by C. J. Box
A half-ton Toyota pickup with its hood up was in one of the bays, and a tricked-out Dodge Challenger was in another. He walked between them toward the heavy metal door that led to the main building.
*
It wasn’t like he even needed the emergency lights or his head-lamp. He could have found his way down the hallways and wings with his eyes closed. He impressed himself with his perfect recall of the layout of the building with its banks of lockers and closed classroom doors.
And it was all the same. These people never changed. The teachers who thought they were cool and edgy taped slogans and cartoons on the outside of their doors. The display cases were filled with forgotten trophies and team photos. On the brick walls were posters boasting of “Hawk Pride” and bulletin boards covered with politically correct bullshit about suicide prevention and how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
The central hub of the building was the library, and he could see it in the distance long before he got there. The windows glowed light blue from the monitors of a bank of computers within. There had been a few of them before, mostly clunky beige PCs, but now the interior looked like Mission Control at NASA.
Those students could really update their Facebook profiles now, he thought.
But it wasn’t the new computers he was interested in. What he wondered was if the maintenance crew had ever fixed the loose ceiling panel above the entry door to the library. That’s where he and his buddies used to stash their weed and alcohol so it wouldn’t be found in their lockers.
The sound of a human grunt stopped him cold. He froze in place and reached back for the grip of his .22 pistol that he’d tucked into his belt.
Then he heard it again, along with rhythmic flesh-on-flesh slapping.
He turned his head toward the sound and realized he was standing outside the open door of the teacher’s lounge. In the ambient glow of the emergency lights inside he saw a purse on a table and a pile of clothing on the floor. And two teachers, a man and a woman, going at it on a couch. They were naked and white and she was on top. Her long dark hair obscured her face.
He assumed they were both doughy and unattractive people. But if he could see them they could see him.
He took a breath and stepped back. She didn’t look up.
He took another step back, then another until he could no longer see them.
The man groaned again, this time with relief, and he recognized its meaning. Then they were done and both breathing hard, probably clinging to each other.
The driver was grateful that his trucker’s boots had soft, quiet soles. He turned and found a girl’s bathroom door that was propped open with a wooden wedge on the floor and he stepped inside. The room was completely dark.
He found a stall and backed into it and closed the door.
*
Less than ten minutes later, he heard the two teachers talking softly and he could discern from the sounds of zippers that they were getting dressed. The woman came out of the lounge first, her heels clicking on the linoleum tiles like castanets. The man followed. He said something that made her laugh.
Then there was the wheezing sound of a heavy door being opened and shut.
They were gone.
He closed his eyes and waited long enough to make sure one of them hadn’t forgotten something and decided to come back.
There was a brief sweep of headlights across the frosted outside window of the restroom as one of the two cars pulled away. Then another.
They weren’t coaches or advisors after all. They were just common fornicaters.
He thought, What sick fucks. Using the teacher’s lounge! They were probably both married and they were the type who wouldn’t hesitate to judge him or lecture him about his be havior.
Fucking hypocrites is what they were.
Literally.
*
The ceiling tile gave way just as he’d anticipated it would. He slid it to the side.
The driver stood on an upturned metal trash can and felt around at the opening to make sure the space wasn’t still being used to hide drugs and contraband. It wasn’t. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find a baggie of old dried-up weed that he’d left up there.
But there were only dust bunnies.
He climbed down and unzipped the duffel bag. Into the space went a 12-gauge combat shotgun with a pistol grip, a .40 Charter Arms Pitbull revolver, three boxes of shotgun shells filled with buckshot, a heavy mesh bag of smoke and tear gas grenades, and a military-grade tactical gas mask.
When the tile was seated back into place, he briefly turned his headlamp on and choked the beam down.
Satisfied that he’d left no fingerprints or telltale dust smudges on the edges of the tile, he killed the light and waited for his eyes to readjust to the darkness of the hallway.
Then he retraced his steps through the halls and back into the auto shop. The empty duffel bag was now no heavier than an afterthought.
The driver raised the door again and crawled under it, then rolled it back down until it was secure. He walked toward the stadium and his truck in the cold night air.
Red and Black—On the Attack!
It was set.
Part III
There are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
—Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
The Family! Home of all social evils, a charitable institution for Indolent women, a prison workhouse for family breadwinners, and a hell for children!
—August Strindberg, The Son of a Servant
sixteen
Rachel Mitchell didn’t arrive at the Lochsa County Jail the next morning until 11:30 a.m. Cassie could hear her voice—it was loud and angry and it bounced off the walls—in the reception area down the hallway from her cell.
“Is that your girl?” Cassie’s cellmate Delores Attao asked.
“Sounds like her,” Cassie replied.
“She sounds pissed off. I wish I had a lawyer like that. I’ve got a public defender named Kendrick who can’t pronounce my name. Do you think she’d represent me?”
“You should ask her,” Cassie said.
