Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel)

by D. A. Keeley

  She didn’t argue with Mann. Didn’t say good-bye either. Simply walked out. She hated unfinished puzzles. At least now some pieces were beginning to align.

  Peyton felt uncomfortable walking into Garrett Station. The bullpen was nearly empty. She sat at the desk she shared with Jimenez and booted up the desktop computer to check her email, administrative leave be damned.

  Pam Morrison, the station’s other female agent, worked on the computer at the next desk.

  “How are you?” she asked Peyton.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Tommy doing well?”

  “He is. It’s good to be here, near his grandmother and even his father.”

  “Sounds painful to say that,” Morrison said and grinned. “I’ve run into him before. Pretty confident guy.”

  “He’s something all right.”

  “I respect you for moving here for Tommy,” Morrison said. “You’re a good parent. Not many people would do that.”

  “Sure they would.”

  “You’d be surprised. I taught pre-K. Only job worse might have been the school counselor. Kid comes in on Monday with a black eye, I try to cheer him up all week, send him home on Friday, and he comes in the next Monday with another black eye.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It’s frustrating. The bad parents get kids, and the good ones who can’t have kids of their own get forgotten.”

  “Well, my ex, Jeff, isn’t a good one.”

  “I mean in general.”

  Peyton looked at the computer. It was still loading. “Any word on Autumn?” she said.

  “It’s not good,” Morrison said. “Bruce and I have been working this night and day.”

  “Scott Smith, too?”

  “Now and then. Haven’t seen him much. He seems to be chasing something else. Maybe Hewitt has him working on something different.”

  Hewitt? If Scott Smith had something to do with dragging the Radke shooting investigation out, what could Hewitt have to do with that?

  “We had one bite on a BOLO,” Morrison said, “but that was in Montana, and it didn’t pan out.”

  “Montana?”

  “I told you. We don’t have a thing. And I’m not hopeful, Peyton.”

  “You think she’s gone?” Peyton said.

  “I think there’s nothing but interstate and woods between us and Bangor. You make it three hours to Bangor and you can go any-

  where.”

  Peyton nodded. Bangor had an international jetport. It didn’t bode well for locating Hurley either.

  “The Canadian Border Patrol says they have reports that European babies are ending up in the Midwest.”

  “European? Not Middle Eastern, Mexican, or South American?”

  “No. It might be a new trafficking venue. FBI might get brought in. There’s a lot going on. I’ll bring you up to speed. When were you cleared?”

  “Haven’t been.”

  “Oh. Jesus, Peyton, you’re putting me in a bad spot here.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I have enough problems without aiding you in whatever you’re doing.”

  “I’m not doing anything, Pam. You okay?”

  The computer sounded like tiny men were inside grinding away at something as it loaded. In El Paso, the computers had been up to date, illustrating governmental priorities: the southern border got every-

  thing.

  “It’s been a shitty day,” Pam Morrison said. “My divorce was finalized, after a three-year separation.”

  “Sorry. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not much to talk about. We moved here, tried to have kids, I couldn’t, and we couldn’t adopt, so he left me.”

  “Why couldn’t you adopt?”

  “How much do you know about that system?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t want to get into it. Anyway, to top things off, I didn’t qualify today. Second time in three years. I missed on my final three rounds.”

  “Sorry,” Peyton said. “I’ll be out of here soon.”

  There wasn’t anything else for Peyton to say. Failure meant humiliating tutorial sessions with peers or superiors. Stan Jackman had come close to failing, and it had terrified him. Continued failure could lead to dismissal.

  Pam Morrison nodded and left the bullpen.

  White-haired receptionist Linda Cyr smiled broadly and waved Peyton over. The email still hadn’t finished loading. To hell with it. She shut down the machine and went to Linda’s desk.

  “Don’t take any crap from whoever won’t let you work,” Linda said.

