The Forgotten Girls

by Owen Laukkanen

  “Relax,” he said. “It will be over soon.”

  —

  But it hadn’t been over.

  He’d meant to kill her. He’d dragged her from the truck, dropped her in the snow, and knelt over her, hands on her throat again. Choked the breath from her, savage and unyielding, until her lungs screamed for air and her vision went dark.

  Then he’d dragged her. She watched him through lidded eyes, semiconscious. He took her to the edge of a long drop, and she felt the snow, the biting wind swirl up from the abyss. He wasn’t looking at her now. Those eyes were dull, his jaw set, an automaton fulfilling a task. He’d rolled her to the edge. Then he’d shoved her over, and she’d been too weak to stop him, too weak to do anything but fall.

  She fell. She hit rock and bounced and hit rock again, and the pain came, everywhere, piercing and hot. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Darryl’s truck come to life. She lay there and watched the snow and waited for her body to shut down.

  He’d meant to kill her, she knew. She’d imagined he would. But here, now, she’d woken up. It was daylight, and she was alive. Barely.

  Pamela Moody lay on her back and stared up at her surroundings, snow and rock and flat leaden sky, and wondered how long it would take for nature to finish the job.

  40

  Pamela Moody,” Finley read from her notes. “Waitress at the Hungry Horse Saloon, twenty-five years old. Didn’t come home from her shift last night; boyfriend called the deputies this morning. No sign of her truck at the saloon, and her boss swears he saw her leave.”

  The deputy had driven Stevens and Windermere down to Hungry Horse, a tiny village on the banks of the Flathead River at the fringe of Glacier National Park, sixty miles to the southeast of Butcher’s Creek. The Northwestern Railroad’s main line through the Rockies skirted the village on the northern side of the river; Stevens could see a passing siding and a parked junk train as Finley drove them into town. He searched down the line of freight cars for a remote engine, didn’t see one—but that didn’t make him feel any better.

  They’d ordered a stop to all Northwestern trains in the area before they’d left Eureka, instructing the engine crews and railroad bulls to search every remote-controlled unit before proceeding. There’d been pushback from the railroad, but not much; if riders were breaking into the railroad’s multimillion-dollar locomotives, the Northwestern management wanted it stopped as much as anyone. So far, nobody had reported anything suspicious, and Stevens feared that trend would continue. If the person responsible for Pamela Moody’s disappearance had indeed hopped a freight, he’d had hours to escape before Stevens and Windermere sounded the alarm.

  Finley had parked her SUV outside the bar where Pamela Moody had worked, the parking lot plowed down to the hard-packed snow, the rest piled in huge eight-foot piles along the fringes. The Flathead County deputy was waiting there to fill them in on the search efforts so far.

  The deputy looked like he was a few years older than Stevens. A weathered face, a genuine smile. His name was Michael Dillman, and he shook each of their hands in turn before gesturing across the lot to the saloon.

  “Pam Moody worked the night shift at the Horse last night. Closed up at two and was out around quarter to three, according to her boss. He watched her walk out the door, and he swears that’s the last he saw of her.”

  The Hungry Horse Saloon was a modest affair, low-lying, few windows, a backlit sign above the door with more bulbs burned out than functional. It was the only bar in town, but given the size of the town, that wasn’t saying much.

  “Her boyfriend called it in,” Stevens said. “Is that right?”

  Dillman cocked his head a little. “He didn’t so much call it in as he created a ruckus,” he said. “Turned up at Ms. Moody’s boss’s place around eight thirty this morning, pistol in hand, demanding Reg Winter—that’s the boss—let him in. Apparently, Winter had been making passes at Ms. Moody for a while now, and Greer—that’s the boyfriend, Darryl Greer—figured she must have finally given in. Winter called me, and I managed to calm Greer down, disarm him, put the story together.”

  “And you didn’t find Pamela Moody at Winter’s house, obviously,” Windermere said.

