by Blake Pierce
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s say Fowley is our guy. Where are the women?”
“I’d like to find that out for myself,” Bateman said. “And I’m sure as hell not going to find out by standing out here in the cold. We’re sharing a car now. I say we get back to the station and grill this asshole.”
Mackenzie looked to the shed and the looming white forest behind it. She then looked to Ellington and saw that he appeared to be torn. He gave her a shrug, a defeated gesture that did not suit him. “Sounds good to me,” he said.
She’d expected him to have her back. In a way, she supposed, he did. While it was clear he felt that something here was not quite lining up, he also knew that it would only cause more turmoil to get into a heated argument. Plus, the way he was grimacing with each breath indicated that maybe the attack he’d suffered from the baseball bat had been harsher than it had seemed.
Bateman wasted no time in walking back to the single car remaining in Ed Fowley’s driveway. Mackenzie followed behind, taking one final glance back at the yard. The night falling on the snow looked ominous, yet, in an odd way, welcoming. It made it seem as if there were still plenty of secrets left out there to be uncovered.
But for the moment, she still allowed herself to hope. We got him, she thought, trying out the words. Maybe it’s all over.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Mackenzie was pacing anxiously in the observation room, watching three scenes unfold on small black-and-white monitors in front of her. Fowley and his two accomplices had been given their own individual interrogation rooms. She’d elected to sit out of the interrogations for now. She was too frustrated and knew she would not be an effective interrogator if her mind was preoccupied. Instead, she watched as Bateman, Deputy Wickline, and Ellington questioned the three men.
Fowley had made it clear that he was not going to talk. Unfortunately for him, the same could not be said for his two accomplices. She watched as Ellington went to work on the younger-looking accomplice, a twenty-three-year-old named Jackson Randall.
“We ran your ID,” Ellington said. “We know you have a clean record. So if you can play ball, I’ll personally see to it that you get the absolute minimum sentence for striking an FBI agent with a bat—perhaps even just a monetary fine. But if you’re difficult, you can go ahead and serve those twenty years or so with Fowley.”
Mackenzie killed the feeds on the other two monitors and listened solely to Randall. “I don’t know what the hell this is all about!” Randall said.
“So you mean to tell me that you have no idea who Delores Manning, Crystal Hall, Naomi Nyles, or Missy Hale are?”
“No way, man. Ed…he wasn’t into it all that much. He just kind of lined up the real bad guys with cages. You know?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Some dude out of Nicaragua. I don’t know. He’s living in Vegas now or something, I think. He used Ed’s crates to get the girls from one place to the other. The cattle crates work so much better because…ah shit, man…because it was easier to tie the girls down.”
“What girls?” Ellington said. “I thought you said there were no girls.”
“Like I just said, Ed never dealt with the girls. Just the crates.”
“And we’re talking about kidnapped girls?”
“I don’t know. I guess. He used the word trafficking a few times.”
“How many women were there?” Ellington asked.
“I don’t know. Honestly. I only know of two for sure.”
“Who were they sold to?”
“I don’t know. Again, that was all Ed. That part of it…it sort of pissed me off.”
“How long has he been at this?” Ellington asked, his voice getting louder.
“A little less than a year, I think.”
“And you are absolutely positive he hasn’t been taking women from off the roads around here?”
“If he has been, I didn’t know about it.”
“So why did he need two partners if he was just selling crates to these men?”
“I was just the tech guy. Making sure e-mails and money couldn’t be traced. Henry, the other guy, just came on. I don’t know why. I think he was a friend of the guy in Vegas.”
“So we’re talking about human trafficking?” Ellington asked, now in Randall’s face.
It was at that point that Randall started to cry. He simply broke down in front of Ellington, perhaps broken down from the weight of what he had been assisting with.
And while everything she heard was terrible, Mackenzie became more and more aware that Ed Fowley was not their man.
So much for feeling victorious, she thought.Have I missed this all along? Our guy is too cautious, if not a bit formulaic. But what if he’s been taking these women to…sell? What if there’s some other motive behind it than simple control? The two crimes between these two creeps may not be linked, but it’s something to consider.
Someone knocked on the already-open observation room door behind her. She turned and saw Roberts entering with a cup of coffee. She handed it to Mackenzie and said, “Can you believe it? This fucking town…as if drugs weren’t bad enough.”
“Is this a whole new issue for Bent Creek?” Mackenzie asked.
“Human trafficking? Yes.”
“Officer Roberts, do you think you could arrange to have me borrow a patrol car in the next few minutes? Preferably with chains on the tires?”
“Sure. Where are you going?”
“Back out there. If we now have evidence of human trafficking in the area, even if it’s just the selling of transport crates, there’s a whole new level of evidence to search for. Maybe I’ll take a better look at the crates or start looking into Fowley’s list of lost loves to see what they have to offer.”
“But it seems like this is our guy,” Roberts said. “And it’s cold, dark, and snowing. Can we just let it rest?”
“Sure. And if we ever find these women and they ask why they were left in the cold to get frostbitten, I’ll tell them it was your idea.”
