“Who do you think?” Coyle said.
“I guess Milo.” But as Darby had warned the day before, none of the three were perfect matches. Wells didn’t see how Annalise could have connected with Gould or Brane. Nighthorse might be too crazy. The Russians would want to know they could control their shooter.
The hills around Hay were crimped tight, eroded by nameless creeks that ran into the Snake River a few miles south. The maps showed that Gould’s house lay at the end of an unnamed private drive. Coyle drove by it twice before Wells spotted it, an overgrown single-lane rut. The Explorer thumped as Coyle swung the steering wheel side to side to avoid the worst potholes.
PRIVATE / DO NOT ENTER, a faded, hand-painted sign warned fifty yards on.
They came around a curve to see a ramshackle white farmhouse atop a low hill. Gray-white smoke rose from a stovepipe that leaned off the right side of the house. Rusted farm equipment shared space with the front half of a white Ford Bronco and an old Mazda that looked like the only operable vehicle in the bunch.
“Washington Chainsaw Massacre,” Coyle said.
“Remember, the black guy always gets it first.”
“You would say that.”
A heavy steel chain blocked the road. UNLESS YOU ARE AN INVITED GUEST STOP, DISMOUNT AND WAIT, another hand-painted sign announced.
“Dismount,” Coyle said. “Somebody’s fancy. What do you think?”
“We do what we’re told.”
“Awful exposed.” Still, Coyle stopped a few feet shy of the chain.
“Then let’s be nice. Take off your sunglasses and put on your name tag.”
The name tags were simple laminated white pieces of paper in generic blue holders. Coyle’s read WINSTON and Wells’s JOHN, cleverly enough. Wells had made them at the Staples in Moscow. He’d also bought notebooks, clipboards, and Bic pens. At a nearby Walgreens, he’d added a pair of black-framed clear-lens eyeglasses that would have been hip in Brooklyn but were just dorky here. Wells wanted to appear as unthreatening as possible, and these name tags screamed unthreatening.
Now he and Coyle snapped on their badges and stepped out. An easterly wind turned the air brisk and sent clouds chasing one another across the blue sky.
“We look like Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Coyle said.
“Exactly. Keep an eye on the upstairs windows.”
“You think I need you to tell me that?”
But no one took aim from the second floor. Instead, a man stepped out of the house, shambled toward them, a rifle slung over his back and a pistol strapped to his waist. He was short and squat, with a notable limp and a perfectly round head. Kids in T-shirts and jeans followed him out. Stay back, inside! he yelled without looking back. They ignored him. The oldest waved and then dropped his hand quickly as if he’d made a mistake. The two littlest both raised finger pistols, aiming at Coyle.
“Hospitality runs in the family,” Wells said.
“No way this guy was in Chicago two days ago.”
“Agreed, but let’s make sure.”
Wells gave a friendly wave as the man approached, received a single shake of the head in return.
“Private property.”
“Mr. Gould? I’m sorry to bother you, sir. We’re conducting a road-use survey for the Department of Transportation.”
“You work for the state?”
Uh-oh. Wells hadn’t figured Gould’s dislike of the government would run to the DOT. Who hated roads? Coyle bailed him out.
“Private contractors, sir. ’Fact, we don’t get a dime if we can’t get our surveys filled.”
Gould’s eyes snapped to Coyle. “Piecework. Your kind is used to that.”
Coyle nodded: Good one, you got me.
“Hate to have to tell you this, but looks like you ain’t getting paid. I got no cotton to pick neither.”
A real charmer. “We know your time is valuable,” Wells said. “We’re authorized to offer a twenty-dollar payment for answering our questions. Five minutes, at most.”
Gould smirked. “You two couldn’t look more like cops if you tried. Don’t know what you really want, but for a hundred bucks I’ll answer your questions. About roads, that is.”
“Twenty is our standard payment.”
“Fifty. You drove all the way out here. Shame to see you go home empty-handed.”
