City Problems
Page 6
“Wonderful.” Shelly shook her head slowly and closed her eyes. “Just wonderful.”
“It is like a fortress. Plated with armor and shit. These guys host meetings about surviving the race war to come, defending Christians, needing big powerful high-capacity guns to hold off the government and all that. Letters to the editor every week. Great reading, if you are looking forward to the apocalypse or the Rapture. Guarantee you, we will be on surveillance cameras the whole time we are out there, and probably, we’ll be blasted on their website an hour later, even if we behave with impeccable professionalism.”
“Good to know. I’ll watch what I say.”
“Doesn’t matter what you say, they’ll hear an assault on their liberties, or some such shit. You can say, ‘Hi, I’m Shelly,’ and they will hear ‘capitulate to the New World Order, motherfucker!’”
“Jesus.” She laughed. “You are making me rethink my whole plan to move to the country.”
“Oh, we have some peaceful hippies, too. You’ll even see an occasional Democrat. And in the summer, we’ve got the best sweet corn you’ll ever find. That alone makes dealing with assholes bearable.”
“I do love sweet corn,” she said.
“We are almost there, by the way. Let me do the talking, OK?”
“Hey, this is my case.” Her eyes flashed at me, and not in a friendly way.
“I know, I know. But this guy will assume the worst of us, and I am familiar with his rants. I think I know what to say and what not to say. Can’t ever make him like us, but maybe we can avoid open hostilities.”
“OK.” She did not sound happy about it. “We deal with difficult people in the city, too, you know.”
“I know. I just speak the language. I think. If I fuck it up, jump in and take over.”
She grinned. “Deal.”
To our right, an empty cornfield sloped down to a line of colorful trees bordering Black Powder Creek. To our left was a wood-covered hill. I slowed the truck, looking for the narrow dirt lane on the left that would lead up Breakneck Hill to the Cotton farm. I spotted the mailbox, mounted on an oak post and leaning like a drunk, and turned uphill. The truck bucked in deep ruts.
“Holy shit, you were not kidding,” Shelly muttered once we topped a rise and the barn came into view.
I think she summed it up nicely. This was nothing like the barns you see on pastoral postcards or painted on planks at a folk-art gift shop. This was more like a World War Two bunker or someplace Mad Max had to bust into. I thought to myself that a machine gun mounted on the back of my truck might have been a good precaution. Or a rocket launcher.
Taller than a two-story home, and almost as tall as the farmhouse behind it and to our right, and covering enough area to comfortably park maybe a dozen school buses, Cotton’s barn loomed ominously against the splashy colors of autumn. Metal plates had been riveted to the walls, concealing most of the ancient black wood, but you could just make out bits of the “Chew Mail Pouch” logo between the armor in some spots. Some of the plates obviously came from old vehicles, and in places you could see where three or four truck hoods or car doors had been stacked like sandwich layers and welded together to form a thick barrier. Other slabs of metal had been culled from junkyards, old farm gear, or God knows where. No one had bothered to try painting it a uniform color, so it was a motley of rusty gray, rusty red, rusty blue, and rusty white.
It was ugly as hell, but I was willing to bet it would be tough for big guns to chew through.
I hoped I would never have to find out.
Between many of the mismatched slabs of iron and steel were vertical and horizontal slits, just wide enough to admit a gun barrel. No light poured out from them, and I supposed there were iron shutters inside. I watched them closely, to see if any opened up to let a gun poke out. I pointed them out to Shelly.
Even the roof was covered with armor, and rain and snow had created streamers of rust running down the sloped roof and down the walls. A small forest of antennas topped the whole thing off.
The front doors were wide open, and I could see several refrigerators and storage lockers inside, plus a venerable, mud-splashed Jeep. Above the yawning doors, one of those yellow Gadsden flags hung in weather-worn tatters. “Don’t tread on me,” it warned, below an image of a coiled snake. A few other identical flags hung here and there. A big one, impotent because there was no wind, hung from a flagpole behind the barn.
Above the main doors, a second doorway was closed. It had been built as a means to haul hay bales up to the loft, but if I was a paranoid nut waiting for social Armageddon, I’d put a machine gun up there. I was willing to bet Cotton had.
