Murder on the Horizon Page 4

  Setting the MPQ aside, Gracie leaned over the map again, second-guessing the segments she had drawn, the assignments she had made, wondering whether she had missed anything, what she wasn’t seeing.

  The Command Post door was yanked open and Ralph climbed up the metal steps and inside.

  Gracie straightened. “Ralphie!”

  Ralph set the HT in his hand and two file boxes he was carrying on the table. He slid his black backpack off one shoulder onto the floor next to the chair.

  When he straightened, Gracie’s flooding sense of relief was replaced by alarm.

  Ralph looked ten years older since the last time she had seen him. His face was gaunt, the color of dried clay. The blue-gray eyes were cold steel. And he had dropped five pounds, maybe more.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Gracie croaked. She cleared her throat. “What happened? Where have you been? I’ve . . . I’ve—”

  “What do we have?” Ralph asked, bending over the map. No “Gracie girl.” No small talk. No gentle blue-gray eyes. No nothing, except detached professionalism.

  Gracie stared at him for a moment, then, hyperaware of his presence, gave him an overview of what teams were in the field and what their current assignments were, which assignments had already been completed, which segments had been searched.

  Ralph studied the map. “Everyone has an assignment?”

  “Everyone except a new team member. Whitney. She got here about fifteen minutes ago. Can you believe it? She’s wearing a—”

  “Anyone else?”

  Gracie stared at him again, but he didn’t look up. “Me, I guess,” she said. “Now that you’re here.”

  “Okay.” He straightened to scan the 204s Gracie had push-pinned onto the corkboard above the table. He unpinned one and scribbled Gracie’s name on it. “You’re Ground Three.” He scanned the map. “Search Segment Seven. Piñon to Juniper to—”

  “I know what streets,” Gracie snapped, annoyed with his attitude, his unwillingness to forgive her, her own inability to know what to do about it. “I created the damned segments.” She blew out a breath. “Sorry. Ralphie . . .”

  “Take Whitney.” He added the other woman’s name beneath Gracie’s on the form.

  Gracie inhaled to protest, thought better of it, and said, “On it, boss.”

  “Map?”

  “Yes.”

  “MisPer flyers?”

  Gracie inserted the HT into the pouch on her chest pack and snapped it in place. “Yes.” Then without another word, she gathered up her personal ICS forms, pens, and pencils, stowed them back in her file box, and used her foot to shove it out of the way beneath the table. Slinging her pack over her shoulder, she stepped out of the trailer, taking extra care to close the door quietly behind her.

  She stood outside the Command Post, taking in a deep breath through her nose, and blowing it out through her mouth, resolving to wait until she got home to ruminate further about her estrangement from Ralph over a glass or two of Alice White Chardonnay.

  Where the hell is Whitney? She scanned the parking lot and community park, finally spotting the woman standing in the open bay of the fire station next door, one tanned leg cocked off to the side, talking and laughing with a couple of young and healthy firefighters.

  Gracie suppressed another surge of annoyance. In spite of being given the team’s Policies and Procedures, which explicitly spelled out the code for both dress and field uniforms, Whitney had shown up for the search wearing her long, dark brown hair loose around her shoulders, multiple silver bracelets and necklaces and dangly earrings, a tight-fitting pair of white capri pants, and open-toed wedge sandals. To her credit, she was wearing the orange uniform shirt, but the top buttons had been left unbuttoned, revealing a dangerous décolletage.

  Gracie pulled open the driver’s door of the Ranger, leaned in to place the stack of flyers and the map on the console inside, and wondered why she was letting the woman bother her so much. Because there were standards and protocol to be adhered to and so far Whitney had ignored almost all of them? Because the valley had a small population base from which to draw its members and the team had to accept practically anyone it could get? Because Gracie felt proprietary about the team and Whitney was treating it as a social club? Or was it because the focus of this search had suddenly shifted to being a contest for who could garner the most male attention by dressing the sexiest and Gracie knew she was on the losing end? The sneaking suspicion that it was a little of all of the above added more prickles to her cactus mood. “Whitney,” she called a little too sharply.

  The woman looked over.

  “You’re with me. We have an assignment.”

  Whitney lifted a single finger in acknowledgement, tittered with the two men for a couple of seconds, then sashayed across the parking lot to the appreciation of her grinning male audience.

  As Whitney walked up, Gracie said, “We’re Ground Team Number Three. We’ll take my truck. Throw your pack in the back.”

  “Oh, I don’t have one yet. I got some of the things on the list though. They’re in my car.”

  “Never mind for now,” Gracie said. “I have enough in my truck for both of us.”

  Gracie climbed into the Ranger and started the engine, then watched as Whitney stood on her tiptoes to place her rear end on the passenger’s seat, then drew her legs in behind. Gracie had seen another woman climb into the truck in exactly the same beauty queen way only a few months before. What is up with that?

  The Ranger turned out of the parking lot. “Let’s drive the perimeter of our search area,” Gracie said. “Then we’ll figure out the most efficient route to cover all the houses in our segment. Can you read a map?”

  “Of course.”

  Gracie handed Whitney the map on which the outer perimeter of their search area had been marked with yellow highlighter.

