CHAPTER 55

WE REACHED MILE MARKER eleven on the road to Huckleberry Hollow, Idaho, and spotted the flashing blue lights of a Lemhi County sheriff’s patrol rig, a beefy Dodge Ram 3500 lifted to allow for a set of huge, studded tires. It was parked in a turnoff by a bear-proof trash bin. Beside the pickup was an SUV covered in five inches of snow.

Mahoney pulled up alongside the sheriff’s truck, rolled his window down, and held up his FBI credentials. The pickup window lowered, revealing a jowly man with a flat face and a big neck that made him look like a bulldog. In his late sixties, he was wearing a heavy parka and a black wool hat.

“Sheriff David Tucker,” he said.

We identified ourselves.

“I haven’t touched it, haven’t been near it. Just eating my supper, waiting on you.”

“We appreciate that, Sheriff Tucker,” Ned said.

“I can put my rack lights on it if you think it will help.”

“I do. Thanks.”

Tucker put his rig in gear and turned it around. He put his overhead lights on the Jeep, and it was as bright as day as Mahoney and I swept off the snow so we could try the doors.

The sheriff got out, stood to one side, and watched.

Both front doors opened. The keys were in the ignition.

I got a sick feeling when I saw Bree’s purse on the floor of the passenger seat and Sampson’s day pack in the rear. Their luggage was still in the hatch.

“That’s it,” I said, trying to fight my growing panic. “They’ve been taken. Maestro has them. They probably got too close to the truth.”

“Who is Maestro?” Tucker asked.

“Vigilante group,” Ned said. “That’s who they were here hunting. Maestro and its leader, someone who calls himself M.”

While Mahoney told Tucker in more detail why Bree and Sampson had come to the area and what they’d found out at the country store in North Fork, I went through Bree’s purse with latex gloves on. I found her driver’s license, cash, and all her credit cards, but her cell phone was missing. I searched Sampson’s pack and found his wallet, laptop, car keys, a sealed envelope addressed to Rebecca Cantrell, and a carefully folded crayon drawing of flowers from Willow with the words You are the best daddy! But no phone.

I got emotional and found myself praying for their safety. I reached into the bottom of John’s pack and came up with a little pink fob. Willow’s Jiobit fob.

That was strange. It was supposed to be in Willow’s backpack in DC.

I tucked that, Willow’s drawing, and the envelope for Sampson’s girlfriend in the chest pocket of my parka for safekeeping, then shut the car door. “You’ll have to have criminalists go through this vehicle.”

Tucker said, “I’ll call the state crime bureau. They can be on their way first thing tomorrow.”

Mahoney said, “What were you about to say about Alice Lake, Sheriff?”

“I was there,” he said. “First to respond to the Wheeler murders. I was a young green deputy with Blaine County’s sheriff’s department. Let’s get inside where it’s warm and I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

Mahoney climbed up front. I got in the back of the cruiser and shivered; Sheriff Tucker got in and turned the heat on full blast.

He described being on call almost forty years before and being dispatched to the Wheeler home on Alice Lake. The sons had found their parents murdered.

“It was a shitshow, top to bottom,” Tucker said. “I took one look and, I’ll admit it, I had to throw up.”

“Happens to everyone the first time,” I said. “Lot of blood?”

“Hell, whoever did it had to have been spattered head to toe with blood. But the Wheeler kids, the poor little bastards, were clean, and they were destroyed by the killings. One of them, Ryan, kept saying that he should not have kept his music playing all night, that if he or Sean had heard something from the boathouse, they could have called the police.”

“And Sean?”

“Kid was catatonic. Hardly able to say a word. Completely traumatized. Whatever happened to him?”

Mahoney said, “As we understand it, he had mental problems after the murders that his aunt tried to deal with. When he turned eighteen, he vanished with his inheritance.”

Tucker said, “And, what, you think Sean Wheeler became this character M?”

“We don’t know what to think, and the trail is thirty years old.”

“No leads whatsoever?”

“Just a possible name,” I said. “Ian Duncanson.”

I saw the sheriff blink and frown in his rearview mirror.

“Oh, Christ,” he said. “Is that possible?”

I said, “Out with it, Sheriff Tucker.”

“Let me make sure,” he said. He got on his radio and called his dispatcher. “This is Sheriff Tucker, Cat. Can you do me a favor and look up the name of the guy who disappeared hunting couple of months back? The guy from Boise.”

Cat came back a minute later. “Duncanson. Ian Duncanson.”