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Fuck, the light.
She dimmed the screen and googled the town of Tate.
Tate, Oregon, nestled in the Willamette Valley, fifty miles south-east of Portland, fifteen miles east of Salem, home to 3,949 residents.
The first images were of a quaint, well-kept town, built around one intersection, its most prominent building a two-story red-brick family restaurant with Bucky’s written in red cursive at a jaunty angle on the front.
The public announcements of Tate PD were about fallen trees, storm damage, and buckling up to avoid getting a citation.
Caleb Veir’s disappearance had hit the news and there was a photo of him alongside the article. He was a sturdy-looking boy with dark, side-parted hair, pale skin with freckles across his nose and cheeks, and a naturally downturned mouth.
A mournful-looking kid.
Ren jumped as a figure came into her peripheral vision.
Gary. Jesus. Fuck hangover jumpiness.
‘Hey.’ He sat down beside her. He glanced at the watery pineapple juice pooled in the dying ice of her glass. He knew it was her hangover cure of choice.
Please just smell my beautiful wintergreen smokescreen breath.
‘Caleb Veir was last seen by his father, John, at seven forty-five yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘When did you get the call from Tate PD?’
‘Right before I called you last night,’ said Gary. He nodded. ‘Yes – it’s strange. The kid didn’t make it to school, but when his teacher called his mom, she couldn’t get hold of her. She left a message, then left one for the father on his cell phone and at work. He’s a corrections officer at Black River Correctional Institution outside Salem. An inmate escaped the previous day, so the teacher figured John Veir would be caught up with that and didn’t want to bother him: she figured Caleb was at home being looked after by his mom anyway – a lot of kids had been off school with a virus.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren. ‘Wouldn’t the teacher have persevered? And why wasn’t the mom answering her phone?’
‘She wasn’t home the previous night and no one could reach her the following day.’
‘Why not?’ said Ren.
‘I don’t have all the details,’ said Gary.
‘So, Caleb was alone with his father the night before he disappeared?’ said Ren. ‘What’s the father’s deal?’
‘John Veir, fifty-seven years old, ex-military, CO at BRCI for the past five years.’
Military man, corrections officer, son about to hit his teens … hmm.
There was a short silence.
‘Sylvie Ross is flying in too,’ said Gary. Sylvie Ross was an agent and child forensic interviewer. ‘I’m still seeing her.’
Loving the defiant tone. ‘That’s your business,’ said Ren.
‘I just wanted you to know,’ he said.
Why – so I’ll know to exercise the muscles of my blind eye again?
‘Thanks,’ said Ren. Honored to be part of your cheating ways.
He turned to Ren. ‘Paul Louderback’s coming too.’ There was weight to his gaze.
Tou-fucking-ché.
Paul Louderback was Ren’s former PT instructor at Quantico. He was ten years her senior, married throughout their emotional affair, then briefly separated from his wife when he and Ren slept together. He was her kill-your-curiosity fuck, the eliminate-years-of-buildup fuck. After they slept together, Ren had officially gotten together with Ben, and Paul got back with his wife. Contact had dropped since then, until he called her when he heard about the shooting.
What will my heart do when I see you again, Paul Louderback? Because I’ve no control over that.
Your heart will betray Ben and you’ll feel like shit.
The plane landed in Portland in torrential rain. Ren drove to Tate without music, listening, instead, to the sound of the rain pounding the car. It was soothing at first, but as it fell harder, faster, louder, she turned on the radio to drown it out. She focused on Gary’s car, up ahead, copied every move he made.
I am on autopilot.
What the fuck was I doing, driving last night?
Jesus. Christ.
Cliff. God bless him.
I am a shitshow.
She shook her head.
Paul Louderback … his mouth … his hands … his … one night … sexy and just a little dirty … not dirty enough … like he was unleashed but didn’t know what to do with it … an old-school gentleman trying to be filthy … he just didn’t have that thing …
That Ben and I had. That fuck-me-always-any-way-you-want-to thing.
Ben.
Stop.
