Bitter Truth

by CJ Lyons

  What the hell was he doing up there? Or rather his phone? Maybe he hadn’t sent that text at all. She didn’t like the way the phone was turned off then on again just to send the one text that re-routed the search. If Bill were trying to hide, why chance turning the phone back on? He didn’t need to send the text as a decoy to misdirect the search teams, not with all this wilderness to hide in and a full day’s head start.

  Unless it hadn’t been Bill, but someone else manipulating them. Who? Why?

  “What the hell do those fools think they’re doing?” Gleason asked, hitting the brakes so hard the truck fishtailed as it shimmied to a stop. He was out of the truck before Lucy could stow the laptop and open her door to join him.

  In front of them, near the river, were two large canvas tents on platforms and a fire ring with three men gathered around it. But that wasn’t what had Gleason so furious. It was the pile of trash, including empty food containers stacked up beside a pair of large ice chests.

  “You do realize you’re rolling out the red carpet, inviting bears by leaving all that trash out?” he told them, his voice strained, posture angry. “Not to mention how unsafe it is to be doing any kind of food prep or storage so close to camp? I know the Holmsteads gave you all the rules—since this is their property, they’re on the hook for any damage.”

  Lucy caught up to the ranger, taking a stand behind him and to his left. She watched the three men, paying particular attention to their hands and stance—one of them was one of the geologic engineers who’d flown in with her and Nick. She didn’t see any weapons on the men, other than clasp knifes hooked onto their belts, but there were two AR-15 rifles propped against the log they’d been using as a seat, one of them with thermal imaging sights. A lot of firepower for engineers on a fishing trip.

  “This is prime area for grizzly, black bear, wolves, and mountain lion,” Gleason continued. “I know that sounds romantic to city folk, but trust me, you do not want to be inviting them into your camp.”

  Where was the fourth man, Davenport? Lucy wondered, stepping back to try to get a look inside both tents. They were empty except for pickaxes, shovels, and a variety of equipment boxes. She remembered the ground-penetrating radar unit they’d brought onto the plane. Davenport had said they were on a working vacation. What exactly were they looking for?

  “Sorry, officer.” One of the men finally took the lead. He nodded to the pistol holstered at Gleason’s hip. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

  “It’s Ranger, Ranger Gleason. Forest Service.”

  “But isn’t this private land? I mean, we paid to be here—”

  “The Holmsteads give us access. In fact, we have a bear trap about a mile and a half downstream from here. If I’d known you all were baiting them yourselves—” Gleason cut his words short, pressing his lips together. “Look, we just don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He glanced at the two semi-automatic rifles. “And you know you can’t take those off the Holmstead property. There’s no hunting right now; season’s closed.”

  Movement from upstream caught Lucy’s eye. The fourth man, Davenport. He was pushing a piece of equipment the size of a lawnmower. The GPR unit. When he saw Lucy and Gleason, he left the unit and jogged to join his partners. “Well, hi there, Lucy, former FBI agent. Good to see you again. What brings you guys all the way out here?”

  “The man’s upset we’ve been cooking and leaving the trash out,” the other man from the plane told him.

  “I told you guys to collect the trash and burn it.” Davenport turned to Gleason. “I’m so sorry. We’re not used to these primitive conditions, roughing it. It’s fun the first few days, but then—” He shrugged, holding his hands up. “Is burning it good enough? We’ve been storing the food in special bear cans we bought in town. Is there something else we should be doing?”

  “Yeah, a lot.” Gleason gestured to the trash pile, and Davenport joined him. Lucy skipped the lecture on basic camp skills and took the opportunity to study the rest of the site. The other men divided, two joining Davenport and Gleason and one watching her as he sat on the log within arm’s reach of the rifles.

  She didn’t care what they called themselves or how much fancy equipment they had, these guys were not geologists. At least not the law-abiding kind. But neither she nor Gleason had jurisdiction here—and she couldn’t see any laws that they were breaking. Still, her senses were on high alert, scanning for danger, uncomfortable with the fact that she and Gleason were outnumbered and outgunned.

