by Marvin Wolf
Ash said, “What are your other ideas?
Will said, “First, have we talked to local civilian police agencies? Dothan, Daleville, Enterprise, Ozark—all the cities around this base. What about Houston County?”
Ash looked at Landon. Landon looked at Chelmin.
Ash said, “We haven’t done that. D’Angelo is reluctant to open us up to media inquiries in case one of those PDs leaks to some local reporter.”
Will said, “Rudy?”
Chelmin scratched his head. “At this point, I’m less worried about having a newspaper reporter poking around than not knowing if there’s a serial killer on the loose. If it turns out there are other abductions, it widens our search, and if so, that could maybe mean that the abductions are simply random. We should talk to civilian authorities. But we also ask them not to start a panic by letting the media in.”
Will said, “In that case, we should talk only to the top guy.”
Ash said, “The Sheriff of Houston County is not a guy. She’s a woman.”
Will held out his hands, palms up. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. The top person.”
Ash said, “Alvie, I know you play poker. Tonight, why don’t you take some of Spaulding’s money and go make friends.”
Will said. “Great. Then you and I can go talk to our local police chiefs and sheriffs.”
Chelmin said, “Don’t call for an appointment. Just show up and badge ‘em.”
Chapter 19
Will followed Shapiro out a side door to a parking lot.
“Which one is yours?” she said.
Will pointed. “The red pickup.”
“We’ll take my car,” she said.
Shapiro led the way to a three-year-old Hyundai Santa Fe. She unlocked it with a couple of clicks on her key fob and slid behind the wheel. As Will climbed in on the other side, he noticed that the driver’s seat had been raised to the point where a taller person would have had to duck their head to avoid hitting the ceiling.
“Custom seat,” she said. “Nothing personal, but in your truck, I wouldn’t be able to see over the dashboard.”
“I get it,” Will said. “Honestly, it’s not something I ever thought about.”
“What’s that?” Ash said, starting the engine.
“What kind of challenges someone your size must face just because most people are taller and machinery, is built for our size, not yours.”
“It can be a problem,” she said. “But I’m used to it. There are usually workarounds.”
Ash turned in her seat. “So, Spaulding, where did you come here from?”
“Fort Fremont.”
“You worked for Chelmin there?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Only a little while,” he said.
“Then what?”
“I don’t want to seem like a dick, but I kind of don’t want to talk about it. At least not yet.”
“Because?”
“Because it would serve no good purpose, and it could—probably will—lead to misunderstandings.”
“A man of mystery, then.”
“If you say so.”
“Fine. Where should we go first?”
“What’s the closest PD?
“Daleville.”
Will nodded. “Daleville it is. Uh, where were you before you came to Rucker?”
“South Korea.”
“I thought that you said that you don’t speak Korean?’
“I did say that. But I speakee Ingesh lahk poh Korea girl,” Shapiro said, casting her eyes down, letting her animated features go slack, and seeming to shrink back into her jacket. “Me Miss Kim. Clean loom now.”
“You were undercover?”
The real Asher Shapiro returned in the blink of an eye. “Who knows more of a man’s secrets than his housemaid?” she whispered.
Before Will could respond, she put the car in gear and slowly drove out of the parking lot.
Chapter 20
Chief Malcolm Stinson of the Daleville Police Department, was a tall, graying man of sixty winters with a paunch and a tippler’s nose—red and bulbous. On this morning, he wore an off-the-rack blue suit with a white shirt and an ancient floral tie.
As Will and Ash were showing their badges to a matronly sergeant in a reception area, Stinson came boiling out of his office like a ferret on a mouse.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he began, and then stopped himself. “And ladies. What can we do for the United States Army?” he said, a big smile frozen on his face.
“Special Agents Shapiro and Spaulding,” said Ash, stepping forward and gripping the chief’s hand so hard that he winced.
Will said, “Can we step into your office, Chief?”
“What’s this about?”
Will said, “It’s a little sensitive. We’d prefer to speak to you in private. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” he said and led the way into his office, where he plopped himself down behind an old wooden desk piled high with files and reports.
He waved his hand at chairs in front of the desk, and sat back, expectantly.
“What’s on your mind?”
Ash glanced at Will, who nodded.
She said, “Chief, over the last six weeks, three of our officers have disappeared without a trace. We’re treating the cases as connected, and we believe that they were kidnapped. For the moment, we’re hoping to keep this quiet. We don’t want a horde of media descending on the base, and we don’t want to panic the civilian populace in the area.”
The chief looked thoughtful. “I can see why this shouldn’t be in the papers and such,” he said, nodding. “What can I do for you?”
Will spoke up. “Chief, we were wondering if we know about all the victims. Or if maybe there were other mysterious abductions in the area. Do you have any missing persons right now?”
Frowning, Stinson sat up straight. “Y’know, I think we might. Let me get Lieutenant Terren in here.” Ignoring the intercom on his desk, Stinson yelled, “Loreen! Loreen!”
A moment later the door opened to the uniformed police sergeant from the reception area.
“Chief?” she said.
“See if you can find Lieutenant Terren and ask him to come see me right away.”
