Jack Decker sat across from Maggie at her kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee. “I would never make trouble for Maggie. But you are just by being here. Larson wants you dead.”
I arched an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. “I already got that memo when his men tried to burn me alive and then almost shot me.”
“You were trespassing,” he reminded me. “I told them the infrared on the chopper picked up a heat signal heading west.”
If he wanted gratitude for giving Larson’s men a false lead, he was not going to receive it from me. He appeared to be unarmed, but I studied Maggie’s face. “Are you okay?”
Her hands were folded together on the tabletop, and though concern was etched into her face, it did not look like she had been threatened or like she was being coerced when she said, “I’m fine.” She arched a dark brow at Jack. “He’s finally decided, for once in his life, not to act like a spoiled asshole.” If the younger man’s complexion were any lighter, I would have sworn he flushed.
He took a deep breath and turned to me. For the first time in fifteen years, he met my gaze without a trace of animosity. “Grant Larson is a poacher. And I don’t mean a small-time, petty hunter who occasionally picks off an animal he’s not supposed to. I mean a full scale, multi-million-dollar operation.”
I stayed in the doorway, but he had my complete focus. “Go on.”
“It’s invitation only, starting at fifty thousand dollars for a seven-day hunt. He specializes in endangered and protected animals.”
I suddenly remembered the letters in the column of Winona’s spreadsheets. “Wolves, grizzles, and cougars?”
He nodded. “Along with wolverines and bald eagles.”
Maggie made a sound of distress low in her throat, and Frank moved to her side.
“In the park?” I asked. Killing for sport was a cowardly, honorless act, but killing within national park boundaries was outright stupid.
“Sometimes within the park, but mainly along the boundary with his land. He uses bait to lure them off park territory. He brings in a taxidermist as well. Everything is kept under wraps. Not even the ranch hands know, although most would look the other way.”
The cameras outside of the one building and the surreptitious comings and goings made more sense. “The north barn.”
“The north barn,” he agreed.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Harrington-Moore. Navarro. Boudreaux.”
“Those are some of his clients, but only a few,” Jack said. “It’s an elite group. An exclusive bunch of psychopaths.”
“More than psychopaths,” I said. “Some of those men are movers and shakers in DC. Influential men with deep, deep pockets and far-reaching influence.”
He shrugged. “Politics isn’t my forte.”
“But aiding and abetting a poaching ring is.” The animosity returned to his dark eyes, eyes that were so like his sister’s. “Winona would be ashamed of you. So would your mother, if she knew.” I was not Native American, but my wife’s love and respect for the earth and its creatures was something I had witnessed over the years.
His face flinched as if I had struck him, and he looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I deserved that,” he said finally.
I studied him, the harsh lines of his face, the heavy slant of his brow. “Why did you come here?”
“A woman and child are at my cabin right now. I’m willing to overlook a lot, but not the murder of an innocent woman and a kid.” He left unsaid that he was willing to overlook my death.
Maggie’s eyes widened. “Faye and Sam?” She darted a glance at me.
“I found her vehicle at the bottom of the mountain off of Snowshoe Lane today,” I said.
Her face turned ashen. “Christ. They’re still alive? That’s a five-hundred-foot drop.”
“Both are in bad shape,” Jack said. “I called my mother to look after them. She’s suggesting they go to the hospital. Their injuries are more than what she can bandage with a first aid kit.”
“Larson is the reason Faye and her boy went off that mountain?” I asked.
“I wasn’t there when they burned your trailer, and I wasn’t there when they drove that woman and kid off the mountain,” he said, gaze and voice direct. “But I know he sent his men to handle them just like he sent them to your place. Told them to make it look like an accident, both times.”
“Why Faye and Sam?” Maggie asked.
“The boy got into the north barn one day when a group of school kids toured the ranch and he wandered off.”
“I went with Faye that evening to find him,” I said.
“And showed up on his land days later. Larson’s men were just to keep an eye on you. But when it became clear the boy talked, the orders changed.”
“Sam doesn’t speak,” Maggie said, voice tight. “At all.”
Jack’s brow wrinkled, and he glanced at me. “If the boy didn’t talk, then how did you know about his operation?”
“Winona told me.”
His face went completely blank.
I turned to Maggie. “Laptop?”
Her lips were pressed into a grim line. “It’s on my bedside table, and the thumb drive is in the safe.”
I retreated down the hall. Frank followed me, with Louie close at his heels. I grabbed her laptop and retrieved the flash drive from the gun safe under her bed. The dogs trotted after me as I returned to the kitchen.
I took the seat beside Maggie. When the laptop was powered up and the spreadsheets pulled up on the screen, I turned it and slid the computer across the table to Jack.
He studied the spreadsheets for several long, silent minutes, and the clock on the kitchen wall counted out the seconds as the groove between his eyebrows deepened.
“How did she find out about the poaching?” I asked.
“She didn’t know about it.”
