Back of Beyond

by C. J. Box

  Cody started to pace back and forth through the grass. Adrenaline rushed through him.

  Larry said, “October 27 of last year, both Winters and Shulze were on the same flight bound for L.A. They probably didn’t even know the other was on the plane. Shulze was going to some academic conference at UCLA and Winters was connecting through LAX to Sacramento. But here’s where it gets interesting: the flight didn’t make it to LAX for two days because it got diverted to San Diego.”

  “Diverted?” Cody asked. “Why?”

  “Wild fires,” Larry said. “October 27 last year was the worst of the fires out there. They closed LAX for two days because of the smoke, and all the inbound flights were diverted to other airports. Winters and Shulze found themselves in San Diego October 27 and 28 with nothing to do.

  “So we kept digging. William Geraghty was diverted to San Diego on a United flight for the same two days, and Karen Anthony was there visiting her sister.”

  Larry said, “So imagine the situation. Four alkies away from home. Three killing time at the airport hanging out, just waiting for an announcement so they could get back on their schedules, surrounded by airport lounges and bars and high tension all around. Karen Anthony is there with family, but keeps getting those old urges. So in that circumstance, where would they go?”

  Cody said, “To an AA meeting.”

  “Bingo,” Larry said. “So I find a detective in San Diego and run this theory by him and he buys it. So he starts doing the research and calls me back within an hour. An hour! And he tells me the specific AA meeting they all went to at a church. He even says he has photos of them going into and coming out of the meeting. He sends them to me and goddamn it if he isn’t exactly right. I’ve got entrance and exit photos of Hank Winters, William Garaghty, Gary Shulze, and Karen Anthony.”

  “Hold it,” Cody said. “Since when do the police run surveillance on who goes to AA?”

  “Never,” Larry said. “Unless they’ve got heavy surveillance going on somebody else who happened to go to the meeting. Like Luis Chavez, the now deceased head of the Chavez drug cartel based out of Tijuana. Seems he saw the light like all of these folks and would cross the border once a week to attend the AA meeting.”

  “Chavez,” Cody repeated.

  “Rachel Mina’s ex-husband.”

  “I’m getting lost,” Cody said, pacing faster.

  Larry said, “It’s no secret the cartels are at war. We know that. But what this San Diego cop tells me suddenly clears things up. Seems Chavez had a daughter named Gabriella who was a junior at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Gabriella was apparently the apple of his eye. She was from his first marriage, before he married Rachel Mina. The cartel fighting Chavez sent some guys north to kidnap Gabriella from the house Chavez had bought for her, and held her for ransom. They wanted Chavez to give them Tijuana and pay them millions in exchange for her. They knew he’d do anything—anything—to get her back. Apparently there was bad blood between Rachel and this girl, but that didn’t matter to Chavez. So Chavez literally cashed out. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars here, Cody. They agreed on a drop location in our country on neutral ground. The speculation was they took Gabriella to Jackson Hole, but nobody can confirm it. But that’s where Chavez’s plane was headed when it apparently had engine trouble and never made it. So the bad guys assumed they’d been stiffed. They didn’t believe Chavez’s claims that the plane went down with their money inside, and it was beside the point because whatever happened they wouldn’t get the loot. So those bastards took Gabriella with them to Laredo, Texas.”

  Cody felt his scalp crawl. He said, “Now I remember what happened to her.”

  “That’s right,” Larry said. “They murdered her and beheaded the body. After that, from what my San Diego guy said, it took just days for the bad guys to move in on Chavez’s territory and take over. There was a bloodbath involving his holdouts, and Rachel wanted to fight, but Chavez was a broken man and let it all happen. When he started showing up at the meetings in San Diego the cops thought he was planning his comeback or something, but they didn’t know at the time he’d lost his will to live or fight. But that’s why they were watching the meetings. And shortly after that meeting,” Larry said, “Chavez was found with a bullet in his brain down in Mexico.”

