I shook my head and shrugged. It was time to admit defeat. Some people were obstinate for the sake of it. Others thought they were doing the right thing. I suspected Shaw was the former.
“Thanks for your time, Chief,” I said, getting to my feet and leading Jessie out.
We stepped into a small open-plan office at the front of the building. A couple of uniform cops were at their desks, and the chief’s assistant was on the phone. She waved at us and signaled the exit.
“Talk about making us feel welcome,” Jessie remarked.
“Places like this are good for keeping our feet on the ground,” I replied as we headed for the door.
As we crossed the threshold I reached into my pocket to answer my ringing phone. The display showed Mo-bot’s smiling face.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“No ‘hello’?” she replied. “No ‘how are you’?”
“How are you?” I asked as we stepped into the New York winter. A storm was coming in from the north, and the first flurries had started.
“We don’t have time to waste on pleasantries,” Mo-bot shot back, and I laughed. “I’ve found a nearby unit contact. Former instructor with the Third called Ted Eisner. He lives about an hour from Garrison. Might be nothing, but he’s the only former member of that unit within a hundred miles.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “We’ll check it out.”
“Anytime,” Mo-bot said. “And I’m fine. Thanks for asking, Jack.”
I hung up and crossed the parking lot. “That was Mo. She found an instructor from the Third Special Forces Group who lives upstate. It’s tenuous, but it’s the best we’ve got right now.
“A lead is a lead,” Jessie replied as she unlocked the car. “A good detective chases them all down, right?”
“Right,” I agreed.
Chapter 15
The weather had turned, and heavy snow tumbled in a swirling, blinding cascade as Beth steered Ted’s Buick east along I-80. She was crawling behind a long and steady stream of traffic. Two lanes of red lights stretched into the distance before being lost to the white storm. Beth squinted, but it was getting increasingly difficult to see. There had been an accident on the other side of the interstate. Two lines of vehicles were at a standstill behind the wreckage of a pileup. Police and paramedics were on the scene, and the flashing lights of their vehicles gave everything an ethereal, purple tint.
Beth and the children had been on the road for hours but had only traveled a hundred and fifty miles. Their slow progress had taken its toll on the children, and Danny had been complaining about feeling car sick for the past forty-five minutes.
“How much longer, Mom?” Maria asked.
“My tummy hurts,” Danny added.
“Why don’t you swap with your sister?” Beth suggested.
“I don’t want to go in the back,” Maria protested. “I’ll feel sick.”
“But it’s OK for me to,” Danny snapped back.
“How much farther?” Maria pressed.
The journey from Garrison to Chicago should have taken twelve hours, but at this rate they’d be on the road for days. Beth was trying to reach Connor Reid, one of her oldest friends, but she knew it was foolish to think she could push through this weather.
“Mom, I really think I’m going to be sick,” Danny said, and when she glanced in the rear- view mirror, Beth saw he’d turned a grim shade of green.
She opened the windows to swap some of the stuffy heater air for an icy blast. She signaled, and forced her way onto the shoulder. The car slid and slipped as it came into contact with the icy slush massing at the edge of the highway. She steered into the skid and brought the vehicle to a halt.
Danny jumped out and leaned against the rear wing, gulping in deep breaths. Beth got out and grabbed his coat from the back seat. She threw it over his shoulders and stroked his shoulder.
“Don’t fight it,” she said, and then realized he was sobbing. “It’s OK, Danny. It’s OK.” She stroked his hair. “We’re going to stop for the day.”
Beth glanced around and over the tops of the passing cars. Through the thick flurries she saw a brightly lit sign for the Relax Inn, Bloomsburg.
Danny looked up with wild fear in his eyes. “I don’t want to stop. I want to get to Uncle Connor’s.”
“It’s OK,” Beth assured him. “We’ll find somewhere safe and wait out the storm. How are you feeling?”
“A little better.”
“Think you can handle a short drive?”
Danny nodded and wiped his eyes.
“That’s my little soldier,” she said, crouching to give him a hug.
He turned to climb in the back, but found his sister grinning at him.
“If I’d known you were going to make such a fuss, I would have let you have the front seat in the first place.”
Beth grinned at her. Maria loved her little brother, but made a real effort not to let him know that.
“What do you say, Danny?” Beth asked, but before he could reply, Maria cut in.
“Oh, it’s OK, Mom. I don’t want his thanks. I’m only doing this so I don’t have to listen to his whining.”
Beth shook her head, and Danny frowned as he clambered in the front seat. He buckled himself in while Beth jogged round the car and got in.
“We’re going to stop until the storm passes,” she told Maria.
Beth started the car and eased back into the line of traffic heading for the next exit.
Chapter 16
We made slow progress to Pleasant Valley. Powder was being dumped by thick gunship-gray clouds that hung low over the mountains. Jessie drove carefully — our journey was interspersed with glimpses of others who hadn’t been so cautious and had come off the roads. We’d always stop and ask if they needed help, but most already had all the aid they needed from other passing motorists, and those who didn’t were waiting for roadside assistance to tow them out of trouble.
“I’ll never understand people who don’t want to help,” Jessie said as we reached the outskirts of Pleasant Valley. A roadside sign told us it had a population of 9,608.
“It’s cold. Maybe people don’t want to risk catching a chill,” I replied.
Jessie shook her head. “No, I was talking about the chief of police. Why be such a stickler?”
I shrugged. I’d encountered plenty of sticklers over the years and it was impossible to say why they were so inflexible. They were generally almost impossible to reason with, and yet utterly convinced they were right.
“I think it’s a sign of a lack of confidence,” Jessie declared. “They can’t think creatively, so anything that requires them to step outside the rules is scary.”
“Maybe,” I replied. “Or maybe they just enjoy making life difficult for everyone else.”
Jessie smiled, and took a right onto a narrow drive that ran between two stretches of woodland. A set of fresh tire tracks had been carved in the new snow, and we followed them round a gentle bend to a parking area that lay in front of a single-story house. The tire tracks ran up to the adjacent double garage.
Jessie parked and we got out. I grabbed my coat from the back seat. Jessie did likewise and we started toward the house as we pulled them on. The snow fell so thick and fast I could already feel it beginning to soak through my clothes in the short time it took me to zip up my coat. The swirling storm muffled all sound, and even the crunch of our footsteps took on a muted quality as we approached the front door.
It opened before we reached it and a tall, gray-haired man with a muscular physique filled the frame. He wore a checked shirt, faded jeans and a pair of black socks. The glint in his eye and ramrod posture said ex-military.