  It made Peyton smile. Linda Cyr had to be pushing seventy. If an Andy Griffith Show remake was ever in the works, Linda Cyr would surely be cast as Aunt Bee. She may not look it, but she was tough as a scorpion, and her loyalty to the station’s females was unwavering.

  “Hewitt in?” Peyton asked.

  “Yes. No one’s with him. You can go on in. I’ll warn you, though.” She motioned Peyton to come closer; she did. “His wife said she couldn’t take it here anymore, went back to Arizona yesterday. He’s not happy.”

  She moved nervously toward Hewitt’s office. The door was open, but she knocked anyway.

  “Mike, got a minute?”

  The back of his leather swivel chair faced her. A stack of resumes lay on his desk. A cardboard box with photos that once lined his desk lay on the floor. His chair swiveled and he was facing her. His forest-green uniform looked as it always did, starched and pressed, yet he no longer looked like a Navy SEAL. He looked exhausted.

  “Firing me?” she said and pointed at the resumes.

  “Not yet. We had a resignation.”

  “Who?”

  “People are allowed confidentiality, Peyton. They’ll announce it when they’re ready.”

  “Fine. Get us a good replacement.”

  “That’s the plan. What’s up? You haven’t been officially cleared yet.”

  “Are the DNA results in on the missing baby?” she said.

  “Yeah. They might not help us find her, unless we find Hurley.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because the DNA results from his coffee cup are in, too.”

  “You’re kidding. I’ve waited nine months for the State lab before.”

  He shrugged. “The guy might have shot a federal agent and he’s fled. And the baby was a Jane Doe. Those cases get priority.”

  “Was a Jane Doe?”

  “That’s right. Your little girl isn’t a Jane Doe anymore. She has a father, and, thanks to the coffee cup you took, we know who he is. Tell your sister I’m sorry.”

  What did it all mean? The infant she’d found wrapped in a tattered blanket on a cold autumn night was the daughter of her sister’s unfaithful husband. On the night a fellow agent was shot, she’d found that same philanderer near the site at which the baby had been discovered.

  Had Jonathan Hurley been the one who’d abandoned the baby?

  Had he shot Miguel Jimenez?

  Hurley was the infant girl’s father. Was the nineteen-year-old he’d run off with the mother?

  “Peyton, you okay?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve got to see my sister.”

  “She called here looking for you. I didn’t tell her about the baby. She was upset about her car.”

  “What happened to her car?” Peyton asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No,” she said.

  The answer made her cringe.

  THIRTY-NINE

  PEYTON PULLED INTO HER sister’s dirt driveway at 6:10 Friday evening, parked her Wrangler beside Elise’s silver Camry, and got out beneath the driveway’s spotlight. The driver’s side of the Camry had been spray painted, like the prank of an adolescent graffiti artist: DYKE SINNER in jagged red capitals.

  But this was no prank, and rage like a hot balloon, rose in the back of Peyton’s throat.

  The front door of the house opened, and Elise walked out
. “Cute, isn’t it?”

  Dark rings were beneath Elise’s eyes, her mouth pinched in a tight frown. She didn’t look like a soccer mom this day. She wore baggy jeans and a navy blue windbreaker with U-Maine Reeds Owls across the front.

  “You look exhausted,” Peyton said. She felt bad knowing she came bearing additional bad news: Elise’s husband had sired a child by another woman. “Jonathan is a bigger coward than I thought,” she said.

  Elise shook her head. “There’s no way to prove it was him.”

  “You’re not serious. Who else knows you’re gay? Just Mom.”

  Then she thought of Alan McAfee, of what he’d said during their so-called discovery session.

  “Even if he didn’t do it himself,” she said, “Jonathan is behind this, Elise, and you know it.”

  The sky was gray, and a light dusting of snow fell. Somewhere a crow cawed. In the field across the road, a large moose moved leisurely, like a minivan teetering on four fence posts. Maine’s annual moose season amounted to little more than three thousand people walking up to the moose of his or her choice and simply squeezing the trigger. This thousand-pound animal ate peacefully, oblivious to its likely impending fate. Breath steamed from its silver-dollar nostrils.

