C. Box - The Highway

“I suppose it has.”

“You’re looking for a couple of missing teenagers in a vehicle,” the trooper said, done with small talk.

“That’s right,” Cody said, and repeated the make and model of the Ford as well as the names and descriptions of Gracie and Danielle Sullivan.

“Colorado plates?”

Cody spelled the license plate and recapped the story.

Legerski said, “I haven’t been down that road through Yankee Jim Canyon tonight but I haven’t heard of anything unusual. I was dispatched up to a roadblock on I-90 most of the night and I just got home and clocked out. I was just about to eat a late supper when I saw Edna called.”

“Sorry to bother you at home,” Cody said, not sorry at all. But he needed whatever help he could get so he said it.

“Part of the deal,” Legerski moaned. “A Montana state trooper is always on call.”

Cody rolled his eyes and pressed a ball of tissues into his lap to soak up more liquid.

He’d always had a knack for visualizing the details of people on the other end of the phone by the way they spoke, their choice of words, and their intonation. His former partner Larry used to bet him whether his premonition would be correct when compared to the real person when they finally met them. Most times, Larry had to pay up.

Because of the anecdote about Uncle Jeter, who had died three years before, Cody guessed Legerski was in his late fifties or early sixties, probably close to retirement. He was likely a big guy, as most troopers were, and because of his drawl Cody painted a drooping thick gunfighter mustache on a hawk-beaked craggy cowboy face. Since he’d mentioned working out of Ekalaka in Eastern Montana, Cody assumed Legerski was a lifer and had moved around the state throughout a long career. Ekalaka was in the middle of nowhere. Livingston and Gardner were in Park County, which was considered a high-profile and plum location because it bordered Yellowstone. So Legerski had moved up through the years. Which meant he got along within the state bureaucracy-the Montana Highway Patrol was a division of the state Justice Department-in ways Cody had never gotten along within his. Legerski’s tactic of introducing himself with a story about splitting open Uncle Jeter Hoyt’s head was right out of “Old Cop 101,” and designed to put Cody on the defensive right away and establish that Trooper Rick Legerski was a tough old bastard who had seen a lot and wasn’t impressed much by local sheriff’s department investigators.

Cody usually got along with tough old bastards, he thought. Except when he shot them.

Cody outlined the possibilities-breakdown, accident, cell phone outage, wrong turn somewhere. He repeated the line about “not that many roads to check.”

Legerski took umbrage to that. “There ain’t that many paved roads down here,” he said, “but that don’t mean there aren’t a lot of roads. We’ve got hundreds of miles of dirt and gravel roads. Old logging roads, old ranch access roads, fire roads, and two-tracks known only to poachers and old-timers. If those girls took one of those because their GPS steered them wrong or they were just dumb, that opens up a shitload of more possibilities. If they left the pavement at some point they could be high-centered in some wash or gulley out of cell phone range and we might not be able to find ’em for days.”

Cody winced. He listened haphazardly to Legerski outline two incidents he’d worked; one where a couple of elk hunters had knocked the axle out of their Jeep and didn’t get back to the highway for three days, and another where “some shithead Iraqi or Pakistani tourista” drove a Prius up a logging road and was found half-eaten by a grizzly bear ten days later. In both cases they’d flown a helicopter over the heavily timbered mountains but the vehicles hadn’t been spotted. Park County was still in litigation trying to get other governmental entities and federal agencies to share in the cost for the search.

Trooper Legerski, Cody thought, likes to talk.

“Okay, I got it,” Cody said. “And it’s possible they took a wrong turn somewhere. But from what my son tells me these girls were in a hurry to get to Helena. One of them, at least, has a level head on her shoulders. I doubt they’d just drive off the highway into the trees.”

“I don’t know why anyone would be in a hurry to get to Helena,” Legerski said, and laughed at his own joke.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cody said, waving it aside. Montanans loved to disparage their state capital. “But let’s assume for now they didn’t leave the road. How likely is it they’re broken down somewhere and no one has called it in?”

Cody heard a long wheezy intake of breath that he recognized as being from a fellow smoker. Then, “It’s possible, I guess,” Legerski said. “Not that many folks use that road this time of year. The touristas are all out of the park this late in the season because all the hotels and campgrounds are shut down. The road’s used mainly by locals this time of year and they’d likely notice an unfamiliar car on the side of the road and call it in.”

“So they might be down there along the road somewhere? Maybe in Yankee Jim Canyon where the cell service is bad?” Cody prompted.

“Anything’s possible, I guess.”

Cody wanted Legerski to offer to drive the road. The trooper was under no obligation since no one had called in a report of an accident or breakdown and he was off duty, but …

“I’d do it for you,” Cody said finally. “If you ever need a favor in Lewis and Clark County, I’m the guy to call.”

Legerski’s laugh seemed mocking and inappropriate, Cody thought.

“You must think we’re real rubes down here,” the trooper said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You must think that we’re so far off the beaten path that we don’t know about the Internet or something.”

Cody felt the hackles on his neck rise and vowed to himself to keep calm and not blow up.

“’Cause I got an e-mail sitting right here in front of me says you got suspended today. That as of right now you’ve been busted back to civilian.”

Cody wondered who’d sent it. But it didn’t matter.

“I’ll be reinstated within a week,” Cody lied. “In the meantime, there are two girls out there lost or hurt or worse on your roads.”

“Well,” Legerski said, “I suppose I can change back into my uniform and take the cruiser back out. But you’ll owe me if I don’t find anything.”

“I owe you anyway,” Cody said. Thinking, Now Justin owes me .

“Yeah, I wasn’t doing nothing anyway,” Legerski said sourly. “Just getting ready to grab some dinner and go to sleep for the night.”

“A Montana state trooper is always on call,” Cody said.

“You’re kind of a smart-ass, aren’t you? For a guy asking for a favor?”

“You’re right,” Cody said. “So thank you. And give me a call either way, okay? I’m sure I’ll be up. And if by some chance we hear from those girls, I’ll call you right away.”

“Call me on my cell,” Legerski said, giving Cody the number. “I can’t do any more overtime and if HQ knows I’m going out on a private call they’ll raise hell. So let’s keep this between you and me-back channel.”

“Fine,” Cody said, well aware of how many times he’d gone off the radar screen himself.

As he began to close his phone, he heard Legerski say, “Hoyt? You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s one thing and we can talk about it later, I suppose.”

Cody frowned. “What’s that?”

“This isn’t the first,” the trooper said.

Cody sat up. “What do you mean?”

“Nobody wants to entertain this theory very much, especially the suits in HQ,” Legerski said. “But this isn’t the first time a car with females in it just up and vanished down here.”