by Joe Field
“This time is different, and you know that. We have enough reserves in the Bakken to last at least six generations.”
“You’re right, it is different this time. This time, we got all the crime, sex, drugs, and problems that come with housing roughnecks in our backyard. This time, we are raping our land so bad that there might not be a North Dakota two generations from now, let alone six. This time, those bastards came and took my Gabby.” Mark stood up, shaking with rage. “This time, you’ll regret the day you let greed overcome compassion when you visited a grandfather in distress.”
“Mark—”
“Get the hell out of my house.”
◆◆◆
Cooper was getting restless in his jail cell and couldn’t imagine someone spending the rest of his life in one of these cages. The heater in the jail could not keep up with the falling temperatures outside, and he started to shiver. He should be out trying to help find Gabby. And he desperately needed a smoke.
At least I made it to the ripe old age of twenty-five before I was thrown in jail.
Cooper chuckled when he thought about what his father and brothers would say if they knew where he was right now. Cooper’s father had retired after thirty years with the Duluth Police Department, and all three of his brothers followed in his footsteps by joining law enforcement. Even Cooper’s younger sister was working on a degree in criminal justice.
He had always been the outsider when it came to his career interests, which led him to journalism.
Cooper was born and raised in Duluth, and up until he moved to Saint Paul last year he had spent his whole life in northern Minnesota. Although that upbringing had prepared him to deal with any amount of frigid cold weather, he wasn’t sure it had prepared him for prison life. Cooper had been a decent high school athlete, and at six feet tall and 190 pounds he could pack a punch, if needed. Still, his reddish-brown hair and freckles from his Irish ancestry took away some of his intimidation factor. And his fully intact pearly white teeth and undamaged nose suggested he wasn’t much of a brawler.
I need to get out of here soon.
A door suddenly opened and Cooper heard heavy footsteps approach. The young officer who came with them looked like a meat-and-potatoes farm boy. He towered over Cooper. He had brown hair with a neatly groomed beard—the kind that wouldn’t fly at a major city’s police department but was fine in western North Dakota. His badge read Officer Fletcher.
“Cooper Smith?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Come with me.”
Cooper followed Fletcher down the hallway into a side office with a small desk that housed a computer, two chairs, walls full of file cabinets, and D.A.R.E drug-resistance posters on the wall.
“Have a seat.”
“Thanks. Is everything all right?”
“We reviewed the video camera from the Walmart parking lot and determined you did not instigate the accident or the ensuing altercation.”
“Am I free to go, then?”
“After you out process, yes. But there is a bad storm arriving soon. If you were released now, is there a warm place you can hunker down for the night?”
“Well, I had planned to go and stay at one of the local hotels, but I’m not sure if anything is available right now.”
“I may have a better option for you. My wife and I rent out our basement on Airbnb to make some extra cash, but with this storm we haven’t been able to fill it. We usually charge two-hundred dollars a night, but since it’s last minute we would take one-hundred a night if you would agree to stay at least three nights.”
“I feel like there is a catch.”
“No catch—although we have a newborn baby boy who cries a little at night.”
“That’s not an issue,” Cooper said. “What is your son’s name?”
“Jacob. He was born last week.”
“Congratulations. Okay, count me in. Lets get out of here.”
Cooper rode shotgun in Fletcher’s police car as they made their way out to his home. “As a police officer, I would think you would be more reserved about letting strangers stay in your home,” said Cooper.
“Well, I usually make everyone send me additional information about themselves so I can run their names in our databases to make sure there aren’t any criminals looking to do damage. I pulled your record, of course, but you seem clean enough as far as I’m concerned.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Plus, once our guests see the police car in the driveway, they tend to be on their best behavior.”
“Yeah, I bet. Say, do you mind if I have a smoke in here?”
Fletcher looked over at Cooper. “Are you serious?”
“Just a quick one, I’ll crack the window.”
“No way, man. When we get home you can have a smoke by the back door of our house, if you can get a cigarette to light in this weather.”
Cooper tapped the box of cigarettes in his hand, then put them back in his pocket. “Okay, you’re the boss.”
Snow had started falling, and wind was blowing it sideways across the road. Fletcher’s wipers swept across the windshield as he gripped the steering wheel to keep the car steady against the rising wind.
After a brief period of silence, Cooper asked, “What’s the latest on Gabby’s disappearance?”
Fletcher was silent for a moment. “You’re a reporter, right?”
“Yes, for Minnesota Public Radio.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything. Sheriff’s policy.”
“I know her, pretty well, actually. She was a bridesmaid in our wedding this fall, and she is a close friend of my wife. Gabby is almost like a sister to her—they roomed together in college. We want to do everything we can to help find her.”
“Oh, well that changes things.” Fletcher paused and thought for another minute as he stared out at the snow blowing in front of him. “So, this is all off the record, okay?”
“Of course.”
Fletcher took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Well, it’s a shame, a real shame. She was such a beautiful girl. I went to high school with her. She was our class president. She was going to take her grandfather’s senate seat one day, and then who knows after that.”
