11. The Ties that Bind, Part One

and Mike Miserkevich.

“The show is written and produced by me, Chris McClure.”

I edit, create the sound design and play almost all the music.

Just a reminder, season 1 of Harvey and Hal will be 18 episodes, and season 2 will be 12 episodes. There shouldn't be too much of a break between the two seasons I'm hoping. If you're enjoying the show, consider supporting it by signing up for ad-free early access and bonus material at Harvey and Hal.com.

You could also leave a rating and review that helps a lot. A brief apology to subscribers I had to temporarily remove the bonus episode with FBI Supervisory Special Agent Christy Caudace. I'm working to get a redacted version back up, but at this time there are still interviews

with Greg McCrary, one of the original FBI profiles who investigated some of the most

“horrific murders and serial killers out there, and Jeff Ross, who worked out of the Salt Lake”

City Field Office and had cases out in the area where this story is set. I'll also be putting out a bonus episode about how I make the podcast with some technical details and thoughts about writing it. And again, you can go to Harvey and Hal.com to sign up for early ad-free episodes. I release episodes to subscribers a week early.

In any case, thank you for listening and hope to see you next week. After my mom died, I ended up in a different school. The kids were all nice. I didn't really make any friends though, and I didn't see Michael anymore after I moved. Behind the school yard, there was a high embankment with a railway.

Out the classroom window, I'd watch freight trains full of new cars headed for Chicago or California or Texas.

“At lunch, I went through a hole in the school yard fence, and I'd walk alongside the railroad.”

Sometimes I'd just keep walking even after I heard the bell. I'd tell myself I was having a spell and couldn't go back to school. You see a lot of strange things walking along railroad tracks, shoes, toys. Once I found a kid's wagon with a bunch of coal in it, I'd make up stories about how these things got there.

I imagined some kid who loved collecting coal. Maybe he wanted to carve it into little animals but then something scared him off.

Everywhere I've been, I've always made friends, even full some prison.

It was one tough place to be, and you can take that to the bank. I got along fine with the inmates and the guards. Then when things went south for me and I came out here to be alone, I still made friends. I've been luckyer than I deserved to be. Yes, sir, with that friends you got nothing in this world.

I really appreciate you putting me up last night, Agent Harvey. I consider you a friend now. I want you to know that, and I really do appreciate the breakfast. We were at some diner on the edge of town. Verve was chowing down on a chicken fried steak with eggs.

It still felt like the middle of the night with the gloom outside. With the interrupted sleep, an occasional semi-truck rumbling out towards I-80. I felt I'd been on some road trip for days. Coffee could use some work, though. You come by my place sometime when I got some beans and I'll make you a cup.

You won't ever forget. He was right. The coffee was not good. It was burned and I had to load it up with sugar. I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself about staying over last night.

Especially since, well, you know, technically everyone's a suspect at this point. With those kids. I know that Harvey, but you're good man. I bet you got friends all over. After breakfast, we went to the hospital and they changed his dressings and told him to come

back tomorrow. Verve was cheerful enough through the whole thing. He liked joking around with the nurses and being indoors.

into 233 and then became root 30 when we passed into Utah.

“Verve was telling me all about the hermits and vagabonds who called the desert home.”

Some guy who was in jail now after throwing a hammer at him, a traveling vacuum salesman who gave it all up to live in a cave in the hills out by the donkeys. As we got up over the crest and looked down at the dark basin below, Verve shifted in his seat like a kid who was about to house some old stitches pulled out. You know, there's another way to my place.

It's longer, but we won't have to go right past the pond again. If you got the gas, that is, that's your appreciated. Now that he mentioned it, I was getting low on gas. The queasy look on his face told me I'd better risk it though. Seeing more of the territory out here wasn't a bad thing anyways.

Sure. There was a flash, like some kind of flare out of the pond.

The sky got bright red for a moment.

What they need to do is dynamat the hill out of that damn pond. What could would that do? When I was just at a college, I was in Texas and there were oil will fires and what you put them out was with dynamite and when it exploded, there was no air and the fire went out.

Just need a hill of a lot of dynamite, that's all. I don't know if it's that kind of fire. No. Maybe it is. After a while, he told me to turn up a dirt road, cutting north of the oasis.

It was harder to keep the car straight here. The crumpled front end of the Capri's classic shook on the rough road. Bruno told me the car would hold itself together. He might not have expected me to drive it on this kind of road.

“You know you should really get those headlaps fixed.”

You can hardly see where you're going. We passed a rusty old trailer. It was split down the middle. There were two lawn chairs out front and a worn path from the trailer to the road. Someone still lived in there.

The road wound around East and Verv told me to turn on to another road that me entered northwest. Every few miles we'd see another shackered welling. "Hey, that's my buddy Cannon's place over there." Cannon.

He's the one I wanted to speak to. You might have he stopped and see if he's in. I wanted to talk to him. "Oh yeah, that's fine. I know what that should about.

I just bet everyone out here's head problems with the law. Can it's a good man though? I think you'll like him." We drove down the laneway.

“Assign straight out of the spaghetti western red pleasure dome.”

How do people live out here? No electricity? No water? "I used to get water at the pond. It's piped in, you know, from the mountains.

It's an artificial pond that the locomotive used to use to fill up on the water. The water that comes out of the pipe is clean enough though. It's submerged now. But Polzer has a well. He lets us use it.

And a lot of folks had generators they used when they need to also. Another bend in the road and we came to a trailer at the foot of a small mountain range. "Verve lumbered out of the car as best he could. I got his crutches out of the trunk as he leaned on the car. The trailer was old and wooden and half falling apart.

