Method 15 33 by Shannon Kirk Read Free Book Online Page A

distinctions, but in myinvestigator’s mind, I lumped them all in one group: innocent, married retirees. Kind, too, nearly every one of the wives wept upon explanation of our mission, spanking or kicking the side of their van as if punishing it for being the brother of a kidnapper. During these interviews, Lola, who hung behind me and on the fringe, received sideways glances, which I took to mean, “Does she really have to glare at us?”
    As is the case in most instances, we could not find one registrant. He didn’t appear to have a formal job anywhere, and not one of his neighbors knew where he’d gone off to. Small town, outside Notre Dame, that’s where he was supposed to be. He lived in a fairly large, white Cape at the end of a two-hundred-foot, pine-lined, dirt driveway. A towering red barn loomed behind his home in a flat, grassy field, a spot hidden from roadside inspection. Naturally, this guy peaked my interest. Neighbors confirmed they’d seen him with a maroon van at one point, but they couldn’t remember when. “Takes off a lot. We don’t know where he goes.”
    I gave the neighbors my card and asked them to call me if he were to show up. Lola hunted down a local judge, knuckle-knocking on his country door while he ate his scrambled eggs. Although I wasn’t with her, I can picture the scene. She hulked over His Honor as he signed the search warrant, and then she grabbed a piece of his buttered toast as retribution for having to go to the trouble of seeking permissions from persons she felt were below
Her Law
. “We should be able to storm into whatever we damn well please to find these babies,” she said, and with this, I did agree. Right to privacy and due process of laws, my ass. Slowed us down. But leave the poor Judge’s toast alone.
    And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we got our warrant, a neighbor called. “He’s back. But he has a black pickup. No van as far as I can tell.”
    We sped down single lanes with low ditches and long fields on each border to return to our suspect. Along the way, Lola and I kept the windows down, taking in the cleansing odor of dewedgrass and bubbling spring water. Indiana.
Indiana, Indiana, take me from her, leave me here, set me with the wheat and the moon and a wisp of a glimpse of her face. Indiana, Indiana
. Several vacant swing sets squeaked out this haunt-rocking song to the rhythm of a lonely country breeze.
    We greeted our mystery man in his driveway, where he was waiting for us.
Tipped off. Tight community
. Appearing as Paul Bunyan, he wore faded jean overalls, steel-toed work boots, and dangled a pipe from his crooked mouth. “Name’s Boyd,” he corrected when I asked if he was Robert McGuire. “Robert’s my Christian name, but Mama always calls me Boyd.” Boyd was a chicken farmer.
    After introductions and the showing of badges, Boyd invited us inside. As we entered, he snuffed out his pipe and laid it on a birchwood card table on the porch. “Only guests kin smoke in the house, so light her up, Mr. Lui, if you got any, as I said, Mama always say, only guests kin smoke in your house.”
    I noted, as did my square-jawed apprentice, that so far, Boyd had not once addressed her directly, nor had he suggested she too might smoke in his house. But Boyd wasn’t being sexist, at least I didn’t think so. I just think he was put off by Lola’s no-blink stare and her regular intervals of spitting chewing tobacco beyond his bed of hostas. I didn’t tell her to stop or even shoot her any incredulous looks; I had already tried so many times to get her to quit and failed. Her response was always the same: “With what I got to see in basements and crawl spaces, Liu, spare me pleas about my packy. Now shut up and buy me a Guinness, boss.” I suppose she had a point, but let’s add her wanting-to-get-mouth-cancer and her addiction to mud beers to the long list of reasons making my fifteenth year with the FBI pure hell. And also add this tidbit: Lola