Nowhere Left (A Harley Cole FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 2)

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Harley watched for a mob of stone-throwing children as they followed the winding dirt road up into the hills, but she saw none. She did, however, notice other signs of life: stacks of rocks, like those used to mark hiking trails, hand paintings on walls of sheer stone, rope walkways dangling from trees. It felt to Harley like they were entering a primitive culture reenactment.

“They’re skilled hunters, several of them,” Callaway observed as he drove. “Bow-and-arrow hunters, mostly. You should see the way they stalk elk.”

Staring at a small hole dug into the side of a hill, it occurred to Harley that her father would have loved such a place. He had always been an avid outdoorsman, at least until the lung cancer limited him. He was the reason Harley enjoyed hiking as much as she did—as well as the reason that Kelly had gone on that camping trip so many years ago, a fact that no doubt haunted him from time to time.

I need to make time to see him, she thought. There’s no telling when it’ll be the last time.

They had both made plenty of mistakes in the relationship, but Harley was determined to bury the hatchet and start fresh, even if they didn’t have much time left to work with.

As they came around a bend, Harley was distracted from her thoughts by a large wooden sign reading “HOLY HOPE COMMUNITY: ALL ARE WELCOME” in bright, cheerful slashes of paint. Handprints — some the size of Callaway’s hands, some as small as those of a raccoon — patterned the wood around the central message in a chaotic tumble of colors.

“I can see the appeal,” Harley said. “Your own little community out here, far from the noise and pollution.”

“Until you sit on the outhouse seat in the dead of winter,” Callaway observed dryly.

The community was situated on a shelf in the wooded hills. To the right, high hills dotted with scrub growth overlooked the community; to the left, the ground fell away toward the distant plains. The most striking characteristic, however, was how green the valley was. Plant life bloomed on every side: clusters of aspen, towering rows of cottonwoods, golden forsythias, and other shrubs Harley could not name.

“There’s a subterranean river not far beneath the surface,” Callaway said. “Only thing keeping this place alive.”

“I might have to take my next vacation here,” Harley mused, half-joking and half-serious. Her attention turned from the plants to the rows of adobe houses flanking the road, all with brightly-painted doors and windows. Every yard had a small vegetable garden. In the middle of the community (Harley thought of it as the town square) stood a large fire pit covered by a canopy and surrounded by long wooden benches. Harley guessed it was where the community held group meetings.

As they neared the center of the community, Harley noticed eyes watching them from all sides. An old woman hoeing a garden straightened to stare at them. Beside her, a younger man was clearing weeds with a pitchfork. He paused to look up, wiping sweat from his face with a bandanna as he stared at the vehicle.

“Think they drive automobiles?” Harley mused aloud.

“You didn’t see the lot back there?”

Harley shook her head. She had been too distracted to notice.

“They keep maybe four or five vehicles. Most of the time they go on foot or ride bicycles, but a few still like to drive. It’s not against the rules, though it is frowned upon to depend on automobiles too much.”

“I’m surprised they don’t have horses and buggies.”

Callaway chuckled. “We’re a little far south for Amish country, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Callaway parked close to the town square. As the two agents got out, a group of dirty-faced children emerged from between a pair of houses, chattering excitedly as they raced toward the vehicle. They pulled up at a cautious distance, their faces going blank as they stared up at the towering Callaway.

Their clothes are so plain, Harley observed. Not a printed design anywhere. She couldn’t help wondering if their clothes had been handmade just like the victim’s, possibly by the same person.

As Harley moved around the hood of the truck to join Callaway, she hoped these kids weren’t the rock-throwing variety. She didn’t want to go down in history as the first federal agent stoned to death by children.

The children, however, showed nothing but curiosity as Callaway doffed his Stetson and smiled at them. “You kids ever seen an FBI badge before?” he said, unclipping his badge and holding it up for all the children to see the golden eagle gleam in the sunlight. Several of the children reached out grubby hands, begging him to let them hold it.

