Believe No One (44 page)

Josh began to object, but Fennimore cut him off. ‘You should have told me as
soon
as you knew your computer was stolen. Instead of which, I have to prise the information out of you. You've kept material facts from me, Josh.'

‘Professor—'

‘I don't want to hear it,' Fennimore said. ‘Do what I asked you to do, report to me as soon as you know anything. And if you have some kind of flashback and decide you
do
recognize the man in the sketch, I want to know straight away, not two hours down the line when you've had time to concoct a story.'

‘Nick, come on. I've been straight with you.'

‘Seriously, Josh, I don't think you know how. When this investigation's done, we're finished – I'll assign you another supervisor.'

He cut the connection and glared at the image of Faith Eversley.

‘Professor?' Roper said.

Fennimore groaned inwardly. ‘I'm sorry you had to hear that.'

‘It's okay.' He sounded wary, as if he thought Fennimore might bawl him out. ‘But Professor, staring at that photograph isn't doing anyone any good.'

‘It's the most recent image we have,' Fennimore said, knowing he sounded fevered, idiotic. ‘It's the interior of the container where she probably is
right now.
'

‘That's right – it's
inside
– what about the picture of the container? We could maybe get geographic markers off that.' Roper's tone was coaxing, like he was talking a jumper down from a skyscraper ledge.

Maybe I am a bit close to the edge just now,
Fennimore thought, clicking through to the penultimate photograph in the file. The container was parked on concrete; a patch of blue sky was visible in the top left corner, and that was it – no locational clues at all. He opened the image of Faith inside the container again, and Roper shook his head and turned away.

Exhaustion and hopelessness and rage were making him crazy, but he couldn't help himself. The Task Force had narrowed their focus using a timeline from McIntyre's movements through tolls and passing through intersections, but it wasn't tight enough. They had times for the truck entering and leaving Interstate 44. They had dates and times for the sightings of the car, but so far they had no intersection between the two. It was all a question of timing; they just needed one more temporal reference—

Suddenly, he had it, and the realization hit him so hard his head rang.

‘Roper, could you call Greg Dunlap?'

Roper was by his side in a second, already hitting the speed-dial button as he asked what Fennimore had found.

‘Digital photographs are time- and date-stamped. And this,' he said, right-clicking the image of Faith Eversley in the container, ‘is the most recent image we have.'

A right-click on the mouse opened a dialogue box. He scrolled to ‘Properties' and clicked on the ‘Details' tab. Under the heading ‘Date taken', was today's date, and a time.

‘This picture was taken at eleven minutes past three this morning. That's what – forty minutes before we got to McIntyre's house?'

‘About that,' Roper said. ‘And the ME's preliminary report says he had extensive injuries – broken bones, fractured skull – the killer worked on him a while.'

‘So McIntyre must've parked the container close by – I mean ten, twenty minutes' drive from his house.'

Roper relayed the information to Dunlap and Fennimore scrolled on, wondering at the amount of information that was stored with every digital image: the dimensions and resolution; the
f
-stop and exposure time; the camera model and make; everything an enthusiastic amateur might want to know. He glanced over the file details and his eye jumped back a line. Below the heading ‘Advanced photo' was an extra category – one his own camera did not possess. For a second he froze. Roper saw it the same instant he did.

‘Holy
shit,
' Roper said. ‘Stand by, Greg, we got an exact location for you.'

The new category, the one that rendered Fennimore mute, read, ‘GPS'. They had exact longitude and latitude coordinates for the container.

The GPS coordinates of the image took them to a disused gas station fifteen miles out of Hays. The fuel pumps had been removed, but the building was still standing. Seven police vehicles, the local radio station's outside-broadcast unit, Launer's pet newspaper editors and a paramedic ambulance converged on the premises in a matter of minutes. Simms was in no doubt that the state TV networks would follow on.

