Missing in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  “Now,” said Al, “we’re going to talk. Unless you want me to take Cujo tonight.”

  Some kind of sullen mumble emerged from Hays.

  “You have been repeatedly warned about failing to keep your dog under control. He is to be leashed any time he’s outside your front door unless confined by a fence. Your fence out back isn’t doing a damn bit of good to judge by the way he tunnels into the Jakeses’ yard.”

  “He’s just a dang dog...”

  “A dang dog with a mouthful of teeth and a bite powerful enough to break bone. And the Jakes have a four-year-old daughter who has as much right to play safely in her backyard as Cujo has to be in his...as long as he stays in his own yard. Is that clear?”

  “They oughta watch her...”

  “And you ought to watch your dog. Quit arguing or I’ll get really angry. I’m only halfway there.”

  For halfway to angry, Kelly thought Al seemed remarkably calm. Although his voice still sounded like honed steel.

  “Now, listen carefully because I’m through repeating myself. Cujo crawled under the fence and menaced a little girl...”

  “He don’t menace nobody!”

  “He was just menacing me and I’m not four. What’s more I’ve got Deputy Noveno as a witness. Clear?”

  Finally Hays stopped arguing and just nodded.

  “If Cujo had so much as scratched that little girl, I’d be taking him to have him put down right now. This is not a joke. Are you hearing me?”

  Hays nodded glumly.

  “Unfortunately,” Al continued, “a lot of people want rotties because they’re tough and dangerous. But the most dangerous dog is one that’s thoroughly trained. You hear me? Ask the K-9 officer there if you don’t believe me. Regardless, I’ll give you two choices. The first is give the dog up to me tonight. The second is, tomorrow morning take him to Cadel Marcus to be trained. If Cadel can train him, you’ll have a dog that won’t give you any heartburn but will still protect your family. But if you can’t do that...”

  Finally Hays spoke. “Heard that Marcus guy is good.”

  “The best. But Cujo needs to be trained, not running wild. And I don’t just mean that he sits and stays. There’s a lot more to a well-trained dog than that. So those are your choices. In the meantime, you get a citation for animal at large, and you owe the little Jakes girl a new doll.”

  Hays cussed again, but didn’t argue.

  Al pulled his summons book from his jacket pocket, tugged off one leather glove, which he tucked under his arm, and began writing. “Okay,” he said as he ripped the summons off the pad and handed it to Hays. “You know the drill. Pay the fine by the date listed and you don’t have to go to court. But I’ll give you one more warning.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If Cadel tells me you haven’t left Cujo for him to train by ten tomorrow morning, I’ll take the dog. No more chances, Mr. Hays. Not one. The life of a four-year-old girl is still worth more than a rottweiler. Clear?”

  A couple of minutes later, as they were about to get into their vehicles to leave, Al came to stand beside Kelly. “I hate to put a dog down,” he muttered. “I hope that jackass pays attention this time.”

  Kelly understood. “I wouldn’t want to either, but that little girl...”

  “Exactly. Listen, if you don’t have other plans, want to come to my place? I know it’s a ways out.”

  She smiled, her heart lifting a bit. How did he do that to her? “My place if you’ll be comfortable. I’ve got an early call.”

  “Your place it is. Want me to grab some coffee from Maude’s on my way over?”

  “That would be super.”

  Chapter Eight

  Day 17

  Chantal and Jane had passed the point of caring much anymore. The cold was gripping them constantly, and their bodies demanded that they eat. They gobbled down food bars without a thought for what might be in them, and when a big package of sandwich cookies showed up, those disappeared in record time.

  They’d even stopped worrying about what was in the water bottles. Survival had come down to instincts they could no longer ignore. With chains holding them, they huddled close and were even grateful when a second blanket appeared with the food while they were sleeping. Sleeping or knocked out. They didn’t know.

  They felt they were being watched sometimes, but were past caring about that, too. They struggled to get the second blanket wrapped around them with the first. It, too, stank, but it smelled like an unwashed body.

  “He never met a washing machine he liked,” Chantal said, a weak attempt at humor. She couldn’t see Jane at all, but heard what sounded like the breath of a laugh.

  They’d stopped asking why. They couldn’t imagine why they were captive, and they’d given up hope that Mary Lou wasn’t already dead.

  Chantal, though she’d never said so to Jane, remembered that moment when she’d felt as if Mary Lou had said goodbye. If she was dead, at least she was out of this. Safe. Free of the cold and the terror.

  The food warmed them temporarily, as did the extra blanket, and this time when she started to fall asleep, Chantal thought it was natural sleep.

  At least she hoped it was.

  * * *

  WALT REVELL, Reve to his friends, came back from a pool game and a few beers at Rusty’s Tavern and pulled off the road. It was dark, the moon dropping behind the Western mountains, but there was still enough light to see by. Grabbing a backpack out of the rear of his truck, he began the trek to the collapsing cabin where he was keeping his girls.

  Day by day he could see he was winning them over. They talked less, they ate without trying to avoid the food or water. They’d become his creatures, without will of their own.

