End Game

  guess according to you maybe it wasn’t Walton what sent the note after all.”

  “And why would you do something like that just because Walton told you to?”

  “’Cause he also included five hundred dollars cash along with the note.”

  “And did he say why he wanted you to do it?”

  “Said it was a joke, sort of.”

  “So you didn’t know that Walton had gone missing then?” asked Malloy.

  “No. I mean, like I said, I just got back and saw the note. You say he’s missing? Where’d he get off to?”

  “If we knew that he wouldn’t be missing!”

  Reel walked in and joined them in the holding cell area. “Did you know Walton?” she asked Zeke.

  Zeke shrugged. “I knew him. Couldn’t say I really knew him, you know. He kept things close to the vest.”

  “Did you ever act as a fishing guide for him?” asked Robie.

  Zeke shook his head. “Nah, he didn’t need that. He grew up here. Knew the area real well. But we’d see each other from time to time. He fished some of the same streams we do. Had some beers together at the Walleye. Stuff like that.”

  “Did you know him back when he lived here?”

  “No. He was quite a bit older’n me. Heck of an athlete.”

  “Did you know his parents?” asked Reel.

  Zeke shook his head. “I was just a little kid when they killed themselves.”

  “We heard his mom was dying. You think that was the reason?”

  Zeke thought about this, glanced over at Russell, whose gaze was still planted on the floor, and shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. Like I said, I was just a little kid when they did it.” His face brightened. “Hey, maybe Walton really killed ’em and somebody knew it and they took him to make him pay for what he done. ”

  Reel said in an exasperated tone, “Okay, I think we’re done here.” She turned to Malloy. “Robie and I were going to check out the house when these idiots opened fire. We’ll go there now.”

  Malloy looked surprised by her comment. “But I thought you were here to find Walton?”

  “I’ll take any lead I can get,” replied Reel. “Because right now we don’t have a single one.”

  Robie said, “Sheriff, what’s your take on this Doctor King guy and his apostles?”

  Before she could answer, Russell said, “My brother’s an apostle.”

  They turned to look at him. Reel said, “And what does he think about it?”

  Russell shrugged. “I don’t know. He don’t come home anymore.”

  Robie eyed Malloy. “And your opinion?”

  “They don’t break any laws and they don’t cause trouble, so that’s a good thing.”

  “I heard that no one knows where the money comes from to fuel their operation. Feeding and clothing the apostles. I saw them come into town in an Army surplus truck. They’ve got guns. They live in a compound, you said. That all costs money.”

  “I think they get donations from folks,” said Zeke.

  “How much can that amount to?” scoffed Reel.

  “Just saying.”

  “They grow pot,” said Russell. “And they sell it to folks.”

  “And you know this how?” asked Reel.

  “Seen ’em doing it.”

  Reel said to Malloy, “Let’s keep this pair on ice for a while.” She drew close to the bars. “You two ever take a shot at us again, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Are we clear on that?”

  Zeke eyed her with trepidation. “Are you the one what shot out the tires?”

  “I am. And I could have done the same thing at twice the distance. Only next time I won’t be aiming at rubber.” She put her hand through the bars and stabbed her finger into his forehead. “It’ll hit right here.”

  “Then I understand you loud and clear, ma’am.”

  * * *

  “It’s so flat out here it’s hard to believe the Rockies are right behind us,” said Reel as they drove to Blue Man’s childhood home.

  “It’s hard to believe lots of things,” replied Robie. “Who would have gotten those two idiots to try to scare us off?”

  “Half the people we’ve already met,” answered Reel. “Doctor King and his minions for one. Then the white supremacists that we haven’t met yet. Or the skinheads. Hell, Malloy and her deputy for all we know. The point is, Robie, we don’t understand this place or what went on before here. And we probably never will. Blue Man could have disappeared because of some shit that took place when he was growing up here.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re buying that crap Donovan was spinning about Blue Man killing his parents and then somebody here coming after him for it?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well then?”

  “I just mean we don’t know this place. We’re flying blind. That’s never a good thing.”

