The Disappeared

by C. J. Box

  “Yup.”

  In the foreground, pulling on the cinch strap of a saddle, was a young cowboy. Marybeth hadn’t recognized him because she’d never met him before.

  But Joe had.

  “The cowboy in the photo is Lance Ramsey,” he said.

  “You mean...”

  “That’s what I mean. What does Miss Kitty say about Lance?” he asked.

  “She wrote, Yippee-Ki-Yay,” Marybeth said glumly.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yes, but it’s clear what she meant.”

  He said, “She must have played that really close to the vest, though. The GM of the ranch wasn’t aware of that and neither was Sheridan, who has good instincts.”

  “Almost as good as mine,” Marybeth said.

  Joe asked, “Why would she post it, unless...”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Joe,” Marybeth warned. “There might be a good explanation. Maybe Miss Kitty—I mean Kate—was trying to put one over on the other cougars in the group. Or maybe not. Either way, Sheridan will need to know at some point.”

  Joe nodded, even though Marybeth couldn’t see him.

  “She’s not going to like this new development,” Marybeth said.

  “I don’t either,” Joe said.

  “It might break her heart.”

  “I might break his head.”

  “Joe...”

  *

  “I’M STILL RESEARCHING Richard Cheetham,” Marybeth said. “I’m not finding much and certainly not anything to implicate him.”

  “I’ll keep him ranked low on the suspect list,” Joe said.

  “There is something interesting, though. When I did an image search on his name, I found several photos of Richard and Sophie together. The most recent one was of them leaving some kind of formal charity shindig in their finest clothes.”

  “What’s interesting about that?” he asked.

  “The photo was from a month ago. Supposedly when Sophie was distraught about finding her missing sister. Doesn’t it seem odd that she’d go to a formal event with her ex-brother-in-law?”

  “Didn’t he remarry?”

  “Yes, he did. It lasted a few months and he’s back on the market again.”

  “Hmm.”

  “There may be a simple explanation for it,” she said. “I’ll keep digging.”

  *

  THEY TALKED FOR another twenty minutes until his phone was nearly out of power and he had to sign off, find the charger, and plug it in.

  He realized he’d forgotten to tell her that Steve Pollock had resurfaced and had inquired about him.

  Joe lay fully clothed on his bed and stared at the inert ceiling fan. It wasn’t spinning like his mind was. He visualized Marybeth doing exactly the same thing in the town house. He wished she were here.

  Finding out about “Miss Kitty” framed Kate’s disappearance differently, and in a way that he’d really need to think about.

  Coincidences began to harden into connections under the Miss Kitty light.

  Sunday morning couldn’t come soon enough, he thought. It was a matter of time before his walking papers came through and he could no longer continue the investigation in an official capacity.

  Yippee-Ki-Yay.

  PART

  FOUR

  The difference between the new managerial elite and the old propertied elite defines the difference between a bourgeois culture that now survives only on the margins of industrial society and the new therapeutic culture of narcissism.

  —Christopher Lasch

  24

  THAT SAME HOUR, GAYLAN KESSEL SWUNG HIS COMPANY PICKUP INTO the outside lot of the Memorial Hospital of Carbon County on West Elm Street in Rawlins. He drove to the far back row, where the overhead lights wouldn’t reach, and he backed the vehicle into a slot and killed the headlights but not the engine. There were fewer than ten cars in the lot, and Kessel’s pickup was the only one in the last row, which was backed by a frozen wall of plowed snow.

  Ted Panos glanced down at the large envelope that lay on the front seat between them. It had been there since they left Saratoga, but the contents were a mystery to him. Also unexplained was why Kessel had texted Panos to dress in a sports coat and slacks instead of his usual Carhartt overalls and pac boots. The term Kessel used was business casual.

  Panos had replied, ur kidding, right?

  When Kessel hadn’t responded, Panos had closed his eyes and tried to keep his heart from racing. Going out late at night wasn’t unusual, but going out “business casual” certainly was. Something bad was going to happen. Panos had felt it inside when his heart started to race.

