Paradise Valley, Page 2

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because,” she said, “we’re going to kill him if we have to.”

  Kirkbride was still. The phone was still in his hand, still poised halfway between the handset and his ear.

  “Good thing I didn’t hear that,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  CASSIE LOOPED THROUGH AN EMPTY roundabout in her department Yukon and caromed out of it onto a wide suburban street called Abell Drive, after George T. Abell. She took a right on Erle Halliburton Way up to the driveway of her home, which was the only occupied house in the cul-de-sac. All of the streets in her new subdivision had been named after members of the Petroleum Hall of Fame based in Midland, Texas. One of the city council members had come up with that during the apex of the boom.

  She’d purchased the split-level home before the bottom fell out of oil prices. Time had proved that she’d paid too much for it but she was stuck. There were five empty but finished houses on the cul-de-sac and scores of them within the subdivision. She’d wanted Ben to live in a real house with a real yard in a real neighborhood with other kids around, because he’d been the only boy his age in the county housing complex next to the Law Enforcement Center. Not that Ben seemed to mind, though. He liked interacting with the officers he saw in the elevator and hallways—all those uniforms and guns—and they seemed to like him.

  Unfortunately, there were no other boys his age in the subdivision and only one other family, and they had a FOR SALE sign in their front yard.

  She left the Yukon running and her door open and was about to charge up the steps to the door when she paused. Her heart was racing and she took a deep breath to try and calm herself.

  Cassie turned on the porch and looked out at the Missouri Breaks in the valley below her. It was a cool and still fall morning and quite a contrast to the way she felt inside. Thick river cottonwoods fused with yellow and red clogged the banks far below and extended in a multicolor ribbon to the east as far as she could see. In the early mornings or at dusk she often saw white-tailed deer in the meadows beyond the trees, and there were always geese and ducks cruising above the treetops. One of the reasons she’d jumped at the chance to buy the house was because of the view. It reminded her a little of Montana, her home state, but with no mountains or elk. And in the fields beyond the river in every direction, oil wells winked at night, making Grimstad look much bigger from the air than it actually was.

  * * *

  “WHERE DID YOU GO?” her mother Isabel asked as Cassie entered the house. “I heard you talking to someone on your phone early this morning but when I got up and looked around you were already gone.”

  The Grimstad Tribune was opened in front of her on the kitchen table. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee.

  “The office,” Cassie said, looking around for signs of Ben.

  “He’s getting dressed,” Isabel said.

  Cassie looked at her watch. They usually left for school by this time.

  “You’ll make it,” Isabel said. “Just drive like you normally do.”

  “Ben,” Cassie called in the direction of the stairs. “Let’s go.”

  “Coming, mother,” Ben responded from his bedroom upstairs. There was exasperation in his tone, plus the word mother, which was an unwelcome new addition to his repertoire.

  “Coffee?” Isabel asked, not getting up.

  “No time.”

  “Of course not,” her mother said. She disapproved of people in a hurry, especially Cassie.

  Isabel—she had always insisted Cassie call her by her made-up hippie name from the sixties instead of “mom”—had settled into Grimstad much better than Cassie had anticipated she would. The go-go atmosphere of rampant maleness and naked capitalism had somehow energized Isabel to become even more of a bulwark against both. Rather than throw up her hands in despair, Isabel had founded a small group of disaffected newcomers called “Progressive Grimstad” to agitate for larger budgets for social workers, homeless shelters, and a cooperative grocery store that sold non-GMO organic food. Cassie found herself agreeing with the need for the first two projects but was not enthusiastic about the third. Progressive Grimstad had made the proposals at county commission meetings and suggested that the funding should come from the “bloated” sheriff’s department budget. The proposal was shot down although Cassie had hoped it would pass, and Isabel vowed to raise funds to renovate an empty building downtown to house social workers. Still, Sheriff Kirkbride was annoyed about the potential raid on his budget.

