Loe raamatut: «Missing In Conard County»

Chapter Two
Day 1

Kelly Noveno rolled over in her bed with a groan, wishing she could knock the ringing phone off the hook and go back to sleep. Being a sheriff’s deputy, she knew she couldn’t do that even though she’d worked graveyard.

The night shifts ended in the wee hours with her being too wound up to sleep immediately. Inevitably while she worked she drank far too much coffee, and by the time she reached her snug little house near the edge of Conard City, she was wider awake than an owl. She unwound with recorded TV or music, and often didn’t fall asleep until late morning.

Thus, no one should bother her this early. She’d made that much clear to the dispatcher. She and her dog, Bugle, must be allowed to sleep.

Right then Bugle, who was lying beside her on her rumpled queen-size bed, lifted his head and made a sound somewhere between a groan and a yawn.

“Yeah, me, too, boy.” Except that as she pushed herself upright, she caught sight of the digital clock. Three in the afternoon was hardly early. If she were on shift tonight, she’d be getting up soon anyway.

“Hell,” she muttered and stood in her red flannel pajamas, shoving her feet into warm slippers. “It’s getting cold, Bugle.” Even inside. The heat must be straining to keep up.

The phone jangled again, telling her it wasn’t going to let her run away. Pushing her bobbed, straight black hair back from her face, she reached for the receiver and lifted it to her ear.

“Noveno,” she answered, trying to sound alert and not groggy.

“Kelly, sorry to wake you,” came the gravelly voice of the sheriff, Gage Dalton. She guessed her attempt to sound alert hadn’t worked very well. “You found a car in the ditch along the state highway last night, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “About eleven o’clock. A trace on the tag said it belonged to Randy Beauvoir. I called and got no answer. Figured someone had picked the occupants up because it was so cold. No sign of any trouble, appeared to be a simple loss of control. I tagged it for tow because the rear end was dangerously near the edge of the traffic lane.”

All of which had been in the report that she had typed at five that morning. Holiday weekend, lots of activity and lots of people not home. New Year’s.

“I know you’re probably still tired, but we need you to come in. Three girls are missing, last known to be in that vehicle. Their parents called us half an hour ago.”

“Oh, God,” she breathed. “I’ll be there right away.”

SHE FILLED BUGLE’S bowls with kibble and fresh water, then while he filled his belly she hurried into a fresh uniform. Which girls? The thought ran around inside her head like a hamster on a wheel.

Beauvoir. She didn’t know the family well, but she’d met Randy and May’s daughter briefly last fall during one of those “don’t drink and drive” demos they put on every two years, showing the graphic aftermath of an accident. The girl, woman really, had been pretty and engaging and full of questions because she said she wanted to become an EMT. Eighteen and full of promise.

“Oh, God,” she said aloud once more.

Bugle looked at her, forgetting his food.

“Go ahead and eat,” she told him. “Who knows when this day will end.” Or how.

SHE GRABBED SOME dry cereal from the cupboard, poured milk on it and ate it too quickly. A couple of power bars wound up in her jacket pockets after she donned her utility belt and gun.

Time to go.

Anyone who’d grown up here should know better than to wander away from a vehicle on a cold night. It was easy to get lost out there on those open expanses, and people ought to be aware how fast the cold could become fatal. She couldn’t believe three high school women wouldn’t be aware. It was possible, but she was more inclined to believe someone had offered them a ride.

It would have been considered criminal by most folks around here to leave someone with a broken-down vehicle in such cold.

But if someone had offered a ride, who? And where had the girls gone?

Her stomach kept taking one plunge after another as she drove to the office. Bugle whimpered in his caged-in backseat as if he felt her anxiety.

“It’s okay, boy,” she said, trying to sound calm. Okay? Less and less likely.

THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE was a beehive of activity, with barely enough space to move around other personnel. Conversation was quiet, weighted with gravity. It looked like the entire department’s staff was here, along with the city police department under the direction of Chief Madison.

Before she heard a word, she recognized that a search was about to get underway.

“Kelly?”

