The Forgotten Girls

by Owen Laukkanen

  Hurley knew an easy way to the North Fork Flathead Valley from here. There was a pass to the southeast where Nicola Creek wound down from the plateau. It cut between the eastern mountains and emptied into the North Fork, a day’s hike. From the North Fork, he could move south, following the river to the interstate and the Northwestern main line at the Glacier Park boundary. He could hop a freight train, steal a car. In a week’s time, maybe less, he could be in Florida.

  It was the easiest route through the mountains. The simplest escape. But though Hurley trusted his ability to outmaneuver the federal agents on his tail, he wasn’t foolhardy enough to assume they didn’t know how to read a topographical map. They would see Nicola Creek and they would notice the pass. They would expect him to take the easiest path and, therefore, they would concentrate their resources on the eastern slope of the range.

  So Hurley turned north as the shadows grew long around him. The plateau continued in that direction, narrowing as the western and eastern mountain chains came together. Hurley knew he didn’t need to go far. The law wouldn’t expect him to turn north or south so quickly, not while he was in the middle of the range. They would assume he would wait until he’d come through to the North Fork before he deviated. But Hurley figured to outwit them all.

  —

  He kept moving, his snowshoes covering the ground quickly, his body settling into a rhythm as night settled in around him. His goggles would run out of batteries soon, maybe even by morning, and that would complicate things. He would begin to run low on ration bars, would soon have to start boiling snow to make water. And the weather could turn foul again in an instant, which would hinder his ability to navigate.

  But Hurley wasn’t worried. He hiked north up the plateau, through thick stands of fir trees and along the edges of long-dormant clear-cuts. There were old logging roads here, decades abandoned, now choked with thick stands of alder trees and impassible by any vehicle. The roads made a nice break from the density of the forest, though, and Hurley followed them as far as they suited his purpose. He hiked steadily, his mind clear, his breath chuffing out in clouds ahead of him, the air bracing. He didn’t think about the FBI behind him. He pushed the girl from his mind. He didn’t even think about where he was going and what he would do when he arrived at his destination.

  Leland Hurley simply hiked.

  86

  By lunchtime, the backup from Salt Lake City had arrived, three dark SUVs and a tactical van, a complement of young, hardy agents with grim looks on their faces.

  Windermere called a team meeting in the diner, brought the Bureau newcomers in with Kerry Finley, Agents Wasserman and Mundall, the Flathead County deputies. She and Stevens outlined the situation, the rest of the terrain. Sent a couple of the younger deputies to establish a checkpoint ten miles up the highway to Stryker, a couple more down to Lupfer, ten miles south. Dispatched most of the agents and the rest of the deputies east to the North Fork Flathead Valley, the Nicola Creek area in particular.

  “Focus on the creek, but spread up and down the valley,” Stevens told them. “Stay out of sight as best you can. Keep your eyes open, and we’ll try to flush him out to you.”

  “And stay warm. Stay dry,” Windermere added. “It gets a little nippy when the sun goes down.”

  Finley lingered behind. “I thought I should say my good-byes now,” she said, kind of sheepish. “Seeing as how there’s a lull in the storm.”

  Windermere frowned, and Finley caught her expression, explained: “Feds are here. Flathead County’s on scene, and according to Sheriff Parsons, we’re out of our jurisdiction. My boss seems to think you all have this case under control.”

  “The problem with bosses,” Windermere said. “Sometimes they don’t know their head from their ass. Unbelievable.”

  “I can stick around for the rest of the day,” Finley told them. “But the sheriff wants me working a drug case in Eureka first thing tomorrow morning, and he’s strongly suggesting I sleep on Lincoln County soil tonight. So . . .” She held up her hands. “You feds have something to keep me busy until nightfall?”

  Stevens gestured down to his map. “Have a seat, Deputy,” he said. “I want to run something by you.”

  They set Finley running patrol on US-93, the highway south to Whitefish and north to the Canadian border.

  “I’m almost certain Hurley’s headed east,” Stevens told the deputy, “but he’s doubled back on us before.”

