Free Fire jp-7

by C. J. Box

  Joe tossed the Zone file into the box and took it from her. It was heavier than he would have guessed.

  “That was pretty efficient,” he said. “I hope you didn’t have to do this on your time off.”

  “No bother,” she said. “My husband’s home with the kids. I called him and told him I’d be late. He’s a saint.”

  “I’ve got one of those at home too.”

  She didn’t rush to jump back into her cruiser, but seemed to be waiting for Joe to say something.

  “Can I buy you dinner?” Joe asked. “I’ve got lots more questions.”

  She looked at her watch and shook her head. “Lars is cookingsomething, so I don’t have time for dinner,” she said. “But maybe we could have a glass of wine in the bar.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, wishing he hadn’t had the bourbon already. He wanted to be sharp.

  Less than a quarter of the tables were occupied in the diningroom, Joe noticed, as they entered and turned right toward a small lounge. Several men sat at the bar drinking draws and watching SportsCenter on a fuzzy television, the first set Joe had seen in the park. The men looked like they’d been there awhile, and Joe discounted them as being the strangers in the hallway. Demming chose a small dark table in the corner farthest from the bar and sat with her back to the wall. He guessed she didn’t want to be seen but didn’t ask why. Since it was a slow night they waited for the bartender to top the glasses of the viewers before coming to take their orders himself. Joe ordered another bourbon and water and Demminga red wine.

  “Thanks for the e-mails,” Joe said. The box was near his feet.

  She shook her head sadly. “I don’t think you’ll find anything very useful in them. I read them myself, hoping against hope that there would be some kind of reference to Clay McCann, but there isn’t. You’ll learn all kinds of things about environmentalactivism and how horny those poor guys got being out here all alone, but I don’t think you’ll find anything valuable. There are some messages planning their trip to Robinson Lake, mainly who is to bring what alcohol and food. I’m afraid the e-mails are another dead end.”

  “If nothing else,” Joe said, “maybe I’ll get a better feel for Hoening and the other victims.”

  She agreed. “They weren’t bad people, just young and misguided.You’ll find that the five of them had a yearly reunion at the end of the season.”

  Joe was interested. “Was it always at Robinson Lake?”

  “No, but all of the reunions were in that little corner of the park,” she said, her tone low but amused. “It’s kind of a funny story, really. When the five of them left Minnesota to come out here together to try and get jobs in Yellowstone, they didn’t have a road map with them, I guess. They entered the park for the first time at the Bechler entrance, coming from Idaho. They had no idea they couldn’t go any farther into the park from there, so they camped out their first night in that area. Apparently,a ranger told them they’d need to go back out of the park and drive up to West or down to Jackson to get on the right road to Mammoth to apply for jobs. So, because of that inauspicious beginning, they held a reunion of the Gopher State Five every year down there where they first showed up, even though it was the wrong place to enter the park.”

  “So,” Joe said, as the bartender arrived with their drinks, “it’s possible that McCann knew where they’d be and when.”

  “It’s possible,” she said, sipping, “but we can’t prove it. He denied knowing them, you know. He said they just happened to be there at the time.”

  “Which brings us back to the guest register,” Joe said.

  She nodded. “That’s why I’m here now,” she said. “I’d like to go down to Bechler with you tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  Joe said, “I’d be honored.”

  “Of course, Ashby wants me to keep an eye on you as well.”

  “I figured that.”

  Now that it was out, a heavy silence hung between them.

  “Why does Layborn hate Zephyr employees so much?”

  Demming rolled her eyes. “I wish he wasn’t so strident about it, but he is. Layborn used to be a SWAT assault team captainfor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,and he brings too much of that gung-ho training to his job. He’s like a lot of real-world cops I’ve met. Day after day, he only sees the worst side of human nature, you know? He never gets calls to watch thousands of them serving food, or doinglaundry, or giving tours. He only encounters the employees who get into trouble, so he assumes they’re all like that. And some of them really are. The Gopher Staters used to drive him crazy. They made it personal.”