Sheriff Gage Dalton waved her back to his office. She wormed her way through the crowd with Bugle, greeting everyone with a nod. She knew them all but there was no time for conversation, not now. Bad things were afoot.

Once inside the sheriff’s office, she closed the door at his gesture and took the seat facing his desk. Every time Gage moved, pain flickered across his scarred face. The result of a long-ago bomb when he’d been with the DEA. While he tried to give the pain no quarter, she didn’t mind his manual suggestion that she close the door herself. Why would she?

Bugle promptly sat beside her, ears pricked, at attention. He sensed something.

“Okay,” he said. “You know we don’t usually respond to a missing person report this quickly, especially not when the missing are legally all adults. Any one of those young women has the right to skip town and disappear.”

She nodded. “But not right before high school graduation. Five months before college and vocational schooling or whatever.”

“Exactly. Plus, how likely is it for three of them to pull a disappearing act and take nothing with them? One might, but not all of them. So we’re going to start looking immediately. You found the car last night around eleven. We’re not quite eighteen hours into this. Maybe a little more. I figure the first thing to do is start looking along the state highway. You said the car was facing west in the ditch?”

“Mostly. It might have spun out, I can’t be sure, but I had the impression it was on its way back toward town. I also didn’t see any tire skids, but that doesn’t mean much as dark as it was. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking, because there was no injury and no damage.”

Gage nodded. “I’ve sent some people out to look at the highway for any kind of marks. So what have we got east along that road that might attract three young women on a holiday weekend night?”

Kelly was sure he knew the answer. “Rusty’s Tavern. You want me to take Bugle out there?”

He nodded. “They’ll be opening soon enough. Maybe one of the bartenders will remember them. Regardless, Bugle will know if they’ve been there.”

He sure would, Kelly thought. “So what made their parents worry?”

“They knew the girls were going out last night. Each of their families thought they were staying at one of the other girl’s homes. Apparently nothing definite had been arranged except a pajama party at one house or the other. By the time parents started worrying and calling each other, it was late and they all figured it wasn’t that...simple.”

It was so unlike the sheriff to hesitate over a word. She guessed he was as worried about the young women as anyone. As certain this wasn’t going to end well.

“There’s still hope,” she said, rising as she realized he was done. “I’ll head straight for the tavern. Do we have a target for my dog?”

“The parents are each bringing some clothing. Guess you’ll have to wait until they get here.”

“Or Bugle could smell the car interior. It’s in the impound lot now, right?”

“He might get more scents than the girls.”

She shook her head. “The parents aren’t going to pick up a piece of their clothing without touching it. He’s going to get multiple scents. One of the wondrous things about him is that he doesn’t get them mixed up.”

He put up a hand. “Whatever you think best.” Glancing at the old wall clock to his right, he added, “Another half hour at least before anyone will be at Rusty’s.”

“I’ll be there when they are.” She paused. “We’ve got photos and personal data?”

“Not enough. Ask Sarah Ironheart. She may have been able to pull a digital copy of the yearbook. It won’t be printed for another two months. Otherwise we’re waiting for photos and all the rest from the parents.”

She didn’t want to meet the parents. Cowardly of her, she supposed, but right now all they could do, once they provided necessary information, was slow her down.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care. It was that she would care too much.

Sarah Ironheart sat at a desk near the front of the office, images scrolling across her monitor. A woman in her fifties, partly Native American, she had features that had worn the years well. Her long black hair, now streaked with gray, was caught in a ponytail on her neck, and the collar of her uniform shirt remained unbuttoned.

There was a chair beside the desk, and Kelly slid into it, waiting for Sarah to reach a pause point. “Damn it,” Sarah said finally.

“What’s wrong?”

“The yearbook editors haven’t organized much of this file. I don’t know how they’ll get it finished in time to print it and put copies in students’ hands by the end of the school year. Heck, some items aren’t even in the total file yet, but in separate pieces.”

Sarah leaned back in her chair. It was old and groaned as it tipped backward. “Coffee,” she said as if it were the answer to everything.

“Want me to run across the street?”

Sarah cocked a dark eyebrow at her and smiled. “Trying to escape?”

Kelly half shrugged, feeling rueful. “I’d like to avoid the parents. Guess I can’t.”

