The Names of Our Tears (26 page)

Robertson’s fourth call went to Mike Branden. The professor answered as Cal walked up the porch steps beside the sheriff. Robertson waved the pastor inside and said to Mike, “Anything on Jodie Tapp?”

“You just called, Bruce. It hasn’t been that long.”

“Sorry,” Robertson said. “It’s been as long as the ages, up here.” He told the professor about Emma.

“Cal’s coming out?”

“Already here.”

“OK, Tapp, then,” Branden said. “She’s not at her trailer. She didn’t show up for work. And we really don’t have anyplace else to look.”

“She knows where you’re staying?”

“Yes.”

“Then if you stayed put, maybe she’d show up to talk or something.”

“Might.”

“Can you do that, Mike? I don’t have anything else to suggest.”

*   *   *

In his Crown Vic, Robertson drove to the deserted Helmuth farm on the high ground north of Charm, and he wondered, once there, what he had hoped to accomplish. He turned around in the driveway and drove to the glade where Ruth Zook had been murdered. A lonely place to die, he thought, seated behind the wheel. He didn’t bother to get out.

Out on SR 39, he headed toward Sugarcreek, and with his GPS, he found the residence in town of Earnest Troyer. When a disgruntled Troyer finally opened the door in his pajamas, Robertson invited himself inside and said, “Tell me everything you know about those buses of yours.”

CAROLINE BRANDEN served chilled crab and pasta salad from the nearby Mar Vista restaurant, and the four sat out on the patio at Ray Lee’s beach house to eat while the sun dominated the western sky over the Gulf. The Brandens had opened two large shade umbrellas atop two round tables, and with the tables set edge-to-edge, the oval patches of shade were nearly adequate in size.

Sweating a little under his shirt, Ricky stared out at the green-then-blue stretch of water beyond the white sand and said, “We need this in Ohio.”

Orton laughed. “Then who’d come down here to boost our economy?”

For the most part, the conversation that evening had been subdued. The Brandens had waited at home all afternoon, but Jodie Tapp had not come to visit. Niell and Orton had cruised parking lots along the coast for fifty miles, both north and south, and they had not found Tapp’s old blue Camry. None of the surfers to whom they had talked had seen Jodie that day, or even the day before. Twice, Niell and Orton had driven past the trailer in Cortez, but Jodie hadn’t been home. The neighbors had seen neither her nor her car.

Finished with his pasta, Ricky was rolling a single grape around the edge of his plate with his fork. Orton watched his idle play and then reached across the table to stab the grape with his own fork. He popped it into his mouth and said, “Did your mother let you play with your food?”

Unresponsive, Ricky mumbled, “What?”

Orton said, “She’ll turn up, Niell. We just went to all the wrong places. We just missed her out there.”

“Wasn’t thinking about Jodie,” Niell said.

“You got enough sun, out looking for her today,” Orton remarked. “You should stay undercover tomorrow.”

Niell had loosened his tie and taken off his sport coat earlier that day as they rolled into the second parking lot at Siesta Beach. His arms, face, and neck were cooked to a noticeable pink-but-going-red-tomorrow hue, and his black hair and pencil-thin mustache accentuated the white around his eye sockets, where sunglasses had shielded his skin.

“That’s the white-eyed stare of a tourist,” Orton remarked. “One day in the sun and all you snowbirds are cooked.”

Niell rolled his eyes in protest, but took the ribbing mostly with a smile. “I just wish we had found her.”

Caroline gathered up the plates, and the professor followed her inside with napkins and silverware. They brought out a fresh pitcher of tea, and Branden filled the four tumblers on the tables. “She could be out of town,” he said as he sat. “Visiting relatives.”

“They’re all in New Mexico,” Orton said. “But that might be the best place for her right now.”

Caroline sat. “Did you say there were two unpacked suitcases at her trailer?”

Orton’s cell beeped a message, and he checked the display, opened the phone, and clicked to read it.

Branden answered his wife’s question. “Two older suitcases. With old leather straps. Like steamer trunks used to be, but small like suitcases.”

“Wasn’t her place decorated with modern things?” Caroline asked.

Orton closed his phone. “DEA might have something later.” He put his phone away and sat back with his glass of tea.

Niell scooted his chair back from the table to stay better in the shade, and Orton remarked, “You’re learning, snowbird.”

