Chapter Seven

IN THE MORNING, Sam and Montgomery drive out to Troutman and Donna’s secret trailer, following the directions she scrawled on a piece of paper ripped from a notepad. They spend most of the drive in silence, Sam taking the various paved and unpaved roads snaking north off Highway 169, slowing his car as he begins to pass through an archway of leafless trees and brush. The branches crowd out the sky, white and pointy, like the skeletons of men who died with their hands up. Sam worries this is the only access road to wherever Troutman’s parked his camper, but he keeps driving without mentioning it to Montgomery.

After a few minutes on this dirt path, Sam sees another one forking off into the trees on his right, just wide enough for him to take it without the limbs scraping against the car. He decides to follow the path and see if it provides a view of Troutman’s hideout without leading directly to it. Not knowing how close he is to the campsite and wanting to stay undetectable, he inches the car along as slowly as he can. The trail curves to the left, toward the main drag. Sam keeps going until the trail thins out to a walking path. The old steel Airstream lies ahead, through the trees; the car faces the campsite. Sam kills the engine, figuring it’s better not to risk anyone hearing it, and they wait.

They make out a blue pickup truck that Willa Rae Troutman confirmed as her husband’s only vehicle, the same one registered under his name. But a lot of people in the quad-city area drive trucks, and plenty of them are blue or Fords or both. Sam can’t see the license plate or he would check it against the numbers in his file on Troutman.

Sam looks at his watch, trades a glance with Montgomery, and they settle in for the stakeout. They don’t have anywhere else to be today, but Sam doesn’t plan on staying too long.

“How many of these you done in your career?” Montgomery says.

“Stakeouts?”

Montgomery nods.

“A few.”

After a couple minutes, Montgomery says, “You mind if I smoke?”

“Roll the window down.”

Montgomery rolls his window all the way down, letting in the cool air, and lights up one of his cigarettes. He smokes quietly for a little while, and Sam keeps his gaze fixed on the Airstream.

“So tell me,” says Montgomery. “What’s the truth behind your disdain for guns?”

“Disdain. That’s a big word for a cowboy.”

Montgomery smiles.

Sam doesn’t speak again for a stretch, knowing Montgomery can be patient until kingdom come for something he truly wants. He takes a deep breath, then says, “When my sister and I were kids, we’d spend some time at our grandparents’ house every summer. They lived in the boonies, near Shingletown. Their closest neighbors were this family with a boy about my age. Daniel. That was his name. Not Dan, not Danny. Daniel. He and I were buddies. I waited all winter and spring to see him again, every year. We would meet each other in the woods halfway between my family’s property and his. Spend hours alone out there, playing until the sun went down. One day, the summer I was eleven, he showed up with one of his father’s guns. It was this little revolver with a chestnut-brown grip. He had it folded up in some kind of handkerchief. He wanted to take turns shooting the thing, said his dad taught him how, and it was fun. I’d never touched a gun before. I was afraid of it, but I didn’t want him to know that.”

Sam shakes his head. “So he went first, then gave the revolver to me. I took my first shot, got spooked by the recoil, and I didn’t want to keep going. But there were six rounds in the gun, so Daniel wanted us to shoot three each. He took his second, passed it back; I took my second, passed it back. He took his third. I didn’t want to take mine. I was jittery. I didn’t like shooting the thing. So I tried to refuse. And Daniel kept pushing me to finish my half. I told him to shoot the last round himself, and he wouldn’t because everything had to be even between us. I said, just take the bullet out of the gun and pretend I shot it. He wouldn’t back down. He wanted me to finish. He grabbed my hand, put the gun in it… I don’t know how, but it went off. That last bullet went straight through him, in the belly and out his back.”

Sam pauses, still facing the windshield but no longer seeing the Airstream and the blue truck.

Montgomery doesn’t say a word, staring at him with his cigarette in his fingers and his arm propped in the open window.

