River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) (16 page)

30

TRAM VILLAGE, CHINA.

Catatonic.

Wait, are you catatonic if you have the ability to
recognize that you're catatonic?
Charlotte didn't know. She knew she was trying to tell the giant that yes, she did want a glass of water, but nothing was coming out.

She also suspected that she should have been crying for the last two days, but why cry about something that wasn't real?
It was a dream.
She pinched herself again hard on the back of the arm. The giant scrambled over and pulled her hand away. She looked at her bare arm where he was pointing. Bruises everywhere.

It's
okay,
she tried to tell him. Nothing came out.

She was back in the hotel suite where the crazy dream had started. Just a few blocks from home, she figured. The dream wouldn't end until she got there to see the kids.

The stocky boss man came in again.
Ciao, Shaw, Zhe . . .
Xiao
, that
was it.
He'd been sticking around the dream for a while now.

Charlotte could hear him talk, but it was muffled as though he were underwater. “I need you wake up.”

I'd love to wake up,
she thought.
Can you
help?

“Wake up!” This time it was less garbled. Louder. A slap across her face. She didn't feel it, just as she didn't feel the pinches.

“Get the phone!” she heard him say to the giant, who had also been in the dream for too long.

He held it to her ear. “It's the deputy, Charlotte. Talk!”

She must have dreamt that she was older. Her husband—
what was his name?
—was the deputy when they were in their thirties. Maybe she was dreaming the future. Someday he would be the chief. He would love that.

Finally, words came. “Honey?” she called softly into the phone.

“Charlotte? What the hell is going on?”

“Don't be mad.”

“This is Layle, Charlotte. What's going on over there?”

Layle was his name. Oh
well.
She thought she remembered something different.

“Nothing. Sleeping.”

Xiao yanked the phone from Charlotte's ear. “She's not well.”

Snarky bastard.

She couldn't hear Layle's response.

Xiao spoke again. “Nothing. She's had some . . . what do you call . . . trauma.”

I'm fine,
Charlotte thought.

“So you've not found my daughter?” Xiao was getting angry. “We'll talk about Terrell when you give better news.”

Terrell,
Charlotte recognized,
is my
last name.

* * *

Layle dropped the phone back in its cradle. It was 6 p.m. but he was nowhere near going home. Keeping the secret was driving him crazy, but Xiao seemed to know everything. If he enlisted help, he had no doubt the man would do something insane. If he hadn't already.

Jess, Layle's fiancée, was calling on his cell again.
Goddammit!

“Hello?”

“Jesus, what's up your ass?”

“Honey, I . . . nothing, I just can't talk right now. Work is crazy.”

“Sure. You better not be with some woman.” She was kidding, but it sent him over the edge.

“Why do you always do this? Can't you tell I don't have time for this shit?”

No response.

He looked at the phone's screen.
Call ended.

Layle cursed and slammed his fist down on the desk. A few files of census data slid off and fell all over the floor. He tilted his head back and sighed, trying to compose himself. In the last few days, he had focused solely on finding Meirong Xiao, except for the brief meeting with Noelle Klimpton to close the wolf case.

He'd searched old county and state cases back to 1980. All arrest records. Census data, phone books, and online. Real estate transactions, old newspapers, business records, articles of incorporation, and civil complaints. Even in surrounding areas. There was no trace of her.

He had run out of resources. Nothing to do but climb up on the roof and yell her damned name.

For the second time that day, Deputy Layle looked through the
FBI contact folder from the chief's desk. He knew what he was looking for: CIRG or Critical Incident Response Group. This was the department that provided emergency assistance for hostage situations, kidnappings, and crises. He dialed the main line but hung up, wondering whether Xiao might intercept the call. Instead, he walked across the hall to the DMV, overrode the network's email password protection with his county-clearance code, and typed up a message to the address listed under “Tips.”

Layle filled the email with as much detail as he could without revealing his own identity. He took a deep breath and sent it, then returned to his desk, where he unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on the hook and pulled on a U of Wyoming football sweatshirt. He grabbed the keys to his pickup and locked his office.

Instead of driving back over the pass and home to Victor, Layle headed to the brewpub. The first amber ale and whiskey shot went down too easy, but not as easy as the second round. The dinner crowd filtered in around 7 p.m., filling every available seat. For his third, Layle switched to the pale ale and omitted the whiskey. He started looking around: first, to see if someone fitting Meirong's description might wander by, and second, to make sure there weren't any Chinese henchmen stalking him.

