Below Zero

by C. J. Box

  “But Joe,” Rulon said, leaning forward so he was nose to nose with him, “if this thing, whatever it is, blows up—we did not discuss it here, did we?”

  “No.”

  “And you can’t expect me to bail you out again.”

  “I wouldn’t even ask.”

  “So we’re clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rulon said, “I can tell from your eyes this is important to you. Go with God, but keep me out of it.”

  14

  NORTH OF CHUGWATER ON I-25, JOE REMEMBERED HE HAD muted his cell while he met with the governor, and he checked it. Two messages—neither from Sheridan or Marybeth. He retrieved the earlier call because he recognized the Baggs prefix. It was the weary voice of Baggs deputy Rich Brokaw, saying Ron Connelly had been released on his own recognizance by the county judge and that Connelly had apparently skipped town. His neighbors reported seeing Connelly packing up his belongings into his pickup truck the night before. Brokaw had checked out the house—empty, garbage everywhere, holes punched in the drywall. The sheriff’s office had issued an APB on Connelly, but so far there had been no credible sightings. Brokaw apologized for the way things turned out and said he’d keep Joe informed. Joe snorted angrily. Connelly didn’t seem the type to have seen the error of his ways and split town to turn over a new leaf. He seemed the type, to Joe, to escalate into something worse. Men who thought nothing of killing or injuring animals for their pleasure were capable of anything. Connelly was like that; Joe could sense it. What was the judge thinking?

  Joe made a mental note to be on the lookout for Connelly’s 4x4 with the Oklahoma plates. There weren’t that many roads in Wyoming, and stranger things had happened.

  The second call was from an unknown number that turned out to be Special Agent Chuck Coon’s personal cell phone. “Joe, I looked up what we have on Stenko. You need to call me back as soon as you can. Call this number, not the office number.”

  Joe pulled off the highway within sight of Glendo Reservoir. The lake was still and glassy, mirroring the vibrant fuchsia streaks of dusk, and he could see the small twinkling lights of trolling fishing boats working near shore, trying to pick up walleyes.

  He caught Coon at dinner with his family, and Joe offered to call later but Coon said, “Hold on.” Joe could hear Coon tell his wife he’d be back in a minute, and a little boy say, “Where’s Daddy going?” The little boy’s voice made something inside him twang in a familiar way.

  “Okay,” Coon said in a moment, “I’m in the other room now.”

  “I’m on the highway headed north. There’s a pretty sunset.”

  Coon ignored him. “Hey, I looked up Stenko, aka David Stenson of Chicago. I was right—we’re interested in him.”

  “If his name is Stenson, why does he go by Stenko?”

  “They do that,” Coon said.

  Joe said, “Oh. Who does that?”

  “Chicago mobsters.”

  Joe took a breath and held it. The escalation from deviant game violators to . . . Chicago mobsters . . . made him suddenly light-headed. He said, “What do you mean you’re interested in him?”

  Joe could picture Coon hunching over with his back toward the doorway so he could speak softly and not alarm his son. “Look, Joe, I can’t just give you everything without getting something back. Like how is it a game warden in Wyoming is suddenly asking me questions about tracking down a cell phone involving some guy named Stenko? I mean, how do we get there from here?”

  Joe felt a shiver run up his back. Coon’s tone betrayed his intense interest, as did the fact that he’d left Joe his private number and asked him to call after hours. So who was this Stenko? And how was it April could be with him?

  Said Joe, “I’m not going to let you take over this investigation.”

  “What?” Coon sounded hurt, but it was a put-on, Joe thought.

  “I know how the FBI operates,” Joe said. “You move in. You take over. And most of the time I have to admit it’s helpful because you guys have all the electronics, manpower, federal prosecutors, and heavy artillery. Hell, I can’t even keep a poacher behind bars. But in this particular circumstance, I can’t let you guys swoop in.”

  Coon said, “Look, Joe, I don’t know what’s going on, but you came to me. You threw out the bait and I took it. This can’t be one way—me giving information to you. Whatever it is you’re into, you need me. You’re one guy in a red shirt in a state pickup. How in the hell are you ever going to track down Stenko?”

