by C. J. Box
She shoved the big Ford into park and climbed out. The front bumper of the vehicle was just a few feet away from him. She got out and shut the door but kept the engine running. The purr of the motor was the only sound.
“Nice place,” she said, walking up alongside the vehicle. She took a side step at the front and leaned back against the grille and crossed her arms under her breasts. It was a posture she’d seen Cody Hoyt assume many times; passive but judgmental at the same time. She’d been surprised how many times perps started yapping and volunteering information they never would otherwise because they assumed Cody had the goods on them.
“Why are you here so early, Officer Dewell?” Tubman asked. “I haven’t even had my coffee yet. Did something happen during the night and you couldn’t get ahold of me?”
“I never tried,” Cassie said. A burst of dawn wind came up hard and cold and she saw leaves flee from trees in her peripheral vision.
“So what brings you up here to my home?” he asked, trying to smile. But it looked like a grimace.
“I’ve got a request.”
He seemed to recover from the surprise for a moment and he stood tall and relaxed his shoulders. “What kind of request?” he asked, assuming command.
“No,” she said, “It isn’t a request. It’s a demand.”
He snorted, and looked over his shoulder at his house, as if expecting reinforcements.
She said, “You took advantage of me. You set me up to bring down my partner because you never liked him. I resent what you put me through and I don’t like the results. You put a good man out on the street.”
As if he couldn’t help it, he lifted the small rolled-up newspaper, like there was something in it she must be angry about. She hadn’t seen the paper that morning but realized there must be a story about Cody being fired. Tubman had likely called it in himself to make sure he was portrayed as a man who wouldn’t tolerate dirty cops.
“Look,” he said, “I haven’t seen the story yet. I do know I praised your work to high heaven, the way you exposed a dishonest officer. You’re probably going to come out of this as a big hero, so I don’t know what your problem is.”
“My problem,” she said, “has nothing to do with your story. It’s about two missing teenagers you’ve never heard of. Even though you screwed him, Cody drove down to Livingston last night to try and find them. He did it because he wanted to do the right thing.”
“Livingston?” Tubman said, shaking his head and appealing to the shaft of sunlight that had flashed over the mountain and sequined the frost on his yard, “That’s out of our jurisdiction. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Dewell, and I think you need to consider what you’re saying to me. And think about the fact that you’re at my house in a county vehicle giving me a ration of shit for no reason I can think of.”
She noticed that his face was flushed and if he had a chin it would be thrust at her. For a moment, she was taken aback. Then she remembered why she was there.
“Those girls I mentioned are missing,” she said. “Teenagers from Colorado, aged sixteen and eighteen. They vanished last night off the highway between Yellowstone and Helena and they haven’t been seen since. Cody’s son knew them, so Cody drove down there to try and find them and as of a few hours ago he hasn’t communicated back to me or to his family. We’ve got three missing people in Montana in the last thirteen hours. You know that every minute that goes by something bad could happen. I know how you feel about Cody, but this is bigger than that. I want the time to go down there myself and help him if I can to figure out what happened. And I want you to approve it.”
Tubman again glanced over his shoulder at his home, as if to verify where he was. Then he turned his head and locked her eyes in.
“Cody Hoyt is drunk in some county jail or passed out on the side of some low-rent bar,” he said. “This thing about missing girls is news to me and we’ll deal with it through the proper channels if we’re requested to even get involved. I’ve not heard a damned thing about it. So if you’re asking to take leave right now, in the middle of a murder investigation and after I’ve praised you up one side and down the other to the media for your good work, you need to think long and hard about this.”
He paused, and glared at her. “Because if you run away right now for your own stupid reasons, I can’t defend you and I won’t even try. You’re needed here. We’ve got a murder investigation. You’re the primary on it. And everybody’s watching.”
She said, “You’re not hearing me. This isn’t a debate. I’m taking the county vehicle down south and I’m going to find out what happened to Cody and those girls. Roger Tokely was murdered by B. G. Myers. We’ve got the proof. If you don’t believe me, talk to Alexa Manning. Your renter, B. G., killed your other renter, Roger Tokely, over drugs.”
At the word “renter,” Tubman flinched. He simply stared at her with contempt she’d never seen from him.
“I know the deal,” Cassie said. “Cody told me. I know what’s going on with you and your payments. And when I look at this place,” she said, gesturing toward the house and the recreational vehicles and the fifth-wheel trailer, “I know he was right. You let that feud go on in the Big Belts because you didn’t want your rent checks to bounce. And you put me out front with the press because you’d get credit for bringing me into the department. And you sent me up there to shadow Cody to get rid of the one guy who could take you on. So don’t patronize me now. I won’t stand for it.
“I’m taking this Ford,” she said, and patted the bumper of the vehicle without looking down, “and the authority of the department down to Park County. You need to notify the sheriff down there I’m coming, and request they cooperate with me as if this is the highest priority item on your list. And you’re going to organize the whole department and impress upon them that they’re to do everything they can to find these girls and Cody.”
She stopped talking and was as appalled at her words as Tubman was. The seconds mounted up in silence except for the burbling of the exhaust pipe of the Ford.
