The Disappeared

by C. J. Box

  The Cessna came so close to the windows that Joe could see the two pilots in the cockpit before it turned sharply to align the door of the plane with the vestibule that had once housed the TSA crew. The whine of the engines filled the building as they powered down.

  “He’s here,” Stokes said unnecessarily.

  The aircraft door opened and stairs telescoped down to the tarmac. Joe expected to see Colter Allen—with his wide shoulders, silver mane of hair, Western jacket, bolo tie, jeans, and cowboy boots—deplane first. Instead, a dark-haired hatchet-faced man in a suit and overcoat came down the stairs followed by the two pilots. The three men walked quickly toward the terminal, hugging themselves against the cold.

  The hatchet-faced man pushed through the doors first.

  “Are you Joe Pickett?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m Connor Hanlon. We spoke on the phone last night.”

  Joe nodded. Hanlon didn’t extend his hand, but instead thumbed over his shoulder at the airplane. “The governor will see you now.”

  “He’s not coming in?” Joe asked.

  “What does it look like?”

  Both pilots had found the men’s room in a hurry, Joe noted. It was as if they wanted to get as far away from Connor Hanlon as they could.

  “It looks like I’ll go see him,” Joe said.

  “We’re on a tight schedule,” Hanlon said, shooting out his arm so he could check his wristwatch. “Where can I get an espresso?”

  Joe looked to Monte Stokes, who shrugged his shoulders in response.

  “Can you help him out?” Joe asked.

  “What’s an expresso?” Stokes said.

  *

  THE WIND HAD COME UP since Joe had arrived at the airport and it cut through his jeans as he mounted the stairs of the Cessna. His boots clanged on the metal steps and he reached up and clamped his hat on his head so it wouldn’t blow off.

  He paused on the top step and leaned in.

  “Come in and close the door, for God’s sake,” Governor Allen said from the back of the plane. “It’s freezing in here.”

  Joe entered the aircraft, then turned and pulled the steps up and closed the hatch. Although the engines were off, a set of heaters hummed from a battery backup. The first thing Joe noticed was that the interior of the jet had been redone. Instead of three rows of single seats and a bench seat in back, there were now only two empty seats near the cockpit. The back of the plane had been converted into a flying office with a large desk, a television, a phone, an open laptop computer, and a small refrigerator.

  Colter Allen sat in a high-backed leather chair behind his desk with both hands raised so he could drum his fingers on his chest.

  “We got off on the wrong foot the last time we talked,” Allen said. “Actually, you got off on the wrong foot with me.”

  Joe didn’t know how to respond. Three months before, Allen had called him to say that he’d found several files from Rulon that mentioned Joe’s involvement as an agent for the former governor. Allen had said he was intrigued by the concept and hoped Joe would continue his role as “range rider.”

  But before Joe could discuss it, Allen had asked that he travel to Campbell County in the northeastern corner of the state to gather intelligence on a group of unemployed coal miners who might be planning a protest of Allen’s upcoming visit. The coal miners claimed that Allen had promised them their jobs back after he was elected, but it hadn’t happened. The governor wanted Joe to disrupt their plans and save himself the embarrassment of bad press coverage.

  Joe had refused by saying he “didn’t do political.”

  Allen had huffed and disconnected the call. Joe hadn’t heard from him since.

  “Sit down,” the governor said as he gestured to one of the two open seats. “They spin around so you can face me.”

  Joe sat and spun around. Allen beheld him with an amused grin.

  “I don’t have time for small talk because we need to get to Jackson Hole for lunch with the secretary of the interior.”

  He paused and Joe didn’t respond.

  “That would be the secretary of the interior for the United States of America,” Allen said, enunciating each word.

  Joe said, “I won’t hold you up, sir,” although he hadn’t asked for the meeting.

  Joe was well aware that for states in the West like Wyoming—where half of all the land was owned and managed by the federal government via a slew of agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, and others—it didn’t matter who the president was, because the secretary of the interior was actually their president. So a Rocky Mountains governor meeting with the new secretary was important but not unusual.