  Gleason and Davenport seemed to come to an understanding. “I’ll stop back by a bit later, make sure you don’t need any more help.”

  The men frowned at that even as Davenport nodded and extended a hand for Gleason to shake. “Thanks so much, we really appreciate it. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. We’ll get this all cleaned up and taken care of right away.”

  Gleason nodded and turned back to the truck. Lucy kept watch on the men until he was safely inside. “You coming?” he shouted to her.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said, backing up to her side of the truck, never losing sight of the men. She climbed in, and he spun the wheel. “What about the bear trap?”

  “There’s nothing on the cameras, and I can swap the bait out later. That gives me a reason to check up on those guys. I’ll never understand why people pay good money to go on vacation without knowing a damn thing about the place they’re visiting.”

  “I thought the Holmsteads hired them. They’re geological engineers. Nick and I flew in with two of them.”

  “Hired them for what?” He considered that for a moment. “A few years ago, they found some fossils down in the canyon south of here—with the drought, more of the bedrock is exposed, so maybe Amy or Gus came across something.”

  “Like the dinosaurs they’ve found in Montana?”

  “They need the money. Maybe these guys can help them dig it up or find more.”

  They pulled up to a farmhouse between two large barns and an equipment shed. A young woman was working on a tractor while an elderly man looked over her shoulder.

  “Gus, Amy,” Gleason hailed them as he hopped out of the truck. Lucy joined him. “This is Lucy—she’s helping in the search for Bill, and would love to talk to you.”

  Amy looked up, a crescent wrench clutched in one hand. “You’re Nick’s wife. He was on the team yesterday.” She stepped away from the tractor, leading them out of earshot of the older man who took over the work on the engine. As they walked, she aimed a smile intended solely for Gleason. One that he returned readily, Lucy couldn’t help but notice. Guess that explained why an overworked Forest Service employee with a huge territory to administer somehow managed to spend so much time on private land. “You’ll be wanting to talk with Gus, then.”

  “You weren’t here when Bill came by?”

  “Nope. I never saw Bill, not after getting him and Gus coffee that morning. I went out with Judith to check on Jericho. Bill was gone when I got back.”

  “Jericho?” Lucy asked.

  “One of our pack llamas. He came up lame a few weeks ago; had a rock stuck in his foot. It’s been slow to heal, and Judith was worried it might lead to infection, so she’s been keeping a real close eye on him. Even put a GPS collar on him in case he comes up lame again.”

  “Speaking of lame,” Gleason said, “those guys camped down at the river are doing a shit job policing their trash and food. I read them the riot act, but I figured you might want to check in on them.”

  “Yeah, sorry. With the search and everything, I haven’t gone down there. They said not to bother them, so I didn’t even think—but I’ll keep an eye on them, and I can take the gator down and haul a load of trash out if need be.”

  “They said they’re geological engineers,” Lucy said. “Do you know what they’re looking for?”

  Amy frowned. “Gus made all their arrangements, and said not to ask any questions, that they wanted their privacy. All I know is Gus said it would be worth our while.” She gl
anced over her shoulder to the tractor. Gus had his head and shoulders down into the machinery’s innards. “He’s up to something; I’m not sure what. But I can try to find out.”

  “Whoever they are, they don’t know squat about camping,” Gleason said. “I shut down the trap on the north branch—the wolves were targeting it. But with those guys so close, I think I’ll come back later and shut down the one in the west canyon. Just to be on the safe side.”

  “Thanks, Gleason.” Amy turned to Lucy, lowering her voice. “Just to warn you, Gus can be kind of…single-minded? I’ve asked him about what he and Bill talked about, so have Judith and Gleason, even Judge Carson came by. He’s not senile, just kinda set in his ways, focused on what he thinks is important and tends to ignore everything else.”

  “Stubborn and compulsive,” Gleason said.

  “Yeah, okay,” Amy admitted. “But a lot of that is because he has a such hard time getting around because of his hip. It kills him to feel helpless, that he can’t go roaming the countryside like he once did.”

