Trophy Hunt

by C. J. Box

  It was Cam Logue, with most of his face peeled aside. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, and his head slumped forward, his arms limp. He was being held up from behind by a big, dark man with a beard, wearing a bloody camouflage jacket.

  “Oh, my God,” Joe heard himself whisper. Why is Cam here and what have they done to him?

  The man behind Cam Logue moved out of the trailer. He appeared to be carrying Cam, keeping him vertical with one arm wrapped tightly around Logue’s chest. In the other hand was a scalpel, which was pressed against Logue’s throat.

  “You din’t fo’get about me, did you, Doc?” the man asked Garrett. His speech was garbled and slurred. The man’s poor speech and the camo jacket clicked in Joe’s mind. It was Nurse Bob, Joe realized.

  “Of course not,” Garrett said to Nurse Bob, not looking around. To Joe: “It’s a messy business, this.”

  Joe was stunned, unable to process the horrific scene in front of him. Nothing made sense.

  BOOM.

  The left half of Nurse Bob’s head disappeared, blood and pieces of flesh splattering the side of the trailer with a sickening, wet sound, while his body toppled over backward like a felled tree. Cam Logue fell forward, released from the man’s grip, landing facedown on the ground.

  Instinctively, Joe straightened up and moved to his left behind the truck to get an angle on Garrett. Garrett had wheeled Not Ike around toward the sound of the shot, and Joe could see Garrett clearly now. But Garrett still had the pistol jammed into Not Ike’s head.

  “Who did that?” Garrett screamed, stealing a glance toward Cam’s prone body.

  “DROP THE WEAPON!” Joe shouted.

  But Garrett didn’t. Instead, he began backpedaling, pulling Not Ike along with him. Garrett backed up until he was nearly at the trailer again, but veered toward the rear of it. Not Ike was starting to panic now, because he didn’t know what was happening.

  “Joseph!”

  Garrett backed into the reedy brush behind the trailer, and before he was gone the last thing Joe saw were Not Ike’s arms flailing.

  Then he heard a splash.

  Joe and Nate followed.

  “You didn’t tell me there would be two of them,” Nate said.

  “Nobody told me there would be two of them either,” Joe muttered. “Or that Cam would be with them.”

  Nate said nothing.

  They found Not Ike in the river, sputtering but unharmed. Cleve Garrett was gone.

  “I’ve got him,” Nate said, leaving Joe and Not Ike in the river and wading toward the opposite bank.

  35

  FOR THE NEXT THREE HOURS, as night came and the campground filled with vehicles and men and the crime scene lights went up, Joe Pickett was in a kind of fog. He was lucid enough to recognize that he was in mild shock. He dully recounted the details of what they had found in the campsite to Portenson, Hersig, and Sheriff Barnum. As activity whirled around him, he stayed out of the way, observing things as if he had no connection to any of it.

  Hersig came over to Joe at one point and told Joe that they’d found a duffel bag with some personal items in the trailer that confirmed that the man Nate shot was Robert Eckhardt, the army nurse accused of mutilations who had gone AWOL. The phone number of the cell phone in the man’s bag matched the phone number Deputy Cook and Sheriff Harvey had pulled off their Caller ID. Hersig said they were going to run the man’s prints through the computer to prove his identification. The extent of his injuries would make a visual ID impossible.

  Joe watched as Cam Logue’s body was hustled onto a gurney and loaded into an ambulance, followed by Nurse Bob’s, and as Barnum put together a team of deputies to cross the river and track down Cleve Garrett.

  Remarkably, Deena was still alive. The EMTs brought her out from the back bedroom of the Airstream. She was naked except for the bandages wrapped around her belly and legs and a thin white sheet the EMTs had tucked around her. She was conscious, sleepy-looking, probably drugged, Joe assumed. As they carried her on a stretcher toward ambulance number three, she rolled her head to the side and smiled faintly at Joe.

  One of the EMTs, whom Joe recognized from the Tuff Montegue crime scene, told a deputy that Deena had spoken to him when they found her inside.

  “She said Garrett was experimenting on her, taking off strips of skin. She said she didn’t mind all that much, but she was angry when he screwed up her tattoo. Can you imagine that?”

