American Crow (22 page)

Hurriedly, I slid underneath the truck
with the Nissan on its back then pressed my face against the dirt as one of the
guards returned.

‘Shut the fuck up, Gibson!’

The guy waited for the barking to quieten
down, then headed back to the main gate cursing under his breath. When I was
sure he’d gone, I crawled out and eyed the wreckage of the battered Nissan on
top.

The floodlights were illuminating the
chassis perfectly, and there were bullet holes sprayed all across the driver’s
side door…

‘What in the hell…’

Using the wheel-housing as a footrest, I hauled
myself up onto the back of the flat-bed and peered anxiously through the
smashed window inside. Much of the interior had been burnt out from the fire
and the plastic melted, leaving just the springs of the seat poking out through
the disintegrated upholstery.

I reached through the window and forced
open the glove compartment with my one free hand. Amazingly, there were some
driving documents still inside, scorched but intact. I pulled them out and
fingered through the singed paper. The car belonged to one, Phil Peterson,
Ethan’s friend. He’d probably left it close to the ranch, and at some point
Corrigan’s men had opened up on the pair as they made their getaway.

I returned the papers and stared down at
the charred trainer lying in the foot well, then pivoting my stomach on the car
door, leaned in and grabbed it. It looked small. It looked like a women’s.

‘Damn it...’

Deciding I’d seen enough, I tied the
trainer to my belt, lowered myself down then worked my way back through the
shadows, incurring the wrath of the Doberman again, that was now being abjectly
ignored by the security guards much to my relief.

Back at the first stack, I waited
anxiously for the wind to subside in the darkness then painstakingly climbed up
the same precarious pile onto the roof again, where I eyed the jacket sleeve
I’d left hanging down.

‘Bollocks...’

Now I
really
didn’t like the look
of it. I stood up gingerly wondering if the fabric would hold, then slid to the
far edge of the roof and knew that there was only one way to find out...

I ran at the wall full tilt, reaching out
for the material in mid-air but missed then fell backwards onto the roof where
I smacked down so hard it sounded as if a bomb had gone off in the compound.

The Doberman responded instantly and went
berserk. Several doors slammed loudly far off. Then I heard voices echoing out
across the yard, hurried footsteps heading towards me. I had to get the hell
out of there before it was too late, before I was cornered by the guards and
the police were called...

I righted myself in a daze, took a few
steps back, then leapt again, this time successfully grabbing the jacket sleeve
with one hand, allowing me to gain a second purchase higher up with the other,
and haul myself up successfully onto the lip of the wall.

Quickly, I put my bomber jacket back on,
lowered myself down onto the roof of the static, then jumped down onto the
sedan, scrambled under the fence, and worked my way back through the industrial
complex to the pick-up, where I took a few good breaths hands on knees,
thinking what a close call it had been.

‘Jesus...’

I righted myself, untied the trainer and
threw it on the passenger seat, relieved I hadn’t been mauled by the Doberman,
caught by the guards or crushed under a pile of cars, then sparked up the
engine and headed out of town, knowing that whatever had gone on at Corrigan’s
place, Olivia looked to have been there when it all happened, and more
worryingly, the police seemed only too happy to cover it up...

 
Chapter Twenty-Three

‘re-united’

I
t was around three in the morning by the time I’d finally
threaded my way back through the mountains and pulled up outside Martha’s lodge
again.

I clicked the truck door gently shut,
crept back across the gravel, then fanned the back door open just as quietly,
trying not to wake anyone, desperate to hit the covers and get some sleep.

When my eyes finally settled on the
reception committee the other side though, I realised it had all been in vain.
Everyone was up and waiting for me, sat around the fire...

‘Blake,’ Nancy gasped, running towards
me, concern etched into her tired features. ‘Did you find her?’

‘No,’ I said smiling over her shoulder at
the familiar faces huddled together.

‘There’s some fresh coffee on the stove, buddy,’
Tug announced, holding his wife’s hand like they were newlyweds.

‘It’s good to see you,’ I said, pleased
that something positive had happened for once.

I peeled away from Nancy’s embrace as
Martha poured me a strong black coffee and stared at the tear in my trousers.

‘I must have caught it on something...’

Nancy stooped down to examine my leg
closer.

‘It’s cut pretty deep, Blake. Jesus, I
can see the bone,’ she said, sounding annoyed.

‘Was that doing something you shouldn’t be
doing, in a place you shouldn’t be doing it in again, buddy?’ Tug said, like
some older brother.

‘Might have been,’ I said, finding all
the attention amusing.

‘Well you certainly have been stirring up
a few hornet’s nests since you came back to the U.S, pal. You know there’s a
warrant out for your arrest in Iowa?’