  Joe thought, You’re right. But he said, “I don’t care about Stenko.”

  There was a long beat of silence. “Then what is this about?”

  “I care about someone who might be with him,” Joe said, hoping it wasn’t too much information. “And the last time the feds showed up in a situation involving this particular person, really bad things happened. I can’t let it happen again. Simple as that.”

  “I’m confused,” Coon said. But he said it in a distracted way. In the background, Joe could hear Coon tapping away at a keyboard. Probably trying to find out what Joe was alluding to.

  Joe said, “This is personal.”

  “If it involves Stenko, it’s not personal, Joe. It’s obstructing a federal investigation, and we could come down on you like a ton of bricks. Believe me, Portenson would love to do that. And it’s the reason I’m not involving him at this stage. I’m doing you a favor, Joe, can’t you get that?”

  Joe believed him. Chicago mobsters? A federal investigation?

  “Look, why can’t we trade information?” Coon said. “You give me a little, I’ll give you a little. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we can help each other out.”

  Joe watched a fishing boat do a slow circle in a bay out on the lake. “You start,” he said.

  Coon sighed. More tapping. Then: “Stenko’s well known to our Chicago office. He’s one of those guys who’s flown under the radar for years because he’s smart and careful, but his name just kept coming up over and over again in the background. We’re talking real estate schemes, the Chicago political machine, downtown redevelopment, fast-food franchises, waste management contracts. There are allegations that he’s been the mover and shaker behind quite a few Indian casinos as well, but it was hard to figure out if he was doing anything illegal. Finally, seven months ago the federal prosecutor had enough on him to convene a grand jury that indicted Stenko on twenty-four counts, including fraud, bribery, money laundering, extortion—the laundry list of white-collar crimes. No doubt the guy’s intimately connected to most of the stuff that goes on in Chicago, but he wasn’t flamboyant or stupid like a lot of those guys. He made it a point not to get photos of himself with politicians and movie stars, for example. We had a hell of a time getting a valid photo and had to resort to DMV records. He was able to keep himself at arm’s length from most of the hijinks and transactions because he had a really sharp accountant fronting his operations. I should say, he had a sharp accountant named Leo Dyekman. And the Talich Brothers.”

  Joe said, “Uh-huh,” as if he knew whom Coon was talking about.

  Coon said, “The Talich Brothers are ruthless leg-breakers of the highest order. Three of them: Corey, Chase, and Nathanial. Born a year apart: boom-boom-boom. One black-haired, one blond, one redhead, all built like cage-match wrestlers. They’re famous in Chicago, from what I understand.”

  “Okay.”

  “So anyway,” Coon said, getting into it, “after years of investigations and two trials that ended when lone jurors held out—call it the Chicago way—Stenko finally goes down. We arrest him in his real estate office with news crews covering it. Stenko gets thrown in the pokey and everything in his office is seized. But when our guys go to sweep up Leo the accountant and the Talich Brothers, they’re nowhere to be found. They’ve flown the coop—disappeared. And so have the computers and financial records we were after to prove Stenko was worth millions. But we forge on, hoping to flip Stenko himself, hoping he’ll turn on
Leo and his crew who left him high and dry or the higher-ups in the Chicago scene. But Stenko lawyers up and gets his wife to sell $5 million in real estate to pay his bond.”

  Joe was trying to keep up with Coon, trying to figure out where in all this April came in. If at all.

  “So Stenko’s out of jail and he misses a preliminary hearing because he suddenly claims he’s sick. He claims he’s dying, in fact. He gets a doctor to tell the judge Stenko’s got liver and bladder cancer at the same time—which I guess is a death sentence. There’s nothing the doctors can do when somebody has advanced forms of both and the end comes real fast. We don’t believe Stenko’s doc, and we ask the court that Stenko be evaluated by an independent expert. But Stenko doesn’t make the appointment. This is two weeks ago or so.”

  Joe nodded, the time frame fitting.