  Not much longer now. He just had to decide which one seemed most ready to behave herself. He wasn’t going to ask much, after all. Some cooking, some cleaning, a little sack time... Not much at all in exchange for continuing to live.

  Oh, yeah. No talking. He’d hit ’em into next week if they gave him any lip.

  He counseled himself to patience. He’d been too quick with the first one, thinking terror alone would control her. It had been a waste, but he still had two left. He just had to wait until they forgot how to hope.

  And from what he could see, hope was beginning to desert them.

  When he was sure the drug in the water had done its work, he unlocked the metal door and descended the steps into the basement. He dropped more food and water beside them, a roll of paper towels to let them know that if they behaved they might get more comforts from him.

  He hesitated over the cookies, then decided it was too soon to give them yet another reward. Let them eat the dry food bars and drink the water.

  When he kicked them lightly with his foot, they barely stirred. Just a few more days. Not much longer.

  Already the cops were near to giving up. The female deputy who’d shown up at his door hadn’t been especially inquisitive. He could feel her dismissing him mentally. He was a nobody. She probably thought he was stupid.

  Good thing she’d left her dog in the car, though. He was scared of what a dog might smell.

  Terrified if he were to be honest. Maybe it was time to suffer through another shower and throw some of his clothes in the rickety machine.

  Smells could give him away. He didn’t want to risk that, not when he was so close to achieving all he wanted.

  * * *

  OVER TWO WEEKS had passed since the girls had gone missing. A feeling of despair was beginning to settle throughout the entire department. Kelly felt it when she went into the office nearly every day. The girls, they had begun to believe, had been taken far away from here. How else could there be no trace of them or their abductor?

  Kelly supposed that at this point they’d give anything for a ransom note, but it was getting too late for that. Way
too late. For all anyone knew, the girls were already being moved underground by some trafficking outfit, long since out of the county and maybe out of the country.

  Kelly couldn’t bear to think of it. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but she was sure they all feared the same thing. The girls’ families were at the end of their rope. The FBI agents who had promised to show up were acting on the idea that the women were no longer in the county and thus they were operating out of Denver.

  They might be right, but it scalded everyone in the Conard Country Sheriff’s Department to feel that the FBI considered them to be too useless to even talk to.

  Each day as each shift set out, every single deputy was determined to find something that would help locate the girls. Despairing or not, they certainly hadn’t given up. They all feared that some pervert had them in his clutches and was treating them like slaves and whores.

  When they could, the helicopters took to the air for an overflight, but had found nothing. Everything out there on the open expanses of wintry range looked as it always had.

  And they still didn’t have the DNA analysis back from the glove yet but were expecting it hourly. If it would answer any questions, no one knew.

  Kelly started visiting Rusty’s Tavern on the weekends. Al joined her. A beer, a chance to watch everyone without being obvious. Bugle resented being left at home, but Kelly didn’t want to take her departmental SUV. It would be like walking in in full uniform, and her personal vehicle didn’t have accommodations for leaving Bugle for long periods. All she wanted to do was watch, anyway.

  As if, as Kelly had told Al at one point, the kidnapper was going to be wearing a sign around his neck.

  Leaving no stone unturned had begun to take on a new meaning. Martha knew why they came. She didn’t mention it, but she once said in passing, “I’m paying attention.”

  Kelly believed her. If one person did anything suspicious, they’d be facing Martha, who looked perfectly capable of breaking a beer bottle and using it as a weapon.

  Rusty greeted them with a nod, as if to say he was keeping an eye out, as well.

  After two weekends, Kelly and Al were both beginning to recognize the regulars. Some of them Kelly had questioned in the days immediately following the abductions, like that Revell guy. Watching him play pool, she wondered if he’d ever learned to color inside the lines.

  A silly, useless thought, but a couple of other guys at the bar seemed to like to play with him and bet him a dollar at a time. Nobody was going broke or getting wealthy.

  Al talked her into line dancing the second night they were there. All of a sudden her body felt awkward, as if parts wouldn’t move right.

  “Just relax,” he said. “Nobody’s watching, everybody’s too busy watching their friends.”

  He was probably right, but she’d never felt comfortable dancing. He slipped his arm around her waist, showed her the simple steps and murmured in her ear, “Treat this as undercover work, a chance to watch people.”

  Well, that darn near worked like magic. Forgetting about what she was doing, she stumbled only once and Al steadied her. But he was right about watching people. Standing in line with other dancers, facing yet another line, sometimes wheeling around the floor, gave her an excellent chance to take in faces without being obvious about it.

  Not that a face was going to tell her anything, but she could hope.

  “This is a waste of our time,” she said as they returned to their table, the bowl of nuts and two sweaty beer bottles.

  “Maybe so. You’re the cop. But we’re reasonably certain our guy had to find our gals here. Whatever he did, he might try it again.” He gestured with this bottle. “See that table over there in the far corner? Take a peek but don’t zero in.”

  She took a quick look and felt her heart slam. Seriously? Two teen girls were sitting over there? They hadn’t heard what had happened?

