My fingers were tingling when I got on the computer and pulled up the database that contained the DPC crossings in Colorado and entered 025615P. Nothing. I broadened the search to all DPC crossings, then—when that failed—pulled up the Federal Railroad Administration’s safety data website. The FRA’s databank contained all known crossings for every railroad, but there were no hits. I switched back to DPC and searched our database of FRA accident forms, then hunted through an auxiliary system listing our own accident documents and Death and Dismemberment forms. When that failed, I switched tactics and scanned the numbers for the physical crossings north and south of where Samantha had died. No matches.
My hope turned to ash. I scowled at the computer screen. If the string wasn’t a crossing number, then I had nowhere else to go with it. There were no other alphanumeric strings linked with trains, train consists, or their manifests that came even remotely close. Maybe the police or the Feds would have better luck.
But it wasn’t quite time to throw in the towel.
I picked up the phone and called my contact at FRA. Margaret Ackerman’s office was in DC, but news of the Davenport case had already hit there.
“Any word on that little girl?” she asked when I told her I was helping with the case.
“That’s why I’m calling,” I said. “And keep it under your hat. I’ve got a number associated with the crime that looks like a railroad crossing ID. But nothing is coming up when I run a search.”
“Could be it’s a defunct number, if the crossing is no longer grade level.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. Can you check your databases?”
“Of course. Hold on.” I heard the sound of her keyboard as she typed. “What’s the number?”
“025615P.”
“Hm. Nothing. Let me check the discontinued numbers.”
More tapping. I pulled a tennis ball out of my desk and started tossing it up and catching it one-handed. Clyde wandered over, his eyes following the ball.
“Nah,” Margaret said. “Nothing in that database, either. If it’s a crossing number, it’s not only defunct, it’s old. As in, phased out long ago.”
Which might be a clue about the killer. “How old?”
I waited while she had a coughing fit.
“You still smoking, Mags?”
“Yes, thank God. You?”
“No,” I said.
“You are such a liar.”
“You talking old as in five years?”
She snorted. “I know you’re barely out of diapers.”
“Ten?”
“Better let this old girl teach you a thing or two.”
She must have heard my eyes roll—she barked out a laugh that ended in another brutal cough. “Okay,” she said when she could speak. “FRA developed the national crossing-number inventory back in the early seventies. But nothing was automated until the mid to late eighties. Which means your number falls somewhere in that fifteen-year black hole. And while I’m pretty sure we have physical records going back that far, I might have to search multiple archives.”
“You’re saying the number could be almost forty years old?”
“You say that like it was a long time ago. I was in my prime then.”
“How long to search everything?”
“Honestly? It could take days.”
“What about cross-referencing them with any 6180 accident-reporting forms?”
“Unless you have a date and a location, trying to track any accidents is a no-go.”
“Mags, give me something.”
“Seriously, Sydney. I know you’re up against the clock. But even saying days might be optimistic. I may be able to find some of the forms on microfiche. But other inventory forms probably didn’t make it past typewritten copies with carbons. I’m talking cardboard boxes in the basement, probably filed by gnomes who can’t tell one number from another. Same with the 6180s.”
“Did I mention we’ve got a missing child?”
“I’m on it,” she said and signed off with another rattling cough.
The injury gouged into my forehead by the bomb burrowed through my skull. I took Clyde outside for a few throws of the tennis ball and thought of reasons why the killer would care about an old crossing. Accidents, I figured. The most significant thing about grade crossings was the people who were maimed or killed there.
I whistled to Clyde and we went back inside. The air conditioning raised bumps on my sweaty skin. Clyde plopped down in his usual corner. I called the Denver office of the National Transportation Safety Board and asked to speak with Mark Lapton, one of their investigators. Lapton and I had worked a handful of cases together.
“I’m investigating an old crossing,” I said, “and I need to determine the location and if NTSB has any accidents associated with it. The number is defunct, which is why I can’t find it on my end.”
“This about the Davenport case?”
“Yes. But that’s a close hold.”
“So I’ll only tell my close friends. How old is the number?”
“Twenty years,” I said. “Maybe as much as forty.”
“Then I can’t help you. Or at least not quickly. That information won’t be in any database.”
“Don’t tell me. Boxes in the basement.”
“File cabinets, probably. But yes.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, popped them open. “It’s critical I find everything I can about that crossing. Tell me how I can do that.”
“You tried FRA? They hold the—”
“They’re looking for the initial request for the number and any accident reports. But it’s going to take time.”
“It’s no better on this end. All our old forms are at headquarters, in DC. Plus, the whole thing could be a snipe hunt. You know we only handle the large-scale messes. Multiple fatalities, or cornfield meets where one train hits another. National news stuff. If none of those happened at your crossing, we won’t have anything.”
“Can we at least try? There’s a little girl missing.”
Lapton sighed. “What’s the number?”
I told him.
“I’ll call DC,” he said. “Get someone there to start looking. But don’t hold your breath. Our forms aren’t filed by the crossing number, but by our own numbering system. There’s probably a master log somewhere that cross references our number with the crossing ID. But that won’t be digitized, either. If you can give me a location or the names associated with any accidents, that would help.”
