Bear Bait (9781101611548)

by Beason, Pamela

  Sam was tired of chasing shadows. Like the plumbing in her house, the wilderness was her domain. She knew how it worked. Eventually, she would make Marmot Lake give up its secrets.

  When the caffeine kicked in, she remembered that today was the first day she could have her stitches removed from her lip. She drove to the tiny emergency clinic in Forks. The brief pain of having the stitches plucked out was well worth the reward of no longer looking like the bride of Frankenstein.

  On to the next onerous task—creating Hoyle’s reports. In the mailroom at the division building, Sam faxed the signed contract to Best, hoping that the transmissions weren’t logged and she wouldn’t be reprimanded for using government equipment for private business. Then she forced herself to sit at the desk she’d been assigned to. She and several other temps shared access to an ancient computer. As the technological dinosaur warmed up with its usual coffee-grinding noises, she scrubbed a layer of fine dust from the keyboard and screen. She should have brought her laptop from home. But then, that had been part of the appeal of this assignment, to get away from the insane pace and chaos of hi-tech.

  Outside the window, wisps of ground fog floated along the ground like ghosts gliding among the trees. She loved the mysterious moist cloak of clouds that rolled in from the ocean. Snagged by the forest and dammed in by the high peaks of the Olympics, the fog would lay hushed in the hollows like a cold-blooded beast that had to be warmed by the sun before it could move.

  Fog was a rarity in the rolling hills of southeastern Kansas, where she’d grown up. To walk through a cloud-shrouded forest was a special joy: trees dripping in primeval moisture, muffled wingbeats of birds flying invisible overhead, diamond chandeliers of spiderwebs stretched between the fern fronds.

  By noon, the fog outside would be gone. Turning the squeaky chair toward the keyboard, she set about typing as fast as she could. First, the Lisa report she’d promised Hoyle. She entered all her conversations with Lisa Glass, as well as her trailside interview of the girl’s coworkers and her inspection of Lisa’s dorm room. Then she worked on the report for the incident at Marmot Lake. Reduced to words on the screen, she definitely did not come off as a professional investigator. She left out her collision with Raider, but noted a sighting of a large male bear, possibly wounded. Under “Conclusions”: she typed, Trace license plate, continue investigation of lake area.

  She e-mailed both files to Hoyle, then clicked the flashing mailbox icon at the top of the screen. Most messages were from the Division Office, standard instructions about proper usage of forms or distribution of funds or about yet another reorganization of high-level NPS managers nobody had met. One message, from Peter Hoyle to all employees, contained advice about dealing with Lisa Glass’s death; it was mainly a warning not to talk to the press. Another to Sam alone suggested how to represent herself at the upcoming conference. She squirmed in her chair, already fretting about the speech she was now committed to do. It was not an event to look forward to.

  And there was her father’s wedding to get through before that. High heels and church ladies and unrealistic pledges of forever. Although, now that she thought about it, since her father was in his mid-sixties, forever might not be all that unrealistic. She was suddenly ashamed of herself for dreading his marriage. She needed fresh air and bird songs to sweep that malicious dust out of her brain. She peeked outside. Dang, the fog was nearly gone.

  She called Tom Blackstock and told him she would not be returning to the bunkhouse tonight. Arnie Cole caught her in the supply room as she was lashing a tent onto a backpack. “Well, well. Sizzlin’ Summer Westin. I’ll bet you’re camping out at Marmot Lake.”

  “There’s something weird going on out there.”

  “I heard about the gunplay. There’s always something going on out there, just like I told you.”

  “I suppose you heard that Lisa Glass died, too.”

  “Was that her name?” He looked genuinely stricken, and for a moment she thought she may have misjudged him.

  “I think there’s a connection between what’s still going on out there and what happened to Lisa.” Sam pulled a nylon strap through a metal-toothed buckle and snugged it up tight. “We’re never going to discover what it is with law enforcement just responding to calls.” She stood up.

  “You’re camping out there by yourself?”

  No way was she going to tell him that. She hefted the backpack.

