24
PULLMAN, WASHINGTON
When Wells and Coyle landed in Spokane Wednesday afternoon, Wells checked his phone for the list of soldiers and veterans who’d received sniper training. Didn’t find it. He called Tarnes.
“Julie, oh, Julie—”
All he needed to say. “I hear you. Even with the White House making calls, it took me all day to convince the records people to do it without a warrant.”
Amazing but true, even the President didn’t truly command the federal government. He could steer it. But federal workers were effectively impossible to fire. On a day-to-day basis, they followed their own rules. “They’re running the names now?”
“You’re funny. If there’s a more bureaucratic bureaucracy than the National Personnel Records Center, I haven’t seen it. They punch out at exactly three forty-five p.m. Central Time, rain, snow, or sniper attack. Ironically enough, they’re in St. Louis. Good news is, they show up bright and early, seven-thirty a.m. sharp. It won’t take them long to run it tomorrow morning. With the time difference, you should have it when you get up. But don’t expect any specifics about their service. That was the compromise. Names, ages, rank upon leaving the military, and addresses.”
Another disappointment. Any soldier who had received a disability rating for post-traumatic stress disorder or head trauma would have jumped to the top of the list. Instead, Wells and Coyle would be working blind.
“Anything from Dallas?”
“Not yet, as far as I know. But they’re on it. And say what you like about the FBI, they do work late. They plan to start knocking on doors tonight. ’Course, our friends are probably long gone—”
“But maybe someone will remember them.” Having the passport pictures from Banamex would have helped. Maybe Wells should have insisted on taking them, as Coyle had wanted. Too late now.
“Shafer’s getting down there tomorrow morning, so you can ask him.”
“If he doesn’t get his head beaten in again.”
“Banamex side will take longer. I know this’ll come as a shock, but the Mexican government isn’t doing the United States any favors these days. By the way, we checked immigration records for the Banamex names—”
“Annalise Fabian and Alan Vartan?”
“Yes. Guess what? No entries in the last two years.”
Not a surprise. Easier to create fake passports and driver’s licenses than clean bank accounts, so the Russians would have done everything possible to keep their aliases out of United States government databases. They might even have hired a coyote to sneak them over the border.
“Appreciate the update.”
“Any more delays, I’ll call you.” Tarnes hung up.
Of course, even having the names would hardly guarantee success. Veterans didn’t always tell the VA when they moved. On an even more basic level, Wells couldn’t be sure the woman who called herself Annalise Fabian had come here to find a sniper. But he and Coyle had to start somewhere.
They rented a Ford Explorer, drove south on the two-lane state highway that paralleled the Idaho border. Past the Spokane suburbs, the country opened up, pastures bordered with wooden fences, cows and horses lazily wandering. Coyle drove slumped in his seat, staring at the world from behind big mirrored sunglasses, clocking a steady 80 with one hand loose on the wheel. Reminding Wells how young he really was.
“Where’d you grow up again, John?”
“Hamilton, Montana. Just on the other side of Idaho. Beautiful country.”
“Looks just like this, right?”
“And Malibu looks just like Long Beach.”
Coyle gave a soft Pffft! of dismissal. “Don’t know anything about that. Only black people allowed in Malibu are Will Smith’s family. Maybe Kobe.”
“Should have learned to surf.”
Another Pffft! “Know the joke they like up there? How do you stop a black man from drowning?”
“Tell me the punch line doesn’t involve chitlins.”
Coyle turned to stare at Wells through his sunglasses, didn’t lay off the gas. The Explorer drifted. “Went there, did you?”
“You started it. Eyes on the road, Sergeant.”
Coyle straightened out the Explorer but didn’t stop looking at Wells. “You want to know?”
“If you insist.”
“How do you stop a black man from drowning? Take your foot off his head, you racist.”
Wells had no choice but to laugh. “I’m racist?”
“Whole world is racist. White and black. Black people just know it better than you.” Coyle pulled off his sunglasses. “You like growing up in all this nothing, John?”
“I did. The sun would go down, and it would be dark in the mountains. When I was little, my dad would take me for hikes. He was a doctor—a surgeon—and he always said the mountains were the best cure after a tough operation. No lights, no fire, no tents. Not in the summer, anyway. We’d bring bedrolls and blankets, lie on our backs, looking at the stars, listening to the critters. Sound carries a long way in those canyons; we heard the wolves, the foxes, the owls—all the predators. Hawks and eagles get the credit, but owls are vicious. You’re a squirrel and you hear that Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! time to jump. After I was about twelve or so, he let me go on my own—”
“Twelve?”
“I knew every stream and ridge to the Idaho border. He figured I could handle myself. Sometimes I had a rifle, but, even without, I never minded, I never was scared.”
Coyle kept driving.
“Think I’d be lonely,” he finally said. “Anyway, there’s nowhere to hide up there—”
“People have been hiding in those mountains a long time.”
“You can hide yourself, sure, but I mean your secrets. The way you take a drink before work. Or even something simple: You’re a Marine who likes jazz. Those little towns, everyone knows everyone’s business. In a city, you can disappear.”
“Never thought of it that way.” Wells remembered how Coyle had vanished into the Mexico City night. “You like jazz, Coyle? Shoo-bee-doo-bop—”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Not your business. What would they have said in Hamilton if you’d come back and told them you were Muslim, John?”
Interesting question. The answer wasn’t as obvious as Coyle thought. Frontier tradition said a man’s home was his castle. Long as he didn’t bother anyone, he could do what he pleased. But Coyle was right, small towns tended to be heavy on gossip. Hamilton was no exception. Wells remembered his mother complaining about one neighbor who always seemed to go to the grocery store at the same time as she did and spent an inordinate amount of time checking out what she bought.
Wells was still mulling his answer as they reached Colfax. Pullman, another twenty miles down, was much bigger, but Colfax was the county seat. “Let’s see if the sheriff will talk to us.”
The Whitman County Sheriff’s Office was a gray concrete block conveniently next door to the county courthouse. The building looked to Wells like a place where justice would be dispatched fairly, if brusquely. A sign beside the front door warned FIREARMS BANNED AND WILL BE CONFISCATED. Underneath, a smaller sign, handwritten, added: We Mean It—Don’t Tempt Us!
