The Abducted Book 0 (12 page)

“
So, according to your report, you and
Deputy Lang were headed toward Anderson’s Auto to respond to a call
about stolen copper?” O’Leary asked as he walked ahead.

“
That’s right,” Miriam said, following
him.

He stopped at a distinctly
recognizable part of the road, pictured in so many police photos,
and stood on a faded white line. Chunks of asphalt were missing on
both sides of the pavement. Grass, weeds, and sand-spur patches
hung over the surface.
“You stopped the blue station
wagon here, noting a broken taillight. Ran the plates, everything
checked out, and Deputy Lang went to talk to the driver. Sound
about right?”

Miriam felt a sickness that she
hadn
’t encountered in some time. She nodded, looking
away. O’Leary seemed to get more into the moment, now observing the
ground with great intensity. He took a couple of hurried steps
forward then stopped and spun around.

“
About here, Deputy Lang was shot. One
.44 magnum casing was recovered in the middle of the road. Records
did not yield any potential suspects for that particular weapon.”
O’Leary stopped and looked up to find Marian staring into the
forest alongside them.

“
Miriam, are you okay?”

She looked over to him, snapping out
of her daze. The wind blew a long strand of hair from her ponytail,
sending it falling across her tan forehead.
“Yes, I
can remember clearly,” she said, walking over to him. “I heard the
gunshot and jumped out of the car to engage the suspect. I fired
three shots, shattered the back window. Tailed him in the patrol
car at about a hundred and twenty. Found the Buick abandoned. No
kid, no suspect.”

“
No one vanishes,” O’Leary said.
“There has to be an explanation. For two weeks straight, search
teams patrolled the area in a ten-mile radius and came up short.
The question is, where did he go?”

O’Leary signaled ahead and pointed to a sign
far up the road. Miriam squinted to read it, its words clear as the
morning: Anderson’s Auto Salvage and Recycling.

A large semi-truck then came into view with
smoke billowing from its exhaust pipes. They stood there on the
side of the road watching as it roared past them, leaving a strong
gust of wind in its wake and blowing their jackets open.

Miriam suddenly walked off, as though she
were under some kind of external control. O’Leary followed, trying
to keep up with her fast pace.

“
What is it? What do you see?” he
asked.

Miriam
stopped and turned
to him. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking, and it’s something I’ve
been thinking for a long time: He was taking the girl somewhere out
here, not expecting to encounter any police.” She raised her arms.
“And what is out here?” She bit her lip and looked into the
distance.

“
Swamps. Cow pastures. Acres of land,”
O’Leary said.

“
Everything and more,” she answered.
“The perfect hideout.”

“
Yeah, but they’ve searched this area
far and wide,” O’Leary said. “There’s no trace of him.”

“
Because he’s smart,” Miriam said.
“Let’s go to the place where I found the Buick.”

They had begun walking back to the
Crown Victoria when Miriam held her hand out.
“Mind if
I drive?”

“
Not at all,” O’Leary said, digging
into his pocket. He handed her the keys and walked to the passenger
side. Miriam got in and fired up the car, peeling out. Taken by
surprise, O’Leary flew back against his seat, struggling to put on
his seat belt.

“
What are you doing?” he
demanded.

Without answering, she pressed on the gas.
Inside, she felt as if she were getting into the right state of
mind. Images of the Buick flashed in her mind. She searched her
memory for clues—anything from the time just before she found the
car. Her hands clutched the wheel as she pushed the car past one
hundred miles per hour.

“
Miriam, can you slow down please?”
O’Leary asked, gripping the passenger-side handle.

“
We’re almost there,” she said,
staring ahead. The car vibrated and motored loudly as exhaust
surged out the back, leaving a thick black trail. She inched past
the one hundred fifteen mark, feeling as though she were getting a
second chance to do things differently.

Suddenly she let up on the gas. The
speedometer dropped as the car slowed, much to O’Leary’s relief.
She then jerked to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes.
O’Leary flew forward but caught himself against the dashboard.
Smoke from the tires drifted inside the car along with the smell of
burnt oil.

O
’Leary coughed. “I hope
you enjoyed that little joyride.”

“
Calm down, Grandpa,” she said,
shutting off the engine and handing him the keys.

She got out of the car and walked along the
side of the road and down the grassy slope that led into the woods.
O’Leary, looking disheveled and upset, followed a few steps behind
her. She stopped where the forest was separated from the slope by
the six-foot fence. No Trespassing signs hung from the fence at
intervals for miles. None of that had been there before.

“
This is new,” she said, pushing
against the fence.

“
They recently put it up,” O’Leary
said, trudging down the slope from behind.

She gripped the fence with both hands,
peeking through, but it was hard to see anything beyond the thick
brush. She then let go, turned around, and went back to the
road.

“
What is it?” O’Leary asked, following
her. “Do you have something?”

She was looking at the other side of
the road, where yet another fence separated it from the vast
wilderness beyond.
“Not yet,” she said. She stepped
forward and stopped directly in the middle of the road, unconcerned
about traffic. But there wasn’t any; this was a remote, desolate
place. O’Leary seemed to follow her every move, observing the
surroundings, just as she was doing.

“
So many private property signs. Who
owns this area?” she asked him.

“
I want to say a land developing
company. Their name escapes me.”

“
And when did they purchase all this
land? And for what reason?” she continued.

O
’Leary stuck his hands
in his pockets and looked around. “I’m not sure. Why?”

“
I just think it’s interesting that
this is the very area our suspect fled into. I thought about it
after you told me that Gowdy had invested in land
development.”

She went to the other side of the road and
looked beyond the fence there, beyond the woods. “With the money
Gowdy has, we’re looking at some kind of underground lair. I
guarantee it.”

