Burning Proof

by Janice Cantore

  “Do you mind if I run to the general store for a bottle of Diet Coke?” she asked Dede.

  “Not at all.” She handed Abby the keys. “You can bring me back one,” she whispered with a conspiratorial smile.

  Abby took the keys with a chuckle and hummed her favorite hymn, “Trust and Obey,” on her way to the Jeep.

  The general store was in the center of what made up downtown Butte Falls, which wasn’t much, and about ten minutes from the build site.

  Abby parked next to a beat-up camper resting on a big, equally beat-up Chevy dually with California plates. The fact that the license plate tags were expired caused her to shake her head. Nothing she could do about it. When she got out to walk into the store, she paused, thinking she heard someone crying. As she continued around the front of the truck, she realized that someone was crying inside the camper.

  Frowning, she paused again as all of her cop instincts seemed to jump at once and the hair rose on the back of her neck.

  I’m being silly, she thought. Crying doesn’t mean a major crime has occurred. A child could be crying because they didn’t get their way.

  A favorite Woody phrase popped into her mind: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” Smiling at the echo of Woody’s voice, she continued into the store.

  But she paid attention to everything once she entered the store. There was an older, heavyset woman behind the counter. Her back was turned as Abby entered. Abby followed her gaze and saw one other person in the store. A bearded man with a stringy brown- and gray-streaked ponytail trailing halfway down his back was at the refrigerator section, perusing beer. Walking that way, Abby took note of the man, mentally making out a field interview card on him: male white, 5’8”, 140 pounds, gray-brown hair, black headband, scraggly beard, between fifty and sixty years old, wearing dirty blue jeans and a black T-shirt.

  He smelled like stale sweat and cigarettes, she noted as she opened the refrigerator two doors down from him and removed two Diet Cokes. Carrying the drinks to the cashier, Abby observed now how uneasy the woman at the counter seemed. Butte Falls was a small town. Abby had no doubt this woman knew who was from around here and who wasn’t.

  “How are you doing today?” Abby asked as she slid a five-dollar bill across the counter.

  “Not too bad,” the woman said, eyes flitting from Abby to the ponytailed man and back again. “I’m vertical at least.”

  “Always a plus.” Abby smiled and took her change and sodas.

  She stepped outside and considered waiting for the man to leave before heading back to the church.

  Her curiosity got the better of her. After putting the sodas in the Jeep, Abby ignored the “curiosity killed the cat” phrase running though her mind and sidled up to the camper and listened. The windows were covered with plastic or something opaque, so she couldn’t see inside. She looked back at the door of the store. Ponytail was nowhere to be seen yet.

  “Is someone in there?”

  Sniffles, whispers, rustling.

  “If there’s a problem, I can help.”

  More rustling, but nobody said anything and she couldn’t hear crying anymore. Sighing, thinking she was overreacting but still feeling uneasy, Abby decided to make one last try.

  Leaning close, she said, “I thought I heard some—”

  “Get away from my rig!”

  Abby jerked around as the ponytailed man lurched toward her. He set a bag on the hood of the dually and continued toward her, fists clenched.

  She stepped back and reflexively settled into a position of advantage, a well-balanced stance learned in weaponless defense training.

  “I thought I heard someone crying.”

  “None of your business.” He spat out the words through rotting teeth that told Abby he was a meth head. He moved close, trying to intimidate her, but he was shorter than she was and she wasn’t intimidated, only angered.

  Abby glanced around to make sure she had room to defend herself if he was more than just a verbal bully.

  “Is someone in there hurt?”

  He exploded in curses, called into question her lineage, and then said, “Ain’t no one in there, and even if there was, it would be none of your business.”

  Abby would have backed off, realizing she had nothing to go on since no one had answered her, but Ponytail pulled a knife from his back pocket.

