Below Zero (24 page)

Sheridan gasped, “Did he shoot her?”

“No,” Coon said, “he shot the pharmacist. Killed him. And if you want to wait for a minute here, I’ll advance the tape to where you can see Robert and the girl leaving the store with the shopping basket and some rather large pill bottles. But their backs are turned to the camera, so we can’t see their faces.”

Joe realized that Sheridan was squeezing his hand so hard his fingers ached. He asked Coon to rerun the glimpse of her face again. They watched it over and over. He wanted to recognize April, but he was overwhelmed with the dark feeling that he couldn’t remember her face except in abstract: a ghost at a trailer house window. He wished Marybeth were there to give her opinion.

Was it her? She’d certainly look different six years older. But was it her?

“I just don’t know,” Sheridan finally said. “It could be. But it might not be.”

Coon sighed heavily, shook his head. “We can get that one shot blown up and printed. Maybe then?”

Sheridan shrugged.

“Man, I was hoping for better,” he said.

Joe agreed. It bothered him immensely that April had been an eyewitness to Robert shooting the pharmacist to death. No matter what her role was, there was no reason for her to have to see that. She was fourteen. He despised Robert for what he’d done. Then: “What about April’s cell phone? Cyndi said she left it in Skelton’s truck. Let’s see if it’s the right phone.”

Coon didn’t move.

“What?” Joe asked.

The FBI agent shook his head. “It got a direct hit. Maybe two. The pieces are there, but I don’t know if we can put them together to get anything out of it.”

Joe said, “I’m sure there’s a computer chip or something with the call log on it. Can’t you guys find that and analyze it? Isn’t that what you do?”

Coon nodded. “It may take a while.”

“I’d suggest you speed it up.”

Coon looked over at the SUV and his shoulders slumped. “If I’m not suspended.”

 

 

 

THE FBI INCIDENT TEAM
arrived in two helicopters an hour after dawn. Eight men in suits and ties and sunglasses, so crisply and icily efficient that they’d cordoned off the SUV and separated the witnesses within minutes of landing. After Joe gave his statement, he declared himself free to go and was surprised there was no argument from the sandy-haired special agent who’d interviewed him. He was in his pickup with Sheridan and pointed back toward Savageton before someone else decided they needed him again.

In his rearview mirror, he watched as Cyndi gesticulated for three stone-faced men, giving her version of events.

Sheridan was already sleeping hard, her head tilted back on the headrest. Joe reached over and gently lowered her to the bench seat and pulled his jacket over her.

As he drove out of the basin, he scanned the landscape. Oil wells, gas lines, survey stakes, metal signs adorned with the company logos of international energy conglomerates. He was exhausted and there was too much swirling in his head to make sense out of anything. But as he beheld the magnitude of the basin, the multimillion-dollar efforts being undertaken to extract fossil fuel from beneath the earth’s crust in this particular place, he thought about energy, about power, about Cyndi’s statement in regard to being looked down upon by people with their lights on.

He thought about the size of the carbon footprints in the basin from all that activity. Then something hit him.

What had April written when Sheridan asked her why she was in Aspen?
“Wedding & footprints.”

Joe thumped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

 

 

 

HOURS LATER,
Sheridan moaned and woke up. “Where are we?” she asked. “I don’t recognize this.”

Joe said, “Ever hear of a place called Hole in the Wall? This is it.”

“Why are we here?”

“We’re gonna need some help, I think.”

She nodded, and realization crossed her face. “Nate. Where you brought the eagle.”

“Yup.”

“This is where he is?”

“Not far from here. We’ll need to do some hiking. Are you up for that?”

“Sure. What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Where’s April?”

 

 

SHE OPENED HER EYES AND TRIED TO REMEMBER WHERE she was. It was late dawn. They were parked off the road, hidden in a thick knot of pine trees on the side of a hill. It was cool and still in the dark rolling hills, but above in the big azure sky there was a lot going on, she thought, the way those clouds scudded across from horizon to horizon like traffic on a highway, like they were being called in for emergency duty somewhere else. Up there, things were happening.

