Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

“Yes. Andy’s cousin Bob. Robert.”

  They all looked at the album a moment. Noticing something, Reed asked her to hold the page. He studied an image of Ida’s living room. The same one he’d been standing in as he broke up the fight between Vincent Morrow and August Wheeler. On the wall was a framed photo, black and white, of a young man, dark-haired, standing outside near a barn, smiling.

  “Do you know what that is? Or who that is?”

  Katherine bent down. “I don’t.”

  “I saw that when I was in Ida’s house. That same photo.”

  Virginia spoke up. “Katherine – have you ever heard of Freedom of God?”

  “A religion?”

  “How about Freedom Mission?”

  “Maybe. I think… I don’t know. It might’ve been a long time ago. Daryl might’ve mentioned it once.”

  Her gaze lowered back to the photo album. She flipped another page, and both she and Virginia said, “Ohhh…” right away, cooing over a particularly cute toddler picture of Kasey.

  Reed: “Katherine, if I needed you to sit down more formally, talk with me about this, talk with some other people…”

  Without looking up: “Sure. Yes.”

  Reed stood. “Could you keep going through that album with Virginia, give her the names of anyone you know?”

  “Of course,” Katherine said. Her emotions had shifted – she seemed calm now, pleased things were developing how they were.

  “I need to make a phone call,” Reed said.

  It was all tumbling out now. Cults and cult leaders, and sex and young female victims – perhaps trying to escape it. It was messy, with some of the key players and their motives still hazy, but everything moving fast.

  The picture in Ida’s house? Probably Zachary Paine. The strange, venerated figure of a cult. The one who’d possibly invited his friends over to spend time with his young sister Laurie.

  Reed left the townhouse apartment with his mind going fast: Ida Stevens – a killer? Poisoned by the ideology of some kid fifty years before? Someone who inspired her own people down the line, such as Aaron Mosier or Lloyd Cox? Getting them to do her dirty work for her? Or, hell, anyone else in her weird little inner circle?

  But, if so, why had Kasey talked to Ida about staying over to study, when she wasn’t even living at home? If she’d been planning to make a run for it, why even reach out to Ida at all? Why give away where she was?

  Unless Aimee was lying – something he’d thought before.

  Lying, maybe, because her mother had forced her to. Reed’s impression of Aimee was that she’d been genuine, but he could have been off, or sensing other truths. Julia Hetfield might’ve had a reason to lie. If she knew, for instance, that Kasey didn’t live in the district, she could be culpable for what happened, for being the adult technically in charge of Kasey on the night she died.

  Or because Kasey knew, for instance, Julia liked having hard, inventive sex with Daryl Snow.

  He flipped through his Moleskine notebook, back to the conversation with Aimee from Monday. Using his few little chicken scratches as memory triggers, he went through it: Aimee had no direct knowledge of whom Kasey had actually called. She’d just said she was going to call her mother, Ida. But she could have easily called someone else. Like Daryl.

  Her phone was busted, but the records would be coming through from the carrier any time. Dammit, he needed them now. If it was Snow whom Kasey had called from Aimee’s, it might’ve been Snow who had then arrived to pick her up. And then what? How would Ida have gotten involved? Maybe Snow was jumped? He had been developing that nice shiner…

  Ida and her scrappy friends could have caught up to them, somehow. But why Mandalay Park?

  There were pieces, some things getting clearer, but it was a matter of making them fit. A matter of a cogent timeline, undeniable motives, and the evidence to back it all up. So far the evidence was still scarce; it looked like gloves had been used to strangle Kasey. The Daryl Snow scene was in a regularly scrubbed kitchen, and Tyson Wheeler had burned his house down. And while this notion of a religious sex cult seemed to have risen and suffused the whole case, it left the murderer unrevealed.

  Or, as Morrison suggested, murderers, plural.

  Reed walked a little ways from the townhouse, getting out his phone. So much for the perfect weather – it had turned overcast and felt like minutes from rain.

