by Susan Slater
He slowed five miles before the town’s outer limits. The Mercedes was gone but now the scorched ground where it had been was surrounded with crime tape. Things sure seemed to work on a mañana schedule out here. No one had even been at the site when he’d passed it an hour earlier. But it was Saturday morning and only nine thirty.
Dan pulled in behind the second cruiser and parked on the shoulder. Sheriff Howard was talking with a highway patrolman while two men in jumpsuits were running old-fashioned metal detectors over the area—each walking parallel to the other but fifty feet apart. Sheriff Howard waved him over and met him with a hearty handshake.
“Just got off the phone with Clay. Boy, am I glad he had some good news for you. You don’t know how relieved I am.”
“Thanks. Me, too.” Not proved beyond a doubt but very, very probable. Something to hang on to and Dan needed that. “You need to organize a search and rescue. Elaine’s out there somewhere—”
“Got the boys on this another half hour, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything. I’ll put in for a statewide S&R when we know for sure that Ms. Linden is missing.”
“Know for sure? What more do you need? You’re losing valuable time. It needs to be done now.”
“With all due respect and understanding your situation, I have rules to follow. Twenty-four hours before I can make a move. Best I can do.”
Dan knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere. Rules. How many lives had been lost in the name of following orders? But he kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t gain anything by antagonizing the sheriff.
“When was the last time you heard from Ms. Linden?”
“Night before last.”
“And you didn’t know she was heading out yesterday?”
“I’m betting it was supposed to be a surprise.”
“We don’t know if she even made it this far. She could have been carjacked anywhere along the way and the car brought here.”
“True. But why here if she wasn’t driving?”
“Yeah, doesn’t add up.”
“I take it you haven’t found anything…any hints as to who?”
“Could have been robbery; we haven’t found a purse or luggage. There’s a scorched box of pizza and what was probably a DVD that was on the backseat.”
“Friday night.” Elaine was planning on being with him last night…almost made it.
“Pardon?”
“She was in the car at this point. She left the car—was taken from the car—whatever, but she was here.”
“What tells you that?”
“I’ll make a bet that she picked up the pizza in Las Vegas—she wouldn’t bring frozen food from Albuquerque or Santa Fe. We’ve rented DVDs from that store at the edge of town before. I’ll call ’em.”
Dan retrieved his cell from the SUV and let Simon out after clipping his leash in place. A quick call supported his claim—Elaine had rented Eat, Pray, Love at around quarter to five, Friday night. His first reaction was he didn’t mind seeing the DVD in a melted state—then admonished himself. He’d watch The Wedding Planner…hell, he’d watch Under the Tuscan Sun looped non-stop if it meant having Elaine with him.
“We’re gonna wrap it up. I’m not going to know what direction to take until we get that poor girl ID’d. And I got that bank president needing attention. But I want you to know I’ll do everything I can as quickly as I can to find Ms. Linden. Want me to keep you in the loop?”
“Absolutely. I’ll do the same.”
Dan watched the little group of law enforcers pack up their equipment, pile back into separate cars, two pull U-turns and head back to town while the sheriff continued to Wagon Mound. By now Simon was more than ready to be let off leash to stretch his legs.
Helpless. He hated that feeling. But no one said he couldn’t do some investigating on his own. This was where Elaine disappeared. She had been here. He could feel it. But how cold could a fifteen-hour trail be? He just shook his head. Frigid, probably.
He started with the scorched square of grass at the edge of the road and walked around it. No gauging now what direction she had taken when she left the car. What wasn’t burned was trampled flat between hauling the car off and the metal detecting search team that just left.
Had the Benz had engine trouble? He doubted it. She had said she was going to get it serviced—even new tires. No, more than likely, something made her pull over. Had she hit an animal? He quickly stepped to the edge of the highway and scanned both the asphalt and the embankment for a furry or feathered body. Nothing. Where did he go from here? It wasn’t like there was any kind of neighborhood to canvas—the old standby questions, what did you see or what did you hear didn’t make it out here.
When Simon came up to stand beside him, he was so lost in thought that the bag in the dog’s mouth didn’t register—not until Simon dropped the tan leather Coach shoulder purse on his foot. Dan quickly stooped to pick it up, wiped a trail of saliva off the strap, opened it and immediately fished out Elaine’s billfold. Fifty dollars in cash, cards, change, gas receipts—nothing had been taken. This wasn’t a robbery. He didn’t know what it was, but he could eliminate a hold-up. And she had gotten this close to Wagon Mound.
Now the question was how could he find the spot that Simon had found? He wasn’t thinking when he let the dog go. He should have leashed him and then with dog under control scoured the area. But praise was in order now. From the look of rapt attention, Simon was sure this feat must be worth a treat or at least some pats on the head.
“Good job, Simon.” If a rottweiler could beam, then the dog fairly glowed. And for a fleeting moment, Dan wished Simon had some retriever in him. There was just no way that Simon could lead him back to where he had found Elaine’s purse. Then he thought of something. Where was her phone? He upended the bag spilling everything on the ground: lipstick, tube of gloss, grocery list, house keys, two pairs of sunglasses, Kleenex…no cell.