“Why are you saying ‘was’? Is she dead?”
“Sorry, no. Not that we know of. She could be anywhere, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Who took her?”
“So far as we know two out-of-towners took her. They were roughnecks, and we got their information from the ID cards they used to check in at the rec center. One guy, Brock Doyle, is from Louisiana and he’s been known to raise hell up here for the better part of the past year. The other one is a fella named Declan Nash. He’s from Texas and he’s been here for two years. We don’t have much paper on Nash, but we are looking into it. We know they both lived out on the same man camp just west of Williston.”
“Have you questioned his coworkers and other men at the camp?”
“Listen, I know you know Gabby and all, but this is an active investigation and I can’t get into too many of the details right now.”
“What if I agreed to stay for a week at your place, at seventy-five dollars a night? Would that help you share anything else? And, by ‘sharing,’ I mean not information for my work, just updates on a personal level for my wife and me.”
“Make it eighty-five a night, and you have a deal. I actually need to pay for the new crib I bought on credit last week. None of what I share with you goes in the press, it’s just for you and your wife. I don’t want to lose my job or anything.”
“Okay, deal. Yeah, I hear kids are expensive—I don’t envy you there.”
“It’s not the expense that is the killer, it’s the lack of sleep.” Fletcher yawned. “Hopefully you can sleep through it, though. All right, here we are.”
Fletcher turned the police car off of the main road down a cul-de-sac and into a small driveway. The car’s beams lit up a small, one-story home with a
two-car garage.
“We can talk more when I get back home in the morning after my shift,” said Fletcher. “The baby is already sleeping, and I messaged my wife Linda to let her know you will be downstairs.” Fletcher handed Cooper a small house key. “Just go around to the back door and there is a separate entrance to the basement down a flight of stairs. Have your smoke, and then head down. Everything you need will be inside—just stay quiet and don’t wake our son or my wife will kill you—”
“Make sure to add that warning on your Airbnb listing,” Cooper quipped.
Fletcher smiled. “I’ll come down and get you in the morning.”
Chapter 7
Williston, North Dakota
Between the whistling winds of the blizzard and the baby screaming above him, Cooper hadn’t slept a wink all night. He couldn’t get any work done, either, because he didn’t know the family’s WiFi password. He also had no reception on his phone. He couldn’t even go out and smoke because the wind was too fierce. He spent most of the night eating black licorice and rummaging around the Fletcher basement. He found old Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and Travis Tritt cassette tapes on a shelf, as well as a huge supply room that rivaled any Cooper had seen on the Doomsday Preppers show. It included a gun case, ammunition, liquor, canned soup, flashlights, and a lifetime supply of Dakotah Beard Oil.
Why would a guy add so much beard oil to his shelter supplies?
Cooper opened a bottle and put some oil on his scraggily reddish-brown beard. He had grown his beard out on his European vacation in preparation for the trip out to North Dakota, and it felt good to finally put some product on his dried-out facial hair. The scent carried a hint of tobacco, coffee, and black pepper. It was the highlight of his visit to Williston so far, and he made a mental note to ask Fletcher about buying a bottle off of him.
Cooper smirked. At least there is some oil in the state that can be used for good.
There were several small windows at the top of the basement walls that were connected to exterior window wells. Snow had piled into each of the wells and all Cooper could see was white. A clock on the wall showed it was half-past five in the morning. At 5:31, Fletcher bounded down the steps. Snowflakes flew off his hat and coat as he made his way into the basement’s living room, where Cooper sat on the couch.
“Good morning, Officer Fletcher. How was your shift?”
“Morning. Please, call me Steve. The blizzard made the shift long, but despite the storm we actually made some small progress on Gabby’s case.”
“What’d you get?”
“Let’s grab some coffee upstairs and I can tell you.”
Cooper followed Fletcher upstairs to the kitchen, which was a small, cozy room with dark oak cabinets and a rooster décor.
“How did you sleep?” Fletcher asked.
“Well, you weren’t kidding about losing sleep once there is a kid involved.”
They both laughed. He made another mental note to make sure Soojin was still faithfully taking her birth control pills.
“As you can hear by the silence, they are finally sleeping, so try to keep it down.” Fletcher started the coffeemaker.
“So, what’s the latest with Gabby?”
“This is still off the record right?”
“Sure.”
The two men stood hunched over the kitchen’s center island. Fletcher was nearly whispering.
“Okay, there was one final flight that arrived at the Dickinson airport last night from Denver, right before the storm hit. One of the passengers had left his vehicle in the long-term parking lot, but when he got to his parking spot his car was gone. In its place was a smashed-up RV camper with no license plates. The passenger immediately notified airport security, which in turn called the local Dickinson PD. The PD gave us a call, and from the rec center surveillance video we were able to identify it as the likely RV used by Gabby’s kidnappers. The RV was carefully moved inside a nearby hanger before the snowfall so they could inspect it overnight. I’m still waiting to hear back on the results of that, but we should know something soon. Things are moving pretty slow this morning, though. The storm closed all the major interstates in the area; it’ll be a while before a legitimate forensics team can get out there. But at least we have the description of the stolen vehicle.”
