Chapter 21
Rick
“The question, to my mind,” Keenan murmured, “is who do you bring in if this is beyond you. Or just not something you want to fuck with?”
It was a room where cops would sweat suspects, the taupe paint, the water-stained perforated ceiling tiles, and the battered steel table forming a tableau that practically cried out interrogation.
The harsh fluorescent overhead strip lights were so bright it made my head hurt.
Fucking strange place for a meeting.
But lots of things were strange in White Valley.
Keenan sat next to me, leaning back in his creaky plastic chair, his fingers laced together behind his head.
Genie was on my left, scribbling into her notebook. I’d asked her to take notes, and thankfully, she’d eagerly obeyed. I suspected she might have been grateful for something to distract her from pondering the scene we’d witnessed that morning.
“I do know someone,” I said. “Deals in… information. But he has connections to some seriously dangerous people. Maybe even a few from around here.”
Keenan’s voice was neutral. “And you think he’s gonna help us out?”
I couldn’t help my knowing smile. “He won’t have a choice.”
“And why would that be?
Just then, the door to the room opened and in strode Ford Matthis, the town’s sheriff. His ballcap style hat was tipped up slightly, one thumb tucked into a utility belt that carried a gun, handcuffs, and a Taser. A holster for a pistol at his thigh hung empty.
He was tall and well muscled, and his dark beard was beginning to frost with gray at the chin. He looked every bit the rugged, take-no-shit small-town lawman.
Ford regarded both of us with something akin to either impatience or suspicion. Likely both. “Okay, Keenan, I’m here. What are we talking about?”
“The disappearance. We want to discuss ways we might be able to… help.”
Ford lifted a finger toward me, but addressed Keenan. “You mean ways he can help.”
Keenan rolled his eyes. “He’s not here to get in your way. Neither am I. But we need to talk about this.” Keenan straightened the collar of his dress shirt. “I should officially introduce you two. Ford, this is?—”
“I know who he is. Rick Trafford is a name I’ve run across before. Unfortunately.”
I fucking knew this would be his attitude. Goddamned cops.
It seemed to throw off the normally unflappable Keenan—but only for a moment. “Well, good. We can get right to it then.”
Ford’s eyes narrowed, locked on Keenan. “This isn’t your job,” he snapped.
Keenan didn’t back down an inch. “No one implied it was. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to offer whatever assistance I can.”
“Why are you here, Mr. Trafford?” Ford’s gaze settled on Genie. “And who’s the girl?”
A note of petulance in her voice, she replied, “My name is?—”
“Not important,” I said, cutting her off. “She’s here to take notes for me. And she can be trusted.”
Ford looked pointedly at Keenan, who nodded. “Like Rick said. She’s good.”
I glanced between them both, trying to get a feel for what would be best to suggest. “Keenan asked me to come out, hear what’s been happening, give you my suggestions for who might be able to help. That’s it. I can’t promise anything more than that.”
“You came all this way… for that?” Ford shook his head slowly, then rubbed his jaw. “This isn’t the first time that a young woman has vanished in our town. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got a repeat of what we’ve had to contend with… in the past. Too early to make that call. It really could be… a whole lot of nothing.”
As Ford spoke, the tension grew in the room. There was something the lawman wasn’t telling.
Hell, he hasn’t told you a thing yet, you idiot.
Ford cleared his throat. “We received an official missing person’s report for one Olivia Madras. Twenty. Last seen in Promontory Park. Hasn’t been heard from in more than two weeks now. Just… vanished. Though it’s only one girl, the pattern is… eerily similar to spates of disappearances that bedeviled our town more than a hundred years ago. But so far, it’s only one. Might be just a runaway, and that’s actually what most of these turn out to be. In the end, anyway.”
“But not all of them. Is that right, Sheriff?” Keenan asked, setting down his mug on the bare, scarred steel of the interview room table.
