by R. A. McGee
Porter followed him across the clean pavement to the side of the house. Mike leaned the bike against the garage door. “Where the hell did you find this?”
Porter told him, hedging a bit about the exact location in the woods. The last thing he needed was Mike trying to lead some posse out there.
“Wait, wait.” Mike walked back around the front and came back in a few moments with Terri. His wife’s face dropped when she saw Porter, and broke when she saw Pima’s bike with no Pima. “Tell her exactly what you told me. She needs to hear it.”
“I got a tip that Pima may have witnessed some meth traffickers at work.”
“Tip from who?” Terri said.
“Some homeless guy. I didn’t believe him, but I figured I’d check it out. Turns out she was out there, at least at some point. I didn’t see her around, but I did find this.” Porter pulled Pima’s phone from his pocket.
“Where in the woods?” Mike said.
“I told you, I have no clue. I’m a city guy; I probably couldn’t find the spot again. I barely found it the first time.”
“And a homeless guy told you all this?” Mike said, eyes narrowing at Porter.
“Some transient. Said he sleeps in the woods a lot and thought he saw Pima roll by one day. Said he saw her going toward a place where he had seen some bad guys cooking drugs.” Porter held a bit more back. It didn’t seem like a great thing to tell an FBI agent he barely knew that he’d killed a man and burned his body.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Mike said, rubbing his face.
“So that’s it? You found her phone but we can’t find her?”
“That’s why I’m here. Can you open Pima’s phone? Check through her pictures and see if she has anything we can use.”
Mike thumbed the dark phone and it lit up, the picture of Pima and Scarlett on the lock screen. “I… uh… wow. I hoped this wasn’t hers, you know?”
“Open it,” Terri said.
Mike used his thumbprint to unlock the phone and it opened up. “That was our deal with Pima. She had to leave us access to her phone—me and Terri’s prints can open it. There are too many weirdos, and kids can be victims so easy. I thought maybe we could keep an eye on her, you know? Keep her out of trouble.”
Porter didn’t say anything.
“Great job we did,” Mike said, fumbling with the phone. “How do I get to the pictures?”
“Give me that,” Terri snapped. She deftly maneuvered through the phone and opened the photo application. “Mike’s a Luddite.”
Terri swiped through the pictures, muttering to herself. “Who the hell are these guys?” She looked up at her husband, voice shaking. “Mike? Look.”
Mike took the phone and swiped through the last pictures. Porter leaned over the man’s shoulder as he did, recognizing the general landscape of the valley he’d just come from. “I’ve never seen these guys before.”
The last few pictures were of a scrawny man with a baseball hat and a scraggly beard. Next to the scrawny man, and towering over him, was a much larger man. Pima had taken several pictures of them, including one in which the scrawny man appeared to be looking up at her.
“Who are they?” Mike said. “Who the hell are they?”
“I think they may have taken Pima,” Porter said. “That’s the only reason her phone and her bike would still be there.”
Mike was silent. Porter could see the tendons in his jaw tensing.
“You think these are the guys? But you don’t know, right? You don’t know. It could be anything, it could be something else. She could be somewhere, maybe she’s hurt or maybe she got lost,” Terri said. “You don’t know—how could you?”
“All I know is Pima was hanging out in a bad place where dangerous men were doing dangerous things. If they think she saw them, there’s no telling what they would do.”
“Yeah, but you may be wrong,” Terri said. “You don’t know. She could be… I mean, she could have…”
Mike reached his arm around his wife to comfort her. Porter could tell that they’d reversed roles, and now he was the strength when she couldn’t be. He wondered when it would be her turn, in the upcoming days, to prop him up again.
“He’s right. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he’s right.” Mike turned and looked at Porter. “I don’t care what you say, damn it, you’re going to find your way back to that valley and you are going to take me with you. I’m going to bring a hundred agents. We’ll find Pima.”
Porter waited for a moment, then shook his head. “I already told you, I can’t find it again. Besides, we should be concentrating on who these guys are. They’re the key.”
“But, but—but we could bring in a dog, right? He could track them down and find out where they live. Let’s get a dog,” Terri said, pulling at Mike’s shirt.
“No good,” Porter said. “I’m not sure how many streams I crossed to get there. Dogs will lose the scent. Not to mention that even if they did track them out, there’s no doubt the guys threw her in a car and drove off. Dogs will never find her.”
“So that’s it?” Terri said.
“Hell no, it isn’t,” Mike said. He asked Terri to email the pictures of the guys to his personal and work email addresses. “We have their pictures.”
Porter nodded, glad Newton was thinking like a cop again, but warned him, “Be careful how you look them up.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You start using official databases for this and your ass will be in a sling.”
“You think I give a shit about my job? My daughter’s missing, you asshole. That’s more important than anything. I couldn’t care less about procedures.” Mike was stepping closer to Porter, his voice growing louder.
“Think for a minute. I don’t want you to do nothing, I just want you to be smart. You still have a family to provide for, no matter what happens to Pima.”
