“Until Ms. Wade is found or we know differently, kidnapping is still a possibility. There’s another one, too, maybe unlikely, but we think it needs to be addressed if only to put it out of the running.”
“And what would that be?”
“The explosion Monday evening. At the Verriker place.”
“What about it?”
“How sure are you it was accidental?”
That almost set Broxmeyer off again. He said, scowling, “What kind of question is that? Of course it was accidental.”
“What caused it?”
“Gas leak, ignited by a spark.”
“Gas lines can be tampered with.”
“For God’s sake, are you suggesting somebody planned to blow up the Verrikers’ house? That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it?” I said. I was all right now, my control buttoned up tight again. “I told you about the trail I followed from the logging road that came out on the hillside above the Verriker property. It started near those tire marks I showed you, and it could’ve been made by whoever owned the parked vehicle. Wouldn’t have been difficult to slip down to the house, get inside with nobody home, loosen a fitting to fill the house with gas. Somebody who had it in for the Verrikers.”
Broxmeyer was looking at me as if he thought I’d taken leave of my senses.
“My wife could have been on the road when he came back up,” I said.
“And then I suppose he grabbed her and made her another victim?”
“She’s not dead.”
“I hope not. But she’s not in the clutches of some phantom killer, either. In the first place, the explosion was an accident, plain and simple. No question of that. In the second place, Ned and Alice Verriker were and are good people… no enemies, no reason anybody would want to harm either of them.”
“All right.”
“Another thing. Even if it had happened that way, why would this phantom think your wife was a threat? She’d be a stranger to him and he’d be a stranger to her. All he’d’ve had to do was drive off and leave her there to finish her walk and she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
“I said all right.”
The deputy shifted his gaze to Runyon. “Possibility out of the running for you now?”
Jake had nothing to say.
“It better be,” Broxmeyer said. “What happened on Monday was a real tragedy, and I won’t have you going around cutting into Ned Verriker’s grief and stirring people up with a lot of unfounded nonsense.”
Still nothing to say, either of us.
“So okay then. My advice is to stop trying to make something sinister out of a simple disappearance and join one of the search teams… two now, by the way, working separate sections east and west of Ridge Hill Road. But if you insist on conducting a private investigation, I won’t try to stop you, only keep it quiet and don’t make waves. Are we clear on that?”
I said, “We’re clear,” and he nodded and waved us out.
The midmorning heat and sun glare smacked me a little as we came outside. That, and my elevated blood pressure brought on a touch of vertigo. I took a couple of faltering steps on the way to the car, had to lean against an old-fashioned lamppost to steady myself.
“You okay?” Runyon asked.
“Just a little woozy. Give me half a minute.”
He knew better than to try to help me. The dizziness passed, and I walked ahead to the car. When we were both inside with the windows rolled down, I said, “The sheriff ’s department isn’t going to be any help, and you know there’s not enough kidnap evidence to bring the FBI into it. It’s up to us.”
“Looks that way.”
“Thirty hours, Jake.”
He knew what I meant. Anybody who has ever worked in law enforcement knows that if an abduction victim isn’t found within seventy-two hours, the odds jump against the person ever being found alive. And Kerry had been missing more than forty hours now.
“More than that, maybe,” he said.
“But not a lot more.”
“Where do you want to start?”
“With Fechaya,” I said. “Where else?”
15
PETE BALFOUR
He had plans now. Oh, baby, did he have plans now!
Felt real fine when he got up Wednesday morning, no hangover even though he’d put away pretty near a fifth of Jack Daniel’s yesterday and last night. Slept like a baby. Rarin’ to go, full of piss and vinegar, blood and fire.
Fed Bruno, thought about feeding the woman again, but why bother, just be a waste of time now that he knew what he was gonna do with her, and left the house at seven. Stopped off at the Green Valley Cafe for a quick breakfast and just grinned and shrugged when fat-ass Jolene threw her mayor look at him. Nothing and nobody could get his goat today or ever again. Then he drove straight to the fairgrounds, got there just as Eladio was opening up the storage unit. The Mex seemed surprised to see him, but he knew better than to say anything. Thing was, meeting the deadline was important now-keep Tarboe and Donaldson off his back. Ought to be able to get all the major repairs done on time if he worked Eladio and the half-wit and himself bitch-hard for ten or eleven hours today and part of tomorrow, until it was time to run his errand in Stockton, then promise them double overtime pay to finish up.
He’d be tired as hell the next couple of days, but not too tired to take care of business. No siree, not with what he had brewing.
Luke Penny’d helped give him the first plan yesterday afternoon. He’d pulled into the Shell station for gas on his way back from Freedom Lanes, and Penny come out of the garage and wandered over, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. Pete Balfour wasn’t the only ugly dude in the valley-Luke was no prize, either, and the slather of grease across his chin hadn’t helped his looks none.
“Hell of a thing about Alice Verriker.”
“Yeah. Hell of a thing.”
“Guess you ain’t the sorriest person around, though. Huh, Pete?”
As mean as he’d felt then, he’d of liked to punch the greasy bastard’s lights out. Or tell him to go fuck himself, like he had that faggot Tarboe. But going off on Tarboe had been a mistake-he’d realized it sitting there in the Freedom bar with Verriker’s voice pounding away inside his head. He couldn’t afford to call any more attention to himself, not if he didn’t want people getting suspicious of him when he finally fixed Verriker.
So he’d swallowed his rage and said, “Me and Ned had our differences, but that don’t mean I’m not sorry for his losses. I feel real sorry for him, you want to know the truth. Real sorry.”
“Sure you do.”
“The truth, Luke. Some of the guys in the Buckhorn last night, they started a collection to help pay for Alice’s funeral and I kicked in more’n my share. Plenty more’n my share.”
Penny didn’t look like he believed it. But then he shrugged and said, “Well, Ned can use the help, that’s for sure.”
“Might want to kick in a few bucks yourself.”
“I’ll do that. Tonight, after work.”
“What I heard, Ned spent the night with the Ramseys, but they don’t have enough room to let him stay on there. Jolene, over at the cafe, said Jim Jensen might fix him up at his place.”