  “Indestructible,” Al remarked. “At that age, they all believe it.”

  Won’t happen to me. Kelly could almost hear herself saying that from her high school days.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “unless you have an objection, I figure we’ll stay until they leave and maybe follow them at a reasonable distance.”

  “That’s a great idea.” She was embarrassed not to have thought of it herself. But then, she’d failed to be observant. That was part of her job. Al had picked up on those girls.

  “I must be getting too tired,” she remarked. “I should have noticed them.”

  “Maybe so, but I had a lot of years where I couldn’t afford to overlook so much as a misplaced pebble.”

  That snapped her thoughts to him. “You never talk about it.”

  “Most of us don’t. Nothing like war stories to ruin a mood, ruin friendships or convince folks we’re totally crazy.”

  “I don’t think there’s any way I could believe you’re crazy.”

  “You haven’t seen some of my finer moments.” He turned the beer bottle in his hands, and she noticed not for the first time that he seldom drank any of it. He held it like a prop.

  “War takes a toll on everyone,” he said presently. His voice was pitched so as not to travel. “Some guys come home and put on a veneer that fools everyone. They’re okay. Or so everyone thinks, and that makes it easy on the people who care about them. Some can’t do that. They need help dealing with what they saw and did. Me, I was somewhere in the middle for a while. Now I’m on the smooth veneer side.”

  “But is that good for you?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever works. I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to wallow.”

  “I doubt I’d think of it as wallowing.”

  He smiled faintly. “I didn’t use that word seriously. I just mean I’m lucky that I don’t have to dwell on it all the time. Animals are my medicine. I love the critters.”

  “Even rotties? By the way, did that dog ever get to Cadel?”

  “Cujo is in boot camp right now. And I made sure Cadel knows the situation. Cujo isn’t going to get an easy graduation because he doesn’t have an easy owner.”

  That was one way of thinking about it, Kelly decided. The dog was probably going to be more responsible than his owner. That could create an interesting set of problems.

  When she thought about Bugle, however, she had some idea of a dog’s capabilities absent someone to tell it what to do. “Did I ever tell you about the time that I caught one suspect and Bugle chased down the other?”

  “What?” The word came out on a laugh.

  “Yup. Pulled a car over. I was getting the data on the registration when the driver climbed out, hands up. So Bugle and I both exited our vehicle. Then for some unknown and unexpected reason, the passenger jumped out and took to his heels. So there I was with the driver at gunpoint and my dog haring off into the woods after the passenger.”

  Al laughed. “I can just see it.”

  “Wasn’t much to see except his hindquarters and tail. Well, I knew the driver was under the influence but with a backseat full of Bugle’s cage, there was no place to put him. Certainly not in the front seat of my vehicle.”

  “God, no!”

  “So I handcuffed the guy and made him run with me as we chased Bugle. Not a happy suspect, I can tell you.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “Got lots of body cam footage of him complaining he was tired and could we please take a break. Me, I was worried about getting to Bugle before the other guy could hurt him. For all I knew he had a gun or a knife. Anyway, by the time I’d followed Bugle’s bark, and caught up, Bugle had the other guy on his knees with his hands over his head. Never laid a tooth on him.”

  Now Al was really laughing. “I wish I could have seen that!”

  “It was quite some scene. And not exactly what I expected. Bugle undertook to make an arrest on his own initiative. Very cool.”

/>   “Was it a good arrest?”

  “Absolutely. The guy he chased couldn’t quite ditch all the cocaine in his pockets before I got there. And there was more in the car. I’m glad to say backup wasn’t far behind because at that point we might have been stuck there for a little while, two suspects and no place to put them.”

  Al smiled. “I love stories like that about animals.”

  “So you’re really crazy about them?”

  “Let’s just say I think the world would be a better place if we took a few lessons from dogs and cats. They pretty much live in the moment, their spats are never designed to harm one another in any serious way. Think of wolves.”

  “Wolves?”

  “Yeah. They create family groups and take care of each other. Yes, there’s a hierarchy, and the omega may have to eat last, but she will get enough to eat. And her job is to be the family clown, basically. The social grease that prevents things from growing tense. And as near as anyone can tell, they don’t bear grudges.”

  “We could all do with a few less grudges.”

  “The girls over there are getting ready to leave,” he remarked. Before she could move, he threw some money on the table, then sat back and watched.

  Finally he said, “They’re out the door. Nobody seems to be watching or paying attention.”

  “Okay.” She rose and he followed suit. Together they eased through the crowd. Kelly bumped into a guy she didn’t know. Right behind him was a man that she seemed to recall interviewing. Revell, that was it. This time he looked a little neater and a bit drunk.

  “Deputy Kelly,” the first guy said heartily. “Going so early?”

  “Cut it out,” said Revell, looking nervous as if he expected trouble. “Jeez, Spence, not every woman on the planet wants you to take a pass.”

  Al slipped his arm through hers, his face smiling but a tightness around his eyes. His entire posture seemed to turn into a warning or a threat as he eased her toward the door once again.