Tim poked halfheartedly at the short stack in front of him. He'd drowned the four small pancakes in more syrup than the entire country of Canada had a right to, and now he was not the least bit interested in eating them. He'd made quick work of the side of bacon he'd ordered, at least. The pretty young waitress with 'Nicki' on her name tag was busy pouring his fourth cup of dark coffee, for which he was extremely grateful, even if the scowl on his face gave no indication.
When he finally let the fork plunk down on the plate in front of him, Tim picked up the Tracfone sitting next to his coffee mug. He'd made a detour to a nearby gas station on his way to his 4AM breakfast, and he'd set it up while he waited for Nicki to return with his meal.
The phone only had one number in it, for now, so he pressed one and waited.
He would never understand how she always managed to answer so quickly. "Yes?"
"Kathryn, it's Tim."
"Oh! I wasn't expecting it to be you." Tim wondered whether she'd woken up or was still going from the night before. He wondered if she'd already spoken with Delia. Decided she probably had.
"It's fine. Delia said you'd give her this number."
"No problem."
"Thanks." In the pause that followed, Tim strained his ears and for the first time during one of their phone calls, he couldn't hear any music playing on her end. He wondered why.
"She likes you," she finally said.
Tim sneered. The last thing he needed was to be liked by a person like Delia, even if she was important to Kathryn. "Could you ask her not to call me Corporal, then?"
"Why?"
"It was a bullshit promotion I got after a shitshow of a mission that I don't like to think about," Tim almost had the decency to feel ashamed at the nastiness in his voice, but he couldn't quite muster it, "Gutterson or Deputy or 'Hey, Jackass!' will work just fine."
Kathryn's response was measured, and Tim found himself wishing she'd rise to the bait and lash out at him instead. "I'll let her know. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it."
Like Hell. Tim knew very well what she'd meant; to remind him of his service. Of his duty. To make him feel small and complacent liked he'd been back then, so he would follow orders like a good soldier. Delia had read any files that existed of his time in the Rangers. She'd specifically said she knew his service record. She was smart enough to figure out the rest, and calling him by his ill-begotten rank was just another manipulation.
"You can let her know I'll be speaking with Reed today. If I have any other updates, I'll let you know."
There was another pause and Tim wondered for a moment whether Kathryn had hung up. He'd seen her abruptly flip her phone closed at the end of a conversation without any sort of goodbye plenty of times before.
He was just about to hang up himself when he heard her release a slow breath into the receiver. "It's early. I hope you've got some strong coffee this morning."
"That and plenty of pancakes." Nicki returned to refill his cup again and he smiled at her. "My girl Nicki's got me covered, don't you worry."
The young woman blushed at Tim's wicked grin and ducked away from the table as quickly as she could, scurrying away to the relative safety of the kitchen with a strange giggle.
"Don't scare her, Deputy."
Tim's smile remained. "What makes you say that?"
"I'm not sure you know how intimidating your flirtations can be," she said, and he snorted into his coffee, narrowly missing a spill that would have sent him back home for a new shirt.
"How would you know? I don't recall ever flirting with you."
"My mistake, then," she said. But they both knew it wasn't. "I'll let Delia know. Hope to hear from you again soon."
"You could always call me, too, you know."
"I suppose I could, but I prefer being pursued."
"Careful what you wish for. You're about to have every Marshal in the country pursuing you."
"Well, there's only one of them I care about, Deputy."
Try as he might, Tim couldn't for the life of him come up with a witty retort, and so he let the conversation die before he embarrassed himself any further.
"Have a good day, Kathryn."
"You too, Tim."
As he hung up, Tim decided he would never call Kathryn before sunrise again. His brain was too fuzzy and slow for her without it. He downed the coffee in his mug and waved the empty cup at Nicki, who rushed back over to refill it with a fresh pot.
As she leaned over the counter toward him, he smelled something new and sweet, and when he looked at her face, he noticed she'd applied some lipstick that wasn't there before.
Tim felt satisfied that Kathryn didn't know a goddamn thing about his flirting technique. He stabbed into his soggy pancakes and took a healthy bite, too much syrup and all.
#
By the time five o'clock rolled around, Tim could no longer indulge Nicki's coy smiles while drinking her burnt coffee, so he paid his bill, leaving a hefty tip and ignoring the phone number scrawled at the bottom of the slip she handed him.
When he entered the Marshals office, two things were immediately clear. First, Tim would get to speak with Reed much earlier than he'd anticipated. Second, the agent in question had definitely spent the night in the conference room. Reed was leaned back in his chair, his legs propped up on the table before him as he read through a lengthy document. Tim poured himself yet another cup of coffee—he refused to count the number—and then steeled himself for the conversation he needed to have, hoping the fact that Reed didn't know him well would work in his favor as he lied through his teeth.
Reed looked up from the pages in his hands as Tim pulled the door open. "'Morning, Deputy Gutterson. Bit early for you, isn't it?"
Tim shrugged, "Couldn't sleep."
Reed lowered his feet and his chair hit all fours with a clack. Tim sipped his coffee, trying to decide how best to begin the conversation.
"We're tracking some new leads on Dawson that came in from the DEA overnight."
This caught Tim's attention and he took the printout Reed handed him. It showed a man who certainly looked like Dawson's outside a convenience store in Northern Virginia. Tim hoped Kathryn was still somehow in Kentucky, far away from the man in the photo.
Reed continued, "I sent some of my task force up there to coordinate with the local Marshals office in D.C. I'm hoping we won't lose track of him this time. This is the best lead we've had in weeks."