Caroline asked, “Was it all really modern decorating at Jodie’s trailer?”

The men looked puzzled. Branden said, “A good mix of colors, I guess. Nice things on the tables and shelves.”

Caroline said, “OK,” and let it drop.

Orton’s phone beeped in another message. He stood to hold his phone display under the shade, read the message, and said, “OK, well the DEA actually has something now.”

Ricky stood and finished a hurried last swallow of tea. “Where?”

“Bradenton,” Orton said. “They’re preparing an entry team at an old house in an eastern neighborhood. Out by the highway, past the trailer parks there. It all used to be ranch country.”

Branden rose and said, “I’ll ride along,” but Caroline said, “Why?” She was up on her feet, now, too.

“We don’t even know yet who this is,” Orton said. “And they’re not gonna let civilians anywhere near this house.”

Branden retrieved his tumbler of tea, and Caroline hooked her arm inside his elbow. “No civilians,” she said to the professor, and he shrugged a halfhearted apology to the other two men.

Niell was less complacent. “I’ll go with you, Ray Lee. If it’s the Molinas, then it’s my case as much as anyone’s.”

Orton protested. “They don’t know who it is, Ricky.”

“That was your own dispatcher, right?” Niell said. “On those two messages.”

“So?”

“So he’s not going to bother you tonight unless someone thinks they have found the Molinas. Or associates of the Molinas. So I’m going to ride along, Ray Lee.”

*   *   *

A Bradenton cop was stationed at the wooden street barricades two blocks from a cluster of DEA agents and city police who had
surrounded the old farmhouse with personnel and vehicles. Orton and Niell approached the cop with their badges out.

“Can’t let you go any closer,” the cop said as they walked up to his position. “They’ve been negotiating for two hours, and that’s an entry team gearing up down there.”

Orton put binoculars up to his eyes and studied the distant house. Shades were drawn on all of the windows. The front door had been outwardly splintered by a blast. Orton muttered, “Shotgun,” and continued to pan his binoculars across the scene.

“One car, parked under an old carport,” he said. “Not a Humvee, Ricky.”

“Is it a Buick?” Ricky asked at his side.

“Can’t tell. Only the bumper is showing.”

“There are other cars on the street,” Ricky said. “Should have been towed by now.”

“Line of fire,” Orton said. “But that’s a blue Camry parked there.”

He handed the binoculars to Niell and stepped back from the barricade to make a call. Niell legged up to the barricade and used the binoculars. “I’m not sure what they’re doing,” he said. “They don’t act like they’re going in.”

The cop beside him said, “They think there’s only one guy inside, but they don’t know. That’s what they’re waiting for.”

Binoculars down, Niell asked, “How are they going to make that determination?”

“Thermal imaging,” the cop said. “The DEA has thermal sensors. They’re using them now.”

Orton came back up to the barricade. “Those are definitely Jodie’s plates on that Camry.”

Niell looked again through the binoculars. “It’s just parked on the street. Like someone got her, and made her drive here.”

“They need to know that,” Orton said to the cop. “There might be a hostage.”

The cop took his shoulder mic in hand, and Orton said, “Jodie Tapp. Five-five and a hundred pounds. If she’s in there, she’s a hostage.”

The cop keyed his mic. “Captain, a Bradenton Beach cop says he recognizes the blue Camry. Belongs to a girl named Jodie Tapp.”

Orton broke in, “We’ve been looking for her all day. If she’s in there, she’s a hostage.”

The cop ignored him, and the captain answered, “We’ve got that on the sensors, Stone. Stationary person. Laid out flat between the backmost wall and a bed. Hasn’t moved, and might be bound.”

Stone clipped his mic back onto his shoulder strap and asked Orton, “Friend of yours?”

“Yes, a little Mennonite woman. Someone I know from the beaches.”

“That’s the worst place for a Mennonite,” Stone remarked.

“I think she’s a hostage,” Orton said, distracted.

Niell said, “They’re gathering at the front door,” and Orton took the binoculars from him to watch.

“That’s the worst kind of place for a Mennonite girl,” Stone said again. “Why is she mixed up with this bunch?”

Niell said, “Amish girls from Pinecraft have been carrying drugs up to Ohio on the buses.”

“You’re kidding,” Stone said, eyes wide.

