Spider mountain

11

The county hospital people were less than pleased about Carrie’s checking herself out, but were pacified by some exculpatory paperwork from her via one of Sheriff Hayes’s deputies. I’d awakened before she had. I took the dogs out for a morning walk in the lodge precincts, making sure to stay within visual range of my cabin while she was in there by herself. When I got back she was in the shower, which I thought was a good sign. I made coffee, and when she came out she looked a lot better. Over coffee, she told me about hearing a loud crack, seeing stars, then falling. The shock of icy water revived her, and she remembered crawling into the rocky shallows only to be grabbed up by Lucas a few minutes later and hauled into the woods. He’d used duct tape to blindfold and gag her, and some kind of clasp chain to pin her arms and hands.

“My head was on fire, I was soaking wet and bleeding like a stuck pig-you know, head wounds-and I couldn’t see or shout. So he pulled and I stumbled along behind him. He put me into some kind of van, put a towel around my head, and told me to shut up or he’d cut me.”

“I wanted to come back for you,” I said.

“No sweat,” she said. “I was only semi-conscious when I went into the water, but I still heard the gunfire. There was no way you could have done anything.”

“Still,” I said. “Your good buddy Gelber thinks I’m some kind of cowardly rat.”

“Gelber?” she said, surprised. “When did you run into him?”

I told her about the SBI sending in a posse, my final little seance with King, and his pungent parting advice.

“Gelber hates everybody,” she said. “Mostly himself, I think. He was involved in a bad ambush deal several years ago. He was the only survivor. Three other agents died. Screwed him up. They should have retired him, but he is one tenacious SOB. They call him Fang.”

“An interesting boss?’”

“To say the least,” she said. “He has no life, though, and when we normal humans wanted time off, he was eternally disappointed in our lack of dedication. So: Your turn-what happened to you after I went in?”

I told her. She nodded when I told her what Lucas had said about the Creighs wanting her brought in, dead or alive. She wasn’t surprised at King’s reaction to her theories about a child-trafficking ring in Robbins County. She did pick up on the fact that the FBI might have something on it. Then I told her the story Big John had told me about the foreign doctor, and what I’d witnessed at Grinny’s cabin.

“Son of a bitch,” she said, sitting upright and then wincing when the sudden movement pulled her stitches. She patted her scalp gingerly. “That’s a direct tie. Children at the Creigh compound? Foreign doctor? Airport security? That old hag is probably having them sterilized before she sells them. Did you tell Sam King this?”

“I told Hayes,” I said. “King actually didn’t want to hear it. According to him, your theories are tainted by a personal angle, and he’s sick to death of Robbins County legends. Like I told you, he invited both of us to go away. I think he regrets losing you at the SBI, but he as much as said that everyone up here would be glad to see the back of us.”

“Screw that,” she said promptly. “I need to talk to Big John and hear that story for myself, and then I want to find out what it was the Bureau was going to reveal to Sam King.”

“And how the hell are you going to do that?” I asked her. “They won’t talk to either one of us, and after what happened to Rue Creigh, we wouldn’t last a day if we step back into Robbins County. Mingo didn’t report Rue’s demise, which means the Creighs are taking that on as a personal vendetta.”

“Where’s Sheriff Hayes in all this?” she asked.

I described our conversation. “But you know what? I still think he’s not well,” I said. “I’d bet on a heart condition. I think he believes me, but he’s just not up to taking real action, especially if the SBI’s not willing to get out in front.”

“That pisses me off, too. Do you think Laurie May gave us up to Nathan and the rest of them?”

“If she did, it was under duress. Can’t prove that, but that’s what I think.”

“Yeah, me, too. How about Baby Greenberg? Can he help us?”

“Not officially. I can give him a call, see what’s shaking. Maybe he could find out what the Bureau has on Grinny Creigh.”

She beamed. “Now you’re talking. You have any real food here?”

“Um, I can get some. But look: Sam King hinted that SBI, and perhaps other alphabets, may have something working on this problem, and that the last thing they needed right now was interference from outsiders.”

“Horseshit,” she said. “I would have been told about anything SBI had going in Robbins County.”

