Trace Evidence, page 11
Drake held out the map on the GPS screen. Flint glanced at it. The flashing blue dot was their location. The Wilcox place was another three miles away, inside the forest and up the mountainside. Nothing that looked like a clear path between the trees to get there.
He drove into a small opening that might have been a path at one time, maneuvering the Polaris in a zigzag pattern, roughly headed toward the red dot that should be the Wilcox compound.
“What do you know about Boyd Wilcox?” Drake asked.
“He’s an eccentric, but a wealthy one.” The Polaris landed hard in a hole and climbed out again. “Like other wealthy eccentrics. You know, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet types.”
“Guys with more money than God, you mean.”
“Yeah, but not only that. Wilcox is probably on the autism spectrum, if I had to guess. A genius at some things and totally inept at others. Socially awkward, to say the least.” Flint steered the Polaris around a fallen tree trunk. “And he’s always the most important man in the room.”
“How do you know?”
Flint frowned. “I had a case a while back.”
“What kind of case?”
“Missing person. His brother’s wife. She was kidnapped down in Las Vegas. A twenty-million-dollar ransom was demanded. The husband, Mark Wilcox, hired me to find her, but in the end, it was Boyd who paid my bill.”
“Did you find her?”
“Not exactly.” Flint scowled and steered the Polaris around a thick branch on the ground. “I found her severed head.”
Drake’s eyes widened. “Say what?”
“It was staged to look like an honor killing.” He jerked the wheel hard to the right to avoid a deep rut. “She was Saudi. Her family was against the marriage. They had another husband in mind.”
“Jesus.” Drake swiped a palm over his face. “I saw some beheadings during my service in Iraq. Grisly stuff. Why do you say this one was staged?”
“She was killed first—strangled—then beheaded later, according to the medical examiner. The head was frozen for a while.” Flint shook his head again, eyes straight, fighting the uneven ground. “A few weeks after she disappeared, her severed head was found in a dumpster in a Las Vegas neighborhood near where she was last seen.”
“Kidnappers ever found?”
“No.”
“What about the ransom?”
“Boyd Wilcox paid it. His brother didn’t have the money, but it was loose change to Boyd.”
“Something like that could really make a man crazy.” Drake shook his head. “How’d the husband take it?”
“About as well as you’d expect. He blamed me. He said I should have found her before they killed her. It was one of my first cases, and let’s just say I didn’t handle it as well as I would now. The situation was pretty ugly for a while. But after a year or so, he created a foundation to fund efforts to find kidnap victims like her. He’s made quite a crusade out of it. Got a reality TV show and everything.” Flint glanced over toward Drake for a moment before he focused again on the driving. Speed was slower than five miles an hour. “You’ve never watched The First Two Days? It showcases unsolved murders and kidnappings and the like? That’s Mark Wilcox’s life now.”
Drake whistled. “Powerful enemy, that guy.”
“Two powerful enemies instead of just one, now that Mark is a worldwide celebrity like his brother. Hasn’t been a problem because we’ve steered clear of each other.” Flint shrugged. “But yeah, let’s just say that I don’t expect them to invite me to dinner anytime soon.”
He struggled with the steering wheel in a losing effort to keep the Polaris flat on the ground. He tugged the wheel to avoid trees and boulders. Every now and then, the big tires hit a hole and struggled to climb out. It was slow going.
The blue light on the GPS beeped a couple of times and veered farther west.
“This would have been treacherous walking, if Hallman came this way,” Drake said. “Maybe he had a good flashlight. Maybe he wasn’t injured. Maybe he had some idea which direction to head.”
“Hard to guess how he’d have made it out of here on his own.” Flint’s gaze didn’t leave the windshield, but the view was the same in every direction. Nothing but tree trunks and rocky outcrops and thick vegetation blocking the daylight. “If that’s what happened.”
Before the words left his mouth, the unmistakable roar of a helicopter’s rotors filled the quiet. The tree canopy was dense. He couldn’t see the helicopter overhead, but he heard it pass. The noise increased as the helo’s altitude dropped for landing.
Drake looked at Flint and raised his eyebrows.
So the best way into the Wilcox compound was to fly. And there must be a helipad nearby.
He continued to struggle with the Polaris, but he headed toward the deafening roar of the helo. Only about two more miles, according to the GPS. Without the GPS, he’d have been lost for weeks. He could see nothing but forest in all directions.
The helo landed and the engines shut down. Now it was the quiet that deafened him.
The GPS said another mile, straight ahead. Flint felt like his entire body had been viciously pummeled. After the return trip, he’d be sore for days.
Drake pointed to the right. Flint squinted through the darkness. He saw a fenced area where the trees had been cleared, creating a large green space. A gravel driveway led to a substantial log house. “The Wilcox compound, no doubt.”
The GPS showed that the fence enclosed several buildings. The helipad must be located behind the house because the helicopter was not visible from the front.
Ten more minutes to maneuver the Polaris to the driveway. Flint drove through the archway and up to the house, parked the Polaris, and shut the engine off. When his feet hit the ground, his legs felt wobbly. He stretched the kinks out of his body and glanced around the premises.