  Finley rubbed her chin. “I see where you’re going. Hate to get caught with our pants down.”

  “We have checkpoints on the highway north, here, at Stryker,” Windermere said, pointing, “and south, here, at Lupfer. But we’re shorthanded at the southern end. We need an experienced hand to keep an eye on things.”

  “I can do that.” Finley studied the map a moment longer. Then she stood. “I’ll check in with you both if anything comes our way. If not . . .” She held out her hand. “Agents, it’s been a pleasure. Good luck the rest of the way.”

  Stevens and Windermere shook hands with the deputy, bid her good travels back to Lincoln County. Promised they’d keep in touch, watched her Explorer drive off until it disappeared.

  “Feels weird to be working this case without her,” Windermere said. “For a while, she was the only thing keeping us alive.”

  Stevens knew his partner was right. He’d always considered himself an outdoorsman, but Kerry Finley and the rest of the folks he’d met in this part of the world had showed him how badly he’d been fooling himself.

  Do you really trust yourself to track Hurley through this terrain? You think you can survive out there when the weather turns ugly?

  Stevens wasn’t sure. He felt a heck of a lot better with Finley around, but Finley was gone, and there was a case to work. Stevens turned from the highway and met Windermere’s eyes.

  “Let’s get a chopper back here again,” he said. “I want to check out that plateau.”

  —

  They flew reconnaissance over the Nicola Pass for the rest of the afternoon. Alternated looking down at the terrain from the window and through the infrared screen in the cockpit. Saw heat below, animals here and there, but nothing that resembled a man.

  Finally, the light waning and the chopper’s fuel reserves again dwindling, Stevens asked the pilot to fly a pass over the North Fork Flathead Valley, where the Salt Lake agents and county deputies were on scene. The task force had spread out over about twenty miles along the eastern slope of the mountain chain, a couple agents and/or deputies every few miles, all equipped with night vision, warm vehicles, and all heavily armed.

  “Stay alert,” Stevens radioed down to the units. “We don’t know how much ground this guy’s covered, but chances are he’s close. So keep your eyes open and try to stay hidden. He’s a very small needle in a very large haystack.”

  The agents radioed back the affirmative, and Stevens nodded to the pilot, who turned the helicopter back toward Anchor Falls. Windermere caught Stevens’s eye as the chopper swung around, another day slipping away, the sunset a glint in her eye.

  “We’re going to drink that town out of coffee if we keep this up, partner,” she said, and Stevens could tell she was trying to keep the frustration from her voice. “How do you feel about another sleepless night in a cracked vinyl booth?”

  Damn discouraged, Stevens thought. That’s how I feel.

  But there was no sense admitting defeat, not yet. He forced a smile. “I’ll take a cramped booth over that hotel in Butcher’s Creek any day,” he said. “At least Norma’s Diner has pie.”

  Then the pilot twisted around in his seat again. “You all might be stuck in that diner a while yet,” he said. “You hear the latest weather report?”

  The way he asked the question gave Stevens a bad feeling. “Not yet,” he replied. “You want to fill us in?”

  “Snow.” The pilot shuddered. “L
ots and lots of snow. Midnight, maybe sooner, these mountains get hit hard.”

  “How hard?” Windermere asked.

  “Hard. Like, zero visibility, ground-the-chopper type weather.” The pilot turned back to the controls. “Let’s just say I’m hoping we find this guy quickly. Come tomorrow, these joyrides are going to get ugly.”

  87

  Hurley made the Northwestern main line by midnight. He’d turned westward when he left the plateau, doubled back, dropped down the Whitefish Range in the same direction he’d come, roughly twenty miles north of the Trail Valley on another old, half-overgrown logging road.

  The snow was falling now. Light, but it was bound to pick up. The railroad tracks were silent, empty, the line dark in both directions. A single track here, no passing sidings within ten miles. The trains would roll past at speed, if they rolled past at all. Hurley suspected the FBI would have alerted the railroad, maybe even shut down the line. Everyone on the Northwestern payroll would be on the lookout. He would have to keep moving before he thought about catching on.

