by C. J. Box
“Oh, no,” Rachel said. “Oh, no.”
“The files and my notes on the case were on the front seat,” Cassie said, closing her eyes tightly.
*
They circled the blackened Jeep. It was a cool morning and Cassie could feel the heat emanate from the still-hot metal. The seat cushions were burned through to the spring coils. She couldn’t discern if the ash in the passenger seat was from her burned-up files or from the fabric itself. Her gear bag had either been taken by passersby or had burned so completely it no longer existed.
Cassie studied the pine trees on both sides of the highway. The tops of many of them had been recently blackened and several were still smoldering. She knew enough about unchecked forest fires (everybody in Montana did these days) to know what had happened was called a “crown fire”—when flames leaped from treetop to treetop in a strong wind. Often, the fire didn’t drop down to lower branches.
Was it possible that a crown fire had passed through during the night and sparks or burning embers had somehow dropped through the air via the open windows of her Jeep and ignited the contents? It was possible if highly unlikely, she concluded. Yet a potential case could be made …
She fought a surge of emotion that brought tears to her eyes that she quickly turned and wiped away. Although Rachel would likely understand and empathize, Cassie didn’t want to give her the opening.
It wasn’t the loss of the Jeep or her possessions—both could eventually be replaced. There were hours and days ahead of filling out insurance forms and making phone calls to banks and other entities to replace her credit cards and other lost items.
What overwhelmed Cassie was her sense of sudden helplessness fueled by exhaustion from the lack of sleep the night before. If someone were to design a scenario to make her simply want to go home and forget she’d ever come—they’d succeeded.
*
While Rachel pulled out her cell phone to call the highway patrol, Cassie shed her jacket and wrapped her right hand in it and reached down through the passenger window. She fished around in what was left of the car seat until she grasped something solid. It was her Glock .40. The plastic grip had melted onto the frame itself.
“They’re coming,” Rachel said of the highway patrol. “I don’t know what they can do except tow it away, but I don’t want the filthy paws of the sheriff’s department anywhere near it.”
“My PI identification is in my purse,” Cassie said. “But my notes and my credit cards … everything was in the car.”
“Do you think it was the same cops?” Rachel asked. “Do you think they threw you in jail and drove back here to torch your Jeep?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie said. “This is unbelievable. I do know that the guy who arrested me named Grzegorczyk never came back last night after putting me in the cell. I can’t swear he left the building but I never saw him again.”
“I think we know where he went,” Rachel said. “I doubt he did this on his own, though. They’re sending you a message, Cassie.”
Cassie agreed.
“This will all be part of the lawsuit,” Rachel said. “I’ll depose Sheriff Wagy, this deputy who followed you and pulled you over—anyone who was involved. I’ll make their lives a living hell for what they did to you.”
“That will take time we don’t have,” Cassie said.
“Everything takes time,” Rachel replied. “Sometimes the time it takes them to fight a lawsuit like this is almost winning in itself. This is the kind of corrupt crap that makes sheriffs lose elections and makes county commissioners question who actually runs this place.”
It took Cassie a moment to figure out where Rachel was going.
“The Kleinsassers?” she said.
“At least the ones who were aware of this,” Rachel said. “Starting with good ole John Wayne.”
Or maybe Cheyenne, Cassie thought but didn’t say.
Rachel said, “After the troopers get here for your car, you and I are driving back to Bozeman together. You need to be gone from this county for your own safety, especially when they find out I’m going to hit them with a ton of bricks. Besides, we’ve probably got as much as we’re going to get from this wretched hellhole.”
Cassie dropped her chin to her chest and placed her hands on her hips. She didn’t like feeling so defeated.
Rachel continued, “Who even knows if there will be a trial for Blake now? I wouldn’t put odds on it. If my client is deceased or mentally incapacitated, this will all be over.