His paranoia grew worse with beers four and five. That was when his phone rang. The caller ID said “Blocked,” like every call from Xiao.

“Be right back,” he told the bartender.

The sun was setting and it was cold outside. Snow King Mountain was making snow for the upcoming season.

“Hello?”

“Layle Statler?”
Surprise
. It was a pleasant woman's voice, with a mild accent that he couldn't place.

“Yeah?”

“I'm calling about the tip you left on the bureau's website.”

Layle was uneasy. He looked around at the locals smoking in the parking lot.

“How'd you get this number?”

The woman sighed. “We're the FBI.”

“Yeah, well, I'm a cop; you can't find a personal cell phone number just from an IP address.”

“Our resources are extensive, Mr. Statler.”

The deputy doubted the woman, but went along. “What's your name?”

“Agent Rachel Vandeleur.”

“Hang on, Agent Vandeleur.” Layle walked out of the brewpub's parking lot and onto Millward Street, heading south to get away from anyone who might overhear. He stopped between two parked cars, checked his surroundings, and spoke. “Okay, let's talk.”

“How have you been in contact with the people holding the chief?”

“Phone. Blocked number. Same as yours.”

Vandeleur ignored Layle's suspicion. “We can get around that. Do you have any other information about the captors?”

“His name is Xiao, the one in charge. They are being held at a resort in China. Tram Village, China. That's why the chief went there—to do publicity for this resort based on our town. But it was a ruse, I guess. The guy, Xiao, wants his daughter back; he's totally obsessed. He says she's somewhere here. But I . . .” Guilt washed over him. “I can't find her, and I haven't heard from the chief himself in a while.” Layle described the phone calls from China, Xiao's increasing frustration, and the uncertainty of Terrell's condition.

“It's okay, Deputy. We'll get them back safely.”

“What should I do?”

“It's important that you don't tell anyone about this. We must be discreet, or we risk creating an international incident. If the chief's stay goes longer than expected, tell your department that the Terrells extended their vacation.”

“That's it? What—what are you going to do?”

“Talk to my superior, discuss with Foreign Affairs, verify our jurisdiction, and then act.”

Vague.

“Can you keep me updated on the progress?” A hiccup from the craft beer.

“Yes, Deputy. We'll be in touch. Call me if you hear from Xiao again.” She gave the deputy her number. It had a 202 area code.

The woman hung up. Layle glanced around once more, then headed back to the pub to try to forget about it for now.

31

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA. OCTOBER 24.

10 P.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME.

Assistant Director Wright didn't sound pleased to be on the receiving end of Divya's late-night phone call.

“We intercepted a message from Terrell's stand-in, sir. The deputy.” Divya and Wright had jumped through a month of bureaucratic hoops over the summer to bug the police station. It hadn't been easy. Since the mid-twentieth century, two congressional subcommittees, the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence (SSCI) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had overseen the actions of the CIA. Neither had been too keen to investigate a fellow lawmaker, let alone bug the office of a state law-enforcement entity. But Wright had swayed them, highlighting the potential ramifications of taking no action.

Divya listened to Wright and cringed, hoping he approved of her intervening and improvising with the deputy.

“Yes, he contacted the FBI,” she replied. “CIRG, to be precise.” She scratched a few notes onto a pad. “Well, I told him we would get the chief back.”

A short rant from Wright, then: “Luckily, both oversight ­committees—SSCI and HPSCI—are on recess with the rest of Congress. Don't ever tell them about going over the heads of CIRG and the feds. It's between you and me.” He went on with a few more questions.

“Right. He has no reason to suspect anything more than a simple quid pro quo. The chief for the daughter.”

A few more notes.

“Thank you, sir.”

After hanging up, Divya grabbed her notepad and tossed it into her briefcase. Wright was never totally happy with anything, but he sounded relatively approving of her stratagem. She was instructed to carry on with the Agent-Rachel-Vandeleur ruse to see what she could find out.

Divya picked up the desk phone and called her favorite cab driver.

“It is late, Rashi, I know. Thank you.”

A few agents were still in various departments of Langley, men and women unfamiliar to her. She threw them weak smiles and nods. The CIA didn't approve of too much socializing between units.

* * *

At home in Georgetown, Divya drew a bath. She did some of her best thinking there, although for this case it was really Wright's job to do the thinking.

A simple task had become a mess. Figure out how and why an Idaho senator had come to be familiar with a Chinese technology
that was not only top secret but also developed by one of the most elusive and dangerous Chinese spies in history. A spy who had allegedly given up his trade nearly a decade ago.