Wells and Coyle found themselves in a five-foot-square lobby, adorned only with an American flag and a framed photo of Sheriff Clay Darby. In the pic, Darby wore a dark gray uniform, a light gray tie, and a toothy smile. He looked friendly yet protective, a human Labrador retriever. Judging by a picture was a mistake, but Wells liked him.
A steel door with a magnetic lock offered the only entrance to the offices, though a thick Plexiglas window permitted a view of a single empty desk. Wells pushed the buzzer next to the window. After a minute, a deputy appeared behind it. Late fifties, with a brushy white mustache and a belly that pushed his gun belt.
“We’d like to speak to Sheriff Darby.”
“Any reason you can name?” The deputy’s gruff high-country accent took Wells back to his youth.
“Looking for someone.”
“You bounty hunters?”
“Not exactly.”
The deputy grunted, waited for more. “Names?” he finally said.
“John. And Winston.”
“ID?”
Wells and Coyle slipped their driver’s licenses through the slot beneath the window.
“You have warrants outstanding, now would be a good time to leave.”
Wells noted the deputy had waited until he had their licenses before offering the advice. “We look like the warrants-outstanding type?”
“Lil’ bit.” The deputy scooped up the licenses, disappeared.
“Last time I showed up at a police station unannounced, the man put me in jail,” Coyle muttered.
“That was France. Anyway, you got to hang with me. So it wasn’t all bad.”
“Says you.”
A few minutes later, the maglock door swung open.
“Any firearms?” the deputy said.
“We saw the sign.”
“That’s a no?”
“That’s a no.”
“Come on, then.”
Darby’s office was as bare and practical as the rest of headquarters, two laptops on his desk, a bookshelf sagging with books on criminology and crime scene investigation. The room carried the faint smell of late nights, sneaked cigarettes, and not enough deputies for all the work. Darby was a few years older than he’d been when the picture in the lobby was taken. More gray in his hair. Still looked like a good guy to Wells. “Sit, please.”
They sat. The deputy stood behind them, reasonable under the circumstances. I trust you. Sort of.
“Gentlemen, Deputy Walsh tells me you’re looking for someone.”
Being straightforward would be their best bet, Wells saw. “Sheriff, this is gonna sound strange, but I promise we’ll give you a way to confirm it. We’re CIA, and we have reason to believe that the Chicago sniper is from this area. Maybe closer to Spokane, maybe over the border in Idaho or Oregon, but Whitman County is the center of where we’re looking.”
“Reason to believe—you two psychic, then?”
“Foreign source.”
“How come the FBI isn’t here?”
“We developed the information. Plus the source isn’t the kind the FBI likes. If we can’t find the guy in about three days, you’ll see them, but I thought we might have a better chance coming in quiet. I grew up in Montana. FBI’s been known to get people’s backs up.”
“Whereas everyone loves the CIA.” Darby shook his head. “Have to be honest, gents. Even if you are who you say, I’m not buying it. I can watch CNN same as you, and everybody says it’s terrorism. We’re short on Muslims here. Especially outside Pullman.”
Wells hesitated only a moment. “There’s about five people in the United States who know this. But we don’t think he’s Muslim. We think someone recruited him.”
“For money?”
“Not necessarily. We think it was a woman. Blond, late twenties, pretty. She showed up in Pullman a couple months back. She may have called herself Annalise. Our working theory: Maybe she met the shooter online. He had anti-government or anti-religious leanings, and she fostered them.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble to avoid the obvious explanation, that the guy is some jihadi nut.”
“We have more, but I can’t tell you what.”
Darby reached into his desk for a Nicorette pack, popped out a piece. “Used to smoke Camels. Lot cooler than these. Then one day I woke up, and I was thirty-six and couldn’t run a mile.”
“Ever try vaping?” Coyle said.
Darby tucked the gum in his mouth. “What is it you want from me and my deputies? Pullman has its own PD, by the way. Wazzu, too. If this guy’s on campus—”
“I don’t think he goes to Washington State,” Wells said. “Or lives in town. Guy like this doesn’t want the neighbors too close. But sooner or later he announces himself. Swings at the mailman. Smacks his girlfriend and winds up in here for a domestic. Or just writes the local paper to complain about the United Nations. You know those guys. Especially the ones who like their guns.”
“Or maybe he lives in the hills, like you said, doesn’t bother anyone. And I’ve never heard of him.”
“Sure. But we’d appreciate any names that fit the profile.”
“What then? You knock on their doors, offer a hit on your vape, ask if they shot anyone lately?”
“Start by seeing who’s home. The second shooting was yesterday morning in Chicago—that’s two thousand miles. If our guy does live here, I doubt he’s back yet. Anyway, two kills so quick, I think he has more on his plate. He’s not coming home until he’s done.”
“Lot of guesses. Maybe somebody’s away driving a rig. Or working a double shift.”
“True enough, but we can talk to the neighbors. We should have a list of local veterans with sniper training by tomorrow morning. If we can cross-check it against the names you give us, we might get somewhere. Look, maybe we’re wrong. But I promise if we can’t find this guy, the FBI will come knocking and make a lot more noise than we do.”
“You have a card?”
Wells scribbled down his and Coyle’s information.
“And that confirmation. Not that I don’t trust you.”
Wells added Julie Tarnes’s number and cia.gov and ucia.gov email accounts. “Call her anytime, day or night, she’ll call you back on the Langley trunk line. Even better, just email her. Can’t fake those addresses.”
“I’ll call you after I’ve talked to her. Maybe put in a call to the Pullman cops, too. A couple potential names come to mind, but honestly no one who fits the profile a hundred percent.”
Tomorrow seemed to be the best they could do. Wells stood. “Thanks, Sheriff.”
They went to a Staples in Moscow, Idaho, for a couple items Wells thought they might need, then found a hotel in Pullman. Wells wondered if he should go to the local cops, decided he was unlikely to build a better rapport with them than he already had with Darby. He’d let Darby handle them. The VA office, thirty miles south in Lewiston, was closed for the night. And when he checked online, Wells didn’t see any veterans’ meetings scheduled. There was one group the next night in Lewiston, another specifically for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder in Pullman.
“That’s it for tonight?” Coyle said. “Seems like we should be doing something.”
