One Mile Under (13 page)

Most important, given Hauck’s reason for asking, whether you’d been in trouble with the law.

“That’s what wasn’t making any sense to me,” Brooke said when she called him back that following morning. “Why I didn’t send a driver’s license along.”

Hauck had already been out for a jog, four laps around a park the gal at the front desk directed him to. He went back and did his crunches. He took a shower and ate some oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. Back in the old routine. “What’s that?”

“It’s that it’s all a blank. Colin Jerrod Adrian is a big zip. Zero.”

“He has to have a driver’s license?”

“Nope.”

“What about a bank account or a credit card?”

“Neither.”

“He doesn’t write a check? He hasn’t even filed taxes?”

“Not in the past four years. He hasn’t had as much as a traffic violation. Basically, the only sign that the guy is even breathing I could find is that he registered a car. Other than that, he’s a total cipher.”

“No one’s a cipher like that today, Brooke …”

“Someone is,” Broke said. “The only thing I could find, Ty, and even this I’m not sure of, was in a hit in his military records …”

“And what was that?”

“There was a Colin Jerrod Adrian from Oklahoma City who was an Army Ranger in the 101 Airborne and served in Iraq. Date of birth: May 11, 1984. He rose to staff sergeant and deployed twice to Iraq, in 2003 and 2005. But it doesn’t make sense. It can’t be the same guy.”

“And why not?” Hauck inquired.

“Because Staff Sergeant Colin Jerrod Adrian, DOB five, eleven, eighty-four, was listed as killed in 2006. In Fallujah.”

“Run that by me again?”

“According to U.S. Army records, he’s a casualty of war. Whoever it was that registered that car, Ty, he took this guy’s ID. That’s who doesn’t have a bank account or a tax filing in today’s world.”

“
Damn,
” Hauck muttered, dropping back on the bed, some major things suddenly coming clear to him.

Principally, that Dani was right.

“You want me to scan this stuff in and email it out to you?” Brooke asked.

“No, I won’t be needing that. Thanks.”

“So where are you going next with this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Let me know if you need anything else. And try to stay out of trouble.”

“I always stay out of trouble, Brooke.”

“Yeah, right,” she chortled.

They hung up, and he sat there, his head buzzing. Whoever it was who had followed Trey Watkins into the park that day, he had assumed a dead Army Ranger’s personal ID, which meant it was very likely something sinister had taken place, and all of Dani’s fears might well be true.

He thought of the balloon tragedy.

All of them.

He picked his phone back up and hit the app for Google Maps, and charted out a course. Four hours’ drive.

Where was he going next on this?
Brooke asked.

He got up and started throwing his things into his bag.

Templeton.

Where the trouble was.

“I want you to stay here,” he told her in no uncertain terms.

Hauck knocked on Dani’s door, around 11:30
A.M.
He remembered her saying last night she had the 8:00
A.M.
run, another later that afternoon. But she’d be around in between. She was just coming out of the shower when he came by, a towel wrapped around her as she peeked through the window next to the door, her hair still wet and thick with curls.

“Where’re you going?” she asked with some hesitancy, as if she could read it on his face.

He didn’t answer.

“You’re going to Greeley, aren’t you?” she said, her blue eyes flared.

“Templeton, actually. I’m just letting you know.”

“You can’t go up to Templeton,” Dani protested.

“I thought that’s what you wanted me to do?” Hauck said.

“I mean alone. You can’t go without me.”

“That’s not an option,” he told her. “Look, how about letting me in, please, just for a second …”

Dani opened the door, her shoulders bare, covered up in her towel. Her Lab came up and barked, and gave Hauck a welcoming lick.

“I’m just going to drive up and talk to your friend. Allie. Then I’m turning around and I should be back tonight. Depending on what she says.”

“What do you mean, ‘on what she says’? You know something, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do. What did you find out? C’mon, Uncle Ty, you can’t just keep me in the dark. I turned you on to all this. You do know something. I can tell.”

“I didn’t find out anything, Dani. I’m just gonna go up, like we talked about. And try and put this to rest. If I find something I’m going to report it to Chief Dunn. Like we agreed. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

“Uncle Ty, you can’t go up there without me.”