  Hurley was exhausted. His muscles ached all over, and his legs felt like concrete. He was still having fun, but the fun was diminishing. And when the next storm hit, this backcountry adventure would start to smell an awful lot like work.

  The snow continued to pick up as he moved westward, following the logging road that had brought him down from the mountains to where it intersected with the highway, US-93, one lane north to Canada and one south to Whitefish. The snow stuck on the highway, accumulated, muted every sound but the wind. The highway was as empty as the Northwestern main.

  Here was where Hurley would find out if he’d gambled correctly. He’d assumed the FBI agents would peg him to head east, had based his entire strategy on that notion. If he was right, the law would have concentrated their efforts on the North Fork Flathead River. They’d have left him an opportunity here.

  He’d made the highway. Now Hurley settled down at the roadside to wait. Switched off his night vision to save what was left of the batteries, searched through the darkness for the first sign of a headlight, some unsuspecting traveler foolish enough to be out on the roads on such a miserable night.

  88

  Hurley waited a solid forty minutes before he saw the first headlights, a tractor-trailer headed southbound, back toward Anchor Falls. He crouched in the snow and watched the truck pass. Pulled his coat around him and huddled up to keep warm, loading and reloading his rifle to pass the time.

  A half hour later, maybe, the first northbound headlights appeared. Dim through the flurries at first, barely more than a glow. But Hurley heard the engine, and he knew. He stood, brushing the snow off his clothes. Hid his bivvy sack and snowshoes in the snowbank. Clambered up the shoulder and out into the northbound lane.

  The engine grew louder. The light neared. Separated into twin headlights, an SUV or a truck. Hurley drew his coat around him, pulled his hat low, made himself as big as possible, and flagged the truck down.

  It was only when the truck was upon him that he noticed the light bar, the Lincoln County markings.

  —

  Judd Parsons’s instructions notwithstanding, Kerry Finley was having a hard time keeping the Hurley case off her mind.

  She’d dawdled in Lupfer until well after dark. The deputies at the checkpoint were young guys, barely twenty, likely their first taste of action. Finley told herself she was hanging around to keep tabs on them, make sure the kids knew what they were up against. Make sure they kept their eyes open.

  She was thinking, too, that Leland Hurley would want to cover as much ground as he could after dark. She was thinking Stevens and Windermere had a better chance of stumbling into the guy during the night than during the daylight hours. Told herself she wanted to make sure, wanted to drive up to Eureka knowing she’d left the job done right, knowing Hurley hadn’t slipped the net on her watch.

  These were both valid points. But really, it was the victims who kept Kerry Finley hanging around. Kelly-Anne Clairmont, murdered in Lincoln County and thrown away like she was garbage, when maybe if she and Parsons and the rest had just dug a little deeper into those bogeyman stories, they could have done something to keep her alive.

  Finley didn’t like the idea that she was giving up on the case. Felt like it meant she was giving up on Kelly-Anne Clairmont and the rest of the victims, like she was giving up on Stevens and Windermere, too.

  So she’d stuck around the checkpoint, helped out the deputies processing traffic, even took a run back up to Norma’s Diner to pick up dinner for the boys. And now it was late, real late, and here she was just starting north, sipping from a thermos of Shelly’s coffee, trying to focus on the drive as the snow came down around her.

  And then Leland Hurley walked calmly out of the drifts and parked himself square in her Explorer’s path, looking like some kind of arctic mirage.

  It had to be Hurley. Same clothes as the pictures Mila Scott had taken, same height, same carriage, same beard. And who else would be out on a night like tonight?

  Finley hit the brakes. Felt the truck shudder, the tires slipping and screaming as the Explorer stopped hard. Watched Hurley through the windshield as the truck got closer, the fugitive’s hand raised, his whole body stock-still—until he must have realized it was law enforcement he was flagging down and not some hapless civilian.

