by C. J. Box
Kirkbride took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. Then he said, “I say you can stick it up your ass, Tibbs, you third-rate political hack.”
Tibbs raised his eyebrows and pursed his mouth. “I was kind of afraid you’d take it that way.”
“She didn’t cause the death of my officers any more than you or I did,” Kirkbride said. “The person who killed and injured them was Ronald Pergram, that psycho son of a bitch.”
“Granted,” Tibbs said, “but who lured that psycho son of a bitch into the heart of our community? Who literally entrapped him in a sloppy plot and forced his hand?”
“It wasn’t like that and you know it,” Kirkbride said.
Tibbs tapped the pages with the tips of his fingers. “That isn’t what this report says.”
Cassie started to speak but Kirkbride held his palm out to her. To Tibbs he said, “I’ll go you one better. I’ll go to your press conference and when you’re done spouting off I’ll tell them how I feel about that report and how wrong it is. I’ll tell them you’ve got your fingerprints all over it. Then I’ll probably resign on the spot and say it’s because you’re such a horse’s ass. How’s that? Does that work for you?”
“Please,” Tibbs said, stalling for time. Cassie could see his mind working.
“No,” she said with force.
Both men looked over.
To Tibbs she said, “You have my badge and gun. Keep them because I quit. You’ll get your scapegoat. If you want to press charges you can track me down somewhere. I’m sure the voters will want a congressman who spent his time prosecuting a single mom war widow who resides in another state.”
She stood up and leaned toward him across the table. “I’m not saying this because I’m a victim. I don’t play that game. I’m just telling you what it’ll look like and I know that’s what you care about—how you look.”
To Kirkbride: “You will not resign. Grimstad needs you to finish out your term. You will not go down because of me. You gave me a chance and I’ll always appreciate it. But you will not resign because of me.”
Kirkbride looked stunned.
She said to Tibbs, “What pisses me off the most about this is all of your energy has been devoted to saving your butt so you can come out looking good. You started with the explosion and worked backwards for the purpose of finding fault instead of thinking it through.”
“I voiced my concerns about your operation at the time,” Tibbs said to Cassie.
“But you didn’t stop it, did you?” she asked. “And you were ready to take the credit if we took the Lizard King into custody.”
“I don’t remember it that way.”
“I do.”
Tibbs cocked his head to the side, obviously confused.
“I lost my fiancé and three other good men who were my friends. I’ve looked around for you at the funerals and I didn’t see you anywhere. And I hate it that you’ve made this about me and how you can one-up the sheriff and about how you come out. I hate that.
“But what I hate even more is that there are too many things that don’t make sense about what happened that aren’t even on your radar screen. Pergram was a psycho son of a bitch but I spent years thinking about him. He didn’t stay on the road for all those years because he was lucky. He’s convinced he’s the smartest man in the room, that he can outthink everyone in law enforcement. He’s a reptile who only cares about himself. He might go down in a hail of gunfire, but he’s not a man who would commit suicide by cop.”
“What are you saying?” Tibbs asked.
“Figure it out,” Cassie spat. “And while you’re at it, consider how good you’ll look if we find he’s still out there.”
Tibbs turned to Kirkbride. “This is nuts. She’s nuts. Pergram is dead.” Then: “We were there.”
Cassie said, “Someone died behind the wheel. But what’s the FBI analyis say?”
“The explosion was caused by military grade C-4,” Tibbs said. “That didn’t happen by accident. He waited until he was backed into the dock and law enforcement was all around him before he hit the button. He wanted to take as many of you out as he could.”
“What’s their DNA test results?” she asked.
“There isn’t a positive analysis,” Tibbs said. “Even though the body was badly burned the FBI was able to obtain samples. The problem is—and you know this—there’s no DNA from Pergram on file. So there’s nothing to match it up with. But it was his truck, his ID, everything.”
