Cassie Dewell 01 - Badlands

by C. J. Box

  It wasn’t silent like it had once been out here, when he used to sit and scope out the landscape and the only sound was the wind whistling through gaps in his pickup cab. Occasionally, he’d seen a small herd of pronghorn antelope or white-tailed deer picking their way across the fields toward the river. Sometimes, the fields were white with nesting snow geese. Now, though, the prairie roared with train after train. Empty tankers rolling into Grimstad, full tankers rolling out. Millions of barrels of oil bound for every corner of the country.

  His cell phone burred on his lap and he checked the screen but didn’t answer.

  Two calls in a row from Jon Kirkbride. The sheriff rarely called him direct anymore, but he’d left a message after the second one.

  Tollefsen had a pretty good idea of what the message would say. He grunted and bent forward and fished around under the seat with his fingers for his personal gear bag. He placed it next to him and unzipped it. Aspirin, a few energy bars, a .22 throw-down pistol he’d never had the need to use. And the pint of Jim Beam.

  It had been years since he drank in the morning. Jon was known to do it on occasion, too, years ago. Back when they’d both been young and full of energy. Tollefsen remembered when the two of them would spotlight deer out on the prairie or ambush geese on the river, always a step ahead of the game warden. They’d drink beer and whiskey late into the night and show up for patrol the next morning with raging hangovers. Sometimes, after their shift Kirkbride would compete in local rodeos and Tollefsen would go along. Tollefsen couldn’t care less about horses or rodeos but he liked the girls who did, and he liked Jon Kirkbride. Sometimes they’d convince a girl and her friend to go out dancing with them after the rodeo. That’s how Jon met his wife, and how Tollefsen met that damned Tammy.

  That was also before Jon started to pull away and to get political. That wasn’t for Tollefsen, who preferred the ragged edges of law enforcement and not the white-hot center. He’d always thought Jon would come to his senses but he never did. Instead, his friend thrived in it. Tollefsen had grudgingly supported him in his run, of course, but he didn’t raise money for him or campaign. When Jon got elected to the sheriff’s job, Tollefsen expected to be rewarded by his old friend. But it hadn’t exactly worked out that way.

  Sure, he’d been named chief investigator and he finally got his own office. But that didn’t mean Jon confided in him like he used to or let him make his own decisions. It almost seemed like Kirkbride wanted to pretend they’d never been close. Like those good times had never really happened.

  Then they found oil by hydraulic fracturing out in the prairie and Tammy left. The whole damned world changed. Kirkbride was getting calls from television producers and The New York Times. Tollefsen started going out at night by himself. Lowlifes like Willie Dietrich bought him drinks and supplied women who were passing through.

  People Tollefsen had grown up with got rich and moved away. A whole new class of people moved in. Money flowed, gushed, ran down the gullies like a flash flood. The department doubled, then tripled in size. Square heads from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan took over. It was all Tollefsen could do at times from his seat in the back of the room not to tell them all just to shut the hell up and calm down. That this job, like life, would disappoint them. That their friends would look out only for themselves.

  He punched the voice mail key to retrieve the message.

  Kirkbride sounded sad, weary. He said, “Cam, you need to come in. I need to talk with you. Bring your badge and gun.”

  * * *

  TOLLEFSEN HAD justified what he’d done by telling himself he was working with locals to supply a product to newcomers that they were already going to get one way or another. After all, shouldn’t he get in on the action? Bachelor farmers without two nickels to rub together were becoming millionaires. Locals with no-account storefronts on Main Street were selling out for big money. Tammy had taken up with an executive from Baker Hughes and lived on a twelve-acre estate outside Houston.

  * * *

  HE FINISHED the pint with a flourish and powered his passenger-side window down and threw away the empty. Who knew that new woman cop would react the way she did? What kind of person wouldn’t be upset to find a decapitated head in their own home? Any normal person would have been freaked out. Hell, Tollefsen himself was freaked out just knowing it was in the plastic garbage bag after he’d found it mounted on top of a fence pole near the school. There was obviously something wrong with her and something hinky going on between her and the sheriff. Like they were in it together to bring him down. And now Jon was calling to close the trap.

