A Hard Man To Forget Page 8

  Rick Simmons, murdered in the desert.

  An attempted abduction of Cassady Simmons.

  She decided to start there. Why an abduction? Why kill her husband, and not her? Why kill him, but only kidnap her?

  That didn’t make sense to Pauling.

  Unless they wanted something from the husband, who refused to give it up, and died in the process.

  So then they moved on to Cassady.

  That was a possibility.

  Another angle was that they planned to kill Cassady, too, eventually. The abduction may have only been step one in the process. They’d been interrupted. Maybe the plan had been to kidnap Cassady, take her somewhere, and torture her. Clearly, they were after something. The problem was, Pauling didn’t know what. And even worse, she believed Cassady didn’t know, either.

  Pauling continued to cruise down the highway, to the west. Her sleep had been brief, but solid. The coffee had woken her up, and she was excited to have turned in the babysitting part of the job for the actual investigation work.

  It suited her better.

  She’d gotten an idea of the location of the crime scene from the cops who’d arrived at Cassady’s house.

  It didn’t take long for her to find the spot. There were several orange cones pulled off to the side of the road. Behind them were tire marks and loose debris. Out of the corner of her eye, far off in the desert, she thought she could see the flutter of crime scene tape.

  Pauling pulled the car off the road and parked. She checked her cell phone to make sure she had a good signal and it was fully charged. Her gun was in its holster. She locked the car up, slipped the keys into her front pocket and began the hike across the desert to the spot where Rick Simmons had most likely been killed.

  She couldn’t be accused of tampering with a crime scene, as it was basically abandoned, and too big an area to keep contained. Plus, since it was the local cops who’d let slip the location of the crime, they wouldn’t be in any kind of a big hurry to admit their mistake.

  As she walked, Pauling had to admit that she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. Just trying to get a feel for what may have happened and why this location.

  The morning sky was just beginning to turn from orange to blue, and the cool desert breeze felt good on her face. She’d put on trail running shoes and blue jeans, with a black t-shirt and light jacket. Her pistol was snug on her hip.

  She spotted a small mound of dirt, a shallow depression, and the remains of two flags of crime scene tape.

  This was the spot.

  Where Cassady’s husband met his fate.

  She slowly approached the site of Rick Simmons’ final resting place and scanned the area. Not much. A few scrub bushes, rocks and sand. A stand of cactus off to the north. A bird flew overhead, looking for a meal, no doubt.

  Pauling knew the cops would leave the crime scene like this for the time being. Eventually, someone would come and take down the signs, after the investigation was over. Or maybe not. Maybe they’d leave it all for the desert to reclaim. Cassady might come out and somehow mark the spot with a cross.

  Then again, Pauling didn’t know if the young woman was strong enough for that kind of thing. Certainly not for awhile.

  Pauling wondered about the time of the murder. She imagined the killers had waited to do it at night. Far from the road. They would have needed to eliminate the possibility of being seen by the occasional passing car. They were far enough from the city to the point where there was very little traffic. But there was enough that it would have been a factor to some degree.

  The first insight she gained was that the killers were brazen.

  They must have parked their car. But where? She walked back and studied the tire tracks. There were too many. She wondered if the cops had noticed the tracks.

  Had the killers simply pulled their car off the road and parked on the shoulder? That would have taken some nerve. A parked car on the side of the highway at night? Say a cop just happened to cruise by and notice the vehicle. They would stop, jot down the license. Call it in. Proof that the car was there.

  No, they would have driven the car all the way off the highway, into the desert, far enough from the road to make sure no one had seen them.

  Which meant their tracks were in the sand.

  Pauling hoped the cops had taken good photos of the tracks. They would possibly come in handy. She thought of the Crown Vic from Cassady’s house. No way to tell if the tires were a match just looking at them.

  The other thing about the crime scene was that it seemed sudden. Like, they hadn’t had a good plan of where to take Rick Simmons.

  It seemed like a location chosen by means of opportunity.

  They grabbed him here, killed him here, and left him here.

  It just didn’t seem like the kind of place to dump bodies. Too close to the city. Not far enough from the road.

  They had a huge desert to choose from, yet they chose this spot.

  Maybe they were just lazy.

  And not as professional as she might have first assumed.

  The other mistake they made was that they hadn’t dug the grave deep enough. The coyote found it. The plane saw it. It should have been dug much deeper with a lot more sand on it. And then some rocks should have been scattered on top. Big enough that a small mammal couldn’t push the rocks off.

  Again, maybe lazy.

  Or maybe amateurs.

  Or both.

  Pauling stayed another twenty minutes, walking and thinking, taking some photos of the scene for later examination and to confirm details.

  She decided she’d gotten all she could, so Pauling started walking back to her car. When her vehicle was in sight, she saw another car drive by her rented Impala.

  It was going at a slow, steady speed. Perhaps a bit slower than normal, which is what caught Pauling’s attention.

  It was past then, and sped up noticeably.

  Pauling got a glimpse of two people in the car. One driver. One passenger.