On the ground they were, too. Or soon would be. She just wasn’t sure about the details. Something about a ranch, a man named Leo, and the Talich Brothers. And about all that money.

 

 

 

THE NIGHT BEFORE,
outside the bar, she’d decided to text Sheridan again and ask her to come and get her after all. The horrible incident in the drugstore haunted her. Up until that moment she’d assumed Stenko was in charge, that he’d protect her as he promised he would and give her the money he’d offered. And she still believed that was Stenko’s intention. But when she saw that look on Robert’s face as he aimed the gun at the pharmacist and pulled the trigger, she realized Robert had changed in front of her eyes. He was taking control as he hadn’t before. She could see he was capable of anything, and Robert seemed to realize that as well. What had changed him so quickly? It was obvious: all that money Stenko had. That’s what did it. Robert had a mission. And she needed to get away from him.

As she turned her phone on and waited for it to get a signal, she realized someone was standing outside the car in the parking lot watching her. For a moment she was terrified. Robert? If so, she didn’t know what she’d say, how she’d get out of it. Maybe she’d just start running away in the dark. But Robert was fit. He’d catch her.

But it wasn’t Robert. It was some drunk who’d come outside. He’d grinned at her while he urinated, and she was both disgusted and scared. But he’d seen her using the phone—she was sure of it. What if he went back inside and told Robert and Stenko? So once the drunk was gone, she pitched the phone toward the garbage barrels. It was nearly out of power, anyway, and she had a fresh one still in the package from the drugstore. Robert hadn’t even looked in the basket. So if Stenko or Robert came out and asked her about a phone, she could honestly say she didn’t have one on her. If Robert wanted to search her, she’d let him. And the new TracFone would stay in the package until she had some privacy and could activate it and text Sheridan.

 

 

 

ROBERT HAD TAKEN THE KEYS
from Stenko once they’d finally come out of the bar at Savageton. She was worried about him driving drunk, but since Stenko was no better—in fact, he was sleeping— there was no choice. She kept quiet and pretended to sleep. It took two or three hours to get to where they were. Once the smooth road turned into dirt, Stenko awoke and gave Robert directions. She could smell the pine in the air. It had the same smell as that campground where Stenko shot the old couple, and that brought back bad memories. It was like they’d gone full circle and returned to the scene of the crime.

She’d slept fitfully in the back seat. Stenko had slept on the front seat and his wracking snores often woke them both up. Robert had gone off into the trees with a sleeping bag and a bottle of whiskey. She’d watched him try to start a fire, but he had no talent in that regard and had given up and angrily kicked the pile of wood away.

 

 

 

WHEN THE SUN CAME UP,
she realized how hungry she was. They hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and now they were in the middle of nowhere. She wished she had grabbed snacks at the drugstore and had some in the basket with her TracFone. Her stomach growled so loudly Stenko stirred and grunted in the front seat. In a few seconds his hand, like a bear paw, flopped over the back of the front seat and he gripped the headrest to pull himself up into a sitting position. His hair was askew and his eyes were red.

“Makers Mark and morphine doesn’t mix well,” he croaked. “How you doing?”

“I’m hungry.”

He nodded. “Yeah, me too. And we don’t have anything in the car. We’ll have to try and get some breakfast at the ranch.”

She said, “What ranch?”

Stenko chinned toward the hill that rose behind him. “Over the top,” he said. “My money bought it.”

“Why don’t we go there now? I need a shower and a bathroom. I’m not used to sleeping in cars.”

“We’ll go soon enough. I need to scout it out first.”

“For what?”

“For my old friend Leo. Leo was my accountant. Still is, as far as I’m concerned. Leo knows where all my money is.”

She nodded. She could tell he wanted to say more.

