July 8, 10:22 P.M.
“This is Jason Lanham,” Walt says, placing his hand on the shoulder of the deputy beside him. “He’s going to be your guide on this little scenic tour.” Giving the deputy a sideways glance, he adds, “Jason, meet Magnus Craig and Jimmy Donovan. Oh”—he points at me with his right index finger—“you can call him Steps. If you have time to kill out there, have him tell you how he got that nickname. It’s a good story.”
We’re parked on Placer Road about a half mile east of the turnoff to Wayward. Walt’s Expedition, though unmarked, was deemed too risky for the drop-off. Even without the sheriff’s office markings and the overhead light bar, it still stands out as law enforcement to anyone paying attention. The light bars in the front and rear windows and grille, as well as the landscape of antennae, are a dead giveaway. Instead, we stopped by the impound lot and picked up a Cadillac STS seized during a drug raid three weeks ago. Its tinted windows and twenty-inch wheels are decidedly not law enforcement.
“Just in and out,” Walt is saying. “See what you need to see and get the hell out of there. I’ve got two guys watching the house from a distance. You won’t see them, but they’ll see you. I’ve got another man in the trees just inside Wayward in case the son of a bitch comes back early. Jason has his radio, so he’s your ears.”
“Where are you going to be?” Jimmy asks.
“I’m going to have coffee,” Walt shoots back with a big grin. When Jimmy gives him a smirk, he just shrugs and says, “I can’t stay here, someone might get suspicious. And I’m getting a little too old to go traipsing through the woods.”
“Okay, then,” Jimmy says.
*
The mile hike into Zell’s place is less work than I expected. The trees, though constant, are not clustered together in thick patches like you’d find farther north, and the underbrush is light. We add a few minutes to the hike by following a ravine that cuts in a north-northeast direction. It keeps us tucked below the horizon, so even if someone is watching, we’ll pass by unnoticed.
Twenty-five minutes later we come up a rise and Zell’s compound is laid out before us. My first impression is that Bovencamp’s photos didn’t do it justice. The single-wide trailer is an early seventies model, bleached by decades in the sun. It has a makeshift addition off the back that looks like it’s about to fall over, and a huge chunk of aluminum siding is missing toward the rear where someone—Zell, I’m assuming—had accessed some wiring or plumbing and just never bothered to put everything back together.
The trailer should have been condemned twenty years ago, but out here, in the middle of nowhere, who’s going to see it—especially with Zell’s Mad Max barrier wall? The travel trailers aren’t much better.
“Follow me and keep low till we get down there,” Jason says, and then he’s off, moving quickly and using the trees for cover. A hundred feet from the trailer we reach the edge of the trees and stop. Jason is crouched in the brush, watching. We follow his example. “Wait for me to wave you down,” he says. “If anything goes sideways, get the hell out the same way we came in, and don’t wait for me. Remember, we’ve got two guys on overwatch.”
Tumor starts barking and howling and yanking on his chain like a fiend as soon as Jason steps from the tree line. Fishing a brown lump out of his pocket as he crosses the distance to the trailer, Jason manipulates the package in his hand and then steps toward the growling, howling dog, stopping just beyond the chain’s reach.
His back is to us, so I can’t see what he’s doing, but Tumor stops barking immediately and cocks his head sideways, sniffing. Though the dog only has a two-inch stub for a tail, I can tell when he starts wagging it because his rear quarters start shaking back and forth and he starts prancing his front feet up and down. He sniffs eagerly at whatever it is that Jason is holding just beyond his reach. When the deputy turns, I see it: a hot dog.
Smart.
Seconds later Tumor’s chowing down on the uncooked hot dog and Jason’s scratching him behind the ears and talking to him. Probably the kindest words the dog has heard in his short, miserable life—all of it, no doubt, spent at the end of Zell’s chain.
After a quick walk-around, Deputy Lanham signals us forward and we spill from the trees in a half walk, half run. I already see it, everywhere and on everything: brilliant amaranth with rusty texture.
“It’s Sad Face,” I say to Jimmy. “It’s him.”
Jason introduces us to Tumor, who’s more than happy to welcome new friends, especially the kind of friends who scratch him behind the ear and rub his belly—that would be Jimmy, not me.
“Five minutes,” Jason says, “then we’re out of here.”
“That’s all I’ll need,” I reply.
While Jimmy entertains Tumor, I check around the travel trailers. I’m looking for any shine from the victims. There’s none on the ground, but the women may have been drugged or unconscious and Zell may have had to carry them. I check the doorframe around each travel trailer, as well as the single-wide, looking for that spot where an arm or a leg may have brushed against the frame on the way in or out.
Nothing.
I’m almost done when I notice Jason messing with his radio. He’s halfway between the trailer and the barbarian gate calling for a radio check with no response. Jimmy notices it, too, and walks toward him.
“Something wrong?” Jimmy asks.
Jason shakes his head. “No. I’m just getting some random bursts of static, like someone keeps keying their mic. It happens.” He tilts his head to the hand mic attached to his shirt at the left shoulder, depresses the button, and says, “Sam One-Seven-Two, Sam One-Thirteen, over.” There’s no response. “Sam One-Seven-Two, Sam One-Thirteen, do you copy, over?”
There’s no response.