  Jon, of all people, would know what would happen to him if he was sent to the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck. It would be worse than a death sentence.

  After all, how many inmates knew him? How many hated his guts? Tollefsen knew he wouldn’t last long.

  He put the Yukon into gear and drove down a rough two-track and parallel to the twelve-foot chain-link fence that kept vehicles away from the train tracks.

  Twice, while lost in concentration, he let the SUV wander a bit and scrape along the fence itself. But he gathered his wits by the time he reached the edge of the massive new train yard.

  Tollefsen put the transmission into park and hung out the window toward the security box. The little shack was unmanned but there was a closed-circuit camera and a speaker-box radio setup for those who didn’t have authorized Burlington Northern keycards.

  It was hard to hear the person on the other end of the speaker because of the noise of the trains.

  He badged the camera lens and bellowed, “Bakken County Sheriff’s Department. Let me the fuck in!”

  He could hear some damned excuse, something about not having the authority to open the gate, but Tollefsen gestured again and again toward the camera with his badge to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

  There was a high-pitched whir and the gate rolled open and Tollefsen was through it before there could be any more questions.

  He roared his SUV through the yard, the tires popping on the cinder-gravel ballast. He drove right up on the tracks, his front wheels bouncing over the outside rail itself. Then he turned a sharp left so the train rails were between his tires.

  “Here we go,” he said. “If you’re gonna take me down, Jon, I’m taking this whole fucking town with me.”

  The vibration inside the cab from the wild rhythm of the spaced wood ties beneath his wheels was intense. Every citation book and piece of paper he’d ever tucked under the visors or in the side compartments bounced out. The glove box opened and all its contents spilled to the floor. He could hardly see straight, but there was no doubt what was coming.

  The single white high-tech halogen headlight hung out there straight ahead of him and the train engine was coming fast, a mile of tanker cars filled with Bakken crude right behind it.

  He floored the accelerator.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WILLIE DIETRICH heard a distant heavy boom from the direction of the rail hub as he climbed out of the Tundra in the McDonald’s parking lot. The sound caused a hitch in his step and he paused and looked to the north but there was nothing to see in the close gray sky.

  He thought, Man, something blew up.

  Willie looked back over his shoulder at Escobar and Argueta, who had remained inside the vehicle. Argueta motioned with an impatient “What’s up with you?” gesture but Escobar stared icily ahead.

  Willie shrugged and continued across the icy lot.

  Of course, Willie knew Rachel Westergaard. They’d grown up together in Grimstad and they were two years apart in school. Willie was older but Rachel hung around the edges of his group, which was made up of stoners and football players. She’d been a typical skank: stringy blond hair, skinny, with eyes so coal-dark with makeup she looked like a raccoon. But, he recalled, a decent ass and a feisty temper. He knew she’d had a thing for him—all the skanks did—but he couldn’t remember if he’d put it to her or not.
Probably had, he thought. He could vaguely remember her going down on him the night after they burned down that abandoned barn.

  * * *

  SILENCIO ARGUETA had made her. Throughout the morning, he’d gone into McDonald’s three different times wearing three different hoodies. He ordered an Egg McMuffin from one counter worker on the first trip, a Sausage McGriddle from a second, and a Bacon, Cheese, and Egg Bagel from a third. He paid each time with a hundred-dollar bill and exited the restaurant with the food and a wad of change.

  They hadn’t worried about him looking suspicious. Willie had convinced the Salvadorans they had nothing to worry about. The McDonald’s was jammed with customers like always and the McDonald’s employees barely had the chance to look up, much less compare notes. Hundred-dollar bills weren’t notable, either. There were so many men with so much cash these days.

  It was the third order, the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Bagel, that nailed it down.