  Deputy Reed came out of the trailer holding a bundle in dark cloth, and someone shined a flashlight on it as the bundle was opened. Steel surgical instruments glinted in the light. Joe recalled Lucy and Sheridan saying something about seeing “silverware” on a cloth in the shack behind the Logues and that the man who chased them away had “Bob” stenciled above the pocket on his jacket. So did the man with half a head who had been zipped up in a body bag an hour before, he thought with a shiver.

  “How did this Nurse Bob guy get hooked up with Cleve Garrett?” Hersig was asking Portenson. “Why in the hell did they go after Cam Logue and Not Ike?”

  Portenson shrugged and cursed.

  “Joe, do you know?” Hersig asked him.

  Joe shook his head.

  “He’s in bad shape,” Portenson said, looking at Joe with some sympathy. “I don’t think he’s ever seen a man’s head blown off before.”

  “Not only that,” Hersig said, “but did you see Cam Logue? Jesus, I’m going to have nightmares for years after that.”

  “You did good,” Portenson said to Joe. “You probably saved the lives of two people.”

  Hersig stood near Joe, shaking his head and staring out into the dark trees. “I’m confused,” Hersig said as much to himself as to Joe. “Why was Cam here? How did this Nurse Bob character get involved with Cleve Garrett? Or was he involved with Cam somehow? It wasn’t just a coincidence, no way.”

  Hersig looked at Joe. “So was it Cam all along? Was Cam working with Cleve Garrett? Did he know Nurse Bob through his brother or what? I thought Cam hated his brother?”

  Joe barely followed what was being said. He waited for the sound of Nate’s gunshot from across the river. The shot never came.

  Shortly after, Nate appeared beneath one of the spotlights, looking for Joe, causing the deputies who were milling about to stop and stare. Nate certainly had a presence about him, Joe noted.

  “I lost his track in the dark,” Nate declared to everyone.

  “Shit,” Barnum cursed. “Did you see my deputies?”

  “They’re coming in right behind me,” Nate said.

  Nate searched the crowd, saw Joe standing by his pickup, and started over. Portenson stepped in front of Nate, cutting him off.

  “I understand you were the shooter. There may be charges filed, and we’ll need a statement from you.”

  Nate looked at Portenson coldly. “Charges?”

  “I deputized him,” Joe interrupted.

  Portenson shook his head. “What in the hell does that mean?”

  Nate shrugged, and stepped around Portenson.

  “We still need a statement, mister.”

  Nate said, “You’ll get one. Right now, I’m going to get Joe home. I’ll come in to your office tomorrow.”

  Portenson approached Joe warily. “The identification came through in the middle of all of this. The doctor who escaped was the same Eric Logue who had grown up here. We should have photos of Nurse Bob and Eric Logue on the computer when we get back. Washington is sending them out. But how in the hell everything connects is beyond me right now.”

  Joe shrugged. His movements were a beat behind his thoughts.

  Joe and Nate left Hersig, Portenson, and Barnum, who were having a discussion about how quickly they could coordinate helicopters and dogs to pursue Cleve Garrett.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Nate asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I couldn’t get an angle on Garrett, or there would have been two bodies back there.”

&nbs
p; Joe nodded. The images of Cam Logue and Nurse Bob’s exploding head played on a continuous loop just beyond the hood of his truck.

  “So Cam Logue is dead?” Nate asked, after minutes of silence.

  “Yup.”

  “So I saved a dead guy?”

  “You didn’t know that. Neither did I at the time. That was a hell of a shot.”

  Nate repeated, “I saved a dead guy.”

  Joe looked over. “Nate, are you okay?”

  “Okay is the wrong word to use after you kill somebody, Joe. I guess I’m . . . I don’t know what. You could say I have some degree of job satisfaction, I guess.”

  Joe remembered his cell phone and switched it on as they turned onto the blacktop of the highway.

  The display read: YOU HAVE 1 MESSAGE.

  Marybeth, thought Joe. She’s probably worried as hell.

  He punched in the numbers to retrieve the message, and held the phone to his ear.

