Walk the Wire

NORTH DAKOTA,” murmured Amos Decker.

He was sitting next to Alex Jamison on a small Embraer regional jet. They had taken a jumbo 787 to Denver, where they’d had an hour layover before boarding the far smaller aircraft. It was like going from a stretch limo to a clown car.

Decker, who was six-foot-five and weighed nearly three hundred pounds, had groaned when he’d watched the small jet maneuvering to their gate, and groaned even more when he’d glimpsed the tiny seats inside. He’d had to wedge into his allotted space so tightly that he doubted he would need his lap belt to keep him safe in case of turbulence.

“Ever been there?” asked Jamison. She was in her early thirties, tall, superbly fit, with long brown hair, and pretty enough to be repeatedly stared at by men. A former journalist, she was now an FBI special agent. She and Decker were assigned to a task force at the Bureau.

“No, but we played North Dakota State in football once while I was at Ohio State. They came to Columbus for the game.”

Decker had played college ball for the Buckeyes and then had an abbreviated professional career with the Cleveland Browns before a devastating injury on the field had left him with two conditions: hyperthymesia, or perfect recall, and synesthesia, meaning his sensory pathways had comingled. Now he could forget nothing and saw things such as numbers in certain colors and, far more dramatically, dead bodies in an unsettling shade of electric blue.

“Who won?” asked Jamison.

Decker gave her a heavy-lidded glance. “You trying to be funny?”

“No.”

He shifted about a millimeter in his seat. “It used to be called D-I and D-II when I played. Now it’s FBS and FCS.” When Jamison looked puzzled he added, “Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision. Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, Michigan, LSU, they’re all FBS schools, the top tier, the big boys. Schools like North Dakota State, James Madison, Grambling, Florida A&M, they’re FCS schools, or the second tier. Now, North Dakota State has gotten really good as of late. But usually, when they play each other it’s a rout for the FBS schools.”

“So why schedule them?”

“It’s an easy win for the top tier and a big payday and TV exposure for the other squad.”

“But it’s not a particularly good game to watch?”

“It’s always a good game when you win. And if the score is a runaway, the starters get to sit the bench after the third quarter or maybe even the first half. When I was a freshman that’s how I got to play. When I was a starter, I appreciated the extra rest a blow-out got me.”

“Doesn’t make sense to me. One team slaughtering another for money.”

“It really only made sense to the school boosters and the NCAA bean counters.”

Jamison shook her head and gazed out the window as they descended beneath the dark, thick clouds. “Looks stormy down there.”

“It’s basically hot with humidity through the roof for the next couple of days, with a bad thunderstorm, falling temps, and wicked wind pretty much guaranteed every evening. But then it won’t be long before the blizzard season sets in and this place looks like Antarctica.”

“Great,” said Jamison sarcastically.

“But look on the bright side.”

“What’s that?”

“You won’t have to do your daily workout for the next couple days. You’ll lose two pounds of water just walking to the car. But after that you’ll have to fatten up for the winter.”

The plane shed more altitude. Working against heavy headwinds and unruly patches of air, the jet felt like it was a pebble skipping across rough water. Jamison gripped her armrests and tried to breathe deeply as her stomach lurched up and down. When the plane’s tires finally hit the asphalt and bounced to a landing on the runway, she slowly released her grip and pressed a hand against her belly. A jagged spear of lightning appeared off in the distance.

“Okay, that was fun,” she said breathlessly before eyeing Decker, who looked, if anything, sleepy. “That didn’t bother you?” she asked.

“What?”

“The turbulence!”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said offhandedly.

“What’s your secret then? Because it looked like everyone else on the plane was praying, flight attendants included.”

“I survived a crash landing when I was in college. Engine went out on takeoff. Pilot circled back around, dumped some fuel, then the other engine died and he had to go in for an immediate landing. Found out later it was a twin bird strike. We hit hard enough to take out the landing gear and crack the fuselage. Everybody got off before the jet fuel ignited and fire ate the plane. I did lose my duffel of clothes,” he added casually.

“My God,” said a pale Jamison. “Then I’m surprised you’re not more nervous than I am.”

“I looked up the odds. They’re about a billion to one for my having a second incident. I feel like I’m golden now.”

They deplaned, signed the documents for their rental SUV, and headed out from Williston Basin International Airport.

“Wow,” said Jamison when they got outside and the wind slammed into them. Even the giant Decker was buffeted. “I don’t think I packed the right clothes,” she noted miserably. “I should have brought more layers.”

