167 (27)

Dean Palluck walked out of the hotel into the evening air.  He could smell the rain moving in, and he saw some flashes in the sky to the West.  “Is that a bad storm heading our way?”

“No warnings yet sir” came the voice from the car.  Dean looked into the car, and saw his young officer looking eager to continue the investigation.

“Well, keep me posted.  I…” Dean’s voice trailed off as a black Crown Victoria pulled into the parking lot at a rapid pace.  The car lurched to a stop, and the door flew open.  A tall Native American man in a black suit popped out in less than a second after the car stopped.

“Who’s in charge here?”

“That would be me” Palluck said.  His hand slowly drifted towards his sidearm.

“Iron-Horse, F.B.I.  I’m here to get your progress on the search for Anderton and Fulton.”  Clayton flipped open his I.D. as he spoke, his face showing no sense of humor or patience.

Dean’s hand relaxed as she looked at the I.D.  “Well, you’re not the fed I was expecting, but your paperwork looks legit.  I’d tell you where they were but we don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Look, their hotel room is here.  We found evidence that puts them here.  We just don’t have them.  They wandered off before we got the call to be here.”

“Any sign of them?”

“The Millstone had a waitress who though she recognized them.  She said they left with a blond woman in a blue car.  She didn’t know the make or model.”

“Well, it’s a start.  Have the other agents arrived yet?”

“Nope, but your plane is ready.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your plane.  The plane to take these two yay-hoos to D.C. for interrogation, or ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ or whatever you guys do nowadays.”

“Right right” Clayton said, hoping he hadn’t tipped his hand too far.

***

Will was watching the conversation from the car.  Clayton told him to stay in the car while he handled talking to the Aberdeen PD.  He just kept staring at 6th Avenue, watching all the cars going by.  He chuckled a bit at a near accident, but his laughter soon stopped.  A black Jetta was wailing on the horn, and the driver looked towards the police car at the Super 8 ever so briefly.  The look was long enough for Will, who recognized Laura Black.  Will slid over to the driver’s side and dropped the car into reverse.

***

“…and that’s where we’re at now.  You didn’t tell me you brought a partner.”

“Partner?”  Clayton asked.  Dean pointed towards where Clayton had parked, and Clayton saw his car pulling onto 6th Avenue with a slight squeal of the tires.  He pulled out his cell phone and shook his head.  He didn’t hear the other black sedan pulling into the lot as he scrolled through contacts.  “Right, my partner.  He’s quite the prankster.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Clayton heard from behind.  He turned and saw Agents Garrett and Lewis walking towards him from their black car.  Clayton slid his phone back into his pocket and furled his brow.

161 (21)

“I just called in our info. The state patrol has our info, and we have clearance to proceed at top speed” Garrett said, as he both closed his phone and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. He glanced over at Lewis, who was on her phone and nodding, the way she always did when she was being briefed over the phone. Garrett turned his attention back to the long stretch of South Dakota highway. He glanced over at Lewis again, and noticed her red hair was starting to fall out of her haphazard mess of pins. A stray strand was falling around her neck, and another was resting on her glasses. Garrett turned back to the road, and the stars that were starting to come out. He glanced again, and saw Lewis rest her right elbow on the part of the car door that met the window. His eye drifted to the buttons that weren’t done around her chest, and he caught a glimpse of white skin and black lace. His eyes snapped back to the road, where the white and yellow lines looked like they were years overdue for new paint. His mind was losing focus on the case, and was drifting back to five years ago. It was his first field assignment, and he met Alison Lewis for the first time at an airport before they flew to Houston. The investigation of a few people at NASA was wrapped up the day they got there, but they had one night at the hotel booked and no flight until the next day. A few hours after finding the hotel bar, Lewis had told him that due to budget cuts, they had to share a room. Garrett’s skepticism was verified when he heard Lewis say “Only one bed…must have been an error by the staff…”

“I said, are you listening?”

Garrett’s mind dissolved back to the road. “Sorry, what?”

“I was telling you I talked to the Aberdeen police. Try and keep your mind more on the road than Houston. You are going 120 after all.”

