Free Fire

by C. J. Box

  Five minutes later, Bud came out, said, “Missy wants to talk to you for a minute.”

  “To me?” Joe asked. Missy rarely wanted to talk to him, which was a good thing.

  “I’ll pull the truck around,” Bud said, walking away across the gravel.

  Joe sighed and went inside, looking first in the living room for her. Missy wasn’t in her chair, or in the kitchen with Maria. He found her in her bed.

  The bedroom was large and recently redecorated. Missy had stripped the walls, replaced the fixtures, and refurnished it with tasteful antiques. Nothing remained of Bud’s first wife, not even the floors. Missy lay under a comforter on top of the bed. The shades were pulled, which she did when she wasn’t wearing makeup and didn’t want to be seen closely. She looks so tiny, Joe thought. Even in the gloom, though, she was a startlingly, undeniably beautiful woman, even if she was at war with her true age.

  “I hear it was a late meeting,” Joe said. “How’s the Earl of Lexington?”

  “He’s fine . . .” she said, then quickly bit off her words and glared at him. Marybeth was right. He was at the meeting. Missy propped herself up on an elbow, fixing her big eyes on him.

  “I heard the news,” she said with an edge in her voice, quickly regaining the upper hand.

  Joe said nothing.

  “I also heard that you might be thinking of a house in town.”

  “Maybe.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Let my people go, Joe.”

  “What?”

  “Let them go,” she said sharply, sitting up and swinging her feet to the floor. “Everything is perfect as it is. For the first time, Marybeth is comfortable. She has a fine place to live. She’s moving up, finally. Quit dragging my daughter and my granddaughters down with you.”

  Joe felt his neck get hot.

  “They deserve better than to be handcuffed to a mid-level state employee who brings danger they don’t deserve into their lives,” Missy said, the words dripping with disdain. “Don’t you dare take them away from me again. Step aside, and let them . . . blossom.”

  “Blossom?”

  Her eyes flashed. “I’ve said my piece. I wish you would think about it while you run around in the woods again like a schoolboy.”

  Joe knew he was one of the few to see her occasionally in her full, evil, stripped-down honesty. He doubted Bud Sr. ever really had. It was the one thing they had together, he and Missy: icy moments of bitter, hateful truth.

  “I’ll think about it,” Joe said. “While I’m thinking about it, I’d like you to come to Yellowstone so I can show you around. One place in particular, way on the western side of the park, in Idaho. I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, narrowing her eyes and frowning.

  He turned and left, his hands shaking.

  5

  West Yellowstone, Montana October 7

  CLAY MCCANN DIDN’T LIKE HOW THE REPORTER from the Wall Street Journal had described his hair as “pink.” The description denigrated him, made him sound less serious, like a circus clown. No one wanted to have pink hair. The reason for the description in the Journal, and this was patently unfair, was that his hair—once a deep red—was now streaked with silver-gray hairs. The silver made it look from a distance (if the observer was a jaded Eastern reporter) like he dyed his hair pink. Which he did not!

  He confirmed it once again in the rearview mirror of his car as he drove through Yellowstone Park. While looking at himself in the mirror instead of watching the road, he nearly collided with a herd of buffalo. McCann cursed and slammed on his brakes, bringing his car into a skidding stop three feet from the front quarters of a one-ton bull. The animal swung its woolly triangle head toward the car, stared through the windshield at him with black amoral prehistoric eyes, snorted with what sounded like indignation, and slowly joined the rest of the herd.

  A buffalo jam. Anyone driving through Yellowstone Park had to get used to them. The dank smell that hung in the air, the clip-clop of ungulate hooves on the pavement.

  Wouldn’t that have made a hell of an ironic story, McCann thought, saying the headline aloud: “Freed Murderer Killed in Park Collision With Bison.”

  While he waited he studied his face again in the mirror. The same reporter had described him as “pale, paunchy, and past his prime” in a flowery alliterative rhetorical flourish filled with popping P’s. That prick, McCann thought.

