The Highway Girls

by Matt Lockhart

  “I get it.”

  “It's possible maybe I remember them more on account of what happened. Like a hindsight thing, after the fact. It being all over the news and them being American and all of that.”

  “There's a lot of attention on it, that's for sure.”

  “I swear it's all the news wants to talk about right now.”

  “So, being in charge of the mechanics here, do you also manage roadside assistance?”

  “We offer roadside assistance, if that's what you're asking.”

  “No, I'm wondering who you sent out when the girls called for roadside on the day they disappeared?”

  “Send out? We don't send anyone out from here for that.”

  “Oh?”

  “No, we subcontract that out to our local partners. Towing companies, local garages, that kind of thing. We get a cut of their billing.”

  “Ah, so when they call for help, comes to what, a switchboard here and they put them in touch with a towing company or a garage in the nearest town or whatever?”

  “You got it.”

  Nate wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and takes a step towards the steel building. “Gotta get out of this heat,” he says, eager to speak with Lainey MacBride, the General Manager.

  “Oh, she's wicked today, ain't she?” Stanley says. “A heat wave, they're saying.”

  “Just what we need, right?”

  Stanley chuckles, then reaches out to shake Nate's hand again. “Listen, you have anymore questions for me, Lainey'll give you my card, you can give me a holler whenever. Whatever we can do to help.”

  “Sounds good, thanks.”

  Cold air conditioning washes over Nate as soon as he steps through the glass door. A young couple with a toddler sits on a padded bench across from the front desk. A high countertop painted red. The burnished linoleum glistens under harsh fluorescent lights. Nate introduces himself to the receptionist and Lainey MacBride emerges from the back office and ushers him through to the 'Employees Only' area where the tiled floor gives way to brown low pile carpet, and a narrow hallway punctuated by tiny offices barely larger than workstation cubicles.

  The Cream fully kicks in, the air conditioning is more pleasurable than ever, and the General Manager, Ms. MacBride seems to enunciate with unmatched clarity. Her office might be more like two cubicles, Nate thinks.

  She offers him a seat in a basic black vinyl padded office chair. The kind, you bump your elbow on the arm rest, your funny bone's telling jokes for the rest of the month.

  “I met your maintenance guy outside,” Nate says. “Stanley. Nice guy. Didn't catch his last name.”

  “Jameson,” Lainey says. “Here. Let me give you his card.”

  Nate shoves the card into his pocket and pulls out his notepad. “I know you've likely spoken to the police a couple of times by now.”

  “At least. FBI too. There's a lot of attention.”

  “Certainly is.”

  “And you're a private detective.”

  “Yes. I'm working for the mother of one of the victims.”

  “You think they'll find them?”

  “I don't know. It's what I'm trying to do.”

  “I can't imagine what their families are going through. I have a daughter. She's three. I just- it's awful.”

  “It is. And any information you could give me would be of great help.”

  “I'm not certain I know enough that could help you find them. I wish I could do more.”

  “Anything you can tell me is help enough. Even things you might think are trivial.”

  “What would you like to know, specifically?”

  “I'm curious about your detailing work. The cleaning of the RVs, before you rent them out.”

  “Mm-hmm, yes. I know they've arrested the one guy working for the place we use in Red Deer. We had no idea about his past or anything like that. We subcontract that work out. His employment isn't connected with us.”

  This is what managers do, Nate thinks. Protect the brand. Really, she's protecting her own ass. Who could blame her? You want to distance yourself and your potential livelihood from the Grady Willard Barnes's of the world. But, as per usual, people get the wrong idea about P.I.'s. Mistake them for just about anything other than what they actually are. I'm not a cop, lady. Nor am I a psychiatrist, and I'm certainly not the Better Business Bureau.

  “Ms. MacBride, I'm not all that concerned about what you knew about any given employee at whatever business. I'm not looking to hold you responsible for what Mr. Barnes may or may not have done, alright? I'm more just interested in nailing down dates, times, maybe small details of what people have seen and heard. That kind of thing.”