  “I hate having snow on the ground before Halloween,” Elise said. “It’s depressing.”

  “Happens up here.” Peyton put her arm around her sister.

  “I’m okay,” Elise said. “I haven’t heard from or seen him since he left.”

  “Yes, you have.” Peyton pointed to the car. “This changes things. I thought he was walking out, never to be seen again. Apparently that’s not the case.”

  “He did call me a sinner on his way out the door,” Elise said.

  “A sinner?”

  Elise shrugged. “Yeah. I told him adultery didn’t exactly make him a top-shelf Christian, but he said he was doing God’s work.”

  “What does that mean?” Peyton said.

  “Who knows? Why would he stick around to do this?”

  “I have one theory,” Peyton said, and told her about the background check and what information had been discovered.

  Oddly, a vehicle accelerated past the driveway. Something jangled like a tire chain as the vehicle raced down the dirt road.

  “A DNA test proves Jonathan is the father of the baby I found near the river,” Peyton said, “the abandoned baby girl. I’m so sorry.”

  Tears quickly filled Elise’s eyes. “That’s the same baby that went missing?”

  “Yeah. Your car actually gives me hope that we may find her. I think he took her.”

  “And if he’s in the area, so is she?”

  “Yes.”

  Elise was still crying. She turned and faced the dirt road.

  “I saw the car this morning and just started to wonder about it all, about what I’m doing. Am I making Max’s life harder? Should I have just gone on like I was? Am I being selfish?”

  Peyton put a hand on her sister’s back.

  “Being true to yourself is never selfish,” Peyton said. “Denial is the easy road. Max will know that when he gets older. I respect you, and Mom feels the same way.”

  “I know. I talked to her. She’s inside. Been here all day.” Elise looked away again and was quiet.

  Peyton said nothing, giving her time to process.

  “Goddamn him,” Elise said. “Even last year in Boston? When I thought the affair was over? When he told me it was over?”

  She looked dazed. Peyton thought of a time when she’d caught up to an eighteen-wheeler just west of Las Cruces, New Mexico, with thirty Mexican nationals in the cargo trailer. The coyote had denied any wrongdoing, and in the hundred-plus-degree heat, only desperate fists pounding the inside of the trailer had saved the passengers. Once the trailer was unlocked, Peyton discovered a teenaged mother cradling a dead baby. The girl wouldn’t let go of her infant. Peyton spoke to her in Spanish, trying to convince her to turn the tiny corpse over to paramedics. That girl had the same expression Elise now wore.

  The look of the lost, a forlorn expression worn by those struck down by personal tragedy.

  Where would Elise go from here?

  “I’ve got an idea that might make you feel better, Ellie.”

  “Last time you said that, I’d just failed a mid-term and ended up with a two-day hangover.”

  Peyton smiled and shrugged. “It beat crying in your ice cream, didn’t it?”

  “I was crying then, too. Pretty pathetic.”

  “You’re not pathetic. And this doesn’t involve tequila. Follow me.”

  A half-hour later, the sisters stood at the end of the dirt driveway, the Wrangler’s headlights illuminating the trees and roadside ditch. Jonathan Hurley’s CD collection was scattered over the dirt drive, disks glistening in the headlights like shimmering whitecaps. Men’s clothing was strewn in the branches and ditch.

  Both sisters were laughing.

  “Good therapy is hard to find,” Peyton said, hugging Elise. “If you see him, call me.”

  Nancy Gagnon answered the door like a woman in mourning.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Peyton Cote,” she said and nearly swallowed the phrase “with the Border Patrol. I told you I’d check in every couple days.”

  Nancy nodded and held the door. “Lois’s daughter? I didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”

  Peyton entered the mudroom and removed her shoes.

  “What brings you here, Peyton?”

  “I was hoping I could talk to you and your husband. I didn’t get to speak to him the last time.”

