Missing in Conard County Read online

  Damn!

  Chapter Three

  Day 1.5

  Al Carstairs stood by the roadside as the crowd grew around the yellow police tape. Nobody was wanted inside that sacred circle yet except the crime scene techs.

  The ground beside the road, apart from being winter-hard and covered with bits of sprayed gravel, wasn’t going to yield much, he thought. Even the grass in the ditch, long since in winter hibernation, could present only broken stalks.

  But nothing was going to be overlooked. If they could find any sign the girls had been picked up, or if they’d wandered off into the night, they had to locate it.

  For his own part, he stepped back and began to walk along the pavement. Not even rubber skid marks to indicate the girls had tried to stop in a hurry, or swerved to avoid something.

  Squatting, safely within the orange cones around which light traffic was being directed by cops wearing bright yellow vests, he scanned every inch of pavement.

  He couldn’t imagine why the driver hadn’t tried to stop. Ice? Possible, but then the shoulder should have been torn up by the locked tires.

  Something wasn’t right. Then it struck him.

  He stood and wondered whom he should talk to. Then he saw Kelly Noveno’s SUV headed his way. Kelly. She was a smart one, and he trusted her judgment. He knew damn near everyone in the sheriff’s office, but not in the same the way he knew Kelly. His animal control job often brought them together because of Bugle. Yeah, there were others he trusted as much or more, but none of them were out here right now.

  How could a car go off the road without the driver trying to stop it? How could someone abscond with three high school girls? Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose couldn’t have blinked more brightly in his mind.

  Kelly pulled over, inside the cones, then climbed out and approached him. “Nothing?” she asked, waving at the crime techs.

  “Not from them yet. Kelly...I had a nuts idea. Tell me I’m crazy and I’ll shut up.”

  She tilted her head. A tall woman, she didn’t have to look up very high to meet his gaze. Dark snapping eyes. Full of vigor.

  She nodded slowly. “Talk to me, Al. So far I’m coming up dry. Rusty thought they were the most well-behaved teens he’d ever had in his tavern, not even remotely looking for trouble. He said they seemed to be having a private party among the three of them.”

  Al nodded, but felt anxiety running along his nerve endings. So the girls hadn’t been looking for trouble. That didn’t mean they hadn’t found it. It just meant it had been harder to find.

  “What are you thinking?” Kelly pushed.

  “No skid marks.”

  “Black ice.”

  He shook his head. “They still would have braked, and if they’d been braking to try to avoid going in the ditch or to avoid an obstacle, the shoulder would be torn up. Frozen as it is, it would have shown some tire marks. So they didn’t brake.”

  He saw realization dawning on her face. “You’re suggesting they weren’t conscious? At least the driver?” Then she paused and swore. “Rusty said some guys passed their table briefly and chatted with them.”

  “Enough time,” he answered.

  She nodded, her expression growing even grimmer. She squatted to take a look at the pavement for herself, then straightened to study the shoulder once again. “Okay, I’m heading back to the tavern. Maybe Rusty knows who some of those guys were.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Animal control was part of the sheriff’s department, but Al wasn’t a standard deputy. It wasn’t exactly pro forma for him to go along on an investigation, but everyone else was busy at the moment, and Kelly thought extra brains could always be useful.

  “Let’s go.”

  Despite the traffic hang-up around the scene, they got through quickly and were soon whizzing toward Rusty’s. Bugle, in his backseat cage, knew Al so didn’t seem disturbed by the addition of another person.

  “It makes sense,” Kelly said, although she didn’t want to believe it.

  “That someone could have drugged them? It’s a wild hair, Kelly. It just popped into my head and wouldn’t let go.”

  “I get it, but it still makes sense. Some guys stopped by their table to talk. And frankly, Al, considering these were young women out on a holiday weekend for some fun, they left Rusty’s awfully early. I found the abandoned car just before eleven. When you were that age, did you call it a night that early?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Never.”

  “Exactly. No one was waiting for them, it was New Year’s, all the parties would have been the night before. It’s entirely possible that someone slipped something into their drinks and when they started to feel odd they decided to go home.”

  And that was crossing a lot of bridges with very little evidence, she thought. But it did make sense. She had to at least find out what guys were talking to them, if Rusty knew. Then she could interview them to see what more she could learn.

  “Anyway,” she said more to herself than him, “I didn’t think of trying to track these guys down when Rusty mentioned them because he made it seem like it was all brief and in passing. I think I ought to kick my own butt. I should have gotten suspicious right then.”

  “Cut yourself some slack,” Al said. “Three girls together at a table. A lot of men would stop by, get the brush-off and move on. Normal behavior. Nothing to stand out.”

  “Except the girls are missing.” She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, and when she turned into Rusty’s parking lot she sprayed gravel.

  She climbed out, leaving Bugle in the car with a cracked window and the heater on. Ten minutes. If this took longer, she’d come out and get her dog.

  She slammed the SUV door emphatically, glanced at the watch on her wrist and marched toward the door, hardly aware that Al was on her heels.

  Just then she was feeling awfully stupid. Stupid, and cold as the night nipped at her cheeks and the wind tossed her hair. She hoped the missing young women were safe and warm.