  Overman answered. “Talk to me.”

  “I think I might have gotten into something here. The suspect pool has considerably widened. I need to bring them all in. All of her people. Ida’s people.”

  Overman was quiet, perhaps hearing the weight of it.

  “I think we’ve got a chapter of a cult called the Freedom Mission,” Reed said. He went through it, hitting the highlights: Laurie Paine to Melanie Hollander with the marking on her, the fact that her mother was Paine’s sister. Jump forward another quarter century to Kasey Stevens. Also strangled and marked in similar fashion, just not raped. But easily preyed upon by Ida’s group – August Wheeler and Vincent Morrow; all kinds of old angry men capering about that place, getting violent. Killed, maybe because she was escaping. Maybe because her killer was worried times were different, evidence collection that much better.

  “Then there’s the symbol itself,” Reed said. “It possibly means a thing called wetiko, apparently an Iroquois word for a virus, a selfishness humans inherit. Same concept as original sin. I need to search the Paine place in Orville. Maybe the Hollander farm down in Hume. I need to look for a body.”

  After a pause, Overman said, “There’s no sacrificing – no rape or branding of young women anywhere in Christianity.”

  “No. But look at early Christian Orthodoxy. Athanasius. We’re born corrupt, and we need to be cleansed. You can put that into any religion, any cult. And then your cleansing rituals – prayer, drugs, sex – can be whatever you say they are.”

  “Reed…”

  “Ida Stevens has a possible motive. That she was trying to protect her chapter of Freedom Mission – that’s the cult. Loosely constructed, no hooded robes and séances, but looks like sex with minors, extramarital sex, and the world is a shitty place of globalism and catastrophe. A witness is telling me Kasey was trying to get out. I bet the boy was, too. They were trying to make an escape, and someone got to them. Ida Stevens is extremely possessive, yet Kasey was staying with Tyson, with Daryl – two men who would end up dead from suicides. And we have Daryl sneaking around on Ida, having this really rough, kinky sex with Julia Hetfield. I bet Ida found that out. And I think all of this will wash. I do. But the only way I can reconcile this with the other two cases, the rape and killing of Hollander, the disappearance of Paine – it only makes sense in this larger context. Which means a couple of generations. Half a dozen families. Maybe more. God, I wonder if Tyson Wheeler’s mother left because of this…”

  “Take a breath,” Overman said. “Listen to me. Heads are going to explode. IAB needs to talk to you again.”

  “Why?”

  “They have to follow up. I don’t know. I think the lawyer said something.”

  “Terrio?”

  “About you getting rough on a suspect.”

  Reed felt a heat creeping up the back of his neck.

  “You’ve got to come back to Latham. I know you’re clear of any wrongdoing, Reed. But you’re a cop with PTSD.”

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got people up here. On a hold.”

  “I know. Let them go.”

  “Let them go?”

  “Listen to me. You’re asking for more cops and God-knows-how-many searchers to turn over the Paine farm, you’re pissing off lawyers, you’ve got two guys in the box, crime scenes everywhere, a sprawling investigation. Trust me. You need to step back. I know it’s not in your nature, but let off the gas, or you’re going to lose the whole thing.”

  He took a breath.

  Overman said, “Because you can’t arrest people for being part of a cult. Yo
u can only arrest them for crimes. I don’t care if they’re part of the Big Bird Club of Nazi Lovers, the only way you get them is when they’re breaking the law. By conspiracy, if there is any. Which means take a goddamn breath, go deal with IAB, and make a plan.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I know I’m right, dammit.”

  “But this isn’t just about Kasey Stevens anymore. This is about two other victims. And it’s about more potential victims. Could be half a dozen or more families. Some of them with teenaged girls. Or younger.” He steeled himself. “I need that warrant for the Paine property. I need the whole thing turned over. That girl has to be found.”

  Overman was silent. “You’re not worried making that much noise will cause a panic? All these Freedom Mission people going into evasive maneuvers? Scare their daughters into silence?”

