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Thursday
Finn stared at a yellow rectangle in the Google Earth window. Probably a wheat field, with a single tree in the middle of it. That field seemed likely to be the place that Darcy had described, about eighteen miles east and slightly south of Vantage, sandwiched between farm roads. He wrote down the GPS coordinates and the names of the roads that bordered it. The information would at least confirm where Comet had dumped Darcy Ireland, and that might be a starting point for finding Mia. He checked his watch. Nearly four p.m. already. He’d have to see if Grant County deputies could search the area, make sure the body of a teenage girl wasn’t somewhere close by. His imagination conjured up the awful image of a young blond corpse under that waving wheat.
His desk phone rang again, and he wearily picked it up. “Detective Finn.”
“My name is Felicia Morris, and I’m a reporter with—”
“I have no comment at this time.” He tapped the phone back into its cradle. Why did the desk clerk keep putting reporters through to his extension? He called her to ask.
“I’m sorry. Most don’t tell me they’re reporters,” she told him.
He hung up. Of course they wouldn’t.
“My skeleton is Magdalena Aguilar,” Sara Melendez startled Finn by saying from her desk across the room. “Confirmed by dental records.” She swiveled in her chair to face his desk.
Finn found it a little creepy that the other detective had said “my skeleton.” “You got a whole skeleton?”
“Not a single bone missing. We borrowed a Ground-Penetrating Radar device from the utility company. That barn hadn’t been used for anything but storing hay for decades, so anyone could have swung by to bury a body, but Magdalena was on Todd Sutter’s list of probables.” She put a hand to her forehead. “The press is gonna love this.”
“Good,” he said. “Get ’em off my back.”
“Unfortunately, Magdalena’s only a skeleton now, and after the fire, there’s nothing left to link Sutter to her.”
“At least the Aguilar family will know for sure. And it could come in useful when Sutter’s up for parole.”
Melendez’s eyes narrowed. “If there’s any justice, Sutter will never be up for parole.”
Finn agreed, but they both knew that wasn’t the way the system always worked. “Where’s that GPR unit now?”
“Locked in the evidence room. Someone’s coming to get it day after tomorrow. Why?”
He briefly considered telling her about the bones in Grace’s barn, but he’d promised Grace. Once the news was out, it would be all over Evansburg in a flash. He settled for saying, “Grace McKenna’s gorillas live in an old barn. I just want to make sure there’s not another body buried under there.”
“Ugh.” After wincing at the idea, she then said, “Maybe we should check all the barns in the county.”
“Maybe all the barns in the surrounding area, too. Sutter picked up victims from several counties, didn’t he?” He made a mental note to read the entire Sutter file. “Any leads on your arsonist?”
Melendez frowned. “We know he’s using gasoline and he’s targeting abandoned buildings, and we’ve found tire tracks.” Shaking her head, she added, “Unfortunately, they’re from really common tires. Half the pickups in the county are rolling on ‘em right now.”
“The fact that he—or she—is targeting abandoned buildings means he—or she—is a local.”
“She? How many arsonists are women?”
Finn shrugged. “Something like fifteen percent.”
“And their motive is usually revenge. What sort of a kick would this one get from burning down abandoned buildings?”
“Just trying to give women equal opportunity.”
“Well, stop it. Trust me, it will turn out to be a guy. Probably multiple guys. Probably multiple guys under the age of twenty-five. I have a few delinquents in mind.” She swiveled back to her computer.
* * * * *
Hours later, Finn was eager to finish his GPR scan of Grace’s barn floor. When he arrived, he’d been relieved to find Robin Valdez was out on an errand. He had no news for her, and he didn’t want to explain that he was searching for human bones under the dirt floor of the barn. It was bad enough to have a missing daughter, but it would be even worse to imagine she might be the latest victim of a serial killer.
Finn noticed Kanoni was wearing a diaper.
“Diarrhea,” Grace explained. “It’s easier to change her than to constantly wash her and Neema.”
Slowly rolling the wheeled radar device forward, he watched the screen on the attached laptop, while Grace stood by with a shovel to dig as needed. They found a couple of metal pieces from some ancient farm implement, two broken bricks, a bit from a horse bridle, and an ancient spur that some cowboy had lost over the years. The only troubling discovery was another bone, buried only a few inches below the surface. This was the shortest yet, maybe the end bone of a finger or one of the smallest bones in a foot.
Could someone have scattered a skeleton over the entire compound? Should he walk the machine over the courtyard between Grace’s trailers?
Grace queried the gorillas about the latest bone. None of the apes showed any recognition of what she was talking about, which shouldn’t have been surprising, since the bone had been buried.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to ask for food, Neema asked for apple. When Grace refused, Neema signed chase.
