C J Box - [Joe Pickett 01]

by C. J. Box

  He stood near the kitchen table in the middle of the trailer, trying to decide where to look first. He shone his flashlight around the room, exposing a hallway that branched off of the room he was standing in. All the doors were wide open, the result, Joe guessed, of the sheriff's search. At the end of the hall, Joe could just make out the foot of a bed in a large bedroom. There were two rooms off of the hallway. One led to a tiny bathroom and the other to a small room that appeared to have been used for storage.

  Joe started down the narrow hallway, and his holster caught on an exposed nail. He stepped back and unbuckled his cumbersome belt and put the holster on the table. He kept his flashlight. Joe stepped inside the bathroom. Old Marilyn Monroe pictures, puckered from steam, covered the walls and ceiling. The staples that secured the pictures were rusty. Shelves against the corner were filled with dozens of brown, prescription drug bottles. Most of the bottles were dusty and hadn't been used in some time.

  Joe read the labels and saw most had been prescribed by doctors at the local VA hospital. The most recent had been filled by Barrett's Pharmacy in Saddlestring. Joe recognized the names Thorazine and Prozac but knew little about either drug.

  The small bedroom was filled with boxes, clothes, and junk. So much had been haphazardly piled into the room for so long that the room couldn't really be entered without taking boxes out. Joe shone the flashlight into several of the closest boxes and found them filled with envelopes of photographs. As Sheriff Barnum had said, there appeared to be thousands.

  Joe then entered Lidgard's bedroom and found that the twin bed nearly filled all of the floor space. Joe had to turn sidewise and shuffle around the bed to look around. There were a couple of yellowed posters of Marilyn Monroe stapled to the wall along with an army photo of a younger Clyde Lidgard and a calendar from Lane's Feed and Grain in Saddlestring. The sheets on the bed were not beige as he had first thought, but were white sheets so dirty they appeared beige. There was a stale smell in the room.

  Joe slid back the closet doors. Lidgard had a surprising quantity of clothing--they completely filled the closet rack--but none of them looked to have been worn for years. Dust covered the shoulders of the shirts and jackets. On the shelf above the clothes, Joe saw a dozen boxes for .30-.30 rifle cartridges. The price tags on the boxes ranged from $8.50 to $18.00, indicating they had been purchased over at least 20 years.

  Joe reached up to find that the older boxes were empty but for whatever reason Lidgard had chosen to keep them. Judging by the photographs, junk, pill bottles, and cartridge boxes, Lidgard had been an obsessive collector of things. Joe stood on the end of the bed to make sure he had seen everything on the shelf.

  The heavy coat of dust was tracked with recent finger smudges, and Joe assumed they had been left by the other investigators. But Joe didn't see what he was looking for.

  Joe closed the closet and drew a small notepad from his shirt pocket.

  "Lidgard's trailer," Joe wrote. "No nine millimeter cartridges."

  It took Joe several trips to bring out all of the boxes of photographs from the junk room to the kitchen table where the light was better. It appeared that the thick envelopes full of photos were not really arranged in any manner. But in general, the top envelopes contained more recent photos than those at the bottom of the boxes.

  Joe took out the newer sets of photographs, looked at them, and was careful to return them into the proper envelopes. The most recent photos had been developed at Barren's Pharmacy, the same place Lidgard filled his prescriptions.