  This seems to relax Lainey and she sinks back into her office chair and rests her hands in front of her. “What did you want to know about the cleaning, then?”

  “Does anyone who works at these companies you contract out the work to, do they ever come here? Would they ever have a reason to? Do you cut checks for people here, pay them out of these offices ever? Anything like that?”

  “No. Never. If you work for Jo Blo's Cleaning Company, for example. You work for them. They pay you. All of that.”

  “So, no one who's ever done any of the cleaning or detailing on any of your RVs has come here, or would've been here at the time when you'd rented an RV to those three women?”

  “Not that I'm aware of, no. Why? You think someone saw them here and what, followed them or something?”

  “No, not necessarily. I'm just leaving everything open to all possibilities.”

  “I see. No, this Barnes character. I know who he is, even though publicly the police haven't said his name. I know because he's been taken off the roster at the place in Red Deer. Easy to put two-and-two together. Part of my job is to know these things, from an organizational standpoint. Anyway, he's never been here. I'm 99% sure of that.”

  “But not a hundred.”

  “Who can be 100% sure of anything, Mr. Striker? I'm fairly confident he'd have no idea who was renting the unit he'd worked on.”

  The answer satisfies Nate, but he has to cover that ground anyway, and it's ground he figures lesser investigators never bother with. Even the mundane can pay dividends. Actually, it's usually the mundane that does.

  “And what about roadside assistance? Your guy, Stanley there. He told me just before I came in here, that's subcontracted out too.”

  “Right. I know those ladies called for assistance the afternoon of the 13th. I made a copy of the service form in case you wanted to see it.”

  She hands him two sheets of paper. The first page, Nate can see the call came into their company switchboard, July 13th, 16:53. “This is helpful, thanks,” says Nate. Then he flips to the second page, and he's blown away. A list of dates and times.

  July 11, 2019...10:51

  July 11, 2019…17:32

  July 13, 2019...10:02

  July 13, 2019...12:26

  July 13, 2019…14:16

  July 13, 2019...14:47

  July 13, 2019...16:26

  July 13, 2019...16:46

  Each date and time comes with a set of coordinates. Nate's eyes grow wide like he's hit the motherlode. “What is all of this?”

  “GPS locator,” Lainey says, “we have them in all of our units. That's the record from theirs. They usually ping whenever the unit stops, moves locations. I don't know exactly how it works. Honestly, the technology's a bit beyond me. We have people for that.”

  “This is a record of where they were those dates and times?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you give a copy of this to police?”

  “Of course.”

  Nate had hoped she'd say no to that. This kind of thing would give him a huge leg up. Regardless, this sheet is gold. “Thanks for this.”

  Then he sees a date and time at the bottom of the page, separate from the others, next to the initials T.T..

  He points to it. “What is this listing here?”

 
Takes a second for Lainey to jog her memory and she takes the page from him. “T.T. would be Tobin's Towing. They responded to the call for assistance. They're based up north.”

  Nate circles it once she hands the page back. July 13...18:19.

  Hotter than hot. Stupid hot.

  Nate saunters back across the lot, rounds the gate out to the road. Walks towards his car, sees two skinny creeps leaning with arms folded against his ride. White boys with baggy jeans and patchy facial hair. Probably slept in a rail car in the derelict yard across the way. Nate waves his hand as he walks up.

  “Off my car.”

  Both boys stand up straight. The mouthy one takes the lead. “Been all through it, bro. Where you keep your shit?”

  We're really gonna do this? Figures. An armpit of an industrial park in Calgary's north end. Were you really expecting anything else?

  “What shit?”

  “You know. You driving a hoopty like this. You're using for sure. Don't hold out, bro.”

  “How you know I'm not an undercover cop?”