“But you’re basically internal affairs, right? Why would you or your office have been in the loop for an undercover operation?”

She didn’t answer that. I asked her about her oblique comments to Greenberg that there was an operation going down.

“I may have been posturing,” she admitted. “He’s a fed. But Sam King is a senior manager. He’s got a full plate, just like everyone else, and he doesn’t want another helping of trouble.” She paused to take a breath. “You said yourself you think there are other kids up there. You heard her say she might have to ‘move’ the whole passel of them. I can’t abide the thought of that.”

“Because of what you think happened to your sister?”

“Partly, yes, of course. But more importantly, if there is some op underway in Robbins County, even if I wasn’t privy to it, it won’t happen any time soon. Most of headquarters knows when something like that’s about to bear fruit.”

“What if we lit a fire over at social services in Robbins County? Using the abused kids angle?”

“Against the Creighs? What was it that woman told you?”

I sighed. She was right. Now the question became whether or not I wanted to join this fight. Then I realized that, having taken Rue Creigh’s head off, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. It was just that years of police experience had taught me how badly Lone Rangers could screw up a perfectly good police operation. King had said exactly the right thing to give me pause. Carrie saw my hesitation.

“You want to bail, I can live with that,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I did that to you once already. No, I’m just trying to think of a way to go at this. Let’s get some chow and then I’ll call Baby.”

After a day of rest for Carrie and resupply for me, we met Baby Greenberg up at the main lodge dining room at six thirty. He listened to our tales of mutual adventure and said repeatedly that we were both insane. Carrie had put a headscarf over the wound on the top of her head, and of course Baby had to have a look.

“Damn, girl,” he said as she was repositioning the scarf. “Another inch lower and you could be in DEA management.”

We had dinner and he told us what he’d found out with a few calls to the FBI field office down in Charlotte.

“I had to tell a few lies about why I was asking,” he said.

“I’m shocked,” I said. “Shocked.”

“DEA and the FBI lie to each other all the time,” he replied. “It’s our way of showing bureaucratic affection.”

“They wouldn’t talk to Sam King over the phone,” I said. “They told him he had to go down there.”

“That’s just feds jerking state guys around, what can I tell you,” he said. “I called in on a federal secure pipe and we got right to it.”

“Which is?” Carrie asked. She’d had a glass of wine and seemed to be coming back to life.

“Apparently there’s a medium-sized federal task force in Washington working on the exploitation of children. It’s running under the so-called PROTECT Act.”

“Whassat?” I asked. The feds used to drive me crazy with all their acronyms.

“Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of April 2003,” he recited. “Or PROTECT.”

“This PROTECT bunch have an intel branch?” I asked.

“They do,” he said. The waiter brought our dinners, and we waited until he’d left. I attacked a bloody rare steak. Carrie looked over at my plate and asked if I didn’t want that thing killed before I ate it. Once the waiter finished with his is-everything-okay recital, Baby continued. “And subject intel branch has identified western Appalachia as one source for children being sold into international sex-slave markets.”

“Suspicions confirmed,” Carrie said, with a hint of triumph in her voice. “But western Appalachia is a big place. Any specifics?”

“No, and there’s a wrinkle,” he said. There was enough background noise in the dining room to cover our conversation. “They can’t tie any reported instance where children have been rescued from one of these human sewers to a source in this area. I asked. But: They did have one CI who told them that there is a ‘florist’ up here somewhere, and that what she, and he did say ‘she,’ produces is extremely valuable in subject markets.”

“Any details?” I asked.

“That’s when they went NFI on me.”

NFI was intel-speak for no further information. It was the code word intelligence wienies used when they didn’t understand what some snippet of information meant. But that reference to a “she” also supported Carrie’s theory.

“He used that term?” Carrie asked. “A florist?”

“Yeah, and I asked about that, too. A florist produces ‘flowers,’ which is the street word for the product, as in little flowers, plucked for the disgusting pleasure of some seriously bent motherfuckers.”

“And why Appalachia?”