  But she seriously doubted they were.

  * * *

  A COUPLE OF people had evidently showed up for work. A woman of about forty, wearing a leather fringed skirt, was making her way around the tables, lighting the hurricane lanterns. A younger man used a push broom on the dance floor, clearing off any remains of last night’s revels.

  “Already?” Rusty said, arching a brow as he pushed a spout into the top of a whiskey bottle.

  “Some thoughts occurred,” Kelly said. “Al?”

  Rusty looked at him. “I know you. The animal control guy. What’s up?”

  Al unzipped his jacket halfway. Rusty didn’t keep the place overwarm, but warm enough that winter gear could be suffocating. “Al Carstairs. I’ve got just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “You looking for these girls, too? I’m not surprised. Half the county will be out there tomorrow. Wish it wasn’t so late right now. So, what can I do you for?”

  “There’s a chance the girls, or at least the driver, were unconscious when they went off the road.”

  Rusty straightened until he was stiff. He looked toward the table where the young women had been sitting just the night before. “Yeah?” he said hoarsely.

  “Not sure,” Kelly hastened to say. “Just an idea we’re looking into.”

  Rusty nodded. He turned his attention again to Al. “What do you want to know?”

  “You said some men stopped by their table. Do you remember who?”

  Kelly had turned on her cell phone recorder and placed it on the bar so Rusty would know she was recording. He looked at it briefly.

  “I gotta think,” he said. “Like I told Kelly, I wasn’t paying close attention. There was nothing that made me think anything was going on except three kids drinking soda together and having a great time. Two brunettes, one b
ottle blonde.”

  “Chantal,” Al interpolated. “The blonde. Turned eighteen two months ago. Hard worker. Never heard a complaint out of her about cleaning my kennels. She did love the animals, though. Talked about wanting to be a veterinarian.”

  Kelly drank in the facts, but wondered why Al felt it necessary to add them. To make Chantal seem more real to Rusty?

  Maybe it had worked, because Rusty’s frown turned really dark. “Yeah, she stood out. The other two were cute, too. Having a great time together.”

  “Jane wanted to be an EMT,” Kelly volunteered.

  Without another word, Rusty leaned his hands on the bar and looked down, eyes closed. He appeared to be straining to remember the night before. After a minute, he looked up and called, “Martha? Those teen girls who were here last night?”

  The woman, carrying her electric match, came over to the bar. Her fading red hair was caught neatly into a netted bun, and the harsh sun and wind had given her a few wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. “Blonde and two brunettes? Youngest gals in here? Yeah. They was cute.”

  “Some guys talked to them. I can’t remember who. Maybe one was Don Blevin?”

  Martha shook her head. “I saw a couple of guys. Let me think. Dang, Rusty, we had so many folks in here last night.”

  “I know,” he answered heavily.

  Martha’s eyes suddenly widened and she looked at Kelly’s uniform. “Is these the girls what’s missing? Oh my God...”

  “That’s why it’s so important that you tell us everything you can remember,” Kelly said. “Everything. How did they get their drinks? Who talked to them? Did anything seem...off?”

  Understanding dawned on Martha’s face. “You think they coulda been drugged?”

  “We’re just theorizing here,” Al hastened to say. “Call it a wild idea. We don’t know. We can’t know.”

  Martha nodded, her expression as sober as a judge’s. Then she turned her head a bit. “Jack, you got a minute?”

  Shortly they were joined by the young man who’d been pushing the broom.

  “Jack knows the younger set,” Martha explained. “Who was them guys who stopped by the table of the three teen girls who was sitting over there last night. You know the guys?” She pointed at the table.

  Jack’s forehead creased and a lock of greasy hair fell over his forehead to make a small curl. “Sure. First it was Hal Olsen.”

  Kelly had pulled out her patrol book and wrote quickly despite recording all this. “Tell us about Hal?”

  Jack shrugged. “He ain’t nothin’. Maybe thirty. His wife left him two months ago and he’s pretty much been living here. He likes to get hisself a dance with the pretty women. The girls didn’t want any so he walked away.”

  “And after that?” Al asked.

  “He got hisself a dance with Margot Eels. Pretty enough so I don’t think he was feeling dissed.”

  “Who else?” Al asked.

  Jack worked his mouth as if it would help his brain to think. “Art Mason. He’s another regular. Drinks too much sometimes and Rusty has to cut him off, but I don’t think he was sober when he talked to them gals.” He flashed a faint smile. “Was kind of weaving. The gals laughed a bit after they sent him on his way. I think he landed in a chair near the dance floor. Then there was Keeb Dustin. Everybody knows the guy. Got hisself the service station east of town.”

  “Never causes trouble,” Martha agreed. “He comes one night a week, either Friday or Saturday. He occasionally hits on someone, but not in a way that makes them complain.”

  “Anyone else?” Al asked.

  “Don’t know,” Jack said. Martha shrugged.

  “How’d the girls get their drinks?” Al asked.

  “I brought ’em,” Martha said promptly. “Fill up my tray with drinks at the station there, then pass them around to the tables. Keeps the bar from getting too crowded.”

