Another Man's Ground--A Mystery, page 21
“When you take a report at an accident or a crime scene, you do it chronologically, right? Either in the order of what you saw, or in the order of what the witness says happened, right?”
Sam nodded.
But when you lead an investigation, Hank continued, you get to treat it less like a book and more like a puzzle. You lay everything out, and you decide what is most important and what fits together. You can move the pieces around and examine everything from different angles. There might be pieces you have that don’t fit anywhere, and you can put those to the side for the moment. And more pieces come in all the time. You need to keep track of them, but you also get to do the prioritizing. You decide which ones are the most important.
And some pieces change, as you get new information. That’s why it’s best to start with the pieces that are absolute facts. That aren’t going to change. Then you use your judgment on the other ones, the pieces that do change.
Hank finished and sat back to watch the Pup. Sam pondered for a minute, scratched his ear, and then put his stack of files on the floor. He straightened and took a deep breath.
“We know for sure that we’ve got a dead kid. And, because of the hole in the back of the head—and the bullet—we know for sure that it was homicide. We know it was found on Jasper Kinney’s land … but that doesn’t mean the shooting happened there. It might have, it might not have.”
He was warming up and the words started flowing faster. “I think the next most important thing is what the bone guy said.”
“What? The anthropologist got back to you?” Hank said. “When?” The guy hadn’t returned Hank’s calls at all.
Sam grinned.
“I called up there, and said that my boss was going to kill me if I didn’t come through with that forensics report.” He paused. “I figured you wouldn’t mind that.”
Hank agreed emphatically that he did not.
“Then,” Sam continued, “I said that I had five families down here with missing kids who were living in agony that the skeleton might be their son or daughter. Then I told a little bit of a fib. I said that they might take matters into their own hands soon and start calling him directly.”
“That’s brilliant,” Hank said. “And it worked?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t think those folks up there are used to dealing with live people. And definitely not used to having to deal with grieving parents. They said they’d have the report for me within twenty-four hours, and they did.”
Hank smacked the desk in delight. “Fantastic. Great job.”
Sam dug a slim file out of his stack and flipped it open. He cleared his throat.
“I’m going to skip the measurements and stuff.” He turned to the second page.
There were no bones missing from the skeleton. Several bones in the left foot had been broken quite recently, which must have happened when the immigrant kid fell on it, Sam said. And then there was the fibula that Alice had stepped on and snapped. Otherwise, the only sign of trauma was the hole in the back of the head and the exit wound in the right cheek. The bone guy was quite confident in stating that the injury would have been fatal.
Age of the subject at death was approximately seven to eight. Gender was undetermined.
“I called him back on that one,” Sam said. “Did you know that when it’s a kid, they can’t tell so good? Only with adults. But they can pinpoint a kid’s age within like six months to a year.” He shook his head. “Amazing.”
“Now, for how old the skeleton is—I mean how long it’s been out there in the woods,” Sam said.
Hank leaned forward. Sam fished out a sheet of paper and read directly from the report.
“‘Taking into account the rate of decay, based on soil composition and the porous nature of the bones due to the young age of the decedent, this office estimates the length of burial at approximately forty years.’”
Patty Alton’s heart would break all over again. And Calvin Holm’s nightmares would continue.
Hank’s vision blurred and the space behind his eyes suddenly felt like it was splitting apart. He dropped his head into his hands. None of them matched. All of his missing kids—none of them matched. The skeleton was too old.
“It could still be the Holm kid,” said Sam, a little freaked out by his boss’s obvious despair.
Hank’s head, still buried in his hands, shook out a no. “Jeremy’s outside the age range.”
“Not by much,” Sam said quickly. “He was nine and small for his age. None of this stuff is exact. You know that.” He realized his tone. “Um, sir. Chief, sir.”
The bone dude had said that his forty-year guess could go as much as ten years either way, Sam added. That could include the Kirbyville girl, but she was eleven, which was probably too far off the age range and—
Hank waved him quiet. They’d run all the families’ DNA against the sample from the bones, but it would just be a formality. And even that wouldn’t happen for God knew how long. He’d have to plead with the highway patrol DNA lab to move a forty-year-old homicide up on its list of priorities. And the odds of him being able to pull that off were about as low as his success rate with everything else lately.
* * *
Father Tony was in the nave of the church, plucking trash out of the slots in the pew backs that held the Bibles and hymnals. He greeted Hank with a broad smile.
“I just need to see Javier for a minute,” Hank said. “No one answered at the rectory.”
“Oh, good,” Father Tony said. “I’ve told him not to come to the door. You never know who it could be. I’ll go get him for you.”
He picked up a pile of wadded papers and gum wrappers and headed toward the exit. Hank looked at him quizzically.
“Don’t I have someone to do this for me?” Father Tony chuckled. “Sure. But then I’d lose out on all sorts of information.”
He fished around in his pile and pulled out a piece of notebook paper.
Tom + Angie.
“Their parents think they’ve broken up. Worth keeping an eye on.”
He held up another. A grocery list made up of canned beans, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese.
“This is where the Corletti family sits. I’m pretty sure this means he’s lost his job again. I’ll stop by with some food tomorrow.”
