Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1)

by James L. Weaver

  Maggie typed her information into Bear’s cell phone. Bear patted her on the shoulder and climbed into his truck.

  “We’ll find her, Mags. I’ll get the night deputies on board to keep an eye out.”

  “Thanks.” Maggie wiped her eyes. Bear took off down the driveway and headed east.

  “Come on,” Jake said, putting his arm around her shoulders and steering her toward his truck. Bear’s scenario with a beer and peckerhead sounded more feasible that something bad happening. Still, he wanted to support her and he always heard about trusting a mother’s intuition. “Let’s go find her.”

  Thirty minutes later after combing through every side street, park and gathering place in Warsaw, they’d come up with nothing. Jake called Bear who reported the same news from the various backroad spots he hit.

  “Busted Trey Tompkin’s kid with a six pack and a joint trying to get in Tammy Harrison’s pants in the back of his old man’s Chevy,” Bear said. “But that’s the only thing of interest I’ve seen. You check everywhere in town?”

  “Everywhere but the Swinging Bridge,” Jake said. “After that, I don’t know where else to look.”

  They promised to hook up at the police station in thirty minutes. Traveling back toward Main Street, they headed to the Swinging Bridge—an old iron structure crossing the sloughs. Maggie fervently scoured the streets as they drove, starting every time she saw something in the darkness—not a frequent occurrence considering it approached midnight.

  They cruised through Main Street seeing nothing but a shadowed couple kissing on the hood of an old Impala outside a bar, before rolling down the hill and pulling into Casey’s parking lot. Maggie jumped out of the truck and went inside, exchanging words with an elderly clerk. She trotted back and climbed inside.

  “Marge said a group of kids came in a couple of hours ago,” she said. “They loaded up on Red Bull and junk food. Halle wasn’t with them, but her friend Alicia was.”

  “I take it you didn’t talk to Alicia before?”

  “I tried calling her house but nobody answered,” she said, “and she and Halle are tight. If anyone knows where my girl is, it’s Alicia. Hit the road under the bridge.”

  Jake gunned out of the lot to the highway. A quarter mile later, he turned toward the Truman Dam and took a sharp right on a road his old man called The Fill.

  A group of six teens huddled in the shadows of the cloud covered moon in front of a silver, newer-model sport pickup and an old black Mustang. Curious faces squinted against the light from Jake’s truck, riding too high to be mistaken for a cop car. But it represented an unknown presence and they cautiously set bottles on the ground out of sight and extinguished smoking materials underfoot.

  Maggie flung open the door before Jake even rolled to a stop and stormed a hard-heeled path toward a pale, dark-haired girl hiding at the back of the group. He couldn’t tell from her body language if Maggie was pissed off or anxious. Probably both. He climbed out after her. Maggie grasped the girl about the shoulders and the five other teens backed away. They weren’t sure where this confrontation headed, but they sure didn’t want to be involved.

  “Please, Alicia,” Maggie said. “Have you seen Halle?”

  The girl’s bloodshot eyes were downcast against the glare of Jake’s headlights. Drunk or stoned.

  “Please don’t tell my mom I was here,” Alicia said. “I said I was staying at your house and she’ll kill me.”

  “You give me a clue where my daughter is and I won’t say a word.”

  Alicia opened her mouth to say something and then looked over to the boy by Jake. With an almost imperceptible tick of his head, Alicia’s mouth closed.

  “Don’t tell her shit, ‘Lecia,” said a scraggly haired teen with zits the size of boulders exploding on his face. He glanced toward Jake before grabbing his open beer from the ground by the Mustang.

  “Shut your hole,” Jake said.

  “Or what, old man?” The shithead raised the can to take a drink.

  Nothing lit Jake’s fuse more than outright stupidity. He could crush the kid with one hand. The kid didn’t seem to think Jake would do anything. Time to prove him wrong.

  Jake’s hand lashed out and sent the beer can flying in a whirling spray of amber liquid and foam. He used his large frame to crowd the kid against the side of the Mustang, pressing in tight. The kid’s grin disappeared as he tried to stare Jake down.