“Because the children have little value to a certain stratum of the population. As in, she was a’lookin’ pretty damn good for thirteen, but then she done got her a damn kid hung on her. And if it was her daddy who did the hangingon, then the child become disposable.”

“Did you ask them that question I had about a doctor’s involvement?”

“I did. They said that if the flowers are sterile, they’re more valuable, for obvious if repugnant reasons.”

“And this is a Washington, D.C., game?” I asked. “That seems like a dangerous place for this kind of enterprise, especially these days.”

“The key is a transport channel with diplomatic immunity,” Greenberg replied. “Most of the diplomatic courier channels in the country terminate in Washington and New York. They are not subject to search. Think about it: A Saudi woman shows up at Dulles, all burka-ed up in her best twelfth-century haute couture. She arrives with a sleepy child in tow, similarly covered, made up to look Saudi and probably doped to the gills ‘because she gets airsick.’ They’re boarding a Royal Saudi Air Force plane, and her husband’s a prince, of course. That’s a government airline, and nobody messes with them. They pass the metal detector test and the bomb dogs, and off they go.”

“So if someone’s going to bust this up, it would have to be on the way into Washington from Robbins County?” Carrie asked.

“If you just wanted to rescue one flower, then yeah,” he said. “But if you’re a bunch of feds trying to put together a case that can be prosecuted, then you need to roll up both ends of the pipe. That’s hard, and it takes time. Lots of time. Especially on the diplomatic end-especially if you assume it’s the princes who are buying the flowers.”

“Based on what I overheard, we may not have lots of time,” I said. “Somehow our probes have spooked Grinny. She’s talking maybe unloading the whole hothouse.”

“Jeez, I wonder why,” Baby said. “Nathan grabs you up and then gets beat to shit, Rue Creigh gets her head blown off, a third of their lovely little dog pack is vulture bait up on Book Mountain, somebody inside Mingo’s force gets you out of jail, and they’re spooked?”

“The way to stop this is a laser-guided bomb into Mother Creigh’s little house of horrors,” Carrie said. Santa Claws was in the building.

“LGBs are good,” I pointed out. “Unless, of course, that’s where the children are collected prior to a shipment.”

“My Bureau contact said there’s another problem, which is that, so far, they have never been able to put a TV monitor or even an eyeball at either Dulles or Reagan airport on a mother-and-child departure profile that seems to fit the bill. And there are zero ties to Robbins County or any other part of this area.”

We ate our dinner for a few minutes, trying to digest this information. Carrie finally broke the silence. “If Robbins County is the source in question, the ‘she’ would have to be the Creigh clan. Who else has a criminal enterprise of substance going up there?”

“One wonders,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m struck by the fact that the people like Sheriff Hayes don’t seem to be very excited about the Creigh clan and all their works in general.”

“That’s partially because we’re here,” Baby said. “Chasing druggies isn’t a big priority for local law if the appropriate feds are in the area. But we’ve been looking at the meth problem, not anything to do with trafficking in children. And, actually, by the Code of the West, that would belong to the Bureau, not us scruffy narcs.”

“But they might be related,” I said. “Desperately poor mountain families, staggering under a meth jones, might be tempted to sell a child to either sustain their habit or pay down a drug debt.”

“No mother would do that, not even an addict,” Carrie said. Even as she said it, I could see that she was remembering that woman we’d seen at the trailer. It was, in fact, entirely possible.

“There are some so-called menfolk in these parts who’d do it in a New York minute,” Greenberg said. “We’ve arrested some pretty sorry-assed dudes up in them there hollers. And when you see some of the kids…”

“What do you mean?” Carrie asked indignantly.

Baby threw up his hands. “I’m talking some truly damaged DNA here,” he said. “Yes, they’re innocent children. But their chances of succeeding amongst the human gene pool are minimal, at best.”

At that moment, the lodge’s duty manager approached our table. “Gentlemen, lady,” he said, and then looked at me. “Mr. Richter?”

I said, yes, that’s me.

“Last night the sheriff’s office told our security people they’d have a patrol car in our parking lot at random intervals, for your protection?”

“Okay,” I said. “Problem?”

