Mystery: Family Ties: Mystery and Suspense (3 page)

They ate in comfortable silence, until their hunger was subdued and they could enjoy some conversation. “You probably wonder about the town and its people?” Gibson started. “We are a rural country with too many ranchers and farmers who keep us close to the earth. Most of the people work on the farms and ranches in the outer lying area and keep to themselves. Ironically,” he laughed. “This is still a town, where everybody knows everybody.”

“I noticed,” Asa commented. “You seem to have a lot of friends in here?”

“I wouldn’t call them friends, mostly they are people I know. But, you are right, here it is difficult to stay hidden.”

“I cannot say that I know the people here, but I am somewhat familiar with the area, because of my mother, who is from one of the Native American tribes in the area.” She told him.

“Oh really, then you are almost family and should call me Todd,” the other agent laughed. “I used to spend a lot of time in the Salish reserve. I have a lot of friends there.”

“My mother, Salish, taught me a lot about the Native American way of life and I suppose the Deputy Director sent me here because of my connection to the area.”

“I am sure that it will help you, especially if you start interrogating people and driving around the country,” Todd smiled. “Look at him, for example,” he said and pointed at the man, sitting two tables away from them and eating a plate full of ribs. “He is the typical Montana loner – forty something, unmarried, closed in himself and completely uncaring about the people around him. You should be careful around people like him.”

“Tell me, Todd,” Asa suddenly changed the subject. “Do you think that the agents are already dead?”

Her serious tone surprised the man and he looked up at her, taking his time and drinking from his glass before answering. “Yes, I think that they are dead.” He said in the same serious tone of voice. “I already searched the area for them twice and although there is still the chance that we will find them alive, I doubt it greatly. There have been other similar cases in the area. Not with FBI agents, but with a cop, a bank manager and even a candidate for mayor. The three of them disappeared and were never found.”

“All of them together?” Asa asked him, very much interested in the information.

“No, and I am sure that their cases are completely unrelated,” the man shook his head. “I told you about them only to show you that we may never find them.”

Asa shook her head in agreement and for a long minute thought about what he had said and about the way she was feeling after reading through the files. She looked back at the man and watched him eat in silence, completely ignoring all the other people in the bar. Asa wondered if she was going to become like him in a few
years’ time, if she continued to say no to all the men, who expressed interest in her.

“But, enough with the gloomy thoughts,” Todd suddenly said. “What do you do for fun in your big city?”

Asa laughed at his comment and decided to give it a try. “What can I say? I like partying, going on hikes, but mostly I like drinking.”

“Just the woman after my taste,” Todd joined her and laughed loudly. “What would you say about a drinking game?”

“What is that?” Asa asked, already intrigued. “Tell me the rules?”

“Let’s see. The rules are very simple, actually, you just need to drink more than me, in order to win.” He explained.

“Oh, that sounds interesting. Where should we go for that kind of entertainment?”

“Let’s move to the bar,” Todd stood up, after leaving a few banknotes on the table and finishing his glass of wine. “There is no better way to get to know a person, but to get him or her drunk and watch him or her make a fool of himself.”

Asa laughed at his comment and thought that the man wasn’t as bad as she thought at the beginning. Todd Gibson was acting as an old friend right now and that worked to help her relax and enjoy herself. They walked together to the bar counter and sat at the only two free seats there.

Todd ordered two beers and four shots of tequila and they started the crazy game with the mutual agreement that the last one standing was the winner. Asa was a heavy drinker, while Todd turned out to be a lightweight. She supposed that the man was well aware of the fact, but joined the game nevertheless, so that she could enjoy herself. After an hour, when it became obvious that Todd Gibson was ready to fall under the table, the young woman took his car keys, asked for his address and helped the man to his car.

“You are a sloppy drunk, agent Gibson,” she told him, when the man was safely sitting in the front seat of his car and was ready to fall asleep. Asa had already asked for directions and was able to easily find his house, situated almost outside the town. Todd’s house wasn’t big, but Asa liked how it looked from the outside.

Agent Clark carried him inside, opening the front door with the key she found in his pocket and tugging him towards the sofa. The man muttered something to himself and went back to sleep. The woman found a bucket and a glass of water for him. Placed them near the sofa and removed his shoes. About the rest, she hoped that agent Gibson would be able to take care of himself, when he woke in the morning.

The next day, Todd Gibson woke up on the sofa, feeling shitty and hurting all over. The first movements felt like knives going through his head, but after he managed to drag himself to the bathroom, take a piss, and drink some water, Todd started feeling like a human being again. “Shit, shit, shit…” he continued to repeat, throughout the whole procedure and started to undress.

The hot shower cleared his mind and reminded him that he needed to be at work in less than one hour, so he hurried to get dressed, made a strong coffee and walk outside the house. The car was parked in front of the house, instead in the garage, where he usually kept it, and that fact reminded the agent about the last night drinking contest and Asa Clark.

“The bitch is really something,” Todd said to himself and climbed into the car, immediately putting on his sunglasses and switching on the car. Before going to the office, Todd stopped at his favorite dinner and bought a few croissants. Something he would not even dream about any other day of the week, but that way was special and the man just ignored the snickering remark of the girl behind the counter.

Agent Todd Gibson was a 54 year old man, five foot eight high and a bit large in the waist. He liked his profession and tried hard to look the part, dressing in good quality suits and caring for his appearance. After graduating from the FBI Academy he had been transferred from one FBI office to the other for a number of years, but then, five years ago, he had been assigned to the Montana, Kalispell Field Office and with that, had finally found his place in the world.