As Ren drove past the Welcome to Tate sign, she saw black ribbons tied around some of the trees.
Not very hopeful.
As she approached the gates to Tate PD, she felt her stomach clench: it was chaos – news vans, reporters, law enforcement, volunteers, a K-9 Unit.
Gary slowed to a crawl in front of her, and a young Tate PD officer parted the crowd and guided them both through and into two reserved parking spaces. The building was single-story, red-brick, with a parking lot on three sides and a strip of grass planted with trees along the other.
Inside, the lobby was small, clean, and pine-scented, with fresh plants and a wall covered with community photographs that spanned decades of sporting events, picnics, barbecues, charity drives, swim meets – beaming police officers, teachers, schoolchildren, and senior citizens.
Ren and Gary checked in at the desk and took a seat.
Within minutes, a short man with a tight, round stomach came out to meet them. He looked to be in his late fifties, with sad dark brown eyes and a puffy face, pockmarked on the left side. Ren and Gary stood up.
‘Pete Ruddock,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming.’ As he shook Ren’s hand, he gave her a smile that was all about the warmth that radiated from those sad eyes.
I like you already, Pete Ruddock. Whoa. Is that pity in your eyes? Oh, God – have you read about me? You have to know what happened at Safe Streets. How could you not know?
Because he wouldn’t have been told which CARD team members were coming to Tate. Jesus.
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Ren. ‘I’m Ren Bryce.’
‘Good to meet you, Ren.’
‘Gary Dettling,’ said Gary, shaking Ruddock’s hand.
Ruddock picked up immediately on Gary’s get-to-the-point ways.
‘Something’s a little hinky with the parents,’ he said.
4 (#ulink_7f709b4a-d642-57df-9c9d-c293c1a1353a)
Ruddock guided Ren and Gary to his office. It was neat and tidy, with family photos lined across the lower shelf of a walnut cabinet. The biggest one, framed in gold, was a nineties-looking shot of Ruddock, with his arm around a short, smiling woman and two boys and a girl who looked to be in their early teens.
‘What’s your major concern?’ said Gary.
‘There are a few things,’ said Ruddock. ‘The delay in reporting Caleb missing is one.’
Ren nodded. ‘Yes, we thought that – did they explain why? Caleb should have arrived home from school at around four thirty, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Ruddock. ‘But Teddy Veir, Caleb’s mom – didn’t come home until six thirty yesterday evening. She’d been staying with a friend in Salem, Sunday night, and she was at a trade show there yesterday – she works part time in Gemstones, a kind of New-Agey shop here in Tate – sells crystals and incense and angel healing things. Her cell phone battery had died overnight and she had left her charger at home.’
‘Surely someone at the venue could have charged her phone for her,’ said Ren.
‘She said she didn’t think to ask,’ said Ruddock. ‘When she got home, she figured Caleb was at a friend’s house and that he’d be back for supper by seven. She charged her phone, called Caleb’s, left him voicemails. His phone, we now know, was upstairs in his bedroom, powered off. Teddy also tried her husband’s phone, which was diverted. She left voicemails for him, then called BRCI and they said they’d get him to call. When she checked her own messages, she heard one from Caleb’s teacher, Nicole Barton, made at eight thirty a.m., wondering if Caleb was OK, that he hadn’t shown up for school. At this point, about seven thirty p.m., with still no sign of Caleb, Teddy called neighbors and friends, but no one had seen him, and the kids from his class confirmed that he hadn’t been to school that day. Now, Teddy was panicking. At seven forty-five, she called BRCI again and insisted she would wait on the line to speak with John. He came home right away when she told him Caleb was missing.’
‘So, John Veir was working what shift?’ said Ren.
‘Well, here’s the other strange thing,’ said Ruddock. ‘He was rostered in to work at seven a.m., but he didn’t show up until the three p.m. shift.’
‘Nobody called from work to check where he was that morning?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Ruddock. ‘They were taken up with the escaped inmate from the day before.’
‘Wouldn’t that have made them even more suspicious if Veir didn’t show?’ said Ren.
