by Rob Phillips
McCain thought it was admirable of her to be so passionate about one fish species, but if you talked to the average person around the area, they really couldn’t care less. But someone had to do it, McCain knew, and she was the perfect woman for the job.
“You need to talk to Hargraves about that,” McCain said, throwing poor old Stan directly under the bus.
If looks could kill, McCain would be dead, because Hargraves was staring daggers at him.
When the meetings finally ended, primarily because it was lunch time, and most of the workers there required “a duty-free lunch hour,” McCain went over to Hargraves and told him he owed him one.
“You’re damn right you do,” Hargraves said and left it at that.
Chapter 12
He was finally headed back out into the field at two o’clock. He jumped in his truck, turned on the engine and checked the outside thermometer. It showed ninety-six degrees. During some Julys and Augusts in Central Washington, the high temperatures would top ninety degrees every day for weeks on end. On the hot days, when McCain kept the dog at home, Jack lounged around inside the house because it was air conditioned. McCain figured it would do the dog good to get outside, so he swung in and picked him up on the way up Highway 12 to do some checks on anglers on the river and a few of the lakes.
It was the third of July, and the campgrounds along the rivers were filled with people from all over the state. Travel trailers were parked next to tent trailers parked next to motor homes. And in between there were tents of all colors and sizes. Many campers just liked being out of town, hanging around a campfire, enjoying a hot dog cooked over the fire and a cold beer.
Some liked to fish on their camping outings, although many would opt to do so without purchasing a fishing license. Why spend the money on a license if it was only going to be used once or twice? So it was a busy time for McCain, checking to see if everyone was fishing legally. And heaven forbid if someone had caught and killed a bull trout. Andrea Parker would want them hung up by their thumbs.
As he was driving through Naches he looked over at the café and saw Jim Kingsbury’s truck parked out front. McCain slowed and turned in. He wanted to ask the man a couple questions.
He parked, left the truck running with the AC on so Jack could keep cool, locked the doors with his key fob, and walked into the café. Kingsbury was sitting with another man who McCain recognized as Frank Dugdale, the man Kingsbury had been cussing the day before.
As he walked up to the two men sitting at the counter, he stirred the pot a little, “I heard the silvers turned on up at Rimrock.”
“Bullshit,” said Kingsbury. The man was attired in cargo shorts, flip-flops and a red t-shirt that said in bold white letters: BAN SHREDDED CHEESE—MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN. His Crocodile Dundee hat was sitting on the counter.
Dugdale just grinned.
“Hey, I got a couple of questions for you two,” McCain said as he grabbed a seat at the counter next to Kingsbury. “You guys know most of the people around here. You know a younger guy, stands about six feet or a bit more, wears a cowboy hat and drives an older silver Honda? Might have a girlfriend with long black hair.”
“I’ve seen them,” said Dugdale. “The girl is a looker, for sure.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them too,” said Kingsbury. “But I don’t know either of them. They’ve been hanging around town for the past couple weeks. Might be here to work in the orchards.”
It was cherry season in the Yakima Valley. Growers from the Tri-Cities up to Wenatchee and beyond grow and ship cherries, and when the fruit is ready to pick, in June and July, thousands of pickers are needed. Many of the pickers migrate with the work, starting in early June down near Pasco where the fruit ripens first, and follow the jobs up the valley as the cherries in the higher elevations are ready to pick.
“You know anyone else around who drives a 90s era silver Honda?” McCain asked.
“Those damned foreign cars all look alike to me,” Kingsbury said.
“Not just the foreign cars,” Dugdale said. “Fords look like Toyotas, and Mercedes look like Chevys. The SUVs all look alike. You can’t tell one from the other. What happened to the days when car designers wanted their cars to look different than everyone else’s?”
The man with three first names was right, of course. McCain had often thought the same thing and wondered why someone would spend $80,000 on a SUV made by BMW when they could get one from Ford that looked almost the same for half the price.
“So, you don’t know anyone around here with a silver Honda, 1990s vintage?” McCain repeated his question.
Both men sat and contemplated the question a bit more. They both shook their heads.
“Not that I can think of,” Kingsbury said. “But if we see one, should we call you?”
“No, not necessary,” McCain said. “There’ll probably be about a hundred of them coming through town over the next few days.”
Highway 12 and Highway 410 were both used heavily during the summer to get from the west side of the state to the east side. Many people from the Puget Sound area drove to Yakima and other cities in Eastern Washington to get away from the masses, and to enjoy some sun and fun. Instead of traveling on the busy I-90 freeway, they would opt for the more leisurely, picturesque drive over one of the other east/west passes. They came to play in the water, or golf, or take wine tours. And they came to fish.
“But if you see any other shady-looking characters that resemble Frank here, give me a holler,” McCain added.
He thanked the men and headed back out to the cool of the air-conditioned truck cab.
As he was heading up Highway 12 near the “Y” where 410 and 12 merged, he saw the oversized black sedan of Agent Sinclair heading his way. He flashed his lights at her and pulled off the highway on a gravel turn out, but she blew right past him.
“Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do,” McCain said to Jack.
