Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

“Thank you.”

“It was fun. A different kind of challenge.”

“Do you mind showing me how to run it?”

“I can do it for you.”

“Better if I do it,” he said. “There’s a psychology involved.”

“Whatever you want,” she said. She walked him through the operation of the video software, which turned out to be straightforward, and in turn caused him to wonder why she’d offered to stay and help out. The only thing he could think of was that she wanted to eavesdrop, to stay as current on the investigation as possible, and it troubled him.

“Where’d you go?” she said.

He grimaced. “Right here.”

“I don’t think so.”

“A lot on my mind.”

“You went cold all of a sudden.”

He hated being so easily read. “Did I? It wasn’t intentional.”

Nancy saved him by knocking, and opening the ICC’s door. “Kevin’s on his way. I heard back from McClure and he’s e-mailed your request. And Brandon told me to tell you he’s here-the person you wanted.” She knew better than to name names.

Fiona stood, looking down onto Walt, and said, “Good luck. I guess. It being my laptop, I’ll need it back, so I’ll wait in the break room.” She was fishing for his invitation to remain in the room with him.

“Thank you,” he said, irritating her. To Nancy he said, “Okay. Have Brandon send him in. I want him one-on-one.”

Gilly Menquez entered the ICC sheepish and confused, clearly overwhelmed by the room’s size and the abundance of high-tech audio/visual equipment. He joined Walt at the front table where Fiona had set up her laptop. The video window on the overhead screen was black.

“What’s this about, Walt?”

“I was hoping maybe you could tell me.”

Gilly sat down in the chair Fiona had been occupying, alongside Walt. He kept his hands clenched tightly in his lap.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” he said.

“I gave you a break, Gilly.”

“I know that. Appreciate it, Sheriff.”

“And how do you repay me?”

Gilly couldn’t bring himself to look at Walt. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Think before you say anything, Gilly. There are no lawyers involved at the moment. That can change.”

Gilly dared a glance, but couldn’t hold the eye contact.

“Are you drunk, Gilly? Right now, I mean? Have you been drinking?”

“Two beers. I swear that’s all. I’m fine.”

“I need you in your right mind.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Okay then,” Walt said. “That’s going to go down in the statement.” Walt scribbled a note.

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you going to mess with me, Gilly?”

“I swear, Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ten, fifteen years ago, a person in my position would have just beat the crap out of a person in your position. It wouldn’t have been this way.”

“I don’t mean to make you angry, Sheriff.”

“Some things we can’t help.”

That seemed to hit deeply.

“Are you going to tell me about it, or am I going to have to explain it to you?” Walt asked.

“I… don’t… know what you’re talking about.”

Walt took a deep breath and spoke in a harsh, faint voice. “Damn you, Gilly.”

Menquez ventured another look, but again couldn’t maintain it.

“The first time I suspected something,” Walt explained, “was when I saw how thick the forest was over the SUV-Gale’s rental. You said you’d picked up the heat signature from it. I don’t think so. If everyone hadn’t descended on the site at once, maybe I’d have spotted your tracks by daylight. You knew that about me-my tracking skills. I should have understood how it was you failed to hold them all back from the scene. Should have seen through that.”

“Sheriff, I…” He hung his head.

“Putting the ATM card back. That was quick thinking.”

“I don’t know nothing about any of this, Sheriff.”

“But it was a stupid thing to do. You could have just thrown it out. Tossed it into a dumpster. But I imagine that’s when it began to unwind for you: how to make it look like you’d just come across Gale’s rental, when in fact you’d discovered it much earlier.”

“Don’t know nothing about any ATM card.”

“Blompier mentioned the poacher case. The ATM card. The lack of a camera in that ATM. Your poacher case, Gilly-the case you handled. There were only a few of us who knew that particular ATM didn’t have a camera in it. You knew. That’s why you chose it.” Walt gave him a moment to absorb it all. “Not telling me about the SUV, that’s not exactly a crime. Not something you could go to jail for. Lose your job, maybe. But not jail time. It’s when you sobered up and realized how deep you were in this that you decided to return the card to the wallet, to let me find Gale’s SUV. You thought that card being found still in his wallet might make things okay. But we’ve been onto the withdrawals since they first started.”

A person couldn’t lower his head more than Menquez was now. “I got no idea what you’re talking about here, Sheriff.”

“You sure that’s the way you want to play this, Gilly?” Walt reached for the laptop. “I need to clear this up. I need to know what you found when you first came across the SUV. I need a clean chain of evidence, and you screwed that up for me. I can’t get that now, and you’re to blame. But you’re of value to me if you’re willing to come clean and tell me exactly what happened, exactly what you found, what you saw. You’re nothing to me if you play dumb like this.”

Menquez remained bent forward.

“Have you lost your job?” Walt asked rhetorically. “I suspect you have. Are you in jail? Not yet. Cut your losses, Gilly. Play it smart.”

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“Gilly…”

He leaned into Walt and whispered harshly. “You got nothing.”

Walt dropped his fingers onto the space bar. The black and white video ran on the overhead screen, winning Gilly’s attention. But it played too quickly for him to see it for exactly what it was.

Walt hit the rewind button and played the clip again.

The screen showed an elevated view of a quiet street with the signs of Ketchum establishments lining either side. There was an Inter-Mountain Bank sign a block in the distance. The short clip played out as a series of stills-like from a bank’s security cameras. A Forest Service pickup truck entered the frame, moved down the street, and pulled into a parking space in front of the bank.

“Recognize that truck? Traffic cams, Gilly. Did you know Ketchum has traffic cams now?”

Menquez’s face went a pasty gray. He looked at Walt and back to the overhead screen as Walt played the clip again.

“You see the time stamp?” Walt asked. “Days before you claimed to have found the SUV. There’s a time stamp on the withdrawal as well.”

Menquez licked his dry lips. He looked like a beached fish.

“We can get you into treatment, Gilly. We can do that before all this comes out, so the Service will foot the bill for it. You’ll come out clean and sober and on your feet, and maybe you even keep your job.”

“I got kids. A family. I needed that money. I wouldn’t have taken it.”

“You’ve been drinking up your paycheck, Gilly. I see this all the time. This is nothing new to me. Let me help you.”

“I didn’t mean to screw things up for you. I found the truck. I swear I was going to tell you. But there was the wallet on the floor. The guy had written his PIN number on a piece of paper tucked into his wallet. I mean, how stupid is that? It’s like he was asking me to do it.”

“I need you to run it down for me. I need every detail exactly as it happened.”