The Forgotten Girls

by Owen Laukkanen

  Remote-controlled engines. That’s how he gets around.

  Ronda reached out, pressed something into Mila’s palm. “Every diesel on the Northwestern line uses the same key. The rider has one. Now you have one, too.”

  “Ash—” Mila said.

  “Never found a key. Didn’t think she needed one. She swore she could tough it out a few days on a flat.”

  The knocking started again. A man was calling Ronda’s name. Mila stared at her, her mind struggling to process. Ronda nudged her forward. “Time to go, kiddo,” she said. “Stay safe.”

  Mila opened the back door. It was still pouring rain outside. Cold, and just about dark. She started to leave. Then she stopped.

  “The rider,” she said. “Has anyone ever survived?”

  Ronda glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know for certain,” she said. “But I never met anyone who bragged about getting away. Now go.”

  She nudged Mila outside, and Mila turned back to thank her, but the door was already closing, and then it was shut and she could hear the lock engage, and she was alone in the cold and the wet again.

  She shouldered her packsack and hurried away from the house.

  25

  Wayne Clairmont didn’t have an alibi.

  “Didn’t know I needed one,” he told Stevens and Windermere when they tracked him down at home in Butcher’s Creek. “Probably would have made more of an effort if I’d known she was going to go off and die.”

  Clairmont’s home was small and cluttered, a few blocks from the Northwestern tracks. Between the agents and Sheriff Parsons, his living room was full up.

  “When’s the last time you saw your ex-wife?” Windermere asked Clairmont.

  He took a drag from his cigarette. “Guess it was last week, when she came by to borrow the car.”

  “You lend her the car often?”

  “Sometimes.” Clairmont laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough. “Only when she’s broke, I guess, but that’s often enough.”

  “Do you know what she was doing at the Gold Spike that night?” Stevens asked.

  “Oh, the usual, I expect.”

  Stevens and Windermere traded looks, and Clairmont stubbed out his cigarette, looked past them to Sheriff Parsons.

  “You gotta be smart people, you FBI agents,” he said. “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

  —

  The Gold Spike was mostly empty. It got emptier when the sheriff walked in.

  The bartender was an older guy with a long white beard, looked like he belonged on the back of a Softail in a Harley-Davidson ad. He watched a bunch of his regulars make for the front door, slipping past Parsons and Stevens and Windermere as they did. A couple of women among them, Stevens saw. They didn’t exactly look dressed for the weather.

  “Help you, Sheriff?” The bartender didn’t bother to hide his distaste. Parsons didn’t seem to mind.

  “Want you to meet some friends of mine, Hank,” the sheriff replied. “These here are a couple of real-life government agents. They want to ask you about Kelly-Anne Clairmont. You know her?”

  The bartender reached for a rag, wiped it lazily over the surface of the bar. “Sure, I know her. I know what happened to her, too. But I don’t have nothing to say about it.”

  “And why’s that?” Windermere asked.

  “Because I don’t know a damn thing,” he replied. “She was in here that night, doing her thing like always, making friends, the usual. She was here, and then she wasn’t, and then she was, and then she was gone for good.” He put down the rag. “And I daresay I didn’t much care either way.”

  “You remember any of those friends she was making?”

  The bartender didn’t even pretend to think about it. “Nope.” He flung the rag into a sink behind the bar. Then he pointed across the room. “But she might.”

  Stevens and Windermere followed his gesture and saw one of the escapees trying to sneak her way from the front door to a booth in the corner, a purse lying forgotten on the vinyl. She walked a couple more steps before she realized every eye in the room was on her. Then she stopped. Regarded the assembled like the raccoon by the trash bins.

  “Aw,” she said. “What kind of bullshit are you all trying to pin on me now?”

  —

  The woman’s name was Ramona.

  “But I go by Joey,” she told Stevens and Windermere. “You know, like the Ramones?”

  “You like punk music?” Stevens asked her.