  Plus—although Isabel wouldn’t admit it to her daughter—Cassie suspected Isabel enjoyed the attention she received from oil field and construction workers when she ventured out in public with her flowing robes and waist-length silver hair. Although Isabel had always looked like an individual in Montana, she really stood out in North Dakota. And she was surprisingly effective in obtaining funding commitments from area businesses and newly wealthy landowners in the area.

  Isabel liked standing out. Cassie often thought that if Isabel wasn’t her mother she wouldn’t have much to do with her at all. Too much drama, too many sharp opinions, too many high-minded causes that rarely produced any tangible results—until now. Isabel was on a mission.

  Isabel had dragged Cassie around with her for eighteen years and when Cassie got her position in Grimstad she felt she needed to return the favor. And Isabel truly loved Ben.

  * * *

  “DID YOU GET BREAKFAST?” Cassie asked Ben when they were in the Yukon. He was wearing his daily uniform: baggy jeans, high-top Nikes, Grimstad Vikings hoodie, unshaped trucker cap. His backpack was on the floor near his feet.

  “Not hungry,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter, Ben. We’ve talked about this. You need breakfast.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, shaking her head. “Tomorrow, you eat something. No argument.”

  He shrugged and looked out the window. Then: “So what’s going down?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, stalling for time until they got to school.

  “I’m not stupid,” Ben said. “I know you’ve got those two cell phones. One is a normal phone and the other is for that trucker. I know you’ve gotten calls on that trucker phone and I can tell you’re all worked up.”

  “I’m not worked up,” she lied.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked.

  She couldn’t tell whether he was concerned for her or curious about the law enforcement operation itself. She guessed a little of both. She hoped it was more of the former since Cassie was all Ben had except for Isabel.

  Ben’s father and Cassie’s husband Army Sergeant Jim Dewell had died during the Battle of Wanat in Afghanistan in 2008. Ben had never met his father but he always kept a photo of him in the camo uniform and helmet on his desk. Ben had recently written a paper for his English class entitled “Jim Dewell: Wartime Hero for Our Time.” Cassie had read it with tears in her eyes. Ben wanted his father to be heroic in every sense. Cassie saw no reason to correct Ben’s hopes, and she’d vowed to never do it although in fact Jim had enlisted in the military the day after he learned she was pregnant.

  Jim was by no means a coward, though. He did his duty and he served his country with honor. He just didn’t want the responsibility of being a dad.

  “It’s a big operation,” Cassie said as she slid the Yukon into a line of cars nearing the school. “A sting.”

  Ben nodded because he’d been right. He said, “I wish I could come with you. I’ll be sitting in a bunch of boring classes and you’ll be out there doing something exciting. Kyle says you can learn more not going to school than you can learn in school.”

  “Kyle should keep his opinions to himself,” Cassie said.

  Kyle Westergaard was Ben’s fourteen-year-old friend. Kyle had a mild case of fetal alcohol syndrome that primarily affected his ability to speak. Ben understood every word he said, though, and he looked up to him. Kyle had b
een involved in a tragic situation two years before when he lost his mother but bravely shot two gangsters, killing one of them. His status after that among boys Ben’s age had grown almost mythic. Kyle, to his credit, didn’t seem to notice, Cassie had observed.

  “I hope he doesn’t leave,” Ben said to the passenger window as Cassie turned into the drive that took them to the front doors. It was slow going as parents in preceding cars dropped their kids off and reminded them of last-minute instructions.

  “What?” Cassie asked, surprised.

  Ben looked as if he’d been caught. “Nothing.”

  “Ben, what do you mean Kyle might leave? Is his grandmother moving away?”

  “Naw, forget I said anything,” Ben said.

  They reached the drop-off zone. Cassie checked her mirror to see a dozen cars behind her. All, like her, were running late.

  “Ben, are you keeping something from me about Kyle?”

  “No,” he said, reaching for the door handle. He wouldn’t meet her eyes which meant he was lying. Lying was new, too. It started around the same time he started calling her Mother in that passive-aggressive tone of voice.

