Badlands (23 page)

Davis sat back in his chair. Cassie noticed his face had gone white.

“What do you hear—are any of my guys dirty?”

The question hung there for thirty seconds.

Finally, Davis said, “I'm not the kind of cop who rats other cops out.”

“I know that. But what you tell me doesn't go beyond this room. I'm not asking you your opinion or what you think. I'm asking you what you hear out there. Even if it's just a rumor with no foundation in truth.”

Davis looked to Cassie for some kind of help. She didn't offer any, but she felt for him. She'd been in a similar situation once and the results had been disastrous.

“Well,” Davis said, “there's a rumor that Willie has some protection at a higher level.”

“Protection?”

“Someone who watches out for him.”

“Which implies someone is getting a cut.”

“It implies that I guess.”

“Cam?”

Davis looked away so quickly it was just like saying yes, Cassie thought.

“People are always saying things,” Davis said. “They all want to act like they're more inside than they are. I've never heard anything definitive at all. Never.”

Kirkbride watched Davis carefully while he nodded his head. He said, “If Willie Dietrich switched sides so quick, I wonder if someone else did, too.”

His words hung there.

Cassie broke the silence. “This is also speculation, but Cam Tollefsen was the first officer on the scene of that rollover—almost as if he were waiting for it. Like he was there to escort the driver into town. And although there's nothing at all in his report suggesting it, I think another car forced the gangster off the road. Why else would he have gone off it into that field? Maybe Cam saw it happen and decided to play both sides against the middle.”

Davis looked over at her, his eyes wide.

“Are you suggesting Cam found the supply?” Kirkbride asked her.

“I don't think so,” she said. “Otherwise, he wouldn't have shadowed me out in the field yesterday morning. There was no reason for him to be there except for the off chance I'd stumble over the missing meth and he wanted to be there if that happened. But he knows I didn't find anything except that tire track.”

“What track?” Kirkbride asked.

She told Kirkbride and Davis about the missing cast.

She said, “There's nothing in Tollefsen's report about a witness, especially not someone on a motorbike or a bicycle. Lance Foster didn't mention it, either, but he wasn't the first on the scene. But Cam might have panicked when he found out I had Atnip go out there. He probably didn't know what I was after and I'm not sure I know myself. The track could be completely unrelated to the rollover and it could have been made hours before or after. I was just fishing around for something, but Cam didn't know that and he might have felt I was on to something and he thought he needed to derail my investigation.”

“So you think he took the cast?” Davis asked, incredulous.

“I don't know who took it,” Cassie said. “But who else would have? Who else knew I was even out there in the field? And you,” she said, turning to Kirkbride, “saw his reaction this morning. He was clearly confused when I showed up.”

“Yeah,” Kirkbride said wearily, “but proof of nothing.”

Cassie nodded.

Kirkbride swiveled in his chair toward Davis again. “We've been all over that rollover. I had the guys cut the car apart with welding torches, just in case. We even opened up the tires and sawed the frame apart. No drugs. So if your theory is correct, where did they go?”

Davis shrugged. He said, “All I know is that they aren't on the market but they should be by tomorrow.”

“So either MS-13 has them back and for some reason they're delaying distribution, or they're confident they'll have them by tomorrow.”

“That makes sense,” Davis said.

“So who in the hell has the shipment?” Kirkbride asked rhetorically. “If Cam had them or Willie had them the deal would be done, I'd think. We'd have meth-head central going on around here. So if you were to guess, each of you, what would you say? Where is the supply?”

Davis shook his head. He said, “Maybe no one knows for sure where it is yet. Or maybe a whole new shipment arrives tomorrow. Either way, MS-13 will want their first shipment back because it's probably worth millions.”

Kirkbride shook his head, puzzled. “It makes no sense that someone would hold on to what they've got knowing they could be cut into little pieces and scattered around town. No one with any sense would mess with MS-13—or Willie—like that.”

Kirkbride nodded but was noncommittal. “Cassie?”