The front lot was empty, but when they went around the back, there it was, parked on its landing gear: a forty-foot, rust-red shipping container, shimmering in the heat haze. There was no sign of the truck, or the tractor-trailer. It was 85 °F, and the temperature inside the container would be at least ten degrees higher, so with paramedics on standby, twenty officers moved in fast, checking the perimeter before splitting into two teams. Ten stormed the derelict building while the rest tackled the container. Its locking bar was secured with a padlock, quickly dispatched by bolt cutters. Two men swung the doors wide and hot air, sharp with throat-catching ammonia, roiled from the interior. A deputy and a St Louis detective climbed in, weapons drawn, but the deputy returned moments later, his pistol holstered, one hand covering his mouth and nose. He shouted for a medic. Climbing down, he caught Launer's eye and gave a small shake of his head.

‘The girl?' Launer said.

‘No, sir.'

Seconds later, a paramedic came flying out of the container and landed on the concrete running.

‘She's alive,' he yelled over his shoulder. ‘We need water – plenty of it – she's burning up.' Police and sheriff's deputies scattered to fetch water bottles from vehicles; two even brought hand-held fans to help with the cooling. The paramedic returned with two bags of saline and for ten minutes they worked on Faith Eversley, dousing her with water, pushing fluids into her, while the search went on for her missing child.

Twenty minutes on, Faith was wheeled on a gurney towards the emergency vehicle, barely conscious. By now several TV outside-broadcast units had arrived; Simms counted two Fox News trucks in amongst them. Launer walked purposefully towards them, but Dunlap intercepted him.

‘I think we should wait on the wider search results before making a statement, Sheriff.'

‘Well, you're entitled to your opinion, Detective,' he said, smiling and patting him on the shoulder. It would look to the cameras like he was congratulating his co-investigator. Dunlap did not smile.

Fennimore met Simms's eye. ‘An eight-year-old girl is still missing and he's electioneering.' He looked ready to do some damage.

‘Not our fight, Nick,' she said.

Hicks came from the direction of the derelict service station and they turned to her in anticipation.

She shook her head. ‘We turned it inside out – there's nothing but dust and cobwebs back there.'

Simms glanced quickly at Fennimore; he looked grey and strained. ‘We have to find the truck,' he said.

‘The Sheriff is going to leave a deputy to guard the scene while the CSIs collect evidence,' Hicks said. ‘Everyone else is back on the search. He wants me to go with Faith to the hospital, in case she comes round.'

‘Where do we start?' Fennimore said.

Hicks looked uncertainly at Simms. ‘You should stay close to the St Louis detectives, Professor.'

‘To hell with that.' He headed towards his rental SUV.

‘I'll go with him,' Simms said. ‘Any suggestions?'

‘We already know he's close by,' Hicks said. ‘But he would have to walk from the truck to the container, and anyone walking on these roads would attract attention, so I'd be looking
real
close.'

Simms waved Fennimore down as he swung towards the exit. Sliding into the passenger seat, she took his netbook from the dashboard. ‘Take it slowly,' she said. ‘He could be nearby.'

According to the GPS map, there was a cluster of farm buildings about a mile south-west and another two miles north-east of their location. They chose the closest. It was a working farm, and the family was happy to show them their barns, if it meant they would find little Ava a minute sooner – apparently the local cable network was running half-hourly updates.

The barns were stacked with new hay and farm machinery, but there was no truck.

Fennimore opened his netbook and showed the landowner the satellite image of the second farm. ‘Do you know who owns this farm?'

The farmer frowned at the cluster of grey-roofed buildings on the satellite image. ‘Oh, that isn't a farm,' he told them. ‘That was Dawson's Animal Feed warehouse, long time ago. They had a drive-in movie theatre over at Dawson's in the summertime, when I was a kid. But your picture's out of date; storm blew down from the Great Lakes, took the roof right off last month – we been finding sections of it on our land ever since.'

‘A feed warehouse might be just the place to hide a truck,' Fennimore said.

‘Let's find out,' Simms said.

The main building was down a potholed gravel track, five minutes off the state highway. The roof was gone, just as the farmer said it would be. The aluminium walls, peeled back from the framework, flapped and groaned with the slightest stirring of air. The framework of the film screen survived: a sixty-foot wooden structure with its back to the dirt track. Closely tacked laths, running the length of it, gave it the appearance of a giant open-weave fence. As they drove nearer, Simms could make out a dark hulking shape beyond the screen.