“What these idiots don’t realize,” Rachel said, “is even if there’s no rape trial it doesn’t end things for them. Nothing is tied up in a neat little bow. Not when they find out I’m coming after them for kidnapping, false imprisonment, civil rights violations, and the destruction of your car.”
Her eyes gleamed for a moment. Cassie realized Rachel was not only outraged by what had happened, but almost thrilled at the prospect of suing Lochsa County for a large settlement. Blake Kleinsasser was almost an afterthought.
Rachel said, “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here while we’re still among the living.”
Cassie looked up at Rachel. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You gave me a job and I’m going to finish it. I won’t let them chase me out of here before I complete the investigation.”
Rachel shook her head, puzzled. “But I’m the one who gave you the assignment. I can take it away just as easily. They threw you in jail and burned up your car and all your property. You don’t owe me a thing.”
Cassie set her jaw. “I’ve never achieved a thing by giving up. I’m not going to start now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rachel said. “Even if Blake somehow recovers, we’re still working for a guilty, rich asshole. Why risk your life for him?”
“He’s an asshole, all right,” Cassie said, “But until all of this happened I was convinced he was guilty. Now I’m not so sure. Why would they go to the lengths they’ve gone if they thought the conviction was a slam dunk? Wouldn’t they do everything they could to help me confirm the case against Blake instead of stonewalling me at every opportunity?”
She pointed at her ruined Jeep. “Why would they do this if they didn’t think I was getting too close to something?”
“Too close to what?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And I don’t, either. But whatever it is it isn’t worth Blake Kleinsasser. It isn’t worth your life. Think of Ben.”
Cassie nodded. She said, “I always think of Ben. What’s important here is what he thinks about me.”
Rachel didn’t have a quick response although she was still flustered.
Cassie said, “We had a discussion about responsibility just a couple of nights ago. His father was a soldier and even though Ben never even knew him he thinks of his dad as strong and brave. Ben thinks of Jim as someone who would never retreat from a fight, because that’s what I’ve always told him. Ben needs to feel that way about his dad, even though his dad was flawed in ways Ben will never know. Ben looks up to a man who never was, but that doesn’t matter. I need to fill that role instead. I need to be that person.
“Let’s go back into Horston,” Cassie said. “We’ll rent a car with your credit card and I’ll stroll through the hardware store and restock. Then I’ll continue working.”
Rachel said, “As your lawyer I strongly advise you to come back home with me.”
“You’re not my lawyer,” Cassie said. “You’re my client.”
seventeen
The afternoon was dark and overcast when Cassie drove her rented Ford Explorer out of town north on Highway 93. She, like every other local in the area and throughout the state, watched her windshield glass with anticipatory glances hoping to see droplets of moisture.
Although hundreds of firefighters and dozens of aircraft did their best, nothing stanched mountain fires like a long, soaking rain—a phenomenon that hadn’t occurred in western Montana in thirty-one day
s.
Lower temperatures and the heavy clouds had pressed a godly open hand over the whole valley, tamping down the rage of the many fires as well as the rising smoke. It was as if the western wall of the Bitterroot Mountains didn’t exist.
After she’d left the rental car company in Horston she saw a sign on the marquee of an ancient movie theater that read:
EVEN IF YOU’RE AN ATHEIST—PRAY FOR RAIN.
For eight miles she’d noted the stout buck-and-rail fence that ran parallel to the highway. It looked serious and impregnable, as if built not only to dissuade casual visitors but to retard the advance of an army column. She’d passed by the barrier the previous day but not given it much thought other than Whoever owns this place isn’t friendly.
The fence eventually led to a high archway constructed of massive ponderosa pine poles and a sign that hung from black iron chains that indicated it was the entrance to the Iron Cross Ranch.
Although the Explorer was a full-sized SUV, it seemed tiny beneath the height and width of the entrance arch, which seemed to have been built for a caravan to pass through. As she did, she glimpsed a small closed-circuit camera mounted on the right-hand pole and a wire leading to a boxy solar panel.