  “Yeah, some. It’s more Ramona Henry isn’t exactly the best name for business.”

  She was a prostitute. She was probably about forty, wore a faded denim miniskirt and a low-cut top, a high schooler’s clumsy makeup. She’d agreed to sit with the agents on the promise that they weren’t out to bust her, and maybe a free beer for being such a good sport.

  Now she drank her Rainier and fidgeted in the booth, clutching her purse to her chest like she was afraid to lose it again.

  “What did Kelly-Anne go by?” Windermere said. “Did she have a business name?”

  “Not that I ever knew,” Ramona said. She made a face. “Then again, she wasn’t named anything as bad as Ramona, either.”

  “Were you here a couple nights back? Did you see her?”

  “Honey, I’m always here.” Ramona drank. “And yeah, I saw her. It’s a small room, isn’t it?”

  “Was she working that night?”

  Ramona gave them a look, like Why else would you come to a place like this? “It was a decent night. Steady crowd, lots of guys.” She grinned. “The snow closed the roads, too, so we had a, you know, captive audience.”

  “Business was good, huh? How’d Kelly-Anne seem to be doing that night?”

  Ramona emptied the bottle. “Oh, Kelly-Anne did great. She had a real good fricking night. There were these railroad guys in the corner who were all into her, and a couple of truckers over by the pool table. I think she pulled one of each, right after the other. Bam, bam.”

  A railroader, Stevens thought. Wouldn’t that be convenient?

  “You remember anything about these guys?” Windermere asked. “Where they were coming from? Where they were going?”

  “The railroad guy was an engineer, I think,” Ramona said. “Came in on a coal train. But he and Kelly-Anne came back to the bar when they were through. Then she left with the truck driver.” She scratched her neck. “He was a logging guy, I think. Had a buddy with him. They were gone ten, fifteen minutes. Then he came back alone.”

  She was looking at her empty beer bottle. Windermere signaled the bartender for another. Waited until the beer was delivered before she asked her next question.

  “You think the truck driver could have done anything to her?”

  “What, like drive her out of town and leave her dead in the snow, then come back to the bar in fifteen minutes?” Ramona shrugged. “I mean, I’m no expert, but—”

  “Maybe he waited to hide the body,” Stevens said. “Stashed her somewhere safe and then came back after the bar closed.”

  “Mmm, no, I don’t think so. Those boys left with us, Carli and me. If he came back to the Gold Spike, it wasn’t until morning.”

  Windermere leaned back in the booth. This wasn’t helping. “What else do you remember?” she asked. “Anything about that night strike you as odd? Anything stand out in your mind?”

  Ramona looked up at the ceiling. “I mean, it was a normal night, I guess. Mostly all regulars, train guys and truckers. There was this one guy in the corner for a little while, but he didn’t want company, so we left him alone.”

  “Did he talk to Kelly-Anne?”

  “Sure he did. She was the first to go over there. He shut her down, you know, a little too fast, like he was nervous or something. Wouldn’t make eye contact. He did have a wedding ring, not that that ever
stopped anyone.”

  “Was he an old guy? Young guy? You remember anything about his face?”

  Ramona took a long pull of her beer. “Honey,” she said, “you’ve been doing this long enough, the faces blur together. I don’t remember a damn thing about him.”

  That was it for Ramona. Stevens gave her his card, asked her to think on it some more. Put twenty bucks on her bar tab and told her to be safe.

  He stood and made to follow Windermere to where Parsons waited by the door. Then he stopped at the edge of the booth. “You ever hear any rumors of a killer around here?” he asked, turning back. “Someone preying on Native women, runaways and the like?”

  Ramona arched her eyebrows. “What, like a serial killer?”

  “That kind of thing, yeah. You ever hear any stories?”

