“Has he tried to contact you?”
“I texted him a bunch of times, let him know I hadn’t been able to get back out to the headwaters to collect the money yet, but I still haven’t heard back from him.”
I glanced at Hollis and back to Robbie. “Sit tight. I need to make a phone call.”
I stepped out into the hall where Phil Goss and Bob Cole were still waiting. I stepped around the corner, pulled out my phone, and dialed up the office.
“Hi, Sherry Linn. Is Mark still around?”
She patched me through to Taylor. “Hey, I’d like you to call your pals in Boise again and ask about an aspiring drug dealer named Nick Cantor. Young guy, probably twenty-one or so. After you talk to them, bring Robbie Cole’s cell phone and his wallet to the courthouse. We’re upstairs in juvenile confinement.”
“Will do, Maggie. Cantor spelled with a C?”
“That’s right. See you soon.” I clicked off and hurried downstairs and outside to my Tahoe. I opened the back storage area, unlocked the evidence safe, and gloved up. I drew out the file box I’d taken from Shannon’s place and retrieved the receipt from Terry Moore’s Storage Rental. The receipt had been printed from an online purchase Shannon had made from home on the seventeenth, last Monday. I re-stashed it in his file box, slipped the file box back in the safe, and reset the lock.
I made another mental note to also ask Shannon why he had rented a freezer locker. I had a theory about why: he’d planned to collect the heroin and put it on ice for a while, but somewhere other than at his house.
Before racing back to juvenile containment, I stopped at the snack dispenser and bought a few goodies. I wasn’t trying to make myself out to be everyone’s caretaker, but a little sugar charge wouldn’t hurt any of us sitting on those hard metal chairs in that tiny room.
“Sorry I took so long,” I said, tossing the treats on the table. “Help yourself to whatever.”
“Robbie and I were just talking about the NFL,” Hollis said.
“Sorry I missed that.”
“I left the recorder going so you can tune in to our discussion anytime.”
The boy picked up a sack of chips and tore the top open as I pulled a calendar advertising an auto repair shop out of my pack.
“Robbie,” I began. “When was the first time you drove out to Murderers Creek Guard Station?”
The boy mulled that over as he checked the calendar lying on the table. “Dave talked to me about the guard station this past Tuesday.”
“Three days ago. You’re sure?”
“Yeah, my Fiesta is a few years old and was in the shop getting some work done on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so I drove out to the guard station for the first time the next day.”
“That’s when you left the bag of paraphernalia?” I asked.
He crunched a mouthful of chips and swallowed. “Yeah, like an idiot. And I was coming back to pick up all that on Thursday, but you were there, so I turned around and drove home.”
“Yes, I remember.”
He smiled.
“So my next question might be the most important one we’ll ask you today.”
“Okay.”
“Were you supposed to meet Dave Shannon at the Murderers Creek Guard Station on Thursday of last week?”
He glanced again at the calendar. “No, I didn’t get my car until this past Sunday, remember?”
“You could’ve taken your dad’s rig.”
“Nah. That’s verboten. It belongs to the dealership.”
“I want to ask you again. Did you ever borrow Shannon’s red loaner F-150?”
“No, I did not.”
There was a knock at the door. Mark Taylor opened it and peeked inside. “I have what you asked for, Sergeant.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said and stood.
I met Taylor in the hall, and given the presence of Bob Cole and Phil Goss, I suggested we step into the first available interview room. We found an empty one and sat down at a metal table identical to the one in juvenile confinement.
“Nicholas Cantor is in lockup in Boise awaiting his arraignment on drug trafficking charges.”
“That’s just too rich. Thanks for making the call, and for bringing over the phone and wallet.”
“You’re welcome, Maggie. I’m on my way home unless there is anything else you need me to do.”
“I think we’ve got it under control.”
He passed me the evidence bags containing Robbie’s phone and wallet. “Call me at home if you need anything.”
We left the interview room and went our separate ways. I took a look at my watch on the short walk back to juvenile confinement. Four twenty. Holly was probably anxious about getting home on time, or at the very least, he wanted to check in on Lil and Hank.
“Any phone calls you need to make, partner?” I asked Hollis after re-entering the room where he and the boy snacked on peanuts.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind, I’ll step out for a few minutes.”
After Hollis closed the door, I turned to Robbie and flipped the recorder back on. “Do I have your permission to check the call and text records on your phone?”
“I mostly text. I don’t like talking over the phone, or anywhere, really.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Sorry, yes.”
I put on gloves, removed the phone from the bag, and waded through his most recent text conversations with the Cantor guy. Last week, on Tuesday the eleventh, they had agreed Cantor would pick up Robbie around ten the next morning in Canyon City. The plan was to drive around and find something Robbie could use to haul “the package” to “the sight.” The bad spelling on that last was Cantor’s.
Continuing on, there was a bit of texting back and forth as Cantor got closer to Robbie’s place the next day, and then nothing until early that evening when Robbie had written to Cantor, “made it to the headwaters.” Cantor replied, “Xlent!” further punctuated with an inebriated happy face.