  Joe had been in Rulon’s office when the former governor, shouting over the phone, had challenged the secretary in the last administration to a “duel to the death with swords or handguns.” That had both frightened and impressed Joe. Rulon had chuckled and explained that one of the highlights of his day was to “screw with our federal overlords.”

  Allen eyed Joe with suspicion and said, “I’d like you to go on assignment for me like you used to do for Rulon. I know you ‘don’t do political,’ but this one isn’t.”

  He said don’t do political with a sneer, Joe noted.

  “I mean, there are politics involved—there always is at my level,” Allen said with a sniff. “But it’s not overtly political. From what I understand, you’ve been fairly successful in the past with unconventional investigations. At least that’s what Rulon told me before I took over his desk.”

  Joe blushed and looked away for a moment. Then he said, “I got lucky a few times by blundering around until the bad guys revealed themselves. You’ve got good law enforcement across the state and professionals at DCI who do a dandy job.”

  “Ah, the Division of Criminal Investigation,” Allen said with a wave of his hand. “I asked them months ago to look into this situation, but all they do is whine about budget cuts and, quote, ‘lack of resources.’ I’m getting tired of their excuses.”

  Joe nodded, even though he really didn’t agree. Due to a decrease in mineral-extraction activity within the state, there’d certainly been budget cuts to state agencies. The Game and Fish Department had not been spared.

  “Plus,” Allen continued, “those guys stick out like sore thumbs in a small town like Saratoga.”

  “Saratoga, sir?” Joe asked. He didn’t know why Allen had specifically mentioned the southern-central community of Saratoga.

  In fact, Steve Pollock, the game warden in the Snowy Range district that included Saratoga, had mysteriously moved on recently, and no replacement procedure had taken place. It was a puzzling development. Pollock had been with the agency nearly as long as Joe had been. Although he didn’t know Pollock intimately, Joe thought he was well-liked and well-respected. He hadn’t heard why he’d been terminated and that was odd in itself. Other game wardens throughout the state—and there were fifty—had been discreetly asking around for the reason for Pollock’s demise, but Joe hadn’t yet heard an adequate explanation.

  “I’m getting ahead of myself,” Allen said. “Have you heard of someone named Kate Shelford-Longden?”

  “The name is familiar, but I’m not sure from where,” Joe confessed.

  “I wouldn’t guess you spend much time reading the British tabloid newspapers, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Didn’t think so,” Allen said with a smirk. “But if you had, you’d know that Kate Shelford-Longden is the CEO of a high-powered English advertising agency. She’s a very attractive woman and a real go-getter, from what I understand. Last summer she decided to come over here for a dude ranch holiday in Wyoming. She chose the most luxurious and pricey ranch in the state, which is Silver Creek Ranch near Saratoga.”

  Joe nodded for the governor to go on. He was familiar with the ranch r
esort because their oldest daughter, twenty-three-year-old Sheridan, had started working there after her graduation from the University of Wyoming. “Taking a year off before starting a career” was how she’d put it to Joe and Marybeth.

  The governor said, “Between the time she left the ranch and when she was supposed to board her flight in Denver to go back to London she disappeared,” he said. “She just never showed up.

  “Anyway,” Allen said, “it’s been in the news over there, even though it hasn’t been much of a story over here. They love that kind of stuff about good-looking blondes who vanish on vacation. Plus, her sister has made a bunch of noise about it. I didn’t know much about the case until a few months ago, when my wife attended a cocktail party for our new president in Washington.”

  Tatiana Allen, the governor’s wife, was ten years his senior, but had evened the age gap by remaining nearly skeletal in appearance and indulging in a good deal of hot yoga and cosmetic surgery. She was the heiress to a billion-dollar outdoor-clothing firm that had since gone bankrupt and she was known as Tatie Allen, a nickname chosen long before the title First Lady Tatie was thrust upon her.

