“What do you have on him?”
“His service record lists his hometown as Lebanon, Kansas.”
“Just earned your paycheck, Jenny,” Harrow said, and could almost hear her smiling over the phone.
“One more thing,” she said. “I’ve sent his service photo to your cell phone.”
“Good. While I’ve got you, tell everybody, saddle up. I want you guys up here.”
“I’ll make it happen, boss.”
They signed off, and Harrow returned his attention to Gibbons, saying, “Sorry for the interruption — information from one of our team.”
Gibbons, his expression thoughtful, nodded.
“You’ve had time to mull it,” Harrow said. “Come up with anybody in town your department’s dealt with, who might fit our subject’s profile?”
The sheriff rocked back, sighed deeply. “J.C., I’ve known most of these people my entire life. Some are oddballs I suppose, some are peculiar or maybe set in their ways, some may be just plain crazy... but none stand out as crazy in the way you’re talking.”
“How about I throw out a name?”
“All right.”
“And you just tell me if you think it’s even remotely possible.”
“I said all right.”
“Gabriel Shelton.”
Gibbons’s eyes widened, then tightened. He sat forward. “You think Gabe is your man?”
“Gabe,” Laurene said. “So you know him.”
Rocking back again, the sheriff shrugged and said, “Like I told you, I know most everyone in town. There’s only three hundred people in Lebanon, and not even five thousand in the county. Met more than my fair share of ’em, some while I was out campaigning, others after I won the job.”
Harrow asked, “Where does Gabe Shelton fall?”
“Straddles both stools,” Gibbons said. “And since you’re pressing me... some of those things you listed? Disorderly conduct, problems with authority? Both are on Gabe’s record.”
Choi said, “May we see that record?”
Harrow almost smiled. The kid had never been so polite. Maybe he was catching on to the world beyond New York.
“Normally,” Gibbons said, “I’d say no — I’d insist on a court order. But I understand this is different. You have a kidnapping on your hands, one of your own... and you’re looking for a suspect who may be a serial killer.”
This little recitation had apparently been for the sheriff’s own benefit as much as Harrow and company’s. Gibbons turned and typed something into his computer.
Moments later, he said, “Come around here, and see for yourself.”
Gabriel Shelton’s mug shot showed an unlikely candidate for the serial killer pantheon. Shelton needed a shave and a haircut, but otherwise looked nothing like a threat — curly dark hair, big blue eyes, a firm-jawed face and the general demeanor (even in a mug shot) of someone you could trust — someone who might be your next-door neighbor.
The only thing disturbing to Harrow about the face was that he’d seen it somewhere before...
Harrow asked, “When was the mug shot taken?”
“Nine years ago,” Gibbons said. “We haven’t had much trouble from him since.”
Something about the face, the eyes...
Shelton’s police record showed nothing until a battery charge ten years back, and another two years later. Between were three disorderly conducts and several misdemeanors, chiefly unpaid parking tickets.
For about three years, Gabe Shelton went from anonymous citizen to minor-league asshole, then became barely a blip on the cop radar... just a speeding ticket (thirty-seven in a twenty-five mile-per-hour school zone), a few more parking tickets, but no subsequent arrests.
After three years of terminal bad attitude disease, Gabe Shelton had gone into sudden remission.
While Laurene went over the file in detail with the sheriff, Harrow called Jenny and got her to forward Shelton’s military record. Then he got Choi to show him how to bring it up on his phone.
Harrow wasn’t terrible with technology, but cell phones seemed to morph on him every six months or so, and the network kept giving him complimentary new ones. When Choi got Shelton’s record up, Harrow read it fast.
Born in 1957, Shelton had graduated high school in ’75, gone into the service on July 14 of that year; served four years, missing Vietnam by mere months, and was granted an honorable discharge upon his separation.
Everything seemed fine in Shelton’s life through his time in the Army. Which was no help. Harrow banished the phone to his pocket again.
He turned to Choi and asked, “Anything?”
Choi said, “Nothing you didn’t already know.”
Laurene said, “I’ve got Shelton’s address.”
This was good, if not surprising, news, and they would spring to action; but Harrow was troubled.
“There’s got to be more to it,” Harrow said. “This guy was living a normal life, then got pissed about something, and started turning up in a few police reports. Finally one morning he wakes up and decides to become one of the worst serial killers in American history? What made a good soldier and average citizen go so goddamn far off the rails?”
Gibbons said, “I can tell you.”
They looked at the sheriff. Harrow returned to his chair. Laurene was already back in hers, as was Choi. The sheriff’s expression seemed almost sheepish. He’d known something since Shelton’s name had first come up, and hadn’t shared it yet.
Now, softly, with the embarrassed tone of a kid caught stealing from a sibling’s piggy bank, he said, “About ten years ago, Gabe’s wife and kid... they were murdered.”
The investigators traded sharp looks.
“The thing is,” Gibbons said, shifting in his chair, “he always blamed my predecessor for it. Sheriff Brown?”
Harrow frowned. “He thought the sheriff killed his family?”
“Not that Sheriff Brown did it himself. But Gabe believed Dan was behind it, or anyway covering up... but he wasn’t. The state police came in and looked into the murders, and said our investigation was thorough, and by the book. And they came up empty, just like us.”
“It happens,” Harrow said.
“Shelton couldn’t accept that. That’s when the trouble with the authorities started. The disorderly conducts, the battery, all that crap. Then, fast as he lost it, Gabe stopped being a pain in our ass. Just straightened up and flew right — keeps to himself, and he’s been an okay citizen, far as it goes. So we stay out of his way, and he sort of seems to stay out of ours.”
Laurene said to Harrow and Choi, “So he’s recreating the crime done to him, and letting other public servants, sheriffs in particular, suffer like he did.”
Choi said, “I have nothing to add to that.”
Neither did Harrow.
“All right, Sheriff,” Harrow said, getting up. “Let’s visit Mr. Shelton, and see if he’s holding my team member.”
Rising, Gibbons said, “Sounds like probable cause to me.”
Harrow didn’t point it out, but the truth was, he wasn’t law enforcement anymore and didn’t give a good goddamn about probable cause.
All he cared about was getting Carmen back in one breathing piece.
Chapter Thirty-one
Outside the police station, Harrow handed the rental keys off to Laurene, telling her, “Everybody into Kevlar. I’ll be on the front line. You and Billy arm yourselves, but stay back unless you’re needed.”
“J.C., we—”
“You will obey orders. And one of them is to keep Hathaway and Hughes back. Tell them if they get killed we don’t have a show. Understood?”