Dead Stop

by Barbara Nickless

  I jerked in surprise. I hadn’t made the connection when I ran Samantha Davenport’s plate. “Ben is Hiram Davenport’s son?”

  “His only child.”

  My chest ached with that. “How did he take the news?”

  Cohen leaned back against his car and shrugged. “The victim’s advocate said he calmly asked her a few questions, then kicked her out. A man like him, I’d figure he needs all the friends he can get.”

  We watched as the bomb techs sent their robot trundling toward the next kiln. The bot’s double-track tread rumbled over the debris, its armlike manipulator bouncing. Grasshoppers ping-ponged out of the way.

  Hiram Davenport was the owner and CEO of Denver Pacific Continental. A poor kid from Ohio, he’d scrabbled his way into Harvard and an MBA, married the daughter of DPC’s owner, then steered his father-in-law’s railroad from its nineteenth-century gold mining roots into one of the country’s top freights. Under his leadership, DPC grew to thirty-five thousand miles of track and forty-five thousand employees.

  It had been years since Hiram had anything to do with day-to-day operations. But six months earlier he’d proposed building a high-speed train to run from a hub in Denver to the surrounding states. This Gold Line Express would be his crowning glory. But the project wasn’t yet his; he was in an all-out battle with the west’s other big railroad, SFCO, for billions in federal funding. Pundits and corporate watchdogs considered him the likely winner. But whether it was Hiram who won or the owners of SFCO—Alfred Tate and his son, Lancing—the bullet train would make Colorado a model of modernity and environmental soundness.

  Or the owner of the country’s priciest white elephant.

  I crossed my arms and tucked my chin, thinking. “Tell me what you’re looking at.”

  “We’ve got four angles that I can see. One, someone doesn’t want that bullet train and is attacking the man most likely to build it. If so, that means Lancing Tate is also vulnerable. Tate mentioned that someone has been sabotaging his trains, which could be linked. So we’ve got men with him.”

  “What else?”

  “This is the first volley by terrorists who are targeting the railroad infrastructure. That theory could, of course, tie in with the first possibility. Or”—he shoved his hands in his pockets—“it’s more personal. Either the lover angle or the business rivalry. You’ve seen the shots Hiram and Tate have fired at each other?”

  I nodded. Every day brought a new video clip or sound bite from one side or the other in this clash of the titans. It was pure bank for the media; when the gods fight, people pay to watch.

  “Ben Davenport was hired six months ago to write a history of his father’s railroad,” Cohen said. “He’s published an article every few weeks.”

  “Puff pieces?”

  “Pretty much. No question they’re designed to convince investors and the Feds that Hiram, not Lancing Tate, is the man to take American railroading into the twenty-first century. Ben’s status as a decorated war hero gives his stories weight.”

  “Bet the Tates love that.”

  “Tate, single. Just found out that Tate senior had a stroke six months ago. He’s alive, but he can’t even go to the bathroom by himself.”

  “What about Lancing, then? How’s he taking Ben’s articles?”

  “Oh, he’s angry. But something this savage . . .” Cohen’s voice trailed off.

  “Don’t they say one in five American CEOs is a psychopath?”

  He gave a half laugh, the sound harsh. “That’s why we’re talking to Tate as well as protecting him. But his alibi is solid. Did your train have a video recorder?”

  I nodded. “I pulled the TIR’s hard drive, but you need special software to view it. As soon as we finish here with the Feds and I’m back in my office, I’ll burn the relevant segment to a CD.”

  In the distance, the SWAT team and their dogs appeared, heading back toward the command area. They moved slowly, the dogs dragging tongue and tail, the men carrying their helmets, their faces sheened with sweat.

  “No more bombs,” I said, too softly for Cohen to hear.

  Cohen checked his watch. “Feds said they’d be here by now. We’re burning up daylight.”

  We fell quiet. I settled with my back against his car and closed my eyes. The heat danced spots on the other side of my eyelids and I swayed, still carrying the events of the morning like a live wire in my hands.

