Nowhere To Run - A Joe Pickett Novel Part 10

"Hear that?" he shouted into the air, hoping the wolves were listening. "That'll be your head if you try to take a bite out of me!"

He could neither see nor hear where the wolves had gone, but despite his shouts and his club he didn't think they'd gone far.

"Wolves this far south," he thought, as he continued down the creek. "Wait until they hear about this this in Cheyenne." in Cheyenne."

Farther down the creek, Joe stumbled on a ma.s.sive five-point elk antler that had been shed earlier that summer. He tossed the branch aside and picked up the antler, turning it and admiring the thick beam. One tine was sixteen inches long and an inch thick at the base. Forked tines on the end were six inches each and sharp as spear points. The antler was heavy but a h.e.l.l of a weapon, he thought. Much better than a club.

If the wolves attacked he could really do some damage, he thought.

HIS MANTRA EVOLVED from a country-and-western rhythm into reggae and then into blues. Joe kept thinking about what had happened, what he'd seen, what he didn't know.

Why was Terri Wade in an isolated cabin? What was her relations.h.i.+p with the Grim Brothers? What was with the store-bought picture frames containing promotional shots? And could that have possibly been who he thought it was with them? The girl? He shook his head, not able to wrap his mind around the prospect. Again, he thought he'd seen her visage too many times on fliers and in the newspapers. He'd imagined her, he was sure. But there had been four faces. That, he was convinced of.

And what about the brothers themselves? Why were they up there and what were they doing? What caused them to hide in one of the roughest and most remote sections of the least populated state in the union?

IT WAS ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLE how the terrain changed, how cottonwoods took over from the pine trees, how bunches of cheater gra.s.s replaced the pine needle floor. Without actually realizing it, Joe knew he'd descended from the mountains into a valley. He veered right away from the creek and the trees, and as the sun set he was on the edge of a hay meadow. Instead of the smell of pine and the dank vegetation of the creek, he smelled the sweet smell of cut hay and thought he caught a whiff of gasoline.

Joe turned and looked behind him. The mountains went up and back, peak after peak, until the range melded with the sky countless miles away. He was struck by how big the mountains were, how hulking, imposing, and still. And he was awed by the fact that he'd actually walked out of them.

At the edge of the timber, in the shadows, he saw the lone black wolf. He stood broadside, big and dark, his eyes seeing Joe much more clearly than Joe could see him. The wolf stood as if he were prevented from coming any closer, as if he'd hit his boundary line and could proceed no farther.

Joe nodded toward the wolf, whom he respected for tenacity, and said, "See you later."

AS HE BROKE OVER A RISE, the hay meadow was spread out before him as far as he could see. Cut hay, smelling even sharper now, lay thick in long straight channels. After days of mountain randomness, he was impressed by the symmetry of the rows.

A half mile away, a green John Deere hay baler crawled across the field, its motor humming and grunting as it turned rows of cut hay into fifty-pound bales that it left behind like tractor scat. It was dark enough the rancher had his headlights on, and the twin pools of yellow made the hay look golden and the cut field an electric green carpet.

As Joe walked toward the baler with the antler in his hand, something in his brain released and his wounds exploded in sudden pain. It was as if now that his rescue was at hand, the mental dam holding everything back for three days suddenly burst from the strain.

His legs gave way and he fell to his knees and pitched forward into the cut hay.

The mantra slowed to a dirge. "Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April, Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April, Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April . . ." "Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April, Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April, Marybeth-Sheridan-Lucy-April . . ."

IN THE DARK, what seemed like hours later, he heard a boy say, "Hey, Dad, look over here. It's that d.a.m.ned game warden everyone's looking for."

PART TWO

RELOADING WITHOUT BULLETS

He is mad past recovery, but yet he has luci intervals.

-MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, Don Quixote

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

11

ON THE THIRD DAY OF HIS STAY IN THE BILLINGS HOSPITAL, after he'd been moved out of the intensive care unit, Joe awoke to find a tall, thin man in ill-fitting clothes-white dress s.h.i.+rt, open collar, loose tie, overlarge sports jacket-hovering near the foot of his bed. The man had world-weary brown eyes and a thin neck rising like a cornstalk out of the gaping collar of his s.h.i.+rt. His hair was light brown, peppered with silver. A pair of smudged reading gla.s.ses hung from a cord around his neck. Joe got the immediate impression the man was or had been in law enforcement. His aura of legal bureaucracy was palpable. He said, "Joe Pickett? I'm Bobby McCue, DCI."

Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation.

McCue reached into his jacket with long spidery fingers and came out with a s.h.i.+ny black wallet, which he flipped open to reveal a badge. Just as quickly, and before Joe could focus on the s.h.i.+eld or credential card, he snapped it shut and slid it back inside his coat.

"I read the statement you gave the sheriff down in Carbon County," McCue said. "I was hoping I could ask you a few more questions just to clarify some things. We're trying to fill in some of the gaps."

"What gaps?" Joe raised his eyebrows, which elicited a sharp pain where they'd removed the shotgun pellet behind his ear and st.i.tched it closed. The skin on his face seemed pulled tight from scalp to chin and ear to ear, and it hurt to do much more than blink his eyes.

"Nothing major," McCue said. "You know how this works."

"I should by now, yes."

