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  “Now you need to find out what the hell happened to him.”

  Reel said, “We asked your son and Sheriff Malloy if there were any people around here that might be responsible for his disappearance. Malloy was vague on that. What do you say?”

  “Every place on earth has bad people, and Grand is no exception to that.”

  “Care to be more specific?” asked Robie.

  “This is wide-open space, a long way from Denver. You’ve seen the size of the police force. So folks have become accustomed to taking care of themselves.”

  “We’ve seen the open-carry lifestyle here,” said Robie. “Including your daughter.”

  “She’s very responsible with her weapons,” said Claire defensively. “Now, that’s one side of the equation. The other side is being out in the middle of nowhere attracts some folks who want to live off the radar. And not be, well, constrained by societal norms.”

  “What exactly are we talking about?” asked Robie.

  “We’ve got some skinheads and white supremacists, though some would say I’m repeating myself. But they more or less keep to themselves.”

  “Okay,” said Robie. “What else?”

  “Well, we’ve got others who practice their own type of religion. If you want to call it that.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “You remember the Branch Davidians in Waco? Well, that’s what I would call it. They’ve got their own compound and everything.”

  “So why wouldn’t your son and the sheriff tell us about them?”

  “Practical reasons. There’re two of them and a whole lot more of the others. Nobody wants a riot. Nobody wants those awful people to take over the town. So it’s an uneasy peace, I’d guess you’d say.”

  “You still have the state police if things go sideways,” said Reel.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think the state police want to mess with it, either. Colorado is a big state and there aren’t that many cops to go around, really, especially in a place like Grand.”

  “Sounds like a bomb waiting to go off,” said Reel.

  “You could say that about a lot of places,” Claire retorted.

  “Did Walton know about all of them being here?”

  “Oh sure. You come here often enough, they’re pretty hard to miss.”

  “Did he ever have any run-ins with them?” asked Reel. “Because he’s not the sort of person who would turn a blind eye if they did something criminal.”

  Claire stared down at the floor. “Anything’s possible. So you might have to just go ask them yourself.”

  Chapter

  12

  ON THE DRIVE back to town Robie glanced over at Reel. “Why all the questions back there about Blue Man’s relationship with her?”

  Reel kept her eyes on the road. “Why not? We were there to gather information. So I was gathering information. I’m not an experienced investigator, so I just sort of went with the scattergun approach.”

  Robie did not seem convinced by this but looked away.

  She said, “He kept the house all this time. But never goes there. Why do you think that is?”

  “Blue Man is a complicated guy. I doubt we’re going to figure that out, nor do we have to in order to do our job.” Robie paused. “So there’s an abundance of skinheads, white supremacists, and religious wackos here. Nice if Malloy had told us.”

  “And any one of them might have taken Blue Man,” noted Reel.

  “So why not just have the Feds come in here and bring the hammer down on those assholes?”

  “I think it’s called civil liberties and being presumed innocent.”

  “Disciples of Hitler and people wearing hoods are presumed innocent?” snapped Robie.

  “Under the law they are, until they break it.” She glanced at him. “Remember, badge not scope.”

  “Scope is simpler.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  They pulled in front of the hotel and Reel slid the Yukon into park.

  “I heard about Iraq,” said Robie.

  “Did you?” said Reel, not looking at him. Her hands gripped the steering wheel.

  “You did everything you could.”

  She turned her head slightly. “You weren’t there, so how the fuck do you know that?”

  “Because I’ve been there before.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She slammed the truck door behind her as she headed into the hotel.

  Robie caught up to her halfway across the lobby.

  “This is not helping the investigation,” he said.

  She whirled on him. “You brought it up, not me. And if you think you need to perform some sort of psychological voodoo on me, you don’t. And you’re not!”

  Robie could have said something—anything, really—but he chose simply to turn and walk away from her.

  In his room he sat on the bed, laid out his pistol, and field-stripped it blind. He wasn’t focusing his mind on the familiar elements of the weapon. That required only tactile senses. His mind was overloaded on Reel.