  Opening the blade, he jammed it toward her, but she was ready. In a much-practiced move, she grabbed his wrist and used his own momentum against him, pulling down and then jerking his wrist back, forcing the knife to fall. He squealed as she twisted him around and set the reverse wristlock, leaning with her back against Dede’s Jeep and holding him in complete control.

  Over his shrieking, Abby yelled for the woman in the store to call the police.

  The cashier stepped out of the store, phone in hand, breathless. “I already talked to them. I think he stole some things. You need help?”

  “No, I got him,” Abby said, feeling strangely euphoric at catching a bad guy. “Can you check out the camper? Someone was crying in there, I’m sure.”

  The woman nodded. After a moment Abby’s euphoria increased. The counter woman helped three young girls out of the camper, all with varying degrees of bruises. They all claimed to have been held against their will.

  A bad guy indeed, Abby thought, tightening her grip and eliciting a whole new round of howls and denials.

  CHAPTER

  -31-

  “MY HEART FELL in my chest when I saw all those sheriff cars around the store.” Dede smiled across the table. “I should have known you’d have everything under control.”

  Abby shrugged, a little uncomfortable with all the praise she’d been receiving, but still gratified her instincts had led her to catch a bad guy.

  The only one who’d been quiet was Ethan, and Abby guessed she knew why. But she preferred to have the conversation with him in private. Right now they were in a small Mexican restaurant on the highway, Abby to eat the lunch she missed and the others to eat dinner. By the time the deputies had finished with Abby at the Butte Falls market, it was dark and dinnertime. Jon knew the deputies who had responded and stayed behind to get more information out of them.

  Ethan, Dede, and Jon had come looking for Abby when she didn’t return to lunch. By the time they’d arrived at the store, three Jackson County sheriff’s deputies were on scene to deal with the man and the girls. Abby had called Dede, but the church build was noisy and busy and Dede didn’t hear the phone right away.

  “I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time,” Abby told everyone.

  It turned out that the ponytailed man had a felony warrant in the system for assault and kidnapping. The three girls were all from California, runaways who’d encountered something they never expected: a guy who said he would help them find real jobs but instead forced them into prostitution. Once they saw their captor in handcuffs, they opened up about their ordeal, which had been going on for between six and eight months.

  Before Abby had a chance to say anything to Ethan, Jon joined them at the table. They’d been waiting for him to arrive before ordering.

  “I just finished talking to the deputy who stayed behind to tow the camper,” Jon shared. “Apparently the guy you tangled with planned on taking those girls to Portland.”

  “Why’d he stop in Butte Falls?” Ethan frowned. “That’s out of the way if you’re going to Portland.”

  “He said he needed some gas money. The deputies don’t believe that story and are working hard to get the truth. Will Bascom promised to stop by the build tomorrow and let us know what else they find out.”

  “You know, Abby,” Dede said, “this part of the country might not seem as dangerous as where you work, but we do have our issues, and being a corridor for human trafficking is one of them.”

  “Sadly true,” Jon said. “I was born and raised in Medford. I’ve done a lot of work in this area as well, and I’ve seen and heard things that sometimes make
me wonder if the big bad city isn’t invading our peace and quiet.”

  “Sin has no boundaries,” Dede said.

  Abby nodded in agreement and noted how close Jon and Dede seemed. To Abby’s knowledge her aunt had not dated since her husband died, many years ago. She was happy if after all this time Dede had finally found a match.

  Abby picked at her dinner, jazzed about the arrest of the ponytailed guy. Woody was right; getting back on the horse and catching bad guys was powerful medicine. Clayton Joiner would always be with her; she couldn’t run away from that. But she could move on and do her job again.

  “I’ll give you a ride back to Dede’s,” Ethan said to Abby after they finished dinner. From his demeanor, she knew it was time for the conversation that had been brewing since she intervened with the ponytailed man.

  “Sure, that’s a great idea.” Abby was not one to put things off. She felt stronger in a lot of ways, more clear on where she wanted to go, and Ethan deserved to know how she felt about things.

