The Stolen Ones

by Owen Laukkanen

  Just like a damn girl. Some lovestruck teenager.

  “Just ‘okay’?” Mathers asked again, his chin resting on her shoulder, his breath on her neck. “You were singing a different tune a couple minutes ago, lady.”

  “A couple minutes, yeah,” she said. “Next time, try for five. Maybe you’ll get more of a reaction.”

  Mathers laughed and picked her up, carried her back to the bed. Tossed her down and pinned her with those piercing blue eyes of his. Windermere let him kiss her, then shoved him away. “Okay, you big lug,” she said. “We’re going to be late.”

  “You know you like me,” he said, releasing her. “No matter how much you try to play badass.”

  She walked to her closet, started picking out an outfit. “I don’t have to play badass, Mathers,” she said. “But, yeah, maybe I like you just a little.”

  “Good enough for me.” Mathers padded to the kitchen. She heard him fiddle with the coffeemaker, and then the TV came on. She ducked into the bathroom, started the shower.

  “Want some company?” Mathers called.

  Yes, please, Windermere thought, but she was running late already, and not for the first time she cursed the FBI and its damn heightened-security concerns. Up to about a year ago, the Bureau’s regional headquarters had been located in downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from Windermere’s Mill District condo. Last year, though, the entire circus had moved north, way north, to a brand-new, high-security compound on the outskirts of town. Totally screwed up her commute.

  “No time,” Windermere called back. She closed the bathroom door and locked it, lest he get any funny ideas. Showered, she did her makeup, and when she came out of the bathroom, Mathers was in the living room, watching the news.

  “You see this?” he said. “Sheriff’s deputy shot somewhere up north. Some girl did it, they figure. Only, she doesn’t speak any English.”

  Windermere studied the TV. Footage of the tiny sheriff’s office in Walker, Minnesota, a couple of cruisers and a young woman being ushered inside. She was tall and incredibly thin, with long brown hair and dark, haunted eyes.

  “No ID on her, either,” Mathers said. “Nobody can figure out where she came from.”

  “Walker.” Windermere poured herself a cup of coffee. “Where the hell is that, anyway?”

  “Up north somewhere. Leech Lake, or something? Mississippi headwaters, thereabouts. Lake country.”

  “Huh.” Windermere sipped her coffee. “I wonder if . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  She shook her head. “Just wondered if it was anywhere near Stevens, I guess.”

  Mathers’s expression clouded briefly at the mention of the BCA agent’s name. Then he shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “Who knows? You said he was camping up there somewhere, right?”

  “Could be anywhere, Mathers,” Windermere said. “The hell do I know about this miserable state?” She picked up the remote and shut off the television. “Put some pants on. We’re going to be late.”

  8

  STEVENS FIGURED OUT pretty quick that Dale Friesen’s murder was more than just open-and-shut.

  The Cass County Sheriff’s Office was located around the side of the county courthouse in Walker, across the 371 highway from a crowded Dairy Queen and a couple blocks from the lake. Stevens dropped Nancy and the kids at a picnic table by the water and drove up to the courthouse, where the sheriff himself met him in the parking lot.

  “You’re the BCA guy, right?” Ed Watkins was middle-aged and slightly paunchy. His handshake was firm. “Appreciate you coming in.”

  “Not at all,” Stevens said. “Anything I can do. Gotta be tough for you guys right now, I know.”

  “Dale was a good man,” Watkins said, and he squinted as his eyes looked out across the parking lot. “Just seems, you know, senseless. Would be nice to get to the bottom of it.”

  “My SAC said you have a suspect in custody,” Stevens said. “A woman.”

  “Betty Horst found her,” the sheriff said. “She runs the Paul Bunyan down there at the junction. Said the girl was just sitting in the mud beside the body—beside Dale—in the pouring rain, gun at her feet. Said she figured the first three or four shots were thunder before she came to her senses.”

  “And the woman,” Stevens said. “You don’t have a name for her?”

