The Edge of Justice

by Clinton McKinzie

  When the sheriff does speak, it's past me to McGee. “Howdy, Ross. Good to see you, and thanks for coming out. We've been waiting on you. Be careful now, there's some dogs about. I think they're behind the trailer right now.”

  The man called McKittrick has a large head and a leathery face. Despite being parked, his weathered hands grip the wheel at the ten-and-two positions. From what I can see of him above the car's frame, he wears a sport coat with Western-cut shoulders and lapels over a wool work shirt. His face is clean-shaven except for a long mustache. On his head he wears a smallish cowboy hat.

  “What have you found?” I ask him, taking a legal pad and pen from my briefcase.

  “Girl lives there.” He nods at the trailer. “She's the deceased. Works in town. Laramie. A friend of hers came out to check on her a few hours ago and found her. We haven't been in there yet. After we got the call, 'bout an hour ago, one of my deputies and I just peeked inside with a torch. She's clearly dead, bent over a chair or something. Then those dogs came around. We've been sitting on our asses in the cars ever since, waiting for y'all.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “There's a dog inside too. You'll hear him in a minute.”

  As if on cue, there's a bellow that eclipses the other barking. It's followed by a crash from inside the trailer. The flimsy home shakes visibly on its foundations.

  “Must be a big sucker,” the sheriff comments. “We think he's locked in a back room somewheres. The body's in the front, just beyond the door.”

  “Who found her?” I ask.

  “Pretty girl, name of Cindy Topper. Out of Laramie, she says. She called it in from a cell phone 'bout two A.M. Said she came out here 'cause of some call she'd gotten herself—wouldn't say from who—but it scared her so she thought she'd just come on out and spend the night with her friend.”

  “Where's Topper now?” McGee asks. We are both thinking the same thing: she's undoubtedly next on Heller and Brad's hit list. Probably Lynn is high up on that list too. They are wiping out the whole Heller cult as if it were Jonestown.

  “One of my boys picked her up. She's at the station right now, waiting to see if we've got any more questions.”

  “Hang on to her, Sheriff,” I say. “I'm afraid I know who did this and I think she may be next.”

  McGee and I get out of the car. It's a small relief to feel the wind and smell the sagebrush after a half hour in McGee's rank sedan. The sheriff speaks a few words on his radio, then gets out in unison with two younger officers from the other two cars. They exchange nods with us in the blaze of the headlights. I hear some ragged barks and the sound of scampering paws and snapping twigs coming through the dry brush toward us.

  A big German shepherd mix emerges from the night in a slow lope, coming at McGee and me where we stand in front of his sedan. The shepherd is tentatively followed by three smaller dogs, far less of a threat. The deputies have their guns out of their holsters but I yell at them not to shoot as the shepherd slows and comes at me, growling and baring his teeth. With a black coat and another one hundred pounds on his skinny frame he would look a bit like Oso.

  I take a quick step toward him, waving the legal pad. “No,” I tell him. “Cut it out! Bad dog.” At first the dog just snarls louder, then finally lowers his volume as I continue to yell. The others keep up their yapping behind him. “Sit! Sit!” Grudgingly, the big dog half-lowers himself onto his hindquarters. “Sit!” I yell again and he finally lowers his butt into the dirt. “Good dog. Now stay.” I walk past him, turning to keep my eyes locked on the dog's, and walk up three rickety wooden steps to the door of the trailer. The trailer shakes again as the dog inside bellows and hurls its weight against what I assume must be an interior door. McGee follows me up onto the porch, then the sheriff and one of the deputies. The other deputy stands behind us, covering our rear from the advancing dogs.

  “Round up those mutts,” the sheriff tells the surprised and alarmed deputy. “Start with the big 'un.” The deputy looks like he wants to appeal that order but then turns away unhappily, already expecting to get bit.

  “Whew. I hate that smell. . . . Seems like I've lived with it ever since Korea,” McGee says to no one.

  Even standing outside the door I can smell the sweet-sick scent of rotting meat. Adding to its offense is the sound of buzzing flies. My stomach turns, but it doesn't concern me—there's nothing in it to come up. Anger and loss and hunger and exhaustion have left me punch-drunk and cold as stone.