Of course, it could have been on the seat in the car but if it had fallen out—he quickly pulled out his cell and dialed. Tough to tell, but he swore that he could hear a jangling tune from somewhere over to his left. Faint. Barely discernible. He dialed again. This time Simon gave a low “woof” and bolted.
Something about trying to follow four legs on only two…Dan paused twice to retry the number and was rewarded when the sound appeared closer. But, of course, Simon got there first, up and over a jumbled mass of boulders he was hopping around at the edge of an arroyo when Dan got to him. Then Simon disappeared over the edge and plunged down a six- foot incline.
The grass at the edge was bent, some dried stalks broken leaving little doubt that something or someone had slipped over the edge besides Simon. Now the answering cell was just below him—still hidden in underbrush but probably within fifteen feet. He took a step forward, slipped, lost his footing and sat down sharply. Broken Juniper branches, flattened grasses and weeds—someone had done the exact same thing, fallen and struggled to get up.
He just sat there staring, then stood balancing against a boulder. The spot was remote, well off the highway. He moved to retrieve the cell phone below him neatly planted in a clump of blue grama. What had happened here? Why was Elaine in the arroyo in the first place? He stood in one spot and looked around. What caught his eye was how beaten down the grass was around and below him. Much more damage than one person could do. Slipping and sliding, he kept an eye on the ground and made his way to the flat, sandy, arroyo bottom.
Looking back up, he recalculated and figured the steep side to be more like twenty feet—a hefty climb, or fall. But there was every reason to believe that either for better or worse, the boulder broke Elaine’s fall. She didn’t reach the bottom on her own judging from the footprints and tire tracks in the arroyo, she had help.
Damn it. Someone had rescued, then abducted her. The same folks who put the nude body of a teenager in the Merce
des? He hoped not. There were satanic overtones to killing someone by fire—somehow beyond any other means of death, fire was torture, or at the very least, a nasty cover-up. And this looked to be the former. What would people like that do to Elaine?
He was jolted back to the present by the low keening sound of Simon who was still sitting above him beside the boulder.
“Yeah, I know, Boy. This isn’t pretty.” He motioned for Simon to “come”—another one of those newly learned signals—and reluctantly, the dog obeyed. “Let’s see where these tracks lead.”
It was obviously an all-terrain vehicle. Only an ATV could maneuver around the boulders and get good traction in the thick sand. An arroyo was dangerous in the best of weather and deadly during the monsoons. The same torrential rains that had deposited the boulders and debris that he was skirting, could take the life of a human being in the blink of an eye—carrying that person at a rate of over thirty-five miles per hour hell-bent down one of these watery avenues.
He squatted and checked the tracks. The crustiness of the top layer of sand was indented suggesting a much heavier vehicle would have broken the surface and sunk in. Which also might mean only a driver onboard. If there were two people, the second was a lightweight, until the ATV turned to go back the way it came. Then the back wheels dug in perceptibly deeper—not by much but enough to account for a hundred and thirty plus pound passenger.
He followed the tracks until the ATV went up a lower sloping side of the arroyo and the tracks disappeared on the asphalt. What now? He could just about prove that Elaine had gotten out of her car to follow something—something that she’d hit probably. She’d never leave a wounded animal. And in following it, she fell down the arroyo, was injured, then rescued by one or two people on an ATV. No, rescue was the wrong word. He had no warm, fuzzy feeling that her saviors meant anything other than harm.
The tuneless melody from his cell made him hurriedly reach in his pocket. He flipped the phone open. Elaine? “Mahoney, here.” He deflated like a balloon when he heard a man’s voice. How long would it be before that rush of adrenalin and hope at every ring would subside? Every minute without knowing made it that much more difficult.
“This is Sheriff Howard. I need to have you meet me at the bank.”
“Sure. Is there something I can help with?”
“Hope so. Otherwise, just need to pick your brain.”
The sheriff wasn’t long on words and abruptly hung up. With everything else going on, Dan had pushed Lawrence Woods from his mind. But he was another piece of the puzzle…or puzzles. Dan couldn’t even figure out if everything was connected. But he didn’t have a good reason to think that it wasn’t.
***
“May have a match with that girl that was burned.” Sheriff Howard met Dan at the curb in front of the bank.
“That was quick.”
“Well, should say I’m putting two and two together…nothing definitive but just got a missing person’s report. Mother of a girl who worked part-time here at the bank.”
“Amber Medger?”
“Yeah, you know her?”
“Not really. I wanted to talk with her about a couple times she filled in for Stephanie.” Dan wasn’t going to mention the call to the Hobbs office…about her knowing his route and ETA…how she could have set him up.
“Her mother filed a missing person’s report this morning. Seems the girl ran off with a biker few weeks back…was supposed to have gotten married. Apparently, that fell through and she came back home only to disappear again. No one’s heard from her for the last four days. I think she’s our dead mystery woman.”
“Amber?” Both men turned. Stephanie had walked up behind them.
“Sorry you had to overhear. That information isn’t for general distribution. And, I may of misspoke. We don’t have answers.” Sheriff Howard looked contrite.
