Back of Beyond

by C. J. Box

  Gracie wondered what the deal was with Jed and Dakota, if they were an item. She’d seen how they talked with each other at the horse trailer.

  Yes, she decided. They were a couple, even if Jed was too old for her. Maybe, Gracie thought, there weren’t many choices of men in Montana.

  * * *

  The order of the riders, horses, and mules was established in the parking lot by Jed. Once everyone was mounted, he’d explained that the reason for the order of riders was not based on merit or preference, but by how the horses behaved with each other.

  “If you want to change the order,” he said, “we can maybe work it out at some point. We may find we want to change things up as well to keep the peace. But right now, just memorize the look of the rider’s butt and the horse’s butt ahead of you and follow those butts. Horses have an established pecking order. They also have friends and enemies. We know these horses better than we know you folks at this point, so trust us on this. Safety first, folks. If you change up the order you increase the chance of a wreck.”

  * * *

  Gracie rode next to last on Strawberry. When Jed handed her the reins of the pink horse, he told Gracie the animal was a sweetheart and “Don’t have an ounce of mean in her anymore if she ever did.” Strawberry was older than Gracie, he said, and this may be her last trip before she was retired to be a brood mare. All Strawberry required, Jed said, was kindness and she’d pay Gracie back with loyalty and predictability. “You look like a nice girl,” Jed had said.

  “Most of the time,” Gracie answered.

  “You’ve ridden a little?”

  “Quite a bit, actually,” she said.

  He gave her a paternalistic smile. “We’ll see,” he said.

  11

  Cody Hoyt said, “So, do you have a headlight that will work?”

  It was ten thirty in the morning and the mechanic leaned against a rolling, red-metal standing tool chest and drank a cup of coffee. Above his head was a Snap-On Tools calendar featuring a blonde winking while holding a wrench. The little garage was dark and close and smelled of oil and gasoline. Dust motes floated through the shafts of light from the cloudy windows. The mechanic wore gray coveralls and a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation cap. He was short and wiry with deep-set eyes and short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He’d shaved but had missed a triangle of whiskers above his Adam’s apple. Cody had waited for him outside the shop for an hour while the mechanic had leisurely morning coffee with other locals at the diner next door.

  “I might have one,” the mechanic said, “depending on your attitude.”

  Cody nearly launched himself across the floor at the guy, but managed to take a deep breath and look away. Orange spangles danced around the edges of his vision. He wanted to flash his badge or show his gun. He wanted to put the mechanic in a sleeper hold and threaten his eyes with pepper spray—anything to get the guy moving. He hated being a civilian. And he hated the fact that he had to operate below the radar and on his own. If he’d told the trooper the night before where he was going and why, the patrolman would have been duty bound to call it in and check the story. Cody couldn’t afford to have the sheriff know he was gone, and Townsend was close enough to Helena that Bodean might send someone to get him and bring him back. So, gritting his teeth against his nature, he’d followed the trooper back to town and nodded meekly when ordered to “Park it.”

  If he leaned on the mechanic the trooper would come back and he might never get out of Townsend, Montana, population 1,898.

  “Look,” Cody said, “just please put your other jobs aside long enough to wire in a new headlight.”

  The mechanic eyed Cody with a squint, sizing him up. Waiting for more groveling, Cody imagined.

  “I’ve been here all night,” Cody said. “The trooper said you’re the only mechanic in town right now. I’m really desperate to get on the road and he won’t let me go until I’ve got a headlight that works.”

  Finally, the mechanic said, “I doubt I can match the headlight. I might have to order one out of Helena or White Sulpher Springs—”

  Cody broke in, “It doesn’t have to look pretty. It doesn’t even have to fit. It just has to light up.”

  * * *

  The morning was cool and sunny and there were no pedestrians on the street. The Commercial Bar across the road was open, as it always was. Cody watched as a ranch truck parked at the curb and a beat-up old cowboy got out and went in for his breakfast beer. He wore irrigation boots and a sweat-stained straw hat. Jesus, he thought, a breakfast beer.