  “They already know I’m here. They already know we’re looking at this. There’s a reporter involved from the Albany Tribune…”

  “Katie Dauber?”

  “Jackson Marrs. He’s been talking all over town.” Reed took one more stabilizing breath. “Overman, listen–”

  “All right, all right. Here’s the deal. You’ll get the warrant. But tonight you go settle up with IAB. Can you do me that favor? Huh?”

  “I can.”

  They hung up.

  23

  To shelter a soul

  Week-old pasta salad winked at him from the fridge. Not worth the risk.

  His place was small, two bedrooms. A ten-gallon fish tank bubbled with warm water – one tropical fish remained from the five he’d bought with Mike for his tenth birthday. Amazing how that little sucker was still hanging on. He darted out of sight when Reed flipped on the living room light.

  The apartment was second floor, with a view of a metal scrapyard across the train tracks. If he walked down Monroe Street to the dead end, he had a little slice of the Hudson River to look at.

  Troy was where his grandfather had grown up as an orphan. Maybe that was why Reed had picked the place after the divorce. He could be to the Latham headquarters in less than fifteen. He was close enough to Jessica and Mike while still giving them some space, and he was less tempted to lurk from this distance… Even though he did, occasionally, sit outside his old house and watch the windows.

  Mike tended to stay in his room with the drapes drawn. Jessica, when she was home, kept to the kitchen and the small back den, where she had her wine. Sometimes he fantasized about mowing the lawn. He’d never been home much to begin with, but when he’d been there, mowing cleared the mind and, in late May and June, brought out a good sweat. You made neat rows and could measure progress as you went.

  Not like a case.

  Despite every attempt at organization, a case was usually messy. Hard to see the progress. You could work for days, weeks, and be getting nowhere, paperwork just piling up. Everybody hoped for the big breakthrough moment, the tearful confession, the smoking gun, but that rarely happened. You slogged through, trying to stay optimistic about your progress.

  And then there was the bureaucracy. He didn’t resent it; he understood accountability was necessary. But he’d just sat down with IAB for the second time and said all of the same things, and it felt like a duplication of efforts. But they seemed, at last, satisfied.

  And maybe some good had come of it; he kept thinking about the Tyson Wheeler fire. Second-guessing himself now, not that he hadn’t acted in accordance with the law and his principles – he had – but that he’d missed something. Something vital.

  His section of Troy was industrial; a few buildings like his three-story Brownstone had been fixed up. His landlord was a quirky woman who rode her bicycle a lot and grew vegetables in the small courtyard out back. She lived on the first floor. The other neighbor, on the top floor, was a bit reclusive. Reed had seen the older man once and pegged him as a fellow divorcee. He had one of those little dogs with a high yap. That dog always barked the second Reed’s key hit the lock, but without fail would come the deep muffled voice of its owner, and the dog stopped.

  The May evening was cool; some cottonwood seeds, like little puffs of couch lining, floated through the air. He walked to the water – or as close to the river along the bushy, tangled bank as he could – and watched the brownish water flowing by. No music tonight. For some reason he didn’t feel like it.

  Something came to him that he’d read years ago, studying Taoism:

  We’re not born corrupt. We’re not born evil.

  It does no good to judge behavior – when we look past the behavior of a child, when we look clear through to the heart, all becomes clear.

  And we know what to do.

  But that was about Mike. At the tail end of a boyhood Reed had missed.

  And it was about Reed, too. Maybe about forgiving himself. If he could ever.

  See, Tyson Wheeler was the favorite suspect because his actions made him look guilty. But Aimee Hetfield never actually saw Kasey get into Tyson’s truck, drive away with him.

  Reed picked up a rock, hefted it, skipped it across the water.

  Snow’s affair with Julia Hetfield probably didn’t mean anything. It was kinky, even rough, but it was a hookup between consenting adults. What was significant was the thing with Daryl Snow disabling cameras three days before Kasey’s murder. He’d stopped the feed sent down to the Varmas. As if it was part of his plan to get Kasey out of the region. Some kind of Underground Railroad using truckers?

