The Highway

by C. J. Box

  Ben didn’t actually miss his father because he’d never met him. But he knew if he said it, Cassie would always react with sympathy. Cassie knew it, too. She sometimes wondered if she’d done the right thing, raised Ben the right way. But she was new at this, and didn’t know better. She’d had no real road map from her own mother.

  Ben was a boy through and through. He spent hours wordlessly disassembling his toys and putting them back together. He knew the makes and models of cars and trucks on the street, and he’d declared recently that as soon as he could he wanted to hunt deer and elk. There was a poster of Tim Tebow when he was the Bronco quarterback, on his wall despite her grandmother’s disdain for the man and his overt Christianity. Ben’s career path, he’d stated without doubt over breakfast cereal the week before, was to be an NFL quarterback, join the army, and drive tanks and later tractors. He wouldn’t get married and he’d eat elk meat for dinner. Cassie had stifled a smile when her mother reacted to the declaration with outright horror.

  She closed his door and padded down the dark hallway, considered going to her own bedroom, and decided against it for now. She was still too wired. She thought of the missing Sullivan girls, Cody out there somewhere not responding, the way the sheriff had played her, and raising a boy in a home with a mother who worked too many hours and a grandmother who was crazy as a tick. She tried not to resent Jim for getting killed and abandoning her. It always bothered her that she’d never seen that gleeful smirk he showed in the photo in real life. Like he was really enjoying what he was doing and Afghanistan in general, and certainly much more than working back at the state highway shop to pay the mortgage with a fat wife and a crying baby at home.

  He’d died in the Battle of Wanat in 2008 in Afghanistan. She was eight months pregnant at the time. The official letter from the Department of Defense said Jim Dewell had been killed when two hundred Taliban guerillas attacked the village in the province of Nuristan. Eight other Americans had been killed and twenty-seven wounded. An investigation launched by the government concluded that no negligence was involved and that “by their valor and their skill, they successfully defended their positions and defeated a determined, skillful, and adaptable enemy.” Words from a different era, she thought when she read them, about a battle no one had heard of in a war no one cared about.

  Except Ben, of course, who idolized his father with Cassie’s encouragement. To Ben, his father was a hero and a god. No man—or Cassie—could compare with poor dead Jim. She was proud of her husband, that he’d given his life for the country. They knew she was pregnant when he shipped out. They’d married the week after she told him. And if he hadn’t been killed, he was due back for the birth. She wondered if he thought of her in his last seconds. She wondered if he thought they’d had a happy marriage. And she wondered if she did. It seemed so long ago.

  Then bam!—five years. Five years with Ben as the only man in her life. Five years where she didn’t dare bring a man home who would pale in comparison with the mythic Jim Ben believed in. Not that there hadn’t been a few opportunities. Unmarried—and a few married—men at both the academy and the sheriff’s department had tried. A couple were even, maybe, okay. Not drug addicts or rednecks or total losers. Maybe there would be a right time, and a right man. When Ben could handle it, and maybe even encourage it. But Cassie couldn’t imagine when that would be.

  Cassie stopped and closed her eyes and tried to picture Jim in her mind. It frightened her she couldn’t see his face anymore. And it bothered her that when she thought of him she recalled the photo on Ben’s dresser instead.

  * * *

  She checked her cell phone on the table for messages. There were none. Then, keeping the laptop closed, she hesitated for a moment and called Jenny Hoyt’s phone. Cassie didn’t want to get immersed again in the contents of her laptop, or speculate without evidence.

  Jenny answered after one ring.

  “I’m sorry to call you so late. Were you sleeping?”

  “I wish I could. But it’s okay. I was just sitting here waiting and when the phone rang I thought it might be Cody.”

  Cassie paused. “So he hasn’t been in touch?”

  “Not for a while. Two hours, to be exact. He texted Justin and asked if he’d heard anything from those girls, and he sent me a text saying he was meeting with a highway patrolman in Emigrant. I haven’t heard anything since.”

