by Mark Stevens
Alvin stopped as if that completed a loop of logic.
“And Rocky?”
“Was her favorite. He started picking up shifts, seemed like, to be with her. An A-1 hunting guide spending his days shuttling her around? I think she took a fancy to him. I bumped into them one day in the grocery store. Sick woman and her helper? I don’t think so.”
“But—”
“No, I don’t think anyone would take the chance of playing footsie with the boss’ wife. Most likely, they were friends. Anyway, that was Rocky. He could get real sympathetic.”
“George didn’t notice?”
“Who’s to say? Go talk to her, but bring your machete.”
“Huh?”
“Her house is a jungle. Plants growing out of every nook and granny. I mean cranny.” He started to laugh.
“Cats, too. Every shape and size, climbing on everything.”
Alvin stopped. His face contorted like he suddenly solved the quadratic equation. “But maybe he saw a set of antlers, an unbelievable rack he couldn’t resist and he set off after them. Got lost. It’s happened. He was always after the prize, wanted to break all the records, get his picture plastered all over the paper. That boy was convinced the record rack was right here in the Flat Tops. Convinced.”
“Really?”
“And velvet too. Rocky said he had a pipeline to get the velvet to Korea and China and places like that. Prize USA velvet or even fresh antler, all ground up and preserved. Like I said, Rocky always talked about a pipeline outta here, right under the export radar and off she goes, money coming right back.”
“You believe that?” said Allison. Alvin was getting a faraway look in his eye but she still needed something from him.
“What, that it’s some sort of Chinese Viagra?” said Alvin.
“Yeah, you believe it?”
“You mean, have I tried it?”
“Didn’t ask that.”
“Well, I would try it but I don’t fucking need it, pardon the joke,” he said. “Mind if I use the bathroom?”
“Before I forget, can you get me the names of the other three hunters? The full names?”
“Still onto that? Sure,” said Alvin.
“Of course. If you want to get your hands all dirty.”
He wobbled a bit as he walked. He stood a moment before opening the bathroom door, getting his bearings. Allison started thinking of how to scoot him out, maybe pretend she was the one that had to leave. She’d rather be with Trudy. She wondered if Slater had the sources to find out which cop might have talked to Fishy, Frank and Locks.
She was lost in thought and didn’t hear Alvin finish up. He came up behind her and put a hand on each shoulder, rubbing the muscles. His hands felt like steel clamps, stiff and indifferent. Built to grip, not to touch. She squirmed, leaning forward.
“Aw, the big brush-off.”
He worked his way around to her chest. She stood up and turned around.
He held up his hands like an innocent and feigned surprise.
She leaned against the table, eyeing him and getting a whiff of the bourbon. He retrieved the bottle, took a drink and passed it to her like an invitation. She shook her head no.
He took a step forward, standing between her legs. He brushed his knuckles on her cheek.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“Bobby.”
“Who’s gonna know?”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Going?” he mocked. “It is happening.”
She gripped the table as he went for her arm.
“The girl from the big city. That’s how they talk. Going. Is that how they tease, too?”
“I thought we could talk.”
He reached around, grinding his pelvis against hers. He grabbed for the bottle. He knocked back a swig. “One little go ’round,” he said. “Like the rodeo. A go ’round.”
“No,” said Allison, thinking that striking him might be like whipping a spooked horse.
She felt him hook a finger in the top button of her Wranglers. “Don’t do this,” she said.
“Animals do it and they don’t even know why,” he said. “You’re not gonna deny a guy who’s a bit down on his luck. One peek at that cute butt.” He cracked a slick half smile, working to provide a glimpse of warmth. “How does such a petite thing like you learn how to ride them big ol’ horses, anyway? Okay, let’s pretend I’m the horse. Saddle me up, strap me on.”
She turned her head slightly as he moved in for a kiss. He landed his desperate, dull mouth on her cheek. She kept her arms propped back against the table behind her and tried to look unconcerned. He rocked his pelvis, wanting her to feel his excitement.
