Nowhere Pure, page 11
“I want to believe you’re innocent,” Cole said softly, meaning the words, “but you’re going to have to convince me.”
“How?”
“Why don’t you start by telling me where you were last night?”
“Last night?” He lifted his face, looking almost dazed. “I was at my sister’s wedding, over in Lockridge. Helped to get set up around four in the afternoon and didn’t get back until … oh … seven or eight this morning.”
“That’s a lot of partying,” Callaway said.
“That was part of it, sure. After the wedding, while my sister and her new husband went off to the airport for a honeymoon in Barbados, I went with some of the guys to the groom’s house so we could get a few things ready for his return.” A sly grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“What kind of things?” Cole asked, though she had a feeling she knew where this was going.
“Oh, just some pranks: a cardboard cutout behind the door, plastic wrap on the toilet, a giant rubber spider in the shower, fake bedbugs in the mattress. Wanted to keep them on their toes.”
“How many of you were there?” Callaway asked.
“Six. Well, seven, including me.”
“And they can confirm your story?” Cole asked.
Shaun nodded. “Every word. I can give you their numbers.” He glanced at Callaway, a hunted expression on his face. Callaway merely stared back, his arms crossed.
“You’ve got to believe me,” Shaun pleaded. “I didn’t kill anyone. Sure, I hate society. Sure, I think the government’s the biggest producer of BS in the world. But that doesn’t make me a murderer, does it?”
“No,” Cole said softly, thinking. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she noticed two missed calls from Newbury, along with a text message that read, CALL ME ASAP.
That can’t be good, she thought, groaning inwardly as she rose from her seat.
“If someone’s killing people and putting them in these silos—” Shaun began, then shook his head in disgust. “There’s something seriously twisted about that. Those places are supposed to be havens of life, not death.”
Cole did not think she could have said it any better herself. “You can give those numbers to Agent Callaway,” she said. “He’ll make some calls, and if your story checks out, you’re free to go.”
Shaun nodded, looking pacified.
Before stepping out of the room, Cole turned her phone toward Callaway, who frowned as he read the station chief’s message. “Better take care of that,” he said.
Cole didn’t need any further encouragement. She left the den, moving through a dining room before stopping in the kitchen. Leaning back against the Formica countertop, she called Newbury, her gaze wandering to the row of shot glasses arranged above the cabinets.
On the second ring, Newbury answered.
“There you are,” he said, sounding a touch impatient. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry, I was in the middle of an interrogation. What’s going on?”
He sighed regretfully. “What’s going on is that I need you both to head over to Cappa Springs, pronto.”
She frowned, puzzled. “What’s in Cappa Springs?”
“A nuclear silo. And, more importantly, another body.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Our killer might not be homeless, after all,” Cole said as she turned off the highway, following the directions on her GPS. “We’re a long way from the last silo he used, so it’s evident he knows how to get around.”
Night had fallen, thick as felt where it pooled in the underpasses and behind the cacti that stood like graveyard sentinels across the gray, unchanging wilderness. With the night had come a drop in temperature that, even though Cole had spent her entire childhood in New Mexico, still managed to surprise her. Before she knew it, the eighty-degree evening had fallen to a fifty-degree night, and she knew she would have to hunt in the trunk for a sweatshirt when they reached the silo.
“Being homeless don’t mean you ain’t got a vehicle,” Callaway said.
Cole offered no argument. She had hoped the killer would concentrate his attacks within a small radius, which would not only lend credence to the homeless theory but also make him more predictable. Apparently, however, that was not the case.
“He could be anywhere,” Cole said, trying not to get discouraged. “Could live in California, for all we know, and only come out this way to kill.”
“He could be anywhere,” Callaway agreed, “but he is somewhere. This ain’t a ghost we’re chasing, Cole. He’s flesh and blood, same as you and I. If we cut him, he’ll bleed.”
Cole glanced at her partner, grateful for his confidence. She didn’t entirely share it at the moment, but she knew that a lack of confidence could sink an investigation quickly. When one lost confidence, one stopped taking the initiative, and a passive investigator would always be one step behind the criminal.
A dirt road appeared on their right, just past a field of shipping containers being rented for storage. Heeding the GPS’s instructions, Cole turned onto the dirt road, slowing as the Jeep carried them farther and farther from civilization.
It wasn’t long before they saw the flashing red-and-blue lights of emergency vehicles blinking across the desert like neon signs. They reached an open steel gate, beside which a cruiser was parked.
Cole pulled up alongside the cruiser and lowered her window. The police officer did the same, jutting one hairy forearm into the moonlight as he leaned on the frame of the door.
“Chilly one, ain’t it?” he said, his eyes twinkling within the darkness of the vehicle. “I’m guessing you two are the Feds I was told to expect?”
Cole held up her badge. “Agent Cole. This is Agent Callaway.”
“Officer Stewart. We appreciate the reinforcements—thought it was a prank when the call came in, until I remembered that body found over at the Mercury Missile Silo. Think we got a serial killer on our hands?”
“That’s about the long and short of it,” Cole said.