He put it back in his pile and smiled. “There’s no better way to keep up with the congregation.”
He said he’d be right back with the teen. Hank glanced around the big, empty church and said he might as well just come with him. The two men walked out of the building and across the parking lot to the rectory. They found Javier in the living room playing with the cat. Hank hardly recognized him. He looked happy, for one thing. And healthy. He must have put ten pounds on his gaunt frame in just the two weeks he’d been there.
“I know,” Father Tony said at Hank’s surprised look. “I made two pounds of carnitas last night, and he ate almost all of it by himself.” He patted his own broad middle and grinned. “Better for both of us, actually.”
Hank crouched down to pet the cat, trying to make Javier comfortable. The poor kid had gone all uneasy and tense when he walked in.
“¿Qué es el nombre del gato?” he asked.
The cat’s name was Francisco, he was five years old, and he preferred the feather on a stick over the stuffed mouse toy. He was the first pet that Javier had ever had the chance to play with.
They talked about the cat until Father Tony offered Hank a seat and headed to the kitchen for some iced tea. Hank ignored the proffered chair and followed him.
Groceries were piled everywhere. There were enough sandwich fixings to feed the Corletti family for a year. Several jumbo packs of beef jerky sat in a bag on the floor. And a huge pot of soup bubbled on the stove. From the smell of green chilies and onion, Hank guessed it was chile verde. He took a peek to confirm it and then leaned against the counter.
Father Tony sighed.
“You were supposed to wait out there.” He looked around. “I don’t suppose you’d believe this is for the food pantry?”
Hank shook his head. He’d also seen the stack of blankets and cans of bug repellent down at the end of the hallway.
“How many of them are you helping?”
Tony shrugged. He’d only seen two—an older man, very short but powerfully built, and a young, slightly chubby man about Javier’s age. Javier had confirmed that they were part of the work crew.
“How did they make it all the way back here?” Hank asked. “It’s miles from where they were cutting down the trees.”
They’d snuck along the roads at night. The older one had remembered seeing the church as they drove through Branson in the van. It was the only place they could think of to go for help.
“And did they get back to their friends the same way? Or did someone drive them?” He arched an eyebrow at Father Tony, who made a great show of checking the soup. Finally he muttered into the pot.
“I’m trying to get them into a city. Where they can find a network. Get help. Until then, I don’t have anywhere else to put them. I didn’t want them here”—he smiled ruefully—“because you might find out. And that county commissioner. He’s been showing up repeatedly since last week.”
He straightened and faced Hank. “But they must be supplied. So that is what I’m doing.”
“Tony, I can pretend I never saw any of this stuff,” Hank said, “but it’s crawling with federal agents out there. If the men come out of the woods to meet you, the agents are more likely to find them. And then there’s nothing I can do. The marshals could very well arrest them.”
“But I must help. Es mi obligación.”
The two men stared at each other through the steam coming off the pot.
“Señor, por favor.”
Javier stood in the doorway, cradling Francisco and looking terrified.
“¿Qué pasa con mis amigos?”
“Sí,” said the priest. “What about his friends?”
They, well, they were in a lot more trouble than Father Tony and his secret foodstuffs. They had federals and an armed killer out there in the woods with them. And yet no one had found them. The only whisper of contact was a grainy, Bigfootesque photo. Someone in that group had to know more about outdoor survival than Hank had initially thought. Someone that good might have noticed a hiding spot no one else could find. Someone that good was worth talking to. Hank looked at the pájaro and then Father Tony.
“I’m coming with you. When do you meet them?”
CHAPTER
30
The priest sent Hank off with a stomach full of chile verde and a solemn oath that he was telling the truth about the meeting time and place. At midnight a mile west of the Stout Oak Road turnoff.
Hank got there first. He’d driven Dunc’s Toyota Camry, which was the most nondescript car he had access to. He didn’t want anyone knowing what he was doing. If the voting public discovered he was “soft” on illegal immigration, it wouldn’t bode well for his campaign. He pulled off the road at eleven o’clock, onto a little dirt track that petered out after about twenty yards, which was just far enough to hide the car from the view of anyone on the road. Then he hiked a half mile north and stopped just short of the semicircular gravel turnout Father Tony had said was the meeting place.
He had on dark jeans and a black shirt. His badge was in his back pocket. He didn’t want it glinting in the meager moonlight and giving him away. He slipped into the trees and circled the turnout, trying to get a feel for how the forest extended out from the clearing and the road. He had no idea which direction the birds would come from, so he chose a clump of undergrowth about halfway between the road and the apex of the turnout. He’d settled himself behind a tree and among the plants before it occurred to him he could be sitting in the middle of a leafy sea of poison ivy. Brilliant. He was as dumb in the woods as that hopping-mad marshal.
He looked around as best he could, and all he saw were some waist-high shrubs and more of those short plants with the broad, maple-looking leaves. Only these had a single purple flower in the middle instead of a white one. Definitely not poison ivy. He made sure he was surrounded on all sides by foliage, turned off his phone, and sat back to wait.