He had already wormed his face around to the back of her neck, thinking it was irresistible. She resented his size and position and demands. The top button of her jeans popped loose. She put a hand on his hand, where it was searching for the next notch of hope and pulled it away.
“Stop,” she said. She hit a tone point past firm but not quite angry. She put her hands on his cheeks. “Stop. You need to stop right now. This is not a re-start. I needed help and I thought you’d be willing to give it to me. That’s it, that’s all.”
He stood slow as a bear after hibernation. He looked her in the eye.
“Jesus,” he said. “Sorry. I thought maybe, thought we ...”
“I know,” said Allison.
“If you ever ...”
“I know,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know what ...”
She buttoned her jeans.
In the world of events, she thought, a romp with Alvin wouldn’t have hurt. But it might have given him hope. And there was the complication. Pieces of the heart, once frozen over, should never be deiced.
Eight
Allison parked her Blazer beyond the perimeter fence of the airport and picked up her binoculars. There was no problem picking out the Gulfstream, a showroom-clean and bright white jet parked amid the smaller props. Four men were sorting gear and moving equipment around. George’s Mooney was wingtip to wingtip with the Gulfstream. Trudy had given her the Mooney’s tail number and Allison jotted down the Gulfstream’s.
A small truck was parked nearby and even without its sign Allison would have recognized it: Ted’s Taxidermy. The enclosed rear of the truck was refrigerated. It was not possible to pick out George until near the end of the fifteen-minute exchange of baggage. The last item moved was an elk or a deer. A sizable set of antlers poked out of the canvas wrap that held the skin. Elk. Two men shook hands and one headed to the steps that led up to the Gulfstream. The other man, who went back to his pickup, had to be George.
“Where’s Rocky?” she said out loud. “Where’s Rocky, George? Do you know?”
The staircase automatically folded up into the Gulfstream and the clutter of men and equipment vanished from the jet’s skirts. Allison rolled down her window to listen to the engine’s whistle. The machine lumbered out to the runway. Without stopping, and without an ounce of extra noise, the jet reached takeoff speed with no visible sign of struggle. It shot up into the clouds. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine percent of the time, she thought, aircraft function like they should.
Allison slumped low in the front seat of the Blazer until she heard George and the Ted’s Taxidermy truck drive past. There was one road in and out of the airport. She could see enough to tell that George’s truck was full. The taxidermist followed George and she slowly turned her Blazer around after they had left. There was no need to follow. Ted’s destination wasn’t a question.
****
Slater’s desk was one of four in a jumble that supported an apparently free-floating swamp of newspapers, newsletters, memos and junk. There was no trace of organization.
The rangers’ district office was upstairs in a renovated old warehouse, overlooking the train station. The floor was the original bare wooden planks. The soft clomping of staffers and secretaries echoed and c
reaked at the slightest movement below the exposed-beam ceiling. Slater’s desk and the three others were each propped over braided area rugs, as if this defined an office.
“Thought you were working,” said Slater, hardly surprised at seeing her. In fact, he didn’t even seem that interested or happy or much of anything about her arrival.
“Thought you were up-country,” said Allison. “Stopped by on a whim.”
“Just got back, changed at home and came here to do, uh, paperwork.” He glanced at the menacing pile on his desk.
“Right,” said Allison. “Hard to believe.”
“And you?”
“Called in sick. Outright lied.”
“So we can go back to your place?”
“And ...” It dawned on her. “Yours is closer.”
“Yours is more comfortable.”
Slater lived in a trailer park south of town. She’d seen it twice.
It was a doublewide, neatly kept. He was saving money for something. But it was a trailer in a trailer park with trailer people. She wasn’t that sound a sleeper. Nothing about his home setup said “Welcome, girlfriend.” She never really thought about the place where he lived but chalked it up to his generally thrifty ways.
