The Double Man (Jack Widow Book 15) Page 19

  They drove with the windows cracked for four hours and came to a small town that was on a large area of land. It was all farms for miles. There were farms to the west, mountains to the north and the east, and a large forest preserve to the west and south. Everything else was farmland. They drove to the town limits, following the GPS’s directions to the Buck Garret’s home address. They drove down long, empty farm roads until they passed an old sign that the town never took down. It read, Ruffalo Creek, only the Ruffalo part was spray-painted over, and a new word was spray-painted above it. Now it read, Murder Creek.

  Keagan saw it and said, “Charming.”

  Widow said, “Whatever.”

  They continued on until they drove through the downtown part of Maiden Creek. It was as small as any small downtown ever was. There were two churches, both the same Christian denomination, both bigger than any other building. They were bigger than city hall, bigger than the town’s only convention center. The only thing they passed that was larger than the churches was one of those mega department stores. It was the kind that sells everything. Where you can go buy your groceries and have the tires on your car rotated all in the same shopping event.

  One of the churches doubled as a private school. Widow and Keagan slowed in the school zone around it. They saw kids playing outside in a fenced in playground.

  They saw a lone post office made from wood and brick. It also looked old. There was a broken-down Old West wagon parked next to it—the horse-pulled kind. The back end still had its wooden wheels on. The front had nothing. The wooden wheels were gone.

  They passed a small police station, and a two-story all-brick bank that had a sign claiming the bank was established in 1891. They passed a huge park for families that was lined with trees and a large lake. They saw people of all ages walking their dogs and playing in the park. They saw fishermen standing on the shores of the calm lake. They saw a large pavilion on one corner that looked like a small wedding was happening.

  The town reminded Widow of where he grew up. He didn’t mention it to Keagan.

  They drove on past all of the town’s life and onto another long winding farm road. Outside the town, they drove past a roadside diner that looked promising, like the kind that Widow preferred. It was a local joint and not a chain. It had a small self-service gas station attached to it.

  They passed it and headed down the old two-lane farm road for another ten minutes, when they got closer to the address on the GPS. They had gone further northeast, making the mountains to the northwest smaller and the ones to the northeast larger.

  At one point, Keagan slowed the Impala so they could stare off to the west at a huge monstrosity in the distance. To the west—down an unmarked road with overgrown grass everywhere and a gate blocking anyone from driving on to it—was an enormous, sprawling industrial plant. There was piping everywhere. They were all shapes, all sizes, and headed in multiple directions. From the distance, it was too hard to count them all.

  A faint odor lingered in the air and wafted in through the cracked windows.

  Keagan smelt it and asked, “Is it a toxic chemical plant or something?”

  Widow said, “Oil refinery. See, right there?” He pointed at the plant and said, “Those pipes all had different functions. Those are for fluid processing.”

  “Fluid processing?”

  “Yeah. See, those are distillation columns.”

  “I didn’t know oil was a big thing in Utah?”

  Widow said, “Apparently, it used to be. At least in this town.”

  Keagan asked, “If it’s shut down, what’s that smell?”

  “I guess the oil or the chemicals or the waste smell lingers.”

  Keagan said, “This place looks huge. I bet it was once the crown jewel of the town. I wonder why it closed down.”

  “Maybe government regulation?”

  Keagan shrugged and took her foot off the brake, and they headed back on their way. They drove another four and a half miles and saw not much of anything else but more farmland. And finally, she slowed the Impala at the end of a dirt driveway.

  “This has gotta be it,” Keagan said. She stared at the dashboard GPS screen and saw it was the end of the line. To their right was a mailbox next to the dirt driveway. It was thin and one lane and all dirt. They turned onto it.

  Keagan said, “Maybe we should've picked something with four-wheel drive.”

  “Just stay in the center of the drive,” Widow said.

  They drove on the long driveway until they were far into the farm’s property.

  Widow said, “Not a lot of neighbors. You could fire a gun out here, and no one would hear it.”

  Keagan said, “That’s scary.”

  They drove a little longer and came up over a hill and past overgrown grass and saw a farmhouse in a large clearing. The clearing was far better maintained than the front of the farm. The grass was cut, and there was a garden with flowers and fruit trees everywhere.

  The farmhouse was large, all solid wood. There was a porch with a swing on it and chairs out front for the inhabitants to sit and watch over the land. There was a screen door on the front door, which was wide open, probably to let the fresh country air in so whoever was inside could enjoy it.

  There was a satellite dish on the side of the house. Widow figured cable TV and internet probably didn’t come to this part of Nowhere, Utah, yet.

  There was an old truck parked on the side of the house. It looked like it had been handed down from father to son for generations. But it was well maintained. The tires looked a year old, maybe two. And the coat of paint was only a few years old. The whole vehicle was pretty clean, despite being older than Widow and maybe older than Widow and Keagan combined. The truck was from a generation of farmers from long, long ago.

  Widow saw two sets of tire tracks in the dirt, like there was a vehicle missing that normally parked near the truck.

