Last Track, The (10 page)

A stream was within a half mile, perhaps ten minutes on foot. Mike had antibiotics if contaminants had soiled the stream. Virtually all open streams in North America had one of several bacteria that caused uncomfortable stomach issues. With a finite supply of water left, this was the time for awareness and planning. Better consider options now, rather than later when he was tired, Mike reasoned.

He reached for his cell phone just as it started ringing.

11:59:10 AM

Lisbeth called ahead of schedule. That she had the number already was not all that mysterious. Law enforcement officials could obtain information easily.

“Are you ignoring me, Mr. Brody?” Lisbeth said.

“Not at all,” Mike said.

“I tried the walkie-talkie.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Mike said. True, Dagget had them.

“And all these years everyone has told me I’m too loud,” Lisbeth said.

“More authoritative than loud.”

“Let’s not get into semantics,” Lisbeth said. “Give me your coordinates.”

Mike gave them to her, wondering what to say about Dagget.

“So where are we with the search?” Lisbeth asked.

Right to business, no wasting time. “I suspect Sean fixed on something in the distance for navigation,” he said. “Once I figure what it is, we can cut a lot of time. It’s probably something obvious, but I’m not getting it just yet.”

“We head him off?”

“Exactly,” Mike said. “Get there before he does, and box him in on as many sides as possible. Then we start pressing.”

“I like it.”

Sensing the moment was right, Mike tried a question. “Where are the other searchers in relation to us?” he asked. “I haven’t heard much out this way in a while.”

“Don’t worry about where everyone else is. I’m on top of it. Keep in mind that it’s a small but growing search team, spread out across a large area. What matters is that we stay in contact and can converge when we need to.”

“And the helicopters?” Mike asked.

“All I get are promises for callbacks,” Lisbeth said.

Unfortunate,
thought Mike. Helicopters excelled at scanning large areas, especially when combined with thermal-imaging systems. Some imaging systems like FLIR were sensitive enough to capture the heat patterns from an animal’s breathing five minutes after it happened. “That guy that owns the ranch, Erich, mentioned something about a Cessna. Maybe he could help.”

“I’ve worked with Erich before,” she said. “I can try that. So how is it going with Dagget?”

He had to admit, Lisbeth was sharp
.
“Uh . . .” Mike stalled. “You know Dagget.”

“He didn’t answer his cell phone or the walkie. I’m almost positive both are functioning properly. So . . .”

“Right. He’s not with me,” said Mike, trying to avert the question he expected.

“Where is he? Taking a whiz?”

Lisbeth provided a perfect excuse. “I’m sure at some point that will happen,” Mike said, his tone a bit leading. He felt like she would not entirely believe the misdirection.

“Am I smacking into the brotherhood?”

“The brotherhood?” Mike asked.

“Men stick up for each other. Especially if one of them is in trouble with a woman. They never admit to this, of course.”

Mike wished such an organization existed; he might still be married.

She continued. “Now, is there anything else you want to tell me about Dagget?”

He’s a pain in the ass,
he thought.
Aloud, he said, “He’s Dagget. How much is there to say? You know him better than I do.”

“Despite his brusque manners,” Lisbeth said, “when push comes to shove, he gets things done. Sometimes he just needs a different kind of convincing to get there.”

Right then, Lisbeth reminded him of Jessica. Lisbeth was strong. She was not one who waited around for answers from others. And like his ex-wife, Lisbeth gathered her own information and drew her own conclusions. Even when the hunches missed, he respected that she voiced them.

Lisbeth continued. “That being said, without a search partner, I can’t let you continue. So I expect to hear from Dagget within the hour—however you make that happen.”

After promising to have Dagget call her back, Mike said good-bye.

Still thinking about Jessica, he called and left a quick voice message for her. As an afterthought he mentioned Lisbeth’s helicopter crisis. To another person, it might have seemed odd to mention that tidbit, but if they had spoken she certainly would have asked about the search.

As he hung up, a boot snapped a branch in half two hundred yards behind him.