“What more do you need than pants and a shirt and a badge and gun?”

“It’s different for women, Decker.”

Jamison drove while Decker punched the directions into his phone navigation. Then he settled back and watched the road zip by. It was six o’clock in the evening and they were headed right into a gathering storm. Nasty black cumulus clouds reared up ahead of them like a towering serpent about to do some serious business over this patch of the upper Midwest.

“Irene Cramer,” said Decker softly as they drove along.

Jamison nodded and her features turned grim. “Found dead in the middle of nowhere by a guy tracking a wolf.”

“Most notably she was apparently autopsied,” added Decker.

“That’s a first, at least for me. How about you?”

“I’ve seen cut-up bodies, but not like the photos I saw. The crime scene was pretty clean except for the guy’s vomit.”

“Serial murderer? Is that why we got the call? Bogart didn’t really say.”

Ross Bogart was the head of their small task force. He was the one who had ordered the pair to North Dakota after the briefest of briefings.

“Maybe.”

“Did Ross sound strange when he talked to you?” asked Jamison. “He did to me.”

Decker nodded. “He couldn’t tell us something that he wanted to tell us.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s a straight shooter who has to answer to political types.”

“I don’t like mysteries at both ends of a case,” groused Jamison.

“I don’t think this is necessarily a serial murderer.”

“Why not?”

“I could find nothing to match it in the databases. I checked before we flew out.”

“Could be a new player.”

“New players aren’t usually this sophisticated.”

“He might be trying to make a name for himself,” pointed out Jamison.

“They’re all trying to make a name for themselves,” replied Decker.

“But they don’t call the Bureau in for a local murder.”

“I think we need to look at the victim and not the killer for that reason.”

“You believe Irene Cramer was important to the Feds for some reason?”

“And it may also explain Bogart’s reticence.”

“Regardless, we’re clearly looking at a killer with forensic skills.”

“That could apply to quite a few people, including people on our side of the field.”

“An ME gone bad, maybe?” suggested Jamison.

Decker looked uncertain. “You can probably find a YouTube video of someone cutting up a mannequin. But the report said the cuts were professionally done.”

“You think this guy has had…what, practice?”

“I don’t think anything, at least right now.”

“Did you notice the highway here is all concrete?” said Jamison, glancing out the window.

“Asphalt apparently doesn’t hold up well in the extreme elements they have up here,” noted Decker. “Although I’m not sure how durable the concrete is, either.”

“Well, aren’t you a wealth of information.”

“I can Google stuff just like anybody else.”

“How much longer do we have to go?” asked Jamison.

Decker glanced at his phone screen. “Says forty-five minutes, nearly to the Canadian border.”

“So I guess that was the closest airport back there.”

“I think that was the only airport back there.”

“This has already been a long, exhausting day.”

“And it promises to be a longer night.”

“You’re going to start the investigation tonight?” she said, a little incredulously.

Decker gave her a stern look. “Never hurts to hit the ground running, Alex. Particularly when someone is dead who shouldn’t be.”

WHAT ARE THOSE?” asked Jamison as they neared their destination.

She indicated fiery gold plumes that winked in the darkness like ghoulish holiday lights as they zipped past.

“Gas flares,” said Decker. “Coming off the oil wells. Natural gas is found with oil. They drill for both up here. But they sometimes vent the gas off and ignite it at the end of the oil wellhead. I guess it costs too much to do anything else with it in certain situations and they don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to pipe it out of here.”

Jamison looked stunned. “Do you know how much gas we’re talking about?”

“One stat I read said each month the gas they burn off could heat four million homes.”

“Four million homes, are you serious?”

“It’s what I read.”

“But isn’t that bad for the environment? I mean, they’re burning pure methane, right?”

“I don’t know about that. But it probably is bad.”

“All those flames are eerie. I’m conjuring images of zombies marching with torches.”

“Better get used to them. They’re everywhere, apparently.”

And as they drove along, they did indeed appear to be everywhere. The landscape was like an enormous sheet cake with hundreds of candles.

They passed by large neighborhoods of trailer homes, along with paved streets, road signs, and playgrounds. Vehicles, most of them jacked-up, mud-stained pickup trucks or stout SUVs, were parked under metal carports in front of the trailers.