  Cassie imagined Cody drinking, spewing his philosophy and buying rounds for the local alcoholics. Forgetting to check his phone or not caring enough to do so.

  “My mind just keeps conjuring up things,” Jenny said as much to herself as to Cassie, Cassie thought. “Like maybe he got into some kind of trouble. Or if he’s on another goddamned toot. I want to think that isn’t the case. I know there are dead spots down there without cell service. But…” she trailed off.

  Cassie wasn’t sure what to say. “I haven’t heard from him, either.”

  “I’m his wife,” Jenny said sharply. “He knows the rules. He’s supposed to check in.”

  Silence.

  Cassie tried to make her voice professional, to jolt Jenny out of her pique. “I’m working on the case with him. I was corresponding with him back and forth. He needs me to do background. When was the last time you called his phone?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago,” Jenny said, her voice cracking. “Even though he made me promise years ago not to call him when he was on an investigation. He was always afraid he’d forget to mute his phone and the ring would create a problem. But this is an emergency, so I called. But it rang a few times and went straight to his stupid message.”

  “I see,” Cassie said.

  “I’m getting scared. And Justin is”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“wrung out. He’s not sure to be mad at his father or worried about him. And this Ted Sullivan has called twice wanting to talk directly to Cody. He’s getting hysterical, like he blames us for this. He acts like I’m keeping Cody from talking to him or something. I want to tell him to piss up a rope, but I understand how he feels. I can’t even imagine what he’s going through. Or the girls’ mother.”

  “Let me know if Cody calls or texts,” Cassie said.

  After a beat, Jenny said, “I will.”

  “I’ll do the same.”

  “Okay.” Then, “Now I’m really getting worried.”

  Cassie didn’t respond.

  “If he’s on a toot,” Jenny said, “I’ll personally kill him. I will, I swear.”

  Cassie nodded. She understood. “I’m getting off the phone in case he calls.”

  “Good idea. Me, too.”

  Cassie sat back down at the table and glanced at the clock. Too long, she thought. Even if Cody had lost control of himself he would have at least lied to them by now.

  * * *

  On impulse, Cassie keyed Cody’s cell phone number and pressed SEND. It rang twice and she was surprised by the soft electronic click on the other end. Cody had answered.

  “Cody, Cassie Dewell. I haven’t heard back from you—”

  The call terminated. She looked at her phone to verify what happened. Cody had answered, but immediately dropped the call. Or was the cell signal on the other send so poor it couldn’t maintain the connection?

  She tried again. When it went directly to voice mail, she repeated herself and said, “and neither has Jenny. Obviously, we’re getting concerned. Contact us as soon as possible, even if you don’t have anything to report. If I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’m going to blow the cover off this. I assume you don’t want that to happen.”

  She hesitated, wondering if she should say more, then killed the call.

  Then she glanced at the digital clock on the stove and noted the time.

  27.

  4:21 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  RONALD C. PERGRAM, THE LIZARD KING, nosed the Case tractor onto the trailer for the second time that night. The cold night air within the cab smelled of diesel fumes and upturned soil. Hard whit
e stars undulated through the spires of exhaust from the engine.

  When the tracks and tires were firmly on the platform, he killed the engine and climbed out. His back ached and his neck was stiff from tension and concentrating on the work and he could barely turn it. Because of the harsh white light thrown by the headlamps of the tractor as he dug the second large hole in the floor of the mountain valley, his eyes weren’t yet acclimated to the dark. His ears rang from the percussive rattle of the engine that was now ticking furiously as it cooled. So furiously, he almost didn’t hear the burr of the cell phone in the dark behind him.

  So instead of chaining the tractor to the trailer and tightening the turnbuckles, he stepped off the platform onto the soft dirt and cocked his head toward the sound. He saw the phone light up in the gloom about twenty feet away at belt level. Then it rose and illuminated Legerski’s wide face in the light. Pergram saw Legerski press the phone to his ear for a second or two, then lower it and kill the call.