  While he ate, Willie scanned the currency with his ultraviolet light and it turned out to be awash with swoops and squiggles. When Argueta said the employee had a name tag on that said “Rachel,” Willie whooped. That idiot Winkie had been onto something the night before.

  Poor Winkie.

  Blink.

  * * *

  WILLIE DIDN’T really offer any assistance to Argueta and Escobar when they cut up Winkie’s body that morning and put the pieces into a fifty-five-gallon industrial drum in an unoccupied oil field tool garage, but he marveled at their skill. Willie had just stood there hugging himself and glancing out the dirty windows to see if anyone was coming. It was colder than hell inside the unheated warehouse.

  Willie didn’t know who owned the warehouse or how the Salvadorans had found it, but it was obvious after a few minutes that they were familiar with it. He’d seen the notice taped on the front door by the Bakken County Sheriff’s Department—something about the facility being under investigation for “unlawful release of hazardous waste materials”—but he hadn’t stopped to read it. All he knew was that the warehouse was empty and the Salvadorans seemed pretty confident that no one would show up to interfere with their project of cutting up Winkie.

  Willie stood to the side, occasionally rising to his tiptoes to see what they were doing. Escobar and Argueta wore blood-spattered coveralls and thick rubber gloves they’d found in a storage room inside the warehouse. After a few minutes, it seemed to Willie no different than field dressing and butchering a deer, which he’d done a hundred times. In fact, Winkie was such a little squirt that his legs reminded Willie of deer haunches. Escobar was a surgeon with a blade, able to separate the knee and elbow joints with several quick cuts and strategic twists of his knife blade.

  One by one, the pieces were dropped into the drum and dusted with a white powder. Willie asked what it was and Escobar smiled and said it was called posole, but the way he said it made Willie think it was some kind of sick Salvadoran joke because Argueta laughed and repeated posole aloud several times. Willie guessed it was lye. It smelled like lye and Willie had heard the cartels dissolved bodies that way.

  When they were done, they sealed the top and wiped the steel of the drum clean and asked him to help roll it to a dark corner of the garage. There were a dozen other drums there, some with hazardous waste stickers, and they hid Winkie’s drum in the back and surrounded it with the others. Willie noticed that Escobar had patted the top of a second drum with his gloved hand and said, “Dulces sueños, labriego,” but Willie had no idea what the hell that meant.

  * * *

  WINKIE HAD been a big pain in the ass, Willie thought. Winkie made Willie ashamed to be a fellow Grimstad Viking, the way he kept crying and begging and passing out. Sure, his face hurt. Of course it hurt. But Willie thought Winkie should have sucked it up and shown a little dignity. A little North Dakota grit, as Willie liked to think of it. It took two hours to find out about T-Lock.

  But where in the hell was that guy?

  Now they knew where he lived in the crappy little rental, but where had he gone? There was no car parked at the house, which meant he was out and about, but where? Willie knew T-Lock had an uncle in Watson City, some old farmer who used to let football players hunt pheasants on his land, but when he called there the phone was disconnected. T-Lock’s uncle, like so many of the old-timers, had moved on.

  And everyone knew T-Lock didn’t work in the winter.

  But Winkie kept saying, “Rachel, Rachel,” like the name meant something. Willie didn’t put it together until the rental house was pointed out to them that morning. T-Lock lived with Rachel Westergaard. Rachel Westergaard worked at McDonald’s.

  And damn it if she wasn’t in the process of laundering MS-13 cash in plain sight.

  Willie had to kind of admire that one, although he doubted T-Lock was bright enough to have come up with it. Rachel, maybe. But not T-Lock.

  He’d explained all this to Escobar and Argueta. Silencio lost interest halfway into it and looked out the window at the snow. Escobar listened carefully, though, and nodded silently while he drove.

  He’d said simply, “We go to McDonald’s and find her.”