“What’s the protocol for finding the stolen vehicle?” Cooper asked. “By now they could be anywhere in the continental United States.”
“There was a nationwide bulletin put out over the wire early this morning on the car. It was a 2013 blue Ford Taurus sedan with North Dakota plates. If any authorities stop that vehicle and run a search it should trigger an alert. Same thing with any tolls, and other checkpoints we now are hoping to set up. If we can even get a single video hit from a gas station or rest stop we may be able to piece together a better search-and-rescue plan.”
“Well, at least the stolen vehicle is a good starting point. Was there any video from the airport of the vehicle swap?”
Fletcher poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Cooper. He was glad Fletcher left his coffee black, just like God intended it to be consumed.
“Yes, but the kidnappers placed the RV between the security camera and the vehicle they stole, and they only used the opposite side door. They must have known exactly where the camera was, because they shielded their work well. We are going to ask Dickinson airport security for additional camera footage to see if we can get any shots of them in the vehicle as they were leaving.”
Cooper took a long sip of the coffee. It wasn’t a cappuccino in Italy, but it tasted quite good for farmhouse coffee. And he really needed the caffeine.
“Well, I certainly do appreciate the updates,” said Cooper. “It means a lot. Now, I’d like to help out, perhaps go interview some of the kidnappers’ coworkers or neighbors. Any word on the status of my Jeep?”
Fletcher shook his head as he turned to look outside at the snow. “Sorry, but I heard it’s totaled. It was towed to a local mechanic’s shop, but everything is closed down now. Not that it would matter, with all the major roads being closed off.”
My poor Wellstone. May he rest in peace.
“Oh,” said Fletcher. “I almost forgot. I was officially assigned the Gabby kidnapping case, so I’ll be your main law enforcement point-of-contact in case you find anything out about Gabby or her kidnappers. Please call or email me with updates you may have.” Fletcher handed Cooper his business card.
Cooper nodded and grabbed the card. He studied it in his hands, then put it in his pocket. Reaching for his wallet, he pulled out his own business card and handed it to Fletcher. “Likewise, if you have any more updates you can share with me that might help in our efforts to locate Gabby, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Fletcher glanced at Cooper’s card before putting it in his chest pocket. “I’ll share what I can.”
Cooper took another long sip of his coffee as he followed Fletcher’s gaze out the window. The backyard was small, blanketed in a fresh white layer of snow. At the end of the yard was a garage with a snow-covered roof. Something at the base of the garage caught Cooper’s eye—a small black tarp sticking up through the snow.
“Hey, what’s under that tarp out there?”
“It’s an old Arctic Cat snowmobile, or snowcat, as we call them. Might actually get to use it now.”
“How does it run?”
“I haven’t started it since last year, but it’s always worked just fine.”
“Would you be willing to rent it out to me for the week? At least then I can get around, and you can make a few extra bucks to boot.”
Fletcher turned back to face Cooper. “You’re from the Twin Cities, right? You know how to ride one of these things?”
“I live in Saint Paul now, but I grew up in northern Minnesota. It’s practically a necessity to learn how to ride up there. In fact, I got my snowmobile license long before I could legally drive a car.”
“Hmm . . .” Fletcher looked at Cooper, then b
ack outside toward the garage. “Well, I have a decent supply of gas out in the shed in five-gallon containers. How about I rent the snowcat out to you for thirty-five dollars a day, plus the cost of whatever gasoline you use.”
Of course this guy would have a supply of gasoline. You never know when the zombie apocalypse will strike.
“You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll take it as long as you point me in the right direction of where the kidnappers lived and worked.”
“Not a problem, I’ll even throw in a set of hand warmers.”
“Perfect. Say, before I go, can I use your phone to call my wife quick? I have zero reception with my cell out here. I also need to grab your WiFi password if that’s all right with you.”
“Phone’s around the corner, just talk softly and make sure she doesn’t call the house number when the kid is sleeping. I’ll write you the WiFi password quick and then I’ll head out and get the snowcat ready while you’re on the phone.”
“Talk about service—I’ll make sure to give you a great recommendation on Airbnb at the end of my stay.”
“You bet.”
Cooper found the phone up on the hallway wall; it was an old landline with a long connected cord that dangled down on the ground. Cooper picked it up and dialed Soojin’s cell.
“Where have you been?” Soojin demanded when she heard his voice. “Are you still in jail?”
“I actually got out last night and I’m staying at one of the officer’s houses. It’s like an Airbnb-type arrangement,” he said. “I have absolutely no phone reception out here. Where are you?”
“Why are you whispering?” Soojin asked.
“Hah. Just remind me to tell you later about baby sleep patterns in the first week of life.”
“Oh jeez, I can’t think about that right now.”
“Were you able to get in last night?”
“Yeah, I made the last flight into Bismarck around 9:30 pm. That’s the closest I could get with the storm approaching. I have a rental car, but with all the roads being closed I’m as good as stuck at a hotel here.”