The Highway (33 page)

A hundred yards up the road was a closed gate. The road beyond the gate wound down her side of the river to a two-lane bridge over the river to the compound. It looked to be the only way in and out, although she couldn’t tell if there were roads into the mountains from behind the buildings, and guessed there must be.

The compound was laid out on a huge bench of land directly across from her. Sharp-walled foothills rose in back and to the sides, and it looked as if the mountains were cradling the compound in the palms of its open hands. There was a kind of military precision to the layout. To the left, there were four or five long neat rows of small white single-family houses, all with green roofs. In the middle of the assemblage was a massive chapel marked by a pointed steeple. The four rows of stained-glass windows indicated there were at least four floors within it, or at least the front half. The chapel was also painted white. A two-level clapboard building served as the school, she guessed, based on the playground equipment in a fenced area adjacent to it. To the right were large anonymous buildings, garages and equipment sheds and storage facilities, she guessed. That would be the place to look for the missing vehicles, she thought. The rest of the bench to the right was a plowed field that was fuzzy green with early shoots of winter wheat.

What was remarkable about the compound, she thought, was the utter lack of human activity. Sure, there were wisps of woodsmoke from the chimneys of the houses and curlicues of steam from the roof pipe of one of the outbuildings, but there were no people about. She wondered if they were all underground, and the thought unnerved her.

She tried to imagine the network and scope of the underground complex that supposedly existed underneath the buildings. Except for odd concrete abutments that appeared for no rhyme or reason in the gravel yards in front of the homes and within the outbuildings, there was no reason to suspect it was there.

*   *   *

During one of the long spells when her mother was gone, Cassie had been shuttled to her uncle Frank’s place on a small, windswept cattle ranch outside Miles City, Montana, on the eastern plains. Uncle Frank and Aunt Helen had four boys, two older than her and two younger, none of whom still remained in the county. Until Uncle Frank lost the ranch and moved to town, she was one of the boys when it came to ranch work. Although her uncle wanted to spoil his only girl, she’d have none of it. Part of the reason was to avoid teasing from her cousins, the other part was her desire to fit in. She built fence, delivered calves, and pulled the flatbed behind the truck or tractor; loading hay bales in the summer and feeding the hay to the cattle in the winter.

Every Sunday they’d go to church in Miles City, the First Congregational Church. Her cousins hated it, but she secretly loved the opportunity to dress up once a week, be a girl, drive to town with brothers who smelled clean and looked nice. She never understood why they went to the Congregational Church, and never understood the difference between Congregationalists and Lutherans or Baptists or Presbyterians. She knew Catholics thought themselves special and she always envied them for it because they seemed to know something she didn’t. There were a few Mormons in town and they had the most modern church with a basketball court inside, and she envied that, too.

She decided she was a Christian back then, and she figured she still was. When she glassed the compound she wondered about the members who were so devout they’d uprooted and moved there years ago so they could be with like-minded believers. She envied them like she’d envied the Catholics and Mormons because they seemed to believe in something. She didn’t think they were stupid, or ignorant. In fact, maybe they were smarter than her in a spiritual way. At least they believed in
something
that could help guide them through their lives.

*   *   *

She didn’t hear the bell but it must have rung for recess, because suddenly the yard near the school was filled with children. They filled the swing sets and lined up for the slide. Boys squared off for a football game. Children who didn’t get to the equipment or the organized games stood in knots in the corners of the yard talking among themselves. Three adults bundled in parkas supervised by walking around.

She zoomed in. The children varied in ages from probably five to gawky teenagers. They looked healthy and well dressed in conservative but not tremendously dated clothing. She noted the rosy cheeks of some of the girls in the cold morning, and the clouds of condensation that floated above their heads like thought bubbles.

