Short Stories

by Lanyon, Josh

  “It’s your vacation,” Collier said. He stroked his white mustache meditatively. “But you’d better damn well believe we’re going to make sure you really got on that plane Sunday night.”

  Nash nodded, conceding the point. “I wouldn’t think much of MPD if you didn’t.”

  Montpelier was an okay little town. In fact, technically it was a city, but its population was in decline, according to the last census. Not what you’d call cosmopolitan. The surrounding community consisted of farms and wildlife refuge, the population was ninety seven percent white, and the median income was about thirty thousand. There were lots of parks and a few good restaurants and some really spectacular scenery.

  It was a peaceful place, mostly. But then investigation always began with the victim.

  On the surface, Glen Harlow’s life was an open book. Or, an open webpage. In this case, the official website for the Montpelier Police Department. Nash had read the basics in his hotel room that first night after going out to dinner with the entire Montpelier police force.

  Lieutenant Glen Harlow — Office 2B2: has lived in Bear Lake County for most of his life. He is a graduate of Bear Lake High School. Officer Harlow started his career in Law Enforcement when he attended the Idaho State University law enforcement program. He graduated from the program in May of 2001. He was hired in June of 2001 by Custer County Sheriff’s Office located in central Idaho, where he worked as a dispatcher and jailer. Officer Harlow was hired by Montpelier Police Department in August of 2002 as a patrol officer. Since then he has attended several trainings; including detective & new criminal investigator course, the sergeants academy, incident command, and breath alcohol testing specialist course. Officer Harlow is happy to be working for the Montpelier Police Department and is looking forward to serving the citizens of Montpelier for many years to come.

  Harlow was appointed Interim Chief of the Montpelier Police Department from 6/16/2011 - 8/28/2011

  Nash had liked Glen at first sight. Liked his looks — he was a very nice looking guy — and liked his style. Glen had an easy, quiet competency that appealed to Nash, who was a low key sort of guy himself. Glen asked smart questions during the training and made a couple of useful observations. He wasn’t just opening his mouth to hear himself talk, unlike Officer Walker.

  But it wasn’t until dinner with the rest of the team that night, that Nash had realized Glen was gay. He wasn’t a believer in gaydar, but he couldn’t deny how accurate that unspoken awareness between gay men could be. It had to be more than eye contact or brushing fingers when passing the salt shaker. Whatever it was, it was pretty damn accurate. He’d known before they ever got to the apple pie and coffee that Glen was gay, and Glen was interested.

  Unfortunately, everyone was interested — though not in the same thing — that first evening. The novelty of having a G-man in town had kept the entire police force at the dinner table till closing time.

  “Goodnight,” Nash had said wryly, shaking hands with Glen on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

  Glen’s smile in the moonlight had been as rueful as Nash’s was wry. “Night.” Then, clearly on impulse, he’d asked, “Can I buy you breakfast tomorrow?”

  Nash had smiled broadly. “Sure. What time do we have to be at the office?”

  “Eight.”

  “Pick me up at seven.”

  That’s how it had started. And before they were through their eggs and bacon the next morning, Nash had known he and Glen would be sleeping together that night.

  Not that they had slept much.

  But how well could you know someone after only a week? If a career in law enforcement had taught Nash anything, it was that no one ever really knew anyone else. Humans were the most unpredictable animals on the planet.

  And the most dangerous.

  Chapter Three

  “Everyone liked Glen,” Marilyn Bennett said.

  The Montpelier Crime Victim Advocate was about sixty, plump and grandmotherly, iron gray hair piled in an elaborate bun, and inclined to be tearful on the topic of Glen.

  Nash smiled sympathetically. “That’s gotta be unique in the history of law enforcement.”

  “Well, you know.” Marilyn dabbed her nose with a tissue. “I don’t mean criminal offenders. But even then Glen had — has — a reputation for being tough but fair. Not like—” She stopped herself.

  “Not like Officer Previn?”

  She said stiffly, “Lon is a good man and a good officer.”

  “What happened between Previn and Glen? Glen is Previn’s supervisor, right?”

  “Nothing happened!” Her eyes were wide behind the square-framed glasses. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Previn’s under investigation. There must have been some discussion between Glen and an officer under his command.”

  “Well, yes, but…it was really up to Chief Collier to pursue the matter. And anyway, the State Police are handling the investigation now.”

  Ah ha! as the TV sleuths would say. Not a motive, but certainly grounds for conflict and tension between two coworkers. The kind of situation that could get very messy, very fast. No one knew that better than Nash. This was an angle that would bear further inspection.

  So Nash let that line of questioning go, and said, “Glen was Acting Police Chief for two months in 2011. Why was that? What happened?”

  “Police Chief Talbot died suddenly and Glen was appointed by the city council to act in his place till a new chief could be hired.”

  “Didn’t Glen want the job?”

  Her gaze fell. “Yes, I believe he did.”

  “But?”

  Marilyn absently straightened the cut glass heart figurine on her desk. “But the city council felt he was too young for the position. I think he’d just turned thirty at the time.”

  Glen had been thirty-two. Young, but not too young. Maybe there had been other reasons the city council had passed him over. Nash could think of one.

