Bo’s defensiveness was over the top. “Of course, not. Jordan is a smart guy but
people
are what scare the hell out of him. So he uses his intelligence to set himself above others and create distance so he doesn’t have to interact.”
“So, the riddle about shovels is just a coincidence…bein’ that a clue sent to us is
also
a riddle?” There was a nasty edge to Bo’s voice.
“Maybe he’s just messing with your head. Besides the Van Gordens, how many people know about the clues?”
“Oh, the whole goddamn town!” Bo said, leaning back in his chair and taking a quick puff on his cigar. “See, I have the local paper print ’em up on the front page every time one rolls in the door!”
Weyler cut in. “Bo, she didn’t mean it that way!”
“Jesus Christ, you think that because we’re small and understaffed that I don’t know how to run an investigation?”
“I’m not trying to insult you,” Jane defended herself.
“Well, it sure as hell comes off that way!”
Jane had only seen this kind of defensiveness in cops who were covering up for what they felt were other inadequacies—like dropping the ball and worrying about getting caught. The snappish responses were always a telltale sign to Jane that the cop in question wasn’t as surefooted as he made himself out to be. “We didn’t see the whole videotape. I’m just wondering if you used the kidnapper’s clues as leverage when you were interviewing Jordan.”
“No, I did not! The only people who know about the clues,
besides myself and Vi, are the Van Gordens and
they
only know about the ones that come directly to them.”
“Why does Vi have to know?”
“
Why not
?” Bo was standing now, one fist on his desk supporting him.
Great. More defensiveness
. Jane shook her head in amazement. “Jesus, what’s the deal here? Are you and Vi a couple?”
Weyler grimaced. “Jane.
No
.”
Bo took a step back. “Goddamnit, Morgan! I don’t have to put up with this shit!”
Weyler buried his head in his hand as Bo turned away, trying to control his emotions. “
What
?” Jane asked bewildered.
Weyler leaned over to Jane and spoke quietly. “Bo’s wife of thirty years died last year of cancer. He’s still…you know…”
“Fuck,” was all Jane could muster.
Damn, do I need a cigarette
. Her cell phone intoned, signaling a text message. “Look, I’m sorry…” she stumbled. “I want to…
we
want to help you with this case.” Bo was still not buying her
mea culpa
. “I promise you, I will honor your wishes to keep this whole thing under the radar…”
Bo looked at Weyler, gathering his thoughts. “Okay.
Under the radar.
I got your word?”
“You have my…” Jane was about to sign off on her guarantee when she snuck a look at her text message. It was from Betty at the runaway shelter and it read,
I MADE SOME CALLS. PUT OUT ON WIRE. GOOD LUCK!
As if on cue, a low rumble could be heard approaching the building. Jane looked out the large window in Bo’s office that faced the street. There, lining up one by one in the available parking spots around her Mustang, were five Denver news vans. Within seconds, cameraman and newscasters poured out of the vehicles and headed toward the front room of the Town Hall.
Bo turned around in time to see the last guy lug a tripod out of a van and walk to the front door. “What in the hell?” he stammered.
“Betty…” Jane whispered to herself. “What have you done?”
Bo spun around, his eyes spitting fire at Jane. “
Damn you
!”
CHAPTER 6
There wasn’t much Jane could do. Escaping out the back door of Town Hall was an option but not a viable one. No, the only thing she could do was reluctantly follow Weyler and Bo into the front room and onto the street where the assembled video cameras and rabid newscasters set up their shot. The cameras and attention focused on Bo, who stammered his way through the impromptu news conference as best he could. Flanked on either side of him were Weyler and Jane, who looked as if she were headed to the slaughterhouse once the cameras were turned off.
The Midas media blitz did attract minor attention from some business owners and citizens. Jane noted, in particular one clean-cut older guy, about fifty, with brown-and-grey hair observing her with an amused grin on his face. Every time she glanced over at the man, he was staring back at her, his eyes twinkling.
Do I know him
? The way he looked at her, there seemed to be some undercurrent of mild infatuation on his part.
