by D. A. Keeley
“Can you go through it one more time?” Peyton said. “I want to make sure I have this straight.”
“He’s only four. I spent a half-hour with him today, did what I admit was only a cursory evaluation. But I work with half a dozen four-year-olds. He’s an average, very sweet four-year-old boy. Average, very sweet four-year-old boys can’t come up with a story like that and remember it exactly the same way every three months for nearly a year. And the crying was not part of some game. I’m thinking, in order for him to remember so many details, and to react as he did, something traumatic happened to him.”
Tommy dribbled Jeff’s soccer ball through the kitchen, dodging the wood stove near the front door like it was a defender. Winter hats and mittens were already hung on wooden pegs near the stove. In the coming months, when split wood lined the stove’s belly, the rising heat would dry Tommy’s mittens.
“It’s the adoption aspect that made me think of you, Peyton.”
“He’s adopted?” Peyton said.
A box beneath a moving car? And an adoption?
The phone felt hot in Peyton’s hand, her palm damp.
Peyton was in uniform, driving to Reeds to see the family of Matthew Ramsey, when her cell phone vibrated.
“Haven’t heard from you,” Scott Smith said. “Did I offend you when I left the diner to take that call?”
“No. Not at all. Are you following up on Kenny Radke?”
“Me? No. Mike hasn’t mentioned it. Why, did you hear I was?”
“No,” Peyton said. “Just curious.”
Lights from farmhouses and homes dotted the eleven miles between Garrett and Reeds as she traversed Route 1. Reeds felt like a peninsula, as the Crystal View River surrounded it on two sides.
Smith said, “Why would you be curious about that?”
“No reason,” she said. “I’m curious about a lot of things. Does that bother you?”
“Not at all.”
“You sure?”
“Certainly. I was calling to see if you wanted to have dinner tonight.”
She considered it, glancing out the window. Route 1 could be spectacular. During the weeks prior to the annual harvest, the potatoes produced tiny blossoms, indicating they were ready to be picked, resulting in vistas of white flowers that often looked like miles of rolling cotton puffs. The fields were barren now, and she could see only what her headlights offered.
“Sure,” she said. “Where should I meet you?”
“How about the little diner between Garrett and Reeds?”
“I’ve never been in there. Never seen any cars there.”
“It’s not bad.”
“Okay. What time?”
He told her, and she hung up.
Peyton’s rational mind told her two things.
First, she didn’t handle adoption issues; that was DHHS turf. However, in lieu of the mysterious abandoned baby found at the border—of whom local hospitals, adoption agencies, even US Citizenship and Immigrations Services had no record—she figured asking the parents of Matthew Ramsey some questions could do no harm.
Second, no matter who eventually took the lead on the abandoned baby case—DHHS, Immigrations, or even state police—Susan Perry would continue to serve as lead social worker, so if Peyton wanted future shortcuts past red tape, Perry could be a great asset, and she had brought this to Peyton.
Peyton was going unannounced in an effort to catch the family off guard. Visualizing what had happened, she imagined a small boy at a daycare, sitting in a tiny chair, looking across the breakfast table, and telling his teacher of “a plane ride.” Then, according to Perry, of high buildings and “rooms where they knock on your door with food.” Hotel rooms? That part probably drew no reaction; could’ve come from any four-year-old recapping a family trip.
What he’d said next, “It was loud and scary and dark in the box under the car,” was when Linda Farnham had spilled the orange juice.
Unlike Susan Perry, the spiders and tears didn’t bother Peyton. It was the box under the car that brought back El Paso and money-hungry coyotes stuffing men, women, and even children into storage containers with little air in the backs of 120-degree trucks to be smuggled across the desert to the US.
She drove to a cul-de-sac at the end of High Water Lane in Reeds. The homes were large and new. If her mother’s three-bedroom was 1,200 square feet, this place was 4,000—a sprawling Tudor with a three-car garage and a professionally maintained lawn. She could’ve been in a Boston suburb.