  “Still doesn’t excuse us from finding him,” said Robie.

  “Never said it did. I just mean we need more intelligence.”

  “We’re gathering intelligence every time we talk to someone.”

  “But we have no way of knowing if they’re telling us the truth or not. When I’m prepping a shot I can do my wind call and my distance read and all the other factors that go into determining whether the shot will be successful or not. But my tools don’t lie to me. They give me the facts. This is different. Way different.”

  “Still not an excuse. We have our mission. We have our orders. We just need to adapt and execute.”

  Reel shot him a glance. “Okay, how do we adapt?”

  “We’re both good observers, Jess. We listen and we hear everything, not just the bullshit. We can read body language, because our job requires us to be able to do that. So we employ all of that while we’re here.”

  Reel turned her attention back to the road. “Okay, what’s your take on Malloy and Bender?”

  He glanced at her. “Still distrusting the local constabulary? Didn’t your good ‘Doctor’ King give them a clean bill?”

  “Like you said, we don’t know him.”

  “Okay. Malloy hasn’t been here long enough to really be part of this place. Bender on the other hand has. And so have his sister and their mother. I’m not saying they had anything to do with Blue Man vanishing. But I’m also not saying that everything they told us was the truth. The guy that confronted me in the bar, Bruce? I take him as someone with no future who found one with this Doctor King. And what’s your take on him? You said he struck you more as a lawyer type.”

  Reel didn’t answer right away. She gripped the steering wheel, her face lined in deliberation.

  “He’s smooth but not psycho smooth. The guy appears to be leading some wacko cult, but he didn’t come across as that sort. Tough one to figure out. He said he had nothing to do with Blue Man disappearing. Same as what his ‘apostle’ told you. And I think I believe him. Just my gut.”

  “Sure you’re not just falling under his spell?” asked Robie in a joking manner.

  She shot him another glance. “Hook, line, and sinker of course,” she replied with an eye roll tacked on.

  He looked away. “There’s something that somebody said that didn’t make sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s like grit in your barrel. It’s throwing everything off.”

  “Well, think hard and come up with it.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

  Reel looked at him once, and her features softened and a look of uncertainty came into her eyes. Then she glanced away and concentrated on her driving. As she eyed the twin holes in the windshield, she had no idea if another pair of rounds might be heading toward them. And this time they might not strike simply leather.

  Chapter

  16

  IT WAS SMALL, squat, and devoid of any architectural detail of interest.

  The inauspicious childhood home of Blue Man.

  Robie and Reel stood next to their tr
uck and stared at the structure.

  “Oh, how the lowly have risen,” said Robie.

  “I just always assumed Blue Man was born into a family of academics on an Ivy League campus,” offered Reel.

  “Well, like you said before, we don’t really know the man that well.”

  “Who really knows anybody these days?” countered Reel.

  “You got that right,” retorted Robie, drawing a quick stare from Reel. But he wasn’t looking at her.

  He walked over to the single-car garage and peered through the window. The garage was now empty. “I would imagine they took the car away when they investigated the deaths.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine coming home and finding my parents dead by their own hand.”

  “It might explain why Blue Man never married.”

  “He wanted to marry Claire,” Robie pointed out.

  “True.”

  The front door was locked. Robie took out her pick tools and it no longer was.

  “He left the furniture,” noted Robie.

  The front room had a couch, two chairs, and a battered coffee table.

  They passed through into the kitchen. Plates and glasses were still in cabinets. A framed picture of the Rocky Mountains was on one wall.

  Robie tried the kitchen faucet and water came out. “They have to be on a well. No water lines out here. Septic, too. Looks fresh and clean. He’s probably paid someone to maintain it all.”

  He tried a light switch. It came on. “Place has juice, too.”

  “So he must be paying the utility bill.”

  Robie opened the door to the garage, and both gazed at the spot where the car would have been with the two dead people inside it.

  Robie glanced at Reel, but she didn’t look at him.