  “You’re upset, aren’t you?” she asked as he drove out of the restaurant lot.

  “A little. Abby, you could have been killed.”

  “Ethan, I know how to handle myself. I couldn’t ignore those kids crying.”

  “I’m not saying ignore.” He glanced from the road to her and back again. “You could have just called the local police. You didn’t have to put yourself in danger.”

  “Things happened. I won’t apologize for saving those girls.”

  He pulled over and stopped the car, turning to face her. “I’m not asking that you apologize. All I’m asking is that you think carefully before you act. I was actually praying that by taking more time off from work, you were considering other, safer avenues.”

  Abby sighed and took Ethan’s hand. “I love my work. It’s my mission field. We’ve been down this road so many times. You travel to dangerous places, and I trust your judgment. Why can’t you trust mine?”

  “Didn’t all the work we accomplished this week inspire you?”

  “It did. It was great. I feel privileged to have been part of it. But it’s not my calling.”

  “What about being with me?”

  Abby held his gaze, pain tugging in her heart at the sadness she saw in his eyes. “Ethan, I love you and I’m committed to working on this relationship; believe that.”

  After a minute he smiled. “I do believe that,” he said, “and I am too.” Ethan squeezed her hand and drove back onto the road.

  The day after her ponytail man confrontation, Abby saw Deputy Bascom when he arrived at the work site. She waved to the stocky cop as he wandered around the chaos. She guessed he was looking for her.

  “Just the person I wanted to find—Detective Hart, the homicide investigator from Long Beach up here on vacation who cracks human trafficking rings on her lunch hour,” he said with a smile when he saw her.

  “Hello, Deputy Bascom.” She shook his outstretched hand. “Do you have more news?”

  He ducked his head. “I sure do. We eventually peeled down to the real story and it had nothing to do with gas money. We found two more girls held against their will at a spread in Butte Falls, with a man waiting to buy one of the young ladies you freed.”

  “Buy?” Abby’s eyes went wide, and she was amazed that something criminal could still surprise her.

  “Yep. He’s in custody. Two more girls are free, and we also shut down an active meth lab. Thanks again for the intervention. By the way, how are you enjoying your working vacation?”

  Abby chuckled. “Actually, I’m having the time of my life. This has been a great experience.”

  Will nodded. “I’ve been involved with two church builds. It’s a great feeling to help those who really need it. Thanks again for helping some kids who really needed it as well. Great observation on your part.” He shook her hand one more time before saying good-bye.

  She couldn’t help but notice Ethan watching Bascom as he climbed into his vehicle and drove away. Ethan had been avoiding her since their conversation last night. He’d asked when she planned on going back to Long Beach. She said she didn’t know and at that time she didn’t. But now she knew she was ready. She meant what she said when she told him she was committed to working on their relationship, but a thought nagged: How can we truly be a couple when our hearts take us in different directions? Abby did love Ethan, but she knew she’d never join him on the mission field. Could he live with that if they were married?

  Could she?

  “I’m glad we can help Pastor Cliff,” Abby said to Dede as they drove from Butte Falls to Lake Creek at the end of the day. “What a nice family he has.”

  “He’s a great guy. He and his family deserve some good times after all the hard they’ve endured.”

  And it did me good to help, Abby thought. I’m okay. I’m back.

  I can return to work. I need to return to work.

  CHAPTER

  -32-

  BY FRIDAY, Woody’s shooting had been officially cleared as self-defense. That part was a no-brainer. Ruiz had a gun, and he’d fired at Luke and Woody before Woody dropped him. There was still a lot of investigation into why Alonzo Ruiz had broken into Luke’s office, and there was no reason to believe answers would be coming anytime soon. Luke and Woody sat down with Lieutenant Jacoby Friday morning.

  “Of all the people to be involved in a shooting, Woody, you surprised me.” Jacoby looked from Luke to Woody and shook his head.

