C. Box - The Highway

Then he opened the heavy door and stepped inside the room without a word. He took a step to his right with his back against the wall and his right hand in his pocket, gripping the Derringer. His senses were tingling almost as if he’d summoned more white crosses into his system. The door wheezed shut behind him.

Jimmy and Legerski were already there. They didn’t leap up to confront him and didn’t seem surprised by his sudden entrance. Legerski sat in a plastic lawn chair, leaning back so the front two legs were suspended a few inches above the concrete floor. He was in full uniform and his arms were crossed over his big belly. Although he was mostly still, his jaw worked furiously on a piece of chewing gum. He eyed Pergram with calculation. Pergram noted Legerski’s holstered service weapon on his belt, safety strap buttoned. Because of the trooper’s crossed arms and relaxed posture, drawing the weapon would be a production.

Jimmy paced. He had a jerky, disconnected way of moving, especially when he was nervous or excited. He kept bringing the palms of his hands together in front of his chest, then dropping them to his sides as he walked. His head bobbed to an interior monolog Pergram had no interest in hearing. Although he might have a weapon hidden somewhere in his clothing, he appeared to be unarmed. Jimmy liked to dress old-fashioned western, in tight jeans and form-fitting faux-pearl snap-button shirts, so it would be difficult to conceal a pistol unless he had one in the shaft of his cowboy boots. He wouldn’t be able to draw fast, either. But Pergram wasn’t concerned with Jimmy.

Really, this was between him and Legerski, Pergram thought. Jimmy was a sideshow and always had been.

Pergram raised the ammo box so Legerski could see it.

“Are they all in there?” Legerski asked. This was the big question.

Pergram said, “Mostly.”

“I need them all. I need to be positive I can’t be identified in any of them. I’ve been so careful.…”

“Not careful enough maybe,” Pergram said. “But you just keep believing that.”

The chewing stopped. Pergram could see Legerski’s face harden into a mask.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jimmy asked, obviously aware of the tension between them.

* * *

Schweitzer had built the underground concrete bunker in the shape and dimensions of an unbalanced barbell. The room they were in was by far the largest, and it had once been crammed with stacks of metal shelving containing crates of freeze-dried food, water barrels, weapons, and survival gear necessary to live for years after the nuclear apocalypse. The shelving had been cleared out but some of the original items remained. An old gasoline-powered generator also remained, but they’d never started it. The power for the bunker and the air-filtration system came from outside, from the power grid. Switching over from outside power to the inside in an emergency was a matter of flipping a switch and firing up the generator.

Schweitzer was a prepper-preparing for the end-long before the description was common. In those days, Pergram knew, the threat was perceived to be external. These days, with preppers, the threat was thought to come from within. Those church idiots, he thought, were ahead of their time.

To the right was the makeshift studio. That’s where the bed was located. What made it different from a normal basement bedroom, aside from the lighting and camera tripod, were the ringbolts in the concrete walls, the wooden box of sex toys and leather restraints, and the curled-up garden hose just out of camera view that was used to wash off the walls and floor after they’d used it. Under the bed was a large grated drain. The fitted sheet over the mattress was heavy duty plastic, so blood wouldn’t soak through.

There was a dark hallway leading off the studio area that led to another room. That room was unfinished and had never been used by Schweitzer. It’s where they kept the girls Pergram brought back, on the other side of a heavy steel door with a single one-inch-by-three-inch viewing slot closed by a steel slider.

* * *

“Mostly,” Legerski echoed, shaking his head and glaring at Pergram. Pergram shrugged.

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy asked again.

“Shut up, Jimmy,” Legerski said sharply. Jimmy shut up. For a moment he stopped pacing and nodding. He seemed to finally sense a confrontation brewing in his feral way, Pergram thought.

“What do you mean when you say mostly ?” Legerski asked.

“I think you know,” Pergram said. “Why should I cash in my insurance policy just now?”

“You aren’t fucking thinking clear,” Legerski said. “You’re leaving loose ends around. You’re leaving evidence. ”

“They aren’t loose. They just aren’t with me here.”

Again, Jimmy said, “What are you two talking about?” His voice went up an octave as he asked.

They ignored him.

Pergram said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have killed that Hoyt guy. You acted alone in that. Maybe you should have thought about what that could bring down on our heads.”

Legerski flushed. He was angry, but he didn’t want to show it. He said, “If I didn’t we’d already be fucked. It was something that had to happen, given the circumstances. I already explained this to you. And if you really think about it, you’ll see I made the right decision at the right time.”

Pergram hesitated, then said, “Maybe. But you also said you could handle whatever came afterwards.”

Legerski held out his hands, palms up. “This lady cop from Helena. I could never have predicted her showing up this morning. I figured if anything they might send a cruiser down from Livingston to check out the roads and check in with me. I know all those guys up there and I get along with all of them. No way did I think someone from Helena would just show up like that. She could really screw everything up.”

“I thought you said you could handle it.”

“This is different,” he said, looking down at his boots. Pergram felt his stomach roil.

“What’s so special about her?”

“Nothing,” Legerski said. “She’s got no real experience. I checked on her and she’s new to the department. She’s a diversity hire and shouldn’t even be there. Her husband was in the military and got whacked in Afghanistan so she’s a single mother and if she was smart she’d just ride things out and do her time and build her pension.”

“So what’s the problem?” Pergram asked, starting to get annoyed with Legerski. “You’re supposed to sweet-talk people like that.”

“Normally, I could,” Legerski said. “But she’s taking everything personally. She knew this Cody Hoyt-he was her partner. She wants to find out what happened to him and she thinks it’s connected to those girls back there.” When he said it he jerked his head toward the dark hallway. “She’s getting the Park County Sheriff’s office involved and she asked me to go to Judge Graff and get a warrant to search the compound.”

Pergram was confused. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For them to suspect the church?”

“Yeah,” he said without conviction, “I wanted them to go out there and hit a dead end. You know, cast some suspicion on the members and interview a few of them even. Then the investigation would just sort of fade away because she wouldn’t find anything to implicate them. But she’s not your average cop. Like I said, she’s taking this personally and asking a lot of questions I never thought would come up.

“Look,” Legerski said, “I know cops. I am one. I know the difference between mailing it in and getting in your hours and really going after something. I mean, she’s down here on her own time. I can’t see her just filing a report and going away. She talked to me like I was a suspect. She fucking interrogated me. But she just kept hammering away with one more thing, one more thing . Then she asked me if I knew any long-haul truckers who lived around here.”