  If Joe had hoped that the photos would reveal anything other than the fact that Lidgard was a poor if prolific photographer, he was quickly disappointed. The photos were generally of bad quality, and of mundane and inane things. Lidgard apparently carried his camera with him everywhere and from his car window took a lot of photos of things that only Lidgard could explain. Most were crooked, with a left-hand tilt to them. There were trees, lots of photos of trees and bushes. Joe squinted to see if there was anything in those trees and bushes, but he could not find anything of note. There were landscapes: sagebrush, foothills, mountains, the river valley. Sometimes there would be a photo of a part of Clyde Lidgard. There were several pictures ofLidgard's shoes taken as he apparently just stood there and shot down. There were a couple of photos of Lidgard's unfocused face as he held the camera away from him at arm's length and triggered the shutter. Joe studied Clyde Lidgard's face for any kind of clue, but what he saw was a dark, pinched, almost tortured scowl obscenely lit and shadowed by the flash. There was an eerie photo of Lidgard taken into the bathroom mirror with the flash obscuring most of the frame. There were pictures of the cabins Lidgard looked after in the mountains and photos of buildings in downtown Saddlestring. There were two entire rolls taken of snowdrifts. In one of the winter pictures, Joe could discern a herd of elk traipsing across the plains in the far distance, the animals no larger than flyspecks. And occasionally there were unfocused photos ofLidgard's shrunken penis.

  Joe reached down into the box for a handful of envelopes from past years. Many of the pictures were taken inside a VA hospital. There were nurses, doctors, light fixtures, other patients, tile floors, and again, Clyde Lidgard's penis.

  Joe went through photos until the light got so poor he could hardly see. The most recent photos were from the summer before, and they had been taken in and around Saddlestring. That left a gap of at least two months from Clyde's last photos until he was shot in the outfitters' camp. Joe noted the time lapse in his notepad. He wondered what had made Lidgard stop taking pointless photographs.

  When he finally took the boxes back to the junk room, he realized he had given himself a headache. The drumming of the rain on the roof had toned down to sporadic pings. He had been trying to see things that weren't there in the photos, trying to find something in them that would give a clue to who Clyde Lidgard was and how he ended up in the camp. He had found nothing, and the photos had only depressed him. There was something intimate in looking at the photos, as useless as they turned out to be. Lidgard, for whatever reason, had chosen to take the photos, have them developed, and stored them away. Lidgard might see things in the pictures that no one else could see, Joe guessed. Or he might see things out there that he felt compelled to photograph, only to get the photos back and to discover they weren't really there after all. Joe concluded that he knew no more about Clyde Lidgard than when he entered the trailer, but because of the penis photos he now knew more about Clyde Lidgard than he cared to.

  Joe took a deep breath and opened the refrigerator. A thick roll of stench washed over him and stung his eyes. He squinted as he moved the flashlight around--putrid hamburger, spoiled milk, oozing cheese. He reached up and flipped down the door to the freezer compartment and the stink was even worse although the compartment was nearly empty.

  Joe blew out a breath and kicked the trailer door open to get some air. Then he turned back to the freezer. The freezer pan was full of congealed blood and fluids. Tufts of brown hair were stuck in the blood and to the sides of the compartments. Until recently, Clyde Lidgard had stuffed his freezer with animal parts. And now they were gone.

  ***

  Joe stood outside the trailer with his hands on his knees, breathing deeply, fighting back nausea. His head pounded and his eyes still stung. Eventually, he was breathing crisp clean air. There was the strong, sweet smell of wet sage, and Joe inhaled gratefully. Dusk brought a red-smeared sunset over the foothills.

  Joe straightened up and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Then from behind him came a powerful whump sound. He turned in time to greet a ball of flame as it rolled out of the trailer, scorching his face.

  It was remarkable how fast the trailer burned. Already the walls were gone, exposing the black skeleton frame. He watched helplessly. Whatever evidence there might have been inside was being destroyed. How could this have happened? He hadn't smelled gas.

  He remembered that he had left his holster inside and he cursed out loud. Then somet
hing made him turn around. On the road leading toward Saddlestring, a pair of brake lights flashed. If a small herd of antelope hadn't crossed the road and forced the vehicle to slow down, Joe probably wouldn't have seen what looked like the back of a dark Chevrolet Suburban.

  Vern Dunnegan drove a Suburban, but so did lots of people. Vern had also once taught Joe the trick of waiting until dusk to sneak up on hunters and use no lights because that was the hardest time to be seen in a moving vehicle. Joe wondered if that had been Vern, and, if so, what Vern would be doing out at the Lidgard place.