  “You don’t scare me,” the kid said, trying to appear tough but doing a piss poor job of it. Jake crushed in tighter. If the window of the Mustang was open, the kid would have tumbled through. Without breaking eye contact, Jake reached over and broke off the antenna and held the jagged edge in front of the teen’s bulging eyes. Jake wanted to cut the little smartass, maybe a nice line across his cheekbone to give him a permanent reminder of what being a dumbass could get you. Out of the corner of his eye, Maggie’s eyes widened. The snap of a finger bone and a little girl’s screams echoed in his head. Goddamn it. This was the kind of shit he was trying to get away from. But he had the kid’s attention and didn’t want to lose the momentum.

  “I’d better scare you or you’re dumber than you look,” Jake said. “Now shut up or I’ll carve out those zits with this antenna and leave your face like the surface of a bloody moon. Got me, ass wipe?”

  The teen gave a couple rapid head jerks of agreement, his eyes locked on the jagged edge of the antenna.

  “Where is she?” Maggie asked Alicia again.

  Alicia took one more glance at the shithead by Jake’s side and groaned.

  “Fine,” she said. “After school she talked about going for a run and then we were supposed to hook up.”

  “Where?”

  “At my house and then we were going to our spot.”

  “Where’s your spot?” Jake asked, stepping away from the kid, but holding the sharp end of the antenna at his head as a warning.

  “An old house off Poor Boy Road. We found it in the woods one day. We go there once in a while to hang out. It’s not far from yours. A quarter mile past Skinny Hart’s place. You know, the house with those silly deer statues and gazing balls in front of it.”

  “Who lives there?” Maggie asked.

  “Nobody,” Alicia said, squinting like it was the stupidest question she'd ever asked. “Looks like nobody’s lived there in a long time. There’s a picture of a skinny guy next to a fat woman in the dining room, but that’s the only personal thing there.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She never showed at my house,” Alicia said. “I called her, but she didn’t answer. I figured you and her were doing something.” She finally caught the frantic look in Maggie’s eyes and softened. “You really can’t find her?”

  “No, I can’t. Who else knows about this place?”

  “Nobody, Ms. Holden. I wanted to tell some people and Halle said no. It was our little hideout.”

  “If you hear anything about her, you call me. Now, go home.” Maggie grabbed Jake by the elbow. They climbed into Jake’s truck which he threw in reverse.

  “You were going to cut him, weren’t you?” she asked.

  He shook her earlier with his tale of his violent past and was afraid to say any more. No way perched on his lips, but he couldn’t lie to her. “Thought about it. A few months ago I’d have done it in a heartbeat. Seeing their own blood tends to be a big motivator to get people to talk.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  He glanced at her. “You. I don’t want to be that guy anymore.” He let the confession sit. “You know the place the girl was talking about?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Sounds like old Royce Weather’s place. Hell, he’s been dead for years. I kind of know where the turn off is, but I’ll never find it in the dark.”

  “Call Bear,” Jake said. “Have him meet us at your place. We’ll swing past to make sure your girl hasn’t gone back home. If she’s not there, I bet Bear can find the house.”

  He
spun the truck around and started back out The Fill Road; the Swinging Bridge crossing the Osage River couldn’t support traffic any longer. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The teens resumed their drinking, and the shithead flipped him off with a full arm extension.

  They rolled to Highway 7, stopped, and waited for a few cars to pass.

  “Tell me she’s okay, Jake.”

  “She’s okay,” he said. As she dialed, Jake hoped he wasn’t telling her a lie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A quarter before midnight, Willie pulled into the driveway of his uncle’s farm a few miles northwest of Hastain. He killed the lights and rolled along the dusty road, guiding the truck by the moonlight which danced in and out of the patchy clouds overhead. Though his uncle slept like the dead, Willie wasn’t taking any chances on waking him. He wheeled away from the house behind a decrepit barn, slouching like an ancient relic in the darkness.

