“They’re selling kids, man. To kiddie porn monsters.”
“You know what?” he replied. “That’s probably a better fate for them than dying of worms in their front yards.”
Both shepherds, who had been listening raptly to our conversation and hoping for more scraps, got up suddenly and went to the front door, ears up. Baby had all the lights out and I had the shotgun in hand in about the same five seconds. We each took a window. It was full dark by now, but the campground lights down below the cabin gave us a good look outside. The shepherds weren’t growling, which I finally realized meant that they might know who or what was outside. I couldn’t see the area right in front of the door.
Then I remembered who’d brought me to this cabin in the first place.
“Lemme guess, you’re desperately seeking some decent scotch,” I said softly.
“Open the freaking door, please,” Carrie said from the other side. “It’s getting cold out here.”
Baby, his gun pointed down at the floor, opened the door and she stepped through, both arms full of gear. “Having a nice chat, boys?” she asked as she dumped her stuff on the floor. The shepherds greeted her warmly. “You’re lucky I wasn’t a creeping Creigh, with all those lights on and a clear shot right through my window of choice.”
“This is a federal reservation,” Baby declared self-righteously, putting away his gun. “A national park, even. A treasured heritage. A Vanderbilt tax write-off. They wouldn’t dast.”
She snorted and asked where the glasses were. In our haste we’d forgotten to hide the bottle, so, unfortunately, we had to share. We sat back down at the table.
“So what’s the plan, Stan?” she asked no one in particular.
Baby made a by-me gesture with his hands. “I was just invited over for dinner,” he said. “You know, just passing through the neighborhood?”
Carrie looked over at me expectantly. She was wearing jeans, a sleeveless blouse, and a too-large ball cap, presumably to cover up the new sideways part in her hair. But her eyes were clear and she seemed to have regained some of her normal spunk.
“Beats the shit out of me,” I said. “I was just taking the night off.”
“He lies,” Baby said helpfully. “He didn’t want to slink away back to beautiful downtown Triboro and leave you alone up here with all these black hats looking for you. Watch yourself, Carrie-it might be true love.”
I gave him the finger and Carrie started laughing. That was a pretty sight, actually.
“You write up something to send in?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“I did,” she said. “Between naps. It’s over there in that pile of stuff. You mail yours?”
“FedEx overnight to the Stick People down in Charlotte,” I said. “Baby here thinks it’s actually going to stir up some shit.”
“Like the subtle message you sent along with Bigger John this morning did?” she said.
“Somebody get upset?”
“Sheriff Hayes has apparently disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Deputy John came back by this afternoon. Said Hayes left his badge and a letter of resignation on his desk, citing personal reasons.”
“Did Deputy John confirm he’d given him my message?”
“He did. Said the sheriff got a funny look on his face, closed his door, and made a long phone call. Then he came out, told his secretary he had an urgent meeting, took his cruiser out of the sheriff’s office lot, and drove away. She didn’t find the resignation letter for another hour, by which time he was long gone. No sign of him since. No radio contact. No nothing. And he kept his weapon.”
“And what was this little love note you sent the sheriff?” Baby asked. I’d neglected to tell him that part earlier, and when he heard it, he whistled. “That old boy may be sucking on his Glock as we speak,” he said.
“If he’s been involved in a scheme to sterilize young girls and then sell them to Arab potentates, that’s the least he could do,” I said.
“Or,” Carrie said, “that really was an argument we were watching, and now Hayes has gone to settle something with Mingo.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He may have been operating under the assumption that impoverished young women in Robbins County were getting abortions and Mingo was the gatekeeper, using a moonlighter at the Carrigan County hospital. Once you told your story about seeing Grinny handing over a child, and then talking about kids and airports, well, that may have been an epiphany for Mr. Do-nothing Hayes.”
“That would explain the way he turned as hostile as he did,” I said. “Up to that point it was him and us against the face of evil in Robbins County. Then all of sudden it was Get out of my county.”