  When it should have been fully engaged on finding Blue Man.

  They were screwing up this investigation by their very presence here together. And they’d just started the damn mission!

  He slammed in his mag and then slapped himself in the face.

  “Get it right, get it clear, Robie. Or Blue Man won’t be coming back. Your personal shit is just that, shit. Your scope sight is black. You can’t see a damn thing because you keep jumping around. Get your crap together. Now!”

  He went to the window and looked out onto the main street of Grand.

  Bad elements. They needed to see if any of those elements and Blue Man had run into each other somehow. Robie as yet did not have a good feel for the lay of the land here. He needed to better understand all the parts and how they interconnected. Claire Bender had given them some info on that, the cops some more, and Patti Bender and her group still more. But it wasn’t nearly enough.

  There was no sign of a struggle at Blue Man’s cabin. Nothing really missing except for him. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been taken against his will. One man with a gun would have been enough, with the element of surprise on his side.

  As he continued to look out the window, a surplus Army truck with a canopied bed came barreling into town. It pulled up to a stop in front of the bar across the street.

  Eight men clambered out of the back. They were all armed.

  And they all walked into the bar with their weapons.

  Guns and liquor, what could go wrong? thought Robie.

  But then it might also hold some opportunities.

  He slid his gun into his holster along with a couple of other items and headed out to do some digging. And he was going to start with these guys.

  Because on one side of the truck was painted a symbol he’d never seen before. It was a K and an A set at forty-five-degree angles from one another.

  Robie paused on the street to eyeball the truck. The driver was still sitting in the front cab. It looked like he was reading a book.

  Maybe Mein Kampf, thought Robie. Brushing up on his hatred and intolerance.

  Robie passed by the truck and let his peripheral vision do a screen shot of the driver. He was young, maybe early twenties. He was lean with a shaved head, on which Robie could see tats of the same K and A set at angles. All the other men had shaved heads as well. And they probably had similar tats.

  He looked to his left and saw Valerie Malloy leaning against a column holding up the porch in front of the police station. He nodded to her. She inclined her head back at him. Derrick Bender was nowhere to be seen.

  With one last glance at her, Robie walked into the Walleye Bar.

  The space was large and half full. Low tables with chairs were in the center of the room; high tables with seating for two or four ringed this main area. The bar was set against the far wall and had seating, too. It was about twenty feet long and made of mahogany. Two bartenders were manning it. Beh
ind them were multiple rows of liquor bottles stacked on shelves.

  The young men from the truck had pushed two tables together and were ordering from a tawny-haired, slim waitress around forty who seemed to know them, and she looked like she would rather be any other place on earth than in the same room with them.

  Robie walked over to the bar, sat on a stool, and ordered a beer.

  He could see the group without turning around due to the large mirror behind the bar.

  They were loud, annoying, and they acted like they owned the place.

  So in addition to being possible skinheads they were dickheads.

  Well, then again, you probably couldn’t have one without the other.

  When the bartender, a man in his fifties with a crown of graying hair around a dome of skin, brought him his beer, Robie said, “The freak show over there? Where do they call home?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m sorry if they’re friends of yours.”

  The man snorted. “The day I call them friends is the day they can lock me up in the loony bin.”

  Robie reached into his pocket and showed the man his badge. “That’s my interest,” he said.

  The man quickly glanced over at the men and then back at Robie. “I don’t think even the Feds want to mess with those guys. They’re badasses.”

  “We have our share of badasses with the good guys,” Robie pointed out.

  “Well, I’m just seeing one of you and eight of them.”

  “I consider that an even fight.”

  The man grinned until he saw that Robie was serious.

  Robie said, “What’s the K and A stand for?”

  “King’s Apostles.”

  “Okay. And are they the ones with some sort of compound?”

  The bartender nodded and said, “Fifteen miles east of town, straight line on the main road. Can’t miss it.”

  “So in the same direction as the cabin owned by Roark Lambert?”

  The bartender took a rag and started wiping the bar. “So you’re here about that Walton fellow gone missing.”

  “I am. You think the skinheads could have done that?”