An
Idaho senator, for God's sake. How did these two
individuals find each other?

How the daughter played into it all was another question, though of secondary importance to the agency. But finding her was paramount, if only because it would help get the chief's widow back.
Poor woman.

Whether Wright's conjecture that Xiao and Canart had a physical presence around the Greater Yellowstone area was correct didn't matter. There was no way he was going to let Divya go herself. He wasn't keen on using a desk agent who might stick out like a sore thumb. The matter called for someone discreet—a local, who would blend in, wouldn't raise any eyebrows. He wanted Trent. Jake knew the people and the area. And most important, he understood the mechanics of operations like this. He could be trusted.

She had Jake in her pocket now. Everyone in this business had at least one skeleton in the closet. That
one
scar on the Internal Affairs record. And she had found his, buried in a classified government file.

When it was all over, she would apologize and tell him the truth—that she made a mistake in mentioning his name, that she never knew Wright would be interested. That she still cared about him and that she was still the same Divya. Her job just interfered with her personal life sometimes. Often it prevented her from having a personal life at all.

Divya's cell phone rang as she was drying herself off. Number blocked.

“Yes?”

“This is Layle Statler.” She'd given him her cell number while posing as the FBI agent. The blocked number meant he didn't trust her totally, but apparently he had nowhere else to go.

“What can I do for you, Deputy?” She was looking at herself in the mirror, at her own curious face.

The man sounded drunk, emotional. “Get me Terrell back. Somebody killed the janitor. I can't deal with all this . . .”

“
What?
Wait, slow down, Deputy.” Divya ran to the bedroom to get her tablet of paper and a pen.

32

WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER. THE SAME NIGHT.

9:05 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

Jake's cell phone rang: unknown local number. He ignored it. They called twice more.

He pushed a snoring Chayote off his lap, marked his place in the John Gierach book he was reading, and picked up.

Before he could say a word, the rambling started. “H-he
trusted
you, you know? Why I'm calling . . .”

“Who is this?”

“. . . said you were a good man . . .” A long sigh. The caller took a moment to compose himself. “I-I need a ride.”

“
Who
needs a ride?” Jake was standing, one hand up and open, confused. It sounded like a typical J.P. request, but the voice didn't match. As far as he knew, J.P. and Esma weren't back from Salmon yet.

A deep breath and a push of garbled energy. “Deputy to the chief, Layle Statler! Okay?”

“Layle?” Jake knew him only in passing. “You need a ride? What's going on?”

“I need a ride to—ah, Game and, ah, Fish, you can believe that. F-fast.”

“Where are you?”

“Brewpub. The FBI won't help. Somebody just got killed at Game and Fish. Next to the visitor's center.”

“FBI? What did you say?”

“Oh yeah. Poor guy.”

“I'll be right there. No more beers.”

Chayote was up and ready, but Jake told him to stay as he closed the guesthouse door behind him. Jake unlocked the SUV, grabbed the Glock from his camping pack, and tucked it inside the driver's door sleeve.

It was crystal clear in the valley, and cold. The two always went hand in hand. The Milky Way shone as brightly as Jake had ever seen it. As he crossed the Wilson Bridge, the inky Snake reflected its light—a gleaming serpent slithering to its den for the night.

The light at Broadway and 22 seemed to take forever, though few people were out. The road-tripper minivans, campers, and RVs that clogged the streets all summer were gone. Any remaining visitors were staying in the hotels downtown. Retirees, mainly, on tour busses.

Jake turned left on Broadway, drove toward the square, and turned left on Millward. He saw a man on the corner of Millward and Hansen, looking wobbly and holding a cell phone.

Jake parked in a handicapped spot in the pub's lot and jumped out.

“Layle?”

“I didn't have any more to drink.”

“Good. What's going on?” Jake did his best to read the man.
Another murder?
“Start from the beginning.”

The deputy cleared his throat and spit on the asphalt. “I'll tell you on the way. Can we go?”

They got in the 4Runner and Jake reversed back out onto Millward. “Fill me in. Who's on the scene?”

“Somebody found a body in the warehouse.”

Jake was doing his best to be patient. “Any officers on the scene?”

Layle looked at him, dumbfounded. “Paramedics. And, well . . . I'll be there shortly.”

Jesus.
“Call the officer on duty. Who got the dispatch call?”

“I did—I forgot to change the forwarding when I left the station.”

“Call the officer on duty
now.”

Layle did as Jake said. They turned into the Game and Fish parking lot, where an ambulance came into view. The lights were on in the building. Just behind them, a cruiser with flashing lights and sirens screeched to a halt. A uniformed police officer hopped out.

