Paradise Valley (Highway Quartet #4)

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KIRKBRIDE HAD NOT CHANGED the key code on the double front doors of the Law Enforcement Center and Cassie quickly entered the lobby and headed toward the elevators with her head down. She sensed a presence near the left bank of windows but she didn’t look over.

As she reached out her finger to punch the button for the second floor a female voice behind her called, “Cassie? Is that you?”

She turned. A frail woman in her mid-seventies sat primly in the middle of one of the low benches. She had white hair done in a swept-up style that was the thing a quarter century before, and she wore gold-rimmed glasses, a scarf, and a calf-length coat. Although Cassie couldn’t see her dress because she was so bundled up, there were two thin bare ankles above sensible brown shoes.

It had been months since Cassie had seen Lottie Westergaard. Lottie had been injured two years before at her own home but had since recovered.

“Hi, Lottie.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Lottie said. “I asked for you but instead they made me talk to a woman who wasn’t very helpful.”

Since there were only two women on staff in the department and one of them was Judy Banister, Cassie said, “You must have spoken to Assistant County Attorney Deanna Palmer.”

“Yes,” Lottie said with distaste, “I think that was her name.”

Cassie paused. It was obvious Lottie had no idea she was talking to an ex-cop. Cassie didn’t know how much to tell her, if anything.

Before she could respond, Lottie said, “I’m here about Kyle. He’s been gone a month and nobody here will help me find him.”

Cassie had a decision to make. Go to her office on the second floor while no one was around, or take a minute with Lottie and risk running into some of her colleagues. She took a deep breath, then walked away from the elevator and sat down next to Mrs. Westergaard.

“Lottie, I know that Kyle and Raheem Johnson are missing—”

“Raheem,” Lottie interrupted. “He’s a nice young black boy. His father and I camped out in this lobby for the first week and we got to know each other. We got along even though the reason we were here was not good.”

Cassie looked away to keep from smiling. Lottie was from another time before the oil boom when there were no African Americans in Bakken County.

“They’ve been gone a month,” she said again. “Mr. Johnson is pretty sure they took his boat and went downriver. Kyle kind of talked about that ever since I took him to Medora and he saw those old photos of Theodore Roosevelt on the river. But I never thought he’d actually do it, you know. They could be in South Dakota or someplace even worse by now and nobody is doing a thing about it. It’ll be winter soon.”

Cassie nodded for her to go on, but instead Lottie reached into her purse and handed over a folded sheet of lined school paper.

“Kyle left me this.”

Cassie read Kyle’s letter and felt a lump form in her throat. She could hear his voice as she read. Then she handed it back.

Lottie said, “You know what Kyle is like. He’s a good boy and I love him but he lives in his own head. We always got along well, even when his mother was alive. I think I was the only stable person in his life. We always communicated even though he’s hard to understand at times. I can’t imagine him not calling me at some point, or you know, texting.”

When she said that she withdrew a cheap flip-phone from her purse and opened it.

“Kyle made me get one of these things. You can see that he texted me just about every day when he left school. Then nothing for a month.

“What if they had an accident? What if their boat overturned and they drowned in the river? I just need to know.”

“I understand your concern,” Cassie said, reaching out and patting Lottie’s small hands in her lap. “I wasn’t assigned to the case.

“The fact is, Lottie,” Cassie said while squeezing the old woman’s hands, “I’ve been on suspension since that explosion in September. I haven’t been in the office until today so I don’t know much.”

It was Lottie’s pleading eyes that got her, Cassie thought. The old woman had been through so much: the death of her husband, the overdose of her daughter, the trauma that led to Kyle staying with her. She was just a kind and resourceful North Dakota native who wanted to live and let live and bake lefse. Suspensions and politics within the sheriff’s department weren’t of concern to her. Kyle was.

Cassie asked, “What did the investigating officer tell you when you reported Kyle missing?”

“He told me to come back later.”

“Really?”

Lottie nodded her head. “He was trying to be nice but I could tell he had a lot on his mind that day.”

Then it sunk in.

“Lottie, what day did Kyle go missing?”

“September fifteenth,” she said. “A month to the day.”

Cassie said, “That’s the day the truck blew up at the industrial park. I’m sure you heard of it. We lost three good deputies and had two others very seriously injured. The sheriff got a concussion and he was off duty for three weeks. I’m sure this place was absolute chaos at the time.”

“It was. Nobody really wanted to talk to me.” A thin tear rolled out of her left eye as she said it.

“So you came back the next day?” Cassie prompted.

“Yes. I talked to a another nice officer. Mr. Johnson was also here that day. The officer wrote down what we told him about Kyle, Raheem, and the boat. He said he’d alert all the police downriver from here to look for a boat with two boys in it. He assured me they should be pretty easy to find. Then I talked to the sheriff himself.”

“You did?”

“I know where he lives,” Lottie said with a slight grin.

“What did the he say?”

She looked away. “I’ve known Jon since he rodeoed a hundred years ago,” she said. “He’s a good boy. But on that day when I knocked on his door and talked to him about Kyle he just looked at me like he wasn’t hearing what I was saying. He was … distant.”

“He’d just lost his men,” Cassie said.

“I understand. But that doesn’t bring Kyle back.”

Cassie didn’t know what to say. Kyle was unusual and too easily dismissed and misunderstood, she knew. Beneath the halting speech and inscrutable facial expressions was a very determined young man. That’s why Ben looked up to him. Kyle wasn’t the kind of boy who would simply abandon his only remaining family member for a month without a call or text. His concern for Lottie was reinforced in the letter he’d written to her.

“You stay right here,” Cassie said. “I’m going upstairs and I’ll try and get you some help.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Lottie said with a nod of determination. “I’ve decided to make a nuisance of myself until they find him.”





CHAPTER

TEN

JUDY BANISTER, SHERIFF KIRKBRIDE’S administrative assistant, looked up with surprise from her desk when Cassie stepped out of the elevator doors. She appeared frozen in place.

Cassie thought, She knows what happened in Bismarck.

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