by P. J. Tracy
"I can't imagine Gretchen taking that route to Beaver Lake anyhow. The roads curlicue all over the place. Adds about thirty miles."
"I'm just trying to cover all the bases. Maybe she cut across Missaqua County to stop at a friend's or something."
"You are a good and thorough officer of the law. So isn't the lovely blooming Dorothy still working night dispatch there? She'll put the word out on Gretchen with or without Ed's say-so."
"Well, that's the thing. She said she would normally, but not tonight. Got real tight-lipped when I asked why, and I got the feeling she was running pretty close to the edge, for some reason."
Bonar stretched out his legs and scowled down at the scuffed toes of his duty boots. The northern counties were pretty relaxed about some of the rules, and if one Sheriff called in a missing person, they all usually hopped on board without looking at the clock or jumping through chain-of-command hoops. "Maybe Ed dressed her down again for stepping on his star. That woman gives more orders in that department than he does."
"Maybe."
"How about all the counties Sharon might have come through? You get the word out there?"
Halloran nodded. This was a different set of counties, south of the ones Gretchen would have passed through. He'd called Sheriff Bull Rupert three counties over first, who'd laughed about him looking for women who were only a few hours late, and asked if he wanted him to stake out garage sales, which really set Halloran's teeth on edge. From then on, he'd asked everyone to pass on a callback to a Deputy Mueller he needed to reach fast, and under those circumstances, every Sheriff between Green Bay and the Minnesota border was happy to put Grace MacBride's Range Rover on the watch-and-stop list. "No problem with those . . ."
Suddenly he ducked his mouth down to the phone again. "Yeah, Dorothy, I'm still on, you got him? Uh . . , sure, that's fine." He hung up the phone and shrugged. "Ed's calling me back on his cell."
Bonar's brows shot up. "Ed Pitala's calling you on his own nickel?"
"It is a wonder."
"More like a miracle. Bound to be a short conversation then. Be right back." Bonar hitched up his pants and headed for the restroom.
He scared himself to death when he looked in the mirror, and spent over a minute wetting down his hair and combing it smooth. He still had high hopes of getting over to Marjorie's before she finally gave up on him and went to bed alone.
By the time he sauntered back into Halloran's office, Mike was sitting very still at his desk, his hands flattened on the open map, staring at the opposite wall.
"Man, I wish you wouldn't do that. I hate when you sleep with your eyes open."
Halloran's eyes shifted to his. "I talked to Ed."
There was nothing ominous about the words, but the way Hallo-ran said it made the hairs on the back of Bonar's neck stand up. "And?"
"And he said he'd called on his cell because the FBI is crawling all over them up there, and they put the lid on radio transmissions. He was real nervous telling me that much, even on his own phone."
Bonar took a breath that strained the buttons on his brown shirt, then walked over to the desk and pulled up a chair. "The FBI's just popping up all over the place today, isn't it?" he said quietly. "So what are they doing up in Missaqua County?"
Halloran shook his head. "Ed didn't know for sure, but they called all his patrols in. Not that they have that many on the road up there- you got a thousand square miles with about that many people-but they still called them in. There's one deputy on his way home; other
than that, there's not one cruiser on the road in the whole damn county, and Ed's having a real hissy fit."
Bonar was tensing up. "They can't do that. Can't strip a whole damn county of police protection just because they feel like it."
"Apparently, they can, under certain circumstances. Ed tracked down the Attorney General at his lake cabin and got the word."
"What circumstances?"
"That's the kicker. They don't have to tell during an active operation, and that's apparently what's going on. They didn't want some cruiser on patrol stumbling into the middle of it while it was ongoing, blowing the lid off."
Bonar looked positively vapid for a minute-a very rare expression for that broad, wise face. "That doesn't make any sense. An operation that covers the whole damn county?"
"That's exactly what I said. Ed figures they've got somebody on the roads they don't want to spook."
Bonar leaned back in the chair and pulled a roll of breath mints out of his breast pocket.
Halloran arched a brow and glanced at his watch. "Your optimism is amazing."