“Well,” he said, looking around and then lowering his voice. “One of our waitstaff came in for the night shift a few minutes ago. She said there was what she called an old muscle car out in the parking lot with some ‘bad-looking dudes’ inside. She thought she saw shotgun barrels. Said the car looked like something a moonshiner would run. Said they were just sitting out there in that car, like they were waiting for someone. Bad-looking dudes. Should I call this in?”

“You bet,” I said. “Call the sheriff’s office and tell them what you’ve got. Especially the part about guns. They might be setting up to do a holdup, okay? Call 911 and ask for deputies, plural.”

His expression told me that I’d just confirmed his worst suspicions. I had also, hopefully, taken my name out of the equation. He hurried out to make the call.

“What do you think?” I asked Carrie. “Mingo’s black hats?”

“Or you’re right, they’re out there working up the courage to rob this place,” she said. “I can’t imagine Mingo would be so brazen as to send a hit squad over here.”

“Nathan might,” I said. “Rue Creigh was special to him, probably in ways you don’t want to think about. And Grinny has a motive, too.” I looked around at the crowd of diners and bar patrons. “I’d feel a whole lot better with guns and dogs at hand,” I said.

“I can help with half of that,” Baby said helpfully, patting his suit coat. “But life would be a whole lot simpler if you both took Mr. King’s advice.”

“Funny how so many people want us out of here, isn’t it?” Carrie said to me. We finished dinner, and I signed the bill. We went out to the lobby to see what was happening. The manager gave us a signal that he’d made the call.

“Where’s the vehicle?” I asked.

He parted some heavy curtains and showed us. The lot was pretty full, and I actually couldn’t make it out. But just then three Carrigan County cop cars came swinging into the main parking lot. They’d come fast, dark, and quiet, but now they lit up their light bars and at least one tapped his siren. They swept down from the main road and then made a beeline for what looked to me like an old Dodge Charger, which was sitting all by itself out in the lot. They were parked closer to my cabin than to the main lodge, I realized.

The cruisers went right at it. One stopped nose to nose with the Dodge; the other two swept along either side and screeched to a halt, one flat alongside, the other at an angle, thereby preventing anyone in the Dodge from opening a door. We moved to the front door and stepped outside to see what happened next.

What happened next was that all hell broke loose. The deputies in the side-block cars jumped out of their vehicles with guns leveled across their vehicles’ hoods and started yelling at whoever was inside to show their hands. The nosein cruiser had his high beams and door spot on, which surely should have blinded the guys inside. Instead, the driver of the Dodge, who’d apparently fired up his trusty 318 when he saw cops swooping in, slammed it into reverse and, tires screeching and smoking, backed up at about ninety miles an hour-smack into a forty-foot-high parking-lot light standard.

The collision was forceful, and the tall aluminum pole jackknifed onto the top of the Dodge. The sodium vapor light fixture exploded in a blue-white flare of sparks on the pavement, which in turn ignited the fuel vapors that were streaming out from under the Dodge’s crumpled back end. This produced a brilliant carpet of fire, followed seconds later by a really big boom. Guy must have been running on racing fuel, because the second explosion was a real crowd-pleaser. The light pole had put a pretty big crease in the top of the car, enough to have given everyone in the Dodge a headache. And to jam the doors.

The deputies, who had been left standing fifty feet back, scrambled for shelter behind their cruisers when the gas tank went up. Finally one of them stood up and began to approach the burning Dodge. He quickly backed up when there were two loud booms from inside the fire as someone’s shotgun cooked off. There was some more of this, but by now the vehicle was settling on melted tires and entirely engulfed in hot orange flames. A muscular column of glowing black smoke was pumping into the night air, and it was clear that no one was going to come out showing hands or anything else.

Baby started humming that tune with the refrain about “another one bites the dust,” which provoked a horrified look from a woman who’d come out to gape at the burning car.

“Those were genu-wine bad guys, ma’am,” he explained pleasantly. “Who just discovered the express lane to hell.”

She put a hand over her mouth and stepped back into the hotel.

“You better boogie,” I told him. “Sheriff Hayes is going to show up soon. No self-respecting feds would want to be here.”