  Cody’s head was spinning with all the information when suddenly it clicked. “Chavez told the story in the AA meeting,” Cody said. “He told it to Geraghty, Shulze, Anthony, and Hank. He was confessing his sins, preparing to kill himself or be killed. But because everything that’s said in those meetings is confidential and a lot of the time it’s pure bullshit, nobody told.”

  Larry said, “But Rachel never knew that, and she wanted her money back and didn’t want anyone else getting bright ideas. The San Diego detective said the Chavez cartel owned enough Mexican cops who were privy to what the San Diego cops were doing that they probably had copies of the photos. So Rachel knew who was in the meeting and who she had to shut up. By the way, Rachel was suspected of being involved in her husband’s death, but the Mexican police never arrested her before she vanished. Now we know what she’s been doing.”

  “Jesus,” Cody said, glancing up at Gannon, slowly turning in the rope harness. “So she traveled across the country to find everyone who’d been at that meeting. She wanted them all out of the picture before she came here. She must have contacted Gannon thinking: he’s an outfitter from Montana, he’d know his way around the park, where the plane with the money crashed.”

  Larry said, “Gannon probably came pretty cheap.”

  Cody said, “But how could an airplane crash in a national park and nobody know about it?”

  “It’s simpler than you think,” Larry said. “You know about all the reports we get about aircraft taking off and landing on private strips. Those drug guys disable the tracking beacons and they don’t exactly file flight plans. The plane might not even have been registered. If it was flying north to south to Jackson Hole instead of the other way, it wouldn’t have attracted any undue attention. And the big thing is no one reported it missing. Our task force was assembled because a couple old folks thought they saw a plane that didn’t look healthy flying toward Yellowstone. If it crashed somewhere close to where you are there sure as hell wasn’t anyone around to see it come down.”

  Cody nodded. “So the only people who knew what was in the plane or where it likely crashed were Chavez’s inside guys. Not even the bad guys knew where the plane was coming from. Rachel got her info from her husband’s inner circle, but she had no way of getting here on her own. Except for Jed McCarthy’s pack trip.”

  Bull Mitchell mounted his horse and signaled to Cody. He was ready to go. Cody waved a just a second wave.

  “This Rachel,” Cody said. “She must be a hell of a looker or a hell of a charmer.”

  “Both,” Larry said. “A stone-cold manipulator with an ice cube for a heart.”

  Cody said, “She managed to get acquainted with all the victims. I wonder if she played her Rachel Chavez card on them? Maybe she called Hank and said, ‘You met my husband in San Diego. He thought you were a wonderful man and he wanted me to give something to you for maintaining his confidence.’ Knowing Hank and the importance he placed in mentoring and trust, he’d buy it. Especially coming from a woman.”

  “That’s what I figured, too,” Larry said. “She used their bond of confidentiality against them. Shulze and Garaghty, for example, never even told their wives who they were meeting. And she cleaned up her tracks by burning down the homes she killed them in and took things like AA coins—anything that would prevent us from connecting the dots.”

  Cody paused. Gannon’s shadow now stretched all the way across the meadow into the bank of trees. He said, “You said you called the Feds. So they’re on their way?”

  “Should be. I haven’t talked to them since this morning, when I got suspended. I didn’t tell them about you because I didn’t know where the hell you were. I kind
of thought you might be in a drunk tank in Ennis, so they don’t know you’re there.”

  “I’ll watch for helicopters,” Cody said. “I haven’t seen anyone but killers and dead bodies all day.”

  “I’d be surprised if they show up tonight,” Larry said. “I can’t see them trying to find you guys or the pack trip in the dark.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to kill her, Larry.”

  “Don’t tell me that.”

  “She’s dead,” Cody said. “She just doesn’t know it yet. For what she did to Hank and the others, for putting Justin in this situation, she’s going to die.”

  “Ah, man…”

  He glanced up. “We’ve got Gannon for testimony. We don’t need her to make the case.”

  “Cuff her,” Larry said. “Bring her in. Hell, I want to meet this dame and look into her eyes. I want to see for myself what’s there.”