  Whitney tapped a long, elaborately painted fingernail on a front tooth. “Let’s see.” She turned the map one way. Then the other. “Hmmm. I think . . . Turn! Turn right here!”

  Gracie turned the wheel right.

  “No, left!” Whitney said with a giggle. “Left!”

  Gracie hauled the wheel in the other direction. They’re gonna think we’re schnockered.

  “I meant turn left right here!”

  “It’s all good,” Gracie said, lifting her foot from the accelerator and inching the Ranger down the street. “Just tell me what’s coming up.”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I can’t . . .”

  “Have you located where we are on the map?”

  “No.”

  “How about the park? The fire station?”

  Silence.

  Gracie steered the Ranger over to the side of the road and braked to a stop. “Let me show you. May I have the map?”

  Whitney handed it over.

  Gracie pointed. “Here’s the park where the Command Post is. Here’s where we are. On Spruce.”

  The woman flipped her hair back away from her face, crossed her arms, looked out the side window, and tapped the floor with the toe of her sandal.

  “Okay, our boundaries are Piñon, Juniper . . .” She waited until Whitney looked to where she was indicating. “Shakespeare and Browning.” She pointed. “We’ll park the truck here and walk Juniper to Blue Jay. Then . . .”

  “We’re walking?”

  “We’re going door-to-door.”

  “Why can’t we drive?”

  “We’re knocking on doors. Passing out flyers—”

  “I can’t walk in these shoes.”

  Gracie sank back in the seat and pinched the bridge of her nose against the headache looming there. “When we’re done here, why don’t you and I go out for coffee or something? Just to . . . you know . . . chat.”

  “About what?”

  “The team. Dress code. What�
�s required.”

  “What do you mean—‘dress code’?”

  Gracie stopped, unsure of how frank to be. She didn’t want to piss Whitney off enough so she would quit the team. In as mild a voice as she could muster, she said, “Well, like what you should wear on your feet. Something more practical. Did you get a chance to read the Policies and Procedures?”

  Whitney said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like boooring.

  “Hiking boots,” Gracie said. “Tennis shoes at least, but, eventually, something sturdier. Sometimes we search in some pretty rough terrain.” Whitney had heard this all before. “You need to wear long pants, heavy material, to protect your legs. Your hair needs to out of the way. I wear mine in a ponytail.”

  Whitney’s eyes traveled over Gracie’s thick auburn hair pulled through the hole in the back of her black Sheriff’s Department ball cap. Her pink lips pursed.

  “Or a braid,” Gracie continued. “You need to sew the patches on your shirt so people can identify you as belonging to the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Those uniforms are so masculine.” Whitney flexed her feet and admired her shimmering turquoise toenails. “I’m not afraid to show that I’m all woman.”

  “It’s not a matter of—”

  “I’m proud of being feminine,” Whitney said, looking Gracie up and down, one beautifully drawn eyebrow arched.

  She’s pressing on my last nerve, Gracie thought, and counted to five before saying, “This isn’t a fashion show, Whitney. This is serious work. We’re here to save people’s lives. Not pick up guys.”

  Whitney’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “I want to go.”

  “Go . . .”

  “Home. I want to go home.”

  “Uhhh . . .” Gracie was flummoxed. “You can’t. We’re on a search.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “You’re not—”

  Whitney pushed her door open and slid off the seat to the ground. “I’m not going to walk around this neighborhood,” she said through the open doorway. “It isn’t safe. We could be attacked. And I told you I can’t walk in these shoes.” She slammed the door closed.

  In the rearview mirror, Gracie watched her walk, hips swinging, down the middle of the street in the direction of the Command Post. “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “So be it.”

  Now what? If she notified Ralph by radio that Whitney was on her way back to the Command Post, she would no doubt be summoned back there as well. The team protocol of not searching alone would dictate she either work in the ICP alongside Ralph, or be assigned to another team, which meant more delay, less ground covered, less efficiency.

  Gracie pulled the Ranger away from the curb, drove to the corner of Piñon and Juniper, and parked.

  Talking to strangers was one of Gracie’s least favorite things to do on Search and Rescue, or anytime. But today a child was missing and knocking on doors was what needed to be done.

  With flyers in hand, her day pack on her back, and a renewed sense of urgency, Gracie strode up to the first house on the block, a cottage painted green with white trim. In front were two yard butts—a man in overalls and a woman in a red and white polka-dot dress—surrounded by every imaginable yard knickknack—birds, mushrooms, rabbits. The wings of a Canada goose turned slowly with a lift of air.

  Gracie hurried up the flagstone walkway and pressed the doorbell. “Sheriff’s Department. Search and Rescue,” she called in a loud voice.

  The front door—flamingo orange—was pulled open by a woman with silver hair floating around her head like a sea anemone and pink glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. Wearing blue jeans and a purple plaid shirt, she smiled up at Gracie through the screen door. “Yes?”

  “Good afternoon,” Gracie said. “I’m with Search and Rescue. There’s a boy missing in the area and we wondered if you had seen him. I have a flyer with his picture. Would you be willing to look at it?”