  Kelly looked at Al for the first time. She saw awareness in his gray eyes, too. “Martha? You ever set your tray down with drinks on it?”

  “Have to,” she answered. “Gotta rearrange those bottles and glasses so I don’t spill them all over anyone.”

  “But you’re watching it every minute?”

  “No,” Martha answered. “People wanna talk. That’s part of my job.”

  Kelly’s stomach sank like a stone. So it was possible the girls had been slipped a drug. “How about,” she said slowly, “you three make a list of everyone you can remember was in here last night. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

  All three were agreeable, but Rusty looked positively dour. “I can’t keep my eye on everything,” he said to Kelly.

  “Of course you can’t, Rusty,” she said reassuringly. “You folks have been a ton of help. And as for this suspicion, it’s just that. Keep it quiet. We don’t know that anything happened here at all. We just need every bit of information we can find.”

  Outside in the cold night, hearing Bugle call to her from the slightly open window of her truck, Kelly tried to keep her step steady as she walked toward him. Other cars were arriving now, but the flow wasn’t heavy. Most of the interest would be down the highway around the crime scene. Folks had gathered to help, or out of curiosity. Who could say? But the crowd, the tape, the lights would draw attention. Wetting one’s whistle could wait a short while.

  When she laid her hand on the door of her vehicle, however, she froze. Then she tilted her head back and looked up at the amazingly clear star-filled sky.

  She hoped that somewhere out in those desolate spaces there weren’t three young women looking up at the stars with dead eyes.

  Al was suddenly beside her, touching her arm. “Nobody would go to all that trouble just to kill them.”

  She lowered her gaze to his face. “Maybe that’s even worse.”

  “Then we have to keep going, push as hard as we can.”

  “Yeah.” Her answer was short, but she squared her shoulders and shook off the despair that wanted to overtake her. They had to find them as quickly as possible. Somewhere there had to be an essential clue.

  She just wished she knew where to look beyond this tavern.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We have at least three guys to track down and get someone out to them for interviews.”

  The car felt too hot when she climbed in, but a glance at the dash thermometer told her it was sixty-eight. A good temperature for Bugle. He woofed a welcome.

  As soon as Al was in the passenger seat with the door closed, she reached for her radio. Velma’s scratchy voice answered.

  “Hey, Velma,” Kelly said. “Is Gage around?”

  “Yeah, in the conference room working out a plan for tomorrow’s search. You need him?”

  “Please.” She waited a couple of minutes, then heard the sheriff’s gravelly voice.

  “What’s up, Kelly?”

  “We were talking to employees at the tavern. I need someone to hunt up three guys and question them about the interactions they had with the three missing girls last night at Rusty’s.” Flipping open her notebook, she read the names to Gage.

  “Slower,” he said. Then, “Okay, got it. I know two of them. I’ll send some deputies out to talk to them. Thanks, Kelly. Good work.”

  “Thank Al Carstairs. He’s been a great help.”

  “I will. Are you coming in?”

  “Absolutely. We need to talk in person.” No way was she going to put the drug theory on the air. God knew how many police band radios would pick it up. The names of the men she wanted questioned didn’t worry her. They’d come up at the tavern and she was sure they were about to be shared with the evening’s early customers.

  Gage’s laugh was dry. “See you shortly.”

  Kelly looked down at the tall cup of latte she’d allowed to grow as cold as the interior of the truck. “I think I’m going to take a
brief break. I need some coffee to get through this night.”

  “I’ll join you,” Al answered. “It’d make some good time to run over what we just learned.”

  Bugle seemed to quietly woof his agreement.

  Yeah, they needed to do that, Kelly thought as she put the SUV in gear, swung a wide circle and drove back onto the state highway. Time to think it all over. You could get only so far just by picking up the puzzle pieces. Sooner or later you had to try to put them together.

  She glanced sideways at Al, and out of nowhere came the unbidden wish that this would be a social coffee. Nope. They could be friends but they had to remain professional or risk making a mess. If he was even interested.

  Besides, the only thing that mattered tonight was three missing girls, girls who might be terrified out of their minds. Girls who might be suffering.

  Girls who might be dead.

  * * *

  THE CROWD AT the accident scene had thinned out. She paused long enough to let Al jump out to get his truck while she surveyed the faces that looked so odd in the arc lamps. It was getting later and colder, and evidently people thought nothing more would happen tonight. Overhead the county’s two choppers were flying a search pattern with bright spotlights sweeping over barren fields.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into a parking spot in front of the City Diner, also known as Maude’s, and through the diner windows scanned the interior. Al pulled in beside her and climbed out, coming over to her window. She opened her door halfway but didn’t get out.

  “No discussion here tonight,” she remarked. The place was jammed full.

  “I’ll run in and get the coffee, then,” Al said. “Nobody will badger me with questions. Think Gage would like some? And if so how does he like it?”

  “Are we going to offend Velma?” she asked almost absently. Her thoughts were far away, reaching out into the frigid, empty night, trying not to imagine horrible things.

  “Do we care? Gage.”