“Fine,” Roberts spat. “I’ll make the request.”
Mackenzie exited the observation room with Roberts and headed down a few doors to Interrogation Room 2, where Ellington was still at work. She knocked on the door and Ellington came to the small window to peer out at her.
He opened the door and stepped out for a moment. Randall’s cries seeped out in that instant, the sounds of a man filled with regrets.
“Can you believe this?” Ellington asked.
“It’s pretty terrible. I feel like we came into town and swept up all this dirty stuff that had been lying hidden for so long.”
“I almost feel bad about it,” Ellington said. “Anyway, what’s up?”
“I think I’m going to head back out and poke around the back roads. Those women…they’re still out there somewhere while we’re grilling three men that have no idea where they are.”
“Let me finish up here and I’ll come with you,” he offered.
“No. Take your time here. Another half an hour or so and you guys can maybe bust up an entire trafficking ring. Stay on this angle. I’ll only be a few hours at most.”
“Well, please be careful,” he said. For a moment, she saw the longing she had seen in his eyes the previous night in his motel room.
“I will,” she said. “Awesome work in there, by the way.”
“Oh, I do have my moments.”
She rewarded him with a small laugh as she turned back for the front of the building. As promised, Roberts had a car ready and waiting for her. When she got behind the wheel, the car was already warm. Wasting no time, she headed back out into Bent Creek just as night settled down over the blanket of white that had covered the town.
At least three women were out there, possibly cold and certainly afraid.
But what if they aren’t here? she thought. What if the abductor has relocated them? Or what if he killed them after Delores Manning escaped?
She couldn’t thi
nk like that, though. In fact, she refused to think like that.
She carefully made her way down the main stretch, away from the police department. She headed for the ever-winding back roads that snaked back into the forest as if the road itself was trying to strangle the life out of the snow.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Mackenzie headed back to Ed Fowley’s house, driving down Skinner’s Reach Road simply to have a starting point to her search. There was also something gnawing at her—something she had seen or sensed while at Fowley’s that she hadn’t had time to process. She stopped the car in front of his driveway, trying to get the lay of the land and a sense of how the snow would impede her search.
Mackenzie started down his driveway and parked where she had before. She walked directly out to the barn, giving it another look. The crates offered no evidence at all. Without a deep investigation with a forensics team, she wouldn’t be able to tell if the crates had been used for dogs, barn animals, or kidnapped women.
She walked back out into the snow. She looked at all of the prints they stomped into the ground earlier and then looked out to the woods.
That’s when she saw the faint glow through the trees. She’d spotted it earlier but had been so focused on getting into the barn that she had not taken the time to consider it. A neighbor, she thought.
It was a long shot, but she thought a neighbor might know enough about Fowley to eliminate him from the list of suspects. While she understood why the local PD might be convinced that Fowley was their man, Mackenzie knew for certain that the profiles simply didn’t match up.
She got back into her car and made her way out of Fowley’s driveway, managing to only go skidding in the snow on two occasions. As she reached the main road, her doubts resurfaced. She supposed it was possible that there was some sort of connection between what Ed Fowley was doing and what her guy was up to. It would be rather coincidental in any other case so why was she fighting it now?
Roughly a quarter of a mile down Skinner’s Reach Road, a driveway appeared on her left—the same side of the road Fowley’s house was on. This would be Fowley’s neighbor in the rural sense of the word. She could see that little glow she had seen through the trees in Fowley’s yard, only clearer now. Mackenzie couldn’t help but wonder if the neighbor might have some insight into Fowley or his connections. What had the neighbor seen as Fowley had sold these containers? What might they know about shady dealings and events on these back roads?
She turned onto the driveway and found that it was rather short. A small house came into view right away, faint light spilling through almost every window inside. The snow made it look quaint and inviting.
It was 8:10 when she parked her car and killed the engine in the small snowed-over driveway. A beaten up pickup truck was the only other vehicle. She looked beyond the house and saw two sheds. This raised no real alarms, as nearly every property she had stepped foot on since coming to Bent Creek had held some form of barn or shed. She walked up to the ramshackle porch and the Thomas Kinkaid comparison ended. The place was in a mild state of disrepair, the porch nothing more than thrown together boards and warped railings.
As she made her way onto the porch, she heard something weird in the distance. At first, she thought it was just the wind or maybe even something squealing beneath the porch. She then realized that it was the sound of dogs whining—puppies to be exact. Apparently a dog on this property had just delivered a litter.
The porch groaned under her weight as she knocked on the door. Due to the shoddy nature of the house, she had been expecting an older man to answer the door, perhaps a hermit that spent most of his afternoons with a twelve-pack of beer and a baseball game on the radio. So when a forty-something man with a handsome smile answered, she was a little surprised. He had a lumberjack sort of build, with massive shoulders and huge upper arms.
“Hey there,” the man said, clearly confused.
“Hi. I’m so sorry to bother you at such an hour,” Mackenzie said. “I’m Agent White with the FBI. I was wondering if you had a moment to answer some questions about your neighbor.”
