by Cindi Myers
As camping spots went, this one lacked water, much shade or access, Dylan thought, as the FJ Cruiser bumped over the washboard gravel road into the canyon. But it did offer concealment and a good defensive position. No one would be able to approach without the campers knowing about it.
As if to prove his point, a bearded man in camouflage pants and shirt stepped into the road and signaled for them to stop. Dylan braked and waited for the man to approach the driver’s side of the Cruiser. “You can’t drive back here,” the man said, his eyes darting nervously to the Ranger Brigade emblem on the side of the Cruiser. The words Law Enforcement were clearly visible.
“We’re here to talk to Daniel Metwater,” Dylan said. “Officers Woolridge and Holt.”
“I’m not supposed to let anyone drive into the camp,” the man said. He was sweating now, jittery as an addict in need of a fix.
“What’s your name?” Dylan asked.
“Kiram.”
Dylan waited for more, but Kiram had pressed his lips tightly together. “Well, Kiram, we’re here on official business and you don’t have the authority to stop us. We don’t want trouble, but you need to step out of the way.”
Kiram ducked his head and peered into the car. “Hey, what are you doing back here?” he asked Kayla.
“I brought them to see your dead body,” she said, giving Kiram a chilly stare.
Dylan let off the brake and the Cruiser eased forward. Kiram jumped back. The two vehicles proceeded at a crawl up the wash, around the knot of trees and into the side canyon the Family had chosen as their home in the wilderness.
Dylan shut off the engine, but remained in the car, assessing the situation. The motley cluster of campers, tents and vehicles shimmered like a mirage in the midday heat. A child’s ball rolled a few feet, stirred by the wind, which made the only sound in the area. “The place looks deserted,” Kayla said. “Do you think they left?”
“Not without all their stuff. Do you notice anything missing?”
She studied the scene for a moment, then shook her head. “Only the people.”
“Stay in the vehicle.” With one hand hovering near his weapon, Dylan eased open his door, ready to dive for cover if anyone fired on them. But the camp remained silent and still.
“Daniel Metwater!” he called. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
No answer came but the echo of his own words. Simon joined Dylan beside his car. “What do you think?” Dylan asked.
“They could have all headed for the hills, or they could be lying low inside these tents and trailers,” Simon said.
“Come out by the time I count to ten or we’ll start taking this place apart,” Dylan shouted. “One!”
At the count of five, the door to the largest RV, a thirty-foot bus with solar panels on the roof, eased open. A slim but muscular man, naked except for a pair of white loose trousers, moved onto the steps. “I wasn’t aware we had company,” he said. “We adhere to the custom of an afternoon siesta.”
“Are you Daniel Metwater?” Dylan asked.
Sharp eyes scrutinized the three of them. “Yes,” he said at last.
“Call your people out here,” Simon said. “We have some questions about an incident that happened here this afternoon.”
Metwater shifted his gaze past the two cops. Dylan turned to see Kayla standing beside the car. “You had no cause to bring these people here,” Metwater said to her.
“We’re here because we understand you found a dead body this morning,” Dylan said. “Why didn’t you report it to the police?”
“We don’t have cell phones, and since nothing we could do or say could bring the man back to life, I made the decision to report the incident the next time I was in town.” Metwater spoke as if he was talking about a minor mechanical problem, not a dead man.
“Where is the body?” Simon asked.
“I ordered the men who brought him here to take him back where they found him,” Metwater said. “They never should have defiled our home with such violence.”
“We’ll need to talk to these men.”
“They are undergoing a purification ritual at the moment.”
“Bring them out here.” Simon wasn’t a big man, but he could put a lot of menace and command in his voice. “Now.”
Metwater said something over his shoulder to someone inside the RV. A woman with long dark hair slipped past him and hurried away. “She’ll bring the men to you,” Metwater said, and turned as if to go back inside.
“Wait,” Dylan said. “Who was the man?”
“I don’t know. I’d never seen him before in my life. But I believe he’s one of yours.”
“What do you mean, one of ours?” Dylan asked.
Metwater’s lips quirked up in a smirk. “I checked his pockets for identification. He’s a cop.”
Chapter Three
Kayla watched Dylan as Metwater dropped his bombshell. His was a face full of strong lines and planes, not classically handsome, but honest—the face of a man who didn’t have any patience with lies or weakness. Anger quickly replaced the brief flash of confusion in his eyes as he absorbed this new wrinkle in the case. The dead man wasn’t a stranger anymore—he was a fellow lawman. “Take me to him,” he ordered.
“The men who found him will—” Metwater began.
“No. You take me.” Dylan’s fists clenched at his sides, and Kayla tensed, expecting him to punch the smirk off the Prophet’s face. But he remained still, only one muscle in his jaw twitching.
Instead of answering, Metwater looked away, toward a flurry of movement to their right. Kiram and another burly man escorted two other men to them. “These are the two who found the body,” Metwater said. “They can answer your questions.”