“We are. We’re getting a decent night’s sleep and waiting for Tarnes to send those names. See you in the morning, Sergeant.”
Sure enough, the list from Tarnes arrived at 7:30 a.m. the next morning. It included fifty-five names within a hundred miles of Pullman, more than half clustered to the north, in and around Spokane. As Tarnes had warned, the list included only the barest facts—name, age, rank at discharge, and address. Seven veterans lived in Pullman or Moscow, eleven more within a fifty-mile radius, scattered at random in every direction.
Given the distances and the rural roads, Wells thought they would be lucky to clear those first eighteen names before nightfall. He wanted to be back in time to meet with the Lewiston support group, which began at 7:30 p.m. Those conversations might be tricky, too. He printed out the names and maps of all eighteen addresses.
“Ready, Sergeant?”
“No, let’s keep waiting.”
“Bet the sergeants loved you at Camp Lejeune.” Wells’s phone buzzed. A 509 area code. Local. “Sheriff.”
“I have three names you should know. Unfortunately, they’re all over the place. The first guy lives in Hay, the western edge of the county. Not really a town at all, it has a zip code and a cemetery. Anyway, his name’s Harlan Gould. He’s got six kids, and a wife who keeps calling nine-one-one to say he’s hitting her, and changing her mind by the time we get there. I don’t think he’s ex-military, but he has an arsenal. Even a light machine gun that he says doesn’t work. My guys treat him carefully, and I suggest you do the same. Your buddy, even more so. Guys like Harlan often have strange notions about black people.”
“Understood.”
“Second guy, he’s up near a place called Lamont. Name’s Kenneth Brane. He lives on a farm his parents owned. I mention him because they died a few years back in a fire I’d call suspicious. We brought in the State Patrol, but they couldn’t prove anything. I’ll tell you a secret. Strangle your kin while they’re sleeping and burn their house—unless you’re dumb enough to leave out a gas can, you’ll probably walk. Fires happen. He’s a little bit older, ex-military. Might even have been a Ranger. We haven’t heard from him in a while, but I assume he’s still there.”
Wells looked down the list Tarnes had sent, didn’t see Brane’s name. But if he’d been a Ranger, he could probably shoot even without sniper training.
“Got it.”
“The third one lives east of Colfax, town called Palouse, he’s Nez Perce. Palouse has a thousand people. So compared to the other two, he’s a city boy. He applied to become a deputy maybe three years back. He’d won a shooting contest. It was on his application. Underlined about four times. We had to reject him because he had two psychiatric hospitalizations he hadn’t disclosed. He kept emailing, asking us to reconsider. His name, believe it or not, is Milo Nighthorse.”
“No wonder he’s pissed. Were the emails angry?”
“More childish, I’d say. Emotionally immature. I mean, I actually drove to Palouse to see him. Not because I was worried he might do something, but because he sounded so lost. He wasn’t home, I left a card with his mom. He never called. That was the end of it. Probably a long shot, but I figured you’d want to know.”
“We do. Thanks, Sheriff.”
“I’ll text you the addresses. Remember what I said about Harlan.”
Wells hung up. “The Staples stuff is going to come in handy,” he said to Coyle. “Darby may have broken this open for us.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I’m gonna make you write him a thank-you note.”
Wells decided to start with Harlan Gould. Guys like him were best approached in the morning, before the day’s frustrations and the drink mounted. The drive to Hay took more than an hour, plenty of time for Wells to fill in Coyle on the three possibilities.
“Who do you think?” Coyle said.
“I guess Milo.” But as Darby had warned the day before, none of the three were perfect matches. Wells didn’t see how Annalise could have connected with Gould or Brane. Nighthorse might be too crazy. The Russians would want to know they could control their shooter.
The hills around Hay were crimped tight, eroded by nameless creeks that ran into the Snake River a few miles south. The maps showed that Gould’s house lay at the end of an unnamed private drive. Coyle drove by it twice before Wells spotted it, an overgrown single-lane rut. The Explorer thumped as Coyle swung the steering wheel side to side to avoid the worst potholes.
PRIVATE / DO NOT ENTER, a faded, hand-painted sign warned fifty yards on.
They came around a curve to see a ramshackle white farmhouse atop a low hill. Gray-white smoke rose from a stovepipe that leaned off the right side of the house. Rusted farm equipment shared space with the front half of a white Ford Bronco and an old Mazda that looked like the only operable vehicle in the bunch.
“Washington Chainsaw Massacre,” Coyle said.
“Remember, the black guy always gets it first.”
“You would say that.”
A heavy steel chain blocked the road. UNLESS YOU ARE AN INVITED GUEST STOP, DISMOUNT AND WAIT, another hand-painted sign announced.
“Dismount,” Coyle said. “Somebody’s fancy. What do you think?”
“We do what we’re told.”
“Awful exposed.” Still, Coyle stopped a few feet shy of the chain.
“Then let’s be nice. Take off your sunglasses and put on your name tag.”
The name tags were simple laminated white pieces of paper in generic blue holders. Coyle’s read WINSTON and Wells’s JOHN, cleverly enough. Wells had made them at the Staples in Moscow. He’d also bought notebooks, clipboards, and Bic pens. At a nearby Walgreens, he’d added a pair of black-framed clear-lens eyeglasses that would have been hip in Brooklyn but were just dorky here. Wells wanted to appear as unthreatening as possible, and these name tags screamed unthreatening.
Now he and Coyle snapped on their badges and stepped out. An easterly wind turned the air brisk and sent clouds chasing one another across the blue sky.
“We look like Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Coyle said.
“Exactly. Keep an eye on the upstairs windows.”
“You think I need you to tell me that?”
But no one took aim from the second floor. Instead, a man stepped out of the house, shambled toward them, a rifle slung over his back and a pistol strapped to his waist. He was short and squat, with a notable limp and a perfectly round head. Kids in T-shirts and jeans followed him out. Stay back, inside! he yelled without looking back. They ignored him. The oldest waved and then dropped his hand quickly as if he’d made a mistake. The two littlest both raised finger pistols, aiming at Coyle.
“Hospitality runs in the family,” Wells said.
“No way this guy was in Chicago two days ago.”
“Agreed, but let’s make sure.”
Wells gave a friendly wave as the man approached, received a single shake of the head in return.
“Private property.”