One of the children, however, a scrawny boy with freckled cheeks and a large gap between his front teeth that gave his words a hollow whistling sound, folded his arms. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

“Why’s that?” Callaway replied, smiling.

“Police don’t belong here.”

Harley kept her voice friendly. “Good thing we’re not police. We’re government agents.”

The boy muttered something. Harley missed most of it, but she thought she caught the word “pigs.” She was about to ask the boy to repeat himself when an older woman joined in.

“That’s enough, Roslin,” she said. She had long hair, equal parts gray and white, braided down the sides of her head with beads. She set her hand on the boy’s head (Harley noticed the crescents of dirt beneath the woman’s fingernails), and the boy scurried away as if shocked by an electrical current.

“My name’s Melissa Hargrave,” the woman said, smiling and placing her hand across her chest. “Around here, though, I’m just called Gardenia.”

“Gardenia,” Callaway repeated with polite interest. “That’s a lovely nickname. I’m Agent Callaway, this is Agent Cole. We’re with the FBI.”

A shadow passed over Gardenia’s face. “It’s not often we have federal agents here at Holy Hope—and pardon me for saying so, but I can’t imagine it’s a good sign you’re here, not unless you’ve come to deliver a few tax refunds in person.”

Callaway gave an easygoing chuckle. “Afraid that’s not within our purview.”

“We’re investigating a homicide,” Harley said, cutting to the chase. She held up her phone, which displayed a picture of the body they had discovered that morning. “Have you seen this woman before?”

Gardenia recoiled, covering her mouth with a hand spotted brown with age. “I—I don’t know. Where did you find her? Is she dead?”

“Take your time,” Callaway said gently. “This is very important. We found her body over on Coyote Creek Road just this morning.”

Gardenia concentrated on the picture for a few seconds before looking away, her gaze tracking a trio of boys pretending to shoot at one another with sticks. “No, I’ve never seen her. Or if I have, it’s been a very long time.”

This response puzzled Harley. She couldn’t say for sure whether the woman was lying, but she felt sure she was hiding something. She suspected Gardenia hadn’t turned away out of discomfort so much as a desire to hide her feelings.

“Mind if we ask around?” Callaway said. “See if anyone else might have known her?”

Gardenia’s eyes flicked back to Callaway. There was a wariness in them now that hadn’t been there before. “May I ask what connection you’re trying to make here?”

“Her clothing,” Harley explained, putting her phone away. “It appears to have been homemade, so we thought she might have got it here.”

“Well, that clears things up,” Gardenia answered with a little laugh of relief. “We have several skilled seamstresses here—I’m one of them, in fact. We make clothes and sell them at local markets. You should stop by one of those, see if anyone there has seen your victim.”

“We’ll be sure to do that,” Harley answered with a tight smile. “But we’d still like to ask around, since we’re already here.” She was not going to be dismissed so easily.

That wary look returned to Gardenia’s face.

“Just crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s, you know,” Callaway added for reassurance. “Then we’ll be on our way.”

Gardenia gazed off into the distance. Harley could almost hear the gears shifting in the old woman’s mind, though what she was thinking about, Harley could not tell.

Finally she turned back toward the two agents and smiled, all trace of concern gone. “It’s a free country, isn’t it? You’re welcome to talk to anyone—even the squirrels, if you’re so inclined. They’ll probably have more to say than anyone else.”

“Why might that be?” Callaway said.

“We’re the first generation here at Holy Hope. Most of our people joined the community to escape pasts of addiction or a***e, or simply to get out of the rat race. I mean no offense when I say that; for some of them, government agents like yourselves represent everything they’ve worked so hard to get away from.”

She smiled, as if to indicate she didn’t bear any personal ill-will toward them. Before Harley could think of a follow-up question, a young man with disheveled hair poked his head out from one of the houses and called to her.

“Mother! Freedom is going into labor!”