  “How so?” Joe asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers.

  “They were like frat boys. He caught them hot-potting more than once and he gave them tickets for it.”

  “Hot-potting?”

  “Sorry, we have so much lingo up here. Hot-potting is soakingin thermal pools. It’s illegal, but lots of people do it at night. It’s relaxing and a way to wind down-a natural hot tub. Becausethere aren’t any movie theaters or nightclubs or anything like that up here, some of the Zephyr employees go hot-potting for date night. Alcohol is usually involved, of course. Most of us look the other way because it’s basically harmless. There’s even a spot called Ranger Pool, if you catch my meaning. But we leave them alone unless they’re being particularly loud or blatant about it. Not Eric Layborn, though. He busted the GopherState Five a few times and they got to know him, and to know him is to dislike him, as you learned today. It escalated from there.”

  Joe encouraged her to go on.

  She said, “Once they found out Layborn suspected them of dealing, they declared all-out war on him. They’d let the air out of his tires when he was at lunch, or they’d put a potato in his exhaust. Stink bombs, stuff like that. Once they acted like a big drug deal was going down in employee housing at Old Faithful-they put the word out to people Layborn used as informants-so Layborn put a huge squad together to raid it. It turned out to be a birthday party for a seventy-year-old waitress who’d worked in the park for forty-some years. Layborn was reprimanded, and it made the local papers. They set him up. And I’m sure you noticed his eye?”

  Joe said he had.

  “One time, they did that trick from American Graffiti, the movie? Layborn was hiding in the trees watching for speeders near Biscuit Basin. Somebody snuck up behind his car and put a chain around his axle and attached the chain to the trunk of a tree. Another guy raced by on the road. Layborn took off after the speeder and the chain ripped the axle off. Poor Layborn lost an eye on the steering column when that happened.”

  “That explains it,” Joe said.

  “It’s glass,” she said. “Rumor has it Eric had the National Park Service logo engraved and painted on the inside of his glass eye, so it points at his brain in his socket. But that’s just a rumor-I’ve never seen it.”

  Joe was taken aback. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I was.”

  Demming was so deadpan when she said it they both burst out laughing.

  She covered her mouth with her fingers. “We shouldn’t laugh.”

  “No, we shouldn’t.”

  “So,” Joe said, recovering, “no one was ever caught?”

  “No. Nobody would fess up. We all knew it was the Gopher Staters, but we couldn’t prove it.”

  Joe shifted uncomfortably. “Judy, did Layborn have any dealings with McCann?”

  Demming wasn’t shocked by the question. “I know what you’re asking. But no, I don’t think so.”

  “Everything’s on the table,” Joe said. “Maybe eye-for-an-eye kind of revenge, so to speak?”

  Demming nodded, uncomfortable. “I’m probably not helpingmy career talking to you so much,” she said. “You’re not exactlythe most popular guy in the park right now.”

  “Who knows I’m here?” Joe asked, thinking of the two old men at Mammoth.

  “You’d be surprised how wo
rd gets around,” she said, taking a generous drink of wine. “This is a big park, but a really tiny community. Information and gossip are the way to get ahead, so there’s always a lot of buzzing about what’s going on, who’s talking to whom, that sort of thing. A newcomer like you raises suspicion.” She tossed her hair girlishly and continued. “There are so many factions. A lot, I mean a lot, of conflicts. Zephyr versus the Park Service. Environmentalists against resource users. Hunters outside the park versus park policy. The three states fighting with the Feds. Even in the Park Service, it’s law enforcement versus interpretation, and seasonal rangers against full-timers. It’s bureaucracy run amok, with too many small-mindeddepartment heads trying to advance. It’s cutthroat, Joe.”

  “Sounds a whole lot like government,” Joe said. “I speak from experience.”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you all this. You must have ordered truth serum instead of wine,” she said, gesturing toward her empty glass.

  “Would you like another?”

