C. Box - The Highway

“I’m taking this Ford,” she said, and patted the bumper of the vehicle without looking down, “and the authority of the department down to Park County. You need to notify the sheriff down there I’m coming, and request they cooperate with me as if this is the highest priority item on your list. And you’re going to organize the whole department and impress upon them that they’re to do everything they can to find these girls and Cody.”

She stopped talking and was as appalled at her words as Tubman was. The seconds mounted up in silence except for the burbling of the exhaust pipe of the Ford.

Finally, he said, “You know that as of this moment everything has changed between us.”

“I do.”

“And you know if you go down there like you’re talking about you’re just going to find that miserable drunk in some bar or whorehouse?”

“Maybe.”

Tubman broke his gaze and looked past her, as if there was something fascinating over her shoulder. She almost turned to look, but she didn’t.

“Go,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

He glared at her. “Don’t think this doesn’t change everything, Dewell. You’re on my list now, just like Cody Hoyt was. And you know what happened to him.”

As he said it, he lifted his nonexistent chin.

“Try it,” she said. “But remember you aren’t the only person who can talk to the press.”

He started to smile, but suddenly cut it off when he realized what she was saying.

“You made me the hero because I’m a fat single mother you hired personally to add diversity to the department,” she said. “They ate it up. Now, if you try to destroy me, you’re the one who loses. Think about it.”

Tubman inadvertently dropped the newspaper near his slipper. He feinted to pick it back up, but rethought it and stood up to face her. But he looked whipped, she thought.

“I’ll check in,” she said. “But you need to call out the cavalry.”

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving,” Tubman said. “A whole lot of folks are going out of town for four days.”

“I know it. That’s why we need to find them today.”

He nodded, but didn’t speak. No doubt, she thought, he was thinking of the next election. So far, he was unopposed except for the lunatic county coroner, Skeeter Kerley. But if one of his own ran, a female who looked and acted like a normal female, who would attract the housewives and liberals and voters who already didn’t like him for one reason or other, a female who had been praised as a tough investigator by the sheriff himself …

“Keep me posted,” Tubman said. “I’ll do all I can to help find those girls.”

“And Cody,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said sourly. “Him, too.”

7:26 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

Ronald Pergram drove his mother’s white 1986 Buick Riviera past the unmanned National Park Service window at the north entrance to Yellowstone and goosed it on the straightaway before beginning the switchback climb to Mammoth Hot Springs. The car, like his mother, was repulsive. It was low-slung and underpowered and its 3,300 lbs of steel rocked atop a mushy suspension that gave him the feeling of driving a car with four flat tires. The top of the coupe was peeling tonguelike strips of faux leather and the paint job looked sandblasted. The windows were cloudy with grime. The backseat was filled with garbage bags and newspapers and he’d had to clear the front seat of empty Big Gulp containers just to squeeze inside. The trunk contained two dead bodies wrapped in plastic, one on top of the other.

Although there was a CCTV camera mounted on the side of the entrance station, he knew there was no reason to worry about being identified. The NPS operated on banker’s hours during the off-season, and they rarely had a ranger on duty to collect entrance fees before eight in the morning, much less someone viewing the monitor at park headquarters. As long as he entered the park before eight or after five, America’s first national park belonged to the Lizard King.

He kept a wary eye out, though, in front and behind him. There was always the chance-although remote-that an overeager park ranger would pull him over for speeding or simply note his presence in the park if questioned later. But like the entrance booth personnel, traffic rangers seemed to vanish from existence once the hotels and visitor amenities inside the park closed for the season.

That was one of the reasons he liked to use his mother’s old car. If the camera caught the license plate and some ranger had the gumption to check out the owner, Pergram couldn’t imagine them going after a sixty-eight-year-old local widow who didn’t look like she even had the money for a day pass. Plus, he simply liked the idea of driving that old bat’s car with the bodies of two women in the trunk.

The body of the gimp was wrapped in plastic and wedged around the spare tire. It weighed next to nothing and wouldn’t even provide ballast on icy roads.

He’d made this trek more times than he could recall.

* * *

Pergram deliberately drove right by the small battered sign on the side of the road that read POISON SPRING TRAILHEAD. The sign was so low to the ground it was partially obscured by tall grass, and the area itself was dark with nearly constant shadows because of the tall and close walls of lodgepole pine on both sides of the road. There was no pullout at the trailhead to park but a quarter of a mile farther was a single concrete picnic table virtually hidden from passing cars. He slowed and turned into the campsite and drove as far into the small clearing as he could. Pergram turned off the motor and got out. He could hear the tinkle of a tiny creek through the trees in front of him, and there was a low rush of cold wind in the crowns of the lodgepole pines, enough to rock the trees back and forth slightly.

He stood still and listened. There was no road traffic. He wanted to make sure no one was coming and could catch a glimpse of what he was doing as they passed by.

When he was sure he was alone, Pergram unlocked the trunk and slung the body of the gimp over his shoulder and took it fifteen feet into the timber and let it drop with a thud.

The dead lot lizard underneath was stiff as a board. Out of curiosity, he’d unwrapped the plastic around her head to see what she looked like. Her face was wan and emaciated and frozen into a leering grimace. Her eyes were open but filmy, and they seemed to stare right into his heart. So he wiped that leer off her face with a jack handle, then wrapped the plastic back over what was left and put the body into the backseat. It was like carrying a bundle of branches, it was so stiff and bony.

Then he returned to the Riviera and inspected the plastic-lined interior of the trunk for spots of blood. It was clean. He stripped the plastic out and balled it tight and shoved it inside his coat. Then he closed the trunk lid and went back for the bodies.

* * *

Even though the gimp weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds, he was sweating by the time he reached Poison Springs because he’d already carried the body of the lot lizard. As always, he eschewed the old trail to get there that began at the road and wound through the timber, instead cutting directly through the trees from the picnic table to approach it from the side.

Someday, he thought, he would surprise a bear. Or the bear would surprise him. And that would be that. The park service would have a hell of a time figuring it out, he thought.

He smelled it before he saw it. Poison Spring had a particular sulfur and steam odor that could tear his eyes if the wind was just right.

As always, he stopped and paused and got his breath back. He’d never seen hikers at Poison Spring, even during tourist season, but he couldn’t let himself get complacent. But it was silent all around.