Grace raised her hands and stomped her foot, and then her questions gave way to a wild, ear-splitting game of ape tag. Kanoni lagged behind the adult gorillas for a change.
Grace pursued the apes outside into the rope net. Sliding the newest bone fragment into his pants pocket, Finn continued with his scan.
When he was on his last pass, Robin Valdez slipped into the barn. Grace joined her, and both women leaned side-by-side against the far wall as they discussed something in voices too low to hear. Finn was hyperaware of Robin’s eyes following his every move, probably wondering why he wasn’t out chasing down leads to find her daughter.
“This will only take a few minutes more,” he apologized. “The machine is on loan.”
“What are you looking for with that thing?” Robin asked.
Finn hesitated. No way was he going to admit to this anxious mother that he was searching for a skeleton. “Construction debris,” he finally said. “This barn was remodeled, and we suspect the crew simply buried the scraps instead of carting them away like they should have.”
Grace shot him a querying look, but when Robin turned her way, Grace added, “I don’t want the gorillas digging up anything dangerous.”
Robin must have wondered at the timing.
The apes, tired of chasing one another up and down the netting outside, returned to the barn to observe the humans. Neema wanted to push the GPR unit like Finn had, and although it made him feel like an idiot, he let the mother gorilla have a go for a few yards. Then Kanoni wanted a try, but she couldn’t roll it far and ended up swinging on the handle by a hand and a foot until Finn pulled her off.
Then Gumu, who had been watching from the doorway, lumbered toward the machine, eyeing it warily.
He heard Robin mutter, “Oh, this should be good.”
“No way.” Finn held out his hand in a “stop” motion. He was having visions of the silverback swinging the expensive GPR device around his head like a lariat. “This is a valuable machine. Not a toy for gorillas.”
Gumu rocked forward on his knuckles and glared at Finn for a few seconds. Then he rose up to his full height and pounded with cupped hands on the black leather of his chest, bared his huge canine teeth, and grunted to add menace to his threat display.
Finn glanced nervously at Grace. She seemed to be more interested in her cell phone than in keeping her gorillas under control.
He squared his body between the machine and the silverback. “No!” he shouted, snapping the hand sign at the gigantic ape.
Gumu sank back down to his knuckles, then reached around Finn and slapped the handle of the GPR machine as if to prove he could touch it if he really wanted to. Snorting, the silverback strutted stiff-legged to the doorway as though he’d won the contest.
Grace held her cell phone in front of her with both hands, filming.
Finn threw a hand up in front of his face. “Stop that!”
After poking the screen with her index finger, Grace lowered her phone. “That was very interesting. A meeting of two alpha males.”
Robin Valdez covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hide a smile.
Finn fumed. “Gumu could have ripped out my throat.”
“But you prevailed,” Grace said. “He respects you.”
A scoffing noise escaped his throat. He aimed an index finger at her. “Do not post that video anywhere.”
“Detective Finn!” A voice hailed him from outside the barn. Agent Alice Foster. He welcomed the interruption.
The FBI agent stood on the other side of the enclosure. “I have information to share.”
Finn pushed the GPR init outside, detached the laptop, and with the help of Agent Foster, loaded the device into his car trunk. He was grateful Foster had not seen his argument with Gumu. He needed to preserve some dignity in his work relationships.
“Cooper Trigg is rumored to be in Spokane, so I put some feelers out there, but we haven’t scooped him up yet,” she told him.
Finn envied the FBI’s resources. “Okay.”
“We got email back from the organizer of the Roadkill Riders Meetup website,” she told him. “Get this: she doesn’t even attend most of the rides.”
“Great.”
“But she knew Comet. He’s Kane Metrios, lives just outside of Evansburg, works at the local SpeediLube. Want to go grill him with me?”
“You betcha.”
Robin Valdez was watching both of them, her expression hopeful.
“We may have found one of the boys who took Darcy and Mia,” he told her. “It might not lead to anything right away, but every clue helps.”
The woman pressed her hands together in front of her chest as if praying.
* * * * *
Kane Metrios was as Darcy had described him, a clean-cut type with buzz-cut hair and startling blue eyes. He was an oil change technician at SpeediLube and nervous as hell that a police detective and an FBI agent had surprised him at work. They interviewed him at a picnic table set up outside the shop for employee breaks.
According to his driver’s license, Metrios was twenty years old. When they showed him their badges, he immediately blurted, “I didn’t rape that girl.”
“Interesting way to start a conversation,” Agent Foster observed.
“Well, I didn’t.” He crossed his arms. “So you can’t pin that on me.”
Finn leaned in. “We’re more interested in your friend. What is Dusty’s full name?”
