Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Reed glanced at the clock on the hospital wall. It was after two a.m., the time of day when the mind entertained a wider spectrum of possibilities. It wouldn’t do any good to theorize, and he was getting fuzzy-headed anyway.

  The nurse patted his leg, bringing him out of it. “Twenty-eight stitches,” she said, with a note of pride. The thing on his leg looked ghastly, the iodine turning his flesh a rust color around the laceration, hard black stitches poking out. The nurse covered it with a gauze bandage and pulled Reed’s pant leg down, which was torn through pretty good. He hopped off the exam table and thanked her and went looking for Pyle’s room. He found the investigator sleeping deeply. Good. Time to get back to the hotel, make a sandwich, and do the same.

  Four hours later, he awakened from the kind of dream he hadn’t had for years – looking for his daughter. Only this time, he’d been hunting his way through endless rooms with fake-wood walls, shadowy people sitting on ’70s-style couches, watching him with empty eyes.

  After an egg sandwich from McDonald’s, he was back at Snow’s place, this time getting a look at things as the sun rose in a hazy sky. The bugs were out, cutting across his vision and diving at his ears, everybody swatting the air – a dozen cops and crime scene people were on the scene. Reed gave the word and they went through the trailer home, pulling it apart board by prefabricated board. They combed through the woods and spent the later morning cracking through underbrush and calling things out as they spotted them – spent cartridges from a .22, some more from a .223, a hay bale with a paper target on it, some Bud Light cans, signs of a campfire. But no meth lab, no other signs of criminal activity. No buried bodies.

  Inside the trailer, troopers were going through Daryl’s bedroom, wearing their blue latex gloves. “Got any employment records yet?” Reed asked. “Pay stubs, anything?”

  “Working on it, sir.”

  He went back outside. The Sheriff’s Department had come to help, and three deputies were standing around a small stockpile of guns taken from the trailer – guns he’d missed on his first visit. Among them a .22 and a .223. No surprise there, given the spent cartridges littering the woods. There was also a pump-action shotgun and two pistols. All of them looked ancient, like family heirlooms.

  He found Griff a few yards back behind the trailer, lingering over a campfire area – rocks laid out in a lazy circle, the remaining sticks charred and cold. A couple of logs had been brought around for a crude seating area. Reed had asked that Griff be a part of things, and had been glad to see the man when he’d showed, bedecked in flannel and a trucker hat that advertised Ford automobiles. Reed asked him, “Was Daryl Snow a big hunter?”

  “He’d go out, sometimes to a hunting camp up near Churubusco,” Griff said. “Big territory up there, owned by a forestry company with an easement for that sort of thing. But I never saw Snow with a deer hanging, nothing like that. He probably liked the company of men, having drinks and everything.”

  “He liked to keep guns around, though.”

  “Sure, like most people around here.”

  Reed kicked at a charred log near his feet. “Daryl Snow have any kids you know of?”

  “Ah, I think he’s got a son. Lives in Alaska. Name is Brady.”

  “Alaska, huh? How old?”

  “Not sure. Probably mid to late twenties,” Griff said.

  “Know the mother? It’s not Ida Stevens, is it?”

  Griff answered, “Nah, it’s not Ida. Honestly, I ain’t sure who that boy’s mother is.”

  Reed nodded. He squatted and touched the wood, getting the soot on his fingers.

  Griff said about the campfire, “Couple days old, I guess. I’m sure the boys come out here and have a few, tell jokes, smoke a little reefer. So, ah, what are we doing out here? Didn’t Daryl… is it gonna be ruled a suicide or no?”

  Reed stood, wiping off his hands on his pants. “I think so. But we’ll let the evidence lead. In the meantime, we’re here because I’m still investigating how Kasey Stevens died. She lived with Snow, apparently. And I had a little encounter last night…”

  He told Griff about it, simultaneously thinking in the back of his mind that someone now needed to call Daryl’s son, inform him that his father had departed. While they talked, a few crows settled in a copse of nearby birch trees and started making their ragged noise.

