The Depth of Darkness (Mitch Tanner #1) (7 page)

“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s go check this
place out before that police tape gets cut in two.”

We both exited the Camaro and walked up to
the front of the store. A painted striped line covered two-thirds
of the glass. Sam could see over it easily. I had to rise up on the
tips of my toes. The area in front of us was where the clerk would
have stood. They had to work all day with their backs to the pumps.
Not a great idea in my experience. The cash register hung open, no
one behind the counter to close it. The aisles were barren. So we
went around to the left side of the store. The doors there were
locked. I knocked on the glass door while Sam headed around back.
No one answered or appeared from the back of the store. I knocked
again. A minute later I saw Sam through the glass, on the other
side of the store. He gave the door there a yank and then shrugged
his shoulders. We met in front of the building.

“I’ll call Huff,” I said, pulling out my cell
phone.

Huff answered on the second ring. “You guys
there?”

“Yeah, Huff, but the kid’s not.”

“Where is he?”

“How should I know? Ain’t no one here,
man.”

“Sit tight for a few. I’ll make a few calls
and get back to you.”

I wrapped my hand around my phone and stuffed
both in my pocket. I stared over the hood of the Camaro at the fast
food joint across the street. A line of cars wrapped around the
side and back. A little early for lunch, I thought. Perhaps the
late breakfast crowd.

“What’s the deal?” Sam asked.

“He’s gonna call us back.”

“Sounds promising.” Sam shook his head and
looked at the ground. He kicked a cigarette butt off the
sidewalk.

“Sounds like we’re wasting an hour of our
time.”

“At least we get paid no matter what.”

“Screw the paycheck. I want Roy Miller in
custody.”

“I know, Mitch. Just giving you a hard
time.”

“Every minute we stand around here, Miller
gets that much farther away.”

“He’ll slip up. Don’t you worry about it. The
guy ain’t that smart. Before you know it, he’ll make a mistake and
we’ll have him in custody. Someone’ll have him in custody.”

Sam, my ever-optimistic partner. I never
understood it. With all the crap he saw in Afghanistan as an Army
Ranger, how could he be so positive? He’d always said it was
because he came home alive. Many of his friends didn’t. But I knew
there were thoughts he did not share with me. Memories that were
too painful. I could see it in his eyes and that distant stare out
to nowhere.

“He should have never escaped our custody,” I
said. One of us had to be pragmatic.

We fell silent. The rolling tide of vehicles
filled the void, like at the beach. As soon as one wave headed back
into the ocean, another broke. By this time of day, the morning
commuters were already at work. These cars belonged to people
heading from one far off destination to another. Truckers making
that long haul up and down good old I-95. One long boring strip of
highway that would take you from Miami to the Houlton–Woodstock
Border Crossing, just east of Houlton, Maine, at the Canadian
border.

My phone vibrated in my hand. “Yeah, Huff,” I
said.

“Trail’s dead, Tanner. Lost my lead on the
kid and nothing new on Miller.”

I paused and exhaled into the phone. “All
right.” I ended the call and looked toward 95.

“Well?” Sam asked.

“Wasted our time.”

“Nah, we got to bond. Never a waste of time.”
I didn’t have to look to know he had that boyish grin spread across
his face.

“Think we should try to track the kid down on
our own?”

“The security footage will tell us all we
need to know once we get our hands on it. No need to waste any more
time up here.”

“Wanna get a drink?”

Sam looked at his watch. “A little early for
that.”

I shrugged. “Maybe you got a point. It’s five
o’clock somewhere, though.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Get in the car and cut
the cliches.”

And so I did. We got back on the interstate,
heading south. I spotted a sign for a Cracker Barrel and told Sam
to take the exit.

“Place is always packed,” he argued.

“That’s ‘cause it’s good,” I countered.

“Look, there’s a Waffle House, two more
exits. We can get in and out and be back in town in time for
lunch.” Good ‘ole Sam, planning with his stomach.

“I want pancakes.”

“You can get them at Waffle House.”

“No you can’t. It’s not called Pancake House.
It’s the Waffle House for a reason.”

