Harm’s Reach

‘I am on a losing streak,’ said Ren. ‘I’ve never felt less deserving of the title special … or agent. Today I have been an agent of zero. We could have our own true crime show – The After-The-Fact Files.’

‘Harsh,’ said Cliff. ‘We’re fifty miles from base camp … we’re not The Avengers.’

Ren made a face. ‘I like to think of us that way …’

‘Well, I will always assemble wherever you are,’ said Cliff.

For twenty-five years, Cliff had been with the JeffCo Sheriff’s Office, but, along with Ren and eight others, now worked for the multi-agency Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force in Denver. Cliff had a gift for making witnesses and suspects believe he was one of them: weary, disgruntled, disappointed with life, put-upon by authority figures. He once told her that sometimes he felt they revealed their secrets to him because they believed he would bury the information out of solidarity. He managed to convince even the brightest felons that he operated under duress, and really, if he could just catch a break, he’d be running free, happy and lawless. Cliff James – warm, huggable, big-bear, chuckling, family-man Cliff, who cared about justice more than most – could have missed a vocation as a Hollywood star.

‘We need to assemble where the bandits are,’ said Ren. The bandits had first drawn Safe Streets upon themselves one month earlier. This was their fourth strike; always the same M.O.: they entered the bank wearing beanies pulled down to their eyebrows and snowboarding masks pulled up to their noses – the ones with graphic prints that gave them the lower jaws of sharks. Funny for snowboarding with your buddies, not so much for bank customers confronted with a blur of sharp teeth, wild eyes and gunfire. Safe Streets could have called them the Jawsome Bandits, but that was too complimentary. They were, instead, the Shark Bait Bandits.

The first robber would spray the ceiling with bullets from a semi-automatic, then jump onto a counter or a table. He roared and growled and, as customers dropped to the floor, the second guy moved to the counter. He would show the cashier a note requesting cash, as if the gunfire was too subtle a message. The note also offered a bullet to the head in exchange for a dye pack or a tracking device.

Cliff rested his elbow on Ren’s shoulder.

‘Look,’ he said, pointing to a small little enclave of houses on the map, ‘Iroquois Heights.’

Ren had Iroquois heritage; it gave an exotic twist to looks whose ethnic origins were a mystery to many.

She smiled. ‘It’s a sign! Hey – you are too big to lean on me,’ she said, turning to look up at him.

‘I was going easy,’ said Cliff, standing up.

‘Unlike …’ said Ren. She nodded toward the corner where Gary Dettling stood with his hands on his hips, staring over at them. He was the only man she knew who could put his hands on his hips and not look ridiculous.

‘He is not a happy man today,’ said Cliff.

‘And when you say “today”, you mean “for quite some time” …’ said Ren.

‘He’s coming our way,’ said Cliff. ‘Eyes on the map.’

Jefferson County stretched westward from the city of Denver up into the mountains bordering Gilpin County, Clear Creek and Park. It was seven hundred and seventy square miles of every crime and mentality that came from spanning big cities and boondocks.

The Conifer locals unlucky enough to have been present when their Wells Fargo was hit were feeling a little plagued. It was not long ago they had been hit by a wildfire that moved as if it had plans to rescale the town and bring it back to its roots. Over the years, Conifer had been expanding slowly, adding grocery stores, gas stations and charmed out-of-towners who settled in the foothills until the snow startled them out of their mountain fantasy and into Kendall Auto Sales looking for tire chains.

But the unpredictable snowfall was nothing compared to the onslaught of the wildfire. It roared and spat at them for two weeks, darkening their skies, driving them from their beds or keeping them lying awake in them, fearing for everything. And then, it was gone. The fire died before it took away a single home. The firefighters had not performed a miracle as some people saw it. The firefighters had carefully strategized, and won a war; only the charred landscape bore the scars.

Detective Denis Kohler from the Sheriff’s Office walked over to Ren, Cliff and Gary. Kohler was tall and flat-bodied, with a lean to one side and a slight bow to his legs. His brown hair flopped across the right side of his forehead and he often ran his fingers through it, even though it was too short to get in his eyes.

‘OK, our guys followed your bandits ten miles,’ he said. ‘Looked like they were headed for Bailey, but they lost them. The car was found on a service road, torched. They made off on foot.’