“Fine, fifty.”
“Hand it over, then.”
Wells gave him the bills. “About how many miles do you drive each week?”
Gould rubbed a hand through his thick blond hair. The rest of his body was as ruined as the cars in his front yard, but his hair was magnificent.
“Three hundred miles, I’d say. You know, it’s fifty just to Pullman. Used to do more, but gas ain’t cheap.”
300, Wells wrote on his clipboard. “And what is the primary purpose of those trips?”
“Shopping, most like.”
“When was the last time you drove your vehicle?”
Gould looked back at the front yard as if the Mazda itself could tell him. “Musta been Sunday.”
“Wasn’t him,” Coyle said, as the Explorer bumped back down the road.
“No. Nice line about getting paid only if we got answers. He liked that. Put him in charge.”
“Bet one of his kids kills him one day.”
“Only one? Brane’s up next. In Lamont.” Wells checked his phone. “Figure an hour and a half.”
“Think he’s gonna be strapped when he sees us, too?”
But Brane had no warning signs on his property. His house was new, presumably a replacement for the one that had burned. An American flag flapped high on a pole in the front yard. A woman answered Wells’s knock. Heavyset, white, early fifties. In the background, a television played.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for Kenneth Brane.” Wells was already sure Brane wasn’t their shooter.
“He’s out back working. I can get him if you like.”
“Actually, ma’am, maybe you can answer our questions. We work for Nielsen—the TV folks—and we’re doing a survey of television use in Washington State. We’d like to ask what shows you and your husband have watched over the last week. We don’t need an exact list, just whatever you remember.”
“We can offer twenty dollars for your time,” Coyle said.
“He’s not my husband, but sure. I’m Mary, by the way.”
“Wasn’t him,” Coyle said ten minutes later, back in the Explorer. “Maybe he killed his parents, but it wasn’t him.”
“Agreed.” Mary had reeled off an impressive list of shows. Even with a teleporter, Brane wouldn’t have had time to kill anyone in St. Louis or Chicago.
“Two down, one to go. How far’s Palouse?”
“Hour-plus.” Wells checked his phone. It was already almost 11. “Let’s get a snack on the way.”
The snack turned out to be PowerBars and Gatorade from a gas station. The radio was mostly static, and since Coyle hadn’t splurged for the satellite, they rolled along in silence.
“Land growing on you?” Wells said.
“Not really.”
“I know, not enough jazz joints. You a Chet Baker guy, Coyle, or more modern? Bip-bap-a-bam-boom!”
“Your dad was a doctor, how’d you turn out to be such a hick?”
The center of Palouse looked like a movie-set western town, brightly colored three-story buildings on a main street wide enough for angle parking. An old-timey advertisement for the local paper was painted in black-and-white on a brick building. Away from downtown, the city was less quaint but pleasant enough, homes clustered close on neatly kept lawns.
Milo Nighthorse lived on the north edge of town, a poorer neighborhood, in a long, low house, cinder blocks propping its steps. A red flag with a gold-black-and-white icon at its
center hung above the front door. A Nez Perce emblem, Wells figured.
Coyle eased the Explorer behind a rusty Toyota pickup. “What’s the play? Herbalife distributors? Lose weight now, ask me how!”
“Military recruiters. He wanted to be a cop? Rangers are even better.”
“Marines, you mean.”
“I mean Rangers.”
“You do know even a below-average Marine could kick a Ranger’s ass.”
“Save it for your Semper fi buddies.” Wells grinned and stepped out. For the first time in years, he felt like he had a partner in the field.
The front door opened even before they reached it. A fiftyish woman stepped out. She had square features and light brown skin. She looked at Wells as if she knew he brought bad tidings. “He okay?”
“Ma’am—”
“Just tell me he’s okay.” Up close, she smelled of skunk weed and bad luck.
“Can we come inside?”
The pot stench in the living room was overwhelming. Wells wondered how long they could stay before they wound up with a contact high.