  Lucy nodded her understanding. “Bill obviously thought he had something to contribute.”

  Amy beamed. “He used to visit a few times a week just to talk to Gus about the goings on around here after he left home. Guess since Bill didn’t have any family of his own left here, coming back he felt a bit lost. And of course, the Beacheys and the Magruders have always had a special bond.”

  “Gus is descended from Lloyd Magruder,” Gleason told Lucy. She still didn’t understand why people here made such a point of remembering a murder victim but not the man who brought his killers to justice in a time when justice was rare and hard to come by.

  Amy led the way back to the tractor. “Gus, come on out now. I have someone I want you to meet.”

  Gus’s voice echoed against the tractor’s hood as he strained against a stubborn nut. “No time for tea parties, girl. We’ve got to get this thing running.”

  “She’s a friend of Bill’s. She needs your help.”

  There was a clang of metal against metal and a muffled curse. Gus straightened up, pulled his hands from the engine—minus the wrench he’d dropped—and turned to Lucy. He was wiry, his skin marked by time spent in the sun, and although his thinning white hair proclaimed him to be in his eighties, the gleam in his eye was that of a much younger man.

  “Friend—are you Lucy?” He reached a grease-stained hand out for her to shake. His grip was strong despite a tremor that shook his forearm.

  “Yes, I am. I’m trying to retrace Bill’s steps, as well as the cases he was interested in. I found some notes in his home office that seemed to suggest he was talking to you about some old investigations?”

  Gus sucked on his teeth, then turned to limp toward the house. When Lucy didn’t follow immediately, he glanced back over his shoulder. “Well, c’mon then. Amy, you and that boy of yours can finish fixing the tractor. This is Bill’s FBI friend, and we got business to discuss.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Holmstead house was a traditional two-story that would have been at home on any Pennsylvania farm. Gus led her up the porch, through the front door, and past the formal sitting room to the less formal eat-in kitchen at the rear of the house. The kitchen faced south, its bay window overlooking the sprawling pasture where the llama roamed. Some were big and stout, obviously pack animals. Others had more elegant features and long hair in a variety of deep, rich shades. The alpacas raised for wool—or was it hair when it didn’t come from a sheep? Lucy had no clue.

  “Are alpacas llamas or are llamas alpacas?” she asked, as Gus poured two mugs of coffee for them and joined her at the table by the window. His limp was severe enough that he sloshed coffee almost over the brim of the cups but his glare sat her down when she rose to help.

  “Don’t make fun of my buddies,” he chided her. “They saved this place. Back when my wife was still alive, twenty some years ago, we were about to go under. The economy was in the toilet, and no one wanted to buy a place like this out in the middle of nowhere—not with all the government regulations on the land surrounding us. No one cared that a hundred and fifty years ago there was supposed to be enough gold on this land to start a country of your own.”

  “Gold?” Deena had mentioned something about Bill searching for hidden treasure. Before he became obsessed with the idea of a serial killer prowling his county.

  “You know about Lloyd Magruder, how he was murdered for a few sacks of gold dust? Well, that was nothing compared to the gold his brother found. Right here on this land.”

  “Where?”

  He chuckled. “That’s the problem. Damn fool buried it to hide it from claim jumpers, but then got lost in a blizzard and died on his way home before he could tell anyone where he’d hid it. It was a miracle his poor wife was even able to hang onto the land at all. But she did. Just like my Betty, she wouldn’t give up. Betty, she got the whole llama thing up and running. She dug in, joined groups on the internet—there weren’t so many back then—asked questions of anyone who had something to offer. We were doing just fine until she died, and I—” He waved a futile hand at his legs. He took a long sip of his coffee.

  Lucy waited. She could offer empty words of comfort, but to a man like Gus, she sensed they’d be meaningless.

  “You’re like Bill,” he finally said. “A good listener. Not like those other fools who keep coming by. I tell them they’re looking in the wrong place, but no one believes me.”