“What are you up to, if you’re not in fact ill?”
“Trying to figure out a few things.”
“Still,” said Slater. It was more a statement than a question. “Nobody’s seen Rocky Carnivitas for a real long time.” She walked him through a few details he’d missed the last few days, particularly the identity of Rocky and a few bits about Trudy. The rough picture. She did not want it to sound like a crusade. “So the missing Rocky is number one. I found parts of a matching GPS collar in Rocky’s trailer—”
“Oh?”
“Trudy asked me to take a look and gave me a key. No Rocky. But I found a unit identical to the one we found up top with the dead elk.”
“I meant to tell you,” said Slater. “A team from CSU got a federal grant to study herd size or something, a five-year grant. Your taxpayer dollars at work. I should have told you sooner. They were supposed to notify us which herd they were going to track. But they’ve been working it all through the Meeker district office.”
“So this is coincidence?”
“I’m saying there are biologists all around.”
“And why the dead elk?”
“Shock? Overdose? I don’t know.” Slater studied a sheet of paper as if it was the last document on earth.
“Overdose?”
“I can’t explain it, that’s all.”
“We should have taken a piece of the dead elk,” said Allison, “and sent it to the lab for tests.”
“To find out what?”
“How it died, maybe. Wouldn’t you want to know if these biologists screwed up?”
“I should have taken a sample,” said Slater.
“I’ll get you one,” said Allison. “I’ll be up there soon, I’m sure.”
Slater stood up, found a chair and brought it over. “What else?” he said. Finally, a hint of warmth. And a smile.
“I don’t know. What was Rocky doing with GPS gear?”
“I don’t know,” said Slater. “We’ll ask him.”
“If he shows up.”
“Rocky? He will. It’s not like these people are on a schedule. You should know.”
“I have a bad feeling. Plus, it pisses me off that Sandstrom thinks I don’t know where I was.”
“He said that?”
“I know where the heck I was,” said Allison. “To the inch.”
“Of course, of course,” said Slater.
She told Slater about her place being ransacked, then reporting it to the cops and running into Sandstrom. In a genuinely concerned tone of voice Slater asked if she was frightened and if any valuables had been damaged or ruined.
“Can’t you do something?” said Allison, knowing he couldn’t. She didn’t even want to go into the business at the airport. What business was it anyway? Just hunting and hunters, fancy style.
“What would I do? Declare stupid cops are banned from these parts? Or go find Rocky myself?”
“What if Rocky and his buddies use GPS to track game?”
“Then they’d be bad boys. We’d step right in, no question. But you need more than parts in his trailer. You’d still need Rocky, to ask him about stuff.”
“You don’t seem that concerned.”
“Lots of speculation.”
“About everything, including who shot JFK.”
Slater threw her an eyebrow-popped glance. “At least there you had a body,” he said.
“I know, I know. But you didn’t hear the shot. I did. You didn’t see this guy dragging a load. I did. It wasn’t down the hill where they found the deer suit guy. It was right there in front of me, down a ways, but in front of me.”
“Yes,” said Slater. “But it took you a while to come off the pass. By then, you know, he—”
“Who?”
“He, whoever, could have covered lots of ground. Even in shock, from having killed this guy, he would have had his adrenaline pumping. He might have considered turning himself in and admitting to the accidental death. The adrenaline runs out, he’s tired of carrying the body. He decides to hide it in the woods. And decides there’s no way they can figure out who killed the guy. And so far, he’s right—one hundred percent right.”
“And the dead elk?”
“A fluke. A separate deal, but a fluke. Give Rocky a chance to turn up.”
He’s had a zillion chances, thought Allison, and hasn’t taken one.
She stood up, hiding her exasperation, not wanting to challenge Slater’s logic.
It made sense to a point, but it didn’t connect with what she felt.