Gibson really liked the quiet and rural way of life in Montana and didn’t miss at all the life in the big cities. Lately, he was feeling tired and that made him look forward to his retirement. His way of life wasn’t helping with his health problems, the greasy fast food was the first in line. For him it had been always important to have a good job, to be respected and preferably to be in an authority position.

So, agent Gibson was always eager to gain favor with the boss and that made him both a good agent and a crappy co-worker
. The coming of Asa Clark in his office didn’t help his life at all, and Todd’s job was to make sure that she did a good job working the
case. The young female agent had showed up to take charge of the biggest case that had come to the remote field office in Kalispell for the first time in five years. The man couldn’t help it but feel as if all that was just another feminist power grab handed down by the Deputy Director. Deep inside, he wanted to see her fail or at least give him a few reasons to point out her shortcomings to the Deputy Director Jennifer Shepherd.

Gibson entered the FBI field office still extremely hung over and hating every minute of it. The place was packed with people at that hour of the morning and the man thought that they have all made a pact to make his life difficult. Gibson shook his head at two of them, took a file from the secretary, raised his hand at another agent and hid behind his office door. They were going to have to wait for him to feel human again, before they threw anything else in his direction.

Unfortunately for him, however, Agent Asa Clark had other ideas and before he had the time to sit down behind his desk, she was knocking at his door. “What?” Gibson shouted, almost throwing himself on the chair. “At least make an effort to look like you are suffering, Clark. Your happy face makes me want to throw up.”

“I think that you threw up enough for a day, agent Gibson,” Clark laughed. “How do you feel this fine morning, agent?”

“You make as much fun of me as you want, but don’t forget that throwing up, is a natural result of drinking,” he joined the laughter.

“Okay,” Clark was back to business. “The police just informed us that they had found a vehicle nearby the Kootenai National Forest. It is Smith and Holliday’s car. They have it at the garage.”

“Shit,” Gibson cursed soundly. “Now that is a bad news.”

“Yeah, now our chances to find them alive are almost zero,” Clark agreed. “I am going to examine the car, are you coming?”

Gibson shook his head and stood up, cursing when his head started swinging again. He drove Clark to the police garage, where the car had been stored. They had found the dumped car the previous day, but it had been identified only that morning. There was no sign of the two FBI agents, but Asa hoped to find some leads to what had happened to them in the car.

The car showed no signs of an accident or of something violent that had happened inside of it. That was both good and bad for them, but the agents didn’t make assumptions and started to work. Asa took a pair of gloves and started the examination of the car. She worked methodically, took prints of the tire treads, lifted fingerprints from various locations inside the car, took fabric samples from the seats, and a few hairs from the seats.

She had experience with that sort of work and knew which key details to examine. There was no saying what a car could tell you, if you knew where to look for it. Unfortunately, there was no paper trail, ID’s or any other document that could connect the car to the agents. The car was theirs, that was for sure, but it seemed that the guys didn’t leave anything behind, when they left it for the last time.

The collected material was sent to the lab and Clark and Gibson took a break, standing in front of the garage and drinking a cup of black coffee. “Things don’t look good,” agent Clark muttered. “The car was dumped, but not burn or hidden. Someone had taken their documents, but they had left behind the documents of the car and its number, so that it was a child’s game to identify it. They either didn’t care or simply… I don’t know what…”

“Yeah…” Gibson took a sip from his coffee. “It is more confusing than before. If someone killed them, why dump the car, but not the bodies? If they are alive, why didn’t they come forward? It someone is holding them, why haven’t we found any leads, as to where?”

“All good questions,” Clark agreed, throwing the empty coffee cup into the bin. “Maybe we should change the way we work the case.”

“Yeah, maybe,” the Gibson huffed and headed towards the car.

Agent Clark returned to the precinct together with Gibson and once again checked out the case files. There must be something about the truth in them somewhere, but it was escaping her attention. She had learned almost every word in those files, but she still wasn’t able to find the answers.

Gibson went back into his office, leaving agent Clark to deal with the case on her own. The hangover was still making it difficult for him to function properly, so he preferred to hide behind closed door. Clark took one hour for lunch and then returned to the office to start her next move. She asked Ann for assistance and decided to move the investigation to the next logical place – the city morgue. Clark was already assigned a car and with the help of its GPS, she managed to reach the morgue in less than thirty minutes.

The place was the same as the many other morgues she had visited during the years, but it still made her shiver. She hated the sign of death and she hated the smell of it. In her mind the smell of antiseptic was connected to the image of dead bodies. Asa took a deep breath and walked inside the building, heading directly to the front desk.

“Hello,” she greeted the woman behind the desk and took out her FBI badge. “Agent Clark. Can you tell me if any John Does have been brought in in the last few days?”

The woman looked carefully at her badge and then lowered her gaze to the computer in front of her. “I will call the manager for you, Agent Clark.” She said politely. “I am not at liberty to give you that information.”

Asa agreed to wait and walked in the direction the woman pointed at. The smell here was even stronger, but the agent started to get used to it and tried to ignore it. The manager didn’t let her wait for long and the FBI agent was called into his office soon after she walked towards its door.

“Agent Clark,” the middle-aged man shook her hand. “My name is Doctor Richards. How can I help you?”

“Nice to meet you, doctor,” Asa returned the gesture and sat down in the chair he offered her. “I need information about any unidentified bodies that have arrived at the morgue in the last week.”

“Sorry, agent, but we haven’t seen a body in months,” the man commented. “You see, this is not New York. We get only a few bodies during the year and the last few months had been very peaceful.”