“Sir?” Lonnie asked with a note of discomfort in her voice. “Can someone else interview Johnson, maybe even take over management of the case?”
“No.” Stark looked into her eyes with a hard, commanding stare. He softened his expression and continued in a calmer voice. “Lonnie, I am aware of the relationship between you and Mr. Johnson. Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of this case. Keep it professional, and everything should work out fine. You got the case because you were on patrol in that area when it started. You are keeping the case because you are one of the best investigative troopers I have, and I know you will keep at it until it’s solved, no matter what. You will stay on this assignment, and you will keep it quiet as much as possible. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Now, get out there. Call me as soon as you find anything new.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trooper Wyatt left the city and drove east on the Richardson Highway. By 1630, she was nearly at the gate of Eielson when a white Jeep passed in the opposite direction, going nearly eighty miles per hour. Under normal circumstances, she would have immediately swung around and pulled the driver over to serve a ticket. These were not normal circumstances, and she let the driver go.
Chapter 13
Lonnie pulled into the Salt Jacket General Store just before 17:00. Tia Balsen, Linus and Cara’s cute eleven-year-old daughter, sat behind the counter, blonde pigtails bouncing rhythmically as she bobbed her head to a teenybopper song on the radio. The loud jingling of the bell above the door startled Tia. She let out a squeaky little surprised yelp as Trooper Wyatt entered.
“Hi,” Lonnie said. She removed the tall smoky hat to make herself look less intimidating. “Are your parents here?”
“Yes, ma’am, they’re in the back,” the girl replied. Her eyes scanned slowly over the female trooper in front of her. Starting at Lonnie’s face, the girl ran her gaze down her uniform until it became fixed on the pistol hanging tightly on her right hip. At that point, Tia’s gaze froze, eyes wide with amazement and fear.
Lonnie cleared her throat, causing the girl to snap her stare back up to her face.
“Could you tell them Trooper Wyatt is here?”
“Oh, yes…yes, ma’am. Just a minute.” The girl climbed off the tall wooden stool on which she had been perched. She turned off the radio from which emanated the shrill sound of a very young teenaged girl singing some impossibly high note that only the ears of an adolescent could distinguish as music. Tia trotted several steps to the door that lead to the living quarters in the back of the store.
“Dad! Mom!” she shouted with a voice that seemed inhumanly loud for such a small body. “There’s a trooper lady out here to see you!”
Tia walked back to the counter and took her place on the stool. From her seat, the girl resumed staring at Lonnie.
“You are very pretty for a trooper,” Tia said. “I didn’t know they had pretty troopers.”
“Why, thank you, Tia.”
The girl’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know my name?”
“I’m am an old friend of your parents. I knew you when you were a little baby.”
“Wow,” Tia replied, staring into the trooper’s face. “You must be old.”
Lonnie smiled at the girl’s blunt remark. “Yes. I am. Old beyond my years.”
The girl made a quizzical face, but before she could say anything else, Linus and Cara both entered the store.
“Lonnie!” Cara cried out as she ran forward and gave her old friend a big hug. “It’s been so long! How are you?”
“I’m fine, Cara,” Lonnie said. “It has been a long time.”
“So, what brings you here?” Cara asked.
Linus stepped forward. “Is it about those guys?”
“Yes, it is, Linus,” Trooper Wyatt answered. “We obtained some pictures we think may be them. Can you verify if these two men are the ones you saw last night?”
She handed him the color printouts Commander Stark had given her.
Linus looked at them, and right away said, “Yep, these are them.” He pointed to Nousiri’s picture.
“This one was called Nikola by the other guy. They didn’t mention the blond one’s name, but these are definitely their pictures.”
“Anything else you can remember about them? Things they said, maybe. Or where they may have been headed?” asked the trooper.
“No,” Linus said. “Marcus, though, he speaks fluent Albanian. He heard everything they said, something about a mission and cutting Marcus’s balls off.”
Cara smacked her husband on the shoulder. “Linus! Tia’s listening!”
“Sorry, baby.” He turned to the girl and said, “Don’t listen when Daddy says that.”
“Dad!” Tia said in whiny thirteen year old exaggeration, “I know what balls are.”
Cara’s eyes got huge. “Young lady, get in the back, now!”
“But Mom!” she protested, “I want to listen to Trooper Wyatt. I bet she knows what balls are, too!”
“Move it!” Cara shouted in a strong Norwegian accent. Her arm jutted out and she pointed her finger toward the door, her face red with embarrassment. Turning to her husband, Cara said. “How could you talk like that in front of your daughter?”
“Sorry, I forgot she was here.”
“Bye, Trooper Wyatt,” Tia said as her mother took her by the arm to the back of the house.
“Mom, can I be a trooper when I grow up?” The girl’s voice trailed off as the door closed.
Lonnie shook her head and grinned. “You have quite a girl there, don’t you? She’s going to be a handful when she gets a little older.”
“She already is more than I can handle,” Linus said.
Trooper Wyatt turned back to the topic of the two men. “So, you said they threatened Marcus?”
“Look, Lonnie. You really need to talk to him. Marcus heard everything those guys said, but didn’t translate it all to me. I know you don’t want to talk to him, but he’s the one who can answer your questions.”
Her expression grew stoic and business-like again. “You said he was out on a trap line. When is he getting back?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow, but he unexpectedly popped in a couple of hours ago to get some gas, and then drove to Eielson. Said he couldn’t talk. He was in a hurry to get to the base and would fill me in later. He may be back at the cabin now.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Man, what a reunion this is going to be.”
Linus offered no response other than a nod and sympathetic expression. Lonnie attempted a friendly smile, but her nervousness showed through. “Thanks for the information, Linus. Tell Cara and the kids I said goodbye. I’ll stop in to visit more sometime later.”
She walked out to her waiting cruiser. Once in the car, she radioed dispatch to report that she was en route to Marcus Johnson’s cabin at six-mile Johnson Road.
A few minutes later, Trooper Wyatt arrived at the little cabin Marcus called home. Her heart pounded within her chest as she pulled up the long driveway. In the dark, a thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney, pale in the illumination of the three-quarter moon that hung in the sky.
She approached the cabin and climbed the step onto the landing that led to the front door. There were no lights on inside, and no vehicle parked outside. She banged on the door with the handle of her Maglite.
No answer.
She knocked again. Still no answer.
It was 18:00. She decided to return to the pipeline pump station to talk with Bannock again, then try back in half an hour.
Trooper Wyatt drove up to the pump station. Bannock was just coming on shift and readily verified that the men in the picture were beyond a doubt the two men he had seen. He went back over the details he had given her the previous night, adding nothing new to the story.