“Happens?” Mike said.
Porter crossed his arms. “You know what I mean. Use your head. You’re not supposed to be working the case, so send the photos to Joe. He can look everything up for you and then you won’t get jammed up. Not to mention he already knows I’m out here helping.”
Mike exhaled loudly, then stepped away from Porter.
“But that’s it? Send them to Joe?”
“Believe me, if anyone can figure out who these guys are, it’s him. In the meantime, I need a couple copies of the pictures, can you do that for me?”
“What? Why?” Terri said.
“I told you I was going to help find Pima, and I’m damn sure going to try. I need to run down a couple of leads,” Porter said. “Having some pictures of these assholes would help. Could you print me off a couple?”
Terri looked at Mike, then Porter, and nodded her head. She stumbled away toward the front door.
When she was out of earshot, Porter put his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “You have to keep your shit together.”
“What did you just say to me?”
“You heard me. You losing your shit isn’t going to help Terri, Bryce, or Pima.”
While many would have considered Porter’s words insensitive, he was gambling that Mike shared the same sensibilities as most of the law-enforcement officers he’d worked with. There was a reason why cops hung out together. It was a job where nihilism sometimes ran rampant, and jokes about death abounded.
This was because of the challenges the men and women faced. Porter remembered walking out of his office and scanning the surrounding areas for a sniper after one of their fellow agents was shot at through a window.
No one in corporate America worried about having an escape route on the drive home. An accountant never wondered if the knock at the door was the Mexican Mafia enforcer coming to make good on the threat he made in open court. The one about killing your entire family. Then setting them on fire. After raping them.
Cops treated each other differently, and Porter hoped Mike was no exception.
“I’m not
—losing my shit. I just feel helpless. Pima needs me and I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do. Pretend she isn’t yours. Use what resources you can and point them in the right direction.”
“Joe?” Mike said.
“You know it. That bastard will move heaven and earth if there’s something he can do.”
Mike uncrossed his arms and looked up at Porter. “You’re serious about staying? Helping me find my girl?”
“I said I would, didn’t I? I don’t lie.”
“Why?”
“I need a reason? Maybe it’s the right thing to do.”
“Please. Don’t give me that shit. I can't even get guys whose job it is to do the right thing. Why would you?”
Porter looked out toward the mountains. “I owe Joe.”
“He said you two were close. I’d hate for him to owe you something, be in hock a favor on my account.”
“I’m the one who owes that ugly bastard,” Porter said. “If it makes you feel any better, let's agree that I’m here for the reward money. Seventy-five grand is a lot of pocket cash.”
“Well, whatever, I’m glad you’re on my side. Hell, the bike and phone is more than anyone else found.”
The front door slammed shut and Terri came back, a bottle of water in her left hand, several photos in her right.
“Couldn’t get the damn things to print out in landscape mode,” she muttered as she handed the pictures to Porter.
“Thanks. I’ll let you guys know if I come up with anything.”
Porter hopped into his Yukon, started it, and paused a moment.
He watched Mike put his arm around his wife, and the two of them stood there holding each other as he backed out of the driveway.
As he drove past the guard shack and the elderly sentinel, he was hit with two thoughts. The first was that it wouldn’t be a waste to see Sheriff Spaulding again. If these two losers in the pictures were local trouble, he might recognize them.
The second was that he hadn't eaten yet and it was late afternoon. His eventful morning had left him spent. Fortunately, he knew a great burger place near the sheriff’s office.
Twenty-One
Despite feeling like his stomach was going to eat itself, Porter figured he’d see Spaulding first. If there was anything he could learn from the sheriff, it would be best to know immediately. Maybe he would have an address on the two meth makers from the photos.
That might change Porter’s dinner plans.
Without using the GPS, Porter navigated the streets easily enough and was soon parked in front of the sheriff’s office again. He decided not to bother taking his pistol off. There was no metal detector, so what was the point? He grabbed a few of the photos from the stack Terri had given him and stepped out of the truck.
There were no other sheriff’s department sedans out front, and Porter wasn’t upset at the thought of missing out on a chance to see Deputy Adams and his plainclothes partner.
Not that he would have minded giving them the beating he’d promised, but his arm hurt, and his leg even worse. He didn’t trust himself to play nice if pushed.
While he was never going to shed a tear for the man who’d shot arrows at him, he’d feel bad if he hurt a decent cop. The two deputies were idiots, but they didn’t deserve to be hurt too badly.
Porter clicked the key fob and walked up to the front door, gritting his teeth against the stabbing pain in his leg. Inside, Ruby the receptionist sat alone, watching a soap opera on a small television on the corner of her desk. She looked up and saw him, then immediately picked up the phone.
“Better service this time, huh?”
Ruby whispered into the phone and furtively hung it up.
“You having a better day today?” Porter said. He gently smacked the rolled-up pictures against his palm.
She smirked and turned back to her soap. Moments later the door clicked open and Spaulding stood in the frame. “Mr. Porter? Back for a visit so soon?”
