SHE OPENED THE ROAD ATLAS showing the North Central United States and it was large enough to cover the entire desk. With a black pen she circled Eau Claire, Wiconsin; Grimstad, Sanish, and Dickenson, North Dakota; and Ekalaka, Montana.
They had video of the Lizard King from the truck stop in Eau Claire on the night of September 14. On the fifteenth, his truck was sighted east of Dickenson en route to Grimstad, which meant he’d driven west on I-94 from Wisconsin. From Dickenson north to Grimstad, the logical route was U.S. 85 through Watson City.
Cassie drew a line connecting those locations and sat back. Sanish was northeast of Watson City and not on the way to Grimstad. To go there and still get to Grimstad, the Lizard King would have had to backtrack in the wrong direction. Unless …
Unless he took two-lane North Dakota State Highway 22 which went north through Manning, Killdeer, and within eight miles of Sanish.
They’d assumed he took U.S. 85 that day, she recalled. But they didn’t know it.
A stop in Sanish might account for the one-and-a-half-hour delay they’d experienced before he got to the industrial park.
She said, “Damn,” and finished the cup of wine and poured another. On a fresh sheet of her legal pad she began to construct a timeline.
*
CASSIE WAS INTERRUPTED FROM HER work when her phone lit up and skittered across the desk. She grabbed it and was surprised to see the caller was Jon Kirkbride.
“Hello, Sheriff.”
“I’m not the sheriff anymore. How’d things go in Ekalaka?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m still here.”
“You are?” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I spent a month in Ekalaka one night,” he said.
“Thank you for putting in a good word with the locals.”
“You bet. Glad I could help.”
She filled him in on the discovery of the body outside of town and what they’d found at Bodeen’s gas station. He listened quietly.
When she was done he said, “Damn. This is getting interesting.”
“It is.”
She was grateful he’d called to check up on her but she guessed that wasn’t the only reason.
He sighed and said, “When I left the department I swore to my wife and myself I’d leave it all behind me—all the politics and bullshit. I didn’t want to be one of those bitter old guys who spends his retirement criticizing the new regime and telling everybody who will listen how I would have done things. I know too many former sheriffs like that and feel sorry for them.”
“Right,” she said. In the back of her mind she sincerely hoped that despite Kirkbride’s preamble he wasn’t going to do exactly that. It would be too distracting.
He said, “But as you know, I still have a lot of friends on the inside. I worked with some of those people for years and I hired just about all of them. They call me and I can’t just not answer the phone. I heard something today that I thought I ought to pass along to you so you won’t be blindsided if it happens.”
Cassie perked up. “If what happens?”
“Well, apparently your old FBI contact has been meeting with Tibbs.”
“Special Agent Rhodine?” she asked.
“Him.”
“What about?”
“You, I suspect,” Kirkbride said. “I do know they requested your personnel file from the department.”
Cassie suspected his source to be Judy Banister. She was the only employee with access to personnel files.
He said, “Think about it, Cassie. Both of those guys are ambitious as hell. They went all in on getting the Lizard King at the industrial park because they both wanted to take credit for it. Then things turned out the way they did and you became the scapegoat. They’ve got to figure out a way to come out on top again.”
Cassie shook her head. “Wasn’t forcing both of us out of the department enough?”
“Apparently not.”
“So what are they up to? Why are they meeting?”
Kirkbride said, “That I don’t know—yet. But whatever it is they’re hatching is being done on the sly. They’ve met at restaurants and other nonofficial locations but not in the office.
“I do know Tibbs seems especially interested in your activities of late. He’s been asking around about where you are and what you’re doing.”
“So why doesn’t he just call me directly?”
“That’s not how he operates.”
“But why does he even care what I’m doing?”
“Again, Cassie: Think about it. Tibbs has taken over my department and has the resources of the entire sheriff’s office and prosecutor’s office under his control. Rhodine is the tip of the spear of a federal agency with hundreds of agents and an 8.3 billion dollar budget. How would it look if a private individual operating on her own located a couple of missing runaways and tracked down Ronald Pergram? Answer: It wouldn’t look good for them.”
“My God,” Cassie whispered.
“So keep alert,” Kirkbride said. “And don’t be surprised if they somehow try to take you down.”
*
TWO HOURS LATER Cassie paced the floor of her cabin. It was so quiet inside that her footfalls echoed off the walls. Outside, except for two saloons, Ekalaka was asleep.
She checked her watch and saw it was only nine-thirty although it felt much later. Plus, she’d gained an hour entering the Mountain Time Zone.
Nevertheless, Cassie sat down at her laptop and inserted the thumb drive she’d loaded at the sheriff’s department. After copying the clip of the Ford at Bodeen’s to her hard drive she attached it to an e-mail with the subject header PLS LOOK AT THIS.
She sent it to an address in the Eastern Time Zone—two hours later.
It would be a long night, she thought. She wished she could somehow zip back to Grimstad, see Ben and sleep in her own bed, and reappear in the morning. By then the e-mail should have been opened where she sent it and she’d hear from Sheriff Verplank about what the Montana crime lab techs had found.
She grinned when her cell phone came to life in her hand and she saw the familiar 252 area code prefix. North Carolina.
“Hey,” Leslie Behaunek said. “My phone chimed. Did you send me something important?”
“I did.”
“Cassie, you sound keyed up.”
“I am.”
“And maybe you’ve had a glass or two of wine.”
“Not a glass but a plastic cup. And yes, I’ve had several. And probably more to come.”
Leslie laughed. Her voice was husky from being tired or perhaps a little drunk herself. She, like Cassie, liked to drink wine at night.
“Where are you?” Leslie asked.
“A place called Ekalaka, Montana. I’ll guarantee you’ve never heard of it.”
“And you’d be right. What brings you there?”
Cassie hesitated a moment, then asked, “I don’t want to tell you quite yet. I want you to have a totally open mind when you open the video clip I sent you and watch it.”
“Right now?”
“I’ll wait.”
“Okay,” Leslie said. “I’ve got to get my housecoat on and get my computer in the other room. I was just turning in when I saw you sent me something.”
“I’m sorry it’s so late there.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine…”
Cassie paced and kept the phone pressed to her ear, stopping only long enough by the desk to pour more wine into her cup.
After five minutes Leslie said, “Oh my God—it can’t be.”
This time, she sounded fully awake.