“All of us should be that lucky. You still need a target. They’re bringing them.”

Kelly didn’t even try to argue. Yeah, Bugle could pick up the girls’ scents from the car, but they’d be much stronger on items of clothing. “Stay,” she ordered Bugle. He waited, still as a piece of statuary, while Kelly stood. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black. Thanks.”

“No problem.” The coffee bar was against the back wall, a huge urn that simmered all day long. The coffee was famously awful, but it carried a caffeine charge. What amused her, however, was that just in the time she’d worked here, she’d watched the addition of about seven types of antacids to the table behind the foam cups.

Velma, the dispatcher who had been with the department since the dinosaurs had roamed the earth, still smoked at her desk despite the no-smoking sign right over her head and made the coffee. No one ever complained. But now there was that row of antacids. Velma ignored it.

Kelly smothered a smile at the incongruities but poured Sarah her coffee. She’d like some herself, but she’d wait until she could get something that wouldn’t hit her stomach like battery acid.

Sarah thanked her as she returned and handed over the coffee. Then she rubbed her neck once and returned to scanning the images on her screen. “It would help,” she said quietly, “if all these photos were labeled by name. Or sorted by class.”

“Still early days, huh?”

“For the yearbook, evidently.”

Just then the front door opened and a blast of cold air could be felt all the way across the room. Kelly immediately recognized Allan Carstairs, the county’s animal control officer. Although he was loosely attached to the sheriff’s department, he seldom wore a uniform. Today a dark blue down parka with a hood covered him to below his narrow hips—funny that she could see those hips in her mind’s eye—above jeans. Thermal long johns, she guessed. A staple for everyone during parts of the year. Like the insulated winter boots on his feet.

She watched him ease his way through the room, pausing to talk to some of the gathered deputies. At last he approached the spot where she sat with Bugle and Sarah.

“How’s it going?”

“I guess we’re going to see,” she answered.

He nodded, his expression grim. Sharp angles defined his face, giving him a firm look that rarely vanished, even when he smiled. Gray eyes met hers, but right now the gray looked more like ice. It wasn’t a warm color.

“Which three girls?” he asked.

Sarah spoke. “Jane Beauvoir, Mary Lou Ostend and Chantal Reston.”

Kelly felt her heart squeeze. Jane had been the only one she’d met, but still. So young. So entitled to a future.

“Hell,” said Al. “Chantal volunteered with me last summer.”

“We need to get the rest of the K-9 units in here,” Gage suddenly called from the hallway that led to his office in the back. “Where the hell is Cadel Marcus? Jack Hart? What kind of search can we run without the dogs?”

“A sloppy one,” Kelly muttered. Bugle eyed her quizzically.

Impatience grew in Kelly. She wanted to get on with it, find out if the girls had been seen at the roadhouse last night. If so, there might be a clue about who had picked them up. Or might have. At this point, however, it had clearly been no simple offer of a ride home.

The door opened again, this time for longer and letting in more icy air as the fathers of the three girls arrived. Randy Beauvoir entered first, followed by Kevin Ostend and Luis Reston. Kelly knew all three of them by sight, but only vaguely as she’d never had any business with them or their families.

She rose to her feet just as Gage reappeared and greeted the three men. They looked tense, worried, even a touch fearful. “Come back to the conference room,” Gage said. “You’ve got the pictures? The clothing?”

The men nodded and Gage turned. “Kelly?”

“Coming.”

Velma’s scratchy voice suddenly penetrated the murmur of quiet voices. “Boss? Connie Parish says they need some help with crowd control. Word is getting around and folks are gathering near where the car was found to start their own searches.”

Gage cussed. “Send ten men out there before they trample any evidence. Get ten volunteers. I got some business here first, then I’ll go out there, too.”

“I’ll go,” said Al Carstairs. He might be the animal control officer, but he had the physical stature to be intimidating, and the military bearing to go with it.

Velma looked around. “Nine more?”

Before she could see who went, Kelly and Bugle were being ushered into the conference room. In the relative quiet once the door closed behind them, the room filled with a different atmosphere. Fear. Worry. Even some anger. These fathers were like rifles that didn’t know where to point.