  The buffalo herd seemed endless. Dozens of them, maybe a hundred dark woofing behemoths. None of them cared that he was there, only that they needed to cross the road to get to the Madison River. McCann had no choice but to sit and wait. He had tried to push through a herd once, but a bull swung its head and dented his driver’s door with a horn.

  The heavy buck-brush near the river blazed red with fall color in the last half-hour of dusk. It was a great time and season to see the park, if one cared. But the tourists were all but gone. The roads were virtually empty. And Clay McCann, who had been the focus of so much attention, the center of so many conversations, was now utterly alone except for the buffalo.

  Finally, as the last cow crossed, leaving blacktop spattered with steaming piles of viscous dung, McCann shifted into drive and accelerated.

  McCann was nearly out of the park. He was going home.

  THE RANGER AT the West Yellowstone gate waved a cheery “Good-bye!” from her little gatehouse as he slowed to leave the park. The town of West Yellowstone was just ahead.

  Although she waved him through, McCann stopped next to the exit window, powered down his window, and thrust his face outside so she could see him.

  She began to say, “You don’t need to stop . . .” when she recognized him. Her eyes widened and her mouth pulled back in a grimace and she inadvertently stepped back, knocking a sheaf of Yellowstone News flyers to the ground outside her box. “My God,” she mouthed.

  “Have a pleasant night,” he said, basking in her reaction, knowing now, for sure, he’d entered the rarified air of celebrity.

  HE’D BEEN AWAY for nearly three months. During that time, Clay McCann had gone from a semi-obscure small-town lawyer specializing in contracts and criminal defense law to being known both nationally and internationally. For a brief time, every utterance he made to reporters inside the tiny jailhouse at Mammoth Hot Springs made the wire services. Profiles of him and the Yellowstone Zone of Death appeared in a half-dozen national publications. For a delicious week or two, his face and the crime were as familiar to viewers of twenty-four-hour cable networks as any celebrity criminal or victim. His arguments before the court were dissected by celebrity lawyers who predicted, correctly, that he’d win, which he did. Although the federal prosecutors threatened loudly to appeal the decision to the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court, the thirty days allowed to file had lapsed and he’d received no notification. McCann banked on the assumption that the Feds didn’t want the case to go further with the very likely possibility that higher courts would have to declare that the Zone of Death actually existed.

  He was as free as those buffalo back on the road. Originally, the news of the murders burned bright and his face was everywhere. Reporters and cameramen camped out on the lawn of the old Yellowstone jail, sharing the grass with grazing elk. But the story soon became eclipsed by the circumstances. He faded out of it, and other crimes that had more appeal—like blondes found missing on islands or cruise ships—overtook the hard-to-understand concept of vicinage and the Sixth Amendment, and he was discarded onto the electronic landfill of old news. It was expensive, a reporter told him, for the network to keep a team out there in the middle of nowhere with little to report. Plus, he complained, there was nothing to do at night for the crew. Eventually, they all left. But McCann had no doubt he was still hot stuff up and down the Rocky Mountains.

  HE DROVE THROUGH the empty, familiar streets of West Yellowstone as the few overhead lights charged, hummed, and lit against the coming darkness. His house was located in a cul de-sac
within a stand of thick lodgepole pines west of town. His neighbors were a doctor and a fly-fishing guide who had turned his name into a well-known brand. The doctor and guide were among the elite in town and it was an exclusive, if tiny, neighborhood. McCann had acquired his house in a foreclosure auction, but nevertheless.

  As he pulled into his driveway he saw immediately that his house had been vandalized. The windows were broken and FILTHY FUCKING MURDERER was spray-painted in red on the front door, drips of paint crawling down the wood like dried blood.

  He charged up the walk and kicked through weeks of porch-delivered newspapers and entered his dark house to find the power and water shut off. He experienced a moment of overwhelming despair: How could they expect me to keep up with the local bills when I was incarcerated?

