by Scott Blade
The desk guy started to say something, but I didn’t wait.
I said, “I need you to get a message to her. It’s important.”
He stopped speaking and waited.
I couldn’t tell him about the dead cops in the desert, but I needed to relay the message to her. I figured the best course of action was to just leave it and not explain it.
I said, “Tell her that Cameron was here.”
He listened.
I said, “Tell her that the girl’s name is Janey Saunt. Tell her that she’s Saunt’s daughter. Tell her that Janey is the motive.”
I didn’t want to tell him any more details, so I skipped over my suspicions that the cops had kidnapped her.
I said, “Tell Vaughn, that I’m going back out there. And tell her that she needs to meet me out there as soon as possible.”
The guy said, “She has your phone number? Since you guys are such good friends.”
I said, “I don’t have a phone.”
The guy said, “What is this, kid?”
There he went with that kid thing again. I ignored it this time.
I said, “This is urgent! Life or death! She’ll understand. Just tell her.”
He said, “I’ll call her now. You can wait if you want and talk to her yourself.”
I said, “I doubt that she’ll answer you. Like I said, she’s with the FBI.”
He said, “I’ll text her.”
He slid his chair back and reached down into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He leaned back in his chair and started to swipe and press buttons. He turned the phone sideways and used his thumbs to type. He was pretty fast with it.
He read the text out loud as he typed as if he was my secretary and I was dictating to him. I was starting to understand why this guy was a desk guy and not out in the field. In a way, he made Officer Howard look like the rock star cop.
He said, “Chief. Guy here says he knows u? Cameron.”
He stopped and stared at the screen. I didn’t know if he was waiting for a reply or not. Nothing came and he started typing again, but then he stopped abruptly and read to himself. And then he read to me.
He said, “She says that she’s with the FBI.”
I said, “Tell her the rest.”
He typed and read out loud again.
“Cameron said. Girl is motive. Saunt daughter.”
He stopped and read her response to me.
“She replied with a question mark. Hold on. She’s typing.”
I stayed quiet and for the first time peered down at the desk guy’s nameplate. It read, “Kemp.”
Officer Kemp said, “She says OK in big capital letters, which means that she’s impressed.”
I repeated myself and said, “Tell her to meet me out there. Tell her ASAP.”
“Cameron says to meet him out there ASAP.”
He paused and waited for a second and then his eyes shot open in sudden disbelief like he had read the text wrong.
He looked up at me and said, “She says to give you a radio.”
I stayed quiet for a long moment like I was waiting for the radio, but really I was thinking about something else.
I said, “Tell her I need a gun.”
Kemp looked at me and his face resonated a resounding “NO WAY!” but he shrugged and typed my question.
He said, “Cameron wants gun.”
We waited and waited. We waited almost an entire minute, which was a little uncomfortable because this guy had no idea who I was and was going on trust.
Finally, Vaughn came back and said, “no.” I glanced down at the screen and read it to myself. She hadn’t capitalized the negative response or used an exclamation mark at the end. She wasn’t sure, but in the end I guessed that I understood that she hadn’t wanted to give me a weapon. A weapon would’ve indicated that she was accepting full responsibility for my actions and even though she trusted me, she didn’t trust me that much. Not yet.
Kemp said, “She says no.”
I nodded. I didn’t ask again. I didn’t want to push it, but a gun would’ve been nice. I had a feeling that I might need it later.
Kemp said, “She hasn’t said anything else. Want me to ask her anything?”
I said, “No.”
I didn’t want to involve him any more than I already had. Vaughn could tell him and her other guys if she chose to. It was her department, not mine.
Kemp slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood up from his desk. I watched him turn and walk back into the bullpen and I realized why he was the desk guy. It wasn’t because of his behavior. It was because he had a bad limp in his right knee.
I said, “I don’t want to be rude, but why the limp?”
He didn’t look back at me.
He said, “I got shot in the line of duty.”
I said nothing.
He said, “It’s usually not this bad. It’s as if the bullet caused arthritis.”
I stayed quiet.
He said, “It really acts up when we get weather.”
I said, “Skies look pretty clear out there tonight.”
He led me past the desks and past Vaughn’s office, back to a gray door in the far back of the floor. He slipped a key out of his pocket and into the doorknob and unlocked it. The door slid open without any creaks or sounds and he reached into the darkness and flipped a switch. The light powered on in that kind of slow way as if it had to wake up first.
The room was the police storage space. The inside was about ten by ten feet. On one wall, there was a cage that went out about two feet. It was locked by a padlock. On the other side was the police-issued SWAT gear and weapons. I saw four Heckler and Koch MP5s and five Glocks, of different variants. Next to the MP5s were seven Remington Model 870s. The same shotgun that was in the dead cops’ police car, which wasn’t really surprising. A lot of police departments used the same types of shotguns.
On the other wall, which is where Kemp walked over to, was a handful of police tactical vests and Kevlar vests and flashlights and radios that were stacked into an electrical recharging shelf.