“I bet you twenty bucks you can get pancakes
there.”

“Twenty bucks?” I said.

He nodded.

“Show me,” I said.

He stopped at the light at the end of the
exit and unfolded an Andrew Jackson in front of me.

“Shoot, keep on going,” I said. “We’re going
to Waffle House. You might as well hand that over to me right
now.”

It turned out that Sam knew there were no
pancakes served at the establishment. He was willing to part with
twenty bucks if it meant not waiting a half-hour or more in those
stiff wooden rocking chairs that line the porch of every Cracker
Barrel in the U.S. of A.

We slid into a booth just past the counter. A
good seat, I noted. Not held together with duct tape like some
diners I’d been at in the past. I ate my waffles, not leaving a
single piece behind. Not pancakes, but they were good. A side order
of sausage rounded out my meal. The coffee was better than I had
expected. Good enough that I’d consider coming back. I had two
cups, black. After I finished I licked the grease off of my
fingertips and leaned back in the booth, stretching both arms out
along the vinyl top. It didn’t take long for my stomach to feel
like it contained a thirty-five pound kettlebell.

“Aren’t you glad we came here?” Sam asked,
tearing a corner from his over-buttered toast and stuffing it into
his mouth.

I nodded. At the same time, the waitress came
by and asked if I wanted anymore coffee. I declined, as did
Sam.

“Just the check,” he said to her. Then he
turned his head toward me. “You’ve had some time to think and eat
and drink that coffee.”

“I have.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Waffle House makes good waffles and
great coffee.”

Sam smiled. “You’re easy to please, but
that’s not what I meant.”

“I know, man, I know.”

Sam mirrored my posture and waited for me to
give him an answer. I knew he wouldn’t agree to leave until I did.
We’d been through this a time or fifty before.

“This guy’s a bit odd,” I started.

“That psychology degree tell you that?”

“It’s a minor, which means I took about four
classes. And yeah, it does. So does my common sense. And don’t you
go ragging on me for getting some kind of education.”

“Hey, I got my education out there in the
‘Stan.”

I nodded. While not college, spending a year
or two in Afghanistan should qualify any soldier for a degree. At
least an Associate’s in ass-kicking and bullshit-bureaucracy.

“So give me a diagnosis,” Sam said.

“On you? We don’t have enough time for that
you philandering fool.”

Sam smiled as he used his last piece of toast
to soak up the remaining egg yolk on his plate. “On Roy.”

“I’d have to go look at those old textbooks.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. I remembered what I had learned. But I
also wasn’t qualified to be making any kind of determination about
the man. Not without talking to him in the proper setting first.
And even then, I couldn’t call myself a psychologist. I knew enough
to be dangerous. The degree helped in the sense that a wet dishrag
helps when you run out of toilet paper. It creates a mess you can’t
just flush away.

“Best guess, Mitch?” Sam’s expression turned
serious. He thirsted for knowledge on what we were facing.

“This cat’s got no family that we’re aware
of. Just his wife and now she’s dead. He’s only got a couple of
friends that we’ve found. Born and raised in the city. Never served
in the military. Never spent time abroad or anywhere else in the
U.S. of A. He’s a loner. He’s suicidal, based on his actions the
other night. He might have killed his old lady. Would he do it
again? He’s on the run, he’s alone or with one other person. If
cornered, or in the right situation, he’d kill again. Especially if
the person he’s with is so inclined. He might have taken his wife’s
life, someone he cared about, at least at one time. If he did that,
he probably won’t hesitate to take another life that means less to
him. As for all the other stuff, we’d need a profiler to give us
some help.”

Sam nodded and said nothing.

“We might need to dig a bit deeper. Who was
the other guy? Maybe there was a childhood friend who moved away
that he’s kept in touch with.”

Sam nodded again, remaining silent.

“He’s not that old. We should dig up his
elementary school and see if any teachers remember him.”

Sam nodded. “Good idea.”

“Let’s also find out what happened to his
parents.”

“I got part of that,” Sam said.
“Deceased.”