“I’ll call him, Chief. On my desk telephone,” she added, pointedly.
“Fine, fine. Make it right away,” Stinson added, and the sergeant pulled the door shut behind her.
“She wants me to use my own phone to call folks,” he said. “Thinks she can shame me into doing her job for her.”
Ash stifled a reply, while Will checked his cell phone.
A long two minutes passed in silence until Stinson stirred himself. “Where are my manners?” he said. “Would you folks like something to drink? Soda, coffee, lemonade?”
Ash shook her tiny head. “Very kind of you, Chief. We’re good.”
A moment later, there was a perfunctory rap on the door, and a short, powerfully built black man with close-cropped gray hair and wearing brown slacks and a beige sports shirt buttoned to the neck entered.
“You wanted to see me, Chief?”
“Yeah. Lieutenant Terren, this is Agent, uh, Spaulding, and—what did you say your name was, sweetheart?”
Ash bristled. “Special Agent Asher Shapiro,” she said. “Army CID.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Anyway—Terren, do we have any developments in the Thompson case?”
Terren shook his head. “Nothing at all.”
Spaulding said, “Lieutenant, can you give us a brief overview of this case?”
Terren looked at the Chief, who gestured expansively, and the small man took a seat next to Ash.
“There were two disappearances. I don’t know if they were abductions. James Thompson, age eighteen, went fishing around 5:00 a.m. last November 29. His father, Leonard Thompson, works on the base. Commissary Produce manager. Leonard loaned his pickup to his son so he could go fishing on Lake Tholocco before church�
�this was on a Sunday morning. When James didn’t show up for church, Thompson sent Roger, his older son, who also works in the commissary, to look for James. Roger found his father’s pickup truck alongside the Ozark highway. The keys were on top of the back tire, out of sight in the wheel well.”
Ash shook her head. “Hold on, Lieutenant. Lake Tholocco is entirely within Fort Rucker. The fishing season ends September 31, all over Alabama, including Fort Rucker.”
Terren nodded in agreement. “That’s true. But Leonard Thompson told us that James didn’t care about things like fishing licenses or seasons. He liked to fish the north end of the lake, come in from the county road, park back in the trees, and walk a short distance to Beaver Branch, which feeds into the lake. That’s technically part of Fort Rucker, just inside the line, but there’s no fence, no signs, and it’s wooded in there—pretty thick even this time of year. I’m sure James wasn’t the first or the last to fish out of season over that way. And at that hour on a Sunday morning, it was unlikely anybody would have seen him.
“Anyway, Roger didn’t find his brother near the truck, or along Beaver Branch, so he walked back to his car and drove to the other end of the lake, and still didn’t find any sign of him. Roger called his father, and his father called the MPs to see if maybe James had been arrested for fishing. But the MP station had no record of anyone seeing James. So Leonard—that’s the father—called Roger and told him to go on back up to the north end of the lake again and see if he might find James a little further up, along Claybank Creek.
“That was the last that anybody saw or heard from either James or Roger Thompson.”
Will shook his head. “That’s two men disappeared the same day?”
Terren said, “Leonard Thompson and a neighbor found Roger’s car in the Hampton Inn parking lot, over by Highway 231. That’s in Henry Country, and the Ozark police dusted the vehicle but found no fingerprints or at least none that were clear enough to take.”
Ash said, “What did you do then, Lieutenant? By way of an investigation?”
Terren said, “Well, we called the MP station and asked them to drag the lake, which they did. I’m surprised you don’t know about this.”
Ash shook her head. “That was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I was in Virginia, with my family. Spaulding wasn’t here, either.”
Will said, “Lieutenant Terren, what else did you to do to investigate these disappearances?”
“I had two of my detectives interview the parents, search both James’s and Rogers’s rooms, and interview other family members—the brothers were the youngest of six children, and the other four no longer live with their parents. We talked to as many of their friends and co-workers as we could. What we learned was of no help: That’s a whole family of church-goers. Every kid in that family except James is a high school graduate, and he was in his senior year. Not perfect grades, but a solid student who had been accepted at Wallace Community College in Dothan for next year—now this year. Besides Roger, all four of his brothers and sisters have full-time jobs. Nobody in that family has a police record, and Leonard is a retired Army master sergeant.”
Ash said, “Did our office get involved in the investigation, Lieutenant?”
Terren shook his head. “Other to coordinate dragging the lake, no.”
Will said, “Do you or your detectives have any theories about what happened to the Thompson brothers?”
Terren scratched his head. “The Ozark police think they might have run into somebody cooking meth out in the woods there, just off the base.”
Will said, “Have there been many arrests of meth cookers in that area recently?”
Chief Stinson cleared his throat. “Not in several years. The Ozark force arrested a few people out that way last year, but they didn’t have evidence to indict them.”
Ash said, “Local people?”
Terren nodded. “There’s an extended family, the Mertons. Six or seven men and a couple of women, cousins, or married to ‘em. Been suspected of making and selling meth going back to the Nineties. Several arrests, but not one of them has ever seen the inside of a courtroom.”
Ash said, “Were they interviewed following the Thompsons' disappearance?”
