Page 61 of Backtrack

Johnson met Cutter at his car as he rolled up, weaving as he walked, surely exhausted and moving on autopilot. Massive adrenaline dumps two days in a row took a toll.

“I apologize for getting you out of bed so early.” The poor kid was teetering on the edge of shock.

“No, you did the right thing.” Cutter handed him the thermos of coffee. “Lucy made this for you. Drink some. That’s an order.” He looked through the darkness at the dead Jack County deputy, now covered with a wool blanket. “You knew him, didn’t you?”

“Academy classmate,” Johnson said. “Good guy. He sure as hell didn’t deserve this.”

“It’s rarely about deserving,” Cutter whispered. “Sorry about your friend. Take some time if you need to. The sheriff won’t mind a bit.”

“Hell no,” Johnson said. “It all went down before I got here. If I’d been just a few minutes earlier—” The young deputy gave a shuddering shake of his head and then waved for Cutter to follow him around the dead deputy’s patrol car. “Anyway, I didn’t call you to cry on your shoulder. I wanted you to see something firsthand.”

Cutter was surprised to find that someone, likely Johnson, had laid out a ten-by-twenty rectangle of crime scene tape on the dirt road a few feet north of the body.

“What’s this?”

“I heard what you said about everybody stomping all over the tracks when the armored car robbers wrecked their Crown Vic on Bankhead Road. Thought we should get ahead of that here because I was first on the scene.”

Cutter held his flashlight low to the ground, shining it at an angle across the road so any ridges of tracks would cast shadows and create contrast.

“This is very helpful, LJ,” he said. “Good work. Now, tell me what it is you see.”

“We have dually tire tracks on the roadway,” Johnson said. “Along with some other kind of vehicle. I’m guessing it’s something with a small wheelbase. I made sketches of two distinct sets of tracks in the dust. One looks like a regular cowboy boot. The other, a waffle sole.”

“A jungle boot.” Cutter took out his notebook and flippedit open. “Exactly like the one we saw behind Ray Gene Bryant’s house.”

Johnson’s hand wrapped slowly around the butt of his revolver. His words came hard through clenched teeth. “Whoever robbed that armored truck also murdered my friend. Those bastards are going to pay.”

“Oh,” Cutter said, “They’re gonna pay. It’s one of my rules.”

CHAPTER 22

PRESENT DAY

After four deployments with the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, Arliss Cutter was not easily wowed when he’d joined the Marshals Service. Still, flying armed had sounded exotic. Being one of the few people on board with the capability of shooting a hole in the pressurized flying tube was a heavy responsibility. It could also be pretty damned uncomfortable, especially if he didn’t get the right seat.

He’d never been one to wear the shoot-me-first photographer’s vests so popular with the Secret Service and others who carried a firearm in a plainclothes capacity. In Florida he’d worn a sport coat or simply left his shirt untucked. In Alaska he opted for a fleece jacket if it was chilly enough, or, like today, a wax canvas trucker jacket over a fleece vest. The simple cotton coat reminded him of his grandfather. Even with the relatively thin fabric concealing it, the Colt .357 magnum revolver wedged between Cutter and his armrest was about to wear a hole in his hide by the time the Alaska Airlines 737 rolled to a stop at the Ketchikan Airport gate. Given the short notice of the trip, all the window and aisle seats were taken. Lola scored a row with a young couple who wanted to sit together, leaving her an aisle. Cutter made the trip crammed between two very large fishermen, both of whom spilled well into his meager real estate. He thought of suggesting they lift the armrests to earn them a skosh more room, but that would have planted hisrevolver into the side meat of the big guy on his right. The flight crew knew he was armed, of course, but he preferred not to blab that information to the rest of the passengers. They left the armrests down, and Cutter spent the flight shifting nonchalantly in order not to rub all the skin off his hip before they landed.

Ketchikan was one of those you-can’t-get-there-from-here parts of Alaska. Flying direct from Anchorage would have taken just over two hours, if such a flight were available. In order to reach Alaska’s First City, you either took the milk run or overflew Ketchikan for Seattle, only to board another northbound jet and fly back the way you came. Cutter and Teariki opted for the former. The milk run departed Ted Stephens International shortly before eleven a.m., then made stops in Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, and sometimes Sitka, before finally touching down in Ketchikan six long hours later.

Cutter finally took a full breath when the fisherman in the aisle seat stood to retrieve his luggage from the overhead bin. He used the newfound elbow room to send a quick text to Mim, letting her know they’d landed safely, and then stuffed the sailing magazine he’d been reading into the backpack at his feet. Normally, he would have used the time to look over the case files, but he didn’t especially want to give his seatmates any interesting reading.

He’d traveled light—a small amount of extra ammo for his two guns, a couple of knives, a toothbrush, and a change of underwear. Lola wanted to get back home to her boyfriend and Cutter had a pregnant wife to think of. They’d stick around just long enough to check on Joellen and nab the outlaws that were their excuses to come down in the first place.

Excusewas not really a correct term. There were always people who needed arresting. Alaska was a wild place, a target-rich environment when it came to manhunting. The problem was that those targets were scattered across a state two and a half times as large as Texas, with no roads connecting the majority of the hidey-holes. Time and money dictated the frequency of trips task force deputies were able to take. Cutter was a manhunter, not a bean counter, but supervising the Alaska Fugitive Task Force had taught him to stretch his budget by stacking more than one reason to visit any particularplace before spending the money on travel. He’d asked Lola to do workups on three target fugitives thought to be hanging out around Ketchikan, providing plenty of bang for the taxpayer dollar. Joellen’s call simply sped up their timeline.

Backpacks over left shoulders—to keep their gun hands free—Cutter and Teariki shuffled like cattle off the plane and into the airport. They quickly made their way downstairs to the rental car counter. Ten minutes later, with vehicle keys and round-trip passes for the ferry stapled to their contract, they headed outside to locate their well-worn Subaru Outback from the eight vehicles parked along the chain-link fence overlooking the water. Endless evergreen forests, fishing boats, and the near-constant buzz of floatplanes coming and going from the docks made it clear they’d left the big city of Anchorage far behind.

With large swaths of flat land at a premium around the city of Ketchikan, the airport was located across the Tongass Narrows on Gravina Island. Public sentiment in the lower forty-eight nixed the idea of a “Bridge to Nowhere,” leaving Ketchikan visitors reliant on a public ferry or water taxi to reach the city side of the Narrows. Cutter chalked it all up to the Ketchikan experience. It gave him just the mental reset he needed to realize he was someplace out of the norm.

Southeast Alaska was famous for abundant rain, but today they were treated to bluebird skies and glass-calm seas. Cutter backed out of the parking spot and headed down the hill to wait for the next ferry.

He ended up at the head of the line, with a clear view of the Narrows. The small, exterior-deck ferry had just started its five-minute return journey across from the Ketchikan side. Lola settled into her seat, poring over the three powder-blue warrant files. She’d dressed for rain and had her waterproof Helly Hansen pushed up to her elbows in the warmer-than-expected weather. Cutter rolled down his window and killed the engine while they waited, letting in the crisp seaside air laced with the faint odor of diesel fuel.

She held up the top folder.

“We’re starting with Darrell Evan Church. Conspiracy to distribute heroin and … possession of a firearm during a drug transaction.Ketchikan PD says they can point us to his girlfriend … Jessica Stone. Sounds like she’s a winner in her own right. Paranoid as hell, according to the LT.”

“Any paper on the girlfriend?”