  She couldn’t tell if they were men or women.

  Or if they were the same two men who had tried to grab Cassady.

  But the car was a Crown Vic.

  Pauling considered chasing after them, but they had already crested the horizon by the time she got to her car and a high-speed chase would have been pointless.

  Instead, she headed for Cassady’s house.

  And Michael Tallon.

  38

  “Is this what normal people do?” Tallon asked.

  He was sitting in Cassady’s living room. The bullet holes from the failed abduction were still visible, but he had cleaned up the plaster and dust on the floor.

  Pauling had just arrived, fresh from her foray into the desert.

  Tallon thought she looked especially good. Perfectly fitting blue jeans, a light cotton short-sleeved shirt and hiking shoes.

  “Yeah, but most people have the television on,” Pauling pointed out.

  “I tried that but it was annoying,” Tallon answered. “Much better this way. Quiet.”

  The couch was so soft he felt like he was sinking into it. Becoming a part of it.

  “I read somewhere that the average person watches something like five hours a day of television,” Tallon continued. “How is that even possible?”

  “It’s called binge-watching,” Pauling said. “Where’s Cassady?”

  “She’s in her room,” Tallon said. “Crying.”

  He had tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t very responsive. Tallon had figured that role might be better suited for Pauling, anyway.

  “There’s coffee,” he added.

  “Let me check on her first,” Pauling said.

  Tallon waited. He could smell Pauling’s perfume. It was nice. Clean. Refreshing. A little citrus in there. Pauling was even better looking than he’d remembered. He wondered about her background with the FBI. He knew she’d handled some high-profile cases, even been involved with one that involved some mercen
aries. The soldiers of fortune were people Tallon had known of vaguely, which was why the case had stuck with him, probably. He also recalled that was the situation where Jack Reacher had gotten involved.

  Tallon had a feeling there’d been more between Reacher and Pauling than just detective work. Something about the way she looked when Reacher’s name was mentioned.

  That thought was interrupted when Pauling came back out of Cassady’s room.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  They each took up a corner of the kitchen table, a fresh cup of coffee now in front of Pauling.

  “What did you find?” Tallon asked. “Anything the cops missed?”

  He watched Pauling as she formulated her response.

  “Death in the desert, and not much else,” she said. “They found whatever they were going to find. It wasn’t like I was going to come across a spent shell casing they’d overlooked or something. I just wanted to see where it happened.”

  She had a tablet and opened up the map app, tapped a few times with her finger and showed it to Tallon.

  “Here’s where it happened,” she said. She set the tablet on the table and spun it around for Tallon to see.

  He looked at the map.

  “So we’re here,” he said. He put his finger near the location of Cassady’s house.

  “And she works here,” Pauling said, pointing out Cassady’s office building.

  “What about the husband?” Tallon asked.

  “He was a truck driver. Rio Grande Trucking,” Pauling said. She dug through her notes from her first conversation with Cassady and came up with an address, which she copied down by hand.

  She pushed it across the table to Tallon.

  He called it up on the tablet and the three locations made a nice little triangle.

  “Why don’t you go check Rio Grande Trucking?” Pauling said. “I’ll stay with here for the time being,” Pauling said. “I’m not too worried about them coming for her again.”

  Tallon snatched up the address and headed for the door.

  He wondered if Pauling would start getting some of her five hours of required television viewing in while he was gone.

  Probably not.

  Like him, she liked action.

  And now, he was very glad to be back in action.

  39

  Tallon liked the tag-team approach. He’d done a fair amount of personal security jobs. They paid well but weren’t his favorite task.

  Usually, he felt like a babysitter with a gun.

  So he was more than happy to let Pauling stay with the woman.

  The house was secure. Pauling was good. He wasn’t worried about it.

  Tallon plugged Rio Grande Trucking’s address into his phone’s navigation and followed it west out of Albuquerque. He drove past a strip mall with a mega store, gas station and fast food restaurant.

  Later on, he passed a mobile home dealership.

  He realized he’d never seen a mobile home dealership. But of course there would be such a thing. It’s not like people would buy them online.

  A long stretch of desert followed until he came to an intersection where his navigation told him to turn.

  He did so and found himself in front of an abandoned gas station. There was ancient plywood over the windows. The gas pumps were long gone, filled over with concrete. Scrub weeds were everywhere.

  It had the look of a business that had gone belly up at least a decade or two ago.

  Tallon parked and looked at the ghostly setting in front of him.

  If Rio Grande Trucking existed, this certainly wasn’t it. There was no way this place had been in existence until a few weeks ago.

  This enterprise had gone out of business a long time ago.

  He texted Pauling and asked her to confirm the address, which she did. She even said it was the correct address according to the business information listed on the Internet, which they both knew didn’t mean a lot. But still. For some reason, this address was linked with Rio Grande Trucking.

  Now curious, Tallon got out of his vehicle and walked up to the door. There was some graffiti, and it looked like someone had tried to pry the door open, to no avail. Litter was strewn around but looked like most of it had been investigated and discarded by the local rodent population.