‘That’s new for them …’ said Ren.

‘Well, they had the full weight of the JeffCo Sheriff’s Office bearing down on them this time,’ said Kohler, smiling.

Ren laughed. She liked Kohler. ‘Did they find anything in the car?’ she said.

‘It’s destroyed,’ said Kohler. ‘Looks like they crashed first. We’re waiting for it to be towed.’

‘And it was taken from the parking lot at the spa outside the business center …’ said Gary.

‘Yup, a lady customer came out – car was gone,’ said Kohler.

Ren shook her head. ‘I don’t know why women feel the need to go to spas, said no woman ever.’

‘What about cameras?’ said Gary.

‘We don’t have a lot to go on with this route,’ said Kohler. ‘We’ve spoken with CDOT, we’ll see what they’ve got.’

‘Gary,’ said Cliff, ‘I have that appointment, so, if you’re all OK here?’

‘Sure,’ said Gary, ‘go ahead.’

Cliff hugged Ren.

‘Bye, big guy,’ she said. ‘We shall avenge another day.’

‘Take care, Cliff,’ said Kohler.

Ren stared down at the map. ‘Is this the service road?’

Kohler looked at where she was pointing. ‘Yes.’

‘Would you mind if Gary and I swung by?’ said Ren. ‘That’s right by Pine Gulch Cemetery. They could have gone through there, come out the other side and grabbed a car from that garage.’ She pointed again. ‘If they did that, they could have driven right down Pine Valley Road. They may not have been heading for Bailey after all. Or at the very least, Pine Valley Road was a panic move …’

‘Sure, go ahead,’ said Kohler.

‘Gary?’ said Ren. Earth to Gary.

He nodded. ‘Sure. Great.’

No car had been stolen from the garage by Pine Gulch Cemetery. Gary swung back around and they drove down Pine Valley Road, past where the Sheriff’s Office detectives and crime scene investigators were waiting for a tow truck to take the charred shell of the getaway car back to the lab.

‘That’s the spa lady’s …’ said Ren. ‘She probably came out of there with her little disposable flip-flops … or flaming red upper lip … mascara under her eyes, desperate to get home before she met someone.’

Gary tuned Ren out a lot. But today, the radio wasn’t even on. She stared out the window. The road was quiet, dusty, and bordered by pines, but if you looked through them, you could see where the wildfire had taken many of them away. They drove for fifteen minutes in silence; the type that only Gary could create – a very specific and dense one.

Breathe.

They rounded a bend onto Stoney Pass Road and drove a little further.

‘Hey,’ said Ren.

Gary had no reaction.

You are a very distracted man, lately. ‘Slow down,’ said Ren.

Up ahead, a white Hyundai Accent was parked at the side of the road. The passenger door was closed, the driver’s door, half open.

‘We could be in luck,’ said Ren, sitting forward.

Gary slowed.

‘Rental plates,’ said Ren. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa … what the hell? That’s a body …’

Gary cut the engine. They jumped out of the SUV and drew their weapons. Slowly, they walked toward the car.

‘It’s a woman,’ said Ren.

She had been shot in the head at close range; there was little left of her face. She had also been shot in the chest, her ruined torso half out of the car; one arm dangling down, the ends of her pale brown hair trailing in the dirt.

‘She hasn’t been here long,’ said Ren. She checked her watch. It was 15.48.

‘One to the head, one to the chest,’ said Gary.

‘Looks like whoever shot her was standing in the open passenger door. Look at the spatter.’

Gary nodded.

‘The glove box is open,’ said Ren, ‘maybe she was trying to get something out of there … a weapon … a purse … Or maybe the shooter was.’

‘They tried to wipe it down,’ said Gary. ‘Carjacking?’ he said. ‘Could be connected to the robbery. The bandits ditched their car, flagged her down, maybe … didn’t take the car because they were disturbed? Or panicked?’

‘Would a woman pull over if she was alone?’

‘Unless she wasn’t alone …’

‘Hey,’ said Ren, pointing to the ground. ‘Cell phone.’

She put on gloves and picked it up. When she stood up, she looked into the car again. All at once, she could feel her heart lurch, her legs weaken, her stomach turn.

Oh, no. No. No. No.

She stared up at Gary. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘She’s pregnant.’

