“It looks like a woman in the passenger seat. I can’t see anyone else.”
“I don’t recognize him,” the sheriff said. “He must not be from around here.”
“North Dakota plates,” she said, letting the clip run until the field of view narrowed in on the front plates.
“JLS-011,” she called out.
“I’ll run ’em,” Verplank said after writing it down.
*
“THE PLATES BELONG to a guy named Floyd T. Eckstrom of Sanish, North Dakota,” Verplank told Cassie.
She looked up from where she’d copied the video clip of the man in the blue Ford from the hard drive onto her thumb drive.
“Something about that name is familiar,” she said.
“He was reported missing three weeks ago,” Verplank said. He’d printed out a report in his office and as he skimmed it he read from it. “Eckstrom was reported missing September twentieth after a couple of local hunters went onto his property to ask permission to construct a duck blind. Apparently he owns a little tract right on the Missouri River inside the reservation there.
“But instead of talking to Eckstrom they found his trailer burned to the ground. Eckstrom wasn’t around and his truck was gone. The local officials there think it might have been an insurance deal. Apparently the guy had back payments due on an 18-wheeler from a dealership in Bismarck and maybe he burned his own place to collect on it.”
Cassie nodded her head. “That was it. That’s where I heard the name. He was one of the missing persons in the area around the time Raheem and Kyle were reported. So he’s a long-haul trucker?”
The sheriff continued to read. “Yep, looks like it. His employer is an outfit out of Dickenson. His rig is there now because he left it there for some service work. They reported that he didn’t show up to pick it up and he hasn’t called in since the twentieth. Apparently they’re on the hook for his truck as well.”
“Do they list a description of him?” she asked.
“Let’s see … yeah. Thirty-two years old, six-foot, brown eyes. We’ve got the photo from his CDL.”
She rose and stood shoulder to shoulder with Verplank. In the photo for his Commercial Driver’s License Eckstrom looked bug-eyed into the camera. He had dark hair, black-framed glasses, a small mouth, and an intense, unnerving stare.
“Tell me,” she said to the sheriff while pointing at the frozen image on the monitor, “does this guy look to you like that guy?”
He studied the photo and then the screen. “Nope.”
“So who was driving his pickup and why?” she asked. “And what was he doing in Ekalaka?”
The question hung there.
Finally, the sheriff said, “I think you might have a better idea than I do.”
She rubbed her eyes and then her temples. She said, “I need to sit down with a glass of wine and my files and this new information and puzzle it out. I need to talk to a couple of people and get their take.”
“And I need to get home and feed the dogs,” he said.
Cassie looked up and the sheriff smiled at her. “Don’t forget to get some sleep. And don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything. You have my cell phone number after all.”
She said, “I’ll come by here in the morning.”
As she shut down Bodeen’s computer and gathered her belongings she knew she’d be up all night.
Because the scenario that was forming in her mind was too disturbing to push aside.
*
THE STATE LIQUOR STORE was closed for the night but Cassie bought a bottle of cheap red wine at a gas station/convenience store and checked into her cabin at the Home Ranch Motel. The owner, a jolly round woman in a housecoat and slippers with her television blaring in the background, outlined where the thermostat was located and scribbled down the password for the Wi-Fi. Cassie listened with a pleasant expression on her face and pretended she was listening but her mind was back at the sheriff’s department.
*
HER CABIN WAS LARGE, spare, clean, and paneled with knotty pine. It smelled like disinfectant. The walls were decorated with Frederic Remington and C. M. Russell cowboy prints as if to remind her she was back in Montana.
With a full glass of wine in a flimsy plastic cup, she sat down at the small desk and tried to get her head right before she called home. Cassie wanted to think “Ben” and not “Lizard King.”
Unfortunately, Isabel answered the landline.
“What do you mean you may not be home tomorrow?” she asked after Cassie explained that her plans had likely changed. “I have things to do, you know.”
“I know. But I might need to extend the trip. Progressive Grimstad can wait a day or two, can’t it?”
“I also have my Zumba.”
“That’s during the day when Kyle is at school.”
“I hope this doesn’t become a habit.”
Cassie bit her tongue. Isabel shared the house, didn’t cook or clean, and paid nothing toward the mortgage. But she loved Ben and was a wonderful caretaker. Plus, she was family. Finding someone to be in the house with a twelve-year-old in Grimstad wasn’t easy.
Cassie said, “I appreciate you being home when Ben is there, I really do. I couldn’t do this without you.”
She took a big gulp of wine after that. It warmed her throat and built a fire in her belly and took the edge off the guilt she felt for being such a manipulator.
Isabel sighed her familiar sigh. It was the sigh of a martyr.
Cassie ignored it. “Is Ben there?”
“He’s doing his homework but I’ll go get him.”
Cassie heard the receiver on the other end clunk on the kitchen counter.
“Mom—did you find Kyle and Raheem?”
Cassie was startled by the question. “Who told you I was looking for them?”
“Grandma Isabel.”
Cassie briefly closed her eyes. “No, I haven’t found them yet. I’m looking hard, though.”
The last thing she wanted to do was mention the headless body in the hayfield to Ben or anyone else until she was absolutely sure of the identification.
“So where are you?” Ben asked.
“Montana.”
Ben said, “It’s weird. I can hardly remember Montana. I can remember our house and all of that but I can’t remember Montana. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
They discussed his homework and his day. When she asked if anyone gave him any trouble at school because she lost her job, he said none of the kids mentioned it but his gym teacher gave him a weird look.
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
“Naw. Nobody likes Mr. Schustler anyway. He’s kind of lame.”
Ben talked more to her on the telephone than he did in person anymore. She found that interesting.
When he handed the phone back to her mother, Isabel said, “I didn’t hear. Did you find them?”
“No,” Cassie said. “And please don’t tell Ben everything I’m doing. I don’t want to give him false hope that we’ll find those boys.”
The sigh, again.
*