  As he walked he thought of Justin, and his stomach turned sour. Therefore, he had to keep it going. He had to find his son and keep that going. He owed the world the favor.

  * * *

  He pulled out his cell and speed-dialed Larry’s extension.

  “Olson.”

  “Larry, it’s me.”

  There was a beat before Larry cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me, what did you say your name was?”

  “Come on, Larry.”

  “And you’re with what company again?”

  “Ah,” Cody said, “Bodean’s in the room. Got it.”

  “Yes,” Larry said, clipped.

  “Can’t talk?”

  “No. How did you get this number?”

  “I’ll call back on your cell, then.”

  Larry said, “I don’t purchase toner or anything else for the office, lady. I’m a detective for the sheriff’s department, for crying out loud. I’ve got important work to do.” And slammed his phone down.

  * * *

  Cody called back three minutes later to find out Larry’s cell phone had been turned off.

  Cody closed his phone, puzzled. Larry never turned off his phone. So either Bodean was still in the room or something else was going on. What?

  Cody’s phone went off. He looked at the display. It was an unknown number but had the Montana 406 area code.

  “Yes,” Cody said.

  “Me,” Larry said. By the background traffic noises from Larry’s cell, Cody guessed his partner had taken a walk outside.

  “Don’t call me on my cell or the office number again,” Larry said. “They don’t know you’re gone. There can’t be a record of calls between us on either phone. And if they ask me if I’ve heard from you, I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t lie for you, Cody.”

  “I understand. So what is this phone you’re using?”

  “You know, it’s one I borrowed,” Larry stammered.

  “You’re learning.” Cody smiled to himself. He remembered the afternoon when he showed Larry how many phones there were in the evidence room, each tagged for specific cases. Some still had a battery charge left. He’d told Larry how, down in Denver, he’d used confiscated phones to make calls that couldn’t be traced back to him and sometimes, to aggravate a criminal, he’d call random numbers in Bolivia and Ecuador just to run up astronomical phone charges.

  “So, where are you?” Larry asked.

  Cody sighed. “I made it as far as Townsend and an HP trooper picked me up and marched me back to town for that fucking missing headlight.”

  Larry laughed. “Townsend? That’s all the further you got? You’re kidding.”

  “So I spent the night bouncing off the walls of the Lariat Motor Lodge. I’d recommend it only because it’s probably the last place in America that still has black-and-white TVs in the rooms and bedspreads that remind you of your grandmother’s house.”

  “You should have stayed home,” Larry said.

  Cody grunted, “No way. I’ll be back on the road in a few minutes.”

  Larry sighed.

  “Have you heard anything back from ViCAP or RMIN?”

  “Sort of,” Larry said. “RMIN is running the police reports from the most recent victim in Jackson Hole and they’ll be getting back to me. The case was classified as an accident but it sounds, well, real familiar. A woman named Karen Anthony, forty-six, divorced and living alone, was found dead in her home outside o
f Wilson. Same deal, Cody. Her place was burned down around her and she was found the next day underneath the debris. Head injuries the likely cause of death.”

  Cody said, “Anything like what we’ve got in terms of an open stove, or the bottle?”

  “Nope. The evidence so far doesn’t match up to ours. But the circumstances of the death ring true.”

  Cody walked down the empty sidewalk, pacing. He noticed a face watching him from the window of the Commercial Bar. It was the cowboy he’d seen enter earlier. The man tipped his hat and took a deep drink from a beer mug as if to taunt him. The cowboy was drinking a red beer—spiced tomato juice and Bud Light. Cody used to start the day with one. Its properties were magical.

  “Bastard,” Cody said.

  “What?” Larry asked.

  “Not you. What did Karen Anthony do? What was her job?”