  She scoffed. “Honey, we don’t need a serial killer around here, not my demographic. The guys in these parts seem to dispose of our kind well enough on their own.” She drained her second beer and looked him square in the eye. “You want my opinion, you put that girl’s death down to natural causes, whether it was cold that killed her or a man. It’s all the same thing on this side of the mountain.”

  26

  The rider had never seen a winter this savage.

  Another storm was coming. He stood at the window and watched the clouds roll over the mountains in the distance—leaden gray and ominous, portents of cold and wind and blinding snow.

  The chatter in town blamed the extreme weather on La Niña, something to do with cooler ocean temperatures, though the science didn’t matter so much to the rider. What mattered was what he could see through his windows. Another storm was coming. He would hunt again.

  They’d found the last girl only a few days ago. The rider had heard snippets when he went into town for groceries; a rancher had turned her up on the edge of his property. Nobody had known the girl’s name; as far as anyone could tell, she was another drunk Indian. There was speculation she was a prostitute.

  The rider knew he should be cautious in the aftermath. He knew even one dead woman would attract attention. People would be more alert. The prey would be wary. He would be better off waiting, letting the interest die down.

  But the talk of the dead girl had aroused the rider’s instincts. It had reminded him of the way the girl had fought beneath him, the fear in her eyes as she’d died. The way she’d screamed uselessly, her voice drowned by the wind.

  The rider had let her scream. Let her struggle, flail, fight, wear herself out. Waited until she was exhausted, staring up at him, the fight gone, and then he’d taken his turn.

  The girl didn’t die easy, but she died all the same. She’d fought again, at the end, as he choked the life from her. Tried to scream again. Didn’t matter.

  No one was listening to her.

  The rider watched the gathering clouds a few minutes longer before he turned away. He felt stifled, tamed, gelded, cooped up in his cabin, nothing to do but pace and imagine, replay how he’d punished the woman, how he’d taught her for teasing, lying, manipulating. He’d waited as long as he was able, but he would explode if he didn’t find another kill soon.

  There were preparations to make; he would have to leave soon, come down off the mountain before the blizzard hit, catch a train and let chance and the weather decide his next victim. He was eager.

  As he crossed the small cabin, the rider’s gaze fell on the wooden chest on his table. It was medium-sized, the equivalent of two shoe boxes. Its predecessor had been a woman’s jewelry case, but the rider had quickly outgrown it. Inside the chest were the memories he’d accumulated, the souvenirs he’d taken from his prey.

  The chest never failed to entice him, no matter his hurry. The rider opened the lid, studied the contents: jewelry, scraps of clothing, photographs. A love letter. The rider preferred objects of obvious value to his victims. He liked to watch their eyes widen as he took their totems from them, and he liked to assure them that he would cherish each item long after its owner was gone.

  There were engagement rings in the box, all heartbreakingly modest. Photographs of parents and favorite pets. Kelly-Anne’s amethyst pendant. A silver dollar—lucky, its owner had claimed, a gift from her stepfather. The rider hoped his luck would be better than hers.

  He kept all but one of his souvenirs in the chest. The girl from the first snow, the train hopper in Moyie Springs, the rider kept her fancy knife with him, as a weapon, and also a reminder. The girl had cut him with her knife. She’d hurt him. But the rider had prevailed in the end, as he always did.

  The rider knew it was foolish to hold on to so many incriminating tokens. Anyone who found the chest could easily trace the contents. Still, he couldn’t resist. Couldn’t help but feel proud of the collection he’d amassed, triumphant.

  He could still see the faces of the girls at their lockers, whispering to one another and sneaking looks in his direction, their voices carrying, mocking him, all because he’d had the gall to ask the prettiest of them to the dance. Making fun of his stutter, the tear in his shirt. Standing before him, a buffet in short skirts and tight sweaters, teasing him with their bodies, tempting him, delighting in refusing him.