Drake was doing his own stretching on the other side of the vehicle. No one came out of the house to greet them, which was odd.
“Wait here.” Flint took the steps two at a time and reached the front door with his fist raised, poised to knock. Before he had the chance, the door opened.
“How can we help you?” The man sounded friendly enough. He was probably about fifty, Flint guessed. Dark hair, gray at the temples. His body suggested regular use of a good gym. Well dressed, in the kind of bespoke outdoor casual clothes that city fashion magazines advertised and no real outdoorsman would ever wear. Only his boots were practical, designed to cover the uneven ground outside of the fence.
“I’m Michael Flint.” He extended his hand and the man shook it but didn’t offer his own name in return. Flint gestured toward the Polaris. “This is Drake. We drove over from Red Maple Lake Resort. We understand Boyd Wilcox lives here.”
The man neither admitted nor denied it. Nor did he invite them inside.
“I’d like to speak with him.”
“Wait here.” He closed the door. His boots echoed along wood floors toward the back of the house.
Flint walked the length of the porch and looked around the property as well as he could from this vantage point. On the west side of the house, beyond the green space was nothing but thick forest. The front drive continued about a hundred feet beyond the archway and then turned east, away from Red Maple Lake Resort. There were outbuildings on the east side of the main house.
Perhaps the only way in and out of this place was by helicopter. But then, why have a driveway at all? No, it was more likely that the driveway hooked up with another gravel trail of some kind on the east side.
Five minutes passed before the front door opened again. Mark Wilcox stood there, tall and solid and frowning. “What do you want, Flint?”
He held his temper. Clients were rarely satisfied when Flint found missing loved ones only after they’d been murdered. How could family be satisfied with that result? Flint promised to find people dead or alive. But dead was rarely anyone’s first choice. And Aludra Wilcox’s murder had been particularly gruesome. She and Mark were newlyweds. The sick bastard who killed her remained at large, despite all of Mark’s considerable efforts to find him. No reason why Mark Wilcox would have any lingering affection for Flint. None at all. And the feeling was mutual. If he’d known Wilcox was involved with Hallman, he’d have refused Beaumont’s pleas right from the start.
“Any chance you’ve got a place to sit and a cup of coffee?” Flint asked. “This one’s a long story.”
“I’m not really interested in your story.” Mark Wilcox scowled. “I don’t have anything to say that you’d be interested in, either. And Boyd isn’t here.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Call his office. His assistant can help you.” Wilcox pushed the door and Flint put his booted foot between the door and the jamb and pushed back hard with his shoulder.
Wilcox wasn’t expecting the move. He stumbled backward. Flint pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside. Drake dashed up the steps and followed.
Wilcox’s surprise vanished and a deep scowl replaced it. “Get the hell out of my house.”
“It’s your brother’s house.” Flint settled his weight, prepared to fight.
Before Wilcox’s anger could boil over, the first man returned, entering from a doorway on the right. “What’s going on, Mark?”
Another man followed close behind the first. He might have been the helo pilot. Hell, he could have been anybody. Flint was past caring at the moment. He was willing to give Mark Wilcox a wide berth, but he wouldn’t be pushed around.
“No problem, Kevin,” Wilcox growled and waved the first guy away. “Flint and his friend are looking for someone. That’s what he does. But he’s not very good at it.”
“We have no visitors with us,” the third man said. His voice was low and a little gravelly. He looked vaguely menacing, as if his role in this trio was hired muscle. “Who are you looking for?”
“Let’s sit at that table there. You can give me some coffee. And we’ll talk,” Flint said without relaxing his guard. He didn’t expect Wilcox to start a fistfight, but he wouldn’t mind. The man was an ass. Always had been. Always would be. There was unfinished business between them. Today was a fine day to settle it as far as Flint was concerned.
Wilcox shrugged. He turned and led the way to the dining table. All five men pulled chairs and sat.
“Let’s start with names. As I said, I’m Michael Flint. This is Alonzo Drake. We know Wilcox. Who are you?”
“Kevin Hayes,” the first man said. “Ruben Vega,” the second one replied.
Flint nodded. “I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for a man who disappeared from this area. Josh Hallman. He was the pilot of a Cessna T206 that crashed in the lake six years ago. This is the closest dwelling to the crash site.”
The three men looked at each other. Something Flint couldn’t decipher passed between them. Ruben was the one who responded. “Boyd allows us to use the place. For fishing, hiking. Maybe once or twice a year.”
“So you’re saying you weren’t here at the time of the crash?”
“Not likely,” Kevin said, which wasn’t exactly an answer.
“There were three men in that plane. Three men with families.” Flint looked at Wilcox longer than the others. “You know how this goes, Mark. Wives and kids are looking for these guys. I’ve promised to find them.”
“Yeah, I know how you work,” Wilcox replied, a sour expression on his face. “If they crashed, they probably died. Finding the bodies isn’t going to make anyone feel better. We handle situations like this on my show all the time. The family is never happy with anything other than a happy ending.”
Kevin said, “Exactly how do you two know each other?”
