“Wife and kids?”
“No kids. I was married. My wife died.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
He adjusted his grip on the wheel, looked down the road ahead.
“I’d prefer not to talk about that, if that’s okay.” “No, sure. Sorry.”
Graham’s phone rang.
“Danny, Len Bowman in Banff. You heard we found Tarver?”
“I heard. Is the autopsy done yet?”
“No. You’d best get back here, Stotter’s not in a pleasant frame of mind.”
“I’m working on it. Is that why you called?” “The wardens want the Tarvers’ campsite released.
So, seeing that we’ve found him, do I have your verbal? We’ve been sitting on this thing for a long time, Dan.” Mother Nature’s your suspect.
At that instant Graham was struck with an idea-an overlooked aspect finally revealed itself.
“Wait! Len. Did Arnie process it with you?”
“For blood splatter?”
“Yes.”
“I think he looked in the tent, the SUV, scoped them and stuff.”
“Tell him to do the whole area leading to the river.”
“What? You want him to scope the woods?”
“Remind him about the Icelandic study about outdoor application. Arnie will know. He’s the one who told me about it. After he processes the area, call me.”
“I’ll do it, but it’s your head in the chopper when Stotter gets word. Because as far as he’s concerned this one’s been cleared.”
“Tell him, it’s all me. That should make things easy for you and Arnie.”
After the call, Graham lost his thoughts in the traffic. Maggie suspected that he had been discussing the Tarver case but didn’t ask him about it. Nor did she ask him when they pulled into a service center for gas and burgers.
Later, when they’d returned to the freeway, they didn’t notice the car following them. A blue Impala with tinted windows and a front bumper that was scraped on the driver’s side.
The same Impala that had followed Maggie a few nights ago.
This time one of the two men in the car had affixed a small transmitter to Graham’s rental. The signal was strong on the laptop computer they were using to monitor Maggie and Graham’s movements.
56
Las Vegas, Nevada
Two dogs surfaced from the skeleton of a rusted rig. Big animals with spike collars linked to long chains that dragged over the dirt yard and dog shit as they cau tiously advanced toward their owner.
Karl Dixon.
The dogs inched forward, ears down, growling, coats stitched with permanent scars. Half-starved and mean.
Just the way Dixon needed ’em. The ones not mean enough were buried by the grease pit in the back. Dixon shifted the fat cigar in his mouth, set down the bowl of raw pig meat. In his other hand, he gripped a steel rod encased in barbed wire dotted with tufts of hair and flesh.
As the hungry dogs moved nervously to the food,
Dixon bit down on his cigar, exposing brown teeth, then raised the rod over his head.
The dogs flinched and yelped.
Satisfied, Dixon held off striking them.
“Not today, boys. You still have a job.”
He chuckled, tossed the rod, removed his cigar, spit and took stock of his kingdom.
Desert Truck Land.
Some sixty tractors and trailers encircled by a tenfoot chain-link fence topped with coiled razor wire. His dealership sat on an old auction yard where the train tracks severed West Hacienda, west of Las Vegas Boule vard and I-15.
Dixon loved having power over everything in his world. His dogs, his ex-wives and his crooked deals. Walking back to his office, he tallied up last week’s sales to buyers from Montreal, Portland and Tulsa. They’d brought in some one hundred and fifty thousand, thanks to some creativity with the paperwork, the odometers and whatnot.
Leave gambling for the rollers.
Dixon never lost on a deal. And he never would. That’s how he ran his show.
He was careful. No complications.
He’d only gone a few steps before he stopped.
“Now what’s this?” he asked no one.
He squinted to the far end of the yard and the office, a no-frills wooden-framed rectangle with a noisy air conditioner atop a foundation of cinder blocks. A man and woman in a sedan went inside and had started talking to Wanda, the ex-showgirl who was Dixon’s secretary and girlfriend.
Dixon was a long way off but saw them all through the large window that opened to the yard. His skill at reading situations arose from his days as a polygraph examiner for the military.
Back in those days he’d lied about results in ex change for ten thousand dollars.
As Dixon neared the office, he got a bad feeling about these strangers. The way they were showing records to Wanda, their body language.
They weren’t truck people.
They looked like cops.
And Wanda was not the brightest light on the Strip.
Dixon picked up his pace.
The woman at the small, worn counter offered a sincere smile.
“Hi, how can I help you?”
She seemed happy to have visitors, but Graham was not optimistic.
Before he and Maggie had arrived they’d gotten rooms at a clean, reasonable motel off the Strip next to a wedding chapel. Graham made calls, then visited Las Vegas Metropolitan Police where he met Sergeant Lou Casta, with LVMP’s multiagency vehicle theft task force.
After confirming Graham’s credentials and his Tarver tragedy slash insurance story, Casta said his detail had Desert Truck Land down for some com plaints, alleged odometer tampering. “Nothing strong enough to support a charge.” The local command and the humane society had DTL on file for ill treatment of dogs. Nevada Highway Patrol had a couple of records complaints, and the FBI was looking into an interstate complaint on some rigs purchased at DTL.
“Other than that, you’re clear,” Casta said.
Now, at Desert Truck Land’s counter, Maggie Conlin took the initiative and Graham figured a mother’s nonthreatening appeal might work with the friendly recep tionist, so he let her go.
“Hi. Well, I’m hoping you can help me find my son.”
“Your son?”
“Logan Conlin. My name’s Maggie Conlin, I’m from Blue Rose Creek, near Los Angeles.”
Maggie pulled a file folder from her bag, opened to pictures and documents.
“Oh, what a good-looking boy,” Wanda said. “How old is he?”
“Nine. His father, Jake Conlin, my husband, is a trucker. He took Logan with him on a trip and I haven’t seen them since. It’s been almost six months.”
Maggie touched her hand to her mouth and blinked several times.