Gardenia flashed a regretful smile at the agents. “We hold life sacred here,” she said quickly. “So if you’re looking for a killer, my suggestion is you look elsewhere.” With that, she hurried away in a flurry of skirts.

Harley watched the woman disappear inside the house. “Is it just me,” she murmured, “or was she doing everything she could to convince us we were wasting our time?”

“Can you blame her?” Callaway answered in a low voice. “They work so hard to separate themselves from society, only to have two federal agents show up searching for a murderer. They might seem a little oddball, but at the end of the day, all they’re looking for is some peace and quiet.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t have to drag one of them away in cuffs.”

Harley felt like an outsider already, simply because she had spent so many years in the northeast. She had lost touch with the slow pace of life down here, and nowhere was the contrast more striking than in the midst of an off-grid community where there was no such thing as punching a time clock or turning on the evening news. It was going to take some time for her to adjust.

A teenage girl carrying a basket of vegetables walked along the far side of the road. She moved as if she would happily crawl into a hole in the ground at the first opportunity: head hanging forward with her hair hiding her face, shoulders hunched, feet shuffling along the ground.

“Excuse me, miss?” Harley said, crossing toward the girl. “Can you tell me if you recognize this woman?”

The girl looked up, her eyes going wide with fear. Then she hurried forward, ignoring Harley’s request. She disappeared inside one of the houses, casting a frightened glance back at the two agents as she closed the door.

“That was odd,” Callaway said.

“Maybe her parents taught her not to talk to strangers,” Harley suggested. She did not know whether to chalk it up to teenage social anxiety or if there was something more going on.

She was still pondering this when Callaway gestured toward a trio of middle-aged men seated at a table on the far side of the street. “Let’s go ask those gentlemen,” he said. “They look talkative.”

The three men had beards of varying colors: one blonde, one gray, one charcoal black. They were smoking pipes and discussing the views of Albert Camus, an author Harley had read in college but remembered precious little about.

The conversation fell silent as the two agents reached the three men. The faces of the men grew stoic, their eyes flat.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Callaway said. “We’d just like a moment of your time. We’re looking for—”

Before Callaway could finish, the three men pushed back their chairs, rose, and moved away, splitting off in separate directions. It looked almost like it had been choreographed.

Harley stared after them, baffled by their reaction. “Do you ever feel like a persona non grata?”

“More by the second,” Callaway answered. “I knew they didn’t have a high opinion of law enforcement, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

Harley set her jaw, undeterred. “Well, we’re not going away that easily. We’ll go door to door, if we have to.”

“Wasting your time,” a nearby voice said.

They glanced over to see a long-haired man sitting on a log nearby, whittling a piece of wood. He appeared to be making an ax handle. Long coils of wood flew off the knife and tumbled to the ground, bright against the packed earth.

“What do you mean by that?” Callaway answered, stepping toward him.

“Stay where you are,” the man hissed. “Sit down at the table, would you? You want to get me blackballed?”

Callaway raised an eyebrow at Harley.

This place gets stranger by the second, Harley mused.

“I guess we act like we’re talking with each other,” Harley said in a low voice as she and Callaway sat down across from one another. “We should look around, pretend we’re enjoying the sights.”

Callaway leaned back, laying his long arms across the table. His hands were large and calloused—a working man’s hands. Tiny yellow slivers were buried in the skin around the nails. Hay slivers, she guessed. It was a subtle reminder that Callaway had a life beyond this job, a life Harley knew very little about.

“Can we show you the picture?” Callaway said, staring at Harley but speaking to the whittler.

“Already saw it when you were flashing it around.”

“And do you recognize her?” Harley answered.

The man was silent for several moments. The knife made a hwick, hwick sound as it shaved the wood.

“Is she dead?” he said.

“Afraid so,” Callaway answered. “Did you know her?”

Another long silence. Finally he said, “We can’t do this here. My house is way down at the end—one with all the rain barrels. On the right. Meet me there in five minutes.”

With that he got up, tossed his hair, and disappeared between two of the buildings.