Mark’s permanent scowl had left deep lines on his face that aged him beyond his years. “I hired Flint to find Aludra when she was kidnapped. We all know how that turned out.” Kevin nodded. Ruben stared.
They must have known that Wilcox had turned his personal tragedy into an empire based on a worldwide television audience. In the past few years, he’d assisted the FBI with cold cases and public manhunts on a massive scale. He was instantly recognizable and, some would say, enjoyed a reputation that bordered on hero worship among his viewers.
Flint looked from one to another. “Who uses this place besides you?”
Wilcox shrugged. “It’s my brother’s house. I don’t know who uses it. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I’ll do that. But since I’m here, show me around. Could help me find Hallman.” He pushed his chair back and stood. Drake followed suit.
“The place isn’t that big. Won’t take long.” Kevin stood, too. “Let’s take a quick tour of the house and grounds. You need to get back to the resort. It’s easy to get lost in those woods in the dark and you don’t have much daylight left.”
Kevin led the way down a long, wide corridor with several closed doors on either side. “These are bedrooms. Eight. All furnished the same.” He opened one door and allowed Flint and Drake to step inside. The room was furnished like a rustic hotel. Two beds. Dressers. Chairs.
An en suite bathroom.
Flint glanced around. “No telephone? No television?”
Kevin shrugged. “We don’t have phone or internet service here and we come to this place to escape technology.”
Flint and Drake left the room and closed the door behind them. They followed Kevin into a large open kitchen, decked out as if a hobby chef with too much money had furnished it. The kitchen, like everything else he’d seen so far, was sparse and expensively appointed and excessively tidy. Not a speck of dust or anything else could be seen on the gleaming granite countertops or the stainless steel appliances.
“Who does the cooking when you’re here?” Drake asked. “And where do the supplies come from?”
“We take turns. We bring food with us in the helo.”
Kevin led the way through the kitchen and out the back door to an open yard and large paved patio area that seemed newer than the buildings. A hot tub was nestled into a cozy corner. The helicopter rested idle and quiet on the helipad, a few feet beyond the hot tub. A couple of outbuildings flanked the side of the main house. “What’s in those buildings?”
He pointed toward the farthest of the two. “A propane generator for electricity. A couple of freezers for supplies. Gardening equipment.
Things like that.”
“Where’s your pilot?” Drake asked.
“He’s in the cabin over there,” Kevin pointed to the first outbuilding. A light was burning inside.
Flint walked toward the cabin. “What’s his name?”
Kevin raised his eyebrows again, before he followed along behind. “Larry Cole.”
At the door, Kevin rapped firmly. A tall, rugged man opened. “Larry, this is Michael Flint and Alonzo Drake. They are looking for a missing man.”
“Missing from where?”
“A plane crash in the lake.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Didn’t see anything flying in, either.”
“The plane went down six years ago.”
Cole shrugged. “Before my time. I’ve only been flying out here for a few years.”
“Who flew the helo before you?”
Kevin said, “Mark was our pilot until Larry took over the job.”
“Sorry I can’t help you,” Cole said.
“Me, too,” Flint replied.
-
Chapter Sixteen
Red Maple Lake, California
Tuesday
Kevin led them around the house toward the driveway. Drake walked behind. Flint was between the two. He felt like several pairs of eyes were following them, but the feeling was based on nothing. The only sounds he heard were the soles of their boots landing on the ground.
When Flint reached the Polaris, he stopped near the passenger door while Drake walked around and climbed behind the wheel. “What are you guys doing out here, Kevin?”
“Like Mark said. Fishing. A little hiking. Poker. Man talk.” Kevin shrugged. He bowed his head and kicked at the stones in the dirt. “You know how it is.”
“Where do you live?” Flint’s internal radar was up on all of these guys. He’d already had a bad experience with Mark Wilcox. Wilcox’s friends were likely to be no better than he was and might be worse. No reason to trust any of them.
“I’m in San Diego. Ruben travels. You already know about Mark and Boyd.”
“What line of work are you in?”
“I’m a pediatrician.”
Flint raised his eyebrows. “And Ruben?”
“He works with Boyd.”
Flint cocked his head. He’d been lied to many times in his life, but so far Kevin had seemed honest enough. Which probably meant he’d been asking the wrong questions. “One of Josh Hallman’s friends suffered a compound femur fracture in the crash. When they pulled his body out of the lake, the autopsy report stated that someone had tried to stabilize the fracture. They also found morphine in his system.”
“He must have been in a lot of pain.” Kevin looked down and kicked at the ground with his boot again.
“I’m thinking that someone with at least a strong knowledge of field first aid must have found him.” Flint waited a moment. “Maybe even a doctor. It’s not like there are pharmacies to get morphine out here. Someone must have carried the morphine and other supplies in from somewhere.”
Kevin did not reply.
“When pediatricians leave their offices, even for a few days’ vacation, people know. Staff. Insurance companies. Patients.” Flint paused again, but Kevin still said nothing.
He heard footsteps crunching on the gravel behind him. He glanced around to see Ruben near the side of the house, headed toward them.