“Just for the record, I support the Second Amendment,” I told Shelly. “I just wish we could weed out the dumbasses. Watch out for someone up there.”
“I hear you.”
I parked my Ford between a John Deere tractor that belonged in a museum and a couple of ATVs. “OK, let’s both smile pretty and keep calm. Don’t panic.”
“I don’t panic, country boy,” she said.
We got out of the truck.
I was about to holler hello when I saw Brian Cotton emerge from the white farmhouse—I’d describe the house, but it’s pretty goddamned ordinary compared to the barn. Cotton held a Winchester pump-action shotgun, the kind that can handle eight rounds. He wasn’t aiming it at us, but he had a finger on the trigger in a way that made you want to pay real close attention. It was a 12-gauge, and I doubted it was packed with birdshot. I had no doubt the guy had much more sophisticated weaponry on the property, but the simple, old-fashioned gun in his hands was more than capable of putting big holes in cops.
A dog, more like a bear, really, but it looked like a dog, trotted out from behind the house and took up a position as Cotton’s wingman. I guessed its weight at a hundred pounds or so, but it was a big, tan shaggy beast and that made such a determination difficult. I could not begin to tell you how many breeds were represented in that mutt, but I suspected one of them was Smilodon fatalis. Yes, I know that’s a cat, but still. Whatever it was, it was big enough to hurt us, and it bared fangs and growled low. It stayed by Brian Cotton’s side, though, ears up as if awaiting a command.
Brian bared fangs, too.
Brian was a tall man, taller than me, with wide shoulders and a salt-and-pepper beard. Hard gray eyes didn’t blink, and he did not smile. What hair he had left was salt-and-pepper, too. He wore jeans and a blue flannel shirt that had seen better days. I guessed his age at around forty. He seemed to be in very good shape, and moved quickly. Apparently, Hollis High’s star linebacker benefited from some very good genes.
Shelly and I both held up badges, but I didn’t get a word out. “You will get off my property right now. I know you, Runyon, you government thug,” Cotton said.
“Sir, we are not here for any kind of trouble,” I said, presenting what I hoped was a friendly smile. I held my hands up, palm forward. “We are trying to help a teen girl, and we think Jeff might be able to help us.”
He gave us a crystal glare that was rock-solid evidence he was not going to believe a damned thing we said, ever. “Jeff don’t know nothing about a teen girl,” Cotton said. “He’s a good boy. You’ve got no right trying to mix him up in anything, and I do not recognize your authority.”
“We’re not trying to mix Jeff up in anything,” I said. “And we’re not here to tout any authority. We didn’t get any warrants or anything, not looking to take anyone into custody. Just hoping he can help us, that’s all. She could be in big trouble, the girl we’re looking for, and we just want to find her and help her, honest. Jeff may have seen her just before she disappeared. We just want to talk to him.”
“Can you put the gun down while we talk, sir?” Shelly said it softly, gently, but Cotton’s eyes still widened.
“It’s my gun and this is my land and I will carry my gun if I want to,” Cotton said. “Especially considering you two came onto my land and you are packing guns, aren’t y
ou? You gonna disarm yourselves, huh? I am not disarming myself under these conditions, and again, I do not recognize your authority.”
I shot Shelly a glance, hoping she would take it to mean she should shut the hell up. “Mr. Cotton, we are not here to accuse Jeff of anything, or to deprive you of your Second Amendment rights. But we have reason to believe Jeff was at a party where the girl was last seen, and we are hoping he will remember seeing or hearing something that will help us. She’s sixteen. You don’t want anything bad happening to a sixteen-year-old girl, do you?”
“I surely do not,” Cotton said, without softening his tone one iota. “But Jeff don’t know nothing about it, I am sure. And sixteen-year-old girls shouldn’t be partying, either, should they? Looking for trouble, if you ask me. Not up to me, or my son, to worry about her.”
“Did Jeff go to Columbus on Saturday?”