  There was a fresh water well with a pump on one corner of the yard. There was a trailer parked off to the other side of the house near the well. It could be used for hauling just about anything.

  Once they were more into the clearing, they saw a second drive that veered off to the east. And they saw the top of a barn in the distance that the drive led to.

  There was something else. It was something that stuck out a lot, but they hadn’t noticed it until they were all the way into the clearing. Keagan put her foot on the brake, the car stopped, dust kicked up behind them, and she reached her arm out and grabbed Widow by the bicep, but she was reaching for his shirt sleeve to tug on it.

  She said, “Look.”

  Widow looked out the windshield. Off to the west of the house, parked under a huge oak tree, was an old police pickup truck. It was newer than the farm truck by decades, but it was in worse condition. Grass had grown over the tires. Rust had overtaken the frame and much of the external parts of the truck. The windshield was completely gone. A light bar on the roof of the truck was shattered and broken, cracked all over the place. There were words painted on the door of the truck. They were faded and old. The words read, "Ruffalo Creek Sheriff."

  Suddenly, they hear a loud, ferocious dog barking. A huge rottweiler appeared from out of nowhere on the side of the house. He had a long chain that was pulled tight as he tried to run at their vehicle. The farm had no fencing, so the dog was chained to a tree in the backyard, but the chain was long enough so he could travel to the front. He barked and foamed at the mouth.

  Keagan said, “He looks vicious.”

  “I’m glad he’s restrained. Although, I don’t approve of chaining up dogs. I guess when you own this much land, all you can do is fence it in or chain the dog up so he can still run around and get exercise but can’t escape.”

  Keagan said, “Or the chain could be preventing him from biting the faces off of strangers.”

  “There’s that too.”

  They both got out of the Impala. Keagan left her coat and her gun in the back seat. Widow left his coat in
the back seat. They shut their doors at the same time and walked around the nose of the Impala and stopped at the front of the hood. They looked at each other once and started to walk up a stone walkway to the house’s porch, but they stopped and froze because someone came out past the screen door.

  An old man in his seventies pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch. Like Widow, he was also in a flannel shirt and blue jeans, but unlike Widow, he wore house slippers. His shirt was tucked into his jeans. He stood about five ten, with broad shoulders and a slight gut from a retired life filled with long hours of sedentary acts of watching TV and doing not much else. He wore a white, aged cowboy hat on his head.

  His face was gruff and worn. He had a trimmed gray beard with black sideburns that threaded into black-and-gray hair that was thick on his head. His cheeks were wrinkled, like he smiled most of the time. But not then. Right then, he had a look of concern on his face—concern and confusion.

  There was one more thing about him that stuck out; perhaps it was the most obvious thing about him. He was holding a gun in one hand.

  The gun was a Taurus 444 Raging Bull revolver. It was loaded with forty-four Magnum bullets. The barrel was six-point-five inches long, but that wouldn’t have mattered. If the barrel was six inches long or a mile, either way, you didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of the Magnum bullets. One of them could take the head off a horse.

  The revolver was gunmetal gray and polished. The old man looked like he sat around all day either watching satellite TV and polishing his weapon or both at the same time.

  The man stopped on the porch and waved the Raging Bull in the air and shouted at them. “Who are you? What are you doing on my farm?”

  Keagan said, “Are you Buck Garret?”

  The man stared at her, he squinted his eyes. He said, “Is that a woman?”

  Keagan said, “Yes, Mr. Garret. Is that your name?”

  “Sheriff Garret,” he said.

  “Are you the town sheriff?" Keagan asked. "I thought this town had a police force.” She stayed where she was in case he started shooting and she needed to duck for cover behind the Impala.

  Widow didn’t even think to duck behind the impala because it wouldn’t have saved them. Not from one of those bullets.

  Garret said, “I used to be the sheriff. But I’m not anymore. Who are you?”

  Keagan said, “Mr. Garret, we’re with the US Coast Guard Investigative Service. I’m going to reach for my badge and show you. Don’t shoot us. Okay?”

  The dog barked off to the side of the house and pulled on its chain. Widow glanced over at it. He was shocked that the chain held the thing.

  Garret said, “I’m not interested in whatever your selling!”

  Keagan said, “No, Mr. Garret, we’re with the US Coast Guard Investigative Service. Let me get my badge and show you.”

  Garret pointed the gun at them, not directly, but in their direction. He said, “Don’t make any fast moves! Who are you?”

  Keagan said, “I told you, Mr. Garret, we’re with the US Coast Guard Investigative Service. We just need to speak to you.”

  Garret lowered his weapon down to his side. He said, “US Coast Guard? We ain’t got no coastline here.”

  Keagan reached slow for her wallet and pulled it out of her back pocket. She opened it and showed her badge to Garret.

  He squinted and said, “I can’t see that far.”

  Keagan asked, “Can you please lower your weapon. We don’t want you to shoot it by accident. You might hit one of us. We’re federal agents.”

  Garret looked at Widow. He could see Widow just fine. Widow knew that. He was a big target.