“You know, April, I’ve learned a lot of important things in my life. It takes a while. When you’re young, you think you’re the only person to take this journey and you’re going to do it better, smarter, and more thoughtfully than all the people who came before you. But as you get older, you start to gain wisdom. Wisdom is a lost commodity. And here’s some wisdom in the form of a riddle: Who rules the world?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who really rules the world? Do you think it’s politicians? Lawyers? Presidents of the bank?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I never thought about it. All I know is it isn’t kids.”

He laughed. “Maybe this world would be a better place if you did. But no, April, it’s the accountants. Accountants rule the world. They can steal more with a pencil or a few clicks of a keyboard than a bank robber can with a gun or a politician can with a telephone. If the accountant is working for you and on your side, he can make you rich. But if he has his own dreams, well, he can secretly buy a ranch in Podunk, Wyoming, and live out his fantasy. He can be what he always wanted to be all those years in Chicago: a cowboy.”

With that, he rolled his eyes.

They both watched as Robert awoke in his sleeping bag. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair and stretched.

Stenko said, “You know, I’ve really come to admire Robert. He’s still young enough to think he can change the world. He still has passion—maybe too much. I want to enable that passion before I go. That’s what this is all about.”

“He shot that man in the drugstore,” she said.

Stenko nodded. “He did it for me. So I could keep going.”

So he could get the money,
she thought.

 

 

 

SHE FOLLOWED STENKO
and Robert as they hiked up the hill. Robert had the gun in his belt. A pair of binoculars dangled around his neck from a strap. Stenko’s breath was labored from the climb, and he had to stop several times to steady himself against the trunk of a tree and rest.

When they reached the top, Stenko dropped to his knees, and for a moment she thought he’d collapsed. She reached out for him but Robert slapped her hands away. “Leave him alone—he’s fine,” Robert said. “Get down. We’re crawling the rest of the way. We don’t want them to see us.”

She was angry with Robert for treating her that way, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d remember it, though.

The three of them wriggled through the dirt and over rocks until they reached the top. A lush wooded valley opened up before them.

“Wow,” she said, pointing to a massive rock column in the distance. “What’s that?”

“Devils Tower,” Stenko whispered.

The column stood high above the forest like a primitive skyscraper. It was cylindrical with a flat top, and the sides were fluted.

She said, “I saw it in a movie once.”

Robert said, “Yeah—
Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
That’s where the aliens landed.”

Stenko said, “The legend is better than the movie, though. See, the Indians say there were seven sisters and a giant bear came after them. The bear was a bastard and had caused all kinds of trouble with the tribe. Well, this bear cornered the sisters and planned to kill and eat them, but they prayed to the Great Spirit, and as the bear got close, the earth started to rise. The sisters were on top as the column went up higher and higher into the sky. The bear got mad and still tried to get at them by trying to climb the tower. Those are supposedly his claw marks on the side. But he couldn’t get them.”

She asked, “How did they get down?”

Stenko turned to her. “They didn’t. They went to the Great Spirit and turned into stars. Have you ever seen the seven sisters in the sky?”

“No.”

“Me either,” Stenko said. “But it’s a good story. And you know how I know it?” he asked Robert. Before Robert could respond, Stenko said, “That damned Leo told me. This was eight, nine years ago. See, he wanted to buy a ranch out here that had a view of Devils Tower. He said land was always a good investment, and we had too much money tied up in the islands and in Indian casinos. He said we should consider something way out here as a quiet investment. He called it a ‘retreat,’ as if I’d ever retreated from anything. Apparently, Al Capone had a ranch out here in the Black Hills back in the thirties. So Leo made this pitch to me and when I asked him what the hell Devils Tower was he told me that crazy story. I don’t know why I remember it, but I’m glad I did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have figured out where this place is.”

Robert was focusing the binoculars down on the valley floor. She tried to see what he was looking at and for the first time noticed a light square of flat green as well as a red roof partially hidden by trees.