  Allen said, “At the event, Tatie was introduced to the British ambassador to the U.S. and his wife, Poppy. They have names like Poppy for people over there,” he said as an aside.

  Kind of like Tatie? Joe thought but didn’t say.

  Allen continued. “Tatie said the first thing the ambassador and his wife asked her when they learned we were from Wyoming was: What happened to Kate Shelford-Longden? Tatie didn’t know what to say and she was embarrassed as hell. So she asked me about it and I didn’t know any more about it than you appear to. We were busy with the transition at the time, so a missing British woman wasn’t high on my list of to-dos at the moment.”

  “Why is it now?” Joe asked.

  “Because Tatie promised them an answer,” the governor said sourly. “She’s on some humanitarian commission with Poppy, so Tatie presses me on it constantly. ‘What about Kate?’ ‘Where could Kate have ended up?’ ‘Any news on the Kate inquiry?’ Tatie reads all the British papers online every morning and then sends me a link whenever she finds a story about it.”

  Allen rolled his eyes and said, “Now the tabloids call her ‘Cowgirl Kate’ or something like that. It’s ridiculous, if you want my opinion. But I’m in a bind, so I asked the DCI to get involved. And they came up with a whole lot of nothing.

  “It’s damned frustrating,” Governor Allen said. “You would think that all a governor had to do was snap his fingers and his employees would jump in order to please him. But it doesn’t work like that, I’ve found. It’s harder than hell to find a good yes-man in state government. And when you cut their budget, they get all passive-aggressive.”

  Allen raised the tone of his voice to imitate and mock certain state employees Joe didn’t know.

  “They say, ‘We’ll get right on it, Governor Allen, just as soon as we get all these other things done that you’ve ordered. Too bad we don’t have enough people or budget to do it, Governor Allen.’ I’m sick and tired of it, so I’m asking you if you’ll be my range rider like you were for Rulon. I want you to go down there to Saratoga and try to figure out what in the hell happened to Kate Shelford-Longden.”

  Joe took in a deep breath. He said, “I’m a game warden. I’m not a miracle worker. If the DCI couldn’t find out anything and local law enforcement doesn’t know either...”

  “Are you saying you won’t?”

  “No. I’m saying I need more background.”

  “Joe,” Allen said in a low tone, “this isn’t exactly a request.”

  Joe looked up and his eyes locked with Allen’s for a moment. “I understand,” he said. “I do have a daughter who works there for Silver Creek Ranch. She might have some insight.”

  “There you go,” Allen said, and did a single clap with his hands. “Hanlon has a file for you. We got it from DCI. Read it through and get back to me about how soon you can go down there. The way I figure it, you can take over the district temporarily and no one will know you’re working directly for me or what you’re working on. That might help you get some answers.

  “I don’t know why exactly,” Allen said, “but in my experience people open up to game wardens. Maybe that’s because they don’t consider you Johnny Law. At least that’s how it worked in Big Piney.”

  Joe nodded. He knew there was some truth to that. One of his best tactics for obtaining evidence was to knock on the door of a suspect and say, “I guess you know why I’m here.” The answers he’d received in response to that ambiguous statement had led to multiple convictions over the years. Often the end result had had no relation to the crimes he had originally been investigating.

  “And don’t worry about Linda,” Allen said, referring to Linda Greene-Dempsey, Joe’s agency director, known within the agency as LGD. “I’ll handle the transfer with her. She’s afraid I may not reappoint her to her position, so she’ll do anything I ask. In fact,” Allen said with a grin, “she may be my best yes-man right now.”

  Joe said, “I’ll read the file.”

  “I’d like your assessment by tonight,” Allen said. “Call Hanlon. He’ll be with me in Jackson.”

  Joe nodded.

  “Speaking of...” Allen said while pushing back in his chair to indicate the meeting was over, “we’ve got to fly or I’ll be late to my lunch with the secretary.”

  Joe stood up.

  “One other thing,” Allen said as he leaned forward on his desk and grasped his hands together. “Don’t let me down. State employees are a dime a dozen, if you catch my drift.”