“I'm Jake Trent.”

The officer gave him the once-over. No time for a handshake. “I know who you are. The fishing guide who saved Yellowstone. I'm Officer McClelland.” He turned to his superior. “He legit?” He was out of breath and got to the point.

Jake answered, to save Layle the effort. “Just here to help the deputy.”

“He's good,” Layle mumbled.

McClelland pulled Jake aside. “What's with him?”

“Don't know. Few beers, I guess.” Jake led the group toward the entrance, deflecting the line of questioning, and held the door for the two policemen.

Inside, a couple of young paramedics were standing over something. One spoke in a panic: “Took you long enough!”

“First homicide for him,” the other said.

“Shut up,” the first replied.

The quarreling was too much for the deputy. “Stand down!” he growled. Jake responded by pulling Layle back by the collar, then patting him on the back.
Relax.

“Sorry.”

At the paramedics' feet lay the body of a sixtysomething man. It wasn't anyone Jake recognized. He was small statured. Short gray hair, long gray beard.

“Gunshot wound to the chest,” the rookie paramedic said.

“Did anybody touch the body?”

“No, sir.”

“Who heard the shot?” asked McClelland.

“Nobody. He called in on his own.” The young officer shrugged.

Jake and McClelland followed the blood trail to a shop bench where a bloodstained land phone lay, still off the hook. Layle stumbled catching up.

“What's with the deputy?” the paramedic asked his cohort. Layle mean-mugged him, preventing further query.

From the shop bench, the trio followed the spatter to one of the garage doors.

Jake held back, allowing McClelland to do his job. “Was the garage open?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fingerprint this?” McClelland turned to Jake, and pointed to the garage-door button.

“Print the outside keypad too.”

“Perp would have to know the code.” McClelland said with his pen at the numbers on the pad.

“Yeah.” McClelland nodded, knowing Jake was saying,
Inside job?

“But why leave the garage open?”

“In a hurry, probably.” Jake walked outside a few paces, then stopped and pointed to a pile of debris just outside the garage, and then to a broom that rested a few yards away. “Perp didn't know the code, necessarily.”

“Shoot. Victim was sweeping out the garage?” Officer McClelland jotted notes on a pad and snapped a few pictures of the broom with his phone.

“Wandered inside to call 911. He moved fast—the blood trail didn't start until he was inside.”

“The perp never bothered to make sure he was dead.”

“Right.” Jake nodded. “Rules out an execution-style killing. It was quick, maybe even shot from the car.”

“I need a coffee,” Layle blurted, then hiccupped.
“I'm going across the street to the gas station.”

McClelland nodded at his boss and turned. “What about the body?” he said to Jake.

“Let's take a look.”

Jake allowed McClelland to approach the body first, knowing better than to touch anything at the crime scene. The victim had a large section of his torso missing.

“Shotgun,” Jake said.

McClelland was holding his hand over his mouth. “No shit,” he mumbled.

Jake bent and looked at the damage. “That's not duck shot. Three and a half 12-gauge, at least.”

“Goose gun?”

“No. Self-defense gun. Bear gun, whatever. The spread is wide, suggesting a short barrel. Maybe sawed-off. Or a really long shot, but it wouldn't have done this much damage.”

“So not a hunting gun.”

Jake stood up. “Probably not.”

“These his tracks?” McClelland pointed to two bloody footsteps that headed away from the garage door, toward the back of the building. After a few steps, the blood had dried on the victim's shoes, leaving a path to nowhere.

Jake checked the victim's shoes. “No.” He'd already noted that the paramedics were wearing the required shoe covers for the crime scene.

McClelland stopped. “Then the shooter did make entry. Why not finish the job?”

“Cause he didn't care whether this guy lived?”

Layle walked back in sipping a twenty-ounce high-octane from the Exxon.

“What you got?” His cadence was slow and even. He was trying his best to get back in the game, focusing.

“Tracks, Dep.” McClelland gestured toward the footprints.

“I see. But to where?” Layle followed McClelland's finger in the direction the tracks led. “Son of a
bitch
!” He moved the fastest he had all evening over to the walk-in cooler. The paramedics had drifted off to the open garage door to get some fresh air. The excitement in the deputy's voice got their attention, and they turned back toward the scene.

“What is it?” McClelland was right behind the deputy.

Jake carefully pulled back the sheet that covered the victim from the shoulders down. The janitor's shirt had been torn open after the shooting and his pockets turned inside out. The killer was looking for something, but had never bothered to shoot again.

