The chief was yelling something over the din of the approaching dogs. “. . . rolls to the right!” Kevin made out. “It rolls!”
He pulled the heavy gate open just far enough to wedge himself between the fence and the crossbar, and pushed. The gate rolled. He ran with it, pushing, the dogs getting closer and closer, visible now at the edge of the light, black and tan and white pointed teeth, and the chief gunned the cruiser and jerked it forward and the passenger door bounced closed and then it was open again, the chief stretched across the seats, screaming, “Get in! Get in!”
Kevin made a flying leap past the seething whipcord bodies and snarling jaws and landed inside the car. He and the chief scrambled for the handle, yanking it shut as one, two, three German shepherds thudded against the metal and glass, howling and barking and snapping their teeth. He let out the breath he’d been holding. In like Flynn.
“Jesus, Kevin.” The chief sounded like he had been the one running out there. “Don’t do that to me again. I thought you were puppy chow.” He unhooked the mic and tuned the radio for car-to-car. “Lyle?”
“Here.”
“No chance of sneaking up on ’em. May as well go in with lights.” Behind them, MacAuley’s cruiser blinked into whirling red and white.
“Awful lot of security for humble sheep farmers.” MacAuley’s voice over the radio was laconic.
The chief triggered the mic. “The Christies are sheep farmers the way trucking agents in New Jersey are legitimate businessmen. When we reach the dooryard, go as far around the side of the barn as you can. I don’t want anybody slipping away through the back forty.”
“Will do. Over.”
The chief threw the car into gear and rolled forward. The German shepherds paced them, too smart to charge a moving vehicle, too focused to let them pull away.
As they reached the dooryard, another two motion sensor lights came on, one over the front porch, the other up on the barn. The two buildings were set kitty-corner to each other, with the dirt lane looping past each and rejoining itself. The house, from what Kevin could see, looked as if every generation of Christies had made one addition or another, until the most recent: a trailer on blocks at the far side of the yard, electrical wires running between it and the main house. The trailer was dark, but a handful of windows in the house were lit.
The chief cracked his door open. Instantly, the dogs surged forward, growling and baring their teeth. He slammed it shut again, swearing. He grabbed the mic and switched the speakers to outside broadcast. “This is the Millers Kill Police.” The chief’s words, amplified, echoed back from the house and barn. “We need to ask you a few questions. Call back your dogs and restrain them.” The echo caused a feedback, and the chief’s speech ended with an electronic squeal. He dropped the mic.
“Hate that thing,” he said.
They waited. Nothing happened. No lights came on or off, which Kevin supposed was good, but no one stepped onto the porch to whistle in the German shepherds. “What do you think’s happening in there?” he asked.
The chief held up one finger. “They’re just now figuring out what they heard wasn’t part of the ten o’clock news.” He held up a second finger. “Or they’re running around the house like rats, collecting bags of pot and meth and Oxys and flushing them down the toilet as fast as they can pull the chain.” He held up a third finger. “Or they’re arming themselves, because you can’t get rid of a body in five minutes. That’s the one that worries me.” He unsnapped his holster and drew his Glock .40. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” he said. He opened the magazine and checked it.
Kevin unholstered his Colt .44 and did the same.
The chief flicked the speaker system on again. “Donald and Neil Christie. If you’re not out here in three minutes restraining these dogs, my men and I will have to shoot them.” This time, he turned the mic off before it could catch the bounceback.
“We’re not really going to shoot the dogs, are we?” Kevin knew he sounded unprofessional, but shit. Dogs? He didn’t know if he could do it.
“I sure as hell don’t want to,” the chief said. “On the other hand, if Amado Esfuentes is in there, I’m not going to sit on my ass out here while they do what they want with him.”
“But . . . the dogs? It’s not their fault they’re behaving like this. Somebody trained them to do it.”