Metrios seemed relieved. He clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “I’d like to help you guys. But see, I don’t really know Dusty. See, that’s the thing about the club. Roadkill Riders. It’s just all for fun, right? We all use these nicknames, and it’s not like we hang out all the time. We just ride together sometimes.”
“And kidnap girls,” Agent Foster added.
Metrios blanched and moved his hands to his lap. “Not true. That was the first time.”
“So you admit you abducted Darcy and Mia?” she pressed.
A perplexed expression crossed his face. “They said Sunshine and Blackbird. You know, more nicknames. They wanted to join in the fun.”
“Where’d you get the idea to cruise the Sasquatch Festival?” Finn wanted to know. It nagged him that Melendez’s skeleton had been a girl picked up at the Gorge Amphitheatre. Could there be a connection between Sutter’s previous crimes and this current case?
“Ah, you know.” Metrios grinned. “Concerts. Lotsa pretty girls. Girls who are looking for fun. They like to go for rides.”
Finn supposed it was logical, in a perverted way. “Did you have tickets to the festival?”
The list of ticket buyers might contain a clue, but he cringed inwardly at the idea of having to sort through hundreds of names.
Metrios stared at him as though Finn were especially dense. “Just rode into the campgrounds. People go in and out that gate all day long.”
Finn’s neck muscles tightened at all the possibilities that provided.
“You started off together,” Agent Foster stated. “Why’d you and Dusty split up?”
Metrios glanced over Finn’s shoulder at the SpeediLube building window.
Finn turned. Two of Metrios’s colleagues watched through the glass. Finn assessed their ages as late teens or maybe early twenties. One young man was a redhead, but they turned away so quickly that the only other detail Finn caught was the smudge of a tattoo on the back of the dark boy’s neck. Was Metrios lying? Could one of them be Dusty? Did they know about the kidnapping?
“Kane, why did you and Dusty split up?” Agent Foster repeated.
Metrios turned back to her. “Dusty wanted to.” He shrugged. “I mean, we each had one, so why not?”
Finn pulled out the grainy photo from the video at the concession stand. He pointed to the young man Robin had identified as Cooper Trigg. “Is this Dusty?”
Metrios leaned forward to squint at the photo. “Could be.”
Finn wondered if slugging Metrios might improve his memory.
The kid recognized the threat in Finn’s expression. “Like I said, I don’t really know the dude, and you have to admit, this pic is crap.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “Where are Dusty and Mia—I mean Sunshine—now?”
At that question, Metrios abruptly seemed to realize how serious this situation could be. He pushed himself up out of his slouch. “Hell, I don’t know. I told you, I don’t know that Dusty dude. Don’t know where he lives, don’t know where he works, don’t know what his real name is. All I can tell you is that he rides an old Harley Sportster. A blue one.”
“License plate?” Foster’s pen was poised over her writing pad.
Metrios rolled his eyes. Finn had a sinking feeling that Metrios knew no more than the Meetup organizer had.
What kind of club didn’t know who its members were? They’d have to track down the email addresses and then possibly even the computers they’d come from . . . It was giving him a headache to think about how long that might take. Robin Valdez’s prayerful gesture flashed onto the screen of his memory.
Foster looked up from her notes. “Where’d you get the Roadkill jackets?”
“Online,” Metrios told her. “There’s a website. $89.95. Plus tax. Free shipping.”
Finn was starting to hate the internet, that font of boundless and so often useless information that took forever to sort through. He levered himself up from the bench and gestured with his left hand while reaching for his handcuffs with his right. “Kane Metrios, stand up and turn around.”
The kid grabbed onto the edge of the table top with both hands. “But I cooperated. I helped, didn’t I? And I didn’t rape that girl. If she says I did, she’s lying.”
“Maybe you didn’t rape her.” Agent Foster put one hand on the kid’s upper arm and one on the back of his neck. “But you did kidnap Darcy Ireland, drug her, and dump her in the middle of nowhere, didn’t you, Kane?”
“She said her name was Blackbird,” he protested, as if that was an excuse. “She wanted to come with us. They both did.”
“Then why did you drug her?”
He stared at the tabletop. “That was all Dusty’s idea. I didn’t know he was going to slip that shit into the beer like that. But then . . . hell, my girl was unconscious. I could barely keep her on the back of the bike. So it just didn’t seem right.” He looked up at them, his eyes begging. “I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t rape her.”
“Put him in the back of my car,” Finn told Alice Foster after cuffing Metrios. “I want to talk to the other employees.”
“I’ll be back.” She steered the kid around and marched him toward the parking lot.