  Before pulling on his too-tight dress slacks and brushing a coat of white dust from the shoulders of a suit jacket he’d last worn to a funeral—it still had a folded-up memorial card in the pocket—he riffled through his shaving kit and found the plastic container of bootleg Percocet that had helped him get through similar situations before. He couldn’t recall if he was supposed to take one or two five-milligram tablets, so he swallowed two whole and put two more in his pocket for later.

  The medication began to rise through him like an internal blanket of calm even before Kessel arrived in the hotel parking lot.

  *

  NOW KESSEL POINTED a stubby finger toward the entrance marked EMERGENCY.

  “That’s where you’ll go in,” Kessel said to Panos as he handed him a short-brimmed fedora. “Put that on and walk in there like you do it every day of your life. Don’t go in looking suspicious and sneaky. And don’t look up directly at any of the closed-circuit cameras. Keep your head down.”

  Panos clamped the hat on his head. It fit.

  “Do you remember everything I told you on the way here?” Kessel asked. He said it in a clipped, disinterested military way. It was Kessel at his most annoying, Panos thought.

  “Of course I do.” The second word came out coursh.

  “Why are you slurring?”

  “I’m not slurring.”

  Kessel glared at him and his eyes reflected the distant red light from the EMERGENCY sign.

  “Ted, you better be clean for this. Have you been drinking?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In fact, Panos felt more relaxed than he had in quite some time. So relaxed that he fought back a wide smile that would only enrage his boss.

  “Tell me who you’re looking for?” Kessel asked.

  “Carol Schmidt.”

  “Where will she be?”

  Panos had to concentrate to remember what Kessel had told him on the drive there. He’d feigned attention at the time because he was basking in the Percocet calm. It reminded him of a warm bath but from the inside out. Or cloudy pillows floating through his entire body and into his brain. He didn’t dare tell Kessel.

  “Carol Schmidt will be located in the critical care unit,” Panos said. “That unit is located to the right of the reception desk down a hallway.”

  Kessel continued to stare at Panos as if he could see his thoughts, but he didn’t correct him or interrupt. Apparently, he’d passed the quiz.

  What Panos could remember clearly was how in awe of Schmidt Kessel seemed to be. He couldn’t believe she’d lasted the night after she went off the road and was transported to Rawlins. He’d called her a “tough old bird.”

  And there was something about a head injury, a medically induced coma, and that she may or may not emerge from it with the ability to recall what had happened to her on the highway to Encampment.

  That was why they were there in the parking lot. Carol Schmidt was the reason for business casual.

  *

  KESSEL OPENED THE ENVELOPE and handed Panos a lanyard with a plastic Memorial Hospital of Carbon County badge with Panos’s driver’s license photo on it.

  “Whoa—where’d you get this?” Panos asked, meaning the photo.

  “I know some people who work here,” Kessel sa
id, meaning the hospital. “That’s where I got the intel that she’s here and where she’s located.”

  Panos didn’t follow up on the misunderstanding because deep in his brain he knew that the more he talked, the greater chance there’d be he would say something foolish or ridiculous. The Percocet was now playing sentimental show tunes in his ears.

  “Don’t do anything stupid or obvious,” Kessel said. “Don’t hit her over the head or choke her out, I mean. It’s got to look like she passed in her sleep.”

  “So what do I do?” Panos asked. He was amazed how cool and calm he sounded.

  “Size up the situation and make a decision,” Kessel said. “Look for machines to shut off, or tubes to disconnect. If nothing else, use a pillow. Just don’t leave her so anyone suspects anything. Use your best judgment. Got that?”

  “Got it,” Panos said.

  “Remember, you need to walk into that hospital like you’ve been in there a hundred times before. You’re a pharmaceutical rep who usually makes calls on docs during the day shift, but you left an important file in one of the offices and you didn’t realize it until you got back to your hotel. The receptionist won’t know you because she’s only there at night. You’re there to retrieve your file.”