There were a few recent texts back and forth with Shannon regarding times and places to meet, but Robbie’s record of phone calls was scant and primarily to his father’s personal phone or the Ford dealership.
It was striking how few names had been entered into the contacts list on Robbie’s phone. That reminded me of something else.
I placed the cell phone back in its evidence bag and looked across the table at the boy. “Who were you bragging to while stoned?”
“What?”
“Who were you bragging to while stoned? It’s what you said when I asked about the rumor floating around that you’re dealing heroin.”
“That kid you saw me whaling away on the other day. At the park in Canyon City.”
“Lyle Davis?”
“I guess.”
“Yeah. He didn’t know who you were at the time either. So if you didn’t know each other, why were you whaling away on him?”
“He fucking laughed at me. Told me to grow up.”
“He’s only fifteen.” I removed Robbie’s wallet and slipped out his driver’s license. “You’re a taller, more muscular soon-to-be eighteen-year-old who needs to get his act together.”
Robbie nodded.
“My opinion. I think you’re both a couple of loners. Maybe a bit lost.”
“Sorry I called you a bitch that day in the park.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Hollis opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it again. “Bob is getting a little anxious, and I think Phil would like to know what’s going on before it gets much later.”
“What other drug crimes have you been involved in?”
“Besides smoking marijuana while under age and doing heroin that one time?”
“Yes, besides that.”
“None. As God is my witness. None.”
I wasn’t completely sure I bought the “as God is my witness” response, but it would do for now.
“Ask Bob and Phil to come in, please,” I said to Hollis.
&nbs
p; To his father and the head of the Juvenile Department, Robbie haltingly explained his involvement in a criminal act—the distribution of black tar heroin—and how the whole operation had turned out to be a bust. Now literally.
“Do you use heroin?” Phil asked.
“Once a long time ago. I hated it,” Robbie answered. “But I smoke pot when I can get my hands on it.”
“Well, that’s going to stop,” Bob put in. “I think it’s probably better for you—in moderation—than booze, but you’re not twenty-one, and you don’t have the choice of using either.”
Robbie nodded. “Mr. Goss, will I have to go back to Burns?”
“What you’ve done is very serious, and it’ll be up to the juvenile court judge who sent you there in the first place,” Phil kindly reminded him. “That said, is the Burns facility where you met Nick Cantor?”
“Yes,” Robbie said.
“Well, that could have some influence with the judge. Personally, I think what you need to do is finish high school here, go through drug and alcohol treatment, get a part-time job, and think about college. I could be talked into advocating for that with the judge.”
“Your case might also be helped by how forthcoming you seemed to have been with Trooper Jones and me,” I threw in. “I’d also encourage you to think about what you want for your life besides wheels and weed. And I know, just me saying that is not going to have much effect. Ultimately, it’s your choice to make.”
“You know a lot about football,” Hollis added. “It saved my life when I was your age, I kid you not. If it’s okay with your dad, I’d encourage you to try out for the team.”
“It’s probably too late,” Robbie said.
“Again, with your father’s permission, call the school on Monday and find out. And then be ready to take whatever licks come at you, in football and in life.”
“Dad and I will have a talk about all that,” Robbie said sheepishly.
The boy was no doubt sick of everyone’s patronizing advice, but I felt compelled to toss in a reminder. “You’re definitely not out of the woods yet, though. We still need to confirm some of your statements, and once we do that, I’ll be sending charging documents over to Mr. Goss.”
Hollis and I sat alone in juvenile confinement. My mouth was tinder dry, so I walked to the drinking fountain and filled a couple of small paper cups with cold water.
Holly took one of the cups from me and sipped. “I’m assuming we don’t believe Robbie had anything to do with J.T. Lake’s murder.”
“No, he’s not the killer. I’d stake my career on that. And also on the likelihood we already brought the killer in.”
“Yeah. Agreed.”
“But you should go home. Let me handle this.”
“Not doing that. And Lil’s fine with whatever I need to do to help this case come to an end.”
“All right. Let’s get this over with.”
31
Early Evening, August 21
We moved from juvenile confinement down the hall to one of the interview rooms large enough to hold a couple of cops, a suspect, and an attorney. I called down and asked one of the sheriff’s deputies to bring Shannon upstairs. While we waited, I recharged the recorder and we both listened to the messages left for us at the office. There was no word from Al yet.
After twenty minutes or so, the deputy opened the door and escorted Shannon into the interview room.
“Mr. Shannon was a bit reluctant, but I informed him we had a special windowless holding cell for uncooperative inmates.”
I checked his name tag—Chief Deputy Weldon. “Appreciate you taking the time, deputy.”
He pulled out a chair and invited Shannon to sit. When he warily did so, the deputy took his leave.
I turned on the recorder. “At any time after Robbie placed the tackle box next to the signpost marking the headwaters of Murderers Creek, did you ride your ATV back out there?”
Shannon stared mutely at the tabletop.
“I believe you did,” I continued. “Dry mud from the grill of your ATV matches a separate soil sample taken at the headwaters.” This was a correct statement in the main, but as Doug Vaughn had pointed out, the mud from the ATV could also match soil sampled from other locations in the area.