3

Janine Hooks, Jefferson County Cold Case detective, walked into her office for the last time. On her desk was a potted plant, wrapped in tissue, a burst of pink in the dimness of a Seventies-style office in shades of brown, with half-closed vertical blinds that, even if open, would reveal nothing more scenic than the parking lot of the JeffCo government complex.

Janine often sat in the visitor’s chair at her small desk with her back to the door … and from behind, got mistaken for a man. Or worse still, a boy. ‘Son, I’m looking for …’

But it didn’t make her move. She didn’t want to watch the passing parade, she didn’t want to be watched. And now she would be; her boss had told her she had to move down the hallway to an open-plan, fluorescent-bright office with three other investigators. It felt like a step backwards and she was experiencing unpleasant cubicle memory. She wondered was he trying to force her into the world; a world to which she had been an adjunct since 2005, when she’d solved her first cold case in between her regular workload. When the sergeant who appointed her retired, he took her aside a few minutes before his speech.

‘I’m going to tell you something,’ he had said, ‘and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. Years ago, I walked into that tidy little cubicle of yours, and I see all these photos of dogs. I mean, we’d been working together a while at this stage, but it was just this particular day, I walked in and I really looked at everything you had around you, all the things that were dear to you. And there’s this one photo of a dog with a bone. And the light in his eyes was a spectacular thing. He was fierce. He was gripping this bone, no one would take it away from him, and he was so goddamn happy. And I swear to God, I thought – that is Janine Hooks.’

Janine smiled at the memory. Later that night, he had mentioned her again – in front of the entire office, as part of his leaving speech. ‘I came in one day and Janine had her arm stuck right in to the back of the refrigerator,’ he said, ‘and she was pulling something out … I don’t know what the hell it was, but it was slimy, it was green, and it stank. And it was nothing to do with her. It wasn’t her mess to clean up. But she did it. Sure, that innocent little face of hers was looking a little screwed up, but that was it: no bitching, no whining. That is why Janine Hooks gets to wear the cold case crown. And she wears it so well.’

‘That and the fact there were no other suitors,’ Janine had said.

‘You had me at “skeletal remains”.’

They all laughed, and over the laughter, he shouted for everyone’s attention again …

‘Seriously, everyone,’ he said. ‘I am going to miss you all, I am going to be back in here bugging the crap out of you, you all know that. No one should have favorites, but I’m retiring, I can say what the hell I like, and Janny Hooks, I will miss you most. If you asked me the main quality I think a cold case detective needs, I would say “tenacity”. You have it, more than anyone I know. If I had to throw in a few more, I’d say passion, loyalty, thoroughness, persuasiveness. Janine Hooks will make use of every resource she can, she will find resources hiding in the back pockets of politicians or down the sides of sofas, or up people’s fat lazy asses. She will find things. Janine Hooks will find things.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘Cold cases, warm heart.’

Like the magnanimous man he was, he had set her up to succeed. And she would never forget it. And she knew that, toward the end of his speech, he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at his successor, he was telling him ‘Don’t you cut this unit, don’t you let Janine Hooks go’. Because in the three years she’d been stuck with his successor, she had to fight for everything she got. So the tenacity, the resource-finding, the doggedness, was seared into her and to not do what she was doing was unimaginable. And fortunately, her current sergeant – the third since her first boss left – was third time lucky. He got it. Maybe he didn’t quite get her, but he got her job, and maybe that was all Janine Hooks needed him to get.

They got on well, she knew he liked her. But she suspected he worried about her. He had already made his decision about moving her to the main office when Special Agent Ren Bryce appeared one day. Janine could see what he was thinking: Janine Hooks has a friend! A hot, sociable friend who seems heterosexual! Or maybe not, these confusing days! Janine knew that with her short, side-parted dark hair and her small bones and her tucked-in shirts and tidy pants and no makeup that she sent out a message. But, didn’t everyone?

Anyway, by then it was too late for the sergeant to change his mind about her move. She was capable of making friends, it appeared. In the general population, out in the investigators’ bullpen, she could make even more.

Janine lingered in the office doorway. She gave one last glance around. She went to her desk, and pulled out the first of the cards that were spiked into the soil around the plant.

Be careful. This could be a plant. Love, Ren XX

There was a second card beside it.