“He survived,” says Sam. “But I couldn’t face him after. I still remember exactly how he looked with that wound. The blood.”

Sam sniffs and stops the story there. A somber silence settles over the men. Montgomery finishes his cigarette and doesn’t offer Sam any consoling words.

Sam straightens up in his seat when the camper door swings open, and Troutman appears, lumbering down the steps. Other than several days’ worth of facial hair, he appears no different than he did the night of the robbery. He lights a cigarette as he moves, stopping a few yards away from the Airstream and standing still a minute, surveying his surroundings. He gazes up at the sky.

Sam holds his breath, hoping like hell his vehicle is as well-hidden as he believes. Troutman turns his back on Sam and Montgomery, looking past the Airstream. It occurs to Sam that maybe Troutman didn’t come out of the camper to smoke but to investigate the noise of Sam’s car getting within spying distance.

But Troutman turns around and goes back into the camper without a suspicious look on his face and without pausing to check the lot more closely.

“Are you going to get him or not?” Montgomery says, pitching his voice low.

Sam shakes his head as Troutman reemerges, wearing a jacket and carrying his keys in one hand. He doesn’t lock the camper door behind him. He gets into his blue truck and drives away, down the dirt path.

Sam waits until the sound of the truck fades into nothing, then reaches over Montgomery’s lap and pops the glove box to retrieve his sidearm. “You staying here or coming with me?”

Montgomery gives him a skeptical look. “What do you think?”

They get out of the car and make as little noise as possible approaching the camper. Sam’s dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, T-shirt, and jeans, and his badge is clipped to the driver’s side visor in the car.

It’s quiet except for the men’s footsteps scratching at the ground. They follow the walking path around to the back end of the campsite, through the dead trees, and Sam wonders if Troutman lies awake at night in disbelief that he ended up here with nothing to show for his sacrifice of wife, kids, and home except a sad sack of cash that wouldn’t last him two weeks on the road as a fugitive. Maybe the money’s gone already—spent on food and gas these weeks he’s been hiding to avoid leaving a trail of credit card charges.

Sam and Montgomery cut through the trees when they’re directly behind the Airstream, then pause to listen for noise, afraid Troutman will return any minute. Sam wishes there was a back door, a second way in and out, but there isn’t. If Troutman comes back too soon, Sam can only hope he’ll submit to arrest without putting up a violent fight.

He and Montgomery round the front end of the camper, tense and hyperalert, and hurry up the foldout steps to the door, shutting it behind them.

Inside the camper, there’s a double bed built into the rear end from wall to wall, a couch only deep enough for a man of average build to lie across, a four-person table with booth seats, a small kitchen, and a storage closet. An old TV set sits on a small table across from the sofa, pushed up against the side of the refrigerator.

The wastebasket is almost overflowing, and there are dozens of empty beer bottles all over the little kitchen counter and three empty pizza boxes stacked on top of the fridge. Dirty dishes and utensils fill the sink, with clean ones left on the drying pad next to it, the glasses and mugs upside down. Troutman’s got a vintage pinup-themed calendar tacked to the wall; Miss October wears a witch hat and sits on a giant pumpkin. Sam wants to turn the page—it’s November now—but he doesn’t want to leave any trace of himself and Montgomery. They search the drawers and cupboards, the refrigerator and freezer, the dishwasher and the oven, but don’t find anything.

They notice the bottles of nail polish lining one of the shelves in the narrow bathroom: the first sign of Donna Rey in the camper. The teddy bear sitting in the corner of the bed must belong to her too, probably a gift from Troutman. The bed is unmade, and Troutman’s dirty clothes have been left in a heap on the floor. A small, potted cactus with one pink flower sits in the window above the bed. The dresser top is covered in loose change, receipts, buttons, condoms, a few business cards, a photo booth strip featuring Troutman and Donna smiling and kissing, a man’s watch, a dirty coffee mug, and movie ticket stubs from a theater in Prescott Valley.