Joe had already given statements to Carbon County Sheriff Ron Baird, Baggs Police Department Chief Brian Lally, his departmental supervisor, and the Game and Fish Department investigator a.s.signed to the case. Although Joe had absolutely no reason to lie about anything, he was concerned there could be contradictions or problems if all the statements were compared. Each investigator had asked basically the same questions but in different ways, and Joe had no control or approval over what they wrote down when he answered. Even though what had happened in the mountains was clear in his mind, it was possible that his statements, when laid side-by-side, might not completely jibe. It was the nature of the game, and one played-sometimes unfairly-by investigators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. Joe had played it himself. So he knew to be alert and careful each time he was questioned. He couldn't afford to be sloppy or offhand. He wished he could recall more of the interrogation by Baird immediately after he'd been rescued, when his head was still cloudy with exhaustion and his wounds were fresh. He hoped he hadn't said something he'd come to regret.

"Mind if I borrow this?" McCue said, gesturing toward Joe's tray table.

"Fine."

McCue nodded man-to-man to Joe, slid the tray table toward himself, and opened a manila folder on top of it. He fitted the gla.s.ses to his eyes, then slid them as far down his nose as they would go before they fell off. Joe was distracted by how cloudy the lenses were.

"Just a couple of questions," McCue said, peeling back single pages within the file. Joe recognized them as copies of the original sheriff's department statement given to Ron Baird.

"About the Brothers Grim . . ."

"They prefer 'the Grim Brothers,' " Joe said.

McCue looked over his lenses at Joe appraisingly. "They do, do they?"

"Yup."

"Okay, then. Caleb, the first one you encountered at that lake. It says here he gave you permission to look through his possessions."

Said Joe, "Yes, and when I think back on it, I don't know why he did. He must have known he didn't have a fis.h.i.+ng license, which is all I wanted to check on. But, yes, he let me look through his bag."

McCue placed a bony finger on a dense paragraph of text. "It says here he had a variety of items in the pack."

"Yes."

"Can you be more specific?"

"I thought I had."

McCue nodded and read from the statement, "'The subject's daypack contained several items, including a water container, a knife, a diary, half of a Bible, and an iPod and holder." He looked up e xpectantly.

"I think that was pretty much it," Joe said, trying to recall all the contents. "There were some matches and some string I think, also. Oh, and there wasn't the iPod itself, just the holder. I'm pretty sure I made that clear to the sheriff, but he must have misunderstood me."

McCue nodded quickly, and Joe noticed the agent seemed to be tamping down his reaction to avoid revealing anything.

"Is there a problem?" Joe asked.

McCue ignored the question. "Can you describe the iPod holder to me?"

Joe searched his memory. "It was one of those things that strap to the upper part of your arm. My wife Marybeth has one for workouts at the gym."

"What color was it, can you recall?"

"Pink."

"You're sure?"

Joe nodded.

"You're positive?"

"Why is that important?" Joe asked.

"It may not be at all. I'm just covering all the bases. You know how this works," McCue said, then quickly flipped over the page to another. Joe saw something in ink written in the margin, and McCue stabbed his fingertip on the pa.s.sage.

"You say Caleb claimed he was from the UP."

"Yes."

"And you thought, being from the Rocky Mountain West, that UP meant 'Union Pacific.' "

Joe didn't say anything.

"Did you know it could have meant Upper Peninsula, as in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? That's what they call it there, the 'UP.'"

"I know that now," Joe said. "One of the sheriff's deputies down in Baggs was from Michigan and told me. I feel kind of stupid, now, not knowing it."

McCue nodded, apparently agreeing with Joe's a.s.sessment of himself.

"Hey . . ." Joe said, but McCue flipped another page and stabbed another note.

"You say there were four people besides you at the cabin that burned down. Caleb and Camish Grim, Terri Wade, and one other. You suggest that when you saw the profile of the fourth person you thought of Diane Shober. Is that correct?"

Joe felt his face get hot. He realized how ridiculous it sounded when McCue said it.

"She came to mind," Joe said. "But nowhere in that report did I claim it was her. As I said to the sheriff down there, and my own people in Cheyenne, her name came to mind probably because I'd seen her photo on so many fliers in that part of the state. Plus, I knew that's where she went missing because I was part of the search team. So when I caught a glimpse of a youngish female in the dark down there, I think I naturally thought of her. I've never said said it was her." it was her."

McCue bored in. "Do you stand by your impression, though?"

Joe shook his head. "I stand by the fact that I thought of her at the time. I don't know how I can stand by an impression. And the more I think about it now, the more I think my mind might have jumped to conclusions." Joe smiled, which pulled at his scalp. "I've been accused of that before. Sometimes I'm right. Usually, I'm not."

"So I hear," McCue said without irony. "Can you describe her?"

"I already did," Joe said. "I didn't get a clear look at all. In my mind, I can recall I thought she was blond, female, and younger than Caleb and Camish and Terri Wade."

"How tall was she?"

Joe shrugged, which hurt. "I don't know. She stood away from the others, so I've got no perspective."

"How old?"

"Like I said, my impression was she was younger. But I'm not sure why I say that."

"What was she wearing?"

"I have no idea."

"Her build?"

"Thin," Joe said. "Like you."

McCue nodded to himself, as if Joe had confirmed something.

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?" Joe asked.