Kemp reached over and snatched one of the radios out of the recharger and twisted it on. Static kicked up over the air and we listened. He put his ear close and switched channels until he came across the channel that he was looking for.
He said, “This one works good. Full battery.”
He handed it to me.
He said, “Keep it on that channel. It’s the channel we use for unofficial department chatter. That’s where she’ll try to contact you. The next channel to the right is the department’s standard channel, in case you need it.”
I nodded and said, “Thank you.”
Kemp said, “I’m not sure what’s going on, but if Vaughn gave you a radio then it must be important. I’m no idiot. I’m starting to think that whatever it is, it must be the reason why she sent me on that long dinner break.”
I stayed quiet.
He said, “And now she’s with the FBI. Must be hush-hush. You some kind of government consultant or something?”
I said, “I’m just a guy.”
Kemp nodded and said nothing. He gave me the radio and I turned and walked out. I heard him follow, switch off the light, and close the door.
I didn’t wait. I walked back to the bullpen and glanced over at her office, saw the pictures on the wall through the window.
I walked out of the police station, passed Franklin, nodded goodbye, and got into the Silverado and headed out of the parking lot.
Chapter 17
I DROVE down the long empty stretch of road, about seven miles, until I reached the crime scene again. I slowed the truck and pulled up close to the shoulder and parked the truck. I left the engine on because I wanted to use the headlights to provide light for me. I hit the high beam button and jumped out of the truck. I grabbed the radio out of the cup holder and shut the driver’s door and walked out in front of the light beams.
I should’ve asked Kemp for a flashl
ight, I thought.
I clipped the radio onto my front pocket and surveyed the lights’ reach. The lights illuminated the dead cops, their car, the tracks in front of the car, and nothing else, but that was all I would need to see. I walked over to the dead cops and looked at everything again.
Nothing changed and there was nothing new.
I closed my eyes and listened. Sometimes it was good to look at things with fresh eyes. I reimagined the whole scene again. Saunt. The cops. The bad news.
I opened my eyes and I knew everything.
At that moment, my radio crackled and I heard Vaughn’s voice.
She said, “Cameron?”
I snatched the radio off my pocket and pressed the talk button.
I said, “It’s me.”
Vaughn came back and asked, “Are you in the desert?”
I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “Are you alone?”
I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “You were right. Janey Saunt is fifteen years old and she’s Saunt’s daughter. No mother or wife to speak of.”
I said, “I know. I looked him up already.”
She said, “Then you know about his business?”
I said, “First, Janey vanished. Teachers, the school, her friends, no one knows where she is.”
She said, “Right. Do you know what happened?”
I said, “Ryan Saunt started to withdraw large amounts of cash out of his accounts. After he ran through that he had to take it out of his business accounts. Over the course of the last two months his business has gone broke and closed its doors suddenly and his employees, friends, and family have no idea where he went.”
She said, “That’s right. It’s strange.”
I said, “The two dead cops took her.”
Vaughn said, “That’s what I figured as well. They kidnapped her.”
I said, “They kidnapped her. Beat her. Abused her. Sent him pictures of her and met him way out here. They wanted money.”
She said, “But Janey went missing two months ago. So why were they meeting again?”
I said, “I don’t think that this was a normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapping.”
The radio crackled, echoing through the darkness.
She said, “How do you mean?”
I said, “I don’t think that they did a lot of research or surveillance on him. I think that he was targeted out of desperation.”
I released the button in case she wanted to respond, but she said nothing.
I squeezed it again and said, “These were two state cops. Not brilliant guys, but we saw the other dead girl. So we can assume that they’ve done this before. Maybe a few times. Maybe several times. But this time they didn’t just want one ransom. They wanted installments. That’s why they met him more than once. There’s no money in their car and no money in his truck and no money in his motel room. Which means that they had met him once. They asked for a ransom. He paid it. Then they asked for more.
“They probably showed him a single picture to reassure that he’d pay it. Perhaps that picture was of Janey in better conditions. Maybe she was just tied up. I don’t think we have that picture.
“They took his first payment as an installment to keep her alive.”
I paused a beat, thought that I heard a noise off in the distance. I looked and saw nothing.
Vaughn asked, “Cameron?”
I came back on and said, “Then they asked for more money. That’s why he cleaned out his company. Then they asked him to come up with more. Gave him another week.
“You said that these guys had been coming through Hope a lot. Therefore, all of their meetings had been out here in the desert. Maybe not the same spot, but somewhere.
“Saunt decided to stay in Hope, near their first two meetings. He wasn’t thinking clearly and he was desperate. He brought his gun and hoped that he could reason with them. He told them that he was out of money and they told him that she was as good as dead. They probably gave him the camera and the power cord.”
Vaughn asked, “The power cord too?”
I took a breath and said, “Yeah. Think about it, Vaughn. Why didn’t they just kill him when he said that he didn’t have the money?”