“Mr. Gould? I’m sorry to bother you, sir. We’re conducting a road-use survey for the Department of Transportation.”
“You work for the state?”
Uh-oh. Wells hadn’t figured Gould’s dislike of the government would run to the DOT. Who hated roads? Coyle bailed him out.
“Private contractors, sir. ’Fact, we don’t get a dime if we can’t get our surveys filled.”
Gould’s eyes snapped to Coyle. “Piecework. Your kind is used to that.”
Coyle nodded: Good one, you got me.
“Hate to have to tell you this, but looks like you ain’t getting paid. I got no cotton to pick neither.”
A real charmer. “We know your time is valuable,” Wells said. “We’re authorized to offer a twenty-dollar payment for answering our questions. Five minutes, at most.”
Gould smirked. “You two couldn’t look more like cops if you tried. Don’t know what you really want, but for a hundred bucks I’ll answer your questions. About roads, that is.”
“Twenty is our standard payment.”
“Fifty. You drove all the way out here. Shame to see you go home empty-handed.”
“Fine, fifty.”
“Hand it over, then.”
Wells gave him the bills. “About how many miles do you drive each week?”
Gould rubbed a hand through his thick blond hair. The rest of his body was as ruined as the cars in his front yard, but his hair was magnificent.
“Three hundred miles, I’d say. You know, it’s fifty just to Pullman. Used to do more, but gas ain’t cheap.”
300, Wells wrote on his clipboard. “And what is the primary purpose of those trips?”
“Shopping, most like.”
“When was the last time you drove your vehicle?”
Gould looked back at the front yard as if the Mazda itself could tell him. “Musta been Sunday.”
“Wasn’t him,” Coyle said, as the Explorer bumped back down the road.
“No. Nice line about getting paid only if we got answers. He liked that. Put him in charge.”
“Bet one of his kids kills him one day.”
“Only one? Brane’s up next. In Lamont.” Wells checked his phone. “Figure an hour and a half.”
“Think he’s gonna be strapped when he sees us, too?”
But Brane had no warning signs on his property. His house was new, presumably a replacement for the one that had burned. An American flag flapped high on a pole in the front yard. A woman answered Wells’s knock. Heavyset, white, early fifties. In the background, a television played.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for Kenneth Brane.” Wells was already sure Brane wasn’t their shooter.
“He’s out back working. I can get him if you like.”
“Actually, ma’am, maybe you can answer our questions. We work for Nielsen—the TV folks—and we’re doing a survey of television use in Washington State. We’d like to ask what shows you and your husband have watched over the last week. We don’t need an exact list, just whatever you remember.”
“We can offer twenty dollars for your time,” Coyle said.
“He’s not my husband, but sure. I’m Mary, by the way.”
“Wasn’t him,” Coyle said ten minutes later, back in the Explorer. “Maybe he killed his parents, but it wasn’t him.”
“Agreed.” Mary had reeled off an impressive list of shows. Even with a teleporter, Brane wouldn’t have had time to kill anyone in St. Louis or Chicago.
“Two down, one to go. How far’s Palouse?”
“Hour-plus.” Wells checked his phone. It was already almost 11. “Let’s get a snack on the way.”
The snack turned out to be PowerBars and Gatorade from a gas station. The radio was mostly static, and since Coyle hadn’t splurged for the satellite, they rolled along in silence.
“Land growing on you?” Wells said.
“Not really.”
“I know, not enough jazz joints. You a Chet Baker guy, Coyle, or more modern? Bip-bap-a-bam-boom!”
“Your dad was a doctor, how’d you turn out to be such a hick?”
The center of Palouse looked like a movie-set western town, brightly colored three-story buildings on a main street wide enough for angle parking. An old-timey advertisement for the local paper was painted in black-and-white on a brick building. Away from downtown, the city was less quaint but pleasant enough, homes clustered close on neatly kept lawns.
Milo Nighthorse lived on the north edge of town, a poorer neighborhood, in a long, low house, cinder blocks propping its steps. A red flag with a gold-black-and-white icon at its center hung above the front door. A Nez Perce emblem, Wells figured.
Coyle eased the Explorer behind a rusty Toyota pickup. “What’s the play? Herbalife distributors? Lose weight now, ask me how!”
“Military recruiters. He wanted to be a cop? Rangers are even better.”
“Marines, you mean.”
“I mean Rangers.”
“You do know even a below-average Marine could kick a Ranger’s ass.”
“Save it for your Semper fi buddies.” Wells grinned and stepped out. For the first time in years, he felt like he had a partner in the field.
The front door opened even before they reached it. A fiftyish woman stepped out. She had square features and light brown skin. She looked at Wells as if she knew he brought bad tidings. “He okay?”
“Ma’am—”
“Just tell me he’s okay.” Up close, she smelled of skunk weed and bad luck.
“Can we come inside?”
The pot stench in the living room was overwhelming. Wells wondered how long they could stay before they wound up with a contact high.
“You’re Milo’s mom?”
“Karen, yes. And you’re State Patrol?”
“No, ma’am.” Best to play this conversation as straight as possible. Karen would be too focused on her own problems to challenge them. “We’re with the federal government. We’re worried your son might be in trouble.”
“Is this about the bear? Because that was tribal land, a tribal matter—” She paced around a card table that was home to a two-foot-tall glass bong. She might have smoked all morning, but the pot wasn’t calming her.
“Ma’am, help us here.”
The steel in Wells’s voice had the effect he hoped. She stopped moving, focused on him.
“When did you last see Milo, Ms. Nighthorse?”
“Taylor, not Nighthorse . . . A week ago Monday. He said he’d be back soon. I told him don’t go, but he said he had something important to do, something that couldn’t wait.”
“You were worried because of his prior hospitalizations.”
She didn’t ask how they knew. “When he takes his medicine, he’s fine. But soon as he stops—”
Wells didn’t point out that living in a house where marijuana was one of the major food groups probably didn’t help Milo stay on his meds. “He’s schizophrenic?”
“No, bipolar. He’s a beautiful boy, I promise.”
“Ms. Taylor,” Coyle said. “Did Milo have a girlfriend?”
“No, not really. Girls liked him—” She hustled out, returned with a picture of a handsome twenty-something man with deep black eyes, standing atop the Space Needle in Seattle. “See?”