  “How did Glen take being passed over for promotion?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t like that.”

  Yes. It was exactly like that. But Nash said easily, “No, of course not. But I guess he must have had some feeling on the situation?”

  “He never discussed it.”

  “How did he get along with Chief Collier?”

  “Fine. I think Glen liked Chief Collier. And Chief Collier thought the world of Glen.”

  Maybe yes. Maybe no. Glen was a gay man working as a law enforcement officer in a rural area. Safe to say, he was adept at concealing his feelings.

  Once again, Nash changed direction. “I know Glen is unmarried. Anyone special in his life?”

  Marilyn stared at him for a moment. She shook her head.

  “No? No one?”

  She said, a little stiffly, “No one that I know of.”

  Interesting. Not because she didn’t know anything, but because she apparently did.

  MPD and the Bear Lake Sheriff’s Department had taken all the prompt and proper steps in tracking Glen’s last known whereabouts. Security camera footage from the airport verified that it was indeed Glen climbing into his vehicle and driving away.

  Over and over, Nash watched the grainy, black and white image of Glen raising his hand in casual farewell to the security guard. There was no particular sign of tension or stress in the tall figure striding across Nash’s monitor screen. Zero indication that Glen had been under any kind of duress.

  It didn’t reassure Nash. With each passing hour his sense of desperation mounted. He was too experienced not to know how this scenario was likely to play out.

  It was not going to end well.

  And it mattered to him. It really mattered. He tried to preserve his objectivity, look at it like Glen was just another case — yes, a case that hit home because they had known each other, were good…acquaintances — but who was he kidding? It was eating him up inside. The not knowing, the fear…he’d never been on this side of a missing person investigation before, and it
was hell. Sheer hell.

  There had to be more he could do.

  But what?

  MPD had checked his home and garage, and there was no sign Glen had returned after dropping Nash off at the airport.

  Both MPD and the Sheriff Department had made the trek from Pocatello to Montpelier several times, and there was no sign any accident had occurred during the ninety minute drive. Glen was not in any hospital or jail or morgue. His parents had not heard from him. His brother in Montana had not heard from him.

  Nash did the drive himself the first day he arrived, cruising at a crawl, scanning the mountain road for skidmarks, oil stains, grease spots, broken railings, any indication of accident.

  Glen had been driving his own vehicle, so there was no GPS tracking device on it. His cell phone was now going straight to message, indicating the battery had died.

  “What about Search and Rescue?” Nash asked Collier, his second day in Idaho. By then Glen had been missing for over 48 hours. “What about getting a chopper with infrared out here?”

  “Getting it out where?” Collier asked with some exasperation. He looked as weary as Nash felt. “Have you taken a look around you, Agent West? We’re surrounded by mountains and forest. We can’t just send a chopper out into the wild blue yonder and say start looking! You know we have to be able to pinpoint some kind of search radius. “

  “We’re running out of options.”

  “Glen would be the first person to say we have to use our resources wisely.”

  Would he? Nash knew so little about Glen. But yes, Glen had not seemed like a man to lose his head in an emergency. Nash wasn’t a man to lose his head either, but then he had never been in this position before. It seemed a lifetime since he had said goodbye to Glen, held him briefly for that one last time.

  I should have held onto him.

  Crazy thought. But if he had held Glen for even a few seconds more…because that’s how fast things changed. Second to second could mean the difference between life and death. A deer in the road, a driver passing on the wrong side, the flash of sunlight in your eyes.

  And worse things.

  Evil things.

  Nash got control of his voice and asked, “What about the warrant for his bank records? Do you have that yet?”

  “We’ll have it by noon. We found a sympathetic judge. Same thing with his cell phone records.” Collier’s dark eyes studied Nash. “The fire department has joined the search.”

  Nash nodded.

  “We’ll find him,” Collier said staunchly.

  Neither of them bothered to say “alive” anymore.

  * * * * *

  “He was a good guy,” Officer Kent Dann told Nash over coffee at Edna’s Café. Dann was the newest member of the MPD, with less than a year on the job. His collar was too big for him and he still had a smattering of acne on his forehead. “A little lonely, I guess.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Dann shrugged. “No wife, no kids, no girlfriend. He kind of kept to himself.”

  Unexpectedly, Nash’s throat closed up and he had to force the words out. “Maybe he liked it that way.”

  Dann glanced automatically to the shiny gold band on his left hand. “Everybody wants the same things, right? A home. Family?”

  “Someone to share the highpoints and the lowlifes?”

  “Sure.” Dann didn’t hear the sarcasm. Maybe because Nash’s heart wasn’t in it.

  No, everyone didn’t want the same things — Nash had never wanted those things. Or, rather, he had always believed there was plenty of time for them. Later. His priority had always been his work, his job, his career. He had a beautiful house in Virginia he rarely spent time in. He had friends, all of them work colleagues. He had family he saw for the holidays, which was plenty for all concerned. Occasionally he had lovers, but no one he had ever wanted to settle down with.