  With that, Kessel handed Panos the envelope from the seat of the truck. “Stick that down the back of your pants so no one sees it when you walk in. Make sure it’s in your hand on the way out.”

  “What’s in it?” Panos asked.

  “What does that fucking matter?” Kessel asked, his teeth flashing in the red light. “It’s a ruse.”

  “Right,” Panos said.

  “Her name will be written outside her room on a whiteboard,” Kessel said. “Get in and get out. Don’t take any longer than it would take to retrieve a file.”

  “Got it.” Then: “Why am I the one doing this?” Kessel got still. Panos regretted the question immediately. But he was feeling his oats. The drug had flattened his first line of caution.

  “Because. Ted.” Kessel said, saying each word as if it were a sentence in itself, “People. Around. Here. Fucking. Know. Me. They don’t know you. If I went in there, someone would say, ‘Hey—I saw him in the newspaper, or Hey—he spoke at my Rotary Club.’

  “Use your fucking brain, Ted,” Kessel said. “Now, go.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this kind of dirty work. Especially against an old woman I don’t even know.”

  Kessel lowered his chin slightly, but kept his eyes wide open and probing. “You signed up to do what’s necessary, same as me. I did my part, but somehow she lasted the night. Now it’s up to you to finish the job.

  “It’s for the greater good,” Kessel said. “That old woman could stand in the way of... everything. She doesn’t know how much she knows, but she recognized me. If she wakes up and starts yammering, it’s all over. I explained this to you. Didn’t you listen?”

  Actually, no, Panos thought. He’d zoned out during that part of Kessel’s monologue on the way there.

  Panos grasped the door handle, but didn’t yet open it. “Will I get a bonus for this? This is a lot to ask. I better get something.”

  “You’ll get something,” Kessel said. “I promise.”

  Panos wasn’t sure he could believe him. But in his medicated state, he wasn’t completely sure what he was hearing for certain and what he thought he was hearing. So he let it drop. But he was glad he was numb. He could never do what he was about to do in his right mind.

  He opened the door and the cold hit him right away. Sobered him up a little, which was good.

  He fumbled for a minute getting the file into the back of his pants and it almost got embarrassing. Finally, though, he managed to slide it inside his waistband. He covered it fully when he buttoned his ancient trench coat and walked from Kessel’s truck toward the hospital doors.

  Panos could feel his boss’s eyes on his back, so he moved slowly, deliberately. It wouldn’t be good if he slipped on ice and fell.

  He wished the trench coat was lined, because it barely kept him warm.

  But it was the only thing he owned that was business casual.

  *

  A WOMAN WITH a carrot-colored bouffant and glasses looked up from her game of computer solitaire as Panos pushed through the double doors. A sign on the counter in front of her read MAGGIE WHITE.

  He reminded himself that he had been inside the building a hundred times, even though he hadn’t.

  “Evening, Maggie,” he said with faux familiarity, as he flashed his lanyard. “I’m Phil with Pfizer”—it was the only pharmaceutical company he could come up with on the fly—“and this afternoon I left a file I need down the hall. It’ll just take a minute.”

  He didn’t make eye contact with her. Just kept moving.

  Don’t stop and chat. Was it left or right at the counter?

  He turned on his heel and strode on. To the right.

  “Sir?” she called after him. “Phil?”

  He kept going. He was suddenly sweating and his vision blurred.

  Panos made himself slow down, calm down. Maggie White wasn’t pursuing him down the hallway and he didn’t hear her call for security. She’d be there when he came back with the file in his hand, he figured.

  Head down. Don’t even glance up to see where the cameras are.

  Look for the whiteboard that says Carol Schmidt is inside the room.

  Her name was scrawled on the outside of a door halfway down the hallway.

  *

  IT TOOK LESS than a minute. Panos opted for using a pillow since the machines that were attached to her looked complicated and the tubes were filled with clear liquid that he figured she could likely do without.