The two boys who had been watching through the window, redhead Becker Symes and tattooed Joe Greco, seemed overly nervous during questioning. But then, both were only nineteen, and teenage boys often had something to hide, if only illegal purchases of cigarettes and alcohol, reckless driving, and underage drinking. When shown photos of the girls, each shook his head. The blurry still from the video produced no sign of recognition of the three men in the photo, either.
Neither Symes nor Greco owned a motorcycle, and both claimed they were working on Sunday when the girls had ridden off into danger. The SpeediLube manager verified that, and showed Finn the timecards. For the moment, Finn and Foster dismissed them as unimportant, but he took photos of all the licenses in the parking lot just for good measure.
“I have a feeling those two know more than they’re saying,” Alice Foster said as they exited the SpeediLube office.
Finn agreed. “But what do they know more about?”
“Good question.” She shrugged. “You take Metrios and check out the home, and I’ll check out the Roadkill Riders and the jacket purchases online. I’ll see what else I can pick up about Cooper Trigg, too.” She pulled open her car door.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely, nearly wanting to kiss her in gratitude. He hated computer searches.
* * * * *
By the time he’d booked Metrios into jail and secured a warrant to search the kid’s home, it was growing dark. Finn was on his way out to the Metrios home to inform Kane’s parents that their son was in jail, and to make sure that no girl was being held prisoner on the premises, when his phone chimed. He pressed the hands-free button on the steering wheel to answer.
“Detective Finn,” the desk sergeant began. “You might be interested in this. A good Samaritan just delivered a backpack and cell phone that he found in a field about twenty miles east of Evansburg.”
“Yeah?” An orange glow backlighting a hill in the distance caught Finn’s attention.
“They belong to Mia Valdez, or at least the cell does. There’s a little sticker on the back of it.”
“Fingerprints?”
“We recovered only the victim’s.”
“Is the phone functional?”
“The screen is cracked, but when I plugged it in, I was able to turn it on. But it’s password-protected.”
“Her mother might know the password. Save it for me. I’ll be back to pick it up”—he checked his watch and frowned—“tomorrow morning.”
Maybe, just maybe, there’d be a clue of some kind on it. Maybe even a GPS history? Assuming they could get in and the girl had left the GPS function turned on.
He crested the hill. The glow was from a barn, fully engulfed in flames. His barn, the one he’d photographed, the one he was painting. Black figures silhouetted against the conflagration showed that the volunteer fire department was present, but they seemed to be mostly standing back, waiting for the structure to collapse.
He pulled to the side of the road to watch the spectacle. Probably another arson of an unoccupied barn. Was one of the silhouettes Sara Melendez? Would either of them ever come to the end of their respective cases?
As half the barn collapsed, the black figures swept back like a wave receding from the shore. Bright sparks leapt in the night air like dancing fireflies. The scene was actually quite beautiful in a hellish sort of way.
“Damn vandals,” he muttered to himself. He had planned a traditional pastoral painting with wildflowers in the foreground, but now he could envision creating a more dramatic artwork with the scarlet and ultramarine and cobalt black and cadmium yellows of an active fire. He pulled out his phone and snapped a photo for future reference.
After punching in Robin Valdez’s number, he gave her the report of the sparse info they’d gleaned from Kane Metrios. Then he told her about Mia’s backpack and cell, asked if she knew the password.
“I might be able to guess it,” she responded.
“I’ll call you when I have it in hand tomorrow morning. Robin, I know there’s nothing definitive yet, but when we have enough of these puzzle pieces, we’ll be able to put together the whole picture and find Mia.”
There was a long silence before Robin answered in a solemn tone, “Thank you, Detective.”
His watch read 9:37 p.m. “I should talk to Grace. Is she around?”
“She’s already in bed.”
“Is she sick?”
Again, a hesitation, then, “No, I don’t think so. Just really tired.”
He could identify with fatigue.
“Kanoni is the one who is sick.”
“Oh, no.” He had a vision of Grace carrying the baby gorilla around all day long. She’d done it before, when Neema and Gumu were missing and Kanoni was temporarily an orphan. Grace was as much a mother to that little ape as Neema was. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s not serious.”
“Me too.”
“If there’s anything I can do . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
Robin said nothing, but Finn knew she was thinking that what he should be doing was looking for her child, not worrying about Grace or a gorilla.
“I hope I’ll get back to you with good news soon, Robin,” he said in a lame attempt to recover. “I’m working on finding Mia. Agent Foster is, too.”
“Thank you,” she said again in a nearly inaudible voice.
He said goodnight and then pulled back onto the highway, feeling as though he had let Robin down. Grace, too; it was another long evening he couldn’t share with her. And when he finally got home, Cargo and Lok and Kee would tell him once again how disappointed they were in him.