  ***

  When Joe got home, Wacey's mud-splashed pickup was parked in the driveway. Joe pulled in alongside it and, as he walked toward the house, sniffed his shirtsleeves. There remained a strong odor of smoke from Clyde Lidgard's trailer. Maxine met him at the door and trailed him into the house, a gold shadow not three inches from his leg. Lucy and Sheridan were playing in the living room. Lucy was again playing the role of an animal and Sheridan was feeding her invisible treats as Missy looked on, amused. Wacey was leaning against the door frame of Joe's office and Marybeth was inside, looking through Joe's desk calendar.

  "Want one of your beers before I drink them all?" Wacey asked.

  "Sure."

  Wacey returned with a cold bottle. "You don't smell good, Joe," Wacey whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he brushed by Joe and handed him the beer.

  "I heard about Clyde Lidgard's trailer burning down. How in the hell did that happen?"

  Joe was in a dark mood. He had radioed the Saddlestring Volunteer Fire Department (they had arrived ten minutes after the framework of the trailer sighed and collapsed in on itself into a sizzling pile) as well as Sheriff Barnum (who rolled his eyes skyward and moaned ruefully) about the ball of flame. The fire department recovered what was left of his gun and holster; the black fused-together mass still smoldered in the back of his pickup where he had thrown it. Rarely had Joe Pickett felt as stupid as he did right now.

  "Did you ask him yet, Marybeth?"

  "Ask me what?"

  Marybeth had a curious smile on her face. Joe looked from Marybeth to Wacey, puzzled.

  "Wacey has a proposition for us," Marybeth said.

  Wacey stepped forward and shut the office door behind him. It was a small room.

  Wacey grinned. Marybeth grinned.

  "Aimee Kensinger has to go to Venice, Italy, for three and a half weeks with her husband," Wacey said.

  "She asked me if I knew anyone who would be trustworthy enough to stay in her house and keep it up and walk her dog every day. You know, that little rodent Jack Russell terrier others."

  Joe nodded slowly, waiting for more.

  "He suggested us." Marybeth added in a way that indicated to Joe that she liked the idea.

  "Our whole family. Even Mom."

  Wacey jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Missy in the living room. "That way she could live more in the style to which she is accustomed," he said, affecting enough of a pompous lilt to make Joe smile in spite of himself. "It's going to be like a family vacation without really going anywhere."

  Joe turned to Marybeth. "So you want to do it?"

  Marybeth spoke practically. "We're out of room, Mom's sleeping on the couch, everything seems to be falling apart, and it would be a good time to get some repairmen in here when they're not bothering everybody. It seems like we're always here. It would be kind of like having a vacation."

  "Which, as far as I know, you two have never had," Wacey chimed in. "Hell of an opportunity. Hell of an opportunity."

  "We move in Thursday," Marybeth said.

  "Then I guess the matter is decided," Joe said flatly, then drained his beer.

  Marybeth asked Wacey if he wanted to stay for dinner. But Wacey said he had to get home. On the way toward the door, Wacey stopped suddenly and watched Lucy and Sheridan play.

  "That's a cute little dog," Wacey said.

  "I'M NOT A DOGGIE!" Lucy yelled back, arching up on her feet with her chubby arms curled under her chin while Sheridan fed her an invisible treat.

  "What are you, then?"

  "I'm not a doggie," Lucy said, folding back down to her haunches.

  Joe Walked with Wacey out to his pickup. Wacey stopped and stood in the dark before he got in. Wacey had brought an unopened beer with him and Joe heard the top being unscrewed.

  "Joe, do you know how it's going to look when word gets out that you burned down Clyde Lidgard's trailer?"

  "Another bonehead move," Joe admitted, reaching into the bed of the pickup to see if his weapon was cool enough to touch. It was still warm. He tersely described what happened and said he couldn't understand how the fire had started. He left out the part about maybe seeing a Suburban.

  "What a stroke of bad luck," Wacey said, looking at the now useless gun.