  “Need protection?” He bounced his eyebrows at her. “I’m available.”

  “I wouldn’t risk it if I were you, Arnie. I have a gun, and I’m a little jumpy these days.”

  JACK Winner stood on Ernest Craig’s rickety front steps, holding a postcard and pretending hard that it was from Allie. His throat was closing up fast. When Ernest answered the door, the old man also had a postcard in his hand.

  “So you got one, too,” Ernest said, blinking. The hand in which he held the Universal Studios card trembled like a leaf in a breeze. Without Allie’s paycheck to fund his habit, the old sot probably had the DTs by now.

  Ernest noticed him looking and slid his quivering hand, along with the postcard, into his front pants pocket. “It just doesn’t seem like Allie to run off to L.A.,” he said. “But it says she met this guy Steve—” Ernest’s gaze met Jack’s at that point, and he paused. “Anyhow, I’m so glad to know she’s alive, aren’t you?”

  Jack wasn’t sure he could speak at all for a few seconds, so he just nodded. Finally, he croaked, “Mr. Craig, I—”

  “Ernest.”

  Jack cleared his throat, then said, “Ernest, I don’t know how you’d feel about this…I don’t even know how I feel about it, but—”

  The old man interrupted, “I don’t understand about the car, though.”

  Jack blinked at him. “What car?”

  “Allie’s car. How come she left it at Bogachiel State Park if she was goin’ to L.A.?”

  Oh, God. He’d forgotten about the car. Jack racked his brains for an explanation. “Maybe she hitched a ride.”

  “Too dangerous.” Ernest shook his head. “Allie wouldn’t hitch.”

  “Mr. Craig—Ernest—it seems like Allie did lots of things that you never thought she would.”

  The old man deflated like Jack had just slugged him. “Yeah,” Ernest finally managed to get out. “I guess so.”

  “Things we both thought she’d never do,” Jack said. “Maybe this Steve guy gave her a ride. Maybe they drove his car to L.A.” He liked to think that sometimes, that a nice guy had stolen Allie away and they lived happily ever after. In his imagination, this Steve looked a lot like Jack Winner but had a lot more money. He could see the two of them now, driving south on 101 in a convertible, enjoying the sun and the ocean views.

  “You were gonna ask me something?” Ernest said, jerking Jack’s thoughts back to the present.

  “Yeah.” Jack paused a beat before adding, “Allie asked if I’d send her a few of her things.”

  The old guy’s eyes lit up. “You got an address for her?” He sounded eager and hurt all at the same time.

  Damn. Of course he’d need an address. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? Then inspiration struck. “It’s a general delivery post office box; you know, a place to pick up mail and packages, until she gets settled. I’ll write it down for you.” He didn’t know how long a post office would keep general delivery mail these days, but he figured that even if Ernest’s letter got returned, the old man would assume that Allie had just moved on. That was how he tried to think of her now, too. Like she’d moved on to someplace better.

  Ernest let him in. Jack could hardly believe the place. It was almost as clean as if Allie were still living there. The old man had scrubbed the kitchen and even vacuumed the living room. The stains were still there on the carpet, but the place smelled like orange cleaner instead of sour whiskey now.

  Ernest watched as Jack wrote down a fake P.O. box address on the back of an envelope. Thank God the zip code for Hollywood was o
n the back of his postcard.

  “I’m gonna write to Allie,” Ernest told him. “Tell her I’m cleaning up. You’ll tell her that, too, won’t you? It’ll be better around here now; she won’t have to be ashamed. I’m gonna get me some sort of job, even if it’s just a dishwasher at the diner. I’ll find an AA group and I’m really gonna go this time.”

  He sounded so hopeful. When the old man’s quivering hand landed on his shoulder, Jack wasn’t sure he could take it. “You’ll tell her, too, won’t you?”

  Jack had to swallow hard before he could answer. “Sure, Ernest, I’ll write her that when I send the stuff. But I don’t know if she’ll listen to me.” His voice broke then and he had to stop. Had Allie died because she’d listened to him too often?

