Cassie Dewell 01 - Badlands

by C. J. Box

  Kyle felt his face and neck get hot. “What about my mom?” he screamed.

  T-Lock stood and looked down at him with contempt. The phone in his hand burred two more times and stopped. He said, “Kyle, you’re a fuckin’ retard. You think they’ll let her go after she’s seen their faces? Get a clue, man. If I do what they want they’ll get that product back and they’ll kill her, and then they’ll kill me.”

  Kyle stepped back.

  The phone rang again. T-Lock glanced at the screen and said to it, “Leave me the fuck alone, greasers. Go back to California or Mexico or wherever the hell you’re from.”

  Kyle said, “Let me talk to her.”

  T-Lock rolled his eyes and said, “Not a chance. We don’t need any drama.”

  “But what if it’s really her?” Kyle pleaded. “What if she got away or something? She needs our help.”

  “She didn’t get away from three guys. I doubt that she’s even breathing. They took her phone away from her and they want me to show up with the duffel bag so they can take it and cut my head off like they did to Rufus.”

  “You’ve got to do something,” Kyle said, tears stinging his eyes again. “It’s my mom.”

  T-Lock took a deep breath. He said, “The best thing we can do for her right now is not answer this phone. If she’s even alive, and I doubt that, they will have lost the only thing they have to bargain with. They’ll keep trying to talk to me in the meantime. So get out of my face so I can think.”

  “You’re a liar,” Kyle said. “You’re gonna make it so they hurt her.”

  “Don’t call me that, you little shit.”

  “Liar. You’re a liar. You’re going to get my mom killed because you’re scared of them.”

  “I ain’t scared of nobody,” T-Lock said, and swung his right fist. Kyle tried to duck out of the way but the blow glanced off the side of his head and he dropped and saw stars. T-Lock kept coming.

  Kyle dived under the table where he doubted T-Lock would follow. But T-Lock was really angry this time, and he’d dropped to his hands and knees while Kyle scrambled away. T-Lock reached for his foot between the chairs but Kyle was able to wrench it free.

  He emerged on the other side of the table before T-Lock was back on his feet. Kyle plucked the set of keys from the top and ran, stepping over T-Lock’s outstretched hand.

  “Come back here with my keys, you little shit!”

  Kyle ran into his room and slammed the door shut. He had no way to lock it. Instead, he got behind his bed and started pushing it with his full weight toward the door. The legs made a moaning sound as they scraped across the floor and the foot of the bed was nearly to the door when T-Lock threw it open.

  The door slammed into the bed but wasn’t fully open. There was about six inches of space and T-Lock shoved one of his arms through it. T-Lock’s hand was balled into a fist. Kyle leaned into the bed and tried to shove it further. T-Lock cursed and pushed against the door. There wasn’t enough of an opening for T-Lock to squeeze inside. Kyle could see T-Lock’s red face.

  “Kyle, I’m not kidding. I need those keys back and then I’m gonna whip your ass.”

  Kyle grunted and tried to set his feet so the door couldn’t open any more.

  “Goddamn it!” T-Lock shouted, then threw himself against the door and Kyle was knocked back. Before he could regain his balance and start shoving again, T-Lock slithered through the opening and stepped on top of the bed.

  Kyle could hear the phone burring again in T-Lock’s pocket. His mom. Then it stopped.

  The look on T-Lock’s face was murderous. Kyle had seen him mad before—many times—but never this mad.

  “Where are my fucking keys?”

  Kyle didn’t see the boot coming, but it caught him hard under his arm and sent him sprawling. He slid across the dirty floor. He saw stars again and couldn’t get his breath.

  T-Lock stepped down from the bed and put his hands on his hips.

  “I thought your mother was dumb but you’re even dumber, if that’s possible.”

  The phone chimed, which meant a text message.

  Kyle rolled away moaning, trying to get air. He found his progress stopped by his River Box. It had remained in place while Kyle pushed the bed away. He turned to reach inside the box.

  The next kick hit him hard in his butt, right on his tailbone. Kyle writhed and gasped, but reached inside the River Box and closed his hand around the shaft of the arrow.