  Pow! The quiet guy jumps forward, socks Nate clean on the button. Nate falls to his knees. The mouthy one kicks him straight in the jaw. Heel to cheek. Wasn't for the Cream, it might've hurt like hell, instead Nate feels his busted ass tooth at the back knock loose. Son of a bitch. Could've knocked him cold with that shot. Nate's thankful he didn't. Instead, it proved to be medieval dentistry.

  Both boys back up, assess the damage they've inflicted. Nate shakes his head, gets back to his feet. “Those were freebies, assholes.”

  “Give us the shit, man.”

  Nate has an inkling. Changes his tone. Both boys hold their hands up like they're ready to box, though they keep their distance. “Hold up,” Nate says. “I keep it in the trunk.”

  “Don't you try nothin'.”

  “I'm not kidding,” Nate says. “I got some. You want it? Take it. Just let me go after, alright?”

  Sound as pathetic as possible. They'll buy it.

  No one ever accused tweakers like these of being the sharpest knives in the drawer. Nate slides his key into the trunk lock. The mouthy one approaches. Without fully opening the lid, Nate slides his hand inside, wraps his fingers around a tire iron. “I got exactly what you're looking for.”

  The kid, to his credit, catches on quick.

  “Fuckers got a gun or somethin!”

  He turns to run, but Nate still manages to catch him with a thunderous crack to his thigh. Brings the iron down on him hard and fast. The kid cries out and falls to the pavement. The quiet one steps forward, looks down at his friend with hesitation, then turns and books it for the rail yard.

  Nate holds the iron over his head, blazing sky behind him as the kid looks up. It's like the cover of a graphic novel, that's what it looks like to the kid anyway. The pose of a warrior about to vanquish his enemy.

  The mouthy kid jumps to his feet. Barely puts any weight on his left leg, but he's eager to turn rabbit.

  “Fuck, man, you mighta broke it.” He hobbles away from Nate.

  “I'm about to break more.”

  The kid doesn't test his luck and he runs with a hell of a limp, off in the direction of his friend. Nate chucks the tire iron back into the trunk and sinks to the street. With his back against his car he opens his mouth and on the third try pries the shaken, loosened, aching tooth from its rotted root. He holds the molar between thumb and forefinger, studies its silhouette held up against the relentless sun. He spits blood onto the road and grins. Son of a bitch. You never know how your luck can turn.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Crime of opportunity.

  You drive by an RV on the side of the highway, a highway you've been driving for years, and you see three beautiful college-age girls hanging around outside the rig that's broken down and not going anywhere anytime soon. When you're a shark, this is an easy meal.

  Who's a shark?

  There's more of them than the world knows or even wants to contemplate. Some sharks don't even know they're sharks until there's easy prey floating right in front of them. Some sharks know that they're sharks and go their whole lives without victimizing anyone. Not because they don't have the instinct, that yearning all-consuming desire to feed, to have their eyes roll to the back of their heads and orgasm off the power they hold over a smaller, more defenseless creature – no. It's not that they lack this compulsion, but rather they've never found themselves in the position to act on it. They've never been presented with the opportunity to express their deep-down shark nature. Other times sharks, especially ones who've previously run afoul of the law – and a lot of them have – they're wary, they know feeding on prey usually comes with a cost. So, you have to be careful. The opportunity has to be right. It has to actually be an opportunity, in the fullest sense of the word. No one around who could see, could help, or could call for help.

  Time. Distance. Circumstance.

  Opportunity.

  So, you're a shark. You're driving on a remote stretch of road miles away from anything that's miles away from anything, and you see the thing you yearn for – the thing that keeps you up at night, soaks your sheets, burns you up, envelopes your every waking thought – and you think… now. This is it. Here it is. The chance to be what you've always been. To express what you really are. To explore and exploit your real nature. Your authentic self. A shark.

  Easy prey, prey you know you can make yours, that you can have, and wield unending power over – it's right there. There's no one else around. No one for miles that you can see. You may not have a lot of time, but you have enough, and you know this. Opportunities don't come along very often, not like this. So, what do you do? When you're a shark, you feed. When you're a predator, you victimize.