  It was dark inside the room, although the screens and monitors put out enough ambient light that he could see. One of the machines issued a rhythmic click-click-click.

  She was older than he thought she’d be and smaller than he’d imagined. Her eyes were closed.

  Her feet fluttered under the blankets and she reached out with a small bony hand to try and grasp his wrist, but she couldn’t find it. He held the pillow firmly on her face until she went limp, then placed the pillow back under her head when she was gone. He refused to look directly at her gape-mouthed face.

  Panos stepped back and took a breath that filled his lungs. As he did so, he realized he’d lolled his head back. He quickly lowered it, but not before eyeing the single red light in the top corner of the room that may or may not have been a closed-circuit camera.

  He put that out of his mind.

  Streams of sweat poured down his collar. He fumbled the envelope again as he pulled it from his waist and he dropped it on the linoleum floor. Papers scattered and he shoved them back in the file.

  In and out, like Kessel had said.

  Would there be alarms going off now that she was dead? Buzzers?

  But there was nothing. Maybe some nurse at a different station could see the monitor flatline, but Panos wanted to be out of the hospital by the time someone had the chance to react.

  “Thanks,” he said to Maggie White as he passed by the desk and turned away from her.

  “You forgot to sign in,” she called after him. It wasn’t threatening or unfriendly. More like, You know the drill.

  But he pushed through the double doors and was outside.

  The cold actually felt good on his skin for once.

  He was halfway across the parking lot when he saw that Kessel was no longer there.

  Panos stopped and said, “Fuck me.”

  He turned and nearly lost his footing on the glazed-over snow. His arms windmilled, but he was able to regain his balance.

  He could see Maggie White stand up through the double doors. The receptionist was witnessing a nurse in green scrubs jog from left to right in front of her. Obviously, the nurse had seen the monitor, Panos thought. He hoped it was one of the life-monitor machines and not a closed-circuit video feed.

  Because the nurse didn
’t turn her head to see where he’d gone, he guessed it was one of the machines.

  He looked around. Rawlins was dark, cold, and absolutely lifeless. The cold was freezing his face and inching up his cuffs and pant legs.

  He thought, Why would...

  A pair of headlights flashed on and Kessel’s pickup appeared on the street he’d just crossed. Kessel had left the lot and was waiting outside somewhere on the street while Panos had gone inside. Panos figured the man had probably chosen a different location to observe so he could make a fast lone getaway if Panos was caught inside.

  His boss leaned over in his seat and pushed open the passenger door.

  “Get in,” he said.

  Panos scrambled in and sat back while Kessel drove away toward I-80.

  *

  KESSEL DIDN’T SPEED or do anything to attract attention from hidden cops. They caught a break when the few stoplights on Cedar Street were blinking amber due to the late hour.

  “It’s done,” Panos said.

  “How?”

  “Smothered.”

  “She go quietly?”

  “I guess.”

  Panos recalled her kicking feet beneath the blanket and it affected him more deeply in retrospect than it had when he’d been in the room.

  “Texas,” Kessel said. “You’re going to Texas.”

  “Texas?”

  “It’s warmer there. You’ll do down there what I do up here. It’s a promotion, and a big one.”

  Panos thought about it. “So that’s my reward?”

  “Yes. Either there or Iowa.”

  So Kessel had been talking to the big bosses about him. He wondered if he’d talked to them before he picked him up in Saratoga or while he was inside the hospital. Not that it mattered.

  Panos had never been to Iowa and he sometimes got it confused with Idaho or Ohio. But he knew Texas.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Good. But we’re not done here. We’ve got a lot to do before the end of the week.”

  Panos nodded. He realized that the emotion he’d felt about recalling the final moments of the old woman might be the result of the Percocet wearing off. He fished in his pocket for the remaining two and swallowed them dry. He did it in a furtive movement when Kessel’s eyes were on the road.