  You ever think of relocating? he’d asked Glen, Saturday morning. God. Was it only Saturday morning? It felt like a lifetime ago. They had been lying in Glen’s bed, and Glen had been staring somberly at the ceiling, but his gray eyes — the same shade as the rain pecking against the windows — had slanted to meet Nash’s. “It wouldn’t be easy starting over. Not with all these hiring freezes.”

  True. Very true.

  “How old are you?”

  Glen’s thin mouth had turned down at the corner, an expression Nash already recognized for amusement. He resisted the desire to reach out and trace the crease in Glen’s unshaven cheek. “Thirty-four. Too old for the FBI.”

  Yeah, pretty much. Not technically, but yeah. He was unlikely to be hired over equally qualified and younger candidates. The fact he had even asked the question frightened Nash.

  The fact that he persisted, frightened him more.

  “What if a position, a good position in LE were to open up for you across country?”

  Glen’s brows drew together. “How good? What kind of position?”

  Nash had shrugged. He was dangerously close to making promises he couldn’t be sure of keeping. “I’ve got a lot of contacts.”

  “Yeah?”

  Nash gave into temptation and traced his fingertips along the uncompromising line of Glen’s jaw. That was one determined chin. “Yeah.”

  Glen said at last, slowly, carefully, “Collier is supposed to retire in two years. I’m next in line for Police Chief.”

  “That might not happen, though.”

  “True.” Glen’s mouth had twisted and he’d gone back to staring at the ceiling.

  Now Nash understood that hint of bitterness.

  Saturday night, over homecooked dinner — and a damn good dinner at that — Glen had said, “There’s an FBI satellite office in Pocatello.”

  “I know. The Division Office is located in Salt Lake City.”

  Glen had smiled, his eyes lighting. “You looked it up.”

  “I did, yeah. But…from a career perspective, it’s pretty much the equivilent of Siberia.” The light had gone out of Glen’s eyes, which Nash had hated to see. He’d tried to ease past the moment, “The scenery is nicer in Idaho.”

  “Yeah. We do have nice scenery.” Glen was still smiling, but the smile just wasn’t the same. Nash wished he’d never brought the subject up, never raised anybody’s hopes, including his own.

  The sex that night had been great. Every bit as energetic and passionate as before, every bit as satisfying. But Nash had felt something strangely close to disquiet. He was not an introspective man, but he was aware of feeling something uncomfortably close to longing. This was all they were going to have, and it wasn’t enough.

  But what was the alternative?

  No, once he was back home, or better yet, back on the road, this would all be placed in perspective. A wonderful interlude. A welcome break from real life, but not real life.

  They watched the gloomy-faced moon drift across the panes of glass in the bedroom window, and Glen had asked, “You ever get out this way other than the road shows?”

  Nash had shaken his head regretfully. “No.”

  They had left it there.

  Now Nash asked Dann, “What about this investigation into Officer Previn’s conduct?”

  “What about it?” Dann was instantly on defense.

  “That must have caused some tension.”

  “Lt. Harlow would have backed Previn. He always backed up his officers.”

  “Is Previn often overzealous in the performance of his duties?”

  Dann’s face went red. “We’re not G-men,” he said shortly. “Sometimes we have to get our hands dirty.”

  “Ouch.” Nash grinned.

  After a moment or two, the tightness left Dann’s face. “Okay. Sorry. Policing a rural community isn’t like the kind of thing you’re used to, Agent West. You’re from a different world.”

  Nash let that go. “So Previn and Harlow got on well?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did anyone ever threaten Lt. Harlow? Did he have any run-i
ns with anyone that you know of?”

  “No. Most of the time Glen was in the office. A lot of what he did was management, administrative work.” Dann started to add something, but stopped.

  “What?” Nash pressed.

  Dann lifted his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe he missed being in the field. I think he was kind of bored. I don’t think he was happy.”

  * * * * *

  Working in law enforcement, you came to believe in the randomness of life. You couldn’t help it. Bad things happened to good people. Good things happened to bad people. The sky fell on whoever happened to be standing there. Nash didn’t believe — hadn’t believed for many years — that there was a plan or a purpose or even a point.

  It would have been nice to be able to tell himself some comfortable lie. That he had met Glen, cared for Glen, because he was going to be the one to find justice for Glen. But if the world really worked like that, then why wouldn’t the purpose have been simpler, benign? That he was going to find Glen.

  No. You couldn’t let yourself start thinking that way. Next thing, you’d be getting mad at God. You’d be believing in God.

  Things happened without rhyme or reason. Sometimes they happened to people you cared about. There wasn’t any moral to the story. Maybe it wasn’t even a story. Maybe it was just a sequence of unrelated events.

  There were no photos on Glen’s desk. A clean, white coffee mug read MY SON CAN ARREST YOUR HONOR STUDENT. Today’s newspaper had featured an interview with Glen’s parents. Nice people. Good people. They were unswerving in their belief that Glen was alive. That he had no enemies. And, contrariwise, that he would never walk away from his responsibilities, the people who loved him, the people who counted on him. Nash wished he had the guts to talk to them, but that would have been for his own sake, not theirs. What could he tell them that they didn’t already know? That their son had been a fine man? A man worth loving? They already knew that.