Free Fire jp-7

by C. J. Box

  She paused a long time before saying, “Joe, I’m a little disappointedin you.”

  “Why?” He was puzzled.

  “How much have we been through together?”

  “A hell of a lot,” he said. “Too much. That’s why-”

  “That’s right,” she said. “We’re good together. Maybe I can help you out. Besides, I’m just about done with that research you asked me to do. I’ll print everything out and bring it along.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Not that I can tell. I still have a couple of companies to go. I should have it all done by the time we get there.”

  “I’m thinking of Sheridan and Lucy,” Joe said. “I still feel so damned guilty about what they went through last spring. I don’t want any more of that happening.”

  “Joe, what happened happened. It’s not your fault.”

  “If my job puts them into situations like that, it’s my fault,” he said.

  She didn’t argue, although he wished she would.

  “Sheridan can’t stop talking about going to Yellowstone,” Marybeth said. “Lucy has already packed so she’ll be the best dressed tourist in the park. You want me to tell them we’re not going?”

  Joe thought about it. “No.”

  “Good.”

  “I miss you,” he said.

  “It’s only been a few days,” she said. “But I miss you too.”

  “Besides,” she said, laughing, “my mother is driving me insane.”

  Idly, joe reread Hoening’s e-mails, hoping that something new would come to him now that he’d spent some time in the park. The exchange between Yellowdick and Samantha Ellerby drew him, and he studied the e-mails and tried to figure out why.

  It was 8 P.M. in California, an hour behind mountain time. Joe used directory assistance to find her number. He caught Samantha in her apartment. She had a flat, bored tone to her voice he found slightly irritating.

  “Who did you say you were?” she asked.

  “My name is Joe Pickett. I’m investigating the murder of your friend Rick Hoening on behalf of the governor of Wyoming,” he said, hoping that would impress her enough to keep her on the line.

  “He wasn’t really my friend, more like just a guy I knew back in Minnesota. I’m surprised Wyoming is big enough to have a governor.”

  Joe thought, Airhead.

  “Still, I’m sure you’d like to help us clear up a few questions.”

  “I guess so. But I don’t have a lot of time to talk. I’m going out.”

  “It won’t take long,” he said.

  “Better not.”

  “Okay, I’ll get to it. I take it you visited Yellowstone last summer.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was cold. “Geysers, like, big whoop.”

  “Didn’t have a good time, then?”

  “It was cold. There were bugs and way too many animals that can eat you. Not at all my idea of a good time. Plus, Rick’s idea of a great party is, you know, outside. I’m sorry he’s dead and all but, God, like, what a loser.”

  “I wanted to ask you specifically about what you did with him.”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “No, please,” he said, wanting to smack himself in the forehead.“Let me rephrase that. Sorry. I want to know what places he showed you around the park. He knew the area really well, from what we understand. We think if we know where he went it might help us in our investigation.” He hoped that last bit made more sense to her than it did to him.

  She seemed to be debating whether or not to terminate the call.

  “Look,” he lied, “if it would be easier, we can send somebodyover to your place to talk about this. It might be more comfortable for you.” Hoping she wouldn’t call his bluff.

  “I said I was going out. No, okay. It’s okay, I thought you were asking-”

  “No.”

  “We saw all the sights, I guess. Some big canyons, some trees, a bunch of geysers. Old Faithful. Way too many fat peoplein shorts. I think Yellowstone ought to have some kind of fitnesstest you have to pass to get in. I mean, gross.”

  “Did you go to a place called Sunburst Hot Springs?” Joe asked casually.

  “Hmmm, I’m trying to remember the name.”

  “Did you go hot-potting there?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sunburst. That was actually kind of a cool place. Except it’s illegal, you know. They keep you from going to the really cool places.”

  “Okay,” Joe said, “I’m going to ask you a question but beforeyou answer I want you to know that however you answer it, you will not be incriminated in any way.”

  “Huh?”

  “Was Hoening involved with drugs? I’m not asking about you, I’m asking about him.”

