End Game

CHAPTER 44

Piece by piece.

Both Reel and Robie had taken turns field-stripping the Glock. Fully assembled, it now lay on a cloth on Malloy’s desk.

The three of them were staring down at it. They had found nothing of interest. No additions had been made. No deletions, either.

As they were standing there, Derrick Bender walked in and slapped his hat against his pants leg to knock off some dust.

“Who died?” he said jokingly, staring at their very serious faces.

Then he blanched when none of them cracked a smile. “Shit, don’t tell me somebody did die?”

Malloy shook her head. “No, we were just hoping that this gun would give us a clue as to what happened to Mr. Walton.”

Bender drew next to the desk and looked down at the Glock. “I’m not following. Why would it?”

“Just a long shot,” said Reel.

“Well, that gun won’t be any good for a long shot,” said Bender, grinning. “Barrel’s too short.”

“Shit,” said Reel.

“What?” snapped Robie.

In answer Reel hit the Glock’s mag release and put the mag aside. Then she made sure the chamber was empty.

“You got a gun-cleaning kit around here?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Bender. He hurried over to a cabinet, opened the doors, and pulled out a box with a handle. He brought it over and gave it to Reel.

She opened it, found what she wanted, and took out the long, thin piece of metal.

“A bore brush?” said Robie.

She nodded and inserted it into the Glock’s barrel. She moved it slowly and carefully into the barrel, then twisted the rod clockwise and counterclockwise before slowly pulling it free.

“What’s that?” said Bender.

A bit of white had emerged at the muzzle.

Reel said, “You got tweezers?”

Malloy opened her desk drawer, rummaged around, and pulled out a tiny pair.

“Will this work?” she asked, handing them to Reel.

Reel gripped the tweezers and eased the ends onto the edge of white. She slowly pulled, and the white was revealed to be a piece of paper rolled up.

“Damn,” exclaimed Bender. “How’d you think to look there?”

“When you said the barrel was too short for a long shot,” replied Reel. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

Bender grinned and squeezed Reel’s shoulder. Reel patted his hand in return.

Robie observed this and once more felt the hair on his neck fire up. But then he glanced at Malloy and his anger quickly subsided.

Reel slowly unrolled the paper.

“Is anything written on it?” asked Malloy.

“No,” said Reel, looking disappointed. “Just this.”

She held up the paper for all to see.

It was a stick figure holding what looked to be a ball over its head.

“Anybody have a guess?” said Reel. “Walton obviously wasn’t much of an artist.”

“If he had an opportunity to put that in the gun for us to maybe find, why not just write out what he wanted to tell us,” said Malloy.

“Maybe he didn’t know enough to write it out. And it might have been discovered by someone else that he didn’t want to let on about what he knew.”

“So it’s like a code?” said Bender.

“Sort of, probably,” said Robie.

“Well, he outsmarted himself then,” said Reel. “Because he stumped us too.”

Robie took the paper from her and studied it. “This obviously means a person. Does it refer to him? To someone else?”

“I don’t know how we answer that,” interjected Malloy. “We don’t know enough. Like why is he holding a ball? If that’s what it is. It almost looks like he’s about to shoot a basketball, and for the life of me I can’t see how sports figures into this.”

Robie said, “Walton played sports when he lived here.”

Reel said, “But I thought we had decided his past didn’t figure into his disappearance. It was tied to the prisoners in the van. If that’s not the case anymore than we are right back at square one.”

“I’m not saying that’s the case,” replied Robie. “But we at least know that Walton knew he was in danger and that he tried to leave us a clue. And while we may not know what it means now, we might figure it out at some point. In fact, we have to figure it out.”

“Do you think it speaks to where he’s been taken?” said Bender.

“Since he left the gun behind, how would he know where they were going to take him before they took him there?” said Reel.

“That’s a good point,” conceded Bender, a hopeless expression on his features.

“We have to figure out the clue,” said Reel. “It’s the only one we have.”

Robie and Reel left Malloy and Bender at the station and made their way back to the hotel.

“We have to do something, Robie,” said Reel as they entered the lobby. She looked at her watch. “We’re going to be talking to the director in less than four hours. We have to have something to tell her.”

Reel’s phone buzzed. She answered, listened for two minutes, and then said curtly, “Thanks.” She put her phone away and looked at Robie.

“Well?” he said.

“We might have another lead.”

“Who was that?”

“The sat guys. They managed to break into Lambert’s bird and see what it saw.”

“And?” said Robie impatiently as she fell silent.

“They went back about a month focusing on the convenience store late at night. They saw the van at Clyde’s. It all happened like Lamarre said. Van pulled in, trouble with the reader, and Lamarre came outside. And then the van drove off in the direction of Lambert’s bunker.”

“Did it actually go to the bunker?”

“They don’t know. The bird swung away before that could be revealed. But it was damn close. Within a couple of miles, they said.”

“A couple of miles out here is a lot of space to cover.”

“But what else is out there other than Lambert’s bunker, Robie? I doubt they were driving around in circles with prisoners in the back of the van. And Blue Man asked for a tour of the place. He was interested in it for some reason. And I’m thinking that interest stems from the prisoners in the van he was told about.”

“Okay, but are you suggesting that Lambert is bringing prisoners to his bunker? For what reason? And if so, why would he have offered us a tour of the place, much less Blue Man?”

“Well, he sure as hell didn’t show us the whole place,” said Reel. “There must be lots of nooks and crannies down there to stash people.”

“Granted, but for what purpose?” persisted Robie.

“Maybe we should take a ride and try to find out.”