by C. J. Box
“Calm down, Joe,” Robey said. “Just stay focused, all right? We don’t even know for sure that Cam’s involved. Not Ike could have told the same thing to others and probably did. This morning you told me Logue wasn’t part of all this, and now suddenly you’re convinced he’s in cahoots with Garrett?”
“Forget what I said, Robey,” Joe said heatedly. “I may be wrong but if I’m not then Not Ike’s life is in danger. You’ve got to send someone out to pick up Cam right away. He may know where Garrett is heading. Hell, for all we know he could be running now, too.”
“Who do you want me to send, Joe? Finding Garrett and Not Ike is everyone’s number-one priority,” Hersig said. “Barnum and his deputies and basically all other law enforcement within twenty miles of Saddlestring are already out looking for Garrett. I’m not going to call one of them and ask that they turn around to go pick up a respected local businessman who may or may not be involved in this whole thing.”
Joe gripped the phone so tightly that he thought it would break. “I don’t care who you send—call the goddamn highway patrol if you have to. Someone’s got to be around. Cam’s involved in this one way or the other and we can’t risk losing him like we did Garrett.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hersig snapped. “But I’m not making any promises.”
“Funnel everything through the dispatcher,” Joe said. “I’ll keep the radio on and report in if there’s anything to report.” Hersig clicked off without answering.
Joe tried to tie it all together. Garrett’s involvement puzzled him. He had been so focused on Cam Logue that he had paid scant attention to Garrett. Deena had provided Joe with a reason to dig more deeply into Garrett’s motivations, but Joe hadn’t done it in time to stop what was happening now.
Something else clicked in, regarding Cleve Garrett. Garrett was a publicity hound. He wanted the attention in order to advance his crackpot ideas on aliens and conspiracies. But maybe Garrett was darker, more twisted. Maybe Joe’s lack of credulity was the motivation for Garrett to step up his crimes?
And where in the hell did Cam Logue fit into all of this? Joe wondered. He had to be part of this. How else could Garrett have known about Joe’s conversation with Cam? Garrett had left before Joe confronted Cam. Were they in contact?
Despite the bungling of the rest of the task force, Joe had been the closest to the killer all along and he hadn’t seen it. There might still be another explanation—he hoped so—but he doubted it. If this played out the way it seemed to be headed, it was his fault for not preventing another murder. He cringed as he drove.
“Man, oh man, oh man,” Joe said aloud.
He grabbed his cell phone from the dash, speed-dialed Nate Romanowski’s number. For once, Nate answered.
“It’s Joe.”
Nate was excited. “Joe, I haven’t talked to you since we found the bear. Well believe it or not . . .”
“Nate! I really need your help!”
“Go ahead.”
“How fast can you grab your weapon and meet me on Bighorn Road? I’m heading west toward the mountains.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
As Joe screamed over the hill, he saw Nate climbing out of his Jeep and pulling on his shoulder holster. Joe slowed to a roll, and Nate swung into the cab of the pickup.
Without actually stopping, Joe eased the pickup back onto the Bighorn Road and the motor roared.
“It’s Cleve Garrett,” Joe said.
“Really?” Nate whistled. “I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.”
“No,” Joe said sourly. “I guess it shouldn’t be. But I think Cam Logue is involved somehow, maybe others as well.”
While they drove, Nate pulled his weapon, checked the five-shot cylinder, and shoved it back into his shoulder holster.
“Consider yourself deputized,” Joe said, looking over at Nate.
Nate said, “I didn’t know game wardens could deputize anyone.”
Joe shrugged. “We probably can’t. So I’ll deputize you in the name of the Murder and Mutilation Task Force.”
“Cool,” Nate said. “As long as you undeputize me later.”
Joe nodded.
“Remember when I told you about what it was like under the calm surface of the river?” Nate asked, his eyes wide, “how there is a whole different world, with noise and chaos?”
“Nate, what does this have to do with . . .”