  * * *

  THE RESTAURANT had that familiar sweet grease and cleaning smell combo Willie had always liked. It was an odor that brought him back to his childhood when the old man had him for weekends and a trip to the new Mickey D’s was a big fucking deal. Plus it was warm inside. Three long lines snaked through the full tables from the back of the restaurant to the counter. The men in line studied the menu board above the counter like it was the Ten Commandments handed down from God, Willie thought with a smirk, like they’d never seen such a fascinating sight before. When an order was up, the customer in front would take it away and the line would shuffle a few feet forward.

  Willie stood in the line on the far right. He didn’t expect Rachel to recognize him, or even see him for that matter. She was working in a kind of controlled frenzy. Behind her, people of all ages in maroon smocks were frying meat patties, deep-frying fries, pouring drinks. It looked like hard work. Willie remembered working at the Dairy Barn when he was in high school. It was the most miserable day and a half of his life.

  Until, that is, the Salvadorans arrived.

  * * *

  “HEY, GOOD-LOOKIN’—what’s good on the menu today, Rachel? Any specials I should know about?”

  Rachel snapped her head up, instantly annoyed. She was too busy and the lines were too long for playing around, for being on the receiving end of another guy flirting with her. She wasn’t sure she’d squared up the cash in the register with the marked cash for the last transaction, and she knew she’d have to count it later to be sure. Even a one dollar mistake could cause her heartburn.

  Her smock was roomy enough that no one could see the fanny pack strapped to her waist beneath it. The fanny pack was now nearly completely filled with unmarked cash from the register. There were only a few more marked bills behind a cardboard divider to transfer from her stash into the drawer and she’d be done for the day.

  Then she recognized who knew her name and her entire body went suddenly cold.

  “Remember me?” Willie Dietrich asked with that boxlike smile he’d always had. She hadn’t seen him in line and she knew her reaction—freezing like a mouse caught in the corner of a kitchen—had given her away.

  “Willie,” she said with no enthusiasm. “What can I get you?” Her voice sounded scared and wooden even to her.

  “I’m paying with a hundred-dollar bill,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you still had enough change?”

  She remembered the dark man in the hoodie who had paid with a hundred not ten minutes before. She’d given him change with marked bills. This was Willie’s way of saying he was on to her. Willie knew.

  She thought, Damn you, T-Lock, you son of a bitch.

  “So I guess you do have change,” Willie said. Then he leaned back on his boot heels and studied the menu board. “Yeah, there are a lot of choices, you know tha
t? I’d like something good. Is everything fried?”

  She looked over Willie’s shoulder. A man wearing oil-spattered coveralls rolled his eyes and sighed, not amused by Willie holding up the line. But he was also about fifty pounds smaller and six inches shorter. Further back, she could see a couple of men glaring at the back of Willie’s head.

  Willie wore a tight black DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS concert T-shirt with no coat. He’d never worn a coat in high school, she recalled, otherwise no one would be able to marvel at his biceps and thick forearms. Back then, he used to stop in the middle of the hallway between classes, flex both arms, and say, “Welcome to the gun show, ladies.”

  “Look,” Willie said leaning toward her, “I know what’s going on with you and T-Lock. You two have something that belongs to some friends of mine and we need it back, like now.”

  Rachel knew he wouldn’t get violent right there. He was probably aware of the security cameras trained on him. Which is why he spoke pleasantly and maintained the smile.

  She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Willie. Now will you please order? You’re holding up the line.”

  Willie turned to the man behind him and said, “You don’t mind, do you?”

  The man obviously minded but he looked down at his steel-toed workboots.

  “See?” Willie said. “Everything’s cool. Now listen to me, Rachel. You and T-Lock are Grimstad Vikings, just like me. I don’t want anything to happen to either of you and I know you somehow got involved in this because you didn’t know what was going on. And believe me, you did the right thing not turning it in to anyone.

  “But playtime’s over. We need it back and you and I are going to figure out a way right now to return the property. When is your break?”

  It was twenty minutes away, she thought, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead, she leaned forward and said, “I’ll give you all the money. I have it on me right now. You buy something and I’ll give you all the money in change and you can walk right out with it.”