  It was Marybeth all right, but her voice was hushed and urgent.

  “Joe, where are you? I’m with Marie, at her house. It’s a terrible scene, and I’m scared for her. Can you please get here as fast as you can?”

  He suddenly floored it, and the engine howled.

  “What’s going on?” Nate asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  36

  MARYBETH’S VAN WAS PARKED in front of the Logue home on the circular drive, and Joe’s headlights swept across it as he pulled in. The van was empty except for a small, blond head in the backseat. Joe’s heart raced, fearing it was Lucy or Sheridan.

  He braked, leaving the shotgun in the truck, and slid the van door back. The interior light went on and he looked at Jessica Logue, sitting in the center of the middle seat with her hands on her lap. Her face was stained with dried tears.

  “Jessica, what are you doing?”

  “Mrs. Pickett asked my mom if I could come out here,” Jessica said, looking at her hands. “My mom said I could.”

  “They’re inside?”

  Jessica nodded.

  Joe reached in and patted her shoulder. “Stay here, then. I won’t be long.” He started to shut the door.

  “Mr. Pickett?”

  “Yes?”

  She looked up at him. “I hope you can help my mom.”

  “I’ll try, honey.”

  Nate stood in the dark behind him.

  “I think you should stay out here,” Joe said. “I don’t know what the situation is inside. Maybe you can watch through a window, and if things aren’t under control, well . . .”

  “I’ll be ready,” Nate said. “Is the little girl going to be okay?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Joe knocked on the front door, and tried to see through the opaque curtain beside it. There was dim light inside, from a room on the right of the hallway, but he couldn’t see Marybeth. He knocked again, and saw a dark form step into the doorway.

  “Joe, is that you?” It was Marybeth.

  He tightly closed his eyes for an instant—she was all right—then answered her.

  “Are you alone?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “Is it alright if Joe comes in?” Marybeth asked someone inside the room.

  His hand was already turning the knob when she said, “It’s okay to come inside, Joe.”

  He stepped in and shut the door behind him. The hallway was dark. Why didn’t Marybeth come to him, he wondered. Was someone threatening her inside?

  Jesus, he thought. What if it’s Garrett?

  He quickly reached for his pistol but stopped when Marybeth, almost imperceptibly, shook her head no. Joe paused and pointed outside and mouthed “Nate.” She met his eyes and blinked, indicating that she understood.

  His boots sounded loud on the hardwood floor, in the still house, as he walked toward Marybeth. As he neared her, she turned her head inside the room and said, “Marie, Joe’s coming in now.”

  “Okay.”

  Marybeth stepped back and Joe entered. He took in the scene quickly. The room was dark except for two low-wattage desk lamps. Book-lined shelves covered the opposite wall. A television set and stereo occupied an entertainment center, but both were off.

  Marie Logue leaned with her back against an upright piano. She had a glass of red wine in one hand and a semiautomatic pistol in the other. Her eyes looked glazed, her expression blank. There were dried tear tracks down her cheeks, like her daughter’s.

  Across from Marie, in two overstuffed chairs, sat an old couple. They looked shriveled and flinty, and both peered at Joe from behind metal-rimmed glasses. The man wore suspenders over a white T-shirt, and the woman wore an oversized sweatshirt. The woman’s hair looked like curled stainless-steel shavings.

  “Joe, I don’t believe you’ve met Marie’s mother- and father-in-law before,” Marybeth said with a kind of exaggerated calmness that signaled to Joe that the situation was tense. “This is Clancy and Helen Logue.”

  Joe nodded.

  “This is Joe, my husband.”

  Clancy Logue nodded back, but Helen stared at Joe, apparently sizing him up.

  “I was just about to kill them,” Marie said from across the room, deadpan. “Marybeth is trying her darndest to talk me out of it.”

  Joe looked at her.

  “I bet I can get you to say three words now,” Marie said, her mouth twisting into a bitter grin.

  Marie, do you mind if I fill Joe in on what we’ve been discussing?” Marybeth asked, still with remarkable calm.

  Marie arched her eyebrows in a “what the hell” look, and took a long drink of her wine. Her eyes shifted from Joe to Clancy and Helen as Marybeth told the story.

