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“He could be anywhere hunkered down,” Billy Don said. “Them cedars are thicker’n cream gravy.”
When Billy Don made comparisons, they often had a connection to food.
“Keep looking,” Red said.
“Or he’s laying down flat in a gully,” Billy Don said. “Ain’t no chance we’d see him then.”
“Keep looking,” Red said. “We’ll see his orange jacket.”
They were cruising slowly along the county road between Red’s trailer and the highway. For the fourth time. Billy Don was using a spotlight to sweep the wooded areas on the side of the road. They’d seen at least two dozen deer, three sizeable herds of feral pigs, and a fox with a mouse in its mouth.
But no Garrett.
Both bullets had gone through the windshield and hit the rear glass, shattering it. Red was still steaming. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this mad. He might actually use the shotgun on Garrett—if they could find him.
“Guy with a temper like that,” Billy Don said. “No telling what he mighta done back home in Michigan.”
“Yeah, like killing his daddy,” Red said. “Like I said all along, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I listened,” Billy Don said. “Just thought you was wrong. And then I changed my mind.”
“And he coulda killed that guy at the zoo,” Red said.
“Maybe so.”
“That’s why he didn’t want to admit being further south,” Red said. “Especially with a gun.”
They rode quietly for another mile.
“You know what we should do?” Billy Don asked.
“Huh?”
“Hate to say it—and I know you ain’t gonna listen—but we oughta call the sheriff.”
“Screw that. Keep looking.”
“Yeah, but what if another hour or two goes by and we still ain’t found him? Then we should call. That’s all I’m saying. Otherwise, he’s gonna get away with it. You’ll never get him to pay for the damage to your truck.”
“Then you’re gonna pay,” Red said.
“Why the hell would I pay?”
“Because ain’t none of this woulda happened if you hadn’t told me to pick him up,” Red said. “That makes it your fault.”
Billy Don grumbled but didn’t object.
Within thirty minutes after the shooting at the Dairy Queen, all available full-time deputies and reserve deputies—as well as law enforcement officers from nearby cities—had formed a perimeter on the outer reaches of the county or were otherwise assisting with the search.
By 7:00—well after dark—the blue Ranger still had not been located, nor had Trevor Larkin or Caitlin McGregor.
At 8:15, the DPS helicopter equipped with forward-looking infrared radar had already searched for two hours, but it had run low on fuel and was forced to return to headquarters. The pilot had offered to come back, but Bobby Garza had declined—at least for now—because the odds were extremely low that Trevor Larkin was still on the move. If he was, that meant he had slipped away before they’d formed the perimeter, and by now he and Caitlin McGregor could be a hundred miles away.
At 9:13, Garza asked Marlin to meet him in the parking lot of a convenience store in Blanco, where they parked driver’s window to driver’s window. Marlin couldn’t recall ever seeing Garza so concerned and frustrated.
Garza said, “Lauren reviewed camera footage from the church next door and they were definitely in the Ranger, just like you said. Good call on that. They went north on 281 from the church parking lot, but that’s all we know. She’s asking all the business owners in town to check their cameras, but it’ll probably be tomorrow morning before some of those folks get around to it.”
“They can’t have gone far,” Marlin said. “Somebody would’ve seen them, even on the back roads. I think there’s a good chance they’re holed up somewhere.”
He sipped from the cup of coffee he’d gotten in the store a few minutes earlier. It was going to be a long night.
“I agree,” Garza said. “So where could he park the Ranger, out of sight, and stay for a while?”
Despite the alarming circumstances in this particular case, Marlin always enjoyed working closely with the sheriff’s office when they needed assistance. Marlin had proven time and time again that he was a talented investigator, and Garza was happy to have an extra hand on complex cases.
“Checking their cell phones?” Marlin asked.
“Already did, and we’re getting nothing. He must’ve turned them off. We’re interviewing all of the DQ employees right now. Maybe Larkin said something to one of them that’ll lead us in the right direction. We’d interview his friends, but he doesn’t seem to have any.”
Marlin had once read an article that poked holes in the loner-killer myth, but in this case, maybe it was accurate.
“I’m guessing they found an empty house or a hunting cabin or something similar,” Marlin said. “And the truck is in a garage or a barn or a large shed. They aren’t just parked under some oak trees. The chopper would’ve seen them or the tracks in and out.”