Stewart whistled. “And here I was, thinking I’d have a quiet week. They’re gonna be doling out overtime like ice cream from a broken freezer.”
Cole nodded and glanced through the windshield, staring at the trio of squad cars parked several hundred yards in the distance. There was something eerie about the silent way those colored lights strobed in the night.
“Have your people set up a perimeter?” she asked.
Stewart nodded. “Of course. First thing we did when we got here. Did a walkthrough of the complex too.”
“Find anything interesting?” Inwardly, she was wondering if they had discovered any signs that might tell them how recently the killer had been there—and whether he was still there. She just hoped they had been careful not to obscure any tracks or other evidence.
“Other than the dead body, you mean?” He sighed and rested a hand on the steering wheel as if to ground himself in the moment. “Nothing that caught my attention. We were mainly checking to see if the perp might still be around. I know enough not to muck up a crime scene, but that being said, I’m no forensics expert. Put me in a room with a suspect and ask me to figure out everything he knows, and I’ll have him singing the Star-Spangled Banner upside down and inside out within fifteen minutes. But that CSI stuff?” He shrugged and leaned back against the seat. “Too much ADD.”
Cole couldn’t help but appreciate the officer’s candor. At the same time, however, she was itching to get to work. They couldn’t afford to waste time jawing.
“Well,” she said, trying to be diplomatic, “we’ll do a quick walkthrough ourselves. No harm in double checking, right?”
He nodded. “Just be careful—easy to get turned around down there in the darkness. Your eyes can play tricks on you, so if you’ve got a quick trigger finger …”
“We won’t shoot each other,” Cole reassured him. “Or any of your people.”
He raised his hands, as if to say he hadn’t meant any offense. “Just a friendly warning, is all.”
“We’ll be careful,” Cole said. She shifted into drive and was about to pull away when Stewart held up a finger.
“One more thing,” he said. He reached toward the passenger seat and came up with a dusty, rolled-up map. “Found this inside.”
“What is it?” Callaway asked, leaning forward.
“A diagram of the silo. Wish we’d had it before we started our search, but oh well.” He handed the map across to Cole, who then passed it on to Callaway. Callaway began unrolling it. Cole watched him, intrigued at the thought of what they might discover.
Sensing they had lingered long enough, Cole thanked Stewart again and pulled forward, steering toward the flashing lights of the other patrol cars. She glanced over at Callaway, who had turned on the dome light so he could study the diagram.
“Talk to me,” she said. “What do you have?”
“I’m sure it felt massive while they were doing their walkthrough,” he said, his eyes on the map, “but it’s actually fairly simple. Looks like you’ve got three units, each separated by a tunnel: the control center, which has food, bunk beds, the power supply, and the actual controls for launching a missile; a smaller chamber with a lift and staircase leading up to an access portal; and then the room with the missile itself.”
Cole frowned, stealing glances at the map and trying to picture it all in her head. “Sounds like we need to locate the access portal.”
Callaway was quiet for a few moments. He stared at the diagram, then glanced through the windshield and pointed.
“See that structure there, to the right of the parked cruisers?” he asked.
“The one with the pole and the loudspeaker?”
“That’s right. Should be our way down.”
As they neared the entrance, Cole’s unease deepened. She wasn’t excited to go down into the darkness. It was not the darkness itself that troubled her, but the sense that she was entering the lair of some dark and twisted mind she had barely begun to understand.
Was there another hidden room in this silo, as there had been in the previous one? Might the killer be hiding in that room that very moment, waiting for the investigators to clear out so he could return to the surface?
The thought sent a chill through her.
Stop scaring yourself, she told herself. The police already searched the complex and didn’t find the killer, so he’s probably not down there.
Then again, the police had searched the previous silo as well—and missed a room. They, like anyone else, could overlook things, even at a crime scene. She just hoped they had been more careful this time.
Cole parked beside a steel fence that surrounded the complex entrance. She got out, then opened the trunk of the Jeep and rummaged around for a sweatshirt, which she slipped over her head. She had a feeling the air in the silo wouldn’t be any warmer than the air aboveground.
“You ready for this?” Callaway asked quietly, studying her.
She nodded, putting on a brave face to hide the fear she felt. “Let’s do this.”
Moving through a small gate in the fence, Cole discovered a steel cage—the lift, apparently. Knowing there would be no power in the defunct silo, she turned her attention to the open doors beside the lift, which revealed a set of stairs leading down into darkness.
She swallowed hard, hoping Callaway couldn’t read her discomfort. Then she clicked on her flashlight, glanced at Callaway to make sure he was ready, and began to descend.
The air grew muffled as Cole and Callaway sank beneath the surface. The stairs looped back on themselves, causing Cole to feel almost as if she were going in a circle: twelve steps one way, then a landing followed by twelve steps in the opposite direction. Down and down they went, their breathing loud in the confined space, the air smelling faintly of mold and motor oil.
At the bottom of the stairs, they discovered a massive blast door. Beside the open door, a sign read,
“NO LONE ZONE
TWO MAN
POLICY
MANDATORY”
“Guess we’ll have to stick together,” Callaway said lightly. “Wouldn’t want to get in trouble for breaking the rules.”
