C. Box - The Highway

“Thank you,” she said. She could feel Jimmy’s eyes on her as well as the eyes of Montana State Highway Patrol officer Rick Legerski, who sat across from her. She knew they were poking fun at her a little, checking her out. She was used to it.

Legerski had ordered “the Rancher”: three eggs over easy, chicken-fried steak with gravy, hash-brown potatoes, and toast.

“You know what a Montana vegetarian is?” Jimmy asked, hovering just behind her. By the way he asked it she knew it was a well-worn joke and often told.

“What?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Someone who only eats meat once a day,” Jimmy said, and grinned. His top teeth were long and yellow like horse teeth and he was missing most of his bottom teeth.

She smiled politely and said, “I’m from Montana.”

“You’re from Helena,” Jimmy said, “that ain’t Montana.”

“Jimmy,” Legerski said, cutting in, “I could use some more coffee.”

Jimmy looked at Legerski and Cassie could see something exchanged between them, but she couldn’t discern what it was.

“Coming up,” Jimmy said, and turned on his heel.

“Thank you,” Cassie said to the trooper in a low mumble.

“He doesn’t have very impressive people skills for a bar owner, does he?” Legerski said after Jimmy was out of earshot, “But he makes a hell of a breakfast. And he’s kind of famous for his big cinnamon rolls.”

She tried her omelette. It was passable, but she envied Legerski, who dug into his massive plate of food. She was always embarrassed to eat in front of men she didn’t know because it called attention to her weight. So she ordered food she wasn’t crazy about. Even if they didn’t say anything-and they rarely did-she knew what they were thinking.

* * *

She’d found the place easily enough. It was the only bar and grill in Emigrant, after all, and trooper Legerski’s cruiser was parked in front. She’d called him en route since he was the last person she was aware of to see Cody Hoyt, and he suggested they meet there. He said he didn’t work out of an office-most highway patrolmen didn’t and took their patrol cars home every night-and the small conference room at the Department of Transportation shop outside Livingston was being used that morning. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday, she realized she was starved and agreed to meet him at the First National.

After ordering, they’d sniffed around at each other at first, talking about the weather and state politics until their food arrived. She didn’t know what she thought of him yet. He was polite enough, more formal than she was used to, and had stood up when she came in. His big mustache hid his mouth and he had the dead-eyed cop look down cold. His hands were huge and reminded her of bear paws when he grasped them together on the table. Legerski seemed serious, if somehow forced, as if he were playacting at being vigilant and extremely sincere. He had a gruff low voice and a drawn-out, western way of speaking. Legerski chose his words carefully and seemed to want to use as few of them as possible. He didn’t wear a wedding ring.

She’d said, “I understand you were married to the sister of our dispatcher, Edna.”

He’d nodded, and said, “Love is grand, but divorce is a hundred grand.”

It was the kind of thing men said to each other and generally didn’t say to women, she thought. But she gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped he thought of her as serious, as well as a colleague. Since he was a state trooper and she was an investigator for an out-of-county sheriff’s department, the hierarchy was clear. But he didn’t act superior.

“Thanks for meeting me this morning,” she said.

“You bet,” he said, between mouthfuls of food. “But it’s kind of a busy time.”

She looked around: there was no one else in the place except Jimmy.

“Not here,” he said, reading her movement. “But it’s the day before the holiday. Hell of a lot of traffic on the roads, and we’re expected to be out there in the middle of it.”

She nodded. For the second time that morning, she’d been reminded it was Thanksgiving tomorrow. Thanksgiving, and her halfhearted intention of planning a dinner and cooking a turkey at home for Ben and her mother had been set aside.

“When do you go on shift?” she asked.

“Couple of hours.”

“So we have a little time.”

He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “A little but not much.”

“You know why I’m here,” she said, recapping the night before. She left out the extraneous information about Cody’s suspension, her role in it, their meeting at the bar, and started with Justin Hoyt’s announcement that the Sullivan girls were missing. She said her last communication with Cody had been at two forty-seven that morning.

Legerski sopped up the last of the gravy with a piece of toast. He seemed to be listening patiently, but he asked no questions.

“So last night you met with Cody Hoyt?” she asked.

He pushed his plate aside, sat back, and raised his eyebrows. “You get right to it,” he said.

“I don’t think I have much time,” she said. “If those girls are lost or have been abducted, well, you know. Every minute is important.”

“I think I know that,” the trooper said softly with a dollop of defensiveness. “I’ve been in law enforcement for over twenty years.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m tired this morning.”

“And a little tightly wrapped,” he said, but finished it with a smile.

Then, “You’re wondering if I was the last person to see him.”

She nodded her head.

“That I can’t tell you for sure. I don’t know who he ran into after he left here. But yeah, I met him last night. Right here, in fact. We’d been in touch for a few hours and he swept the highway from Livingston south and I covered Yellowstone north to here. Neither one of us found that Ford Focus.”

She thought he answered her question but without an ounce of elaboration. Obviously, he’d testified many times in court and had learned to keep things short and to the point.

She listed to the side and reached down to her handbag near the chair. “Do you mind if I take some notes?”

Legerski said, “Is this an official interview?” He seemed put out by the prospect.

“Nothing like that. I’m just trying to establish a time line for my own benefit.”

She opened her notebook to the page she’d begun back at her house. Times were noted from when Justin Hoyt entered the bar to when Cody left Helena. Since there had been no contact or incidents from that point on, the time line ended at Cody’s last text.

“It takes two and a half hours to drive from Helena to here,” she said. “So what time did you meet with him?”

Legerski looked toward the ceiling for a second, and said, “He got here at two thirty. Yeah, that’s right. That’s a half hour after Jimmy usually closes, so I’m sure of the time.”

She scribbled it down.

“So you asked Jimmy to stay open late?”

“Yes. He owes me a few favors.”

“How long did you and Cody talk?”

He hesitated, again being very deliberate. Then he turned in his chair. “Jimmy, do you remember what time it was when that Hoyt fellow left here?”

Jimmy looked up sharply, and she found his reaction surprising. He seemed alarmed.

“What, like twenty minutes?” Legerski asked Jimmy.

“Something like that,” Jimmy said after a beat.

Cassie wrote down that Cody left the bar at approximately two fifty.

“That’s not very long,” she said.

Legerski shrugged again. “There wasn’t that much to discuss. I told him I hadn’t found the car or the girls, and he told me the same thing. I knew there was a statewide and regional alert out by then, so we weren’t the only ones looking.”