Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel) (31 page)

“Oh, I don’t think I’d call it speculation. What you’re doing, though, might end up being called Abating or even Hindering an Investigation.”

“Your boss told me Mr. Hurley hasn’t been charged. So there’s not much to discuss here. You asked for an interview with Mr. Hurley, despite his alibi and no weapon having been found. Being an upstanding member of society, he obliged. Then you took his coffee cup, went behind his back, and had DNA tests run.”

“Who said anything about a coffee cup?” she asked.

“Give it a rest, Peyton.”

“You can refer to my client as Agent Cote,” Lambert said.

“Certainly. Forgive me. But, before
Agent Cote
makes further accusations about me, we must remember that I’ve dealt with law enforcement officers like her before. Renegade types. So I knew to ask Mr. Hurley days ago if he’d drunk anything at the station.”

“Oh, I doubt that. I think we both know who told you a DNA sample was being run. And on what. Let’s cut the bullshit. Where is Hurley? His wife, after all, would like to see him.”

“It’s always sad when a marriage fails. I wish I could help the couple. But I think we both know that isn’t possible, isn’t that right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on now, Agent Cote. Isn’t it true that your sister has made a lifestyle choice that excludes Mr. Hurley? A lifestyle choice that will confuse their innocent baby and convey perverse immoral behavior to him?”

There was a glass of water on the table between them.

Two seconds later, McAfee was wearing it.

“How dare you!” he shouted.

He stepped close to the table, wiping his face. Peyton was standing across from him now. They glared at each other.

“Good God, Peyton,” Lambert mumbled, “get a hold of yourself.”

“Where is Jonathan?” Peyton demanded.

McAfee snapped the briefcase shut. “I told you. I have no idea.”

She stared at him. Lying or not, she knew one thing: this was a man who would gladly ruin her career.

Peyton made sure she was the last to leave the building. When McAfee and Lambert had both left the parking lot, Peyton went to her Jeep and sat, leaning her head against the steering wheel.

The sky above was gray. She started the truck but didn’t touch the gearshift.

McAfee had help. There was no doubt about that.

Hewitt hadn’t denied that someone at Garrett Station was making an issue of the shooting. But, as PAIC, he would play it close to the vest. Pam Morrison, Bruce Steele, and Scott Smith were now assigned to the missing baby. Since it had been Peyton’s case, she knew the three agents would have access to her reports, which in turn would give them details to leverage any claims against her.

Scott Smith’s questions during their dinner “date” still bothered her. And he had gone to see Morris Picard.

As part of the investigation?

What was in the envelope he had dropped in the driveway?

She couldn’t ask Hewitt. Being a female in a male-dominated environment made things difficult enough. No way she would accuse an agent of undermining an investigation without undeniable evidence.

She had far too much to lose.

Peyton didn’t drive home when she left Houlton. Instead, following a phone call to Linda Farnham, the director of Little Tykes Daycare in Reeds, she drove to the facility. In jeans, a turtleneck, and wearing the thin gold chain Tommy and Lois had given her on Mother’s Day, at least she looked like a volunteer.

But she felt like a spy.

After filling out the volunteer paperwork, she met Farnham, a tall, elegant fiftyish woman in a pale blue
5K Cancer Run
T-shirt. Farnham pointed to the table at which the nine children ate their afternoon snacks. Peyton sat beside four-year-old Matthew Ramsey, the boy who had either the best imagination this side of Stephen King or had taken one hell of a road trip.

“Do you know your address?” she asked him.

She’d been to the boy’s cul-de-sac home. The question was merely to gauge his cognitive abilities. Susan Perry said a typical four-year-old couldn’t remember details like those little Matthew recalled on three separate occasions over nine months.

“Sixty-two Lindmark Road,” he said and bit into a French toast stick, syrup dripping onto Peyton’s jeans, “Reeds, Maine, oh four seven six nine.”

“Wow,” she said.

It brought a smile to his face. The boy had blond hair and green eyes. Dr. Matthew Ramsey looked French-Canadian—eyes, hair, and complexion all dark; Mrs. Ramsey was a blonde, her hair a lighter shade of her son’s, if Peyton remembered correctly, and had blue eyes.