“Yes I can. I promised Wade, not to mention your dad, that I’d keep you out of this.”

“Out of
what
? You don’t even know where to go up there.”

“I’m a big boy. I have an idea. Charles Alan Watkins. The town of Templeton. It’s about four hours, give or take. It’s already in the GPS.”

“You have to take me! You don’t know them. What are you going to go up and say, ‘Uh, I know this’ll sound a little weird, but you know that accident everyone’s talking about … well did your husband know someone named Adrian, who might’ve had some reason to, um …
kill him
?’ They’re a simple farming family. They won’t even talk to you. Trey’s funeral is tomorrow. You just can’t intrude.”

“I’ve done this once or twice before, Dani. I think I can finesse the details. I’m not negotiating this. You just go to work.”

“Screw work. I can get have someone to handle my shift in ten minutes. I’ll be dressed in five. C’mon, Ty, you need me to go up there with you. Allie won’t open up to you. You know she won’t. At the very least, I can go to his funeral. Which I ought to anyway.” Her towel slipped down, half exposing a breast.

Hauck turned away. “Besides, it could be dangerous. Would you put something over yourself, please?”

“Why, dangerous? I can handle myself.” She tightened the towel back up. “Jesus, you’re thinking I’m right, don’t you! You learned something since I saw you last night and now you think I’m right! C’mon, Uncle Ty, what is it you know?”

His silence gave him away.

“Holy shit, I knew it! I knew it from the second I saw him there, in that eddy. Poor Trey … He got caught up in something, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know …”

“Uncle Ty, I’m going! That’s just the way it is. You wait for me, you hear!” She jumped up. “Blu, you watch him. Don’t let him move.” She ran into the bedroom, her towel flying off and exposing her backside as she bolted through the door. A tattoo on her shoulder. Before he averted his eyes.

He thought about just leaving while she was getting dressed, but now he knew she would only hop in her car and follow. Then he thought about maybe disabling her car. Disconnecting the battery or something. Or even dragging her ass back to Wade and throwing her back in a cell.

No, none of that would work, he realized. Other than the last thing.

She’d follow him.

Blu sat there staring at him, his large brown eyes sagging. “You take your job pretty seriously,” Hauck said to him.

He yelled into her bedroom, “You do exactly what I tell you, you hear? This isn’t a game, going up there. People are dead. You don’t open your mouth unless I say so. And then it’s only what I tell you to say. Understood?”

He could hear her opening and closing drawers, and running into the bathroom.

“You hear …?”

“Okay, I hear! I hear!” she yelled back, amid sounds of hastily throwing her things together.

“And when I say we come back, we come back. Whether you’re satisfied, or whether you think I’m just another Wade. You just get in the car with your mouth shut and we come back. No argument.
Okay …?
”

“I said okay already, Uncle Ty!
Okay!
”

“Okay, then. I’m going to take a lot of shit for this if it comes out. Your dad’s going to call and he’s gonna want to know what the hell we’re doing up there.”

“He called last night. I told him you were great. We’re safe for a couple of days.”

“And then there’s Wade. He’s gonna wonder if I’m still around and what you’re doing.”

“He’s the one who told me to get out of town! Anyway, I won’t answer his calls. What is he going to do, subpoena me?”

“I would.” Hauck stared at Blu with some deflation.
I must really be out of practice,
he thought.

She came back out of the bedroom. She’d thrown some things together in a yellow backpack, but she was wearing a waistless flax dress, V-neck, nice sandals, her golden hair long and brushed out, setting off her tan. “I know it’s not a game up there, Uncle Ty. I just want to find out what happened. He was my friend.”

Hauck nodded resignedly. He couldn’t help but shake his head and say, “You look nice.”

“I mean, we
are
going to someone’s house. It’s only respectful.”

“You’re right.” Hauck looked at himself in a black polo shirt hanging out of his jeans.

“You were just going to show up looking like that and assume they would open up to you …?”

He shrugged, agreeing reluctantly. She had a point. “I’ll stop and buy something on the way.”