  Cody walked toward his horse. Mitchell was clearly getting impatient. Cody said, “Larry, one more thing. I called that cell number you gave me earlier today. Somebody picked up but wouldn’t say anything. What was that about?”

  A long pause. “Shit, Cody, I don’t know. When did you call?”

  “Around ten.”

  “That’s when I was in Tubman’s office getting my skin peeled off for not telling him you’d left Helena.”

  “Where was the phone?”

  “In my briefcase. Next to my desk. Oh shit,” Larry said.

  “Somebody answered your phone,” Cody said. “Somebody listened to me. Somehow they know I’m here.”

  “I can’t imagine who…,” Larry said. Then: “Hold on a second. Somebody’s banging on my door. I’ll be right back.”

  Cody said, “Somebody’s been tracking me, Larry. Someone tried to burn me alive on the way here.”

  He realized Larry had stepped away.

  Cody heard the receiver thunk on Larry’s kitchen table. He heard a greeting, a shout, and a gunshot. Then someone picked up the phone. Cody heard breathing. Like before.

  “Larry?” Cody asked.

  The connection ended.

  39

  Gracie asked Rachel, “How did you and my dad meet?” She couldn’t get him, or what Rachel had told them, out of her mind.

  They were riding down the trail Jed had taken, following his hoofprints. Rachel, Gracie, Danielle, and Justin. They’d left the camp under Rachel’s direction, and they’d moved quickly and quietly. Rachel made a quick trip to her tent to retrieve a backpack that was now lashed to the skirt of her saddle and hung low like there was something heavy in it.

  The last moments of the evening sun reached through the trees and lit the snowcapped peaks of the eastern mountains, fusing them with a good-bye wink of neon orange and pink. Gracie had barely had enough time to retrieve her hoodie before they left and she was glad she had. It seemed cooler than it had the night before and she was grateful for the warmth from Strawberry between her thighs.

  “I said—”

  “I heard you,” Rachel replied. There was a cool businesslike edge to her voice, and Gracie recoiled.

  “Probably the wrong time to ask,” Gracie said. “I’m sorry.”

  Rachel rode ahead, her face set into the mask Gracie had seen earlier. Gracie thought, She’s distracted. She’s leading three teenagers through the back of beyond and she’s unsure she can do it. She’s distracted.

  “It seems awful to just leave him like that,” Gracie said, as much to herself as to Rachel.

  “It’s what he wanted. Would you rather go back?” Rachel said with the same edge in her voice as before. “You can go back there if you want to. I told you what happened.”

  “No,” Gracie said softly.

  “I just had a human being die in my arms,” Rachel said, not looking over her shoulder at Gracie or trying to soften her tone. “And I saw the man who did it.”

  Gracie felt sick.

  “We’ve got to find help,” Rachel said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  From behind, Justin said, “Excuse me, Miss Mina?”

  Rachel jerked around in the saddle and looked past Gracie to Justin. “Yes?”

  “I’m wondering why we’re on this trail? If we’re headed back to the trailhead this is the wrong direction, I’m pretty sure.”

  “It’s the trail we’re taking,” Rachel said.

  “I don’t get it,” Justin said, undeterred. “Seems like we’re going the wrong way.”

  Gracie looked ahead for the first time at the trail itself. It was unmarked except for a single set of horse tracks. She was confused.

  “What’s going on?” Danielle asked from behind them.

  “Nothing,” Rachel said sharply. “Just please keep quiet, all of you.”

  * * *

  Danielle rode up beside Gracie and leaned in to her. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  Gracie refrained from expressing surprise.

  “Remember when we got to the airport in Bozeman? Dad wasn’t there.”

  “I remember.”

  “Where do you suppose he was?”

  Gracie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know either. But he’s the one who made such a big deal out of this trip. Knowing him, he should have been there three hours early pacing around and getting all worried about us.”

  Gracie nodded. “That does sound more like him.”

  “There’s been something going on since the beginning,” Danielle said. “He’s been up to something. And why wasn’t he in camp like he was supposed to be?”