  Retrieving a flashlight from his car, he returned to his home as despair sharpened into quiet rage. His house reeked of spoiled food from inside the refrigerator and freezer. He didn’t even open them. Long-dead tropical fish floated in a slick of scum on the top of his fish tank. His cat was long gone, although he’d shredded most of his living room furniture and sprayed the carpet in his bedroom before finding his way out.

  Drawers and closet doors were agape, clothing thrown across the floors by investigating cops. His telephone was ripped from the wall for no good reason at all. His bookcase was ransacked, emptied, law books tossed into piles along with the military thrillers he liked to read. Holes were punched into his walls as they looked for . . . what? What were they trying to find and why were they trying to find it? The case wasn’t a mystery, after all.

  What made him angriest was to visualize the slow-witted local cops and park rangers rooting through his personal belongings, reading his mail, laughing, no doubt, at his collection of pornography in the drawer of his nightstand and finding—Jesus—the cardboard box containing the stuffed animals from his childhood that he just couldn’t make himself throw away. He wondered how many people knew about that. If somebody said something about the box in town, he vowed, he’d sue their ass so fast it would leave skid marks.

  No note of apology, no crime-scene tape, no acknowledgment of what they’d done. They simply trashed the place and left it for vandals.

  He would need protection. Some yahoo might try to take him down, try to become famous for killing the man who beat the system. These people here liked that kind of rough frontier justice. Unfortunately, the Park Service hadn’t returned his weapons and he’d have to threaten a suit to get them back. As he drafted the action in his head, he remembered something. Months before, a client charged with his third DUI had paid him a retainer consisting of cash and a .38 snub-nosed revolver. The lawyer had dropped the gun into a manila envelope and filed it among his casework portfolios in his home office. Remarkably, the cops had missed it. He retrieved the gun and checked the loads, more familiar with weapons than he used to be, and slid it into his jacket pocket. It felt solid and heavy against his hip. He liked how it felt.

  Pausing on the porch among the litter of unopened mail and newspapers, McCann took a deep breath of cold air. It tasted faintly of pinecone dust and wood smoke. He fought against the dark specter of being absolutely alone.

  BECAUSE IT WAS late in the year, only locals were out. McCann drove to Rocky’s, a local favorite they all raved about like it was Delmonico’s, but he found more or less passable. It was both a bar and a restaurant, one big room. He wanted a beer and a burger, something they couldn’t mess up. Ninety days of jail food had screwed up his system.

  The place was humming with raucous conversation as he entered, and it took a moment to get the bartender’s eye. When he did, the man simply looked at him with tight-lipped trepidation as if he were a ghost, a demon, or Senator Teddy Kennedy.

  Then the din started to fade, and it continued to diminish until it was almost silent inside. McCann felt nearly every set of eyes in the restaurant on him. He heard whispers:

  “Oh my God, look who’s here.”

  “It’s Clay McCann.”

  “What’s he think he’s doing here?”

  A few of the men’s faces hardened into deadeye stares, as if challenging him to start something. A young mother covered the eyes of her child, as if she thought simply seeing him would scar the little tyke for life.

  Even though he’d expected this reception, it still came as a sour jolt. Sure, he was used to indirect derision and whispered asides because he was a lawyer. Lawyers made enemies. But this was full-scale, almost overpowering. His only solace was the knowledge that it would be short-term and that he had a .38 in his pocket.

  He looked back at them, not without fear. Eight percent, he thought. Look for the eight percent. Take comfort in the eight percent.

  Early in his career, before he messed up, McCann had been a criminal defense attorney in Minot, North Dakota, after he’d fled Chicago to avoid that ethics charge. He’d been lucky enough to land a deep-pockets client almost immediately—a North Dakota banker accused of hiring thugs to kill his wife. The case was considered a slam-dunk conviction by the prosecution, and it looked hopeless to McCann. Because splitting the fee was better than losing the case outright, McCann brought in Marcus Hand, the flamboyant Wyoming trial lawyer who was famous for four things: long white hair, buckskin clothing, delays that sweetened the payout for the lawyers, and his ability to persuade a jury. McCann watched Hand perform in the courtroom and the Wyoming lawyer nearly convinced McCann himself that his client didn’t do it. Eventually, the jury deadlocked at 10-2, and couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. In the retrial a year later, Hand managed to create almost the same result, with an 11-1 hung jury. Although the embarrassed prosecutors let it be known that they would bring the case to trial a third time, it never happened. The doctor walked away into bankruptcy and into the arms of his pretty, new twenty-five-year-old wife.