She said, “I don't think we're the only ones wondering where the shipment wound up. I think Willie and his contacts with MS-13 think they're close to getting it back so they put the word out it will be on the street tomorrow. But I don't think they have it yet.”

Kirkbride leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on his belly and steepled his fingers. He thought about it for a minute.

Then he said to Cassie and Davis, “Partner up. Start with Willie. I'll get some guys I trust to start making inquiries at all the man camps. If we've got a couple of Salvadorans staying here we should be able to identify them pretty quick. I'll reach out to Cam. I've known him for a hell of a long time and we've got a lot of history. If nothing else, I can talk with him and keep him off the street for a while. And who knows—maybe he'll fess up.

“But we've got to move quick,” Kirkbride said. “I don't want that meth to hit the streets tomorrow and I don't want any more citizens butchered. I especially don't want a bunch of fucking gangsters in my county.”

Davis nodded to Cassie and said, “You realize my cover will be blown if we work together in the open.”

“It's already blown, right?” Kirkbride asked.

Davis put his head down. “Yeah.”

“Go,” Kirkbride said, shooing them out of the room.

Davis stood expectantly outside Cassie's office while she retrieved her parka. Lining the hallway was the delegation from China Kirkbride had mentioned earlier. They nodded at her respectfully as she passed and they looked just as Kirkbride had guessed: business suits, loafers, smart overcoats.

To Davis, she said, “Just a second,” and stepped back inside Kirkbride's office.

The sheriff looked up. His eyes were red, and Cassie was taken aback.

“Yes?” he said.

Cassie said, “I still wonder about that tire cast.”

“We'll worry about that later. Right now, I'm trying to get used to the fact that I might have a dirty cop right under my nose. I sure as hell don't like the feeling.”

“The Chinese delegation is waiting outside.”

Kirkbride's face fell. He said, “Don't invite them in.”

Cassie nodded.

“Look,” Kirkbride said, pushing back angrily from his desk, “the governor's office called and asked me to treat these Red Chinese like some kind of official delegation. I say, ‘Fuck 'em.' This state produced Roger Marris, Phil Jackson, and Louis L'Amour. We're all-Americans here. Why should I divert resources to a dozen fucking Chicoms?”

She doubted his sudden anger had much to do with the Chinese.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

CAM TOLLEFSEN
was parked on the north edge of Grimstad with his engine idling and the heat on against the cold. The sky was gray and dark snow clouds scudded high from the flat northern horizon to the southern horizon. He was perched on a small rise but it seemed as if he could see the curvature of the earth.

It wasn't silent like it had once been out here, when he used to sit and scope out the landscape and the only sound was the wind whistling through gaps in his pickup cab. Occasionally, he'd seen a small herd of pronghorn antelope or white-tailed deer picking their way across the fields toward the river. Sometimes, the fields were white with nesting snow geese. Now, though, the prairie roared with train after train. Empty tankers rolling into Grimstad, full tankers rolling out. Millions of barrels of oil bound for every corner of the country.

His cell phone burred on his lap and he checked the screen but didn't answer.

Two calls in a row from Jon Kirkbride. The sheriff rarely called him direct anymore, but he'd left a message after the second one.

Tollefsen had a pretty good idea of what the message would say. He grunted and bent forward and fished around under the seat with his fingers for his personal gear bag. He placed it next to him and unzipped it. Aspirin, a few energy bars, a .22 throw-down pistol he'd never had the need to use. And the pint of Jim Beam.

It had been years since he drank in the morning. Jon was known to do it on occasion, too, years ago. Back when they'd both been young and full of energy. Tollefsen remembered when the two of them would spotlight deer out on the prairie or ambush geese on the river, always a step ahead of the game warden. They'd drink beer and whiskey late into the night and show up for patrol the next morning with raging hangovers. Sometimes, after their shift Kirkbride would compete in local rodeos and Tollefsen would go along. Tollefsen couldn't care less about horses or rodeos but he liked the girls who did, and he liked Jon Kirkbride. Sometimes they'd convince a girl and her friend to go out dancing with them after the rodeo. That's how Jon met his wife, and how Tollefsen met that damned Tammy.