“Can we hold on to that?”
She handed the photo over.
“Do you know, was he dating anyone?” Wells said.
“He kept that stuff to himself.”
“Mothers know. Maybe a blond woman, late twenties?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But, really, he never brought girls here. He was embarrassed he still lived at home, he thought it was lame.”
“But he was trying to get a job. He applied to the sheriff?”
“And the State Patrol, a bunch of places. They all turned him down because of the hospital stuff. It wasn’t fair. His dad died when he was young. I always told him, try something else, a mechanic maybe. He was good with his hands. But he liked the idea of being police.”
“A good shooter, the sheriff told us.”
She nodded. “He won a contest in Spokane a while back.”
“He had his own rifle?” Coyle said.
“Of course.”
“Did he take it when he left last week?”
Milo Nighthorse’s mother opened her mouth but made no sound.
With its MMA posters taped to the wall and comic books scattered across the floor, Milo’s bedroom looked like it belonged to a teenager, not a twenty-seven-year-old who aspired to become an officer of the law. Taylor opened his closet door and pushed aside Milo’s flannel shirts. “Kept it in a case back here.”
The case was gone.
“Do you know what kind of rifle it was, ma’am?” Coyle asked.
“Not sure the model, but the caliber was thirty-oh-eight.”
Wells caught Coyle’s eye. The sniper was using a .308 rifle. “Did he store ammunition anywhere else in the house?” They might be able to match the ammunition to the rounds the police had recovered.
She shook her head.
“Anything else missing, ma’am?”
She pulled out a metal box latched with a combination lock. “Milo doesn’t know I know the numbers.” She spun it open. Empty. “He kept his money in here. Maybe a thousand dollars, fifteen hundred. And his stuff.”
“Pot?” Coyle said.
“Maybe a little—” She sniffled.
“Crank?”
“He said it helped him when he got down.” She flipped the lid shut, kicked the box back into the closet as if she blamed it for Milo’s troubles. “He’s okay, right?”
“We just need to find him,” Wells said.
“I’m not sure it was him,” Coyle said, as they drove back to Colfax.
“Maybe not, but we’d best find out.” Milo didn’t have a credit card or a bank account. Didn’t trust banks, his mother had said. He didn’t have his own computer either. So the FBI couldn’t track him that way. But she’d given them the details of his car—a burnt-orange 2004 Chevy Cavalier with Washington State tags and racing stripes—and his email account and phone.
She’d called every few hours, but the phone had gone straight to voice mail for almost a week, she said. He hadn’t responded to texts or emails either. Still, between the phone and the license plate, the FBI had a good chance of finding Milo if he was still alive. It could rerun the footage it had collected near the shootings, looking for the Cavalier. Health privacy laws would protect Milo’s identity if he’d been hospitalized. But if police officers had forcibly brought him to a hospital, even if he hadn’t been arrested, his name ought to show up in an incident report database. Many of those databases, especially in big cities, were now indexed and available to the FBI in real time.
The NSA could dive even deeper into his phone and email accounts, as long as Duto would sign a finding, the written authorization needed to spy without a warrant on an American citizen. The plain fact was, ordinary Americans had almost no chance of avoiding law enforcement once it mobilized against them, unless they were willing to live on the streets or had the survival skills to stay alive in open wilderness.
Wells called Tarnes, explained what they’d found, and what they hadn’t. Before they left, they’d asked Karen if Milo ever seemed angry with preachers or ministers. She insisted he had not, that he’d never cared much about religion. She said he wasn’t violent even when he was manic. And she told them again he hadn’t mentioned any new women. They asked if Milo’s friends might have an idea what had happened to him. She gave them four names but told them that she’d already spoken to all four. They’d denied knowing anything. And they wouldn’t lie to me. They know if Milo takes off, it’s trouble.
“What about the seeding?” Tarnes said.
“Seeding?” Wells flashed to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament: A sixteen has never beaten a one . . .
“What we talked about with Duto. If the Russians want to blame this on Islamic terrorists, they need to make it look like the shooter was a secret convert. Or at least had sympathies.”
Tarnes was right. “We didn’t see anything like that. No Quran, no ISIS flag. On the other hand, his mom lives there full-time, so it might be tough. They could put stuff in his car or load up his email account.”
“So this mainly comes down to timing.”
“Which is striking: He takes off six days before the first shooting.”
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll ask Duto to sign the finding if you’ll keep looking.”
The first time she’d given him anything close to an order. Wells found himself slightly annoyed. “Sure.”
“Don’t like a woman with a mind of her own, John?”
“Let me know when you hear.” He hung up.
“What now?” Coyle said. “Talk to the sheriff again?”
“My impression this morning, he told me what he knew about Milo. Let’s call the friends first, see if anyone wants to talk in person. If not, let’s put him aside, get to the list. FBI will find him soon enough, if he’s alive.”
By nightfall, they had made modest progress. Milo’s friends insisted they had no idea where he’d gone. He was nuts, one said. Good dude, but nuts. You heard about the bear? Meanwhile, they’d visited nine of the names on Tarnes’s list. Six had been home on Sunday. The other three didn’t answer their doors. Of those, two had dogs, a fact that strongly suggested that they were simply at work.
The third, a guy near Colfax named Tom Miller, was more interesting. Mail was piled in his box, and the blinds to the windows on his trailer were drawn tight. Unfortunately, Miller’s nearest neighbors weren’t home either, so Wells and Coyle couldn’t ask anyone about him. Wells figured he was worthy of another look in the morning, maybe a conversation with Sheriff Darby.
“Veterans’ groups next,” Coyle said, as they pulled back into the hotel in Pullman. “Never been to Idaho.”
“Idaho is to Montana as San Diego is to L.A.”
“Now I can’t wait.”
Wells’s phone buzzed. Tarnes.
“I think we found Milo Nighthorse.”
Her tone was so calm that Wells knew right away Milo wasn’t the shooter.
“FBI traced his phone to Los Angeles last Saturday. The final signal before it went down. They asked the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to recheck incident reports for anyone by the name of Milo Nighthorse in the previous ten days. Or any non-black twenty- or thirty-something men who gave false or no names after being arrested. Turns out, LAPD picked up a guy downtown for vagrancy and public intoxication last Sunday. He wasn’t carrying identification or a phone. Empty pockets. He gave his name as Emperor Jesus Young Joseph.”