  “Sydney.” Cohen cleared his throat. “You don’t have to pretend. Not with me.”

  My eyes shot open. “Would you shut up? I’m fine.”

  “You forget I’m the one who listens to you talk in your sleep.”

  “You eavesdrop?”

  “Shamelessly. Mostly you mutter. Makes it damn hard to work out what you’re going on about. Bombs and guns. Lethal hand-to-hand. Normal girlfriend shit like that.”

  I reached for a joke about how all Marines talk about bombs and guns. But instead I was thinking I’d never be able to keep my secrets if I needed a muzzle at night.

  “Your job,” I said, “is to make me feel better. And you suck at it.”

  “I’m just doing a little reality check. You got that denial thing going.”

  I looked at him full-on. “You talk in your sleep, too.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  I love you, he’d said to me in the dark hours of early morning. And he’d been fully awake when he said it. But love had to be built on mutual understanding, and Cohen and I were still groping our way toward that. I didn’t have a lot of confidence we’d get there. We’d grown up in worlds so far apart that one of us might as well have been raised by wolves. That, of course, would be me.

  Plus there was the fact that at least one of us carried secrets that could get you killed. Five months earlier, a man claiming to work for the CIA had come to kill me. I’d spared his life and sent him back to his superiors with a message: Despite what they believed, my beloved in Iraq hadn’t given me anything before he died beyond a few personal effects and his dog. No list of spies, no secret plans, no map to Saddam Hussein’s gold. I had nothing they could possibly want and I had no idea how to find the little Iraqi boy they were also searching for. I hoped that by sparing their man, I’d proven myself credible. They were now free to crawl back into their respective holes and leave me alone.

  But I’d have to be crazier than I am to count on that. So I’d taken the few things my beloved had given me and locked them away, then spent the last five months watching over my shoulder. Watching over Cohen’s shoulder, too, although he had no idea. Five months, and nothing but silence. Except for the scar at my hairline and the hole in my kitchen drywall, I could almost chalk everything up to paranoid delusion.

  Now, in the droning summer warmth, I crossed my ankles, letting the car take most of my weight. Heat radiated from the metal.

  “About this morning,” I said. “When you told me you—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He gave me a lopsided grin, all the more poignant for being so hard to manufacture on a day like this. “I just didn’t want it to be obvious that it’s all about the sex.”

  “The sex is pretty good,” I admitted.

  “Not too shabby,” Cohen agreed.

  The wind gave a little kick, and the last of the dust from the bomb swirled away. Overhead, the sky was as wide and untroubled as a clear conscience. Smoke from my cigarette vanished with the breeze. A red-winged blackbird lit on the fence erected by MoMA-D and gave a single, lonely trill.

  “I am sorry about this morning,” I said. Glutton for punishment.

  “I shouldn’t rush you.”

  “But I didn’t need to be an ass about it.”

  “Half an ass.”

  I elbowed him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Total ass.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He smiled. For just a moment, God was in his heaven.

  Behind us, engines rumbled. We turned and watched as a pair of Ford pickups threaded their way aroun
d the other vehicles and pulled to a stop near the gate. A woman stepped out from the first truck. Tall, early fifties, dressed in slacks and a navy blazer, her thick, brown hair cut short to frame her face, a badge on a lanyard around her neck. She wore sunglasses and looked as composed as if she were glancing over a wine menu.

  Two men got out of the second truck. They wore navy-blue jackets stenciled with bright yellow lettering: FBI. Then below that, JTTF.

  “The woman must be our SAC,” Cohen said. “Madeline McConnell. She’s in charge of the CARD.”

  My bomb-addled brain hurried to catch up with Cohen’s alphabet soup. SAC. Special Agent in Charge. And CARD. The FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team. At least I knew the other string of letters. The JTTF was the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

  Lieutenant Engel had seen the three agents and was heading toward them. He waved at Cohen and me, gesturing for us to join them.

  I dropped the cigarette, stepped on it, and retrieved the butt. I pulled my earpiece from my pocket. “Time to roll.”