A second later his cellphone was ringing.
McCain pushed the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel and said, “I didn’t think you saw me.”
“I saw you, but I need to get back to the office,” Sinclair said. “As of ten minutes ago, the FBI is officially on the case. I found the black hair you said you saw, and by the size of leg bones, the crime scene people believe it is another woman. So, after Williams talked to the sheriff, they have asked us to come in and take the lead.”
“Kinda saw that coming,” McCain said.
“I’d really like to talk to you,” she said. “But I have to go file about six reports to get the ball rolling. Can we meet for dinner later?”
“Sure,” McCain said. “Let’s meet at that Japanese steakhouse out by the airport. You know the one?”
“Yeah, a group of us met there for lunch a couple weeks ago. See you there about seven.”
And she was gone.
McCain finished his day up along the Tieton River, checking anglers on the river and at a couple small gravel pits that sat next to the highway. His mode of operation was to pull in and just watch people for a bit. He studied them and their reaction to his arrival. The nervous ones, who might not have licenses, or had a fish or two over their limit, would always make a move. And McCain would nab them. When they didn’t see his truck, he would keep an eye on them and watch what they did. Then, when he contacted them in person, he would ask them questions to which he already knew the answer.
One group of three younger guys he watched for a bit had caught three trout in rapid succession: bang, bang, bang. That told McCain they had it figured out and probably had several more trout in the cooler, where they’d put the three he had seen them catch.
McCain, with Jack at his side, walked up behind the group a couple minutes later and asked, “How’s fishing, boys?”
They turned, saw he was a wearing a badge, and started hem-hawing.
“We’ve got a couple, but it’s been pretty slow,” the biggest of the three guys said.
“A couple, huh? Are y
ou keeping any?”
“Naw,” the bigger guy said, obviously the spokesman for the group.
“Can I see your fishing licenses and IDs?” McCain asked. “Whatcha got in the cooler?”
“Just some beer,” the spokesman said as he handed McCain his license and ID.
He checked the other two licenses and said, “You know, you guys can keep five trout apiece in this lake.”
“Yeah, we know,” the shortest guy said.
“No fish then on a stringer or in a cooler?” McCain asked again.
“No, sir,” the short one answered. All of sudden he was the talker.
Jack moved over and started sniffing the cooler. The big guy was trying to shoo him away.
“Okay, I’m going to be straight up with you fellas,” McCain explained. “I was watching you from my truck over there, and in five minutes I saw you land three trout and toss them in the cooler. So I know you have kept some. The only reason you might lie to me about that is maybe you have a few more than three in there.”
When it was all said and done, McCain counted twenty-two trout in the ice chest. He wrote each of the men a citation for catching over their limit and told them not to do it again. That, he knew, was like telling a post to stop standing there looking stupid.
He talked to a few other anglers around the lake and checked their licenses. A middle-aged man in a floppy hat and a Hawaiian shirt like Tom Selleck used to wear on the TV show Magnum PI said he was glad that McCain caught the guys with too many fish.
“They were loud and foul-mouthed and every time they caught a fish they would hoot and holler,” that man said. “It got old fast. I was just about to go over there and have a few words with them when you showed up. I hope you gave them a big, fat ticket.”
McCain told the floppy hat man that getting into it with guys like that probably wasn’t the best idea, and if he was to have problems again, to give him a call. Then he gave the man his card and continued on.
He went and checked several anglers on the river, and luckily, none had any bull trout in their possession. He would put that in his daily report so that Andrea Parker would know he was doing his job.
The steakhouse out by the airport was one of those where a bunch of strangers sat around a giant sizzling hot grill, and the chef would come out in a tall white hat and cook your meal in front of you. It was like Benihana, but since Yakima was too small to actually have a Benihana, this was the next best thing. The restaurant also had several booths in a separate area where diners could forgo the show and just have a nice quiet meal. When Sinclair arrived, that is what they decided to do.
“So how was your day?” she asked after they had been seated.
“Oh, you know,” he said. “I sat through about four hours of mind-numbingly boring discussion about streamside habitat and the effect it has on spawning bull trout. Then Jack and I went out and harassed some trout fishermen.”
“Wow,” she said. “Why didn’t I become a game warden?”
“That’s fish and wildlife police officer,” he corrected. “Yeah, you don’t know what kind of fun you’re missing out on. And how about you? Did you enjoy your little horse ride up into the Cascades?”
Sinclair said she actually did like the ride up the trail to the bones. When she was a teenager her friend had horses, and they rode them often. She always enjoyed riding, even if it was on business.
McCain had never quite understood the relationship that some females had with horses. It was like a mystical bond.
“Did Williams ride up the hill?” he asked.
“Nope, he walked,” she said.
“How’d they get the bones down?”
“The coroner placed them in a body bag and then strapped the bag onto a pack horse.”
“Anyone find anything else around the bones of interest, besides the hair?”
“No, not really.”
“Did you see the old boot track?” he asked.
“No, I missed that,” she said. “Where was it?”
