“Dig there.”
A moment passed. “Don’t you want to wait for DCI?”
“They might be in a motel in Casper, for all we know.” I sounded angrier than I was, taking the frustration of the unknown out on my deputies. I made a conscious effort to be nicer. “We’ll go ahead and dig it out.”
Jim Keller hunting, why was that bothering me? Because, as near as I could remember, he didn’t hunt. I started thinking back to that day he had brought in Bryan, how he seemed so hard on the boy. I remembered thinking what a mess this was for the young man and how it was strange that they hadn’t just moved away. As far as I knew, they had no family here in the county, with no reason to stay other than to torture that boy. It was a pretty horrible thing to do to your child, and a pretty horrible thing to do to Cody and Jacob. Somebody ruins your life, your child’s life, and his future . . . These were pretty powerful motives.
“I think we’ve got something here.” Her voice was flat and emotionless.
I looked at Jacob for another moment, then got up and walked around the truck. Ferg stood to the far side, leaning against the truck bed and balancing the metal detector on his foot. I took up a position just in front of the passenger window and watched Vic work. I looked over at Ferg. “We get about four or five of those DCI guys to stand around here with us, and we’ll have a real state job underway.” He smiled, and my eyes fell back across the seat of Jacob’s truck. I looked at the jumbled mess; was I the only one that actually put things away in my vehicle? I looked past Ferg at his little Toyota and the number of PVC containers he had strapped to the underside of his topper. “Ferg, how many rods do you take with you when you’re fishing?”
He thought for a moment. “Seven, maybe eight.”
“How many vests?”
“Just one.”
I looked into Jacob’s truck at the two vests that lay there, and that niggling feeling stopped.
10
“You blow one homicide, it looks like a mistake. You blow two, it starts looking like negligence. Or worse yet, stupidity.” T.J. hadn’t brought any investigators with her from Cheyenne, she knew me that well, but she had brought everything else in their mobile crime unit, including the kitchen sink, which was to my right.
“I thought I’d use that on the bumper stickers in the next election, VOTE LONGMIRE, HE’S STUPID.”
“Well, don’t worry about it. You blow this case, and you won’t have to bother about the next election; they’ll just run you out of town on a rail.”
I took a sip of her coffee and tried not to make a face. “No hard feelings?”
“Hey.” She smiled with the little wrinkle at the corner of her mouth. “It’s your county.”
Vic’s rolls of film and DCI’s digital camera sat on a table in the trailer next to the ballistic sample that Ferg had dug out of the hillside. It had flattened on impact to a mushroom-shaped disc about the size of the palm of my hand. I have a big hand. The feather was also there. I reached over and took the plastic-wrapped package from the table. “You mind?” She shook her head no, and I stuffed the piece of evidence in my jacket.
“You might get a phone call, later in the week.”
“I get lots of phone calls. I’m popular.”
The sun had overtaken a large breech in the storm, with blue skies and the odd snowflake that filtered down from high altitude. Digi-Sven, the computerized voice of NOAA, was warning that a real storm was on the way and would probably be here this evening. High wind and heavy snow. I was glad T. J. Sherwin had brought DCI’s mobile unit. I was going to go back down, but at least Vic would be comfortable here.
“So, what’s the story on George Esper?” she asked.
“There were two sets of fishing gear in Jacob’s truck.”
“Any possibility that he just hauls all that stuff around with him?”
“It’s possible, but fly fishermen are pretty careful about their vests, with the flies and all. I just don’t know if George would leave his vest in his brother’s truck.”
“Possibility they were together?”
“Contents of the cooler: two cleaned fish, one partially eaten cheese sandwich, and two empty cans of Busch Lite.”
“Not enough for two.”
“Not enough beer and probably not enough food. Besides, the passenger door was locked. It’s my experience that people in this county only lock their doors when they visit Cheyenne.” This got a sidelong glance. “Nobody was riding on the passenger side.”
