by Scott Blade
She asked, “And who’s that?”
I said, “Rookies and retirees and desk guys and even public deputies. How many states employ civilian deputies, who ride along with real cops?”
She nodded. She understood.
I asked, “Does Colorado have volunteer deputies?”
She nodded again and said, “Some counties do. They’re called reserve police. But this county doesn’t. The reserve police are mostly used in urban areas like Boulder or Denver.”
I nodded.
Vaughn said, “Maybe it’s a rookie from somewhere because they’re novice by definition. Inexperienced.”
I said, “Sure they practice and practice, but fieldwork is different than training. All the training in the world can never truly prepare a person for real world experiences. It can be helpful, but sometimes a guy who is not prepared will fall through the cracks. A guy who isn’t ready for this line of work, and may never be. Do you have any rookies in your department?”
Vaughn shook her head and said, “No.”
Then I said, “Retirees?”
Her eyes opened and she nodded.
She said, “We even have some flunkies from Despair. Used to be cops. Before Jack…”
She trailed off at the end and didn’t finish her thought. Instead, she looked off into the distance, down the long, old road that seemed to lead to nowhere. It must’ve led to Despair, or what was left of it anyway.
I asked, “Before Jack?”
She said, “Yeah. Couple of deputies that your old man beat the crap out of.”
I smiled and knew instantly that they probably deserved it. No question. I didn’t even think twice about it.
I asked, “Is it possible that one of them might’ve been involved?”
She said, “I don’t know.”
I asked, “What makes you say that?”
She said, “Two things really.”
I waited.
She said, “One of them, the leader really, is this fat guy that everyone calls Butters.”
I cocked my head, could only imagine the look that came across my face.
I asked, “Butters?”
She smiled a little, and then quickly retracted it. It must’ve dawned on her the grim crime scene that we were in and then she said, “Yeah. Cause of your father.”
I stayed quiet, but the look on my face must’ve shown my curiosity because she just started to explain why the guy had that nickname.
Vaughn said, “Eight years ago, Jack Reacher came here and, long story short, let’s just say that he had a few run-ins with the bent cops over in Despair. He left many of them limping, broken and battered, and in the hospital, and most of them had broken bones.
“One of them was this cop from over there. A fat guy. He’s still fat. We call him Butters because he pulled a shotgun on Jack.
“Reacher took it right out of his hands, just disarmed him like that and he shot up the guy’s police cruiser. Tires and all. Ever since, the fat guy has lived in my jurisdiction, the locals call him Butters as in butterfingers. Because....”
I nodded and said, “Yeah, I get it.”
She said, “He’s retired. He and a few others still live here. The rest left.”
I said, “So they haven’t been in law enforcement for eight years?”
She said, “That’s right. No one would hire any of them after that. At least not in this state, not to my knowledge. The others probably packed up and moved far away. Maybe Texas.”
I nodded and said, “Butters could be our guy. What kind of condition is his shooting?”
Vaughn said, “I’ve no idea, but he was a cop and a country boy. So he’s shot guns. A lot. Do you think that he’s an amateur now?”
I said, “Shooting is a perishable skill. You gotta keep it up.
“If he was a cop, then at one time he was at least an adequate shooter. But eight years is a long time. Could be possible that he let himself go.”
I stepped back away from her and pointed at the dead cops.
I said, “Maybe these guys had something on him.”
Vaughn said, “Or vice versa.”
I asked, “How’s that?”
She said, “Maybe he had something on them. It’d explain why he’d stick around in Hope. People here think of the cops from Despair, the ones who stayed, as a joke. Just local, washed-up drunks, which is exactly what they are. I’m not saying that just to be mean. I’m saying that because it’s my professional opinion. We spend a lot more time breaking up bar fights between the old cops and deputies from Despair than almost anything else here.”
Chief Vaughn stopped talking, leaned her hands on her hips in a police officer stance that I’d seen a hundred times before—fingers on the left side right on her belt, fingers on the right side right on the hilt of her Glock. Her eyes looked up at me and then continued on above my head.
I asked, “What? What’re you thinking?”
She said, “So why stick around to be ridiculed all the time?”
I nodded. She was wondering why these washed-up old cops from Despair would stay in the town next to theirs, a place where they would be humiliated and talked about behind their backs. And it was a good question, a good place to start.
I said, “My guess is money.”
Chapter 6
JACK REACHER was sitting somewhere, a café, a coffee shop, or a hole-in-the-wall diner having coffee—black. I was sure about it. There was no doubt in my mind, like a psychic connection between a father and his son, which there might’ve been. Science has never proven that such a link exists, but it’s never proven that it doesn’t either. It has often been documented that when a child dies far away a mother can feel it, and this is not just in humans. Studies have also shown that mothers from all walks of nature have a deep mental connection with their offspring.
Identical twins are known to have an unexplained and unseen link with their brother or sister. One twin is said to feel the pain that the other feels.