‘There,' she said.

Fennimore jammed his foot on the accelerator and seconds later they skidded to a halt ten feet short of a Peterbilt 387. Fennimore reached for the door handle, but she stopped him. ‘Stay here. Call Dunlap and give him the coordinates.' She was out and running to the truck before he could argue.

The radiator grille was as tall as she was, and Simms could feel reflected heat coming off it. She swung lightly up to the door. It was locked. Fennimore joined her seconds later. He tried the escape door of the sleeper cab, but it was shut tight. He tried the passenger side. That was locked, too.

Simms shielded her eyes and peered down through the cab window. ‘I can't see a thing. Oh, bugger this.' She drew a short, black cylinder from her pocket and flicked it. It extended like a car aerial to about a foot in length.

‘How did you get that through airport security?' he said.

She flashed him a small smile. ‘I didn't.' She had bought the baton over the Internet after the field trip out to East St Louis.

She turned her face away from the side window and covered her eyes with one arm, then whacked the window hard with the rounded tip of the weapon. Two, three times more and the window shattered, beads of glass cascading around her.

‘But I won't tell if you don't,' she added, reaching in to open the door.

McIntyre had fitted a vinyl-laminated panel with a sliding door between the cab and the sleeper cabin. It was padlocked.

‘Ava,' Simms called through the panelling. ‘Ava Eversley?' She listened, thought she heard a slight shuffle in the cabin beyond. ‘Ava, my name is Kate. I'm with the police – the Sheriff is on his way.'

No sound.

‘We've come to bring you home to your mommy,' Simms said.

A tiny choking sound, and a snuffle.

She nodded to Fennimore and relief flooded his face. ‘Help is on the way,' he said softly.

‘It's stifling in there,' Simms murmured. ‘I'm going to try to break the lock into the cabin.' She raised her voice: ‘Ava, we're going to get you out of there.' She jammed the steel baton inside the hasp of the lock and levered it. It gave, but only a little. Sweating, she tried again. The screws of the hasp squealed, pulling out of the vinyl by a quarter-inch. Panting, she stopped to get her breath.

‘Let me have a go,' Fennimore said.

She handed him the baton and swung out of the cab to give him room. He broke the baton on his first attempt, wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and went to work again with the remaining third. The hasp gave at the same instant as the door slider. He fell backwards into the cab, bashing his head against the windscreen.

‘Nick!' Simms called.

‘I'm okay,' he said, righting himself. ‘But I don't see her.' He manoeuvred the panel out from behind the seats and Simms slid it out of the cab door. ‘There's a cupboard in here; I'm going to open it.'

Simms climbed back inside as the tiny closet door swung open. Ava was squatting on her haunches, bound and gagged with duct tape. Tears streamed down her face.

Fennimore made soothing noises, but she shied away from him. ‘I just want to lift you out, Ava,' he said. ‘So you can go and see your momma. This is Kate, and the Sheriff will be here any minute.'

The little girl cowered, squeezing back into the tiny space, trying to talk through the gag.

‘All right,' he said. ‘Okay, let me just take this away from your mouth so you can tell me what you want. All right?'

She gave a small nod.

‘It'll sting, but only for a second.'

She nodded again, her blue eyes wide, and allowed him to ease a corner of the tape away from her mouth.

‘I can't come out, the monster'll get me,' she hiccuped and sobbed.

‘There is no monster,' he said.

‘There
is
,' she wailed. ‘I heard it. The man said I should stay real quiet or it would come get me.'

The aluminium siding of the old building moved in a current of air, setting up a moan like all the tormented in hell, and the little girl screamed.

‘Aw, that's just the wind,' Fennimore said, approximating a soft Oklahoman drawl. ‘Just the wind, flapping the aluminum on that old barn outside.' He pronounced it ‘aluminum', the American way. ‘Anyway, Chief Simms's got a pistol – right, Chief?' he said.