“I’m going home. Maybe I need a rest,” she fibbed. “I’ll be there later, if you want to swing by. Up to you.” She smiled.
“I’ll see,” said Slater. “I’m pooped myself.”
She looked around and gave him a quick kiss. “Any federal rules about that?” she said.
“If there are,” he said, “I’m going to court.”
****
Ted’s Taxidermy took up all of a low-ceilinged barn that faced the Colorado River halfway between the interstate and the main road up Ripplecreek. The truck served as signage, always placed in the same strategic spot near the road for maximum impact.
Ted Slowik was tall, thin, graying and forever with a pipe in his teeth, whether or not the sangria-smelling tobacco was lit. He had a couple of helpers and had grown to know all the outfitters in the area. He was the best taxidermist in the county, the most meticulous. He really didn’t need to advertise. From head mounts to full body mounts, Slowik prided himself on high-quality work.
Allison parked and walked into the barn, which was constantly heated by a pumping wood stove. Two German shepherds looked up from their naps and a black rabbit, Midnight, hopped over to greet her. Nobody new. The dogs went back to sleep; Midnight was quickly distracted by a stray wood chip. Allison picked up the bunny, found a pile of browning lettuce near her cage and offered nibbles by hand.
“Another one?” said Slowik, who was spreading a skin out on his workbench.
“Nope. Just stopped by. I wasn’t sure if I’d given you the name and address for that doe I brought over yesterday.”
“The head mount? Sure you did. Standard procedure for us. Let me check.”
He pulled a file from a shelf above the bench. “Here it is. Trabowski, Oak Park, Illinois. Got it.”
“Wow, that’s a beauty,” said Allison, admiring the bull and its enormous antlers.
“Biggest rack so far this season. Weighs forty pounds alone, bank on that.”
“Whose?”
“Who else?”
“Again?”
“Well, Grumley’s client, anyway,” said Slowik.
“But George always brings ’em in. Who was the client?” It was an innocent question.
“Jeez, you should have seen this guy’s jet. Huge. Brand new. Engines that burn more fuel in a minute than you and I use in a month. George introduced me, but damned if I remember the name. Not without looking it up.” Back to the files. “Dabney Yount. Houston, Texas. Thought I smelled oil money out there at the airport.”
Allison traced the antler rack with her hand, felt its sharp points and the smooth woody sensation. It was hard to believe blood flowed through the antlers like sap in a tree.
“Grumley’s crews are lucky.”
“Or good,” said Slowik. “And rich. They bring in more full body mounts than any other outfitter, that’s for sure. That one’ll take time.”
“Quite the gash,” said Allison, eyeing the ripped skin near the spine.
“That’s the easy part,” said Slowik, putting a match to his pipe, making it puff. “Try finding the inside thing for this guy that brings him back to life.”
“I’ve thought about that,” said Allison. “If you had elk lungs, elk heart and elk innards, I’ll bet you’d know where all the parts go. You better than anybody else.”
“Maybe. All except the on-off switch,” said Slowik. “That’s the one funny one. I’m never sure where to put it.”
****
Applegate tried to stop fixating on what the cops were thinking and doing: whether they would burst through the door any day with the bloodhound sniffing a path to his heels. And if that happened this second, if they could get through the door unannounced, the dog’s nose would be working overtime as it took in the lush, slightly acrid aroma of sex, minutes old. Or perhaps they didn’t need the dog. Maybe there would be another incriminating scrap of evidence, a piece of fabric from one of his mittens they found at the scene. Or a cast of a boot print. Maybe they had a new technique to identify boot prints even after a new snowfall. Was that possible? And they would ask to see his outdoor equipment and a wise old scientist would be standing by to confirm the match. The dog would wag its tail.
Applegate had days of unbridled fear, registered as a constant chatter that chewed on his other thoughts, the ones up front, the ones he was supposed to be concentrating on. He wanted to whack down the voice in the background, but the ideas it articulated were hard to ignore.