That was also before Jon started to pull away and to get political. That wasn't for Tollefsen, who preferred the ragged edges of law enforcement and not the white-hot center. He'd always thought Jon would come to his senses but he never did. Instead, his friend thrived in it. Tollefsen had grudgingly supported him in his run, of course, but he didn't raise money for him or campaign. When Jon got elected to the sheriff's job, Tollefsen expected to be rewarded by his old friend. But it hadn't exactly worked out that way.

Sure, he'd been named chief investigator and he finally got his own office. But that didn't mean Jon confided in him like he used to or let him make his own decisions. It almost seemed like Kirkbride wanted to pretend they'd never been close. Like those good times had never really happened.

Then they found oil by hydraulic fracturing out in the prairie and Tammy left. The whole damned world changed. Kirkbride was getting calls from television producers and
The
New York Times
. Tollefsen started going out at night by himself. Lowlifes like Willie Dietrich bought him drinks and supplied women who were passing through.

People Tollefsen had grown up with got rich and moved away. A whole new class of people moved in. Money flowed, gushed, ran down the gullies like a flash flood. The department doubled, then tripled in size. Square heads from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan took over. It was all Tollefsen could do at times from his seat in the back of the room not to tell them all just to shut the hell up and calm down. That this job, like life, would disappoint them. That their friends would look out only for themselves.

He punched the voice mail key to retrieve the message.

Kirkbride sounded sad, weary. He said, “Cam, you need to come in. I need to talk with you. Bring your badge and gun.”

*   *   *

TOLLEFSEN HAD
justified what he'd done by telling himself he was working with locals to supply a product to newcomers that they were already going to get one way or another. After all, shouldn't he get in on the action? Bachelor farmers without two nickels to rub together were becoming millionaires. Locals with no-account storefronts on Main Street were selling out for big money. Tammy had taken up with an executive from Baker Hughes and lived on a twelve-acre estate outside Houston.

*   *   *

HE FINISHED
the pint with a flourish and powered his passenger-side window down and threw away the empty. Who knew that new woman cop would react the way she did? What kind of person wouldn't be upset to find a decapitated head in their own home? Any normal person would have been freaked out. Hell, Tollefsen
himself
was freaked out just knowing it was in the plastic garbage bag after he'd found it mounted on top of a fence pole near the school. There was obviously something wrong with her and something hinky going on between her and the sheriff. Like they were in it together to bring him down. And now Jon was calling to close the trap.

Jon, of all people, would know what would happen to him if he was sent to the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck. It would be worse than a death sentence.

After all, how many inmates knew him? How many hated his guts? Tollefsen knew he wouldn't last long.

He put the Yukon into gear and drove down a rough two-track and parallel to the twelve-foot chain-link fence that kept vehicles away from the train tracks.

Twice, while lost in concentration, he let the SUV wander a bit and scrape along the fence itself. But he gathered his wits by the time he reached the edge of the massive new train yard.

Tollefsen put the transmission into park and hung out the window toward the security box. The little shack was unmanned but there was a closed-circuit camera and a speaker-box radio setup for those who didn't have authorized Burlington Northern keycards.

It was hard to hear the person on the other end of the speaker because of the noise of the trains.

He badged the camera lens and bellowed, “Bakken County Sheriff's Department. Let me the fuck in!”

He could hear some damned excuse, something about not having the authority to open the gate, but Tollefsen gestured again and again toward the camera with his badge to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

There was a high-pitched whir and the gate rolled open and Tollefsen was through it before there could be any more questions.

He roared his SUV through the yard, the tires popping on the cinder-gravel ballast. He drove right up on the tracks, his front wheels bouncing over the outside rail itself. Then he turned a sharp left so the train rails were between his tires.