“Malcolm Crow,” said the smaller man. “Pine Deep Chief of Police.”
He offered his hand, which was small and hard, and we shook.
“So…again, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“Missing persons case,” I said. “Confidential and high-profile.”
“Which means what? A special agent and two marshals? This a manhunt for a suspected terrorist or a missing witness?”
I shrugged, hoping he’d take that as a ‘we’re not supposed to talk about it’ kind of thing. He ignored it.
“Can’t help you if you won’t share,” he said.
I said nothing, giving him ‘the look.’ It usually makes people squirm. Chief Crow merely smiled his veneer of a smile and waited me out.
“Okay,” I said, as if answering his question was the hardest thing I was ever going to be asked to do, “I can tell you this much. We had a protected witness living in Pine Deep. He’s missing.”
“Living here under what name?”
“Peter Wagner.”
“Ah.”
“Ah…what?”
“The writer.”
I stepped closer to the intake bench. “And how would you know that?”
Behind Crow, Officer Sweeney stood up. He did it slowly, without threat, but there was still a lot of threat there. Unlike the chief, Sweeney’s face was unsmiling. A good-looking kid, but one that you’d take note of, especially if he wasn’t in uniform and you were both alone. Behind me I heard the soft scuff as Top and Bunny made subtle moves. Shifting weight, being ready.
Crow seemed amused by all of this. To me he said, “You take a guy as famous as Simon Burke, give him a bad dye job and color contacts, and you expect no one to recognize him? People in small towns do read, you know. And your boy is famous.”
“Who else knows who he is?”
“Most people with two eyes and an IQ.”
Crap.
“For what it’s worth,” said Crow, “people hereabouts know how to keep a secret.” As if on cue the thunder rumbled. It made Crow smile more. “Can I ask why a bestselling novelist is in witness protection?”
“National security.”
“Ri-i-ght,” he said in exactly the way you’d say “bullshit.”
“Do you know where he is?” I asked. “Has he come forward and—”
“No,” Crow said, cutting me off. “I don’t know where he is, but I suspect he’s in some real trouble.”
“Why do you suspect that, Chief Crow?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re here. If he was out sowing some wild oats or getting hammered down at the Scarecrow Lounge, his handler would be on it. Or at most he’d get a couple of kids right out of Quantico to help with the scut work. Instead they send you three.”
“We are the team sent to locate our witness.”
“Ri-i-i-ght,” he said again, stretching out the “I.”
“Would you like to see our credentials again?” This guy was beginning to irritate the crap out of me.
“Look,” said Crow, leaning a few inches forward on his forearms. I could see the network of scars on his face. “You’re about as close to a standard paper-pushing FBI agent as I am to Megan Fox. You’re a hunter, and so are your pals. I don’t care what the IDs say, because you’re probably NSA at the least, in which case the IDs are as real as you need them to be and I’m Joe Nobody from Nowhere, Pennsylvania. But here’s a news flash. Just about nothing happens in a small town without everybody hearing something. Our gossip-train is faster than a speeding bullet. If you want to find your missing witness, then you can do it the easy way, which is with my help; or the hard way, which is without my help.”
I had to fight to keep a smile off my face. Guy had balls, I’ll give him that much. The big red-haired kid was hovering a few feet behind him, looking borderline spooky with his fake blue eyes and unsmiling face.
“What do you suggest, Chief?”
Crow nodded. “Cut me in on the hunt. Give me some details, and I’ll see what I can find.”
I considered it. Thunder rumbled again, and the sky outside was turning gray. My instincts were telling me one thing and DMS protocol was telling me something else. In the end, I said, “Thanks anyway, Chief. If it’s all the same to you, we’ll poke around on our own. I doubt the witness is in any real trouble. Not in a little town like this.”
I meant it as a kick in the shins, but he merely shook his head. “You read up on Pine Deep before you came here, Agent Duke? I mean…Agent Morrison.”
Touché, you little jerk, I thought.
“Some,” I said.
“About the troubles we had a few years back?”
“Everyone knows about them?”
“Well,” he said, shifting a little. He glanced back at the redheaded kid and then at me. “Those problems were here long before we had our ‘troubles.’ I guess you could say that in one way or another we’ve always had troubles here in Pine Deep. Lots of people run into real problems here.”
I smiled now, and it probably wasn’t my nicest one. “Are…you trying to threaten me, Chief Crow?”
He laughed.
Behind him the redhead kid, Sweeney, spoke for the first time. “Just a fair warning, mister,” he said. His voice was low and raspy. “It ain’t the people you have to worry about around here. The town will help you or it won’t.”
Then he smiled and it was one of the coldest, least human smiles I think I’ve ever seen. It was like an animal, a wolf or something equally predatory, trying to imitate a human smile.
Then Officer Sweeney turned away and sat back down at his desk.
Chief Crow winked at us. “Happy trails, boys.”
I stared at him for a few moments as thunder rattled the windows in the tiny office. Then I nodded and turned to go. Just as Bunny opened the door for me, Crow said, “Welcome to Pine Deep.”
I turned and met his eyes for a few long seconds. He neither blinked nor looked away. For reasons I can’t adequately explain, we nodded to one another, and then I followed Top and Bunny out of the office. As we walked to the car, I could feel eyes watching me.
Chap. 5
We got back in the car.
“Okay,” said Bunny, “that was freaking weird.”
No one argued.
“Want me to run him through MindReader?” asked Top.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know him from somewhere.”
“Cop thing?” asked Bunny. “You do a shared-jurisdiction gig with Pine Deep?”
“No.”
“Something social? FOP weenie roast.”
“Cute. But no. I don’t think I’ve met him, but there’s something banging around in the back of my brain about him. Crow. Could be a martial arts thing.”
“He train?” asked Bunny.
“Yes,” Top and I said together.
Top added, “Not karate, though. No calluses on his knuckles.”
“Has them on his hands, though,” I said, touching the webbing around my thumb and index finger. I had a ring of callus there, too. “Kenjutsu, or something similar.”
“Kid uses his knuckles, though,” Top said. “Hard-looking son of a bitch. Looks like he could go a round or two.”
A few fat raindrops splatted on the windshield, and the glass was starting to fog. I hit defrost and waited while Bunny called the request in to Bug, our computer guru at the Warehouse. Bug did a search through MindReader and got back to us before we’d driven two blocks.