Jeffery Deaver: The Goodbye Man

June 7. Around 6:30 p.m. Erick Young went to the Forest Hills Cemetery on Martinsville Road in Gig Harbor. This is where his brother, Mark, who died sixteen months ago, is buried. He went to the gravesite frequently.

At some point shortly thereafter, Erick was seen in the company of Adam Harper in the cemetery, according to witnesses. Erick had no apparent prior connection with Adam.

At around 7:30 police responded to reports of a shooting at Brethren Baptist Church. Victims—a lay preacher and a janitor—reported that two suspects, later identified as Adam and Erick, had placed a cross in front of the church and set it on fire. The church was also defaced with Nazi swastikas and obscenities.

When the preacher and janitor ran outside to try to tackle the suspects and hold them for police, Adam drew a gun and shot at them, hitting both.

The suspects fled in Adam’s ten-year-old red Toyota pickup truck, registered in Washington State. Erick’s car was found parked near the cemetery.

None of Erick’s social media posts suggest racist leanings. Adam has no FB, Twitter or Instagram account.

Neither is gay; unlikely there was a sexual encounter.

None of Erick’s other family members or friends have heard from him. There is no particular location he might have run off to that his parents and friends know of.

The authorities were forensically able to link the defamatory graffiti on the Brethren Baptist Church to similar incidents in Pierce County over the past year and a half.

The suspects are believed to still be in the Tacoma area, since both Adam and Erick emptied savings accounts over the past several days, and there have been two sightings of the pickup via video surveillance. Probably gathering money for a long-distance escape from the area.

Erick Young has been working part-time in a rehabilitation center for troubled youths and getting a B.A. at a local community college. He excelled in math, history and biology. But after his brother’s death, he became moody and his grades dropped and attendance at work became a problem. His girlfriend broke up with him because of his moods. Parents described him as “confused and vulnerable.”

Adam Harper has a history of depression and other emotional problems. A drifter. He’s taken classes at community college but never graduated. He’s worked trades most of his life.

He has been arrested on shoplifting and minor drug possession charges. He has no obvious history of white supremacist or racist organizations, though father pointed to his disappearance for 3 to 4 weeks out of town. Hooked up with a group then?

Adam has few friends and the ones the police contacted, as well as a couple of family members, were unaware of anyone or anyplace he would be inclined to flee to.

His residence, a small apartment on the east side of Tacoma, was searched. There was no evidence of any extremist affiliation.

Firearm used in the shooting was a Smith & Wesson .38 Police Special, registered to Adam’s father.

Neither of the suspects’ phones are active.

Both men have passports. Erick’s is still in his parents’ home.

A video of a currency exchange showed two men, in sunglasses and wearing hoodies, changing $500 U.S. into Canadian. They matched the general builds of the suspects.

Shaw scanned these notes, sat back, closed his eyes, digesting what he’d read, drawing conclusions about the incident and the people involved.

His phone hummed. It was Chad Johnson.

“Detective?”

“We’ve got them, Mr. Shaw.”

Fastest reward job on record. No money. But the good news was that he could now return to his other mission: tracking down his father’s secret.

Echo Ridge …

“Anybody hurt? Did they resist?”

A pause. “Oh, we haven’t apprehended them yet. I mean, we’ve located them. They’re in Adam’s pickup. There was a sighting of it headed north on I-5. Then they turned off on surface roads and were still heading north. Making for Canada, of course. We’ve got a taskforce on the apprehension detail. Ten person.”

The last word stumbled out. Johnson had recently been trained not to use the male gender if possible, Shaw guessed.

“Should get them in the next hour.”

“Good.”

“Sorry about the reward, sir.”

He didn’t sound too sorry, Shaw thought. Maybe the Ecumenical Council and the high-tech wunderkind Ed Jasper were contributing the bulk but the rest of the cash would have to come out of his budget.

Shaw thanked him. He sipped a bit more coffee, then sent a text to Mack McKenzie, his D.C.-based private eye, requesting three items of information. Shortly after, she responded, answering all of them with the level of detail that she was known for.

Shaw read the reply closely and, after scanning a map, fired up the Winnebago’s engine. He pulled out of Harper’s parking lot, surveyed the vehicles nearby—those parked, as well as those in motion—then drove onto the uneven road. He steered east out of Gig Harbor, his GPS directing him to a trailer camp, where he’d park the Winnebago and Uber to a car rental agency to pick up a sedan or SUV. He edged the camper as far over the speed limit as he dared without getting pulled over.

He couldn’t afford any delays. Time was vital.

An hour later Shaw was steering his rental Kia along a mountainous route fifty miles east of Tacoma in the beautiful country approaching Mount Rainier National Park. Winding roads, panoramic views, verdant forest, formations of rock shiny and pitted as wet bone.

He eased out of a climbing switchback and onto a straightaway, a hillside face on his right, and began to accelerate.

Then a moving shadow caught his attention.

The boulder was cartwheeling toward the road directly in front of him.

Seconds to decide.

Swerve left? Swerve right?

This bullet hit its mark …

A golden eagle, troubled by the sharp crack of the pistol rolling through the valley, lifted off and descended away from the human disturbance in stately urgency.

Colter Shaw glanced down, noting the sizable gunshot hole in the Kia’s right front tire. The car knelt.

Now free from the vehicle, Shaw pushed through the forsythia and watched the shooter walk across the road, dusting away pollen and burrs from his sleeves and jeans.

Fully bearded, Dalton Crowe was two inches taller than Shaw’s six feet even. Broad shoulders, ample chest, both encased in a black and red plaid lumberjack shirt. Camo overalls. His belt was well tooled, and well worn, shiny and unevenly dark. The holster for the long-barreled revolver was cowboy style, brown and glossy and chrome studded.

Each of the men had bestowed scars upon the other, about the same number, the same length, the same depth. The bruises had long fleshed away. The confrontations were not intended to be lethal but simply to derail the other’s success in finding the suspects in reward jobs. In one instance, Crowe wanted to stop Shaw so he could get one hundred percent of the money for an escaped prisoner; Shaw wanted to stop Crowe from gunning down the trapped, unarmed man.

Crowe ambled across the road and looked at the tire. “Hmm.”

“You fired in my direction,” Shaw said. His tone was scolding only; he hadn’t felt himself in much danger. He’d known to a certainty that the rock-tipper and shooter was Crowe and not the suspects, Adam Harper or Erick Young.

For a big man who would look right at home in Hells Angels’ attire, Crowe had an eerily high voice. “Nup, Shaw. None of that. I was saving you from a snake.” He was from Birmingham, Alabama, and came equipped with the accent. “Timber rattler and a damn big one.”