  “Don’t have anything. No ID, nothing. I guess she was saying something when Betty found her, but Betty says it didn’t sound like English. Anyway, she sure clammed up when my men arrived.”

  “Didn’t say anything?”

  “Not a word. Eyes all wide and panicky like she was thinking about running. Like she knew she was in for it now.” Watkins whistled, low. “She’s a looker, though, I’ll tell you that. But dirty as all hell. Reeked something rotten when we put her in the truck.”

  “And you make her for the shooting?”

  “Best as we can figure, yeah,” Watkins said. “She had Dale’s Smith and Wesson at her feet and residue on her hands. Seems like the simplest explanation.”

  Stevens mulled it over. Looked across at the Dairy Queen, the line for ice cream cones four kids deep. “I heard the mag was empty.”

  “You heard right,” Watkins told him. “Betty Horst said she heard a whole pile of shots out there. We found casings in the muck all over the place.”

  “And Friesen was shot, what, three times?”

  “Twice in the chest, once in the head. Like a goddamn execution.” Watkins’s gaze went distant. Then he straightened. “Why don’t I take you inside, Agent Stevens, show you around?”

  > > >

  STEVENS FOLLOWED WATKINS into the sheriff’s office. Smiled at the secretary, shook hands with a couple deputies. Got the sense that everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to say something profound.

  He wondered if his reputation had made it north to Cass County. After the first case with Windermere, the kidnappers, there’d been news coverage. Sensational stuff. A little more after the next couple cases, too. I hope these guys aren’t looking for some big-city crime-fighter tricks, he thought. That’s Windermere’s department.

  Still, there were a couple questions that jumped out at him, right off the bat, though he waited for Watkins to give him the grand tour before he asked them. The sheriff showed him around the department’s modest headquarters, then led him into lockup and showed him the suspect.

  “Here’s our shooter,” Watkins said, gesturing into the holding cell. Inside was a very thin, very young, very miserable-looking woman, clad in an oversized WALKER, MINNESOTA sweatshirt and jogging pants. She was huddled at the back of the cell, hugging herself, shivering, as far away from the bars as she could get. She didn’t look at the men, but stared at the floor instead, her eyes dark and hollow, her hair stringy and limp. She was a couple years older than Andrea, probably, a couple years at most.

  “And you can’t get a word out of her,” Stevens said.

  “Won’t talk, won’t eat, won’t even look at you,” Watkins said. “Every time we come near her, she shies away like a dog that’s been kicked one too many times.”

  The girl looked haunted, Stevens thought. Scared. More like a victim than a killer.

  “The rest of the bullets in the magazine,” he said, following Watkins back into the departmental offices. “Where’d she fire them? Into the ground beside the decedent?”

  Watkins rubbed his chin. “No, sir,” he said. “To be honest, we’re not really sure where she fired them. Seemed to just kind of shoot them at random.”

  “You said Betty Horst heard the shots?”

  “Like a hammer, she said. Like someone pounding nails.”

  “Sure,” Stevens said. “So we have the suspect blasting off the full magazine, pretty much nonstop. But the decedent—Deputy Friesen—takes a couple shots to the chest and another to the forehead. Pretty precise, you
said.”

  “That doesn’t exactly make sense, does it?” Watkins said.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Stevens found a coffee machine, poured himself a cup, realizing that his family’s camping adventure was probably over. “So what the heck was she trying to hit with the rest of those bullets?”

  “Wish I knew,” the sheriff replied. “You want to check out the crime scene?”

  Stevens thought of the suspect again. Couldn’t shake the feeling of unease as he pictured her in that cell. The young woman was small, lost, and terrified out of her wits. And somehow she’d wound up the prime suspect in a murder.

  Stevens shook his head clear. “Sure,” he told Watkins. “Let’s go.”

  9

  IRINA MILOSOVICI CURLED UP on the hard prison bunk and forced herself to lie still, staying as far away from the cell door as she could until the men disappeared, and the courthouse was quiet again.