  It made some sense. Daryl worked there; surely he knew some of the long-haulers who came through there. Going from Montreal, Canada, on down to Florida.

  Reed needed to check on any extended family. Were Daryl Snow’s people out in California? Or even closer? Maine? New Jersey?

  And then there was McNary, the cook. Maybe he knew something. Reed decided he’d call him tonight or tomorrow morning.

  He skipped a final rock, then left the edge of the river and walked back up Monroe toward his street. The sun was almost gone for the day. He felt like music now and popped in the earbuds for a little Temple of the Dog.

  As the drums and guitars beat against his eardrums, something Overman had said buzzed in his brain. He thought about it for another minute, then pulled the earbuds and called Virginia. She knew how to do such technical things and was able to connect them both via cellphone to Jackson Marrs.

  It was late, going on midnight – Marrs sounded like he’d been asleep.

  Reed asked, “How trustworthy is what you’ve got on Freedom Mission? How solid?”

  “I’ve been working on this story for two years. I’ve got a dozen sources.” He added, “Basically you take a bunch of people, rural and paranoid to begin with, and along comes a charismatic figure like Paine. We see it again and again in history. Paine introduces elements they believe empowers them, gives them some control–”

  “What happened to him, anyway?”

  “Died in 1982,” Marrs said. “Pancreatitis. He was thirty-two.”

  “And men are definitely encouraged to sleep around. Are there any age limits?”

  “I don’t know if encouraged is the right word. If you want to be a part of this group – I have a source who told me you have to show your commitment. Otherwise the rest of them will just freeze you out. No. There’s no age limit. Age limits are imposed by the outside world, the establishment, and not meant to be trusted.”

  “Doesn’t seem like the women would be into it.”

  “My source says a lot of them aren’t, but go along. And some of them are. This is a loose group, Detective Raleigh. No church, no central meeting place. Living rooms and backyards. These are just thoughts people have. Beliefs some of them share.”

  “It’s a fucking cult. And there are children who are victims.”

  Marrs paused. “That could be true.”

  “I’d like to talk to your source.”

  “Not going to happen,” Marrs said. “I mean, you might talk to my source, but it won’t be because I reveal
it.”

  Marrs was tougher over the phone than in person.

  “Okay,” Reed said. “When are you going to run it?”

  That shut Marrs up for a second. “Well, when my editor and I think we’re ready.”

  “How close?”

  He hesitated. “We’re close.”

  “You were waiting to see how things go, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Listen” Reed said. “I understand that the press is not an arm of the state. Of the police. You gotta do what you gotta do. But you showed up at my door, spilling everything in your story. And you brought up my daughter.”

  “Hey, I–”

  “I’m asking you a favor. Because in an investigation, sometimes you keep things to the vest. But then other times you want to turn on the lights real bright, you want to see what runs for cover. You see what I’m saying? These are kids. Girls who are getting raped and killed. Running the story could help me to see what scatters.”

  “Okay,” Marrs said after a long pause. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  24

  The end is nigh

  Hey, the text said. You awake?

  The phone appeared blurry through Aaron’s sleep-deprived eyes.

  Shit. Minnie. And in the middle of the night, too. Aaron debated whether to answer. Just the fact that Minnie was communicating meant he was going to have to scrub the phone again. And he’d just gotten it back from the cops. But if he didn’t answer, Minnie would keep pestering him; the guy never slept. They’d let him out of jail – you’d think a nap was in order.

  Aaron swung his legs out of bed and sat up, wincing at the pain in his lower back. Having a bad back at twenty-one was not cool. But he quickly forgot it. Minnie was probing.

  But what if it wasn’t Minnie? What if it was that cop, using Minnie’s phone? Or what if Minnie was compromised, working with the police?

  Awake, Aaron texted. What’s up?

  He watched the three floating dots as Minnie prepared a response.