Finally, he said, “You know that as of this moment everything has changed between us.”
“I do.”
“And you know if you go down there like you’re talking about you’re just going to find that miserable drunk in some bar or whorehouse?”
“Maybe.”
Tubman broke his gaze and looked past her, as if there was something fascinating over her shoulder. She almost turned to look, but she didn’t.
“Go,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
He glared at her. “Don’t think this doesn’t change everything, Dewell. You’re on my list now, just like Cody Hoyt was. And you know what happened to him.”
As he said it, he lifted his nonexistent chin.
“Try it,” she said. “But remember you aren’t the only person who can talk to the press.”
He started to smile, but suddenly cut it off when he realized what she was saying.
“You made me the hero because I’m a fat single mother you hired personally to add diversity to the department,” she said. “They ate it up. Now, if you try to destroy me, you’re the one who loses. Think about it.”
Tubman inadvertently dropped the newspaper near his slipper. He feinted to pick it back up, but rethought it and stood up to face her. But he looked whipped, she thought.
“I’ll check in,” she said. “But you need to call out the cavalry.”
“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving,” Tubman said. “A whole lot of folks are going out of town for four days.”
“I know it. That’s why we need to find them today.”
He nodded, but didn’t speak. No doubt, she thought, he was thinking of the next election. So far, he was unopposed except for the lunatic county coroner, Skeeter Kerley. But if one of his own ran, a female who looked and acted like a normal female, who would attract the housewives and liberals and voters who already didn’t like him for one reason or other, a female who
had been praised as a tough investigator by the sheriff himself …
“Keep me posted,” Tubman said. “I’ll do all I can to help find those girls.”
“And Cody,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said sourly. “Him, too.”
30
7:26 A.M., Wednesday, November 21
Ronald Pergram drove his mother’s white 1986 Buick Riviera past the unmanned National Park Service window at the north entrance to Yellowstone and goosed it on the straightaway before beginning the switchback climb to Mammoth Hot Springs. The car, like his mother, was repulsive. It was low-slung and underpowered and its 3,300 lbs of steel rocked atop a mushy suspension that gave him the feeling of driving a car with four flat tires. The top of the coupe was peeling tonguelike strips of faux leather and the paint job looked sandblasted. The windows were cloudy with grime. The backseat was filled with garbage bags and newspapers and he’d had to clear the front seat of empty Big Gulp containers just to squeeze inside. The trunk contained two dead bodies wrapped in plastic, one on top of the other.
Although there was a CCTV camera mounted on the side of the entrance station, he knew there was no reason to worry about being identified. The NPS operated on banker’s hours during the off-season, and they rarely had a ranger on duty to collect entrance fees before eight in the morning, much less someone viewing the monitor at park headquarters. As long as he entered the park before eight or after five, America’s first national park belonged to the Lizard King.
He kept a wary eye out, though, in front and behind him. There was always the chance-although remote-that an overeager park ranger would pull him over for speeding or simply note his presence in the park if questioned later. But like the entrance booth personnel, traffic rangers seemed to vanish from existence once the hotels and visitor amenities inside the park closed for the season.
That was one of the reasons he liked to use his mother’s old car. If the camera caught the license plate and some ranger had the gumption to check out the owner, Pergram couldn’t imagine them going after a sixty-eight-year-old local widow who didn’t look like she even had the money for a day pass. Plus, he simply liked the idea of driving that old bat’s car with the bodies of two women in the trunk.
The body of the gimp was wrapped in plastic and wedged around the spare tire. It weighed next to nothing and wouldn’t even provide ballast on icy roads.
He’d made this trek more times than he could recall.
* * *
Pergram deliberately drove right by the small battered sign on the side of the road that read POISON SPRING TRAILHEAD. The sign was so low to the ground it was partially obscured by tall grass, and the area itself was dark with nearly constant shadows because of the tall and close walls of lodgepole pine on both sides of the road. There was no pullout at the trailhead to park but a quarter of a mile farther was a single concrete picnic table virtually hidden from passing cars. He slowed and turned into the campsite and drove as far into the small clearing as he could. Pergram turned off the motor and got out. He could hear the tinkle of a tiny creek through the trees in front of him, and there was a low rush of cold wind in the crowns of the lodgepole pines, enough to rock the trees back and forth slightly.
He stood still and listened. There was no road traffic. He wanted to make sure no one was coming and could catch a glimpse of what he was doing as they passed by.
When he was sure he was alone, Pergram unlocked the trunk and slung the body of the gimp over his shoulder and took it fifteen feet into the timber and let it drop with a thud.
The dead lot lizard underneath was stiff as a board. Out of curiosity, he’d unwrapped the plastic around her head to see what she looked like. Her face was wan and emaciated and frozen into a leering grimace. Her eyes were open but filmy, and they seemed to stare right into his heart. So he wiped that leer off her face with a jack handle, then wrapped the plastic back over what was left and put the body into the backseat. It was like carrying a bundle of branches, it was so stiff and bony.