“It’s just Porter. Have a couple minutes for me?”
“Sure, anything for a constituent. You would vote for me if you lived here, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t do politics,” Porter said. “Even local. I feel like everyone is lying.”
“Ouch,” Spaulding said, and motioned Porter to step back and follow him. “That’s pretty honest.”
“It is the best policy,” Porter said.
The two men went back into Spaulding’s office. “Interested in some Scotch this time?”
Porter looked at the sheriff and squinted. “No. No, I don’t want any Scotch.”
“You sure? I just got this new bottle in from the mayor. It’s fifty years old, they tell me. It’s supposed to taste like oakwood.”
Porter ignored the man’s offer. “Listen, I have somewhere to be. I just wanted to see if you knew these two losers.”
The sheriff took the photos and slid through them. “You got a better one of the big guy’s face? Bubbas are a dime a dozen around here.”
Porter shuffled back toward the end of the stack and fished one out.
Spaulding rubbed his chin. “No, can’t say I’ve ever seen them before.”
Porter was searching the sheriff’s face as he spoke, and thought he noticed a faint glimmer of recognition, but then it was gone.
“Why should I know them—who are they?”
“If I knew who they were, I wouldn’t be asking you,” Porter said.
“Maybe if you give me some kind of clue as to how you encountered them, I can help you out.”
“I have some money to give them,” Porter said. “One of those big checks, you know? I want to make sure they get it.”
Sheriff Spaulding laughed, but the smile soon faded off his face. “That’s pretty funny, Porter. I feel like I need to make it a point to let you know that you can’t be hunting people down in my county. If these guys did something, or you need to find them for any reason, tell me. Leave it to the professionals, is that clear?”
“Claro.”
Spaulding scrunched his face up. “You speak Spanish? I tried to learn a little, but it all sounds like gibberish to me.”
Porter ignored him and stood, boxing the photos into a neat stack.
“Mind if I hang onto these?” Spaulding said, reaching out for the pile. “Maybe I can show my guys when they get back. They’re local boys, they might know these two.”
Porter handed the stack over. “About your boys…”
Spaulding looked up from a photo. “Yeah?”
“Why are they following me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. I’m tired of seeing them everywhere I go,” Porter said. “You should say something to them.”
Spaulding leaned back in his chair. “Porter, this county isn’t too big. There’s a pretty good chance of running into anyone at any time here. When I can get my guys to un-ass their desks and go out into the world, there’s a pretty good chance you could run into them somewhere.”
Porter nodded. “Okay. Well, you tell them I’m tired of the coincidences and they should knock it off.” Porter reached for the door handle and stopped, looking back toward Spaulding.
“On second thought, never mind. I’ll tell them myself.”
Twenty-Two
The clank of the cowbell announced his entrance into Burger Hut. Claudette was behind the counter, filling the individual salt shakers from a large bag. She looked up, her brilliant grin instantly plastered across her face. “My best customer.”
“I said I was coming back,” Porter said. “The food’s too good to miss.”
“Just the food?”
“The service isn’t bad either,” Porter said.
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you say that to all the girls.”
“I meant Herschel,” Porter said, pointing to the kitchen. The old cook leaned out the passthrough and saluted with his spatula.
Claudette’s eyes were wide. “You better be careful, before he co
mes out here and hugs you, Porter.”
“You remembered.”
“Tough to forget. What can I get ya?”
“Same as yesterday?” Porter said.
“I can do that. You planning on mixing that unholy abomination and putting it on my masterpiece again?”
Porter smirked. “What’s wrong with the mix? It’s good.”
“Sure it is,” Claudette said. She tapped a few keys on her computer and gave Porter the total. “Unless you forgot your wallet today?”
“I figured you wouldn’t fall for the same scam twice, so I brought cash,” Porter said.
“Good thing. It would be just my luck to have a new favorite customer who was broke,” she said with a smile. “Go sit, I’ll bring it out to you.”
Porter worked his way back to the same table he’d sat at before, with a nice view of the foothills in the distance. There were only a couple of other patrons in the restaurant, and they were quiet. Porter’s mind drifted to Spaulding and Pima and the hunter in the forest. He wondered how the girl had gotten herself into such a mess, and felt a pit in his stomach when he thought about her chances of having survived an encounter with meth traffickers.
He felt sure that at this point, he was on a mission solely to recover her body.
Still, no family should have to bury an empty coffin. He wanted better for the Newtons. They deserved that.
Minutes later, Claudette appeared with a piled tray of food. This time, she had a glob of ketchup and mayo on separate plates. “I just can’t bring myself to mix it, or even put them together. I’ll leave that to you.”
“You were serious about this much food every time, weren’t you? I need to skip the bun or something.”
“I told you yesterday you don’t need to worry about it. Women like a big man.”
“Yeah, but I eat a few more of these and I’ll be Stay-Puft marshmallow big,” he said with a smirk.
She laughed and walked away. Porter was impressed that she had another pair of jeans that hugged her curves so well.