Free Fire

by C. J. Box

  “I haven’t yet,” she purred. She’d knocked another $50 off her legal bill before they went out on the street. He still felt a little light-headed.

  DINNER TOOK HOURS. McCann ordered too many marti nis. She looked good in the light from the single cheap candle on the table, which took ten years off her face and made her skin seem smoother and whiter and her lips more lush and red.

  “Tomorrow we’ll drive to Idaho Falls,” he said. “We can check on flights, do a little shopping. You’ll need some things to wear on the beach, I would guess.”

  “It must be nice to have money,” she said. “Ten thousand a day.”

  “That’s just a fraction of what they owe me.”

  “You turned that man into a quivering little squirrel,” she said, holding her hand out toward him and pulling her sleeve back. “I got goose bumps listening.”

  He shrugged, flattered.

  “Who is the man on the inside?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll fill you in tomorrow . . . if you’re a good girl until then.”

  “When I’m good, I’m very good,” she said. “That’s what they used to tell me . . .”

  “And when you’re bad . . .” he said, letting it trail off.

  “I’m really fucking bad.” She grinned.

  He ordered another martini for both of them. He had to look down to see if he’d finished his steak. Nope.

  She favored him with a smile so full-bore he could see her back teeth. “We really are partners in crime, aren’t we?”

  “We are,” he said. “You now know more than anyone else.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she said, “except when, well, you know.”

  It was as if she were melting for him before his eyes.

  He’d never been with a woman like her, he thought. Too bad about tomorrow.

  16

  IT WAS OBVIOUS TO JOE WHEN HE SAW GEORGE PICKETT waiting for him at a back table in the near-empty employee cafeteria that the old man had cleaned himself up. George looked dark and small, birdlike, fragile, his thick black hair slicked back wetly in jail-bar strings and his hands entwined in front of him. A tray of food sat off to the side. He wore a dingy but clean white shirt buttoned all the way up and dark baggy slacks Joe recognized from years before, which gave Joe an uneasy feeling and caused a hitch in his step that he powered through, as if his legs had thought better of the reunion and decided to flee.

  The closer Joe got to his father, the angrier and more confused he became. The emotions came out of a place he didn’t know still existed, as if a long-dormant tumor had ruptured. He felt eighteen again, and not in a good way.

  Joe sat down across from George. They had the table to themselves. Outside the murky, unwashed windows, the last moments of the sun died on the pine boughs.

  “You can grab a tray and get some dinner,” George said, gesturing toward the buffet line at the front of the room.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’ve got to eat something.”

  “No.”

  George slid his tray before him—slices of dark meat covered with brown gravy, a mound of mashed potatoes with a hollowed-out, gravy-filled pocket on top. Joe remembered watching his father do that growing up—hollowing out the potatoes with the heel of his spoon, pouring gravy in the depression so it looked like a volcano about to erupt gravy.

  George halfheartedly cut a forkful of beef and raised it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, painfully, as if his gums hurt. Joe noticed that his hand holding the fork trembled as he raised it.

  When he was through chewing, George washed it down with half a glass of ice water and winced as he drank. “You sure you don’t want something?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Just so you know, I haven’t had a drink all day.”

  “That’s why you’re shaking and drinking water,” Joe said.

  “I did it for you. It wasn’t easy.”

  Joe nodded. He could not make himself thank his father for not drinking for the day. He couldn’t think of a good thing to say about anything, and regretted that he’d come.

  “It’s good to see you, Son,” George said softly, holding Joe’s eyes for a fleeting second before looking away. Joe noticed George was having trouble keeping his mouth still, as if his teeth wanted to chatter.

  “I guess I’m supposed to say it’s good to see you too,” Joe said.

  “But you can’t say that.”

  “I can’t say that.”

  Still not meeting Joe’s eyes, George nodded as if he understood how things were. He tried to eat a forkful of mashed potatoes but it hung there, inches from his open mouth. With resignation, he dropped the fork to his plate. “I can’t eat this.”