The chief shifted in his seat a little to where he could see Kevin straight on. “Sometimes you’re going to be in a situation where there aren’t any good choices, Kevin. You just have to pick the better of two bad ones, and learn to live with the outcome.” The chief got a funny look on his face. Kevin thought he might say more, but then a light flashed from the house and they straightened to see the two beefy brothers step out onto the porch. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber, Eric had called them. They looked pissed off, but they appeared to be unarmed. Then a shorter, more slender man joined them.
“Interesting.” The chief rubbed his thumb over his lip. “I wonder why Bruce Christie’s making a late visit to the old homestead.” After the Christies called up the German shepherds and shut them in the house, the chief and Kevin got out. The chief secured his weapon again, but left the holster unsnapped. Ready to go. Kevin did the same. He heard the heavy thunks of the other cruiser’s doors closing from somewhere beside the barn. MacAuley and Noble, making sure no one was stealing away out back.
“You got a lotta nerve—” Donald Christie began.
Bruce thumped him in his chest. “How can we help you, Chief?”
“You can start by telling me where you all were tonight.”
“Right here. At home.”
“You living here now, Bruce?”
Bruce Christie grinned. “Just until your boys catch the sumbitch who trashed my trailer.” He gestured toward them. “You guys look like one a them SWAT teams, all armored up like that. What’s goin’ on?”
“Someone broke into Reverend Fergusson’s house in town.” Donald Christie’s hand flew to his nose. Kevin pressed his lips together to keep from showing his amusement. “They tore it up pretty bad. The church’s janitor, who was living there, is missing.” The chief looked at Neil Christie. “You remember him, right, Neil? I mean, before Reverend Fergusson knocked you unconscious.”
The big man grunted.
“Sounds like it might be the same crew as broke into my place,” Bruce said. “You sure the Mexican isn’t workin’ with ’em?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m sure of. I’m sure your brothers went to St. Alban’s in May looking for Amado Esfuentes. I’m sure they would’ve beat the crap out of him if they could have. And I’m sure interested in taking a look around here to see if maybe you all brought him home tonight for a little talking-to.”
Bruce Christie kept on smiling. “You got a warrant, Chief?”
Without taking his eyes off Bruce, the chief pulled his phone from his pocket. He tossed it to Kevin, who tried to look matter-of-fact about catching it. “Officer Flynn,” the chief said, “Assistant District Attorney Amy Nguyen is number eight on my speed dial. I want you to ask her to take the Christies’ case file to Judge Ryswick with a search warrant request.” His voice took on a confidential tone, clearly directed at Bruce. “Your brothers’ case was filed, not dismissed. Which means it can be reopened at any time.” He glanced at his watch. “I expect we’ll be here about two hours, waiting for the warrant to arrive.” He looked back up to the porch, where Bruce Christie’s pleasant veneer was cracking. “I figure by then, in order to justify our overtime, we’ll have to go over your place with a fine-tooth comb.” He glanced at Kevin. “Officer Flynn, where’s the nearest K-Nine unit?”
Kevin stepped up to the plate. “The Capital Area Drug Enforcement Association has a trained narcotics-sniffing dog available in Kingston, Chief. His handler could be here in under an hour.” He held up the phone. “You want me to call him?”
“I don’t know, Officer Flynn.” The chief looked at the Christies. “What do you th
ink, Bruce?”
“The Mexican’s not here. He got the message to stay away from our sister. We don’t have no other business with him.”
“Izzy ain’t seeing him no more,” Neil said. “He didn’t understand when she told him to clear off, ’cause he don’t speak no English.”
Kevin thought Neil wasn’t doing so hot in that department himself.
The chief spread his hands. “All we’re looking for is Amado. I’m not interested in anything else. Yet.”
The Christies looked at one another. Donald spoke up. “I don’t want you scaring nobody. We got kids here, some a my fiancée’s and some a mine while their mom is outta town.”
“I suspect the best way not to scare them is if we all cooperate.”
The Christies looked at one another again. Bruce nodded to his brothers. Turned toward the chief. “All right,” he said.