I balled my hands into fists. “I was hoping to get that from you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Lapton said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Dead air. I flipped the world a double bird then opened a desk drawer for the sole purpose of slamming it shut. Clyde startled and gave me a narrow look. “Sorry, boy.” I told him to stay, then went to Mauer’s office and stuck my head in. “Death and Dismemberment.”
He blinked.
“Where are the old forms?” I asked. “And the 6180s. Everything from before we started digitizing.”
He gaped at me. “They’re—it’s not pretty.”
I stepped into his office. “I’m almost certain that the alphanumeric written in the kiln is an old crossing number. But if so, it’s discontinued, and there’s nothing in the database. Margaret Ackerman with the FRA says she’ll look, but right now she doesn’t have anything. If I can find any D and D forms linked to that number, maybe it’ll turn up something related to the case.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure yet. Something that took place on or near that crossing. The number meant something to the killer.”
“Show me what you’ve got.”
I walked in and wrote down the number on the paper he offered, including the Xs. I handed the notepad back to him.
He pulled on his readers and studied it. Scratched his chin. “You took out the Xs.”
I nodded.
“Okay. Could be you’re right. But if you think something fro
m the past drove our killer, then you’re saying he held a grudge for twenty years or more.”
“Anger burns a long time.”
“You met my first wife. So if this really is a crossing number, why did he include all the Xs?”
“I don’t know. We’re not dealing with someone who thinks the way we do.” I leaned against the doorjamb. “So what about the forms?”
“You heard of the vault?”
“The what?”
He propped his elbows on the desk, fisted his hands. “Years ago someone got the great idea to scan in all those old forms. And not just from Colorado. Across every line owned by DPC. The paper-pushers wanted the process centralized, so they brought the forms here. The 6180s, too. Boxes and boxes of them. Then the budget cuts came and the bosses put the kibosh on the entire plan. Now we have hundreds of forms here. Thousands. All stored in a closet the size of New Jersey. Unless you have a date, we can’t narrow down the search to so much as a single box.”
My right heel pistoned up and down. “There has to be a way.”
“We’ll see if FRA comes up with anything. And don’t forget the Feds will be taking a whack at that number, in case it’s something else entirely. In the meantime, I’ve been going through the employee files. And I talked to HR.”
“And?”
He tilted his chair back and crossed his arms, tucking his fists in his armpits. “And there aren’t issues with any of our people. Nine men, one woman. No flags, no performance problems, no record of any interemployee discord. No unusually heavy absentee rates or sexual harassment charges or anyone who’s complained at being passed over. They’re all card-carrying members of their respective unions. Happy as clams. Union says the same thing.”
“Which doesn’t mean someone isn’t deeply unhappy.”
“Right. Police’ll interview them.” He twisted his watch around his wrist. “And I can’t say any of them strike me as someone Ben or his wife would have an affair with, seeing as the men are all my age. Now, my kindhearted wife tells me I’m a real prize when I put the toilet seat down. But you see a woman half my age giving me the time of day?”
I stopped myself from reaching over and patting his hand. “And the woman?”
“She’s a back-side-of-fifty grandmother. And you should—”
“Please don’t say I should see her backside.”
“Jesus, Parnell, you’re taking all my good material.”
“You call that good?”
His eyes looked bleary. “That’s why I quit my stand-up career. So, that number. If you’re right about it being a crossing ID, and if it’s local, you could talk to Fred Zolner. He worked this territory for decades. For all I know, he’s got that stuff in a file in his head.”
“You’re taking about Bull Zolner?”
“The same. He’s retired now, but the bastard should be happy to talk to you. No family and I doubt he’s got friends. Bit of a crank.”
I knew Bull Zolner. “Crank is being generous.”
“Okay, he’s a racist, misogynist scumbag. Word is someone broke his heart once and it stayed that way. But he should be a font of knowledge if you can get him to crawl out of the bottle long enough to hold a conversation.”
I’d met Bull once, when I was a kid. He had been one of DPC’s old-school railroad bulls, an immense man with the attitude of a cornered badger on methamphetamines. He drank like tomorrow was something he didn’t want to be around for and he’d patrolled his yards with a zest that bordered on pathological—he’d just as soon beat a tagger or trespasser as look at them. He’d raised pit bulls just so he could bring one or two with him on his beat to terrorize the trespassers.
Now, sitting in Mauer’s office, I remembered two things about Bull. His accent, which was soft and southern. And his eyes. One was blind—the result of an accident. The other was a flat sheet of gray from which anything human had long since packed up and left.
“You have a way to reach him?” I asked.
“Let’s call him right now.” Mauer tapped on his computer, found a number, then punched it into the landline on his desk. He passed the handset over to me. “Good luck.”
“You’re too kind.”
The phone rang six times, then clicked over to an automated voice inviting me to leave a message after the beep. “Special Agent Zolner, this is Special Agent Parnell with DPC. I’m trying to track down a possible crossing number, 025615P. I need to know where it’s located and if you can remember anything significant about it. Please call me back. It’s urgent.” I left my cell number and hung up.