  “Why do you think they’re looking in the wrong place?”

  “Bill. That morning he was here, we talked about all sorts of things. Like always. Where the huckleberries were ripe for picking.” He stopped. “Amy will have my hide. Hang on.” Before Lucy could offer to help, he’d pushed back from the table, gotten up, and brought back a plate of cornbread and a jar of jam. “Sorry about that. I’ve no appetite these days, and sometimes forget my manners. Go on, now. Amy will count ’em when she comes in, and she’ll be insulted if you don’t take some.”

  Lucy smiled. The cornbread had a delicate golden crust and was light and fluffy, the scent of cinnamon wafting from it. She slathered a piece with the jam and tried it. “Delicious,” she said before she finished chewing. And she meant it.

  “I told Amy where to find the best huckleberries. It’s her first try at making jam, but she did good.”

  “She did,” Lucy agreed, helping herself to a second piece. “So you were saying…”

  “Right. Bill and I, we were talking about cases—I used to be a county commissioner. Thankless job. Everyone wants something, but there’s never enough to go around. The fire department and ambulance crew are volunteer. Half our deputies are volunteer reserve. Harriet, the sheriff’s department dispatcher, actually draws her pay from the federal because she’s also our postmistress. Constant robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

  “They were lucky to have you.”

  He snorted. “Same three people run for election every year—power hungry. Nelson Vrynchek, who owns an equipment company, wants first dibs on any new logging or road maintenance contracts. Mickey Durham, he always runs for treasurer—he’s cooking the books, I’m sure, but no one’s been able to catch him. And Verna Highsmith, she’s been secretary for going on two decades, I swear just to be first to get the best gossip. The other three seats are at-large members and if no one runs for them, we hold a lottery of registered voters who are permanent residents. That’s how bad it’s gotten around here—all’s that left is a bunch of old folks like me, and no one gives a damn.”

  “Was Bill interested in becoming a commissioner?”

  “No, no. He was interested in when I was one. You know he’s been digging into all the death investigations—determined to find a real case he can sink his teeth into. Poor guy, only been here a year and already bored to tears. I’m not sure he’ll last. Anyway, that’s why they’re looking in the wrong place for Bill. Amy told me where they were searching; said it was based on tracking his phone. It’s everything
east and north of here. Which is wrong. I don’t know nothing about phone tracking, but I know tracking people. And you start with where they were last seen and where they were going.”

  “And Bill wasn’t going east or north?”

  “No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. A couple of times when I was commissioner, we had to call in the coroner over in Idaho County to handle a death because Judith was out of town. Carruthers. What a horse’s ass. Took forever to get here, insisted on all these fancy tests—that came out of our budget—and twice he got it wrong. And he’s an M.D. When Judith got back and reviewed everything, she figured things out and set him straight. We’re lucky to have her. She’s the smartest doctor—human or animal or any other kind—I’ve ever met.”

  “So Bill was interested in Judith’s cases?” Lucy asked, trying to steer him back on track without curtailing his thoughts. Often it was something a witness considered irrelevant that ended up breaking a case.

  “Not just Judith’s—that doctor over in Grangeville as well. That’s where Bill said he was headed. Said he wanted to talk to the Idaho County coroner.” He leaned forward, dropping his voice as if someone might be listening. “You see, Bill thought he was after a serial killer. Someone hiding in plain sight, he said. Said he figured a killer wouldn’t care about lines on a map, they’d be killing in both counties, maybe even up on the rez. Anywhere they could get away with murder.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Before Lucy could ask Gus more about Bill’s suspicions, her phone rang. She answered it—no cell bars, but it was connecting through the Wi-Fi just fine.

  “It’s me,” Nick said, his voice hushed and urgent as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear him. “How fast can you get to Deena’s?”

  Once she got a ride back to where Bill’s truck was parked… “About twenty-thirty minutes.” She was guessing, but it wasn’t far in mileage; only the roads were so abysmal and none of them ran in a straight line. “Why?”