“Everything,” Cassie repeated, mocking Tibbs. “Except I’m the only person still alive who knows him and knows the way he thinks. He wouldn’t end it that way.”
Tibbs had a pained grin. He shook his head as if asking himself, How long do I have to listen to this?
“What about the lot lizard?” Cassie asked. “Did you find her body in the kill room in his trailer?”
“There was no body,” Tibbs said. He sounded bored. “But no doubt he dumped it between Wisconsin and here. Not having a body right now means nothing. As you of all people should know, he’s been disposing of bodies for years and none of them have been found.”
Tibbs was correct, Cassie knew. It was the single most infuriating aspect of the years’-long pursuit of the Lizard King: no bodies found.
Tibbs asked, “If it wasn’t Ronald Pergram then who was it, Chief Investigator?”
“Not Ronald Pergram,” she said, gathering up her coat to leave the room. “And call me Cassie.”
CHAPTER
NINE
CASSIE DIDN’T STOP WIPING ANGRY tears out of her eyes until she got past Dickinson and was nine miles from the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. But she was still fuming.
She’d listened to the Bismarck news on the AM radio and had heard snippets of Tibbs’ statement before the press. She’d turned it off after he assured the reporter, “Don’t worry, we’ll get Grimstad and Bakken County law enforcement cleaned up once and for all.”
There was no mention of Sheriff Kirkbride at the event.
* * *
SINCE SHE WAS now a civilian and couldn’t show her badge to a trooper and expect leniency, she had to remind herself to reduce her speed on I-94. Dickinson was considered the start of cowboy country in North Dakota, where farms gave way to ranches, and grazing cattle and horses began to override wheat fields.
The sky was lighter than it had been in Bismarck, but it was still close and oppressive.
Every few miles, she thumped the steering wheel or dashboard with the heel of her hand and yelled, “Shit!”
* * *
LESLIE BEHAUNEK IN NORTH CAROLINA answered on the second ring.
“Cassie,” she said as a greeting.
“I’m out of the department,” Cassie said. “I resigned before they could fire me.”
“Oh, Christ. I’m so sorry.” But she sounded more angry than sorry, Cassie thought.
They’d discussed her situation every few days while Cassie waited out her suspension. Behaunek felt as responsible for what had happened at the industrial park as Cassie, although neither could have anticipated that it would happen the way it did. Both were obsessed with catching the Lizard King and they wanted him rotting away in prison for the rest of his life—or dead.
“Those bastards,” Leslie said. “Can you appeal?”
“I’m sure I can but I don’t want to,” Cassie said, telling Leslie how Sheriff Jon Kirkbride had followed her out of the state capitol building to her car. He’d begged her not to resign, to fight Tibbs, to sue the county he worked for to get her job back.
“He kept saying, ‘It just ain’t right,’” Cassie said.
“What did you tell him?” Leslie asked.
“I said I was through, then I gave him a hug. I’ll miss that guy,” Cassie said. She fought back another wave of tears. She was proud that she’d waited to cry until Kirkbride was no longer in the rearview mirror. She hadn’t wanted him to see her break down.
In their many late-night conversations
, Leslie and Cassie had become comfortable enough with each other to share feelings, discuss relationships, and dish on their colleagues. They were kindred spirits—unmarried women in the rural, male-dominated field of law enforcement. It wasn’t the first time one of them had cried while on the phone with the other. Especially after Ian Davis was killed.
Cassie recounted the proceedings in the conference room and Leslie cursed throughout.
“I wish I could have been there as your lawyer,” Leslie said. “I’d eat Tibbs for lunch.”
“You would. But the deal was done when he walked in the door.”
“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Leslie said. “Every agency has its own political intrigue and you spend way too much time just trying to figure it out and survive. You don’t know where the threats are coming from until they get you. And in this case, it sounds like the real target was your sheriff and you were collateral damage.”
Cassie agreed. Her previous job in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, had more than its share of backstabbing and innuendo.