  “Oh, my. That’s tragic, isn’t it? I’ll be happy to take a look at it.” The woman unlocked the screen door and pushed it open. “Would you like to come inside? I have pink lemonade.”

  Gracie smiled. “That’s very nice, but no, thank you.” She held out the flyer.

  The woman put on her glasses and took the paper.

  Only barely resisting the temptation to tap her foot, Gracie waited as the woman studied the picture, read the description below, then looked at the picture again. Finally, she shook her head. “I believe I’ve seen this young man around here from time to time, but not in the past week.” She looked up at Gracie over the glasses. “Do you want this back?”

  “No. You keep it. If you see him or hear anything you think might help us locate him, will you give us a call? The number’s at the bottom there.”

  “I most certainly will.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Mind the begonias on your way out.”

  Gracie stepped off the porch and fast-walked back up the flagstone walkway to the street.

  Ten minutes later, Gracie was halfway up Blue Jay when Ralph’s voice came over the radio microphone at her shoulder. “Ground Three. Command Post.”

  Here it comes. Without stopping, she thumbed the microphone button. “Ground Three. Go ahead.”

  “Ground Three. Return to base.”

  “Command Post,” Gracie said into the radio. “Go to TAC.” She tugged the HT out of its pouch on her pack and turned the little knob at the top to the TAC talk group in order to communicate with Ralph without the whole world listening in. She thumbed the radio mic. “Ground Three on TAC.”

  “I want you out of the field.”

  “Why?”

  “You know damn . . . Standby one.” Gracie knew that Ralph was counting to ten in order to not curse over the air, even if they were on a private channel. “Ground Three,” Ralph said again, voice calmer, more even. “No one out in the field alone.”

  Gracie could just hear him say, As you very well know. She took in a deep breath to steady her voice and thumbed the mic. “It’s door-to-door in a residential neighborhood. Nothing is going to happen.”

  “I want you out of the field.”

  “I’m already halfway through the assignment,” she lied. “We need to find this boy.”

  Radio silence. From blocks away, Gracie could feel the heat of Ralph’s blood pressure inching upward toward nuclear meltdown.

  Finally, Ralph’s voice again. “Finish the assignment. Then back to base.” Gracie couldn’t imagine how his voice could get any colder. “Back to Primary.”

  “Copy,” Gracie said. She dialed the radio back to the MAC10 channel, vision blurry with sudden tears. “I hate this, Ralphie,” she whispered, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

  For the next forty-five minutes, Gracie covered the remainder of her search area, walking up and down both sides of each street, checking in to the Command Post by radio at the half hour.

  Several houses in her segment looked barely visited, much less lived in, vacation homes belonging to people who lived down the hill or out of state. Most were occupied though, the owners friendly, concerned, eager and willing to help in any way they could. Only one man refused to open the door, yelling at her from behind drawn shades to get her goddamned ass off his goddamned property.

  At the edge of the man’s yard, Gracie squinted down at the map, then up the street to where the Ranger was parked at the corner. Only four more houses and she would be finished with her assignment. And there had been no report from the other teams about the missing boy. The idea that, this time, Baxter Edwards wasn’t missing by choice morphed into dread.

  Gracie walked up to the next house, an Arts and Crafts bungalow peeking out from beyond a stand of tall pines, and up the front sidewalk, thick with pine needles, stepping over flat, yellowed newspapers with faded rubber bands.

/>   Clearly it had been some time since the owners or anyone else had been there.

  To be certain, Gracie walked up the steps, across the porch, and rapped on the screen door. “Sheriff’s Department, Search and Rescue.” No response. She knocked again. Nothing. Pulled the screen door open and tried the front doorknob. Locked.

  Cupping her hands around her face, she peered through the front windows. The blinds were drawn.

  She walked to the end of the porch and peered around the corner, up the weed-choked gravel drive, which was blocked by a six-foot-high, gated wooden fence.

  She squinted against the afternoon sun. Couldn’t be certain. She walked back down the steps, around the porch, and back alongside the house.

  The gate was closed, the latch open, the padlock unlocked.

  Would owners meticulous enough about securing the house in other ways have left their padlock open? Probably not.

  Sergeant Gardner had made the blanket decision that, unless specific permission was granted, searchers were never to enter property, unlocked buildings or vehicles if the owners weren’t home. If she didn’t have permission and entered the yard, she could be charged with trespassing.

  Gracie trotted down to the end of the block, rounded the corner, and stood looking along the backs of the row of houses. From where she stood, she could see that, on the bungalow’s property, a section of the high wooden fence had been replaced by a shorter chain-link, revealing the back of a carport and what looked like a motorboat on a trailer.

  Gracie dithered only a moment before trotting back around the corner, up the block, and up the driveway of the bungalow. She pulled the gate open and slipped through into the backyard.

  Just inside the fence, she stopped and looked around.

  Most of the yard was enclosed by the wooden fence with a shorter, chain-link section along the back. On the left stood a storage shed. Next to it stood a gas grill covered with a green tarp. The driveway ended at a wide carport along the back, sheltering two trailers, one holding two snowmobiles, one a small motorboat.