“We don’t think they had any choice,” Niell said.

“They’re all going in,” Orton said and took his binoculars down.

Flash-bang concussion charges sounded from inside the house, and men poured into the front entrance with their weapons drawn. Niell and Orton stood beside Stone and could only watch and wait. A cluster of five or six shots popped off, and then it was quiet. One agent came back out through the front door and signaled “all clear.”

Then, from the back of the house, even at a distance of two blocks, they heard a girl’s terrified screams. The screams reached the front door, and a Bradenton police captain pushed outside with little Jodie Tapp in his arms. Clutching her arms around his neck, she was still screaming as he handed her off to paramedics.

*   *   *

The cop Stone escorted Niell and Orton through a maze of DEA and police vehicles, up to the front of the old farmhouse. Jodie Tapp was sitting on the edge of a gurney, and a medic was checking her blood pressure with an arm cuff. Orton went up to her.

Niell found the captain who had carried Jodie out and asked, “You found her in the back bedroom?”

The captain stuck out his hand. “Ed Bench. You have credentials?”

Niell lifted his badge off his belt and said, “Holmes County, Ohio.”

Bench returned the badge. “Orton told us you were back down here.”

“You remember the last time?” Niell asked.

The captain was smiling. “Rumors, is all. You took a swim in Sarasota Bay? With Orton, the way I hear it.”

Niell returned the smile, awkwardly. Then he asked, “Who’s inside?”

“That’s your Dewey Molina, Detective, and he’s dead. Never bothered to change the license plates on the Buick you boys have been hollering about.”

“What?”

“Some sheriff has been phoning down here about every half hour. For the last three days.”

“Robertson.”

“That’s the one. So, tell him he can pull his BOLO down and stop calling.”

“But was there another person in there?” Niell asked. “Teresa Molina?”

“No. Just the one,” Bench said. He led Niell in through the front door.

In the hallway leading to the back of the house, Dewey Molina was sprawled lengthwise, face pushed in against the baseboard trim at the floor, one arm pinched underneath him. A pump-action shotgun lay at his feet. Near his outstretched right
hand, there was a stainless steel Smith & Wesson model 645 pistol with black rubber grips. Forensics had chalked the floor around three silvered brass .45 casings. Captain Bench stood over the body and said, “He threw three shots with the forty-five. One with the shotgun.”

“Did they pull the forty-five magazine?” Ricky asked. “Clear the chamber?”

Bench grunted disgust and nodded. “Black Talons, Niell. I’m glad he couldn’t shoot straight.”

“Did you have a chance yet to gather any spent rounds?”

“Two are still in the wall, over by the door. One sailed out and hit our truck. Lucky it didn’t kill someone.”

Ricky eyed the brass on the floor. “I could use one of those casings up in Ohio. We could match the firing pin depression and the pressure marks on the base. The extractor groove, too.”

“We haven’t processed them,” Bench said. “Maybe we could send you one after they’ve been cataloged and processed.”

“Tomorrow morning I need to be on a plane,” Ricky said. “Any chance I’d be able to take one back to my sheriff?”

Bench smiled. “Your sheriff is wound a little too tight?”

“He just likes thoroughness,” Ricky allowed.

“I’ll tell the lab to rush it overnight. But you take only one, Niell. We keep the other two.”

*   *   *

Back outside on the front lawn, Niell found Orton still talking with Jodie Tapp on the gurney. She was both shaken and dazed. What little she said sounded hoarse. Constantly she rubbed at her throat and swallowed with difficulty. “I couldn’t breathe with that gag,” she told Orton. “I thought I was going to die, and then all that shooting. I just wanted to scream.”

She stalled, cleared her throat, and drank a sip from a water bottle the paramedic had given her. She was dressed in Mennonite clothes—a muted pink dress and a white apron. Pinned to her apron strap was a nameplate from Miller’s restaurant. Niell introduced himself and said, “You left the beach house last night.”

Whispering, Jodie said, “I didn’t want to be a bother.”

“But these people were looking for you,” Niell said.

Jodie’s eyes spilled tears. “They were waiting for me at home.”

“You’re lucky,” Orton said. “You should have stayed with us.”

“I know. But really, Ray Lee, I didn’t want to be a bother.”

CAL CAME back to the Zooks’ after dinner to try a second time to talk with Emma. She had refused him earlier.