“You’re Milo’s mom?”
“Karen, yes. And you’re State Patrol?”
“No, ma’am.” Best to play this conversation as straight as possible. Karen would be too focused on her own problems to challenge them. “We’re with the federal government. We’re worried your son might be in trouble.”
“Is this about the bear? Because that was tribal land, a tribal matter—” She paced around a card table that was home to a two-foot-tall glass bong. She might have smoked all morning, but the pot wasn’t calming her.
“Ma’am, help us here.”
The steel in Wells’s voice had the effect he hoped. She stopped moving, focused on him.
“When did you last see Milo, Ms. Nighthorse?”
“Taylor, not Nighthorse . . . A week ago Monday. He said he’d be back soon. I told him don’t go, but he said he had something important to do, something that couldn’t wait.”
“You were worried because of his prior hospitalizations.”
She didn’t ask how they knew. “When he takes his medicine, he’s fine. But soon as he stops—”
Wells didn’t point out that living in a house where marijuana was one of the major food groups probably didn’t help Milo stay on his meds. “He’s schizophrenic?”
“No, bipolar. He’s a beautiful boy, I promise.”
“Ms. Taylor,” Coyle said. “Did Milo have a girlfriend?”
“No, not really. Girls liked him—” She hustled out, returned with a picture of a handsome twenty-something man with deep black eyes, standing atop the Space Needle in Seattle. “See?”
“Can we hold on to that?”
She handed the photo over.
“Do you know, was he dating anyone?” Wells said.
“He kept that stuff to himself.”
“Mothers know. Maybe a blond woman, late twenties?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But, really, he never brought girls here. He was embarrassed he still lived at home, he thought it was lame.”
“But he was trying to get a job. He applied to the sheriff?”
“And the State Patrol, a bunch of places. They all turned him down because of the hospital stuff. It wasn’t fair. His dad died when he was young. I always told him, try something else, a mechanic maybe. He was good with his hands. But he liked the idea of being police.”
“A good shooter, the sheriff told us.”
She nodded. “He won a contest in Spokane a while back.”
“He had his own rifle?” Coyle said.
“Of course.”
“Did he take it when he left last week?”
Milo Nighthorse’s mother opened her mouth but made no sound.
With its MMA posters taped to the wall and comic books scattered across the floor, Milo’s bedroom looked like it belonged to a teenager, not a twenty-seven-year-old who aspired to become an officer of the law. Taylor opened his closet door and pushed aside Milo’s flannel shirts. “Kept it in a case back here.”
The case was gone.
“Do you know what kind of rifle it was, ma’am?” Coyle asked.
“Not sure the model, but the caliber was thirty-oh-eight.”
Wells caught Coyle’s eye. The sniper was using a .308 rifle. “Did he store ammunition anywhere else in the house?” They might be able to match the ammunition to the rounds the police had recovered.
She shook her head.
“Anything else missing, ma’am?”
She pulled out a metal box latched with a combination lock. “Milo doesn’t know I know the numbers.” She spun it open. Empty. “He kept his money in here. Maybe a thousand dollars, fifteen hundred. And his stuff.”
“Pot?” Coyle said.
“Maybe a little—” She sniffled.
“Crank?”
“He said it helped him when he got down.” She flipped the lid shut, kicked the box back into the closet as if she blamed it for Milo’s troubles. “He’s okay, right?”
“We just need to find him,” Wells said.
“I’m not sure it was him,” Coyle said, as they drove back to Colfax.
“Maybe not, but we’d best find out.” Milo didn’t have a credit card or a bank account. Didn’t trust banks, his mother had said. He didn’t have his own computer either. So the FBI couldn’t track him that way. But she’d given them the details of his car—a burnt-orange 2004 Chevy Cavalier with Washington State tags and racing stripes—and his email account and phone.