  “Marie learned last week that Cam has been trying to buy the Overstreet Ranch in secret. That the secret buyer he told us about was Cam himself. Apparently, the only people he told about it were his parents. He told them that he was going to buy back their old ranch but that they weren’t welcome on it. But there was another reason, other than nostalgia, why Cam wanted the ranch. Am I doing okay so far, Marie?”

  “Perfect,” she said.

  “As you know, Joe, the Logue home used to serve as an archive for the old county clerk. Cam liked to go through the old files, to learn about the history of property in the area, he told Marie. But apparently he found the file for the Overstreet Ranch, and discovered that the mineral rights lease signed by their father was for fifty years. That meant that the rights would revert back to the landowner in two more years. The Overstreet sisters didn’t know that. They thought the mineral rights were sold forever.”

  “And Cam would get the royalties on all of that coal-bed methane development,” Joe said.

  Marie clucked her tongue.

  “Were you aware of this scheme?” Joe asked her.

  “Well, no. I didn’t find out about that part of it until this morning, when he confessed it to me. I was so damned mad at him. You think you know somebody . . . I’m ethical, Joe,” she pleaded. “Marybeth knows that. That’s why I refused to come to work. I would never take advantage of those two old sisters that way. Cam knew it too, which is why he didn’t tell me.”

  And Stuart Tanner knew it, Joe thought. Tanner found it out when he researched the property. Tanner likely had it in the file he delivered to Cam Logue that day.

  Marybeth turned back. “Well, Clancy and Helen decided to come and visit Cam. According to Marie, when his parents found out he was going to try to get the ranch back, they wanted to live there, too. No one except Cam knew about the mineral rights yet. Clancy and Helen thought it would be a good place to retire.”

  “Damned right,” Clancy said defiantly. “The boy does something right for once in his life, and he didn’t want to share it.”

  Joe shot a look at Marie. Her eyes were narrowed on Clancy.

  “Please,” Marybeth said. “Let me tell the story.”

  Clancy snorted, but sat back.

  “Marie was telling me that Cam has a brother, Eric. He�
��s a doctor with the army and he had some really severe problems a couple of years ago, some kind of breakdown. Eric was accused of deliberately hurting some patients. . . .”

  “It wasn’t deliberate,” Helen broke in.

  “Oh, shut up,” Marie warned, raising the pistol and looking down it at Helen. Helen clamped her mouth tight, but her eyes smoldered.

  “He may have hurt his patients because of his sickness,” Marybeth said cautiously, searching for words that wouldn’t inflame either party. “Anyway, Eric’s friend, a male nurse, came with Clancy and Helen in their truck. You may have seen it parked outside. The camper shell with the locks on the outside of it?”

  Joe nodded. Jesus.

  “That’s how they brought Eric’s friend here. Under lock and key.”

  Joe looked at Clancy and Helen now. They didn’t look like monsters. They looked like near-indigent retirees.

  “Apparently, the nurse got away from Helen and Clancy. He may have been living on the property, in that shack our girls found, but we don’t know that for sure yet.”

  Joe was confused. “Why did you bring him out here?”

  Clancy and Helen exchanged glances.

  “You might as well talk,” Marie told them in a singsong voice. “Or I’ll just have to start blasting away.”

  Helen cleared her throat. “Bob showed up at our house in South Dakota unannounced. He said he was looking for Eric. Our son asked that we bring him here.”

  “Cam asked that?” Marie said incredulously.

  “Not Cam,” Helen said. “Eric.”

  “What?” Marie’s face was getting red.

  “Marie, please be calm,” Marybeth said.

  “Eric wanted you to bring that piece of filth to our home?” Marie’s voice rose into shrillness. “Where your granddaughter is?”

  “Bob’s not that bad,” Clancy interjected. “Hard to understand him when he talks, though.”

  “Besides,” Helen added, “he stayed out back and never bothered anyone. He just kept to himself.”

  Maybe you ought to shoot them, Joe thought.

  “Anyway,” Marybeth said, trying to get control of the conversation, “Eric and Bob showed up here today. They took Cam with them.”