“You got a point there, judge,” he said. “Thanks for dinner. And the entertainment. You think those were Mingo’s people?”

“It’s going to take DNA to find out,” Carrie said, as the car finally bottomed out and fire engine sirens could be heard. “But I’ll bet Sheriff Hayes will have an opinion.”

It took Sheriff Hayes about an hour to discover that we’d been at least tangentially involved in the mess up front and come knocking on my door. He did have an opinion, as it turned out.

“This was because of you,” he announced as soon as we let him into the cabin. He was carrying a briefcase and looking agitated.

“We were having an innocent dinner, Sheriff,” I told him. “The manager thought those guys were fixing to rob the place.”

“Who’s we?” he asked.

“Carrie and I,” I told him.

“Manager said there were three of you,” he said.

“Oh, him,” I said.

Hayes waited a moment for me to elaborate, and when he saw I wasn’t going to tell him, he shook his head and sat down wearily in an armchair. He still didn’t look well. We probably weren’t helping with that.

“That car was registered in Robbins County,” he said. “They had at least three shotguns, and containers of some kind of fuel or accelerant in the trunk.”

“Any ID on the toasts?” Carrie asked.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Humans. We think. But one of’em had this.” He produced a clear plastic evidence bag from the briefcase. Inside was a badly charred SIG. 45 semiautomatic pistol. It wasn’t impossible that a bunch of black hats would have a SIG, but it also wasn’t the kind of gun they normally would use.

“Mine?” I asked.

“We’ll soon find out. But didn’t you tell me Nathan Creigh relieved you of one of these up in that cave?”

I nodded. He put the bag back into the briefcase and leaned back in his chair. “I think they were here to exact revenge for what you said happened to Rowena Creigh. They were probably going to shoot you with your own piece.” He looked over at Carrie. “You well enough to travel, young lady?”

“Where am I going?” she asked.

“Away,” he said, his voice rising. “The both of you. I want you out of here. Out of my county, out of the state if you can manage it. I’ve had enough death and destruction for one month. The Creigh clan won’t rest until this is taken care of, and that just means more of the same.”

“Why don’t you stop it, then?” Carrie demanded, surprising the sheriff and me in about equal measure. “Why does Mingo and his gang have free run of Carrigan County? If you knew that trouble was brewing, why weren’t your people alerted to look for just exactly what showed up in the parking lot here? Why was Rue Creigh able to drive in here and abduct me and then drive right back through the center of Marionburg with me in plain sight, adorned in duct tape?”

Hayes started to splutter, but suddenly Carrie Santangelo of the SBI professional standards investigations division was in his face and not backing down.

“We’re not causing this shit. We might be provoking them, but that’s because we’ve had the temerity to lift up the rock and see what’s under it. You and your people, on the other hand, are doing nothing. Nothing! You think the Creighs aren’t moving product here in Carrigan County? You think there’s no meth problem in your piece of the hills?”

“You listen to me,” Hayes began, but she shut him right down. The shepherds had long since crawled out of the room. I was trying to figure out how to join them.

“No, Sheriff, you listen to me. I’m beginning to think that I need to call my ex-boss in my ex-organization and tell him they need to take a look at the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office, that the sheriff here is either hopelessly ineffective or he’s part of the Creigh organization. Or maybe I should go find the local newspaper and write a little op-ed piece. I’m a citizen now, not a state employee. I can say whatever the hell I please. And if that’s not okay with you, then get off your fat ass and get to work. Find these bastards. Arrest them. Harass them. Fucking do something! And in the meantime, get the hell out of here before I get pissed off.”

The sheriff was red in the face by the time she’d finished, and I was suddenly concerned about his heart condition. But then, to my utter amazement, Hayes grabbed his hat and briefcase and stomped out of the cabin. I went to the window and saw one of his deputies hotfooting it up the path to the parking lot with the sheriff behind him, his hat jammed low over his forehead. I suspected the deputy had heard an earful and was anxious to get to the safety of his cruiser. I pulled the curtain closed.