“It is a free country, or so I keep hearing, and Jeff is sixteen. That’s a man in my eyes. I don’t ask him where he goes. But he ain’t mixed up in whatever the hell is going on, and he ain’t talking to no government thugs.”
“Sir, we just—”
“No!” He said it loudly, emphatically, but the gun in his hands didn’t move. The dog by his side moved, though. Its head lifted, its ears popped up, and the growl that fought its way through the big teeth rose in volume. “You leave my boy alone. You leave me alone. This is sovereign ground, my sovereign ground, and you do not come around here without my permission.”
I stepped backward, toward my truck, locking my eyes on Brian Cotton’s. “Mr. Cotton, please ask Jeff to call us if he saw or heard anything that might help us find the girl. That’s all we’re asking. OK? Pretty blonde girl, with worried parents and all that.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I turned my back to him and walked back to the truck. I walked slowly, because I did not want him to think I was scared. I didn’t want me to think I was scared, either.
Shelly got in beside me while Cotton glared at us. The dog jogged around in circles, sniffing at the ground where we had stood.
Shelly blew out a gust of air. “Jesus. That guy is sort of intense. The dog, too.”
“Yeah, and they both have our scent now, too. It actually went better than I thought it might, though,” I said, firing up the truck. “Thanks for letting me take lead on that. You get to go back to Columbus eventually, but I have to live here.”
I turned the truck around, and we headed down the hill. We were up high, and could easily see across the Black Powder Creek valley where the football field lights were flicking on and off in sequence, being tested because there was a home game this week.
“Well, I am an idiot,” I said. “I know where we can find Jeff Cotton. He’s at football practice.”
“Let’s go,” Shelly said, looking over her shoulder to see if spooky Brian Cotton was watching us leave.
He was. So was the dog.
“Jesus, Shelly, I hate being called a jack-booted thug.”
“I’d like to kick the fucker’s ass,” she said. “But to be fair, he called us government thugs, I think. I was paying more attention to the big dog, to be honest.”
“Me, too. Being professional and all ain’t easy.”
“Damn straight. Is father like son, in this instance?”
“We shall see, Detective. We shall see. But the way football fans around here see it, he could knock my truck over if he got up to speed and put his shoulder to it.”
“Jesus Christ.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday, 4:46 p.m.
THE QUARTERBACK, IN a white T-shirt hiked up from his belly by his wide shoulder pads, got the throw off just as Jeff Cotton’s red-shirted shoulder collided with his hip. They both hit the ground, and I half expected a crater. Whistles blew. A coach threw his hat on the grass and stomped it. “Jeff, goddamn it, don’t hurt our guys!”
Jeff Cotton stood up, towering, and extended a hand to the QB, Joshua Webb, who was getting up much slower. Josh jumped up and down a couple of times, did a quick step to the right, then to the left, and flashed a pair of thumbs-up. “I’m fine, Coach.” He looked and sounded like he meant it. Both boys bumped fists and yelled hoorah.
Downfield, players in white celebrated the completed pass with what I assumed were meant to be dance moves.
“Nice job getting that pass off, Josh!” The coach was happier now that it seemed his quarterback was unhurt, and was hollering across the field at his guys. “Good cool head, way to go. Front line, what the fuck was that? You might remember you are there to block. You know how to block, right?”
Several heads lowered, like the linemen were all looking for something on the ground.
The coach wasn’t done bellowing. “Jeff, slow the hell down. We need Josh as much as we need you. OK?”
“Sorry,” Jeff Cotton said. “I just play full tilt.”
“It’s why we love ya,” the coach yelled.
Shelly and I sat in the stands. At the other end, a couple of girls watched their phones instead of the action on the field.
The squads played four more downs, and Jeff Cotton had two sacks in that brief span. He was big, like his dad, but leaner. He was scary strong and scary fast. I figured the only way to beat a kid like that in a fight was to cheat.
Once the final whistles blew and he removed the green helmet, though, he was like another kid. Handsome in a friendly, goofy way, with brown hair cut way shorter than most of his teammates. He guzzled from a water bottle as we approached.
“Jeff Cotton? Detective Ed Runyon. This is Detective Shelly Beckworth. Got time for a couple of questions?”