  Reed got a call a few minutes later. “Raleigh.”

  “Mister… ah, Investigator Raleigh?” The way the caller said it rhymed with valet. And he spoke with a Middle Eastern accent.

  “Is this Sanjay Varma?”

  “Yes. Yes, sir. I understand you’re hoping to see our surveillance video from the truck stop?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Varma. We’ve had a murder up here, and the victim was found in the park that abuts your property.”

  A pause. “I’m sorry, ah, Investigator Raleigh… but we had some service disruption the past couple of days. The feed went down, and I haven’t seen anything.”

  “It’s a feed that goes direct to you? In real time?”

  “No. It’s recorded on-site. I check it every few days. But, anyway, Daryl Snow is our caretaker. He was working on it. Perhaps you can talk to–”

  “I can’t,” Reed said, turning around to watch the small army of people coming and going from Snow’s trailer and moving through the trees. “Mr. Snow took his life last night.”

  Silence. “I’m sorry, I don’t–”

  “He completed a suicide in the kitchen of your restaurant. You’re on my list of people to call today. Any chance you could make the trip up here?”

  Varma hesitated some more. “Oh… up there? I’m sorry… This is just sudden…”

  “It is sudden. But maybe you can tell me – has everything been all right? Business going okay?”

  “Sure. Business, yes, okay.”

  “How about any problems with the place? Besides the cameras. Even a clogged toilet. Anything?”

  “Ah, problems. Um… I think everything was okay,” Varma said.

  “Can I ask – how many people do you employ there? Including the filling station?”

  “Ah, employees…”

  Reed wondered how much Sanjay Varma was in touch with day-to-day operations at the little truck stop diner and filling station in the mountains. Maybe he just counted coin and signed checks. He seemed pretty taken aback, though that was to be expected.

  Now it sounded like Varma had someone talking to him in the background. His wife, maybe.

  Reed said, “Maybe you can check your payroll if you’re not sure.”

  More talking as Varma muffled the phone. It cleared. “Six employees.”

  “Okay. Mr. Varma, what I’m going to need is a statement from you concerning when you hired Daryl, what he did for you, and also about the cameras going down. But, ideally, I’m really going to want to talk to you in person.”

  “Oh… yes. Yes, of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Varma. I’ll find you when you get here.” Reed ended the call and headed back into the trailer, went in and found the same trooper wearing blue gloves, still tossing the bedroom.

  The trooper saw Reed coming. “That box right there,” he said.

  Reed went through it, found employment paperwork on a couple of guys, including one named Logan Terrio, with an Elliston address. He went back outside and located Griff. Asked him if he knew Terrio.

  “Yeah, I know him. Younger guy. His father is a lawyer. He hangs out with that kid from the funeral home…”

  “Which kid?”

  “Ah, Mosier.”

  “Funeral home?”

  “Right in downtown Elliston. Forget what the kid’s first name is. Maybe Evan or something.”

  “I’ll find out.” Reed thought a minute and said, “So Logan Terrio works here – what about the Mosier kid? Where’s he work? At the funeral home?”

  “Don’t think so,” Griff said. “I think he runs a place out of his parents’ garage.�
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  “Working on cars?”

  “Giving people tattoos.”

  Reed felt like someone had turned on the air. He took a deep breath through his nose and blew it out his mouth. “Tattoos,” he repeated. It was hard not to envision Logan Terrio and Aaron Mosier out in the woods with Kasey Stevens, the teenaged girl living with Daryl. One of them skillfully carving an obscure symbol into her stomach…

  Griff looked worried. “He’s a good kid.”

  Good kid, sure. Everybody was a good kid until they got together in a group. Then, with a little drinking, a little drugging, IQs and inhibitions dropped, competition increased, bad things sometimes happened. Maybe Kasey Stevens was an accident.

  Or – no.

  Because carving up a body wasn’t an accident. Carving up a body went beyond groupthink or horseplay. That was much darker territory.

