Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel) (38 page)

“Well, I’m blessed with one son. His name is Tommy. He is my life, Mr. Picard, and someone has threatened him. But I’m pretty sure you know that already. What’s Alan McAfee doing here?”

“He owns a hunting cabin. Maybe he’s hunting.”

“Where is the little girl I found in the field, Hurley’s baby?”

“No idea what you’re talking about, Peyton.”

She stood and walked to the window and looked out. A young mother held her son’s hand as they crossed the parking lot.

She said, “Morris, you and Alan McAfee are on the board of trustees for St. Joseph’s Orphanage of London.”

“How—” He stopped.

She turned to face him.

His eyes left her face, and he looked down. “I guess we have mutual interests.”

“And what would those interests be?” she said.

He shook his head back and forth slowly. Then his brows furrowed. “I’m in my sixties, Peyton. I’m not out for money. Next year, I retire and collect my pension.”

His weary eyes ran from Peyton to a picture on his desk.

The photo triggered Peyton’s memory—the little girl with green eyes she’d seen in a photo in the curio cabinet at the Picards’ home.

“Tell me about her,” she said.

He turned from the photo and looked at her. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“The foster system is broken.”

“What do you mean?”

“The bad parents get kids, and the good ones who can’t have kids of their own get forgotten.”

“Pam Morrison said the same thing to me,” she said.

“She’d know. She had a foster child, a three-year-old little girl who she was ready to adopt, but the birth mother got her back.”

She pointed to the photo on his desk. “When I was at your home, your wife said you got too close to her. Is that what happened?”

“Courts don’t do what’s best for the kids,” he said sternly. “They give biological parents eighteen million second chances. Margaret and I would welcome boys and girls from anywhere into our home, make progress with the child, only to have a judge tell us the child was going back to his or her biological parents—drunks, drug addicts, abusers. Not all of them, but some. Peyton, these are
kids
. Six, seven years old.”

“Is that what happened?” She pointed to the photo.

“Jenny.” He nodded. “Jenny Davis. She was seven when she came to us. Skinny and sullen. A year later, we had her reading at a fifth-grade level and getting all A’s. She’d become outgoing, a gifted student. Such potential.”

He stopped talking and looked outside. Heavy raindrop-sized snowflakes danced past the window.

“And the court sent her back to her parents?”

“Yes, that’s right. Back to her mother. We wanted to adopt her. The court decided she should be with her mother. Her real father was out of the picture. So she went back to her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. That’s when it happened.”

He shook his head. His tie was pale blue with sailboats. He wore a crisp white shirt like he had when she’d sat across from him years ago, but there was something she saw now that she hadn’t seen then—anger; his eyes narrowed.

“You want to know why we’re doing this?” he said. “Take a long, hard look at that photo.”

The between-class noise had ended with slamming lockers. Springs on his swivel chair grated lightly as Picard shifted in his seat.

“Courts send them back, and sometimes you wonder forever what became of the little boy or little girl. It’s like giving up your own child. Sometimes we hear from them. Sometimes, they remain in the area, and we can follow their lives, like Kenny.”

“Kenny Radke was your foster child?” she said. “I never knew that. He had parents in town.”

“His father was a drunk. Kenny came to us twice. Not for long. I wish we’d had him permanently. Maybe we could have done more, like we did with Jenny.”

The connection between Morris Picard and Kenny Radke put her in a precarious situation. Surely Picard knew it had been she who’d killed Radke.

“What happened to her?” she said.

“It was the mother’s boyfriend. We petitioned the court to keep Jenny. I met the guy once and knew he was trouble. I just
knew
it. She was with him a month. A month of physical assault and sexual abuse, we learned later, during the trial.”

“Oh God,” she said.

“Yeah, that about sums it up, Peyton. The son of a bitch called it an accident. Said he just hit her too hard. A little girl—
my
little girl.”

His eyes were slits now, his throat constricted, the words fading. He leaned back in his chair, neck flushed, face coloring.

She didn’t know what to say. She’d taken US History I and II with him, had seen little emotional variation from him then. Now, in a five-minute span, he’d swung from rage to sorrow. She tried to refocus the conversation.