  They took the stairs up and encountered one bathroom. The fixtures were all from decades ago but the sink and toilet worked.

  One bedroom they entered had a bed and an empty closet.

  “He obviously cleaned out their closets,” observed Robie.

  “And no pictures on the walls or furniture. He must have taken those, too.”

  There was only one other bedroom up here. The bed was still in this one, too. And under the bed was a large wooden box.

  Robie slid it out, put it on the bed, and opened it. He took out a number of faded athletic trophies and frayed first-place ribbons.

  They all had Roger Walton’s name on them.

  “He was a high school sports star,” noted Robie.

  Reel looked over the items with amazement. “I just thought he was this big brain. I never saw him as an athlete.”

  There was a scrapbook in the box. Reel lifted it out and opened it.

  On the yellowed pages was basically a chronicle of a youthful Roger Walton’s achievements in Grand, Colorado.

  “He made the local paper a lot,” noted Robie. “For sports. And he was high school valedictorian and the damn prom king. He captained the debate team. And this clip is about him accepting a full ride to Stanford.”

  “It’s a wonder he had time to sleep,” observed Reel.

  “I don’t think he sleeps as an adult,” replied Robie.

  “Why do you think he left all this stuff behind?”

  “I’m no shrink, but maybe it has something to do with preserving his life here. I mean, the one he has in DC couldn’t be more different from what he has here. Maybe he uses it to balance his life out. Probably why he keeps coming back. To his roots.”

  “Robie, he never talked about his life here. Even the DCI didn’t know about this stuff. It would have been in the briefing book.”

  “Did you ever talk about your life to him?” he asked. “I never talked about mine.”

  “That’s true. But he obviously worked his ass off for all this. Why not be proud of it?”

  “Maybe he had a reason. Blue Man always has a reason for everything.”

  Reel pointed a finger at a picture on the page in the scrapbook. “And she was the prom queen. I can still make out the names at the bottom.”

  They both stared at a decades-old photo of Claire.

  “She was a knockout,” observed Robie. “I could definitely see why Blue Man would have fallen for her.”

  “Well, there were limits to their feelings for each other. She wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t stay. Game over.”

  Robie looked at her curiously. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” replied Reel, staring at him.

  For some reason Robie felt like they were no longer talking about Blue Man.

  The next moment they heard the front door open, and footsteps followed as someone came into the house.

  Reel and Robie pulled their guns. Robie pointed to the window while he edged over to the door.

  Reel peered out the window. “It’s a cop car. Malloy’s.”

  A moment later they heard the sheriff call out to them. They headed down the stairs and met her at the bottom.

  “Find anything?” she asked, looking around.

  Robie said, “An old scrapbook, a bunch of trophies.”

  “And no Roger Walton,” added Reel.

  “He owns the place and keeps it up, but Claire Bender said she doesn’t think he ever comes here. He must pay someone local to keep it clean.”

  “But I don’t see what all this has to do with what happened to Roger Walton. He was obviously not here when he was taken.”

  Robie shrugged. “We’re just collecting intelligence. And we can’t rule out the possibility that his disappearance is tied to something in his past.”

  Malloy said, “You’re not believing what Zeke Donovan said—”

  Robie cut her off. “No, I’m not,” he said, glancing at Reel because she had raised this same point earlier. “But it could be something else. He was the local town hero and then went off to college and then on to DC. Maybe somebody here was jealous of him. And decades later decided to do something about it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Malloy thought about this for a few moments. “I can check into that. See if anyone here was holding a grudge.”

  He handed her the scrapbook. “You might want to start with this. Maybe somebody from high school?”

  Malloy took the scrapbook and then looked at Reel. “Where’d you learn to shoot?”

  “Wherever I could,” said Reel curtly. “And keep those two morons locked up. For their safety.”

  She walked out the front door.

  Malloy glanced at Robie. “She always so friendly?”

  “You should catch her on a bad day.”

  Then Robie walked out, too.

  Chapter

  17

  IT WAS NIGHT and Robie couldn’t sleep.

  It was getting to be a frustrating pattern.