“But at least I grew up in Helena,” Cassie said. “I knew the players and I had a pretty good understanding of the sheriff and the political types going in. Here I’m still learning. Or I should say, I was learning. And what I was learning was that I could trust the sheriff and just about nobody else. It hurts.”
“Of course it does, Miss Cassie,” Leslie said. She knew Cassie had been amused when she was in North Carolina by the Southern affectation of Miss Cassie. “And worst of all, that son of a bitch is probably still out there. I lost him the first time, and now you lost him.”
“Again,” Cassie reminded her. “I lost him again.”
“And we know more women are going to die,” Leslie said.
There was a lull in their conversation. They’d talked enough that long pauses were okay.
After a few moments, Cassie told Leslie about the DNA that had been recovered from the burned body of the driver and the absence of a body in the trailer and Leslie cursed again.
“If they’d allowed us to do a DNA swab on him when we had him here there would be a match,” Leslie said. Pergram, who was using the identity of Dale Spradley at the time, had refused to agree to a swab.
She continued, “Or there wouldn’t be a match which would mean he’s still out there for sure.”
“I know.”
They speculated on other methods of determining whether Pergram was the driver but could come up with no good ideas.
Finally, Leslie asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? I’m not looking forward to telling my mother or Ben.”
“Maybe Ben would kind of like his mother around more,” Leslie offered.
Cassie laughed. “He would have a few years ago but now he’s twelve. Having his mother hovering around him is the last thing he wants, believe me.”
“Are you going to stay in North Dakota?”
“I’ve still got a lot of thinking to do.” Then: “Probably not. I love my sheriff but he’s struggling along until he can retire. Tibbs has placed a spy in the office and he’s slowly but surely easing Jon out. I’ll probably go back to Montana, but I really haven’t thought about it until this second.”
“Doing what?” Leslie asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassie sighed. “I don’t have a clue who would hire a fat, disgraced ex-cop with a hippie mom and a twelve-year-old boy. And did I mention I’m fat?”
Leslie started to give a pep talk to Cassie, telling her not to get down on herself, when Cassie said, “Really, Leslie, not now. I appreciate it and all, but I have to think this through.”
“Maybe I can put in a good word for you here?” Leslie said. “Maybe you can get a new start.”
“North Carolina? I’m getting too old for a new start, I think. I’m a Rocky Mountain girl at heart.”
“What’s your choice?” Leslie asked.
After a beat, Cassie said, “I don’t think I have one.”
* * *
AFTER ARRIVING IN GRIMSTAD at dusk, Cassie slowed down her car and joined a long caravan of oil field vehicles from the south where they were funneled through town. She’d been a part of the traffic parade thousands of times since she’d arrived, but this time it seemed more annoying than usual. Once she reached the downtown she took a left and drove around aimlessly, waiting for the shift change at the sheriff’s department. The last thing she wanted to do was arrive as the afternoon shift and evening shift of deputies converged around their lockers. No doubt, she thought, they would have heard what happened in Bismarck. News like that travelled lightning speed through the law enforcement community and she didn’t want the drama.
She knew there was a contingent of deputies who blamed her—at least somewhat—for the explosion and the deaths of their fellow officers. Tibbs had more than a few of them in his camp with vague offers of promotions and better assignments when and if he had more power within the department. Even if most of the deputies thought she’d acted entirely above board or disliked Tibbs—which she thought most of them did—a high-profile press conference from the state capitol targeting her actions would likely shake their confidence in her decisions.
As she had felt with Sheriff Kirkbride, Cassie didn’t want her presence in the department to serve as a wedge. In her experience, cops did two things really well: drink coffee and gossip with each other. If she tried staying in the department and fighting Tibbs as Kirkbride had suggested, the pro-Kirkbride and pro-Tibbs factions would harden. She knew she couldn’t do her job in that kind of poisoned workplace environment, and she didn’t want the last months of Kirkbride’s tenure to be filled with acrimony.
