Two years ago I’d done Vancouver legwork on a custodial interference case, daddy grabs junior and ducks over the border. I was some small help to the Pierce County Sheriff’s. Deputy Kim Farraday remembered me, and agreed when I told him I needed the favor repaid.
He met us at a strip mall, in the window booth of a Seattle’s Best. Kim Farraday was at least fifty, and cultivated the look of a retired soldier: silver mustache and swept-back silver-white hair. He wore slacks and a gray blazer cut to mask his shoulder holster.
“You two got no idea where this lady is, uh?” Farraday’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched and carried the hint of a drawl. “She’s not necessarily in Tacoma.”
I showed him the texts. When he returned the phone his hands rested on the table, grasping his takeaway cup.
“You said this Crowhurst is for real and I’ll take your word on that. Now I can run you two back up to the border and see you across safe. I can look into this Crowhurst, find out what I can.”
I said, “The last person I asked to do that is studying his guts in a hospital bed.”
Farraday nodded slightly, as if conceding a point. “I don’t much like knives,” he said. “Don’t know how it works up north, but here, a fellow comes at you with a knife, you put him down. When I worked for the Wisconsin State Patrol I had a ticketing go wrong. Passenger came at me with a screwdriver. I told him stop, told him I’d shoot. His choice.” He looked over at Sonia. “You’re on the job. You know what I’m talking about.”
“I found out recently,” she said.
He waited for her to elaborate, but she only stared into her coffee.
“What kind of evidence is there on this Crowhurst?”
“Scant,” Sonia said. “Nothing the police would hold him on.”
“Now that depends. There’s ways to find something, if you just want him off the street for a couple days.”
Sonia shook her head. “Delaying the inevitable.”
“I guess I’m not sure exactly what you want,” Farraday said.
“We have to find Dana Essex,” I said. “If we find her we can convince her to put Crowhurst on the spot for the Sorenson murder. That ends it.”
“Finding people’s your specialty,” Farraday said. “I’d be more inclined to visit this Crowhurst, have a talk with him. What are you thinking?”
“Essex could be anywhere,” I admitted, “but I think she was on the level. Which means wherever she is now, she started from here.”
“Only so many hotels,” Farraday said. “You could probably run ’em all down in a couple hours. Meantime I’ll check out this Crowhurst’s place, see what I can see.”
Sonia and I agreed.
“You kids carrying?”
“I have my baton,” Sonia said. “Pepper spray.”
“Wits and personality,” I said.
“Can’t have you empty-handed.”
We followed him out to his Wrangler. He’d parked where he could see his truck from the window, and as he dropped the tailgate I saw why. A pair of pump shotguns, an AR-15, a Colt Python and a palm-sized .22. A fireaxe, machete, rope, and sundry other tools filled the cargo space.
“Pick your poison,” he said.
I tapped the lid of the Python’s lockbox. Farraday looked almost reluctant. “My favorite,” he said. “If the shoulder rig wasn’t so damn ungainly, that’d be my carry weapon.”
“We get stopped with this, it’s a crime,” I said to Sonia. “Could cost you your job.”
She thought it over, then picked up the case.
“Better than the alternative,” she said.