Sometimes simply brainstorming like this could lead to fresh ways of thinking.
“Maybe somebody’s out of town on vacation—their house is empty—and Larkin knew about it,” Garza said. “Or it’s a house for sale.”
Marlin nodded. “But it can’t be more than a few miles from the city limits. We had too many units on the roads too quickly for him to have gone any farther.”
The radio had fallen quiet in the past hour. Some deputies were parked at strategic intersections and keeping watch, while other deputies continued to scour the city streets and county roads.
“They went north from the church...and then what?” Garza asked.
“I can’t imagine they stayed on 281 for long—he’d want to get off the highway as soon as possible.”
“He’s a local, so he’d know which roads lead out of town.”
“Fourth Street and Seventh Street,” Marlin said. “That’s it. Two choices.”
Fourth Street turned into Ranch Road 1623 to the west and Ranch Road 165 to the east. Seventh Street dead-ended to the east, but to the west, it became County Road 105, also known as Rocky Road, which wound for miles in a northwesterly direction all the way to Highway 290, west of Johnson City.
“Can I give you a chore?” Garza asked.
“You know you can.”
“Can you figure out a way to map every empty house in the area that has a garage or barn or large shed? Maybe expand it to two or three miles outside the city limits, but no further than that.”
“Will do. I bet Jo Virgil can help with that.”
“Good idea. I would love to start checking those places at first light.”
“I’ll call her or drive over there if I have to and we’ll make it happen. What else?”
“You staying out for a while?” Garza asked.
“I was planning on it. Just going to roam and see what I can see.”
Garza nodded and shifted his SUV into drive. “By the way, Trevor Larkin’s dad called me earlier and he said they’ve known for years—how did he put it?—that Trevor had some sort of serious flaw inside him, but they couldn’t figure out what it was. He had problems with impulse control and he went through a stage where he would set fires. He had a lot of therapy when he was younger, but when he turned eighteen, he moved out and they haven’t had a lot of contact since then.”
None of this was surprising, but it wasn’t particularly useful right now, either.
“He have any idea where Trevor might’ve gone?” Marlin asked.
“Not a clue.”
“What’s the latest on Rodney?” Marlin asked.
Last he’d heard, Rodney was going into surgery. The other shooting victim—a 17-year-old girl from Mason—had suffered only a grazing wound on her forearm. She’d been every bit as much the hero as Rodney, although she’d been quite upset when she learned that her phone screen had shattered when it hit the floor. The irony made Marlin grin when he’d heard about it.
“He’s doing okay,” Garza said. “The bullet broke his collarbone but didn’t hit any major arteries. Lucky as hell. Now we just need to find Trevor Larkin before he does any more damage.”
Lauren Gilchrist was parked along Highway 281 north of Blanco. She was multitasking: watching for the blue Ranger, and calling as many Blanco business owners as possible, asking them to review any security-camera footage they might have from that afternoon. Each time she couldn’t reach a particular business owner, she called that business owner’s employees, friends, and family members until she made contact. Word was starting to spread.
At 9:30, she took a short break to read an email she’d received earlier from Darrell.
He had not been able to contact Sylvia Golino, and the producers at CNN had refused to provide any contact information. No surprise there. If the situation had been reversed—if CNN had been asking the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office for an individual’s contact information—the sheriff’s office would’ve declined.
However, Darrell had been able to find an informative article with the title Without A Trace: The Unexplained Disappearance of Miguel Lopez.
Too long to read right now, but Darrell had provided a short summary.
Miguel Lopez is Albert Cortez. Nineteen years ago, Albert was sleeping with Sylvia Golino, who was the wife of a reputed mobster named Anthony Carducci. Carducci’s brother went to threaten or kill Lopez, and Lopez ran him down with his car and killed him, possibly accidental. Lopez/Cortez was charged with manslaughter. He took off before trial and has been in the wind ever since.
Amazing. So how did the dead guy at the zoo figure in to it? Had Carducci finally figured out where Cortez had been hiding and sent a killer?
Lauren sent a quick reply to Darrell, copying it to Garza and Marlin: Send the John Doe’s photo to Boston PD and see if they recognize him as one of Carducci’s crew.
Then she went back to making phone calls.