Bonar popped a mint. "I figure if we find Gretchen and Sharon's crew in the next five minutes, I'll still make it over to Marjorie's before she gets the night cream on."
Halloran's cell rang from its holster, and with only a handful of likely callers, he felt a brief, foolish surge of the kind of optimism that Bonar lived with all the time. And then he heard the voice on the other end.
"Simons? What the hell are you doing calling in on my cell? What's wrong with the radio?" There was a short pause while Halloran listened. "Hang on a second while I find the speaker on this thing. I want Bonar to hear this."
"You've got a speaker on your cell?"
"That's what they said. It's a new one, haven't figured it all out yet.. .. There it is." He pushed a button and Simons's voice filled the room. It sounded a little like a chipmunk on speed.
".. , guys crawling all over, so I don't. . ."
"You're on speaker, Simons. Start over."
Bonar leaned closer to the desk and heard Simons take a deep breath.
"Okay. This is the deal. I was off Twenty-three, running patrol south past the lime quarry, saw the crime-scene tape broken and what looked like lights through the trees, decided I'd drive in there and kick some kids' asses and haul 'em in for underage, and then I get down to the quarry and all of a sudden there's about a dozen suits around the car with their weapons out, screaming at me, and those big lights on stands set up all over the damn place, and a bunch of other people in white coveralls crawling over our scene like a bunch of friggin' ants.. .."
"Hold it," Halloran interrupted. "Are you talking FBI?"
"They told me to get out, Mike. Just like that. Get out of my own damn crime scene on my own goddamned patrol in my own goddamned county, and when I went for the radio to call in, this asshole gorilla reached right inside my unit and took the mike out of my hand, said if I put it out over the radio that they were there, I'd spend the rest of my life looking out the wrong side of a concertina fence. Shit." He paused and took another breath, this one shaky. "I reached for the cell phone then, and next thing I knew I was looking into the muzzles of about half a dozen nines pointed right at my head . . ."
Bonar's eyes opened wider than Halloran would have thought possible.
".. , and all I could think of was to tell the big muckety-muck that I'd already called the stop in to you directly, and if I didn't check back within the next minute like I was supposed to, they'd have twenty patrol cars out here, and how the fuck would they like that?"
Bonar grinned. "You lied to the FBI?"
"I did."
"Simons, you are my hero."
"Yeah, well, I don't feel like no hero right about now. I feel like a man who ought to go home and change his shorts.. .. Oh, Christ on a crutch. Here comes the big A now. You're gonna have to talk to him, Mike."
There was a spurt of static as Simons's cell changed hands, and then Halloran heard a deep male voice that he didn't recognize.
"Sheriff Michael Halloran? This is Special Agent in Charge Mark Wellspring. I want you to listen carefully."
Halloran bristled instantly, straightened at his desk, and squared his shoulders as if he were facing the man head-on. "No." They could hear a sharp intake of breath through the speaker. "First, I want an okay from my deputy that he's checked your credentials, and then I want to run them, and if they check out, then maybe I'll listen to what you have to say. Unti
l that happens, you're just a bunch of thugs trampling my crime scene and drawing down on my officer, and that's exactly what I'll be putting out on the radio when I bring every other patrol I've got on the road down on you."
He and Bonar stared at each other during the long silence that followed, then they heard Simons's voice again.
"Sheriff Halloran? This is Deputy Simons, sir."
Halloran raised his brows at the "sir." Simons wasn't big on titles or proper forms of address-no one in the department was, really-and in that moment, Halloran understood the extent of his fear and felt sorry for the man. Like a lot of men of small stature, Simons did a lot of strutting, but right now he sounded like he'd dropped about six inches, and when you were only five-six to start with, that was a blow.
"Didn't have a chance to tell you, but I checked the creds first thing, Sheriff, and as far as I could tell, they're legit. And I took a careful look at the warrant. It's Federal, judge Peakons out of Milwaukee, got the right seal and everything, and the number's in the computer."
"Okay, Simons. Good work. Put him back on."
