by C. J. Box
Now, though, the structure was probably beyond repair and in the process of collapsing in on itself. The wide front porch sagged and the rail on the hitching post was missing. Most of the windows were broken out and the door hung open at an angle. Old wood shake shingles were missing from the bowed roof and they littered the grass of the hard ground near the cracking foundation. Cattle had obviously used it for shelter although she didn’t see any now. There were manure piles on the porch and in the grass.
A warped picnic table in the front yard had been upended and rubbed on by cows until the wooden slats had become fuzzy with hair.
She didn’t like the feeling she got from the old house, and she wondered if it was somehow more welcoming to Franny during a sultry summer evening than it was now. Cassie couldn’t understand why Franny would want to go inside, even if it was with an uncle who she seemed to like. Unless Franny had a dark side Cassie wasn’t aware of.
She reached in and turned off her engine and pocketed the key fob. Not that she was worried about someone stealing her rental car, but she didn’t want to run the risk of a “smart” feature locking the vehicle with the keys in it. Cassie didn’t want to be stuck on the Iron Cross Ranch at night by herself.
*
After photographing the structure from the front and sides, she climbed the steps to the front porch. Cassie was startled when several rabbits shot out from beneath the porch in different directions. Then she was embarrassed for being so jumpy.
Before entering, Cassie carefully observed the open front door. The top and middle hinges were broken off and it hung precariously open and to the side by the bottom one. It looked like it had been open for many months, maybe even years.
We stopped the car in front of the porch and Uncle Blake got out and asked me to follow him. The door to the house was unlocked and he went in first …
That was a discrepancy in Franny’s account, she thought. Franny indicated the door was closed but unlocked. She’d made a point of saying that.
But careful examination of the doorjamb indicated the hinges weren’t recently pulled away from the wood. The indentations where the screws had been were the same barn wood gray as the rest of the frame.
She took several photographs of the open door and door frame, but she really didn’t think the discrepancy would turn out to be significant. Franny was fifteen, a little confused by what her uncle had in mind, and her recollection of that night was following a very traumatic experience. If she got the door wrong it probably didn’t mean much.
*
Cassie clicked on the Maglite and opened the beam up wide before stepping across the threshold. Although the scene had no doubt been photographed, dusted, and examined by local crime scene techs, she stayed close to the interior walls rather than to walk into the center of the room.
Although crime scene tape had been removed (if it had ever been there at all), the floor of the dining room told a story in itself. The thick carpet of dust mixed with manure was a maelstrom of footprints and drag marks from law enforcement. A thin layer of new dust since the summer added a veneer, but the prints were numerous. She thought that within the many tracks were prints that could be matched with Blake’s and Franny’s shoes.
She took dozens of shots of the floor from several angles, although she doubted they’d be of any value.
Uncle Blake lit a candle thing called a kerosene lamp and put it on the table. He said he wanted me to see all the old rooms but I said I was kind of scared….
Then Uncle Blake came around to my side of the table and lifted me up. He was strong. He sat me on top of the table and started kissing me. He has really fast hands and he was touching me everywhere. He stood there between my legs and held me in place.
There was the table Fanny had described, right in the middle of the room. It was old and stout, and unlike the counters and furniture it wasn’t covered in a quarter-inch of dust and grime. That’s because, she reasoned, Franny’s clothes had wiped it clean as Blake molested her. The thought made Cassie cringe.
The vintage kerosene lamp Franny had mentioned was on the kitchen counter next to a dented metal tin of kerosene fuel. Cassie didn’t know if Blake had moved it before the assault or the investigators had put it aside. It didn’t matter other than to further corroborate Franny’s account.
The liquor bottle and drinking glasses Blake had used had been taken away and were now in the evidence locker of the sheriff’s department. She’d seen them. But she’d also wondered if Blake had brought the glasses with him or found them in the structure. When she opened the dusty cupboard she found a slew of glassware— mismatched plates, fast-food cups, even several martini glasses. No doubt, she thought, the ranch hands acquired glasses from all over the place and brought them back. The cocktail glasses Blake had used could have easily come from the cupboard.
*
Long tongues of flocked wallpaper hung from the interior walls exposing wooden slats behind it. There was a cowboy cartoon calendar from 1968 and the last page displayed was December. Cast-iron cookware was in the sink as if the last ranch hand to leave the place had forgotten to wash it.
She took more photos of the interior with her phone, and remembered to close her eyes prior to each shot so the flash wouldn’t blind her.
He showed me a room with bunk beds in it where ranch hands used to stay together.
Franny hadn’t mentioned following Blake up the rickety staircase to the second floor so Cassie didn’t go there. Besides, the stairs sagged away from the wall and looked dangerous to try to climb. So she worked her way around the main room and through a doorway at the back of the house past the kitchen.
Inside were four sets of old metal-framed bunk beds, as described. Mice and rats had eaten through the thin mattresses and left balls of the insides throughout the room and in each of the corners. As Cassie moved the beam she caught glimpses of rodents before they scattered.