A bonfire circle was still smoking.

One of the first things I noticed was a weight bench with the stuffing coming out of

the seams. A barbell. You looking dumbbells and weights were lying around. Some kind of outdoor gym. There was a shed in a lot of tracks, footprints and places where cars had driven.

A flag stuck out of a rusty tire rim. The flag was a tie-died yin-yang blowing in the wind. There was an old van beside the trailer and a guy, maybe in his late thirties, came out of the trailer and a white undershirt. He had huge arms, a crew cut.

One of the squarious jaws I've ever seen. I have expected to see a cigarette pack rolled up and in the shirt sleeve. "Hey there buddy, how you doing? I hope you don't mind this here's friend of mine. He's with the FBI, but he's a good guy.

He's looking for those kids, you know. He's got to talk to everybody who's got a record out here.

The donkeys have been restless.

“Now I know why Canon took a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and lit one.”

But buddy Canon hears a kind of a rancher. He raises burrows. Special Agent Coots. I just have a few questions. It won't take long.

I stuck out my hand, but he didn't take it. He walked over to his white bench, verven I followed. You know what burrows are, Agent Coots? Sure, the early miners around here had donkeys and when they had no use for them they just turned them loose.

Burrows are at the heart of the desert. They were left to die by the careless and callous and the selfish. They survived.

They've been here for centuries, living out the lives they were never meant to have.

Well like Verves said, I read your rap sheet. You know we've had three kids go missing in a few weeks. Then was found dead. Did you know any of those kids? Have you ever heard the burrows sing, Agent Coots?

What did you say? You brought a real darkness with you FBI man. The animals can't tell when it's day or night anymore. I hope you find what you're looking for soon. Then you can leave us.

Listen Canon, I need you to answer my questions. I don't know if you have a right to be living on this property.

“I don't know what's going on with the donkeys, but I think we can all agree that we have”

to find out what happened to those kids. I need you to be straight with me. He just kept looking at me and took a drag on his cigarette. Like I said Canon, he's a good man. You see I hurt my foot.

He brought me to the hospital and let me stay over. Make sure I was okay, he's definitely a good guy. The girl, Celine Benter, she used to go walking around here. She'd like to look at the donkeys. Do you remember ever seeing her?

No. Do you know Jordan McLeod? With both hands he grabbed the barbell that was hanging on the rack and squeezed it. I didn't have anything to do with anything that happened to those kids. You got that?

Anyone who fucks with kids? I'd fuck with them worse than you would. You got it? I got people coming over later and we don't need the law around here. I appreciate you helping my friend, but I can't help you with those kids.

If you don't mind, I've worked to do. I was getting to be late afternoon when I left Verv's place. Verv put her around checking on his property, making a show like he was glad to be home. I turned the car around and took root 30 for the pond. Every time I looked in the rear of your mirror, Verv was standing there watching me go.

He'd chosen to live out here on his own. That's what he told me anyways. I told myself it would be safer not to take the long way around with my headlights the way they were and being low on gas.

“And besides it was important for me to keep an eye on the pond, no matter what I felt.”

I drove by the police tape that was blowing uselessly from the open gate. The red glow and inky black clouds were mesmerizing.

Getting close, that dark feeling came over me, like an old friend, like a scab you never

get tired of picking. Even from the road, I could see that the lake was inching higher. This was a thick smoke blew across the road, and the star crossed headlights really weren't much use. I hit the gas and watched the needle hit 80.

The telephone poles flew by. I skidded off the road for a second and had to slow down. Back on the road, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a horde of shadowy rodents crossing in front of me. I pushed on the gas more, the needle climbed to 85.

A flock of shadows followed the car from miles, one kept banging on the back of the car.

I watched in the rear view mirrors, they gathered into a flock and twisted and turned back into the fires.

“The pounding in my chest kept going, despite the deep breaths I tried to take.”

When I got into town, the tightness of my chest finally eased up.

A newspaper blew across the road. As I pulled up to a red light, I saw a man walking with giant steps waving his hands in the air. When I stopped at the light, he noticed me.

He ran over and started pounding on the window.

Hey!

“You can't stop here, it's too dark, move it, moving you sort of a bitch.”

The tire squealed and I flew through the red light before I even knew what I was doing. In an instant, sweat broke out on my forehead, on my back. I looked at the passenger window, hoping it would be clean, but I'd just imagine that man yelling, "The greasy smudges let me know the truth." The parking lot was mostly empty when I parked.

I went in through the back door, hoping no one would see me. My room still smelled like verve.

“There were old bandages on the floor, and the bed was a mess.”

I just laid down in it anyways and stared at the blank TV screen. One breath after another, slow it down, a bird flew into the window, I got up. Instead of closing the blinds, I just stood there looking. An old lady was picking up bottles on the sidewalk. She dropped one and it broke.

She threw the other two, she was holding on the ground and fury, and the bottles smashed. The sound of the bottle smashing didn't make it up to my window, but I could have sworn I heard the woman's frustrated muttering. I didn't see that man who'd yelled at me, moving you son of a bitch, a coincidence maybe. The red glow out there on the horizon, verve was out beyond it, at least he had canon

to talk to. With the curtains drawn, it almost felt like I had the place to myself. I picked up the phone and dialed Jerry's number. My breath caught in my throat for a second when he didn't pick up.

There was a constant terror with every call that this would be the one he never picked up.