The Highway ch-2

by C. J. Box

  He had no excuse if the trooper saw or heard her. And no explanation.

  Pergram watched as the Montana State Highway Patrolman walked up alongside his trailer. The man moved slowly and deliberately, his right hand resting on the butt of his sidearm. Pergram reached down and opened the console between the seats and touched the butt of his.357 Magnum revolver. He knew that he might have to kill a cop, right there on the side of Interstate 90. Cars and trucks sizzled by in the eastbound lane. A couple of the drivers slowed to rubberneck before continuing.

  The trooper approached the driver’s side door and knocked on it. Pergram took a deep breath, tried to act inconvenienced, and opened his door.

  Legerski’s face stared up at him, probing with his hard cop eyes.

  “Something wrong?” Pergram asked. “I know I wasn’t speeding. Do I have a light out or something?”

  “Operator’s license, registration, and bill of lading, sir,” Legerski said with false courtesy.

  Pergram wanted it over as fast as he could so he didn’t argue. He handed the documents down and sighed. “Everything’s there,” he said.

  “Are you deadheading it back?” the trooper asked, checking the papers.

  “This time. I always try to bring back a load but the dispatcher was an idiot and didn’t hook me up. So yeah, I’m deadheading it back.”

  The trooper nodded, then handed the papers back. For a brief moment, Pergram thought he was in the clear.

  Then Legerski said, “You’ve been around here for a long time but you spend most of the time on the road. So tell me, do you have a girl in there now with you?”

  Pergram was too shocked to answer. His right hand twitched on his lap. Eighteen inches to the right was the butt of the Ruger.357. It was double-action, he wouldn’t even need to cock it, just aim and pull the trigger.

  Pergram tried to swallow but couldn’t. “What?” he asked, and his voice cracked.

  “I asked you if you had a girl in there.”

  Pergram couldn’t speak.

  “Are you all right?” Legerski asked. “You act like something’s wrong.”

  “I’m coming down with something,” Pergram said in a croak. “Something I ate, I guess.”

  “That damned trucker food,” Legerski said, shaking his head.

  “What was it you asked me about a girl?” Pergram said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lame.

  Legerski tipped his trooper hat back on his head. His hand was still on his pistol but he hadn’t pulled it. His voice became conversational.

  “I picked your mom up a week back for missing a headlight,” Legerski said. “She cussed me out but good. She said she was a good driver, just like her son, the long-haul trucker. She said you live with her when you aren’t on a run, and since I’d just spent a week looking for a missing girl on that stretch of highway I gave it some thought. I asked around a little, because we really kind of live in the same neighborhood. I pulled your log and determined that there were more than a few missing prostitutes and runaways in this part of the state in the last couple years. And each time there was an incident report you were on the road on your way back here. I think that’s more than a coincidence.”

  Pergram simply stared back. To this day, he wondered what it was that stopped him from killing Legerski right there. Was it something in the trooper’s eyes, or the tone of his voice? Or simply because the thing was playing all wrong?

  Then Legerski said, “I think you might be a man after my own heart, is what I’m saying.”

  It took a moment to understand.

  “I bought some property down south of here. You know the old Schweitzer place?”

  Pergram found himself nodding. He was familiar with it because it was less than four miles from his mother’s house. Eighty or ninety acres in a steep mountain valley surrounded by walls of mountains on each side. There was a beat-up old house with the windows smashed out on it, but that wasn’t what was unique about the property. Schweitzer, it was said, was a crazy old coot. He’d built a bunker somewhere on his land. A concrete underground bunker that would withstand a nuclear or chemical war. But he’d died before he ever had to use it. The property had been on the market for years because it was remote, without good water, and didn’t have enough grass for a profitable herd of cows.

  “I know it,” Pergram said.

  “How about you meet me out there? When I get off duty, say six thirty tonight?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Bring your friend.”

  That’s how it started.

  * * *

  He parked the Buick on the side of the house and got out. The wind had picked up and was shaking the Russian olive bushes, vibrating them with angry urgency.

  Pergram rubbed his face with his hands before entering the house. The white crosses had worn off and he was dead tired and hungry. But he was also excited. Seeing those two girls in their underwear when he grabbed the gimp, knowing they were there, stirred him. The gimp had done nothing for him. There was some relief, sure, but it was temporary. It was like eating a dish of dry dog food when steaks were a few feet away behind a closed door.

  As silently as he could, he entered the house. He couldn’t see or hear her. He hoped she’d gone back to bed and was still sleeping. But as he navigated through the passageway toward the kitchen he smelled coffee and there she was, at the table where she’d been the night before, glaring at him.

  “I seen you out there,” she said. “You took my car again without asking.”

  He flushed.

  “Where do you go when you take my car? Why don’t you take your own truck and use your own gas? I’m on a fixed income. I can’t afford to keep putting gas in that car when I’m not even using it.”

  “I’ll fill it up later today,” he said, shinnying around her and kicking a stack of newspapers aside so he could open the door of the ancient pantry.

  “When you going back out on the road?”