They also drove past large parcels of land on which sat the flame-tipped oil and gas wells along with metal containers and equipment with imposing security fences around them. Hard-hatted men in flame-resistant orange vests drove or rushed around performing myriad tasks. From a distance, they looked like giant ants on a crucial mission.

“This is a fracking town,” said Decker. “Only reason there still is a town. Thousands of workers have migrated to this part of North Dakota to suck up the shale oil and gas found in the area. ‘Bakken’ shale rock, to be more specific. I read there’s about a hundred years’ worth of fossil fuel in the ground here.”

“Okay, but haven’t they heard of climate change?”

“Hey, it’s a job.”

“Yeah, a job today, no planet to live on tomorrow.”

“Preaching to the choir. But when you’re trying to put food on the table today? And people can make six-figure salaries here working the energy fields? They’ve had booms and busts before, but they seem to have things in better shape now.”

“Google again?”

He shrugged. “I’m a curious guy. Plus both my brothers-in-law work in the oil and gas fields. I guess I picked some stuff up because of that.”

They passed a fifteen-gas-pump truck stop that had a restaurant attached and also showers, a Laundromat, and a store that multiple signs said sold hot pizzas, propane, diesel exhaust fluid, truck driving logs, fans, and antifreeze, among many other listed items. On one sign were enormous photos of alluring waitresses in short shorts and low-cut tops. Another sign proclaimed the facility had the best adult entertainment DVDs in the entire state of North Dakota. The parking lot was packed with semis of every size, color, and style, with emphasis on chrome fittings, spike wheel caps, and spray-painted murals on the cabs. They ranged from dragons and firearms to American flags and busty, nude women.

“Well, I guess we know what’s popular up here,” said Jamison.

“It’s not just up here where that stuff is popular,” replied Decker drily.

They next passed RV parks that were packed and a shopping mall that looked freshly risen from the dirt. The mall had a BBQ restaurant with a sign promising the best southern pulled pork around; then there was a Subway, a China Express, a twenty-four-hour gym, a bar and grill, and even a sushi bar. There was an electronic marquee mounted on one wall that set forth the current prices for oil and natural gas. Next to the mall was a large brick church. On the front of its outdoor sign someone had arranged black letters to read, GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH AND THE OIL AND THE GAS. SHARE THE WEALTH. DONATE TO GOD. WE DO VENMO. BIBLE STUDY CLASS EVERY NIGHT AT 7.

Jamison glanced in the rearview mirror. “There’s a column of semis and dump trucks right on my butt, and they have been for the last half hour.” She glanced at the oncoming traffic. “And an army of them heading the other way. And the whole place smells of diesel fuel.”

“They’re bringing in equipment and supplies, including the chemicals they inject into the ground. Apparently it goes on 24/7.”

“And the trucks heading the other way?”

“Taking the oil and gas out, I guess.” He pointed ahead. “We have to get off this road soon. They built a loop around the town so the trucks wouldn’t have to drive through downtown with their loads.”

Jamison took the next exit, and they shortly saw a cluster of lights in the distance. “I take it that’s the town we’re headed to.”

“Yep. London, North Dakota.”

“I wonder how it got that name,” said Jamison.

“Maybe some guy from England came here and planted a flag. Right in the middle of a sea of oil and gas. Population’s around fifteen thousand, and over half of them work in the oil fields and the other half service them. And that’s about triple what it was just three years ago. And it’ll triple again in half that time if things keep going as they are.”

“Boy, you really did read up on this,” commented Jamison.

“I like to know what I’m getting into.”

She looked at him curiously. “And what do you think that is, apart from a murder investigation?”

“This is the Wild West, Alex. It’s like the California Gold Rush of 1849, only on steroids.”

“So what exactly are you saying?”

“That the ordinary rules of civilization don’t necessarily apply up here.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

They drove down the main street that was bustling with people despite the coming storm, and reached a dead end when the first drops of chilly rain began to fall.

“Directions, please.”

“Next left,” said Decker.

They pulled to a stop in front of what turned out to be a funeral home.

Now Decker shot Jamison a curious glance.

“North Dakota is a coroner state, not a medical examiner state. The local guy here also runs this funeral home, crematorium, and mortuary. Full service.”

“You read up on it?” he asked.

She smiled impishly. “I’m a curious gal.”

“Is he at least trained in forensics?”

Jamison shrugged. “We can only hope.”

They barely beat the sheets of driving rain as they sprinted for the front door to see a dead person.