Then he returned to the Riviera and inspected the plastic-lined interior of the trunk for spots of blood. It was clean. He stripped the plastic out and balled it tight and shoved it inside his coat. Then he closed the trunk lid and went back for the bodies.
* * *
Even though the gimp weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds, he was sweating by the time he reached Poison Springs because he’d already carried the body of the lot lizard. As always, he eschewed the old trail to get there that began at the road and wound through the timber, instead cutting directly through the trees from the picnic table to approach it from the side.
Someday, he thought, he would surprise a bear. Or the bear would surprise him. And that would be that. The park service would have a hell of a time figuring it out, he thought.
He smelled it before he saw it. Poison Spring had a particular sulfur and steam odor that could tear his eyes if the wind was just right.
As always, he stopped and paused and got his breath back. He’d never seen hikers at Poison Spring, even during tourist season, but he couldn’t let himself get complacent. But it was silent all around.
The spring looked deceptively enticing. The opening in the ground was twelve feet by twenty feet and it was filled with clear water that appeared sapphire blue and lapped gently at the crusty edge of the opening. Steam and fumes wafted from the surface and always reminded him of hot bathwater. When the light was right, as it was now, he could see deeply into the cavern. The sides were uneven and coral-like, with shelves of built-up mineral deposits jutting out here and there. On one of the shelves, through the steam and undulating water, he could clearly see a femur bone. That bone had been there on that ledge for two years. He wished there was a way to reach down and knock it off. Luckily, he thought, it looked enough like a bone from a deer or elk that anyone else glimpsing it wouldn’t be alarmed.
It was called Poison Spring because it was. The pure water contained large amounts of natural sulfuric acid.
Pergram was no chemist. He didn’t know how long it took for the sulfuric acid in Poison Spring to dissolve a human body, or two in this situation. He didn’t know what was left after a month or two deep in the depths of the spring. All he knew was that it suited his needs and it had worked so far.
* * *
After he’d unwrapped the gimp’s body and weighted it down with heavy rocks, he rolled it toward Poison Spring until it was balanced on the crust of the edge. This next part always scared him a little, because he had no idea how thick and strong the crust was and if it might break under his own weight and burn his own skin. Once he had the body poised near the opening, he found a stout pole in the timber and used it to lever the body in.
There was no splash and it sunk out of sight so quickly he didn’t get a good last look. There was no foaming or agitation in the spring from the arrival of the new carcass. He went through the same procedure with the lot lizard.
He stood there, watching and listening, then balled the plastic he’d wrapped it in with the plastic from the trunk around another rock and tossed it in.
* * *
The entrance gate had a ranger in it as he drove out of the park, but he simply waved. The ranger, a decent-looking young woman with red hair, green eyes, and a pug nose and freckles, waved back. He felt a stir when he looked at her, and noted her for a future possibility. Seasonable rangers and temporary workers in the park often hitchhiked to and from work along the highway. He’d not yet given any of them a ride. But it was something to consider …
* * *
Pergram slowed down as he approached Emigrant en route to his house. There were two vehicles parked in front of the First National-Legerski’s cruiser and a black Ford Expedition with Lewis and Clark County plates. The realization hit him that at that moment, inside the building, Legerski was having breakfast with the cop who’d texted: I’M ON MY WAY.
He was momentarily torn. Should he stop and go inside and see what they were talking abo
ut? Sit at the bar and order some eggs and bacon and eavesdrop on the conversation as he had the night before?
He didn’t trust Legerski not to give him up. The man was a sociopath and would do anything to save himself. Sure, he’d said he’d take care of everything. But what if the lady cop was smart? What if she saw through Legerski’s lies?
If that happened, Pergram had no doubt the trooper would turn on him. Jimmy was harder to figure out, but because he was friends with Legerski-Legerski had brought him in-he guessed the bartender would sell him out as well.
Pergram cursed and drove on. It was his fault he’d let them in. He regretted it, although at the time it seemed his only choice.
* * *
As he drove on, he recalled how the scheme had taken shape, when it had changed from his own personal secret world into something he was forced to share.
Two and a half years earlier, he’d been returning to Livingston from delivering a load in the Pacific Northwest. It was dusk and less than ten miles out of town when he saw the light bar of wigwag lights in his side mirrors. He checked his speed-he was two miles under the limit-and wondered why the trooper was behind him. Why the cop wanted to pull him over in the first place. Pergram felt absolute terror for the first time in years, and thought his life would be over.
He’d eased his Freightliner to the side-it was before he bought his Peterbilt-and waited. The trooper probably wanted to check his papers, he thought. Sometimes they did that; random harassment checks of truckers to make sure they’d done the proper paperwork at the last weigh station. Later, he recalled that he should have noted that the trooper didn’t sit in his cruiser and run his plates before exiting his car. That should have been a clue. But at the time, all he could think of was that he was caught. And what he might have to do to get out of it.
The lot lizard was bound and gagged in the bunk of his sleeper, just a few feet away from him. She was still under the influence of the roofies he’d injected into her, but her breathing was ragged. He’d planned to take her to that shack by the river where he always took them. Then, when he was done, to Poison Springs.