“I heard he hangs out at a bar,” Mauer said.
I put a hand to my chest. “You don’t say.”
“Smart-ass. He likes some place called the Royal. Or maybe the Crown. Some old railroaders’ bar, what I heard. My guess is it’s within staggering distance of his house. If you can’t get the information another way, you could try running him down there. Here’s his address.” Mauer scribbled on his notepad, then passed me the sheet. “If you go, take Clyde. And maybe a tank.”
I stood.
Mauer rifled through the folders on his desk, pulled one free, and handed it to me. “Before you head out, you might want to look at this, too.”
Back at my desk, I opened the folder. It was DPC’s file on Ben Davenport.
Davenport had been brought on board in 2009 as DPC’s historian and archivist. He had an office downtown in the Colorado Historical Society building and reported directly to his father.
A photo clipped to the folder showed a dark-haired, athletic-looking man who hadn’t bothered dredging up a smile for the camera. The flat wariness in his expression was one I recognized—I saw the same look in the mirror every morning. Combat will do that to you.
Ben had graduated in 2001 from CU Boulder with a bachelor of arts in philosophy, then started CU’s law program. But something—presumably 9/11—had caused him to drop out and join the US Army. He’d attended Officer Candidate School and the Basic School, then deployed to Iraq. He’d served from 2002 to 2008. Three tours, starting as a second lieutenant and working his way up to captain. A lot of medals and commendations. With a record like that, he could have gone into any number of high-paying jobs. But maybe he loved being an archivist. Roaming through history and lost in the stacks. Maybe he loved trains.
Or maybe, like me, he needed to lie low for a while.
I flipped back to the photo.
Not everyone who served in war got PTSD. Far from it. The majority were fine, or seemed that way. But across all branches of the service, 20 percent of Iraq War veterans suffered post-traumatic stress, along with another 11 percent of veterans from Afghanistan. Every day, twenty vets—from wars dating from the current conflicts all the way back to Vietnam—killed themselves.
Ben Davenport’s eyes said he knew all about flashbacks and nightmares.
I couldn’t ignore the possibility that Ben might have come apart, suddenly and violently, the way half the vets I knew worried they would. Maybe his wife had been unfaithful, he’d learned of it, and her betrayal was the final straw. There will be killing till the score is paid. Was it possible that he’d murdered his sons, tied his wife to the tracks, then gone back home to kill himself?
And if so, what had he done with Lucy?
I closed the file. With nothing more to learn about Ben for the moment, I cyberstalked Samantha Davenport and found her company, Madonna Portraits.
Madonna Portraits’ main business appeared to be taking pictures of babies. The website showed photos of smiling children along with glowing accolades from the parents. Samantha’s whimsy—lots of oversize flower pots and puppies—along with a gift for getting the best out of her subjects, created a world that promised endless, joyous romps. Everyone—the children, the puppies, even the flower pots—looked happy. Her bio page revealed a long list of awards and credentials, along with those of her assistant, Jack Hurley. Hurley was about Samantha’s age, handsome in a surfer-boy way, with an easy smile and b
right-blond hair worn long. Probably great with the kids. And not bad with the mothers, either, I imagined.
Maybe his presence in Samantha’s life provided a sunny counterpoint to Ben’s dark brooding. Had his brightness been strong enough to lure her into his bed?
Next to the baby portfolios was a tab labeled NOIR GALLERY. I clicked on it and entered a different world.
Here, Samantha’s work was beautiful, even wondrous. But eerie. Bleak landscapes. Corpses from what I guessed was a body farm, where forensic scientists study how the human body decays in different environments. Children appeared in some of the photos, but they were nothing like the smiling babies in the other gallery. I quickly noticed it was always the same three children and realized with a painful stab that these were Ben and Samantha’s three. Two towheaded boys and a younger girl.
The boys, I realized with a shiver, looked exactly like the ghostly images I’d seen at the train tracks.
I found one of Lucy by herself. She sat on a tire swing, body stretched long, head tilted so she could look straight at the camera. Her soft brown hair nearly swept the ground.
I clicked to bring up an enlargement. A lively intelligence gleamed in her eyes and she had a certain boldness in the confident tilt of her chin. She looked like she’d been laughing just before the shutter clicked, her lips slightly parted and turned up.
Looking at her made me feel as though someone had reached in past my ribs to squeeze my heart.
“Lucy,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
I printed her picture, then moved on. The next set of landscapes, shown in black and white, was in a locale I immediately recognized—the Edison Cement Works. The photos had been shot in low light during a snowstorm. The date on them was from last March. Samantha’s children also appeared in some of these photos, mostly as tiny figures set against the colossal silos. In one, they stood before the kilns; their haughty expressions—something their mother must have worked hard to get from them—fit with the brooding presence of the kilns. The ovens, the snow, the children’s arrogance—all conspired to make me think of photos I’d seen of Auschwitz. It was an unsettling comparison, and one I suspected Samantha was fully aware of.
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