Ford shrugged. “Sure, is it theoretically possible that the past is present again here in our town? Yes, young women have disappeared at or near Promontory Park before.” He paused, watching us both intently. “But there just isn’t much to go on. Occam’s razor says… it ends up as a runaway.”
Which was true. Any decent cop with a few years on the job would have said the same.
Keenan leveled a cool look at the sheriff. “But what do you think, Ford?”
The sheriff winced. “The problem with hunches is they’re right just about as often as a coin flip. Which doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in them. Do I have a hunch we’re looking at something… more? Yes, I do. But hunches aren’t enough. I’d need more than that.”
I laid a hand flat on the cold tabletop. “I’m not sure why I’m here then. Sounds like you’ve got things handled, Sheriff.”
“Not so fast,” Ford said, taking a seat in one of the chairs opposite us. “We’ve had problems of late here in town. Conflict. My own woman, Falon… there was an attempted kidnapping of her.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. I watched him closely though. Cops never said—or did—anything without a purpose to it.
“Luckily, she’s fine, and I’m positive I know the perp on that case.” Ford looked down a moment, as if weighing whether or not to proceed. “Here’s the issue. It might be related—Falon’s attempted abduction and Ms. Madras’ disappearance. Nothing solid, of course… but it smells.”
“Let’s talk, ah, hypothetically here, Sheriff, since we don’t have much to work with at present.” I was quickly concluding this was likely a wasted trip—lurid scenery notwithstanding—but I proposed it anyway. “Say the Madras disappearance isn’t the first one. What if you get a second, and a third, and a fourth?”
Ford’s jaw clenched. “Then I’d say it’s hard not to conclude it’s… happening again.”
“And if you determined that, what would come next?”
Ford glanced over at Keenan. “We’d need some help. It’s just me and two deputies out here.”
“Ah,” I said. “State patrol, then? Feds?”
Ford grunted. “Fuck, no.”
“So, in that event… then I might be of assistance?”
“We’d need help. But not your help.”
“Jesus, Ford,” Keenan said. “At least hear him out. What’s that gonna hurt?”
“Okay,” the lawman said, a sneer just beginning to curl his upper lip. “How would you help, Mr. Trafford? What would you suggest? Hypothetically, of course.”
I paused a heartbeat, knowing full well that the sheriff wasn’t going to like what I was about to say. But when it came to life, what one liked and what one had to accept were two different things.
Life didn’t seem to favor happy endings. Perhaps they were too neat, too clean? I’d lived long enough to know the cold, hard truth of that.
And a man had to see the world for how it really was, rather than fixating on some idealized, na?ve construct of ‘good’ or ‘fair.’
Life didn’t give a shit about fair. Life wasn’t logical; half the time it made no sense at all.
There was nothing to do but accept it.
No matter how bitter that particular pill might be to swallow.
“I think I know someone who might be able to help. Someone who knows this area well, who could point you in the right direction.” I hesitated, noting Ford’s scowl, then plunged on. “Someone with intimate knowledge of this part of the state. These forests, in fact.”
“There isn’t a soul in this town who knows this countryside better than Ford,” Keenan said laconically, then sipping from his cup again.
“Only one.”
Keenan’s brow lifted.
“Landon.”
Ford went utterly still.
Keenan set his cup down on the table, wiping his lips with a knuckle. “Landon?”
A muscle twitched at the corner of Ford’s jaw, his eyes blazing azure fury. “You want me to call… my brother. That’s not fucking happening.” Ford stood then, pulling down his ballcap, hooding his eyes in shadow. White Valley Sheriff was emblazoned across it in yellow, blocky letters. “I think our little chat is done, gentlemen.” He tipped his chin toward me. “Thanks for your input, Mr. Trafford. Know your way back out of town?”
I shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Don’t figure for too long.”
Then, without another word, the taciturn lawman walked out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.
“What a prick,” Genie said under her breath, slapping her pen down on her notepad.
“He’s a charmer, that one,” I drawled at Keenan.
My friend chuckled at that. “You have no idea. But I’m damned glad to have him here. We all are.”