The heavy steel gates had been swung inward. She was grateful that she could drive right through without seeking permission via a microphone and speaker attached to a vertical post.
This was the Kleinsassers’ ranch, and they obviously cared about who went in and who drove out.
*
She’d been able to assemble a makeshift PI kit in Horston. With Rachel trailing her with a credit card and a worried expression, Cassie had purchased a secondhand .40 Glock 27 and a Smith & Wesson Ladysmith chambered in .22 long at a pawn shop. She didn’t like or appreciate the pink rubber grip on the Ladysmith, but the five-shot revolver was slim and hammerless and it fit into the shaft of her cowboy boot.
At a sporting goods store she’d purchased two boxes of .40 cartridges and a plastic container of a hundred hollow-point .22 rounds. A large can of bear spray replaced the pepper spray that had burned up.
She’d found commercial wire cable ties at a hardware store that would serve as zip ties if she needed them. She also bought a heavy Maglite flashlight and a good pair of binoculars.
To replicate her lost Taser, Cassie bought a 10,000-volt hot shot at the feed store that was designed for cattle. It would do in a pinch, so to speak.
She doubted she would need any of the equipment. She never had. But replacing her lost gear with serviceable replacements seemed to restore her confidence and make her almost whole again.
*
Ben hadn’t picked up when she called, and she really hadn’t expected him to. Cassie knew she’d called in the middle of wrestling practice when his clothes and phone were secured in a locker.
She’d left a voice mail, “Ben, call me the minute you can.”
Not that he ever listened to messages, but he’d surely see that she had tried to reach him.
Her call to Isabel went straight to voice mail as well.
“Mom,” Cassie had said after a long sigh, “Enough is enough with the strike. I need to check in with you about when I’m coming back.”
*
The well-maintained gravel road to the Iron Cross Ranch headquarters passed through several treeless miles of close-cropped cattle pasture. She noted thousands of dark piles of manure on the flat but not a single cow.
That puzzled her until the answer became clear. A semi-tractor pulling a long aluminum livestock hauler emerged from the smoke and fog headed right toward her on the road. Then it made sense. It was fall, and time for cattle ranchers to gather up their herds to sell or move to better pasture.
She eased off the track to give the truck plenty of room. As it passed she glimpsed the panicked white eyes of bald-faced Angus peering out at her through portal-like openings in the trailer. Twenty to twenty-four cattle cried out from each of the double decks of the transport hauler. The bawling of the cows punctuated the afternoon stillness as they passed.
Cassie recalled her childhood on her uncles’ much smaller ranch near Helena. After the shifty cattle buyers had arrived and made their deals, after her uncles always swore they got screwed, the big trucks and trailers lined up on the county road that led to their ranch and it was time to ship.
Shipping day was a loud, wild, and exhausting day with all hands on deck. In addition to the single hired hand and her father and uncles, neighbors pitched in as well. Isabel didn’t participate.
Penned cattle were sorted and driven through chutes into the trailers. Dust and the screeching of air brakes filled the air. Cows didn’t meekly walk into the long boxes single file, either. They bawled, they bolted, they panicked, and sometimes they backed up on the ramps when they were expected to proceed.
Following the last shipment of cattle would be a huge feast of elk roast, mashed potatoes, and gravy prepared by her aunts in the dining room of the main house. Cassie remembered digging in with a knot in her stomach, still bothered by the events of the day. She tried not to cry knowing all those creatures were headed to their deaths. The silence outside following the cacophony of bawls and sounds was nearly overwhelming. She wasn’t sentimental about the fate of the cows, but she couldn’t deny their plight, either.
*
The truck Cassie pulled over for was followed by another, and then another. The heavy vehicles rocked her Explorer each time. She didn’t ease back onto the road until six cattle haulers had passed by.
