Submerged (3 page)

Chapter2

Carl Subick bit back
a curse as his
Ford Escape SUV hit yet another pothole in
the unnamed narrow dirt road that led to the east of the San
Antonio Mountains. He had already been on the road for longer than
he wanted and knew that the next few miles would be worse than what
he had already experienced. The road, little more than a path, had
never seen asphalt and never would. Almost no one came up here.

He hit another dip. The Sam Browne belt he
wore dug into his back, and his holstered gun chewed at his side.
Subick had wanted to be a police officer all his life. It was a
dream born when he was six, and it had persisted through high
school and junior college. Now, after three years with the Nye
County Sheriff’s Department and driving through hills that once
held silver for miners to harvest, he was ready to trade it in.
Endless days or nights in a patrol car, chasing calls that were an
hour’s drive away or more, had tarnished the luster of the job. Yet
somehow his love for police work always won out.

That love had its work cut out for it today.
Once again Carl had drawn the short straw. Actually, no straws had
been drawn. He was chosen for this assignment because he knew the
back roads better than anyone at the Tonopah substation. He should.
He had grown up wandering most of the hills and valleys.

After he earned an associate degree in
criminal justice, he had been certain some police department would
gobble him up. He’d applied everywhere in Nevada and California but
was passed over time and again. His short stature and thin frame
made him look too fragile for major police departments to take him
seriously. There were others who were bigger, had more experience,
or had bachelor’s degrees. The irony of it was that he possessed a
bigger heart, a stiffer spine, and greater determination than most
of the others who were awarded the slot he felt should have been
his.

It took four years of applying, testing, and
interviewing before he was hired on at the Nye County Sheriff’s
Department—the same county he had grown up in, as the son of an
alcoholic father who was seldom home and a mother who had never
wanted children. “You’re an accident boy,” his mother had told him
time and time again. “You’re just one big oops.” Then she would
laugh.

Since he had no comfort at home, he sought it
in the desert mountains, following paths that few knew existed,
roads laid down by silver miners a hundred years earlier. Now he
was back in the same county, living near the same town, and driving
up one of those long forgotten paths.

He was here for a purpose, he reminded
himself. A man had gone missing, and a distraught wife had been
calling several times a day to make sure that the authorities had
been out searching. Carl had been on such expeditions before. Every
once in a while a hiker or some nature lover would wander off the
path and become lost. Most of the time people disappeared because
they wanted to disappear. Whatever the case, it had fallen to him
to drive to the place where the missing man told his wife he would
be fishing. He was three days late. He had told her that he would
spend a day driving to the lake, two days fishing, and then return.
But she had been out of town with the kids and just discovered that
he had not come home when she returned two days after he was due.
Four days was a long time to be lost in these mountains.

“You missed one.”

Carl turned to see the deputy seated next to
him. She was one year younger than his twenty-six years, had blond
hair, blue eyes, and stood a couple of inches taller than him. He
hated being small. “You want me to go back and try again, Deputy
Novak?”

“Uh-oh, I must have hit a nerve. Deputy
Novak? What happened to Janet?”

“I didn’t want people to think we were
getting chummy.”

“What people? And we are chummy.”

He eyed her again and smiled. He had been
working with Janet for almost a year, and a romance was budding.
Out of professional concerns, they both had fought it, but their
resistance had worn down. They had started dating, discreetly, last
month.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

“You better not forget. I’m armed and looking
for a reason to fire my weapon.”

“That’s what I like—a beautiful woman who
packs heat.”

“Please, no more flattery, I may swoon. How
much farther?”

“I haven’t been out here for ten years, but
if I remember correctly, we should see the lake in another two or
three miles.”

“I can’t believe you’re the only one on the
force who knew this place existed. If it’s everything you say it
is, it should be a tourist trap.”

“Not necessarily,” Carl said. “You ever fly
in a commercial airliner?”

“A few times. Why?”