She’d called every few hours, but the phone had gone straight to voice mail for almost a week, she said. He hadn’t responded to texts or emails either. Still, between the phone and the license plate, the FBI had a good chance of finding Milo if he was still alive. It could rerun the footage it had collected near the shootings, looking for the Cavalier. Health privacy laws would protect Milo’s identity if he’d been hospitalized. But if police officers had forcibly brought him to a hospital, even if he hadn’t been arrested, his name ought to show up in an incident report database. Many of those databases, especially in big cities, were now indexed and available to the FBI in real time.
The NSA could dive even deeper into his phone and email accounts, as long as Duto would sign a finding, the written authorization needed to spy without a warrant on an American citizen. The plain fact was, ordinary Americans had almost no chance of avoiding law enforcement once it mobilized against them, unless they were willing to live on the streets or had the survival skills to stay alive in open wilderness.
Wells called Tarnes, explained what they’d found, and what they hadn’t. Before they left, they’d asked Karen if Milo ever seemed angry with preachers or ministers. She insisted he had not, that he’d never cared much about religion. She said he wasn’t violent even when he was manic. And she told them again he hadn’t mentioned any new women. They asked if Milo’s friends might have an idea what had happened to him. She gave them four names but told them that she’d already spoken to all four. They’d denied knowing anything. And they wouldn’t lie to me. They know if Milo takes off, it’s trouble.
“What about the seeding?” Tarnes said.
“Seeding?” Wells flashed to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament: A sixteen has never beaten a one . . .
“What we talked about with Duto. If the Russians want to blame this on Islamic terrorists, they need to make it look like the shooter was a secret convert. Or at least had sympathies.”
Tarnes was right. “We didn’t see anything like that. No Quran, no ISIS flag. On the other hand, his mom lives there full-time, so it might be tough. They could put stuff in his car or load up his email account.”
“So this mainly comes down to timing.”
“Which is striking: He takes off six days before the first sh
ooting.”
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll ask Duto to sign the finding if you’ll keep looking.”
The first time she’d given him anything close to an order. Wells found himself slightly annoyed. “Sure.”
“Don’t like a woman with a mind of her own, John?”
“Let me know when you hear.” He hung up.
“What now?” Coyle said. “Talk to the sheriff again?”
“My impression this morning, he told me what he knew about Milo. Let’s call the friends first, see if anyone wants to talk in person. If not, let’s put him aside, get to the list. FBI will find him soon enough, if he’s alive.”
By nightfall, they had made modest progress. Milo’s friends insisted they had no idea where he’d gone. He was nuts, one said. Good dude, but nuts. You heard about the bear? Meanwhile, they’d visited nine of the names on Tarnes’s list. Six had been home on Sunday. The other three didn’t answer their doors. Of those, two had dogs, a fact that strongly suggested that they were simply at work.
The third, a guy near Colfax named Tom Miller, was more interesting. Mail was piled in his box, and the blinds to the windows on his trailer were drawn tight. Unfortunately, Miller’s nearest neighbors weren’t home either, so Wells and Coyle couldn’t ask anyone about him. Wells figured he was worthy of another look in the morning, maybe a conversation with Sheriff Darby.
“Veterans’ groups next,” Coyle said, as they pulled back into the hotel in Pullman. “Never been to Idaho.”
“Idaho is to Montana as San Diego is to L.A.”
“Now I can’t wait.”
Wells’s phone buzzed. Tarnes.
“I think we found Milo Nighthorse.”
Her tone was so calm that Wells knew right away Milo wasn’t the shooter.
“FBI traced his phone to Los Angeles last Saturday. The final signal before it went down. They asked the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to recheck incident reports for anyone by the name of Milo Nighthorse in the previous ten days. Or any non-black twenty- or thirty-something men who gave false or no names after being arrested. Turns out, LAPD picked up a guy downtown for vagrancy and public intoxication last Sunday. He wasn’t carrying identification or a phone. Empty pockets. He gave his name as Emperor Jesus Young Joseph.”
The Deceivers Page 32