“How did you meet Alan McAfee?” she asked again.

“Peyton, no one’s getting hurt.”

“Kenny Radke is dead, Mr. Picard. And so is the baby who was with him.”

“We’re trying to help people. The system is broken.”

“The adoption system? That’s where St. Joseph’s Orphanage comes in, right?”

“This conversation is over, Peyton.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine.”

He looked surprised when she turned and walked out.

Jerry Reilly probably wasn’t a morning person to begin with, but the two black eyes and bruises on his cheeks couldn’t have helped.

“Your night must have been as bad as mine,” she said.

It was still below freezing, but the sun shone brightly, and the roads had been cleared, snow replaced by blue calcium mixed with rock salt, allowing her to get to Reeds in twenty minutes. Hewitt would be calling her cell phone by 10 a.m.

“This is a nice complex,” she said. “A lot of professionals live here. Get beaten up by a doctor?”

“You think this is funny?”

“Not at all, but you know what you have to do if you want help.”

His eyes narrowed. He frowned and then slid the safety chain off the door.

She walked inside. The apartment wasn’t what she’d expected. The place was nearly empty. A large tattered sofa with stuffing oozing from an open wound, a circular kitchen table beneath a hanging light, a small radio on the floor, and books scattered on most surfaces.

“Guess you don’t entertain much.”

He sat on the sofa. “I need to talk to you.”

“Here I am,” she said, taking her place at the far end.

“You’re awfully casual.”

“Judging from your face, push has come to shove, Jerry. And it might get worse. Tyler Timms had six confirmed kills in Iraq, so he’s capable of more. Like your text said, you’re in trouble.”

“I need to be exonerated if I cooperate.”

“Slow down,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on, then we’ll work all that out.”

“No. I know how these things go. I’m not getting screwed here.”

“This is pathetic,” she said and stood.

“Where are you going? And don’t call me pathetic.”

“I’m leaving, and what would you call it? I’m looking at a man with a Ph.D. who doesn’t know he’s in so far over his head that he probably has about twelve hours to live.”

“That’s bull.”

“Jerry, this morning, I looked at the St. Joseph’s Orphanage website. I saw the board of directors. Two names kind of stood out to me.”

He didn’t speak, but his lips parted, and his eyes narrowed.

“I think it’s time for you to decide where you want to be standing when it all comes down,” she said. “And don’t think it’s not going to.”

“You can’t be sure—” But he didn’t finish. “How the bloody hell did this happen?”

“Your English accent comes out when you’re anxious, Jerry. Talk to me.”

“I need to bloody well think,” he said and stood.

He crossed the room, rounded the counter, and opened the fridge. He took out a container of milk, poured a glass, and stood at the counter, thinking.

“Jerry,” she said from the sofa, “you called me because you know you need protection. That comes with a price.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Watch me. What did Tyler Timms say when he was smacking you around?”

He stood drinking his milk, staring at her, thinking. She crossed her legs, forest-green pants over black military-style boots.

“I just don’t know how this happened.” He rinsed the glass, left it in the sink, and walked back to the sofa. “You believe me, right? I mean, I’m no criminal. We’re just helping people. You believe that, right?”

“Kenny Radke said that too, then he tried to kill me.”

“It’s just—what’s the word?—
escalated,
and now everything is going bloody haywire.”

“One baby is dead,” she said. “A second is missing. Radke is dead. And Jonathan is also missing.
Escalated
is an understatement.”

“But none of that’s me,” he said. “I’m just involved in the passports and the deliveries of the babies.”

“Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

“Can you offer me immunity?”

“I can promise to help you get the best deal you can. Your lawyer McAfee will have to negotiate that.”

“Fuck him. He’s not my lawyer. He sent Timms here last night.”

“We’ll get you a lawyer, then,” she said, “but I want to hear it first.”

He leaned back on the sofa and stared straight ahead.

“Everything went smoothly with the first four kids. It was when Morris brought Jonathan in that it all changed. He only cared about keeping his own kid and making money.”

Twenty minutes later, they had walked to her Expedition, and she took the radio receiver off the dashboard.

“This is Bobcat Nineteen.”

