by Rachel Ford
He found nothing, obviously, and he told Joey, “Clear.”
“Alright,” Joey said. “Then you can follow me, Mr. Day. Welcome to the Miller Farm.”
Chapter Nine
These guys weren’t Millers – none of them. The Millers were a pair of septuagenarians who owned the farm, named Fred and Edith. Born and bred Wisconsinites, who had worked the land for fifty years, right up until Fred’s hip replacement five years ago.
Joey told me all this as we made our way into the house. It was a kind of introduction to their bizarre set up. Because the Millers were hostages. “Just like you,” he said.
“And just like you, if they cooperate, they live. But if they – or you – give us any trouble, well, you all die. Fred and Edith, and you and the kids.”
Joey led me past a kitchen and a dining room. The guy with the hair and the Glock followed. We stopped in a small living room, with a giant cathode ray tube television in a wooden cabinet at one end, and a pair of large armchairs at the other.
The armchairs dwarfed the two wizened figures seated in them, and looked wildly out of proportion to the cramped room. But I didn’t pay particular attention to the old people or the chairs. I was looking at the two small figures standing at the far end of the room, a boy and a girl, arms wrapped around each other. Frightened but defiant.
They spotted me about the same time I saw them. “Uncle Owen,” Maisie said. She ran for me. So did Daniel. They hugged me tight and said nothing.
I wrapped my arms around them and pivoted so that I could face Joey.
“Uncle?” he said. “I thought they were yours?”
“I told you, Joey: you got this whole thing wrong. We’re just campers. We’ve got nothing to do with you. We don’t even know who you are.”
“Yeah you do,” he said. He gestured at Daniel and Maisie. “Or they do, anyway. Smart kids. Maybe too smart for their own good.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. But I didn’t really care. I’d accomplished the first thing on my list. Now, I just had to take care of the second.
I glanced the two guys over. Joey wasn’t a problem. He didn’t have a gun out, and even if he was carrying, I could reach him before he drew it. The guy with the hair would be a bigger deal, though. He was not just armed, but training the gun on me.
He’d kill me dead before I finished two steps – me, and maybe the kids too. I needed to bide my time, to close the gap between us.
“So what now?” I asked.
“Now, you wait. I told you, we got no beef with you. We got some business going down in the next few days. When it’s done, we leave you all to go about your business. No harm, no foul.”
“That’s it?” I said.
“That’s it, Mr. Day. Easy as pie, right?”
I glanced around the room and took in the old people. They looked to be in their mid to late seventies. She had an oxygen tank. He had a walker. They were both pale, and thin. They must have been easy to overpower. No kind of challenge at all for guys like these.
A door opened and closed somewhere in the house. Footsteps sounded down the hall, and then the other guy, the driver, showed up.
“Jimmy,” Joey said, “show our guests to their quarters, will you?”
The driver nodded.
“You go with him,” Joey told the guy with the hair. “The first stupid thing he does, shoot them. But do the kids first. In the back, so it’s nice and slow. Okay?”
He nodded, and the driver – Jimmy – called, “Right, let’s go, Mr. Day. Let’s go, kids.”
Jimmy went first. The guy with the hair made me go next, and then the kids. “In case I got to start shooting,” he said. As if the order, and the reasons for it, weren’t obvious.
Jimmy led us to a staircase. It was a steep old thing, with ten-inch stairs that creaked and moaned as you stepped on them, and no handrails.
They shrieked and howled as the five of us went up. There’d be no sneaking up or down that staircase.
I glanced back at the kids and flashed them a quick, reassuring smile. Don’t worry. It’ll all be okay. She took Daniel’s hand and kept going.
I thought about distance and angles as I climbed. The staircase was steep, maybe a forty-five or fifty degree angle. I was three steps behind Jimmy, and five ahead of the guy with the hair. Close enough, maybe, to take him out.
Except that there were kids between us – kids I couldn’t risk any harm to – and another guy, probably also packing, who would certainly turn around and shoot me. And Joey, down below, who probably had his own piece. Who would come running, and who might waste the old folks just for good measure after I was dead.
So I kept walking. We reached a narrow landing, and a short, wallpapered hallway leading to six separate doors. They were all old wood, painted in a brown color, probably in some kind of lead-based paint. All of them were closed.
“There,” Jimmy said, pointing to the fourth door. “That’s your room.”
I glanced at it and at him. I didn’t move.
“Go.”
“Not without the kids.”
“Believe me, pal, they’re going with you. No one here wants to babysit.”
So I waited until the kids reached the landing. The guy with the hair leveled his Glock with Daniel’s head. But he spoke to me. “Start walking.”
I did, pulling Daniel and Maisie with me. “It’ll be okay,” I said.
“As long as your dad does what he’s supposed to,” Jimmy said.
“Uncle,” the guy with the hair said.
“He’s their uncle? I thought he was their dad?”
“Donno. But that’s what the kid called him.”
We reached the door.
“Inside,” Jimmy said. “Shut the door after you. Latch it.”
I glanced behind me. Eight feet of hall. Two guys, one gun. Two kids. Not yet.
I turned a small, ornate handle, and the latch surrendered. The door started to swing inward, on a small, dark room.
