Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Reed: “What was she doing at the Mosiers’?”

  “Babysitting.”

  “Was Aaron there?”

  “Yeah. I helped him build his shop. Helped with all the remodeling. I told you I was good.”

  “And you… you followed her? Or accompanied her?”

  “Well, I didn’t want her to worry. So I just hung back. Made sure she got home safe.”

  “Where was home, Lloyd?”

  “Her ma’s place. Ida.”

  “Was this a while ago?”

  “Last summer.”

  Kruse jumped in, took it up a notch. “You think she was cute, Lloyd? Attractive?”

  Cox craned his head way back, as if a bug had just flew up in his face. “Oh, now, Officer, please don’t go thinking that way.”

  “Which way should we think?” Kruse asked.

  “You should think I wouldn’t hurt nobody.”

  There was a tense silence. Reed looked around. “Where’s your bike, Lloyd?”

  “I had gears slipping, so I left it in town last night and walked home. The weather’s getting nice, anyway.”

  Reed nodded companionably. Then: “You’re not from here, are you?”

  “No, sir. Florida. Well, born in Florida, then moved to Texas with my momma, then up to Tennessee with my grand-mammy and grand-pappy when my momma died. I trucked around a bit soon as I was eighteen. Went out west and up to–”

  “You caught an offense in your twenties,” Kruse interrupted. “Possession.”

  Cox looked at Kruse, almost in a hard way for a second, then seemed to remember his place. Or what he thought of as his place: obeisant and humble. He folded his hands as his head bobbed in a nod, and he looked at the ground. “Yes, sir. That’s true.”

  Reed asked Cox, “You ever sell anything to Kasey Stevens?”

  The man jerked back again, as if slapped. “Why you keep coming at me like that? I never would have hurt her.”

  “I didn’t ask if you hurt her. I asked if you sold anything to her.”

  “Sold anything?”

  He was stalling.

  “Gave her anything.”

  He stared back at Reed and then averted his eyes. He picked at the edges of his towel. “Of course not.”

  A bald lie. Reed thought, so far, Lloyd Cox had been on the level. The questions were a sort of baseline, things they knew were true already. He thought even the bike thing, leaving it behind for slipping gears, was the truth. But not this.

  He pulled out his phone, swished to an image of the symbol, and held it out so Cox could see. “What’s this tell you, Lloyd?”

  The man looked, then licked his thin mustache and narrowed his eyes. “Oh sure,” he said. “That’s the virus, wetiko.”

  Interesting. Okay. “What’s it mean?”

  “That’s why I did that website. I did it to help warn people that this was coming.”

  “That what’s coming?”

  But he thought of something – old Jason Gides, hallucinating that the alien reptiles were coming for him.

  Cox swallowed. Like Aaron Mosier now, getting scared. But not for himself as much as something or someone else. “I just have my theories. And I don’t want to say nothing bad about anybody.”

  “We appreciate your ethics,” Reed said, putting the phone away, “but two teenaged girls are dead, and so is a teenaged boy. Not to mention the people who have lost their children. Tyson Wheeler’s father is preparing to have a closed-casket funeral because his son’s body was too burnt and mutilated by the fire. Let’s not forget that when we’re worried about the hurt feelings of whoever you’re worried about. So if you please, Mr. Cox, whatever you think you know, spill the fucking beans, because we’ve got a lot to do today.”

  Cox nodded soberly and gave each of them a glance, holding on Reed. “I wish I could give you perfect specifics, I do – but I steer clear of this stuff. What I know is that the people around here, they all protect each other.”

  “They protect each other,” Kruse said. “How do you mean?”

  “All of them. The lawyer, the funeral home owner, the social worker – they’re all in it. Kasey’s parents, too. That’s why I wanted to watch her. To keep her safe.”

  “From what? Devil worship?”

  Cox got a knowing gleam in his eye. “You see those statues? Notre Dame? There’s a reason that church burned. Statues of little kids fellating themselves. And the Epstein guy, the prince – all of them. More children are abducted every day than we even know about – we’ve never had so many kids disappearing. But you know that, you’re the police. You know that kids are going missing all over this country. You know why?”

