Roadside Crosses

night—hadn’t brought it in person.
    From: Dep. Peter Bennington, MCSO Crime Scene Unit.
    To: Kathryn Dance, Special Agent, California Bureau of Investigation—Western Division.
    Re: June 28 homicide at house of James Chilton, 2939 Pacific Heights Court, Carmel, California.
    Kathryn, here’s the inventory.
    Greg Schaeffer’s body
    One Cross brand wallet, containing Calif. driver’s license, credit cards, AAA membership card, all in name of Gregory Samuel Schaeffer
    $329.52 cash
    Two keys to Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128
    One motel key to Room 146, Cyprus Grove Inn
    One key to BMW 530, California registration DHY783, registered to Gregory S. Schaeffer, 20943 Hopkins Drive, Glendale, CA
    One claim ticket for car at LAX long-term parking, dated June 10
    Miscellaneous restaurant and store receipts
    One cell phone. Only calls to local phone numbers: James Chilton, restaurants
    Trace on shoes, consistent with sandy dirt found at prior scenes of roadside crosses
    Fingernail trace inconclusive
    Room 146, Cypress Grove Inn, registered in name of Greg Schaeffer
    Miscellaneous clothing and toiletries
    One 1-liter bottle, Diet Coke
    Two bottles Robert Mondavi Central Coast Chardonnay wine
    Leftover Chinese food, three orders
    Miscellaneous groceries
    One Toshiba laptop computer and power pack (transferred to California Bureau of Investigation; see chain-of-custody record)
    One Hewlett-Packard DeskJet printer
    One box of 25-count Winchester .38 Special ammunition, containing 13 rounds
    Miscellaneous office supplies
    Printouts of The Chilton Report from March of this year to present
    Approximately 500 pages of documents relating to the Internet, blogs, RSS feeds
    Items in Gregory Schaeffer’s possession found at James Chilton’s house
    One Sony digital camcorder
    One SteadyShot camera tripod
    Three USB cables
    One roll, Home Depot brand duct tape
    One Smith & Wesson revolver, loaded with 6 rounds of .38 Special ammunition
    One Baggie containing 6 extra rounds of ammunition
    Hertz Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128, parked 1/2 block away from James Chilton’s house
    One bottle orange-flavored Vitamin Water, half full
    One rental agreement, Hertz, naming Gregory Schaeffer as lessee
    One McDonald’s Big Mac wrapper
    One map of Monterey County, provided by Hertz, no marked locations (infrared analysis negative)
    Five empty coffee cups, 7-Eleven. Only Schaeffer’s fingerprints
    Dance read the list twice. She couldn’t be upset at the job Crime Scene had done. It was perfectly acceptable. Yet it offered no clues whatsoever as to where Travis Brigham was being held. Or where his body was buried.
    Her eyes slipped out the window, and settled on the thick, barky knot, the point where two independent trees became one, then continued their separate journey toward the sky.
    Oh, Travis, Kathryn Dance thought.
    Unable to resist the thought that she’d let him down.
    Unable, finally, to resist the tears.

Chapter 41
    TRAVIS BRIGHAM WOKE up, peed in the bucket beside the bed and washed his hands with bottled water. He adjusted the chain connecting the shackle around his ankle to a heavy bolt in the wall.
    Thought once again of that stupid movie, Saw, where two men had been chained to a wall, just like this, and could escape only by sawing their legs off.
    He drank some Vitamin Water, ate some granola bars and returned to his mental investigation. Trying to piece together what had happened to him, why he’d ended up here.
    And who was the man who’d done this terrible thing?
    He recalled the other day, those police or agents at the house. His father being a dick, his mother being all weepy-eyed and weak. Travis had grabbed his uniform and his bike and headed for his sucky job. He’d wheeled the bike a short way into the woods behind his house and then just lost it. He’d dropped his bike and sat down beside the huge oak tree and started crying his head off.
    Hopeless! Everybody hated him.
    Then, wiping his nose as he sat beneath the oak, afavorite spot—it reminded him of a place in Aetheria—he’d heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.
    Before he could turn toward the sound, his vision went all yellow and every muscle in his body contracted at once, from neck to toe. His breath went away and he passed out. And then he woke up here in the basement, with a headache that wouldn’t stop. Somebody’d hit him with a Taser, he knew. He’d seen how they work on YouTube.
    The Big Fear turned out to be a