  “I can’t tell you they didn’t. And we got neo-Nazis in the area, but just so you know, this bunch here don’t consider themselves skinheads.”

  “So what do they consider themselves?”

  “Enlightened. And they don’t cause any trouble, really. They just don’t like anything about the government. They can get pretty vocal about it. They’re their own law. But they keep to themselves, thank God.”

  “How long have they been around here?”

  The bartender wrung out the rag over the sink. “About three years.”

  “Who started it?”

  “Dude named Doctor King. He’s the letter K in the K and A, in case you’re wondering.”

  “So is he a doctor?”

  “No, you don’t understand, his first name, he says, is Doctor. He rolled into town, set up camp a few miles out. He started making his rounds, doing some preaching, or so he called it. Then he started up a little business. Mentoring, he said it was. Printed up pamphlets and fliers and kept talking away, mostly to the young men around here who got nothing in their future ’cept the next beer, chick, or bong. Well, before anybody could really see what was happening, he’d built this big outpost and eventually all them men went to live and work there.”

  “How do they get by? Where’s the money come from? Drinks for that crew don’t come cheap.”

  The bartender pointed a finger at him. “Now there’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, man.”

  “Drugs, guns? Human trafficking?”

  “Maybe your Mr. Walton?”

  “That industry pretty much sticks with young and female. And you just said they don’t cause any trouble.”

  “Well, they don’t. I mean not for the likes of me. I can’t speak for others.”

  “Interesting group.”

  The man wiped the bar some more. “Good luck on finding out anything from them. Think you’re going to need it.”

  The man left to attend to another customer while Robie nursed his beer and thought about all this.

  He heard him coming before he saw him.

  “You a Fed?”

  Robie put down his beer. He didn’t turn to look at the man. He watched him in the mirror.

  “Right now, I’m just a thirsty guy having a beer,” replied Robie.

  The man looked to be in his late twenties, about Robie’s height. His muscled delts and veiny arms were exposed by his tank top. He had tats down both arms. Doctor was tatted on his right and King on his left.

  “Hear you’re looking for somebody.”

  Now Robie glanced at him. “I am. You know anything about it?”

  The man leaned in, a twisted grin on his features. “Maybe, maybe not. But I’m not telling you shit. We don’t talk to Feds. We are not under your control. We are a sovereign power. We are first among all others,” he said in a loud voice.

  Robie turned and looked at him fully. “Based on what?”

  The man looked down at him, his mouth curved into a cruel smile. “Based on superiority. Based on nature.”

  Robie noted the sidearm the man had.

  “Glock 26?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “What’s your ammo?”

  The man told him.

  “Ever have trouble with stove-piping?”

  The man looked confused.

  Robie explained, “The cartridge doesn’t fully eject. It gets stuck halfway and sticks up out of the gun like a stovepipe, hence the term. The ammo you’re using has a history of doing that.”

  The man looked down at his gun. “Yeah, it does do that sometimes. Weird shit.”

  “Glocks run best wet. Lube the rails. On a new gun the slide can be stiff. Lock it in the rear position for a couple days. Only need to do that once. If that doesn’t work, your ammo is underpowered. Go for a heavier load. That should fix the problem. You don’t want your gun jamming on you when you need it, right?”

  “No, you don’t,” the man said slowly.

  He kept staring at his gun for a moment and then looked up at Robie. “Okay, thanks,” he said quietly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The man glanced nervously at the two tables where his mates were watching him, then looked back at Robie. “Look, I don’t know nothing ’bout the dude that disappeared. I mean we didn’t…”

  “He’s a friend of mine, so thanks, I appreciate the info. I really do. What’s your name?”

  “Apostle Matthew.”

  “No, I mean the one your parents gave you.”

  He said hesitantly, as though he hadn’t spoken the name in a long time, “Bruce.”

  “Okay, Bruce, I’m Will Robie.”

  Bruce looked back over his shoulder and the men were now staring hostilely at him.

  When he turned back to look at Robie, Bruce swallowed nervously. “I…I better get back…”