  I take the flashlight from the deputy and examine the slightly open door. It's made of the same rusty aluminum as the trailer's body. A cheap brass lock is the only built-in security I can see. Someone has mounted the hinged steel of a padlock brace on the door to better secure the trailer from the outside. The padlock itself hangs open from the mounting on the side of the trailer.

  The sheriff wipes his mustache with a rag and passes it to me. I sniff it and feel its scorch all the way to the back of my throat—gasoline to deaden our sense of smell. I wipe my own lips and nostrils and pass it on to McGee, my skin burning. With the toe of one hiking boot I ease the door open wider and probe the darkness with the flashlight as another bellow and crash shakes the trailer.

  “Lord, that makes my hair stand on end,” McKittrick says.

  The beam of light is immediately drawn to the body that lies a few feet beyond the door. It's clearly a woman's, a girl's really, that's bent over a chair and facing away from the door. The pale, thin buttocks have been carefully posed to be the first thing anyone entering the trailer will see. A cloud of flies hangs in the darkness above the body. The strong beam of light shows carnivorous fire ants busily gorging themselves on the cold flesh. I hear the men behind me gasp and curse. I focus on the dead girl's thigh, and even from this angle I can see the long, familiar tattoo of a climber reaching nearly from knee to hip.

  “It's Sierra. The hotel maid,” I say out loud, without thinking. At the sound of my voice, or the dead girl's name, the trailer rocks again with another roar and crash from the rear of the trailer. The floor vibrates beneath my feet. I move the beam of light on, sweeping it steadily around the room.

  Other than the body, the small room is orderly but for a single broken lamp. It lies on the floor not far from the corpse. The glass from the broken bulb is strewn on the tabletop. Its cord snakes across the floor to a socket in the wall. I suspect the naked wires that protrude from where the bulb had once been were used to get answers. Or to punish. A closer examination of the corpse will probably reveal tiny burn marks in painful places.

  The windows are hung with tie-dyed sheets used as drapes. Other psychedelic art is tacked to the imitation-wood walls. One spells out the name of a band, “Phish,” in bright, waving letters. Another features dancing bears and is a tribute to the Grateful Dead. As the light wavers on it, Sheriff McKittrick says from behind me, “I'd be gratefully dead too, someone done that to me.” There are several other posters displaying climbers clinging tenaciously on wildly exposed rock. Cheap, mismatched glasses and dishes stand in formation on a shelf above the small sink and two-burner propane stove. Along the floor against one wall is a long line of various sized dog bowls.

  With the sleeve of my coat pulled over my hand, I sweep my forearm against the inside wall, feeling for a light switch. Something catches the material at the right level and I flip it up. The room flickers into light, but loses none of its horror. If anything, the horror is intensified. Evil is one thing when cloaked in the dark, but it takes on an even more terrifying aspect in the light, when it becomes all too real.

  I step cautiously around to the side of the body and wish I hadn't come. I could have told McGee I was just too tired. Or I could have left in my Land Cruiser after the first run-in with Dominic Torres's little brother and driven back up to Cody with Oso drooling out the windows. If I'd done that, two people and my dog would probably still be alive. Their relatively innocent lives were being exchanged for the more sullied lives of the Knapps. And unless something was done soon t
o halt the sentencing, the Knapps too would be sacrificed. And maybe others.

  My knees feel weak as I stare at the long tattoo on Sierra Calloway's thigh. The hot taste of bile is in my mouth and I finally look away as I try to swallow it down. I swallow again and again, listening to the other men's obscenities and the howls and crashes from the rear of the trailer. I make myself step closer to the body and see the laughing skull on her neck, half hidden by lank blonde hair.

  I ease down the narrow hallway to a bedroom door made of cheap wood that is splintering from the dog's repeated attacks. I brace my foot and hip against it, feeling the weight of the big dog on the other side. “Easy,” I say through the door. But that only causes the dog to renew its baying and go at the door with greater force. I turn and see McGee and the sheriff behind me. The other deputy is still in the living room, transfixed by the corpse.

  “Good thing he didn't get out. We wouldn't have a body left,” McKittrick says.