It had been a long night, and Cassie felt dirty, disheveled, and oddly ashamed of herself. She’d never spent a night in jail before. It was more dehumanizing than what she’d imagined it to be, and she felt a pang of guilt for placing so many violators behind bars and not considering how awful it must have been for some of them.
Although she wanted out as quickly as it could happen, she didn’t want anyone she knew to see her in there. And she didn’t want Ben to know.
Throughout the night, there had been crazed shouts from other cells in a different wing where males were kept. Putrid odors wafted through the vents and nearly made her retch. They’d barely dimmed the cold fluorescent overhead lights and everything took on a dull blue-gray hue. She’d had nothing to do and no way to communicate with anyone outside. They’d taken her phone, keys, purse, and shoes.
The cell for females was the closest to the door that led to the lobby. Three or four other cells reserved for men were farther away down the hallway. Therefore, as drunks and other miscreants were brought in during the night they were led past Cassie. One of them looked in at her, smirked, and did a lizardlike sexual maneuver with his tongue. Another grabbed his crotch and crab-walked out of view while laughing to himself even though the cop that brought him in told him to “move it along.”
It was humiliating. And the worst thing about being behind bars was exposure. There were no doors to close or curtains to pull. Even the stainless-steel toilet was in plain and open view from anyone passing down the hall.
The old stone cell was twelve feet by twelve feet and the walls were cold and damp. She’d taken the top bunk because Delores was already camped out in the bottom.
When Deputy Grzegorczyk had led her inside, Cassie had assumed it would be temporary—that she’d be held until he returned with the Breathalyzer. She hadn’t
seen a holding cell in the ancient frontier jail, after all. An hour passed, then another. It wasn’t until then that she realized he wasn’t coming back.
*
Delores Attao was a Nez Perce who’d been arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest hours before Cassie showed up. Attao was short and round with close-cropped black hair and she wore a billowy tunic and yoga pants that looked spray-painted on. She didn’t have the figure for yoga pants but that didn’t seem to bother her.
What set off Delores was finding her husband, Arthur, with another woman at the Corvallis Tavern. Delores freely admitted she’d caused a scene and that she’d thrown a glass of beer in Arthur’s face. When the bartender called the sheriff’s department and they quickly arrested her she surrendered willingly, she claimed.
There was no resistance. But the bastards, she said, had charged her for resisting arrest anyway.
Despite her own situation, Cassie had enjoyed listening to Delores talk most of the night. She could focus on Delores instead of the chaos down the hall or her own dilemma. The county had recently slathered the interior of the cell with pale blue paint so thick Cassie couldn’t even make out the scratchings or drawings from previous inmates.
Delores had a musical cadence to her speech that was familiar to Cassie from listening to other Native Americans. That was in addition to being precise with her words and nonchalant when it came to spending a night in jail. Delores didn’t seem to care if Cassie was listening closely to her or not. Cassie’s only responses were variations of “Hmmmm.”
Cassie guessed Delores had been there before because she seemed to know her way around and she gave Cassie good bits of advice like not to eat the meat loaf under any circumstances and to insist on Crocs that fit because the cops enjoyed giving shoes that were either too small or large to their “overnight guests.”
Sheriff Wagy had not been in even though Cassie had asked for him. Deputy Grzegorczyk had apparently gone off shift.
The only person Cassie had recognized was Linda Murdock from the front office. Murdock had stuck her head through the outside door and stared dumbstruck at Cassie in the cell. Then she shook her head sadly and vanished without saying a word. Cassie couldn’t tell if Murdock was disappointed in her or ashamed of the department.
*
That same door blew open moments later and Rachel Mitchell appeared like a force of nature. She was red-faced and furious, and her heels clicked on the cold stone floor like muffled gunshots. The undersheriff, whom Cassie had not seen or met, trailed behind Rachel.
“There she is,” Rachel said, pointing at Cassie. “Let her out. Now.”
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” Cassie said to Rachel.
“And if she spends one more minute in there,” Rachel said to the undersheriff, “I’ll not only sue your department like I’m planning to do but I’ll contact the FBI to charge you with kidnapping.”
The undersheriff, who was portly, bald, and shorter than Rachel, mumbled something about the whole thing being a mix-up of some kind as he approached the cell door with his keycard.
“I didn’t even get to make a call,” Cassie said. “I was starting to think I’d be stuck in here.”
Delores responded as if slapped and Cassie felt guilty.
“Sorry, I don’t mean you,” Cassie said to her. “You got me through the night.”
“Tell Arthur,” Delores said. “Tell him I’m good company.”
Before her cellmate could make her case to Rachel that she should represent her as well, Rachel grasped Cassie’s arm and ushered her through the door. The undersheriff had to step back so Rachel wouldn’t run him over.
Rachel wheeled on him and waved a painted finger in his face.
“Am I correct that my investigator was held overnight without any charges being filed?”
The undersheriff stammered and looked away. He said, “I just started my shift. I don’t know what happened last night, but obviously there was some kind of screwup in booking.”
