The Highway

by C. J. Box

  What was remarkable about the compound, she thought, was the utter lack of human activity. Sure, there were wisps of woodsmoke from the chimneys of the houses and curlicues of steam from the roof pipe of one of the outbuildings, but there were no people about. She wondered if they were all underground, and the thought unnerved her.

  She tried to imagine the network and scope of the underground complex that supposedly existed underneath the buildings. Except for odd concrete abutments that appeared for no rhyme or reason in the gravel yards in front of the homes and within the outbuildings, there was no reason to suspect it was there.

  * * *

  During one of the long spells when her mother was gone, Cassie had been shuttled to her uncle Frank’s place on a small, windswept cattle ranch outside Miles City, Montana, on the eastern plains. Uncle Frank and Aunt Helen had four boys, two older than her and two younger, none of whom still remained in the county. Until Uncle Frank lost the ranch and moved to town, she was one of the boys when it came to ranch work. Although her uncle wanted to spoil his only girl, she’d have none of it. Part of the reason was to avoid teasing from her cousins, the other part was her desire to fit in. She built fence, delivered calves, and pulled the flatbed behind the truck or tractor; loading hay bales in the summer and feeding the hay to the cattle in the winter.

  Every Sunday they’d go to church in Miles City, the First Congregational Church. Her cousins hated it, but she secretly loved the opportunity to dress up once a week, be a girl, drive to town with brothers who smelled clean and looked nice. She never understood why they went to the Congregational Church, and never understood the difference between Congregationalists and Lutherans or Baptists or Presbyterians. She knew Catholics thought themselves special and she always envied them for it because they seemed to know something she didn’t. There were a few Mormons in town and they had the most modern church with a basketball court inside, and she envied that, too.

  She decided she was a Christian back then, and she figured she still was. When she glassed the compound she wondered about the members who were so devout they’d uprooted and moved there years ago so they could be with like-minded believers. She envied them like she’d envied the Catholics and Mormons because they seemed to believe in something. She didn’t think they were stupid, or ignorant. In fact, maybe they were smarter than her in a spiritual way. At least they believed in something that could help guide them through their lives.

  * * *

  She didn’t hear the bell but it must have rung for recess, because suddenly the yard near the school was filled with children. They filled the swing sets and lined up for the slide. Boys squared off for a football game. Children who didn’t get to the equipment or the organized games stood in knots in the corners of the yard talking among themselves. Three adults bundled in parkas supervised by walking around.

  She zoomed in. The children varied in ages from probably five to gawky teenagers. They looked healthy and well dressed in conservative but not tremendously dated clothing. She noted the rosy cheeks of some of the girls in the cold morning, and the clouds of condensation that floated above their heads like thought bubbles.

  Cassie moved the binoculars and focused on a group of five or six small children in the corner of the yard. They were apart from the older kids and kept to themselves in the natural tribal order of children on a playground. Their coats seemed too large and bulky for their size—probably hand-me-downs—and their little legs stuck out the bottom like twigs. They weren’t much older than Ben, she thought. Two of the boys could be Ben. The thought made her heart swell and she fought off a sudden and unexpected urge to cry.

  * * *

  Cassie sighed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and lowered the binoculars to her lap. She was not getting any kind of suspicious feeling from what she saw that the church members across the canyon were malevolent, that they’d be involved in the disappearance of teenage girls or Cody. It was silly to think that, she knew. Evil people often didn’t look evil from the outside. That was one of the revelations of police work for her; that the man out mowing his lawn could be as awful as the crackheads who lived in the rental cabins above Lincoln. She knew God-squad types could be capable of great crimes. But she just wasn’t getting the vibe, despite what Trooper Legerski had said.

  She wished she could ask Cody for his thoughts on the situation. He put more stock in intuition than most cops she’d met. Once, he’d said, “When something feels hinky, better go with it.” But nothing she saw or felt in the compound seemed hinky.

  Cassie considered driving up to the gate and asking them to open it. That had been her original intention. But when she thought more about it, she decided she couldn’t risk it even if it was what Cody likely would have done—and possibly did. If they didn’t let her in and she had to wait for the warrant to arrive, that might give them hours to hide and dispose of evidence if there was any. And if they let her in and her intuition about them was wrong—there she was. They could disappear her the same way they’d disappeared the Sullivan girls and Cody.

  So she’d wait until the Park County deputies arrived with the warrant, and, if necessary, they’d use it for access. She had plenty of time to kill and wonder if what she was doing made any rational sense.

  * * *

  She checked her wristwatch. An hour and a half toward lunchtime, an hour for lunch, then maybe three or four more working hours left in the day before everyone took off for the Thanksgiving holiday. It took forty-five minutes from Livingston to get where she was, so that cut down the available time for the Park County deputies to help her even further. She cursed the timing of it all. Why couldn’t this have happened on a Monday, instead?

  The Sullivan girls had been missing for barely thirteen hours, and Cody eight. If they were being held alive in the compound or elsewhere, what were the chances they’d still be alive after the four-day weekend? After ninety-six hours of captivity? She’d seen the crime statistics for kidnapping at the academy. The odds were slim to none.