Cassie moved the binoculars and focused on a group of five or six small children in the corner of the yard. They were apart from the older kids and kept to themselves in the natural tribal order of children on a playground. Their coats seemed too large and bulky for their size—probably hand-me-downs—and their little legs stuck out the bottom like twigs. They weren’t much older than Ben, she thought. Two of the boys could
be
Ben. The thought made her heart swell and she fought off a sudden and unexpected urge to cry.

*   *   *

Cassie sighed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and lowered the binoculars to her lap. She was not getting any kind of suspicious feeling from what she saw that the church members across the canyon were malevolent, that they’d be involved in the disappearance of teenage girls or Cody. It was silly to think that, she knew. Evil people often didn’t look evil from the outside. That was one of the revelations of police work for her; that the man out mowing his lawn could be as awful as the crackheads who lived in the rental cabins above Lincoln. She knew God-squad types could be capable of great crimes. But she just wasn’t getting the vibe, despite what Trooper Legerski had said.

She wished she could ask Cody for his thoughts on the situation. He put more stock in intuition than most cops she’d met. Once, he’d said, “When something feels hinky, better go with it.” But nothing she saw or felt in the compound seemed hinky.

Cassie considered driving up to the gate and asking them to open it. That had been her original intention. But when she thought more about it, she decided she couldn’t risk it even if it was what Cody likely would have done—and possibly did. If they didn’t let her in and she had to wait for the warrant to arrive, that might give them hours to hide and dispose of evidence if there was any. And if they let her in and her intuition about them was wrong—there she was. They could disappear her the same way they’d disappeared the Sullivan girls and Cody.

So she’d wait until the Park County deputies arrived with the warrant, and, if necessary, they’d use it for access. She had plenty of time to kill and wonder if what she was doing made any rational sense.

*   *   *

She checked her wristwatch. An hour and a half toward lunchtime, an hour for lunch, then maybe three or four more working hours left in the day before everyone took off for the Thanksgiving holiday. It took forty-five minutes from Livingston to get where she was, so that cut down the available time for the Park County deputies to help her even further. She cursed the timing of it all. Why couldn’t this have happened on a Monday, instead?

The Sullivan girls had been missing for barely thirteen hours, and Cody eight. If they were being held alive in the compound or elsewhere, what were the chances they’d still be alive after the four-day weekend? After ninety-six hours of captivity? She’d seen the crime statistics for kidnapping at the academy. The odds were slim to none.

Then she thought again about Ben. He deserved a Thanksgiving dinner. He deserved some kind of normalcy and tradition, the things she never had growing up with her mother. She’d get back to Helena, she decided, as soon as she could. The Albertsons stayed open late and if they didn’t have turkeys left she’d buy a ham. If necessary, she’d cook all night.

The thought of being at home with Ben while the Sullivan girls and Cody were still missing brought a nauseating wave of guilt. But what could she do if they found nothing to go on?

*   *   *

Cassie tried to jump-start the process. She called the Park County Sheriff’s Department on her cell phone and asked for Sheriff Bryan Pedersen directly. The receptionist placed her on hold, and enough time went by that Cassie imagined a conversation between the sheriff and the receptionist to concoct the best cover story they could come up with to refuse the call.

Finally, “This is Sheriff Pedersen.” His voice was dry and high, not pretentious.

“This is Investigator Cassandra Dewell of Lewis and Clark County,” she said.

“Right, Deputy Dewell. Whenever I hear your name I think of Deputy Dawg, the cartoon character.” There was a beat. “I hope you aren’t offended.”

“No, it isn’t the first time I heard it.”

“Sorry, then.” He chuckled. “So what can I do you for?”

“Has Sheriff Tubman contacted you this morning? He said he would.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pedersen said, “it slipped my mind. We’ve got everybody out on assignment right now but I might be able to spare a couple of guys after lunch.”

“After lunch?”

“Yeah, I got Gadbury and Simmons I can send down there. They’re two of my best investigators.” Meaning plainclothes detectives, similar to Cassie and Cody.

“What about some uniforms?” she asked.