Hope you’re not feeling too uprooted. Love, Ren XX

There was a third.

Stay strong, man. Love, Ren XX

There was a fourth. Janine laughed. Seriously?

Is this a moving experience for you? Love, Ren XX

Janine laughed again. She could always rely on Ren. They were friends just a year, but she knew she was closer to Ren than she had ever been to anyone. She went to pick up the plant. It was only then she noticed the flashing light on her desk phone. She pushed the button.

The message had come in the day before while she was out with the sergeant – he had treated her to pizza across the street at Woody’s. She didn’t know who felt more guilty – him for uprooting the homebird on a Sunday or her for ordering just a salad.

She pressed the phone to her ear. The line was crackling from a loose connection. At least she’d have a new phone now. Ren told her to find the positives.

‘Hello … Detective Hooks?’ The accent was Irish, with a hint of American. ‘I found your name online and I wanted to talk to you about one of your cases. Could you please call me back? My name …’ She paused. ‘My number is 555-134-2235.’

Janine scribbled the number on the back of one of Ren’s cards.

In all forty-seven of her open cold cases, Janine knew of no specific Irish connection. She decided to let this young, nameless girl be the first call she made as soon as she laid her comfort plant on the desk of her new office. She wondered if the guys would laugh at her.

‘Nice plant,’ said Logan. Their desks faced each other. ‘My mom’s a florist,’ he said. ‘I had one of those in my college dorm. I looked after it well until lightweights started pouring drinks into it.’

‘You should see this one on tequila …’ said Janine.

Logan laughed. She laughed back.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘take one of these.’ He reached across the desk and handed her a giant chocolate chip cookie wrapped in paper.

A cookie and horticultural bonding. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

She started to unwrap the cookie but instead of eating it, she picked up the phone and called the Irish girl’s number. It rang for several seconds. She was about to hang up. Then someone answered.

‘Hello,’ said Janine. ‘My name is Janine Hooks, I’m calling from Jefferson County Cold Case—’

‘Janine?’ came the voice.

Janine paused. ‘Ren?’

4

‘This can’t be good,’ said Janine.

‘It’s not good,’ said Ren. ‘Who were you calling?’

‘I got a voicemail on my office phone yesterday – I just heard it now – a young woman, didn’t leave her name, wanted to talk to me about one of my cases. She didn’t say which one.’

‘Did you make any appeals recently?’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Janine. ‘I mean, the website is always there, anyone can read it any time, but …’ She shrugged.

‘Gary’s with me,’ said Ren. ‘I’m putting you on speaker.’

‘Hey, Janine,’ said Gary, ‘we got patchy coverage here. Can you call this in? Your guys are not far, we drove past them at the junction with Pine Valley Road … we’re on Stoney Pass Road now.’

‘Sure,’ said Janine. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Well, your poor caller was pregnant,’ said Ren, ‘and now she’s laying dead by the side of the road … GSW to the head and chest.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Janine. ‘Where exactly?’

‘About half a mile from the junction with Highline Road … I can see a sign for Evergreen Abbey to the left and The Darned Heart Ranch to the right.’ She paused. ‘Darned Heart? Seriously? Craft and brimstone …’

‘This is weird, guys,’ said Janine. ‘That’s a ranch for troubled teens—’

‘The tautologous troubled teen …’ said Ren.

‘The Darned Heart already has some scar tissue,’ said Janine. ‘It used to be The Flying G Ranch, a girl scout camp. A girl scout aide was sexually assaulted and strangled there back in ’63. August 18th. It’s one of mine …’

‘No way,’ said Ren. ‘That is weird. What happened?’

‘Victim’s name was Margaret “Peggy” Beck,’ said Janine. ‘Sixteen years old. She was alone in her tent overnight, because the friend she was sharing with was in the infirmary. The next morning, little Peggy was found dead, zipped up in her sleeping bag. At first, the folks at the camp thought it was natural causes, so they didn’t call the authorities right away. They just packed up her things to hand over to her parents. It was the last day of camp, the other girls were being collected by their families. Eight hours went by before the authorities were finally called. It turns out that not one of those girl scouts heard a thing during the night. Even though Peggy fought back, the poor thing – they found skin under her fingernails. Three hundred people were interviewed during the investigation and nothing. It breaks my heart, that one.’

