by Clea Simon
Of course. The dark booths in the back served as a clearinghouse for all kinds of shady deals. “Yeah?”
“There’s some kind of deal going down at the camp.” He spoke softly, as if afraid of being overheard. “They’re looking for muscle.”
“Muscle?” A lot of things went down in the woods. I didn’t particularly care about drugs or untaxed cigarettes.
“I heard something about cages.” Greg was right. Whatever had happened to Ronnie, someone still wanted a bear.
“You still at Happy’s?” Officially, bars in the state had to close by two. All that meant was that Happy would turn out the light over the door. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Me? No!” His voice squeaked. “You said call—I did.”
“Larry...” I was growling.
“Look, if you just show up, they won’t know I told you. But I was there.”
“They who, Larry?”
“That’s just it.” The fear in his voice was palpable. “No one’s saying. Only that they’ll pay and pay good—but, well, someone said Paul was a lesson.”
“That’s what you’re taking?” Wallis was staring as I filled my travel mug. “Coffee?”
I knew she didn’t like my brew—or any brew, for that matter. Though she’d been known to lap at cream. “I haven’t been sleeping that great.”
“I noticed.” She sniffed and pulled her head back in disgust. “But really? For some…animal?”
“For the bear?” I poked about in the fridge. I still wasn’t hungry, but I’ve been involved in animal care long enough to know that we all function best when we’ve eaten. “Or did you mean Albert?”
“Whatever.” She crossed the counter to stare over my shoulder. “Neither one is ...”
“Family?” I grabbed a roll—and pulled out a can of salmon for Wallis.
“In danger.” She corrected me, as I forked the fish into a dish. She was right, of course. One bear had been freed and relocated, another had happened into that clearing and been trapped—but had escaped. The odds of a third young male being caught in the same area were slim. Even if she meant Albert, the same held true. The town official was still in custody. Effectively caged, and thus safe.
For now. But unlike Wallis I had a sense of the progress of time. At some point, Albert would be released—and if he knew something… if he had seen something, even if he wasn’t fully aware of what he might have witnessed, he might become a target. Much, I realized with growing horror, as Ronnie must have been.
I had tried to explain to Creighton, but I’d gotten distracted by talk about Greg, about who was responsible for what: I wouldn’t have freed the bear by cutting through the ropes. Nobody with any sense would, not when it had a functioning release mechanism. No, the trap had been compromised intentionally, and then Ronnie had been sent to deal with it.
“No loss.” Wallis lapped daintily at the salmon. I couldn’t bring myself to respond to this, not now when I had to get moving. Besides, there are some arguments that I knew I would never win.
As I drove out to the state road, I found myself asking my own version of Wallis’ question. What was I hoping to accomplish, besides putting myself in a possibly dangerous situation?
Some of it was obvious. My species was preying on others. And while I was no stranger to the natural order of things, I did my best to even the score every now and then—though not in a manner that would put another person at risk. Granted, this kind of work was technically Greg Mishka’s responsibility. But not only was he overextended, he lacked my resources. What was I going to say? The animals of Beauville had clued me in that I could blackmail an old and disreputable colleague? No, I didn’t think that would cut it.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use every resource in my capacity. As I slowed and let my GTO drift onto the shoulder, I rolled down the windows, listening. The sounds of the waking forest, unfazed as yet by my intrusion. There was only so much I could do to hide my car. A short bumpy ride behind some bushes was the best I could think of. But if the flora didn’t help much, the fauna didn’t seem to care. Granted, I’d affronted a chipmunk, rolling over an acorn he’d had his eye on. But they have such short attention spans, it wasn’t like he was going to report me to Greg.
He wouldn’t have to. I was fully intending to call him, I reminded myself as I got out of the car and crept, as quietly as that chipmunk, over toward the camp. The moment I saw or heard anything that could be called actionable. Besides, with everything else going on, I wouldn’t mind having a feather in my cap—the kind even that one noisy jay flying by would be proud of.
“No fur, no hide to speak of!” Wallis had huffed, as I’d headed toward the door. “Where are your claws? Your fangs?”
“My kind do enough damage without.” I wasn’t going to waste time arguing. Wallis was on about something, but for all I knew, it was simply envy. She sees herself as the hunter in the family.
“Alpha predator indeed.” The thought had followed me out to the car. “Teeth can’t even pierce the skin.”
I didn’t need her to point out my limitations. As I settled in to wait, I realized how awkward and obvious I was.
“Who’s there? Who?” Mourning dove. Reacting to me, most likely, but I hunkered down lower, to make myself appear less threatening if not less noticeable.
“Who?” After a while, the bird fell silent. Not long after that, the whole forest grew quiet. I could hear my own breath as my pulse began to race. I’d been here long enough that the woods should have begun to get used to me. Something else was out there.
“Intruder! Intruder!” Blue jays are tough. If this one was blasting a warning, he had a reason. “Watch! Watch!”
That’s when it hit me. I was unarmed. I never had gone back to Happy’s to ask about my knife. Never replaced it either. I closed my eyes in disbelief, wondering at my own stupidity. That’s what Wallis had been saying to me—trying to say. While I’d been arguing about human responsibility, she was pointing out my complete vulnerability. Now I was in the middle of the woods. If I was lucky, the only thing approaching was a bear.