I felt the bite of the antiseptic sting
my leg as Nancy dabbed the wound, then looked over at Tug, smiling like a boy
who’d been up to no good.

‘You serious?’

‘I’m damned serious, Blake. Looks like
you tugged the beard of the wrong man back at that diner you stopped at...’

‘The bounty hunter?’

‘Exactly. One William McDougal. An old
school fugitive reinforcement officer from the area. He did his homework on you
via the CCTV, then traced the truck back to one, Honey Finnigan, the owner. He
then managed to track her down in person where she told him about a guy she’d
picked up who’d stolen a rig from her friend, outside Mickey’s Diner in
Minneapolis only a few days earlier.’

I sighed knowing what was coming.

‘And it appears that
that
truck
belonged to a guy from St Paul’s called Jed McCain, who ran a nice little
side-line in smuggling people across the border, before his wheels got torched.
He’s now helping the State Police with their enquiries and singing like a bird
it seems, to save his ass.’

‘Is that so…’ I said, wondering how Tug
was going to play it.

‘Certainly is…’

‘And do you know what else?’ he said,
with a knowing glint in his eye.

Nancy stopped bandaging my leg and looked
over at Tug, as if expectant for the next bombshell.

‘There’s footage from the diner showing
you pick up Jed McCain’s keys, heading outside, then driving off in his damned
truck...’

‘Oh shiiit,’ Martha exclaimed under her
breath.

‘Now, what I want to know is...why would
you want to steal the man’s truck when he’s just smuggled you into the darn
country?’

‘Fair question,’ I said calmly, as Nancy
joined Martha at the stove, looking perplexed.

‘Shall we have a little chat outside?’ he
said breaking the tension.

‘Sure…’

He stood up, kissed Chrissie’s hand then
walked across the kitchen expecting me to follow. I decided to keep him happy
and joined him on the ramshackle terrace, where we both pulled up a couple of
wooden chairs and waited for each other to speak.

‘Nice, very nice,’ Tug said eventually,
as some wind-chimes sounded in a tree nearby.

‘Calming...’ I said noticing the gun
poking out of his jacket. 

‘Well, if you’ve got something of
importance to tell me, Blake, best you do it now, because in all the years I’ve
served, I’ve never broken the rules once…’ He sighed and stared at me intently
for a second as if reluctant to carry out some task. ‘Now some people might say
that was why Chrissie left me, and I’m beginning to think that maybe I should
have done it more often, you know. So say what you gotta to say to me now, and
it might persuade me to do it for once, huh?’

Just as I went to speak, he raised a hand
in the air, bidding me silent again.

‘And, no bull crap, okay? I don’t do
crap. I’ve done some digging around myself. Got a friend who’s a Fed in fact,
who checked you out, unofficially of course, and it seems that you’re someone
who’s not exactly welcome in this part of the world…’

I tensed.

‘Go on…’

‘Your photos oddly match one, William
Bury, who’s wanted in the State of Nevada...’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘For murder
no less...’

‘Is that so?’ I said becoming more
anxious. 

‘Now why in the hell would you risk
coming back to the U.S with a murder charge hanging over you, Blake, or
whatever you call yourself these days? And more importantly, did you damn well
do it?’

I faltered for a second, unsettled that
Tug knew about the Nevada job. The cops must have found out a lot more back
then than I’d hoped...

‘To answer your second question, it was
genuine self-defence. To your first, I needed a change of scene...’

Tug pulled a face.

‘A-change-of-scene?’

‘Look, I find people. It’s what I do. You
know that.’

He finished the rest of his coffee and
placed the cup slowly down on the table as if he was thinking about his next
question.

‘Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier if you
just kept your work consigned to your own country.’

‘People can’t choose where they go
missing, Tug.’

‘So what happened in Nevada?’ he pushed,
changing tact.

I looked into his determined eyes and
knew I’d come up against an immovable object. I eyed him warily, chewing over
how much more to reveal.

‘I was trying to find someone’s brother a
couple of years ago. Officially the guy was dead, supposedly from some drowning
incident in Venezuela, but his twin thought different. You know how connected
people say twins can be...

‘Well, this guy felt that his brother was
still alive, just living somewhere on the quiet, and that he’d gone walkabouts
to escape his spiralling debts and his nagging wife.’

Tug edged forward, hands resting on his
knees seemingly interested at being let in on some big secret.

‘So...’

‘So, this missing guy owed a lot of
people we found out. We followed all the money trails, the transactions, but
one by one they all drew a blank. The guy was good at covering his
tracks...Then finally one day, we got lucky, and I stumbled across a fresh lead
in Vegas of all places.’

I downed some more coffee to moisten my
dry mouth.

‘After a week or so of digging around I uncovered
an illegal gambling operation, which this guy, Tynsdale was involved in. Some
low-life types were using his table knowledge to set up bogus card games for
ridiculously high-stake games, to fleece fresh meat. You know…businessmen and
high-rollers with zero sense and lots of cash to burn.’  