  “No!” she laughed. “I’ve done enough damage for one night. Plus, I’ve got to get home.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I hope talking with me doesn’t do you any harm.”

  She stood and held out her hand. “You never know, and frankly I don’t care anymore. I’m forty-two and Lars works for Zephyr. Up here, that means I’m in a mixed marriage, Yellowstone-style. We have two kids and live in a busted-down Park Service house, and I’m getting tired of playing the advancementgame, because after eighteen years I’ve realized I’m going nowhere fast. Maybe the best thing that could happen would be for them to try and get rid of me.”

  Uh-oh, Joe thought.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, suddenly flustered. He watched her go. As she opened the front door, she shot a furtive glance into the dining room to see, he assumed, if there was anyone in there who recognized her.

  As he ate, Joe skimmed through the stack of e-mails. The messages to Governor Rulon and the other politicians were on top. They were similarly vague in regard to details and the requestto contact him in “the ’Stone.” Joe found it significant that the phrase “cash flow” was used only in Rulon’s e-mail. He set it aside for later and went through the printouts. They all fit roughly into three categories.

  The first was environmental activism. Saving the wolves, grizzlies, bison. Lots of back-and-forth with other activists about the upcoming buffalo hunt that would take place in Montana.Yellowdick, or Rick Hoening, was as passionate an advocatefor endangered species as he was disdainful of hunters, ranchers, uninformed visitors, and certain factions of the Park Service, mainly law enforcement. His newest cause was somethinghe called “bio-mining.”

  While learning of Hoening’s political leanings and contacts within the environmental community, Joe detected a softening in his stance in the more recent exchanges. Often, Joe had found that people’s extreme views weakened when they moved to the heart of the controversy and were exposed to the other side. It didn’t happen with everyone, but many. It was easier to stay away and keep a rigid ideology when not mugged by reality.Although Hoening was certainly an environmentalist to the end, his more recent arguments to activists suggested that perhapssome of their policies and methods could be more reasonableand less harsh.

  The second category was park gossip and news. These e-mails composed the bulk of the box. Yellowdick was a chatty guy. The messages consisted of which employees were moving up and down the corporate ladder, who was moving where (the five hubs of activity were Old Faithful, Grant Village, Roosevelt Lodge, Lake Hotel, and Mammoth), who said what to whom, who was sleeping with whom, where parties were going to be after work and on weekends, who would drive, who would bring what. Demming was accurate about the insular nature of Zephyr employees. Like college students on campus, they had their own culture, rituals, words, and phrases. Their social lives existed in a separate universe from what millions of tourists experiencedat the park. Visitors encountered waiters, servers, maids, front-desk staff. There was probably little thought as to what these people who served the tourists did with their lives when not in uniform, when the Zephyr name tag was off. Joe found the secret world fascinating and made himself stop readingand move on.

  The third rough category he classified as Desperate Pleas to Women. In these, Joe found himself smiling and cringing at the same time. Men away from home in their early twenties could be shameless, and Hoening was no exception. Yellowdick was relentless,equal parts charm, desperation, and rakishness. He seemed to have tried to revive every friendship and chance meetinghe had ever had with a female while growing up in Minnesota,stretching back to childhood. In each correspondence, he started out recalling the particulars of their meeting, often citing what she wore and the cute things she said. He said he missed her. If she replied, he continued the long-distance back-and-forth,writing about Yellowstone and what he and his friends were doing and seeing, extolling the clean air and healthy lifestyle or, if she liked the darker side, how great the parties were. A girl named Samantha Ellerby apparently liked parties so much she had moved from Minnesota to L.A. to find really good ones. Hoening claimed the events he staged in Yellowstone rivaled anythingshe had found. She doubted it, she wrote. He said he’d prove it if she came to see him, and closed with the same line that he apparently felt was the clincher: “We’ll have some cocktails and laughs, watch the sun set over Yellowstone Lake, go hot-pottingand light a couple of flamers.” Another e-mail said, “I can’t wait to see you. I’ll be at the airport in Jackson.”