If I wasn’t.... I looked around. A branch about as long as my arm and as thick was within reach. As quietly as I could, I grabbed hold of it and pulled it toward me, once more crouching behind the scant brush. Somewhere close, a branch cracked. I held my breath. The slight sigh of leaves compressing came next, a sound so soft that were it not for that earlier crack I would have missed it.
And then nothing. Whoever—whatever—was out there was waiting, too. Listening as I was, and perhaps sniffing the air for signs of company. Around us, the forest held its breath. Wallis was wrong on one point—we were alpha predators. This silence? It meant something big. Something big—or something human.
That’s when it hit me. I had to pee.
Now, I’m not squeamish. Like that bear, I’ll go in the woods. But I was certainly not going to make myself more vulnerable to whatever or whoever was out there. Cursing the coffee, I chomped down on my lower lip, willing the urge to pass.
I was rewarded by the quiet rasp of branches not far away. Doing my best to push my discomfort aside, I tried to open my awareness—my thoughts as well as my ears. Like I’ve said, I’m no good with wild animals, but still, if it were a bear, I should be getting something. A sense of hunger or wariness, or even ursine fatigue.
“What? What?” I caught my breath. But, no, a vole had surfaced and the silence had caught her by surprise. She had been in the process of cleaning her soiled nest; that third baby was a terror. She scrabbled in the leaf mold, and I was aware once more of my own growing urgency.
“Come on, Pru. Deal!” The force of my internal command stopped the vole in mid claw, and with one quick flip, she dived back into her tunnel. The movement, subtle as it was, had an effect. I felt, rather than heard, a gasp. Yes, whatever was out there was listening too.
As carefully as I could, I shifted, bringing my cramped leg forward to relieve the pressure. Only I had stiffened more than I’d known; parts of my calf were numb—and my foot dragged over the crumbling plant life that carpeted the forest floor, rustling the dead leaves just like that vole had.
Only whatever was out there heard, and knew the difference. Something about the stillness, as if the morning itself held its breath. And that’s when I decided. Maybe I could out wait whatever was out there. Maybe my bladder and my patience would hold. But if I’ve learned anything from the animals around me, it’s that there are different styles of hunting. Different ways to cope.
What if I drew out whatever it was that waited? What if I made him—it—reveal itself? All I had was the branch, but it might be enough. From what I’d been able to piece together, Paul Lanouette had been beaten, not shot. I adjusted my grasp on the bough, dragging it over the fallen leaves.
It was enough. Even as I pulled it toward me, I heard the crash of something—someone—breaking cover. From my hiding place, I couldn’t see, but I could hear, and as the sounds came closer I rose and shouldered the bough. I’ve never been one for sports, but as the bushes in front of me parted I swung for the fences with a yell. Thwack! Before my shout had died away, the branch made contact, and a figure fell forward. A figure with glossy brown hair, an outstretched arm clad in floral poplin. Susan Felicidad.
I dropped the branch in relief—and then I heard it. More footsteps, crashing through the brush. In a panic, I stumbled backward, desperately trying to balance. To pull the bough back for another blow. Only to see the shrubbery part and reveal—Greg?
I dropped the branch, panting. “Greg, oh, man...”
“Pru.” I’d never heard so much bitterness in one syllable—and my mother had been a master. “I didn’t think...”
“Wait, no!” He didn’t understand. I saw that. “I got a tip. Animals—smuggling—and this woman is in on it.”
On the ground between us, Susan Felicidad groaned and tried to sit up. Greg knelt, and to my surprise, he cradled her upper body, as if he would help her stand. “This woman?” He shook his head as he lifted her gently to her feet. “You better hope she’s all right, Pru.”
“Okay, maybe it wasn’t justified. But she’s a criminal. Animal cruelty, at the very least.”
“Animal cruelty?” Another slow shake. “Pru, you’re crazy. This is Susan Phelps. Special Agent Phelps of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
Chapter Forty-two
Greg had his hands full, literally, helping the groggy agent back toward their truck, which he’d hid farther up the road. He didn’t like that I’d excused myself, but I’d promised to come find them—and did, a few minutes later—desperate to make sense of what had just occurred.
“So you got a tip?” Greg had helped the federal agent buckle herself in by the time I found them. From the glare she gave me, she was going to be fine, if a bit banged up. Now he stood, hands on hips, doing his best version of the same.
“You know I’ve got contacts.” I let him think I was only talking about the human kind. “And someone told me something was going down.” His eyes narrowed. “Okay, it was Larry Greeley.” I had no reason to protect the sleazebag. Especially not now. “Only, there wasn’t anything solid. I was going to call you as soon as there was.”
I pulled out my phone, which had Greg’s number ready to go. It could have been a stunt, quickly put together while I was off behind the trees. Only Greg seemed to believe it. At any rate, he nodded as if what I was saying made sense.
“That’s what we heard too,” he said, and it hit me, much like that log.
“I saw them talking.” I put two and two together. “Susan Fel—Phelps and Larry. I thought there was something odd going on.”