“But Amber? She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She just wanted a chance at life.” The tears were starting, and Dan moved to put an arm around Stephanie. The morning had taken its emotional toll on her—it would on anyone.
“The sheriff’s right. No one knows anything for certain.” Dan hoped his smile was empathetic.
Sniffling, then a quick smile of gratitude as Dan fished a Kleenex out of his jacket pocket, and Stephanie blew her nose.
Sheriff Howard touched her on the shoulder, a half-hearted sort of squeeze, but Dan was glad to see him break his stiff façade. “Stephanie, if you have the extra time, I’d like you to answer some questions about the vault. Show me a thing or two about security.”
Good, Dan thought, give her something to do, take her mind off of her friend—and her boss. The three of them went back into the bank. The sheriff paused at the vault door before stepping into the room.
“Did you happen to notice when you opened up this morning, if this door was open?”
Stephanie shook her head. “I didn’t get past…get past….” She turned sideways and pointed toward the foyer.
“I’d like to know if you see anything different here. Take your time.”
“I don’t need any time, sheriff, the fact that the door is open at all says that Mr. Woods had to have opened it…and those boxes—there’s no reason they should be open.”
Dan looked over Stephanie’s shoulder. Hot damn! The three unused security boxes with their doors standing wide open. Well, maybe not unused, just unmarked without the name of an owner on the list in Stephanie’s drawer.
“I don’t want to step on toes here, but I’d really recommend going over each of those boxes with a fine-tooth comb.” Dan expected some objection from the sheriff but only got a, “Why?”—and a piercing stare.
“Well, I have a theory.” Quickly, Dan filled them in on how the necklace had been misplaced, not stolen, and that other customer’s claims turned out to be bogus which led to an epiphany of sorts. What if someone had tunneled into the bank to leave something, not take something out? Something so unusual, or valuable that it took a bank vault to hold it. You have to admit this would be a perfect hiding place.”
“That’s a new one.” Skeptical. But Dan could see that the sheriff was rolling it around. “No bright ideas on just what this was?”
Dan ignored the hint of sarcasm. He knew how it must sound. “No. I only believe they didn’t even try to reach the two million sitting in the next room. This is where they wanted to be. And I’ve got a feeling that the tunnel had been there for a while. Maybe, Woods knew about it. Looked the other way.”
Sheriff Howard stared at Dan, then shrugged and turned to Stephanie. “How many people had access to this vault? Knew the combination and had keys to the boxes?”
“As I explained to Mr. Mahoney, that was one of our new rules. Mr. Woods took control of the vault first part of the summer. I checked people in and out, but he was the only one who could retrieve their belongings.”
“Any explanation as to why this change?” Sheriff Howard was taking notes.
“No, he said it was new bank-wide policy. A vice president or above was the only authorized person. We don’t have a vice president.”
“Let me get the boys back down here. I’m taping off the room—no one goes in or out. We’ll see if your theory holds water.” Sheriff Howard flipped his cell open, then turned to Dan. “Oh yeah, with this new info I’m authorizing a search and rescue—might be premature but then again, might not be.”
Dan nodded. He didn’t get the feeling that the sheriff held out much hope. For that matter, did he? But as long as he was here he wanted to look at the check-in book again. He had nothing particular in mind, but maybe there was something he’d missed—some notation by Amber that would somehow indicate duplicity. Yeah, a long shot but he’d do anything to not go back to the apartment. He couldn’t just sit there staring at four walls and thinking and not knowing.
“Stephanie? Do you have a minute? I’d like to l
ook at the vault sign-in sheet for August again. Actually, let’s make it June and July, too.”
Stephanie looked pleased to be doing something and gave him a weak smile as she went to her desk. After unlocking the lower drawer, she set the logs for the three summer months on top facing him.
“Can I help you look for something?”
Dan sighed. “If I knew what I was looking for.” He pulled the logs closer. “How often did Amber sit in for you?”
“I guess a lot over the summer. My grandson was ill and I took several long weekends to go to Albuquerque.”
Dan opened the June log and leafed through. There were three long weekends—Friday/Monday combinations starting the second week. He reached for July and found four Fridays that Amber had sat in. During August, she was in twice—only one of those a long weekend.
He opened each log to the first date that Amber’s initials showed up and let his eye run down the entries. It wasn’t until he’d compared the second and third days that he saw it. Coincidence? He leafed back through the pages when Stephanie had been there—then turned back to Amber’s fill-in times. No. This didn’t add up.
“Stephanie, how often did Emily Tapia request her safe deposit box?”
“I don’t remember any times. She never came in. Paid for their box on a monthly basis but never checked on it.”
“Wouldn’t you say it’s interesting that she came in every single time Amber was on duty?”
“Really?” Stephanie turned the logs to look. “She and her dad had one of those manuscript-sized boxes. You know, like the post office? It could hold several folders.”
Yeah, Dan thought, manuscript-sized to hold a silver baby spoon and her mother’s wedding set. Things that she needed to look at nine times over the summer.
“Just to make sure her visits started in June, check another three months like March, April, May of this year.”
He watched as Stephanie leafed through the additional logs. “Not one visit. Not even the times Amber was here. What do you think it means?”