  When T-Lock bent over and reached down to pull him to his feet by his coat collar, Kyle drove the arrow deep into T-Lock’s neck.

  T-Lock was surprised. He let go of Kyle and stepped back and sat down on the bed. His eyes were wide with wonder, and he turned toward Kyle’s bedroom mirror to look at himself and the arrow shaft sticking out of his neck. He reached up and gently touched the fletching as if to confirm to himself it was actually there.

  He tried to speak but the only sounds to come out were guttural.

  Kyle gathered himself up, panting for breath. His head throbbed and his right arm didn’t want to respond. His backside was numb and cold.

  He shoved T-Lock over on the bed so he was out of the way. T-Lock didn’t fight back. He just flopped over to the side and lay there. Kyle reached into T-Lock’s pants pocket and got the phone. Before he did, he put his fingers near T-Lock’s nostrils. He was still breathing. Then he started to moan. It was a horrible, deep-inside-the-chest moan. Kyle felt bad for him but he knew if he had to do it all over again he would have done the same thing.

  With the keys in one hand and the phone in the other, Kyle leapt onto the bed and jumped out the door.

  * * *

  HE PUT the keys in his coat pocket and then looked at the message on T-Lock’s phone screen.

  It said it was from his mom. PICK UP, YOU ASSHOLE.

  Kyle texted back. MOM? THIS IS KYLE. U OK?

  Then Kyle punched 911 on the house phone again and set the receiver aside. That 911 lady would be able to hear the moans coming from the back bedroom. He sure didn’t want to talk to her again.

  As he trudged around to the side of the house toward his bike the phone chimed again. Another text.

  It read: WHERE R U, KYLE?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CASSIE KNOCKED on Willie Dietrich’s farmhouse door while Ian Davis stood behind her. His hand was on the grip of his service weapon. It was still. The towering skeletal trees in the yard were dotted with starlings that looked double their actual size because they were so puffed up against the cold.

  “That’s his Range Rover in the garage,” Davis said through chattering teeth. “So I’m guessing he’s here.”

  Cassie knocked again, harder. It hurt her knuckles through her thin gloves.

  Finally, she heard footfalls inside.

  “Someone’s coming,” she said, and stepped slightly to the side to widen Davis’s field of fire.

  The front door cracked open an inch.

  “Willie Dietrich?” Cassie asked.

  “Not hardly.” It was a woman’s voice, deep and slightly Southern. “Willie ain’t here.”

  From somewhere inside, another female asked, “Who is it, LaDonna?”

  “Couple of damn cops,” LaDonna said over her shoulder.

  “A couple of damn cops who are freezing to death on this porch,” Cassie said with sarcasm. “Will you please let us in?”

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk to Willie.”

  “I told you—he’s not here.”

  Cassie paused, trying not to get angry. She said, “I smell weed coming from in there. That’s probable cause for my partner and me to enter. Now we can force our way in and start tossing the place and make some arrests, or you can invite us in and I’ll pretend I don’t smell what I smell. Your choice.”

  “That’s bullshit,” LaDonna said.

  She was right, Cassie knew. Simply smelling marijuana wasn’t just cause to enter a residence. But Cassie had no intention of arresting an
yone for possession. She wanted answers.

  Cassie turned to Davis. “Ian, go get that battering ram from the Yukon.”

  Davis tried not to grin. He said, “Tear gas, too?”

  “Sure.”

  The door opened and LaDonna, a tall black woman wearing a tight fleece bodysuit and oversized pink slippers, stepped aside. “You don’t have to be so damned harsh,” she said to Cassie.

  * * *

  LADONNA MARTIN and Annie Bjorg, a pale blond woman with lank mousy hair, sat side by side on a couch in the dark front room. Cassie leaned back against a huge cable wooden spool that served as a kind of table, and Davis stood next to the roaring woodstove. The house did reek of stale marijuana smoke. Cassie had to push aside a baking dish of hash brownies on the spool top so she didn’t sit on it.

  After introducing herself and Davis and showing the two women her badge, Cassie said, “How long has Willie been gone?”

  “Don’t know,” LaDonna said. “When I got up an hour ago he wasn’t here. That’s all I know.” She looked to Annie Bjorn.