12:10:24 PM

Though he could not see, Mike heard someone creeping among the pines. He yelled Dagget’s name. Awaiting a reply, he called again, more forcefully. Only the snapping of a branch reverberating through the trees returned.

In the woods,
hello
was a word used with caution. Near hillsides, voices echoed off of rocks and ledges, which sometimes mangled the word
hello
into
help.
A wicked trick of acoustics and far from the truth, because Mike Brody wanted no help. He wanted a response and the lack of one unnerved him. Enough that the receptors in the midbrain, the reactive part of the organ responsible for survival decisions, engaged. Racing, his heart compressed several beats into one.

When perceiving stress, he took three quick breaths, exhaling slowly on the third. The rush of oxygen relaxed his taut muscles and calmed his nerves.
Saddled with Dagget—his personal penance for abandoning the vacation—he could not relax easily.

And then the footfalls stopped, replaced by the baying of tree frogs in a nearby lake bed. A breeze magnified the scent of pines. His breathing and pulse self-corrected, leveling at forty-three beats per minute.

Dagget appeared, solving one problem.

“Where did you go?” Mike demanded.

With a similar intensity, Dagget countered, “Why didn’t you come back to the trail for me?”

“I might ask the same thing,” Mike said, unyielding and unrepentant.

“You disappear for twenty minutes and I’m supposed to hang around doing nothing?” Dagget said. “No way. I heard someone, so I checked out a few things on my own.”

Mike said this harshly: “I asked you to wait.”

“Like you waited?” Dagget asked. The red on his face deepened as he pointed at Mike. “It’s a damn good thing you dropped those markers or I’d have no idea where you went. Did it ever occur to you to look for me?”

“I’m not here to track you. I’m here . . . ”

Dagget interjected. “I shouldn’t be here, either. That body was my find. That’s the case I should be on.”

Mike thought for a moment. Detectives handled homicide investigations, not street cops like Dagget, and he wondered why Dagget was wishing he could do someone else’s job. Then again, the body vanished under his watch.

The officer probably felt a little guilty—and maybe embarrassed—about what went down at the murder scene. “Okay well, we’re both here now, so let’s move on.”

“This is crap.
Mr. Famous
just waltzes into the middle of something . . .” He paused and pointed at Mike. “Something that you have no idea about. I hope you know what you’re doing. I’m praying right now that you actually do. Ask yourself something. Is this being run like any other search you’ve ever seen?”

Mike had to admit it was unusual. But that was not necessarily a bad thing. A search reflected the decisions made by those in charge, and the individuals involved. Each was unique. “There’s always confusion at the beginning until everyone gets up to speed. It smooths out over time.”

“Very diplomatic of you. That doesn’t make Lisbeth less manipulative or answer my question.”

Mike had trouble thinking about the situation in the terms Dagget suggested. He had trouble because it meant doubting Lisbeth. “Right. I hear you’re frustrated,” Mike said. “Let’s start moving and we can talk about it. I’ll listen.”

Dagget sighed and followed Mike. They moved again in silence, save for Dagget’s staccato breathing pattern. Air pushed through his sinus cavity and rattled the malformed cartilage of his deviated septum. The net effect: a short, low-pitched whistle when he inhaled. Not every time, but often. Mike had missed it earlier.

“Lisbeth wants you to call,” Mike said, at a point which seemed the right moment—in the lull before their conversation started.

“And why am I hearing this from you?” Dagget asked gruffly.

“She said she tried you first,” said Mike, shrugging.

“News to me.” Holding down the button on the walkie-talkie, Dagget buzzed Lisbeth. A few moments passed before the dialogue started. Lisbeth did most of the speaking.

Dagget peeled off from the trail to have the conversation, turning the volume down, although Mike could still hear both sides of the conversation.

“You disappeared,” Lisbeth said.

“I was checking something out.”

“You are supposed to be checking things out with Mike. As in together.”

“It was just a misunderstanding . . .” Dagget said.