  She seemed relieved and said, “Alcohol only. But lots of it. He was really backward in his thinking. I couldn’t get him to. . never mind.”

  “So he never used drugs in your presence?”

  “Alcohol. It’s a drug, you know.”

  “Then can you tell me what he meant when he wrote to you”-Joe fished out the e-mail-“‘We’ll have some cocktails and laughs, watch the sun set over Yellowstone Lake, go hot-pottingand light a couple of flamers.’ ”

  “Ooooh,” she said, enthusiasm gushing for the first time, “those things were the coolest of all! Flamers, yeah. They were, like, great.”

  21

  Two point two million acres, Joe thought. Yellowstone was that big. And while he now had a plan, he didn’t have a car.

  There was a layer of light snow suspended on the grass and melting on the pavement in front of the Mammoth Hotel. He could see his breath as he walked to the restaurant for breakfast. The morning was achingly silent. Rising columns of steam from the hot spring terraces on the hill muted the sun, making it seem overcast despite the cloudless blue sky. Although it could, and did, snow any month of the year in the park, it definitely felt like summer was spent and had stepped aside in utter exhaustionto yield to fall and winter.

  His mind was on something else, though.

  Flamers, they called them.

  Like the snowflakes that hung in the air, turning into floating sparks by the morning sun, thoughts and facts seemed suspendedtoo. While it might be folly to try to connect them, Joe felt the need to try. It was more of a hunch than a theory, and he’d made mistakes going with his hunches before. But somehowit felt right. It was the new knowledge of the flamers that did it.

  Flamers. The Gopher State Five. Clay McCann. Sunburst Hot Springs. Bob Olig. The black SUV. What Mark Cutler figuredout but never got a chance to explain. And now Clay McCannagain, with more blood on his hands. Somehow, they were all connected.

  Samantha Ellerby had described flamers as streams of gas coming from tiny quarter-sized holes in the ground that could be lit with a match. She said the flame reached at least six feet into the air, sometimes higher, and provided both heat and light for hot-potting. She said there were at least seven of them near Sunburst Hot Springs, and when they were all lit up at night surroundingthe hot pool the atmosphere was “way cool.” She said when it was time to leave, Hoening smothered the flames by covering the holes with a thick wet blanket.

  The Zone of Death was a diversion, he thought. This wasn’t about the Zone of Death at all. The murders were a means to an end, a way of dealing with those facts that hung in the air and were somehow, some way, connected.

  He hoped that a revelation would come to him while he ate breakfast, that the indiscriminate facts would somehow connect and cling to one another, form a pattern, create a story line.

  They didn’t.

  When simon said there were no messages for him at the front desk, Joe used the pay phone in the lobby to call Chuck Ward. He needed to know what the governor thought of his reportsthus far and how he could get a new vehicle, and he wanted to advise them of the new information about Cutler, flamers, and Clay McCann’s latest crime.

  Ward wasn’t in.

  “Can you tell me how to get ahold of h
im?” Joe asked the secretary in the governor’s office.

  “No. He took a few days’ personal leave.”

  “Personal leave? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  Joe was annoyed. This meant Ward hadn’t received his reportsand had no idea what was happening.

  “When will he be back?”

  “Monday.”

  “That’s three more days!”

  “Correct.” She sounded bored.

  Joe tried to think. There was no way Ward would be out of touch completely. He was the governor’s chief of staff, he couldn’t just vanish. It didn’t work that way. He knew the secretaryprobably couldn’t give out Ward’s number, wherever he was. But he knew who could.

  “I need to talk to the governor, then. It’s important.”

  “What did you say your name was?” she asked before puttinghim on hold.

  Joe waited. The hold music was Johnny Cash singing “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Joe assumed the governor had had somethingto do with the choice.

  Finally, she came back on the line. “The governor says he’s never heard of anyone named Joe Pickett.”