  “I just got up,” Bjorn said, yawning.

  “You missed all the fun while you were sleeping,” Davis said. “A train derailed at the hub and could have blown up the whole town.”

  “That’d be a damn blessing in disguise,” LaDonna said with a deep laugh. Cassie smiled.

  Cassie noticed that Bjorn was staring at Davis. She said, “Hey—I know you. You’re a cop?”

  “Afraid so,” Davis said.

  “Well, that kind of sucks,” Bjorn said.

  Davis said, “Sorry.”

  Bjorn turned to LaDonna. “I’ve seen him hang out at the clubs. He didn’t seem like no cop.”

  LaDonna took a long look at Davis, and said, “Yes, he does. He’s got that cop look of trying just a little too hard to be one of the people, you know? Like he’s wearing a Halloween costume. I can tell.”

  Davis flushed.

  “Anyway,” Cassie said, “when was the last time you saw Willie?”

  “Last night,” LaDonna said.

  “Was he alone?”

  LaDonna and Bjorn exchanged looks. Then LaDonna said, “There were a couple of other guys here. There’s always people around here coming and going. I don’t pay that much attention to them.”

  “When you say a couple, do you mean two?”

  “Uh, three.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “I don’t know anybody around here. I’m a working girl from Atlanta. I come here, do my work, and get out. I maintain my distance from these locals, you know?”

  “What about you?” Cassie asked Bjorn.

  “I didn’t know them,” Bjorn said quickly. “Well, one guy, but I don’t even know his real name. I’ve heard him called Winkie on account of the really thick glasses he wears.”

  Cassie looked over to Davis. Davis nodded. He knew him.

  “So Winkie was here,” Cassie said. “Who else?”

  “A couple of, you know, Hispanics,” Bjorn said. “Real scary-looking dudes.”

  “I don’t know,” Cassie said. “What were the names of the Hispanics?”

  Neither woman had heard their names, they said.

  “What did they look like?”

  “Mean,” LaDonna said. “They looked small and mean. They were the types you just avoid if you see them across the bar. You know, shaved heads, big ears, dead eyes.”

  Cassie and Davis exchanged looks again.

  “Did they have tattoos?” Davis asked.

  “Not that I saw,” LaDonna said. “But I didn’t look that close and I sure as hell didn’t see either one with his shirt off.”

  “Could they be Salvadoran?” Davis asked.

  Bjorn shrugged and LaDonna said, “Mexican, Salvadoran, whatever. They just had a bad vibe.”

  “And Willie left with this Winkie and them?” Cassie asked.

  Both women shrugged.

  Davis said, “So the four of them left in another car. That’s why Willie’s Range Rover is still here.” He asked the women, “What were they driving?”

  “Don’t know,” LaDonna said. Annie shook her head as well.

  “Do you know when Willie will be back?” Cassie asked.

  “No,” LaDonna said, “and I really don’t care. I’ve got a shift tonight and I don’t plan on coming back for the rest of my life. It’s too damned cold here for me. I’m getting on that train tomorrow morning, for damn sure. I don’t care if these johns up here have money. I’m freezing my ass off.”

  Bjorn didn’t say anything. Obviously, she was staying around, Cassie thought.

  LaDonna said to Cassie, “Seriously, lady, how can you stand it? You look like a nice woman. How can you stand this place?”

  “I haven’t figured out how to answer that yet,” Cassie said.

  “It’s like thirty below zero out there. I didn’t even know that it was possible. Your spit freezes in your mouth if you go outside. That’s just crazy.”

  Cassie said to Davis, “Please give these two ladies your card. I don’t have mine yet. And, ladies, please give us a call when Willie Dietrich comes back. We just want to talk with him.”

  * * *

  “THEY’RE NEVER going to call,” Davis said to Cassie once they were back in the SUV headed toward Grimstad.

  “Of course not,” Cassie agreed.

  “But at least he’ll know we’re looking for him. That may force a move on his part, who knows?”

  “So who is this Winkie guy?”