God help me
. She quickly built an invisible yet impenetrable wall around her. Once the cameras stopped rolling, she half-expected the guy to approach her but he only smiled, got into his truck and drove down Main Street.
It was fortuitous as Jane figured the sooner she created some serious distance between herself and Bo Lowry, the better off she’d be. When she heard Bo mumble something about “We’re just a few clowns short of a goddamn circus,” she took that as her cue to beat feet.
Jane wound her Mustang around the curve that topped Main Street and headed left on a narrow, two-lane highway. The jagged red rock cliffs towered on the passenger side while the rushing river, replete with the frozen spring runoff from the snowpack, raced on her left. She factored that Weyler was, at that moment, doing whatever he could to convince Bo not to put out a contract on Jane for leading the Denver news network
lemmings to Midas. However, in some ways, she couldn’t blame the media interest. The story was provocative. It wasn’t every day that a fifteen-year-old boy from a wealthy family went missing and inspired his kidnapper to send out a glut of bewildering clues that made no sense but, at the same time, seemed to be veiled, off-kilter threats. It was the kind of story that, once resolved, would be featured in any number of news specials and subsequent books.
It was clear to Jane that Bo Lowry was way over his nearly bald head and desperate to put this case to bed. Realizing he only had eleven days left before his grand exodus from Midas to the coast of Florida, Jane reasoned that Bo didn’t want to leave the people who trusted him with an unfinished case that might involve the imminent murder of one of their own. No police chief wants to leave their job with lifeless loose ends dangling for the next guy. But the reality for ninety-eight percent of them was that they’d walk out the door and leave a few boxes of cold cases with their name on it—which would go from cold to frozen as more immediate issues flooded their desk.
As Jane drove down the two-lane road, the red rock on the right hand side gave way to a mile or so of snow covered clearings and the occasional gated service road. Her mind shifted back to Bo Lowry. He was an odd fellow, she surmised. A guy who other people say “ain’t right” but put up with because of tenure or seniority. His penchant for talking in 10-code and using cop talk bordered on comical. But there were other observations Jane couldn’t understand.
The calendar came to mind. Who marks a calendar with large
Xs
? In Jane’s mind, the only people who mark the days off a calendar are the desperate and children under the age of six who are counting the days until Christmas. There seemed to be an overt edge around Bo; a distracted urgency to get out before something awful happened. And yet, his destination also seemed clouded in mystery and met with a less than excited expectation. As Weyler said, Bo was still seven or eight years
from social security and obtaining a higher pension. He had an insanely secure job. Why not wait out seven or eight more years and then ride off into the sunset?
The yellow folder on his desk that he so clearly tried to obscure
had
to be connected to his departure. Jane considered what kind of presentations come in folders. She quickly came up with hospitals, assisted living facilities and investment opportunities. Jane crossed off the last option, as she didn’t think Bo had enough financial acumen to navigate around that fiscal landmine—especially given the volatile nature of the market. But hospitals and assisted living facilities…yes, that sounded plausible. Bo did seem to have difficulty walking and she caught him wincing more than once when he sat down. Maybe he was sick…maybe terminally ill? It made sense. Of course, what were the odds of his wife dying of cancer last year
and
him contracting a deadly disease that would require a long distance relocation?
But there were so many other eccentricities Jane noticed. The boxes, for example—boxes with exclamation points, question marks and others. Who marks boxes with symbols? Then there was the flagrant ripping of the front page by Vi on both Jordan Copeland’s and Jake Van Gorden’s file. What in the hell weren’t Jane and Weyler supposed to see? If they were there to help, wasn’t full disclosure a given?
But there was something else that Jane noted—something another person might easily overlook or not even hear. And yet, it was akin to the peanut in the room that Jane tended to focus on rather than the elephant. Bo used the word,
see
a lot. “See what I’m sayin’?” or “I couldn’t see my way clear without her,” referring to Vi. Once or twice in a conversation was one thing but Lowry used the word so frequently that it revealed to Jane the way Bo viewed life. He was visually driven. He understood his world by what he saw and then created vivid visual images to reflect that reality. The fact that he chose for to call Jake “Juice Box” and Jordan “Trash Bag” further exemplified his visually driven perceptions. Why he called Weyler “Beanie” was still an
unsolved mystery but Jane was determined to put that one to rest as soon as she could have a few private moments with her fellow Sergeant.