‘I guess they trust him,’ said Ruddock.
‘I’m not buying that Veir screwed up his start time,’ said Ren. ‘An ex-military man who works a standard shift arrangement gets it wrong the same morning his son disappears?’
‘The only thing is,’ said Ruddock, ‘Veir was filling in for someone yesterday. It was supposed to be his day off. So it wasn’t part of his usual routine.’
‘Still,’ said Ren. ‘And when the school called, he didn’t pick up?’
‘He said he was home, but he didn’t realize the ringer was turned off.’
‘That sounds like bullshit to me,’ said Ren, ‘because he brought his cell phone to work, and he would have seen the missed call.’
Ruddock nodded. ‘Another thing that’s bothering me is that we’ve gotten reports from some of the neighbors that they heard raised voices coming from the house quite regularly. The father and son. Apparently, mother and son were very close.’
‘Did they say what the arguments were about?’ said Ren.
‘They didn’t always hear everything, but the general sense is that it was about Caleb keeping in line, not talking back, that kind of thing,’ said Ruddock. ‘We also saw something at the house – scuff marks on the bottom of Caleb’s door. On the inside. Like it had been kicked at. And the doorjamb looked damaged, as if someone was trying to open a locked door.’
‘They lock him in?’ said Ren.
Ruddock shook his head. ‘Both parents said the door was never locked, and that they had never even seen a key.’
‘We only have the father’s word that Caleb was alive and well yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘No one else can confirm that. What if something went down the night before? The father locks Caleb in, Caleb goes nuts, the father goes too far. And if that happened Sunday night, that would have given him a lot of time to figure out a plan to get rid of the body.’
‘No traces of blood were found anywhere in the house or in the garage,’ said Ruddock. ‘Plus no one saw John Veir leave the house Sunday evening, which of course, doesn’t mean a whole lot, but he hasn’t come up on any of the traffic cams yet.’
‘And what about yesterday?’ said Ren.
‘There aren’t a lot on that route,’ said Ruddock, ‘but we have him at a 7-Eleven on I-5 at 14.05. Bought a bottle of water, some gum.’
‘Any dramatic eyeballing of the security camera?’ said Ren. ‘Any sense that he was trying to time-stamp his activity to prove he couldn’t have been elsewhere?’
‘Well, he looked up when he walked into the store,’ said Ruddock. ‘But he could have done that anyway.’
‘Did he always stop on his way to work?’ said Ren. ‘Like, I hate doing that – I want to get in my car – bam – arrive in work, no stops.’
‘Guess it depends on how long the journey is,’ said Ruddock. ‘His is an hour. But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t think it was significant.’
‘Clearly you still don’t,’ said Ren, smiling.
Ruddock smiled back.
Lovely smile.
‘What have you done in terms of a search?’ said Gary.
‘As much as we could in darkness last night,’ said Ruddock. ‘We have a search organized to start here at midday. We wanted to make that appeal at the press conference too, maximize volunteer numbers.’
‘What about the missing inmate?’ said Gary. ‘Could he be connected to this?’
‘Too early to say,’ said Ruddock. ‘His name is Franklin J. Merrifield – he’s eighteen months into a thirty-five year sentence for robbery, homicide, rape, and arson. He was admitted to Salem Hospital on Sunday because of a seizure, and escaped while he was there – the guard watching him was sleeping, but may have been drugged. Whether the seizure was faked, and this was all planned ahead of time, we don’t know. And seizure activity doesn’t always show up in EEGs. He had an appeal rejected just last month. His buddy cut a deal with the prosecution and had his sentence reduced to seventeen years.’
‘On what grounds was the appeal?’ said Ren.
‘Merrifield has maintained his innocence throughout,’ said Ruddock. ‘He admits to the robbery, but denies all other charges. He says he was going along for the ride, didn’t know his buddy was carrying a firearm. His appeal was on the grounds that the jury was poorly instructed on accomplice liability.’
‘When was Merrifield reported missing?’ said Gary.
‘Five p.m., Sunday,’ said Ruddock.
