TWENTY-THREE
Truman’s desk phone rang and he snatched it up, crossing his fingers that it was the call he’d been waiting for.
It was. Bonner County Deputy Chad Wheeler’s voice came booming through the line. “Truman? Chad here, returning your call. Did you want to beg for another fishing trip?”
“You’ve got the best fishing in the Pacific Northwest.”
“We do. But it’s too damn cold now. Where were you three months ago? I told you the guys were getting together.”
Chad had attended high school with Truman. Truman had always assumed Chad would end up behind bars instead of on the law-abiding side. No one had been more surprised than Truman when he joined the police force. It’d been good for Chad, calming his wild ways and focusing his energy for good. Every few years they pulled together a few old classmates and fished in Chad’s backyard of northern Idaho.
The same area Tom McDonald had left a year ago.
“I wish I’d reached out to you about fishing, but I’ve got business I need to discuss.”
“What do you need?” Chad’s tone shifted to full-on cop mode.
“Information on a Tom McDonald. He moved here from your area a year ago. As far as I can tell, he lived in northern Idaho all his life.” He gave Chad the Idaho driver’s license number he’d found for Tom.
He heard Chad’s keyboard clatter in the background. “Yep, I see him. I’ve got previous addresses for him in Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, and Bonners Ferry. I don’t see any record. The guy never even got a traffic ticket.”
“I’ve heard he was an associate of Silas Campbell.”
“Ohhh.” The interest in Chad’s tone shot up. “Let me nose around in some other files. Is he causing problems for you?”
“Not yet,” admitted Truman. It was true. So far all McDonald had done was ignore the FBI’s request for a phone call and act like a pompous jerk to Truman that morning. “But I suspect he’s involved in something. His name keeps coming up in regard to a case I’m working on, but there’s nothing concrete yet.”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Chad. Keys continued to clack in the background as he searched for information on McDonald. “I wish his name wasn’t so common. I’m searching some of the files we have on Silas Campbell to see if your subject’s name is mentioned. Why couldn’t he be named something easy to find, like Keziah Moreau?”
Truman agreed.
“I’ve got a Tom McDonald mentioned several times in relation to Campbell, but I don’t see any illegal behavior. It looks like he was always in the background, not stirring up any fuss, but simply being present.”
“He’s careful.”
“Looks that way. I’ve got all sorts of long lists of people who’ve been arrested in conjunction with Campbell’s organization, but your guy’s name isn’t on any of them.”
“What sort of things has Campbell done?”
Chad sighed through the phone. “Depends who you ask. Either he’s a saint and speaks for the oppressed or he’s a right-wing nut job who’s never met a law he likes. His record has been clean for the past decade; he knows how to stay out of trouble now, but plenty of his fervent followers screw up.”
“I remember there was a problem with a lake.”
“Yes, Campbell spoke out when the federal government put up a fence to keep cattle out of a newly protected marsh area. Families had been using that area to water their cattle for a hundred years. But you know what happens when a species becomes endangered.”
“I do.” Truman knew all too well. Emotions would run high, and the little man always felt powerless in the face of a federal government that believed it was doing the right thing. Truman usually could see both sides of the issue, but he knew it felt different when a family’s livelihood was threatened. He didn’t always agree with either side. Usually he fell somewhere in the middle.
“What’s the date of birth you have for him?” Truman asked as he looked at a photocopy of McDonald’s relatively new Oregon driver’s license. Chad rattled off the same date that Truman had. “Does this guy look nearly seventy to you?”
Chad was silent for a moment. “Hell no.”
“I met with him face-to-face this morning,” Truman said. “I’d put him in his mid to late fifties. He’s really heavy, so he doesn’t have the facial wrinkles, and sometimes that can make someone look younger, but seriously . . . I can’t even see him as being in his sixties. He’s a rural guy; he runs a ranch and I get the impression he’s worked a ranch most of his life. He should look older than his age.”
“You think he’s taken on someone else’s identity,” Chad said. “Hang on. I’m going to email you the driver’s license photo we have on file from twenty-five years ago. I think it’s the same guy in every license photo we have, but maybe you’ll disagree.”
“How far back do you have photos?” Truman asked.
“I’m sending you the oldest one.”
Truman opened his email and spotted Chad’s address at the top of his in-box. He clicked. “Yes, that’s him.” McDonald was younger in the photo, but still had the heavy beard he wore today. “He’s supposed to be forty-five in this one. I don’t see that. He looks younger than you or I right now.”
“I agree. But the beard makes it hard to estimate his age. He’s worn it in every photo we have.”
The men were silent for a long moment.
“If this isn’t his identity, he’s been using it for a long time,” said Truman. “I don’t even know where to start to figure this one out.” How am I going to dig around in another state?
“I have some ideas,” said Chad. “One of our reserve officers would get off on solving this puzzle. He’s semiretired and there’s nothing he likes better than to research this sort of thing. He’s damned good at it. Let me talk to him for you.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Truman ended the call after a few more minutes. Frustrated, he sat silently at his desk, hating to wait on someone else to do his work for him. How long will it take to get results? What if he can’t find anything?
Was it relevant if Tom McDonald wasn’t who he said he was? If he had used an assumed identity, it didn’t change what he’d been up to. Clearly the man had been living as McDonald for a very long time.
Maybe he’s wanted for an old murder.
Truman let his mind wander for a long moment, listing reasons for someone to assume a new identity. None of the reasons suggested a moral purpose.
He pulled up the McDonald property on a map on his computer, studying the surrounding landscape. McDonald had picked a very rural location. His large piece of land was surrounded by either a dense forest, steep hills, or a river. If Tom had wanted isolation, he’d found it. The best route in was the horrible road that fed in from the south that Truman had driven earlier that day. The only other way into the property followed winding roads that added ten miles and crossed a river. Truman shifted the map so he could follow the winding roads and land to the west of the property. He traced the long way in with his finger, starting at Tom’s property and working his way out.
Only someone with too much time on their hands would try to use this road.
His finger finally reached a country highway. He paused with his finger on the screen, staring at the number that labeled the highway, knowing he’d recently visited a home with that highway address.
Tilda Brass lived on that highway. He searched for her property lines. Her acreage turned out to be one of the oddest-shaped properties Truman had ever seen. It was long and narrow and curving.
But it shared a property line with the McDonald ranch.