Dylan pulled a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket and shifted his focus to the new arrivals. Kayla thought they looked young, scarcely out of their teens, with wispy beards and thin bodies. Dylan pointed to the taller of the two, who stared back from behind black-framed glasses. “What’s your name?”
“Abelard,” the young man whispered.
“Your real name,” Dylan said.
Abelard blinked. “That is my real name. Abelard Phillips.”
“His mom was a literature professor,” the other young man said. “You know, Abelard and Heloise—supposed to be a classic love story or something.”
Abelard nodded. “Most people call me Abe.”
Dylan wrote down the name, then turned to the second man. “Who are you?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Zach. Zach Crenshaw.”
“I want the two of you to show me this body you found this morning.”
Their heads moved in unison, like bobblehead dolls. Metwater started to turn back to his trailer, but Simon took his arm. “You’re coming, too.”
Kayla trailed along after them, sure that if Dylan remembered she was here he would order her to wait at the camp. But curiosity won out over her squeamishness about seeing the body again—that, and a reluctance to spend any time alone with the rest of the “family.”
Single file, the six of them followed a narrow path out of camp, out of the canyon and into the open scrubland beyond, following drag marks in the dirt Kayla was sure had been made by the makeshift travois Abe and Zach had used to transport the body. She estimated they had walked about a mile when Abe halted and gestured toward a grouping of large boulders. “He’s behind those rocks over there,” he said. “We put him back just like the Prophet told us to.”
“And you’re sure that’s where you found him?” Simon asked.
Zach nodded. “You can tell because of all the blood.”
“Show me,” Dylan said.
The two young men led the way around the boulders. Kayla hung back, but she still h
ad a view of the dead man’s feet, wearing new-looking hiking boots, the soles barely scuffed. Had he bought them especially for his visit to the Black Canyon area?
Dylan and Simon stood back, surveying the scene, the wind stirring the branches of the piñons nearby the only sound. The sour-sweet stench of death stung her nostrils, but she forced herself to remain still, to wait for whatever came next. “Was he lying like this when you found him?” Dylan asked. “On his back?”
“Yeah,” Zach said.
“Why did you move him?” Simon asked. “Were you trying to hide something? Did you realize you were tampering with evidence?”
“We weren’t trying to hide anything!” Abe protested. “We just came around the rocks and almost stepped on him. There was blood everywhere and it was awful. Like something out of a movie or something. Too horrible to be real.”
“Once we realized it was a man, we couldn’t just leave him there,” Zach said. “There were already buzzards circling. And I thought I heard him groan, like maybe he was still alive. We thought if we got him back to camp, someone could go for help, or take him to the hospital or something.”
“We couldn’t just leave him,” Abe echoed.
“All right.” Dylan put a hand on Abe’s arm. “Tell me exactly what happened. Start at the beginning. What were you doing out here?”
“We were hunting rabbits,” Abe said. “We thought we saw one run over here so we headed this way to check it out.”
“What were you hunting with?” Simon asked. “Where is your weapon now?”
The two young men exchanged glances, then Zach walked over to the grouping of piñons. He reached into the tangle of branches and pulled out a couple crude bows and a handful of homemade arrows. “The Prophet only allows us to buy meat for one meal a week, so we thought if we could catch some rabbits the women could make them into stew or something,” he said.
“And maybe they’d be impressed that we were providing for the Family,” Abe added. He looked even more forlorn. “We weren’t having any luck, though.”
“Why were you hunting with bows and arrows?” Simon asked. “Why not guns?”
“The Prophet doesn’t allow firearms,” Zach said.
“We’re a nonviolent people.” Metwater spoke for the first time since they had left camp. “Guns only cause trouble.”
“They certainly caused trouble for this man.” Dylan looked at Metwater. “You said you checked his identification?”
“The wallet is inside his jacket,” Metwater said. “Front left side.”
Dylan knelt, out of Kayla’s view. When he stood again, he held a slim brown wallet. He read from the ID. “Special Agent Frank Asher, FBI.” He fixed Metwater with an icy glare. “What was the FBI doing snooping around your camp, Mr. Metwater? And what did he do that got him killed?”
* * *
AS EXPECTED, THE Family’s Prophet claimed to have no knowledge of Agent Frank Asher or what had happened to him. None of the three men had heard any gunshots or vehicles or seen anything unusual in the hour leading up to the discovery of the body. They were like the three bronze monkeys Dylan’s dad had on a shelf in his home office—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Dylan and Simon would bring them all in for questioning, but he doubted the interviews would yield anything useful.
With no cell phone coverage in the area, Dylan was forced to leave Simon with the body and the Family members while he drove to an area with coverage.
“I’m coming with you,” Kayla said, falling into step beside him as he strode back toward the camp.
He’d been so intent on his job that for a while he had forgotten about her. She was one more complication he didn’t need right now. “Why didn’t you stay in the car like I told you?” he asked.
“This place gives me the creeps. I’m not staying anywhere alone around these people.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Do you think one of them killed that FBI agent?”
