Chuck Logan - After the Rain

“For sure,” Wales repeated.

“Yeah. Like until there’s a body.” They continued to stare at him. So he said, “Bottom line? Let’s say Dale Shuster is a bad guy. If she’s still breathing and he’s dumb enough to take her along, he better watch out.”

Wales nodded, he turned to Yeager. “Nuff said. Okay. What about Ace? Taking two in the back?”

“Don’t figure,” Yeager said. “Ace never ran from anything in his life.”

Wales shook his head. “ ’Cept maybe success.” He turned to Vinson. “You’re doing it right. Keep everybody out till the state crime guys get here.” Broker and Yeager followed him outside. He stood in silence for a few moments on the porch, staring at the equipment shed across the road. “Shuster and Sons,” he said under his breath. “I’m going to have to call Gene Shuster, tell him about his boys. Question is, tell him what, exactly?” He collected himself and faced the other men. “Okay. We plan along two tracks. Until someone convinces me otherwise I’m treating Dale’s nine-one-one call like what it appears. A murder-kidnap. So I got search parties started to go over every inch of ground on Joe’s route.” He looked directly at Broker. “You understand.”

Broker nodded. “If they’re dead, he had to dump the bodies.”

“At the same time we’ll give your misdirection theory some play. We’ll dig up a photo of Dale, put out an all-points, and fax out the picture of Nina off her military ID.”

Wales turned to Broker. “Okay, you come up with any bright ideas, you let me know. I’ll let Jimmy spend some time with you. There’s a couple carloads of people on their way from Bismarck and other counties, so it’s not like I’ll be hurting for help. All I ask is you two stay out of their way.”

“You going to tell the state guys who Jane was?” Broker said.

Wales folded his arms across his chest. “Not right off. “ ’Cause all I got is hearsay, right? Nobody’s going to confirm her, or Nina. And there’s this-we haven’t had a shooting in this county for a long time. This here’s news. There’ll be reporters coming. Loose talk about Army Delta and black helicopters could get real nuts real fast. Get way out of hand.” Then he squinted at Yeager. “Jimmy, now you’ve got a taste for this weird shit, how you going to go back to writing speeding tickets and counseling domestics?”

Yeager shifted from foot to foot. “Norm, what about a shooting board? Do I turn in my sidearm and go off the clock?”

“And reduce my full-time staff by thirty percent? Anyway-you fire that Colt on your hip?”

“Nope.”

“Then turn in the rifle. We’ll start the paperwork. Everything going on, it’ll probably be a week before we have a sit-down.” He pointed his finger. “Don’t do anything to antagonize the state guys.”

Broker and Yeager nodded.

Wales started for his car. “I’ll be at the SO, coordinating ,” he said, cranking some irony and awe into the remark.

As soon as Wales pulled away, Broker reached for his cell and called Holly.

They agreed to meet in the parking lot of Shuster and Sons Equipment, across from the bar. Holly drove up in his undercover rig, the dust-blasted gray Chevy truck with the Arizona plates. With his pale eyes and shaggy hair he projected an aura of a spooky wind blowing off the Superstition Mountains. He wore faded jeans, cracked dirt-whitened leather boots, and a colorless T-shirt frayed from too much sweat and too many washings that bore a small line of type over the heart: John McCain for President.

“Holly, you remember Yeager. He dropped the guy they think killed Jane.” Holly and Yeager shook hands.

Holly studied the deputy. “We met out on the highway last night.”

“Sorta. You arrived in the helicopter,” Yeager said. He nodded across the road. “State crime agency is on the way to process the scene. You want to identify her?”

Holly shook his head and gazed across the road to where Vinson was stringing yellow crime scene tape. “I go in there, the forensic investigators’ll want to know who I am, and I can’t tell them.” He paused, then said softly, “SOP. If it was me in there, Jane would say the same.” He cleared his throat and planted his hands on his hips. “So I got one down and one missing.” He swung his pale blue eyes on the deputy, waited a couple of heartbeats. “So…with us here-are there any rules?”

“Whatever you cook up, I go along. How’s that for rules?” Yeager said.

“And if I don’t like it?” Holly asked.

“Then I take you in for questioning.”

“Well, then I guess I agree.” He turned to Broker. “Whatta you think?”

“I think Dale and Reed were your smugglers. I don’t know if Ace was involved. Somehow Nina and Jane bumped into them this morning and they panicked. If we find Dale, we might find what you came looking for,” Broker said.

“Great,” Holly said. “My crew is gone, my assets are gone. Any minute now, my chopper will be gone, too. I spent all morning getting chewed out on the telephone for running a cowboy operation. Now I’ve got casualties. And this ain’t exactly my turf. So where do we start?”

“Right here.” Broker pointed to the equipment shed, then turned to Yeager. “I saw something yesterday I want to show you. C’mon, it’s out in the back.”

Holly and Yeager followed Broker around the large shed. The weeds were chest high and still wet in the shadow of the building, and the dew drenched their trouser legs and footwear. They picked through a rusty junkyard: cast-off machinery parts, orange and flaking with rust, weeds growing in and around them. They came to a disturbed area, the dirt churned up and gouged by huge tire treads. The weeds in the dirt were dwarfs compared to the other weeds. Recent growth.

“He had a big loader in here,” Yeager said.

Broker pointed to a slick of yellow metal among the churned dirt. “I’d stepped out the back door and just looked around, and I caught this flash of yellow. See that? I was wondering why he’d bury something like that.”

Yeager stooped, scooped dirt away, and uncovered the top of a thick slab of yellow iron about two feet long and six inches deep. He moved closer, going down on his knees, and started to paw away the sand and dirt. “We need something to dig with.”

Immediately they spread out and started searching around the large pole barn and its outbuildings. Yeager went to a nearby utility shed, kicked in the door, and returned with two dusty old shovels. He gave one to Broker and they began to clear away the soil.

After a few shovelfuls Yeager was panting and sweating profusely. He staggered and leaned on his shovel. “Don’t know what’s wrong.”

Holly took his shovel, drove it into the dirt. “Delayed stress,” he said quietly. “You ever kill a man before?”

Yeager shook his head, mopped sweat from his face.

“Kind of weight you pick up and never put down. Takes some getting used to. Hello…” His shovel twanged on hollow metal.

They looked at each other. “That ain’t right,” Yeager said. “It’s a fucking counterweight, it’s solid iron.”

They went back to work and got it exposed. The weight was squared off on top and a slightly wider trapezoid on the bottom. Three large bolt holes were drilled into it, and an oblong opening through the side and out the top, like a handhold.

“What kind of weight?” Holly asked.

“Counterweight for a Deere loader. A 644C. Common enough machine around here,” Yeager said.

Broker curled his hand around the opening in the top and yanked. It heaved slightly. “Jesus, what’s it weigh?”

“Yeager squinted. “Something’s wrong. You shouldn’t be able to move that thing. Sucker should weigh over four hundred pounds.”