  The silence eventually turned into a kind of roar, Joe thought. He couldn’t hear his father when he broke it.

  “What?”

  “I said I thought about giving you a call lots of times.”

  “But you never did.”

  “Tell me about my grandchildren,” George said, his first genuine smile pulling at his mouth. “My daughter-in-law. What’s her name again?”

  “Marybeth.”

  “How old are my granddaughters?”

  “Getting older all the time,” Joe said.

  His father stared at him. Joe remembered that stare, those eyes, that set in his mouth that could curl into a grin or, just as easily, bare and reveal tiny sharp teeth.

  “You don’t want to tell me about them,” George said.

  “They have nothing to do with you. You have nothing to do with them.”

  “I had hoped it wouldn’t be like this.”

  Joe wanted to reach across the table, gather the old man’s collar in his fist, and bounce him up and down like a rag doll. “At one time, I had a lot to say to you. For years, I rehearsed what I was going to tell you if I ever got the opportunity I have now. I’d go over it when I was by myself like it was a speech. I had sections about what you did to my mother, my brother, and me. It was a pretty good speech, and I’m not good at speeches. But now that you’re sitting right there, I can’t remember any of it.”

  George shook his head. “It wasn’t all bad. I wasn’t a monster.”

  Joe didn’t disagree.

  “Your mom and I, we—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Joe snapped. “What’s done is done. You can’t justify it now.”

  “It was never about you,” George said. “You probably think that. It was about your mother and me. I never had anything against you or Victor.”

  “You’re right,” Joe said. “It was never about us. Not a thing was ever about us.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  His father took a deep breath. Joe could hear it wheeze into his lungs. “Can’t we put that all behind us now? You’re a grown man. We’re both grown men. I was hoping maybe we could talk.”

  “I’m not a big talker.”

  “I’ve got some things I’d like to say.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like when I left, it was the best thing for all of us. Would it have been better if I’d stayed and continued to make everyone’s life as miserable as mine?”

  Joe said, “At least that would have showed that you tried to think of someone other than yourself.”

  “You’re not hearing what I’m saying,” George said, a familiar phrase from his father. What it meant to Joe was, You’re not agreeing with what I say, you’re defective.

  “I needed space,” his father said, “I needed to find out why I was put on this earth.”

  Joe stared at him with bitter contempt. “What a load of crap that is,” he said.

  George was startled.

  “I get pretty sick of hearing people like you try to find good reasons for acting selfish,” Joe said. “It’s not about what you say, it’s about what you do. You cut and ran.”

  “How did you get so hard, Son?” his father whispered.

  “A few months ag
o,” Joe said, “I put the muzzle of my Glock to a man’s forehead and pulled the trigger. I think about it all the time, just about every night. I justify it to myself that he was threatening my family, which he was. That if I let him go he’d figure out a way to come back for me, which he would have. But it doesn’t matter what I say to myself, I still did it. I didn’t have to do it, I chose to. My words about it mean nothing, just like yours.”

  George sighed and it was as if all of his spirit was being expelled. He seemed smaller than when Joe sat down. Joe watched his father think. He knew he’d made him angry. Fine.

  George looked up. “I might have done some stupid things, but at least I never killed a man.”

  Joe thought of Victor. “In a way, what you did was worse.”

  “And here I thought tonight might be nice,” George said sadly.

  “I’ve got a great wife and two great kids,” Joe said. “I learned how to be a good father and a husband from them. Without them I’d fly off the planet.”

  “When Victor died—”

  “Without them,” Joe said, refusing to let George turn the conversation, “I might have turned out to be like you.”

  He stood up and walked out of the cafeteria. Joe wasn’t sure why he’d confessed, and it confused him as much as anything. George didn’t call after him.

  MARYBETH WAS CLEANING up after dinner when Joe called, and the first thing she said was, “Three more days.”

