by James Carver
“In fact, I think a friend of mine worked for your ranch,” Earl could now hear the priest saying, “and I was hoping to catch up with him too.”
“Oh, really? Well, why don’t you come in for some tea or coffee?” said Clay. “Y’know, I’d love to talk to someone who was on the ground at Wright Patterson. I’m a big supporter. I’m co-chairman on the Caucus, partly due to you and your team’s efforts. Besides, I’ve always got time for an Air Force veteran.”
“I’d be honored.”
“Great, come on in.” Clay was about to turn to enter the ranch house when he paused and looked back at his brother. “Are you okay, Earl?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just fine. And I’ll be seeing you, Father.” Earl’s face was neutral, giving away not a flicker of the white-hot hatred roiling inside. “I’ll definitely be seeing you.”
Inside the ranch house, Clay introduced Devlin to the lady he’d rode in with, Marie Vallory. She was a slim, handsome-looking woman, cool and self-possessed. Clay explained that Vallory was CEO of a company called Freedom Medical, an organization that ran six hospitals in Ohio and was a big contributor to the town’s social projects. He then asked Vallory if she wouldn’t mind going up to his office while he talked with Devlin, promising that he’d join her shortly. He called for the maid and asked for tea and coffee to be sent to the library. Then Clay guided Devlin into a spacious book-lined room that had been fitted and furnished with mahogany. In the middle of the library was a large glass case about five foot by three foot and set on steel legs. It contained a scale model of the ranch house and grounds.
The two men sat opposite each other by tall windows that looked onto the ranch and which threw large, bright rectangles of gold onto the Persian carpet that squared the room. Clay, a long-limbed, charismatic man with a toothy grin and quick bright blue eyes, was in a genial mood and keen to continue the conversation.
“So, Father Devlin, although it was quite a while ago, it’s still useful to have your view on how Wright Patterson was run. How did you find it? Were there any concerns you had about the staff or operationally?”
“At Wright Patterson? No. I can say honestly I had no involvement with or knowledge of any criminal investigations while I was stationed on the base. My work was solely about the CI program we were setting up. As far as I was aware, that base was in good order. I’m in touch with officers who still work on Wright Patterson, and they have had no cause to air any concerns you would want to know about.”
“Glad to hear it. As someone who puts an awful lot of time into representing the Air Force’s needs at a federal level, I take any intel where I can get it. Homeland was very happy with the results of the work your team did and its in-field applications.”
“Glad to hear it. “
“Those were the days, hey, Father? Exciting times in a new world. Real-time hacking and trailing of online security threats. When we traveled far and wide by our own lights. We thought it was the answer to 9/11. Turned out life is never that easy.”
“We were operating in a technological Wild West. It was all new. There were no rules. No accountability. No oversight. The west doesn’t stay wild for long.”
“Too true. Anyway, Snowden happened and that put a stop to that. That’s the trouble with people—they want it all, but they don’t want to know about the consequences.”
The maid arrived and poured coffee for Devlin and tea for Clay.
“I was actually here on other business when it occurred to me to look you up,” said Devlin. “The idea was put in my head because an old Air Force friend of mine was working up this way, I think on your ranch. And I was hoping to hook up with him.”
“Oh, what’s his name?”
“Ed James. He was running deliveries I believe.” Clay thought for a moment, dipped his gaze, and searched his memory. Eventually, he said, “Short salt-and-pepper hair, maybe five ten and skinny. That him?”
“Yeah, that sounds like him. He work for you?”
“Yeah…well, for my brother Earl. You’re right, he drove supplies. I think he was casual labor though. Not on our books as a ranch hand. You don’t have an address for him?”
“Well, funny thing is I do, but he isn’t there. And I can’t get him on his phone. To be honest with you, Clay, ex-service personnel can have difficulties settling back into a role in civilian society, and Ed had his troubles. Drink, gambling. I’m just a little anxious to check in with him and make sure everything’s okay.”
“Does he have any relatives? Friends who might be in touch with him?”
“He wasn’t a great one for keeping in touch with friends. As for his family, he has a wife and daughter, both estranged. As I say, he’s had his troubles. In fact, I have to be honest with you, I’m afraid the story about how I got these injuries was a little invention. I was up at Ed’s place, and someone had broken in. I discovered them there, and they jumped me.”
“Dear God. Did you report it to the police, Father?”
“I did.”
“That’s terrible.”
“So you can see why I’m interested to make sure he’s okay.”
“Yes, I can.” Clay pressed his fingertips together and thought for a moment “But the truth is, Father, we have a lot of casual labor passing through the ranch. I’m afraid to say we don’t keep records, and they come and go without leaving any kind of footprint. My suggestion is that you take this back to the police.”
“I have done. I’ve filed a missing person’s report. But with the homicide here, I just feel it’ll be way down the bottom of any police priorities.”
“That’s true I’m afraid. They are up to their necks right now.” Clay drummed the arm of his chair for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll have a word with Earl and the guys and see if I can’t turn something up. Maybe another ranch or place he works at, an address…hell, even if it’s a bar he goes to…who knows? Could be useful.”
“That’s kind of you. I know you’re a busy man.”