  Keagan said, “Mr. Garret, can we speak to you?”

  “What do you want?” he called out.

  Keagan said, “We want to talk with you about a man named Gary Kloss.”

  Garret said, “Kloss? I never heard of him.”

  Keagan said, “Mr. Garret, can we come inside and talk to you?”

  Garret froze and paused a long beat. He started looking around. He looked confused, like he didn’t know where he was for a moment. He stared up at the sky like he was getting his bearings.

  Widow scanned the farmhouse’s windows to see if there was anyone watching. He saw no one. No prying eyes. No fluttering curtains. No movement. He glanced to the right and saw the dog snarling and foaming at the mouth more. It jerked and pulled on the chain.

  Suddenly, Garret looked back at Keagan and then over at Widow.

  He said, “Who are you? What are you doing on my property?”

  He raised the Raging Bull again, same as before, and waved it around, never pointing it directly at either of them, but in their general direction.

  He said, “I’m not interested in whatever your selling.”

  Keagan looked at Widow. He glanced back at her. Their eyes met. She turned back to Garret and said, “No, Mr. Garret, we’re not selling anything. We’re with US Coast Guard Investigative Service. We just need to speak to you.”

  Keagan glanced at Widow one more time. He shrugged.

  Garret said, “Who are you? What are you doing on my property?”

  Garret stared at both of them, and then he raised he gun and fired a single round into the air. The gunshot was loud and deafening, even in the open. It sounded like a small cannon, which was why the Raging Bull earned the name "hand cannon."

  On instinct, Keagan went for her weapon on her hip and then realized she left it in the back seat of the Impala. Widow didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He stayed right where he was. The only thing he did was he raised his hands so Garret could see them. His palms faced out. They were empty.

  He said, “Okay, Sheriff. We’re leaving.”

  Garret seemed to recognize him for a moment. But it was being called Sheriff that got his mind wondering back to a time when people called him that. He lowered the Raging Bull.

  Widow said, “We’re going to leave now. Don’t shoot us.”

  Widow backed up slow, kept his hands in the air. He glanced over to Keagan and said, “Let’s go.”

  Keagan nodded, and they both got back into the Impala, and Keagan started it up. She reversed it and K-turned, and they drove back down the driveway to the road. She stopped at the end of the drive and in front of the mailbox.

  She looked at Widow and asked, “Okay, what now?”

  Widow said, “He seems to have lost some of his marbles.”

  Keagan said. “He really shouldn’t even be living alone.”

  “I’m not sure he does. There were tire tracks near that old truck that didn’t belong to the truck.”

  Keagan asked, “Do you think someone who’s normally there is at the store or something?”

  “They could be at work. Right now, he doesn’t want to talk to us.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “There was a diner back near town. Let’s go back and grab some breakfast and coffee. We can sit and figure it out.”

  Keagan glanced at the computer screen. It displayed the local time. She said, “Widow, it’s nearly lunchtime again.”

  “Then let’s grab lunch.”

  Keagan couldn’t argue. There was nothing else to do. So she turned the wheel, they drove back toward the diner, and she floored it. It was an old country road after all.

  Eleven minutes from when Garret pointed a gun at them, they were seated in a booth at the front window. Widow had a big mug of coffee. He ordered another cheeseburger and fries, and Keagan ordered a chicken salad dish and diet soda.

  The waitress came back with Keagan’s diet soda and Widow asked her a question. He said, “Do you know the old Sheriff Garret?”

  The waitress was in her midfifties, so it was a plausible question. She looked at both of them and said, “Of course. Are y’all friends of his?”

  Keagan was about to say something, but Widow spoke first. He said, “Yes, I knew him years ago. But now, he doesn’t seem to remember me.”

  The waitres
s tucked a pencil into her apron and looked Widow over. She didn’t recognize him. She looked like she’d known everyone who ever lived there.

  She said, “Yeah. His mind has slipped. He forgets things all the time.”

  Keagan asked, “Does he live out there all alone?”

  “No,” the waitress said. “He’s got a someone out there with him.”

  Keagan asked, “Someone?”

  The waitress said, “Yeah.”

  Widow asked, “Is it his son?”

  “Might be. Might be a daughter. We never see whoever it is. But they drive a little car. One of those old Volkswagen bugs,” she said.

  Widow said, “So, it’s probably his daughter?”

  “Might be,” the waitress said. “Not sure. Whoever it is doesn’t come in here.”

  Keagan said, “Would anybody know?”

  The waitress said, “I’m sorry, hon. I don’t really know. Garret’s lived out there like a hermit for years. Pretty much since everything went down.”

  Keagan asked, “What went down?”

  The waitress paused a beat and put her hand to her head and said, “Oh dear. Nothing. It’s just some bad history in this town.”

  Widow asked, “Is that why the name was changed?”

  The waitress looked around the diner. She saw the cook behind the counter staring at her. She said, “Never mind me. You guys enjoy your time here. I’ll be back with your food soon as it’s ready.”

  With that, she shuffled away.

  Keagan said, “What do you think that’s about?”