  Which reminded him he needed to make arrangements for them, reserve rooms or a cabin in the only place that would still be open, Mammoth.

  He asked her if she could get on the Internet and research some companies he had learned about but hadn’t had the means to check out. She eagerly agreed, and he read them off: Allied, Genetech, BioCorp, Schroeder Engineering, EnerDyne.

  “I’ll see what I can find,” she said.

  He told her about George Pickett, putting a gloss on the meeting. Already, he was feeling guilty for being so hard on the old man. Too much had spilled out and too quickly.

  “Joe,” she said, “does he want to meet us?”

  “I’m sure he does. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I’m tough,” she said. “Your girls are tough. They can handle it.”

  “But why should they?”

  “Kids are always curious about where they come from,” Marybeth said. “This is an opportunity for them to meet their grandfather.”

  Joe laughed nervously. “You’re supposed to be the one with good judgment. Why should we introduce them to a sick old drunk who thinks the world will end any minute?”

  She paused. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  JOE SAT IN a rocking chair in front of the four-sided fireplace with the purpose of making notes for his report to Chuck Ward but finding himself staring at the dying flames until late into the night. The inn had the feel of melancholy and abandonment on its last night open, which precisely matched his mood. He could not get the image of his father out of his mind—sitting there in his shirt buttoned to his neck, eyes rheumy, hands shaking, saying, “How did you get so hard, Son?” At one point, from out of nowhere, he fought the urge to cry.

  NATE ARRIVED HOLDING two stout logs, which he tossed into the fire after stepping over the railing designed to prevent visitors from doing exactly that. The lengths of soft dry pine took off as if they were angry, throwing heat and light. Joe snapped out of his reverie and sat up.

  Nate asked, “How’d dinner with Pop go?”

  Joe said, “Badly.”

  “I had an interesting day,” Nate said, settling down in the chair next to Joe. “But first, tell me about yours.”

  After Joe was finished, Nate slowly nodded his head. “I remember the hot pot at Sunburst,” he said. “Nice place. I took a girl there once.”

  “I’m guessing that’s where Hoening went also,” Joe said, making a mental note to himself to try to contact several of the girls Yellowdick had corresponded with. As far as he knew, the investigators hadn’t followed up with any of them because there appeared to be no reason to do so. But if they could tell Joe anything about trips to the hot springs, it might shed some light. Or, Joe thought, simply make the murky even murkier.

  “You said today was interesting,” Joe said. “How so?”

  “Couple of things,” Nate said, leaning forward. “Did you know you were being followed?”

  Joe told him about their suspicions.

  “I got the plate number,” Nate said. “I saw his pickup parked on a side road watching you and Demming wait for Cutler to change clothes. Red oh-four Ford pickup, Montana. Owner is a guy named Butch Toomer, ex-sheriff from West Yellowstone. Likely associate of Mr. Clay McCann. I mean, you’d assume the sheriff and a lawyer would know each other, right? He stuck with you guys all day. Maybe you can ask your contacts to check up on him.”

  “I will,” Joe said. “How’d you learn all that about Toomer? Did you call the DMV in Montana?”

  Nate chuckled. “It wasn’t necessary. Everybody knows everybody up here, don’t you know that by now?”

  Joe waited for the rest.

  “There’s a hard core of full-time Zephyr people,” Nate said. “They’re the ones who work different jobs all year-round, unlike the thousands of seasonal folks who go home for the winter. I found out I knew a few of the hard-core types from when I was here. They’re still around, still crazy. But they keep track of what’s going on. They know when that ranger Layborn is on the prowl for them, and they sure as hell know an ex-sheriff when they see him.”

  “Ah,” Joe said, smiling.

  “Something else,” Nate said. “Bob Olig is still around.”

  Joe sat forward. “What?”

  “I heard it three or four times today.”

