Felix swung open the Captain’s door. Hale was sitting behind his desk, filling out a form. Eli Elson was sitting off to the side. He had a soda that was mostly empty, but he was sucking on the straw anyway, in hopes of catching a few stray drops of soda. The sound was annoying, but Felix paid it little mind. “Sir, we just got word from Aberdeen police. They got their warrant and are going into the hotel room soon.” The chief looked up and sighed.
“I suppose I should call up the feds and let them know.” Hale reached for the phone, as Eli kept trying to suck every last bit of soda out of his Z’kota glass. Felix was having a harder time tuning him out the longer Hale waited on the phone. “Voice mail. I’ll try Lewis.” Eli shook his glass a bit, then started on the straw again. Felix looked down, hoping to tune him out entirely. “Voice mail again. They must be in a dead spot. Felix, get on the phone and tell them to wait for the feds, or for the word. If they need to talk to me, patch me through.”
“Can do.” Felix walked out and slammed the door just a bit harder than he normally would. Eli sat his glass on the armrest.
“How soon are you going to let me go? I’ve told you everything about Bob that I know.”
“Not quite.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I did.”
“What about the summer between freshman and sophomore year?”
Eli smiled and shook his head. “That’s an interesting question itself. If I knew I’d tell you, but most of us that he hung out with freshman year would love to know the answer. He came back from Spearfish…different.”
“Does the name…Holly Kearns mean anything to you?”
Eli stood up and walked over. Hale was looking at some printouts from the Rapid City Journal’s archives. “Holly was a girl Bob mentioned once in a while. They were never serious, more like friends with benefits. He talked about her freshman year, and I think he went to see her once or twice. Now that you mention it, I don’t remember her name coming up much after he got back.”
“There’s a pretty good reason” Hale said, as he flipped to another page. The story was about a young woman being mauled by a mountain lion.
“Damn” Eli said as he read the story. “She was killed by a mountain lion?”
“Not quite” Hale said.
***
“Here is an abandoned pawn shop. It closed about a year ago, but the building sits empty, and we happen to have a set of keys.”
Michelle stared at her gun, which was currently pointed between Phil and Bob. Bob was looking around, and Phil’s eyes were a vacant, dead stare into nothing. Michelle was thinking over her self defense classes in her head, and was trying to remember where her pepper spray was in her purse. Bob, Michelle and Mokoto looked to the left, as a motorcycle pulled in behind them. Their heads craned the other way as another car pulled in and parked in front of Michelle’s car. Michelle cleared her throat and asked “Friends of yours?”
“Wait here” Mokoto said.