“Whatever, they can’t find him, and they’re worried.”
“Did you tell John that you were coming here?” I asked.
She said no. “I told him I was checking out this afternoon and let him draw his own conclusions. He does have my cell number. Oh, and he said that Laurie May had been moved before her boys went to war and the Creighs burned her cabin down. One of the other brothers came and got her. She’s alive and well over in Tennessee at his place. There were two old dogs that did not get out.”
“You know what?” Baby said, getting up. “You guys are starting to scare me. I’m going to go back to the relative safety of chasing down homicidal druggies.”
“Okay if we camp out here for a while?” Carrie asked him.
“Oh, hell, yes,” he said. “We’re not using it, and after what I’ve heard tonight, none of us peace-loving narcs are going to get anywhere near this or the neighboring county. If the Park Service rumbles it, you’re on your own, though.”
“Can you help with that report I sent in to the Bureau?” I asked. “Like maybe call someone down there, tell them to be looking for it?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I can give the ASAC a heads-up. But he’ll invite me to butt-outsky, and for once, I’m going to oblige with a smile. You two really ought to take a vacation and wait for the heavies to get into this.”
We both looked at him and he shook his head, knowing that probably wasn’t going to happen. “All right, at least keep your cell phones on, then,” he said, as he slipped into his windbreaker and headed for the door. He stopped before opening it. “No way I can talk you out of this crusade?” he said. “Either of you?”
“They’re selling children, for Chrissakes,” Carrie said.
He looked like he was going to argue with her, but then waved and left.
Carried stared at the closed front door. “What’s the matter with that guy?” she asked in visible exasperation.
“Baby doesn’t think very highly of the people up here,” I said. “He acts like this isn’t the worst thing he’s seen some of these people do.”
She sat down and rubbed her head. “That getting better?” I asked.
“It’s itching,” she said. “That’s supposed to be a sign of healing. I think this scotch is helping a lot.”
“Better go easy,” I said. “Remember your seven days of pills.”
“You just don’t want to share,” she said.
“That, too,” I said. “Let’s see if this fireplace works. Maybe fool around a little?”
She gave me one of those you-gotta-be-shitting-me looks. I’d seen those before. I grinned at her. I went to get some firewood and water the shepherds. At least the cabin could be warm.
I got a fire going. It really wasn’t all that cold outside, but the fire was nice, just the same. I pulled up a chair and sat down, ready to just watch the fire burn. Carrie was doing something behind me, so I sort of zoned out.
Then she handed me a wee dram and sat down on the floor, her shoulders between my legs. She rested her head back on my lap. The ugly scar was right there, but somehow, it seemed like an intimacy I wasn’t supposed to see. I put my hands on her temples and pressed gently in a massaging circle. She made an appreciative noise.
That’s how we fell asleep. It wasn’t about sex. It was all about being close, sharing affection, trust, togetherness against the night outside and the terrible world of the mountain Creighs. I was disappointed with Baby Greenberg. All he could offer was a repeat of the Greek chorus we’d been hearing from everyone else: Go away.
14
We spent the next morning going through her version of the report to make sure it generally correlated with what I had said. We didn’t want them to be identical, but we didn’t want to leave any big discrepancies through which work-averse civil serpents could slither out, either. We kicked around several ideas for going after Grinny Creigh amp; Co., but none of them sounded like a winner. Just after noon, however, Carrie got a call on her cell from Bigger John. It seemed that Sheriff Hayes had contacted him and wanted a meet with Carrie at the Hayes family home place up in the mountains above Marionburg. She said she’d do it as long as both John and Luke came along. John relayed that stipulation, and Hayes apparently agreed to that. She said she’d meet John in town at four that afternoon.
I asked her if she wanted me to come along, too. She did, but not actually with her and the two deputies. “How’s about you play backup?” she said. “Follow us up there but stay out of sight. If we get into trouble, you ride to the rescue and cover yourself in glory.”