“Just listen for a minute, Joe,” Nate said. “I’ve come to believe that there are different levels of consciousness and being. There are whole worlds out there with their own different versions of what reality is, and their own sets of natural laws. Sometimes, the laws are broken and things spill over from one level to the next. When that happens, we hope that something from that level is sent to fix the mess or all hell will break loose.”
Joe was speechless. “Nate . . .”
“I know,” Nate said. “We don’t have time for this. But the bear is with me now, at my place. We’re communicating.”
The radio crackled. It was Wendy, the dispatcher. “A fisherman just reported seeing a vehicle and trailer matching the description of the suspect’s vehicle and trailer at a public-access fishing campground.”
Joe and Nate exchanged glances, and Joe snatched the microphone from its cradle.
“This is Joe Pickett, Wendy. There are six public-access campgrounds on the Upper Twelve Sleep River. Can you tell me which one?”
There was a pause, then: “The fisherman says he saw the unit in question at the Pick Pike Bridge campground.”
Joe knew which one she was talking about. It was the last public-access fishing location before the start of the national forest. It was small, with four or five spaces, and was located in dense woods. The only facilities there were a pit-toilet outhouse and a fish-cleaning station near the water. Because of the way it was tucked into the heavy timber near the river, it was a good place to hide out. He had ticketed more over-limit fishermen there than any other place on the river, because the fishermen assumed no one would see or catch them.
“I’m fifteen minutes away from there,” Joe said to Wendy. “Are there any other units in the vicinity?”
“Sheriff Barnum is rolling now,” she said.
“That’s right,” Barnum barked, breaking into the transmission. “Secure the exits and wait for the cavalry.”
Secure the exits? Joe looked at Nate. “Sheriff, there’s one road into that campground from the Bighorn Road, but there’s at least four old two-tracks that go to it from both sides of the river. That makes five exits.”
“Then use your best judgment, goddamit,” Portenson broke in from another radio. “I’ll take it from here, Sheriff. Follow me.”
Joe was relieved that Portenson was taking charge.
They topped a sagebrush covered hill on a two-track road, and the river and campground were laid out below on the valley floor in front of them. Joe slowed the pickup to assess the layout. The Twelve Sleep River, its surface reflecting dusk gold, rebounded in a loopy sidewise U from a cliff-face upriver before it turned and disappeared from view into thick river cottonwoods. The campground was under the canopy of trees where the river bent. As Joe had described to Barnum, roads that looked like discarded dark threads through the sagebrush came in and out of the bank of trees, offering multiple entrance and exit points.
If Garrett’s truck and trailer were down there in the trees, they couldn’t be seen from above. To locate them, they would need to be on the valley floor, in the trees or in the campground itself.
Joe had made the decision not to wait for Portenson and Barnum. If Not Ike was being carved up by Cleve Garrett, Joe wanted to stop it as quickly as he possibly could. I’ve already screwed this thing up enough, he thought. I couldn’t live with knowing I was sitting on top of a hill while Not Ike was being tortured.
Joe asked Nate, “Are you ready?”
Nate said, “Of course.”
Nothing. Marybeth put the spoon on a plate and was about to hang up when someone said, “Marybeth?”
It took a moment for Marybeth to recognize the caller.
“Marie? Is that you?”
Marie hesitated, then spoke softly. “I got your note. That was very nice of you. But it was too late, too late.” Marybeth knew there was something dreadfully wrong by the soft, vacant quality of Marie’s voice.
“Marie, are you okay?”
There was a wracking sob, then a beat while Marie seemed to be collecting herself.
“No, I’m not okay,” Marie said, her voice breaking. “I’m not okay at all. Cam’s gone, and I’ve done something horrible. They took him.”
“Who took Cam? Marie, what are you telling me?” She recalled her conversation with Joe, his admonishment to stay away from Cam.
But Marie couldn’t answer because she was crying too hard, and she finally barked out “I’ll call you back,” between wails, and hung up.