As she turned the wheel she saw a seventh truck coming and she paused for it. It was much smaller than the cattle haulers. Rather than an eighteen-wheeler, the last vehicle was some kind of utility pickup with a boxy shape and instrumentation built into the bed walls. Two men were inside and they nodded to her as they passed. The muddy white new model GMC had a graphic on the passenger-side door that read:
REMR
HOUSTON, TEXAS
The company was unfamiliar to her, although she doubted that the utility pickup was associated with the cattle haulers. The pickup, like the tractor-trailers, eventually vanished into the fog and smoke.
*
Cassie knew that if it was loading day she was likely to find every member of the family—perhaps with the exception of Cheyenne— at the ranch compound. The knot in her stomach had as much to do with the passing of the cattle haulers and the fate of the animals as it did with what was coming next.
She took in a long breath and slowly expelled it. The confidence she’d gained from replacing her equipment waned, and she felt very much alone.
*
Cassie topped a rise marked with a large sign that read:
TURN AROUND NOW IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN APPOINTMENT
—Iron Cross Ranch
and immediately took in the layout of the Kleinsasser ranch headquarters below.
Beyond a vast and complicated labyrinth of outbuildings, pens, barns, corrals, and loafing sheds was a massive and foreboding three-story stone home with gables and high turrets on each flank. The roofs of several additional stone houses showed through the high fall-bronzed cottonwoods on either side.
The Bitterroots that rose to the west and served as the backdrop to the scene were obscured by layers of clouds and smoke halfway up, making the range look like truncated buttes instead of mountains.
To the north of the huge compound was an ancient traditional red barn as well as a series of metal buildings and Quonset huts housing vehicles, tractors, ATVs, and other farm equipment. Several ranch employees, she assumed, milled outside the outbuildings and turned toward her as she got closer.
She slowed down as the ground leveled and she maneuvered her rental car through the stockyards toward the stone house. The pungent smell of manure and panicked cattle hung thick in the air.
Cassie pulled up to a knee-high barrier fence in front of the house and turned off her engine. As she did so, a half-dozen long-legged dogs boiled out from beneath Russian olive
trees on the side of the small yard and circled her car, barking with percussive fury.
She wasn’t surprised by the sudden appearance of a pack of dogs. She was used to it. Cassie knew it was impossible to sneak up on a ranch house.
Then she waited. There was no reason to open her door and go outside to challenge the dogs, which were particularly sleek and rangy and of mottled color. One dog had placed its paws on the glass of the passenger window in order to stare at her inside. It had remarkable green eyes.
Finally, the heavy timber front door of the stone house opened and a compact man with a thick mustache came out and glared at her. He was in his stocking feet and there was a fine delineation between the reddish tan of his face and the bald white crown of his head where his cowboy hat usually was.
He shouted at the dogs and they melted away.
She knew it was John Wayne from photos she’d seen of him online. Cassie studied him carefully as he took in her car and then squinted to see her through the windshield. She realized that the reflection of the rolling clouds above on the glass partially obscured her face at first.
Then she saw it: a tell. He’d identified her. At the second he did his mouth twitched involuntarily and he almost rocked back on his heels. But he recovered quickly and the puzzled look on his face softened.
He motioned for her to get out and she did.
“Are those Catahoulas?” she asked, referring to the breed of dogs. “I hear they’re good herd dogs.”
“Some of ’em are,” he said with a low Southern drawl that was unlike anything she’d heard from a native in Montana. “Some of ’em are just a pain in the ass.
“What can I do for you? I wasn’t expecting any visitors.”
He said it in a way that told Cassie he was misleading her, that he knew exactly who she was. And she recognized his odd drawl as inauthentic, a way of speaking sometimes adopted by western men to make them seem more like the character they wanted to be perceived as.
“I’m Cassie Dewell,” she said. “I talked with you last night.”
He made a show of shooting out his sleeve so he could look at his wristwatch. Unlike his flannel western shirt, prominent rodeo buckle, and Wranglers still dusty from moving cattle onto the haulers, his large gold Rolex stood out.