  All the rider had ever wanted was to be loving to women, but their behavior had only ever earned his disgust. He’d been nice to women, smiled, listened to them. Opened doors, held out chairs, paid for countless dinners. Tolerated every annoyance, jumped through every hoop placed before him, and still no woman had ever returned his affection. No woman had ever treated him with anything but cruelty.

  The storm was moving closer, the distant peaks across the valley now vanished in the clouds. The rider closed the chest, carried it across the cabin to the worn rug by his bed. He pulled up a corner of the rug, loosened a floorboard underneath. Tucked the chest into the cavity below, beside his insurance policies—an unregistered pistol and a thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills.

  The rider took the money. Took the pistol. Replaced the loose floorboard and covered it with the rug. He set the money and the pistol on the bed, walked to his wardrobe, and began choosing his camouflage. He would have to dress warmly, he knew. The storm would bring bitter cold.

  27

  How about your name?” Mathers asked his computer monitor. “Let’s start with that, at least.”

  On the other end of the Skype connection, the woman rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you can figure that out,” she said. “You sent a pack of squad cars to my house already. I hope to hell you knew where you were sending them.”

  “You’re Ronda Sixkill,” Mathers said. “Is that right?”

  Around Mathers, the Criminal Investigative bullpen was dark and quiet, the rest of the office long departed. He’d stuck around after calling the Seattle resident agency, wanting to see if his lead panned out, if the Bureau agents on the coast could follow Mila Scott’s latest IP address to the runaway herself. He was already hearing Windermere’s reaction when he told her the good news.

  But the Seattle agents couldn’t deliver. They hadn’t found Mila Scott at Ronda Sixkill’s address, though it was clear that Ms. Sixkill—a widower—hadn’t been alone for long.

  “Two sets of dirty dishes in the sink,” the Seattle agent told Mathers. “Rumpled sheets on the guest bed. The homeowner denies any knowledge, but that’s nothing new.”

  Mathers couldn’t decide if that news made it better or worse. If Ronda Sixkill was hiding Mila Scott, they’d just barely missed her. And like losing a race by a matter of inches, it was always the close calls that stung the most.

  “Get Seattle PD scouring the neighborhood,” Mathers told the Seattle agent. “The nearest train yards, too. I don’t want this girl leaving the city.”

  Now Ronda Sixkill scowled at Mathers across the Skype connection. “I can’t imagine what good you think you’re doing right now,” she said. “Hauling me in, wasting your time and
mine.”

  She was an older woman, on the bigger side, kind of reminded Mathers of his aunt Francine, who always had candy to dish out and soft, squishy hugs at Thanksgiving. The difference was, Aunt Francine never stopped smiling, and Ronda Sixkill looked downright angry.

  “We connected you to a person of interest in a murder investigation,” Mathers told her. “You’re refusing to tell us what you know about her. That makes you a problem right there on its own.”

  Sixkill looked away, muttered something Mathers didn’t catch. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said I never knew the federal government to care so much about one runaway girl,” Sixkill said. “Who lit the fire under your asses? Is her real dad the president, or what?”

  “This has nothing to do with her family,” Mathers said. “It has to do with the picture of the dead woman she’s carrying around on her phone.”

  Sixkill stared at the camera, blank-faced. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “No?” Mathers unlocked his desk, flipped through the papers inside until he found what he was looking for, a printout of the dead woman’s photograph. He held it up to the monitor so that Ronda Sixkill could see. “Mila Scott has this picture on her phone. The Bureau would really like to know why.”

  Sixkill’s brow creased. “Mila didn’t take that picture,” she told Mathers. “She had nothing to do with what happened.”

  “We know that,” Mathers told her. “We’re ahead of you there. What we don’t know, and what we’re hoping she can tell us, is who the victim is, and who might have done this to her. But we just can’t seem to catch up to her long enough to get her to talk to us.”

  Sixkill was silent a moment. She pursed her lips, seemed to be thinking this over. Finally, she shifted in her seat. Spoke softly, too softly for the microphone to pick up.