Missing in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  Even if they found remains, all they could do was cover them until morning and hope it didn’t grow too cold for the crime scene folks to gather everything in the morning light.

  But mostly Al thought about the girl that bone had belonged to, about all three of the missing girls. How awful all the way around, from their disappearance to their parents’ hoping and praying they’d be found alive to this.

  He doubted anyone wanted to tell the parents about the bone. It might not belong to one of the girls. It could have come from somewhere else. Why terrify them any more than they were already terrified. Why steal the hope they had been depending on for weeks now.

  Not without damn good reason.

  But for him, as for many of the searchers, he suspected, hope was clinging by one last, thin thread after the bone. No reason to think only one of the girls had been killed. That would make no sense at all.

  Not that any of this made any sense.

  The wind was picking up as the last light faded from the day. They were done until first light in the morning. The dogs hadn’t even signaled, and Al was quite sure they’d long since passed the spot where Misty had been playing. The question now was where she had found it.

  They marked the place where they stopped looking with pin flags, then tramped dispiritedly back to the cars. For some reason, a hope of another kind had been born in the searchers: hope of closure. Even that was denied to them tonight.

  Back at his car he saw Kelly loading up Bugle. He turned his charge back over to Cadel and headed her way.

  “Say, Deputy,” he said. The wind tried to snatch his words.

  She looked at him, her expression sober, her hand on the driver’s door latch.

  “Come to my place tonight,” he said. “It’s a good night for not being alone.”

  To his amazement, she nodded. “I’d like that. Bugle, too?”

  “I can’t imagine you without that dog. Of course he comes.”

  She smiled lopsidedly. “Do you need me to bring anything?”

  “Yourself and your dog. The pizza place is on the way if that agrees with you.”

  “I love pizza. Any kind, except anchovies. They’re too salty for me.”

  “Done. See you there shortly. And oh, by the way? I have food for Bugle, too, so just bring something warm to hang out in. I have a feeling the temperatures tonight will make the North Pole seem balmy.”

  In fact they were already headed that way, he thought as he climbed into his truck. He really needed to check the weather so they’d know what they were facing tomorrow.

  Of course, the weather was going to be only a small part of it.

  * * *

  KELLY PACKED HER usual flannel pajamas, slippers and robe, as well as a fresh set of silky thermal underwear for the morning, a clean uniform and Bugle’s tug rope. From the way the air was feeling outside, she wasn’t sure this storm was going to wait until the day after tomorrow.

  So when they started in at dawn, they were going to have to give the search a massive effort. If only Misty could show them where she’d found the bone. Of course, any carrion eater could have dragged it away from the rest of the body. Whoever the poor victim was, he or she could be scattered over acres by now.

  The pressure of time rode her like a goad. The coming storm could hamper them so much, could blow away evidence, could even bury things and freeze them so hard that the best dog might have trouble picking out a scent.

  Maybe that had been part of their problem this afternoon. The body had been frozen, had lost a great many of its scents, those scents had been overlaid by whatever animals had torn at the flesh...

  Cold as it was, a corpse should have been preserved, but not in the open where coyotes, bears, mountain lions and even wolves could get to it. Food was in short supply and high demand in the cold of winter. And bears, while they hibernated, often emerged from their dens in the course of the winter to hunt for food, as well. If there were easy pickings...

  She didn’t want to think about it. They couldn’t do much until morning. At this point an air sweep probably wouldn’t find a thing. Why should it? It hadn’t directly after the girls had gone missing. No brightly colored clothing had given them away then, so why expect it now when the elements and the animals had had their way?

  With her carryall packed, she hesitated, looking around her little house for anything she might have forgotten. The heat was on, the water was dripping so pipes wouldn’t freeze, and she could think of nothing else she needed.

  She and Bugle climbed into her official vehicle, which she’d left running, and a blast of warm air from the heater thawed her cheeks, which had started to freeze on the way out the door. Colder and colder.

  Cold weather was nothing new here, but this was going to be a killer cold if the forecast was correct, maybe hitting thirty or forty below. That wasn’t a regular event. Sure it happened sometimes in the winter, but compared with places farther north, this part of Wyoming was usually much gentler.

  Regardless of what was usual, the approaching storm was going to be a winter beast and would curtail them in their search for a body and evidence. Every minute tomorrow was going to count.

  Al’s cabin and kennels took up a couple of acres about five miles away from town along a paved county road. A big wooden sign, deeply carved and recently painted, announced that this was Conard County Animal Control, Chief Allan Carstairs. Two phone numbers, in smaller lettering, filled the bottom.

  His driveway was in fairly good shape, given the time of year and that it was gravel, and soon she was pulling up to his front door and parking beside his van and his truck with the high cab on the bed to make room for cages.

  Sitting out front was a cute wood cutout of a dog and a cat looking welcoming. She wondered if Al had created them.

  The cabin itself, while looking like a leftover from the frontier days, was in great shape and the light pouring from windows was inviting. Smoke, caught in the gleam of her headlights, rose from a chimney. He must have built a fire.