"Satisfied, Sheriff Halloran ?"
"Enough to listen to what you have to say, Agent Wellspring, and then we'll run our own check from here."
"As you should. Firstly, this is no longer your crime scene. It is ours, and we are fully authorized and prepared to protect it by any means necessary. Are we absolutely clear on that?"
He wouldn't say another word until Halloran finally grumbled, "We are."
"Good. Secondly, this is a national security operation, our very presence here is closely guarded. . . ."
"Not very." Bonar couldn't help himself.
Agent Wellspring cleared his throat but held his temper. "Your man may have gotten in, Sheriff-that was our mistake-but I hope you notice that he hasn't gotten out yet."
Halloran was turning bright red, and Bonar's forehead was so furrowed you could have planted corn in it.
"As I was saying, our presence here is guarded, and that's the way it will remain until our operation is concluded, at which time we will share with you any pertinent information gleaned from the crime scene, according to law. Until then, your transmissions are being monitored, and mister, your whole department is under a microscope. Are you hearing me?"
Halloran took a breath so he wouldn't explode. "Loud and clear, Agent. I want my man back here in fifty-seven minutes. That's how long it will take him, if he leaves in the next sixty seconds."
"Then you'd better hope he doesn't hit a deer on the way back. We're disabling his radio and confiscating his cellular phone."
There was a sharp click of disconnection, and then silence.
"Jesus, Mike," Bonar finally murmured. "I'm starting to feel like we're standing in the path of an avalanche here."
DINO WAS RIDING shotgun in the posh cockpit of the Monkeewrench RV while Harley maneuvered the massive rig over a dark, twisting Wisconsin country road that wasn't much wider than his driveway. They'd turned north off the freeway a half hour ago, but it hadn't taken that long for the absolute darkness of the empty countryside to swallow them. There were no signs of civilization, no happy green road signs that told them they'd ever see civilization again, and Gino was starting to feel anxious. "How much further to the gas station?"
Harley reached over to press a display button on the GPS console. "Five-point-six miles, give or take thirty feet."
Gino relaxed a little and leaned back in the plush leather captain's chair, tweaking the lumbar support, just because he could. "Good. This is starting to get a little too Lewis-and-Clark for me."
Harley nodded, his face glowing in primary colors from the dashboard lights. "I can't figure out what the hell they were doing on this road. This thing heads due north all the way to Canada. They should have headed east on Twenty-nine."
Gino rummaged for the map Roadrunner had printed out after he'd traced Sharon's credit card to Badger State Feed and Fuel, and examined the network of red and blue lines. "Yep, you're right. They should have stayed on Twenty-nine, but let me tell you from experience that there is no way of predicting what females will do once they're in a car. If there's an Amish sweatshop or a house made of beer bottle caps within a thousand miles, they're drawn to it like moths to a flame."
"Those three aren't exactly the tourist-trap types."
"They're women, aren't they? Hell, Angela's loaded with common sense, but the last time we took a road trip together, she made me drive sixty miles out of the way to see Bob's Kettle Moraine Grotto."
Harley gave him a blank look, and Gino just shrugged. "No clue. Still can't figure it out."
Magozzi, who'd spent most of the trip in the office with Roadrunner, walked up from the back and knelt down on the console between Harley and Gino. "The clerk who works the day shift at the gas station is on his way over there now to talk to us. He says he remembers them."
"Let's hope like hell they asked him for directions, otherwise we're driving blind," Harley grumbled. "There's gotta be at least fifty weird little shortcuts from here to Green Bay they could have taken."
"That's what Roadrunner's working on now," Magozzi said. "As soon as he started using probability equations, I checked out."
Up ahead, the ugly glow of fluorescent lights seeped into the night and Badger State Feed and Fuel came into view. Harley eased the rig into an ample fueling area obviously built to accommodate semis, tractors, and sundry other heavy equipment, and before he'd even lowered the stairs, a wiry, sun-cured old man wearing a trucker cap that advertised Purina Feed ambled over, giving the RV a reticent once-over while he waited for the occupants to disembark.
