30
MCKEE, KENTUCKY
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Cam and Jack climbed out of the Crown Vic in the small town of McKee, population eight hundred souls, and looked up at the biggest building in town, a redbrick three-story wonder boasting square concrete columns at its entry.
“Pretty impressive for a small town,” Cam said.
Duke waved his hand. “Well, it’s not only the seat of town government, the Jackson County Judicial Center, it’s also the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department. Anything you need to get done you get done here. Even the three bars in the next block can’t compete.” He paused, kicked a pebble out of his path. “I sure hated leaving Chief at the hospital. He was cursing a blue streak about having to call his wife. She’ll be flying up here, fussing over him, and he hates that. Cam, good thing you got out of there with only some stitches and a sling, thank the good Lord.”
“Better yet,” Cam said, “the sling makes it look more serious than it really is, and I don’t have to worry about calling a husband.”
Jack looked around, getting the feel of the town. McKee was charming, if on the funky side. The short, squat gray store right across from the redbrick monument that housed the jail and courtrooms had a big sign over its window: MR. BILL’S GUNS AND GROCERIES.
They left Duke to chat with the sheriff and were directed by a deputy to the single, small, windowless interview room. Clyde Chivers was already seated at the banged-up wooden table at least twice as old as he was, tapping his fingertips on a piece of paper in front of him. He was in his early twenties, skinny as a flagpole, a seedy mustache trying to take root on his upper lip. He looked scared and slightly sick. He met their eyes and tried to manage a look of outrage at this indignity.
Cam pulled out a chair, sat down, eyed him for a moment. “Hey, Clyde, I like the alliteration—Clyde Chivers—your daddy come up with that one? Or is that on your mama’s head?”
He blinked, opened his mouth, shut it, then managed, “Nope, it was my aunt Mabel, my mama’s sister. She writes poetry.” He shut his mouth, straightened his shoulders, and tried to dial up the outrage again. “You’re the people who tried to kill me. You wrecked my Tahoe. You should be the ones here in jail, not me.”
Jack lounged back in his chair, relaxed and as loose as a lizard on a sunny rock. “Nah, we didn’t want you dead, Clyde. Actually, we usually don’t want anyone dead. We only wanted to catch the three people you pretended to pick up.”
“I don’t know about any three people. I was driving to McKee, to see a bud of mine. Why am I here? What do you want? I didn’t do anything. You know I was alone, so you have no right—”
Cam sat forward, looked him straight on. “Shut up, Clyde. The sheriff found five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills under your front seat. You going to tell us who gave you the money to pull your little stunt on Clover Bottom Creek Road?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t do anything, nothin’, you hear me?”
Jack said, “Don’t waste our time and try to deny it. We’re in a hurry here.”
“You’ve got no right to hold me. So I have five hundred bucks, that ain’t no crime in my universe.”
“There you’re wrong,” Cam said. “These are very bad people, Clyde. And you helped them escape us.”
Clyde Chivers was shaking his head back and forth.
Jack leaned forward. “I don’t suppose the guy who called you, who paid you, happened to mention that the three people you helped escape us stuck a knife in a young hiker’s heart yesterday? His name was James Delinsky and he was a student at Virginia Tech. They left him for the animals to scavenge. And that means, Clyde, that you aided and abetted murderers. You’re either going to confess all your sins and not leave a thing out, or you’re going to spend the next twenty years at the Pennington Gap federal penitentiary. Your one and only chance to avoid that future is right now.”
Chivers licked his lips as he eyed both Cam and Jack. “No, really, I don’t know anything, I—” He tried to shove away from them. Jack leaned over the table and grabbed the front of Chivers’s shirt, hauled him out of his chair, and gave him one good shake. “Listen up, Clyde. These are very bad people. They might let you live until you get to prison, but after that? Understand, Clyde, you’re what’s called a loose end.”
Cam said, “And you know what happens to loose ends, don’t you?”
“No, that isn’t right, no one will hurt me and you can’t, either, you—”
Jack gave him a final shake and shoved him back into his chair. “Actually, Clyde, I can do anything I want to you, and probably be awarded a medal for it. As I said, we’re talking very bad guys you hooked up with.” He looked down at his watch. “You have three minutes.”