“I flew across country once to interview for
the Asheville Police Department. I had a window seat and passed the
time watching the terrain from thirty-five thousand feet. Big lakes
and reservoirs are easy to spot. I was surprised how many of them
had no buildings around them. You can’t see detail from that
height, but you can tell if there has been significant development.
I imagine there are a lot of man-made lakes that don’t attract
attention.”

“So I shouldn’t expect a McDonald’s?”

Carl pushed the accelerator to drive the SUV
up another grade. At least they were in the newest vehicle at the
substation. That was a plus. “You should expect to see a
reservoir—” Carl hit the breaks as they crested the grade. The car
stuttered to a stop, the tires kicking up loose dirt into a cloud.
“What . . . Where . . .”

“It’s a barricade.”

“I know it’s a barricade, but what’s it doing
on this road?” Carl peered over the hood at the
red-and-white-striped wooden barricade. A no trespassing sign hung
from the cross beam. Carl put the vehicle in Park and opened his
door.

“Where you going?” Janet unsnapped her seat
belt and opened her door.

Carl didn’t answer. Instead he crossed the
distance from the Escape to the barrier. Something wasn’t right. He
stopped and studied it. It was made of wood and looked new. The
sign below read:

No Trespassing

by Order of the U.S. Government

Offenders Will Be Prosecuted

Janet whistled. “Looks like they mean
business.”

“This isn’t government property. Not by a
long shot.”

“Maybe we wandered into Nellis Air Force Base
territory. They’re kinda particular about who walks on their
dirt.”

“That’s to the south of us. We couldn’t have
wandered that far off.”

“Maybe Groom Lake is gobbling up some more
property.”

Carl shook his head. “I’m not buying it. This
barricade is new. It can’t have been on this spot more than a
couple of days.”

“Is that a fact, Sherlock? How did you deduce
that?”

Reaching forward, Carl ran his finger along
the top of the wood beam. He felt the smooth surface of the paint.
He held the finger up. “Just a touch of dust. How much dust do you
have in your house?”

“That’s kind of personal, don’t you
think?”

“I dust on a regular basis, and by the end of
the week I have enough dirt in the house to plant corn. This is
open land; we get dust and dirt and wind to carry it. This should
have a good bit more dust than it does. I doubt the military sends
out housekeepers to tidy up signs and barricades. Look at the
paint.”

Janet leaned forward. “It looks fine. What am
I supposed to see?”

“If this thing had been here very long, the
paint should be faded and cracked.” Carl squatted and studied the
ground. “Footprints. Look like boots. Several pairs.”

“Well, the thing wouldn’t have walked here by
itself.” Janet paused. “Okay, I get it. The tracks are fresh, is
that it?”

“On the nose, my dear deputy, on the nose.”
He stood and studied the area. “No fences. If the military wanted
to protect this area, they would have put up at least a token
fence. No sir, something ain’t right.” Stepping to the side of the
barrier, Carl took hold of one end and lifted.

“Is this wise?”

He moved it a few feet, then set it down.
“This is heavier than it looks.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Carl saw not fear, but caution in Janet’s
eyes. “I’m telling you, we’re not on government property. We’re
here to find a missing man. That’s our assignment. I plan to carry
it out. Besides, it’s not like we’re tourists. We’re uniformed
officers. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Again Carl lifted and an instant later his
load was made lighter by Janet’s added strength. Together they
moved the barricade to the side of the road.

“We have to put it back when we leave,” Janet
insisted. After Carl agreed, she added, “And if a helicopter comes
over the hills and shoots me in the head, I’ll never speak to you
again.”

“Are you sure you’d know if you were shot in
the head? After all, you are a blond—”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll slap you so
hard your grandparents will bruise.”

Carl laughed. “I love a tough woman. Get
in.”