“How…how did…”

“Women’s intuition. Anyway, the police went into their room, and they weren’t there. They did find some clothes that had been worn, and some Kmart receipts in the garbage. The front desk woman had a vague description of their new clothes, and she saw them looking at some local menus, so they left to eat. That was long enough ago that they should have been back, so the police are going around the nearby eateries in hopes of some info.”

“If we hadn’t stopped to help that patrolman…”

“Don’t sweat it. Based on the time the hotel worker gave, we would have been too late anyway.”

Then, almost in unison, their cell phones made their telltale text message sounds. Garrett flipped open his phone, then Lewis opened hers. The closed them in unison.

“New orders” Garrett said.

“Yes” Lewis said, as she started trying to tune in a radio station. The black sedan zoomed across the asphalt path on the prairie, zipping past a sign that said told them Groton was fifteen miles away.

159 (19)

Dean Palluck didn’t want to take the call, but he was in charge of the raid, so it was his call to take. He sat on the empty bed and put his hear to the phone. “This is Palluck, who am I speaking to?”

“This is Captain Hale of the Sioux Falls Police Department.”

“Captain Hale? Sioux Falls?”

“Is there a problem?”

“No…just…the way my men have been passing the phone…I was guessing you were the feds.”

“I’m most certainly not a fed, I can assure you of that. What did the feds tell you?”

Dean pushed his hat back and rubbed his temples. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that. They told us to move in and hold the two men until their agents got here, and that’s all I’m required to tell you.”

“There was more?”

Palluck thought back to the instructions he’d received from the C.I.A. He wanted to tell Hale about the rest, but he didn’t trust the phone lines. Dale wasn’t even sure he what he would tell Hale if they were in the same room. “Again, I’m not at liberty to discuss what may or may not have been said.”

“Dammit, I want to talk to your supervisor!”

“Right now, in this town, I’m the supervisor, and when mine gets back from his weekend trip to the Black Hills he’ll tell you the same thing. We are not at liberty to discuss anything involved with the apprehension of Phillip Anderton or Robert Fulton.”

“I want those men! They might know something about an officer of ours who was gunned down!”

Palluck sighed. “Look, if it was up to me, I’d bag and tag these two and send them your way. The point is moot anyway. They aren’t here, and one of my men is at the Millstone restaurant. One of the hotel workers thought they saw them heading across the street and walking towards it. If anyone at the Millstone spotted them, I’ll let you know. I am authorized to let you know when we have them, but after that you’ll have to call the C.I.A., or their field agents with the N.R.O. or the N.G.A.”

“You’re damn right I will.” Hale hung up, and Dean slowly closed the phone.

“What was that about?”

Dean looked at the other officer in the room. “Just some friends in Sioux Falls who aren’t happy with us at the moment.”

“Are we really not supposed to tell them about handing those two over to the feds for questioning?”

“They know that. They just don’t want SooFoo to know about the plane waiting at the airport that’s going to take them to D.C.”

***

Elaine slid another handful of cigarettes into the rack. The door made a familiar noise, but she didn’t turn around. She took another handful as she heard footsteps walk to the cooler, and then towards the register. She stepped down from the step-ladder and saw a woman with black pants, a black tank top, and large cell-phone looking device. “Gas on three” she said, not taking her eyes off her phone, or MP3 player, or whatever it was.

“Anything else?” Elaine was trying to get a look at the device, but she couldn’t see the screen.

“Just the gas and the Coke. Say, what can you tell me about Aberdeen?”

Elaine wasn’t sure what to make of the question. It wasn’t often somebody popped into Groton and displayed no knowledge of the larger city to the West. “What do you want to know” Elaine asked as she started making change for the cash that the woman had tossed on the counter.

“Anything and everything.”

150 (10)

“Hold still” Garrett said as he pulled out his pocket knife.  He started hacking through the zip strips keeping Dale Roberts tied to a mile marker.

Lewis was rapidly buttoning her pantsuit back up all the way, and fixing her hair.  She kept checking the mirror but no matter how she did it, it looked like sex hair.  Finally she just gave up and opened the car door, only to leave it open while she continued to work with her combative hair.