  Davis shook his head. “He’s a small-time user. Meth for sure, maybe heroin, too. I’ve run into him a couple of times. It’s very distracting to talk to him because his eyes are all magnified by his glasses—he looks like some kind of bug. Maybe he does some sales for Willie, but I can’t see him as a player any higher up than street level. Who knows why he was there last night?

  “What I’m wondering is where the four of them went,” Davis said. “Willie isn’t a day person. I’m wondering if the two Salvadorans took him away, or what. Maybe we’ll start finding pieces of Willie Dietrich all over Grimstad tomorrow. What do you think?”

  Cassie was distracted and didn’t respond. After a few miles, she said, “Think about it. Who would be outside in this weather at six in the morning? I mean, I know there are guys doing shift work out in the country any time of day, but who would be out and about at six?”

  “I’m lost,” Davis said. “I thought we were talking about Willie.”

  “A paperboy, that’s who,” Cassie said. “Maybe he saw the rollover. Maybe he rode down there where the crash took place. Maybe,” she said, looking over at Davis, “he found the drugs.”

  “That’s a leap,” Davis said.

  “It is. But whoever got it found it before the wrecker and all the emergency people got there. There were two officers on the scene the whole time between the crash and when the wrecker arrived. I think if anybody found the drugs they would have seen it—even if Tollefsen was dirty. He wouldn’t dare tip his hand at that point. And I keep thinking about that single tire track I found. It was from a bike. It wasn’t wide enough to be from a motorcycle.”

  Davis shook his head. “I’m not connecting the dots.”

  “Let’s say the boy found the drugs and took them,” she said. “Who knows what he did with them or who he might have told about it. The bad guys know the drugs are missing—obviously—but not where they went. They assume the bikers took them because the bikers are their only organized competition. So they send up a couple of thugs to take the bikers out of the picture and locate the drugs. Even though this place is booming, it’s still a small town underneath and it doesn’t take the MS-13 guys long to narrow down who might have their drugs.”

  “I think they all thought they’d have the drugs back by now. But for whatever reason, they don’t.”

  “So if we find Willie,” Davis said, “we might find the Salvadorans if that’s what they are. And maybe we even find the stash.”

  “Mayb
e,” Cassie said.

  “Why maybe?”

  “Because if they had the stash I think we’d know it. You’d know it. No, I think they’re still looking for it but they’re closing in. They think they’re close enough to getting it back that Willie told his distribution chain to get ready by tomorrow.”

  She said, “Maybe if we find the paperboy he’ll lead us to the drugs.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Davis said. “I know you’ve seen this kid a couple of times, which is weird, and you had that tire track cast made. But don’t you think maybe you’re going at this with blinders on? If a paperboy took their drugs, why aren’t they after him? You’d think he’d be easy to find. And if Cam Tollefsen was dirty like we think he was, why didn’t he go after the kid? He must have seen him at the site of the rollover, right?”

  Cassie said, “I think a kid like him is invisible.”

  * * *

  THEY TALKED about Cassie’s theory as they got closer to town. Cassie liked Davis, and he reminded her a little of her old mentor Cody when it came to discussing a case. He, like Cody, enjoyed building scenarios, making suppositions, and knocking down threads. He was good, too. He punched enough holes in her theories that she was starting to doubt them herself.

  The big hole he punched was: If MS-13 thought they were close to getting their drugs on the street, why did they wait two days to go after a mentally challenged paperboy?

  Cassie had no answer.

  “I hate to even suggest this,” Davis said to her, “but maybe the mom in you sees a twelve-year-old kid out riding his bike in thirty below weather and you want to, you know, save him. You can’t get him out of your mind. So as we move forward on this case, you keep building it around that kid. Is that possible?”

  Cassie said, “What a patronizing thing to say to me.”

  Davis clammed up.

  “What I hate the most about it is you might have a point,” she said.

  Davis sighed in relief.

  Cassie said, “I don’t know what to think anymore about this. All we can do is good police work and hope things start to fall into place. Let’s start with the newspaper office and Kyle. Someone there should know about Kyle’s route and if he might have been around the rollover site that day. If we find him and he wasn’t, well, then we can eliminate that possibility and we can proceed from there.”