“Not a problem. I owe you anyway, Father. Now, I’m afraid I’ve got to take a meeting upstairs in my office.”
“Of course. This is some place you have by the way,” Devlin said as they rose.
“Thank you.”
“Ranching is tough. But you seem to have made it into a successful business.”
“Oh, it is now. Believe me, about ten years ago this place was about to go to the wall.”
“What happened?”
Clay paused for a moment and said with a twinkle in his eye, as if he couldn’t resist the chance to show off, “What happened? I’ll show you what happened. Have a look at this.”
They walked over to the scale model in the glass case.
“This is the Logan Ranch,” said Clay. “When my father first brought business up to Ohio, it was a smart move. There was all this reclaimed mine land that was cheaper than dirt. But then margins got very tight on our produce. Low-price imported meat flooded the market, and things were looking very bad for a time. So I just had this instinct, we had to gamble big or die slow. I looked into other methods of selling stock, and we took a deep breath and got into preparing and trading frozen embryos. We set up a lab—here.” Clay pointed to a modern aluminum structure behind the ranch house. “We developed our own system whereby frozen embryos are thawed and implanted into host cows. Well, I don’t have to tell you, the economies of shipping frozen embryos as opposed to live cattle—it’s a real win.”
“Do other ranches use this system?”
“Oh, yeah. But there’s been little movement in terms of yield for decades. The industry standard is fifty to seventy-five percent. We have got to a point where we’re getting ninety percent. Part of that is down to managing the recipient herd, but a big part is our own very secret process for inducing superovulation and freezing embryos. I took the decision to push a wall of money at R & D, and it’s saved our asses and then some. This here,” said Clay, pointing to the model lab, “this is our Area 51. A lot of people would pay
a stack of money, or hell, even do something illegal to see how we operate. It’s state-of-the-art and completely green. Lighting and heating run off solar panels during the day and are powered at night by a hundred-and-fifty-kilowatt generator that runs off animal waste. It’s the future, and we guard this baby with our lives.” Clay was beaming with pride, his charming, white-toothed grin. “Now, I really do have to take this meeting.”
“Of course.” Devlin walked to the door with Clay following behind. Devlin was about to let himself out of the library when he turned to Clay and said, “You know, there’s one thing that’s bugging me. It’s bugged me ever since I got here.”
“What’s that, Father?”
“Where are the springs?”
“Excuse me?”
“This town. It’s called Halton Springs. Where are the springs?”
“Oh…” Clay let out a long, deep laugh. “The answer to that is simple. There aren’t any!”
“Then why the name?”
“It was a lie, Father. A big fat lie. The town was founded by a guy called Joseph Halton. He purchased the land the town sits on. Before they knew there was coal and iron here, this guy Halton wanted to attract people to stop over and spend their money. Make it a tourist place. So he built a lake, right where the fire station is now, and said it was a spring. He put a hotel right by the fake spring too. He tried to peddle a story that the Native Indians believed the spring held magical qualities, that it granted long life. But once they found there was actually coal here worth extracting, the idea of the spring wasn’t important anymore. It fell into neglect and was eventually filled in. So, that’s how the town got its name—after a spring that never was.”
“Funny story,” replied Devlin.
“Isn’t it though?’ And with that Clay was gone, ascending up the staircase into the higher reaches of his mansion.
11
Devlin parted company with Clay and walked to the entrance. He was about to get into his car when he saw a piece of paper fluttering in one of his windshield wipers. He pulled back the wiper, picked out the paper, and read it. Scrawled on the page were the words “You won’t have to wait for the next life. I’ll make sure you pay in this one, Father Devlin.” Devlin looked around, but there was no sign of Earl, just a couple of guys fixing up a pickup in the shop.
A voice calling out from the bunkhouse broke the calm of the afternoon. Devlin looked over and saw one of the Hispanic workers set his wrench down on the hood of the truck he’d been working on and shout back, “It’s not my turn, Campbell!”
The voice coming from the bunkhouse belonged to a hand in his forties who had now appeared on the porch. He was gnarled and sun-beaten with short gray hair that was dry as hay. His wiry body was hard, compact, and knotted from a life of ranch work.
The wiry guy shouted back, “Yes it is! Reeves is out checking the drop. Come on, Alvarez! You need to clean up the kitchen! Now, Alvarez!”
Alvarez walked truculently over to Campbell, who had now caught sight of Devlin watching, and suddenly got all shy and snuck back inside. Devlin followed after Alvarez and called over to him.
“Can I speak to you?” asked Devlin.
Alvarez tried to up his pace and get away from Devlin, but he didn’t want to look like he was breaking into a run. Devlin caught him up, and Alvarez wheeled around and put his hand up. “Get away from me,” he hissed, almost in desperation, and turned back toward the bunkhouse. Devlin called out again and caught up walking side by side with him.
“Hey,” said Devlin. “I just wanted to talk to you about a guy who worked here.”
Alvarez was only a kid, seventeen or eighteen, and was shaking like he was really scared. “I can’t talk to you. Please. I’ll get into real trouble if I do. Please, Father.”
“Are you Catholic? I’m a Catholic priest. Father Devlin.”
