Cody Walker's Woman

The sun was almost up when Callahan reached the center of town and circled slowly, weaving in and out of the town’s few side streets. When they passed the sheriff’s office, Cody was hit by a sense of nostalgia. He’d spent a lot of years as Black Rock’s sheriff. But then he glanced at the passenger side mirror. “They’re still back there,” he told Callahan quietly.

McKinnon spoke up. “They just want us to know they’re around. And that they’re not going away.” Then he chuckled. “It’ll be fun leading them on a wild-goose chase,” he told Cody, “while you and Keira accomplish our mission.”

* * *

Cody and Keira waited in the truck behind the house after Callahan and McKinnon had left. “Give me five minutes before you pull out,” Callahan had told them. “But don’t wait any longer than that. You don’t want to give them a chance to call up another team to tail the two of you, just in case they notice you’re not with us.”

Cody glanced at the clock on the dashboard, then put the truck into gear and slowly drove down the winding driveway toward the highway. Both he and Keira had their eyes peeled, but no vehicle appeared behind them or in front of them. Ten minutes later Cody turned into the driveway of Betsy Duggan’s house and drove all the way around the back so the truck couldn’t be seen from the road. “Stay here,” he told Keira, hopping out of the truck and making his way cautiously around the side of the house, peering out.

Nothing. No cars, no people, nothing. He waited a couple of minutes, but still nothing, so he headed back to the truck. Keira was waiting beside it, shielded behind the passenger door. Her hand was tucked inside her jacket, and Cody knew she’d been ready to draw her weapon if necessary. He signaled to her that he was going to try the key on the back door. She followed him, but backwards, eyes on the alert for any sign of the FBI or anyone else.

Cody slid the key into the back door’s lock and turned. “Bingo!” he whispered. He smiled triumphantly at Keira, and the returning smile on her face said, “I knew it!”

They slipped inside, Cody taking the lead. Keira stopped to lock the door behind them, and they made their way through the kitchen into the living room. Cody had no intention of turning on the lights—that would be a dead giveaway to anyone who knew Betsy was out of town—but after a minute their eyes adjusted, and they were able to see clearly in early morning gloom.

The living room furniture was old-fashioned but neat and tidy, with only a fine layer of dust showing that the owner had been absent for some weeks. In one corner of the room stood a large desk Cody remembered had belonged to Roland’s father. Roland had rarely used it, but it still had pride of place in the room. And on the desk stood a computer and monitor.

That’s it,” Keira said, walking quickly toward the corner.

“How can you be sure?”

Her gaze encompassed the computer. “This isn’t something you can buy just anywhere,” she said. “It’s top of the line.” She bent over and glanced behind the computer setup. “It’s plugged in, but there’s no DSL or anything connecting it to an ISP,” she added, referring to an internet service provider. “No one would have this computer without internet access. It’s got to be Tressler’s.”

She sat down at the keyboard, turned the computer on, and was immediately confronted by the need for a user password. As Cody watched, she typed C-e-n-t-a-u-r, but that didn’t work. Then she tried C-e-n-t-e-r, but no luck there, either. She tried again, this time all lowercase, but again nothing. She made a face of frustration. “One of them has to be the password. Remember what Callahan said about Tressler’s last word? But even if one of them is the password, it could be any combination of caps and lowercase,” she told him. “Damn! I could sit here all day, but without a starting point...”

Something niggled at the back of Cody’s brain. Something Keira had just said; something about a starting point. “Wait,” he said, closing his eyes to concentrate, and Keira fell silent. Starting point. Starting point...

With Tressler dead we don’t even have a starting point.... He’d said that to Callahan. Now his mind was doing free association. Starting point. Tressler. Veni, vidi, vici...