Before He Takes

by Blake Pierce

  He had a ton of work to do first, though. With a confident grin spread across his face, he went to work as the pelting snow thickened around him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  With no alarm set, Mackenzie slept in until 7:20. While it was still relatively early, she certainly considered it sleeping in. More than that, it was more than six hours, as she and Ellington had joked about last night.

  Ah hell…Ellington, she thought. I guess I need to face him at some point this morning.

  She sat up in bed and grabbed her phone. She had no missed texts, no calls, no e-mails. She realized that if no new leads turned up today, she and Ellington could very well be headed back to DC by the end of the day. She got out of bed and prepared herself for the day, working on an automated schedule: shower, teeth, hair, get dressed. She had it down to a science, able to get it all done in right at twenty minutes.

  When she was done, she figured she’d sidestep the awkwardness with Ellington altogether. She’d knock on his door and they’d head out to face the day together. With no new leads, she figured they’d get started at the Bent Creek PD. She wondered if Thorsson and Heideman would be there or if they were still back at the field office due to a lack of results.

  She stepped outside and as she closed the door behind her she saw Ellington coming out of the motel office. He gave her a wave and came over to her, pulling the car keys out of his pocket.

  “What were you doing in there?” she asked.

  “I got the call from McGrath this morning. He asked for an update and I gave it to him. He’s asked that we report back to DC no later than tonight if we can’t turn anything up today. He’ll keep us on the case but he doesn’t want to keep us out here on a case that’s showing no progress.”

  Mackenzie had assumed this would happen, so it came as no real surprise. “Want to head down to see Bateman?” she asked. “Maybe we’ll be able to pull something from the maps and the train routes.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Listen…about last night—”

  She shook her head. “Nope. No need to go there. Let’s see if we can make today productive and wrap this case up. I won’t be able to do that if I keep thinking about last night.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  She hadn’t meant to sound like a bitch but she knew it had come off that way. Hopefully, Ellington knew her well enough to know that was not her intent. It was hard to tell because neither of them said a single word in the two minutes it took—even in the new snow—to get from the Motel 6 to the Bent Creek police department.

  When they arrived at the station, they made their way to the back after being directed there by the receptionist. Mackenzie smelled coffee and donuts—scents that perked her up despite the tension between her and Ellington and McGrath requesting them back in DC. She knocked on the conference room door, which was partially open, and got a rushed “Come on in.”

  When she entered, Bateman gave her half a wave and a thin smile. He looked tired and, quite honestly, not too happy to see her.

  “Agents White and Ellington,” Bateman said. He pointed to an older man, around sixty or so, and said, “This is Earl Temper from the Forestry Department. He’s working to narrow down the locations we believe Delores Manning could have gotten on that train.”

  “Any luck so far?” Mackenzie asked.

  “A bit,” Earl said. “Fortunately, there aren’t a whole lot of pines in the woods around here, so it makes my job a bit easier. He slid a forestry map over to her and pointed a finger at a U-shaped mark he had placed on the map with a marker.

  “That right there is an area of about twenty miles, all running right alongside the tracks. As far as I know, it’s the only area there’d be pines that close to the tracks, but I’m making some calls and requesting some data to make sure I’m right. If you give me an hour or so, I can probably knock that twenty-mile radius down to about five or ten.”

  “That would be great,” Mackenzie said.

  Meanwhile, Officer Roberts slid one of three boxes of donuts toward Mackenzie and Ellington. “Help yourself,” she said.

  Mackenzie did, giving her thanks, but she was a little weirded out. Something had changed in this place since yesterday. Something about it all seemed very Twin Peaks now and she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was just Bateman’s mood or the tension between her and Ellington, but something was definitely off.

  “Is there a history of any other types of crimes out in that area?” Mackenzie asked, looking down at Earl’s map.

  “Nope,” Bateman said. “I had someone check that out about twenty minutes before you guys showed up.”

  She wasn’t sure if this was a deliberate jab or not. As it turned out, she didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it. Directly after Bateman said this, his cell phone rang. He took it off of the clip on his belt and answered it through a mouthful of donut.

  “This is Bateman.”

  He listened to the call for a moment and then sat straight up in his chair. Mackenzie tried to read his expression but wasn’t sure if he was receiving good news or bad news.

  “One second,” Bateman said. “I’m going to put you on speaker.” Before he did, he addressed everyone in the conference room—Mackenzie, Ellington, Roberts, and Earl Temper—and said: “This is Janice Smith from the Department of Agriculture.”

  He then placed the phone on speaker mode and set it in the middle of the table. “Okay, Janice…you’ve got me, Earl Temper from the Forestry Department, Officer Roberts, and Agents White and Ellington from the FBI. Tell them what you just told me and then finish the details.”

  “Sure,” said Smith. “I got a call from one of your local famers down there…a gentleman named David Ayers. He had a meeting with a rep from the Department of Agriculture this morning. He’s met with her several times and she’s always prompt and on time. He called us about ten minutes ago to say that the rep—Missy Hale—had not yet shown up. We’ve tried calling her cell phone and there is no answer. Now, I know it might be a stretch, but I know about the trouble you’ve been having down there with the disappearances. I thought it might be something worth looking into. I’ve already mailed over all of Missy’s info as well as the license and registration information on the truck she’s driving.”