“Inside,” Jimmy said again.
I took a half step onto the threshold as my eyes adjusted to the dimness beyond. There was a dark wood floor inside, painted the same color as the door. It looked solid enough. I stepped in. The kids followed.
“Close the door,” Jimmy reminded me.
I turned slowly, giving myself a good look at the room. It was a small space, with walls papered in an old-fashioned floral pattern. There was a bed in the center of the room, full-sized maybe, with a faded, floral bedspread and a pair of throw pillows. I saw a closet in the corner, and a dresser against one wall. An old-fashioned armchair sat in a corner, low and not holding much promise of comfort.
Then I finished the turn and closed the door. The room went black – pitch black.
Nothing happened for five seconds. Then I heard the lock click, and Jimmy’s voice sounded, muffled through the door. “Now, sit tight and behave yourselves. Dinner’s at six. If you behave, you eat.”
“What about the bathroom?” I asked.
“Twice a day. Hold it until then. Or don’t: you’re the ones staying there. I don’t really care.”
I heard departing footsteps, and then nothing at all.
First on the agenda, of course, was verifying that the kids were alright. They were scared and uncertain, and a little scuffed up from being snatched, but otherwise unharmed.
“Are they going to kill us, Uncle Owen?” Maisie asked.
“No,” I said. Not just because it was what she needed to hear at the moment, but because I didn’t think it was in the cards. If killing us had been the plan, they’d have done it already. No reason not to. So they wanted us alive, for reasons I didn’t fully understand. “No, they’re not going to kill us, Mais.”
“I told you he was a killer,” Daniel said.
That gave me pause. He had told me, hadn’t he? “Who is he, Dan? How do you know he’s a killer?”
“I told you: I saw it on TV. The FBI are offering money for him.”
&nbs
p; “Wait, what?”
“He stole a truck,” Maisie said.
“An army truck,” Daniel said.
“A truck full of money.”
“He shot the driver,” Daniel said.
“A truck full of money,” I repeated. “Army truck. You mean an armored truck?”
“Maybe.”
“Shit.”
“You shouldn’t swear, Uncle Owen.”
I ignored her. “Do you remember his name?”
“Joey.”
“I mean his last name.”
“No,” she said.
“I do,” Daniel said.
“What is it?”
“You need to apologize before I tell you.”
“What?”
“For swearing.”
“Daniel, this isn’t the time.”
He said nothing.
So, I sighed. “Fine. Okay, I apologize. Now what was his name?”
“Joseph Rabbitt. I remember, because it was like a bunny, but spelled wrong.”
“And this Joseph Rabbitt, he killed an armored truck driver?”
“And robbed the truck,” Daniel said.
“Was it on the news? Is that where you saw it?” I didn’t remember hearing about an armored truck driver being killed, but, then, I could have missed it.
“No. It was the FBI show. Where they look for the ten most wanted.”
I vaguely remembered Megan complaining once about Daniel’s new and unhealthy interest in crime. He’s obsessed with finding murderers since Andy died. It’s all he ever wants to see now: shows about manhunts and cops and the FBI’S most wanted. It’s not normal.
If memory served, she’d threatened him with therapy if he didn’t cut it out. Apparently, he hadn’t cut it out.
“Joseph Rabbitt is on the FBI’s ten most wanted list?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Uncle Owen. You should have listened.”
“Shit,” I said again.
“Will he kill us?” Maisie wondered a second time.
“I don’t think so, Mais.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he would have done it already.” I tried to say it with conviction, but I felt a little less sure than I had a minute earlier. My reasoning still held. They had no reason to keep us alive if death was the ultimate goal.
But, I also had more information now. These guys had killed at least once. They’d offed an armored truck driver, presumably in the commission of a robbery. Not the same thing as gunning down a family of civilians, but not that far from it, either.
If you could rationalize killing someone for money, it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to rationalize killing them to protect your secrets. And I was pretty sure they’d already started down that road.
Someone had killed the guy in the tarp, the redhead with the bullet through his forehead. What were the odds that there were two sets of killers who happened to be in the vicinity of Random Lake?
Not great. And Wagner had mentioned the FBI, hadn’t he? They were looking into the guy in the tarp, as possible match for a missing persons investigation.
Definitely connected to Joey Rabbitt. I’d have bet on it.
All of which boded ill for us. That was two murders, one of which had started as a missing person before it ended as a homicide. Not great at all.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m going to check out the room. You guys stay here, okay?”
“I’m scared, Uncle Owen.”
“It’s going to be alright, Mais.”
“Can I come with you?”
I glanced around the darkened room. I figured it probably hadn’t been boobytrapped. That would make no kind of sense. “Alright,” I said. “But let me see if there’s a light switch anywhere, okay?” It probably should have been the first thing I did, but better late than never.
“Okay,” she said.
I headed back toward the door. When I found the handle, I moved right, feeling along the wall for a switch. “You doing okay, Dan?”
He said nothing. He probably shrugged in the darkness, but I couldn’t see it, so I couldn’t tell what kind of shrug.
I groped along blindly, until my fingers brushed against a smooth, rectangular plastic panel. I found the switch in the center and pressed it.