  I don't answer and don't bother to cover my hand when I turn the knob, my leg still bracing the door. I let it open toward me a few inches. A snarling muzzle protrudes, level with my stomach. The dog is gigantic—taller than even Oso, but much thinner. Some sort of mutated Great Dane. I push the door shut and reengage the latch.

  “I guess we'll have to shoot the bastard,” the sheriff advises a little sadly.

  I shake my head. “Call the Game and Fish. Get them out here to tranquilize it.”

  “Already did, son. They said they don't do dogs.”

  “Then tell them it's a fucking wolf,” McGee suggests. I recall his fondness for dogs and am thankful for that as well as his rough resourcefulness.

  I continue to brace the door while the sheriff takes out a cell phone and a leather address book. Moving back down the hall, he dials a number and speaks for a few minutes over the noise. “She's coming,” he finally says from the living room, stabbing a button to end the call.

  I call for the nearly catatonic deputy to bring me one of the upright chairs from the table. The deputy awakens from his trance and lifts a chair, carefully staying as far away from the girl's body as he can. I brace the chair against the rear door's knob as added security. We all return to the living room where McGee and McKittrick crouch by the body, studying it. Soft pink cord binds her hands and ankles. They are the same unusual type and color of cord I'd been given by Cecelia up in Buffalo. I immediately recognize the knots that have been used to cinch and lock the line tight around her hands, ankles, and throat. Prusik knots, a climber's knot for ascending a rope.

  I point them out to McGee and he says, “Same kind as was used on Lee.”

  “It's the same kind of cord Heller's been buying up in Buffalo,” I tell him.

  “You know her, Agent?” McKittrick asks, indicating the body before us.

  “Yes, Sheriff, I do. She was a witness in an ongoing murder investigation. Two murders, actually, now three. Let's go outside until the lab guys get here,” I say, my investigative instincts for preserving the evidence taking control. “Who touched what?”

  “Nothing,” both McGee and McKittrick respond.

  “What about you?” I ask the deputy, observing his pale face, bulging eyes, and lips that are bloodless.

  “Just the chair,” he whispers.

  Before I lead them through the front door, the sheriff pauses at a window, looking out into the yard. The sun has finally risen high enough to have its rays curve over the surface of eastern Wyoming and brush away the stars. Through the window's glass I see its light reaching the Snowy Range to the west, turning its glacial couloirs golden and its quartz and granite purple. I wish I were there, brewing tea on some snow-covered ledge.

  The sheriff is looking down at the ground outside, shaking his head and grumbling to himself. I follow his gaze and see the deputy who was assigned the task of rounding up the dogs outside. He's holding a rope with a wide slipknot on one end, chasing the German shepherd out of sight around a corner. A moment later he runs back into view, the dog chasing him. I could laugh if I didn't feel so sick. For a moment I forget what I'm doing and rest my forehead against the trailer's cool aluminum wall.

  Outside we stand on the porch for a few minutes while we wait for wildlife control and the DCI crime scene techs to show up. We watch the deputy, joined now by his colleague, pursuing and being pursued by the dogs. The dogs have turned it into a game. McGee sits on the steps and lights a cigar while the sheriff and I walk a circle around the trailer and shed, ignoring the play taking place around us. We can't find any broken windows or torn screens. I'm not surprised. I already know she was friends with her killers; she probably invited them in.

  We spend a few minutes studying the dirt driveway. The ground is hard and rocky. We can't see any discernible tire marks.

  I turn when I hear the sound of an engine coming down into the depression. It's a lime green pickup with the insignia of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department painted on its side. It pulls to a stop behind the other cars and a small woman gets out, pointedly ignoring us. From the back of the pickup she withdraws a long, flimsy pole with a wire noose on one end. The pole is as thin as a fly-fishing rod. We can still hear and feel the trailer shuddering as the Great Dane throws himself at the door. Beside me, the sheriff chuckles.

  “That little lady don't know what she's in for.” He leaves my side and walks over to her while I join McGee on the steps.