  “Ben?”

  “Hey, I gotta go.”

  “We’ll talk tonight,” she said sternly.

  Ben couldn’t get out of the Yukon fast enough. Before he closed the door he said, “You don’t need to pick me up. I’ll walk home after football practice.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. Hey, good luck with your sting today.”

  She started to caution him to not say a word about it to anyone but he’d already closed the door, turned away, and joined a group of friends all wearing the same uniform.

  Cassie glanced at the clock in the dashboard. Minutes she needed back had burned away.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  WHEN CASSIE ARRIVED five minutes later at the Dakota Remanufacturing building located within an industrial park north of Grimstad there were already four sheriff’s department vehicles in the front parking lot and she cursed out loud.

  Word was already out about what was about to happen. She could only hope that the deputies had been off-channel and that the Lizard King wasn’t monitoring police-band frequencies.

  She pulled her department Yukon around the building to the back loading dock. Eight of the ten pallets of reconditioned and shrink-wrapped oil field parts were already there. She could see a forklift operator spearing the ninth pallet inside to move it to the dock as well.

  At least that part was going right, she thought.

  Cassie killed the engine and mounted the outside steps to the dock. She had her cell phone in one hand and a handheld radio in the other.

  As soon as she entered the darkened warehouse she made out a small knot of deputies standing in the center of the vast concrete floor and she turned toward them. They could apparently tell by the way she strode—her low heels clicked on the concrete floor—that they were in trouble. Their conversation stopped.

  “We got here as soon as we heard,” Deputy Ian Davis said. The former undercover officer was clean-cut and he looked good in his uniform. He was of medium height and build and he had soft brown eyes and a baby face that had been obscured by the beard and long hair he used to wear. He looked ten years younger than he was.

  Standing with him in a scrum in the middle of the warehouse floor were deputies J. T. Eastwood, Tigg Erger—both new hires—and Fred Walker. Walker, like Davis, had four years under his belt at the department. In Bakken County, that meant they were wily old veterans.

  She said, “Guys, you need to get your vehicles out of sight right now. Anybody driving by this place will see them out front and know there’s a situation in progress.”

  The deputies exchanged guilty glances.

  “Move them out one by one,” she said. “Don’t all of you peel out at the same time or that will draw attention.”

  “So where do we put them?” Eastwood asked.

  “Someplace else,” she snapped. “There’s at least four empty buildings within a quarter of a mile. Guys, the Lizard King is coming and there’s a woman’s life at stake.”

  Eastwood, Erger, and Walker slunk and grumbled toward the front of the building where their vehicles were. Eastwood said something that included the words “lot lizard” and Erger stifled a laugh.

  Davis stayed.

  He said, “Cassie, are you okay?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Of course I’m not okay, Ian. What do you expect? I’ve been waiting four years for this. I can’t screw this up.”

  “Like I didn’t know that,” he said and smiled gently. Paternalistically, she thought. Then he reached out with both hands and rubbed the top of her shoulders.

  She pulled back and raised the cell phone in her hand like a weapon. “Damn it, Ian. You know better than that. It’s hard enough concentrating on what we’re here for without you touching me.”

  “Sorry,” he said, not losing the smile. “It’s not like they don’t know.”

  “Pretend they don’t,” she snapped. “Be professional. We’re on thin ice as it is.”

  That stung him and he squared his shoulders. The smile was gone, replaced by guilt.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I just want to watch out for you. I’m sorry.”

  “Quit saying you’re sorry,” she said, angry that now he had the ability to make her want to comfort him. She resented him for that. “We’ve got just a few more months of this. I know it’s uncomfortable for you. It’s uncomfortable for me, too. It’s a problem. Then we’re married and we have a whole set of new problems.”

  He nodded. They’d talked about it for months, that married county employees were prohibited from working together in the same department. He said he was eager to move on, maybe to the city, state, or federal law enforcement. He had an interview scheduled in three weeks with the DEA.