  “We’ll certainly look into it,” Bateman said, giving Mackenzie a look as if to say I hope that’s okay with you. She gave him a nod to indicate that it was.

  “Thanks,” Smith said. “Honestly, it’s just not like Missy to be late or, at the very least, to not make a call saying she’s running behind. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered calling.”

  “That’s fine,” Bateman said. “We’ll be sure to keep you posted.”

  With that, he ended the call and looked around the conference room. “I think she’s right,” he said. “It might seem like a stretch, but what other leads do we have at this point?”

  “I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch,” Mackenzie said. “Without any reports of car accidents that would delay her, any missing person case in an area where there have been multiple similar cases is worth looking into.”

  She started for the door without another word. As she did, Bateman also stood up. “At the risk of crowding the scene, I think I’d like to join you on this one.”

  “Of course,” Mackenzie said. She didn’t want to waste any more of her time or attention trying to figure out why things seemed to be tense with Bateman. Besides, if he wanted to come along, he had every right to do so.

  She even let him lead the way, pausing as he stopped to grab another donut before he left the conference room. As Mackenzie left the room, she was overcome with a strange feeling; while she certainly hoped Missy Hale was alive and well and this was all an overreaching mix-up, she also knew that if she was in danger, this could be the last lead to pursue before she and Ellington had to call it quits and head back home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  When they arrived at David Ayers’s farm, Mackenzie saw that he was
placing a tarp over a stack of firewood along the left side of his nice two-story farmhouse. The snow was really coming down, making Mackenzie wonder just how deep it would need to get before Bateman had someone put chains on the tires of his patrol car. Mackenzie noticed the tail end of the cop car in front of her and Ellington slipping slightly to the left as it came to a stop in Ayers’s driveway.

  Ayers looked out at them and gave a wave as he tightened his hood up over his head. He walked slowly to the porch, waiting for everyone to join him. Roberts had come along with Bateman, leading a few steps ahead of Mackenzie and Bateman. When introductions were made all around, Ayers welcomed them into his house.

  It was a gorgeous farmhouse, rustic to the point of being classy. A wood-burning fireplace roared below the mantel in the spacious living room.

  “I have to say,” Ayers said, “I didn’t think my call would cause such a fuss. I certainly wasn’t expecting the FBI.”

  “Well, the Department of Agriculture called me soon after you called to ask about Missy Hale,” Bateman said. “As you probably know, we’ve had a string of disappearances in the area. The people at the Department of Agriculture don’t want to take any chances. No one can get Missy on her phone, e-mail, nothing.”

  “Oh my God,” Ayers said.

  “So…I know it’s a long shot,” Bateman said, “but can you think of anything that might have been said between the two of you that we’d need to know?”

  “Missy and I?” Ayers asked. “No. She comes by every quarter to do a check on how I’m handling the waste procedures…making sure it’s not threatening local water supplies and things like that. We have a friendly chat when she comes over but that’s about it.”

  “You didn’t speak to her about this visit?” Mackenzie asked. “No conversations about setting up the appointment?”

  “No, none at all. It’s all done online. I knew it was Missy that would be coming again because it was her name on my invoice.”

  “Could we see that invoice, please?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s in my office. Give me one second.”

  The four authorities sat by quietly as Ayers stepped away to his office. When he was out of earshot, Mackenzie stepped closer to Bateman so that she could speak quietly.

  “How well do you know David Ayers?”

  “Pretty good. If you’re wanting to know if I think he’s capable of kidnapping women, the answer is absolutely not. The guy doesn’t have any sort of record. His wife passed five or six years ago and although he’s wealthy enough to retire, he keeps working. He’s one of the nicest folks in town if you ask me.”

  “Has his farm been around for a while?” she asked.

  “Yeah. One of the first in town, I think. I don’t know the family history or anything, but I think it’s been here since the 1920s or so.”

  She had no more questions, which was just as well, since Ayers came walking back in. He handed Mackenzie a sheet of paper with a basic form on it. It gave the date and time of today’s visit. A small note near the bottom said Your meeting is with representative Missy Hale. Contact this office with any questions.

  “Mr. Ayers,” Mackenzie said, “given her job, I wonder if there were any other farms in town that might have had issues with her? Maybe she gave someone a bad review or slapped a fine on someone? Can you think of anyone that resented her?”

  “No, but I guess it’s a possibility.”

  “Hey, David,” Bateman said. “Do you know if the state still sends them out in those God-awful trucks?”

  “The beige-colored short-bodies?” Ayers asked.

  “Those are the ones.”

  “The last time she came out, yeah.”

  Mackenzie made a note of this. They had the license plate number, the registration number, and now, potentially, the color of the truck. It was quite possibly the strongest lead they had. From the information Bateman had, they also knew that Missy had made the early-morning appointment she’d had with the slaughterhouse. So that meant somewhere between the slaughterhouse and the Ayers farm, a very distinct truck had somehow gone missing.

  Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought.