“I don’t know what to think. I need the medical examiner’s report on when he died, and what kind of weapon killed him.” He glanced toward the motley collection of RVs and tents. “I’m not buying that all of these people are unarmed.”
“The agent will have a vehicle around here someplace close,” Kayla said. “Those boots he was wearing weren’t worn enough for him to have walked very far, and I didn’t see a pack anywhere near him.”
Dylan stopped and considered her more closely. She had regained her color and no longer looked fragile and shaken. “I’ll get someone to look for the car right away. Maybe something in there will tell us why he was out here. That was a good observation,” he added. “Did you see anything else?”
“I think the two kids are telling the truth.” She glanced back in the direction they had come. “When they said that about not wanting to leave him for the buzzards—I believed them.”
“Maybe.” He had learned not to trust anyone when it came to crime, but his instincts made him want to focus on Metwater more than the two kids. “Them moving the body makes our investigation tougher. They may have destroyed a lot of evidence.”
“For a man who sees himself as a leader, Metwater is a cold fish,” she said. “He seemed more annoyed by the inconvenience than anything else.”
“He’s going to be a lot more inconvenienced before this is over. I’m going to get a warrant to take this camp apart. If the murder weapon is here, we’ll find it.”
“If it was ever here, they had plenty of time to get rid of it before we got here,” she said. “It could be stashed in a cave or buried in an old mine or broken into a million pieces on the rocks.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But we might find something else incriminating.”
They walked through the camp, which was as empty and silent as a ghost town, but he sensed people watching him from the windows of trailers and open flaps of tents. “Who did you come here to see?” he asked Kayla. “I know you said a client’s daughter, but who?”
“I don’t see how that relates to your case.” The frost was back in her voice.
“You’re the one who reported the body. You were the only non-Family member present when it was discovered. Some people might think that was an interesting coincidence.”
She turned on him, cheeks flushed. “You don’t think I killed that man!”
“My job is to rule out everyone. Do you own a gun?”
“I have a Smith & Wesson 40 back at my office. I have a permit for it.”
“But you didn’t have it with you today? Why not?”
“I don’t like to carry a gun. I didn’t think this was a particularly dangerous situation.”
“Who did you come to see?” he asked again. “I can subpoena your files to find out. Save us both some hassle and just tell me.”
She hesitated, a deep crease between her brows as she weighed her options. “I came to see Andi Matheson. She calls herself Asteria now. But she doesn’t have anything to do with your case.”
“You said her father hired you. Who is he?”
She glared at him.
“I’ll bet I can find the answer in five minutes or less online.”
She continued to glare at him, and the intensity of her gaze sent a thrill of awareness through him. Oh, he liked her, all right. Maybe a little too much, considering her involvement in this case.
“Her father is Senator Peter Matheson,” she said. “I imagine you’ve heard of him.”
Dylan had heard of the senator, all right. Until recently, he had been in the news primarily for his campaign to disband the Ranger Brigade. He had claimed the task force of federal agents was intrusive, expensive and ineffective. He had succeeded in having the group defunded, only to wind up looking like a fool when the Rangers had brought down a major terrorist group that had been operating in the area. Congress had responde
d by expanding the group, and Matheson had mostly kept a low profile ever since.
And now the senator was mixed up with Metwater and his bunch of wanderers. Dylan scanned the silent camp. “How did you track her down here? You said her father didn’t know where she was.”
“I talked to her friends. Her best friend told me she and Andi had attended a presentation given by Daniel Metwater and Andi had been very attracted to him, and to the ideas he preached. I did some more digging and verified that she had indeed joined up with Metwater and his group.”
Dylan nodded. Textbook solid detective work. “Let’s have a word with Ms. Matheson. Maybe she knows something she’s not telling about all this.”
“I really don’t think—” Kayla began.
But Dylan had already moved to the nearest camper, a battered aqua-and-silver trailer wedged beneath a clump of stunted evergreens. He pounded on the door, shaking the whole structure. “Police! Open up!” he called.
A woman with a deeply tanned face and bleached hair eased open the door and peered out at them. “I’m looking for Andi Matheson,” Dylan said.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” she said, and started to close the door.
“What about Asteria?” Kayla asked. “Where does she live?”
“Over there.” The woman pointed to a large white tent next to the Prophet’s trailer.
The tent was the kind used by hunting outfitters as a mess tent or gathering area, with a tall frame and roll-up canvas sides. One of the sides was open to let in the hot breeze. Dylan moved around to the opening and peered in. A blonde woman sat cross-legged on a rug on the floor, eyes closed, hands outstretched.
“Ms. Matheson?” Dylan asked. “Asteria?”
She opened her eyes, which were a deep blue. “I was meditating,” she said.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I have to ask you a few questions.” He took a step toward her. “I’m Lieutenant Dylan Holt, with the Ranger Brigade task force. I wanted to ask you about the body that was brought to your camp earlier today.”
Andi looked away. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t want to look. It was horrible.”