  Joe clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, said, “It’s so good to be back in the system. Please have Chuck Ward call me immediatelyif he happens to check in. And please tell the governor things are happening. Three more people are dead. I’m sure he’s heard about them-two murdered by Clay McCann, the other a Zephyr employee who we made contact with. That one might be an accident but I doubt it.”

  “I’ll pass that along,” she said in a tone suggesting she had no intention of doing so.

  “He’ll be interested,” Joe said. “Trust me on that.”

  “Hmmmppf.”

  Joe walked to the Pagoda, stepping through a television news crew from Billings that was setting up in the parking lot at the side of the building. A pretty blond correspondent who looked all of twenty-four was applying makeup to her sharp cheekbones, ready to do a stand-up report on the fact that Clay McCann was back in the Yellowstone jail.

  The receptionist looked up as Joe entered. Layborn sat in a chair behind her, and he shook his head with clear disgust when he saw Joe.

  “Thanks to you,” Layborn said, “I get to spend the morning fending off the press instead of doing my job.”

  Joe ignored him. “Did you find anything out about the black SUV?”

  “You mean the one you didn’t get a plate number on? No. It was probably out of the park by the time we put out the APB at all the gates.”

  “But you’ve alerted the cops in all of the gateways, right? Jackson, Cody, West Yellowstone, Bozeman, Cooke City?”

  “Gee,” Layborn said, curling his lip, “we never even thought of that. Good thing you’re here to advise us.” He snorted, “Of course we did that. Christ. But we’ve got nothing so far. Do you know how many SUVs there are in this area? Everybody has ’em.”

  Joe nodded. True. “So McCann is here again, huh? Are charges being filed?”

  Layborn looked quickly away. Joe could see that the ranger’s face and neck were turning red. “We’re holding him while the prosecutors try to come up with something,” he said through clenched teeth. “This time, we can’t even get him on a gun charge, since he claims the victims had the gun and he took it away from them in self-defense. That son of a bitch is going to get away with it. Again!” he spat the word out.

  “So he’ll be released?” Joe asked, incredulous.

  Layborn shifted in his chair, finally looked back at Joe. “We had to tell him this morning he could go.”

  “He’s gone?”

  Layborn shook his head. “That’s the thing,” he said. “He refusesto leave. He says he’s staying in custody until we either bring a case against him or not. In the meantime, he’s demandingto be moved to another federal facility. He says he doesn’t care where-Boise, Billings, Casper-anywhere but here. Claims he fears for his life in Yellowstone, which really pisses off the brass. They don’t want that getting out, as you can imagine.”

  “I can imagine,” Joe said. He wondered whom McCann was scared of, who he thought could get to him in the Yellowstone jail.

  “That’s not all,” Layborn said. “He says if we don’t press charges, he’s not leaving until the secretary of the interior issuesa public apology to him for arresting him in the first place and talking about him to the press. He claims his house was vandalized and he can no longer earn a living because his reputation’s been ruined. He says he’ll sue us if the apology isn’t made.”

  “You’re kidding,” Joe said.

  “Jesus,” Layborn said, “I wish I was. I also wish I could just take the weasel out in the woods and put a bullet in his head and end this.”

  Joe thought, I know a guy who would be happy to do that.

  “Can I see him?” Joe asked.

  “No visitors. Orders of the chief ranger.”

  “I’ve got some questions for him.”

  “Too bad. The chief thinks if he has no public contact he’ll get bored and leave. McCann likes attention. So no press, no visitors at all. Direct orders. That’s why I’m here this morning-to keep everybody away from him.”

  “I’m on your side,” Joe said.

  Layborn grinned viciously. “Somehow, I have trouble believingthat.”

  “Can I at least look at him?”

  Joe could see Layborn thinking about it, wanting to come up with a reason why he couldn’t. Finally, he gestured to the door. “We’ve got cameras in all the cells. The monitors are down the hall. You can look at him there, but nothing else. Then you need to leave, and I mean it.”

  As Joe passed him, Layborn said, “I don’t know what you think you’ll see.”