“What about?” He waved at a teammate, who followed the rest of the undefeated Big Green to the showers. Josh Webb, however, stopped to pat Jeff on the back. He was taller than Jeff Cotton and more slender, and he looked a bit like a youthful John Lennon. He had a busted lip, bleeding a bit. He wiped the blood away, and it looked bruised, like an older wound had been reopened. I wondered how many times Jeff Cotton had plowed the QB into the turf.
“That was a hell of a rush, man, and no worries from me, OK? I can take a hit.”
“I know,” Jeff answered. They did some sort of ritualistic handshake-fist bump combo that was too fast for my merely human eyes to follow. Then Josh walked away to talk to one of his receivers, who was tying a shoe.
The rest of the team ran, accompanied by the clatter of football pads, the slaps of high fives, and the drill-sergeant hilarity of their coaches. Jeff turned his attention to us. “Dad says I don’t have to talk to cops. Your authority ain’t in the Constitution, he says.”
“Well, we are hoping you will talk to us,” Shelly said, flashing that smile God created to subdue sixteen-year-old boys into mind-numbed compliance. “We are looking for a missing Columbus girl. She was last seen at a party Saturday in Columbus. Were you at a party Saturday in Columbus?”
“Yeah,” Jeff said. “I went to see a band.”
“Whoa,” Josh Webb butted in. “You talking about Soul Scraped’s gig? Man, I wanted to go to that party, but couldn’t get away from chores.”
I turned, and wondered why the QB was still hanging around. “This is a private conversation, if you were not at that party.”
“Oh,” Webb said. “OK. Sorry.” He ran off.
Jeff ignored his friend and glared at us. “So why do you want to talk to me?” He squirted the rest of his water onto his head.
“Something may have happened there, Jeff.” I tried to sound patient and nonchalant, which was just the opposite of how I felt. I wanted to find this girl. I wanted to find her alive. I wanted very much to not find her the way we found another girl, in another time and place. I tried to punt the image of that girl—naked, bloody, nailed to a wall and dead way too young—out of my mind.
That did not really work, despite what the Buddha might have said once upon a time.
Jeff shrugged. “OK, yeah, I went to a party to see the local band. We beat the Dusters on Friday,
dude, so it was a great weekend to party.”
“I know.”
Shelly jumped back in. “So you were at the party, at a warehouse, where Soul Scraped performed?”
“Yeah, I was there. Look, my dad would be pissed that I’m even talking to you guys, OK? I mean, I got rights. You got a warrant or something?”
“We’re just talking, Jeff,” Shelly said. “We are not accusing you of anything. We just hope you can help us.” Shelly pulled the photo of Megan Beemer out of the folder. “Did you see this girl at the party?” She handed the image to Jeff, whose eyebrows arched when he looked at it. He had his crazy father’s gray eyes.
“I think I would have remembered her,” he said. “She looks yummy.”
“Take a good look, be sure,” Shelly said. “It’s important. She was at that party. Hasn’t been seen since.”
“I hope you find her,” he said, “but, I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
I took a step closer to Jeff. “Who went to the party with you?”
“Just me,” he said. He didn’t seem to notice my crowding him a bit. And why should he? He was taller, faster, and stronger, and everyone in the county knew it.
“You didn’t take a date?” Shelly made it sound as though that was the most preposterous thing she had ever heard.
“No date,” Jeff said. “Between girlfriends. Sort of, anyway.” He made it sound like the normal state of affairs.
“No buddies?”
“No. I went alone.”
I rubbed my chin. “How did you hear about the party?”
“I heard Buzz was playing. I like his band.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, dude. They rock.”
“Hmm.” I figured there was no accounting for taste. “Did you see anyone else there from Hollis, or anywhere else in Mifflin County?”
“No,” he said. “Shit, you guys are looking to pin something on me, right?”
“No, Jeff,” I said. “But we have reason to believe she came up this way after the party.”
“Dad was right,” Jeff said, banging his water bottle against his helmet. “Shit, man, Dad was right. You guys look to pin stuff on patriots, don’t you? You are scared of the patriots, the true freedom fighters.”