Thief River Falls

Lisa parks her car at a campsite near Lake Bronson Dam, hoping she and Purdue can hide out while they wait for Will to call Lisa back. Lisa and Purdue walk along a trail through the woods and Lisa continues to ask Purdue what he remembers of the night before. Purdue remembers seeing a big man tied to a tree while the red-haired man, Liam, cut off his fingers one at a time. Then, according to Purdue, a white alligator shot the big man who was tied to the tree and killed him. Lisa asks Purdue what he means by the white alligator, and Purdue explains, “It was a man who did it, but when I see him in my head, I don’t see a person. All I see is the alligator. A white alligator” (86). Purdue remembers the incident happening near water, but he is not sure if it was a lake or a river. After they killed the man, the men noticed Purdue. Purdue remembers them saying, “Kill the boy” (86) and explains, “I think they hit me with something. That’s when I stopped remembering things. It’s like I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Not until I was in the back of the truck” (86-87). Purdue doesn’t know how he ended up near the water or near the scene of the incident to begin with.

Purdue and Lisa return to Lisa’s truck. Purdue gets inside the truck while Lisa goes to use the restroom. When she returns, she sees the passenger side door open and two sets of footprints—a child’s and adult’s—leading into the woods. Lisa realizes Purdue must have been chased there. She takes out her gun and follows the prints. She hears a gunshot in the distance. A moment later, Lisa sees Purdue standing in front of her. Lisa wraps Purdue in a hug and pulls them both into the bushes to hide. From between the bush branches, Lisa sees the red-haired man, Liam, walk past them on the trail, holding his gun. Deeper in the woods, an animal rushes some branches, and Liam, thinking it’s Purdue, runs toward the noise. Lisa carries Purdue out of their hiding place, and they run back to Lisa’s truck. As she starts the truck, Liam appears at the edge of the woods. Liam shoots at the truck but misses. Lisa drives out of the campsite and onto the road and sees Liam’s car, a white Malibu. She shoots its front tire and drives off. 

Once they are five miles past the campsite and Liam, Lisa pulls over and starts to cry. Lisa realizes she feels like “a different person. A changed person” and thinks, “she’d realized something frightening about herself. She was capable of violence […] If that man had come for the boy, she would have pulled the trigger. She was prepared to defend this child with her life if she had to. And she would take the life of anyone who got in her way” (92). Seeing Lisa cry, Purdue feels guilty for bringing danger upon her and says he should go so she doesn’t end up getting killed too. Lisa responds, “If someone needs help, you drop everything and you help them. Just like what you hope they would do for you” (93). Knowing it’s not safe to stay put, Lisa suggests they go back to her house so she can change clothes, and then they’ll drive off somewhere.

Outside her house, Lisa makes sure there is no one in sight. Lisa instructs Purdue to stay hidden in the car while she goes inside. At the front door, however, she notices the door is unlocked and there are puddles from muddy footprints inside her house. Lisa calls out, but whoever broke into her house is gone now. She quickly changes clothes, grabs some snacks from her kitchen and goes back out to the truck. At that moment, Lisa and Purdue see a police car approaching the house. Again, Lisa tells Purdue to stay hidden in the truck while she approaches the police car. Two policemen get out and introduce themselves as Deputy Garrett and Deputy Stoll. Lisa remembers that Purdue had seen two policemen at the scene of the murder the night before. Lisa also recognizes the two policemen as the ones who had come by her house in the middle of the night. Lisa tells the men it is unusual they haven’t met, since she knows all the policemen in the county, but the deputies claim they are recent transfers to the area. Lisa asks the deputies if they were at her house the night before, and they say yes. Lisa accuses the men of having their guns out when they approached her house the night before. She also accuses them of entering her home that morning without a warrant. Deputy Garrett responds, “I understand that you’re upset. We mean you no harm at all. Truly. Our only concern right now is the missing boy” (97). The deputies know the boy is with Lisa. Lisa remembers that policemen had been two of the killers, according to Purdue, but she also wonders if he is remembering the events of the night incorrectly—maybe it would be safer to return Purdue to the police. Finally, she agrees to bring Purdue to the police as long as she can stay with him the entire time. At that moment, Will calls Lisa on her cell phone. Will says that he has spoken to other field offices and that he is certain there is no manhunt or human trafficking operation happening in Lisa’s area. 

Thanks to Will’s call, Lisa now knows the deputies are lying and that Purdue really is in trouble. Lisa calmly thanks Will for the information and hangs up the phone. Lisa lies to the deputies and tells them the phone call was from her agent in New York. She tells them Purdue is hiding in the metal shed behind her garage. Deputy Garrett reaches out and shakes Lisa’s hand. On his hand, Lisa sees a tattoo of a white alligator. Lisa still isn’t sure of her plan, but she knows, “[if] she and Purdue get in the SUV with these two men, their next stop would be a grave site. The remote lands offered plenty of places to hide bodies that would never be found” (102). Lisa follows the deputies to the metal shed and the deputies search inside with flashlights. As the men go deeper into the shed, Lisa pulls out her gun and instructs them to raise their hands and stay where they are. She tells the deputies she knows about Liam, the dead man, and the severed fingers. Quickly, she latches and locks the metal shed door, locking the deputies inside, but “at the very instant the lock snapped shut, the entire structure shuddered as the combined weight of the two men landed heavily against the door” (105). Lisa knows the rusting metal on the shed door won’t hold forever, so she grabs her gun and runs back toward her pickup truck where Purdue is hiding inside. 

Lisa drives herself and Purdue to Laurel’s farm where she lives with her husband, Curtis. As they drive up, they see horses. Purdue mentions that he loves horses, and he believes his mom loved horses too. When Lisa asks Purdue if he remembers anything else about his mother, he says no, but Lisa notices, “Purdue was using the past tense about his mother without even realizing it” (107). Lisa and Purdue get out of the truck and walk toward a gazebo on Laurel’s property. Lisa finds a jigsaw puzzle inside the gazebo and tells Purdue to work on the puzzle while she talks to Laurel. As Lisa leaves the gazebo, Purdue reminds her that he still doesn’t like Laurel.

Lisa goes inside Laurel’s house and waits for Laurel in Laurel’s office. Lisa’s book, Thief River Falls, is sitting on the coffee table in the office. A moment later, Laurel enters the office. Laurel says that she has been making calls all day, just as she’d promised Lisa, but she hasn’t figured out any information about the missing boy. Lisa says she doesn’t know who to trust, and Laurel responds, “You can trust me.” Lisa thinks, “That was true, but Lisa found it an odd thing for her friend to say” (111). Lisa tells Laurel about her day, including the trip to Mrs. Lancaster’s house, her conversation with Will at the FBI, her run-in with Liam at the campsite, and the deputies who appeared at her house and whom she locked in her shed. Lisa says she knows she and Purdue are in danger and she needs to get out of town. Laurel suggests Lisa go to Fargo where she knows that Noah, Lisa’s twin brother, lives.

Laurel says Lisa should go to Noah, because she knows she can trust her own brother, but Lisa responds, “I can’t trust him […] Noah made that very clear. I can’t rely on him to be there when I need him” (113). Lisa asks Laurel if her husband, Curtis, who owns a plane, will fly her and Purdue to Minneapolis. Lisa believes that in Minneapolis, she can get in touch with Will and the FBI, and she’ll also feel safer being in a big city. Laurel agrees to ask Curtis, but says she doesn’t want Lisa carrying a gun, because it could cause more trouble for Lisa. Laurel makes Lisa hand over her gun to her.