“We’re helping with the search,” Randy Beauvoir said.

“I never thought you wouldn’t. But I need Deputy Noveno here to give Bugle his target scents, and I want pictures of your daughters to go out with her, and with damn near everyone else. We’re going to digitize the photos. They’ll be on every cell phone in the county, okay? And TV, as well. But first things first.”

A SHORT WHILE LATER, after a quick stop at Maude’s diner to get a tall, hot latte, with her truck heater blasting, Kelly and Bugle headed east out of town with evidence bags holding part of the girls’ clothing and photocopies of the full-size portraits. Even as she was driving she heard her cell phone ding, and figured it was probably the digital photos with background info.

It was beginning to hit her. She’d found the vehicle that had been carrying the girls only last night. Shouldn’t some instinct have kicked in? Made her look inside the car, study the ground around for signs of a scuffle? Anything?

But the scene hadn’t struck her that way. Once she knew the occupants were gone, that even their purses had vanished, there seemed to be nothing to worry about. No one injured, because if they had been they would have been on their way to the hospital and her radio should have been crackling with information.

It had been quiet, dark. People misjudged and went into ditches all the time, especially on cold nights where even a small patch of black ice could cause loss of control. She hadn’t seen or felt any ice, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been there when the car ran off the road.

But without any damage to the car or any obvious sign of foul play, there was really nothing she could do except get the vehicle towed when she couldn’t get ahold of the owner.

Randy Beauvoir and his wife had been in Laramie for the weekend. They’d come home midday today, Randy had told her and the sheriff. They’d received Kelly’s voice mail but hadn’t immediately worried. No messages suggested the girl was in trouble. Probably at a friend’s house for the night, as discussed. They’d get the car out of impound later.

But then Chantal’s family had phoned, and the dominoes started tumbling. The girls weren’t at one of their houses. Their families had no idea where they might be. Kelly’s message about the car had suddenly struck them as a blinding warning flare.

The early winter night had begun conquering the landscape. Bright floodlights warned her of the approaching accident scene. She felt ill to the pit of her stomach. As she passed the cordoned-off area where the car had been found and crowds were beginning to gather, all she could hope was that somebody at Rusty’s would give her a clue.

THE GRAVEL PARKING lot was clear of all but one vehicle, an aging pickup truck. Neon signs in the windows didn’t yet shimmer with life and wouldn’t until Rusty officially opened his doors.

She knew Rusty. She’d been called a number of times to help when some customers grew rowdy. Rusty did a better job than most of keeping it under control, but sometimes even he needed help. Roadhouses farther out had more problems, but here only ten miles out of town, the clientele seemed less likely to want to tussle, especially with the law. Most nights people came, drank and danced to local live music, and peace ruled, if not quiet.

This was the place that drew the patronage of local couples as much as local cowboys, and while she doubted anyone would think it wise for an unescorted woman to come here, three teens should have been safe. Older folks would have kept an eye on them, and Rusty would have served them soft drinks.

The door was unlocked. She pulled the tarnished brass handle and the ancient entry squeaked open. Inside the lighting was dim. The table candles in their squat hurricane lantern holders hadn’t been lit.

Rusty was behind the long bar, polishing it with a rag. Directly across the large room from him, across the big dance floor, was a stage still holding band equipment.

“Hey, Rusty,” she said as she and Bugle entered. “How’s business?”

“Pretty good, but it always is on a holiday weekend. Tonight we’ll be damn near empty. Can I help you, Kelly?”

He was a tall, lean man who always looked as if he needed to eat more of his own sandwiches. A gray moustache curled around the corners of his mouth.

“Have you heard about the three girls who’ve gone missing?”

Rusty’s watery blue eyes widened. “No. Is that why you’re here?”

She nodded and opened the brown envelope she’d brought with her, the one that held the eight-by-ten photos of each girl. She recited their names as she pulled them out. “Jane Beauvoir, Chantal Reston and Mary Lou Ostend. All high school seniors. We found their car in a ditch about five miles west of here just last night. No sign of them anywhere.”