The chief motioned toward the barn. “Two of my men will search the barn. It’d go faster and easier if one of you went with them.”
Bruce Christie cut a sharp glance at his brothers. “I’ll go.” He clattered down the stairs and headed for the three-story structure. Kevin tagged the barn as the most likely spot for whatever illegal substances the Christies were hiding.
The chief reached inside the cruiser and snatched the mic. “Lyle?” he said.
The speaker cracked on. “Here.”
“Bruce Christie is headed your way to show you around his barn. Make sure you get a look at any outbuildings as well.”
“Roger that.”
The chief rehitched the mic and held out a hand toward Kevin. It took him a beat, but he figured out what the chief wanted. He dropped the phone in his hand and bent close enough not to be overheard by the two remaining Christies. “Won’t Bruce just get in their way? Try to keep them from seeing what he doesn’t want them to see?”
“I want to split them up,” the chief said, in the same low tone. “If we stumble onto something, we’ll only have one to deal with.” He stepped toward the porch stairs and raised his voice. “Do you have a kennel or a run for the dogs?”
“Ayeah,” Donald said.
“Good. I’d like one of you to put them away. None of us wants an unfortunate accident because a dog got overexcited.”
“I’ll do it,” Neil said to his brother. “You better stay with Kathy so’s she don’t freak out.”
The chief waited next to Donald while Neil went inside. He returned in a moment, leading four German shepherds straining at their leashes. The shepherds looked like they’d been crossbred with ponies. Mean-tempered ponies. Kevin’s exhilaration at escaping the dogs at the gate turned to a queasy awareness of what they could have done if they had caught him.
“Officer Flynn?” The chief’s voice snapped him out of it. He thudded up the stairs and followed Donald Christie and the chief into the house.
They were in what must have once been a fine front hall: plaster moldings and mahogany woodwork and an elegant twelve-over-twelve window. Now it was dusty and bare, except for a coatrack and a pile of boots. Broad carpeted stairs curved to the second floor. A door ahead of them listed open to what looked like a dining room. Through the closed double door to the left he could hear the sounds of an overloud television and the babble of high-pitched conversation. Donald Christie thumbed in that direction. “Kathy and mosta the kids are watching a movie. I better go tell her what’s goin’ on. She gets some touchy at times.”
“Why don’t I come with you,” the chief said, smooth and easy, like he was Donald Christie’s best bud. “I know how women can get.” He tapped Kevin and, without looking, pointed at the open door.
Kevin got moving. The next room was indeed a dining room—dark, depressing, anchored with a table large enough to perform surgery. He heard a woman’s voice say, “What?” and turned back toward the front hall. There was another closed door behind him. He could hear Christie, sounding apologetic, and the low rumble of the chief’s voice.
He reversed himself slowly, looking for anything that might be a lead. On the other wall, a coffin-sized sideboard surmounted by a depressing painting of dead animals separated two more doorways. One appeared to contain a closet-sized hall. The other opened onto linoleum. He picked the lino.
The kitchen was a mix of old wooden cabinets, knocked-together shelving, and 1970s appliances. There were two more doors, one ahead of him and one to the left. He shook his head. Old houses. Three doors to every room but no closets. He crossed the kitchen to the far door, wedged between shelving and a skinny laminate cupboard. It led to a narrow roofed porch; washer and dryer on one end, clothesline looping off a wheel into the darkness in front of him. He frowned at the steps leading down to the backyard. He backed into the kitchen and headed for the other door, between the sink and a harvest-gold chest freezer. From the other side of the house, he could hear a woman complaining at top volume. Must be Kathy, getting touchy. Kevin was grinning to himself as he opened the next door.
A woman looked up from where she was reading on a fluffed-up marshmallow of a bed.
“Oh! Geez.” Kevin could feel the blush starting. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know anyone was in here. I would’ve knocked.”
The woman shut a skinny paperback and slid off the bed. “It’s okay,” she said. “I heard the first part of tonight’s show. You guys didn’t kill the dogs, did you?”