“My neighbor? The closest person I know of is Ed Fowley.”
“That’s exactly who I mean,” Mackenzie said.
“Sure then, yes, come on in,” the man said. He seemed very hesitant to move back from his door but when he finally did, he was as cordial as could be expected from someone receiving a visit from the FBI after 8:00 p.m.
As Mackenzie entered the living room, she saw that the inside of the place was not at all like the outside. Everything was clean and tidied up. She sat down on the side of the couch against the right wall while the man sat in his recliner.
“You know, I already spoke with the FBI earlier today,” the man said.
“You did?”
“Sure did. Fella named Arrington, I think. Or maybe it was Ellington.”
“Ellington,” Mackenzie said. “That’s my partner.”
“So I take it things are still at a stand-still?”
“I can’t discuss the details of the case, but I would appreciate your cooperation in answering questions about Mr. Fowley. What is your name?”
“Harry Givens,” he said.
“And how long have you lived in this proximity to Mr. Fowler?”
“Twelve years. He moved in over there after some legal trouble if I remember correctly. Quiet guy, really. I’ve only ever sat down and had a chat with him a few times.”
“Did you know about his legal troubles in the past?”
“No, I sort of just keep to myself, you know? Not one for gossip.”
“And what do you do for a living?” she asked.
“This and that,” he said. “In the spring and summer I make fair money with my meager crops. When things get busy at the slaughterhouse during peak season, they bring me on.”
He was pleasant enough. He smiled when he spoke and had expressive eyes. There was dull look about him, though. As cruel as it sounded, she got the feeling that he might not be all there upstairs. Still, he was charming and seemed comfortable around her even though she was an FBI agent visiting at such a late hour.
“Let me ask you…do you know a young lady named Crystal Hall?”
He nodded and gave a mischievous grin. “I do, I do. And not for the best of reasons. She has a reputation, you know.”
“Word has it she was sleeping with Ed Fowley at one time. Did you know that?”
“I did,” he said. “And it was…well, regrettable the way people took that. Two people like being around each other. So what? Maybe they loved each other.”
“Yes, but Mr. Fowley was married at the time.”
“Marriage,” Harry said with a chuckle. “Who has time for that? It kills love, you know? And that’s all we really want. To be loved.”
The conversation was taking a strange turn. Little alarms started to sound in Mackenzie’s head.
“Mr. Givens, I noticed you have two sheds out back. Would you mind if I had a look in them?”
Harry sighed, as if he were irritated. “I went through all of this earlier today,” he said. “Your partner already looked in them.”
“He did?”
“Yes. I was splitting wood when he came. I had to come back inside and fetch the keys.”
“Forgive me, but I’d appreciate it if I could just have a look.”
“Think you’re a better agent than he is?” he asked with a grin.
“No, we just think differently.”
“Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t. I’m a private man. I try to keep to myself. And now someone else in town fucks up and I get hassled for it. Tell me…this partner of yours. Do you like him?”
She stuttered a bit, not expecting that question. “I don’t see what—”
“Do you love him?”
“Mr. Givens, I—
She was interrupted by the buzzing of her cell phone from within her pocket. “Excuse me, please,” she said, pulling the phone from her pocket.
/> She had received a text message from a number she did not know. She read it and did her very best to act as if she was unaffected by it. The truth of the matter was, though, it took an incredible amount of willpower not to jump off of the couch.
The text message was from Delores Manning. It read:
That weird noise I’d heard—puppies. It was puppies.
Mackenzie pocketed the cell phone as casually as she could. When she had come up onto Harry Givens’s porch, she’d heard something odd…something that had taken her a while to place. And in the end, she had thought it had been the sound of a litter of puppies. Young puppies, likely still scrambling over one another to get to their mother’s milk.
“Do you happen to know what Mr. Fowley did for employment?” Mackenzie asked, hoping to seem collected and trying to drag the conversation back to something resembling normalcy.
She couldn’t see any sign that he suspected anything. She thought about texting Ellington to get him out here but was afraid that might seem too obvious. She could, of course, simply jump to her feet, pull her gun, and arrest him right then and there. But if Harry Givens was the guilty party and she took such action, he may not be very cooperative in telling them where the women were.
Got to make sure we know where the women are before I try to take him on alone. I need to get in touch with Ellington.
She looked around the house, comparing it to the outside. So clean, so tidy. It looked almost out of place. A hairbrush sat on the arm of his recliner. An old denim shirt was hanging on the edge of it.
Denim shirt. Oh my god…Delores reported the same thing under hypnosis.
In a flash so quick it made her heart seem to float for a moment, Mackenzie got to her feet and drew her gun. Harry rocked back in the recliner, his eyes growing wide. An almost comical look of surprise washed over his face as he timidly raised his hands into the air.
“Whoa, whoa, what the hell is this?”
“Get out of the chair and put your hands on your head. Do it slowly.”
He smiled at her then, that same smile that made her think he was perhaps a little mentally unbalanced. Still, he did as she asked. He slowly laced his hands over his head, those massive arms hidden by a baggy sweater but no less intimidating.