by Zara Chase
“He was a loner then?”
“Yeah. He never talked about his personal life to us. In fact he never talked to us at all unless it was to bark out orders about the course.”
Hmm, Hunter was starting to get a bad feeling about Harrison. He would need to ask Raoul if he could get sight of his disciplinary record. If he had a temper he couldn’t control, then he might well have been removed from active duty because he’d somehow screwed up something delicate. There again, the temper might be a result of having been removed unfairly from the front line.
“What was he like in the ’Glades?”
“Fucking ace, I’ll give him that much. He could move as stealthily as a cat, shoot the eyes out of a target most people couldn’t even see, could live a month in the wilds without breaking a sweat…a real fucking Tarzan.” Pearson shook his head. “Gotta admire his skills. Shame about his personality.”
“So you don’t think a gator got him?”
“Not a chance. Besides, I was the one who found his rifle. That ground was completely undisturbed. I tried to tell the investigators that it would be all kicked up, and there would have been more blood, but they seemed to think they knew better.”
“Okay, so what’s your theory? What do you think happened to him?”
“Hell if I know.” Person shrugged. He either really didn’t have a theory, or wasn’t about to share it. “All I can tell you is, his wife’s the only one who feels his loss.”
“Okay, just one last question. Do you have any idea where Harrison was deployed before he was taken off active service?”
“No, we’re not allowed to discuss stuff like that, as you well know.”
“Yes, but there might have been a clue. Something he said in passing about places he’d visited.”
“Not him. Trappist monks could have taken lessons from him.”
“Okay, well I guess that about covers it. Oh, just one more question. Ever come across a Major Dixon?”
“He’s a big gun in the military police. Doesn’t get involved in day-to-day investigations. Why? Is he looking for Harrison? If he is, then there’s definitely something suspect about his disappearance.”
That’s what Hunter had supposed. “Thanks for your time.” Hunter stood up and shook Pearson’s hand again. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem. I hope the lady finds closure.” As Pearson opened the front door for Hunter, he paused with his hand on it. “Oh, one thing I just thought of. It might not mean anything, but one day I was near him, he didn’t know I was there, and I heard him talking on his cell phone. Well not talking, but arguing, or that’s what it sounded like, which is probably why for once he didn’t detect my presence. He was preoccupied.”
“You say it sounded as though he was arguing? Couldn’t you tell for sure?”
“No, because he was speaking fluent Spanish and I only caught one word in ten. I didn’t want him to think I was eavesdropping. I don’t mind admitting the guy scared the shit out of me, and I don’t frighten easily. There was just something about his eyes. They reminded me of a dead fish.”
“Spanish? Hmm, well thanks, I’ll check that out. Did you hear him mention any names?”
“No, sorry.”
“Well, that would have been too good to be true.”
Hunter got back into his truck, deep in thought. He believed what Pearson had told him, and it cast Harrison in a very different light to the picture Anais had painted of him. But then again, she was his wife, not his subordinate, and she had said he was pretty self-contained even before he started to withdraw from her. He put a quick call through to Raoul before driving off, telling him what he’d learned.
“Can you get Harrison’s disciplinary records for me?” he asked.
Raoul snorted. “Do eagles soar?”
“Yeah, okay.” Hunter grinned into the phone, enjoying insulting Raoul’s clandestine capabilities. “The thing is, I don’t peg Harrison as the sort to have had a personality transplant overnight. He might have been pissed to be removed from the front line, I get that part, but he was a real bastard to the trainees and a person doesn’t suddenly turn into a sadist because of a bad career move.” Hunter should know.
“I need to know where he was posted, and what he was working on before being put on training,” Hunter reminded his boss.
“I’m on it, buddy.”
“Catch you later.”
Hunter ended the call and drove back towards the beach for his next appointment, wondering if Regan’s account would jibe with Pearson’s. Regan lived in a small apartment complex, situated around a swimming pool, in a quiet street several back from the beach. Fallen palm fronds littered the communal grounds and looked as though they had been there for a while. Two women on sunbeds beside the pool were both smoking. Hunter parked in a visitor’s spot and rang the bell for unit four on the ground floor, conscious of the sunbathers giving him a thorough onceover. He was taken aback when a guy in a wheelchair opened the door to him. He knew Regan had been invalided out of the service. He hadn’t realized he was physically handicapped.
“Don’t worry,” the guy said, grinning at Hunter. “You should see the other guy.”
They shook hands, and Hunter immediately took to Regan. “What happened?” he asked as he followed the wheelchair into a studio room, which was the entire apartment, small but ideal for wheelchair access. “Although you must get sick of answering that question.”
“MS. That’s why I was taken off active duty and given a training post. It was supposed to be under control, I was supposed to have a couple more years before I got to this stage but, as you can see, shit happens.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It ain’t your fault. Besides, I’m resigned to it. Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m good, thanks. I just wanted to ask you about Harrison.”
Regan spun his chair on the spot until he faced the seat Hunter had taken, his jovial expression replaced by a frown. “That bastard ain’t no loss.”
