Six Seconds

61

Great Falls, Montana

The Sky Road Truck Mall was situated on a thirty-acre site off the interstate, where it curled a few miles south west of Great Falls International Airport.

It was an expansive twenty-four-hour operation offering fueling, two restaurants, a chapel, a massage therapist, a medical clinic, laundry, shower facilities and more. The complex was landscaped with clipped shrubs; its neo-deco facade had glazed windows. Huge Montana state and U.S. flags waved on gold-tipped poles high above the entrance.

Maggie and Graham parked their rented sedan as dozens of rigs eased in and out of the mall, their diesel engines growling, air brakes hissing.

Before they’d left Las Vegas, Graham again notified local law enforcement. Strangely, one of his calls was bounced to an FBI Special Agent in Billings.

“Thanks for the courtesy call,” the agent said. “Not sure to what extent we can assist. Most of our resources are going to supporting security for the pope’s visit.”

Graham also called upon Novak, the D.C. detective, to help him query Montana Highway Patrol to run Jake Conlin’s name through state motor vehicle records, for an address, for anything.

Nothing came up.

Novak had also run it through NCIC, the FBI’s Na tional Crime Information Center. Apart from the Conlin parental abduction file, nothing showed for Montana.

Now, inside the administrative office of the Sky Road Truck Mall, Cheyenne Mills, the duty manager, rotated her wedding ring as she listened to Graham and Maggie’s situation. Then she made a few calls. Con firmed a Jake “Conlynn” had rented a postal box at the mall for two months. Paid cash. No other useful details were on his rental form. Then she nodded to the glass wall of her second-level office overlooking the busy mall.

“Three, maybe even four thousand people pass through here weekly. Our customers are the salt of the earth. They’ll help you if they can. Anyone gives you trouble, tell them I said it was okay for you to show them pictures.”

For the next few hours, Maggie and Graham talked to men and women in plaid shirts, ball caps and jeans in the restaurants, the lounges, the arcades and the stores while TVs tuned to news networks showed the latest on the papal visit “…the pope visits Seattle today then it’s on to Montana and Chicago…”

They showed pictures of Jake and Logan and asked for help locating them.

But after scores of inquiries, nothing promising had emerged.

Frustrated but not defeated, Maggie stood in the lobby before the huge map of Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Below it was the usual truck stop message board, papered with ads for driving jobs, rigs, trailers and parts. The faces of missing children, women and fugitives also stared at her from old posters.

“Excuse me, are you the lady looking for a trucker and his son?”

Maggie nodded at a slim woman in her sixties, hoop earrings, bright eyes behind bifocals, snapping gum.

“Betty Pilcher. My husband, Leo, and I run the B and L Barbershop, the other side of the mall. The guys were telling us about you showing pictures. I have to run up to admin but drop by our shop in a few minutes, hon. Leo’s good at remembering faces.”

Fifteen minutes later, Leo Pilcher, a retired U.S. Army barber, stepped from the customer in his chair to stare long and hard at the photos of Jake Conlin, as Maggie and Graham awaited his assessment.

Leo nodded and went back to cutting hair.

“He was here. Only he doesn’t look like that since I worked on him.”

Graham and Maggie exchanged glances.

“You’re sure?” Maggie asked.

Leo stepped away again. The needle point of his scissors touched the corner of Jake’s right eye.

“Got a little scar right here?”

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“It was him. I’m sure. He stands out because of the scar and the changes.”

“Changes?”

Graham pulled out his notebook and asked for details.

“He walked in here, oh, about four, five months back. He had a beard, few weeks’ growth. Good head of thick, healthy hair. He wanted all the hair shaved off and wanted the beard shaved into a Vandyke, some call it a goatee. A beard without the sides. I’ll show you. Can I draw on this?”

Maggie gave Leo a pen from her bag and he sketched a Vandyke on Jake, then put his thick fingers over Jake’s hair.

“See? Like a different guy. I asked him, ‘Hey, you hiding from somebody?’ And he sort of laughed and said, ‘Something like that.’”

“Any chance he said where he was living or who he was driving for?”

Leo shook his head.

“He was the silent type. Kept to himself. I’ve seen him since in the mall, probably couple times a month. He could be local.”

Graham and Maggie went directly to the mall’s business office where Graham scanned the altered photo into his laptop computer. He e-mailed it to the Forensic Identification Section in Alberta with an urgent request for FIS to give him a clean photo of Jake Conlin with a shaved head and a Vandyke.

Less than four minutes after he sent the file, Graham’s cell phone rang.

“Corporal Graham, Simon Teale with FIS. Got your request. We’re swamped, got plenty of priority cases we’re processing now and I’ve got cases out of Red Deer and Medicine Hat in the queue ahead of you. How soon do you need this?”

“We needed it yesterday.”

“And by the case number, this is the Tarver matter.

The family in Banff.”

“Yes, is there a problem, Simon?”

“No, just confirming. I’ll do my best to expedite things. Maybe later today or tomorrow.”

“It’s just an updated photo.”

“I know we could do it quickly, but we’re shortstaffed and you know I need sign-off. Bear with us.”

“Call me the moment you have it.”

Muttering about bureaucracy, Graham told Maggie that they needed to find a motel.