  It was almost as if all the bad things that had been riding her shoulders lifted and drifted away. There was nothing to be done tonight except enjoy time with a man she had come to like a whole lot more than she probably should.

  Plus, tonight she wouldn’t have to sit in her own house counting on Bugle’s protection. Because whether she wanted to admit it or not, the stuffed rabbit had unnerved her. Someone had entered her house for no discernible reason and left behind a toy that might have been wearing a bow but might also have been wearing a noose.

  She’d have to be made of steel not to be uneasy about that. Nor could she imagine any possible reason for it. Who the hell did she threaten?

  Well, she had a night off from that, too. Maybe when the whole case got sorted out, she’d find out what that rabbit meant along with all the rest of it.

  Then Al opened the front door, a powerful silhouette against the light behind, and waved her to come in.

  For the first time in hours, she genuinely smiled. Sight for sore eyes, she thought. Bugle even gave a woof of approval.

  Yeah, they’d made the right decision to accept his invitation.

  * * *

  REVE CAME BACK from checking on the girls. It would be his last check. He figured the coming cold would kill them, but since he wasn’t entirely heartless, he’d left them some more water and food bars. Lucky the cold had put them to sleep or he wouldn’t have left them anything.

  Then he headed back to his place, headlights out as always, beneath a sky that had been blotted by clouds until he was practically driving into a black hole. Only once he was on the county road again did he turn his lights back on.

  Nobody flying tonight. Nobody searching tonight. He felt free as a bird.

  Until he got home and his landline rang. It was Spence.

  “What do you want?” he asked irritab
ly. Spence was an okay friend to have at the tavern, but Reve didn’t much care for socializing in general. He’d go to church once in a while, smile at a few old ladies and grab some baked goods. The baked goods were free and were always delicious, and the old biddies pressed him to take loads because he was so thin.

  Lean and mean more like, he always told himself. But he wouldn’t turn down a whole pie, or an entire plate of brownies.

  But friends? They had to be kept in their proper places, and Spence’s proper place was at the tavern, at the pool table. Besides, he was mad at Spence for giving that deputy a hard time.

  Cripes, a man on probation ought to know better.

  “Hey,” said Spence, “you see all the excitement of them looking for those gals this afternoon? Did you hear about the bone?”

  Now Reve no longer felt like hanging up. Spence had piqued his attention. “What bone?”

  “Story is some dog found it and was playing with it. Deputy Dawg took it to the hospital and they identified it as a human thighbone. You should have seen the show. They were out there for hours this afternoon with searchers and dogs. Didn’t find anything.”

  Reve tried to decide if that was good or bad. “Sounds bad,” he said finally, though he didn’t mean it.

  “Well, I had my fun.”

  “What fun?”

  “You know the cars them gals was drivin’? Before Deputy Dawg came along I found it. Nothing inside. I was hoping for a wallet. Instead I found a damned stuffed rabbit. I brought it home to give to my dog for a toy, then decided to have some fun.”

  Reve’s stomach had begun to knot. “What kind of fun?”

  “I left it at the deputy’s house. Only seemed right. They can’t find them missing gals, and after the look she gave me at the tavern when I said something about it, I thought I’d give her a little fright.”

  “You said you’d left part of an animal skin!”

  “Fooled ya,” Spence laughed.

  Reve swore. “Let me guess. You left your fingerprints all over the toy and her house!”

  “Man, I ain’t no fool. Had too many brushes with the law. Nah, I wore gloves. Jeez, it’s cold out there. Everybody’s wearing gloves. Like I’d grab something like that with my bare hands, or use them to leave it at Noveno’s house. Give me some credit, Reve.”

  Oh, Reve gave him credit, all right. Credit for being the biggest fool to ever walk on two legs. Taunting the deputy hadn’t been enough. No, he had to go drop a big fat threat at her doorstep. “If you get picked up again, blame yourself.”

  Spence snorted. “No way on earth they can find out it was me. Wish I’d got to the car earlier, though. I wish I’d seen what happened to those girls.”

  You’re lucky you didn’t, Reve thought as he hung up his phone. Although at this point he was wondering if Spence wasn’t a liability he needed to get rid of, the sooner the better.

  But how?

  He sat at his table, oil and whetting stone in front of him as he followed his monthly ritual of sharpening the kitchen knives. The process soothed him, and he enjoyed seeing how the blades had worn away with time, becoming narrower but no less sharp. When he finished each one, he would wipe the oil from it and test his arm to make sure it was sharp enough to cut the hair from him, like a razor. Better than a razor.

  For now, he forgot about the girls. They were rapidly passing into the rearview mirror of his life, little to interest him, soon to be gone. Their bones might be found in a century or two.

  But the other one, the one he had taken out to the gully and covered with tumbleweed. A bone. So the animals had done their work, but that meant that the cops had renewed their search.

  And Spence had just put his ham-fisted “joke” in the middle of it all. Damn, if those cops started taking a close look at that rabbit, they might find something from one of the girls on it. A hair. Whatever. And Spence in his absolute idiocy had thought it would be funny to try to scare the deputy with it, sure in his folly that no link would ever be made to anything.

