Killer Summer

65

Jerry Fleming, all business from the moment his son had picked him up at the airport, looked straight ahead out the Cherokee’s windshield as he spoke, as if it were twenty years earlier and he was teaching his son to drive.

“How certain are we?” Jerry asked.

“At this point, I’m convinced. Until something comes up to suggest otherwise…”

“Is Sumner prepared to play along?”

“With a ransom call?” Walt asked. “No. He’s in denial. Says kidnapping is out of the question.”

“Nothing strange about that.”

“No. He seems able to reconcile someone stealing the jet but not kidnapping his daughter.”

“What happened to your mentoring the boy?”

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Walt said, adding sarcastically, “This is all my fault, you know.”

“Myra has no control over the boy. We’ve discussed it.”

“We’ve discussed nothing, Dad. Not since Robert.”

“Don’t bring that up.” Jerry stared out the side window, Hailey’s amber streetlights flashing across his face. “I knew you would. Why aren’t we going to your shop, this new shop I’ve heard so much about?”

Walt had not told him about the new headquarters. Either Myra was playing both sides or he’d read about it in the paper.

“Since when do you keep up with anything I’m doing?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Jerry.

“Believe me, I am.”

“I thought you’d want to show off.”

“Yeah, that’s me all right.”

“No need to get defensive.”

“We’re not going back to the office,” Walt said.

He’d stopped at his house and was loading in some extra camping gear for his father while his father remained in the passenger’s seat, never offering to help.

“So, you’re in charge, are you?” Jerry said. “Is that right?”

“I can’t go back to the office without dealing with the Bureau. At this point, if we’re going to avoid their intervention, then we’ve got to outrun them. You and I are going to connect with Brandon, and the three of us are going on horseback into the Middle Fork.”

“Are we, now?” Jerry said.

“We’ve got a plane aloft with some cell gear that may help us pinpoint Kevin. It’s up there sweeping now. We’re fairly certain the jet got down in one piece. It was fully fueled, so if it had gone down hard there would have been a fireball, and nothing like that has been reported. There are some private strips, some grass strips, maybe a few better than grass. All I’m saying is, it’s possible-probable, even-that they got down, that they walked away. If we get a hit, we can narrow this down… maybe even talk to Kev.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“You’re supposed to listen,” Walt said. “Your former employers would love nothing more than to take over this case. For the time being, my phone is off. And, if you noticed, the radio’s off too.”

“Of course I noticed. I notice everything. Don’t test me, son.”

“This whole thing is going to test you, Dad, because it’s my way or the highway this time. You can follow or you can stay behind, but you can’t lead. There’s a system in place, a system I put in place. The arrangements have been made. You can badger me all you want, guilt-trip me… Have at it. But I won’t budge. We’re going into the backcountry. All your criticism about me being a hick sheriff, well, welcome to Hicksville, Dad. You get to see it up close and personal now. I’m going in and I’m getting Kevin back. We’re getting him before the Bureau even hits the ground, because, once they do-”

“I know. I know,” Jerry said. “I was the one warned you about the SAC, remember?” He looked tempted to say more, to challenge Walt, but he didn’t.

Then the silence set in, a wall rising between them. And where once Walt would have done anything to tear that wall down, including acquiesce, this time he did not. Instead, hands gripping the wheel, he bit his tongue.

They stopped by a buddy of Walt’s and loaded a raft onto the roof. They bypassed a mile and a half’s worth of traffic backed up from the bridge by going off-road, arriving at the bike-path bridge that still remained under Brandon’s control.

“How long?” Walt asked his deputy out his window.

“Another fifteen or twenty. Almost there.”

“Good. You’re coming with me,” Walt said. “Turn it over to someone.”

They stopped for five minutes at Brandon’s trailer.

“She inside?” Jerry asked.

“Probably,” Walt answered. “But please don’t…”

Jerry climbed out of the Cherokee and went inside the trailer to speak with Gail. Walt felt like driving off and leaving his father in the company of the woman he thought of as his ex-wife and the deputy she now was sleeping with.

Instead, he waited it out.

Brandon threw some stuff in the back of the Cherokee, and, when Jerry returned, offered his hand over the backseat. But Jerry wouldn’t accept it. Brandon caught Walt’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Walt aimed the mirror at the ceiling.

“Did you call Willie?” Walt asked Brandon.

“He’ll have three of his best saddled and waiting for us, a fourth with a pack saddle. We can borrow his Dodge, a dually that can haul an eight-horse, no problem.”

Walt passed a topographical map back to Brandon. “I’ve circled Mitchum’s Creek Ranch. You will figure a route while I speak to Remy. I left Sumner at the office. He’s not going to like my bedside manner of leaving him in the lurch. But it is what it is.”

“And Remy?”

“Is worth a half hour. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

Jerry glanced in his son’s direction. If he had something to say, he kept it to himself. Walt hoped some of his father’s toxic anger might transfer over to Brandon for breaking up his marriage, although that was asking a lot.

“So, Brandon…” Jerry finally said.

“Yes, sir?”

“What if she’d been your wife?”

Walt wished he hadn’t moved the mirror. Sometimes he loved his father.