  “I’ll go move my car,” he said.

  “Please move mine while you’re at it,” she said, handing him her keys. It was a trivial command, one that he wouldn’t have hesitated doing a year before when their roles were cleanly delineated. Before he asked her to marry him for the third time and she accepted.

  Now, though, she felt like a dominatrix for asking. And Ian, no doubt, felt a little the same way.

  She nodded and watched him walk away. He was a good man with a good heart and she loved him in a way she didn’t think she could ever love a man again. It wasn’t the passionate over-the-top love she’d had for Jim Dewell when she was a young woman, but it was a kind of deep appreciation that came from being with a truly decent and kind man. He wasn’t aggressively ambitious but she didn’t need that. And he wasn’t looking for a mother, but a partner. He didn’t ask much of her and he was attentive to both Ben and her. Ian spent time with Ben doing boy things and Ben adored him. Even Isabel liked him. And Ian made Cassie laugh, which was perhaps the most important quality of all.

  And she’d just sent him away with her keys in his hand.

  She fought the urge to chase him down and hug him.

  Instead, she called out, “Thanks for being here, Ian. I do appreciate it. But please cut me some slack. I’ll try to hold it together. This,” she said, gesturing to the warehouse, “might finally be happening.”

  He mumbled something that sounded conciliatory, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  * * *

  CASSIE DUCKED INTO THE OFFICE of Judi Newman, the owner of Dakota Remanufacturing. Cassie still clutched her cell phone and radio.

  It was obvious Judi had been watching Ian and her out on the warehouse floor through her window.

  “Lucky you,” Judi said.

  “I probably don’t deserve him.” She meant it.

  “Then send him my way.” Judi laughed.

  “Ben needs a man around maybe even more than I do.”

  Judi nodded.

  “Thank you for getting those pallets out on the dock for pickup,” Cassie said.

  Judy l
eaned back in her chair. “Anything I can do to help. How much time until he gets here?”

  “Two and a half hours.”

  “Wow.”

  In the last year, Judi Newman had taken over the company from her husband Russ who was in prison in Bismarck for human trafficking. He’d arranged for four underage prostitutes to arrive in Grimstad from Canada to entertain oil field workers and perhaps himself as well. Cassie and Ian Davis had been tipped to their arrival and they caught the girls climbing out of a van to meet Russ Newman in a fast food parking lot in Watson City. They’d arrested Russ and the trafficker from Alberta. The girls, all Asian, were turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

  When Judi had called the sheriff’s department to complain that she’d seen two of the girls giggling and buying makeup at Walmart, Cassie had driven to Dakota Remanufacturing to explain that ICE no longer enforced immigration laws and that it was as frustrating to local law enforcement as it was to her. They struck an instant friendship partly because they were about the only single women their age in Grimstad, which was twenty-to-one men to women. It became clear to Cassie right off that Judi wasn’t unhappy at all to be rid of her husband Russ.

  Cassie had told Judi about her history with the Lizard King and her scheme to draw him in. When Judi learned of the plan she promptly offered to use her firm as a front. Judi had read about the Lizard King on the Internet and she’d also heard references to him over the truck-dispatching channels she monitored at work.

  “Have you been listening all morning?” Cassie asked, gesturing to the radio unit on a credenza behind Judi Newman.

  “I have. I haven’t heard anything unusual, She-Bear.”

  Cassie usually chuckled at the name but not now. Judi had been calling her “She-Bear” ever since she’d heard an angry trucker use the term for a female police officer in a rant as he rolled out of Grimstad in his unit. Cassie had ticketed the driver for exceeding the speed limit on county roads after he blew by her in her civilian car. For a half hour after receiving the citation the driver complained over his radio about the “She-Bear” who had pulled him over. He was especially incensed that she asked to look through his cab and into his sleepover cab. He had no idea what she was looking for or why she was looking.