  “No, ma’am. Mr. Winter was adamant he hadn’t seen Ms. Moody since she left the bar.”

  “So what’s the boyfriend’s background?”

  Dillman pulled out a notepad. “Darryl Greer, thirty years old. Works at the aluminum plant down the road in Conkelley—or he did, until the plant closed. He says he usually falls asleep before Ms. Moody gets home. Usually wakes up when she climbs into bed after her shift, but he woke up to sunlight this morning and knew something was wrong.”

  “He have an alibi for last night?”

  “No, ma’am. He watched a hockey game until the cable gave out. Then he fell asleep.”

  Stevens surveyed the lot. The Hungry Horse Saloon sat on the main drag, across from a couple gas stations and a strip of fast-food restaurants, the highway running right through the middle of town, parallel to the river and the train tracks. There were a couple of bridges over the river, access roads to the tracks and the mountains beyond. Neither of the bridges were more than a mile from the saloon, though in a storm, Stevens knew, even a mile would have seemed like a marathon.

  Easy, he thought. Don’t go chasing bogeymen yet.

  He turned back to Dillman. “Winter and Greer, where are they now?”

  Dillman pointed down the street. “At the station,” he said. “I heard you all were coming, so I brought them in, made them promise to behave themselves. Told them it’d be a hell of a lot easier for both of them if they just cooperated.”

  “You know this town,” Windermere said. “Do you have any theories?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Any idea what happened last night. In your professional opinion.”

  Dillman thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t want to make any assumptions. But Reg Winter’s well known for making passes at his waitresses, supposedly fired a few of them for not playing along.” His face darkened. “He’s a creep, that’s for sure. But he swears he kept his hands off Ms. Moody, so I just don’t know what to tell you.”

  “That’s fine,” Windermere said, turning back to Finley’s truck. “Which way is the jailhouse? I want to talk to these boys myself.”

  41

  Darryl Greer and Reg Winter sat on opposite sides of the holding cell in the sheriff’s detachment in Hungry Horse, glaring out through the bars, refusing to look at each other.

  There was another deputy in the office, a middle-aged woman named Renner, and she stood as Dillman led Stevens and Windermere into the office, Kerry Finley bringing up the rear.

  “They tried to fight, Mike,” Renner reported. “But I told them the first to throw a punch had to eat your cooking for lunch, and they calmed down some.”

  “Good,” Dillman said, walking past Renner to the holding cell. “So let’s see if they’re ready to talk this thing through.”

  —

  Stevens took Darryl Greer into Dillman’s office. Brought Deputy Renner with him, closed the door. He left Reg Winter for Windermere, Dillman, and Finley, figuring the barman would be more receptive to Windermere’s brand of tough love.

  Greer, for his part, looked more scared than anything. He accepted a seat opposite Stevens at Finley’s desk, glanced back to where Renner guarded the door, and then settled in and looked at Stevens again.

  “Any sight of her?” he asked. His voice was raw, his eyes hollow. “I mean, if she wasn’t with that asshole, then . . .” He let it trail off.

  “We’re still looking,” Stevens told him. “She have any friends we could talk to? Anyone she might have gone home with last night?”

  “She was supposed to come home to me,” Greer said. “I mean, she got off at three in the morning. In a blizzard. Where would she go?�
�

  Still, he gave Stevens a handful of names, three or four local women he claimed were Pam Moody’s closest friends. Stevens wrote them down and made a note to follow up when he was finished with Greer.

  “What about men?” Stevens asked him. “I’m sorry, but, you know—”

  “Yeah,” Greer said. “I know. I guess I made it seem like she’s some kind of big slut, running over to Reg Winter’s like I did.” He sighed. “It’s just, he’s been sniffing around her since he gave her the job, and I know he’s the kind to fire a girl for not putting out, you know? I thought maybe he’d finally worn her down.”

  “We heard about his reputation,” Stevens said. “No other men you can think of? Nobody has a crush on her, anything like that?”

