A rancher had reported a mysterious flash explosion at the northeast edge of Malmstrom Air Force Base. Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and the base military were investigating.
The specialized unit from Indian Head had been dispatched.
Walker’s heart rate wouldn’t be normal again until the pope’s jet lifted off for Rome.
60
In-flight to Montana
Within four hours of Wanda’s call, Maggie and Graham had canceled their flights and had located and boarded a departing charter that served Great Falls, Montana.
“You’re in luck,” the ticket agent had said, smiling. “A number of seats just opened up and we want to fill them.”
Maggie had paid for her ticket out of the six hundred thirty-one dollars she’d won on the slot machine. Graham paid out of his own pocket, deciding to take care of the expense claim when he got back to Calgary.
Because he had accepted the truth.
He could not walk away from the Tarver case. Even though he’d been ordered to return, he couldn’t.
Not yet. There were too many questions. Now, as the plane skirted the Great Salt Lake Desert and neared Yellowstone, and as Maggie drifted off, he searched the clouds for answers.
Emily Tarver’s dying words troubled him. And he swore he’d heard Nora’s voice when he was in the
Six Seconds 361 water. If he didn’t pursue the family’s deaths, he’d be haunted by the ghosts of his failures for the rest of his life because this went beyond the case.
This was about Nora.
Maybe he could live with what went wrong if he could make something right for someone else.
Maybe.
By the time the plane passed over the Bitterroot Mountains, Graham had resolved to request immediate personal leave, freeing him to investigate the case on his own and on his own dime.
And if that was denied?
He’d resign.
Would he?
If that’s what it took.
Because he’d be finished.
Because he was hanging on by a thread.
Great Falls was about a seven-hour drive from Calgary, or a short flight. Funny, he thought, looking at the snowcapped peaks reaching up to him, reaching all the way north to the Faust River where he’d stood not so long ago, drowning in guilt as he held Nora’s ashes.
He’d pretty much come full circle.
When the captain announced their descent into Great Falls, Maggie woke, left her seat and took her place in line for the restroom at the rear.
Upon returning, she met the intense eyes of another passenger, a man squeezing by her. Her polite little smile was received with stone-cold indifference, send ing a shiver coiling up her spine as he brushed by.
It couldn’t be.
He looked familiar. Like that creep from her book store.
Maggie glanced back at him, but other passengers blocked her view. She took her seat thinking, no, it couldn’t be him. It was her imagination, given all she’d been through.
Nearly overdosing. Graham saving her. Getting her to Las Vegas, which got her to Montana. Closer to Logan. Closer to Jake.
Closer to what awaited her.
Maggie buckled up. The landing gear lowered. As the jet neared the runway, she prayed she would finally find the truth.
Whatever it was.
61
Great Falls, Montana
The Sky Road Truck Mall was situated on a thirty-acre site off the interstate, where it curled a few miles south west of Great Falls International Airport.
It was an expansive twenty-four-hour operation offering fueling, two restaurants, a chapel, a massage therapist, a medical clinic, laundry, shower facilities and more. The complex was landscaped with clipped shrubs; its neo-deco facade had glazed windows. Huge Montana state and U.S. flags waved on gold-tipped poles high above the entrance.
Maggie and Graham parked their rented sedan as dozens of rigs eased in and out of the mall, their diesel engines growling, air brakes hissing.
Before they’d left Las Vegas, Graham again notified local law enforcement. Strangely, one of his calls was bounced to an FBI Special Agent in Billings.
“Thanks for the courtesy call,” the agent said. “Not sure to what extent we can assist. Most of our resources are going to supporting security for the pope’s visit.”
Graham also called upon Novak, the D.C. detective, to help him query Montana Highway Patrol to run Jake Conlin’s name through state motor vehicle records, for an address, for anything.
Nothing came up.
Novak had also run it through NCIC, the FBI’s Na tional Crime Information Center. Apart from the Conlin parental abduction file, nothing showed for Montana.
Now, inside the administrative office of the Sky Road Truck Mall, Cheyenne Mills, the duty manager, rotated her wedding ring as she listened to Graham and Maggie’s situation. Then she made a few calls. Con firmed a Jake “Conlynn” had rented a postal box at the mall for two months. Paid cash. No other useful details were on his rental form. Then she nodded to the glass wall of her second-level office overlooking the busy mall.
“Three, maybe even four thousand people pass through here weekly. Our customers are the salt of the earth. They’ll help you if they can. Anyone gives you trouble, tell them I said it was okay for you to show them pictures.”
For the next few hours, Maggie and Graham talked to men and women in plaid shirts, ball caps and jeans in the restaurants, the lounges, the arcades and the stores while TVs tuned to news networks showed the latest on the papal visit “…the pope visits Seattle today then it’s on to Montana and Chicago…”
They showed pictures of Jake and Logan and asked for help locating them.
But after scores of inquiries, nothing promising had emerged.
Frustrated but not defeated, Maggie stood in the
Six Seconds 365 lobby before the huge map of Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Below it was the usual truck stop message board, papered with ads for driving jobs, rigs, trailers and parts. The faces of missing children, women and fugitives also stared at her from old posters.
“Excuse me, are you the lady looking for a trucker and his son?”
Maggie nodded at a slim woman in her sixties, hoop earrings, bright eyes behind bifocals, snapping gum.
“Betty Pilcher. My husband, Leo, and I run the B and L Barbershop, the other side of the mall. The guys were telling us about you showing pictures. I have to run up to admin but drop by our shop in a few minutes, hon. Leo’s good at remembering faces.”
Fifteen minutes later, Leo Pilcher, a retired U.S. Army barber, stepped from the customer in his chair to stare long and hard at the photos of Jake Conlin, as Maggie and Graham awaited his assessment.
Leo nodded and went back to cutting hair.
“He was here. Only he doesn’t look like that since I worked on him.”
Graham and Maggie exchanged glances.
“You’re sure?” Maggie asked.
Leo stepped away again. The needle point of his scissors touched the corner of Jake’s right eye.
“Got a little scar right here?”
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“It was him. I’m sure. He stands out because of the scar and the changes.”
“Changes?”
Graham pulled out his notebook and asked for details.
366 Rick Mofina
“He walked in here, oh, about four, five months back. He had a beard, few weeks’ growth. Good head of thick, healthy hair. He wanted all the hair shaved off and wanted the beard shaved into a Vandyke, some call it a goatee. A beard without the sides. I’ll show you. Can I draw on this?”
Maggie gave Leo a pen from her bag and he sketched a Vandyke on Jake, then put his thick fingers over Jake’s hair.
“See? Like a different guy. I asked him, ‘Hey, you hiding from somebody?’ And he sort of laughed and said, ‘Something like that.’”