  Then Hurley raised the rifle he’d kept hidden by his side. Stepped out of the path of the Explorer, the big Ford still sliding, out of control, sliding right up to Hurley and then sliding past him, and Hurley shouldered the rifle and took aim at the truck, and just as Finley got the truck back under control, got the brakes responding again, the truck finally slowing—well, that’s when Leland Hurley pulled the trigger.

  —

  The shot blew out the Explorer’s driver’s-side window. Punched whoever was inside clear out of his seat. Hurley kept his rifle trained on the door as he approached the truck. Scanned the cab for signs of life, saw the driver slumped against the passenger seat, blood—and worse—everywhere.

  The driver was a woman. The same woman deputy he’d seen escorting the feds through the forest, judging from the look of her. Hurley opened the door and dragged her out of the truck and onto the road. The deputy hadn’t even had time to reach for her service pistol. Hurley spared her the trouble, removed it from its holster.

  There was no time to waste. There would be others, this woman’s colleagues, more lawmen with guns. Hurley returned to the shoulder, retrieved his belongings from the drifts. Hurried to the Explorer and chucked the bag and the snowshoes inside, his rifle, too. Then he walked back to the deputy. Nudged her over with his boot so she was lying on her back, staring up at Hurley, mouth gasping, no words coming out.

  “Didn’t expect you’d be a woman,” Hurley told her, aiming down with the deputy’s pistol. “Makes me wish we had a little more time together.”

  He shot the deputy twice and dragged her body to the embankment beside the highway, thinking he’d hide the woman in a patch of fresh snow.

  Hurley paused. Realized he hadn’t heard the deputy’s radio when he’d dumped his stuff in the Explorer. No dispatcher coordinating backup, no units advising the woman they were coming. The deputy had been as surprised as he was, Hurley figured. He looked down at the body.

  “Did you tell them you found me?” he asked. “Do they know I’m here, Deputy?”

  But the woman was in no position to answer. Hurley looked up and down the road again, knew sooner or later another vehicle would come, knew he didn’t want to be standing here trying to dispose of a body.

  Time to go, he thought, but an idea was forming in his head.

  He picked up the body again. Dragged the dead deputy back to the Explorer, opened the rear lift gate, and hefted the woman inside. There was no sense leaving a body for someone to discover, he decided. And anyway . . .

 
Hurley reached in, relieved the lawman of her coat. Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. A little bit of blood spatter, but Hurley could hide that.

  The coat was tight on Hurley. He peeled off his survival gear and pulled it on as much as he could, buttoned it as much as he could. Walked back to the driver’s side of the Explorer, climbed behind the wheel. Found the deputy’s Stetson sitting half-crushed on the passenger seat, still upright; punched it back into shape and set it on top of his own head, fit it low as it would go, hoped it obscured his face.

  The highway was still empty. The radio was still silent. The truck’s windshield wipers made a rhythmic progression across the front glass, barely keeping up with the snow. Hurley adjusted the rearview mirror, turned the heater up high. Shifted the truck into gear and tested the gas pedal.

  The Explorer’s tires must have been brand-new. They gripped the snowy pavement just fine. Hurley brought the truck up to speed and drove north.

  89

  Leland Hurley,” Windermere said, reading. “Joined the army at the end of Desert Storm, missed his shot at combat by a couple of months, signed up for Ranger School instead. Made it all the way to the third phase of training before he washed out, left the service. Dishonorable discharge.”

  Outside Norma’s Diner, the snow had picked up again. Windermere had her shoes off, stocking feet on the vinyl, her phone plugged in to an extension cord running back to the cash register. Stevens sat opposite, nursing another cup of coffee. Watching the storm build, every few minutes the diner door swinging open, bringing a fresh blast of cold air and more exhausted law enforcement, driven inside by the oncoming storm.

  “A waitress in Valparaiso, Florida,” Windermere continued. “I guess Hurley had a crush on her, but she’d shut him down more than once. So he waited for her to finish her shift one night, rolled up on her in the parking lot, made his pitch again. Wasn’t ready to take no for an answer this time, and probably wouldn’t have, if a couple guys from the air force base hadn’t happened onto the scene, intervened.”