Committed (18 page)

Beth and I got in the back of the car. Makara turned around in the driveway and took us past the golf course and back out to the main street that would take us over to the superstore. I glanced over at Beth, sitting beside me, her face worn with sadness.

She rubbed the knuckle of one index finger across the corner of her eye and then looked at me. “Sorry,” she said. “That had to be about the saddest damn thing I ever saw, though.”

“Social Services taking the boy,” I said.

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “Get it together, Beth,” she said.

“But what could we really do?” I asked.

“We could have stopped his parents from getting killed,” she said. “That would have been a start. We should have known something was off with them when we first talked to them.”

“How? Did they not seem normal to you?” I thought back to the interactions we’d had with the man and the short exchange with the woman. I couldn’t put my finger on anything that would have raised a red flag. “And we were the second set of law enforcement there. The guy gave us no clue, no signal, no nothing that anything was wrong. He stood there and talked to us with a straight face. His wife came out and did the same thing. Were we supposed to automatically know that the neighborhood behind the house was pet free and put it together that it was some kind of sign?
Hey, there’s two murderers in my house
is a little more straightforward as a call for help.”

“I know. I just… Forget it. I can’t talk about it right now.” Beth turned her head away from me and looked out the window.

I couldn’t come up with any other words that were going to make her feel any better about the boy’s situation. I glanced toward the front of the car and caught Makara looking back at me in the rearview mirror. We pulled into the store’s parking lot near the RV a minute or two later. The local police had created a makeshift barricade around the area. We parked outside their blockade and walked over. Bill and Scott stood outside of the RV, staring at it. When we got to their sides, I could see what they were watching: the forensics guys photographing the two bodies in the storage area at the bottom of the vehicle.

I stood directly to Scott’s left shoulder. “Any word back on anything?”

“No, no one has seen anything,” he said. “We did the exact same thing as before, birds flying, patrol cars on overpasses, you name it. Not a peep.” He shook his head. “I’m betting they’ve already swapped vehicles.”

“Nothing on the phone records yet?” Beth asked.

“No.” Scott said. “Not yet.”

“Do we have any kind of time frame on that?” I asked.

Scott looked at his watch. “Should be soon.”

We continued to watch the forensics guys photograph the bodies lying inside the storage compartment of the RV before they assisted the coroner in removing and bagging them. Randy and Mike from the forensics team boarded the vehicle. I walked over, took the couple steps up into the RV and looked left. The RV had white tile floors. A couch, table, and chair sat along the wall to my right, and the kitchen area took up the left side of the interior, with only a small walkway separating the two sides. An extension beyond the sink area of the kitchen created an area that needed to be walked around to get back to the rear bedroom and, I assumed, bathroom. Mike and Randy stood in the center of the RV.

Mike turned back toward me. “Any idea on how to extend the slides?”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, one of the other agents is an RV owner. He might know how. Let me go and check.” I turned and stuck my head out the doorway. “Bill, any idea how to operate the slide-out extensions on this thing?”

“I probably can figure it out,” Bill said. He walked to me. I stepped up into the vehicle and gave him room to board. “I imagine the controls are similar enough to mine.”

Bill had the four slides out within a matter of minutes. We stood near the driver and passenger seats at the front, watching the forensics guys.

Mike stood in the kitchen area, staring down at the white tile floor. “The murders happened in here. Well, at least one of them did. Looks like a half-assed cleanup job here.” He pointed at the floor in the kitchen near the sink. “We have some blood in the joints between the tiles still. I’m going to get at processing this. You guys have already been through here?” he asked.

“Makara and Gents went through it,” I said.

“Okay, do you guys need to look around? This will take us a bit, and we’re going to need some room to work. Why don’t you have a look around quick, avoiding this area here, before we get started?”

“Sure,” I said.