Dale was rubbing his raw wrists, which Garrett had uncuffed right away.  The patrol car was still burning in a few spots, but it had mostly burnt itself out.  Dale felt the last strip give way, and he slowly stood up, with Garrett watching the whole time.  “Are you going to be okay?  You’ve got a few holes in your pants that look like they were burnt in.”

“I’m fine…just some debris from the car” Dale was looking around, and saw his badge, gun, belt and ticket book in a neat pile just a yard behind the sign, just out of his sight.  “I owe you one mister…”

“Garrett.  Agent Raymond Garrett, N.G.A.”  Garrett handed him his ID.

“Pardon me Agent Garrett, but I’ve never heard of the N.G.A.”

“We don’t get a lot of press, and we don’t get to South Dakota too often.”

“So, you guys fight terrorists like Jack Bauer?”

“Not exactly.  N.G.A. stands for National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.”

Dale’s face went blank.  “So…what do you do?”

“We work with the F.B.I. and C.I.A. on geographical data from airplanes and satellites.”

“Oh…what about her?”  Garrett looked over as Lewis walked towards the pair, her hair hurriedly pinned back in several spots.

“She’s N.R.O.  They handle satellite intelligence.  Now, what happened here?”

“I…I was pulling over…I mean…somebody…they tasered me…I woke up a bit ago…”

“So, you were tasered, tied up and somebody set your car on fire, left your badge and gun behind you?”

“More or less…”

“Did you get a good look at them?’

Dale swallowed and looked around at the dark prairie, the smoldering car, then back to the faces of Garrett and Lewis.  “No…I…I don’t remember.  It all happened so fast.”  Dale sunk down and sat back on the ground.

Garrett turned to Lewis.  “Call Aberdeen and tell them to move in.  We’re not leaving the scene until the help gets here.”

***

Risa kept doodling on her notepad, even though she could feel Amber watching her.  “Did you make the eyes big enough?”

“They’re doodle of a Japanese cartoon I like.  The eyes have to be big.”

“They look bigger than normal.”

“I’m trying a chibi style in my doodling today.  How was your shift at Kmart?”

“Mostly boring, but a cute guy came through today.  He said he was looking at one of our big-screen TVs.”

“Amber, do you fall for every guy who’s not butt-ugly and has money to burn?”

“No, just most.  Any cute guys check in today?”

“Just one…Eli Elson.  I should have known though.”

“Known what?”

“He was trouble.  The police have called to ask about him at least three times.  They haven’t called in a while, and now he’s out.”

“Where did he go?”

“I think he and some other g-”  Risa stopped talking as four police officers walked in.

“Ma’am, we have a warrant to search room 133, where one Eli Elson is staying.”

147 (7)

“Why are you doing this?”

Julio Perez took a long, slow sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup.  He closed his eyes, choosing to enjoy the gas station coffee’s bitter flavor rather than the bitter barbs of a crazy old man.  He sipped for a good ten seconds, then lowered the cup.  The old man’s face was still a portrait of anger, while his female friend was a look of concern and confusion.  “Because” Julio said, as he rested his elbows on the table of the small booth, “I’m looking for answers as much as you are, and I know the S.F.P.D. is looking for your friend, if she’s the one who screamed at the station.”

“You don’t have to answer that Mabel.  He’s railroad security…a rent-a-cop of the rails.”  B’s hand was in front of her face, but she reached up to lower it slowly. 

“Calm down.  I think he just wants answers, and yes, I am the woman who screamed” Mabel said quickly, before she could change her mind.

“Your friends are in Aberdeen” Julio said, before taking another long drink of coffee.

“They aren’t…how did you know that?”

“I was at the station helping with their investigation.”

“So why come here, if you knew where they wound up?”

Julio took another drink of coffee, and his cup was almost empty.  “I just need to know how much BNSF is going to get in the news because of your crazy idea of shoving two people into a boxcar.  Two people that have the police station buzzing like a nest of angry hornets.”

“There are men looking for them” Mabel said with a blank stare on her face.

“I know, the feds” Julio said as he started to get up for more coffee.

