Walk the Wire

Chapter 52

The farm looked like something out of The Grapes of Wrath, only with less dust and a modicum of water sources.

They pulled to a stop in front of the plank-sided house and got out. There was a dirty and ancient Jeep two-door parked in the front. They could see a barn in the distance, and corrals full of cows collected around a water trough and salt lick. There was also a paddock where some bow-backed horses nibbled grass. The overall operation looked neat and efficient.

The leaning mailbox at the end of the dirt road had said PURDY, so they knew they were in the right place.

Before they could reach the front steps, the screen door opened and a woman stood there, a Remington over-under shotgun in hand. She was in her midfifties, with long gray hair, a slender, wiry build, and a pair of piercing blue eyes. She had on faded dungarees, weathered boots, and a checkered shirt tucked into the pants. The belt holding them up was made of knotted leather. Her face was wrinkled and tanned. And full of suspicion.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Jamison immediately took out her FBI creds and badge.

“FBI Special Agent Alex Jamison. My partner, Amos Decker. Are you Beverly Purdy?”

Instead of de-escalating the situation, this only caused the woman to raise the gun and point it directly at them, her finger near the trigger. “What the hell do you want? You tell me right now.”

Decker stepped forward, putting himself between Jamison and the gun. “We wanted to talk to Ben, if he’s here.”

She snapped. “He’s not. But why do you want to talk to him?”

“We’re not with the Air Force, if that’s what you’re thinking. And we have no interest in whether he might be absent without leave. We just want to talk to him about his last posting, in London, North Dakota.”

“Bullshit. You’ve come to arrest him.”

“Why would we do that?”

“You just said. AWOL.”

“We’re investigating a series of murders in London.”

“Ben didn’t kill nobody.”

“We’re not suggesting he did. He was long gone before the killings took place. But he said something to someone back in London. We just wanted to ask him what he meant by that. We believe it might have ties to our investigation.”

The woman slowly lowered the weapon. “He’s not here, like I said.”

“Was he here at some point?”

“He might’a been,” she said guardedly.

“Do you know where we could find him?”

She shook her head. “Got no idea. Haven’t heard from him in a while.”

“And so you must be worried?” said Jamison, coming to stand next to Decker.

“I’m his ma, ’course I’m worried.”

“Well, we’re worried about him too, so maybe together we can find him.”

“I... I don’t know.”

“I get that you’re suspicious, Mrs. Purdy. So just to show our good faith, we’ll leave now. But can I give you our contact information so he could call us if you do see him? All we want to do is talk to him, not arrest him. That’s all.” He pulled a card from his jacket pocket and held it out to her.

She looked at the paper warily, as though if she touched it she might feel pain. But, apparently now satisfied that they were not here to arrest her son, Purdy said, “Look, do you all want to come in? I just made some fresh coffee.”

Decker glanced at Jamison and said, “Sounds good. It was a long drive. And it’s colder here than it was in North Dakota.”

They followed her inside. The front room was dominated by heads of animals mounted on the wall.

Purdy caught Jamison gawking and said, “My husband and Ben were avid hunters. Most everybody in these parts are. But it’s not just for show. We eat what we shoot.”

She led them into a small, plain kitchen with pine cupboards and dark, swirl-patterned, laminated countertops. The floor was aged linoleum and the furnishings rustic. The curtains around the windows looked to be about fifty years old. The whole place seemed locked in time from around then.

She set the Remington in a gun rack on the wall and pointed to two chairs around the table. “Take a seat.”

They sat while she got the coffee and cups together.

After she poured and handed out their drinks, she joined them at the table. She moved a stray hair out of her eyes and sipped her coffee, not meeting their curious gazes.

“We understand you live here alone?” said Decker.

The blue eyes flashed. “Who told you that? You been spying on me?” Her gaze darted to the shotgun. “What do you want? You tell me now.”

“We already told you,” replied Decker calmly. “To talk to your son.”

“That’s what you said,” she retorted in a skeptical tone. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“It is true,” said Jamison. “We just want to talk to him. We are not here to arrest him. That is not our concern. We have no jurisdiction over his military career.”

“Feds are Feds,” Purdy snapped.

“It may seem like it, but it doesn’t actually work that way, at least not in our case,” said Decker.

She finally calmed and said, “My husband died three years ago. I was hoping Ben would come back here and help me run the place. But that didn’t happen.”

Decker said, “You told us he might’ve been here. Was he here? Did he talk to you about what might have happened back there, that caused him to leave the way he did?”

Purdy fingered her coffee cup. “They... they moved everybody from that place. Meaning the Air Force, Ben, and the others.”

“Right, a private security firm named Vector came in to run the facility,” said Jamison.

“Don’t know about that.”

“What did he do there?” asked Decker.

“Technical stuff. Computers and the like.” She snapped her fingers. “Radar, I think he said. But not anymore, I guess.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Jamison.

“Like I just said, they reassigned Ben and the others. I guess there’s nobody left to do the radar and such. He trained for it, you know. He was good at his job. Real smart. Always has been.”

“So he was upset about being transferred out?” asked Decker.

“Yeah.”

“But surely he’d been reassigned before. I mean, you go where the military tells you to.”

Purdy looked confused by this. “Well, that’s right. He was in Nebraska for a while, then Colorado. Then he got transferred to North Dakota. So that’s right.”

“He never got upset about those transfers?” said Decker.

“No.”

“But he did this time?”

“He... he called me one night, over a year ago. He said, ‘Ma, they’re moving us out. We’re going to the East Coast somewhere.’ I forget where he said, and then they were being reassigned to Colorado, I think. Least he was.”

“But he didn’t go?” said Decker.

She looked up at him nervously. “You sure you’re not here to get him in trouble?”

“I give you my word. Did he ever say anything to you that showed he was troubled by something?”

“Not in so many words, no, but I could tell something was bothering him. When he would call, he didn’t sound like himself.”

“Did he know about the changes taking place at the installation?”

“No, he never mentioned anything like that to me.”

“Did he ever mention a Colonel Mark Sumter?”

“No.”

“Has he been back here since then?” asked Jamison.

“Once,” she said, looking down at her long, weathered fingers. “About ten months ago. He’d lost weight, wouldn’t meet my eye. I asked what was wrong. But all he said was he couldn’t tell me without maybe getting me in trouble.”

“Was he in uniform?”

“No, he didn’t always come home dressed up. But he only had a backpack with him. Not big enough for his uniforms and all. I asked him where he was stationed. ‘Out in Colorado?’ I asked. But he just changed the subject. He said if anybody came looking for him, to just say I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

Decker said, “And did people come looking for him?”

She nodded. “The Air Force. Three times. Said he was AWOL. In a lot of trouble. When Ben come here that one time it was late at night, and he didn’t stay long. He left the next morning at the crack of dawn. I told him about the Air Force folks. He said not to worry. I haven’t seen him since,” she added gravely, her voice breaking.

“Did anyone else ever come looking for him, besides the Air Force?” said Jamison.

Purdy took another sip of coffee before answering. “No, just them. Nobody else.”

Jamison asked, “Did he have any close friends in North Dakota? Anyone he served with that he might have mentioned?”

“Not that he said, no.”

“Did he ever mention anyone named Irene Cramer?” asked Decker.

Purdy thought about this but then shook her head. “Not that I recall, no. Who is she?”

“One of the people who was killed.”

Purdy shook her head. “I worry myself sick that Ben’s dead, too. He’s never gone this long without calling me. What do you all think is going on at that place?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Decker. “Does Ben have a room here?”

“In the back.”

“Is that where he slept the last time he was here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if we have a look?”

She rose and led them down the hall.