“Damn right we do,” Thomsen hooted.
“Cassie,” Bull said, “throw your stuff in my truck before you go.”
* * *
“IT’S LIKE THEY’RE boys going on a camping trip,” Cassie said sourly from the passenger seat.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Pederson said. “I’m kind of feeling that way myself.”
“Oh, great.”
The sheriff smiled. “This is a lot more exciting than working car crashes on I-90.”
“So tell me about this high school girl.”
“Her name is Joanne Vinson. She’s seventeen. I know her parents, Art and Pat. Art works for the railroad. They’re good folks and Jo isn’t the type of girl who would file a false report. Or at least I don’t think she is.”
“What were the circumstances last night?”
“Well,” Pederson said, “if you can wait five minutes we’ll both find out. We’re almost there.”
* * *
THE VINSON HOME was a dark gray one-story bungalow on West Callendar Street. The morning breeze rattled dead cottonwood leaves that still hung in the single tree. There was a small yard and two older vehicles in front: a Dodge minivan and a GMC pickup. The windows were filled with Halloween decorations and there were two jack-o’-lanterns on the porch.
Joanne Vinson sat bent over in the middle of a worn couch underneath an elk head that looked frozen in mid-bugle. She had a cherubic face framed by lank brown hair, and she clasped her hands nervously on her lap. She had large brown eyes that darted between her mother, who stood in the threshold of the kitchen, and Sheriff Pederson.
“Tell the sheriff what you told me and the deputy last night, Jo,” Pat Vinson said.
“Nothing really happened,” Joanne said with a roll of her eyes. She seemed embarrassed, Cassie thought.
“But it could have,” Pat said.
Pederson settled into a lounge chair directly across from Joanne and leaned forward toward her in a comforting manner. Cassie stood to the side behind him.
“Just tell me what happened, Jo.”
Cassie observed carefully as Joanne reached up and gently clawed her fingers through her hair. The girl was heavyset but not obese. She was almost pretty and she went too heavy with eyeliner. She was uncomfortable being the center of attention. Cassie felt a kinship with her right away.
“Well, I went to the game last night.”
“In the minivan,” Pat interrupted. “Without asking.”
Joanne rolled her eyes and ignored her mother. “I was supposed to go with some friends but they didn’t pick me up. I think they forgot so I drove there myself.”
Pat said, “Art was working and I was at my bridge club.”
Pederson took a deep breath and also ignored Pat.
“So you drove to the game. Did you meet your friends there?”
She shot a glance at her mother and said, “They were there.”
“Tell him,” Pat said.
“It was kind of a big party night,” Joanne said. “I didn’t want to have more than a couple of beers so I decided to come home before the game got over. The minivan was on the far end of the parking lot since I got there late. So it was a long walk.”
“You were by yourself?” Pederson asked.
Jo looked down at her hands. “Yes.”
Cassie wanted to walk across the floor and hug her. There was nothing worse at that age than admitting you were alone on a Friday night.
“So what happened next?”
“I got in the van and it wouldn’t start. I turned the key and nothing happened.”
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“No kidding. I don’t know anything about cars and dad wasn’t home.”
“I don’t know anything about them either,” Pat said from the threshold.
“Okay,” Pederson said to Joanne, “What did you do?”
“Well, I thought maybe I’d walk back to the stadium and find somebody who could help me get it started or give me a ride home. I didn’t want to call mom because I didn’t want her yelling at me.”
“Like I’d yell at you,” Pat said, nearly shouting.
“Please, Pat,” Pederson said.
Pat folded her arms across her breasts and huffed.
“When I got out of the van I saw a man,” Joanne said. Cassie shifted her weight.
“What was he doing?”
“Nothing, really, I guess. He was sort of walking through all the parked cars. But he was kind of headed my way.”
“Kind of headed your way or headed your way?”
“He was coming toward me but he had to keep walking around parked cars.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
“What was he wearing?”
She frowned. “It was kind of weird. He had on like a pair of coveralls. They were all one color. Like my dad wears on the railroad.”
“Were they white?” Cassie asked.
Joanne looked up and Pederson looked over his shoulder at her. Both were apparently surprised Cassie had spoken.
“Yeah, light colored. How did you know that?”
“I was just guessing,” Cassie said. To Pederson: “Sorry.”
“Okay,” he said. “Did the man speak to you?”
“Yeah. He saw me there next to the van and he asked me if I needed some help.”
“What did you tell him?”
“You know,” Joanne said, “I normally would have said ‘Sure!’ But there was something about him—I don’t know. He was sort of creepy. I mean, he seemed nice and everything. He wasn’t growling at me or staring or anything. But the way he just sort of showed up right then … I don’t know.”
“So what did you say?”
“I lied and told him I was waiting for my friends to show up.”
“Then what?”
“He didn’t leave. He just kind of stood there.”
“What did he look like?”
“He looked like a normal man, I guess. An old guy just standing there like he didn’t know what to do. I was afraid I insulted him.”
