Badlands (7 page)

Isabel had sighed heavily.

Cassie said, “I may not be able to talk, so I'll text you.”

“I
hate
texting and you know it.”

Cassie could hear Ben in the background.

“He's right
here
,” Isabel said, laying on the guilt.

“I'll talk with him.”

“I thought so,” Isabel said, handing over the phone.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, little man,” Cassie said.

“What's wrong with your voice?”

“I'm in North Carolina,” Cassie had said. Somehow, it worked. Ben told her a long story about finding a stray cat in the alley on the way home from school. It was the best cat
ever
. But it was lonely and needed a home really bad. He wanted to name it Sergeant, which was a manipulative play aimed straight at his mother's heart. Ben's father Jim, who had died during the Battle of Wanat in Afghanistan in 2008, had been a sergeant in the army. Ben was born after Jim was killed. Jim had never seen his son, but Ben worshipped his father. Or, more precisely, he worshipped the
idea
of his father.

But before she could tell Ben he couldn't have a cat, she heard it yowling through the receiver.

“Grandma Isabel is giving it some milk,” Ben said.

“Of course she is.”

*   *   *

IN THE
car, Behaunek opened her briefcase and handed Cassie a large Ziploc bag of her possessions that they'd taken away when she was admitted into the Wilson Medical Center.

Cassie nodded her thanks and buckled on her watch and twisted her wedding ring on her finger. She caught Behaunek watching.

“I understand,” Behaunek said with a smile. She raised her left hand with a ring on it, and said, “My divorce was three years ago. This helps keep the wolves at bay—or at least most of them.”

*   *   *

CASSIE POWERED
on her cell phone and saw she had a pending voice message from area code 701. North Dakota.

Before she could retrieve it, Behaunek reached over and touched her arm. “Cassie, there's something we need to talk about.”

“What?”

Behaunek took a deep breath. Cassie braced for bad news.

“Unless the FBI finds ironclad evidence in that truck that proves Spradley is the Lizard King he may not serve much time in jail. He has no priors—he looks clean.”

Cassie shook her head as if dismissing the prospect in general.

Behaunek said, “If I step back from what we know and look at this entire case the way a criminal defense lawyer will see it, I start to get really nervous. Think about it.”

The prosecutor said, “One, the initial arrest is shaky. Spradley was pulled over because of a theory backed by a local politician, not because of true reasonable suspicion of a crime or traffic offense. Then the truck was unloaded and searched. I'll have a tough time making the argument that Lightning Bates's observation comes across as solid probable cause that would allow the police to search that truck. A good lawyer can look at those two things and argue that everything that resulted from the initial stop is ‘fruit of a poisonous tree,' meaning it should not be admissible in court.”

Cassie didn't want to hear what she was hearing. But she could tell Behaunek was being straight with her. Behaunek was worried, which made Cassie worried.

“So we held Spradley in county lockup for a day and a half without counsel and without charging him,” Behaunek said. “It was a chance I was willing to take in the hope you could get him to incriminate himself. But the defense may look at that and say it was illegal coercion—that you were brought down here for the purpose of shocking him and deliberately provoking him. They might say in court that you baited him, hoping he'd lose control.”

Cassie tried to nod. Couldn't. She said, “That's what I did.”

“And that's between us and will never be spoken of again,” Behaunek said. “North Carolina statute number fourteen, thirty-four, seven classifies assault on a law enforcement officer as only a Class F felony, unless we can somehow convince the judge that Spradley's hands are lethal weapons. With no priors, the best we could hope for if he's convicted is five to ten years, and possibly even less. You know how the law works.”

Cassie pursed her mouth. She knew how the law worked, all right.

Behaunek said, “Based on what I saw in that interrogation room, he might come after you if he gets out.”

“Then don't let him out,” Cassie croaked. “There has to be evidence.
Trophies.
”

She wanted to explain how Pergram had previously kept a collection of DVDs and videotapes of his victims being assaulted. How Pergram had arranged to get two of the DVDs into Cassie's hands two years before in a successful effort to steer her toward his accomplice instead of him.