  He waited. Legerski just stood there in the dark, saying nothing. Then: “Shit.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Some woman,” Legerski said. “Trouble, maybe.”

  “Meaning what?”

  The trooper held the phone out. “She might be the one who’s been sending him stuff all night.”

  Pergram was confused for a moment, but the confusion was overtaken by sudden anger. “You kept that deputy’s phone? Why didn’t you throw it in the hole with the truck? What the hell are you thinking?”

  * * *

  Pergram’s last glimpse of Cody Hoyt’s pickup was as he pushed it into the huge hole with the blade on the front of the tractor. From the height of the cab, he could look down over the bed of the vehicle and see Hoyt’s body doubled over on the passenger seat floorboard. The side and back windows of the vehicle were spattered from the inside with blood and hair and brain matter. Legerski had stood off to the side as if supervising the work, which the Lizard King resented the hell out of. As far as he was concerned, someone who’d never operated heavy equipment had no right waving his arms around or shouting, “Can’t you make the hole deeper?” Nevertheless, he’d dug out a fifteen-foot-deep casket-shaped hole, pushed the truck into it, and carefully backfilled the excavation and run his treads over the top to tamp down the soil. When he was through it looked similar to the excavation he’d done earlier in the night and multiple times before: like a grave for a giant. When the hole was filled, he raked over the mound with the teeth of the backhoe to make it look more natural to the naked eye. After a winter of heavy snow and the spring runoff, they’d seed it with prairie grass seed pinched from the highway department shop that would sprout on the top and reclaim the bare ground. Within a year, it would be difficult to tell the topsoil had ever been disturbed. While he worked, he ignored Legerski in the dark but was aware the trooper was standing there, head down, looking at his phone.

  But it turned out it wasn’t his phone. It was Cody Hoyt’s phone. And Legerski still had it.

  “We might have a problem,” Legerski said.

  “Hell yes we do. I’m working my ass off to erase all the evidence and you’re carrying around the phone of a cop you murdered. Why didn’t you get rid of it? Throw it in there? Wasn’t the hole big enough for you?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Legerski said. His voice was flat.

  Pergram shut his mouth.

  “Do what you need to do to get that tractor secure,” the trooper said. “We need to talk inside.”

  He gestured toward the cab of the one-ton truck they’d used to bring the tractor out. Pergram had driven, keeping tight to the bumper of Hoyt’s pickup, which was driven by Legerski, now in civilian clothes. The trooper had left his uniform in his cruiser and hidden the cruiser behind the First National Bar.

  * * *

  As Pergram secured the chains from the trailer to the tractor and tightened the turnbuckles, he seethed with resentment. He didn’t like the way Legerski had spoken to him, in that tone, the way he put him off and said he’d wait inside. The way he’d been talking to him all night, ordering him around, giving him commands since the shooting. And the whole time he was holding Hoyt’s phone—a piece of equipment that could tie them directly to the dead cop.

  The Lizard King didn’t like to be told what to do. Still, though, he’d done what Legerski had ordered. They really hadn’t talked since the shooting; it had all been one-way.

  Pergram paused for a moment before climbing up into the cab of the one-ton. He hadn’t quite processed what had happened or how they’d deal with it. The girls he’d brought in seemed like a vague and distant memory because so much had transpired since. He needed sleep, rest, food, and time to gather his thoughts. The handful of white crosses—known as “trucker speed”—he’d taken earlier would soon wear off. Then he needed the kind of release he dreamed about.

  He climbed up into the cab and shut the door. Legerski sat there, staring out the dirty windshield.

  “Start it up, will you? I’m freezing to death.”

  Pergram started the motor and goosed the heater fan.

  “It’ll take a few minutes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You shot a fucking cop,” Pergram said. “That isn’t what I signed up for.”

  “And you buried him.”

  “But what now? We’re fucked. You know what they do when you shoot one of their own, you of all people.”

  Legerski shrugged. “He used to be a cop. Not anymore. He was suspended. And he wasn’t well liked. He had a reputation for going off the reservation.”