  Greer made a No sound. “She’s kind of a homebody, really. We’re saving to get the hell out of here, together. Soon as we have the money scraped up, we’re gone.”

  “Where to? Could she have decided to leave without you?”

  “In that blizzard?” Greer made a face. “Maybe if she was crazy. Anyway, she didn’t have near enough money. And I told you, we’re going together.” He paused. “Look, I know you have to ask these questions, but I just want to find her. I’ll answer whatever you want, just—time’s wasting, you know? A storm like last night, it doesn’t leave survivors for long.”

  He talked about her in the present tense, Stevens noticed, like he believed she was still alive. And he seemed genuinely concerned about his girlfriend’s whereabouts. He might have been acting, but Stevens didn’t think so. He was thinking about the train tracks across the river, about Kelly-Anne Clairmont and Ashlyn Southernwood.

  He was thinking this case fit the pattern.

  —

  In the holding cell, Windermere and Kerry Finley went to work on Reg Winter.

  “I hear you’re a sleazeball,” Windermere told him. “Not too bright on workplace harassment laws, either.”

  Winter scowled at her. He was a tall, skinny guy, late thirties, balding. He looked like he’d been the kid in tenth grade who dreamed of owning a bar, drinking all night and meeting chicks. He looked like he’d never grown out of that phase.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that broad disappearing,” he said. He tilted his chin up at Dillman. “I told this one all that already.”

  “You’re the last to see ‘that broad’ alive.” Windermere hunched down in front of him until she was looking in his eyes. “And rumor has it you had a little crush. Put it together, and you’re the FBI’s number one suspect. So you want to tell me something to get you off my shit list, Reginald?”

  Winter held her gaze. Hard, like he was working through his chances of throwing a punch before Finley could draw down. Windermere tensed for it, ready to react in case the barman tried anything dumb.

  But he didn’t. He spat on the floor instead.

  “Look,” he said. “Here’s what I know: we closed around two. Pam tidied up while I did the count. When I was finished, I poured us a couple shots, Fireball, to celebrate. Was a hell of a night, and we’d both made it through. She shut me down. Said she had to go and walked out the door without so much as a wave good-bye.” He scratched his head, as if he couldn’t believe anyone would turn down the offer. “I figured, hell, can’t let a couple shots go to waste, so I disposed of them. And then I disposed of a couple more. And by the time I got out into the parking lot, her truck was gone.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. Three thirty, maybe. It was real fucking late, is all I know. I wasn’t too worried about the exact time.”

  “Anyone see you leave?”

  “If they did, they were hiding real well.”

  “Anyone waiting for you at home?”

  Winter gave her a look. “Probably wouldn’t have been pouring Pam shots if I had an old lady,” he said. Then he rubbed his face. “No one to vouch for me, got no alibi. I know where you’re going with these questions, but you’re chasing the wrong tail. I didn’t have nothing to do with Pam disappearing.”

  Windermere shuffled her notes. She didn’t like Reg Winter, figured he was probably the town asshole, figured he’d been sniffing around after Pam Moody last night, no question about that. But the thing was, she kind of believed him when he said he didn’t know where she’d gone. Winter seemed like the type to make a pass at a woman. He didn’t strike Windermere as smart enough to dispose of a body and make it back to bed before dawn, especially in a storm like last night’s.

  But he was the last person to see Pam Moody alive, and that made him pretty damn valuable.

  “Did Pam seem distracted last night, unhappy?” Windermere asked. “She give any indication she was planning anything unusual?”

  “She seemed tired,” Winter replied. “Seemed like she was itching to get home and go to bed. I assume that’s why she turned down her shot and hightailed it out of there so fast.”

  “She look worried?”

  “No more than usual, I’d say. But what the hell do I know?”

  “Okay,” Windermere said. “Can you think of anyone she might have come into contact with last night? Any customers who seemed a little too into her?”