I paused a beat and heard that noise again, but it was fast and way off in the distance. I couldn’t tell what it was. I listened, but it was gone.
I got back on the radio and said, “He told them that he was out of money. They showed him the camera with the dead girl and pictures of his daughter. They told him that she didn’t have much time left. They told him that the last girl’s family didn’t pay and that’s what happened to her.
“They told him that he had one last chance to come up with the money.
“They didn’t know that he was completely out and he didn’t tell them. Which was smart on his part because they would’ve shot him dead right there.
“Instead, they wanted to torture him. They wanted to give him the proper incentive so they gave him the camera, but it was dying so they gave him the power cord.”
I turned back to the dead cops and looked at both of them.
I said, “They’re even wearing gloves. I bet that their prints aren’t on the camera, but it’s probably traceable back to their police department like it was taken right out of the evidence room. Probably some old case.”
Vaughn said, “You’re right. Gotta be. I’m here with Agent Oliver. He’s been investigating these cops.”
I wanted to ask if she thought we could trust him, but figured that he was probably listening. I didn’t need to ask because she said, “We can trust him.”
I said, “Are you okay?”
She said, “Yeah. Really.”
I said, “Can he get us some more guys?”
She said, “No. He says that there’s more to it. Right now we’re on our own.”
I said, “Then you’d both better get over here. We gotta find Janey.”
Vaughn said, “We’re on our way. Just stay there.”
Static fell over the radio and I clipped it back on my pocket.
The night fell silent and I heard the noise again, but this time I knew why I couldn’t figure out its origin. It was because there were two different noises that happened to be in unison.
The first was a loud roll of thunder off in the distance, above the low hills and mountains. It rumbled soft and there was no sign of rain or lightning, but I imagined that wouldn’t last all night.
The desk guy back at the station, Kemp, had said his bum leg always acted up whenever there was weather. I figured he would know and I doubted that he was ever wrong about the weather.
The second noise came from behind me. I heard it again. It came from the police cruiser. I started walking back toward it. I stepped close enough to hear the sounds of a song that I didn’t know. I thought it was the car radio, which was impossible because the car was dead. Then I realized it was a cell phone ring, personalized and inside one of the dead cops’ jacket pockets.
Chapter 18
I angled myself down and around the driver’s side door and opened it again and leaned in. I reached into the guy’s pocket and found the cell phone. I pulled it out slowly, didn’t have gloves anymore and I didn’t use my shirt. I figured I was past the point of worrying about fingerprints. We already knew who these cops were and we knew who killed them. It was unlikely that Saunt had touched the phone in the first place.
I stared at the phone. The caller was labeled first name Mister and last name Man.
Mister Man, I thought. Whatever.
I clicked the phone icon on the screen. There was no unlock code. Guess that these cops had no reason to lock their phones.
I tried my best to muffle my voice, which really wouldn’t have mattered since I had no idea what these guys sounded like in life.
I said, “Yeah?”
I said it quick, like a fast greeting from someone who was busy at the moment.
The voice on the other line said, “Trevors? Wh
ere the hell are you?”
I waited. I wanted to say as little as possible.
The guy repeated, “Where are you!”
This time he said it with a sense of demand in his voice.
I said, “Hope.”
He said, “Still? Do you have the money?”
I said, “No.”
Mister Man said, “Why? Didn’t he have it? I told you he didn’t have it.”
I stayed quiet.
He said, “If he don’t got it, kill him. And get the hell back here.”
I stayed quiet.
Mister Man said, “Trevors? Say something!”
I said, “I’m here.”
Silence fell over the phone line and a long moment passed and the voice came back on. I listened hard, tried to pick up on any background noise, but I heard nothing.
Mister Man said, “You’re not Trevors. Who the hell is this?”
I said, “Trevors is dead.”
Mister Man waited a second, like he was thinking whether or not he should say anything else and then he asked, “Woggins?”
I said, “Dead as a rock.”
Mister Man’s voice dropped to a deeper pitch as if he was trying to make himself sound intimidating.
He asked, “Did you kill them?”
I said, “Me. No. I didn’t kill them, but I wish I had.”
He asked, “Saunt?”
I said, “Eeeeeng!” like a loud incorrect buzzer on a game show. “Guess again.”
He asked, “Who are you?”
I said, “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is what I’m gonna do.”
He asked, “What’re you gonna do? Call the cops? I’ve got a surprise for you then.”
I asked, “What’s that?”
He said, “Let’s just say that they aren’t going to help you.”
I said, “Why? Because these two are cops?”
He said nothing.
“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna call the cops. Why would I do that? I’m going to take my findings and go to Vegas. Have the time of my life,” I lied.
Mister Man said, “Wait! What findings?”
I said, “The money.”
He fell silent and then he said, “You got the money?”
I said, “Yeah. Bag full of it. I don’t know how much. You know, I just found it. I haven’t had time to count it yet.”