“We know about these types of killers, how they like to keep trophies,” Behaunek said. “But we just can't find where he keeps them. I hope the FBI tears that truck and trailer apart bolt by bolt.”

“Maybe the sheriff's idea is a good one.”

Behaunek withdrew her hand and said, “You surprise me.”

“I learned from the best,” Cassie said. “His name was Cody Hoyt and he was my partner. Pergram's accomplice shot him in the face.”

At the curbside check-in, Behaunek got out of the car with Cassie and helped get her overnight bag out of the back.

She gave Cassie a hug goodbye, then held both of Cassie's hands for a moment. “You were great.”

Cassie said, “Don't let him out.”

“I'll do my best to keep him in a cage,” she said. Cassie was grateful. She had confidence in Leslie Behaunek. She came across as a bulldog prosecutor.

“And I'll keep in touch with you on everything.”

Cassie paused before turning and entering the airport. “Call me on my cell,” she said. “Don't call my office or send e-mail to my sheriff's department e-mail address.”

When Behaunek raised her eyebrows, Cassie said, “I may not be there very long.”

*   *   *

INSIDE THE
terminal, Cassie withdrew her phone. The message on her cell phone was from Bakken County Sheriff Jon Kirkbride. He spoke in a slow Western drawl and said, “Greetings from the new energy capital of the world. We'd like to offer you that job we talked about and the sooner you can get here, the better. But there's something you need to remember: this place is the Wild West. I can
guar-and-damn-tee
you ain't ever seen anything like it. And I ain't kidding about that.”

She lowered the phone and closed her eyes for a moment.

Cassie couldn't wait to tell Sheriff Tubman in Helena that she was moving on. She didn't know who would be happier.

 

DAY THREE

 

CHAPTER SIX

Grimstad

THE NEXT
morning, Kyle Westergaard rode up to the bluff to look over the dark prairie where it had all happened two days before.

Big trucks filled the highway to Watson City like normal. They were moving slowly, though, because of the weather. Kyle could see dust devils of snow kicked up by dual rear wheels caught in the lights of oncoming trucks.

He made a V with his fingers and raised his hand to his mouth. This morning, he thought, he was smoking a big cigar.

He was much warmer than he'd been the morning before although the snow had continued through the night. Steam rose from the collar of his coat when he paused on the bluff because he was sweating. It was hard work pedaling through three inches of untracked snow, and he had to keep stopping and cleaning packed snow from his tires. His new Thinsulate gloves in camo made it a challenge to fish individual copies of the
Tribune
out of his canvas panniers—but he didn't mind.

While pausing to catch his breath, Kyle lowered his new Sorel Pac boots to the ground and balanced his bike. He couldn't stop for too long, he knew, or the chill would set in.

That old gnome Alf Pedersen had told him someone had complained the day before about Kyle tossing the last of his newspapers on their driveway at 6:45—fifteen minutes late.

“You were here early enough,” Alf said. “Why were you so late with the delivery?”

Kyle didn't want to say he'd seen the rollover. He hoped Alf wouldn't ask about it.

But he did.

“Were you rubbernecking around that crash? I heard about that. Some Mexican high on drugs went off the road. Things are crazy around here. That kind of thing never used to happen.”

Kyle said he'd seen the car crash from a distance.

“Ah,” Alf had said. “I wish I could understand what the hell it is you're saying to me. Anyway, next time deliver the newspapers and
then
go rubbernecking.”

Kyle had no idea what rubbernecking meant, but he didn't think he'd told a lie. He just hadn't told Alf
everything
.

*   *   *

THE NIGHT
before when his mom got home clutching a bag of hamburgers, T-Lock had bounded through the small house and had met her at the back door, saying, “Fuck those burgers. We're going out!”