  Joe and Nate leaned forward in their chairs until their heads nearly touched. “Either it’s him or his ghost,” Nate said. “He’s been spotted, mostly here around the Old Faithful area. One man swore he saw him in the kitchen one morning but Olig ran off before he could stop him. A couple of fine ladies said they saw a guy who sounds like Olig just strolling along the boardwalk one night in the moonlight like he didn’t have a care in the world. When he saw them, he ducked into the trees. And an old guy who has insomnia and wanders around swears he saw Olig standing behind the front desk one night about three-thirty going through the guest register. The old guy yelled at him because he knew Olig pretty well from Olig’s days as a tour guide, but Olig ducked behind the counter and disappeared. But he swears it was him. He said Olig looked scared.”

  “Olig,” Joe said, “or a guy who looks a lot like Olig? I mean, this sounds like the kind of thing lonely people would come up with to keep themselves amused.”

  “Take it for what it’s worth,” Nate said.

  “Were any of them interviewed by the Park Service or the FBI?”

  “If they were,” Nate said, “they didn’t say anything about seeing Bob Olig. I think most of the sightings happened long after those murders, long after anyone was asking.”

  Joe sat back. “Do you believe them?”

  Nate was stoic. “You know I believe this kind of shit,” he said. “But that’s just me.”

  They stopped talking when they heard the footsteps of a uniformed Zephyr employee crossing the wooden floor. Joe looked up, half-expecting to see Bob Olig.

  Instead, it was a grizzled bellman with a full beard and a name tag that said Hérve from France.

  “Are you Joe Pickett?” Hérve asked.

  When Joe said yes, Hérve handed him a message. “Since we don’t have telephones in the rooms, this is the way we deliver them.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I want to remind you, sirs, that the inn closes tomorrow at noon,” he said.

  “We know.”

  Hérve smiled, turned on his heel, and returned to the front desk, where his colleagues were packing up and closing down for the season.

  Joe un
folded the note and read it aloud.

  “Joe: I thought a lot about everything and may have figured something out. It’s a doozy. Meet me at Sunburst Hot Springs tomorrow at seven. Best, Mark Cutler.”

  17

  AT SIX-FORTY-FIVE THE NEXT MORNING THE THERMALS in the upper geyser basin created a wall of billowing steam across the highway that wetted the outside of the windshield of the Yukon so Joe had to brake, turn on the wipers, and crawl through. For a moment, in the midst of the sharp-smelling steam, he was blinded and had the strange sensation of being in an airplane as it rose skyward through the clouds.

  Demming was in the passenger seat clutching a large paper cup of coffee; Nate was in the backseat smelling of wood smoke. The two had met uneasily at the Yukon ten minutes before.

  “Thanks for saving us,” Demming had said.

  “Anytime,” Nate said.

  It was crisp and cold, the first shafts of sun pouring over the western mountains as if assaulting the day. A heavy frost made the grass sparkle and coated the pine trees. Elk grazed in the open parks, wisps of steam curling up from their nostrils.

  Joe’s holstered Glock was on the console between him and Demming. He had watched her reaction when she saw it and detected no official warning. Maybe she hadn’t awakened yet, he thought. Nate wore his .454 in a shoulder holster beneath a billowy, open fatigue jacket, the leather strap in clear view across his chest. He had no doubt she’d seen that too and said nothing.

  They didn’t encounter a single vehicle until they turned from the highway to Biscuit Basin and nearly hit a black SUV head-on that was coming out. Joe swerved sharply right, missing the front bumper of the SUV by inches. The SUV turned away from the Yukon as well, and both vehicles went off the road into opposite shallow ditches. Joe stopped but the SUV continued on, the driver jerking it back onto the road and roaring away, heading north with a spray of pea gravel that peppered the back window of the Yukon. It happened so quickly that Joe didn’t get a glimpse of the driver through the smoked glass windows of the SUV—only the gleaming grille like the bared teeth of a shark that had just missed an attack.