Terren shook his head. “I don’t think so. The Ozark narcotics detectives found an abandoned site along Claybank Creek. A fire pit filled with ashes that tested positive for methamphetamine precursors—judging by the age of the ash, it hadn’t been used in months, maybe years. We asked them to have their informants look for any sign of the Thompsons, but they never got back to us. Guess I should follow up,” he added.
Chief Stinson said, “Hell yes, you should.”
Ash said, “You pretty well demolished the theory that they were abducted by meth cookers. Do you have any other theories about this case?”
Terren sighed and frowned. “One of my detectives thinks they might have been abducted by a flying saucer,” he said.
Will said, “That’s the best you can do?”
Terren shrugged. “I know, I know. It’s crazy. But we have two men who seem to have vanished off the face of the earth without a trace. You got a better theory?”
Ash shook her head.
Will said, “Okay. Any other outstanding missing person cases?”
Both men shook their heads. The chief said, “We’ve had a few over the last year or so, but they all turned up, safe and sound.”
Chapter 21
Ash started the engine and turned in her seat to look at Will. “So what did we learn from all that, partner?”
“Three things, partner. One, you don’t have to be an officer stationed at Rucker to be abducted. Two, whoever is doing this is, it’s gotta be more than one person, and they are well organized, very sure of themselves, and very good at what they do. And three, we don’t have clue one about who they are.”
Ash smiled. “Two out of three isn’t bad, Spaulding. But we do have a clue. It’s been there all along, but we never noticed it.”
“Go on.”
“It’s two or more well organized, supremely confident, and highly skilled men. And, clue number two, they enter Rucker with ease.”
Will smiled. “Special Forces. Or Rangers. Men who’ve had that training.”
Ash smiled back. “Head of the class, Mr. Spaulding.”
Will winked at her. “I owe it all to your instruction, Ms. Shapiro.”
“Flattery will get you almost anywhere. Let’s go see Sheriff Taliaferro.”
Chapter 22
Sheriff Andrea Taliaferro was in her forties, six feet tall, big without being overweight, and despite her masculine uniform, definitely a feminine presence, from her little-girl voice to her manicured nails, botoxed forehead, and spectacular curly blond hair.
“How can I help the United States Army today?” she said, rising from a giant desk that held nothing but a telephone, an open laptop computer, a pencil, and a yellow legal pad.
Ash said, “Special Agents Shapiro and Spaulding. What we’re about to tell you has to be in strict confidence.”
Taliaferro nodded. “I can keep a secret.”
Will said, “As you’ll understand, Sheriff, we want to keep this out of the media because it could lead to panic in your county, not to mention on Fort Rucker.”
The sheriff nodded again. “I understand.”
Ash said, “Over the last six weeks, three of our officers have been abducted, one at a time. We just came from Daleville PD, and Chief Stinson told us that two young men from his city disappeared from an area bordering the military reservation, up by Claybank Creek.”
Taliaferro nodded. “I recall the case. The Thompson brothers. We had an idea that they ran into a meth lab out in the trees, and the cooks grabbed them boys up.”
Will said, “Chief Stinson told us, but there’s no evidence.”
Ash said, “All that aside, do you have any missing person cases that might be connected?”
Taliaferro shook her head, sending her blonde curls sh
ivering. “None that I can think of. We had a missing person last summer, but she turned up dead in a pond near Hodgeville.”
“What can you tell us about that case, Sheriff?”
The sheriff turned to the open computer, used the mouse, hit a few keys, and leaned in to look more closely at the screen.
“Sharon Coe, age 32, divorced, one child. Found nude. Single gunshot wound to the forehead. She also had a whole bunch of broken bones, but all post-mortem.”
Will said, “Was the bullet recovered?”
Taliaferro again peered at the screen, then shook her head.
“No bullet. It was fired at close range—blew off the back of her head and there were powder burns on her face.”
Ash said, “Was Ms. Coe raped?”
The sheriff shook her head. “No sign of that.”
“What else can you tell us about her,” Ash said.
“Not much. No police record, at least not in Alabama.”
“Was she a local?” Will said.
“Yep. Dothan girl, born and raised.”
“Where was she last seen alive, if you know,” Ash asked.
Taliaferro bent her head again and read for several seconds.
“She left her eight-year-old son with Mrs. Idelle Richardson, the boy’s grandmother—on August 13, about 4:00 pm, and borrowed a car from a neighbor. She told the neighbor that she had a job interview at the Wal-Mart in Ozark. The store manager, a Mr. Danvers, said that he interviewed her for a cashier’s position, and was prepared to hire her, pending a background check. She left his office about six o’clock. Her car was found in the Martindale Plaza Shopping Center parking lot. That’s just a few hundred yards north of the Wal-Mart, along Highway 231.
“There were no fingerprints inside the car, or outside the car. We found her body ten days later—farmer saw it floating in his pond.”
Taliaferro looked up. “I’ll print this out. It includes the detectives’ report as well as what I just told you.”
Ash said, “Thanks,” and looked at Will.
He said, “Sheriff, would you mind if we talked to Ms. Coe’s mother-in-law, and to the neighbor who owned the car?”