  Then she thought again about Ben. He deserved a Thanksgiving dinner. He deserved some kind of normalcy and tradition, the things she never had growing up with her mother. She’d get back to Helena, she decided, as soon as she could. The Albertsons stayed open late and if they didn’t have turkeys left she’d buy a ham. If necessary, she’d cook all night.

  The thought of being at home with Ben while the Sullivan girls and Cody were still missing brought a nauseating wave of guilt. But what could she do if they found nothing to go on?

  * * *

  Cassie tried to jump-start the process. She called the Park County Sheriff’s Department on her cell phone and asked for Sheriff Bryan Pedersen directly. The receptionist placed her on hold, and enough time went by that Cassie imagined a conversation between the sheriff and the receptionist to concoct the best cover story they could come up with to refuse the call.

  Finally, “This is Sheriff Pedersen.” His voice was dry and high, not pretentious.

  “This is Investigator Cassandra Dewell of Lewis and Clark County,” she said.

  “Right, Deputy Dewell. Whenever I hear your name I think of Deputy Dawg, the cartoon character.” There was a beat. “I hope you aren’t offended.”

  “No, it isn’t the first time I heard it.”

  “Sorry, then.” He chuckled. “So what can I do you for?”

  “Has Sheriff Tubman contacted you this morning? He said he would.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pedersen said, “it slipped my mind. We’ve got everybody out on assignment right now but I might be able to spare a couple of guys after lunch.”

  “After lunch?”

  “Yeah, I got Gadbury and Simmons I can send down there. They’re two of my best investigators.” Meaning plainclothes detectives, similar to Cassie and Cody.

  “What about some uniforms?” she asked.

  “Not likely. We’re running a skeleton crew as it is because of the holiday coming. I’ve got to have a couple guys h
ere on call and I’ve got to man my jail. I can’t pull anybody to drive down there today.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply to remain calm. Legerski’s words came back to her, that just because she was having a crisis didn’t mean anybody else was.

  “Sheriff, we’ve got three missing people. Trooper Rick Legerski is on his way up there to get a search warrant from the judge, and I really need some manpower from your department to help serve it.”

  “This is for the church compound?” Pedersen said, an unmistakable note of reluctance in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, I guess I know about this,” Pedersen said.

  She waited for more, but more didn’t come.

  “Sheriff, is there a problem?”

  A long sigh. “No, I told Tubman I’d help you out. I owe him a couple. But you have to understand something, Deputy Dewell. This whole thing sounds flimsy to me. You’re asking us to go down there and turn a church group upside down the day before Thanksgiving based on what you suspect? How do you suppose that’s going to play with them or with the residents in the valley? It seems damned heavy-handed, if you ask me.”

  I didn’t, she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “Look at it this way. The quicker we clear them the quicker we can look other directions. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

  “You think?” he said, dubious. Then, “You’re determined to do this today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Less than twenty-four hours after these girls were reported missing … somewhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure it can’t wait a little while? Say after the holiday weekend? We’ll have more guys available then and we might have more to go on. We don’t even know if those girls disappeared in the canyon for sure, do we?”

  “No. But Investigator Cody Hoyt told me personally he was coming here last night to investigate. That’s the last we heard of him.”

  Groaning, Pedersen said, “I know Cody. He’s an obstinate son of a gun. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he thinks it’s just fine to cross the county line and start an investigation out of his jurisdiction without bothering to inform or involve the local authorities.”

  “He’s on his own,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive.

  “He always is, and that’s the problem with guys like that.”

  She said, “We can debate Cody’s methods or we can try to save some lives, Sheriff.”

  Pedersen sighed again.

  “I heard you were kind of tough to deal with.”

  “Who told you that?” She suspected either Tubman or Legerski. Either way, as much as she wanted to deny the feeling, it cut into her. Then she thought: not Tubman. Even sheriff to sheriff, he wouldn’t cast aspersions on his own high-profile diversity program hire.

  “So Trooper Legerski has been in contact with you this morning?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact. He wanted to know if the judge was in chambers or off for Thanksgiving.”

  So she knew. Legerski.

  She said, “Is the judge in?”

  “Until noon. After that, he’s on the road.”

  “Good. We should be able to get the warrant.”

  “I suppose, Investigator Dewell. But he might have some of the same questions I do. He may wonder why we can’t wait.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting real anger. She said, “If it turns out those girls and my partner were hurt down here and we could have prevented it, maybe then you’ll be able to explain to everyone why it was best to wait over a four-day weekend to save them.”

  “Calm down, little lady—”

  “I’m not anyone’s little lady, Sheriff.”

  “And no wonder. But never mind. I’ll send Gadbury and Simmons like I said. And if I can rustle anyone else up, I’ll send them, too. I’ll ask them to give you a call when they get close so you can arrange a place to meet.”

  She said, “At the locked gate that leads to the compound. Tell them to meet me there.”

  “All right.”

  He said it as if he couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

  * * *

  Fuming, she noticed as the Expedition idled there was only a quarter of a tank of gas left, and she decided to run the ten miles farther to Gardner to fill up. As she pulled back onto the highway toward Gardner, she replayed the conversation with Sheriff Pedersen in her head, and got even angrier. Little lady? Legerski had poisoned the well. Why?