One occurrence known to exist is called phantom pain, which is literally when someone feels a physical itch or pain from a missing limb like it is still there or it itches even though it is far away.
For the moment, I was going on the theory that the two dead cops were killed by another cop. However, I could be wrong.
Chief Vaughn moved around the front of her car and the lights from the halogen bulbs spread across her uniform pants like floodlights across the night ocean.
She turned and faced south and leaned back against the side panel of her cruiser as if she were playing the trust game and she wanted the car to catch her, which it did.
She stared at the black, far-flung horizon and sighed. The night was still moonless, but the stars were bright and the coyotes were still out there, even though they had quieted down from the earlier howls and wails. The only sounds that I could hear now was the wind whooshing across the hilly desert and gusting through some half-dead weeds near the rear of the police cruiser. And I heard Vaughn’s slow, controlled breathing like she was thinking deeply.
I asked, “What’s going on here, Vaughn? Why didn’t you call any of your people out here?”
She said nothing, just closed her eyes and breathed in and breathed out. She stepped back away from the cruiser’s rear bumper and walked back to the road.
I turned and stepped back the way I had come, not wanting to trudge across the footprints, ruining evidence or obstructing justice.
I followed Vaughn’s suit and walked through the halogen beams and paced over to her. She stood dead center of the old, abandoned road. I came to stand just in front of her and to the side, not blocking her view.
First, she was staring off toward Hope, looking at the faint lights from the small town, but then she craned her head back and looked up at me.
She said, “I was following them. That’s why I’m here.”
I asked, “The dead cops? Why?”
She said, “I followed them out here because I didn’t like them. The
sight of them.”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
She said, “There’s something wrong with them. Something odd. They used to come through our town every three weeks like clockwork and they’ve been doing it for months. I just assumed that it was part of their route, but lately they’ve been coming every week. Last week. The week before. And then this week, they came every day.”
I shifted my weight to one side and leaned on my left foot, faced north for a moment and then back again. I looked down at her.
She said, “These guys were up to something, Reacher. I know it.”
I said, “Cameron.”
She said, “I know. Sorry. Cameron.”
She paused a beat and then she said, “They rarely stopped in Hope. When they did, they never checked in with us. I mean they weren’t required to, but have you ever heard of that before?
“The FBI. The Marshals. The ATF. Even the State Police? Did they ever come through your mother’s town?”
I nodded.
She said, “Didn’t they always check in? Paying a courtesy visit at least. Not these guys. They just run through and act like we’re invisible. Like they’re some kind of VIPs.”
I nodded again and stayed quiet because there was nothing to say. She was right. If foreign cops had ever come through my hometown, they checked in with my mom first. They knew not to go around conducting business without informing the local police.
She said, “So I got curious, back when they first showed up and then even more when they started coming every day and they always came here. I’ve followed them four times. Tried to stay out of sight, but the last time they lost me because I had to pull off the road back near town. This long stretch of road is pretty straight and flat; they’d see my headlights coming up on them easily.”
I asked, “Did you ever see who they met with before?”
“No. I never took the chance of getting too close. Luckily, they always come out here at night, so I would just pull off the road and drive out, shut off my lights, and so far they haven’t made me.
I said, “So what made you come flying out here with your sirens this time?”
She said, “Because this time they made a different stop. I was keeping a good distance away from them, but they turned down a dirt road and went out into the desert.
“At first, I thought nothing of it. I trailed them. They went out pretty far. It was hard to stay out of sight and still keep an eye on them. I had to back off a little.
Every time that I backed off, I got scared that I’d lose them. The last time that I backed off of them, I did lose them. I drove for twenty minutes out into the desert until I stopped and got out and realized that there were no tire tracks on the ground. When I doubled back, I saw that they had made a sharp left and headed northwest. By the time I headed that direction, I never saw them again until now.
“I followed their tire tracks and I found a big empty clearing near a large sand dune. But they were nowhere in sight. I got out and looked around. I found that their tire tracks had stopped there. It looked like they parked and then they got back in their car and headed out a different direction.”
I nodded and stayed quiet.
Vaughn said, “I lost them after that. I figured that they must’ve made me and led me out into the desert as a gag, maybe to show me that they were smarter than me. You know, like they were better than some local cop from the sticks.
“I returned to Hope and went to the station. I didn’t mention this to anyone.
“Honestly, I was pissed off. I felt like they were mocking me. So I sent my guys out in other directions and told them not to return without hitting their nightly quotas in traffic tickets. I even told the night desk guy to go out for a long dinner break. I told him I wanted to be alone.”
Vaughn said, “That’s when I got a call. Some motorist said that he heard gunshots out in this direction. He said that they were quick in succession. He thought that they might’ve been from an assault rifle, which is illegal to fire within twenty miles of the city.