  “You’re not the only one. After all the years of range work and nothing else, I’m glad to say that my training kicked in.”

  “Me too,” Luke said. “That guy had me cold.”

  Happy the department had cleared Woody quickly, Luke was able to hash everything out with his mother in terms of the shooting. He could understand her gut level fear for him. He felt the same way about Maddie. That his home had been violated struck him at a visceral, personal level.

  The shock of seeing that Ruiz was the man following him was almost as great as the shock of the shooting itself. The Triple Seven was front and center again. The incident was a powerful impetus for Luke to expedite his attempt to locate Lucy Harper, shake her, and uncover why Asa had her in his notes as a possible smoking gun. But he couldn’t go off half-cocked. Even with Woody being cleared, the shooting and subsequent investigation had delayed their work on both the Cavanaugh case and his search for Lucy Harper.

  Luke was glad that since the dead man was suspected for another crime, Jack O’Reilly and Ben Carney, the LBPD detectives who responded to the shooting scene, were sharing the investigation with Orange County Detective Fred Wright. He’d investigated the incident on the flood control path several months ago, when Ruiz and the other man had confronted Luke.

  Wright was trying to determine where Ruiz had been staying and who he was working for, while O’Reilly and Carney investigated the shooting and completed an inventory on a bunch of high-tech surveillance equipment located in the trunk of his car. There were cameras, listening devices, and tracking devices neatly organized in the trunk. It was likely they could find the vendors and maybe in a backdoor way discover who, if anyone, Ruiz was working with. There was no evidence that he’d used the equipment in any kind of surveillance of Abby or Luke, but it was problematic that he had it at all. Luke thought it creepy that Ruiz could possibly have been listening in on conversations, recording his movements. Another carrot dangling in front of him, urging him to get to the bottom of things.

  CHAPTER

  -33-

  WHEN FRIDAY ROLLED AROUND, Abby realized she’d been gone for over a week and she hadn’t checked in with Jessica. True, Jessica had told her not to worry, but she felt like she should have at least called once before now. When her friend didn’t answer her cell, Abby dialed her own home number but nearly disconnected when a familiar, but completely unexpected voice answered the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, hello?”

  “This sounds like Abby. You’re pro
bably wondering why I answered your phone.” It was Luke Murphy, and there was a bit of a smile in his voice.

  “Yeah, I guess I am. I expected to speak to Jessica. It’s comforting at least that I didn’t dial the wrong number. What are you doing there?”

  “Well, it’s a long story and one you weren’t supposed to hear until you got home. But somebody broke into your—”

  “Broke into my house? Is Jessica okay?” Abby stood, tense and angry.

  “Yes, Jessica is fine. In fact she gave the burglar a bit of a thrashing. He got away with nothing to show for his trouble but a broken nose.”

  For a second she couldn’t find her voice. She remembered the dark car she thought had been shadowing her.

  “Are you still there?” Worry shaded his voice.

  Sighing, Abby pinched the bridge of her nose. “Still here but not believing what you just said. Can you tell what he was after?” She didn’t have many valuables; her most important was her laptop, and that was with her.

  “Jessica isn’t sure. She caught him in your office. As far as she could tell, nothing has been removed. The doorjamb was destroyed—he jimmied it open to get inside—and I had some time on my hands, so I came over to fix it. We didn’t want to ruin your time away since, at the time, it seemed to be a no harm, no foul situation.”

  Abby almost laughed out loud when Luke used a Woody-ism like “no harm, no foul.”

  Luke went on. “The back door will be good as new, and Woody wants me to install a camera like one I put up at my house. That’s where Jessica is, with him picking one out.”

  “You guys shouldn’t go to so much trouble. A camera? Aren’t you overreacting?”

  “Uh, first, it’s no trouble, and second, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Anyway, I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

  There was something in his voice. Abby heard it and knew there was more. “Was the guy caught?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”