“Susan had leverage on Greeley,” Greg acknowledged. “We thought his information would be good.”
I nodded. “I did too. I wonder what went wrong?” We stood in silence for a moment.
“Greg?” Susan didn’t sound great. “If you want to stay…”
“No.” He called to her. “This was either a mistake or a setup.”
I thought of my own failed attempt. “Someone wanted to draw us out. Or—” Another idea popped into my head. “Draw us away from something—or someone.”
Someone like a witness? But who—
“I guess we should be grateful that Albert is still in custody.” Was I becoming fond of that fat, stupid man?
“He’s not.” Greg’s voice grew cold. “I spoke to Jim Creighton before coming out here this morning. Someone talked Albert into calling a lawyer, and Jim had to release him.”
My car was faster than Greg’s truck. Besides, he needed to take care of Susan. I had some vague notion of what my liability would be if she were more seriously injured than she appeared, but that took a backseat to my fears for the bearded ferret keeper I knew so well.
“Call me.” Greg shouted, as I raced back to my car. It was a command, not a request.
“I will,” I yelled back. I only hoped I wasn’t too late.
Driving is a skill like any other, and I know how to drive fast. I should have felt guilty about the family in the RV that I nearly scared off the road—the father’s blanched white face stuck in my rearview for a moment like a screech owl—but I didn’t. Lawyered up. All my best intentions had put Albert at risk. If anything happened to him, Frank would never forgive me.
I made it to Albert’s apartment in record time. Greg probably hadn’t even gotten Susan halfway to the hospital yet. I raced up the stairs to his second-floor entry to find the door ajar, the lights out.
“Albert!” I called as I kicked the unlocked door wide. My voice fell flat. The apartment was empty, every sense told me, so I stepped inside. To an untrained eye, it looked like his place had been tossed. Clothes were everywhere, spilling out of opened drawers. A stench of old garbage—and worse—emanated from burst bags in the filthy kitchenette.
Only my knowledge of the man who lived here kept me from panicking. This might seem like a disaster zone, but for Albert, this was its normal state. Still, I didn’t breathe easily until I’d walked through the cluttered studio. No body, no discernible blood. If Albert had returned home and been taken out forcibly, I could see no signs of it. But maybe it was that thought—or maybe my general nosiness—that had me running a hand over the clutter, gingerly pushing aside the fast-food wrappers to see what else the portly man kept around. Unopened mail. A flier about a boat for sale. Another offering to “buy your junk.”
I thought about keeping that one. I really could clean out my mother’s place. But as I lifted it, a familiar gleam caught my eye.
“Son of a…” It was my knife. My missing knife, on Albert’s dresser. The knife I’d thought I might die without less than an hour earlier. Here, as if it were simply more of the apartment’s detritus, or, rather, one of the shiny, pretty things Albert liked to collect. Without thinking, I picked it up—and immediately froze.
Its appearance here was wrong, and I struggled to figure out why as my mind raced back to when I must have dropped it. To when I thought that my own lack of self-control—okay, my drinking—was to blame. I went back over that night, what I remembered, anyway. Albert hadn’t been at Happy’s that night. He’d still been in custody. I thought back to if I might have lost it earlier—maybe when I gave Albert a lift back into town. If that was the case, maybe he’d have returned it, if he’d been free. Unless I had lost it at Happy’s, like I’d thought, and one of his friends had dropped it off here.
Since I’d already picked it up,
I examined the blade, hoping it could give me the answers. Someone had used it; that was clear. Fibers were wedged in the bolster, where the blade was attached to the hilt, and I reached for them gingerly. Not animal hair, I realized with relief—though there was something of the wild in the twisted threads. No blood either, for which I was grateful.
I turned it over in my hand. Creighton’s people had searched this apartment only days before. I didn’t know what they were looking for, but I was grateful that my knife hadn’t been taken in. And since it hadn’t….Well, as my recent experience had proved, I had more need of it than Albert. After wiping down the blade on my jeans leg—I didn’t trust anything in that apartment to be clean—I replaced it in my boot, feeling its presence against my ankle like the touch of an old friend.
I shoved that flier—“buy your junk,” indeed—into my pocket as well. Whether Albert had intended to return my knife or whether he had stolen it with the intent of pawning it, didn’t matter. I was the judge and jury in this case, and I saw intent. He had also forfeited any right to privacy, in my mind, and I began to rifle through Albert’s drawers. Two shot glasses very like the ones Happy settled on the bar. The Town of Beauville stamp we’re supposed to use on official documents. Damn, the man was more magpie than muskrat.
What I didn’t see—to my relief—was anything that would tie him in with Paul’s death, or with that initial trapped bear, for that matter. His lame alibi of having gone along for the ride might just be the truth. Albert might be a petty thief, but I’d like to think he was innocent of anything to do with that bear—or his friend’s death. Innocent of anything other than terrible judgment.
That didn’t mean he was safe. Somebody had sabotaged a trap and sent Ronnie to check on it. Which meant somebody was covering his tracks. Or—it was possible—looking for something. Something that might reveal who was behind this violence. Someone knew something...