  “Let’s see,” Larry said. “Okay, here. She was an independent hospital consultant. Had her own firm, and apparently a pretty successful one. She had an office in Jackson and one in Denver, Minneapolis, and Omaha.”

  Cody rubbed his face. “One of the victims was from Minnesota, right? Is there a connection there?”

  “I don’t know. We’re too early in this thing. I’ve got a telephone meeting scheduled with an analyst at ViCAP later today so maybe we’ll be able to establish a link of some kind. The only thing I can figure, obviously, is Winters was a pharma guy and Karen Anthony was a hospital consultant. So maybe they worked together somehow or knew each other. But it’ll take a hell of a lot more digging.”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “We still don’t know anything about the Minnesota and Virginia deaths. They could be connected to these two or not. ViCAP might be able to help with that.”

  Larry said, “And Cody, nothing really connects Winters and Anthony yet except for the burned-down houses and the proximity of the dates. This thread is so thin.…”

  “I know,” Cody said. “Keep me posted, okay? My cell should work all day until I get to Yellowstone.”

  “So you’re still going,” Larry said.

  “Damn right. Hey—did you get in touch with Jed McCarthy’s office yet?”

  Larry paused while a diesel vehicle passed him, the engine hammering away. Then: “I’ve left two more messages to call me.”

  Cody stopped. “You haven’t asked the Bozeman PD to roust it? Come on, Larry!”

  Silence. Then it dawned on Cody but Larry spoke before he had a chance to apologize.

  “You asshole,” Larry said. “You were supposed to be at that office when it opened. You weren’t supposed to be playing with yourself in fucking Townsend, Montana. And how would it have been for you if you showed up at Wilderness Adventures at the same time as the local cops? Don’t you think they’d ask questions? Don’t you think they’d figure out real damned quick you were a suspended detective and call up here and talk to Tub?”

  “I know,” Cody said, “I’m sorry. You’re thinking clearly and I’m not. Thank you, Larry.”

  “I’m tired of doing you favors,” Larry said.

  “I know. I don’t blame you.”

  “You are an unthinking prick sometimes,” Larry said.

  “Okay,” Cody hissed, “I’ve got the point.”

  “Good,” Larry said with finality.

  Cody heard the rolling-thunder sound of the garage door being opened up. He turned to see the mechanic backing out his SUV. There was a headlight there, all right. It didn’t fit into the damaged fender but was wired and taped around the dented hole. It looked like a detached eyeball.

  “I’m ready to roll,” Cody said. “Keep me posted on what you find out from ViCAP and RMIN.”

  Larry sighed.

  “You call me, I won’t call you,” Cody said, “but keep that burner phone handy and hidden, okay? In case I find something out from the office in Bozeman.”

  “Gotcha,” Larry said.

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  * * *

  Cody waved and took a deep breath as he drove by the highway patrol car pulled over on the side of the highway a mile out of Townsend. The trooper whooped on his siren and gestured for him to pull over.

  Cody sat seething while the trooper slowly got out of his car and slowly walked up along the driver’s side. He powered the window down.

  “Now what?” Cody said.

  “I see you got a headlight. It doesn’t look so good, though,” the trooper said. “I hope you’ll get that front end fixed and get a new light as soon as you can.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ve got a question for you,” the trooper said, tipping his hat back and watching Cody’s face carefully for tics or tells. Cody knew the drill. He was about to be asked a question he wouldn’t want to answer, and the trooper hoped to catch him in a lie. “I ran your plates. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, this vehicle doesn’t exist. Your number doesn’t correspond with a name, in other words.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Cody said quickly. “I bought it at a county auction up in Helena. They used to use it for undercover surveillance, the auctioneer told me. He said the sheriff’s department uses some dummy plates so the bad guys don’t know who they are. I guess they just kept the plates on.”

  The trooper rubbed his chin, thinking that over.

  “I’ll get some new plates as soon as I get home to Bozeman,” Cody said. “I promise you. I’ll send you the receipt to prove it.”