  Reed whistled loudly and gathered the troopers and deputies milling around. “Let’s see if Brady Snow is home visiting, and let’s ask Logan Terrio to come talk to us, and this Mosier kid – Evan, or whatever his name is. Keep them separated, but we’ll interview them all at once.” He looked around until he saw a familiar face. “You got enough rooms over there?”

  Trooper MacKinnon nodded. “We can handle whatever you need.”

  “Good. Any of these boys school-aged?”

  They all looked at Griff, who’d become their local biographer. He shook his head. “Brady’s got to be twenty-five, twenty-six, like I said. Logan Terrio and the Mosier kid, a bit younger. Twenty, twenty-one, maybe.”

  Good, Reed thought. Over eighteen meant no legal guardians necessary. These were grown men, and he aimed to get the truth out of them.

  12

  Let the Mosier kid sit

  Brady Snow, as it turned out, was still up in Alaska. Kruse made the death notification. Logan Terrio, on the other hand, was not in Alaska – he was here. And he drove a Jeep. Back taillights were good, but there was a dent and some scrape marks. Surely the tire tread would be a match for the castings of the tracks left in the sawdust.

  When the troopers got to Terrio’s place, his father was there waiting. Dodge Terrio insisted on following the troopers to the barracks.

  Mosier – whose name turned out to be Aaron, not Evan – was picked up next, right in the middle of needling in a skull and crossbones on a fifty-something biker when troopers knocked on his door. He came willingly, they’d said.

  That had been fifteen minutes ago.

  Reed thought about it from Kruse and Pyle’s shared office. These guys were the two from last night. He was sure of it. Neither had much of a record – a couple of speeding tickets and Terrio a drunk driving charge his lawyer dad no doubt handled for him and got pled down – but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, or that they hadn’t dragged a fifteen-year-old girl off into the woods.

  Mosier was all over Instagram, showing off his work, showing off his own skin. He had a tattoo on one forearm that was apparently the Eye of Ra. His other arm was a full sleeve, and it looked like people in hell. Reed thought it was a depiction of Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.

  As he peeked through the blinds of the BCI office into the main barracks, Mosier was just being brought in. The kid looked angry and scared at the same time, with the anger mostly for show. He was in handcuffs, like Reed had requested.

  Logan Terrio was already in one of the interview rooms with his father, who’d arrived dressed in a three-piece suit.

  Kruse hung up the phone on his desk. “Who we doing first?”

  “Nobody showed up for Mosier yet? No angry father?”

  “Nope.”

  “Let’s do Terrio and let the Mosier kid sit.”

  Kruse just looked at Reed for a minute. “You see the paper this morning?”

  “The paper?” It took him a second. “No.”

  “Good shot of you on there. It’s at Mandalay Park, all the people in the road – and there’s you in the midst of it.”

  “I hope they got my good side,” he said. The joke helped him to feel only marginally better.

  “Like a shepherd tending to his flock,” Kruse said. “I think it’s the beard.”

  They left the office and picked their way past the desks in the bullpen. Reed opened the door to the interview room and watched the situation work its way through Terrio’s brain as he came in, the realization slowly dawning on Terrio’s face. Yeah, Reed thought at the kid. It’s me – I’m the cop from last night.

  Reed turned to face Dodge, who sat beside his son, looking ready to shit a brick. The lawyer was in his early fifties, curly silver hair, ruddy complexion. Looked like a cross between Jack Nicholson and Alec Baldwin with a side of Johnny Cash. Reed put on a pleasant smile and offered his hand. “Sir, Reed Raleigh, Major Crimes. Nice to meet you.”

  Dodge Terrio looked at the hand, then shook it quick and pulled away, pointing to Logan. “We’re going to need to talk about the treatment of my son. The troopers made him bang his knee up pretty good getting out of his Jeep. And the handcuffs are completely unnecessary.”

  Reed looked between Terrio and his son. He asked Logan, “You fell out of your vehicle?”

  “They alarmed him,” Dodge Terrio said. “My son has been through a lot, Mr. Raleigh. We lost his mother to cancer two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Reed said.