“No” Mabel said quietly, almost as if she thought the walls had ears.

***

“BOB!”  Bob looked up as something hit him in the face.  It surprised him more than anything, and he watched it fall to the floor.  Bob recognized the item as a matchbook that was in his pocket.  The matchbook had several phone numbers written on it.  “Is that your little black book?”

“Just a couple go to numbers for luck.”  Bob watched as Jeremiah started removing all the cards and things from his wallet.  Once he was done, Jeremiah held up Bob’s sunglasses.

“These aren’t bad.  Where’d you get them?”

“They were a gift.  They bring me luck.”

“I’d recommend a new pair” Jeremiah said, as he sat the glasses on a small table.  “Now, again, tell me where you met Gerrard, or Jer as you called him.”

“It was a poker tournament at Nutty’s.”

“Was he good?”

“Not good enough.  We tied for second.”

“How is that even possible?”

“We both had the same two pair with the same kicker.  The other guy had three of a kind.”

“You know, we were four of a kind at one point.”

“Excuse me?”

“Gerrard, Mokoto, Jebediah and I.  We worked together.”

“Get out…”

“No, I’m very serious…” Jeremiah said, as he stood up.  “…but we didn’t part on the best of terms.  Since he’s not here for me to air my grievences…that leaves you.”  Jeremiah started walking towards Bob, who was struggling harder than ever against the ropes holding him in place.

145 (5)

Alison Lewis eased her seat up as Raymond Garrett pulled the car onto I-29. She was mostly dressed, but her hair was a mess and her glasses were somewhere in the backseat. Garrett looked almost exactly the same as before they had taken their brief detour. He had a bit of sweat around his hairline that was being caught by the light of the dashboard. She opened her bottle of water and took a long drink as the car raced up over 100 miles per hour. She began screwing the bottle on tightly as she cleared her throat. “So, are you trying to make up for lost time?”

“This isn’t much faster than I was going before. Besides, we need to get there soon.”

“Do you think the local law enforcement has moved in already?”

“I hope not. Check my cell phone. Maybe somebody called.”

Lewis reached into the compartment between the seats and pulled out a cellphone.  It was blinking steadily, and Lewis flipped it open.  “One missed call from Sioux Falls.”

“Do you want me to call?”  Garrett’s hand reached towards the middle compartment, but Lewis quickly shut the compartment.

“No, I’ll take care of it” Lewis said as she placed the phone by her ear.  After a few rings, a raspy, slightly familiar voice came across.

“Captain Hale speaking.  Is this Garrett?”

“No, this is Lewis.  I’m sorry we were out of range for a bit.  What’s the latest?”

“The Aberdeen police are ready to move in.  They have a car watching the hotel, but they’re waiting until you get there, or give them the word.”

“Hold on a sec” Lewis said as she put the phone against her shoulder blade.  “Raymond, the Aberdeen force has a car outside, should we send them in?”

“No.  They wait until we get there.  We’ll be there soon enough.  Tell them to hold them if they leave the hotel.”

“Captain” Lewis said, almost before she had the phone back to her head.  “are you in touch with Aberdeen right now?”

“No, but Felix has them on the line.”

“Tell them to wait for us, but to bring Anderton and Fulton in for questioning if they leave the hotel.  Is that clear?”

“Crystal” came the dry response from Hale.

“Why don’t you give the Aberdeen police my number…and maybe give me theirs.”

“Sounds good.  Hang on, I’ll page Felix and tell him what you said.”

Lewis had her eyes closed, but she felt the car slowing rapidly.  She opened her eyes and saw a flickering orange light in the distance.  “What is that?”

“It looks like a car fire…or something.”  Garrett pulled to the left lane and kept slowing down as the car got closer to the orange light.  Soon, Garrett was able to make out a burning car, and one that looked like it had been burning for some time.

“Agent Lewis, do you have a pen and paper handy?  I can give you some numbers to connect with the Aberdeen police.”

“Captain Hale, I’m gonna need to call you back” Lewis said, as she spotted a South Dakota Patrolman tied to a mile marker.

144 (4)

“How did I figure it out? Let me tell you all about it.”

