“I’m out of the department,” Cassie said. “I resigned before they could fire me.”
“Oh, Christ. I’m so sorry.” But she sounded more angry than sorry, Cassie thought.
They’d discussed her situation every few days while Cassie waited out her suspension. Behaunek felt as responsible for what had happened at the industrial park as Cassie, although neither could have anticipated that it would happen the way it did. Both were obsessed with catching the Lizard King and they wanted him rotting away in prison for the rest of his life—or dead.
“Those bastards,” Leslie said. “Can you appeal?”
“I’m sure I can but I don’t want to,” Cassie said, telling Leslie how Sheriff Jon Kirkbride had followed her out of the state capitol building to her car. He’d begged her not to resign, to fight Tibbs, to sue the county he worked for to get her job back.
“He kept saying, ‘It just ain’t right,’” Cassie said.
“What did you tell him?” Leslie asked.
“I said I was through, then I gave him a hug. I’ll miss that guy,” Cassie said. She fought back another wave of tears. She was proud that she’d waited to cry until Kirkbride was no longer in the rearview mirror. She hadn’t wanted him to see her break down.
In their many late-night conversations, Leslie and Cassie had become comfortable enough with each other to share feelings, discuss relationships, and dish on their colleagues. They were kindred spirits—unmarried women in the rural, male-dominated field of law enforcement. It wasn’t the first time one of them had cried while on the phone with the other. Especially after Ian Davis was killed.
Cassie recounted the proceedings in the conference room and Leslie cursed throughout.
“I wish I could have been there as your lawyer,” Leslie said. “I’d eat Tibbs for lunch.”
“You would. But the deal was done when he walked in the door.”
“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Leslie said. “Every agency has its own political intrigue and you spend way too much time just trying to figure it out and survive. You don’t know where the threats are coming from until they get you. And in this case, it sounds like the real target was your sheriff and you were collateral damage.”
Cassie agreed. Her previous job in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, had more than its share of backstabbing and innuendo.
“But at least I grew up in Helena,” Cassie said. “I knew the players and I had a pretty good understanding of the sheriff and the political types going in. Here I’m still learning. Or I should say, I was learning. And what I was learning was that I could trust the sheriff and just about nobody else. It hurts.”
“Of course it does, Miss Cassie,” Leslie said. She knew Cassie had been amused when she was in North Carolina by the Southern affectation of Miss Cassie. “And worst of all, that son of a bitch is probably still out there. I lost him the first time, and now you lost him.”
“Again,” Cassie reminded her. “I lost him again.”
“And we know more women are going to die,” Leslie said.
There was a lull in their conversation. They’d talked enough that long pauses were okay.
After a few moments, Cassie told Leslie about the DNA that had been recovered from the burned body of the driver and the absence of a body in the trailer and Leslie cursed again.
“If they’d allowed us to do a DNA swab on him when we had him here there would be a match,” Leslie said. Pergram, who was using the identity of Dale Spradley at the time, had refused to agree to a swab.
She continued, “Or there wouldn’t be a match which would mean he’s still out there for sure.”
“I know.”
They speculated on other methods of determining whether Pergram was the driver but could come up with no good ideas.
Finally, Leslie asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? I’m not looking forward to telling my mother or Ben.”
“Maybe Ben would kind of like his mother around more,” Leslie offered.
Cassie laughed. “He would have a few years ago but now he’s twelve. Having his mother hovering around him is the last thing he wants, believe me.”
“Are you going to stay in North Dakota?”
“I’ve still got a lot of thinking to do.” Then: “Probably not. I love my sheriff but he’s struggling along until he can retire. Tibbs has placed a spy in the office and he’s slowly but surely easing Jon out. I’ll probably go back to Montana, but I really haven’t thought about it until this second.”
“Doing what?” Leslie asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassie sighed. “I don’t have a clue who would hire a fat, disgraced ex-cop with a hippie mom and a twelve-year-old boy. And did I mention I’m fat?”
Leslie started to give a pep talk to Cassie, telling her not to get down on herself, when Cassie said, “Really, Leslie, not now. I appreciate it and all, but I have to think this through.”
“Maybe I can put in a good word for you here?” Leslie said. “Maybe you can get a new start.”
“North Carolina? I’m getting too old for a new start, I think. I’m a Rocky Mountain girl at heart.”
“What’s your choice?” Leslie asked.
After a beat, Cassie said, “I don’t think I have one.”
*
AFTER ARRIVING IN GRIMSTAD at dusk, Cassie slowed down her car and joined a long caravan of oil field vehicles from the south where they were funneled through town. She’d been a part of the traffic parade thousands of times since she’d arrived, but this time it seemed more annoying than usual. Once she reached the downtown she took a left and drove around aimlessly, waiting for the shift change at the sheriff’s department. The last thing she wanted to do was arrive as the afternoon shift and evening shift of deputies converged around their lockers. No doubt, she thought, they would have heard what happened in Bismarck. News like that travelled lightning speed through the law enforcement community and she didn’t want the drama.
She knew there was a contingent of deputies who blamed her—at least somewhat—for the explosion and the deaths of their fellow officers. Tibbs had more than a few of them in his camp with vague offers of promotions and better assignments when and if he had more power within the department. Even if most of the deputies thought she’d acted entirely above board or disliked Tibbs—which she thought most of them did—a high-profile press conference from the state capitol targeting her actions would likely shake their confidence in her decisions.
As she had felt with Sheriff Kirkbride, Cassie didn’t want her presence in the department to serve as a wedge. In her experience, cops did two things really well: drink coffee and gossip with each other. If she tried staying in the department and fighting Tibbs as Kirkbride had suggested, the pro-Kirkbride and pro-Tibbs factions would harden. She knew she couldn’t do her job in that kind of poisoned workplace environment, and she didn’t want the last months of Kirkbride’s tenure to be filled with acrimony.
Her intention now was to enter the building to clean out her desk after the afternoon shift had gone home and the evening shift was on patrol. She hoped she timed it right.