She came to a stop in the driveway and got out. A Toyota Sequoia pulled into the driveway next door, and a floodlight snapped on. A smallish man in a dark suit climbed out holding a briefcase, straightened when he saw Peyton, eyes taking in her uniform and running to the decal on the door of her truck. He glanced at his briefcase, looked down, and went quickly to his front door.
A motion light went on in the Ramsey driveway, and the front door opened before she could knock.
“May I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to the parents of Matthew Ramsey.”
“I’m his father.”
Dr. Matthew Ramsey wasn’t what she expected. A doctor, but he looked neither bookish nor preppy. In fact, she might have mistaken him for the guy responsible for the flawless lawn—black hair worn past his collar, brown eyes with pinpoint pupils behind wire-rimmed glasses, a Fu Manchu, and a dark complexion. If she hadn’t been told he was from the southern part of the US, she’d have immediately guessed he was French-Canadian. He had a diamond stud in his left earlobe and wore blue jeans with a ripped knee and a faded Carolina Panthers T-shirt.
“I’m agent Peyton Cote with US Customs and Border Protection. I’m here to ask a few questions about your son.”
“What kind of questions?”
“May I come in?”
“What kind of questions?” he repeated.
“Regarding his adoption.”
“You’re not with INS.”
He knew the difference between Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol. Had he dealt with this issue before? Between them, the screen door was still closed. His arms hung loosely at his sides. A tiny scar near his right eye pulsed. A nervous tick?
Daycare employees had told Perry that, according to the Ramsey family, Matthew Jr. had been born in North Carolina four years earlier. Shortly after, Dr. Ramsey and wife Christine adopted him. They’d moved to Reeds a year ago when the doctor accepted his current post as an ER physician at St. Mary’s Hospital.
“Doctor Ramsey, may I come in?”
“What do you want? Is there some sort of problem? I’ve spoken to someone from your office already.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know the agent’s name. Can’t you people get your records straight?”
“I’d like to see Matthew’s birth certificate and any adoption papers you may have.”
“Did you hear what I said? A different Border Patrol agent already did that.”
She had run the names. There was nothing on file.
“They weren’t from my office, Dr. Ramsey.”
She figured, as with birth parents, the Ramseys might have a birth certificate and Social Security card floating around the house. Parents of an adopted child would also have an adoption decree. However, once an adoption is finalized, the birth certificate takes the place of the decree. The adoption forms may then be sealed, requiring a court order to retrieve them. Since the adoption had taken place out of state, in North Carolina, she figured getting paperwork would require divine intervention. But he surprised her.
“Wait there. I’ll get the papers.”
He closed the door and walked away, taking his cell phone from his pocket. By the time he rounded a corner and moved out of sight, the phone was to his ear. Calling his lawyer?
Not two minutes later, he opened the screen door, stepped out into the brisk early evening air, and extended a manila folder to her. It was rare to find parents that kept paperwork on th
eir kids handy, even parents of adopted children.
“We keep everything,” he said. “We waited a long time for a child. I never want him taken away.”
“Who did you call?”
The folder held a North Carolina birth certificate, a passport, and a Social Security card. She looked the forms over.
“Were you looking in my windows?”
“You were on the phone before the door closed, Dr. Ramsey. Who did you need to call?”
“Look, the adoption decree is with an attorney in North Carolina. Now, my shift begins at six in the morning, Agent”—he looked at her name tag—“Cote. What exactly is this about?”
“Is your son a US citizen?”
“You’re holding his birth certificate, aren’t you? What does it say?”
“Born or naturalized?”
“Born—at St. Luke’s Memorial Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. What exactly are you doing here?”
“Just a routine check. May I take these and make copies? I can get them back to you tomorrow.”
“That’s out of the question. Those are our only copies.”
A slender blond woman appeared behind Ramsey. Peyton smiled at her.
“What’s going on, Matt? Who’s this?”
