Gone(26)

There was something in the way he asked. “You’ve seen it?”

“Watched the whole thing last night.” His eyes got big and he bobbed his head some more. “Pretty interesting stuff.”

“Yeah?” Rondeau stared off. He should have watched it, too, but he had no internet at his house.

“Makes you want to be a vegan. Basically says that everything from climate change to resource wars, plus all sorts of illnesses — all attributable to factory farming.”

Rondeau considered Addison Kemp’s vegan meal at the restaurant. He refocused. “Alright. Here’s my Christmas wish list. You ready? Voigt. That’s the company who picks up trash round the county. I want a contact person there. I want to get in touch with Glens Falls, find out if Hutch filmed or interviewed at the landfill there. I want Paul Palmirotto hounded daily — hourly — to get his ass back here. Here’s the number.” Rondeau pushed his pad across the desk to Stokes. “I want to look into Addison Kemp’s ex-husband, too. Guy she has the cleaning business with.”

“Anything else?” Stokes looked up from writing.

Rondeau pawed at his chin, thinking. “Well, we’ve got no way of knowing where any of these ‘GPS dots’ of Kemp’s led, do we? For his trash film?”

“It’s pretty new tech. We’d need to have the code for each dot in order to locate them. Unless we find that in his stuff, we’d only be guessing.”

“Okay. Well, let’s look until we find the codes.”

“That it?”

“No, that’s not it, that’s not ever it. But it’s enough for now.”

Stokes looked sympathetic. He held his ground when needed, but was genuinely compassionate, and smart. That was the new guy. Dammit if Rondeau didn’t like him.

Then Stokes’ expression changed.

“What?” Rondeau barked.

“Deputies King and Bruin picked up the guy this morning who may have assaulted John Hayes last night.”

“Yeah, he assaulted King, too. It’s Brad Rafferty — I thought Peter might play it cool with him. Guess not. When?”

“Early. About two hours ago.”

“He’s here?”

“He’s here,” Stokes nodded. “And get this — Rafferty works for Nick Spillane.”

Rondeau’s mind leapt to make the connection he’d been dubious about before. Maybe Spillane owned fleets of those containers that hauled waste from used-up landfills to the next ready site.

He stood up, fumbled for his suit jacket and slipped it on. “Let’s find out everything about Spillane,” he said. “Let’s find out if that old coot has money invested in the area, in the landfill, in any of the equipment that transports the rubbish, anything.”

“You got it . . .” Stokes seemed caught on an idea. “What about this other film, though? You think there’s anything to it? I mean, trash, okay, but, you know, maybe this Citizen Farmer movie . . . I mean, you think Kemp pissed off some big players? The meat industry is gigantic. And to say they’re well-connected is an understatement.”

It had certainly crossed Rondeau’s mind. He’d even wondered if Addison had shown him the clip not as a mistake, but to say something. Yet he felt resistance to this idea. They had the waste angle, for now.

Rondeau grasped the doorknob. “I’m going to talk to this Brad character. I’ll get it sorted.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN / A Warning

In the parking lot halfway between the department offices and the jail, Rondeau’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

The incoming call read Unlisted.

“Hello?”

“Detective Jason Rondeau.”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

There was a pause. “Detective Rondeau, this is your first and only warning.” The voice sounded strange. Modified to be deeper. “Shut down operations and immediately cease investigation into the missing Kemp family.”

Rondeau’s heart pounded. He scanned the parking lot looking for someone, anyone. This could be the beginning of some kind of negotiation. He saw a woman walking from her car on the far end of the parking lot, head down: Mindy, from accounting. Rondeau snapped his fingers in the air, twice. Mindy didn’t notice and kept walking.

“Who is this?” he said into the phone. “Get me some proof of life that—”

“If you do not comply with these instructions, we will be forced to retaliate.”

Rondeau lowered his arm. This wasn’t a person speaking through a voice modulator. The quality was excellent, with tone and inflection almost human, but there was no longer any doubt: this was a computer-generated voice.

Still, he couldn’t help it. “Retaliate how?”

“You have twenty-four hours to dismantle Incident Command, to shred any and all documents pertaining to this case and destroy all forensic evidence.”

“This is . . .” Rondeau began. Mindy was almost inside the office. “Hey!” he called over. At last he grabbed her attention.

“Twenty-four hours,” the voice repeated.

“Hey!”

Mindy mistook Rondeau’s gesture. She smiled and waved. He motioned for her to come over. She appeared confused, then moved in his direction, scowling and glancing around.