The tires slipped as Carl pressed the gas
pedal but gained traction a half second later. Steering past the
barricade they had moved to the side, Carl drove on, down a slight
grade, then up a longer, steeper hill. He was glad the vehicle had
four-wheel drive. It took another ten minutes and several twists
and turns before they crested one more incline and saw what they
had come to see.

“Wow,” Janet said. “It’s huge.”

Carl stopped the car and studied the blue
lake that ex-tended before them. “There are many that are larger,
but this reservoir has nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know this place
existed.”

Carl directed the vehicle forward again,
easing down a grade that led to the lakeshore. “I checked a couple
of maps this morning. It’s been years since I’ve hiked these hills,
and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get lost. This doesn’t appear
on any of them.”

“You have a woman with you. There’s no chance
you’d get lost.”

“Cute. There are no gas stations to ask
directions.”

“Yeah, as if a man would stop and ask
directions.”

Carl shook his head. “That’s an unfair
stereotype.”

Janet cocked her head. “Have you
ever
asked for directions?”

“I see a truck up ahead. We better get out
and see if it belongs to our missing man.”

“That’s what I thought. Never asked for
directions in your life.”

They exited and started for a dark blue,
well-used Chevy pickup that was parked near the shore fifty yards
ahead of them. The missing person’s report described a similar
truck. As Carl approached, he could see a homemade boat rack,
sitting in the pickup’s bed and stretching over the cab. There was
no boat. He looked out over the lake again. It was flat and blue
and empty of boats.

“This guy came up here to fish?” Janet asked.
“This is a long way to come to snag a few trout.”

“Die-hard fishermen have their own ways and
reasons.” Carl took a few more steps. “If I remember right, there’s
a barbed-wire fence—there it is.” A rusty upright stuck up from
some brush near the waterline. It angled sharply to one side. Even
at a distance, Carl could see that it was old and untended. As they
neared, Carl saw that the three strands of wire had been cut or
rusted through, and they lay along the ground. Something white was
partially buried under the dirt. Carl kicked at it, then rubbed the
dirt off with his shoe.

“Another no trespassing sign,” Janet said.
“Looks old.”

“Let’s check out the truck.”

As they closed the distance, Carl noticed
something else. Tracks. He stooped to examine them. “More boot
tracks—just like the ones by the barricade.”

“So? Maybe Mr. Barrett wore boots. It’s rough
country out here. It would make sense.”

“Look closer. There are several sizes. Same
sole pattern.”

“He brought friends. Nothing odd in that.”
Janet started forward.

“Hold on.”

“Why?”

“It looks like there may have been four or
five pairs of boots tromping around here. That’s too many friends
to fit in a pickup, and I don’t see any other car.”

“Maybe they rode in the back,” Janet
suggested.

“Yeah, maybe, but would all the impressions
be the same? Be careful where you step. For now, we treat this like
a crime scene.”

“We have no evidence of a crime.”

“It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. If a crime
has been committed, and we’ve kicked around important evidence,
then we’ll hear about it from now until we retire. Just watch your
step the best you can.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so. I’ll take the driver’s side; you
take the passenger’s side.”

Carl walked along the edge of the path,
alternating his gaze from truck to the ground and back to the
truck. Something inside him was churning, and he didn’t know why.
He had read enough horror novels to fear finding a three-day-old
corpse lying on the truck’s seat. That would put him off his feed
for a while.

The truck was dented, scratched, and
battered. That was

to be expected, Carl decided, since it was an
old model.

He guessed it was built in the early
seventies. The driver’s side window was down. There was no putrid
odor of decaying flesh.

Carl looked inside.

Nothing.

Janet reached the passenger-side window a
half step behind Carl. That window was down, as well. “No
body.”

“Not in the truck anyway.” Carl opened the
driver-side door. He expected an eerie squeak from hinges too long
on the job, but the door opened with no noise. A thin layer of dust
covered the dashboard, steering wheel and column, and the
bench-style seat. He heard the other door open.