“No!”
“Too bad.” She didn’t sound sarcastic, just sad.
“I, um. . . .” He glanced around the room. It was decked out like a French boudoir for a six-year-old, although the woman standing in front of him had to be his age or a few years older. Blond, brown-eyed, built like a former Dairy Princess. “Are you the sister?”
“That’s me,” she said. If Bruce Christie got the brains in the family, this one got the looks.
“I have to, um . . . do you mind if I look around?”
She swept her arm wide. “Help yourself. What are you after?”
“Um.” What if the brother was wrong, and she wasn’t over her Latino boyfriend? He didn’t want to deal with another Kathy, who was now so high-pitched, he could hear her from where he stood. “The janitor from the Episcopal church is missing.”
She looked at him as if he were cracked. “And you’re looking for him here?” Then her mouth opened. “Oh. Is this the guy my brothers went after?” Her mouth quirked in an odd sort of smile. “The Mexican guy at the church?”
“Yeah. Have you seen him recently?”
She shook her head. “I never saw him.” She put air quotes around the word ‘saw.’ “They just . . . Neil gets . . .” She smiled that smile again. “They got nothing to worry about.”
“Did you tell them that? That he wasn’t your boyfriend?”
She snorted. “No. Why? They’d just go after—” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “It’s done with. I don’t wanna bring it up again.” The angle of her arm slid her short sleeve back, and Kevin could see the edge of a purple and green bruise that must have gone to her shoulder.
“Um,” he said. “But your brothers. If they’re still under the impression you had a relationship, maybe they wanted to bring it up again.”
She frowned. “No, they wouldn’t. . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t think they would.” She was talking to herself now. “Would they?”
“You mind if I go ahead?”
She waved him on. He made short work of the place—no closet, one bed, no trap door leading to the cellar. It’d be hard to hide a guy in here, since, he noted, there were nothing but screw holes in the doorjamb where locks or a hook-and-eye would have gone. There was another door at the far end of the room, but when he tried it, he was on the washer and dryer end of the porch. Convenient. He had a feeling the male Christies didn’t do much housework.
He fished in his breast pocket and took out a card. “Here,” he said. She took it. Read it. Her face closed. She handed it back.
“I don’t need this,” she said.
&nbs
p; “Then pass it on to another woman who might,” he said. “It’s a toll-free line, twenty-four hours a day, no questions asked. They can keep you safe.”
She snorted. “You don’t know much, do you?”
Nothing he could say to that. He apologized again and left her, still standing, still frowning. At least she kept the card. He met up with the chief at the entrance to the narrow hall in the dining room.
The chief looked like a man who’d been verbally blowtorched. “Next time,” he said, “we bring a trank gun.”
“For the dogs?”
“For the fiancée.” He raked a hand through his hair, skewing it in odd directions. “There’s a baby and two little ones asleep upstairs. Two more kids and Donald’s teenager live here, as well as the teen’s baby daddy, sometimes, and the Christies. Bruce is out in the fifth-wheel trailer. We’re looking for anything anomalous.”
“Geez, Chief,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know you knew the phrase baby daddy.”
The chief gave him a look. “I used to say bounder and cad, but I updated.”
The upstairs was a bust, as was the trailer. No sign of Amado, no sign that any of the Christies had been vandalizing the rectory.
“Now what?” he asked the chief. They had closed the rickety trailer door and were walking across the grass.
“Now we send out an APB and hope somebody spots the guy.” The chief blinked as another motion-detector light came on from the side of the house. “Unless Eric and Knox turn up something at the workers’ bunkhouse, we’ve just blown through our only lead.”
“I spoke to the sister,” Kevin said.
“Yeah?” The chief paused. “What’d she have to say?”
“That she never went out with the guy. Said her brothers misunderstood the situation.”
“Huh. Lot of misunderstandings around that relationship.” The chief crossed to their cruiser. “You believe her?”