C Box - Below Zero

Joe’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the map. If one were headed toward the Black Hills from Gillette, I-90 was, for twenty-five miles, the only road east. At Moorcroft, other options appeared on both sides of the interstate. But for twenty-six miles, I-90 looked like a thin wrist that led to an extended hand with routes for each finger. And throughout the Black Hills, there was a spider’s web network of rural roads.

So if Stenko was to be located, it would be either on that I-90 stretch or before he got to Gillette on Highway 50 north of Savageton.

Marybeth came into his office looking puzzled. She’d heard him talking. He mouthed “FBI” and jabbed at Savageton on the map. Marybeth understood immediately, nodded, and turned in the threshold, said, “Sheridan…”

On the other end of the line, Joe heard a voice in the background he recognized as Coon’s boss, Tony Portenson. Portenson said, “Savageton!”

“We think we’ve found it,” Coon told Joe.

“So Portenson is there?”

“Of course. He’s my supervisor.”

“Mmmm.”

“Look,” Coon said, “I know you two have history. But Agent Portenson is willing to look the other way right now. To quote him, Stenko is a bigger prize than you are a pain in the ass.”

Joe smiled. He wondered how long it would take Portenson and Coon to coordinate a roadblock at the logical pinch point on I-90 with the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Then they’d order up their helicopter from the Cheyenne airport. He guessed it would take several hours at least to get the roadblock set up because there simply weren’t enough troopers available to handle it themselves, which meant local sheriff and police departments would be asked to provide men and vehicles. And it would take a while to roust the chopper pilots and get clearances in order to fly north. It would be unlikely Coon, Portenson, and team would take off before dawn. That gave Joe a five- to eight-hour window.

The drive from Saddlestring to Savageton would be less than two. He could beat them there.

“What else?” Coon asked. Joe couldn’t tell if Portenson was prompting him but he assumed so. “There has to be something else you can tell me. A twenty-minute text exchange and all you got was Savage, black hills, and Robert doing something bad in a drugstore?”

Joe felt his neck get hot. He didn’t want to get into the sister thing. But then he asked, “Twenty minutes? What do you mean twenty minutes?”

“I told you, Joe,” Coon said. “We have the ability to register the location of the phone from when it’s turned on to when it’s turned off. I have the printout right here in front of me, so don’t hold anything back.”

Joe said, “Hold on,” and dropped his cell on the desk. He met Sheridan in the hallway. She had her duffel bag over her shoulder, ready to go. Marybeth was behind her looking concerned. Joe asked to borrow her phone and he took it back to his office.

“You’re wrong,” Joe said to Coon after opening Sheridan’s phone and scrolling back through the exchange. “The first text came at 12:12 A.M. The last one came at 12:21 A.M. That’s just nine minutes.”

Nine long minutes of frustration while the two girls tapped out short messages to one another, sent and received, answered. So much could have been accomplished if April had allowed them to talk…

“I see what I see, Joe,” Coon said. Joe could hear paper rustling.

Then: “Oh, now I get it.”

“What?”

“We were both right.”

“What do you mean?”

“The phone was turned on for twenty minutes. But it looks like the first ten were to someplace else.”

“Where?”

Joe heard muffled voices. Coon had obviously covered the mouthpiece. Portenson and who knows how many other agents were having a heated discussion.

Joe paced. Marybeth and Sheridan stood outside his office, looking at him cautiously.

Finally, Coon came back on. “We aren’t at liberty to say right now.”

Joe stopped. He wished he could reach through the phone and grab Coon by the throat.

“We suspect you’re withholding information,” Coon said, speaking as if he were being coached what to say. “If we’re going to be partners in this investigation, you’ve got to come clean. Like who it is you think is sending the texts. When we feel you’ve come clean, we’ll do the same. Up until this moment, you’ve had the upper hand. But you forget, Joe. We are the upper hand.”

It was as if Portenson had his hand up the back of Coon’s shirt, using him like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Joe decided it wasn’t worth it to reveal April. And while it was killing him to know whom she’d called before texting Sheridan, it might not be vital.

Joe said, “I guess I’ll see you there.”

“Where?” Coon said.

Joe snorted, “Chuck, you’re a good guy, but you’re not yet a good liar,” and hung up.

He turned to Sheridan. “Ready?”

Sheridan nodded. Her face was deadly serious, but her eyes sparkled.

AS JOE EASED OUT of the driveway in his pickup, he looked at his house. Marybeth was in the front picture window with Lucy, who looked stricken. Through the window, Joe could see her mouth, She’s my sister, too… and it was like a knife through his heart.

Joe and Sheridan waved, and Sheridan hid her face from him while she cried.

Savageton

THE FULL MOON IN THE CLOUDLESS SKY CAST THE PRAIRIE grass ghostly white/blue and threw impenetrable black shadows into the hollows of the hills and draws as Joe and Sheridan drove east on I-90 and crossed the Powder River. The river in the fall was no more than an exhausted stream marking time until winter came and put it out of its misery. Despite that, mule deer huddled on its banks and ancient cottonwoods sucked at the thin stream of water in order to provide the only shade and cover for miles.

Joe knew of a two-track ranch access road with an unlocked gate that would allow them to cut the corner of their journey and eventually intersect with Highway 50 and Savageton, although the likelihood of finding April still there seemed remote at best.

Although it was an interstate highway, there was no traffic at two-fifteen in the morning. Big semi-rigs were parked at pullouts with running lights on, and as they roared east, the twinkle of working oil and gas rigs dotted the prairie. This was the western frontier of the Powder River Basin. Under the thin crust of dirt were underground mountains of coal, rivers of oil and natural gas, seams of uranium. A bald eagle nearly as big as the one he’d delivered to Nate fed on a road-killed pronghorn antelope on the shoulder of the highway, and the bird barely looked up as the pickup sizzled by.

Sheridan was wide awake and filled with manic energy that no doubt came from both fear and exhilaration. The moonlight kissed her cheeks, and Joe was glad she was with him as well as concerned that she was. Her cell phone was in her lap.

“Do you have a signal?” he asked.

“Three bars,” she said.

“Good. Let me know if we start to get out of range. We can’t afford to miss a call or a text.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said. “I mean, go on an investigation with you.”

Joe said, “I know. But you’ll have to be careful. You’ll really have to listen to me. This isn’t a game.”

“I know that.”

He nodded in the dark. She was miffed at him for stating the obvious, and he wondered why he’d felt the need to do so.

He kept the radio tuned to SALECS, which stood for State Assisted Law Enforcement Communication System, and listened as Coon and the FBI talked with the highway patrol. The HP had units in Gillette, Wright, Moorcroft, and Sundance, and all were rolling toward the checkpoint they’d agreed upon near Rozet, east of Gillette. The local police departments in Gillette, Moorcroft, and Hulett were sending officers as well. The operation was going smoothly, although the HP was obviously annoyed they didn’t know what kind of vehicle they were looking for or who would be in it.