“When you say old guy…”
“He was in his fifties, maybe sixties. He was kind of square built if you know what I mean. Fat, but not really humongous. He had a big head but I couldn’t see his face because it was dark. He wore a cap like everybody does.”
“White guy?” Pederson asked.
“I’m sure.”
“So what happened next?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure what to do because he just stood there kind of blocking my way back to the stadium. I thought about getting back in the van and locking the doors, but I was still afraid of being rude, you know?”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He said he was a mechanic or he knew something about cars. Something like that. I can’t tell you his exact words because I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. He said I should open the hood so he could take a look at the engine. I told him I didn’t know how. And he said he did.”
“Then he came after you,” Pat prompted from the kitchen.
“No, mom,” Joanne said with disdain. “He didn’t come after me. He just kind of took a few steps closer before I knew it. He didn’t run at me.”
“Did he have anything in his hands?” Cassie asked.
Joanne looked up and said, “I couldn’t see. He had one hand behind his back when I think about it.”
“His right hand?”
She paused and closed her eyes as if conjuring up the image. Then: “Yeah, his right hand.”
“So what happened next?” Pederson asked.
“I heard shouting,” she said. “It was a bunch of kids coming out of the stadium to the parking lot to get more beer. They were loud. I told the guy, Here they come now. He kind of looked over his shoulder at them and then back at me like he couldn’t decide what to do. Then he just vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“I looked away and when I looked back he wasn’t the
re.”
“Did you see him get into a car?”
“No, but I heard one start up outside in that field that’s next to the parking lot.”
“Did you get a description of the vehicle?”
“No. He didn’t turn his lights on. I thought that was weird.”
“Tell him about the van,” Pat urged from the kitchen.
“My friend Toby looked under the hood,” Joanne said. “He said the battery cable or something was loose like somebody had used a wrench and taken it off.”
Cassie expelled a long breath.
“Then Toby put the cable or whatever back on the battery and I started it up and came home,” Joanne said brightly. “End of story.”
“But her mother was home by then and made her call your office,” Pat said sternly.
“I’m glad you did,” Pederson said.
Cassie stood off to the side while the sheriff talked with Joanne and Pat. He told Joanne that if she saw the man again she should call 911, and she shouldn’t borrow the van again without her mother or dad knowing where she went. Joanne still acted a little embarrassed about it all.
As Pederson clamped on his hat, Cassie said to Joanne: “Thank God you’re still here.”
Joanne’s face froze.
“That was kind of a scary thing to say to her,” Pat said to Cassie. “Are you trying to give her nightmares?”
“Yes.”
* * *
IN THE SUV, Cassie said quickly, “It’s classic Lizard King: preying on a lone female at night. When he kidnapped the Sullivan sisters they said he wore a white one-piece Tyvek jumpsuit. I’ll bet you anything he had a syringe filled with Rohypnol in his right hand behind his back. And he knows his way around cars enough to disable them.”
Pederson looked over as he drove. He said, “That kind of thing doesn’t happen around here. Not in my county.”
“It almost did,” Cassie said. She was shaking.
“It pisses me off to no end.”
“That was Ronald Pergram,” she said. “He’s here, all right. He was here last night. Right here.”
“There’s no proof it was him, Cassie.”
“Then let’s go prove it.”
* * *
PARADISE VALLEY FLEW PAST on both sides and the mountains began to close in on them. It felt to Cassie like they were entering some kind of geographical chute that would suck them up and fling them to Gardiner and Yellowstone Park. The terrain got rougher, wilder, and more vertical with each mile. Bison straying from the protected confines of Yellowstone grazed in hay meadows, and Pederson had to slow down to let a herd of mule deer does and fawns cross Highway 89 in front of them.
The V of Yankee Jim Canyon could be seen several miles ahead. Cassie knew there was going to be a signal outage for her cell phone within the canyon so she quickly pulled out her phone and speed-dialed the first number on the list.
“I think we’re getting close,” Cassie said to Leslie Behaunek. She related the story of Joanne Vinson’s near miss.
“Does she know how lucky she was?” Leslie asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“And this happened last night?”
“Yes. While we were a few minutes away at the time.”
“My God.”
Leslie said she’d drive to her office and start making calls.
“It’s Saturday morning so it might be difficult to get a hold of everyone on the joint task force,” she said.
“Don’t worry about the North Dakota folks,” Cassie said. “Concentrate on the Montana people. Light a fire under them and tell them to be prepared to scramble at any minute.”
Pederson, who had overheard Cassie’s side of the conversation said, “Ask her to see about any available aircraft. Bozeman has access to a helicopter and the Montana Highway Patrol has fixed-wing aircraft and a helo, too.”
Cassie relayed the message and could hear Leslie keying it into her computer.
“Make sure,” Pederson said, emphasizing what he was about to say by pausing between each word, “make sure they don’t start flying over the top of us until we’re ready for them. If one of those pilots finds Pergram before we get to him it could spook the guy and make him run. Or he could kill his hostage. We need to get there first.”
Cassie nodded, related what he’d said, and told Leslie, “There’ll be five of us. We’re well-armed. We’ll have GPS equipment and a satellite phone along with us. If we find Pergram we’ll call in the coordinates.”