“I figured that they were some kids. I started to call one of my guys to send them out here, but then I thought about the location. It sounded like this spot, where I’d followed these guys before. So, I came out instead.
I asked, “So who the hell are they?”
She said, “They’re state cops. I’ve known for weeks, but I wanted to know what they were up to before I started to make claims about them. You know?”
I nodded.
She said, “After I lost them tonight, I decided to check them out. I went online. After I got their names, I called their C.O., a guy named Crocket, just to inquire about them. Know what he told me?”
I asked, “Like Davey?”
Vaughn said, “I didn’t ask, but I’m sure he gets that one a lot.”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “And Sonny too.”
I shrugged.
She asked, “You know? Sonny Crocket? From Miami Vice?”
I shrugged again.
She said, “Anyway, he told me that one of them was on suspension and under investigation for shooting a suspect. And that the other one was nowhere near my town. He said that the other one was out on patrol and was supposed to be way off in the northern part of the state, somewhere.”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “So then he said that he’d check on him for me. He kept me on the line, put me on speaker so that I could hear and he radioed the guy. I listened and the guy answered, sure enough. The C.O. asked him where he was and he said that he was up near Fort Collins on I25.”
She paused a beat and stared me.
I nodded.
She said, “I listened. I didn’t dispute his claim, but he was definitely not where he said he was. I saw him here with his partner. Both dressed in their uniforms. Both carrying guns. His partner was most definitely the guy that is supposed to be on suspension because I asked the C.O. to send me copies of their jacket files by email. I waited, got them, and checked them out.
“The attachments came with uniformed pictures of both men. From the pictures I knew immediately that the guys who’ve been driving through my town are the same two guys in the files and the pictures. No doubt about it. That’s about the time that I got the 911 call and here I am.”
I said, “Sounds like these guys are dirty? No question.”
Vaughn nodded and said, “Why else would they be out here? My little town is now the only town left here.”
I asked, “So Jack was behind the town of Despair exploding into dust?”
She said, “You could say that. We blew up an industrial recycling plant. You should’ve seen it.”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “It’s more complicated than it sounds. He wasn’t the one who made or planted the bomb. It was a madman and his followers. These people were sick both literally and in the head. They were true believers. They followed an evil man blindly like sheep. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I asked, “Would you say that Jack did the right thing?”
She nodded slowly and said, “He’s a good man. I hope that you find him.”
I said, “I will.”
She nodded and slowly turned her head in the direction of the dead cops and said, “So what were these guys doing here? That’s what we need to find out.”
I ignored the topic and asked, “Are you going to call in your guys now?”
She said, “Not just yet. If these guys are crooked and out here doing something illegal, then maybe I got a bent cop in my department, or worse maybe the local FBI field office does.
“These two cops were out here meeting someone, like you said. It could be an FBI agent. They have support agents who aren’t required to keep up with their shooting.
“It could’ve easily been a desk jockey who has never even pulled out his gun in the line of duty. I need to know who it is before I start involving my guys.”
I said, “You can’t do this alone.”
She said, “I’m not alone. I’ve got you. Just like I had Jack years ago.”
I nodded. Even though I wasn’t quite sure about the whole story of what happened between her and Jack, but apparently he had made quite the impression.
She said, “We need to find the shooter and do it before the sun comes up. This road is barely used anymore. Drivers tend not to take this route at night because it’s not lit for more than forty miles. There’s no need because most people don’t use it as a thoroughfare, but it isn’t illegal to do so. The daylight is a different story altogether. From time to time, drivers will cut through this way for a more scenic route. If someone does drive this way, there’ll be no hiding an unmarked police car with two dead cops in it. The daylight around here is comparably as visible as the night makes everything invisible.”
I said, “Plus, this one guy, the cop who’s not under investigation, only has a few hours left on his shift. His C.O. will start to wonder why he’s not calling in. I’d guess that after they don’t hear from him in twenty minutes or so, they’ll start to radio him. Then, when he doesn’t answer, they’ll start finding other ways of locating him. Do these cars have GPS in them?”
Vaughn said, “Of course. They all do. They could activate it right now to see where he is.”
I said, “Then we won’t be able to keep this investigation secret for long.”
“No way. At best we’ve got till sunup.”
I grabbed my left wrist and rubbed it; for some reason I was reminded of the handcuffs.
I said, “We’d better get to it.”
Vaughn said, “What now?”
I said, “Let’s take a closer look at the crime scene.”
Chapter 7
I AM MY FATHER’S SON.
The moonless night settled around us, a warm front blew in from the west, and nature’s musical notes rolled off of the low, running hills. I stared at the crime scene in front of me, but it was hard to focus because I found myself attracted to Vaughn. I realized this and dismissed it before any feelings of awkwardness arose and I refocused on the crime scene.
Vaughn looked at me as we stood over the two dead cops. There was impatience in her eyes, which was natural, I supposed, since we had been staring at the crime scene for another thirty minutes.