Marybeth found herself staring at the stove but not really seeing anything. She realized that she was suddenly trembling.
Where was Joe? He needed to meet her at the Logues’ right away.
34
AS THEY LEVELED OUT on the river valley floor and crossed a small stream before entering the trees, Joe punched off his cell phone and squelched the volume of the radio to a whisper. Both windows were open in the pickup, so he and Nate could get a better sense of the surroundings. Joe drove slowly, keeping the sound of the motor at a minimum. He wanted to enter the campground as quietly as he could.
They passed a brown Forest Service sign nearly obliterated by years of sniping and shotgun blasts that read PICK PIKE CAMPGROUND.
Inside the trees, it was dark and it smelled damp, with an edge of forest-floor decay. Pale yellow cottonwood leaves blanketed the soft black earth. Small splats of sun pierced through the wide canopy of trees and formed starbursts on the surface.
Nate gestured toward the two-track in front of them, and mouthed, “Fresh tracks.”
Joe nodded. He had seen the tracks as well, noting that they were so new that the peaked impression of the tire treads was still sharp.
Nate had his .454 Casull in his right hand, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Joe’s .40 Beretta was on the seat next to his thigh. Joe’s palms were icy with apprehension, his breath was quavery and shallow. He found himself clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt.
Before turning toward the campsites, the road passed a rusting metal fish-cleaning station near a boat takeout point on the riverbank. They were past it when Joe sniffed the air and eased to a stop. There was a smell that didn’t belong, he thought.
He opened his door as quietly as he could, and approached the station. Nate did the same, but walked toward the bank of the river. The fish-cleaning station was old and simple; a flat metal work area perched on angle-iron legs. The cleaning area could be washed clean by a river-water faucet. Usually these things smelled bad, he knew, but the normal odor was of fish guts, fish heads, and entire rotting skeletons if the fisherman filleted the trout and left the rest. The problem with this station was that it didn’t smell like that at all, he realized. Instead, there was the pungent odor of ammonia bleach.
Indeed, the metal cleaning counter was scrubbed clean. In the center of the counter was a drain hole. The drain led to an underground pipe that discharged into the river itself.
Either the station had been used by unusually sanitary and obsessive fishermen, he thought, or it had been used for another purpose.
His stomach clenched.
Joe looked up to see Nate gesturing at him furiously to come over to where he stood at the water’s edge.
As Joe walked over, he had a sickening premonition of what he might find.
Nate bent down and pointed toward the discharge pipe several inches below the surface of the river. A long white ribbon of some kind had caught on an underwater twig and undulated in the flow. Nate reached into the water and pulled the ribbon free, stretching it across both of his hands so they could look at it.
It was human skin. White human skin. On the bottom of the ribbon was a dark blue stencil of some kind, a series of three consecutive horizontal lines. Through his horror, Joe realized what they were.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “That’s the top of some lettering, T-E-E.”
He looked up at Nate. “From the word ‘ABDUCTEE.’ It’s from Deena. She had it tattooed across her abdomen. The son of a bitch skinned her.”
Now, Joe was angry. Everything he had been feeling previously—frustration, embarrassment, outright fear as they descended into the trees—channeled into rage.
“Let’s find him and take him out,” he said over his shoulder to Nate as he strode to the pickup. Tilting the bench seat forward, Joe drew his shotgun from its scabbard. It was still loaded with double-ought buckshot shells.
Nate followed. “Joe, calm down.”
“I’m calm,” Joe said through clenched teeth. He was thinking of Deena, of Not Ike, of Tuff Montegue and Stuart Tanner, of the circus of humiliation and depravity Cleve Garrett had brought into his valley.
“Let’s talk about this for a second,” Nate said.
Joe racked the pump.
“We need a strategy,” Nate said. “So take a breath.”
Cleve Garrett’s Airstream Trailer was still attached to his pickup and it was pulled into the fifth and last space in the campground. It looked like a big, slick metallic tube in the dark trees. Behind the trailer, through thick stands of willows, the river flowed wide and shallow.