“I want a deal, yeah, that’s it, a deal. I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t. Give me a deal.”
Jack looked over at Cam. “I can’t give you a deal, but Agent Wittier here knows the federal prosecutor in charge of this case. Do you think the prosecutor might consider loosening the noose around Clyde’s neck if he’s honest and up front with us?”
Cam looked thoughtful. “Well, Ms. Cherisse is usually fine with helping people like Clyde here who have a hard time understanding the danger they’re in. But, Clyde, you better hope we find these people before they stab you like they did the hiker. He was only a couple of years younger than you.”
Chivers was gnawing on his lower lip, looking scared. His hand shook as he picked up the glass of water beside him and drank half of it down. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Okay, but you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know anything about these people, not a single thing. The guy said if I did this one thing, they’d leave me alone, but I swear, I wouldn’t have done it, except the guy who called me blackmailed me.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Imagine, trying to blackmail an upstanding citizen like you. What about?”
“No, really, it’s the truth. He knew about the crop of marijuana in my back forty and he was going to call the sheriff on me. It was either that, or take the five hundred bucks he left in my truck.” He puffed up a bit. “I’m not stupid, I checked to make sure the money was there.”
Cam said. “Who is the man? Do you know him?”
“He didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t recognize his voice. He said he’d heard about my little sideline selling pot and he needed my help, now. He didn’t tell me anything about these three people. He told me to drive up and down Bottom Clover Creek Road, and if I saw some people hiking out of the forest, I had to make sure they saw me and then take off like a bat out of hell. I thought, I’m getting five hundred bucks for punching the gas? I couldn’t believe it when you started shooting at me. You shot out one of my back tires, and I thought I was going to die until I saw the cop cars blocking the road.”
“The man who called you. Tell us about him. Did he sound young? Old? Accent? What?”
Chivers thought about that. “He sounded like a regular adult guy, younger than my dad. He did have this accent, not Southern or from Boston, you know how they talk. He sort of sounded like that old series about that English detective in Oxford, Inspector Morse, I think his name was.”
“So you’re saying the man who called you was in his thirties or forties and had an upper-class British accent.”
“Yeah, that’s it, and he knew about my crop of weed, and I realized one of my clients must have ratted me out and that’s how he got my name. I swear, he threatened me, threatened to call the sheriff. I can’t see I had any choice. The prosecutor, she’ll believe me, won’t she?”
“Yes, she will. Give me your cell phone, Clyde.” Cam held out her hand.
“They took it already. Will I get it back?”
She nodded. As she and Jack rose and left the room, she said over her shoulder at the door, “You’re free to go, Clyde, if you want to. But I suggest you be very careful. Your cell phone will be with the dispatcher.”
Chivers rose straight out of his chair, sputtering. “You can’t leave me, it’s inhuman. I didn’t do anything all that bad, really, don’t you see? I mean, my crop helps support my folks. Without me—”
“You could ask the sheriff to keep you in custody if you like.” Jack winked at Cam as he shut the door on Clyde Chivers.
Outside in the bullpen Cam retrieved Chivers’s cell phone, scrolled through Chivers’s calls with two deputies looking on. She found a blocked call from earlier in the day. “Probably from a burner phone. They don’t miss much.”
“I know, they’re smart. The man who called Chivers, the man in charge, is a Brit? Or was he another underling?”
Cam grinned. “Are we thinking they’re so smart because they outfoxed us?”
“I’d like to think they were lucky, but I doubt Savich would agree. I emailed Savich the big man’s prints. We’ll know if he’s in the system soon.”
Cam said, “Where are we headed now, Jack?”
“Savich said to come back to Washington. He says he’s got a lead on one of the six people who rented the safe-deposit boxes Manta Ray emptied. And he told me the tail number you saw on the Robinson doesn’t exist. Agent Lucy McKnight is getting together a list of all Robinson R66 helicopters in the Washington area.”
“Did he mention we were fired?”
“He didn’t say and I wasn’t about to ask him.”