He opened the book to the relief map of the U.S., tracing a route from Chicago to Madison on I-90, then continuing on the same interstate through Minnesota and across South Dakota to Keystone. It was a long drive, and there were hundreds of towns and cities en route. He wondered if there were other incidents besides the ones Marybeth had found.
From Rapid City he followed U.S. 18 south to Hot Springs, South Dakota, then south all the way to Cheyenne on U.S. 85. They could have stayed on 85 or jumped onto I-25 south through Denver to I-70 west, south on U.S. 24 past Vail, west on U.S. 82 to Aspen.
He sat back. A hell of a journey, he thought. But where were they headed next? What were they driving?
He hoped he would be present if April contacted Sheridan again so he could feed his daughter questions to ask. He made a list:
• Who is Robert?
• What is the name of Robert’s father?
• Are there any others with you?
• What kind of car are you in?
• What do you mean when you say people died? How? When? Why?
• Where are you now?
• What is your destination?
• How did you get away from that compound six years ago?
• Are you willing to meet with me?
Through the door, he heard Missy say, “… and you need to quit telling people in town we’re estranged. I hate that word. It makes it sound like I’m strange or something. It’s not a good word.”
Then, and he could visualize her gesturing toward his closed door, “Him I wouldn’t mind being estranged from. But not you, Marybeth. You’re my daughter.”
He smiled grimly to himself. Sheridan had the right idea, he thought. He clicked on the radio to the local country station. Brad Paisley. He turned it up loud.
HIS FIRST CALL was to Duck Wallace, chief investigator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Cheyenne. Wallace was good, and he was sometimes loaned out to other agencies, departments, the Division of Criminal Investigation, and local police departments because of his skill, knowledge, and rock-solid reputation. Duck was a Shoshone from the reservation, and so dark-skinned he was sometimes mistaken for black.
“Wallace,” he said, answering on the first ring. He sounded bored and bureaucratic.
“Duck, Joe Pickett.”
“Ah, Joe,” he said, the inflection indicating he was already interested in what Joe would have to say and a little cautious because Joe only called when a situation was critical.
“Duck, I’ve got a situation. Without getting into specifics, can a text message be traced?”
“You mean to a certain number? That’s easy. Look at the message, Joe.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. What I’m wondering is can a phone be traced to a physical location from a text message? Like a voice call can?”
Duck was silent for a long time. Joe knew it meant he was thinking, and he had no need to make conversation while he was thinking.
Duck said, “We can’t take an old text message and determine what the location was it was sent from. That just can’t be done, I don’t think. Of course, the feds have all sorts of tricks these days, especially Homeland Security, so I can’t completely rule it out.
“Now if we’re talking about tracing a phone to its geographic location when it’s turned on or while it’s being used, yes, that’s possible.”
Joe sat up. “How?”
“It’s not easy. There’s a way to do it, but it’s beyond my capacity, Joe. I don’t have the expertise. You need to go to the feds with this one. The FBI.”
Joe winced. The agent in charge of the Cheyenne office, Tony Portenson, was still furious at Joe for letting Nate walk the year before. Portenson had threatened federal charges against Joe and would have had him arrested if the governor hadn’t personally gotten involved and recruited the state’s U.S. senators and congresswoman to lean on Homeland Security.
“Yeah, I know about your relationship with the FBI,” Duck said. “But if you want this thing figured out, you’ll need to go to them. They’re the only ones with the expertise, equipment, and ability to get a quick subpoena from a judge to make it happen.”
“Crap.”
“Well put.”
“Is there any way to do this, um, unofficially? Any equipment I can buy, anything like that?”
A long silence. “The only way to do it unofficially is to get many billions of dollars and buy up all the cell phone companies. That’s the only way I can think of.”
“Gee, thanks, Duck.”
“You asked.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask why you’re being so close to the vest with this? If it’s an official investigation, I can run interference for you, maybe.”
“It’s not official, Duck. I really don’t want to say any more than that.”
“Okay,” Duck said. Joe could almost feel the shrug through the phone. “I won’t ask any more because I don’t think I want to know.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Why is it I get the feeling that I may see the name Joe Pickett in the newspaper again? Why is it that I have that feeling?”
This time, Joe shrugged. Then Duck asked: “How’s Marybeth and the girls?”
Joe said fine and asked about Duck’s four kids. After ten minutes of trading family information, debating how well the Wyoming Cowboys football team would do this year (not well, they agreed), and discussing where and when each planned to hunt elk in a month, Joe hung up.
He sat back, tried to think of a way around the FBI to get what he needed. But there was no choice.
“Crap.”
HE GOT UP and cracked the door. Missy was still out there, and Sheridan had joined them, standing in a robe with a towel on her head and looking uncomfortable. Missy was explaining, in the sweeping but definitive generalizations she used whenever she visited a new city or country and took a two-hour scenic motor coach tour given by a guide in native dress, everything there was to know about Bali. How the people were simple, content, and spiritual, telling them it was beautiful and the food was good and the staff at the hotel treated her like she was royalty, “like a real Duchess.”
When Missy unveiled the painted skirts, Sheridan saw them and scowled, but Joe shut the door again and called the FBI office in Cheyenne.
He’d met Special Agent Chuck Coon several months earlier, when Coon was in the Little Snake River Valley investigating a cattle-rustling operation. Over beers in the cinder-block saloon once frequented by Butch Cassidy, Coon told Joe that since food prices had skyrocketed so had incidents of large-scale cattle rustling. “And this isn’t like Western movie rustling,” Coon explained, “where a couple of local outlaws change some brands. In terms of dollars, this is like stealing a whole damned street of houses.”