  “Still…”

  “I know,” Legerski said. “I can tell you’re pissed at me. But what did you want me to do? Let him dig until he figured everything out? Is that what you would have done?”

  Pergram shook his head, uncertain what the trooper was talking about.

  “That’s right,” Legerski said. “The guy was a fucking bulldog. I tried to steer him toward the church but he wanted to start kicking doors down tonight. And he wanted me to go along with him. We wouldn’t have had time for any kind of damage control before the shit hit the fan.”

  The trooper held out the phone he’d taken from Cody’s body. “He’s got someone working the back end, some broad. I think I know who it might be. She’s been sending him texts and e-mails all night. That was her who called—someone named Cassie. Most of the stuff she sent is just things she pulled off the Internet and forwarded. But I saw where he asked her to pull the cases on those missing girls.”

  Pergram just stared. He didn’t get what Legerski was saying.

  “You’re the one who pointed him toward the church,” Pergram said. “He was going where you pointed him.”

  Legerski sighed impatiently and his eyes flashed in the moonlight. For the first time, Pergram wondered if the trooper would pull the gun he’d used on Hoyt and kill him now that the dead cop and his pickup were buried. After all, he could pin everything on the Lizard King.…

  “Try to keep up with me here,” Legerski said patiently. “I thought he’d work through the sheriff’s department in Livingston or through the state. That means me, where I could direct traffic and make sure the investigation got stymied whenever it got too close. I had no idea he’d be crazy enough to show up tonight, or show up at all himself. Normal cops don’t do things like that. He’s not even in his county, so even if he wasn’t suspended he’d need permission and cooperation down here. But by coming here himself … it screwed up everything. I had no choice.”

  “But did you have to kill him? I didn’t like the asshole either, but—”

  “He was starting to ask about you,” Legerski said. “Tonight. We hadn’t even gone out to the compound yet and he was already asking about you.”

  Pergram felt his mouth go dry, and it wasn’t just a symptom of the white crosses.

  “He was going to put things together pretty fast,” Legerski said. “When the church thing didn’t go the way he wanted—and you know the situation ther
e—he was going to shift his attention to you. With his helper up in Helena checking missing persons and with access to all the law enforcement databases, it would be a matter of time before he came after you.”

  Pergram said, “Which means you might be exposed.”

  “Which means I’d be exposed.”

  “For a minute there, I thought you were trying to help me,” Pergram said. “I feel better now when I know you’re only looking out for yourself.”

  Legerski snorted. “We’ve got this thing. But we aren’t exactly blood brothers.”

  Pergram acknowledged the truth of that with a nod. He wished he wasn’t so addled from exhaustion right now so he could think more clearly. He had the suspicion Legerski was setting something up but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Why wouldn’t Legerski simply pull the untraceable throwdown piece he’d used on Hoyt and pop him? Then set up some kind of semiplausible narrative where the Lizard King went down for his acts?

  Then it came to him. And he relaxed. He hoped his face didn’t portray what he’d just realized—that Legerski could never harm Pergram as long as Pergram knew where evidence was that could incriminate him.

  “So what do we do next?” Pergram asked, thinking of the steps he’d need to take to make sure the trooper didn’t get ahead of him and figure out how to eliminate him from the picture.

  “I know what we don’t do. We don’t spend any time with those girls except to dump off some food and water.”

  “Fuck that,” Pergram said. “I didn’t deliver them so we could keep them holed up. I need what I need.”

  “You’ll get it,” Legerski said, his tone once again fused with the firm arrogance he’d used earlier. “But you’ll have to wait until we’re clear. Once we’re clear, we do the whole thing just like we talked about. But not until I say we’re clear. Got that?

  “It’ll get hot for a couple of days,” Legerski said. “I’ve got to be nimble. This broad”—he shook the phone as if she were inside—“knows he met with me. I’ll be the first stop when they look into it, so I’ve just got to cooperate and not throw off any suspicion. I can do that—I’ve done it all my life. And it won’t take long before things go cold. They always do when there aren’t any solid leads.”