  “There has to be an explanation,” Gracie said, unsure of her own words.

  “Tell me when you come up with one,” Danielle said, and slipped back into line.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Rachel said, “Here he goes,” and turned her horse from the trail onto a faint game route that went west into the trees. She looked back to make sure everyone was with her. Gracie refused to meet her eyes and kept her head down. She couldn’t stop thinking of what Rachel said she saw, and the fuel Danielle had added to the fire.

  “This way,” Rachel said, spurring her horse onto the new trail.

  “Now I’m sure we’re headed the wrong way,” Justin said.

  Gracie watched Rachel carefully. How her chest swelled with a big intake of breath, how her mouth was set, how her eyes looked like slits because the skin on her face was pulled back tight. She turned her head and glared at Justin and seemed to be holding back her words.

  “Stay in line,” Rachel said to Justin. “And stop talking. I’m trying to save us all.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Justin said. “I mean, we want to go back to the vehicles and we’re heading up into the trees on the side of a mountain. I just don’t get it.”

  “No,” Rachel Mina said, “you don’t.”

  “Danielle?” Justin said.

  “Don’t ask me,” Danielle said.

  Gracie wondered exactly who was leading them and who Rachel had become. She felt sick to her stomach and wished she’d talked to her father and at least said good-bye.

  And as she watched Rachel ride ahead, she noticed the bulge on her right calf where the top of her boot was. Something pushed out against the fabric of her jeans. Gracie leaned over to her left to confirm Rachel’s left calf didn’t look like that. It was as if something was protruding out of Rachel’s boot top. Like a stick.

  Or, Gracie thought with sudden realization, like the handle of a knife.

  * * *

  “I met your father in Minneapolis,” Rachel said to Gracie. The tone of her voice was warm, like it had been until recently. Like she was trying to reestablish their friendship. “I was there on business and I was staying at the Grand Hotel. My laptop was acting up and I was frustrated I couldn’t get it to work so I went down to the bar. He was at the hotel meeting a client, he said. I told him about my computer and he offered to take a look at it. I brought it down t
o the bar and he fiddled with it and had it working again in no time flat. Then we started talking.”

  Gracie said nothing. She felt uncomfortable thinking of her dad in any situation where she wasn’t with him. She knew he was a man, and he likely had wants and needs. But she was sorry she’d asked Rachel the question in the first place, and wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. And she didn’t want to set her off again.

  Rachel said, “I told him I’d lost my husband recently as well as my stepdaughter. He said he was divorced but he had two daughters he was devoted to. That’s when I first heard about you and Danielle and how much you meant to him. I was touched.”

  “That’s nice,” Gracie mumbled.

  “Then he told me about you two and this trip. He was so excited and passionate that I just fell for him. We kept in touch and he suggested I come along so I could meet you two. So he could introduce us. I’d always wanted to see Yellowstone Park and he seemed to have it all organized and planned, so I came along. I had no idea…” Her sentence trailed off.

  Gracie said, “Rachel, he wasn’t in the camp back there. Jed was gone and Dad wasn’t there.”

  Rachel nodded in a sympathetic way. Then: “It must be hard to think of your father as a coward,” Rachel said. “I can’t even imagine what’s going through your head right now, so tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  Gracie didn’t want to answer. Something about the way Rachel was asking, in such an intimate way, put her off. The swing from warm to cold back to warm made Gracie feel unbalanced, as if the ground beneath her feet was buckling. Finally, Gracie said, “I don’t know what I think.”

  “That’s understandable,” Rachel said. “It’s the worst when someone you love does something beyond comprehension. It’s as if you never knew that person at all. As if your entire life together was based on a set of false assumptions. When it happens, it’s like everything you ever thought or knew turns out to be based on clouds and lies. You start to wonder, am I the fool here? Am I the gullible idiot who let a man ruin me because he was weak and tainted? It’s just so hard when it happens, and it eats at the very marrow of your soul until you either give in or decide to get out there and make your own way. You need to take back what you deserve, what belongs to you.”