  “Come in, and sit down. I’ll put the water on. Are you a tea drinker?”

  “That sounds great,” Peyton said and took a seat at the kitchen table. “This kitchen is fabulous.”

  It was stainless steel, had Viking appliances, track lighting, and to-die-for hand-crafted cabinetry.

  “Thank you. Tom actually built the cabinets himself.”

  “Talented.”

  “Yes, he is. Unfortunately, he’s not here tonight.”

  Peyton glanced at the clock on the stove. It was 7:35 p.m.

  “Late meeting?”

  “Yes,” Nancy said.

  “Does he still own the Tip of the Hat?” Peyton said. He’d owned it when she’d been in college, although she’d never seen him working there.

  On her previous visit, Nancy had said Tom was home often. She’d gotten the feeling that he was retired, but then he’d been off to work at 5:30 a.m. the morning Autumn had been taken.

  “He just sold the Tip of the Hat. But he’s been called in several times to help with things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Everything from how to set up the taps to how to order to doing time sheets.”

  “Who bought it?”

  “Someone in Tucson.”

  “Tucson?” Peyton said, surprised.

  Nancy nodded. “Yeah, they travel here often, liked the area, decided to put a stake in the ground.”

  “Tell me about the morning Autumn went missing,” Peyton said, “anything at all you can remember.”

  “I played with her on the living room floor, rocked her, and read her stories until she fell asleep in my arms. Then I put her in her crib upstairs. I almost set up the porta-crib in my office, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to wake her, and Tom was out, so I couldn’t ask for help. I set her in the crib and went downstairs. I checked email for close two hours. When I went to check on her, she was gone.”

  “Was Tom home by then?”

  “No,” she said. “He had a meeting. He’s investing in a start-up and needed to meet with the owners.”

  “What’s the company?” Peyton said.

  “You know, I don’t know. Never asked.”

  Peyton nodded. “Could I see the rest of the house, maybe the room where Autumn slept?”

  It sounded like they were taking the profits from the sale of the bar and investing them. At retirement age
? It was a risk that would require significant capital.

  Nancy led her through the downstairs. Her demeanor changed. Now she was like a woman giving a tour to the members of the town’s garden society.

  “You travel a lot,” Peyton said, after Nancy explained how she had acquired an African artifact.

  “I love to travel.”

  “With Tom retired, hopefully you can do more of it.”

  “Yes.”

  They had reached the foot of the stairs. Peyton asked the question before they started climbing.

  “Have you ever heard the name Jonathan Hurley?”

  If Nancy had, her face gave nothing away. “Who is that?”

  “No one. Let’s see the baby’s room,” Peyton said.

  Autumn’s room, for all of forty-eight hours, was clearly a girl’s bedroom. The walls were pink and covered with posters that a teenager would have loved maybe five years ago.

  “This is Kimberly’s room. She’s a sophomore at Bates. Samantha is a senior.”

  Peyton looked out the second-floor window. They were thirty feet off the ground. But no matter, someone had entered through the basement, dropped to the workbench, crossed the cellar, climbed the stairs, crossed the kitchen, climbed a second set of stairs, taken the sleeping baby, and retraced their steps.

  All without being heard.

  And then crawled out the casement window in the basement. And all without waking a sleeping baby?

  However, one thing had changed: If Nancy’s new timeline was accurate, they’d had two hours to do it in, not a half-hour, as she’d previously said.

  Peyton was alone at the kitchen table in her mother’s house. She heard the knock at the back door and opened it.

  Pete Dye didn’t enter. He stood in the doorway, holding a bouquet.

  “Didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” he said. “Maybe I should’ve called, but I just …”

  “No, I was going come see you tomorrow actually. Tell me about Tom Gagnon.”

  “He owns the Tip, or did.”

  “What are your impressions of him?”

  “Not a bad guy, I guess. I work nights. He’s not there too often at night. Likes to travel. I know he does some good things with charities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Underprivileged kids or something.”