Free Dead Float by Warren C Easley Page A

precaution, we’re sending a security team in to locate them.”
    â€œWho’s the AU?”
    â€œThe African Union. Actually, our security team is being escorted by Nigerian troops. They’re part of the AU’s peacekeeping contingent.”
    â€œI see. How long will it take for them to get up to northern Darfur?”
    â€œThey’ll be there tomorrow. Meanwhile, I want to assure you we’re doing everything we can to locate your daughter. We have no reason to believe there’s anything amiss here. I’ll call you tomorrow with any news. Okay?”
    No reason, my ass. If there’s no issue, why send in a security team? But I held my tongue and instead made him stay on the line as I asked a dozen other questions about the situation. To Harrelson’s credit he answered them with more patience than one would expect from someone commuting home in L.A. traffic.
    I dropped Philip off at his place, a two-acre spread north of town off Route 97. Although I felt tired and a little light-headed from lack of food, I begged off a dinner invitation from his wife, Lanie. I needed some alone time as well as something to get my mind off Claire. The answer was simple. I’d see what I could learn about the Barlow Northern Railroad’s comings and goings, and do it now before the trail, if there was one, went cold.
    I stopped at a gas station, filled my tank, then bought a cup of coffee and the last turkey sandwich in the case. I forced the sandwich down, knowing I needed food. The coffee was freshly brewed and was called, appropriately enough, “Fog Cutter.” I had two cups.
    I got directions to the B-N freight yard, located northwest of town off Route 26. Of course, I had no way of knowing whether the intruder had boarded a northbound train at this point. Nor did I know what in the world I would look for out there. But Route 26 was the most direct route in from Portland, so if the bad guy came in from that direction, the freight yard would be a logical point for him to hop a train for the short ride to the Kaskela switching area. Besides, checking it out would give me something to do in my restless state.
    The food and the coffee began to kick in, and as I headed out of town I noticed my surroundings for the first time that day. The air was sparkling with that late, gold-tinged light photographers dream about. The volcanoes dwarfed everything on the horizon. Mount Hood was dead ahead, Jefferson at ten o’clock, Three-Fingers Jack at nine, and the Three Sisters at four.
    When I arrived at the freight yard I sat in the small public parking lot for a couple of minutes trying to remember why I had driven all the way out here. The yard went on for what looked like acres. Freight cars and tankers were scattered around, singly and in combinations of various lengths, waiting to be hooked up and hauled off. The place seemed deserted except for someone in a small guard shack that stood next to the main entrance gate.
    I finally got out of my car and approached the guard shack. A young man with dirty blond hair and a scraggly mustache sat inside reading beneath a dim bulb. Out in the yard, a crane suddenly sprang to life and began swinging one of the truck trailers onto a flatbed railroad car.
    â€œHi,” I said cheerfully through the open window.
    After a long pause, the young man raised his eyes, but not his head, from a wrinkled paperback. “What can I do for you?”
    I noticed that he was reading The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . “Doug Adams fan, huh?” I nodded in the direction of the paperback.
    The man’s head came up, and his eyes met mine. “Yeah, man.”
    â€œName’s Cal.” I extended my hand and smiled. “What’s yours?”
    â€œBilly,” he replied, shaking my hand indifferently.
    â€œBilly, I’m investigating a death that happened out on the Deschutes last night. Wonder if I could ask you a few