  There were men everywhere. Big men, leering men. Rough men. They’d wrenched her away from the dead man’s body. She’d felt their hands on her skin, through her ragged clothes, as they dragged her into their police car, and then out again and into the cell. She’d felt their eyes on her, read the hunger. They were tough, violent men, and she was nothing but prey, no matter the badges on their chests or the guns at their waists.

  The men wanted her. She could tell from their eyes. They would come for her, too. It was only a matter of time.

  Irina gathered that the Americans believed she’d killed the young man. She’d tried, frantically, to tell the first woman, the large woman from the diner, about Catalina. Tried to tell her the whole story, but her English wasn’t good enough. Glossy American magazines didn’t teach the right vocabulary words for situations like this. And then the men had arrived.

  The men had replaced her clothing when they’d put her in the cell. They’d forced her to bathe, too, but Irina still felt the stink of the box, a maddening filth on her skin, in her hair, inside her body. She knew how awful she must appear, her long hair—her pride and joy—tangled and unkempt, her eyes sunken, her cheeks gaunt. A pitiful little vagabond in the wilderness.

  Not that it mattered what she looked like. The men still consumed her with their eyes. And Catalina was gone. Still in the box probably. Or maybe with the thugs, enduring horrible things. Or maybe she was already dead.

  > > >

  IRINA HAD RUN AWAY from her family once, as a child. Spent the night in the forest on the outskirts of her little town. She’d decided that she would disappear into the woods, carve out her own civilization, live free from her parents and her sister and the other girls at school, the girls who laughed at her dresses and unfashionable shoes, who tripped her and pulled her hair.

  She hadn’t realized the woods would be so unpleasant. Brambles caught in her clothes. Branches raked her face. Very quickly, her shoes and stockings were soaked through with mud. Within an hour, she’d eaten the one sandwich that she’d brought. She’d imagined—foolishly—there would be berries to pick, and wild animals she could hunt. She’d imagined she would be queen of the forest, told herself she needed no one else.

  Catalina had found her at sunset. Irina could still remember her little sister trampling through the woods, loud as a bear, calling her name and dragging her big suitcase behind her. At first, Irina had hid, desperate to be alone, to make a point to her parents, her classmates, the entire world that she didn’t need anybody.

  She’d hid well. Catalina had passed her, wandering deeper into the forest, unfazed by the setting sun, the shadows, the temperature dropping. Irina had waited until Catalina was almost out of sight before calling to her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked when her sister had turned around and dragged that big suitcase back to the crook of the root where Irina had hidden herself. “Why are you following me?”

  In response, Catalina tipped the suitcase over on the ground, fumbled with the catch. “I brought chocolate,” she said proudly. “Matches to start a fire. Magazines, in case we get bored.”

  “I have matches,” Irina said. “Anyway, the wood is damp.”

  “So we can burn the magazines.”

  Irina stared at her sister. Felt frustration like an itch. This is my story, she wanted to say, my tragic escape. Why do you always have to be such a tagalong?

  Catalina seemed to read her mind. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to,” she said, smiling wide. “I won’t tell them where you are, either.”

  She stood, set out again in the direction of the village. Irina watched her go.

  She felt lonely suddenly, stupid for running away. “Wait,” she called out. “Catalina.”

  > > >

  SHE’D MADE THEM spend the night in the forest out of principle. It was a long night, cold and restless. Irina had huddled close to her sister, shivering and afraid, thinking of her parents, hating Catalina for finding her, and loving her all the same.

  Catalina had always followed her. Stolen her clothing and makeup and glossy American magazines, tagged along with her friends to movies after school. Of course she’d followed Irina to the United States.

  Irina had bragged to her little sister incessantly about Mike, about America, the places she would visit, the people she would meet. She had conjured a magnificent fantasy. Was it any wonder, then, that on the day she was to meet Mike, she’d found Catalina at her door?

  “What are you doing?” she’d asked her sister, staring at her battered suitcase, her inexpert makeup. “What about school? Mom and Dad will kill you.”

