The phone rang six times before voicemail picked up: “This is Alber PD Detective Jeff Mullins, please leave a message.”
“Mullins, it’s Chief Jefferies,” I started. “I need to—”
Before I finished, another call beeped in, this time from the station. “Hey, Chief,” Kellie said. The girl had kind of a singsong voice. I’m not always the most cheerful person, and it was one of the reasons I hired her. Alber PD’s new dispatcher seemed to be in a perpetually good mood.
“Where’s Mullins?” I asked.
“That’s why I’m getting in touch,” she said. “Mullins called in a little while ago and asked where you were. As soon as I told him you’d gone to the Johansson bison ranch, that there were casualties, two women and some children, he got super-agitated. Said he had a lead to follow up on. He didn’t tell me what kind of lead.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Well, now I’ve got Carl Shipley on the nine-one-one line. Says he’s got a problem. Chief, he needs someone out there at his place ASAP.”
One thing I still had to teach Kellie was how to zero in on the most important information. “What’s he asking for?” I prompted.
“Police assistance,” she said. “He claims that Detective Mullins has him pinned down inside his trailer out near Old Sawyer Creek, a few miles from the ranch.”
“Wait. Mullins has him pinned down?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” Kellie confirmed. “The guy says that Mullins is threatening to break down the door and kill him.”
Seven
Max saw Clara storming toward him. “You know a Carl Shipley? Mullins is at his place with a gun, has him trapped in his trailer. Any idea what’s going on?” she asked.
“Not a clue,” Max said. “I don’t know much about Carl, just that he and Jacob both lived in Mexico for a while and came back together. I hear that they’re inseparable. Carl moved into a trailer down the road about the same time Jacob took over the ranch. I can get us there. It’s close. Follow me.”
“I’m right behind you.” As they sprinted to their vehicles, Clara shouted at one deputy to get Mother Naomi out of the Suburban and watch over her until she returned. Then Clara ordered Stef: “Stay with the lieutenant. We’ll be back.”
Max took the lead and Clara followed. He felt unsettled, anxious, and he couldn’t really decide why. He’d seen grisly murder scenes before. But the flashbacks had started as soon as he’d reached the house and saw Anna and the children. All three were so young, and he couldn’t wipe away the images. But it was Laurel he felt drawn to. Miriam was ten years older when she died, but Laurel looked remarkably like her. They had the same light hair, patrician features. Vital-looking women—left with blank, dead eyes.
Miriam had been gone for nearly two years, but the vision of her caught in the car, bleeding from a gash in her forehead, the steering wheel pushed into her rib cage? Max had been fighting it for a very long time, he realized, willing himself not to see it.
I never should have let Miriam drive, he thought for the thousandth time. It was my fault. All of it my fault.
He tried to wipe the memory from his mind, and instead thought of the sound of Jacob struggling to suck in a breath of air through his damaged trachea, of the blood foaming and seeping out from the cut. Max decided he’d seen more than his share of blood in his lifetime. At times, being a cop seemed overwhelming. Imagine all the folks who went to work every day and didn’t have to worry about ending up on a murder scene.
Why did the killer murder the children? Max decided it had to be that the kids saw whoever did it kill their mother, and allowing them to live would have meant leaving behind witnesses. When they caught the SOB, Max vowed he’d make sure that the killer understood just how wrong that had been. I’ll make him regret it. Every day of his sorry life.
Now it appeared Mullins had gone rogue. Max wondered what they were walking into at Carl Shipley’s trailer. How dangerous was it? Had Carl pulled a gun on Mullins? Threatened him? Why would Mullins go after Carl? But then, Max had heard rumors about Carl, that he was something of a bad seed, in trouble from his earliest years. Whatever was unfolding at Carl’s place, Max figured Mullins must have a reason.