  She thought again about the number of cigarette butts she’d found in the Dumpster. She thought about the furtive way he’d acted when they met that morning. She speculated what the trooper had told the sheriff in their conversation about her other than she was “tough to deal with.” She thought about what he’d mouthed when he left.

  Cassie opened her phone again and speed-dialed Edna’s cell phone back in Helena. She didn’t want to talk to the chief dispatcher over the radio where anyone listening could hear.

  After recapping what had happened and where she was, Cassie asked, “Didn’t you say your sister still lives in Gardiner?”

  “Yes, hon. Sally. She owns the little quilt shop there. Yellowstone Quilt Shop.”

  Cassie nodded. “I have a little time. I might just drop by and see her.”

  “I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming. I’ll bet she’ll do a twenty percent discount for you if I ask.”

  “Edna,” Cassie said sharply, “please don’t call her. I’ll just drop by. I want to ask her a couple of questions about her ex-husband Rick Legerski. I’d rather she didn’t know that before I got there.”

  Edna paused and said, “She’s a private person. But if she trusts you she has plenty to tell. Okay, I won’t call her.”

  “Thanks, Edna.”

  38.

  11:10 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  THE SNOW SQUALL HAD STOPPED for the time being but the storm clouds to the north looked to be gathering, bunching, closing their fists to deliver a much harder blow later in the day. Pergram bounced the old Buick down the rutted private road toward his home, a sense of black calm in his head and heart.

  Although he did poorly in school and barely graduated, he’d always had an innate ability to plan and figure, to think several steps ahead. If he was ever called to write his formulas down on paper he couldn’t do it. But he had learned over the years from trucking that he could outthink and outmaneuver his fellow drivers and keep himself ahead of the game. He was superior to them. That’s why he kept his load just under the 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight by not filling both 125-gallon tanks all the way and adding the extra weight of fuel. When he ran he never used cruise control but used his gears to avoid unnecessary stress on the motor, and he kept it below the speed limit between sixty-two and sixty-four miles an hour, optimal speed for fuel savings. He knew his truck would get 6.2 miles per gallon in the summer and 5.5 in the winter and he planned accordingly; putting on more fuel in low-tax or rebate states like Illinois and driving across high-tax hard-ass Minnesota without stopping at all. He ate and slept in his cab and didn’t waste money at truck stops unless he could help it. He perfected the art of shifting his load slightly from the front of the trailer to the rear and vice versa by applying pneumatic air to different parts of the trailer as he drove over scales.

  All those strategies gained him time, saved him money, and ended up on his bottom line every month. Over the years, he’d earned tens of thousands by not being stupid, not being brash, just trucking along thinking a hundred miles in front of him while the scenery rolled by.

  He did that now, as he drove to his house. He could see a hundred miles ahead of him and he knew what he needed to do.

  The “Oh Shit” box sat on the passenger seat next to him.

  * * *

  The flimsy old curtain in the living room opened a few inches as he noted the scarred foot of a cane holding the fabric back. That’s how she looked outside these days without actually standing up. She leaned forward i
n her chair and parted the curtains with her cane. He pretended not to notice her.

  Pergram didn’t go straight into the house. Instead, he carried the “Oh Shit” box to his Peterbilt, hoisted himself up, and climbed inside. The box went between the seats. Then he shut the door and leaned on the coil and started up the Cat 15 motor. It was cold at first and he sat quietly and feathered the fuel until the racketing of the diesel motor smoothed into a familiar hum. He checked the stacks and observed them until the exhaust turned from oily black to chalky to clear.

  He checked his gauges, fuel level, air pressure, temperature, fluid levels. Everything was beautiful. It felt good to be back inside his cab. It felt right, a warrior mounting his warhorse, he thought. His foray onto solid ground this time had been a disaster.

  He left the truck idling and swung out of the cab and clambered down the steps to the dirt. He knew she hated it when he left his truck running outside so close to the house.

  * * *

  Pergram went in through the front door and shinnied his way through the tunnel toward his bedroom door. As he passed her she was still in her chair where she’d been when he left. She shook her cane at him and her mouth moved and sounds came out. He didn’t even look over.

  He unlocked his bedroom door and strode inside. Within a minute, he’d packed his laptop, video camera, digital cameras, and VHS to DVD converter into a hard-sided case. Standing on top of his bed, he reached up through the cheap paneling squares and grasped a grocery bag containing copies of all the original discs and tapes he’d delivered to Legerski. The bag had so many video sessions preserved he could barely fit it into the case. But he managed, and he clicked the hasps shut.

  The door remained open as he left the room. No need to lock it, he thought.

  The droning, cackling sound he heard as an irritating soundtrack came into focus because he let it. He paused a few feet short of the alcove of stacked treasures where she still sat.

  “Ronald! You know how I feel about that truck running right outside my window. I can’t hear myself think it’s so loud. It’s like somebody is shaking me. I can feel the whole house shake. I can smell the fumes and they make me sick. What have I asked you about leaving that truck running?”