  “Why d’you think she asked you to send her things?”

  Jack shrugged. “Probably because she didn’t want you to have to make a special trip.” He nodded in the direction of the man’s bad leg.

  “’Course. She always did baby me like that.” Ernest turned and looked toward the bedrooms. “What kind of things did she want? I hope it’s not the paintings I got in my bedroom. She did those when she was just a little kid, and I sorta need ’em. I gotta have—” Ernest choked then.

  “No, it’s not paintings.” His chest felt like it was caving in on itself—was twenty-four too young to have a heart attack? He couldn’t wait to get this over with. “A couple of her photos.” He glanced at his postcard like he was reading from it. “A marten on a log? And a full moon at Rialto Beach.” He’d been with Allie when she’d taken those. He understood what Ernest was talking about when the old man said he needed some of Allie’s things.

  “I guess that’d be okay. They’re in her room.” He preceded Jack there, and now Jack realized why he’d never seen Ernest Craig around much before. His limp was painful to witness. No wonder the man had taken up whiskey. Allie said her dad was wounded in Vietnam but the VA had said his leg problem was not service-related; which was just what you’d expect of the feds. Plenty of tax breaks for the rich but no medical care for a man that couldn’t work anymore. That was why Allie had wanted to blow up the VA Building in Seattle.

  Ernest took Allie’s incredible purple moonlight photo down from her wall, and then the one of the bright-eyed weasel that stole a chicken leg from their picnic at Marmot Lake. He handed them to Jack. Then the old man put an arm around his shoulders. Jack couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over, and they both stood there for a minute, pretending they weren’t crying, neither one looking at the other.

  Jack had no idea what the others had planned for Eminenten, but he’d make his part spectacular. For all the soldiers who came home broken, and for all the ones that didn’t come home at all. For all the hardworking folks who got ripped off. For Allie and her dad.

  15

  AFTER scouting the Marmot Lake area to make sure no surprises awaited her, Sam set up camp in thick woods beyond the burn zone, hiding her tent beneath the low-hanging branches of a red cedar. All evidence indicated that intruders had so far been active only near the lake shore. Her camp would be behind them, out of their sight. At least she hoped so.

  It took her half an hour of throwing rocks and ropes over high limbs to string up a bear line and suspend her food from it. Then she set off, using her GPS to guide her from the lake to the coordinates where she’d left the illegal track days ago. If she’d had wings, it wouldn’t have taken long, but she had to divert around massive firs, battle through meadows of thigh-high ferns and salmonberry brambles, and wade glacier-melt creeks that made her whole body ache. As her private expedition entered its third hour, she had new respect for the hardy explorers who first hacked into the Olympic Peninsula in the 1880s. Although the area she was traversing had been logged twice, hiking off-trail was still tough going.

  As she scrambled over a moss-encrusted log, she dropped her GPS locator, which slid into a pocket of rot at the cedar log’s base. She gritted her teeth. While she could reconnoiter roughly with her compass and map, she wanted to meet the track exactly where she’d left it before. She knelt, groaning a little at the pain from her injured knee. After digging under the log and jamming a splinter up under a fingernail, she finally fished out the handheld. The screen was blank.

  “Dammit!” She banged it on her thigh several times, pressed a few buttons. Finally, thankfully, the LCD blinked back on. Then she heard footsteps in the forest on the other side of the log.

  She flattened herself on the ground. Poachers? She was not eager to feel bullets whiz by her head again.

  A black and yellow centipede crawled through a miniature grove of orange gumdrop fungi a couple of inches from her nose. She closed her eyes, praying the creature wasn’t attracted to body heat. The steps neared her position. Small snaps and rustles came from several directions. Damn; it was a whole group. Now it sounded like someone was standing on the other side of the log. The skin on her back crawled with the expectation of a sudden blow. Another minute passed. She heard the crunching of twigs beneath heavy feet, not more than a yard away.

  Raising her head, she chanced a look across the top of the log. Startled brown eyes stared back at her from a long mournful face. A drooping stalk of greenery hung from the elk cow’s mouth. They gazed at each other for a second.