  Joe felt a surge of anger, but he suppressed it. Colter Allen’s approach was the opposite of Rulon’s. Rulon had had a way of making Joe want to work for him.

  There was a knock on the door and someone shouted, “Governor, we’re ready.”

  Allen nodded to Joe to let them in. The two pilots stood shivering outside and he pushed the stairs down for them. When they were on board, Joe glanced over at the governor before he left.

  Allen had already turned his attention to his laptop.

  *

  HANLON STOOD HUNCHED OVER in the old TSA vestibule, smoking furiously on a cigarette. He was obviously waiting for Joe to come in. A thick file was clamped under his arm.

  The vestibule was where passengers had sat after clearing security. It was ironic to Joe that Hanlon now used it as a smoking area.

  “The coffee in this place sucks,” Hanlon said.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I probably don’t have to tell you how important it is to the governor that you find out what happened to this Kate Blah-Blah, whatever her name is,” Hanlon said. “So don’t screw it up.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” Joe said.

  “I hope you don’t plan to involve your friend. What’s his name—Romanov?”

  “Romanowski.”

  Nate Romanowski was an outlaw falconer with a Special Forces background who had pledged to protect the Pickett family years before. Nate carried two of the largest handguns in existence—a .454 Casull and a .500 Wyoming Express, both made by Freedom Arms of Freedom, Wyoming—and he’d disfigured men with his bare hands. He and Joe had had a complicated relationship as their lives had intertwined over the last nearly twenty years.

  His friend had been recently released from a slew of federal charges that had gone back years, in exchange for taking on an assignment for a shadowy federal agency and for agreeing to testify against a multimillionaire hit man named Wolfgang Templeton, for whom Nate had once worked. Templeton had yet to be apprehended.

  “Nate’s gone straight and I’d like to keep him there,” Joe said. “He’s a legitimate businessman now. Have you ever heard of Yarak, Inc.?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a commercial falconry operation. He’s much in demand, from what he tells me.”

  “You’re going to keep him the hell away from this, I hope.”
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  “I don’t see how he’d be involved with this investigation,” Joe said.

  Hanlon looked up and his eyes flashed. “That area down there around Saratoga is really important to the governor, so I don’t appreciate your attitude. We’ve got a lot going on in that valley, including the biggest wind farm this country has ever seen. The owner of the Silver Creek Ranch is one of our biggest contributors.”

  Joe wasn’t sure where the chief of staff was headed with this.

  Hanlon took a last drag of the cigarette before dropping it to the linoleum and crushing it out with the pointed tip of his shoe.

  “What I’m saying is that as a state we don’t need any bad publicity. Especially international bad publicity. We’ve got some big initiatives in the works regarding international trade. After all, someone has to buy our coal and oil since all the blue states have idiotic laws against it. But we’ve still got tourism, and Wyoming can’t be known as a place where rich British women come on vacation and disappear, you get me?”

  Joe nodded.

  Hanlon said, “We’ve got to get those tabloids off our back before it starts to hurt us. So we—I mean you—need to make this thing go away for Governor Allen. Find her or figure out where she went. But when you do, make damned sure you call me before anyone else so we can spin it the right way. Then I never want to hear about Kate Blah-Blah again.”

  Joe felt like punching Hanlon in his temple. “Kate Shelford-Longden,” he said.

  “Whatever. I’ve found women with two last names are high maintenance. I don’t have time for them.”

  Joe didn’t respond.

  “Read the file and call me,” Hanlon said, handing him the two-inch-thick file and turning away from Joe to check messages on his phone. “Tell me some good news I can pass along to the governor.”

  “There might not be any.”

  “That’s not a good start,” Hanlon said. “You know, this might be helpful for your career if you do it right. Someday, your agency might need a new director who’s on the governor’s good side.”

  “I’m not looking for that.”

  “Everybody’s looking for that,” Hanlon scoffed. “What I’m saying is, if you solve this thing, it could go well for you.”