  At that moment, the trooper’s handheld squawked. Cody heard the dispatcher reporting a one-car rollover five miles north of Townsend.

  “Guess you better go,” Cody said.

  The trooper hesitated for a moment, then said, “Send me that receipt. But something about that story of yours is fishy.”

  “Check it out,” Cody said. “You’ll see.”

  The trooper waved at him dismissively and started back to his car. Cody silently thanked whomever had lost control of their car north of town, and eased back out onto the road.

  * * *

  The headquarters for Wilderness Adventures was located south of Bozeman on U.S. 191 near the Gallatin Gateway Inn on the road to West Yellowstone and Yellowstone Park. Cody arrived at 1:30 P.M., cursing himself yet again for the debacle in Townsend that put him twelve hours behind where he wanted to be.

  The office was a converted old home shaded by ancient cottonwoods and surrounded by rolling pasture and outbuildings and corrals in decent repair. Six or seven horses grazed and twitched their tails against the flies and didn’t look up to greet him. It wasn’t the kind of office guests were likely to visit, he thought, but no doubt it made for a good staging area for large-scale horse operations. The pasture fed the horses when they weren’t on a pack trip. The sign for Wilderness Adventures was homemade; a modern swooping logo painted on a frame made of old barnwood. There was an older blue sedan parked on the side of the building.

  He killed the engine, vaulted up the wooden steps to the porch, and banged on the frame of the screen door.

  “Yes?” A woman’s voice. She sounded startled.

  “My name’s Cody Hoyt,” he said. “I need to talk to someone who knows something about the pack trip in Yellowstone.”

  “Oh my,” said a plump older woman who suddenly came into view through the screen. “You weren’t booked on the trip, were you? Because it left this morning.”

  * * *

  Her name was Margaret Cooper and she was the sole office employee of Wilderness Adventures and had been for twenty-five years, she said. She wore thick glasses and her hair was tightly curled and looked like steel wool. She wore jeans, a white shirt that bulged in the middle, and a Western pattern vest embroidered with cowgirls and lariats. The lobby of the office was filled with large cardboard boxes reading DELL.

  “We’re in the process of computerizing,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “Jed is making me learn how to run one of those things. He says it will make us more efficient, but I think it’s, you know, a fad. This old dog doesn
’t need new tricks. I’ve been running the business part of the company all these years and I don’t need a machine. I’ve got everything I need in there,” she said, and gestured toward a bank of old metal filing cabinets. “I’m supposed to put all that information back there into the machine, and Jed says he wants me to update the Web site so he doesn’t have to do it from home. Can you imagine that? The World Wide Web? I want no part of it.”

  Cody nodded curtly. He noticed the telephone on her desk was blinking with messages.

  “Don’t you answer your phone?” he asked. “My colleague was calling you all morning.”

  “Of course I answer the phone,” she said, her eyes flashing behind those thick lenses. “But it’s a little hard to do when you’re sitting in a computer class the entire morning learning how to work a program called Excella.”

  “Excel,” Cody said. “So you haven’t been in until now?”

  “I just got here a half hour ago,” she said, still miffed at him. “I was working. I just wasn’t here. Jed insisted I take that class once a week and today is the day.”

  Cody said, “Do you have the list of clients on the current trip? I need to look at it.”

  “Of course I have it,” she said. “But can you tell me why you want to see who is on it? Isn’t this kind of an invasion of privacy?”

  Cody caught himself before he rolled his eyes. “I don’t see how it could be,” he said. “Look, I need to know if my son is on this trip. It’s important. There’s an emergency in the family.”

  “You won’t be able to contact him,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no way to communicate with a pack trip once they’ve left into the park. There are no cell things.”

  “Towers,” he said. “Look, I know that. But if he’s on it I need to know. I’ll figure the rest out.”

  She squinted at him and pursed her lips. “Your manner is very brusque.”

  “Sorry,” he said, stepping toward her. “But show me the list.”