“
Yeah. But this area’s been searched
within a ten-mile radius, I told you that. They looked for
weeks.”

“
I believe you,” Miriam responded. She
looked down at a glimmering soda can, flattened against the road.
Within the grass ahead, there were cigarette butts, beer bottles,
and plastic bags, barely visible—the same litter seen on any open
road, and trapped by the fencing. Several thoughts came to Miriam
all at once. She felt as though their suspect was very near. Maybe
that was the genius of his escape.

“
Everyone leaves something behind,”
she said to herself.

“
What’s that?” O’Leary
asked.

“
I don’t know,” she responded. “Shall
we pay the salvage yard a visit?”

O
’Leary nodded in
agreement. “Sure thing. But just let me do most of the
talking.”

She gave him a mock salute. “You’re the
boss, Detective.”

O’Leary held out his hand for his
keys. Miriam smiled and tossed them in the air. He snatched them as
they approached the car, getting in.
The car roared to
life, and he drove off, ready to get answers.

The
sign for the salvage
yard was in view. They took a right down a long, bumpy dirt road
that went on for at least half a mile. Palmetto bushes and pine
trees pressed in from both sides. An eerie feeling came over
Miriam, as though they were in some malevolent place and
trespassing too—going where they weren’t wanted.

Closing In

Anderson
’s Auto Salvage
& Recycling was an old family-run business that operated on the
outskirts of Palm Dale. The business covered thirty acres of junk
vehicles—mostly stripped but some intact for resale. Cars were
often pillaged of their parts and crushed into flat blocks of
metal. They also paid for scrap metal and junk of any value. Their
main business was in recycling, since they operated the area’s main
refuse plant for reusable material, allowing them to claim credit
as a beneficial green company.

From the outset, business was good, and it
had remained that way for over thirty years. The business was owned
and operated by the Andersons, who presented themselves as a
tight-knit all-American family. Outsiders were rarely seen within
or welcomed within their inner circle. And for that reason alone,
O’Leary knew that they would immediately be looked at with
suspicion as they drove through the front gate and entered the dirt
parking lot.

Several cars and trucks were parked
near the front office trailer that had a big
Open sign
in the window. Heavy-duty equipment, from crushers to forklifts to
dump trucks to graders, were firing off in the distance—the entire
lot a cacophony of hammering engines and metallic thunder, with a
thin cloud of dust and exhaust drifting throughout the premises.
There were a
few
pickup
trucks of all types idling at a booth past the front office,
waiting their turn to drop off scrap metal raided from some dump or
another.

As O
’Leary pulled in, he
recognized three of the Anderson boys—Greg, Walter, and Jake—at the
scrap booth, assisting trucks with their hauls and keeping the line
moving. They were big men, tan, bearded, no-nonsense types with
cigarettes dangling out of their mouths and tattoos on their arms.
They wore lace-up boots and backward mesh hats.

Boone, their father, owned the auto salvage
yard with his wife, Judith. Their sons all worked there and had
families of their own. They were an all-American family, according
to Boone, but O’Leary believed they hid a dark secret. Rumors had
long persisted about the family, but now he was ready to put fact
to them.

Still in the parking lot, Miriam listened
attentively as O’Leary explained more about them. They received
suspicious stares wherever they went, he told her, and, always
alert, the Anderson family knew an unmarked car when they saw
one.

“
Phil bought the business a while ago.
Boone and Judith still work there to help out. And if you remember,
the eldest son, Dustin, was killed in a car crash with his wife and
two daughters.”

“
Sounds pretty clear to me,” Miriam
said. “One of the sons did it. Phillip, probably,” Miriam
said.

O
’Leary shook his head.
“Alibis, all of them. All of them but Gowdy, but he’s not quite
family.”

“
When did this happen?” Miriam
asked.

O
’Leary lifted his chin
and thought to himself as machines chugged in the background.
“About two years ago.” He turned off the ignition as they just sat
there observing.

Miriam looked around nervously. Men
stared at them as they walked by, coming and going from the main
building, their faces smudged with dirt and oil.
“What’s the plan here?”

“
Just follow my lead,” he said,
opening the door. “I’ll do most of the talking.”

“
Is Gowdy here do you think?” Miriam
asked.

“
That’s what we’re going to find out,”
O’Leary said, stepping out into the dust-bowl parking
lot.

The sun was out in full force, revealing a
blue sky with thin clouds drifting like trails of silk. There were
people everywhere throughout the yard. It was hard to tell who was
who—though most employees shared the same gruff demeanor and
outfits: blue, pin-striped short-sleeved shirts with patches sewn
over the chest.

Miriam and O
’Leary walked
with purposeful strides toward the front-office trailer, which had
an odd, homey look. It was outfitted with antiques, set out all
along the front porch—everything from an old vending machine and
jukebox to a vintage gas pump and wagon wheel. There was no denying
a hint of charm to the place. It seemed a world of its own—a place
far removed from the hustle of the downtown business
district.

Here, the work was real: oil-covered hands.
Black-streaked faces. Cuts, bruises. Cigarette smoke and empty
Gatorade bottles tossed aside in every conceivable location. Miriam
and O’Leary stood out like two tourists in a foreign land, which
was their intention. O’Leary wanted their presence known.

They walked up the steps, and
O’Leary
opened the screen door and held it open for
Miriam, who walked in first. Once inside, she stood in a carpeted
lobby area next to a bookcase with antique model cars displayed on
every shelf. A front counter divided the room. Two men in flannel
shirts and billed hats were leaning on the counter, waiting their
turn, as a woman, sixtyish, worked the cash register. Behind the
counter on a desk were three black-and-white security-camera
monitors displaying different grainy images of the vast salvage
yard.