“Blu, let’s motor, dude! We’re going in Uncle Ty’s car.” The Lab jumped to his feet.

Hauck shook his head. “Uh-uh. No fucking way we take the dog.”

“Of course he’s coming. He goes everywhere with me.”

“N-O. What didn’t you hear …?”

But by then Dani had put together a plastic bag with his food and grabbed his leash, and was already past Hauck, with Blu, out the door.

“I’m only kidding. We’ll drop him off at my friend’s. She watches him if I have to leave town.” Blu bounded into the back of Hauck’s rented SUV. “Shut the door on the way out. It automatically locks. We better get moving, don’t you think. Blu, in the back.”

Way out of practice,
Hauck muttered to himself, shutting the door.

Templeton was a tiny farming town in the eastern Colorado plains, an immense expanse of dry, seemingly endless brush and scrub about twenty miles east of Greeley, along the Cache la Poudre River.

This wasn’t the Colorado of the ever-expanding Denver or the glittery Rockies. The land here was flat and dry. From the highway, brown and yellow fields stretched endlessly on either side. The road signs they passed advertised gun shows and summer potato festivals. One they saw showed the image of downtrodden American Indians being herded onto a reservation, with the ominous headline “Take Away Our Guns.” Grazing cattle and livestock were visible from the road.

Once they got to Greeley they took Route 34, heading west along the river. The water seemed low, the level conspicuously below its banks. The fields on either side were brown and arid. It was clear the entire region was in the grip of an extended drought.

“Not much hope in being a farmer up here,” Hauck commented sadly, remembering what Trey’s family did.

“That’s for sure.” Dani nodded.

The town itself looked like one of those western towns time had forgot. One main street of washed-out, old brick storefronts: a bank, a café, an insurance co-op, a hardware store, and a feed center. All sandwiched around a couple of vacant storefronts. There was no one on the streets. It was clear the place had seen better days.

“I can see why Trey wanted out of this place as fast as possible,” Dani said, as they stopped at the one light.

They’d input the Watkins address into the GPS, and it took them out of town and on a straight country road that followed the river, which continued to be extremely low on its sides.

The sky was vast and wide with a layer of thin, high clouds. Everything seemed bone dry. All they did see were the occasional isolated trestles and the military beige cylindrical structures of oil wells.

About ten minutes out of town, dried-up fields on either side, the GPS had them make a left and they drove along a long, wire-fenced farm, or what would have been a farm had anything actually been growing. Many of the fields were dug, but seemingly not planted with anything. The crops Hauck did see were small and intermittent—onions, maybe potatoes. Some early corn. It was June; they were trying to grow, but nature seemed to have another plan. Irrigation ditches were dug all around, and long, transportable watering trestles sprayed the best they could, but Hauck didn’t see a stitch of real water anywhere.

At the end of the fence, the mailbox read
WATKINS
.

The house was a traditional red farmhouse with a couple of large barns: one for some equipment and tractors; the other, it appeared, for livestock. A few milking cows and some head of cattle ranged lazily in a field. Hay bales were stacked. A tall wind wheel sat at rest, as if waiting for a breeze. It didn’t take a
60 Minutes
piece to see life was hard here.

“How the hell do they even scratch out a living here?” Hauck looked around gloomily.

“Trey didn’t like to talk much about his family,” Dani said. “He just said it was way different than in the mountains.”

Around a dozen cars and trucks were pulled up either in front of the house or on the road. Hauck parked behind one and said to Dani, “
Ready?
”

She nodded. “Let me talk to Allie first. I’ll introduce you to her.”

“You’re the boss. Let’s go.”

Two people were leaving as he and Dani stepped onto the front porch and held the door. They nodded hello. The inside was austere and sparely decorated; comfort wasn’t a big factor here. Utility was. Sparse, wooden furniture, a simple open kitchen, threadbare couches and chairs, a lot of tartan plaid. There seemed to be around fifteen to twenty people standing around the kitchen and living room, picking at meat-and-potato pies and desserts. A few vases of flowers put out.

Someone called out, “Dani!”

A pretty young woman rushed up to them, her blond hair pinned up, wearing kind of a peasant dress.