“What’s your theory then?”
“I think that Jacob and George Esper were supposed to meet somewhere. That Jacob came up and spent the night, started his truck yesterday morning to go and meet his brother, and instead incurred a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
“Romeo and Juliet?”
“Hamlet. All the death ones are Hamlet, at least the contemplative death ones.” I unbuttoned my jacket a little; the propane heater in the camper continued to raise the temperature. “I suppose George could be with his parents, but we won’t know anything about that till we hear something from them. We’ve got an APB out on their vehicle in both Colorado and Wyoming. I’d call Trinidad and Tobago if I thought it would do any good.” We sat there, surrounded by all our technological wonders, hoping that some patrolman in Longmont would happen to drive by the right driveway. No matter how far you went into the modern age, it always seemed to come down to the guy on the beat. “I’ve also got the Forest Rangers, Smokey the Bear, and all God’s little animals out looking for a black Mazda Navajo with the plates, Tuff 1.”
She was watching me like a science experiment. “You look tired.” I sighed. “Yep, well . . . it’s truly all my worst nightmares come to life.” We sat there for a moment; “I’m 0 for 2.” I looked at her for a while and then got up, trying not to tread on her feet, and sidestepped to the door. “You don’t need me; Vic can be the primary again. You got ballistics stuff here in the Mystery Machine?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got a rifle out in my truck that needs to be tested; I’ll leave it with Vic.”
“Where did this one come from?”
I paused, with my hand on the door handle. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Walt?”
I waited. “Yep?”
“You’re not being punished for your sins.”
The air outside felt good, and I started getting just a breath of my second wind. I could smell the lodgepole pines above everything else, a sharp smell that really doesn’t translate to air fresheners and cleaning products. It was also the altitude; the air just seemed to pull in a little more freely above ten thousand feet. I took a quick scope around, using the steps as a lookout, and called Vic over. “I’ve got another rifle in my truck that needs to be tested, and they’ve got facilities in the trailer.”
She caught up, and we walked along. “Where are you going?”
“I’m headed down. I’ll get things set up at the office, then I’ll be back.” I opened the door and took the Cheyenne Death Rifle from the seat of my truck and handed it to her.
She held it, carefully studying the sheath, then tightened her lips and looked up at me. “Henry?”
“Lonnie, by way of Henry.”
She slowly exhaled and then pulled the rifle out, holding it up in the morning light. “Fuck me running through the forest.”
“We already discussed that.”
She ignored me and continued. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
“That seems to be the general response to this particular weapon.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s haunted. There are supposed to be Old Cheyenne hanging around the thing looking for people to abduct and take back to the Camp of the Dead.”
She studied it some more. “Cool.”
She went off to my truck, and I walked over to the back of one of the DCI Suburbans, where Ferg and Al Monroe were having an animated conversation concerning the relative a
dvantages of the Bitch Creek Nymph over the Number Sixteen Elk Hair Cadis. I always wondered about men who spent their time trying to anticipate and know a fish in a world where man’s knowledge of each other could only be called scarce. It just seemed to be gratuitously ignorant for any man to think that he could think like a fish. Then there was the high deceit of the artificial fly; subtlety, guile, and sly deception created and instilled only to lure a cautious and tentative fish to its death. They were as bad as drug fiends, living in their shadowy world of aquatic intrigue.
I sometimes fly-fished, but it was catch and release, and I always brought a book. “Ferg, have you looked at the equipment he was carrying?”
“Yep.” He looked at Al for confirmation, and they nodded somberly to each other. “Yellow and Royal Humpies, Parachute Adams, Light Cahills, and a couple of wet flies, mostly Montana Stones.”
“Nothing like a Royal Humpie. Any ideas on where George might have gone?”
“Some.” I waited. “Meadowlark, West Tensleep Creek, Medicine Lodge, Crazy Woman, head of the Clear, maybe even north fork of the Powder.”