“Sí, padre. I know.”
“What’s your name?”
Alvarez looked up at Devlin. He had stopped walking, and his gaze fell and lingered on Devlin’s white collar, before he replied, “Miguel. Miguel Alvarez.” Alvarez had calmed down briefly, but now a new wave of fear overtook him. “But I’ve been told not to talk to you. That you pretend to be a priest, but really you’re a detective.”
Devlin was taken aback for a moment. How did anybody here know he used to be a detective? Maybe the men who worked here had friends down at the police station, thought Devlin. Word was likely to spread pretty fast in a place the size of Halton.
“I’m not a detective,” he replied. “I’m just looking for a friend, Ed James. That’s not anything that’ll get you into trouble. Did Ed James work here?”
The Mexican looked around and said quickly, “He used to, up until about a few days ago.”
“You know where he went?”
“All I know is he left quickly, like it was a surprise to everyone. He was a nervous guy. Didn’t speak to any of the hands here. Only spoke to Packer.”
“Who’s Packer?”
“The ranch foreman. That’s it. That’s all I know. I gotta go, padre. If you keep talking to me, you will be putting me in danger. Please, padre.”
“Okay. Okay, Miguel. I get it.” Devlin backed off, and Alvarez walked quickly into the bunkhouse. The kid was terrified.
12
Stevens had slept for six hours straight when he was woken by the buzz of his cell phone. He checked it and saw he’d missed three calls from Walker. Christ, he must have been out cold. He sat up in bed and didn’t feel too bad. Then he swung his legs out onto the soft carpet and attempted to stand but fell straight back on his ass. He felt awful—dizzy, nauseous, and faint—so he lay back down. Fifteen minutes passed and he felt a little better. His wife and kids would be back soon, and he wanted to get himself presentable so he wasn’t a cause for concern, so Rachel would feel she didn’t need to ask him if he was okay. He showered, had a strong cup of coffee, and checked his messages. Four missed calls from Walker and a message asking him to meet at eight o’clock at the station to brief the mayor. He knew immediately that Walker was going to want him to keep selling the Gypsy story. He got into uniform, left a note for Rachel, and grabbed his car keys.
A light rain had returned, and he could hear the tiny cracks of hundreds of wet drops landing on his windshield. As he drove, he kept recalling his conversation with Devlin. He recalled what he had said, that he was sick of who he was, sick of being scared of doing the wrong thing. He wanted most of all to be a good father and a good husband. If he couldn’t be those things, then how could he expect his two sons to have any chance? It was not good enough to do just enough. It was not right. He would steer the truest course he could. That would mean, for the first time in his life, riding through the storm, instead of around it. It would take all the energy he had, but he knew too that it would not be for long. After Brendan and Devlin had left, he’d driven to Miami Valley for his scan. The full results would take a few days, but the face of the technologist told him all he needed to know. He had only met Devlin this morning, but he badly wished Devlin was here right now. He needed to draw upon his certainty for what was to come.
Walker and the mayor, Jim Cutter, were sitting at one end of the long table in the meeting room next to Walker’s office. They were both relaxed and talking amiably when Stevens entered. When they saw Stevens, they broke off and gave him a restrained but friendly enough greeting. He gave out hard copies to the two men of the Dayton crime scene report that had been emailed over. They read in silence, skimming through for the most part, occasionally stopping on a page to examine it more carefully. Cutter was slouched, in contrast to Walker’s more erect bearing. He was bald with light brown hair at the sides that was swept back untidily over his ears and down to his collar. By this time in the late afternoon, he had started to look unshaven. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, and his fat-knotted tie was loose at the collar. His light-brown shirt, which matched his brown suit, ran over the considerable swell of his pot belly. His trousers
were unironed and stopped just short of where a more carefully made suit would run to, exposing his gray socks. Cutter was a politician. Not of the movie star stature that Clay Logan had. He was a town politician who had a knack for saying what needed to be said in order to stay in the office to which he had been elected.
Cutter threw his copy of the report onto the table and asked, “So, what’s the department’s take on this?”
Walker leaped in, seeking to make sure this was put to bed right away. “Well, Jim, there is only one line on this. The evidence strongly indicates a homicide amongst the traveling community that was camped here until a day ago. The body was found right by their camp on the night they moved out. The victim is from an ethnic group that points to him being from that community. We have had a number of incidents in recent weeks where our officers have had to deal with drunken and antisocial behavior from this group. I’d say in fact that there was a pattern of escalation. An escalation that matches a brewing internal feud. The crime scene has thrown up no other lines of inquiry. According to the Dayton Sun, the travelers have moved on to Cleveland and set up camp—on a football field for crying out loud.” Cutter shook his head and raised an eyebrow at Stevens as Walker carried on. “I suggest we turn our evidence over to Cleveland PD and let them investigate. We carry on with our investigations and it’ll just mean stepping on another, bigger department’s toes.”
“Good stuff, Caleb. Great. I’ll tell the press office to prepare a line and I’ll run it by you. Something to fend off any wild speculation. Okay?’“
“Just what I was going to suggest, Jim.”
Cutter turned to Greg. “When are we expecting the autopsy results, Greg?”