A Playboy pinup, circa-1960s because the blond model kept her legs together, hung above one of the bunk beds. A pair of cowboy boots, black with age, were under one of the box springs as if waiting for their owner to get up and pull them on.
She raised the beam to the rafters and was greeted by two dozen yellow eyes reflected in the light. Bats.
When they spooked and flew en masse she ducked down so they’d fly out the doorway and not get tangled in her hair or clothes.
*
Franny had been there, Cassie concluded. She’d actually described the old crew shack with remarkable accuracy, given the circumstances.
Cassie jumped when a blast of lightning lit up the room followed by a near instantaneous thunderclap. It had been very close.
She paused and waited for the patter of rain on the old roof that should have followed. But it didn’t.
When she backed out of the old house and turned around she saw that a jacked-up ranch vehicle was now parked directly behind her Ford. With all of the noise in the house—the rats, the bats, her own beating heart—she hadn’t heard it drive up. There was no one behind the wheel.
“Hey there,” Rand said from where he sat on a bench at the righted picnic table, “I thought when them bats came pouring out of there you’d be right behind them.”
“Bats don’t scare me,” Cassie said. “What do you want?”
There was a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey on the table in front of him. Rand’s face was flushed by alcohol. His smile was more of a leer.
He gasped the edges of the table and leaned way back as if to get a better view of her.
“Oh, Dad sent me out here to make sure you got what you needed. Did you?”
She nodded. She wished her Glock wasn’t in her handbag in the Explorer. But she had the .22 in her boot top if necessary.
“I’m done. It all checks out.”
“What were you looking for in there? What did you expect to find?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“And someone is actually paying you for your mad skills
, Inspector Clouseau?”
He snorted at his joke. He said, “So you didn’t believe the sheriff’s department report?”
“It’s not that. I’m just tailing up to make sure the investigation is solid.”
“And is it?”
She thought, He really doesn’t want my opinion. He just wants to engage.
“Pretty much.”
“Good to hear, good to hear,” Rand said with a smug nod, as if he knew her conclusion long before she did. “Did you see that old Playboy centerfold on the wall?”
“I did.”
“The image is seared into my mind. I saw it as a kid and jerked off to it for years.”
She thought his intention was to shock her. She didn’t respond.
“Think about it,” he said. “That girl is probably sixty-five years old now. Maybe older.”
“So, you spent a lot of time here,” Cassie said. “Like Blake.”
That seemed to throw him for a minute. He started to answer but then reached for the bottle instead and took a long drink.
“I guess now you’ll be headed back to Bozeman.”
“Soon.”
“That’s one fucked-up place,” he said. “Full of hipsters and goddam bark-beetles. I have to go there quite a bit on ranch business and once I get there I can’t wait to get out. And don’t think I haven’t heard of you and your defense lawyer.”
Again, she didn’t respond.
He said, “I didn’t spend three years of my life defending this country so the fuckin’ green phonies and out-of-staters could move here from California to take over my state, you know? It just pisses me off.”
She didn’t think it was a good time to bring up his dishonorable discharge or his prison time later. She said, “Why is it that every member of the Kleinsasser family feels the need to give me a hard time? It’s getting really old. And it isn’t working.”
Although deep in her mind she knew she was lying.
He looked up and squinted at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then he grinned.
“You’re feisty,” he said.
“And I need to get going. Your brother told me to get off the ranch by dark and I intend to do just that.”
“Yes,” he said, “you’re feisty, aren’t you?”
She wished at that moment that he would rise up to come after her or fumble for a weapon. She was ready for him.
But he just sat there with that goblinlike leer on his face.
She gave Rand a wide berth as she strode around him toward her car. She could feel his eyes on her the whole time.
“If you lost twenty you might be okay,” he said.
“Isn’t your girlfriend about due for her meth about now?” Cassie said. “She was looking a little strung out.”
He laughed but it sounded false. She was past him now and it was a straight shot to her car.
“Where the hell are you going?” he called after her. “Don’t you want to stay and chat? Tell me more about my girlfriend? Read me the riot act?”
She reached for the door handle.
“That guy you’re trying to save is a fucking limp-dick monster. He ain’t nobody. Why don’t you come back here and explain why you want to save his sorry ass?”
*
Cassie threw herself in the car and started it up. She was furious.
When she turned on the headlights they bathed Rand in white light and he raised his hand in front of his eyes to block the beams.
Then she accelerated into a U-turn that spun the rear of the vehicle around and threw dirt from the rear tires all over him and drove away. Her last glimpse of Rand was in the rearview mirror.
He stood beside his truck with both middle fingers extended into the sky. He was laughing.
nineteen
Ben Dewell lay fully clothed on top of his bed with his phone in his lap and a Ziploc bag of ice cubes on the top of his head like a hat. He wiped the back of his hand across his face to stanch the dark red blood that oozed out of both nostrils from his swollen nose. Empty fry boxes and hamburger wrappers were at his feet. He was confused and depressed and had a headache and he didn’t understand girls.