“You don’t mean try to tail you on a mountain road, do you?” I asked. I still remembered her version of a casual night drive in the mountains.
“No; you drive too slow. I’ll tell the brothers Big that you’ll be in the back-field. I trust them. I’ll keep you advised of what we’re doing and where we are, and maybe you can even get a tactical observation spot on us when we meet with Hayes.”
“Hopefully it’s just Hayes,” I said.
“Either way, it would be good to know you’re out there, and Hayes, of course, doesn’t have to know you’re there unless things get tense.”
“You know, you don’t really have the authority to deal with Hayes,” I said. “I mean, suppose he cops to being involved in this kid thing-it’s not like you can bring him in, or make any promises.”
“The Big brothers are sworn officers. They can bring him in,” she said. “Besides, I have a feeling he’s not calling to make any kind of a deal. I think he wants to get right with God over what he and Mingo’ve been doing.”
“I don’t know, Carrie,” I said. “I know you think that about Hayes. On the other hand, it could be a nasty setup, with Hayes on the porch and Mingo and his crew waiting in the weeds.”
“Why?” she asked. “You’re the one he thinks saw him at the hospital. You didn’t say anything about me being there, did you?”
“No, I didn’t, but he knows you were there being treated, and we’ve been operating together. If he thinks I’ve blown town, you’re the loose end at hand, so to speak.”
“I’ll chance it,” she said. “We’re not going to bust Mingo and his operation on our own, and so far the heavies, as Baby calls them, aren’t doing squat. If Hayes wants to repent, maybe he can get us in. I still have this terrible feeling there’s a clutch of children being held somewhere for one final ‘harvest.’”
On that happy note, we stopped yapping and made our preparations. I followed Carrie into town in a loose tail. She met up with John and his brother at the sheriff’s office, and she followed their cruiser out of town. I had the dogs, my Remington rifle, Nathan’s ten-gauge and a whole box of extra-dry shells, the spotting scope, and enough rifle ammo for a fair-sized firefight. I felt better that both the Big brothers were coming along. Carrie called me on my cell phone as we left town.
“We’re proceeding to the Hayes home place,” she said. “It’s about ten miles out of town in the direction of the Robbins County line. Apparently there’s the original house, a modern cabin, and an abandoned mine on the property.”
“Have you talked directly to Sheriff Hayes?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “John called him and told him we were starting up.”
“And they know I’m in the picture?”
“The brothers do, Hayes does not. Luke and John were cool with that. They said they’re not expecting trouble.”
“That’s when trouble usually rears its ugly head,” I said, and hung up. She’d been an SBI bureaucrat for most of her career. I, on the other hand, had been a street cop and an operational major crimes detective for most of mine. She was expecting a civilized meeting. I was expecting an ambush. I would really have liked to be able to do a prebrief with the Bigs, but they were in a separate vehicle, so off we went.
On the way up I got a call from Mose Walsh. He wanted to know if I’d heard about the sheriff going walkabout. I said yes.
“I was sitting next to some off-duty deputies last night for supper,” he said. “One of’em said this supposedly had something to do with M. C. Mingo and Grinny Creigh.”
“That’s not news,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “But if people are talking like that, it’s gonna get back to Robbins County. And if this is about selling kids, whoever’s holding the product may just panic.”
“Good point,” I said. “Things are in motion, so, please, keep listening.”
I followed them up into the actual mountains, and finally they turned off onto a well-maintained dirt road. I lingered on the main road for about five minutes, assuming there was only the one road going up. I assumed wrong, as usual. A quarter mile into the woods the dirt road diverged into two branches, one going right and up, the other going left and down. I quickly tried to call Carrie. No signal. I got out and played Indian, trying to see where the fresh tire tracks were. I failed Indian. The shepherds were no help-they had no scent to focus on. I stood there, listening for the sounds of vehicles, but heard only a few crows laughing at my Indian act. I remembered why I used to like shooting crows.