  Willie opened the door. “Stay here and keep an eye on her.”

  “With pleasure,” Bub said, drawing his tongue across his chapped lips. Willie started toward the barn, paused, and leaned back inside.

  “You touch her, Bub, and I’ll cut your dick off. Got it?”

  Bub’s nostrils flared like a bull, his mouth working on a reply but came up empty.

  “Give me two minutes.” Willie grabbed his portion of meth from the back and hauled the hefty bags around to a coffin-shaped box his uncle used to store miscellaneous tools. Willie set the bags on the ground and opened the box. He moved some blankets and tools out of the way and yanked on a ring hidden in the base. A three-foot by three-foot trap door opened, leading to a hidden cellar beneath the barn. He could hide Halle down here and say she got away. But then he’d have to contend with Bub and Shane. He grabbed the meth and carefully descended the creaky stairs into darkness. When he reached the dirt floor, he dropped the bags on the ground and groped around for cord of the overhead light.

  The dull light from the dirty single bulb swung, pushing back the shadows. Fifteen feet square, the room held racks of rifles, machine guns and other weapons his uncle swore the government didn’t want him to have. Enough weaponry to shoot Shane’s house to hell and back, but Willie couldn’t shoot worth a damn and Bub embodied one of the biggest targets you could find in Benton County.

  He moved past plastic-covered shelves of dry goods and water jugs lining the far wall. Willie would burn the roads to get here when the zombie apocalypse hit. He picked up the meth bags and placed them in an old army foot locker in the far corner.

  Back at the entrance, Willie killed the light and hopped into his truck. Minutes later they rolled back down the road to the highway, toward the blue house and Shane. Willie’s grip tightened on the wheel with each turn of the wheels. The window to get Halle out of this mess shrank with each passing second.

  #

  Jake and Maggie waited in Maggie’s living room for Bear. They’d swept through like a tornado looking for Halle. It killed Jake to see the fire in her eyes extinguish like a blown out match when they found the house empty. To make matters worse, he got a text from an unknown number. The simple message read “Tick tock.” Jake had less than a day to put Langston in a body bag or Keats would find one for Jake.

  Maggie fidgeted on the beige, corduroy couch, rubbing her hands together like they were worry stones, waiting for her baby girl to come bounding through the front door. Jake sat in a brown, leather recliner next to the couch twiddling his thumbs, feeling helpless and hating it.

  “It’s going to be okay, Mags.” Did the words sound as hollow as they felt? Would she see through his reassurance knowing things might be far from okay?

  “Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” she whispered.

  “Who says that?”

  “You used to,” she said, head tilting in surprise.

  Jake scrunched his eyes. “When?”

  “All the time. We’d sit on the hill talking about what you were going through with Stony and football and school and Nick and Janey. Your head went in a million different directions back then. You hoped for the best because that’s what would get you out of here. You planned on the worst because you knew life is full of curveballs.”

  “I don’t remember saying it. Sounds pretty optimistic considering that as long as Stony was around, things were guaranteed to turn to shit,” he said.

  “I always loved that about you.”

  “What?”

  “You could always see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said, a sad smile crossing her lips.

  “Well, I was an idiot teenager.”

  She shook her head. “I think you’re selling yourself short.”

  He rose and stood by the fireplace, examining the pictures on the mantel. He lifted the first one; one of her parents with their arms draped around an eight-year-old Maggie.

  “That’s my favorite picture of my folks,” she said. “We took it at Silver Dollar City. Daddy was so happy he could spring for a vacation. He did just about anything to make me happy.”

  “Don’t think he liked me much.”

  “He liked you about as much as any father could for the man who deflowered his baby girl.”

  “You told him?” Jake set the picture back on the mantel as if the frame was on fire.

  Maggie laughed. “No, but I think he had a pretty good idea. I think he had bigger worries that you were going to turn out like your father.”

  “Then he was a smart man.”

  He stared at another picture of a beautiful, blonde girl with the same button nose and high cheekbones as Maggie.