  He ignored her. The pantry was crammed full with canned goods. Some of the labels were so old they were yellow and peeling off the tin.

  “What are you looking for, Ronald?”

  “Something to eat that isn’t shitty or expired.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with those cans,” she said, disgusted with him.

  He reached in and pulled out a Campbell’s soup can of split pea soup and shook it at her. “This has been in here as long as I can remember. I remember looking at this when I was ten years old and wondering what kind of people wanted to eat it. And here it is today.”

  She scowled and looked away.

  He fixed his eyes on the back of her head. Her hair was white and wispy. He could see her scalp through it. For a second, he considered how hard he’d have to hit her with the can to break her skull.

  “I can cook you something,” she said. “There’s some Dinty Moore stew in the refrigerator.”

  “I told you I hate that.”

  He snatched a fairly contemporary can of pork and beans from the pantry, slammed the door, and left her there.

  * * *

  He closed and locked the door of his room and stood there for a few minutes to make sure she wasn’t on the other side. Sometimes she did that, he knew. Just stood there on the other side of the door to listen to what he was doing. He should have brained her with the can of soup, he thought.

  Pergram opened the beans with his Swiss army knife and wolfed it down. He put the empty can in the garbage. He hated clutter, unlike her.

  He lay on his bed in the dark and closed his eyes but visions of those two girls started showing up on the inside of his eyelids. The way they cowered in the corner, those firm long legs on the nice-looking one.

  He opened his eyes because he knew what he had to do next or he’d never get any sleep.

  His collection of videotapes was hidden beneath the floor under his bed. Dozens of tapes and DVDs he’d made of his conquests. Along with the girls, Legerski was in many of them. Jimmy was i
n a few. He’d made a set for the trooper, in fact, but refused to hand over the originals when Legerski asked for them.

  The tape collection was now what kept him alive, he thought. Legerski wouldn’t dare turn on him if there was a risk the tapes and disks could be found that would implicate him. Pergram had insinuated more than once there was.

  “You’re fucking lying,” Legerski had said, “there is no way I can be identified.” But there was a hint of panic in his voice.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Pergram had said back.

  The tapes were Pergram’s life insurance policy.

  On his hands and knees, he reached under his bed until his fingers closed around a ring bolt. He opened the lid and set it to the side, then reached into the hole.

  Under the floorboards were two green army surplus ammunition cans fitted with tight swing-back covers that kept the contents safe and dry and could be opened by prying up on a side panel. The stencils on the sides revealed them to have once stored.50 caliber machine gun rounds. He didn’t disturb the can he thought of as his “Oh Shit” Box. It contained carefully thought-out and collected items he’d need if his world went completely upside down and he had to run for it.

  The other box was the collection of tapes and DVDs that was the history and culmination of his secret world; old VHS tapes and newer digital DVDs. He brought it out and opened it and fished through the collection, trying to find one that matched his mood. He selected one from three years before, the time he’d defied Legerski and dragged two girls into the room for himself. He didn’t want to see Legerski, to be reminded of him right now.

  Legerski had retaliated for him breaking their agreement that they both be present with the girls at the bunker. He’d disguised himself and made his own tape and did depraved things to the two lot lizards there at the time and killed them both afterwards. Then he left the tape to be discovered and viewed by Pergram who would instantly understand the message sent. Without telling Legerski, Pergram had made an additional copy.

  Later, over breakfast at the First National Bar, Legerski looked up and said, “This is what happens when you fuck with me, Ronald. Now you’ve got to go get another one.”

  He did. And he never defied Legerski since. He’d viewed the disk only once, and now he set it aside and chose another.

  Pergram sat on his bed and inserted the disk into his laptop computer and put on his headphones. It started with him looking into the camera, grinning. The two girls were in the background, bound and gagged.

  Again, he wondered what Legerski and the lady cop from Helena were talking about.

  And how long he had.

  31

  9:05 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  Cassie Dewell’s egg-white and mushroom omelette arrived at the center table in the First National Bar of Montana, delivered by the cook-slash-owner named Jimmy. Jimmy placed a set of silverware wrapped tight in a paper napkin by her plate and said, “You said without the bacon or sausage that comes with it, right? I hope you like it. I don’t make too many of those around here.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She could feel Jimmy’s eyes on her as well as the eyes of Montana State Highway Patrol officer Rick Legerski, who sat across from her. She knew they were poking fun at her a little, checking her out. She was used to it.

  Legerski had ordered “the Rancher”: three eggs over easy, chicken-fried steak with gravy, hash-brown potatoes, and toast.

  “You know what a Montana vegetarian is?” Jimmy asked, hovering just behind her. By the way he asked it she knew it was a well-worn joke and often told.

  “What?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “Someone who only eats meat once a day,” Jimmy said, and grinned. His top teeth were long and yellow like horse teeth and he was missing most of his bottom teeth.

  She smiled politely and said, “I’m from Montana.”

  “You’re from Helena,” Jimmy said, “that ain’t Montana.”