“Please.”

“First off, I figured out that this Dinkley fellow was not only still alive, but was smuggling drugs with his landlord Geoff Pryb-whatever. So, from there, I figured out that these to jokers, Phil and Bob, were working with him, but badly.”

“How so?”

“The feds were in on it too. Phil and Bob were told to make a pick up, and they shot Stevens and decided to call in the frame job to teach their other pushers a lesson. Dinkley faked his death earlier that day, and Geoff brings him back in the same apartment in a few months, with a new name and probably a hair color.”

“How did you know which of the feds was in on it?”

“Simple. One of them knew about my brother. That was a plant to get my dander up and to throw me off the case, by clouding my judgement. That told me Garrett was stringing along Lewis. Thank goodness you came to town, otherwise this might have taken me longer.”

“Really? I helped?”

“Of course Clayton. I kept you away from them, and when you got into a gunfight with their heavies that allowed me to go off on my own to stop a courier from catching a plane. Then, I tracked them to Aberdeen and with the help of the force, we nailed them all!”

“Maybe I could get you in at the F.B.I. You’d be perfect!”

“Oh Clayton, I’m happy with keeping the peace in Sioux Falls. Thanks for the kind words.”

“Well, if nothing else, you should answer your phone.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said ANSWER YOU DAMN PHONE!” Clayton was almost yelling in his ear. Will snapped forward and looked around. The car wasn’t moving, and Will was looking around with a very confused look on his face.

“Where…”

“Huron”

“How?”

“My car.”

“Why?”

“To beat Garrett and Lewis to Aberdeen. Now answer your damn phone.”

Will pulled out his phone and flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Detective Hetfield, this is Doctor Henriquez. You asked me to call if there was any change with Officer Vig?”

Will sunk as deeply as he could into the Crown Victoria’s passenger seat. “Yes…what’s the latest?”

“We need to perform some surgery. She should make it, but her condition makes it very dangerous. I just thought you should know.”

“Thank…thank you doctor. Good luck.”

“I have a good feeling she’ll make it. I don’t want to lose one of you. You probably don’t hear this often enough detective, but I appreciate all the Sioux Falls Police do for our community.”

“Thank you doctor. I’m confident I’ll be appreciating your work soon as well.”

“Good night Detective Hetfield.”

“Good night.” Will closed the phone and took a deep breath. He heard the door open and shut. Clayton tucked a credit card receipt under his sun visor and started the car. Soon they were speeding northward on US-281.

“Who was that?”

“The hospital. Tina needs more surgery.”

“She’ll be fine. Did you talk to her?”

“I…was…right before the car exploded.”

“You should get back to sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”

139 (27)

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.

131 (19)

Agent Lewis kept hitting the seek button on the car’s radio.  “My gosh, are there even radio stations out here that aren’t country or oldies or crap?”

Garrett had relaxed enough to let a small smile slip out.  “I doubt you’ll find a smooth jazz station out here.”

“That’s a damn shame Raymond.”  Garrett looked over for a moment, as Lewis started fiddling with some hair pins.  “Relax a bit, we’re in the car, with no one around.  I think we can use first names.”

“If you say so Allison.  We’ve been in agent mode so long lately, it almost feels odd to call you Allison again.”

Lewis’s hair tumbled down to her shoulders.  She took off her glasses and started rubbing her eyes.  “Why did we decide to get to Aberdeen so quickly again?”

“I want to be there and interrogate Anderton and Fulton as quickly as possible.”  Garrett’s eyes were ducking from the road to Lewis, who put her glasses back on.  She went back to playing with the radio.

“Interrogate?  Is that something they train you for at N.G.A. headquarters, after you make your first map?”

“Like you know.  Do you have a satellite that can find all the info we need?”

Lewis pressed the power button on the radio.  She stared at Garrett as she unbuttoned the first few buttons on her pantsuit.  “No, but thanks to satellite imagery I know there are a lot of seldom travelled roads in this state.”

Garrett looked over towards her.  He could see her unbuttoning her pantsuit down to the pants portion.  She arched her back forward and quickly slipped her arms out.  “What if I don’t want to slow down?” he asked.