Layle hollered from the walk-in. “Holy shit!”

Jake hurried over. “What is it?”

Layle and McClelland were standing over an empty lab cart.

“They took the damned wolf.”

“What?”

“They killed the janitor and took the wolf carcass.”

Jake turned to McClelland for help in deciphering Layle's statement.

“There was a wolf here, alpha male, waiting to be incinerated.”

“Incinerated? Why would someone steal it?” Jake asked as the trio left the frigid cooler.

“Dep?” McClelland avoided the question.

“Don't know. Didn't seem right from the beginning,” Layle muttered.

“What didn't?”

Layle scratched his head. “We found the wolf with an outdated radio tag in it. Big ol' thing, hit by a car. Must've been someone's pet or something.”

“And the driver?”

“Hit-and-run. Nobody wants to admit to something like that, let alone pay the fine.”

“And they came back to get it? For a proper burial?” McClelland jumped in.

The deputy was shaking his head. “Guess so.”

Jake shook his too—in disbelief. “Kill a man for a carcass? Doesn't add up.”

“Yeah, Deputy, I've gotta agree here, I mean . . .”

Layle walked away, on a mission. “Let's check the parking lot.”

The medic shouted after them. “What do I do with the body?”

“Leave it,” Jake shouted over his shoulder. “Stay here.”

The night sky was glowing with starlight. The temperature had dropped further, into the upper twenties. A setting moon left only
a sliver of light on the horizon. Jake looked around, just to be doubly sure they weren't in immediate danger. He didn't see anything, and heard nothing but coyotes quarrelling on the National Elk Refuge. Their yips echoed from Saddle Butte back to them. Jake figured they were as confused as he was—howling into the blackness, hearing only an augmented echo of their own questions.

“I'll start here.” Layle began slowly walking the perimeter closest to the warehouse.

McClelland was pulling on latex evidence gloves.

Jake headed to the far side, where the lot abutted the southeast corner of the visitor center. He walked slowly, scanning the pavement for candy wrappers, receipts, cigarette butts, or anything else that might have fallen out of the assailant's car.

McClelland had a small bag of evidence going. He joined Jake on the far side of the lot.

“Couple butts over there, that's it.”

McClelland went over and picked them up, then returned to Jake's side to show him.

“Where's the chief, anyway?” Jake asked the officer.

“Vacation.”

“Figures.”

The deputy ambled their way, and they went quiet.

“Find anything?”

“Couple cigarette butts, coffee cup, that's it.”

“Shit. No tire marks?” Layle glanced around at the pavement.

“None.” McClelland waited for Layle's next cue. The deputy clapped his palms together, trying to think.

Jake was thinking too.

“Does the warehouse have security cameras?”

“Already thought of that. Doesn't look like it.” The deputy sounded more sober with every sip of his drink. He and Jake looked skyward, inspecting the roof's eave for a camera.

“How 'bout the visitor center?” McClelland asked.

“Nothing to protect in there. They don't bother with anything other than door and window alarms.” Layle waited for a second and started back toward the crime scene.

Jake made him stop in his tracks. “They've got a webcam facing the elk refuge. Hunters watch it to see how the snow affects the movement of the herds. Whether they've started moving to their winter range.”

Layle spun to face McClelland. “Get me the director of the Grand Teton Association. Wake her up if need be. And call a detective for the crime scene.”

The association ran the visitor center and a few informational kiosks throughout the valley.

“We won't have any view of the lot,” the officer objected.

“Get the video.”

Currently the only animals in the refuge were a flock of geese resting on the banks of Flat Creek, just thirty yards from the warehouse. The elk would move in sometime in the next month, escaping the heavy snow in the mountains.

A half hour later, a brand new Mercedes SUV pulled into the lot. Out stepped Anne Lowe, the association director, wearing a Patagonia fleece and sweatpants.

“What's going on?”

She met Jake and Layle at the glass front doors of the center, where they'd been waiting since McClelland called. He was off snapping pictures of the crime scene and looking for prints so the medics could get the body to the morgue.

“We need to view the footage from the past several hours on your refuge webcam.”

The woman stopped, irked. “How would I have any idea how to do that?”

“We'll figure that out when we get in there. Open the door, please.”

“Has there been a crime?”

“Homicide.”

“Jesus.” She unlocked the door.

“I'll go in first. Just in case.” The deputy shined a flashlight he'd commandeered from the medics around the atrium of the center, then waved Jake and Ms. Lowe in.