When he leaned back and rubbed his jaw, I said, “Obviously, she did. That has to be what she was documenting. These hunts. The coordinates led me to camera traps at the edge of Larson’s land.”
“I didn’t know she knew,” he said finally. “She never said a word to me about it.”
“She had to have. She would have come to you for advice.”
His face took on the countenance of granite. “And what? You think she came to me and then I ratted out my own sister to my boss, and he killed her?”
My brows arched, and I almost laughed at the irony. His disbelief echoed the consternation I felt fifteen years ago when the rumors first started to circulate. My wife and I did not have the best relationship, but my disinterest did not make me a murderer. I did not kill my wife and my daughter, even though I had grown tired of being a husband and father. Before I became angry, I was stunned at how quickly people leapt to that conclusion.
He thrust his chin toward the computer screen. “If she knew what he was doing, she would not have kept quiet about it. And Larson is not a man you cross. Everyone working for him knows that. You remain loyal to the man, and the rewards are rich. He is not a man who is stingy with his favors. But if you cross him, it’s not just a matter of losing your job. Having your reputation ruined. Not being able to find work afterward. The fire at your trailer. The accident the woman and boy were in. There you have a glimpse of how Larson operates.”
“I’m telling you this now for the last time. I won’t ever repeat myself. I had nothing to do with Winona and Emma’s disappearance.”
He held my gaze for a long moment and then hung his head. Silence settled over the kitchen. “Fuck,” he finally bit out. After several minutes, he looked up and met my gaze, and I knew the look in his eyes. It was desolation and despair. I had seen it enough in my own eyes over the last months to recognize the emotions. It was the result of certainty and obsession being stripped away, leaving a man without answers and without anyone to blame. “Fuck.”
He shoved back from the table, startlin
g Louie and Frank, and strode out of the house. The front door slammed behind him, and then I heard it. A guttural, agonized, wordless roar. I knew he had thrown his head back and shouted his rage at the sky, because it was a move I had made several times myself. Frank and Louie began barking wildly.
Maggie stood and moved to a cabinet. She returned with a bottle of whiskey and three shot glasses. I took the whiskey from her and filled all three glasses to the brim. I set the bottle aside, lifted the shot glass, and threw the whiskey back. A cough from Maggie indicated she had done the same. When Jack stalked back into the kitchen, he followed suit when Maggie pushed the shot glass toward him.
Brother, best friend, and husband. We sat in silence for several minutes.
When Jack looked me in the eye, for the first time since I met him when he was a pissant teenager, I saw a shred of decency in the man. “I’ll help you bring him down.”
I kept coming back to the photos of the first man who had shown up at Larson’s. I pulled an image in close and cropped it into a headshot. An image search on the internet took me to the home page of a website for Baxter Taxidermy. The face of Arnold Baxter stared back at me from the website and matched the face of the man I saw at Larson’s ranch.
I hooked Maggie’s computer up to the printer and printed out the photos I took of the man.
When the task was finished, I turned to where Maggie was curled up at the end of the couch with Frank draped over her feet and Louie occupying her lap. She was so quiet, I thought she had fallen asleep, but her eyes were open and she stared blankly at the opposite wall.
“Mags,” I said softly.
When she glanced at me, the lamplight gleamed on the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I wish she had come to me. I hate that she kept this to herself. She must have been so frightened.”
My throat closed. “We’ll make this right for her,” I said finally when the tightness in my throat eased enough to allow words past.
“We have to,” she whispered.
I stood and bent to press my lips to the top of her head. “I’m going to be staying in a hotel in town until we see this through.”
“Hector—”
I interrupted her. “You saw my Airstream. But you didn’t climb down that mountain today and see what was left of Faye’s car. I don’t know how she and Sam survived that. I won’t have that be you. Keep yourself safe for me. Please. I’d like for Frank to stay here with you, too.”
She sighed, and I knew she did not have an argument for my request. In the end, though, Frank would not budge from in front of the door as I tried to leave.
I rubbed the poodle’s ears. “Stubborn dog,” I muttered, but I made no further protests and allowed him to accompany me into the night.
I got a room at one of the cheaper chain motels off the state road in town. Thankfully, my wallet was in the pocket of the pants I pulled on before fleeing my burning Airstream. The bed was unfamiliar but comfortable, and Frank lay beside me with his chin resting over my heart. My mind churned, and sleep eluded me until the early hours of the morning.
At the police department the next day, I ran Arnold Baxter through the system. His driver’s license was current. He had one DUI charge on his record from thirty years ago. His registered vehicle was the same one he arrived in at Larson’s ranch. The man appeared to be a law-abiding citizen.
When the end of my shift rolled around, I headed north to Livingston. Frank rode in the passenger’s seat beside me, his chin propped on the rolled-down window, a pleased canine grin on his face.
Baxter Taxidermy was on the outskirts of Livingston. The shop was located at his home, I realized, when I pulled up at the address. I followed his driveway around the side of the house to a rectangular building with a sign over the door announcing his business.
The sign in the window read OPEN, and a man behind a long counter looked up when the bell over the door rang as I entered the shop. “Hello,” he called.