Nothing happened. I tried it a few times, back and forth, but without any luck. “I found the light,” I said. “But they must have taken out the light bulbs.”
“I’m scared, Uncle Owen.”
“It’s going to be alright, sweetheart. I promise.”
Daniel snorted. “No it’s not. They’re going to kill us.”
“They’re not, Dan. I’m not going to let that happen, okay?”
“How are you going to stop them?”
“Any way I have to. Because, I promise you, they are not going to hurt you. Okay?”
Chapter Ten
Deputy Austin Wagner, 1:30 PM
Curt Travers rang me for the third time. This time, he reached me on my mobile while I was driving. “Special Agent,” I said. “How can I help?”
“Just checking the status of the missing person we discussed.”
The short answer to his question, of course, was the obvious one: unchanged. But three calls from an FBI agent in a few days? “I need some more information.”
“About what?”
“About the description you emailed me. The possible ID. Who is he?”
Travers paused for a long moment. “We don’t want to muddy the waters. Frankly, Deputy, it’s a longshot. But there are some trace similarities between the sketch and our case–”
“So tell me who he is. If it’s worth checking on, it’s worth me knowing what to be on the lookout for – even for a longshot – right?”
Silence again. “Alright. It’s the Rabbitt case.”
“Rabbit? Like, the animal?”
“He’s an animal, alright. But no. R-a-b-b-i-t-t. Joey Rabbitt. Wanted for armed robbery and murder. Serial hijacker of armored trucks. He usually lets the drivers go. Sometimes, he shoots them.”
“So our missing vic?”
Silence, for three long seconds. “Tentative ID of Matthew Callaghan. Driving a truck just outside of Boston. His second day behind the wheel. Joey and his gang staged a breakdown. Waited until he slowed down to try to get around them. Took Matthew hostage.”
“Jesus. Boston? And you think they’re here, in Wisconsin?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. It’s a longshot. But – the sketch you put into the system? It looks an awfully lot like Matthew Callaghan. Like, they could at least be mistaken for cousins, or brothers. Maybe even twins. Maybe the same guy.”
“Shit. But what the hell would a gang of armored truck hijackers be doing up here? It’s farm country and lakes. We’re not exactly rich pickings for thieves.”
“But you’re what? Thirty miles from Milwaukee? Forty? Plenty of cash there that’s going to need to be transferred securely. Plenty of armored trucks.”
“Shit,” I said again. “You think they’re up here for a job?”
“I think it’s a possibility, that’s all. These guys went off the grid a week ago. They took Callaghan with them. We haven’t found a trace of them in their usual spots. So maybe they changed their hunting grounds.”
* * *
Like the house itself, the room was a square, maybe twelve by twelve. I found the bed and dresser and armchair I’d seen in passing. I found three windows, all of which had been boarded over on the inside with plywood.
I ran my fingers along the edges. It was crude work, but effective. Definitely a function over form job. The wood was larger than necessary for two of the windows. The third consisted of two thinner strips of plywood, their edges lined up together.
The wood smelled musty, and I could feel cobwebs and dirt on the surface. It had been pulled out of an old shed or barn, or maybe the garage: spare lumber from ancient projects, back when Fred Miller could work on his barn and house.
&nbs
p; Spare lumber that had been sitting in storage for years, or maybe decades, just in case he ever needed a piece of wood that size or shape. No sense cutting up a good piece of plywood for a little piece. No nonsense, common sense Midwestern thriftiness. The kind of thrift that gets a farm through the lean years.
The kind of thrift that eventually leaves kids or grandkids to deal with an accumulated lifetime of may be useful’s and better hold onto it’s – more often than not, with a trip to the dump.
I’d seen it plenty of times before, so I paid particular attention as I searched. Years of storage meant years of opportunity for moisture and age to damage the wood. Damage that might make it easier to pry or break away.
But I came away with nothing to show for my time but a layer of dust and slime on my hands.
I didn’t find much else in the room.
There was a closet on the far end, maybe two and a half or three feet deep and six feet long. I found a few dusty garments inside, large enough to indicate they belonged to an adult. But I couldn’t tell if they were men’s or women’s, or a mix of the two. There was a shelf above the garments, that contained a lot of dust and a few old hat boxes. And nothing else.
I rifled through the dresser drawers. Most were empty, but a few contained garments. Shirts or undershirts, maybe. I couldn’t tell in the darkness.
Either way, none of it jumped out at me. None of it promised some means of escape. So I returned to the kids. “Listen,” I said, “I need you to think hard, okay? I need you to tell me everything that happened, from the beginning. Everything you saw, in the car and in the house. Anything and everything you can remember.”
“Why?” Daniel asked.
“Because I need to know everything I can about these guys.”
“Why?” he asked again.
“So I can figure out a way to get us out of here.”
“They’ll shoot us,” Maisie said.
“Not if we do it right.”
“The Millers are scared,” Daniel said. “Mrs. Miller was crying when we got here.”
That wasn’t the kind of information I was looking for, but it was a starting point at least. And I had asked for everything. So I said, “I’m sorry to hear that. Did she say anything to you guys?”