“There’s some gloves in my box if you need them.” Mike jerked his head at the gray kit sitting on the small table on the other side of the RV. Bill and I walked to it, gloved up, and took a quick look around. I headed for the back bedroom. The bed was unmade, the closet doors and a few drawers open. I went through each cabinet and drawer and pulled the sheets back on the bed. I didn’t see anything that made me think it belonged to our couple. I took a quick glance around the bathroom and a small room with a pair of bunks on my way back toward the front. Nothing stood out to me. I walked around Randy and Mike and the area they wanted undisturbed in the kitchen. Bill met me just beyond them.

“Nothing in the front. No paper with an address written down, no destination programmed into the navigation system,” Bill said. “Guess that would have been a little much to ask for. Anything back there?”

I shook my head.

“Bill, Hank!” Someone shouted from outside. We stepped out to see Scott walking toward us.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“The last number dialed from that farmhouse went to a man just outside of Great Falls, Montana. The guy’s name is Armond Gormon.”

“Anything that ties him to our couple?” Bill asked.

“Nothing that we know of yet.”

“What else did you get on the guy?” I asked.

“Not much. Lewis just called me with the name and the guy’s address. He said he was going to get everything he could on Mr. Gormon and call me back. I’m going to make a call to get a couple of cars out to this guy and pick him up,” Scott said. He pulled his phone from his pocket.

“Wait on that,” I said.

Scott paused. “Different idea?” he asked.

“Yeah, but first let’s run this guy through the system and see what we’re dealing with.”

“Beth is doing that now. She’s with Makara and Gents at their car, running the name,” Scott said.

I glanced around, spotted them at the car, and started walking over—Scott and Bill followed. I rounded the car’s hood to Beth and Agent Gents, standing outside the open driver’s-side door. Makara was in the cruiser at the computer.

He looked out the open doorway at us. “The guy is a choir boy. No priors, no nothing.”

“Sympathetic to the girl, maybe,” Beth said.

“How far is the drive?” I asked.

“To what?” Gents asked. “Great Falls, Montana?”

“To wherever this guy lives,” I said.

“Hell, fifteen, sixteen hours would be my guess,” he said.

“What? Are you actually thinking about driving there?” Bill asked.

“I am,” I said. “I don’t want a local going to try to rattle this guy’s cage. As far as Frane and Molly McCoy know, we don’t know they made a call to this guy. They might be headed there. And like you said, Scott, this could be an opportunity.”

“I know,” Scott said. “But, with them only being an hour or two from us, I don’t know if I’m ready to pull up shop and travel a couple of states away in hopes they come to us. These two have only been traveling a few hours a day.”

“I know, but right now, this could be something in a big investigation of nothing other than looking over the shit these two have left in their wake. I’ll go and meet with whoever is local up there—find this guy, put something together, and take it from there.”

No one responded.

“Well?” I asked.

Scott seemed to be thinking. “Yeah.” He started nodding. “It’s the right move. And Ball would be good with it. We need to do something here. What we’re doing isn’t working. I’ll get everything the twins get on the phone call and this Gormon guy sent to your e-mail.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Are you set on this? Going?” Beth asked. “I mean, Jim could probably secure airfare. Let’s at least have him check on what’s available.”

I let out a breath. “Yeah, okay. The
let’s have him check
part made it sound like you’re joining me.”

“I am,” Beth said.

“Maybe we should find a different way,” Nick said. “We don’t really know who he’s associated with or what we’ll be dealing with when we get to the land. I can’t imagine that they don’t have some kind of security guarding the thing.”

He and Molly were sitting at the back of a rest-area parking lot just off the freeway. They’d traveled roughly a hundred miles since Nick had acquired the Corvette, which was just about out of fuel.

“This makes the most sense if we’re trying to get into Canada. We’ll try to make some kind of deal, and if that doesn’t work, we can, I don’t know, make him take us through. It’s not guarded. Whatever they are doing is real low-key.”

“When I think of a tunnel under the border, I imagine guys with machine guns guarding it,” Nick said.

“It’s not like that at all.”

“I just don’t know. I wouldn’t be opposed to scrapping this whole Canada idea. Maybe we should head south.”