His mom, who had already taken off her thick winter coat to reveal the maroon McDonald's smock, began to protest immediately. She brought dinner home, she said. They couldn't afford to go out. They never went out, she reminded T-Lock, except to fast-food places. She'd spent the entire day on her feet at McDonalds'. And the other fast-food places were packed with men as well and it took forever to get your order …

T-Lock wouldn't take no for an answer. He was giddy and his grin was in full beam. He took the bag from her and tossed the burgers on the counter and yelled for Kyle to grab his coat.

Kyle's mom was as thin as T-Lock, with short dirty-blond hair, brown eyes, wide cheekbones, and a slash of a mouth. She was small and wiry and often had a pinched, don't-mess-with-me-or-my-kid expression on her face like she was looking for a fight. Kyle didn't mind.

T-Lock insisted they were going out, and held out her coat for her like she was a queen and he was somebody who dressed the queen.

It had been so long since Kyle had seen her smile like that he didn't mind T-Lock's lie to her about winning $300 in the North Dakota Lottery that day. He said he'd won the Hot Lotto with a Triple Sizzler, to be exact.

Kyle thought that was a pretty specific lie.

*   *   *

T-LOCK DROVE
his mother's van. Before going to the Wagon Wheel, he merged dangerously between two huge muddy trucks in a convoy of them on Main Street. The traffic was unbelievable, practically gridlock in both directions. Exhaust rose from beneath the big trucks and swirled with the snow in the streetlights. It was loud inside the van because of the throbbing diesel engines all around them from idly moving or barely moving trucks.

They drove three blocks before T-Lock exited Main into the packed parking lot of Work Wearhouse.

Inside, they waited for twenty minutes in line behind rough men in muddy and oil-covered coveralls cradling small mountains of thermal underwear, fireproof clothing, Carhartt parkas. It smelled earthy in line, Kyle thought, like what it might smell like after a meteorite blew a hole open in the ground.

At the register, Kyle watched T-Lock peel several bills from a roll and hand them to the salesclerk. Kyle knew where the money had come from. Although he wanted and needed the winter items, he wasn't sure he liked the idea of T-Lock spending money on him when they agreed they'd spend the money on his mother. When he looked at his mom to see if she was suspicious, she simply smiled at him. She seemed genuinely touched T-Lock was buying warm boots and gloves for her son.

“What do you say to Tracy, Kyle?” his mom prompted. She never called him T-Lock.

“Thank you,” Kyle said.

T-Lock winked back.

*   *   *

KYLE COULDN'T
remember having eaten as well as he had the night before at the Wagon Wheel, except at his grandmother's house. As he perched on the bluff and looked out over the hundreds of orange flares in the distance—the Indian village—he could still taste the deep-fried cheese, the breaded shrimp, even the bite of cheesecake his mother had offered him from her dessert. The restaurant had been packed with men from the oil fields.

Nearly all the men wore hoodies, jeans, boots, and ball caps. The few women in the place dressed the same way minus the ball caps. There were loud conversations about the prices on the menu, but he didn't see anyone get up and leave.

He was still full when he got up that morning, hoping his mom would remember she promised to drive him on his route because of the weather. But even though he knocked on her bedroom door and stood outside it for five minutes, she didn't get up.

He left the house after T-Lock yelled for him to “Go the fuck away.”

*   *   *

AS THE
morning cold started to seep into his clothing, Kyle got ready to finish his route. Then he saw a familiar car slow down on the highway and edge to the side of the road where the crash had occurred. He recognized it by its low-slung, bright-white halogen headlights.

There was no way, he thought, he'd go back down there to see who it was.

The car stopped and the doors opened and the same two men—at least Kyle assumed they were the same men—got out and descended into the prairie. The crashed car had been towed away, but the men walked to where the car had rolled to a stop. Then two flashlights came on and scoured the snow-covered ground.

Kyle watched as the men circled around the spot where the wreck had occurred, walking in ever-widening circles. It must be tough, Kyle, thought, to see anything under the snow. He guessed they were looking for a lump.

Then, just as had happened the morning before but much slower and without sirens or lights, the cop SUV drove out from the edge of Grimstad and made its way to the parked car. Only this time the two men in the prairie didn't run back to their vehicle and drive away. This time, the men continued to look.