  Logan Terrio avoided eye contact. Reed said to Dodge, “All right. Well, let’s get some ice on it. Maybe get you a soda or something. And – Investigator Kruse – let’s get those cuffs off him.”

  Two minutes later, a Mountain Dew sat unopened on the table. Logan Terrio was biting his fingernails down to the nub, jackhammering with his right leg. Kruse had decamped for the viewing room next door and would watch and listen along with MacKinnon and a few others.

  Reed felt around in his inner pocket – after the hospital nap he’d changed into a plain black T-shirt and black suit coat – pulled out his earbuds, and set them on the table. He said to Logan, “So listen, man, can you tell me where you were last night, around 11 p.m.?”

  Dodge Terrio leaned forward and spread his hands. “With all due respect, Investigator Raleigh, this is what we’re going to do. First, you’re going to tell me whether or not you’re charging my son – my client – with anything.”

  “I can hold him twenty-four hours, charges or no charges.”

  “I understand that. But let’s get to the heart of the matter. I think everyone wants that, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” Reed picked at the earbuds’ cord, untangling it.

  Dodge Terrio cleared his throat. “So it stands to reason you might be looking at my son’s friend. You might be thinking he’s involved with what happened to the girl. And you’re looking at my son because you believe you saw his vehicle last night at Daryl Snow’s residence.”

  Reed was quiet, sensing where this was going.

  “So let’s say we want to cooperate,” Dodge said. “What do you want from us? What would make things here resolve quickly, simply? I want to walk out of here with my son. He had nothing to do with what happened to Kasey Stevens. And, personally, I don’t care if he never spends a minute with the Mosier boy again.”

  “Dad…”

  “Shut up, Logan.”

  Logan looked like a whipped dog.

  Reed asked, “What do you like to listen to, Logan?”

  “Sir?”

  He’d almost finished straightening out the cord. “Music. What do you like?”

  “Ah… Outkast. Stuff like that.”

  “Huh. You don’t like any rock and roll?”

  “Um, sure, yeah.”

  “I love music,” Reed said. “I can’t live without it. Some people, they go their whole lives, hardly pay attention to music. But I have to have it like water.”

  Logan nodded, like he was listening to a teacher explain a complicated math problem and had no clue where it was going.

  Once unsnarled, Reed rewound the cord, ke
eping it nice and tight. “I just want to know why you were at Daryl Snow’s house last night. That’s what I’m trying to get at here.”

  Logan glanced at his father again, and Dodge gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  Logan then looked at Reed, sniffed, and said, “Aaron wanted me to drive up there.”

  “Aaron Mosier? Why?”

  “He didn’t really say.”

  Reed carefully put the earbuds back in his pocket.

  Dodge Terrio pushed on his son’s shoulder again and said, “Logan, go ahead. Tell the investigator what you told me.”

  Studying his hands on the table, Logan said, “He wanted to see the girl’s room. Uh, Kasey’s room. We were – well, before that – he wanted to go to Tyson’s house. See it all burned down.”

  “Huh,” Reed said.

  “Yeah,” Logan continued. “I was just like, whatever. I mean, we were just cruising around.” Logan cut a look at his father, then lowered his eyes again and said nothing more.

  “How old are you, Logan?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Twenty-one. You live at home, too? Like Aaron?”

  Reed had to hand it to Dodge – he had the kid well-trained. Or terrified. One of those. Logan never answered without a signal from his father – a look, a nod, a twitch. “Yeah, just temporary,” he said, about his living situation.

  “How much are you working at the sawmill?”

  That glance at the old man. “Ah, couple days a week.”

  “When was the last day you were there?”

  “Ah, Friday. Last Friday.”

  Reed folded his arms, sat back. He wished he had some gum to chew and made a mental note to pick some up. “So, you’re working part time for Daryl Snow, means you must’ve seen Kasey Stevens from time to time.”

  “All right,” Dodge barked. “Where are we going with this?”

  Reed said, “Where we’re going is that there’s been a murder and then two suicides.”

  “Which should pretty much wrap your case up, shouldn’t it?”