“Are you serious?” Molly asked.

Nick nodded. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Everything is a little too hot for us up here right now. There are too many unknowns with this guy and his operation. I think we should lie low and figure out something else. The South America thing through Mexico is looking a bit more attractive.”

“We discussed this, babe. The Mexican border is going to be damn near impossible for us to get through. It’s too dangerous. We’ll be able to work something out with Red. Everything will be fine.”

Nick was silent for a moment, thinking. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “I know. I just think there’s a chance that the feds, cops, or whoever are going to be able to find us up there before we get across. They know who you are and where you’re from. I’m sure they’re talking to anyone you ever knew. All they have to do is find out this Red guy that you used to work for has some land that borders Canada, and they’ll have people on it. Shit, they’ll probably find out what he has going on up there and shut the whole thing down.”

“We’ve been over this. His land is on reservation property. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the shed over the tunnel. It’s perfect.”

“But you used to work for this guy. The cops looking for you are bound to question him.”

“As far as they know, he’s completely legit, and I worked at the guy’s restaurant for six months before I turned eighteen. That was how many years ago? I highly doubt they will look into that. And even then, Red isn’t going to give them anything at all.”

“Tell me about his operation and the land again,” Nick said.

“The tunnel goes from a small shed on his land into Canada, where he said his friend owned the land on the other side. They ran drugs through it, I assume. As far as I know, he was never busted, so it has to still be there.”

“And you’ve seen it. You’ve been to the land and saw the tunnel with your own eyes?”

“Yeah, I saw it. He showed it to me once. It’s just a small shed from the outside. Inside the building, there is a big metal door in the center of the floor with a huge combination lock on it. Which is why we need him to get in. He opened the door for me. I saw some cement steps that went down. Most of the inside was dark, though.”

“Why would he show it to you?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know. He just did.”

“And why were you even at this place again?”

“Ugh, I told you. He’d get some girls from the restaurant to come out and cater gatherings at his”—Molly held up her fingers and made air quotes—“summer house, which is on the land. He and his drunk friends would try to hit on us all night, but they tipped well. I only went out there a couple of times. One of the times, we went on a walk, and he showed me the shed. He pointed to the tunnel and said, ‘That leads to my friend’s property in Canada.’ Then he told me to never speak a word about it.”

“We still need to find a pay phone somewhere and call to make sure he’s at his house so we can grab him.”

“He’ll be there,” Molly said.

“What makes you so certain?” Nick asked.

“I just am.”

“How?”

“I said, I just am.”

“Tell me you didn’t call him from that farmhouse.”

“Huh? Why?” Molly asked.

“What do you mean
why
? Do phone records mean anything to you?” Nick adjusted himself in the seat to face her. “Please tell me you didn’t actually call from there.”

“Oh geez, relax. I didn’t call him yet. I just know he normally only goes up there in the spring and summer.”

Nick sat quiet for a moment—a thought started to bother him. “So you and him just decided to take a little walk together? How do you remember this guy’s house phone number? Or when he’d normally be there or not be there? Seems like a lot of remembering about your boss if you only worked there for six months, five or six years ago.”

Molly paused. “I don’t know. I just know.”

“So, you used to screw this guy is what you’re saying?”

“Whatever,” Molly said. “I have a good memory. I’ve told you that.”

Nick stared at her, not buying her flimsy explanation. He placed one hand behind his bald head and rested it on the driver’s-seat headrest. “I’m still waiting for you to deny the part where I accused you of sleeping with the guy.”

“I remembered a phone number, so that automatically means I slept with him? Wow, jealous much?” Molly asked. She turned away from him and looked out the passenger window.

“Still waiting,” Nick said.

“I’m not even going to answer that. You can sit and wonder if you’re going to be like that.”

“Just admit it.”

“No.”

“How was he?”

Molly snapped her head back to face Nick. “Ugh. Fine. I used to sleep with him, okay? Happy now?”