  The regular grating sound of the metal on the whetting stone created a comforting rhythm, but Reve wasn’t comforted at all. Damn Spence, he might have created a serious problem for him. No, there was nothing that should link Reve to the girls, but the rabbit... How had he overlooked the rabbit when he pulled everything out of the car? What if it had Reve’s hair on it? Just because he’d been wearing a watch cap didn’t mean strands of his hair weren’t elsewhere, ready to fall off him like mini grenades.

  Crap, that thought really disturbed him. There he’d been trying to be so careful and only now did it occur to him that there might have been a stray hair or two on his jacket or jeans?

  Not that it mattered unless they caught him. He’d never been arrested, nobody had his DNA that he knew of...

  He twisted on the chair, putting the knife down, and reached into the fridge for another longneck. He was worrying too much. The girls would be gone, nobody would find them for a hundred years. Think how much harder he’d have made it on himself if he’d tried to bring them here and make them behave. Nah, that first girl had taught him a lesson. He just hadn’t taken it far enough.

  Next time, he’d know better how to accomplish this. And he’d start with one girl at a time.

  * * *

  AL’S LIVING ROOM was hardly any bigger than her own, and it, too, had a kitchen in one corner, except he didn’t have a bar as a divider.

  A fire burned warmly on a fieldstone hearth, adding cheery light and warmth. As he took her bag and leaned it nearby against a log wall, she turned slowly to look. Yes, it was a log cabin, but the whole feel of it, dark wood and all, made it seem so cozy, much more so than her house, which she had already thought was cozy.

  Then she spied a small white Christmas tree in the corner near the front door and wide window. She couldn’t help smiling.

  “I know,” he said, as if reading her mind. “It’s still there. But some nights I just like to light it up and watch it change colors. It’s fiber optic with one of those color wheels.”

  “Red and green?”

  “Nah. More pastel. If you like, I’ll show you later. But while the pizza is still warm...”

  He’d gotten a pie with everything except anchovies. Maybe he’d made the store put extra veggies and pepperoni on it, because she couldn’t remember seeing one loaded with so many green peppers, onions and mushrooms.

  Two plates sat beside the box, and he served her a piece, inviting her to sit on his sofa. He actually had a sofa. But before he served himself, he opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a rawhide bone for Bugle. He looked at Kelly. “Is it okay for me to give this to him?”

  She appreciated his understanding of the bond between her and Bugle that had to be protected, but it didn’t need to be protected every single second.

  Bugle knew exactly what Al was holding, and sat at attention, his mouth framing his version of an eager smile.

  “Bugle, okay.” At once the dog trotted over to Al and quickly accepted the gift. Al grinned.

  The dog decided this place was okay and the offering pleased him. Soon he was sprawled on a colorful area rug, gnawing intently and happily.

  Al joined her on the sofa with his plate. “TV might be hard to come by. They never ran the cable all the way out here, but I have a dish. I use it mostly for internet, but I can get a few stations if you’re in the mood. Otherwise I have a collection of movies that ought to embarrass me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because every time I think about how much I’ve spent on DVDs, I think how much healthier my bank account could look.”

  She laughed, then took a bite of her pie. “This is great. What magic wand did you use?”

  “A credit card that was willing to pay for extra toppings. I mean, I like the sauce and cheese well enough, but it’s the toppings I’m really after.”

&n
bsp; “One piece will be an entire meal!”

  He winked. “For you, maybe.” Plate in hand, he rose from the couch and walked over to his little Christmas tree. It wasn’t very large, just over three feet, but when he flipped a switch it became a gorgeous panoply of slowly changing lights. To her delight, she thought the nearly pastel colors were prettier than the usual Christmas colors.

  “There,” he said, returning to her side. “A little ambience. We could sure use some. Today was tough.”

  In so many ways. The bone, a virtual guarantee that at least one of the girls was dead. As for the other two...

  Kelly sighed and closed her eyes. A moment later she started as she felt a weight on her thigh. Opening her eyes, she saw Al’s hand.

  “Don’t stop eating. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Even on the battlefield we took breaks when we could. Otherwise you go nuts or become useless.”

  He probably had a point, she thought. It was hard to shed the feeling of wasted time, of guilt, but there was nothing they could do out there tonight. It was dangerously cold. How many people did they want to put in the hospital from frostbite or hypothermia when they didn’t even have a definite place to look?

  If only they could ask Misty where she’d found that bone, but the dog wasn’t likely to learn to talk. Then she had a thought and sat bolt upright.

  “What?” Al asked immediately.

  “Misty,” she said. “What if we took her back out there? She might want to find another bone to play with. If they were close enough, she might be able to guide us to others.”

  He nodded slowly, evidently thinking about it. “It might work. She was sure having fun with it, and a dog would remember where there were others.”

  “I never had a dog lose a rawhide bone. Hide it maybe, lose it never.”

  “I think we should try it. I’ll give the Avilas a call in the morning and ask to borrow Misty. Better clear it with the sheriff, too, I guess.”