“This is Agent Cote. She’s asking about Matty. Go back to what you were doing. I can handle this.”
“Just a document check,” Peyton said. “Routine stuff.”
“We waited years for a baby,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “What exactly do you want?”
“I’ll handle it, Christine.”
“You’d better.” She shot him a look and left.
Ramsey watched his wife walk away and turned back to Peyton, sizing her up. “Have you heard of harassment, Agent Cote?”
“My questions are routine,” she said. “Sorry for any incon-
venience.”
He took the folder back and closed the door in her face. Peyton thought immediately of her brother-in-law. Jonathan Hurley’s paranoia had spawned a lack of cooperation, which led to a thorough background check.
Ramsey just earned the same treatment.
TWENTY-EIGHT
PEYTON LEFT THE RAMSEY home with plenty of time before her shift. She figured to be back at Garrett Station before 8 p.m. to drop off the Expedition, get her Wrangler, and check on Elise.
Route 1 was wet with a light snow. She hoped Tommy would awake to six inches of light powder, but the stuff hitting her windshield was heavy, a wet snow-rain mix of icy precipitation that was good for nothing. Traveling fifty-five miles an hour, northbound on Route 1, she hadn’t yet activated the four-wheel-drive when two brown patches outlined in fur appeared not thirty feet away.
Reacting on instinct and seven years away from winter driving, she jammed the pedal and locked the brakes.
The truck fishtailed, and as the rear tires crossed into the other lane, she felt a sickening weightlessness and heard a scream that she vaguely recognized as her own. She swerved into the other lane and felt the rear of the SUV kick the other way. She was tossed toward the empty passenger’s seat before the simultaneous restriction of her seatbelt choked off her momentum. A pain shot through her rib cage, and her shriek was cut short. The tires didn’t even screech on the wet pavement. Her hands left the steering wheel, instinctively rising, forming an X in front of her face. The collision of the two-ton SUV and a thousand-pound animal sent a jolt through her twisted body. It wasn’t until much later that she realized the sound she’d heard wasn’t her, but rather the moose—a low huff, like a giant having the wind knocked out of him. What followed was a heavy rain of glass and a sound like sheet metal being twisted.
When her truck came to a stop, she was blocking the oncoming lane with the vehicle nose down in a ditch. Peyton didn’t move for several seconds. She felt like she was rocking and heard a long hum. She realized the rear tires were spinning and the hum was an unfamiliar noise coming from the engine. She turned off the ignition and tried to process what had happened. Had she been rear-ended? Had an on-coming car not had its headlights on and caused a collision? Was she injured?
Her ribs hurt, and her back felt like someone had snapped her spine in two. She held her hands out in front of her. No blood. Slowly, she removed her seat belt and leaned to her left to open the door. The first step sent a pain from her back down her leg.
The moose lay near the rear tire, wailing like a sick cow. Good God: she’d never really seen the moose.
She tried to gather her thoughts. What was protocol?
Shuffling, she set out flashers to stop traffic. She moved slowly, trying to ease the stiffness out of her back. The moose was big for a female; Peyton guessed well over eight hundred pounds. The sound of the animal’s cries made her shiver. She limped to stand several feet behind it. The animal was on its side, its breath coming in long huffs. The moose raised its head as if in a spasm and let out a piercing three-second yelp. Peyton’s stomach did a cartwheel. The animal’s hindquarters were out of line, one hip higher than the other. Its left hind leg was broken at the shin, jutting out at a forty-five-degree angle.
A warm bead of perspiration rolled down Peyton’s cheek. Her hot breath mixed with the thirty-degree air, forming tiny clouds.
She knew discharging her service weapon meant paperwork, but the animal was suffering badly. She carefully pointed her pistol at the animal and slowly squeezed off a round.
With the bullet’s momentum, the moose seemed to lurch away from her, then lay still. Peyton moved closer. The SUV’s dome light cast scant light over the animal, but she saw the small bullet hole beneath its right eye. Thick dark blood ran down the moose’s snout.
