Coop contacted her three days later, by text, while she was taking a much-needed long lunch with a couple of the Hartford officers from the Special Victims Unit: NEED TO TALK. YOU AROUND?
Darby texted back: GIVE ME HALF AN HOUR.
OKAY. BATTERY ALMOST DEAD. WILL CALL FROM PAYPHONE.
Darby insisted on walking back to the station, despite the cold. She needed the fresh air.
She had spent a good part of the morning trapped inside an interview room with a female social worker and a ten-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her uncle. The girl pulled her sweater over her head – it was the only way she would answer their questions.
Her desk in the squad room was too busy and loud, so Darby fixed herself a paper cup of coffee and carried it with her through the back of the station and into the small parking lot. She was watching a pair of pigeons fighting over the picked-over remains of a half-eaten candy bar when her phone rang. ‘Fort Jefferson, Montana’ flashed across her Caller ID.
‘Your offer to come to Montana,’ Coop said. His voice sounded casual to her; she detected no undercurrent of urgency or concern. ‘Does it still stand?’
‘You’ll want to fly into Bozeman. There’s a motel in town called the Rose Courtyard. Place looks like a dump from the outside, but it’s neat and clean and cheap. I’ll meet you there.’
‘When do you want me to fly out?’
‘Tonight or tomorrow, latest. Don’t worry about the cost. I’m picking up the tab.’
‘I’ll check flights and call you back.’
‘Don’t call me on my business phone. Bureau keeps track of everything.’
‘What about your personal phone?’
‘I’d rather keep the lines clear, just in case.’
‘Just in case of what?’
‘I’d rather not let the Bureau know I’m bringing you into this. You two still don’t play well together.’
That was true, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was she had embarrassed the Bureau too many times, especially in the media, which was a mortal sin. The FBI would never forgive her for it, and Coop had to tread carefully in order to protect his career.
‘Contact me through the email account we set up back when we worked together in Boston,’ he said. ‘You know the one I’m talking about?’
‘The Gmail account.’
‘You remember the password?’
‘The unfortunate name of your high-school chemistry teacher, a Mr Richard Fingerhut.’
‘Or, as we called him, Dick Finger.’ Coop snickered like a twelve-year-old boy.
‘I’ll see if I can get a flight out tonight.’
‘Book everything on your credit card and I’ll reimburse you.’
‘Done. You need anything else?’
‘No,’ Coop said. ‘Just you.’
Darby wanted to fly out that night. Problem was, every single flight out of Hartford, New York, Boston or Rhode Island had at least two layovers, and every flight was ridiculously expensive. She wanted a direct flight, and there wasn’t a single one to be found until early the following week.
She didn’t want to wait that long, so she booked a flight leaving that night out of Hartford, at eight. It had two stops. If everything went according to plan, she would touch down in Bozeman early tomorrow morning. Thursday.
You didn’t have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous to practise their best-known motto, which was to live one day at a time. And you didn’t have to be Jewish to appreciate the Yiddish expression ‘Man plans and God laughs.’ These two philosophies had not only kept her sane and her anger in check during the tough spots in her professional and personal lives, but they had also proved especially useful when dealing with what she considered was the single most disorganized and frustrating bureaucracy on the planet: the Federal Aviation Administration.
When she reached her first layover in Atlanta, Georgia, she was told that the second leg of her flight had been accidentally overbooked; she didn’t have a seat on the plane. Darby told the woman she had urgent business in Montana and flashed her ‘special investigator’ badge, which was essentially meaningless. Fortunately the woman working the counter didn’t know that, and with a few keystrokes a seat suddenly became available.
But, in the end, Mother Nature made the final call. A major thunderstorm that had been waffling through the day decided to move into Atlanta with a vengeance, shutting down the airport. All flights were cancelled.
Darby flew out to Seattle the following morning, Thursday, after a fitful sleep at a nearby airport hotel; but her next flight had been cancelled because of mechanical problems. By the time she touched down at Bozeman on Saturday, fifty-nine hours had passed since she’d left Hartford. Using her iPhone, she logged on to the private Gmail account she and Coop shared and sent him a message saying she had arrived.
Darby rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It took her a few minutes to familiarize herself with the SUV’s on-board navigation system, and then she was on her way, the land flat and covered by snow.
The Rose Courtyard was a squat, brick building that had a decrepit sign planted high on a pole by the side of the road, the floodlights pointed at the writing advertising FREE HBO AND WI-FI!!! Darby was given a room out back, the only one that didn’t face the street. It had beige walls and smelled of carpet cleaner, and sitting on top of a cathode-ray TV set was a tented placard advertising free HBO, just in case she’d failed to notice the sign out front.
Darby dumped her suitcase and then went outside, to the Jeep, and drove to the downtown area. Everything was closed except for a handful of restaurants and bars. She parked and then started walking around the area, ducking down side streets and through alleyways, before entering a pub called the White Tail. She picked a spot at the bar where she could see the front door and a good part of the dining area.
She was halfway through her burger and drinking a beer when she took out her smartphone and, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, checked the Gmail account. Still no word from Coop.