“Are you Benjamin Beaner?” Clayton asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Police. Open up.”
The door opened a crack, and Clayton flashed his shield and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office photo ID. The door swung open to reveal a man with a sunken chest, round shoulders, a tuft of hair that dangled down from his chin, and pasty skin. He reeked of tobacco smoke mixed with the pungent aroma of marijuana.
“Benjamin Beaner?”
The man nodded. “If you’re looking for Brian Riley, he’s gone.”
“When?” Lee Armijo asked.
Beaner shook his head. “I don’t know. I woke up and he wasn’t here. Took all his stuff with him.”
“Exactly
“About seven this morning.”
“Was Riley here last night?” Clayton asked.
“Yeah. He crashed before I did.”
“Mind if we look around?” Armijo asked.
“You got a warrant?”
“Do you want to go to jail for felony pot possession?” Armijo countered.
Beaner swallowed hard. “Are you going to bust me anyway if I let you in?”
“We’re not interested in arresting you, Mr. Beaner,” Clayton answered.
Beaner stepped aside. “Look all you want.”
The small front room was completely taken over by a home entertainment system consisting of a DVD player, a cable TV box, a stereo with large floor speakers, a wide-screen high-definition television, the latest video gaming system and a universal remote control. Two beat-up reclining leather chairs were positioned directly in front of the TV, within easy reach of a glass-top coffee table that held an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, a plastic bag about half full of marijuana, a water pipe, and several roach clips.
In front of the coffee table, no more than three feet from the screen, was one of those legless video rocking chairs gamers used to plug themselves into their artificial digital world. Clearly Beaner’s private life was almost completely detached from anything real. The room, the dark eye of the TV screen, the absence of any personal touches reminded Clayton of fanciful and scary Ray Bradbury stories he’d read as a child. He asked Beaner where Riley had slept.
Beaner pointed to a small hallway and said, “Turn left.”
The back room was filled with assorted boxes of salvaged electronics gear, a bookcase made out of stacked concrete blocks and unpainted pine boards, filled with technical manuals, a plywood worktable on sawhorses that held a laptop, scanner, printer, and digital camera, and a twin mattress on the floor that had been pushed up against a wall.
Clayton called Beaner into the room to ask him what, if anything, belonged to Brian Riley.
Beaner looked around and stroked the tuft of facial hair that hung from his chin. “I don’t see anything here that’s his.”
“Nothing?” Clayton demanded.
“That’s right.”
“What did he come here with?”
“He had a backpack, a sleeping bag, a toilet kit that he kept in the bathroom, and the clothes he wore. That’s it.”
“And he gave you money to hide him?”
“A hundred dollars a night plus cash for food and extras, all of it in old money.”
“What do you mean old money?” Armijo asked.
“There wasn’t a bill less than ten years old that he gave me. Tens and twenties, and they hadn’t been circulated much. I pay attention to things like that. I figured it was stolen and I asked him about it.”
“What did he say?” Clayton asked.
“He said that he’d found it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. He dropped the subject. But he pulled a wad of cash out of his backpack to pay me for putting him up.”
“Do you have any of those old bills?”
“No, I spent them fast in case they were counterfeit.”
“I understand he told you he knew something about his stepmother that could put him in danger or get him killed,” Clayton said. “Was he any more specific about it than that?”
“The night a friend dropped by, Brian said he’d found out something about his stepmother that was some pretty scary shit.”
“Like what?” Armijo asked.
Beaner shook his head. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it other than to say she wasn’t who she pretended to be.”
Armijo stepped closer to Beaner. “Did he say how he knew this?”
“He mentioned finding some documents on his father’s property.”
“He used the word
“Yeah.”
Clayton flipped up the mattress, hoping Riley had left something behind. There were only dust balls on the wood floor and a spider that scurried away to safety. “Did he have a cell phone with him?”
“Not when he arrived. But he gave me cash to buy him one and sign up him for a prepaid calling plan at work under an alias.”
“What name did he want you to use?”
“Jack Ryan,” Beaner replied. “I’ve got his cell phone number if you want it.”
“You bet we do,” Armijo said.
Beaner took out his wallet and handed Armijo a slip of paper.
“I’ll get the ball rolling on this,” Lee said as he flipped open his cell phone and stepped into the front room.
“Stay put while I do a quick search,” Clayton ordered Beaner. He shifted nervously from foot to foot as Clayton looked through the documents and papers on the plywood table, the content of the boxes, the material on the bookcase, and the junk in a small closet.
Clayton moved a box at the head of the mattress, picked up a paperback novel that had been hidden from view, fanned through the pages, and glanced at the synopsis on the back. It was a spy thriller featuring a CIA operative named Jack Ryan. “Is this Riley’s book?” he asked.
“No, it’s mine,” Beaner replied. “He started reading it while he was here. That’s where he got the alias he wanted me to use for the cell phone. He said that he liked the sound of the name and it was close enough to Riley that he’d remember it.”
“Did he talk about hiding out from agents of a foreign government?”
“He mentioned that,” Beaner replied. “But I didn’t take it seriously.”
“Why not?”
“Because it sounded made up, like something right out of that book you’re holding in your hand.”
Clayton hadn’t read the novel. Maybe if he did, he’d get some insights into Riley. “Mind if I borrow it?”
“You can have it.”
Lee Armijo stepped back into the room. “I’ve got an expedited search warrant in the hopper for the telephone records, and there’s no toilet kit in the bathroom. Anything here?”
Clayton shook his head and returned his attention to Beaner. “Can you think of any reason Riley would leave so unexpectedly?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea as to where he might have gone?”
“No.”
Clayton handed Beaner a business card. “If he returns, calls, or you hear about him through some other