“Not likely. We’re running a skeleton crew as it is because of the holiday coming. I’ve got to have a couple guys here on call and I’ve got to man my jail. I can’t pull anybody to drive down there today.”

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply to remain calm. Legerski’s words came back to her, that just because she was having a crisis didn’t mean anybody else was.

“Sheriff, we’ve got three missing people. Trooper Rick Legerski is on his way up there to get a search warrant from the judge, and I really need some manpower from your department to help serve it.”

“This is for the church compound?” Pedersen said, an unmistakable note of reluctance in his voice.

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I guess I know about this,” Pedersen said.

She waited for more, but more didn’t come.

“Sheriff, is there a problem?”

A long sigh. “No, I told Tubman I’d help you out. I owe him a couple. But you have to understand something, Deputy Dewell. This whole thing sounds flimsy to me. You’re asking us to go down there and turn a church group upside down the day before Thanksgiving based on what you suspect? How do you suppose that’s going to play with them or with the residents in the valley? It seems damned heavy-handed, if you ask me.”

I didn’t,
she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “Look at it this way. The quicker we clear them the quicker we can look other directions. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

“You think?” he said, dubious. Then, “You’re determined to do this today?”

“Yes.”

“Less than twenty-four hours after these girls were reported missing …
somewhere?
”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure it can’t wait a little while? Say after the holiday weekend? We’ll have more guys available then and we might have more to go on. We don’t even know if those girls disappeared in the canyon for sure, do we?”

“No. But Investigator Cody Hoyt told me personally he was coming here last night to investigate. That’s the last we heard of him.”

Groaning, Pedersen said, “I know Cody. He’s an obstinate son of a gun. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he thinks it’s just fine to cross the county line and start an investigation out of his jurisdiction without bothering to inform or involve the local authorities.”

“He’s on his own,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive.

“He always is, and that’s the problem with guys like that.”

She said, “We can debate Cody’s methods or we can try to save some lives, Sheriff.”

Pedersen sighed again.

“I heard you were kind of tough to deal with.”

“Who told you that?” She suspected either Tubman or Legerski. Either way, as much as she wanted to deny the feeling, it cut into her. Then she thought: not Tubman. Even sheriff to sheriff, he wouldn’t cast aspersions on his own high-profile diversity program hire.

“So Trooper Legerski has been in contact with you this morning?”

“Just a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact. He wanted to know if the judge was in chambers or off for Thanksgiving.”

So she knew. Legerski.

She said, “Is the judge in?”

“Until noon. After that, he’s on the road.”

“Good. We should be able to get the warrant.”

“I suppose, Investigator Dewell. But he might have some of the same questions I do. He may wonder why we can’t wait.”

She closed her eyes, fighting real anger. She said, “If it turns out those girls and my partner were hurt down here and we could have prevented it, maybe then you’ll be able to explain to everyone why it was best to wait over a four-day weekend to save them.”

“Calm down, little lady—”

“I’m not anyone’s little lady, Sheriff.”

“And no wonder. But never mind. I’ll send Gadbury and Simmons like I said. And if I can rustle anyone else up, I’ll send them, too. I’ll ask them to give you a call when they get close so you can arrange a place to meet.”

She said, “At the locked gate that leads to the compound. Tell them to meet me there.”

“All
right.
”

He said it as if he couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

*   *   *

Fuming, she noticed as the Expedition idled there was only a quarter of a tank of gas left, and she decided to run the ten miles farther to Gardner to fill up. As she pulled back onto the highway toward Gardner, she replayed the conversation with Sheriff Pedersen in her head, and got even angrier.
Little lady?
Legerski had poisoned the well. Why?

She thought again about the number of cigarette butts she’d found in the Dumpster. She thought about the furtive way he’d acted when they met that morning. She speculated what the trooper had told the sheriff in their conversation about her other than she was “tough to deal with.” She thought about what he’d mouthed when he left.