Joe cranked the wheel of his truck to block the road, and turned off the motor. Garrett could not drive out of his site now, and there were too many thick trees all around for him to use an overland escape route.
The blinds were pulled down tight on all of the trailer windows, and Joe wondered if he had been either seen or heard by the occupants inside. Joe and Nate slid out of the cab. As they had planned, Nate pushed his way into the brush and vanished within it to take a position behind cover near the front of Garrett’s pickup. This way, Nate could cover Joe as well as see if anyone inside tried to escape out the back of the trailer.
Joe stood behind his pickup, keeping it between him and the trailer. He had switched his radio to PA and the mike cord stretched across the cab and out the open window.
When he assumed Nate was in position, he keyed the mike.
“Cleve Garrett, come out of that trailer now.”
He watched the windows carefully, saw one of them near the front shiver as someone looked out.
“IF YOU HAVE ANY WEAPONS, LEAVE THEM INSIDE. OPEN THE DOOR AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, PALMS OUT.”
The front window blind shot up. Joe crouched down and raised the stock of the shotgun to his cheek. He put the bead on the front sight to the window. A face appeared, pressed against the glass.
“Joseph?” Not Ike mouthed. “Joseph?” His words were silent on the outside.
Not Ike looked confused but okay, Joe thought with a rush of relief. Garrett probably had a gun at Not Ike’s head, shoving the big man’s face into the glass.
Not Ike was mouthing something through the glass. Joe could read it: Creepylike guys, Joseph.
A louvered pane near Not Ike’s head was being cranked open. Joe hoped Nate had a better angle on the window from where he was hidden in the brush. Maybe, Joe thought, Nate would be able to see Garrett inside and fire if Garrett lowered his gun or was distracted.
“Joseph, that’s you, isn’t it?” Joe could now hear Not Ike.
“It’s me,” Joe said, talking into the mike so that Garrett would be sure to hear him as well. “Plus about twenty officers more on the way. The trailer is surrounded.”
There was a
beat and Not Ike’s face was pulled from the window. Maybe Garrett would speak now, Joe hoped. Maybe Garrett would try to make a deal.
“Nobody needs to get hurt,” Joe said, willing confident gentleness into his voice. “No one needs to get hurt at all. Just leave any weapons inside and come out.”
There was movement inside the trailer, and it rocked slightly.
With a metallic click, the door burst open. Joe swung the muzzle of his shotgun to it, saw the door slam against the outside of the trailer, saw the doorframe filled with Not Ike. Garrett was behind Not Ike with his forearm around the big man’s throat and a pistol pressed into his ear. Because Garrett was much shorter, all Joe could see of him were his eyes over Not Ike’s shoulder.
“We’re coming out,” Garrett shouted.
Not Ike stepped out of the trailer, Garrett pressed tightly behind him. Not Ike took several steps forward, grinning at Joe as if he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Joe didn’t lower his shotgun. For a brief, electrifying moment, Garrett’s and Joe’s eyes locked.
“Let him go,” Joe said, close enough now not to need the microphone. “Lower the gun and drop it into the dirt.”
Garrett looked furtively to his side.
“I don’t see anybody else,” Garrett said. “Where’re your troops?”
“They’re out there,” Joe lied, thinking: Nate, where are you?
Garrett pushed Not Ike forward another few steps toward Joe. The pistol was jammed into Not Ike’s ear, tilting his head slightly to the side. Joe could see that the hammer was cocked. Not Ike looked strangely serene, Joe thought. Somehow, it made the situation seem worse.
“We’re going to walk right up to you,” Garrett said, his voice gaining confidence. “And we’re going to take your truck out of here. You are going to lower that shotgun and step aside.”
Yes, I was, Joe thought. He had no other choice. Unless . . . Nate?
Then the door to the trailer filled with someone else, something else, something unspeakably horrible.