I paused inside the door and glanced around. I could not ever recall being in a taxidermist shop before, and all the glass eyes staring at me were disturbing. Frank moved around me and entered the shop, moving straight toward the front counter.
The man was working on a black bear mount, and he left his work station as I approached the counter. When Frank whined low in his throat, I glanced down and realized the counter was a glass display case. Bugs swarmed over a set of skulls inside the case.
I had never considered myself a squeamish man, but my stomach turned at the sight.
“I use a colony of dermestid beetles to clean my bones,” the man said. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”
I looked away from the writhing beetles and swallowed. “Not sure that’s the term I’d use.”
He chuckled. “What may I help you with?”
I studied the heads mounted on the wall behind him. “Any of those from Yellowstone?”
His face, which had been open and friendly, hardened. “Not a one. I run an honest business here. Everything is above board. If you’re looking for something else, I’m afraid you’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“Really?” I said, and pulled the photographs out of my pocket. I placed them on the counter, spreading them out in a neat fan, and slid them toward him. “And what was Grant Larson looking for?” The color drained from his face as he studied the photographs I took of him as he entered the north barn with Larson. “You have run an honest business up to this point, Arnold. I did my research. But I’m pretty certain you won’t be keeping a written record of the work you do for Larson for the Fish and Wildlife wardens to inspect.”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “Look, I…I can explain.”
“Be my guest,” I invited, and he flinched.
“He came to me and said he had an offer for me.”
“When was this?”
“Last week,” he said, and I wondered why Larson had suddenly needed a new taxidermist. “I knew who he was, but I didn’t know…” His voice trailed off.
“That he was a poacher.”
He nodded. “I didn’t know until he invited me to his ranch and told me what the offer entailed.”
“Last week was the first time he approached you?”
“Yes, he came by here and took a look at my work and then invited me to his ranch the following day.”
“Did you accept his offer?”
He let out an unsteady breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. “My wife has been sick for years. The medical bills… He offered me a lot of money to work for him.”
“What does working for him involve?”
He glanced toward the door behind me. “Look,” he said, voice low. “The taxidermy community is small. It’s not rocket science to put two and two together and realize that Jake Martin must have been working for him.”
I made a mental note of the name. “Why do you think that?”
“Because he dropped off the face of the earth last week.” Sweat beaded on the line of his brow. “No one has seen him since.”
“Was a missing person report filed?”
“Yeah, three days ago. Some hikers found his truck abandoned at a trailhead and called it in. They searched the area but called it off after twelve hours.”
I had probably received the call to join the search party with Frank, but my phone was destroyed in the fire. “You think Larson had something to do with his disappearance.”
“I have my suspicions,” he said. “Jake was no hiker.”
“What does working for Larson involve?” I asked again.
“You’re not getting what I’m saying,” he whispered. “Larson is not a man you double cross.”
This was not police business yet, but I drew my badge from my pocket and placed it on top of the photograph on the counter. “You’re not getting what I’m saying. You can talk to me, or you can talk to the feds about this. But you’re going to talk to one of us.”
He leaned his elbows against the counter
top and dropped his face into his hands. “Shit,” he breathed. I gave him a moment to pull himself together. When he straightened, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. He stepped around the counter and moved to the front door, holding up his hands. “I’m not going to make a run for it. I’m not that stupid.” He flipped the lock on the door and twisted the sign until the CLOSED notice faced the outside. “Let’s go in the back.”
I started to follow him but noticed Frank staring into the glass display case. His ears were pricked, tail high. “Frank.” The poodle looked at me when I said his name and sat facing the macabre display. “Come away from there,” I ordered, and with one last glance at the bugs crawling over the pile of animal skulls, he trotted to my side.
Baxter led me into a small break room and moved toward the coffee pot on the counter. He lifted a mug in my direction, but the memory of those bugs crawling all over the skulls had me shaking my head.
His hands trembled as he drew a flask from a drawer and added a liberal amount of whiskey to his coffee. He drained the mug before taking a seat across from me.
“Those photos you have of me. The barn I’m entering, part of it is set up as a taxidermy workshop. All the equipment is provided. Top-end stuff. He will call me when he has a job. I do all the work there onsite. I don’t keep any record of the work done. And he pays me twenty thousand per job.”
“For the job and your silence regarding the fact that he is killing protected species inside a protected area.”
His eyes slid closed. “It’s a life-changing amount of money.”
“It is,” I agreed. “And prison is a life-changing experience, I hear.”
His eyes flew open, and he glared at me. “What do you want from me? If you’re going to arrest me, get on with it.”
“I’m not here to arrest you. I’m here to ask for your help. I need to get inside Larson’s operation, and I need solid proof.”
“I don’t know what kind of proof you need,” he said. “But any kind of proof I could get you is going to come straight back on me.”
“The proper paperwork you should be filling out for the wardens. Photos and recordings. Evidence that unequivocally ties Larson to poaching.”
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