It was a dirt road, I kept telling myself. There had to be tracks. The shepherds were pretending to look for something, but I knew they were mostly just confused. I walked up the hill on the right-hand track, assuming the home place would be on high ground. The surface of the road was actually hardpan, with lots of shattered flat rocks and even some shale. It was showing zero tire tracks, and I was getting antsier by the minute.
I walked back down to the dividing point, listened again to make sure no one else was coming up the road from the two-lane, and then tried going down. Fifty feet in I found a wet spot where a tiny creek was soaking through the dirt road. I finally passed Indian-tire tracks at last. I went back to the Suburban and called in the mutts, and we headed down, going slow with all the windows open. After another half mile it looked like the trees were thinning out ahead. I didn’t like being below whatever it was I was going to be watching, but this branch of the road had gone ninety degrees away from the upper branch, so it was going to be low ground or no ground. I parked the Suburban, hiding it as best I could behind some bushy pines. I rousted out the shepherds, the rifle, and the scope and headed into the woods on the left-hand side of the dirt lane. About three hundred yards in I stepped over a small creek and could finally begin to see the Hayes home place through the trees.
I discovered that I was approaching from below a long earthen dam, behind which there was a three-acre pond, formed in the valley cut out by a creek. At the other end of the pond there was a very pretty log cabin, which looked to have been one of those modern kit jobs, as opposed to an original rustic. There was a detached frame garage, behind which I could see Carrie’s vehicle, the brothers’ cruiser, and presumably Sheriff Hayes’s vehicle parked on one side of the cabin. To the left and slightly above the cabin was a graying, narrow, three-story house made of rough-hewn timbers. It was pretty obviously long since abandoned, with a slumping roof, gaping window frames, and a front porch that was down on the ground. There were several old outbuildings surrounding the house in similar states of ivy-draped decomposition.
Above and beyond the house, cabin, and pond, the land rose steeply on either side o
f the creek that supplied the pond, and I could see a mound of tailings halfway up the hill to the left, along with some rusting machinery stands and a few disintegrating mine carts. I was too low to see the actual mine entrance, but it had to be up there by those tailings. The mine was probably three hundred feet higher than the cabin and the house. There were no pastures or any other signs of farming, and the enveloping mountain forest was slowly but surely reclaiming the entire place.
I moved to the left along the grass face of the dam until I had a better view of the vehicles and the slopes to my right, where presumably that other road came out. We were miles from the Creigh place over in the next county, but not very far from the county line, as best I could tell. The Hayes place was on an eastern slope, and the late-afternoon shadows were beginning to creep down the higher ridges as the sun began to set. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no cover where I was crouching, and the slanting sunlight was full in my eyes. I had to move.
I signaled the dogs, and we went back down the dam face to the outflow creek and then down the long gulley below the dam until I could no longer see the cabin or the falling-down house. Then we cut directly south, into the woods. My objective was to circle the whole place until I came out up at the level of the abandoned mine. From there, I should be in the shadow of the setting sun and able to see the cabin, all the vehicles, and anyone coming down through the opposite woods.
It took me almost a half hour to get in position, as the woods on the south side of the property were thick with wait-a-minute vines and stands of hawthorn. I didn’t make any decent progress until I crossed a narrow track that presumably led up to the old mine. There were railroad ties and a badly rusted cog rail on one side of the track, so I followed that up until I reached a small plateau cut back into the face of the hill. The mine entrance was a rectangular black hole, framed in large timbers and cut into the side of the hill, with rusting narrow-gauge tracks coming out toward the tailings dump. The hill rose above the mine entrance two hundred feet or so.
There was more extinct machinery littering this area, and the flattened remains of a sorting shed to one side, which is where the cog line terminated. The little plateau was higher above the house and cabin than I had estimated, but the position was a perfect place to watch the cabin. The setting sun was behind me now, and the light was strong enough to penetrate the woods on the other side of the pond. We had maybe two hours before the virtual sunset caused by the mountains.
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