  Special Agent in Charge McConnell’s poise was even more striking up close. I wondered if she’d ever been drunk or lost her temper, said something she regretted or smoked her way through a pack of cigarettes before she even got out of bed. I’d bet my bank account she’d never had Jack Daniel’s on her morning cereal.

  I wondered how it was possible to reach your fifties and be so self-possessed. Today, even thirty felt out of reach.

  The JTTF agents had the erect bearing and tight haircuts of former military. John Ritland was midthirties, five-ten, a weight lifter, with an old scar at his temple and another along his jaw. He was all economy of motion, but the spark in his eye suggested he was prepared to kick ass before his target saw it coming. His partner, Bob Wyman, looked ten years older and was five inches taller, but he had the same look in his eye. I liked them both immediately.

  We shook hands all around.

  “I heard about you,” McConnell said when I introduced myself. Her eyes were invisible behind the shades. “You took down that white supremacist gang last February. Excellent investigation. The papers called you a hero. You’re still working the rails?”

  “Even heroes need gainful employment.”

  She regarded me a moment longer, and I got the distinct impression she was disappointed with my decision.

  “There a problem?” I asked.

  A beat of silence. Then she said, “Of course not.”

  Her gaze shifted to my partner and she squatted so she was eye level with Clyde. “This must be former Staff Sergeant Clyde.”

  I nodded, surprised at her use of his rank.

  “Belgian Malinois,” she said. “Best breed there is. Loyal. And smart as hell.”

  Clyde preened, clearly smitten. Pushover.

  McConnell straightened. “You were a sergeant,” she said.

  So she knew the tradition of ranking military working dogs one level higher than their handlers as a way of showing respect and ensuring discipline.

  I shook my head. “A lowly corporal. I inherited Clyde from his second handler.”

  She seemed about to ask more but read the warning in my eyes. There were lines no one was allowed to cross.

  Engel cleared his throat. “We’re happy to have your help, Agent McConnell. You’ll be leading CARD?”

  She rose. “Call me Mac, please. And yes, I’m the lead on CARD, at least for the moment. If we don’t find Lucy within twenty-four hours, they’ll send someone from LA.” At our expressions, she added, “It’s about protocol, not experience. I spent six years working CARD in Alabama and Texas. Had a ninety-five percent recovery rate. So I’m not unfamiliar with the process. Just tell me what assistance you would like. My team is at your disposal.”

  “Appreciate it,” Cohen said. “Right now I want the door-to-door manpower. Checking the registered sex offenders, looking at other potential suspects, running backgrounds. We’re setting up a hotline and could use some bodies on that. And we’ll take whatever specific suggestions your team can offer on how to conduct our search.”

  “We’re happy to follow through on the RSOs. Although, as I’m sure you know, that’s usually a dead end. We can help with your tip line and we’ll handle any leads from the Amber Alert hotline—we’ll let you know about the ones that aren’t obviously cranks.” Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then slid it back in her pocket. “We can also craft the media announcements, since that’s usually considered a shit job the police are happy to hand over.”

  Engel swallowed a smile. “Good.”

  “What about a cell phone? Did Lucy have one?”

  Cohen shook his head. “We’re still working to pull phone records, but according to friends of the family, she didn’t have her own.”

  McConnell turned to me. “Give us a rundown of this morning?”

  I went through what I’d told Cohen. All three agents asked a lot of questions; Ritland and Wyman were especially interested in what I’d seen before the bomb went off. They asked about the wire and whether I’d seen any kind of timer. I told them about the bag and the other wires.

  “Trip wire and a remote?” Ritland said to Wyman.

  “Or a delay of some kind,” Wyman said.

  “So no chance Lucy was in that kiln?” McConnell asked.

  “Clyde would have let me know.”

  She nodded, her gaze going to the vast sweep of the cement factory. “Then unless forensics tells us otherwise, we’ll proceed under the assumption that Lucy was taken away from the site.”

  Ritland was watching the bomb techs. “We brought a digital fingerprint scanner. As long as the bodies weren’t atomized, we can probably get enough of a print to run an immediate check.”