‘Did you process the skin?’ said Ren.

‘Yup. No match,’ said Janine.

‘When you say “troubled teens”,’ said Ren, ‘how troubled?’

‘Zero to hero: addiction issues, attitude problems, problems with the law, eating disorders. I checked out their website when they opened to see what we were letting ourselves in for. And it costs an absolute fortune to stay there. They pull in a lot of spoilt little rich kids.’

‘Have you had any problems with them?’ said Ren.

‘Our guys have definitely brought a couple of runaways back,’ said Janine.

‘Runaways?’ said Ren. ‘Kids can run away from this place? Isn’t security tighter than that?’

‘I’m speculating here,’ said Janine, ‘and this is not official, but I think it’s all part of the treatment. The ranch’s policy is to trust the kids, because they know these kids’ parents have given up trusting them. So, management believes that because they have faith in these kids, they won’t disrespect them …’

Ren laughed.

‘I know,’ said Janine.

‘Is it privately owned?’ said Ren.

‘Very privately,’ said Janine. ‘By Kenneth and Kristen Faule. He’s ex-NFL … Broncos. They never had kids of their own, so this was their way of … you know “giving back”.’

‘Hate that expression,’ they both said at the same time.

‘They take in teens from all over,’ said Janine. ‘If their parents are flashing enough cash …’

‘They’re not going to give us access too easily,’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Janine. ‘And I’ve met Kristen Faule. Do not be fooled by her Disney ways … she’s one of those cornered mama-bear types.’

‘Disney ways,’ said Ren. ‘Hmm. So, what was the nature of your meeting?’

‘Well, she came to pick up one of the kids that Kohler had brought in,’ said Janine. ‘Of course, she was pissed, like it was our fault.’

‘I’m rolling my eyes.’

‘She totally rubbed me the wrong way,’ said Janine. ‘Since the ranch opened, it’s like we’ve become unwitting participants in her treatment plan. She lets the kids roam free, we pick them up.’

‘Seriously, how many times has this happened?’ said Ren.

‘Fewer than my annoyance indicates,’ said Janine.

‘And what about the abbey?’ said Ren.

‘It used to be a religious abbey,’ said Janine, ‘but now it’s a “community of women”. As far as I can tell, it’s like a hippy commune, women’s shelter and self-sufficiency thing rolled into one. Really, though, I don’t see how they’re any different than the nuns; a bunch of women living together, saying prayers, doing charity work. They have basically no possessions – any money they do get is handed over to the director and distributed to whatever charities they all decide on. Three years ago, when I first took on The Flying G case, I spoke to the director …’

‘Slash head of the cult?’ said Ren.

‘Oh, they’re definitely not a cult,’ said Janine. ‘They’re missing the undercurrent of crazy …’

‘How big is the property?’ said Gary.

‘About one-hundred-and-fifty acres,’ said Janine. ‘You know something – if this girl is pregnant, this could have nothing to do with my case or The Darned Heart – she could have been headed to the abbey, if she was trying to get away from a bad situation.’

‘True,’ said Ren.

Gary had gloves on and was walking around the side of the Hyundai. He was opening the back door.

Grr. This is Janine’s scene.

‘I hope that’s your car door I hear opening,’ said Janine.

You’re a brave woman.

‘Please tell me you are wearing gloves,’ said Janine.

You’re a very brave woman. Gary will not dignify that with a response.

‘We got her purse,’ said Gary, standing up, swatting away the flies that had begun to gather. ‘And passport … Irish.’ He opened it. He looked at the photo, then at the victim.

‘Her name is Laura Flynn.’

5

Ren walked over to Gary. He handed her the passport. She looked down at the photo. Laura Flynn was a sweet-looking girl with light brown hair, kind blue eyes, a heart-shaped face. She was the type of girl a man would be happy to bring home to his mother.

I haven’t spoken to my mother in weeks. I hope she isn’t worrying about me. Does this girl have a mother somewhere worrying about her? Is some mother over in Ireland going to have to take the worst possible call to take as a parent?

Laura Flynn was just twenty-six years old.

The same age I was when I was diagnosed. She looked down at Laura Flynn’s body.

Twenty-six-years old. And I thought I got a death sentence.