  Kruse muttered something and started walking away. Reed glanced at MacKinnon, and they both stayed there.

  “Why?” Reed asked.

  “Adrenochrome, for one thing.”

  “Adrenochrome?”

  “It’s in the body. Like a life force. They get it right out of the kids. Look at the Clintons. Look at half these politicians today. You see what I see? Not everyone can.” He grew conspiratorial. “But I know a human. I know my own.”

  MacKinnon looked at Reed. Then Reed said, “But there are some things you can do to help, right?”

  Cox nodded, looked surprised, even. “That’s right.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  He jerked his head toward the river. “I take my dips. That’s one thing. Stick to nature. Man doesn’t realize how many problems he has comes from his disconnection to nature. It’s where the colonialism comes from. The power-over dynamic. You didn’t see that with the Indians. They lived with nature.”

  “Well, they believed that there was the spirit of wetiko,” Reed said. He knew Kruse and Mackinnon must be thinking he’d lost his mind, but he pressed on: “Right? And there were ways you could cleanse yourself. Or push towards clean…”

  Cox kept nodding. “You can. The shamans knew how to do it. I do it. And I help others. People in trouble. That’s what I’m here to do. I couldn’t help Melanie Hollander.”

  “But you could help Kasey Stevens, right?”

  Cox suddenly looked trapped, his brain catching up to his mouth.

  Reed said, “Do you know what we found in the stomachs of Kasey Stevens and Tyson Wheeler?”

  Cox just looked at Reed for a long time. At Kruse and Mackinnon, too, as if he knew he were being judged. His lip trembled. “I only wanted to help.”

  Reed nodded and stood. He held out his hand. “I’m going to need you to come with us, Lloyd, okay?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “We can do it that way, but I think you can see it another way – that you’re helping us. Really helping us. You just said you wanted to do that, right?”

  Cox gave them all another look, then held Reed’s eye and nodded.

  “It’s a merry-go-round,” Kruse said, pulling off his vest in the car as Reed drove. Vest gone, Kruse took off the tie too, threw it in the back seat, and popped his top couple of shirt buttons. Ahead of them, Lloyd Cox was in the back seat of MacKinnon’s troop car, winding along the country road. “A fucking merry-go-round,” Kruse repeated. “This one points to that one, that one points to the other one, the other one points back here. They’re all crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s got shape,” Reed contended. “Cox is a believer. My researcher told me people who are into this stuff think you can ‘cleanse’ yourself of the virus by taking mushrooms. Cox could be our supplier. It’s a piece of the puzzle. A big one.”

  “He’s the supplier? I think he strangled her. I think he followed her and obsessed about her and strangled her. Did Silas finish checking the area around the body for semen?”

  Reed nodded. “No sexual emission.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t get off some other way. Take it with him.”

  It was grim, but Kruse had a point. Reed said, “We gotta kick the Mosier kid loose. We got the scalpel, but it raises too many doubts t
hat it could’ve been taken. Without a confession, we don’t have him. And my phone went off three times sitting there with Cox.”

  “Mine too. Okay, we kick him loose and tag him; follow his every move. And we’re gonna send a unit through Cox’s place, I hope?”

  “Absolutely. If there’s a source of mushrooms around here, it’s him or it’s coming through him. And I want to get his laptop and go through it. Find his stash of Illuminati magazines.”

  Kruse shook his head. “God. That fucking guy.”

  “He likes his early morning dips in the river,” Reed said.

  Kruse’s face flushed as he tried to suppress a laugh. “Seeing him walk out of the woods, that body, that wrinkly doodad. And they call him Minnie…” Kruse broke up laughing.

  Reed caught some of it, smiled big, and it felt good after a tense morning. “The guy is in pretty impressive shape, though.”

  “I mean, he bikes everywhere,” Kruse managed, and laughed until he coughed.