“Work through that,” Lisbeth said, “or you’re both coming back in. And you don’t want that, because there’s really nothing much for you to do around here. Unless you like the smell of car exhaust and parking tickets. That clear enough?”

“Yes, Detective.” The shock was all over his face.

“Excellent. Next time answer when I buzz you.” Her firm statement ended the conversation.

When Dagget jammed the walkie-talkie into the belt holster, the plastic catch almost snapped in half from the force. He scowled. He did not look at Mike for some time. Finally he spoke. “There’s a stream a minute from here. I’ll go fill the canteens.”

•••

Sean Jackson hardly remembered the sensation of pedaling his arms and legs. That was before the stiffness in his muscles and joints. Sore from sleeping on the hard ground, he was tired. A mild case of dehydration aggravated a pull in his quadriceps. Hunger and thirst made his head throb.

When he found a wide stream, he celebrated by shouting, collapsing on the soil, and dunking half of his head beneath the surface.

The liquid turned his stomach on end and burned his sinuses, but he gulped more. Sean drank greedily without regard for taste or temperature, sucking in so much all at once he nearly choked. His throat was raw and burned as if he had puked. He was so happy, Sean could ignore the stomach acid. At last he had water.

For half of the first day, he denied his predicament. He just rejected it without question. Surely the right trail, the right turn, the right move was around the next stretch. It just
had
to be.

In the beginning, the trees had varied as he crisscrossed through the woods. He remembered that. He had noticed the difference between a beech and a pine. This was no longer true. Fatigue had sharply eroded his cognitive skills.

Now when he noticed the trees at all, they were part of the same blur: massive, knotty trunks, covered with green, pirouetting toward the sun. As daunting as the landscape might be, he stared upwards for long stretches, missing breaths. This lack of oxygen further aggravated his panic receptors, making his steps more unsteady.

His chest was clear and open, and for that he was grateful. Whenever it tightened, he tapped the inhaler and a warm rush washed through his lungs.

What scared Sean about asthma was less the symptoms and more the loss of control. Painful as asthma could be, the physical discomfort only explained a small part of his fear. The real terror was how the attacks struck without warning, and knowing the only thing that might save him was the inhaler. And he was most afraid that someday his chest might constrict so completely that the inhaler would fail, leaving him utterly helpless.

Above him a small bird roosted in a tree. He mistook the finch for a woodpecker. Distracted by the bird, his left sneaker skated across something lodged in the soil. Nearly slipping, he righted himself midstep. Sean glanced downward at the long, thin, almost cylindrical object in the soil. He barely recognized the object at first.

A human thighbone.

12:24:34 PM

The Partner’s tone changed midconversation. A shift of inflection at the end of sentences. A slight rise in pitch when asking questions. Subtle cues, and Crotty perceived them. He noticed because he was trained to observe details. The impasse between them gave him plenty of opportunities to sharpen his skills.

For months now, they had handled most business contact remotely. Every request, every discussion, every argument—and there were more disagreements than anything—played out over public telephones and cells. Working from a handset receiver, Crotty mastered the nuances of timbre and tone that made the Partner’s voice unique.

Face-to-face contact was too costly. This was true on both an emotional and professional level. Recovering from a meeting took hours.

Neither desired more time in the other’s presence than necessary; each considered the other repulsive. Like a marriage forged from convenience, it functioned best in a vacuum where each participant followed their own daily script—separate and equal.

The Partner’s limits were the primary source of Crotty’s insomnia. He saw tremendous potential where the Partner saw only further complications and risks. Being narrow-minded was no way to make real money. The longer they worked together and clashed, the harder time Crotty had falling asleep, and the less rest he got when he did nod off. Quite often he stared at the ceiling longer than he lay with his eyes closed. Killing David alleviated part of the stress, albeit partially, because now they had new problems and he had new worries. And many of the same old ones. Like the stunted growth. With the new distribution routes, they literally had permission to print hundreds, and still the Partner plotted expansion in nickels and pennies. It was galling to Crotty. When he protested to the Partner it was always “
Let’s see next quarter”
and
“Not sure the numbers justify that purchase just now.”