“Well, now,” I said, and then stopped when I saw there was still fire in her eye. “Want a drink?”

She shook her head and went out onto the porch overlooking the creek. I fixed two scotches and went out after her.

“I chase bent cops,” she said, “but I have a positive hate-on for do-nothing cops.”

“I’d’ve never guessed,” I said, handing her a drink. She took it without looking at it, but she didn’t refuse it. A waft of leftover smoke from the front parking lot blew down in our direction. “That the car or the burning bridge?” I said.

“Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke,” she said. “You’re either with the good guys or you’re not. Hayes has been doing the ostrich act for too damn long. Time somebody braced him up.”

“If he does have a heart condition,” I said, “it tends to sap the do-something right out of a guy.”

“Then he should retire and let someone else do the job. Right now the Creighs are walking all over him.”

“So you don’t think he’s dirty?”

She shook her head. I agreed with that assessment. “So how the hell do we prove this business with Grinny Creigh and children in Robbins County? And do that all by our lonesome?”

She grunted defiantly and sipped some of her scotch.

“We still have Baby Greenberg as at least a passive ally,” I said. “I don’t know about Sam King-he tried to make it look like he was washing his hands of this mess, but I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Whatever they’re doing, they won’t tell me,” she said.

“Right, so we have to figure out some way to blow this thing open. We need to find the children.”

She looked over at me in the darkness. “No shit, Sherlock,” she said, somewhat more amiably. “And how do we do that? You got a plan?”

“I got the glimmer of one,” I said. “What’s the very last thing the Creighs would expect us to do right now?”

She thought for a moment. “Come back at them?”

“Bingo,” I said. I explained what I had in mind. “So that’s what we’ll do,” I concluded. “But first we’ll need to execute a little cover and deception. And for that I need to go see Sheriff Hayes and eat some serious crow.”

I went out to my Suburban and drove out of the lower lot and up into the main parking area. One fire engine was still there, along with a state police crew, wading through three feet of white foam as they began the fatality investigation. The remains of the Dodge were covered in yellow rubber drapes, surrounded by several yards of police tape. There were a few gawkers out in the lot, but not very many, courtesy of the nauseating vapors exuding from the charred wreckage. I got a whiff as I drove by, and I drove over to the sheriff’s office in Marionburg with all the windows open.

Hayes’s office was still going strong after the incident at the hotel. I walked into the main reception area and told the sergeant on duty that I needed to see Sheriff Hayes.

“This is not a great time for visitors,” the cop said.

“Why don’t you tell him that Mr. Richter is here to apologize.”

“Richter. Right. Heard that name earlier. You sure you want to do this?”

“It can’t get much worse,” I said. He gave me a look that said, Oh, yes, it can, but went into the sheriff’s office. Five minutes later a deputy I didn’t recognize came out to reception and called my name.

“Sheriff says you can have three minutes,” he announced. He looked both ways and then said, “You sure you want to go in there?”

There’s an echo in here tonight, I thought. “Can’t wait,” I said, and he rolled his eyes. I was most definitely in deep shit with the Man.

Hayes was sitting behind his desk when I was ushered into his office. Gone was all the previously sympathetic friendliness. In its place was a steely glare, backed up by all the authority a southern county sheriff can muster, which is considerable. For a moment I thought maybe I had made a mistake coming over here. I noticed a small yellow prescription bottle next to his in-box. I skipped the pleasantries.

“I came to apologize and to tell you that we’re leaving,” I said. “Sam King advised the same thing, so we’re going to get out of Carrigan County and leave you in peace. I think Ms. Santangelo was out of line with what she said, and neither she nor I nor anyone at SBI thinks you’re involved with the Creighs or anything going on in Robbins County.”

“That’s nice,” he growled.

“Well, it’s true,” I said. “And how you handle the situation here is, of course, your business. We’ll need the morning to get our shit together.”

“That harpy going, too?”

“It’s Harper, but yes, sir. And I’m sorry for that mess at the hotel tonight. I don’t know that that was the Creighs, but I suspect it was.”