  From what Joe could tell, she was the only woman Yellowdick had successfully persuaded. Based on the last two e-mails betweenthem, one to him that said “A-Hole!” and his reply, “Bitch!”, their time together had not gone well. But despite his low batting average, Yellowdick never stopped swinging for the fences. In the most recent e-mails, he had turned his sights on visitorshe apparently had met and exchanged e-mail addresses with, having exhausted his list of females from Minnesota.

  Although there were still plenty of e-mails to go through, Joe admitted to himself that what Demming had told him was essentiallycorrect. There were no references to Clay McCann or anyone like him, and nothing revealing about their plans for the annual reunion at Robinson Lake. Except one thing, Joe thought. Bob Olig had been copied in on every message. It meant, Joe thought, Hoening had no reason to assume Olig wouldn’t be there.

  A thought struck him.

  What if Olig was at Robinson Lake? What if the employee records at Old Faithful were wrong on that fact, or Olig had manipulatedthem to appear as if he’d been working that day?

  Joe retrieved his file from the box and reviewed the crime-scenereport in detail once again, looking for something that would confirm his suspicion. Like finding five sleeping bags insteadof four.

  After reading and rereading the report and going over the inventoryof items found at the scene, Joe could come up with only one conclusion: either Olig or McCann had removed every single shred of evidence of Olig’s presence, or he’d never been at the camp at all, just like Layborn had said.

  Joe looked up and realized he was the last diner in the restaurant. A knot of workers, busboys and waiters, had gatherednear the kitchen door, pretending they weren’t waiting for him to leave.

  Joe stood, said, “Sorry!” and left a big tip he couldn’t afford.

  Carrying the box outside, Joe noted how incredibly dark it was with no moon, and no ground glow from streets, homes, or traffic. The cool air had a slight taste of winter.

  He called marybeth from a pay phone in the lobby of the hotel, having learned in Jackson not to rely on his cell phone in remote or mountainous places. Plus, he liked the intimacy of closing the accordion doors of the old-fashioned booth and shutting everything out so he could talk with her.

  She covered the home front. Everyone was doing fine and it was too soon to really miss him. An employee in her Powell office had gotten angry and walked out for no good reason. Missy was snubbing her because, Marybeth assu
med, her suspicions about Earl Alden and the arts council were correct.

  “Fine with me,” Marybeth said.

  Joe recounted his day: the drive up, the arrest of Bear, the meeting, drinks with Judy Demming.

  As he told her, he could feel her mood change, not by what she said but by the silence.

  “You’d like her,” he said. “She’s trying to help me out up here even though her bosses probably wish she wouldn’t. You’ll need to meet her when you come up.”

  She asked for a description.

  “Early forties, married, mother of two,” he said. “She and her family live in broken-down federal housing and she says she’s lost in the system. Kind of sounds familiar, huh?”

  “She sounds nice,” Marybeth said.

  Changing tack, he asked, “Have you heard anything from Nate? Any idea when he’s leaving?”

  “He’s already gone,” she said. “He left a message on our phone tonight. I meant to tell you about that earlier.”

  “Did he say when he’d get up here?”

  “No. Just to tell you he was on his way but he needed to tend to something in Cody first.”

  “So maybe tomorrow,” Joe said.

  “I’d assume.”

  She waited a beat. “How are you doing, Joe?”

  He knew what she was referring to. He described his room, the hotel, the feeling he’d had since he arrived of the presence of ghosts.

  “Does anyone know about your brother?”

  “No. It’s not important that they know.”

  They made plans for Marybeth to bring the girls to the park in a week.

  Although tired, joe couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. He couldn’t determine if it was the strange bed, the unfamiliar night moans of an old building, or the particularlyvivid dream he’d had of sleeping on the floor at the side of the bed, knowing his parents were tossing and turning two feet away. He awoke to the foul, sour odor of his dad’s breath after a night of drinking.

  He sat up and found his duffel bag with his equipment in it and assembled his Glock and put it on the nightstand.