‘But something went wrong?’ Tug pressed.

‘I’d managed to find out where the
operation was based and was just about to take some pictures of the guy, when I
got clocked by an associate of his...’

Tug nodded calmly like he was taking down
notes at a crime scene.

‘Things got heavy and it ended up being
either this guy, or me.’

Tug blew out some air.

‘Jesus...’

Chrissie stuck her head out of the door
suddenly, breaking the intensity of the conversation.

‘More coffee, guys?’

‘Not now!’ Tug barked, before checking
himself. ‘We’ll be back in in a minute, sweetheart...’

Chrissie shrugged and disappeared. I
suppressed my amusement.

‘So what happened after that?’ Tug
enquired, sounding genuinely concerned.

‘Someone clocked my plates leaving the
scene. I decided that I had to get out of Nevada and then the country pretty
damned fast, that’s what. I got the photos after all, proving the guy’s
existence. My job was done...’

‘So, did the cops pursue it? Are there
extradition papers outstanding to bring you back to the U.S to face trial?’

‘No, I always travel with false documents
as a matter of habit. You see, I don’t just trace people, Tug, sometimes I have
to bring them back too, and against their wishes if they’re not seeing sense at
the time. Difficult situations can arise...’

‘Cult extraction, that sort of thing you
mean?’

I nodded.

‘Child abduction too. Sometimes I have to
work on the wrong side of the law to get the job done, because the law can fail
people. The good parent doesn’t always win, especially if the other has the
money to hire a good lawyer, or has gone to ground.’

Tug leant back in his chair taking it all
in, his granite face remaining expressionless.

‘After my daughter’s funeral, I decided
to quit tracing work altogether. I saw her death as a sign, saw it as the
reason in fact why she wasn’t here anymore. But I quickly found myself in a rut
and needed to do something about it, or go the same way...

‘Then, the very day of Laura’s birthday I
get a call from my former boss saying that some teenager has gone missing in
the U.S. He tells me that she’s exactly the same age as what my Laura would
have been if she’d lived, that I’m the only one who can find her, as everyone
else has let his client down.

‘The next thing I know, I’m wedged under
Jed McCain’s rig sneaking over the Canadian border into the U.S, freezing my
balls off.’ I stared up at the stars for a second then lowered my gaze to his.
‘I had to take the case on for my own sanity, Tug...’

The cop ran a hand through his thick hair
then blew out some air slowly.

‘I would have done the same thing, if I’m
honest.’

For a few seconds we sat in silence until
he pursed his lips again, as if preparing to deliver the next question.

‘So what did you find out about Ethan and
his friend? Chrissie told me the news...We weren’t close by the way. He was a
nephew of hers from her first marriage.’

‘It wasn’t an accident. There were bullet
holes in the bodywork. And the vehicle was taken straight to a junkyard out of
town to be scrapped, before a thorough forensic could be carried out.’

‘You kidding me? Who was overseeing the
investigation?’

‘The city police. But they appear to be
in Corrigan’s pocket.’

‘Who?’

‘Lyle Corrigan. He owns most of the mineral
rights in the mountains in these parts, and is prepared to do anything and
everything to protect his right to mine them however and whenever he wants.’

‘I know the sort of guy. We got plenty in
Minnie…’

‘Ethan it appears, decided to take some
direct action, and ended up getting himself and his best friend killed. I
believe that Olivia was with them too now, but wasn’t at the crash scene by the
end of it. None of them have been mentioned in the local news either, meaning
that she’s probably being held somewhere against her will by Corrigan, or has
managed to flee the scene undetected and hasn’t surfaced yet…’

‘Are you serious?’

Tug’s wife tapped on the glass to rebuke
him from inside.

‘We’ll be in in a minute, sweet pea…’ he
yelled not wanting to prise himself away from our conversation.

‘So that’s the state of play. You know
everything now. No bull crap.’

‘Quite a story,’ he said shaking his head
slowly. ‘Of course, I’m still going to have to take you in…’ An uneasy silence
descended suddenly. I stared straight into the cop’s eyes trying to ascertain
if he was serious or not. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m only playing with ya...’
he announced after a few excruciating seconds.

‘You scared the shit out of me there for
a moment, Tug.’

‘Look, you helped me get Chrissie back,
gave me a second chance, and that means a lot to me, makes me feel not so bad
about breaking the god-damned rules for once myself…So what do you need?’

‘Anything you can get on Lyle Corrigan
and quickly.’

Tug sucked the air through his teeth.

‘I’m just a beat cop from Minnesota, you
know, but I
do
have an old friend who lives down this way who might know
something. Let me see what I can do...’