He relaxed fractionally. His face was no longer dark red as it had been in the cabin. In fact, he looked a little gray around the edges. “I had our people call Mingo’s office once we ID’d the car,” he said. “The license plate came up Robbins County and listed the registered owner. Mingo sent a deputy over, and he gave us a tentative ID on the owner. The occupants are all stumps, of course; they’ll require dental identification.”

“Let me take a guess on the owner,” I said. “A guy named Lucas Can?”

His eyebrows went up. “How the hell did you know that?”

I explained the background. “He said he’d made the Creighs’ shit list for screwing up the hit on Carrie and me in the river. My guess is they gave him one chance to redeem himself. They sent along two helpers to keep him honest. He’s the one Sam King was setting up on to get Carrie back.”

“Should have left that little witch over there,” he said, starting to spin himself up again. “Who’s that goddamned woman think she is, anyway?” Then he stopped, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You say you’re leaving. Where are you going?”

“Away?” I said, echoing his earlier words.

“How far away?”

“Far enough to be out of your hair.”

“That’s not an answer,” he said.

“I know it isn’t,” I replied. He just stared at me for a long moment. He started to say something but then sighed and set his jaw.

“You told us to go, and we’re going,” I said. “Why not just declare victory?”

He leaned forward in his chair. “If you guys get yourself into any kind of crack up there with Mingo or the Creighs, do not, repeat, do not expect me or any of my people to come bail you out, understand?”

I nodded.

“And for the record, I’m telling you not to go back there. Let the appropriate authorities work the Robbins County problem. Neither of you fits that category anymore, right?”

I nodded again.

“Okay, then. We’re done. We’re still cranking out paperwork on your latest mess. Out.”

Back at the cabin I found Carrie busy sorting out her equipment. The two shepherds were in attendance, watching with their usual interest. Everything is a great adventure to a shepherd.

“He buy it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “And he made it pretty clear that if we do go back there, there will be no cavalry from Carrigan County.”

“Never expected any,” she grumped. “Guy’s lost his nerve. He’s afraid of Mingo, and that’s the long and the short of it.”

“We have until noon tomorrow,” I said. “Time enough for us to get what gear we need and then to make our move. I’ll call Mose Walsh.”

“Go in daylight?”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “The Creighs and Mingo own the night in Robbins County. I think if we just drive in there, go straight to Laurie May’s, we’ve got a pretty good chance of remaining undetected. Her place is nowhere close to town.”

She plopped down on the bed. “What we don’t know is whether or not she’ll let us hole up there again,” she said. “Or if she’s even there. They may have done something to her.”

“Or worse,” I said. “She might be part of it. That’s one loose end we need to work out. But that’s the only place I can think of to base, now that we’re been thrown out of here.” As I said that, though, I had another idea.

“What?” she said.

“We could base up in the national park,” I said. “Remember that cabin we used? The one that’s been requisitioned by the DEA?”

“That’s a long hike from where we want to go,” she said. “And the last time we had permission.”

“But it wouldn’t depend on Laurie May Creigh. Plus, I doubt the Park Service people know about your leaving SBI.”

She sighed. “That would mean I’d have to basically impersonate an SBI agent,” she said. “I don’t want to do that. Look: We need to break open this child-smuggling ring. We can’t do that from the safety of the national park. We have to fight the Creighs on their own turf.”

“Taking on your enemy on his home ground is not usually a prescription for success,” I said.

“Mingo has to know he’s got Sheriff Hayes buffaloed,” she said. “He’s been there a long time, and he’s used to getting things his way. So’s Grinny Creigh. If we’re going to do this thing, we have to do what they least expect. It’s the only hope we have.”

They least expect it because it has the smallest chance of success was what I wanted to say.

“I guess I really can’t do this alone,” she said. She’d put a rueful smile on her face, and for a moment she reminded me a little bit of Mary Ellen Goode. A woman who’d been beat up now screwing her courage to the sticking point. She had to know what the odds were, and she was still determined to go back there and uncover the Creighs’ secret. I looked over at the two shepherds, who were still watching from the doorway. They were game, but then again, they were always game. Being game wasn’t the same as being smart, though.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s figure out what we’re going to need.”