“I know
my
address, too,” a little girl with blond pigtails said. She sat across from Peyton. Her T-shirt read
Don’t
above a picture of a ladybug, followed by the word
Me
. She picked up a slice of apple with peanut butter on it. A dime-sized drop of peanut butter fell onto her jeans.

The boy across from Matthew had a runny nose. With each breath, a clear bubble of mucus emerged from his right nostril. Peyton had taken no food, but after that visual couldn’t even finish the remainder of her Tim Hortons coffee. Linda Farnham was quickly at the boy’s side and wiped his nose, telling two other children not to “share food you’ve already chewed.” The snot wiped, she simply went to the sink, washed her hands, and retook her seat. She took a bite of a French toast stick, appetite undaunted.

Peyton compared the occupational hazards of being a Border Patrol agent (the occasional flying bullet) to the occupational hazards a daycare provider faced (snot bubbles). Maybe Linda Farnham needed the Kevlar vest more than she did.

“Do you ever take trips?” Peyton asked the boys and girls at the table.

The
Don’t Bug Me
girl said she’d gone to the ocean last summer. Peyton nodded and looked at Matthew encouragingly. He remained quiet. A redheaded boy dipped a French toast stick in syrup and stuck it in his mouth. He told Peyton about going to see the Red Sox, his toothy mouth full, a lumpy piece of French toast falling to his plate.

“That must’ve been fun.” She turned to Matthew Ramsey. “Have you ever taken a trip?”

“No.”

“You’ve never gone anywhere? Never stayed in a hotel?”

He shook his head and picked up his plastic cup of apple juice. As he drank, some ran down his chin, onto his shirt collar.

“
I
stayed at a hotel once,” a brown-haired boy said. He had torn jeans and a faded shirt. His face was dirty. Peyton thought of kids, of how money and privilege didn’t separate people until later. Here, young Matthew Ramsey, a doctor’s son, snacked with a child his own age who clearly would never have the opportunities afforded by a doctor’s earnings.

“Tell us about the hotel,” she said.

“It was in Houlton.”

“Wow!” Peyton said. “Anyone else have a story about a trip to share?”

Matthew Ramsey looked at her, opened his mouth, but then closed it.

“Do you have a story, Matthew?”

He shook his head and left the table. He went to the wooden-block area and sat by himself.

“Matty,” Linda Farnham called, “you okay? You usually love snack time. Is anything wrong, sweetie?”

He shook his head. Linda and Peyton exchanged a glance. Something was wrong. The little boy was obviously upset now. And that had to do with her questions, which, if truth be told, at present, she wasn’t authorized to ask. Peyton felt two inches tall. She got up and walked past a bookrack and a pile of block letters to the hallway.

Linda Farnham closed the door behind her and was quickly at Peyton’s side. “What do you think?”

Peyton shook her head. “I thought he spoke openly about his trip.”

“He has.”

“Well, something’s wrong,” Peyton said. “I have a son. My questions set him off. I could see it on his face.”

Behind them, the door squealed open. Matthew Ramsey leaned out.

“Yes, Matty?” Linda said. “Everything okay?”

“I don’t feel too good.”

“What is it?” Linda was on her knees beside him.

“My stomach hurts.”

“Are you still hungry?”

“No, I said a lie.” His eyes flashed to Peyton, then fell to his shoes. “Dad said I’m not supposed to talk about my trip.”

“That’s fine, sweetie,” Linda said, her eyes darting to Peyton.

Matthew nodded once and went back inside.

Peyton watched him go.

“I told Susan Perry something doesn’t make sense,” Linda said. “I’m no social worker, but I’ve dealt with young kids for a long time. So
now
what do you think?”

The boy felt guilty and sick because of her questions. Peyton was saved from attempting an answer when the door opened again.

Matthew peered out once more. “Thanks, Miss Farnham. My stomach feels a little better.”

She knelt by his side again. “That’s fine. Go on in and have something to eat.”

He nodded. Then: “Will you sit with me?”

Linda looked at Peyton, who nodded. Linda followed the four-year-old back inside. Peyton watched them go and left, wondering what, if anything, she’d just learned.

THIRTY
-
EIGHT

A
T 4:30
F
RIDAY AFTERNOON,
Peyton pulled into Mann’s Garage in Garrett. The door to one of the bays was up, and she entered. Owner Tom Mann was beneath a Ford Explorer thrust above him by a hydraulic lift. Kool-Aid-like blue liquid dripped from the engine into a black plastic pan.