  Joe wasn’t sure either. Nevertheless, he went down the hallwayinto a small room with a bank of four black-and-white video monitors on the wall. Two showed empty cells. One revealedtwo disheveled men sleeping on cots. A Post-it note read “Zephyr, DUI.” On the fourth monitor, a pale, pudgy man sat motionless on a cot with his hands on his knees, staring intently at a blank wall. McCann.

  There was nothing threatening about him, Joe thought. He looked like an overripe accountant, or the lawyer that he was. He looked lonely, pathetic. Not the murderer or schemer he obviouslywas. He looked almost like. . a victim. Joe had been around several evil men in his life, and had felt a darkness insidehimself when he was near them. Not this time. Strangely, it bothered him more than if McCann exuded menace. Here sat a man who assassinated six people in cold blood, who wanted an apology from the government for being arrested. This man, Joe thought, was beyond understanding. In a way, he was probably the most dangerous man he had ever encountered. Joe wanted desperately to bring him down.

  Demming was opening the door of a Crown Victoria when Joe came out of the Pagoda, ruining the taped stand-up for the Billings television station.

  “Cut!” the producer growled to the reporter. “Jenny, you’ll need to do it again.”

  “Sorry,” Joe said, stepping out of the shot.

  “Damn it,” Jenny said, “I was on a roll.”

  “I’ve been assigned to traffic,” Demming said, as Joe climbed into the cruiser with her. “Suspension is still pending, though. I’ll know by Monday if I still have a job. I’ve never seen Langston so angry. Ashby actually defended me, though. A little,at least. Enough to keep me employed through the weekend.”

  Joe didn’t know what to say.

  “It may all be for the best,” she said, looking out the windshieldat Jenny the reporter starting her stand-up again. “Lars will be out of town at a road engineering conference in Billings. I’ll be around for the kids, which is good.”

  “I could use your help,” Joe said. “You’re a good partner.”

  She smiled. “It makes me happy to hear you say that, Joe.”

  “I mean it.”

  Joe told her about the flamers. She was interested, and he could see her thinking.

  “She says they lit them with a match,” Joe continued. “It
sounded like she was describing a propane torch or something. Does this make any sense to you?”

  “None. I’ve never heard of anything like that in the park.”

  Joe nodded. “There’s no oil or gas here, is there?”

  “No. And if there was, nobody could drill for it anyway. Are you sure this connects anything?”

  Joe shook his head. “I’m not sure about anything. But when I think about oil and gas, I think of Wyoming. That’s how the whole state is funded. Hoening made a reference to ‘something going on here with the resources that may deeply impact the State of Wyoming, especially your cash flow situation.’ Remember that? This new information could sort of go to that, and it might be what Cutler figured out and never got a chance to tell us.”

  Demming nodded. “Let’s not forget, Joe, that we have no evidenceCutler was murdered. We’re assuming it but have nothingto go on. The forensic guys on the scene are describing it as an accident, that Cutler lost his footing checking on the thermal and fell in.”

  Joe shook his head. “I don’t believe that. I saw how careful he was out there.”

  “I agree. But we’ve got nothing. We’ve asked the FBI to take a look at what’s left of his body and. . the pieces they could find. They’re FedExing it all to Virginia. Maybe we’ll find out he got hit in the head or shot or something. Until then, we can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “I’ve already jumped.”

  “So have I,” she sighed.

  “What about Herve and the message?” Joe asked.

  “He checks out,” she said. “The message was left in his in-boxand he simply delivered it. There’s nothing to suggest he told anyone about the meeting, and he claims he never even looked at it. The investigator who interviewed him said he was clean.”

  He told her what Layborn had said about the black SUV.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “If we could find that car and who was driving it, we might get somewhere.”

  “How do we do that now?” she asked.

  “The surveillance tapes,” he said. “Doesn’t the Park Service get a shot of every vehicle and plate that enters at the gates? I’ve seen the cameras. We could look at the tapes for yesterday and see where the SUV came from. If we can’t find it, we can go back two days and find out where it came in. We might even get a picture of who was driving it.”