“Glad you don’t feel the need to hold back,” Hunter replied, chuckling.
“Sorry, but you won’t find anyone with a good word to say about him. He was a mean, sadistic bastard, and that’s on a good day.”
“You sound as though you’re talking from experience.”
Regan grimaced. “Trust me, I am. I didn’t ask for any quarter because of my condition, and was prepared to pull my weight. I knew my limitations, so did the army, that’s why they put me on training duties. I had regular check-up with the squad’s medics, still had use of my legs, and was fit for the duties prescribed to me. But Harrison didn’t agree. He said he wasn’t prepared to carry deadwood. Called me a cripple, a waste of space, and a few other labels I won’t offend your ears by repeating.”
Hunter grimaced. “Sounds like a real charmer.”
“You have no idea.” Regan spread his hands. “And it wasn’t just me. He picked on weaknesses in everyone he came across and exploited them, just to make him appear like a tough guy.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Look, I’m sorry for his wife’s loss, but she can do a hell of a lot better than Harrison.”
Hunter privately agreed. He quizzed Regan for another quarter of an hour but didn’t learn anything he hadn’t already gotten from Pearson.
“Do you happen to know if Harrison spoke Spanish?”
“No, I never heard him if he did, but then why would I? Is it important?”
“Not necessarily.” Hunter stood up. “You seem pretty self-sufficient here.”
“I am, and I intend to stay that way just as long as I can.”
Hunter liked and respected Regan more by the minute. “Do you still drive?”
“Yeah.” He pointed to a converted van parked outside his condo. “It’s amazing the advances made with transport for people like me nowadays.” He sniffed. “Call me a cynic, but it probably means less expenditure on care if we can get about on our own.
”
Hunter laughed. “You’re probably right about that.”
“Well, anyway, if there’s anything I can do to help Mrs. Harrison find closure you have but to say the word. My agenda ain’t especially packed with appointments nowadays.”
Hunter sensed that was as close as Regan was likely to come to sounding sorry for himself.
“Thanks.” Regan wheeled himself to the front door and opened it. Hunter shook his hand. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
As Hunter drove back home, several thoughts flickered through his mind. If there was a grain of truth in any of them, he was starting to understand why the military was getting so paranoid about this case. There were now a number of creditable theories regarding Harrison’s disappearance. He could have fallen foul of whoever he’d been arguing with. Anais said his personality changed once he came off active duties, possibly because he was under some sort of disciplinary cloud. But could it be that he’d made as many enemies outside the service as he appeared to have done within it, and one or more of them had used his presence in the ’Glades to make him disappear? Didn’t seem likely, not if Harrison was as tough and resourceful as his subordinates grudgingly conceded.
Another possibility was that Gary Harrison had staged his own disappearance for reasons Hunter had yet to uncover. Or his subordinates had had enough of his bully-boy tactics and done the world a favor.
All Hunter knew for sure was that his disappearance had been no accident. And unless the military investigators had developed a collective case of stupidity since Hunter’s day, then they knew it, too.
Chapter Eight
“Hey, how did it go?” Lewis looked up from his computer when Hunter entered their study.
“Interesting. Where’s Anais?”
“Sleeping.” Lewis smirked. “She had a hard morning.”
Hunter grinned in response. “You guys have fun?”
“And then some.” Lewis closed his eyes, threw back his head and sighed. “She’s something else, man.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Why did you say it like that?” Lewis’s eyes flow open. “What are you thinking? About her, I mean.”
“Probably the same thing you are. I haven’t been in this position since…well, since forever. But first things first. We need to figure out what happened to her husband.”
“That we do. So tell me.”
Hunter perched his butt on the edge of his desk and told Lewis everything he’d learned, finishing up with the conclusions he’d drawn.
“We need to know where he went overseas,” Lewis said, stating the obvious.
“Raoul’s already on it, but I have my suspicions.”
“On what?” Anais stood in the doorway.
“Hey, babe. You feeling rested?” Hunter threw an arm around her shoulders and held her against him. “This oaf didn’t wear you out?”
She giggled. “That oaf was a lot of fun.”
“See.” Lewis treated Hunter to another smug grin.
“Okay, let’s go in the other room where we can be more comfortable, then I’ll let you both in on what I found out today.” Well, in Anais’s case, some of it. “You hungry, darlin’? Want some lunch?”
“No, thanks.” She patted her belly. “I’m still full of all that breakfast you made me eat.”
“Yeah, I forced it down your neck.” Hunter twitched her nose as he led her from the room. “Tell you what, we’ll make do with coffee for now, then we’ll have dinner early, and after that—”
“Yes?” Lewis and Anais asked together, sending Hunter identical expectant looks.
“Well, if you’re a real bad girl, and if you don’t feel like we’re rushing you, we might take your education a step farther.”
Her smile was broad and infectious. “How bad do I need to be?”
Both men laughed. “The badder the better.”
“I’ll fix the coffee,” Lewis said, heading for the kitchen.