Magozzi, Gino, Harley, and Roadrunner all clambered down, a motley group if there ever was one, but if the old man noticed, he didn't let on.
"Dutch McElroy," he said, offering his hand to each of them as they came off the bottom step, as if they were visiting dignitaries.
"We really appreciate you coming back here to talk to us tonight," Magozzi said.
"No problem. Gives an old man something to do on a Saturday night." He eyed the RV again. "That's a beaut you got there. Need to top off your tanks?"
Harley shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
Dutch winked at him and unhooked the fuel hose. "Thought so. Rig like this sucks down the juice faster than an Irishman on Saint Paddy's."
Magozzi took a closer look at Dutch's bulbous red nose and decided he was speaking from experience.
"So, you boys are after some women who were in here today?"
"Yes, sir," Magozzi said. "Three women in a Range Rover. On the phone, you said you remembered them."
"Not likely to forget. I may be old, but I ain't dead yet, and when three lookers like that come into a little backwoods place like this, you stand up and take notice, if you know what I mean."
Magozzi decided to take the last comment at face value so he didn't have to hit a geriatric. "Did you talk to them?"
"Talked to one of them-a big gal, real pretty, real friendly. She came in for a pit stop, bought some water and a few lottery tickets, and we got to chit-chatting about weather and such."
"Did she happen to mention where they were going or what they were doing?"
Dutch shrugged. "Not right off, but she was wearing some kind of dress that looked like a wildcat had got to it-I figured it for a costume, so curiosity got the best of me and I asked where they were heading. When she told me Green Bay, that gave me pause. This place ain't exactly on the way to Green Bay, and I told her so, offered her a map. She didn't take it, though." He sounded disappointed.
"Why didn't she take it?"
"Said they weren't lost. Said one of her lady friends was from around here and knew where she was going."
"She didn't mention why they were on this particular road when they were supposed to be going to Green Bay?" Gino asked.
"Nope. I wondered, sure, but I'm not the nosy type."
At that point, Magozzi knew they'd hit a wall. Honest, salt-of-the-earth folk
s might make polite conversation by asking where you're headed, but they wouldn't push it further than that unless you offered.
"So these women," Dutch said. "Are they dangerous?"
You don't know the half of it, buddy, Magozzi thought, but he just shook his head. "No, but they are missing."
"Sorry to hear that. Wish I could be of more help." He finished fueling the RV and replaced the nozzle while Harley peeled off some twenties to pay him.
"One more thing," Magozzi said. "Did you notice which direction they went when they left?"
"Sure did. They pulled out and kept heading north. Now, if they had a local with them, she'd probably know that there are only a couple good ways to cross back over east and head to Green Bay, so I'd take a look at those. Come on into the station, I'll show you on a map."
The four men followed Dutch into the station and waited patiently while he took a new map from a cardboard stand on the counter and spread it open. "These used to be free for paying customers, but now we have to charge for them. This one's on me, though. Doesn't make sense, does it? Back in the old days, gas was cheap and you got real service-we'd pump your gas, wash your windshield, check yourtires . . , plus you got a free map. Now gas is through the roof, nobody does squat for you except take your money at the register, and they charge you for maps on top of it all."
As Dutch painstakingly highlighted roads with a felt-tipped marker, Magozzi's cell rang. When he answered, he heard the distinctive, prehistoric sound of coins being plunked into a pay phone, then the background noise of clinking glasses, multiple conversations, and country-western music. "It's Halloran. Are you still at Harley Davidson's place?"
"Actually, we're all at a gas station in some place called Medford now. Me, Gino, Harley, and Roadrunner."
"Medford, Wisconsin? What the hell are you doing there?"
Magozzi colored a little, still half feeling that he'd jumped the gun a bit, hoping that's what he'd done. Grace wasn't in trouble, absolutely couldn't be in trouble, and even if she was, she didn't need him or anyone else on some imaginary white horse tearing across the country looking for them. Grace took care of herself. Always had, always would. "Making an ass out of myself, most likely," is what he told Halloran.