Cassie and Cody had a long-standing dispute about the inside temperature of the Yukon. She wanted it warmer and he wanted it cooler. Their dashboard dance—one of them changing the temperature while the other napped or looked away—went on for hours. They varied between being pleasant to sniping at each other. Cassie and Cody could have a benign conversation that might take a turn and end up an argument about something. Cody was mercurial that way, so Cassie kept her guard up and her opinions as diplomatic as possible.
There were times, though, when Cody told stories or relived experience he’d had that she found wise and instructive. Other “life lessons” weren’t helpful. His philosophy about good police work—that the ends justified the means and anything that might have to be done to put dirtbags away was righteous—had horrified her.
On that night outside Lincoln he told her about the horseback trip he’d taken into the most remote wilderness in the Lower 48 states—the Thorofare region of Yellowstone National Park he called “back of beyond.” He’d gone there to try and find his son Justin who was on a multi-day expedition with his stepfather and an outfitter based in Bozeman named Jed McCarthy.
After day two in the wilderness, Cody described how miserable he was not only because of the primitive conditions but because he was withdrawing from nicotine and alcohol at the same time. That, and riding a horse ten hours a day.
Eventually Cody found the expedition, and what happened changed his life—for a while.
But although Cody had grown up in the redneck outlaw Hoyt clan that was spread throughout rural Montana, he’d never really been a seasoned outdoorsman. And he knew as little about horses as he possibly could. In fact, he told her, he’d made a point of it.
So how did he locate that expedition in the first place, she wondered?
That’s when she first heard the name Bull Mitchell.
Cody had found Bull Mitchell at, of all places, the Bozeman Public Library.
*
CASSIE GLANCED AT HER WRISTWATCH as she pushed through the double doors. It was ten to five and she hoped most of the staff was still on duty.
A slender young woman with jet-black hair with purple streaks in it looked up from a book she was reading at the information desk. The woman, Cassie thought, had a fresh hipster-outdoorsy look and was likely the target market for many of the downtown shops she’d wandered through that afternoon.
“May I help you?” she asked. She spoke with a flat intonation Cassie had heard described as “vocal fry” that was low, burred, and to Cassie, grating.
“Please,” Cassie said, trying to ignore the tone. “I’m from out of town and I hope you can steer me to the right person here. I assume there’s someone who is in charge of children’s reading programs?”
The outdoor girl glanced behind Cassie and Cassie instinctively turned around to see if there was someone waiting behind her. There wasn’t.
“Sorry,” the woman said, “I thought you had a little one with you.”
“My little one is twelve years old.”
“Oh, well, you asked about…”
Cassie put on her most pleasant face. She wasn’t there to confuse the outdoor girl behind the information desk.
“A friend of mine told me a really charming story a couple of years ago about an older man who read children’s stories for a primary-grade group. The audience was all kids except for one senior woman. The older man did it because the older woman was his wife and she had severe Alzheimer’s. It was his way to reconnect with her.”
The outdoor girl nodded her head with recognition. “Was his name Mr. Mitchell?”
“Yes. Bull Mitchell.”
“He was an awesome dude when he wasn’t crabby about something,” she said. “He was often pissy about one thing or other. But when he read to his wife”—she shook her head and smiled sadly—“it was awesome.”
“Does he still do it?” Cassie asked. “I’d like to meet him.”
“When his wife died he stopped coming in,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in probably a year and a half.”
“Oh. Do you have any idea where I could find him?”
The outdoor girl said, “This is a library. We can find anything.”
“Why do you talk like that?” Cassie asked her.
“Like what?” the outdoor girl said in her fried voice.
*
EVEN THOUGH THE FRONT DOORS were locked, there were lights on in the second-floor corner of Mitchell/Estrella, Attorneys at Law, in downtown Bozeman. Cassie did a quick search on her phone for the numbers for the law firm and called while she stood on Main Street and looked up. She could faintly hear the phone ring inside.
It rang seven times before diverting to voice mail.
“You’ve reached the law offices of Angela Mitchell and Jessica Estrella. Our office hours are…”
Cassie disconnected, waited a moment, and called again after it went to voice mail.
Then again.
In Cassie’s experience most attorneys were under the general impression that they were the smartest people in the room and therefore they were always in control of it. They liked processes to be complicated and stacked in their favor, and they didn’t enjoy uncertainty or chaos. Nothing made a prosecutor or defense attorney more uncomfortable than the unknown.
In this instance, the unknown identity of whomever was calling a law office repeatedly after it was closed and not leaving a message? Could it be a client in some kind of trouble?
On the fourth attempt the phone was answered. It was a female and she sounded annoyed.
“This is Rachel Mitchell of Mitchell/Estrella. If you’re the one who keeps calling—”
“I am. My name is Cassie Dewell and I’m standing on the street outside your window. I’d like to talk to you about your father.”
There was a silent moment. Cassie guessed Rachel Mitchell was weighing whether the call was professional or personal.
“What about my dad?” she asked.
“I need to ask him if he remembers helping out my old boss Cody Hoyt four years ago.”
“Now there’s a name from the past.” She said it in a way that indicated she was likely both as impressed with and annoyed by Cody as Cassie herself used to be.
Cassie looked up to see a slim woman with a full head of auburn hair, peering out the window of the corner office. She had a telephone receiver held up to her ear.
Cassie waved up at her as if to say, Here I am.
“Do I know you?” Rachel asked.
“We met once in Helena four years ago,” Cassie said. “You came up to see Cody after he came back from Yellowstone. I probably wasn’t very memorable at the time.”
“What did you say your name was again?” Rachel asked as if to confirm it.
*
“SO YOU’RE WITH the Sheriff’s Department,” Rachel said as Cassie entered her office.
Cassie said, “Not anymore. And up until a week ago I was working as the chief investigator for the Bakken County sheriff in North Dakota.”
Rachel Mitchell was an attractive, no-nonsense woman. She wore a tailored suit and she had athletic calves. Her manner was cool and professional as she gestured for Cassie to sit down in a chair while she skirted around the desk. Her office was spacious and tasteful, with leather-bound books of Montana Statutes lining the shelves and a collection of family photos on her credenza of good-looking outdoor kids doing outdoor things.