  We watch Sheriff McKittrick argue with the woman for a few minutes. He's telling her that the stick won't work, she has to tranquilize the damn wolf. And she says that she knows there isn't any damn wolf, and that the stick will work fine for a dog. Finally, after the sheriff has her observe the trailer rocking on its foundations from the force of the big dog's attacks on the door, she appears to give in and puts away the stick-and-noose. From behind the seat in the cab of the pickup she takes out a rifle bag and a smaller nylon case. She spreads them both on the hood of the truck and I hear her say as she unzips them, “I don't know what dose to use. Just how big is he?”

  “Like an elk,” McKittrick responds.

  “Half an elk,” McGee calls to them.

  The woman snorts, disbelieving, and pops a cylinder of amber liquid into the chamber of the rifle.

  The sheriff leads her onto the porch, where she gasps at the smell that even McGee's rancid cigar is unable to disguise. McKittrick explains to her what's inside before he opens the door. The wildlife officer turns a little white, but nods gamely when he tells her exactly what she should not look at. “We're just going to march straight down the hall, plug the dog, then leave. All right, honey?”

  She nods again.

  “Keep your eyes on me,” I add.

  The sheriff opens the door and steps inside quickly, in an attempt to shield the woman's eyes from the corpse. I back in after him, keeping my eyes on hers. “Follow me.” She does as she was told and we quickly move down the hallway where the mutant Great Dane resumes its bellowing and attacks on the door.

  I again brace my foot against the thin door and move the chair out of the way. The wildlife officer raises the rifle as I crack open the door. “Jesus,” she says when the huge, snarling snout pushes through. She pushes the barrel of the gun through the crack above the dog's head and aims it down. With one eye shut and her tongue slightly protruding from between her teeth, she pulls the trigger.

  From the gun comes a sharp hiss of escaping air. The dart imbeds itself just to one side of the brute's skinny spine. The dog lets out a high-pitched yelp that is surprisingly out of character for such a large canine. Then without any further warning it collapses onto one side.

  The sheriff looks into the room past us. “Ma'am, I think you killed him,” he deadpans. “Must not have been even half an elk. Maybe just an antelope.” But then the Great Dane lets out a long groan. We can see its ribs rise and fall in slow motion. I'm glad for that—there's been more than enough death.

  The sheriff and I escort the woman out of the trailer, again guarding her ey
es. She walks straight to her truck and zips up her rifle. Without a word to anyone she climbs in the cab and slowly drives up and out of the depression. The sheriff and I work together to drag the Dane out by its front legs and carry it gently down the stairs below the porch. We leave it in the dog run with five out of the six dogs the deputies have caught so far.

  McGee has abandoned his perch on the steps for the quieter and relatively less stinking sanctuary of the state's sedan. With the car's door open, McGee is sitting on the driver's seat with his feet in the dirt and his hands resting on the head of his cane. I walk over and stretch out on the car's dusty hood in the morning light. The sun, its rays now high enough to touch the earth directly, starts baking through my jacket. The warmth seeps through my clothes down to my battered skin, muscles, and bones.

  “You meet her?” I finally ask.

  “No, I was never . . . in the room when she came by.”

  “Heller and Brad killed her, Ross. Probably on Monday night, late or early in the morning. As they were leaving town with Chris, to kill him too. Somehow they found out she talked to me, or they thought she might have. She's the one who told me Chris wasn't so bad, that he was the one I should talk to. The weak link.”

  “Who knew that she talked to you?”

  I try to think, but my brain is sluggish. “I told you in the hospital, right? And Rebecca. Who'd you talk to about it?”

  “Karge's pal, the AG,” he says. “No one else.”

  “Then he might have passed the word along to Karge.”

  “Much as I hate that self-righteous prig . . . the AG wouldn't have done it . . . if he knew this would be the result. . . . And Karge sure as hell wouldn't . . . resort to murder. . . . He may be a typical politician . . . an ambitious cover-your-ass kind of guy . . . but he's not a frigging killer.”

  “Maybe not. But I think he's protecting his kid and Heller, trying to play Heller like a puppet. Doing it to save the Knapp trial, the election, and his son. He's assisting in this mess by passing along information that's getting everyone killed. Heller's nobody's puppet.”