Her intention now was to enter the building to clean out her desk after the afternoon shift had gone home and the evening shift was on patrol. She hoped she timed it right.
* * *
KIRKBRIDE HAD NOT CHANGED the key code on the double front doors of the Law Enforcement Center and Cassie quickly entered the lobby and headed toward the elevators with her head down. She sensed a presence near the left bank of windows but she didn’t look over.
As she reached out her finger to punch the button for the second floor a female voice behind her called, “Cassie? Is that you?”
She turned. A frail woman in her mid-seventies sat primly in the middle of one of the low benches. She had white hair done in a swept-up style that was the thing a quarter century before, and she wore gold-rimmed glasses, a scarf, and a calf-length coat. Although Cassie couldn’t see her dress because she was so bundled up, there were two thin bare ankles above sensible brown shoes.
It had been months since Cassie had seen Lottie Westergaard. Lottie had been injured two years before at her own home but had since recovered.
“Hi, Lottie.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Lottie said. “I asked for you but instead they made me talk to a woman who wasn’t very helpful.”
Since there were only two women on staff in the department and one of them was Judy Banister, Cassie said, “You must have spoken to Assistant County Attorney Deanna Palmer.”
“Yes,” Lottie said with distaste, “I think that was her name.”
Cassie paused. It was obvious Lottie had no idea she was talking to an ex-cop. Cassie didn’t know how much to tell her, if anything.
Before she could respond, Lottie said, “I’m here about Kyle. He’s been gone a month and nobody here will help me find him.”
Cassie had a decision to make. Go to her office on the second floor while no one was around, or take a minute with Lottie and risk running into some of her colleagues. She took a deep breath, then walked away from the elevator and sat down next to Mrs. Westergaard.
“Lottie, I know that Kyle and Raheem Johnson are missing—”
“Raheem,” Lottie interrupted. “He’s a nice young black boy. His father and I camped out in this lobby for the first week and we got to know each other. We got along even though the reason we were h
ere was not good.”
Cassie looked away to keep from smiling. Lottie was from another time before the oil boom when there were no African Americans in Bakken County.
“They’ve been gone a month,” she said again. “Mr. Johnson is pretty sure they took his boat and went downriver. Kyle kind of talked about that ever since I took him to Medora and he saw those old photos of Theodore Roosevelt on the river. But I never thought he’d actually do it, you know. They could be in South Dakota or someplace even worse by now and nobody is doing a thing about it. It’ll be winter soon.”
Cassie nodded for her to go on, but instead Lottie reached into her purse and handed over a folded sheet of lined school paper.
“Kyle left me this.”
Cassie read Kyle’s letter and felt a lump form in her throat. She could hear his voice as she read. Then she handed it back.
Lottie said, “You know what Kyle is like. He’s a good boy and I love him but he lives in his own head. We always got along well, even when his mother was alive. I think I was the only stable person in his life. We always communicated even though he’s hard to understand at times. I can’t imagine him not calling me at some point, or you know, texting.”
When she said that she withdrew a cheap flip-phone from her purse and opened it.
“Kyle made me get one of these things. You can see that he texted me just about every day when he left school. Then nothing for a month.
“What if they had an accident? What if their boat overturned and they drowned in the river? I just need to know.”
“I understand your concern,” Cassie said, reaching out and patting Lottie’s small hands in her lap. “I wasn’t assigned to the case.
“The fact is, Lottie,” Cassie said while squeezing the old woman’s hands, “I’ve been on suspension since that explosion in September. I haven’t been in the office until today so I don’t know much.”
It was Lottie’s pleading eyes that got her, Cassie thought. The old woman had been through so much: the death of her husband, the overdose of her daughter, the trauma that led to Kyle staying with her. She was just a kind and resourceful North Dakota native who wanted to live and let live and bake lefse. Suspensions and politics within the sheriff’s department weren’t of concern to her. Kyle was.