  “Jimmy,” Legerski said, cutting in, “I could use some more coffee.”

  Jimmy looked at Legerski and Cassie could see something exchanged between them, but she couldn’t discern what it was.

  “Coming up,” Jimmy said, and turned on his heel.

  “Thank you,” Cassie said to the trooper in a low mumble.

  “He doesn’t have very impressive people skills for a bar owner, does he?” Legerski said after Jimmy was out of earshot, “But he makes a hell of a breakfast. And he’s kind of famous for his big cinnamon rolls.”

  She tried her omelette. It was passable, but she envied Legerski, who dug into his massive plate of food. She was always embarrassed to eat in front of men she didn’t know because it called attention to her weight. So she ordered food she wasn’t crazy about. Even if they didn’t say anything-and they rarely did-she knew what they were thinking.

  * * *

  She’d found the place easily enough. It was the only bar and grill in Emigrant, after all, and trooper Legerski’s cruiser was parked in front. She’d called him en route since he was the last person she was aware of to see Cody Hoyt, and he suggested they meet there. He said he didn’t work out of an office-most highway patrolmen didn’t and took their patrol cars home every night-and the small conference room at the Department of Transportation shop outside Livingston was being used that morning. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday, she realized she was starved and agreed to meet him at the First National.

  After ordering, they’d sniffed around at each other at first, talking about the weather and state politics until their food arrived. She didn’t know what she thought of him yet. He was polite enough, more formal than she was used to, and had stood up when she came in. His big mustache hid his mouth and he had the dead-eyed cop look down cold. His hands were huge and reminded her of bear paws when he grasped them together on the table. Legerski seemed serious, if somehow forced, as if he were playacting at being vigilant and extremely sincere. He had a gruff low voice and a drawn-out, western way of speaking. Legerski chose his words carefully and seemed to want to use as few of them as possible. He didn’t wear a wedding ring.

  She’d said, “I understand you were married to the sister of our dispatcher, Edna.”

  He’d nodded, and said, “Love is grand, but divorce is a hundred grand.”

  It was the kind of thing men said to each other and generally didn’t say to women, she thought. But she gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped he thought of her as serious, as well as a colleague. Since he was a state trooper and she was an investigator for an out-of-county sheriff’s department, the hierarchy was clear. But he didn’t act superior.

  “Thanks for meeting me this morning,” she said.

  “You bet,” he said, between mouthfuls of food. “But it’s kind of a busy time.”

  She looked around: there was no one else in the place except Jimmy.

  “Not here,” he said, reading her movement. “But it’s the day before the holiday. Hell of a lot of traffic on the roads, and we’re expected to be out there in the middle of it.”

  She nodded. For the second time that morning, she’d been reminded it was Thanksgiving tomorrow. Thanksgiving, and her halfhearted intention of planning a dinner and cooking a turkey at home for Ben and her mother had been set aside.

  “When do you go on shift?” she asked.

  “Couple of hours.”

  “So we have a little time.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “A little but not much.”

  “You know why I’m here,” she said, recapping the night before. She left out the extraneous information about Cody’s suspension, her role in it, their meeting at the bar, and started with Justin Hoyt’s announcement that the Sullivan girls were missing. She said her last communication with Cody had been at two forty-seven that morning.

  Legerski sopped up the last of the gravy with a piece of toast. He seemed to be listening patiently, but he asked no questions.

  “So last night
you met with Cody Hoyt?” she asked.

  He pushed his plate aside, sat back, and raised his eyebrows. “You get right to it,” he said.

  “I don’t think I have much time,” she said. “If those girls are lost or have been abducted, well, you know. Every minute is important.”

  “I think I know that,” the trooper said softly with a dollop of defensiveness. “I’ve been in law enforcement for over twenty years.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m tired this morning.”

  “And a little tightly wrapped,” he said, but finished it with a smile.

  Then, “You’re wondering if I was the last person to see him.”

  She nodded her head.

  “That I can’t tell you for sure. I don’t know who he ran into after he left here. But yeah, I met him last night. Right here, in fact. We’d been in touch for a few hours and he swept the highway from Livingston south and I covered Yellowstone north to here. Neither one of us found that Ford Focus.”

  She thought he answered her question but without an ounce of elaboration. Obviously, he’d testified many times in court and had learned to keep things short and to the point.

  She listed to the side and reached down to her handbag near the chair. “Do you mind if I take some notes?”

  Legerski said, “Is this an official interview?” He seemed put out by the prospect.

  “Nothing like that. I’m just trying to establish a time line for my own benefit.”

  She opened her notebook to the page she’d begun back at her house. Times were noted from when Justin Hoyt entered the bar to when Cody left Helena. Since there had been no contact or incidents from that point on, the time line ended at Cody’s last text.

  “It takes two and a half hours to drive from Helena to here,” she said. “So what time did you meet with him?”

  Legerski looked toward the ceiling for a second, and said, “He got here at two thirty. Yeah, that’s right. That’s a half hour after Jimmy usually closes, so I’m sure of the time.”