“Couldn’t work in Muhammad?”
“Young Joseph was a Nez Perce chief from the eighteen hundreds. The guy’s prints aren’t in the system, so they’ve been holding him while they figure out who he is and what to do with him. He’s reported as likely Native American, late twenties, five feet ten inches tall. They sent his booking photo, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy as the pic you sent, though he’s definitely the worse for wear. I’ll forward it to you.”
“Thanks, Julie. Quick work.”
“Thank the Feds.”
Wells passed the news to Coyle. By the time he was done, the booking photo had hit his phone. Tarnes was right. Milo Nighthorse was going by Emperor Jesus Young Joseph these days.
“Another one bites the dust,” Coyle said.
“Least we have good news for his mother.” Not the worst news, anyway.
The support group in Lewiston began an hour before the one in Pullman, so they went to Lewiston first. Wells might not have dared to make the approach if he and Coyle hadn’t been veterans themselves. As it was, he didn’t want to participate under false pretenses. He planned to ask if he could talk to the group for a minute before things started.
The Lewiston meeting took place at a storefront church a few blocks from the Clearwater River. A half-dozen middle-aged men and one woman stood around a table stacked with bottles of store-brand juice and a percolator that had been brewing coffee since Vietnam. None of them had the guarded eyes of soldiers who’d served in the infantry.
“New blood,” a tall white guy said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Clyde.”
“John. And this is Winston. We are veterans, but we came for a specific reason.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re investigating a woman who might have run a scam on soldiers in the area.” True enough, as far as it went. “We think she was targeting infantry. Specifically, snipers.”
Clyde shook his head. “We’re Guard and Air Force, mostly. I’m the only one who was Regular Army, but I was a mechanic. I mean, to be honest, we mainly get together to drink bad coffee.”
“I saw there was a group up in Pullman—”
“Yeah, those guys are younger. More of a PTSD-type situation.” Clyde almost but not quite saying: To those guys, we’re practically civvies, so we have our own little meeting here.
“Thanks. We’ll try there.”
“Hold on,” the woman said. She was forty or so, with the squint and lines that came from long days in the high-country sun. “This woman, what was her name?”
“She may have gone by Annalise. She was in her twenties, blond, pretty—”
“Three, four months ago, I was at the clinic, and I got to talking to this vet named Fred, who lives up by Pullman. He told me how he was out with a buddy, they almost got into a fight over some woman. I can’t remember her name, but it started with an A. Blond, real pretty. His friend fell hard for her, he said. Love at first sight. Like something from a cheesy movie.”
“This guy Fred mention the friend’s name?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure he was in the service, too, though. Just from the way Fred told the story. But that was it. I never saw the guy again—Fred, I mean. Don’t even know his last name.”
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Kimberly.” She scribbled down her contact information. “If you have any questions, call me.” She winked at Coyle. “And you . . . You call if you have questions or not.”
The sniper list didn’t have anyone named Fred. But someone at the Pullman meeting would have to know him. If not, worst case: Tarnes could ask the military records office in the morning.
“Progress, as promised.”
Coyle grunted noncommittally.
“We confirmed she was here—”
“We confirmed somebody got into a bar fight over a blonde. Maybe.”
“You were right about Nighthorse, but you’re wrong about this.”
The second meeting was at a volunteer firehouse south of Pullman. The place had four bays and a big meeting room, where ten guys stood around sipping coffee. About half had serious ink on their arms or necks, and they all had hooded, downcast eyes. The real deal.
They, too, stirred as Coyle and Wells walked in, but the vibe was warier than in Lewiston, not exactly unwelcoming, but questioning: Sure you’re in the right place? Wells wondered if he should mention Annalise first. But he sensed he’d only have one chance. Finding Fred was the priority.
“This the veterans’ meeting?”
A tall guy turned to them, giving Wells a glimpse of the burn that scarred his right cheek. “You served?”
“We did. I was a Ranger a while back, and Coyle here just got out of the Marines. But we’re really just looking for one guy in particular. Named Fred.”
“We heard two guys have been knocking on doors today. That you?”
Wells nodded.
“And you work for?”
“We’d rather not say and we have good reason, I promise. You can call Sheriff Darby in Colfax, if you don’t trust us.”
“You’re cops, then?”
“We’re not, I swear, and Fred isn’t in trouble. Just hoping he can help us.”
The tall guy shook his head. Now Wells could see the scar tissue extended down his neck, under his shirt. “You two should go. Whatever this is, it’s got nothing to do with us—”
A fireplug of a guy stepped up. “I’m Fred.” To the tall guy: “It’s all right, Lyndon. I’ll talk to ’em outside. You hear me whistle, you come running and jump ’em.” He smiled so Wells would know he was joking, though he wasn’t.
Lyndon grunted: Hoo-ah.
They stood in the dark in the fire station’s parking lot.
“I’m John, and this is Winston.”
“Fred Urquhart.” Urquhart was a little man with oversized features: a big beak nose and a chin that belonged on a lineman. He sized them up with a mix of confidence and deference, the confidence of a man who had traded fire with the enemy, the deference of a grunt who was used to taking orders he didn’t necessarily like. “What brings you to beautiful Pullman?”
“This is gonna sound strange, but we’re looking for a guy with sniper training—”
“Can’t help you there—”
“Who met a woman a few months back.”
The look on Urquhart’s face said Should have let you finish. Even bosses get it right once in a while.
“This woman, she was blond? Great body?”
“I’ve only seen her face, but she was pretty, sure,” Wells said. “Maybe she called herself Annalise—”
Urquhart shot a stream of curses. “Not to us. To us, she was Allie. I knew she was trouble. That whole night, the whole thing, it didn’t make sense—” He caught himself, sputtered out.
Wells let him tell the story his own way, knowing they’d have the name soon enough.
“I’m sorry. I was at the Hyde Out—that’s in Colfax—back in the fall. This woman came in. These two guys were trying to pick her up, pretty hard, and Tom stood up for her—”
“Tom?”
“Tom Miller.”
Wells looked at Coyle: Believe me now? “He lives a little north of Colfax? Trailer?”