“So what if I did?”
“Well, since you refused to take Robbie back out there and told him the two of you needed to wait before returning, it’s possible you planned to drop by the headwaters without him and retrieve the heroin he’d left for Cruise and Porter.”
“And do what with it? I wasn’t about to start shooting up.”
“And blow all the money several pounds of black tar heroin could get you? Of course not. Isn’t that why you rented a freezer locker from Terry Moore’s Storage Rental this past Monday morning? You decided to go out to the headwaters, pick up the heroin, and store it elsewhere until everything blew over, right?”
The room was warm, like I’d expected it to be since it was located on the west-facing wing, the courthouse was an old building with no central air conditioning, and we were in close quarters on a hot summer day.
I continued. “You should’ve gone out there earlier. Remember the game officer I told you about? He found it on Sunday, the day before you drove out there.”
“When did the Ford dealership deliver the loaner to you?” Hollis asked.
Shannon appeared to be trying to remember—either that, or concocting more subterfuge.
“Late Saturday afternoon,” he said finally.
That sounded about right. That’s when I’d seen him pulling in to the parking lot at Chester’s Market in the loaner truck.
“So there really wasn’t time to go to the headwaters on Saturday,” Hollis prompted.
Shannon shrugged. “Stupidly, it hadn’t occurred to me that the drugs were probably still where Robbie had left them.”
“When did it occur to you?” I asked.
“Not till this past Sunday night, tossing and turning in bed, not able to sleep. Lying there, I started thinking it through, and then made my plans for Monday.”
“Monday? The day you pushed Janine Harbaugh from the fire lookout?”
Shannon sat in silence again.
“I got it,” I said. “That dusty, abandoned logging road just down the hill from the lookout. It’s where I found a fresh set of tire tracks. Made casts of those tracks. Turned out the casts matched the tires on your loaner truck.”
That sparked something in Shannon. “The logging road took me on a wild ride in backcountry. Finally met up with paved highway and got to the Stewart Cabin property.”
“Where you and Robbie had gone fishing?” Hollis said.
“Yeah.”
“I seem to recall the red F-150 came with a trailer hitch. So I’m thinking you towed your ATV out to Stewart Cabin, left the loaner truck there, and drove the ATV to the headwaters.”
“But the tackle box was already gone,” Shannon muttered.
Smartly, Hollis continued with this line of questioning. “After coming up empty, you went back for the truck, drove it to the fire lookout by way of the main highway, and parked it out of sight down the logging road.”
“That was in case someone else came along.”
Which said to me he’d gone there prepared to kill Janine if it came down to it.
“Robbie said you two had no plans to meet at the Murderers Creek Guard Station the day Cruise and Porter stole your F-150—and also the day Sergeant Lake was killed,” I said. “He also told us he’d never been there prior to this week.”
He lowered his head and nodded. “I was upset. My brand-new pickup, the first new vehicle I’d ever owned, had just been stolen. I needed to think, and the guard station is a nice place to go, especially if you want to be alone and out where there’s no people.”
Ironic, since he was alone most of the time. “I also understand you’re a fan of Buck knives.”
“What?”
“You admired the one stored in the g
reen tackle box.”
“That’s ridiculous. Robbie was the one admiring the knife.”
“He might’ve, but you told him you’d always wanted that brand of knife.”
“I know where this is going, but I didn’t take that knife.”
“What do you mean you know where this is going?”
“I saw the man’s dead body and tossed the bloody knife in the toilet. I already told you that.”
“Was that when you first arrived at the guard station?”
Shannon was perspiring. Hollis and I were as well, but I had a sense we were almost there.
“Can I have a drink of water or a soda, maybe? It’s hot in here.”
“We’re about done. So let’s go back to Thursday the thirteenth, the day your truck was stolen and you drove your ATV to the guard station. Did you spot the body when you first arrived?”
“Did you ask these questions of Robbie? He’s a troubled kid. Been sent to reform school and all.”
“I can’t disagree with your assessment of Robbie, but I’d say you’re pretty troubled yourself. Now let me help you answer my question. The man’s body is on the ground near the cabin, you pull up in your ATV, what’s the first thing you do?”
Shannon sat quite still, eyes aimed in the distance, as if waiting for an epiphany.
I continued. “Did you park in the driveway? Behind the cabin? Where?”
“There were no cars anywhere, so I backed the ATV beneath one of the tall pines. I went to the front door since I knew the lock was broken. Once inside, I saw him through the back windows.”
“Where was he?”
“Walking toward the backyard of the cabin from the acres of forestland south of the guard station property.”
That admission surprised me. Maybe we were getting there sooner than I’d expected. “Who did you think he might be?” I asked.
“Someone from the Forest Service. In all the times I visited the place, I’d never seen anybody else out there. I thought I might get in trouble for being in the cabin. I ran to the ATV and got the Buck Guthook knife and hid behind the latrine. When he got to the backyard, I waited until I could hear him breathing, and then I stepped out in front of him.”
Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2) Page 29