Chapter 107
AT THAT MOMENT, DCAK was playing another part, that of Detective James Corning, who put down his surveillance camera and stared out his car window, like, well, any dumb-ass cop would. He had just snapped a pic of Alex Cross kissing his patient Sandy Quinlan, which, of course, wasn’t her real name. Sandy Quinlan was just another role to play. Like Anthony Demao. And Detective James Corning.
Corning had made it his business to keep tabs on Cross and Bree Stone all week. Getting too close wasn’t wise, but their basic comings and goings were easy enough to track.
Now he followed Cross to a parking lot near his office and then to Bree Stone’s apartment building on Eighteenth.
The two of them left together about ten minutes later. Stone was carrying an overnight bag, traveling light, something few women seemed capable of doing. James Corning stayed on them until it was obvious to him that they were headed for Reagan National. Well, well. He wasn’t all that surprised, actually.
At the entrance to the airport parking garage, he got in behind them again. Cross found a space on level three, and Corning kept going up. He parked on four and caught up with Cross and Stone again on the skyway to the terminal.
James Corning stayed back in the pack to avoid any chance of being spotted.
They checked in at American Airlines, so the departure board narrowed things for him. Denver was the logical choice. He waited for them to go down the escalator to security, then circled back to the ticketing area.
He held up his badge for the next customer in line. “Excuse me, just take a second here. Police business.”
Then he showed his creds to the American Airlines agent at the counter. “I’m Detective Corning, MPD. I need a little information on two passengers you just checked in. Stone and Cross?”
After he got the information he needed, James Corning stopped and bought a doughnut, which he had no intention of eating. It was all part of his plan, though. An important prop. Fun one too. He headed back to the parking garage.
On three, he stopped at Cross’s car. He put a brand-new cell phone in with the doughnut, folded the bag over, and duct-taped it to the bottom of the driver’s door seam. It was just out of sight for anyone passing by but surely wouldn’t be missed when Cross and Stone came home.
On Sunday, four thirty, Flight 322 from Denver.
DCAK might just be back to meet the flight himself.
Chapter 108
BREE AND I FLEW to Denver on Friday afternoon, then up to Kalispell, Montana, the next morning. Our return flight was early on Sunday, so we had only a day or so to get everything done and find out as much as possible about Tyler Bell, about whatever had been going on up here in the North Woods, and about what he might be planning next.
The drive from Kalispell to Babb took us straight through Glacier National Park. I’d always wanted to see Glacier, and it didn’t disappoint. The switchbacks on the Going-to-the-Sun Road had us alternately hugging a mountain wall, then looking straight down one. It was kind of humbling, actually, as well as beautiful, and would have been romantic—if Bree and I had any time for that on this trip. At one point, she did look over at me and say, “Where there’s a will!”
We got to Babb just after noon on Saturday. Deputy Steve Mills kindly agreed to drive up from the sheriff’s office in Cut Bank, saving us about seventy-five miles on twisting country roads, more than an hour’s trip.
Mills was loose and amiable, and answered our very first question without being asked.
“Met my wife while I was on holiday here from Manchester. Fishing trip, of all things. Twelve years ago, and never looked back,” he said in his proper English. “Once this place grabs hold of you, it doesn’t let go. You’ll see, I’m quite sure. I used to call myself Stephen, not Steve.”
We followed Mills south on 89, past the Blackfeet Reservation, to the tip of Lower St. Mary Lake.
From there, he took an unmarked dirt road for another mile and a half, until we came to a mostly overgrown track on the right.
The side road was partitioned with two police sawhorses, one of them thrown over on its side. I wondered how effective these had been against the likes of CNN and God only knew who else had wanted to visit.
High wheatgrass brushed against the sides of the car as we drove back several hundred yards, then onto a cleared acre or more of land.
Tyler Bell’s cabin certainly wasn’t deluxe, but it was no Unabomber shack either. He had sided it with natural red cedar that blended nicely into the landscape. It was small and nestled in the crook of a west-flowing river, with a gorgeous view of the mountains in the distance.
I could certainly see why someone would choose this place to settle—so long as they had no need for human contact, and maybe murdered people for a living.
Chapter 109
THE FRONT DOOR to the cabin had no lock. Deputy Mills waited for us outside, and once we entered, we smelled why. Some combination of food and garbage had been rotting in here, possibly for months. It was beyond putrid.
“So much for this being a little slice of heaven on earth,” Bree said, putting a handkerchief over her nose as if this were a homicide scene. Maybe it was.
The main room was a kitchen/dining/living area—a picture window at the back looked onto the river. All along the sidewall, Bell had a workbench littered with tools and several dozen fishing flies in various stages of completion. A small collection of rods hung on the wall.