In the next bay, a red GMC Astro van sat idle, patches of rust lining its wheel hollows. The inside of the garage smelled of wood chips and oil. She saw sawdust on the concrete floor and made the connection—sawdust was used to soak up oil spills.

She nearly jumped at the sudden burst from a whining air ratchet.

“Can I help you?” Tom Mann wiped his hands and returned the rag to the back pocket of his Dickies work pants. He was six-four and over 250 pounds but smiled amicably.

Garrett, Maine, was not known for ethnic diversity. Mann, to Peyton’s knowledge, was the town’s lone African-American, his skin the color of coffee beans, his eyes a startling shade of green. Outspoken about racial inequity, he spent many a Friday night drinking and arguing at Tip of the Hat and was on probation for Aggravated Assault.

Like many Garrett residents in their sixties, Mann had first come to the area during the Cold War to serve at the nearby Air Force base. The Garrett base had been the closest US facility to the former Soviet Union. It had housed thousands of soldiers and their families, but the end of the Cold War saw the base close. Peyton recalled the enrollment of her school falling from over a thousand to three hundred seemingly overnight. Mann must have seen something in the area because he’d retired from the military, returned, and recently hired a fellow ex-military man, Tyler Timms, whom she was there to see.

“Last time I stopped by,” she said, “I was on my way to work. I’m out of uniform.”

He nodded, remembering. “You drive a Jeep Wrangler, right? A ding on the front right bumper.”

“And the back bumper,” she admitted.

“Yellow paint streaks.” He recalled her vehicle like a wine connoisseur noting subtleties of the palette.

“That’s my Jeep.” She smiled. “I backed into a huge yellow light-pole base in a parking lot.”

“Got to treat your Jeep like she’s a member of the family. If you treat her good—change the oil, don’t beat her all to hen shit—you can depend on her. She not running good?”

“Oh, no. Running fine. I’ve come to see Tyler Timms actually.” She pointed to where Timms was working on a Dodge Dakota in the third bay.

“About your Jeep?”

“No,” she said.

The expression on Mann’s face changed. He looked down at his steel-toed boots. One was spotted with oil. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip considering something. Then he looked up and asked in a low voice, “He in some kind of trouble?” His cat-green eyes flashed an unarticulated recognition, as if he’d been expecting a visit.

She didn’t answer. The air ratchet whined again. The tinny hammering of metal sounded.

“I’ll ask if he’s too busy to see you.”

“It won’t take long,” she said and stepped toward where Timms was working.

“No,” Mann said.

“No?”

“I mean, ah, some of these jobs is real tricky. Can’t be disturbed when you’re in the middle. I better go ask him.”

The air ratchet ceased; the pounding of metal faded. In the silence, they stood looking at each other. Why was he stalling? Her instincts told her he wanted desperately to talk to Timms before she did. She couldn’t prevent that. She had no authority to make either of them cooperate. She watched Mann walk to the Dakota. The men moved behind the open hood, out of view.

She waited. This was the part she hated: the bullshit run-around. An agent asks a legitimate question like
Where are you coming from?
and often what follows are whispers, dodges, outright lies—in short, time-consuming bullshit. Had she been born in the wrong era? Whatever happened to brandishing your weapon to get real answers? She almost smiled at the thought. Just as quickly, she remembered Hewitt’s Lone Ranger quip. The cartoon-like image dissolved.

She moved closer to the Dakota and caught fragments of conversation: “I can talk to her, eh … Why not? … piece of my mind, eh … Don’t worry, I know …”

The hood closed with a bang, and Tyler Timms looked up, surprised to see her only ten feet away. Mann’s eyes narrowed, realizing she’d crept up on them. He moved past, eyes sharply on hers.

“Shoot any more of my friends?” Timms asked. Before she could reply, he went on. “A lot of nerve showing up here. Murder is a sin. You people … You people scared him, eh, so he ran. Then you shot the poor bastard.”

You people
, she thought. It reminded her of Jerry Reilly’s classroom remarks about amnesty for illegal immigrants. Every political topic has two sides—the theoretical and the practical—and people not asked to enforce policy often see only one side.

“You don’t know what happened that night. But I’m not here to talk about the shooting. Tell me why he ran the border.”