  Then they both settled and were quiet, because a teenaged girl was dead, and Cox was a suspect, and none of it was very funny for long.

  “We’ve got a lot to do,” Reed said.

  “I know. You said your researcher is coming?”

  “Yeah. On her way. I’m headed to meet her, but I’ll make the call on Mosier. Can you get started with Varma? I’ll drop you at your car.”

  “Can do, yeah.” Kruse ran hands through his thinning hair, fingers trembling a bit. “Jesus. This thing.”

  Reed focused on the road, MacKinnon driving Cox to the jail ahead of them.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  20

  Just when you thought it was over

  After dropping Kruse at the barracks, Reed turned into the Shamrock motel and hit the brakes. A man was standing in front of the check-in office. Mid-thirties, thick-framed black glasses, skinny jeans and a fitted short-sleeve button-down.

  A journalist, if there ever was one.

  “Ah, shit.” Reed parked and shut off the van. He glanced at his cabin and thought about making a beeline for it. Then he checked the time: Virginia was ten minutes late.

  He got out, and the man moved in his direction, taking his time, like he was approaching a wild animal. At least there were no cameras.

  “Investigator Raleigh?”

  Reed put on a smile and held up his hand as he walked – as casually as he could – toward the cabin. “No comment at this time, thanks.”

  “Investigator Raleigh, I’m Jackson Marrs with the Albany Tribune.”

  Don’t engage. “The Trib? Taking an interest all the way up here?”

  “Lots of stuff going on.”

  Raleigh reached the cabin and put his hand on the doorknob.

  Marrs said, “What if I told you that the article is about you, Investigator Raleigh?”

  Reed turned to face the reporter head-on. “That’s not going to be a very good article.”

  “We could talk about your military service. Or the time you spent at divinity school.”

  “Why?”

  Marrs shifted his weight. He ran a hand through his pompadour haircut. “We could also talk about your stepdaughter. How her disappearance might be informing the way you–”

  Reed took a step towards Marrs, who took a step back. “No,” Reed said. “We won’t be talking about that.”

  The reporter looked nervous but cleared his throat and persisted. “Well, at the very least, you are the lead investigator on this case. You’re with Major Crimes. There’s no way this doesn’t get written about – these bizarre deaths and missing persons. Especially all the coincidences.”

  Reed stepped away from the door, toward the reporter. He felt tweaked. Maybe by the word coincidences. Maybe because he got the sinking feeling there was something else he’d missed. “What do you know about any missing persons?”

  Marrs continued walking backwards. “Well, sir, the one in Orville is technically still missing.”

  “The one in where?”

  Marrs stopped. “Orville? In 1970. Laurie Paine was about to turn sixteen and disappeared from her family home.” He pulled a small notebook and pen from his breast pocket, flipped it open, and started to write. “Are you linking that case to these recent murders?”

  “Put that away,” Reed said. He was deciding who to be more upset at – a reporter for showing up, or himself. This made twice now; blindsided.

  Then again, such information had never come in on the tip line, Virginia hadn’t found it, and one missing girl fifty years ago didn’t have to connect. No one was thinking about a missing girl from 1970 except for one Albany reporter looking for the most sensational story.

  Reed said, “Let me ask you – where are you getting this from?”

  “My own research.”

  “Okay…”

  “I’ve looked at everything I could get my hands on. All in this area, the Champlain Valley, Eastern Adirondacks, any suicides, disappearances, homicides. I looked at a range of thirty years, but Laurie Paine’s name came up from earlier on, and I saw she was from Orville. Which is pretty much smack in between here and Hume.” He grinned. “You know what Graham Greene says – every writer is part spy.”

  “All right,” Reed said. “Well, thank you. I’ll look into it.” He turned and started back for the cabin.

  Marrs followed. “So you haven’t made that connection? I see this going from Paine to Hollander to Stevens.”

  Reed turned on him, about to get a little more forceful with his goodbye, but a white SUV turned into the motel parking lot from the main road, distracting them.