  Catalina had laughed and pushed past her into the dingy apartment. “It’s summertime,” she’d said. “They’ll forgive me. Soon as we become movie stars.”

  Movie stars. Irina pulled the thin blanket around herself and tried to find comfort on the hard mattress. She was tired, but she dared not close her eyes. Could not let her guard down. The men could come back for her at any minute.

  And if she slept, she would only dream of Catalina, and the American men who would devour her like monsters.

  10

  STEVENS CALLED NANCY from outside the Paul Bunyan Diner, five miles east of Walker. “I’m going to have to call in a tech team from Bemidji,” he told her. “Try and process what’s left of this crime scene, get an autopsy done. You might as well check into the motel and scrounge up some food for the kids.”

  There was a pause, and Stevens braced himself. But Nancy surprised him. “This is about the girl, isn’t it?” she said. “And the sheriff’s deputy.”

  “Well, yes.” Stevens scanned the muddy parking lot. The rain had come and gone quickly, but the lot was uneven and there were still puddles everywhere. He was standing at the front door of the diner, to save his shoes. “How’d you know?”

  “Read about it in the paper,” Nancy said. “Heard about it all over town. Watched it on the local news in the restaurant at lunchtime. Everyone’s talking about it. Have they brought in a translator for that poor girl yet?”

  “Working on it,” Stevens told her. “She’s not speaking, though, not at all anymore. They’re having kind of a hard time figuring out where she’s from.”

  “Jesus.” Nancy muttered something, and Stevens could imagine his wife, a Legal Aid lawyer and perennial champion of the underdog, shaking her head in disgust. “At least make sure they’re feeding her, Kirk. That girl looks like she hasn’t eaten a solid meal in weeks.”

  “Sheriff says she’s not eating,” Stevens said. “They’ll keep trying. Anyway, I’d better get back to it. I’ll hook back up with you all in a bit.”

  “Make sure they treat that girl right, Kirk,” Nancy said.

  “I promise they’ll treat her as right as any suspect in a murder investigation has ever been treated,” Stevens told her. “Tell the kids I say hi.”

  He ended the call and pictured his wife on the other end of the phone, gathering materia
l about the mystery girl. Wondered if the staff at the Cass County courthouse was ready for her. Then he stepped away from the diner and out into the mud. Behind him, Sheriff Watkins hurried to follow.

  “Dale’s Suburban was over that way,” he said, pointing around the edge of the lot. “Guess Betty said it was kinda crowded when he came in.”

  “Cleared out by the time he left, though?” Stevens asked.

  Watkins smiled. “Dale was a talker, that’s for sure,” he said. “Figure a cup of coffee and a slice of pie’d take him on average two hours to consume, factoring in all the bullshitting.”

  Stevens wandered over to where Friesen had parked his Suburban. Stared back across the mud to where Highway 200 paralleled the lot and, a hundred yards down, met Highway 371 headed south.

  “Clear view of the lot from those windows,” Stevens said, pointing back at the diner. “Anyone inside would have seen. Anyone on the highway, too.”

  “Sounded like Betty was in back,” Watkins said. “And I guess Dale decided to go and get shot the one time that highway’s been empty all summer.”

  “Bad luck.”

  “You said it.”

  Stevens wandered along the edge of the parking lot to where the driveway turned in from the highway. “You said about here’s where the body was found?”

  “That’s right,” Watkins said. “Flat on his back, right there.”

  About eighty feet, give or take, from where the Suburban had been. Nowhere near the diner’s front door. Friesen would have had to walk out a ways. Something had caught his attention. “And you say your guys found shell casings in this muck?”

  “Eight or nine,” Watkins said. “We figured there were more out here. Just didn’t have the manpower to dig up this whole mud pit and find them.”

  Stevens could see his point. The lot was torn up with tire tracks and mud puddles; the place was a shoe swallower. “How many shells were in Deputy Friesen’s magazine?”