“Well, that should narrow it down to about 189,000 acres. How long do you think it’ll take you?”
Dejectedly, he looked at the skies west of us. “A little while . . .”
I followed his gaze to the dark lines of clouds converging across the Big Horn basin and the Wind River Range. This was the one that was going to signify that autumn was over. If you lived here long enough, you could sense them coming. The few leaves left on the aspens quaked, and you could almost feel the barometric undertow as the storm gathered momentum. The clouds looked flat and mean, and they stretched into the distance; it made my eyes hurt. I was having enough trouble operating a homicide investigation without a raging blizzard at ten thousand feet. As he started to go, I leaned over to him. “You got a rifle in your truck?”
He stopped dead and looked at me. “What?”
I glanced over at Al as he suddenly found DCI’s proceedings of great interest. “Do you have a rifle in your truck?”
“Um, no.”
“Get Vic’s .243. Just because we don’t know where George Esper is, doesn’t mean somebody else doesn’t.”
The drive down the mountain wasn’t too bad; the only place where there was ice was on the flats, where the wind had continually applied a fresh coat of melting snow. Any other time, swooping over the gentle hills of the high meadow was a mind-freeing experience, but my mind snagged on the teepee signs for the campgrounds in the Bighorn National Forest. Henry was right, there had been no Indians on the jury.
On Wednesday, the jury had come in dressed up and, in the back hallways, we all thought that after eight days of deliberation we were close to a verdict. I still remember the look on all of our faces when the red light went on. The family members took their seats in the first three rows, quietly, like it was church, as if how little noise they made would have an affect on their loved ones’ fate: the Espers, the Pritchards, and Mrs. Keller in the front row, Jim Keller never attending; Lonnie Little Bird in the aisle with his trusting smile, the chrome on his wheelchair seeming shiny and out of place. Then there were the defendants, three of them smirking and Bryan Keller looking sad.
“Please rise.” Vern’s voice was steady and carried the patrician quality that resonated that fervent prayer, that desperate plea for justice. Whose justice we were about to find out. Bryan closed his eyes, Jacob and George remained emotionless, and Cody glared. Cody Pritchard was found guilty of two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault; one count was for assaulting a mentally defective woman, and the other was for using force or coercion in that assault. He was also found guilty of conspiracy in the second degree. Jacob Esper, same verdict. George Esper was found guilty of one count of aggravated sexual assault in the second degree and was guilty of second-degree conspiracy. Bryan Keller was acquitted of the more serious charges but was found guilty of second-degree conspiracy.
After Vern was through reading the verdict, Cody leaned over to Jacob and whispered something; they both laughed. I felt like going over there. I made a mental note to keep a closer eye on them from then on and, if possible, to take a personal interest in their miseries. Sentencing was set for three weeks. All four were released with nominal bail and, after two years of freedom following their crime, they were set free again.
When I made the final sweep of the now closed courtroom, there was only one person left. “Quite a show. Mm, hmm, yes. It is so.”
I stood there in my cotton-poly-blend uniform, looked past him at the cheap paneling on the walls, and felt the fraud of human institutions. His eyes wouldn’t let me go, wouldn’t let me usher him out and get it all over with, so I went and sat on the armrest of the chair in front of him. He smiled, looking through the thick lenses in his glasses, and patted my leg. “Long day?”
I smiled back. “Yep.”
He looked around, his hand remaining on my leg. “Doesn’t take long for everybody to get out of here, huh?”
“No.”
“Mm. Not like on the television.”
“Is there somebody here to help you, Lonnie?”
“Oh, yes. Arbutus has gone to get the car.”
“Do you need help getting down?”
“Oh, no. I use the elevator.” We sat there in silence, as the radiators ticked and groaned. His eyes drifted down to the gun that also rested on my leg. “Those boys?” I waited. “They went home?”
I cleared my throat. “Yep, Lonnie. They did.”