“I don’t know about you,” says Montgomery, peering around the bedroom. “But I’m curious how he could afford this Airstream if he’s broke enough to carry out armed robbery.”

“Maybe he wasn’t broke when he bought it,” says Sam as he searches the narrow closet for the money and the gun. He doesn’t find anything except some of Troutman’s clothes, a vacuum cleaner, and hangers. He checks the dresser drawers with no luck but does find a glass pipe with remnants of smoked grass in the top drawer. A smear of lipstick is still caked onto the underside of the pipe’s neck. Jen, Sam’s ex-wife, used to smoke weed in college and through most of her twenties. She asked him once if he had any drug experience, maybe assuming a sheriff’s deputy would either have none or lie about it if he did. Sam told her the truth. He’d never tried pot, and he didn’t care if she had.

“And another thing,” Montgomery says. “He somehow managed to hide this Airstream from his wife?”

“Some couples keep separate bank accounts.” Sam glances up on impulse only to find a road map of the United States taped to the ceiling above the bed.

“You think the Troutmans are those kind of people?” Montgomery’s tone is skeptical. He follows Sam’s line of sight to the map above them, and they gaze at the country together in silence for several seconds.

Sam can picture Troutman and Donna lying in bed together, studying the map, dreaming out loud about escaping their lives in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona, for something better somewhere else—both of them knowing the whole time they never would.

He looks down again and sees a baby-blue sleeve peeping out of the twisted, bunched up bedding. He pulls on it; the sleeve belongs to a woman’s long, button-down shirt that must belong to Donna. Maybe she slept in it or wore it after sex to bum around the campsite. The shirt smells of perfume, something sweet and floral. Sam wonders for the first time how Troutman feels about her, if he loves this woman who isn’t his wife or if she’s just uncomplicated fun and a good lay. If he believes what Donna claims, Troutman hasn’t contacted her since the robbery, but then again, he hasn’t reached out to Willa Rae either.

Sam and Montgomery go back to the other end of the Airstream and plop down on the couch. Sam lets out a sigh. Even if the sheriff’s department arrests Troutman, they can’t charge him for anything without hard evidence tying him to the crime. He never took off his mask, so there’s no way to make a positive ID based on appearance alone. Everyone who was in the diner heard Troutman’s voice, but that’ll be thin to a jury. Sam saw Troutman drive off in the blue pickup but didn’t get the plate number. Without the cash in the collection sack Troutman and Decker brought with them or the gun Troutman used in the holdup, there’s nothing concrete tying him to the robbery. He doesn’t have an alibi, and his disappearance since the crime doesn’t look good. But getting the prosecutor’s office to press charges against him, then a jury to convict based on those two details alone would be more than a long shot. Even the stolen money would be a hard sell. If it’s all cash, no credit or debit cards, proving it came from the patrons of the diner would be impossible. The prosecution would have to search Troutman’s emails, text messages, and call log to find proof of him and Decker planning the robbery. There was nothing on Decker’s end they could use.

“What are you thinking?” asks Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I expected to find here.”

“You found your man. Isn’t that enough?”

Sam shakes his head. “Not in the long run.”

He gets up off the couch and surveys the Airstream one last time. He notices the coffee can on the kitchen counter, tucked behind the coffee maker. He goes to peek out the window, making sure Troutman isn’t driving back up the dirt road, then peels the coffee can lid open on a hunch.

There, in the dark, fine grounds, is a wad of cash rubber banded together. He pulls the money out and holds it up for Montgomery to see.

“Strange place for an innocent man to keep cash,” Montgomery quips.

“Still not enough for a guilty conviction.” Sam pulls the rubber band off the bills and starts to count them. Six hundred and seventy-three dollars. He rolls the money back up and wraps the rubber band around it again, returns it to the coffee can, and wipes his hands clean on his jeans.

Sam and Montgomery walk out of the Airstream and go back to the car. Sam wonders if Troutman keeps a picture of his kids in his truck or in his wallet. There’s no trace of them here.