“Yeah, that’s him. To be honest, I never actually saw his place. Some woman from the VA hooked us up—we’re both on partial—she thought we’d get along, and we did. But wasn’t like we were tight tight, we’d only known each other a few months.”
“What happened that night?”
“This chick, Allie, comes in. She was more than pretty. I mean, it looked like she’d been rode hard and put away wet, but, even so, she’d stop traffic. She was alone, and these two jerks start on her. They won’t let go. You know, officer types. Finally, Tom decides he’s going to do something about it. And Tom’s little, but he’s tough, so that fight doesn’t last long, and it ends with both those dudes walking away with their rich little tails between their rich little legs. A couple minutes later, I left, too. Tom and the girl were looking at each other like Adam and Eve, and I swear that’s the last I saw of him.”
Urquhart poured out the story like he’d been mulling over that night for months. Wells believed every word.
“Why didn’t it make sense? He stood up for her, she fell for him. Old story.”
“Yeah, and I know you’re thinking I’m just mad I didn’t get to her first. But I’m telling you, it was weird. First off, those guys were a-holes. But it wasn’t like this chick was wasted, she could have walked out. It felt to me kinda like she was waiting for us to poke our noses in, which at the time I figured, you know, pretty girls, some of ’em like to start stuff. Get guys fighting. Second, even beaten-down, this girl was something. Clean her up and she was a nine. And Tom, I liked him. I don’t want to sound like a REMF here, but—” He broke off.
“Not a good-looking guy?”
Urquhart grunted like even admitting the fact hurt. “Tom was a five. On a good day. The normal move for that chick would have been to say, Thanks. And, by the way, the door’s over there, don’t let it hit your ass on the way out. But she looked at him like he’d just invented fire or something.”
“So you left?”
“Yeah, I left. I figured sooner or later he’d call me and tell me how he bought her a few drinks, and she went Poof! Or maybe he did get lucky and had the best night of his life. But he didn’t. After a week or so, I called him a few times. He never called back.” Urquhart shook his head. “And I dropped it, I admit. I stopped calling. I was a little pissed. And now I’m ashamed of myself, ’cause that is not how infantry does infantry. And you two look like the real deal to me. And I don’t think you came all the way to nowhere to track me down, however you tracked me down, to tell me he just won the 4-H prize for best pig. And Tom: He wasn’t the type to brag, but we talked a little bit about ’Stan. He’d taken down a bunch of hajjis. I doubt he’d have trouble playing Shoot the Cardinal at seven hundred yards.”
The fact that Urquhart had guessed so quickly why they were interested in Miller was yet another sign he was their man. “Did he ever mention any anti-religious leanings to you?”
“Nah, he was a nice guy. But he was alone up here. No family. His dad left when he was little, and his mom died a couple years back. I mean, I was like his closest friend. And he’d had a couple nasty concussions. If this chick twisted him up—”
“Understood. You have his number or email?”
“Just his number.” Urquhart gave it to them. “Want me to go up to his place with you?”
“No, we don’t think he’s there. And we need to talk to the sheriff, anyway. Obviously, keep this to yourself.”
Urquhart nodded. “Go easy on him, if you can.”
“If we can.”
Back in the Explorer, Wells called Darby.
“Sheriff, name Tom Miller ring a bell? Veteran, lives in Colfax?”
“Believe it or not, yes. His mom and stepdad died a couple years back. Overdose. There was a fight over who was in line for their pickup truck—it was brand-new—and we had to get involved. Title was in her name, so Miller got it.”
“How did he strike you?”
“Decent. You wouldn’t know it by his name, he’s Hispanic. I had the feeling he had a rough go in the service, but he never complained about it or played that card. He was happy to get the truck, though. Why?”
“He’s on our sniper list, and an Army buddy of his says he got into a fight over a pretty blonde at a bar in Colfax a few months back. And he’s not home, and it looks like he hasn’t been for a while.”
“Still seems thin.”
“His buddy thought he was the guy.”
A pause. Then: “I’ll meet you at his trailer.”
“You don’t have to do that, Sheriff.”
“Don’t go in without me.”
Darby’s Explorer waited a half mile down from the trailer, running lights only. Wells stepped out to talk to him. The night was quiet, only the faint rumble of traffic on 195 breaking the silence. The sheriff sat alone in his truck, a wad of Nicorette in his mouth.
“Once I saw you weren’t there already, I pulled back. Didn’t want to freak him out if he is in there. Though, I agree, it doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
“We’ll follow you.”
Darby’s truck rolled slowly off. Coyle followed. He hadn’t said much since Urquhart.
“All right, Sergeant?”
“Hoping it’s not him.”
Wells understood. But hope meant nothing now.
They followed Darby down the short private road that led to the trailer. A stream cut through there, feeding a stand of trees that screened Miller’s property from the main road. Wells heard it burbling in the dark. Soon enough, they reached the clearing in front of the trailer. The blinds were as tightly shut as they’d been earlier, although in the darkness Wells glimpsed the faint glow of lights inside. But they could have been on timers. The building was clean and well maintained, no rust on its metal siding. Yet its vacancy was unmistakable. It looked as cold as an empty safe.
Wells and Coyle grabbed the pistols under their seats and joined Darby in the clearing.
“Tom!” Darby yelled to the trailer. “It’s the sheriff. Remember me?”
They waited. Nothing.
“You home? Tom, if you’re in there, I’m gonna turn on the light. Don’t shoot us!” Darby flipped on the spotlight attached to the Explorer’s light bar, bathing the trailer in white. Still no movement.
“When did it last snow, Sheriff?” Wells said. A thin rime covered the clearing. Animal tracks were visible, but nothing resembling shoe- or bootprints.
“A couple inches Tuesday night. Safe to say, nobody’s been here since then.”
“We need to go in.”
“No warrant?”
“Welfare check. His buddy hasn’t seen him, nobody’s picking up the mail, the truck’s gone. Maybe somebody shot him, stole it.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m gonna take a look around back.”
Wells walked slowly around the trailer, his feet crunching through the stale snow. He hoped to find something that might force the sheriff’s hand, but the snow was unbroken back here, too. The blind in the middle rear window was up a couple inches.
“Fine,” Darby shouted from the front. “You win. Welfare check.”