“I was just about to call you,” Hewitt said.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes with Jerry Reilly. We’ve got lots to talk about.”

“Got it. I’ll be waiting.”

She pulled out of the apartment complex driveway and onto Route 1. She was driving fifty-five miles an hour on the snow-lined road when the Chevy Silverado appeared in her rearview mirror.

FORTY
-
SIX

T
HE
S
ILVERADO WAS NEARLY
touching her rear bumper. They drove like that for a quarter-mile. Peyton hit the Expedition’s flashers, but the lights did nothing; the Silverado’s driver continued to tailgate.

“Anyone know I was at your place?” Peyton asked Jerry Reilly.

“I hope to Christ not. Tyler said they’d bloody kill me. He meant it, too. I could see it in his eyes.”

She was driving sixty-five, too fast for the road conditions, she knew, and was accelerating when the Silverado tapped her bumper. Peyton felt her SUV begin to fishtail.

The metal guardrail lining the road was like a cement wall when her side made impact, and her door was pinned shut.

“Jerry, open your door. We need to get out.”

His eyes were wide open in shock. “What happened?”

“Quick,” she shouted and fumbled with her jacket to get to her holster strap. “Move! We need to get out!”

But it was too late. The Silverado’s driver had leapt out and now stood facing the Expedition, gun drawn and leveled at Peyton.

“Keep your hands on the steering wheel, Peyton,” the pickup’s driver said. “Don’t be fooled by what I did at your sister’s house. I don’t miss six feet high, believe me. Although I didn’t think your brother-in-law would run me over.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Jonathan Hurley called from the Silverado. “I already told you that.”

“Now I need you two to get behind the chicken wire and sit in the back seat of the Expedition,” the driver said to Peyton and Reilly. “Jonathan, come out of the truck, take Peyton’s pistol, and cuff them to the metal loops on the floor.”

That was how they proceeded—she and Reilly handcuffed to the Expedition’s floorboard, driven by Pam Morrison with Jonathan Hurley following them in the Silverado—for the half-hour drive to a cabin near the Crystal View River.

Peyton didn’t bother to ask where they were going: Morris Picard had said McAfee owned a hunting camp near Garrett.

They followed a truck hauling stripped trees, each the length of a telephone pole, and a black Ford F-150, which probably carried the logging team. A nondescript red cloth dangled from the trailer’s longest tree, offering pedestrian vehicles futile warning. Dirty slush dripped from the truck and trailer. She figured it had just come from the North Maine Woods, a 3.5-million-acre commercial forest.

The camp road was designated by a plywood sign tacked to a tree. Two names had been painted cryptically on the sign, M
C
A
FEE
and S
T.
P
IERRE
.

Two camps
, Peyton thought, as they traversed the mile-long dirt road.
That’s all. No one to hear shouts for help, and nowhere to run for help
.

The Silverado stopped at the end of the road in front of a small log cabin.

Pam Morrison cuffed Peyton’s hands behind her back and said, “Come on, Peyton. And you, too, Jerry. Inside the cabin.”

“Why was I cuffed to the floor?” he said, walking up the three stairs to the cabin.

The door opened.

“Why do you
think
you had to be cuffed?” Alan McAfee said.

“I don’t know, but I’m offended.”

“That’s really too bad. That really breaks me up. Hear that, Tyler? Jerry is offended.”

Tyler Timms was at the counter. The cabin had one main room and two side rooms—Peyton guessed one was a bedroom and one was a bathroom—and an upstairs loft. Timms was cleaning a 9mm.

Morrison entered and said, “Where’s Autumn?”

“Tyler and Jonathan got her from the Gagnon home,” McAfee said. “But first things first. Peyton, you sit down on the sofa over there.”

“I’m fine standing.”

“No, you’re not,” he said, and raised her arms behind her, causing her to groan. He pushed her onto the sofa.

“Remember our deal, Alan,” Morrison said. “Peyton for Autumn.”

“Quiet,” McAfee said. “I can’t believe a simple poker game went this wrong. My mother always told me my gambling would get me in trouble.” A smile creased his lips. “Should’ve listened, I guess.”