  Then Sam burst out laughing, although she knew she shouldn’t. Three long-legged calves grazed among more adults, not far away, and elk could be violently protective.

  The cow snorted and wheeled around, starting a minor stampede. Sam concentrated on counting the herd before they crashed out of sight. Five cows or yearlings—hard to tell from their backsides—and three calves only a couple of months old. She jotted down the numbers and position in her notebook. When she continued her quest, her mood was much happier.

  After fifteen more minutes, she met the tracks where she’d left them two days before, and then followed them forward into the woods. The vehicle clearly had four-wheel drive because the tracks went over rocks, mud, and uneven ground. She mourned two red-bellied salamanders flattened in a tread mark. A little farther on, a native pink-and-green frog had been reduced to two dimensions by the right-side tires. The ruined plants were too many to keep track of.

  Wouldn’t it be a piece of luck if Garrett Ford’s pickup tires matched the tread pattern on the ground? The man gave her the creeps. She wouldn’t be surprised to find he was behind all the THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND signs.

  After a forty-five-minute walk, the rough road ended in the midst of a thicket where the tracks made a three-point turn to double back on themselves. At first she was turned around, but then she realized that the splash of brightness glimpsed between tree trunks far to the west had to be Marmot Lake, shimmering in the sunshine.

  According to the GPS, she was now not even a half mile from her tent. In the midst of the three end points, where the same vehicle had clearly been parked multiple times, Sam found boot prints from two people, a large rectangular area where the grass had been flattened by something heavy, and an oblong rust red patch, thick with flies. Blood. Lots of it, now mostly absorbed into the ground. Her heart sank further as she found claw marks slashed through drying mud, and then, a couple of feet away, a clump of rough black fur.

  Something terrible had happened to a bear here within the last few days. She scraped up some of of the blood-soaked soil into one of her sample bags in case the rangers wanted to test it. Then she walked a widening spiral out from the turnaround, sniffing the air for the scent of decay. No bear carcasses. No remains of bait piles. The poacher hadn’t been out just for the gall bladder and paws, but had taken the whole bear, meat and fur and all. Not that it made any difference to the murdered bear.

  And—some consolation—she knew the victim hadn’t been Raider. This had happened more than twenty-four hours ago. But goddamn it, this was a protected area now and all the bears in it were supposed to be safe.

  She couldn’t raise anyone on her park service radio. She was in a dead zone
. A death zone. Feeling a little sick, she jotted down the GPS coordinates and marked an X on her map, then headed back down the tracks. In a spot where the right wheel of the vehicle had dropped off a rock outcropping into a depression, she maneuvered a large pyramid-shaped rock onto the down side of the outcropping.

  With luck, the driver would never see the rock, and when the tires inevitably dropped into the hole, the sharp rock would do major damage to the vehicle’s oil pan or transmission. Hopefully, the driver would be stuck here, clearly trespassing, with his vehicle covered in evidence of major criminal activity. Transmission fluid hemorrhaging from an illegal hunter’s pickup; now that was a nice image.

  Her trap set as best she could, she hiked back through the forest toward the lake and her tent. It was evening by the time she got there. She called in her findings to the dispatcher, and then, after checking the mine shaft and seeing no changes in the depression there, she circumnavigated the lake, verified that the parking lot was empty and her truck still hidden among the trees. She found no signs of Raider.

  She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Arnie she had a gun. Six months ago, Chase had given her a Glock pistol, saying she might need it someday. What she didn’t tell Arnie was that it was still hidden in her bedroom closet back in Bellingham. For the first time, she wished it were with her. She was planning to spend the night in an area crawling with illegal hunters. A place where a woman had been fatally attacked, if Lisa’s story of kidnapping was true. But she hated guns. Bullets traveled long distances and killed creatures not even aimed at, and Sam had survived for thirty-seven years without ever carrying a weapon. Her radio and cell phone worked here. If anything happened, she would be in place to observe and call for assistance. With luck, the element of surprise would be hers.