“Then you’ll have to explain why your partner is naked, because I’m going to keep going until you exit the interstate.”

Garrett knew Lewis wasn’t bluffing.  He flipped his blinker on and exited Interstate 29.

***

“Well, I had rethought the reasons, yes, but not anymore.”

Bob’s leap of logic was spot on, but his triumph would only make what he had to say even harder.  “Did you try to tell Phil this in any way?”

“He knows.”

“Michelle…” Bob stopped for a moment as Abbie popped back up by their table.  She looked as if she was going to ask them to keep it down, while at the same time unsure whether or not it was safe to even approach.  “…hang on.  Abbie, I’ll be paying tonight.  I’ll need some change.”  He handed her two twenty dollar bills, which she cautiously took.  She then turned around, forcing a nervous smile all the way.  Bob turned back to Michelle, who was still staring outside.  “Humor me.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I poured my heard out to Phil in a letter.  A long letter.  It needed two stamps and everything.”

Bob’s heart sank even further.  The true scope of his error in judgment was now becoming apparent.  Phil’s mood suddenly swung upward upon hearing this.  “Wait wait wait” Phil stammered.  “I never got the letter.”

Michelle looked at Phil with a healthy heap of disbelief.  “Really?”

“Really” Bob said.  “I’m the reason Phil didn’t get the letter.”

130 (18)

The black Crown Victoria rocketed across the lane.  Will watched the semi-truck fly by like it was going the other way.  He glanced over to the speedometer, but it was pegged at 125 MPH.  He swallowed for a moment, then cleared his throat.  He was about to speak, when Clayton’s phone went off.  Clayton picked it up and looked at the display.  He quickly frowned and pushed a button on the side.  Soon the car was dark again, save the light from the stars and the headlights of oncoming cars.  “Does this car have airbags?”

“Probably, but I doubt they’d help at this point.”

“I don’t know if they have deer in the Twin Cities, but we have a fair amount of them here.”

“I’m aware of the deer.  We’ll just have to hope to get lucky.”

“Is there a reason you’re trying to break the sound barrier?”

“I want to get to Aberdeen before Garrett and Lewis.”

Will turned more towards Clayton.  “So, I take it not all the governmental agencies are playing nice like they’re supposed to?”

“Something weird is going on.  The N.G.A. and N.R.O. don’t go throwing their weight around like this, or like ever.  I know both of those agents have C.I.A. ties.  Yet they don’ t want me pursuing a lead on two men who might be the key to my investigation into Gerrard Dinkley.”

“Who also might be the key to our murdered officer.”

“You haven’t heard then, ballistics came back with the shell casings found at the scene.”

“So, they know who’s gun?”

“The bullet casings matched a gun owned by one Officer Laura Black.”

“Say what?”

“Exactly.  Isn’t that tidy?  The rogue officer who was impersonating a dead officer is also on the hook for a murder?  An officer who happened to be off the day it happened, and is now missing?”

“So, why aren’t we on I-29?”

“That’s the road Garrett and Lewis are taking.  We need to get there without them knowing we’re going.  We’ll have to hope that we don’t hit any deer once we exit I-90 and go up US-281.”

***

“Sit?  Give me one good reason I should sit right now!”

“Just…please Michelle.  You need to hear this.”  Bob took one last bite of his burger, which he had eaten rather quickly, considering he’d almost choked on it a few minutes ago.  Michelle sat down, but she looked out to the parking lot.  Her arms were folded, and she wasn’t looking at either of them.  Phil’s eyes were bloodshot and on the verge of watering up.  Bob looked over at him, swallowed the rest of his burger, and sighed heavily.  “Phil, you’ve been a friend for almost ten years, right?”

“More or less.”

“Michelle, you and Phil had a good thing once.  Do you know how much it hurt him when you left?”  Michelle didn’t answer.  “I’m sure you thought you had a good reason.”

“I had my reasons.”

Bob had a few options to him, but he decided to take a blind leap.  “Reasons you’ve since rethought, right?”

Michelle looked at Bob, with a mix of confusion and anger.  Phil just looked confused for the moment.