  Over victory drinks, Hand explained the Eight Percent Rule to McCann. “It’s really very simple,” he said, using the same melodic voice he used to pet and stroke the jury. “I have to convince one juror out of twelve to vote with us. One of twelve is eight percent, give or take. Not that I need to convince him our client is innocent, understand. I just need to establish an intimate partnership with that one fellow or lady in a crowd who is contrary. The man or woman who has an ax to grind. My theory, and you saw it happen twice, is that in any group of people forced to be together, at least eight percent of them will go against the majority if for no other reason than to shove it up their ass—if they have an authority figure they can trust to be on their side. I am that leader in the courtroom. I talk only to my soul mate, Mr. Eight Percent. That man—or woman, in the case today—will follow me into hell, just so we can put one over on the rest. Remember, Clay, we aren’t running for election. We don’t care if ninety-two percent of the voters want the other guy. Who cares about them if we have our pal, Mr. Eight Percent? We just want our evil partner, Mr. Eight Percent, who hates the guts of the majority and always will, to show his true colors. He just wants to be bad, unique—an individual!—and I’m there to show him the way.”

  McCann remembered that conversation as he tried to boldly return the stares. Sure enough, when he studied the dinner and bar crowd, he detected two or three people who looked back not with horror, disgust, or revulsion, but with guarded neutrality. All were former clients.

  Gavin Toomey, a local miscreant best known for poaching violations and his palpable hatred for the federal government, sat alone at the opposite end of the bar. Toomey actually nodded a discreet greeting.

  Butch Toomer, the former sheriff who was recalled by angry voters for accepting bribes, looked at him coolly and raised his beer bottle in greeting. Toomer would be pleased McCann was back because McCann owed him.

  And Sheila D’Amato, the dark-eyed former vixen who had shown up on the arm of a reputed mafioso en route to the park only to be dumped on the street after an argument, met his eyes while wetting her lips with the point of her tongue.

  She was with
him, for sure. Good enough for now.

  McCann said with a tone of triumph, “West Yellowstone’s most infamous resident has returned.”

  Someone in the back mumbled, “Let’s see how long he lasts.”

  A few men snorted in assent.

  McCann visualized the room standing en masse and charging him. He inconspicuously lowered his right hand and brushed the dead weight of the .38 in his jacket pocket with his fingertips.

  Les Davis, owner of the Conoco station, said, “I don’t think you’re welcome here.”

  “So get the hell out,” another man rasped.

  McCann found his voice, said, “We don’t want this to get out of hand.”

  Davis mumbled something inaudible.

  “We can be friends or we can be enemies,” McCann said. “I’d prefer to be friends. That way none of us winds up in court.”

  He turned to the bartender. “I’d like a cheeseburger, medium rare, and a Yellowstone Pale Ale.” His voice didn’t quaver and he was thankful.

  The barman attempted to stare McCann down, but he couldn’t hold it. Sheepishly, he glanced over the bar at the still-silent crowd. They were all watching him to see what he’d do.

  McCann said softly, “Are you refusing me service? I’d hate to bring a discrimination suit against this place since everyone loves it so much.”

  “Give him some fucking food,” Butch Toomer growled from his corner table. “The man’s got to eat.”

  The barman looked down, said, “I just work here.”

  “Then place my order.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  McCann nodded his appreciation to Toomer, who raised his beer in silent partnership. Sheila was practically devouring him with her dark, mascara’d raccoon eyes. She smiled wickedly at him, her eyes moist. And not just her eyes, he hoped.

  “Tell you what,” he said to the barman, “I’ll order it to go. You can have someone bring the order to my office. That way your patrons can reel their eyes back in.”