The comments beneath the item were just as useless as the Kyle and Raheem comments, and most of them went with the theory that she had run off with a delivery truck driver, specifically the Schwan’s frozen foods man. Schwan’s’ yellow freezer trucks were ubiquitous throughout the Midwest.
The first comment read: “I knowed Amanda little bit before she moved up on the hill. She used to have the Schwan’s man deliver ice cream every week because she thought he was hot. She told me that herself!”
“If you ever met Harold Hackl,” another comment read, “you’d run off with the Schwan’s man, too.”
*
DESPITE WHAT DEANNA PALMER had told her, Cassie couldn’t find other stories about additional missing people in the area in the past month. At least none who made the paper.
Kyle and Raheem vanished on September 15, the day of the explosion. From what Cassie could discern from the story about Amanda Lee Hackl, she disappeared the same day although it took three days for the item to appear in the Tribune.
Three missing in the same day? On the day of the explosion?
She wondered if Sheriff Kirkbride or any of the other deputies found that as unusual as she did.
*
CASSIE WAS GRATEFUL the sheriff’s department had been so overwhelmed the last month that no one had thought to change the passwords on the law enforcement databases they had access to.
Cassie accessed the FBI’s NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System), NCIC (National Crime Information Center), ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program), and MOCIC (Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center) which regionalized crime reports to Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Similar regional databases covered other sections of the country.
She was looking for possible crimes committed by boys of Kyle and Raheem’s description and perhaps the discovery of bodies matching them.
It took until breakfast and the searches resulted in nothing that helped her. Another man in Sanish reported missing by a neighbor a week after September 15; teenage runaways from two different Indian reservations late that month—but nothing really connected.
Cassie didn’t specifically search for any hits on Amanda Lee Hackl, but she kept her eye out and found no helpful information.
Maybe, she thought with a slight smile, she should key in Schwan’s man in the search criteria.
But she didn’t.
*
CASSIE STOOD OVER BEN’S BED after her shower, with a damp towel on her head. “What’s this Isabel says about you being sick and not wanting to go to school?”
“My stomach really hurts,” Ben said with a protracted groan. “I think I have a fever.”
She leaned over and placed the back of her hand on her son’s forehead. “You feel cool to me.”
He groaned again. It was as theatrical a groan as his statement had been at dinner the night before. He writhed around under the covers and flipped the top sheet up so it covered his face so she couldn’t see it.
“Ben, I know you’re upset but I don’t think you’re sick. At least get up and get dressed and get something to eat.”
Another groan but this one had less flair, she thought.
“Staying away from school won’t help anything.”
“Grandma Isabel could call them,” Ben offered.
“She’s already gone to her yoga class, and I’m not calling the school if you’re not really sick. Man up, Ben, or look me in the eye and convince me you really are too ill to go to school.”
After a beat, Ben pulled the sheet down but didn’t recant. She held his gaze for a moment before he broke it and looked away.
“Avoiding a situation doesn’t solve the problem,” she said, sitting down on the bed next to her son. “You know who told me that?”
He shook his head.
“Your dad,” she lied. Jim had not actually ever told her that.
“Your dad met problems head-on, which is something I try to do in my life and you should try to do in yours. You’ll hear some things at school you probably don’t want to hear about me, but they’re not true. You can get through this but not by staying in bed.”
He blinked and she thought he understood.
“Put some clothes on,” she said while stroking his cheek. “I’ll take you to school and you’ll march in there like a man with your chin up. And if someone gives you a hard time—and I mean beyond just a few words you can shrug off—you call me and I’ll get things straightened out.
“Just because I’m no longer a cop doesn’t mean I won’t protect you,” she said. She considered explaining to him how a she-bear would protect her cubs, but she didn’t.
He looked away, embarrassed. She’d said too much and gone too far, she realized. No boy his age wanted his mother to fight his battles for him.
It was times like this, she thought, she wished Jim was still there. Or Ian.
“Okay,” she said, patting him on the shoulder while she rose, “Thirty minutes. Showered, dressed and breakfast, Little Man.”
*
AS HE GOT out of the car, Ben said, “I’ll walk home tonight—okay? You don’t need to pick me up.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She watched him shoulder his backpack and walk away from her car toward the front doors of the school. He didn’t look back and she was glad he didn’t or he could have seen the tears in her eyes and the concern on her face for him.
None of the other kids gave him undue attention that she could tell. That would come later.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
OVER HOMEMADE NORWEGIAN SNACKS of rolled-up lefse spread with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and baked apples with gjetost cheese, Cassie listened to Lottie Westergaard talk about Kyle. Her spiral pad was open on the table in front of her and she dutifully took notes.
Lottie’s small house was located on the edge of the thick band of cottonwoods that choked the river. The other homes in the bottomland swale were scattered in the trees and could only be seen from her house in the winter when the leaves dropped. Builders had been prevented from constructing additional houses in the area because it was in a floodplain, but older homes like Lottie’s had been grandfathered in.
Cassie had been there dozens of times before to drop Kyle off after he’d spent time with Ben. The first time she’d seen the home, though, was when it was occupied by two MS-13 gangbangers from Southern California, their local drug distributor, and Kyle’s mother. Lottie herself had been taped up so she couldn’t move or call for help. It had been a bone-chilling night and when it was over, three men and Kyle’s mother had been killed.
*
“I JUST DON’T THINK he’s dead,” Lottie said. Then: “More coffee?”
Cassie declined. The coffee was hot and weak, just the way older North Dakotans seemed to like it. They drank it throughout the day and into the evening.
Lottie filled Cassie’s cup anyway and said, “Don’t think ill of me when I talk about my grandson being dead. I grew up on a farm and I’ve been around death all my life. It’s how things go.”