Cole ignored the jest and stepped forward, her flashlight picking up the trail of overlapping prints in the dust underfoot.
On the other side of the door, she discovered a tunnel that led left and right. She paused, trying to remember the diagram that was now stuffed in Callaway’s back pocket.
“Go right,” Callaway said. “Left leads to the control room.”
Cole nodded and turned right. She understood Callaway’s reasoning: The previous victims had been found in the silos’ missile chambers, so there was little reason to believe the killer would change things now.
At the end of the tunnel, Cole found herself on a small maintenance platform looking out into a massive empty chamber. Far below her, the beams of several flashlights drifted lazily around as three officers spoke in soft voices, standing in a tight knot as if to keep warm.
“Looks like this is our only way down,” Callaway said, gesturing at a ladder.
Cole nodded and said nothing. She felt tense and expectant, wondering what they would learn about the dead body. The anticipation was killing her.
Cole went first, stowing her flashlight and moving steadily down the ladder in darkness. She could feel the ladder vibrate minutely as Callaway began his descent, and she tightened her grip, careful not to slip.
At last, she reached the bottom. She turned around …
And there was the body, hanging less than a dozen yards away, as still as if trapped in amber. The man was middle-aged, muscular, and balding, with tufts of brown hair sprouting around his ears like untrimmed grass along a house. He was wearing a shirt with a logo of a pike on the front, and his eyes were half-lidded and sleepy, as if burdened by a fatigue against which he was fighting a losing battle.
Cole’s chest tightened. It was one thing to hear the killer had claimed another victim, but it was something else entirely to see that victim as a real, flesh-and-blood person.
Callaway landed on the ground behind her, turned around, and doffed his hat. The police officers noticed them, and one—a young woman with close-cropped hair and sad eyes—approached the agents.
“Stew told me you were on your way,” she said, glancing at the hanging body and nodding slowly. “Jarring, isn’t it?”
Cole nodded, feeling her eyes drawn to the corpse, not with the rubbernecking curiosity of motorists gaping at the scene of an accident, but with a deeper desire to understand who this man was and how he had suffered such a terrible fate.
And ultimately to catch the person who had done this.
“What do we know?” she asked.
The woman shook her head. “Not much. We haven’t so much as breathed on him. We’ll stick around in case you need help getting the body down, but otherwise we’ll stay out of the way.”
Cole nodded, reassured. “Thank you, officer. That’d be a big help.”
The officer nodded and retreated.
Cole glanced at Callaway. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
He crossed one arm and rubbed his chin. “I’m thinking,” he said, “that t-shirt looks like it has to do with a sports team. Could give us a clue as to where he lives.”
Cole nodded, following along with his logic. Donning a pair of latex gloves, she stepped closer and began searching the victim’s pockets. As she did so, she caught a whiff of the man’s cologne—a combination of leather and pine—along with an underlying sourness—sweat, perhaps.
She discovered a set of car keys, a tin of breath mints, and a wallet. Opening the wallet, she found what she was looking for: a driver’s license.
“Arthur Bethe,” she read. “Six-two, brown hair and brown eyes, wears corrective lenses. Got an address here—looks like he lived in Plainview.”
“There’s something around his neck,” Callaway said. “Beneath the rope. See it there?”
Cole peered closer. Beneath the man’s collar, which was pulled tight around his throat, she could just make out a narrow ribbon.
“Can you reach it?” she asked. “I’m not tall enough.”
Pulling on his own pair of gloves, Callaway stepped in front of the body. He stretched upward and unbuttoned the front of the man’s shirt, exposing a lanyard with an ID card showing a picture of the victim’s smiling face. The title read “COACH BETHE,” and below this, “PLAINVIEW PIKES.”
“That’s a high school football team,” Callaway said. “Pretty good, as I recall.”
Cole frowned, thinking of the occupations of the other two victims. “Jesse Vega was a stay-at-home dad; Nicole Beck was a college admissions counselor. Now, we have a football coach.”
“Two are school related,” Callaway suggested.
“Yes, but they’re different types of schools. And Jesse Vega doesn’t fit that pattern.”
Callaway murmured thoughtfully. “There’s got to be something we’re not seeing.”
Cole agreed. She had a sinking feeling nonetheless, as if she were underwater with an anchor in her hands, trying with all her might to lift it to the surface. No matter how hard she tried, however, it continued to pull her down, deeper and deeper into the blackness of self-doubt and discouragement.
“Well, whatever the case,” Callaway said, “we’d better get this body down before the coroner gets here.” He turned to the trio of police officers. “You guys wouldn’t have a step stool of some kind, would you?”
“I think I saw a ladder against the wall,” one of the officers answered. “I’ll go grab it.”
As the other two officers approached to lend a hand, Cole looked at Callaway.
“You’ve got this, right?” she asked.
“Not getting squeamish, are you?” he said lightly.
“I wanted to search the rest of the complex, see if there’s any physical evidence that might have been missed.”
He must have read something in her face because his smile fell and he nodded, looking concerned. “Sure. Whatever you need, Cole. We’ll be just fine.”