Rachel bent down until her face was inches from his. “You seem to have a lot of screwups in this department. What about the fact that my investigator wasn’t given her constitutional right to a phone call?”
The man shrugged as if to say, same answer.
“What’s your name, Officer?” Rachel asked him.
“I’m undersheriff Richard Hewes.”
“Thank you. I’ll add your name to the lawsuit I’m going to file against Sheriff Wagy, the arresting officer, and Lochsa County for violating my investigator’s civil rights. Not to mention false imprisonment. I’m going to hit you like a hurricane,” she said.
Hewes grimaced. “But we’re a poor county. We’re not like Missoula or someplace like that.”
Rachel said, “You should have thought of that before you locked up my investigator for no reason. When will the sheriff be here?”
“I don’t know,” Hewes stammered. “I called his cell when you got here but he didn’t pick up.”
“He ‘didn’t pick up’?” Rachel mocked. “The sheriff didn’t pick up?”
Hewes shrugged and looked away.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Cassie,” Rachel said.
“Gladly.”
Cassie was happy to let Rachel take charge. She was too numb and exhausted to do otherwise. Plus, there was no doubt Rachel thrived in these kinds of situations.
“Return her possessions,” Rachel ordered the undersheriff.
“Linda has them,” he said.
“Then tell Linda to get her ass in gear,” Rachel said while pushing through the metal doors to the lobby.
*
An unmarked plastic grocery bag with Cassie’s phone and other items was on Linda Murdock’s desktop. Linda had already gathered them and she instinctively stepped back as Rachel strode toward her and snatched up the bag and handed it back to Cassie.
“Check and make sure everything is there,” she said. “Sometimes these people have sticky fingers.”
Cassie did a quick inventory. All of her stuff was inside the sack. The gear bag was nowhere to be seen and Cassie assumed it was still in her car.
When she looked up, Murdock mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry.”
Cassie nodded. Murdock did indeed act like she was slightly horrified about the incident.
*
In Rachel’s car on the way to retrieve Cassie’s Jeep, Rachel said, “What a pathetic shitshow back there. Do you think that for one minute it wasn’t all orchestrated? Or are they really that fucking incompetent?”
“I was set up,” Cassie said. “My only question is who was responsible.”
“What if they stuck you in there with some kind of psycho meth head instead of what’s-her-name? What if your throat got cut during the night?”
“Delores,” Cassie said. “Her name is Delores. She was a sweetheart, actually. And I’d appreciate it if you’d consider taking her on as a client. From what she told me, the department overcharged her as well.”
“I’ll talk with her,” Rachel said.
“You were magnificent back there,” Cassie said. “Thank you.”
“This is why I do what I do,” Rachel shouted. She smacked the top of the dashboard three times for emphasis while she said, “This, this, this! Picking up an innocent person and throwing them in that shithole for the night without filing charges or allowing a phone call to me. It’s pure intimidation. Everybody despises defense lawyers,” Rachel continued. “Especially you cops. But when something like this happens aren’t you glad we exist?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever think you’d say that?”
“No.”
“Keep it in mind when you hear your brothers in law enforcement bitch about us. That’s all I ask.”
“How did you know where to find me?” Cassie asked.
Rachel took a deep breath but she was still clearly angry. “I called your cell five times and left messages,” she said. “You always call me back withi
n a few minutes. When you didn’t call I tracked down Ben.”
“My son?”
“Of course your son. He said that you were on the phone with him last night when a cop pulled you over. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a clue what happened to you. I left first thing this morning and sped all the way. They could have held you there for days or worse.”
Cassie recalled that Ben had something he wanted to tell her about the previous day, but they hadn’t gotten that far before she had to terminate the call.
“How much farther is it?” Rachel asked. Cassie noted that she was going eighty—fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit.
“A couple of miles. And you might want to slow down.”
“Fuck it,” Rachel said. “Let them try to arrest me now. Let them try.”
Cassie smiled. It felt like her face was cracking because it had been so long since she’d done it.
“Why were you trying to reach me?” she asked.
Rachel’s face got grim. “Blake Kleinsasser was attacked by at least four inmates in jail. They stove his head in and they pounded a footlong length of steel rebar into his ear. He’s in intensive care in the Bozeman hospital. Even if he makes it he might have permanent brain damage.”
Cassie sat back, stunned. “My God.”
“I should have believed him about the threats,” Rachel said. “But he’s such an asshole.”
“Do they know who did it?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting to hear. But I’d bet you five dollars the bad guys have connections to Lochsa County.”
“No bet,” Cassie said.
*
When Rachel shot around a shadowed corner in the wall of trees, Cassie gasped for the second time in five minutes.
Her Jeep was a smoldering black box of steel and melted tires. The windows had all been smashed in or blown out by the heat and force of the internal fire. A yellow tag was affixed to the front door handle by state troopers who had found the vehicle and marked it to be towed away.