It was torture. All he could think about was Ted Pimental’s condition, which had only incrementally improved. He hauled his mind out of the hospital room where Ted was hooked up to too many machines that were doing too many things he ought to be doing for himself. But then his thoughts landed on Sam, and then the election, and then …
He shook his head and fought the urge to look at his phone for the time. He had no idea how long he had until midnight. He decided he’d occupy himself with picking Maribel a bouquet of the little purple flowers within his reach. He had a dozen of them in his fist when he heard the snap of a twig off to his right. He froze. There was a slight scraping sound even farther right and then silence. Father Tony’s flock was here.
No more than a few minutes later, a battered Dodge Caravan puttered into the turnout with its headlights off. Father Tony got out and stood uncertainly by the driver’s-side door. A dark shape in the passenger seat meant he’d brought the pájaro with him. Hank was not happy about that. The wood dwellers made no sound.
The priest fidgeted for a moment and then seemed to realize that the immigrants did not know it was Javier in the van. He gestured through the window and Javier hopped out. A collective sigh arose from the trees, and men began to step forward.
Hank used their noise as cover to shift his own position for better viewing. Father Tony stepped forward and shook hands with a short man built like a washing machine—so broad he was almost square—who had to be the one who had hiked in to Branson to ask for help. He was also quite clearly the leader. The other eight men hung back near the tree line as the Maytag finished greeting the priest and turned to Javier. He wrapped the kid, who was six inches taller and at least a hundred pounds lighter, in a bear hug.
That seemed to grant permission for the rest of the group to step forward. They clustered around Javier, peppering him with questions and playful joshing. Most of them appeared to be about the same age as the pájaro. They hadn’t had the benefits of Chef Tony’s cooking for the past two weeks, though. Their gaunt frames rattled around in filthy clothes and lousy shoes. Two of them didn’t have anything on their feet at all.
Father Tony started to unload the food. He’d packed it well, and handed each worker a full satchel. He pulled Maytag off to the side and gave him a soft-sided cooler that Hank would bet held containers of still-hot chile verde. But the soup wasn’t as important as the conversation. Maytag leaned closer as Father Tony began speaking quietly. When he stiffened and drew back, Hank knew the priest had brought up the cop who wanted to talk to him.
Maytag shook his head and started to back away. He collided with one of the younger workers, who had approached with Javier. The kid gave Father Tony a shy little bow. Javier pointed to him and then over to the others, who had finished pulling the blanket packs out of the van and stood waiting.
His friends humbly ask for the father’s blessing, Javier said in Spanish. Before they go.
Maytag scowled and scanned the woods. Father Tony put his hand on the leader’s shoulder and said something that sounded like “Not here yet.” Maytag made to move toward the trees, but Tony’s grip tightened. He told the leader that he would bless the men before sending them back into the unknown.
The ragtag group immediately lined up behind the first young man, all of them looking relieved. Maytag relented and stepped to the side. Father Tony straightened to his full height and stepped to the front of the little line.
Hank quickly rose from his nest in the undergrowth and stepped from behind the tree. He needed to get to them before they were fortified with God’s grace and disappeared back into the woods.
Father Tony saw him and froze halfway through the sign of the cross. The line of supplicants broke and the young men started to scatter. Hank moved into the clearing with his hands out and his Spanish rapid.
“Por favor. Everyone stop. I am not here to arrest anyone. No one is in trouble.”
Maytag took a step backward toward the tree line.
Hank pointed at him. “Por. Favor.” It was not a request.
Maytag stared at him. What are you going to do, pal, chase me? Hank’s Spanish got even faster.
He needed their help. There was a fugitive in the woods, a very dangerous man, and he—the police—couldn’t find him. He needed to know if their group had seen the man, seen any sign of him, while they were out in the woods. That was all Hank wanted. He didn’t want them, at all. He wasn’t Immigration. All he wanted was the man. The man was a killer.
“Es muy importante,” he finished.
Javier nodded solemnly. The younger men shuffled their feet and considered what he’d said. Maytag clearly thought he was full of shit. And then the kid who’d been first in line for blessing spoke up.
“We saw a man. In the valley near the hill.” He pointed to the east. “We thought he was police, because he shot at us.”
The physical description matched Boone Taylor, although no one had gotten particularly close, for obvious reasons. That didn’t matter to Hank. He only cared where they’d seen him. The young men’s vague pointing wasn’t helping. He strode over to their leader.
“You need to help me. Now. You obviously know how to cover your tracks, which must mean you’re pretty good at picking up somebody else’s. Where is he?”
Maytag shifted the soup cooler from hand to hand. Finally he decided that the risk of giving Hank the information was outweighed by the risk of continuing to stand out in the open. He pivoted toward the east.
There was a rocky hill about two miles east, Maytag said. It was not high—from far away it did not appear above the normal rises in the forest. But up close, it seemed very tall, because it was surrounded on all sides by ravines and deep gullies that probably were carved by the rain running off the rocks. They had not been able to find a way up the hill. Also, it did not provide what Maytag believed to be a sufficient amount of cover. So they had skirted it—and that was when they ran into the blond man. They immediately went into avoidance procedures, but when the guy fired at them, they changed direction again, heading—