  Winter at least pretended to think about it. Then he spat again. “Look, it was a busy night,” he said. “I was swamped, barely had time to take a leak, much less babysit my waitress. If she had someone hitting on her, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see much but the fridge and the cash register all night long.”

  42

  She was in a ravine.

  Pamela Moody lay on her back and stared up at the sky beyond the rocky walls of the canyon. She was cold. She hurt bad. She was sick of waiting to die.

  She wasn’t dead yet.

  The air around her was quiet. Nothing moved. Even the sky seemed static, just a blank wall, a paint swatch, “chronic-depression gray.” The snow had stopped falling. The wind had died down. What few trees she could see around her were still. She couldn’t hear any sounds; she might have been the last woman on earth.

  She’d heard a train whistle a while back. Distant, though, like she was imagining things, like she might not have heard it at all. She remembered the man pulling her from the truck, but she didn’t hear any traffic from the top of the ravine. She didn’t hear anything.

  She could see rocks and snow and sky, the walls of the ravine rising jagged around her, a few hardy, stunted conifers clinging to the terrain. The man had obviously meant to hide her here, likely somewhere far away from town, somewhere no one would think to look for her. He’d probably counted on the snow covering her body. It was smart, she decided. More snow would fall soon enough.

  Her head ached. The rest of her ached, too. She’d broken her body when she fell, when she’d bounced off the knife-sharp rocks; she’d bled through her clothes here and there. Every time she shifted position, she could feel the pain again.

  She had expected to die fairly quickly. It was a miracle she’d woken up at all, she knew, but the miracle wouldn’t last forever. She had imagined she would fall asleep again, drift off, and that would be that. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Might be kind of pleasant, actually.

  But Pam hadn’t drifted off. She’d just lain there and stared up at the walls of the canyon, unable to turn her mind off, even with the cold and the pain. She kept seeing the man’s face, hearing his awful voice. The memory didn’t scare her; it made her really freaking mad.

  She should have known better. She did know better. She’d had a weird feeling about the guy since she took his drink order, and when he’d shown up by Darryl’s truck, she should have raked out his eyes with her car keys. Instead, she’d let the creep get the drop on her, let him use her and hurt her and, damn it, toy with her, the way he’d dangled her puffer just out of her reach. That made Pam angry. It made her mad that he’d won, that she was going to die because of som
e dickhead who needed to play rough to get laid.

  Shit.

  Pam wasn’t ready to die, no matter how she tried to will her mind into accepting the inevitable. Her body wouldn’t let her go. Her brain wouldn’t shut off. She kept seeing the guy’s face as he teased her with the puffer. She kept thinking how much she’d like to turn the tables on him.

  Well, hell. She was probably going to die regardless, but lying around waiting was getting old. Pam tilted her head back, gritted her teeth, the pain as fresh as if the bastard were right above her with a knife. She craned her neck until she could see all the way from the bottom of the ravine to the top, the lip where the man had kicked her over, the rocks she must have hit on her way to the bottom.

  The lip was maybe sixty feet above her. The ravine rose at an angle; the wall was mostly fresh snow, punctuated by bare rock. She couldn’t see any easy path to the top, even if she’d been in peak physical form. Right now she wasn’t even sure she could walk.

  But she could move a little bit at a time, if she could block out the pain and just roll herself over. She could pull herself forward; inches she could cover, excruciatingly slowly, and if she could just get her legs working somehow, make herself crawl, she might be able to actually get somewhere.

  It beat waiting to die. And if the pain got unbearable or she wore herself out, well, heck, death was always the fallback plan, anyway.

  43

  Stevens met Windermere coming out of the holding cell, Deputy Finley and Mike Dillman behind her. “Nothing doing,” he told them. “Unless Darryl Greer’s a heck of a good actor, he doesn’t know a thing about where Pam Moody might have gone. He seems pretty concerned that we’re not looking hard enough for her.”