  "I bet Barnum's having a good laugh about it. By tomorrow half the town will know."

  Joe sighed. He couldn't believe he had lost his gun again. Wacey took a swig of beer.

  "Are you sure this is something you ought to be pursuing?"

  "Ote Keeley died in my woodpile. That makes it kind of personal. And to me the pieces just don't quite fit."

  "What in particular?"

  Joe rubbed his eyes. They stung from the fire. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I can't convince myself that Clyde Lidgard just up and shot three men for no clear reason and then stayed in their camp until we found him. And I don't know why Ote Keeley came all of the way to my backyard to die."

  "Joe ..." Wacey's voice sounded high-pitched and pained, as if he were losing patience.

  "Clyde Lidgard was a fucking nut. You can't explain a nut. That's why he's a nut. Just let it go."

  "You sound like Barnum and everybody else."

  "Maybe he's right for once," Wacey said. Joe could see the pale blue reflection of the moon on the bottom of Wacey's beer bottle as Wacey lifted it to his mouth.

  "Trust me, Joe. It's been investigated. Everyone's satisfied. We're just Game and Fish guys. Guts and Feathers, as our critics like to say. We aren't detectives. People think we're nothing more than glorified animal control officers. Don't be a lone ranger here. You'll just embarrass the department and get yourself in more trouble, if that's possible."

  Joe absently kicked the dirt with his toe and looked down.

  "And you never know," Wacey said, "you might find a bad guy and then reach down only to remember that you lost your damn pistol again." Joe could tell Wacey was smiling at him in the dark.

  "You've made your point," Joe answered sourly. "Just go on up with your cute little family and have a nice vacation at the Eagle Mountain Club," Wacey suggested.

  "Besides, hunting season's just about to get hot and heavy, and you're going to be busy as hell. We both are."

  "Maybe so," Joe said.

  "That's what you say when you really don't agree but you don't want to discuss it anymore," Wacey commented. "I know you pretty good, Joe. You can be a stubborn son of a bitch."

  "Maybe so," Joe said. Wacey grunted, and the two men stood in silence. Billowing dark clouds were low and moving fast through the sky, painting black brush strokes over stars.

  "Why don't you and Arlene stay at Kensinger's?"

  Wacey snorted.

  "Arlene's idea of high class is eighty television channels. She wouldn't exactly appreciate that place the way Marybeth would. Besides, Arlene might find a sock of mine under the bed."

  Joe nodded, though he wasn't sure he could be seen in the dark.

  "I'm going to work one more week before I declare my candidacy," Wacey said after a long silence.

  "I'm trying for a leave of absence with the state, but if I don't get it, I'll have to quit."

  "What if you don't win?" Joe asked.

  "I'm going to win," Wacey said, confident as always.

  "But what if you don't?"

  Wacey laughed and drained his bottle, then nipped it into the back of Joe's pickup where it would rattle around
tomorrow. "Hell, I don't know. I haven't given it any thought at all. Maybe I'll go back to riding bulls for a living."

  Wacey opened his truck door, and they looked at each other in the glow from the dome light.

  "I'm not kidding you, Joe," Wacey said, climbing in. "Leave this outfitter business be. Just go back to work and have a fun vacation with your family. You've got one hell of a family, and one hell of a wife."

  Wacey slammed the door, and they were in darkness again. Wacey started his pickup and the headlights bathed the peeling paint of the garage door.

  Joe listened to gravel crunch and watched Waceys taillights recede down Bighorn Road.

  Marybeth was suddenly beside him, and it startled him. He hadn't heard her come outside.

  "We seem to be on a lucky streak," she said, looping her arm through his.

  "First the job offer and now the Eagle Mountain Club."

  "I might have broken that streak this afternoon," Joe said.

  "What's bothering you?" Marybeth asked.

  "You didn't exactly get excited when Wacey told you about it."

  "I am excited," Joe said flatly. "You and the kids will probably love it. And your mom, of course."