“About five yards north of the hair. It was only a partial, and fairly old. Coulda been from a hunter or who knows. I took a few photos on my phone. Laid my flashlight next to it for size comparison. I saw you FBI guys do that on TV once.”
“Wow, writing tickets to poor fishermen just trying to catch enough trout for dinner AND an investigator. Look at you.”
“Aw, shucks,” McCain said.
“I’ll need you to send me those photos by the way,” she said.
They chatted about the site, and the bones, and the other bodies through the rest of dinner. McCain finally remembered to tell her about the guy in the silver Honda coming out of the mountains on the same road where the second body had been dumped. He also told her about the silver Honda in Naches, with the cowboy and the girl with the long black hair. He gave her the partial license plate from his notepad and saw the reminder he’d made about the horse rental places.
“I was thinking about how someone might get a body up that trail by himself,” McCain elaborated. “First off, if he packed the body on his back or shoulders, he’s gotta be in fantastic shape. Then I thought he might have gotten up there the way you did today, or I did yesterday, by horseback. So, it might be worth checking with the Indian Spring Corrals folks, and any other place that rents horses for day trips to riders and hunters, and get the names of anyone who had rented a horse in October or November last year, and March and April this year.”
“Good idea,” she said.
“It’s probably nothing but might be worth checking out.”
“You never know when something is going to help,” Sinclair said. “When we finally sent out the language in the letters from the Unabomber, it was the guy’s brother who helped identify him.”
“You mean that John Krasinski guy?” McCain asked, knowing that he’d given her the wrong name.
“Kaczynski,” she corrected him. “John Krasinski is the guy who played Jim on The Office. Good thing you only have to run down poachers who escape from jail.”
McCain started laughing and told her he’d given her the wrong name to see if she’d catch it.
“Riiight,” she said.
As they were walking out to their vehicles after dinner, McCain said, “I know I’m not officially part of this investigation, but I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I’d like to help where I can.”
Sinclair thanked McCain, jumped in the black beast, and roared off into the night.
Before McCain turned his truck out of the parking lot he typed her a text: Why do Oregon Ducks eat cereal from the box? Because they choke whenever they get near a bowl.
When he awoke the next morning, there was a text waiting for him on his phone. It read: Do you know what WSU grads say to Oregon grads? You want fries with that?
Touché, McCain thought to himself.
Chapter 13
The 4th of July was going to be a hot one. Close to 100 degrees according to the Storm Chaser weather dude on the local NBC station. McCain always wondered why the big wigs at the TV station would promote their weather forecasters as storm chasers. This wasn’t Kansas or someplace with tornados tearing up trailer parks now and again. Nor was it the southeast where they were hit by a hurricane about every other week. This was Central Washington. This area had two storms a year, and those were winter storms in December or January. He figured the other ten months of the year the storm chasers were sitting on their thumbs because, besides a rain shower once in a rare while, your average third grader could look outside and tell you what the weather was. But the storm chaser name sounded good, and McCain guessed the aging viewers of the local news at six didn’t really give a crap.
He also had to laugh at the weather person at the CBS affiliate. Her name was Wendy Storm. Not Windy, but Wendy, although when she said her name it came out as Windy. Of course, the local viewers believed it to be a made-up name, but she had taken to Facebook and Instagram to assure the viewers that no, really, that was her given name.
McCain thought to get people to believe her, she should end each one of her weather forecasts by saying, “And that’s the weather, I’m Wendy Storm. I shit you not.”
All three of the weather broadcasters at the local TV stations basically said the same thing about the 4th of July. It was going to be hotter than the hubs of hell.
While most people had the day off to celebrate our country’s independence, WDFW police officers were on the clock. Many of the celebrations started early in the campgrounds and other gathering areas, and usually by the time it was dark enough for fireworks, some of the partiers were already lit. It always led to some crazy stuff.
Drunken people and illegal fireworks were always a bad combination, and McCain had spent several 4th of Julys helping to fight small brush fires, trying to keep the county from burning up. Over the years there had been a couple of squabbles that he’d had to deal with as well. Beer and hot weather had a tendency to exacerbate any conflicts amongst revelers.
The fires, of course, were all calls that the district fire departments were supposed to handle. And the fights were something the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office should be dealing with, but again, Yakima County was a big one, and anyone with a badge was put to work dealing with the issues of the holiday. So, it was no surprise when McCain heard the dispatcher call for assistance at a campground up Highway 12, not far from where he’d checked the anglers at the small lake the day before.
According to dispatch, there was a fight brewing in the campground. The lady who called in to report the altercation said she thought one of the people had a gun. McCain heard Deputy Stratford, who was patrolling the passes, respond and say he was probably thirty minutes away.
“Crap,” he said to Jack who was riding in the seat next to him. “I guess we had better go check it out.”
He jumped on the radio and told dispatch he was ten minutes away and would go have a look.
When he pulled into the campground, he saw a group of about fifteen people all in a big circle. Usually when a police rig pulls into an area where something is happening, people in the group tend to scatter. And some of them did when they saw McCain’s rig with the lights in the grill flashing red and blue, and the big badge emblem on the door. But not all of them did.