His eyes remained on my gun. “You will go and get them?”
I paused. “They’ll be right back here in three weeks to be sentenced. That’s when Vern decides what will happen to them now that they are guilty.”
His eyes came up, and he looked profound. “That judge, yes, he looks like Ronald Colman. Mm, hmm. It is so.”
By the time I reached the office, I had worked myself into a righteous rage, and I wheeled into the parking lot, the Bullet sliding to a stop. My emotional state was not improved when I saw Turk’s car sitting next to the door. He came out of the office as I got out of the truck, his thumbs hitched in his gun belt as he came down the steps. I noticed how big he was, how young. “Damn, you keep drivin’ like that, and I’m gonna have to . . .”
He didn’t see it coming, nobody would have. He was used to my irascible moods and just thought he had caught the sheriff at a bad time. He had. I brought my hand up in a full-reach swipe that caught the side of his head and propelled it face first into the quarter panel of the Thunder Chicken, as my right boot scooped his feet out from under him. The impact was thunderous on the hollow flank of the car, and the dent it left was substantial. He didn’t get up but lay there beside the rear wheel, a small pool of blood spreading from the side of his downturned face.
I stepped over his legs and rolled him to one side, brushing away his hat and grabbing his shirtfront, pulling his face up close to mine. “If you ever harm a prisoner in my jail again . . .” But he wasn’t listening, he was out. I held his head there for a moment and then gently laid it down on the concrete. I felt sick. It was from the adrenaline, or at least I blamed it on that. It always hit me afterwards. I would have to walk it off. I became aware of some movement behind me as I stood and stepped away and continued up the steps and into my office. Whoever it was that had walked up had evidently decided that whatever they had to do with me wasn’t that important.
The door to the office was open when I got there. Ruby held the knob with her other hand over her heart, her eyes wider than I had ever seen them. “Oh, my Lord . . .”
I breezed past her into the reception area and almost collided with Lucian. He teetered back and nearly fell as I caught him and stood him upright. I figured a good offense was the best defense. “You got something to say?”
His face broke into a broad grin. “Damn, what a lick!”
I left him there and continued down the hallway, through the door, and into the jail’s holding cells.
I slammed the door back, stormed through the open cubicle, and sat myself on one of the bunks, my back thumping against the wall as I clutched my shaking hands together and set my jaw. I concentrated on my hands, willing them to stop; it took a while. My breathing was returning to normal, and the flushed feeling was starting to fade. I licked my lips and exhaled, trying to push the rest of the adrenaline through my flooded blood stream. I hated it, I hated seeing it, I hated hearing about it, and I hated doing it. I brought my head up to find a terrified Bryan Keller looking at me from the other bunk. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. He was crouched in the corner with his legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around them; only his eyes were visible over the kneecaps.
We listened as the commotion from the reception area carried down the hallway and bounced off the masonry walls. I had no idea you could hear everything so well from the cells. The front door was closed, but there was a scooting of chairs and a murmuring of voices. You could hear Lucian’s voice above the others, “Bring ’im on in here, Ladies Wear . . .” More murmuring and voices, “How you like them apples, you little son of a bitch? You try and get up, and I’ll kick your ass so far . . .” It trailed off with the roaring in my ears. It was like being underwater and, for a few moments, I floated there, letting the sinking feeling in the middle of my shoulders wash over me. I was tired.
A while later, Henry peered around the divider. His hair hung down, and his face looked at me sideways.
I took off my hat and placed it on the bunk beside me, running my hands over my face. “What?” It would appear that not all the adrenaline was gone.
“Nothing.”
I sat there for a moment. “He all right?”
He stepped around the divider and ducked his head to look through the bars. “He will never play the violin with his nose again, if that is what you mean.”
“Better call the EMTs.”
“He is already gone; Ruby has taken him to the hospital. It seemed to be the best thing, since his uncle would not stop kicking him.”
I waited. “You think I overreacted?”
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