Especially Erin.
In fact, he’d been thinking about her and how she’d blown him off at break time during their usual foray to the Kum & Go instead of his challenge match against Jason Smithfield at practice. He’d been distracted at the moment when Jason shot across the mat toward Ben, wrapped his right arm around Ben’s legs and pinned his left arm tight, then wrenched back with all of his strength to throw Ben face-first to the mat in a violent move known as a fireman’s carry.
Ben had been so stunned that he’d lost control of his limbs for a few seconds as Jason rolled him over to his back and pinned him. Several wrestlers who’d seen the move whooped. The challenge match had lasted less than ten seconds, and Ben had what might turn out to be a broken nose, two black eyes, and a lump on the top of his head.
He looked so bad when he got home that Isabel suspended her strike and filled the bag with ice and sent him to bed. Most surprising, she asked Ben to place an order for what he wanted to eat. She even agreed to go out and get it even though, she said, she would hold her own nose while doing so.
He’d jotted down:
Two Big Macs
Two Large Fries
Large Chocolate Milkshake
And he’d eaten it all. As long as Jason Smithfield ruled the 113-pound weight class, Ben had no choice but to either quit or move up to 120. So it was time to start gaining weight. There was a stud in that weight class named Philip Warden. Warden was just as unbeatable as Jason, but Warden was a dumb-ass who might have to leave the team because of his poor grades. Ben had that going for him, maybe.
*
But about Erin.
He’d waited for her on his usual bench. After ten minutes, he went inside the building. His insides were churning a little because she’d never not shown up before and he knew she was in school.
He found her near her locker. When she looked up and saw him—he was sure she did—she looked away quickly and walked in the other direction. But he caught up with her and something about her seemed different. She was more serious than usual and she was evasive. She said she “had to go.”
Ben had tried to act like it didn’t matter, that he had plenty of friends and plenty to do. But he knew his face betrayed his anxiety. They both knew he didn’t. It was high school reality, and they’d talked about it before.
He didn’t see her for the rest of the day, even though they had a kind of routine where they’d touch base in the halls during class breaks. Which meant to him that she was deliberately avoiding him.
Ben tried to figure out what he’d done to make her want to stay away from him. She wasn’t a mean person or a cruel person— she wasn’t one of those types. She didn’t like those kinds of people. But there was definitely something he’d said—or worse, not said. Girls were like that, he thought. He could be in as much trouble for what he didn’t do or say or think.
Had Erin met another boy? He thought she probably could have, she was certainly cute, although he couldn’t imagine who the boy would be. Maybe she’d finally found her niche of thespians and dreamers who hovered around on the periphery of the rest of the student body and they’d invited her in. That invitation wouldn’t include a ninth-grader like Ben. He wasn’t sure if there was even a niche for him anywhere on the grounds of the school. He certainly wasn’t one of the athletes yet, and especially after his performance against Jason in a challenge match that afternoon. But he wasn’t yet ready to surrender himself to the pack of losers who hung around outside the auto shop smoking cigarettes and weed and hating on everyone else. Yet.
That’s what he was thinking about when the assistant coach blew the whistle to start the challenge match against Jason Smith-field.
And that’s what he was still contemplating while he lay on his bed with his nose swelling and twin drops of blood slowly creeping down his face.
/>
It was a dilemma and he felt alone and lost. He couldn’t ask his mom about it, and he certainly couldn’t ask Isabel. In the past, it was the kind of thing he’d text with Erin about because she expressed so many of the same feelings of being new and somewhat lost.
Maybe, he thought, he’d interpreted the incident with the truck the day before completely wrong. He thought it had bonded them in a new and interesting way. After all, she said he’d saved her life. But it was possible she looked at it differently now. Maybe she was spooked.
He stared at the phone in his lap and came up with five or six opening texts to try out on Erin. Should he go nonchalant, like he hadn’t noticed her change in behavior and was just checking in?
Or get right to the point? Ask her what was wrong and try to address it since it was likely something he’d done or said? Knowing Erin, he didn’t think that would be the right approach. She might tell him he was beneath her or a creep. Or tell him to grow the hell up.
Or maybe, he thought, play it coy. Tell her she seemed to be troubled about something (not him). And was there anything he could do to help her through it?
*
In the end, after twenty minutes of deliberating, he sent a text to Erin Reese.
It said:
Hey.
Then he stared at the screen, willing a response while at the same time fearing the wrong one. A small balloon appeared, meaning she was writing back. Then it went away. He imagined her somewhere trying to come up with the right words. He couldn’t recall her ever taking so long to find them.
Finally:
Hey back.
It wasn’t hostile. It was sort of friendly, if resigned.
Ben: How are you doing?
He immediately wished he’d written “How is it going?” instead. He sent her a curious face emoji.
Erin: I’ve been better.