Tim nodded, studying Dawson's face in one of the photos. He seemed to be staring straight into the camera, almost daring whoever was looking at the feed to try and find him. Tim was glad he wasn't part of the D.C. squad.
"That's good," he said, handing the photos back to Reed. "I actually had something I wanted to ask you about," he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could.
Reed slapped the papers back down on the table, eyeing the Marshal across from him with something adjacent to suspicion. "Shoot."
"Daniel Boone." Reed's eyebrows shot up, having clearly expected something else, "Is there any other info on the incident there?"
The agent frowned, leaning forward to sift through some of the scattered folders. Tim decided that organization was clearly not Matthew Reed's strong point. Tim heard the man mumble a few curses under his breath as he searched for what he was looking for, until he finally grunted, tossing a folder to Tim that the younger man just barely caught.
"That's everything we have."
Tim scanned through the pages in his hands. There were photos of dead men and the trailer, but it was empty. There were also photos and descriptions of evidence collected at the scene, including blood spatter and weapons. And then there was the statement from the driver of the mini van Kathryn had confronted. The man had apparently driven straight out of the park and to the nearest police station to report the incident.
"What was in the truck?" Tim asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Nothing."
Tim's eyes flew up to meet the other man's level gaze. "Then why were they there?"
Reed shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. But Tim could see in his face that his interest was piqued, which was all Tim needed. "My gut tells me there were drugs either in the truck or being delivered to it that were lost in transit. Maybe taken by Sarah Geller or whoever she was working with."
Tim made a show of perusing the file again. "It doesn't say there were any other suspects present."
"I don't see how she could have done all that damage herself. My personal opinion is that there was as least a second shooter, maybe two."
"Your agents never pursued the truck or tried to find out what happened to its contents?"
Reed uncrossed his arms, leaning forward onto the conference room table. "Why so interested, Gutterson? What are you thinking?"
Tim saw his opening and he took it, flipping the folder back onto the table easily. "I stopped by the park last week to talk with the Head Ranger there. It sounds like the officers onsite were pretty cagey about the whole thing, not letting the rangers on duty anywhere near the scene. Both state and federal officers were in the park that night." Tim paused for dramatic effect more than anything, making it look as though he was gathering his thoughts by looking pointedly out into the still-dark office. "I think this case might be more tied to Romero's murder than it appears. My gut tells me there was something valuable in that truck, and I'd like to know who took it, whether it was Geller or the cops who ended up processing the scene."
Tim leaned back, clasping his hands over his stomach and waiting for Reed to respond. He twisted the chair back and forth, something he knew would irk the agent and hopefully spur him to a quicker decision.
"You want permission to look into this?"
Tim smirked, "I mean, I don't technically work for you, and investigating this sort of thing isn't really in the Marshal Service's purview. But I figured since I'm part of the task force, there might be some leeway there."
"How long?"
"Three days."
Reed nodded, stretching his arms until his shoulders popped and then standing from his chair. "Keep me informed. If you need help-"
"I'm good," Tim said, "I work better alone."
Reed eyed him cautiously as he gathered his blazer and tie from the back of another chair. "I'll let Art know I'm borrowing you for a few days. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna use the gym shower before anyone else gets in."
Tim waved his hand in front of nose. "Lucky them."
Reed's laugh surprised Tim. Not only because he hadn't been expecting it, but it was a strange hybrid between a child's giggle and an old man's snort. It didn't fit Reed at all and was honestly a little horrifying. Tim smiled awkwardly in response, unsure of whether it was the right response.
"Let me know what you find out, Gutterson. If there are dirty cops buried somewhere in this case, I want them found and locked up just as much as Geller."
Tim nodded, picking up his coffee and downing the rest like a shot of tequila. "You got it."
As Reed disappeared out into the hall, Tim gathered some items from his desk and headed back out to his car, glad that he was able to avoid running into any of his fellow Marshals. Despite all the caffeine, Tim lacked the energy to explain himself to anyone who knew him even half as well as Reed; they would have seen straight through his bullshit.
#
And so it was that Tim Gutterson found himself sitting in a grocery store parking lot at 10:15 in the morning, eating a cold sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from the Speedway, waiting for a acneic twenty-something named Spencer Lee to finish his shift.
Despite the sandwich's obvious lack of quality, Tim found the abundance of sodium and the sticky, plastic-tasting cheese a great comfort. How many days had he eaten shit like this as a kid? Fifty-cent Coca-cola and a dollar for the sandwich, sent off to school straight from the drive thru by his too-weary-to-cook mother.
He hated to admit it, but Tim enjoyed the sticky gas station breakfast a lot more than the objectively better quality one he'd paid for at the diner. When he'd finished his second breakfast of the day, he licked his fingers clean and brushed them against his shirt, leaving a greasy stain down the front.
Tim sat in his car, watching people come and go for a little over an hour before he saw Spencer stop bagging groceries and head toward the back of the store. Tim waited a few moments and then pulled his car behind the building, just as Spencer emerged from an employee exit and popped a cigarette into his mouth. Tim pulled up close to him and rolled the window down.
"Heya, Spence!" Tim enjoyed watching the boy's mouth go a little slack, lighter poised halfway between his pocket and his mouth.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Tim yanked out his badge and flashed it unabashedly. "Deputy U.S. Marshal, asshole. You got a minute?"
Tim didn't even both hiding his amused smile as the cigarette fell limply from Spencer's now fully slackened mouth.