  Virginia.

  Reed gave Marrs one last glance. “Call my office tomorrow and we can talk then.”

  He started toward Virginia, and the reporter kept stride, interrogating. “Your office? I called the headquarters in Latham, and they’re the ones who told me you were up here.”

  “And who told you where I was staying?”

  “I’d rather not reveal that source.”

  “Uh-huh.” Reed waved at Virginia. She was eyeing the reporter as she got out.

  “Hi. Jackson Marrs, Albany Tribune.”

  “Virginia Leithsceal, New York State BCI.”

  “Pleasure to meet you.”

  Reed waited until they shook hands and said, “Mr. Marrs was just leaving.”

  Marrs asked Virginia, “Actually, can I get you two on the record? Maybe a bit of lunch and we’ll lay all of this out?”

  That was the thing about some journalists. You could scare them, but they had this persistence they thought would somehow protect them. Like a supernatural power.

  “No,” Reed said. “No way. Here’s what, instead: I want you to wait until we come to you.” He started backing Marrs up again as he spoke. “In the meantime, if you ever bring up my daughter again, we’re not going to talk, on the record or off. You understand me?” The last few words had bite.

  Marrs got an expression like he was about to vomit onto his expensive-looking shoes.

  Virginia waved as he got into his car. “Nice to meet you.”

  They discussed it, and Virginia had found out about Laurie Paine in Orville, too.

  He tried not to be upset, but his sense of having screwed up was overpowering. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You mean this morning? Because I wasn’t sure what it meant. Because we talked about eight other things, and you sounded like you needed to get off the phone.”

  Fair enough.

  She continued, sounding both apologetic and righteous, “I planned to bring it up as soon as I saw you.”

  She wore her light hair cut short, long bangs that hit near her eyes. Just a touch of eye makeup. A fashionable black hoodie, blue jeans, nice leather boots. He got the sense she was self-conscious, but with streaks of confidence. She was terribly smart, which meant she was probably right a lot of the time.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “Sorry.” They were still standing outside the motel unit, Jackson M
arrs gone five minutes or so. He’d lost it with Marrs. That was a couple of times now. Losing his cool. It wasn’t good.

  Virginia asked, “What do you think about it?”

  “You said Laurie Paine was from Orville, in between Elliston and Hume?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was sixteen?”

  “Also yes.”

  “But they never found her.”

  “No body, so no carving or scars to find. Nothing that links them besides being young and female. If we’re comparing three cases, we don’t have much to go on with her.” It was Virginia’s turn to look away in the direction Marrs had gone. “But maybe we should pick that guy’s brain. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

  “Maybe,” Reed said. His phone was ringing and he answered.

  Kruse sounded nerved up. “You heading to the barracks?”

  “Yeah,” Reed said.

  “Your researcher with you?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at Virginia as he said to Kruse, “Everything okay?”

  “Can you swing by the diner? We’re in the office in the back. You’re going to want to see this. I mean, yeah. You’re going to want to see this right away.”

  Crime scene tape flapped in a warm afternoon breeze. Reed spotted Kruse’s vehicle parked in front of the diner and pulled up beside it. An expensive SUV sat in proximity, a pearl Escalade with New Jersey plates.

  Its owner, Sanjay Varma, was with Kruse in the rear office. Kruse practically leapt from his chair when Reed stepped through the door. “Raleigh, okay, glad you’re here.” They made quick introductions; Varma had a dry grip and wide, dark eyes. He wore designer jeans and a hipster T-shirt despite his middle age. The office wasn’t huge, but large enough to accommodate the four of them, Virginia and Kruse standing while Kruse had Reed sit down, pushing the chair toward a computer screen. Varma lowered himself into the other swivel chair beside him.

  “So you had a backup system,” Reed said to Varma.

  “Well, not so much ‘backup,’ but just another system installed.” Varma’s Indian or Pakistani accent was thick. “This was the first one, very cheap, hundred-dollar system I bought at Sam’s Club that goes right to my phone.”