  “So Stenko is missing,” Coon said. “He didn’t even pack up. His wife claims she has no idea where he went—he didn’t come home, hasn’t called. We’ve got all the phones tapped, so we’d know. He vanished off the face of the earth. All we’ve got is an unsubstantiated rumor to follow up on—”

  Coon cut himself off, probably realizing—as Joe did—he’d revealed more than he wanted to.

  “Your turn,” Coon said.

  Joe sucked in air, trying to locate the words. Finally, “This is all news to me. Like I said, I don’t really care about Stenko.”

  “Who do you care about, Joe?”

  “Like I said, someone who may be with him. Maybe on the run with him.”

  Coon tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but he didn’t succeed. “Someone with a cell phone? Someone who called you?”

  “Actually, the text was sent to my daughter.”

  “Who is this person?”

  “I won’t say. I told you that.”

  “Where did the text come from?”

  Joe hesitated. He needed to know what the rumor was. “Supposedly Aspen.”

  “Colorado?”

  “Yup. That’s what . . . the caller . . . claimed.”

  Alarm bells went off in his head. He almost said she.

  “Male or female?”

  “Whoever sent the text.”

  “Christ,” Coon said. “I’m disappointed, Joe. I gave you a lot. You haven’t given me anything I didn’t know already.”

  “That’s true,” Joe said, his mind spinning, trying to figure out what to give without endangering April. But if she was somehow mixed up with this Stenko and these Talich Brothers? Maybe the best thing to do was to spill everything, let the FBI do what the FBI did best?

  It didn’t feel right yet. He said, “Okay, but understand that this is speculation at this point, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You should check out murders that were committed in the last two weeks. I don’t have the exact dates in front of me, but all involve small-caliber handguns—probably the same weapon. As far as I can tell, no suspects have been arrested, suggesting the murders are random and not personal. The first was in Chicago, then Madison, then Keystone, South Dakota . . .”

  “Hold it, slow down . . .” Coon said, obviously writing down the locations.

  “. . . and Aspen, Colorado. Two days ago.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I said it was speculation, and I mean it,” Joe said. “Those are locations given in the text messages. There could be more, or it all could be hooey.”

  Coon hesitated. “We need to put a device on your daughter’s phone.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Joe.”

  “I told you the rules. And I already gave you the number to track. You have that number, don’t you?”

  “Yes. We can get an operation up and running tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “Will you let us look at the text messages?”

  “Nope.”

  He knew he was risking the chance that the FBI would pinpoint the location of April’s phone and close in on her without notifying him. But he doubted they’d be able to find her on their own, without his help. For one thing, they didn’t know it was April. They also didn’t know what kind of vehicle she was in or how many others she was with. The feds didn’t have the manpower to flood a ten-to-fifteen-mile radius in the hope of running into Stenko, especially if he was on the move. It was a risk giving up the number, but one he was willing to take.

  “You’ll notify me if your daughter gets another text,” Coon said. Not a question but a statement.

  “I will,” Joe said, “but only if you’ll give me the location of the call if you’re able to track it down.”

  “Deal,” Coon said.

  “I gave you something to run with,” Joe said. “Now what was the rumor you referred to earlier?”

  “It’s just a rumor.”

  “I understand that.”

  Silence. Joe figured he could wait him out.

  Finally, Coon sighed. “There is an unconfirmed report of a man matching Stenko’s description coming out of a brothel in Chicago two weeks ago. Later, the brothel manager or whatever he’s called was found murdered upstairs. No witnesses to the killing.”

  “Small-caliber weapon?” Joe asked.

  “Yes.” He said it with the same bolt of realization Joe was experiencing—the two stories coming together.

  “Anyone with him? With Stenko?”

  “This is unconfirmed.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “Calm down, Joe.” Then: “He was supposedly with an unidentified female minor. Mid-teens or slightly older. Blond, five foot four, possibly one of the prostitutes.”

  Joe slunk against the door of the cab, his cheek on the window of the driver’s side.

  “Joe?”