  “This Halle? Bet you’re beating the boys back with a stick.” He stole a glance at Maggie. “She’s gorgeous, just like her mother.”

  “She is beautiful, inside and out. She’s stubborn as mule, like her father.”

  “Who is…” Jake asked when headlights flooded the living room and Bear’s horn blared. Maggie jumped from the couch. Jake set Halle’s picture back on the mantel and followed her outside, clasped Bear’s hand, then laid out what they learned from Alicia.

  “I know exactly where it is,” Bear said. “Not far from here at all. Got some flashlights we can use to scout the place out. Come on.”

  The three of them climbed into Bear’s truck and they rolled out of Maggie’s driveway and on to Poor Boy Road. Instead of moving right toward town, Bear spun the wheel to the left. They rode in silence through the blackness, the clock on the dashboard reading twelve thirty. A mile later, he slowed, leaning his bulky frame forward, squinting his eyes as he probed the passing landscape lit up by the headlights.

  “There you are,” he said at last, cutting on to a dirt path Jake didn’t even see. He hopped out and opened a long, green gate then returned. They bounced along deep, rain-carved ruts for a hundred yards before rolling into a clearing. The truck’s bright beams blasted the side of the old house in front of them, shadows jumping away into the deep woods. The three of them got out and Bear scanned the area. He popped open the strap of his holster and rested his hand on the butt of his gun. Jake stood beside him, taking in the house and surrounding grounds.

  “Abandoned, huh?” Jake said.

  “That’s the word.”

  “Awful lot of fresh tire tracks for an abandoned place.”

  “Any chance Halle would drive down here, Mags?” Bear asked.

  “No chance,” she said. “We just have the one car and it’s in Sedalia.”

  “Jake, stay here with Maggie.” Bear eased his gun from his holster. “I’m going to check the house out.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Maggie said, starting forward. Bear held his hand out.

  “No, you’re going to stay here with Jake,” he said. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

  Jake took Maggie’s hand and pulled her to him. He leaned against the truck, feeling naked without a weapon of his own. Bear crept with his pistol resting on the outstretched flashlight. At the front of the house, he shined it through the window, then
walked around the side and out of sight.

  Despite the warmth, Maggie trembled as a late summer wind gusted through the trees. Jake agreed with Bear, something didn’t smell right. The normal rustic, woodsy smell of the Ozarks had been replaced with an acrid stench.

  Bear’s flashlight appeared on the opposite side of the house and danced along the ground as it approached them. As he drew closer, he holstered his pistol and examined something in a white handkerchief in his hand.

  “What’s that?” Jake asked.

  Bear held out a red shard into the lights of his truck. “A link. Meth”.

  “Red meth?”

  “Devil Ice. I got a shithead in custody who knows exactly what it is.”

  “You go inside the house?” Jake asked.

  “Hell, no. You smell it?”

  “Yeah, like weird sweet-smelling cat piss,” Jake said. “If that makes any sense.”

  “Makes perfect sense if you combine it with the trash I saw inside the house through the windows and this chunk of meth. That’s why we’re not going in there. This is a meth lab and somebody cooked here recently.”

  “But..but..Halle could be in there,” Maggie said, jumping forward. Bear grabbed her by the arm.

  “You can’t go in there, Mags, the house is full of poison. But don’t worry, I checked the rooms through the windows and it’s empty. I’ll get my team here with the proper gear and we’ll sweep through it. Once light breaks, we’ll sweep through the woods as well, but I’m guessing Halle was here recently.”

  “Why do you say that?” Maggie asked, a slight smile raising her cheekbones.

  Bear held out the white handkerchief and rolled his palm over revealing a silver iPod. Its illuminated face showed two things, Pink’s song “Try” playing and the ominous sliver of red from the battery bar. Bear turned the iPod case over, the light from the truck revealed the name “Halle” crudely etched in the silver casing. Maggie stifled a cry. Jake pulled her in tight, holding her until her stiffness gave in.