach walked out. I put the tips of two fingers on my scar, then closed my eyes. There was no darkness behind my lids. It was all dirty haze and old blood drying in fine, dead soil.
It was my father who pulled me out this time. His call came through to my desk after only a few minutes. The sharp trill of the phone echoed at first like the fast thunder of an M240 machine gun. On the third ring the illusion of war and violence faded and I opened my eyes.
“You don’t sound right,” was the first thing he said after my hello.
“Busy day,” I said, trying to sound bright and lively.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
There were a million things I wanted to tell him, but I said, “No.”
“Okay.” The sound of his voice said it was not okay at all but he would live with it. “Your uncle said he saw you last night.”
I smiled. Everything was sane and proper again. Home and green. We talked for a few minutes, family stuff and a little cooking. He wanted to cook a pot of chicken and dumplings for Sunday dinner if I would promise to come up to Nixa. My favorite, but I didn’t feel like I could promise. There were too many swords hanging over my head. I didn’t mention to him the one sword that dangled with a honed edge or the major who was hoping to cut the string.
“Are you busy with the man you met?” Dad asked.
I don’t care how much I expect these questions, they always catch me a little off guard. It was taking me a few moments to compose a response, so Dad jumped back in.
“Your uncle told me,” he said needlessly.
At least it was needless to me. I knew where he’d gotten his information, but he sometimes feels the need to explain himself when he rummages around in my life. It’d been that way since my mother died. That was while I was in college. Ever since, my father and uncle had been trying to become some kind of weird, manly mother hens. They failed wonderfully and it only made me appreciate them more. Them, not the questions or the constant push to become the kind of girl I’ll never be, a normal wife and mother.
“I know who told you,” I said back, realizing as I did that it was just as needless a comment. “It’s not what you think.”
“Who says I think anything?”
“You always do, Dad. Nelson is a nice guy, but I’m not sure he’s in the right place for romance. Neither am I.”
“If the world waited for the right place or time there’d be no people at all.”
I guess my answer was the silence he heard on the line as I touched at the scar beside my eye. It wasn’t intentional. I just didn’t know what to say.
“You know,” he said, sounding cautious with his words, “it’s okay with me whatever happens. As a matter of fact, it’s perfect if I’m the only guy in your life forever.”
“Thanks Dad,” I said and I meant it. “But Uncle Orson would get jealous. Besides, what would the two of you do if you weren’t trying to get me married off?”
Then he asked me a question that set the tiny hairs on my spine up and tingling.
“Are you having problems with the Army?”
“Why would you ask me that?” I didn’t even try to keep the suspicion out of my voice. My father’s military career had long ago transitioned into a civilian consulting job that had lots of contacts and influence in the intelligence community. This wasn’t the first time he’d let me know that he was aware of things he shouldn’t be. When he didn’t answer, I prodded again. “What do you know?”
“It’s just a question.”
“Something like that is never just a question.”
“I’m guessing from your response that there is something going on with the Army.”
My career had not gone well; there was no way of hiding that. He knew that there were legal issues and that I had made enough noise about something that the Army wanted me out as quietly as possible. He knew all that and he knew that I didn’t like to talk about it. This was the first time he had ever directly asked me anything about it and it had me on the defensive.
“Nothing I can’t handle and nothing I need you to be involved in. There are things we’ve never discussed, Daddy, and I want you to respect my privacy here. All right?”
In the silence coming from his end of the phone I could feel something like vibrations on a spider’s web. After the assault in Iraq, I’d tried hard to keep the details from my father. I’d thought both that he couldn’t handle it and that I didn’t want to shatter illusions he had about his beloved Army. There were times, though, that I felt like the only illusions were mine.
How much did he know? Had he involved himself? Did I even want to know?
“Daddy?” I pressed again.
“You know you can come to your old man about anything, don’t you?” he asked.
“Do you know something?” I asked, suddenly sure that it was another needless question. He didn’t respond and I thought he was about to say good-bye, so I said, “Yes, Dad. I do.”