  “Let’s talk to the crime scene guys,” Engel said. “See what we’ve got.”

  Static burst in my ear. Dispatch. I excused myself and walked a short distance away.

  “Parnell,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “The police are almost ready to unhook the fouled train. The operating crew is standing by for your go-ahead.”

  “Roger that,” I said. “Tell them I’ll be there in twenty.”

  I walked back to where the others were still talking. “I’ve got to return to the first scene.”

  “I’ll radio one of the units to drive you back,” Engel said.

  “Since this is train related, I assume you’ll be part of the inter-agency task force,” McConnell said to me.

  For just a second, I hesitated. I’d lost something important when that bomb went off and maybe walking away wasn’t how I’d get it back. Then again, walking away might be the smartest thing I could do. For me and the investigation. A good Marine knows when one man’s weakness can bring down the entire team.

  “You want my boss,” I said. “Deputy John Mauer. He’s collecting information now.”

  McConnell nodded as if she expected no different. I thought I saw a flicker of disappointment in Ritland’s eyes. Well, one thing you could say about fobbits—our survival rate didn’t suck. We shook hands again and I headed toward the line of patrol cars to catch a ride back to the first crime scene. Then, at a thought, I spun back around.

  “Agent McConnell,” I said. “What do you think the chances are we’ll find her?”

  McConnell removed her sunglasses. Her left eye was severely bruised, a ring of blue and purple that went all the way around, turning the socket into a deep pool. Seeing her injury was like finding a crack in a perfect piece of glass. But I guess you never know anyone’s story.

  “This one will be tough,” she said. “Our killer is organized. Thorough.”

  To the west, the sky had turned black with threat, smaller clouds churning fast across a gray canopy. The air crackled with the tang of ozone and spats of rain slapped the ground. A sudden wind whipped through the grasses and I caught my cap before the wind could take it.

  I said, “But still, ninety-five percent likely, right? Like you said.”

  She looked
at me a moment longer. “Right.” She turned away as if to say something to Ritland.

  A cold and frightened voice inside me made me call her back, even though I knew better than to ask. “Of that ninety-five percent, how many of the kids were still alive?”

  Something dark swam into her eyes—something I recognized from my own gaze when I looked in the mirror. Madeline McConnell was haunted. I’d bet on it.

  “How many were alive?” I asked again.

  Her eyes stayed steady on mine. “Most,” she said, “were not.”

  The wind pulled up the dust in the road, gathered it in a fist, and hurled it at the world.

  CHAPTER 5

  Some cultures believe true wisdom is attained only through suffering—that our pain allows us to cross the void between the living and the dead and bring back knowledge. Thus, veterans are lauded as having special insight.

  But in other times and places, warriors fresh from combat are named unclean and kept from society until ritual can make them pure again.

  In America, I don’t think we’ve decided which of these two views we hold. Most often we see the traumatized as merely weak. When our veterans struggle, they are pitied. Or ignored.

  —Sydney Parnell, ENGL 2008, Psychology of Combat.

  I stepped out of the patrol car into the bucketing rain. I opened the rear door for Clyde, then leaned back in. A sheet of rain came with me.

  “Sorry about the mud,” I said to the officer.

  “Been worse back there.” His eyes met mine through the steel-mesh barrier. “Try not to drown in the storm.”

  I closed the door and snugged down my ball cap. I put Clyde in the Explorer to get him out of the rain, then turned and looked for the operating personnel who would break the train.

  Just as at the cement factory, law enforcement was everywhere. Crime scene detectives—now joined by the medical examiner and a crew from forensics—were crouched half-under the train, still working around Samantha’s body. Despite the rain, uniformed cops and K9s had started a sweep of the area on both sides of the road; they walked a red rover line, each man an arm’s length from the next so they didn’t miss anything. A second crew of forensics detectives had set up portable lights around the Lexus as they searched for trace evidence. Nearby, a flatbed tow truck waited with flashing yellow lights for the go-ahead to take the vehicle back to the police garage.