While he did so, Hunter sat with Anais, took her hand in his and told her what he’d heard about her husband. “It doesn’t jibe with what you said about him, darlin’.”
“No, but I saw a different side to him. I knew him from school, remember.”
“But you said he changed, became more distant,” Lewis reminded her as he rejoined them with coffee and cookies on a tray.
“True, but I figured he was pissed at having to be what he called a babysitter for the recruits.”
“Some babies,” Lewis replied. “The troops chosen for SOCOM are no pussycats.”
“I know, but—”
“I should have asked you this before,” Hunter said. “Gary’s car, what happened to it?”
“It was in the garage of our house on the base. He didn’t need it the day he left because he was off to the Everglades.”
“That’s what I figured. Presumably the investigators looked over it.”
She nodded. “They didn’t find anything, that much I do know.” Anais frowned. “What are you thinking, Hunter?”
Hunter recalled seeing something about a negative search of a personal vehicle in the report Raoul hacked into. “Did he have access to other vehicles?”
“My car, but I had that with me.”
“One more thing, darlin’. Did you know he spoke fluent Spanish?”
Anais widened her eyes. “I knew he had a working knowledge of the language. A lot of SOCOM people do, but I was unaware he was fluent.” She frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Pearson heard him on the phone to someone.”
She shook her head. “It just goes to show. You never really know a person, even when you think you do.”
“Are you absolutely sure he didn’t have any personal friends we don’t know about?”
“This time yesterday I would have been positive. Now I feel as though I didn’t know the man I was married to at all.” She paused, her expression reflective. “You think he did something bad to make his disappearance happen, don’t you?”
Lewis poured the coffee and handed the mugs around. “We don’t know what to think yet, babe. We’re still trying to piece it all together.”
“If I’m right, it’s probably why the military stonewalled me?”
“That’s my guess.” Hunter squeezed the hand he was still holding in his. “Don’t let it get to you. We’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s what we do.”
She regarded him through eyes that suddenly seemed too large for her face. “Do you think he was killed, murdered, for some reason?”
“I’m not discounting any possibilities, darlin’. I won’t lie to you about that.”
“Don’t lie to me about anything. I would prefer to know what you’re thinking. Don’t try to protect me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.” Lewis winked at her as he snagged a cookie, lightening the mood with his irreverence.
“If you want to know the truth, our relationship had been on the slide for over a year before Gary disappeared.”
Both men sat straighter in their seats.
“That’s not what you said before,” Hunter replied, his tone one of mild reproof. “You gave us the impression that everything was good until Gary was forced into the training unit.”
“Well, it’s hard to be honest about your feelings when you think your husband died while serving his country. It would have felt disloyal. But now…well, I don’t know what to think. Perhaps I always knew there was something odd about his disappearance but wasn’t ready to face it before now.”
“When did things start to go wrong between you guys?”
Anais screwed up her eyes. “It’s hard to put a precise date on it. I guess we were on a slow downward spiral, same as a lot of military marriages, because of the strain of separations, the risks the men take, living with the very real possibility of being killed and…well, I don’t need to tell you how it is.” Both men nodded. “He was always tense and uncommunicative, especially when he came back from assignments, and it took him a while to get back to normal. About
a year before he was removed from active duty he came home one time and was even worse. The first thing he always wanted to do was…well, you know.” She blushed. “But not this time. He treated me like I didn’t exist, moved into the spare room without explaining why, wouldn’t talk to me about it, and we never shared a bed again.”
“I know it’s hard for you to talk about personal stuff, but you still should have told us before now, darlin’,” Hunter said softly.
“Well, I’m telling you now, but I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“It tells us a lot,” Lewis replied. “Given what we now know, it’s safe to assume that whatever ate at him, happened while he was on active duty.”
“Presumably somewhere they speak Spanish.” Hunter suspected he and Lewis were thinking the same thing, but out of deference for Anais’s bruised feelings, didn’t put those thoughts into words. “Okay, it’s time to look at your records of Gary’s cell phone calls.”
“I’ll go get the laptop.”
Lewis sprang athletically to his feet and returned a short time later with the computer. He set it up on the coffee table in front of Anais and sat on the other side of her from Hunter. They spent the next hour going through the numbers Gary had called. There weren’t many of them. The base, an outdoor supplier, a gun club, his bank.
“Nothing suspicious at all,” Hunter said. “Although we might want to visit the outdoor supplier. If he staged his own disappearance, he would have needed stuff.”
Anais gasped. “Do you really think he did that?”
“I have absolutely no idea, but we can’t afford to discount the possibility.”
Anais shook her head. “Why would he? If he’d found someone else—”
“If he had, there would be calls, but it doesn’t sound like he made any effort with women.” Lewis patted her hand. “Why would he when he had you to come home to. Anyway, no one mentioned seeing him with a woman, either today or in the report we read.”
“He was good looking, and could be charming when he put his mind to it,” Anais said. “Women liked him.”
“But he didn’t return their interest?” Hunter suggested.