  Tallon walked around to the side of the building.

  Everything was gone.

  The foundation for a small air conditioning unit was there, but the unit itself had been removed, along with any piping and electrical conditions. Anything of scrap value looked like it had been severed with a cutting instrument, probably a reciprocating saw. The kind that goes through wood and metal.

  Not stolen, just methodically removed with very little effort at conservation. Which told Tallon this was possibly a bankruptcy and foreclosure situation. Parts stripped off for what little money the bank could get.

  In the rear of the building was a small parking lot, a few spaces probably for the employees, and maybe a few for repaired cars or two.

  Not a very ambitious parking lot. Maybe that lack of purpose was one of the reasons the place had gone kaput.

  All of the parking spaces were empty now. Just cracked asphalt. Loose gravel. And weeds.

  Tallon had quickly dismissed the idea that Rick Simmons had been working here until recently. There was no Rio Grande Trucking here. Maybe they’d moved. He thought about calling Pauling and seeing if there was perhaps another Rio Grande Trucking. But he figured she was a pro and would have already done that.

  He stood looking at the sad sight in front of him.

  It was all wrong for a trucking company, too. They would need a big loading dock. Places to park the big rigs. Sure, there was plenty of empty space around, but not the kind a trucking company would need. Even if it was a tiny company, say, with only a truck or two. This still wouldn’t fit the bill.

  Tallon continued his walk around the building. Above a side door he spotted an under-mounted black dome of glass. Small, just big enough for a camera. Probably disconnected and not powered.

  Still, a little odd the dome of glass hadn’t been smashed. It looked like the area was home to more than a few vandals. Everything else had been pretty much torn away, covered up, or left in ruin.

  Tallon thought about the idea of a fake address being used for Rio Grande Trucking.

  In his experience, fake addresses were a lot like fake names.

  Often, they held a clue to the truth. People on the run often chose a new identity using the same initials as their real name. John Smith became Joe Sullivan. That sort of thing.

  Maybe this abandoned gas station had something to do with Rick Simmons’ murder.

  Then two things happened.

  Pauling called and said that it was possible to take a different road from the address of Rio Grande Trucking to the area where Rick Simmons’ body had been found. A shortcut of sort. Not only was it a straight shot, but it meant the distance between the two locations was less than a mile. Which seemed like a huge coincidence to Pauling.

  And it seemed that way to Tallon, too.

  The other thing he realized was a bit more immediate.

  Tallon suddenly realized he wasn’t alone.

  40

  “I have a question about Rick’s job,” Pauling said.

  Cassady was flat on her back in bed. Her eyes were rimmed with red. A box of Kleenex was next to her. She had a pillow in her arms and was hugging it close to her body. Using it like an inadequate shield.

  “What?” Cassady asked.

  “Have you ever been to his job? His place of work?”

  “He was a truck driver,” Cassady said. “He didn’t have an office. His cab was his place of work.”

  She sniffled and pushed a wad of Kleenex up against the base of her nose.

  “Did he ever say anything about having to visit the company’s office?” Pauling asked. “You know, like its headquarters?”

  “No.”

  “What about paperw
ork?” Pauling asked. “Most truck companies have a physical office where they keep the paperwork, if nothing else. Did he ever say anything about having to drop off paperwork, or pick up a load. Anything like that?”

  Cassady shook her head. A flash of irritation crossed her face.

  “What does this have to do with what happened?” Cassady said. She sounded angry, and Pauling realized a lot of the emotion was simple fatigue and shock. Mixed together with a devastating depression.

  “Why are you asking me about this? He was a truck driver,” Cassady said. “Nobody does this to somebody because they drive a truck.”

  Pauling decided not to tell her what Tallon had found. Not yet, anyway.

  “I guess I was just wondering if he ever had to go and meet with a boss. Or a secretary. Or a dispatcher or something like that. Was there ever a reason he had to go to the physical office of Rio Grande Trucking?”

  “Nope. Never,” Cassady said.

  Like everything else on this case, it was a dead end. Was there a Rio Grande Trucking? Had Rick made the whole thing up? If so, who did he work for? And who did he work with?

  “Did he ever talk about anyone at work? Any names? Any coworkers?” she asked. Her voice betrayed the incredibly low odds of receiving a positive response. It was a long shot, through and through.

  Now the irritation in Cassady’s face morphed into something else.

  “Sandy.” Cassady said it with far too much emotion.

  “Sandy?” Pauling replied. “Who’s Sandy?”

  Cassady waved a hand clutching a Kleenex like she was dismissing the thought.

  “I assumed it was a dispatcher or something,” she said. “Somebody who would actually have a reason to talk with the drivers,” Cassady said.

  Pauling caught the undercurrent of emotion.

  “Rick didn’t say who she was?”

  “Nope.”

  It was definitely not adding up. Pauling decided to press the issue.

  “He just said her name? Without any context?”

  Cassady’s mouth narrowed to a severe, thin line. She turned to Pauling and her eyes cleared, shining with an intensity that hadn’t been there before.