  15

  Rawlins, Wyoming

  STENKO WAS SICK, ROBERT WAS ANGRY, AND SHE WAS SCARED. They were in a parking lot outside Buy-Rite Pharmacy someplace in Wyoming in the car they’d stolen. There was only one other car in the lot, a muddy and dented Ford Taurus in a handicapped space. Through the afternoon the sky had darkened and now the wind gusted and rocked the car from side to side on its springs. A herd of tumbleweeds—perfectly yellow, round and hollow, like exoskeletons of large beach balls—swept from somewhere out on the high plains and rolled across the blacktop of the lot and piled up against a high chain-link fence that separated the Buy-Rite from a bank that was closed for the night.

  That’s me, she thought. A tumbleweed caught in a fence.

  Stenko to Robert: “Morphine. You’ve heard of morphine. I need you to go in there and get me some.”

  Robert took his hands off the wheel and waved his hands in the air: “How? We need a damned prescription. And if I take those empty bottles from Chicago in there, the pharmacist might do some checking and find out they’re looking for you. That would really screw up my life if we got caught in a hellhole like this.” When he said it he gestured toward the Buy-Rite, toward the town in general. Robert was startled and gave a little cry when a tumbleweed smacked and flattened against the driver’s side window before rolling up and over the hood toward the fence.

  Stenko writhed in the front seat. She empathized and was an inch away from crying. She could smell his pain. It had a distinct odor as it oozed out through the sweat on his forehead and through his scalp. The poor man.

  Stenko dug the gun out from under his seat and handed it to Robert butt-first. Robert didn’t take it. Robert said, “I can’t do that.”

  After a moment, the act of holding the gun seemed to exhaust Stenko, and he let it drop to the front seat. Stenko looked away from his son, out the window on the passenger side. “Then take me somewhere and leave me so I can die. I can’t take this pain any longer. It’s hell, son. I’m in hell already.” His voice was pinched, and he hissed his words through clenched teeth. He wasn’t angry. He was hurting.

  Robert crossed his arms in front of him and shook his head like a four-year-old who didn’t want to eat, she thought.

 
; Stenko writhed again, twisted himself so he could rest his chin on the top of the front seat and look at her directly. His eyes were rheumy. Thick liquid gathered in the corners of his eyes near his nose. He tried to smile. “I’m so sorry, April, but this may be the end of the road. I feel terrible it turned out this way—I thought I’d have longer. But it is what it is. Don’t worry . . . I’ll give you enough money to buy a plane ticket as soon as we can get somewhere with an airport. And I’ll give you plenty extra because you’ll need it.”

  For a moment, she was excited. This had turned out to be different than she thought it would be in every way. Now he was giving her a way out.

  She said, “I’m not sure where I would go.”

  He winced, and she couldn’t tell if it was from his stomach or what she said. He closed his eyes and the thick gel in his eyes squeezed out and pooled on the tops of his cheeks like wet glue. “You think about it, April,” he said. “You think about where you would want to go.”

  She thought, No one should die like this, as if there were a brood of small fevered animals inside him trying to eat and claw their way out.

  Robert missed the exchange. As usual he was deep inside his own head, with his own problems. When he spoke his voice was high. “You do it,” he said to Stenko. “This isn’t what I do. This is what you do. This is what you’ve done your whole life. I’m along just to keep score and try to help you redeem yourself in the eyes of Mother Earth.”

  Stenko didn’t respond. He seemed too spent to argue. Instead he turned around again and slunk down in his seat and talked softly to the windshield. “Do you know how to get to the ranch, Robert? On your own without my help?”

  Robert nodded. “I can read a goddamned map.”

  Stenko raised one pale hand and wriggled his fingers in the air, a way of saying, I don’t want to battle with you.

  “What ranch?” she said.

  Robert ignored her as he always did.

  Stenko said, “You’ll figure it out, son. Now, when you get there, you need to take that son-of-a-bitch Leo aside and make him give you all the account numbers. You may have to apply pressure because Leo can be real stubborn. There should be twenty-eight million in stocks, bonds, cash, and property. You won’t get access to it all before the feds realize what you’re doing, but if you pick the low-hanging fruit . . .”