“If you locate him don’t try to take him by yourself,” Leslie cautioned.
“Of course not,” Cassie lied. Then: “We’re entering a canyon now and I’m about to lose you…”
She disconnected the call and dropped the phone into her lap. The mouth of Yankee Jim Canyon was still a mile ahead.
“Clever,” Pederson said.
* * *
AS THEY ENTERED the tiny community of Gardiner there was very little traffic on the street. Cassie felt suddenly haunted and she glanced up the side of the mountain instinctively and saw the closed-up building that had once been Yellowstone Quilting. It was at Sally Legerski’s shop that she’d first connected Sally’s ex-husband—a rogue state trooper—and the Lizard King four years before.
That moment, when Cassie viewed images on a crude DVD of women being tortured and raped by Pergram and Ed Legerski was still as shocking to her as if it had occurred that morning.
Cassie’s lower lip trembled and she turned away.
* * *
BULL’S POWER WAGON with the trailer attached and the deputies’ rig were parked side by side off the highway in the parking lot of the grocery store. There were less than a half-dozen civilian vehicles in the lot.
“It’ll take me a few minutes to transfer my gear,” Pederson said, “and then we can get going.”
“Finally,” Cassie said with a sigh, although mentally she was still in Yellowstone Quilting.
Pederson wheeled his SUV into the lot and parked it behind the sheriff’s department horse trailer. Cassie bailed out of the other side and strode up to Bull Mitchell who was standing next to his truck making a show of looking at his wristwatch.
“We’re burnin’ daylight,” he said.
“I know, I know,” she said to him. “We’re late. But the delay was worth it.”
She told him about Joanne Vinson’s likely enounter with the Lizard King while Pederson transferred his weapons and gear into Bull’s truck.
“So you were right all along. Pergram is here somewhere. We may not be wasting our time after all,” Bull said. His tone was more serious than Cassie had yet heard from him. His words drove the point home: They were hunting the Lizard King.
He looked over Cassie’s head at the other vehicle and said, “Are we all here?”
Thomsen leaned out of the driver’s window and chinned toward the grocery store. “Waiting on Mike but he should be here any minute.”
“Let’s leave him,” Bull growled.
At that moment, Mike Pompy emerged from the store clutching a plastic bag of snacks for the trail. He had a look of concern on his face and he marched straight toward the sheriff.
“Bryan, there’s something you need to see in here.”
The sheriff said, “What is it?”
“You have to see it for yourself.”
With that, Pompy turned around and went back inside.
“What the hell?” Pederson asked no one in particular. He looked to Thomsen who shrugged in response. Pederson shoved his hands in his front pockets and started for the store.
Cassie followed and ignored Bull’s grousing.
When they were inside Pompy greeted them and said, “You have to see this. The maintenance people were about to clean it up this morning but I told them to hold off.”
Pompy strode down the food aisles toward the back of the store. Three lone shoppers and two check-out clerks craned their necks to see what was going on.
The deputy led them to the men’s bath
room. A Hispanic man with a silver mustache stood outside the door waiting for them to let him get back to work. Pompy shouldered past him and pushed open the door while motioning the sheriff and Cassie to follow him inside. The bathroom was tiled with polished brick. The janitor’s abandoned mop bucket on wheels was near the toilet.
“What?” Pederson asked, looking around.
“Look,” Pompy said as he bent forward and flipped the toilet seat up.
On the face of the white underside of the seat, written in smeared dried blood, it read:
IM KYLE W. FROM ND
IM KIDNAPED
HELP!
Cassie had to reach out and steady herself against the wall so her knees wouldn’t buckle beneath her.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
RON WAS IN A DANGEROUSLY black mood at breakfast so Kyle kept his mouth shut and tried not to make eye contact with him. Although his head was bare and his hair uncombed, Ron seemed to be hooded. He hadn’t said a single word all morning. He sat there at the head of the table with his legs splayed out beneath it and his big hands resting on top. His eyes were open and unfocused as if he were watching a movie in the middle distance no one else could see.
Amanda, unfortunately, seemed oblivious to Ron’s state. She hummed “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” while she fried the bacon and cracked the eggs. She’d tied brightly colored ribbons to her dog collar as if trying to make it look like a necklace. Her collar was open to show it off. It was as if she was fishing for a compliment for her ingenuity.
She wore an oversized chamois shirt over her own shirt because it was cold inside the cabin. Ron had shoved the new window into the hole in the wall but hadn’t sealed it. A cool breeze blew through the interior.
Kyle glanced over at Ron, who had turned his head to Amanda. The man glared at Amanda and her humming. His eyes were murderous. Kyle wished he could catch her attention and warn her to please be quiet for her own sake.
That’s when she began to sing softly.
You better watch out,
You better not cry …
Ron fumbled for her transmitter on his chest and Kyle winced.
But Ron changed his mind before he punished her electronically. Instead, he stood up from the table so suddenly his chair fell over behind him. Before Amanda could react to the crash Ron cocked his fist and hit her hard in the small of her back.