“Yeah, I got that, too. But how?”

He nodded again. He pulled a notebook from
his inside pocket and jotted on a blank page.

“I see this guy killing himself before going
to jail,” I said. “I say that with one caveat though. One that
could lead to him making us take him out.”

Sam looked up from his notebook and lifted an
eyebrow. “Do tell, partner.”

“Huff said there were two of them. Now, we
still don’t know if the ID was good or not, but—”

“Strength in numbers. We find the childhood
friend, we probably find the guy Roy’s riding with, and maybe find
where they’re staying.”

I snapped my fingers and aimed my forefinger
at him. “You got it, bro. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I was on my cell phone before we got back
outside. I spoke so fast that Huff told me to slow down at least
ten times.

“Okay, Tanner,” Huff said. “I got some of
this in the works already. Expect to have the parental history on
my desk by the time you get back. I like the childhood friend
angle, but don’t get your hopes up there. I’ll get a couple guys on
it once we find out which schools he went to. Then we can see if
any of his old teachers are still present at the school or in the
area. Some of them might be retired by now. I sent Horace and
Fairchild out to act on a tip we received after you left.”

“You did what?” I shouted.

Sam turned his head, dipped his chin to his
chest and looked at me over the rim of his sunglasses. I waved him
off.

“Set your huge ego aside, Tanner. We need to
get this guy and bring him in. Besides, it’s not a tip on his
location, rather about him. A friend stepped forward, said he had
some information that could help us. I figure, at the least, he’ll
lead us to Miller’s social circle.”

“Speaking of that, let’s get his PC.”

“What?”

“His computer,” I said, leaving out the words
dumb
and
ass
.

“Oh, yeah, good call. I’ll get forensics on
that. Maybe we’ll find some dirty pictures on there.”

“Not quite what I was thinking, Huff, but
have at it.”

“Shut up, Tanner. You know what I mean.”

I wasn’t going there.

“All right, Tanner. You two get back here
ASAP.”

I hung up and adjusted the vent so the cold
air hit me in the face. The temperature had risen past eighty
degrees with the humidity even higher. Oppressive was the word to
describe it. I shifted in my seat so I could look at Sam without
twisting my neck. A kink had developed that ran from my right
shoulder to the base of my skull. The result of sleeping on the
couch all night. And for what reason? Because I’d been too lazy to
climb upstairs.

“What’s up?” Sam asked.

“He’s already working the parent angle.” I
rubbed my neck and shoulder. “Said he should have a history worked
up for us by the time we get back.”

“Why’d you yell?”

“He brought Horace and Fairchild in on
this.”

“Gotta be kidding me.”

“I know, right.”

“Why?”

“Acting on a tip,” I said, shaking my head.
“Supposedly one of Roy’s friends made a call and said he had some
information.”

“The damning kind?”

I hiked my shoulders an inch. “Dunno. But the
hope is that friend A might lead us to friends B through E.”

“Assuming he has that many friends.”

“Right.”

“And the teacher thing?”

“He’s gonna have the records pulled, then
check with the city to find out if any of those teachers are still
working and/or living in the area. But you know, even if we find
one or two, they might not remember him.”

Sam nodded as he reached for his blinker. He
tapped it up with his left hand and swerved the Camaro a lane to
the right.

I glanced at the speedometer. We were going
one hundred and five. Without lights and sirens.

“I bet we get pulled over,” I said.

He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be some shit?”

“We could have them give us an escort.”

“You know these pricks, Mitch. They’d be
happier if they took us in for reckless.”

“What’s this us crap? You carrying a gerbil
up your ass?”

Sam laughed and eased up on the gas. “Guess I
can drop down to about eighty-five. Ain’t no point in getting
pulled over.”

“That’s why we should take my car at all
times.”

“Your car smells.”

I looked at him, paused, then said, “Like
your sister after a night out.”

The banter went on for most of the ride. It
was silly and pointless and it distracted us from the mess we would
have to face when we reached the office. If only I’d known that the
situation was going to get worse, I might have told Sam to turn the
car around.