  But the snow was still falling outside and would almost certainly hinder any sort of search.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Ayers,” she said. “I’ll leave you in the highly capable hands of Sheriff Bateman and Officer Roberts. Agent Ellington and I need to get going.”

  Bateman looked at her with a confused expression—one that nearly mirrored the one on Ellington’s face. Always on top of things, though, Ellington nodded and followed her to the door. He said nothing to her until they were down the porch stairs and headed for their rental car.

  “You worried about the snow, too?” he asked.

  “Yes. If we want to find that truck, we need to do it before the snow makes it impossible. You have any idea what the forecast is?”

  He pulled out his cell phone and opened his weather app as they got into the car. “Flurries for another hour or so and then it’s going to be picking up.”

  “So we really have to do this quickly,” she said. “We know that Missy Hale was at the slaughterhouse this morning. So let’s start there and trace every route there is between there and here. That truck has to be somewhere.”

  “Does it?” Ellington asked as he backed out of the driveway. “Let’s say our guy did take Missy Hale. Why would he take her vehicle when he left the others on the side of the road?”

  “Because if he did take her, this was in the morning. Daytime. His other scenes have all occurred at night.”

  “And honestly,” he argued, “that’s why I don’t think Missy is one of his victims. Why would he stray from his norm? Why take the risk?”

  “Because Delores Manning escaped. He was hurt. Hs pride, his ego, whatever. Not only did he need to replace her, but he needs to do something more daring to prove something to himself.”

  “Shit,” Ellington said. “You’re right. That’s a good point.”

  “I’m thinking he either has her truck or he left it on the side of the road like the others. I think we should maybe request a few of Bateman’s guys to run down State Route 14 since that seems to be the suspect’s hotspot.”

  “Yeah, I’ll let you suggest that,” Ellington said. “Something seems to be bothering him lately and I don’t want to be the one to—”

  “Stop!”

  She nearly screamed it because the thought had come so suddenly. Ellington did as she asked, hitting the brakes and causing the car to jerk a bit in the snow. While the roads were far from covered yet, what had accumulated was making conditions rather slick.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “That side road back there…there were tracks.”

  Ellington backed the car up and came to the side road. It was another of those off-the-beaten path roads like they had seen on State Route 14. This one was located roughly a quarter of a mile from the Ayers farm. There was no gate, just tufts of dead weeds along the side of the road.

  Sure enough, there did appear to be tracks. They were barely visible in the snow but they were there.

  But the tracks I’m seeing are tracks in the snow. This new snow is covering them up—which means these tracks are surely no older than an hour or two.

  “Think this clunker can get us down there?” Ellington asked.

  “I think we can try it.”

  Ellington turned onto the road and Mackenzie saw at once that it was a very old road. Two thin dirt tracks showed the area where numerous tires had rolled across the ground but that was it. There was no gravel, no easily defined sides to the road—nothing. However, the further down the road they got, the easier it was to see the ghostlike tracks.

  Fortunately, the road was not very long. After about half a mile, the road took a hard right turn, in the direction of Ayers’s farm. The road stretched out for another two hundred yards or so and then came to a stop in a small field that was mostly filled by a
pond.

  Ellington parked the car and they stepped out. Mackenzie looked around on the ground but it was mostly hard-packed dirt or dead grass, making it harder to see the tracks. She looked out to the pond and the trees that bordered it on all sides. If Mackenzie had to guess, the pond was about one hundred feet across and one hundred and fifty feet wide from end to end. This, she assumed, wasn’t so much a pond as it was what she’d often heard referred to as a fishing hole.

  She walked toward the water, watching the snow fall onto the surface and then slowly dissolve into the water. As she scanned the banks, she saw another set of tracks, but they made no sense. The tracks they had followed in reappeared right at the edge of the pond. They did not turn away, but continued to go straight…

  “Holy shit,” Mackenzie said.

  She took the final few steps to the edge of the water and looked into it. There was not much murkiness to the water thanks to the still and pristine winter conditions. This made it quite easy for her to see the strange square shape, sitting up at an angle. It was perhaps four feet beneath the water and even through the water and slowly falling snow, she could see that it was beige.

  “Ellington, I found the truck.”

  He came over quickly and let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh my God,” he said.

  Mackenzie took out her cell phone and called Bateman. The reception was not the best but she heard him well enough when he answered.

  “This is Bateman,” he answered.

  “This is White. We found Missy Hale’s truck.”

  “What? That was quick. Where are you?”

  “Down a short dirt road about half a mile away from the Ayers farm. I’m standing at the edge of a pond, looking at the rear end of the truck under the water.”

  “Wait…half a mile away? Back towards town?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  There was a pause before Bateman answered rather uneasily. “That’s David Ayers’s pond.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, the field in front of the small pond was bustling with activity. Mackenzie and Ellington sat in their rental car with David Ayers, staying out of the cold. Meanwhile, two men had geared up in thermal suits to venture into the pond. They were currently working to hook the truck to a hitch that was attached to the back of a tow truck that had parked at the very edge of the pond. Bateman was speaking to the tow truck driver while Roberts and several other officers stood by, watching.