She exhaled. It was over. She holstered her pistol.
The Expedition’s cabin hadn’t made contact with the moose. But the same couldn’t be said for the back half of the SUV, which looked as if it had been compacted. The impact crumpled the bed and tore it free from the rear axel. The passenger’s side jutted upward at an angle.
The silence was shattered by another long, agonizing yelp.
She turned to see the animal attempt to struggle to its feet, rolling onto its belly as if to crawl to safety. Its broken leg scraped painfully on the slush-covered pavement.
She felt a warm stinging sensation in her throat as vomit rose. “Jesus Christ!” She drew her weapon again, pointed, and fired four more rounds into the moose’s huge head.
When it was done, she staggered to the woods and vomited.
She was in the damaged vehicle, wet and cold, as the slush hit the windshield. October in Aroostook County could be mistaken for February three hundred miles south in Boston, and temps were already below freezing. Tommy would wear long johns and a sweatshirt beneath his Halloween costume.
Blue lights in the distance grew brighter until a state police cruiser pulled to the side of her truck. Leo Miller got out, walked to the moose, leaned over to examine the dead animal, then approached Peyton.
She got out before he reached her door.
“Want to shoot it one more time?” He smirked. “Five bullets? Afraid it would bite you?”
Her eyes narrowed, brows dropping to form a straight line. “It’s been a long night already,” she said. “Don’t push me, Leo. I took it out of its misery.”
“You okay? Hell of a lot of damage to the truck.”
“I’m fine. I was lucky the back took the brunt.”
The first set of headlights appeared in the southbound lane.
“You’re limping, and you’re soaked. Get back in. I’ll direct traffic. Tow truck on the way?”
She shook her head. “I can drive back.”
“You think so?”
“I turned the engine off,” she said. “Tires are fine. The bed is probably totaled, but the station’s only a mile away.”
“What are you going to do with the moose?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you hit it. You get to keep it.”
“Keep it?” she said.
“The meat.”
“Oh, I don’t want it.”
“Well, I was thinking that maybe I …”
“It’s all yours, Leo.”
He beamed. “That’s”—he looked at the animal, appraising—“shit, that’s close to four hundred pounds of meat. Moose steaks, moose meatballs, moose hamburgers …” He saw her expression. “What? You a vegetarian?”
“Ever see Forrest Gump?”
“No, actually.”
“Forget it,” she said. He offered his sincere thanks, which she shrugged off. “No problem. You all set here?”
“Sure. Let me get my flashers. I’ll do the paperwork, maybe drop it by for you to review.” He looked down almost shyly as he said it, then up quickly, checking her reaction.
She wondered if his obnoxious first impression had been nerves or an effort to impress Hewitt. There was no earthly reason for a Border Patrol agent to review his accident report. But he was cleaning up the mess for her and taking the eight-hundred-pound carcass off her hands. She said nothing, got in the SUV, and cranked the heater. It took two tries, and she had to engage the four-wheel-drive low setting, but she got the vehicle back on the road.
She was on Route 1 heading back to the station when Bruce Steele’s voice broke over the radio.
“Requesting backup from any unit.” His words were rapid-fire, adrenaline-driven bursts. “High-speed pursuit in progress at the Garrett border crossing.”
Whatever was happening was big. Steele had called for help from anyone—Border Patrol, local cops, and sheriff’s department.
She swung the battered vehicle around and headed to the nearby border, lights flashing.
Had Steele caught a break in the Jimenez shooting?
TWENTY-NINE
THE ENGINE WAS STILL whining, but Peyton was traveling fifty miles an hour in four-wheel-drive, the SUV’s rear end rising and falling with a clatter against the frame.
She grabbed the radio, gave her location, and said, “Bruce, where are you?”
“Heading right for you, chasing a white Aerostar van.” He read the plate number to her. “Set up a road block, Peyton.”