Jane was so deep in thought that she didn’t see the infamous bridge on the left hand side where Jake allegedly went missing. She’d asked Weyler for directions to the spot before ducking out of the sidewalk news conference. Jane actually noted the speedtrap camera warning sign before she saw the bridge. She drove another half mile before locating a safe place to turn around on the narrow two-lane highway. An idea sprung to mind. She floored the Mustang and sped well past 60 mph on the 45 mph road, blasting past the first and second speed cameras located just across from the bridge. It was a test. She wanted to see if the damn thing worked
and
, if it did, how clear the bridge was in the photo. Her reasoning was cloudy but one of those backpocket possibilities. If the photo proved to be sharp enough, she would strongly suggest that Bo discreetly replace the speed camera with a 24/7 security camera so the bridge could be monitored remotely. The idea had a dual purpose. The first was mundane. Due to the signage, drivers would still be under the impression that the camera would only click for speeders and thus, slow down at that point making it somewhat easier to distinguish vehicles. The second idea took into account human nature. Often, the kidnapper returned to the scene of his or her crime. Perhaps, with this seemingly brazen kidnapper, he would chose to leave a message or clue on the bridge. As much as Jane despised Big Brother and the monitoring of law-abiding citizens, installing a temporary rolling security camera at this location made sense.
After blowing through the speed trap, Jane turned around and headed back to the bridge, parking the Mustang at the edge of the somewhat rickety overpass. She got out of her car just as a determined gust of cold wind beat against her body. She raised the collar on her leather jacket and stood for a moment in the center of the fifty-foot bridge. She could see the rushing river
between the cracks of the warped planks. The temperature at this location was decidedly colder, thanks to the freezing water below her feet, still clutching ice chunks along the banks. Jane’s acute senses awakened again. The frigid air felt like a knife cutting her face. The sound of the river below seemed deafening and lawless in its intensity.
Thankfully, Jane had been able to bury her fear of her own death during her time in the office with Weyler and Bo. But now the trepidation was resurfacing with unrepentant vehemence. As she canvassed the area around her, the world looked as dead as she felt inside. Spring in the Colorado high country is like a coquettish tease; the young tart begging to show off her nubile physique. After the icy assault of winter, where the days don’t rise above thirty-five degrees and the nights harbor a deathly frozen bite, spring whispers a promise of renewal and a better life. The monotonous haze of drab browns and grays, spotted with patches of the now gravel and mud-embedded snow, slowly give way to pinpoint shoots of green that struggle through the frosty surface. Gradually, the days warm and the world is reborn into a new life with endless possibilities. As bulbs burst into showy, seductive ribbons of eye candy, there’s a sense that no matter how dark and dead the world can appear, underneath it all, there are formidable powers that demand to be heard and seen.
But as it is with everything that starts anew, there is the tendency to fall backward. Spring in Colorado is no different. Just when you think the bitter cold and snowflakes have left, the wind whips, the sun sinks behind a bank of clouds and everything that worked so hard to emerge, is covered by a blanket of white once again. The air warms again, melts the snow and what was meant to survive stares back with a steely strength that reminds even an agnostic that nature’s soul purpose is to adapt, transform and endure.
As Jane stared out at the brittle landscape, still smothered in layers of dead leaves and brown snow, she felt a sense
of despair and emptiness creep around her. The thought that she might be able to count her remaining springs and summers on one hand crossed her mind. Fear gripped her belly and she found herself holding her breath—only to let it out in short, shallow bursts. She stared into the void, cut off from the world circling around her. The isolation was tangible—a natural reaction of facing her mortality, coupled with a paralyzing dread that chilled her ability to think rationally. She could only see directly in front of her and the view was bleak. Her world was narrowing and the tunnel she was digging began to grow deeper and pull tighter.