Instantly, it was like a curtain had been dropped that separated the man from my dad. It was the same on his end. His voice was much brighter when he said, “I can be pretty helpful at times. And I don’t just mean Sunday dinners and picking out your husband for you.”
“You wouldn’t have picked this guy, Daddy.”
“What?” A wave of new concern came through the phone line. “Why? Orson said you acted like he was a scrapper.”
“He is, Daddy, but there’s something else. Something you wouldn’t approve of.”
“What are you trying to say, sweetheart?” His voice was so serious and burdened with concern that I almost felt bad for him.
“He was a Marine,” I told him and then quickly added, “I have to go.”
Chapter 7
Nelson was escorted from the hospital by wheelchair, a fact that seemed to embarrass him no end. When I brought the truck up to the release door he was fussing like an old hen with the woman who had wheeled him out. She seemed to tolerate it well. He was wearing the same clothes that I had first seen him in. They were still bloody and filthy with roadside dirt.
“No one brought you clean clothes?” I asked him as soon as he climbed into my truck.
“I don’t know who it would have been,” he said, looking at the shirt and pants like he was noticing them for the first time. Then, brushing at dirt on his knee, “Sorry about that.”
The short stay in the hospital had diminished him. Instead of being a vigorous, laughing man, he was tired and worn down. He had been bigger lying on the ground.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said. “Don’t you have family around? Friends?”
“I am a man without baggage,” he answered, trying to sound glib but not quite managing it. “Without relations baggage, that is. I’ve been carrying around that thing in my lung for a while.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he echoed my words. “You’ve heard of government cheese? I have government cancer. I was in the Kuwaiti oil fields when Saddam’s boys got all pissy and set the wells on fire. Fat lot of good it did them. We still kicked their asses and went back to finish the job later.”
He laughed. Suddenly he seemed to be the man I had first met.
When I didn’t laugh with him, he said, “Hey, don’t get all gloomy on me.”
“Who says I’m gloomy?”
“Look in the mirror.”
&n
bsp; “Actually, I was feeling like a jerk for thinking what a bad day I’d had.”
“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “Someone else’s cancer will do that to you. Perspective. God, I could use a beer.”
“No beer,” I told him. “But I do have this.” Reaching into the console, I pulled out the jar of whiskey Uncle Orson had given me.
“Is that the real stuff?” Nelson asked, grinning at the jar. “Like illegal, cooked in the woods, moonshine?”
“It is.”
He started twisting the lid.
“Don’t do that,” I warned. “I think that’s the last thing you need right now.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Nelson teased. “I’m crazy but not stupid.” He lifted the lid slightly and took a whiff from the opening. “Whoa, I think that’s better than we make at the restaurant.” Sealing the lid back tight, he then shook the jar and watched the bubbles in the light.
“Restaurant?” I asked.
“A guy I went to school with was starting a distillery restaurant and asked me to go in with him. It’s been nothing but a pain in the ass and so far bleeds money. He’s wanting to buy me out, but at a big loss for me. I figure if I’m taking a loss I may as well do it fighting.”
“Distillery restaurant? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“It’s like a brewpub, only instead of beer you distill whiskey or rye or whatever. It sounded like a good idea but between the city, state, and the feds, there are more regulations than putting a combination strip club and gun shop between an elementary school and church. Remember I told you I knew someone who might know something about bootlegging? Gabe Hoener. He’s our master distiller. You should talk to him. We’ll go there for dinner.”
“Dinner?” I asked. “Are you telling me or inviting me?”
“I’m just hoping.”
He seemed to have grown in stature since leaving the hospital.
“And what exactly is it that you’re hoping?” It was a teasing question. A flirtation. Nelson was the kind of man who put me at ease and let me think about all the things a man could be in my life. That also makes me incautious to a degree that I’m not used to. My inept flirtation, combined with the dark shadow of the unknown sitting between us, made the moment more than it was supposed to be. The answer I had expected was a laugh or some half-veiled innuendo. What I got was a look that said the question was much harder than he was ready for.
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