  Those girls. They're not people. Thinking, feeling creatures such as yourself? This does not enter the equation. They are things. They are something to own, to control, to toy with – something to get you off. They are yours. They are prey. You wield ultimate power and you can impose your will upon these things because that's you. That's what a shark does.

  Crime of opportunity.

  Those girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Swam into the shallows without a thought about the beasts who may lurk among the shoals. Why would you? Who wants to move about the world believing the predators are many, and are among us at all times?

  These thoughts consume Nate as he drives to a rural property in Lacombe County. Heads to Tobin's Towing, the owner's property where he headquarters his business. Nate fords the potholes slow, all of them full of water, remnants of the recent storms. His Taurus bobs up and down over the rough gravel drive, snakes through rows of piled up wrecks. Nate brakes, parks, and an old German Shepherd mix ambles up to him slow, tail wagging, ready for a friendly scratch behind the ears. Nate obliges as a pot-bellied man with a gray beard walks from the front porch of a one story house sitting between two smaller run-down buildings.

  “Buster,” the man calls to the dog. “Nevermind.”

  “It's alright,” Nate says, but the old shepherd minds his owner and wanders off. “You must be Jim.”

  “I am,” says the man, extending his hand. “I take it you're Nate.”

  “Yes.”

  Jim Tobin, in his late 60s, has run his towing and salvage company for over thirty years. He used to be the go-to guy for police across the region. Roadside seizures, accident clean-up, you name it. That went south when Jim's shitrat son, Bryce, was caught dealing meth and soon after found to be running a lab out of one of his dad's buildings. A derelict garage towards the back of his property. Jim made up the shortfall in fulfilling contract work. CanadaPlus RV came along at the right time.

  Jim never pursued working on police calls ever again. His son's guilt notwithstanding, Jim stops trusting law enforcement altogether. Forces his son to clean up his act though, if he still expects to work for him, and keep living at home.

  “Appreciate you making time for me,” Nate says. He shakes the man's beefy ha
nd. Jim doesn't miss many meals.

  “Yep, no problem.”

  “I'm sure RCMP's been out to see you.”

  Jim smiles a bit. “They been around, yep. Askin about those girls.”

  “Hoping you can help me with that.”

  “Was Bryce took the call,” Jim says. “He takes most of 'em now. Especially ones later in the day, you know.”

  “He was home here at the time?”

  Jim shakes his head. “Nope, he'd have been out on the road somewhere. Him and Russ.”

  “Russ?”

  “Camuner,” Jim said. “Bryce's friend. Hired him a while back. Goes with Bryce most of the time. Kind of an apprentice-like, on the calls, you know. Sometimes he goes out does 'em himself. Not too often though.”

  “So, your son, it was him and Russ that went out to the missing girls' RV?”

  Jim nods. “Yep, think so.”

  “You think? You don't know for sure.”

  Jim frowns, looks at the ground scratches his head. “Can't fully remember, tell ya the truth. I think Bryce said it was him and Russ. Could've been Bryce alone though. I'm not sure.”

  “Could you put me in touch with your son?”

  “Yep. He's home here.”

  “He's home now?”

  “Yep. Trailer out back.”

  Bryce Tobin lives behind his folks house in a mobile home. Jim walks with Nate around behind his house. Bryce opens the door, looks like he's just come off a three-day bender. His blond hair sticks out all over. His sandy beard mats to one side.

  “This fella's Nate Striker,” Jim tells his son. “He's a P.I., I get that right?”

  “That's right,” Nate says.

  “Wants to ask ya some questions about them girls you went out to help. The missing ones, you know.”

  “Right,” Bryce says, squints at them from his front step. “What are ya lookin for exactly? I talked to some cops that came out here. You should talk to them.”

  Nate smiles. Let these two know, he tells himself. You're on their side. The civvie side. You're not in league with the police. You're not a narc. “They don't talk to me much,” Nate says. “If they did maybe I'd have this thing solved already.”