Wells heard Darby and Coyle walking to the front door. “Hold tight. There’s a blind up—”
Wells edged to the window, glimpsed a couch, a coffee table—
“Tom!” Darby yelled. “Just want to make sure you’re okay—”
Wells looked to the front door. Fishing line had been strung horizontally from the doorknob—
Too late, Wells understood the trap. They’d been so busy catching Miller and the Russians, they hadn’t seen the Russians catching them, too—
“SHERIFF—”
Wells watched helplessly as the door swung out, opening up, the line pulled taut. He could just see Darby’s gray shirt—
No—
The thunderclap of a shotgun tore the night into a thousand pieces.
Darby crumpled backward and vanished.
Wells ran for the front. In the distance, he heard an owl hooting for prey.
Darby lay flat on his back in the snow. Wells didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead. He hadn’t been wearing a vest, not that it would have mattered. The 12-gauge shot had carved him open. He wasn’t even twitching.
Coyle had been hit, too, high on the right side of his chest. He was on his knees, his hands pressed against the wound, wordlessly watching his own life stain the snow. He must have been a step down from Darby. The sheriff’s body had saved him, at least temporarily, but he was in bad shape.
Wells slid his arms under Coyle’s shoulders, pulled him up. The sudden movement seemed to wake Coyle. He gave a single groan, low and agonized. “Sheriff.”
“We have to go.”
Wells tried to turn Coyle, walk him toward the Explorer, but Coyle had nothing in his legs and sagged into the snow. Wells slung an arm under Coyle’s knees and picked him up, no easy feat: The Marine was short but dense. Wells hauled Coyle to the Explorer as Coyle’s blood painted him. He pulled open the door, shoved Coyle in. Coyle slumped against the window, glassy-eyed. Wells remembered how Tony from Tampa had bled out in fifteen minutes, no golden hour for him. He wondered how long the hospital in Colfax would need to bring in a surgeon. It was 9:15 now. Would they even have anyone on call or would they just put him in an ambulance and send him to Pullman? The hospital there had to be bigger, better equipped. Wells would need an extra fifteen minutes to reach it, but he could call them, tell them to be ready.
He snapped on Coyle’s seat belt and bumped down the dirt driveway and left onto the one-lane road that led to 195. “Sherf . . .” Coyle mumbled.
“We’ll come back—”
“Sherf . . .”
“Shh. Save your energy.”
Wells turned the heat on high, grabbed his phone, found the emergency room number for the Pullman hospital.
“Pullman Regional ED.”
“I’m bringing in a patient with a shotgun wound to the upper body. He’s conscious but in shock—”
“Sir. Slow down—”
“I’m in Colfax now—” Wells swung south onto 195, and gunned the Explorer’s engine. He wished he’d taken the sheriff’s truck. He could have run with the emergency lights. Too late now, he’d just have to hope he didn’t come across a cop on the way south. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Please, have a surgeon ready, or my friend’s gonna bleed out.”
“What happened, sir? Is there an active shooter?”
“No. I’ll explain when I get there.”
Wells hung up, slowed slightly as he passed downtown Colfax, seeing the Hyde Out Tavern on his right. He hadn’t noticed it before. Funny. Hilarious. At the south end of town, the road forked, and Wells swung left and put Colfax in his rearview mirror. He wished he’d never have to see it again, though he knew he’d be back to check out the trailer. He gunned the Ford’s engine until it roared. The tach needle touched the red line, and the speedometer hit triple digits. The truck shook on its frame, and Wells laid off. An accident would kill Coyle for sure.
Coyle was muttering, one word: . . . ink . . . ink . . .
Wells didn’t understand. Then he did.
Not ink. Not link either.
Linc . . . Linc . . .
Lincoln, Coyle’s dead younger brother. Wells grabbed Coyle’s left hand with his right, squeezed it as hard as he could, dug his fingers into Coyle’s palm.
“You don’t get to see him yet, Sergeant. You stay with me.”
Despite the overheated air pouring from the vents, Wells found himself shivering, remembering a song he hadn’t thought of in a while: This train . . . / Carries saints and sinners / This train . . . / Carries losers and winners . . .
“Land of Hope and Dreams,” it was called. Springsteen.
If Coyle died, Wells would have to quit. The truth.
Emergency lights ahead, pulsing their red-and-blue SOS into the night. Northbound. Probably one of the neighbors had called in the shotgun. Maybe one had even found Darby’s body already. Wells slowed to seventy-five until the cruiser passed, then jammed down the pedal.
He called Tarnes, wishing he had done so before they went to Miller’s house. Past midnight in Washington, but he knew she’d answer. She did, the second ring. “John.”
“We found him. His name’s Tom Miller, he’s on the list.”
“How do you know?”
“We know. But it’s a mess here, and you need to get in front of it now—like, right now. The local sheriff is dead and Coyle’s wounded, I’m taking him to the hospital.”
“What happened—”
The door opening, the fishing line tightening—
“Trap in Miller’s trailer, shotgun.” Why didn’t we see it? Why didn’t I see it? But Wells knew. And he hated the reason. Being in the field alone was exhausting, and he made plenty of mistakes. But he never let down his guard. Tonight, he and Coyle had relaxed. Not just because they’d handled all the other meetings that day easily, even Harlan Gould. Not even because they felt they could depend on each other. Because they liked working together. For a minute, they’d forgotten the stakes of the game. A minute was all the other side needed. No time-outs, no takebacks.
Beside him, Coyle coughed, low, throaty grunts, like he had blood in his throat. Pullman was only a couple miles off.
“You there, John?”
“Just get the FBI on this guy Miller. He had a pickup and it’s gone. I don’t know the make or the model, but I’ll bet that’s their hide.”
“Tom Miller?”
“Yeah, and get ready to airlift Coyle to the closest hospital with a trauma center. And pick up when the cops call you about me, I need to get back to that trailer tonight.”
Wells hung up, wrapped an arm around Coyle’s shoulders, pulled him away from the window. Coyle groaned. Good. He could still feel pain. “You can’t die on me, Marine—”
Coyle coughed. He was trying to talk again. Fine . . . fine . . . No. Find.
“That’s right, Sergeant. I’m going to find this motherfucker.” The word burned Wells’s mouth like bleach. “And you’re going to be there when I do.”