by Mark Stevens
“What?”
“Who was on the speaker phone last time? Earlier?”
“A friend,” said Bloom. He stared straight at Trudy. “Trudy Heath.”
Trudy nodded her assent, let out a breath.
DiMarco took it in, didn’t respond.
“So, anything going on?” said Bloom.
“Lot of hurry up and wait,” said DiMarco.
“Nothing tonight for sure?” said Bloom. Trudy stood up, studied the sheets.
“I’m not in the business of guarantees,” said DiMarco.
“What do you know about Luis Tovar?”
“Dr. T?” said DiMarco.
“He’s got a nickname?”
“Guy who has been around that long, sure,” said DiMarco. “If you’ve got some questions about Dr. T then join the club. Membership is free.”
“Even you don’t know what he’s up to?”
DiMarco paused. “Sometimes. Then he pops up in a new place. He’s like that game at the arcade. Whack-A-Mole. You smack him down in one hole and he pops up in another. With a silly grin on his face.”
fifty-nine:
friday evening
“The herd we’ve been watching is doing some funny things this year.”
Allison could have said anything. Didn’t matter. In their minds, she was describing a magical, far-off place they only dreamed of reaching, like the Himalayas.
“We were thinking Lumberjack Camp for you guys, but something has spooked them off the area and we saw fresh sign two days ago near Button Down Camp. Two miles north from Lumberjack and over on the other side of Triangle Peak. Whole different drainage,” said Allison. “Jesse is going to take you up first thing, you’ll be all set. I’ll be over to check on you the next day or day after and hopefully we can pack out some kills.”
The Oklahoma Gang murmured approval.
“So how long a ride tomorrow?”
This question came from the ostensible leader, Matt. He gripped a worn paperback of Rick Bass’ The Lost Grizzlies in one hand, took a sip of wine from a plastic cup. The bottle nearby carried a fancy French label. Some of the others were drinking what appeared to be small-batch India Pale Ale and she spotted a bottle of Hornitos, too. The mood was relaxed, serene. They stood around a knee-high, mood-setting fire near one of the crews’ pop-up trailers. The men sat in fold-up lawn chairs in a tight circle. They scared up two more chairs and she and Colin settled into the ring as welcome new friends.
“Four hours,” said Allison. “Straight uphill for one hour, easy and flat for the next three.”
“And you’ve seen elk?” said Matt.
“Elk, deer, and a lot of sign,” said Allison. She wasn’t lying. He hadn’t specified a time frame. She smiled to add emphasis. “Fresh sign every day,” she added. Now she was lying. Or misleading them.
“Good deal,” said Matt, the walking antithesis of what she was expecting. “We really appreciate your hospitality and letting us crash a bit early. Our main goal is to just get a good chance, get a good look. I know we’ve been talking big, but when it comes right down to it, we know they call it hunting for a reason.”
There were six of them in all. The youngest looked to be in his early twenties, the oldest about fifty. They were a blur of dark, unshaven cheeks but where Allison expected a wall of camo print baseball caps and camo print hunting gear and camo-perfect boots and packs, these guys could have been sitting around a campfire on a casual weekend getaway.
One of the older guys was patching an elbow on a jean jacket with needle and thread. One of the younger ones had a novel tucked under a thigh, with the spine out: Nature and Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A man after Devo’s heart. Who were these guys?
“If you want to hunt tomorrow evening, or at least scout, you’ll want to leave at dawn or no more than an hour after,” said Colin.
“Love it,” said Matt. “One more drink and I think we’re all going to turn in and get some rest.” Matt had a gentle sparkle to his eyes.
Someone handed Allison two fingers of Hornitos in a plastic cup. Neat. She liked it better than Sulchuk’s fancy brand. She took it with a thank-you smile and a toast. Everyone smiled back. Colin took a shot, too, and it was good times all around.
sixty:
friday, late night
“Thought I might find you here.”
It was Marjorie Hayes, a laptop clutched to her chest like body armor. She looked breathless and focused, like she’d jogged for the first time in her life.
“You heard about Adam Paxton,” said Hayes. “I talked to Coogan and he said he told you. You know, it’s not every day you see a guy’s hands around another guy’s throat. Made me so angry, to think one man could do that to another.”
Bloom handled the quick introductions, felt a bit stunned by the interruption. He had imagined pleasant hours ahead with Trudy, alone. Marjorie Hayes didn’t do overtime.
“I know you,” said Hayes when Bloom introduced Trudy. “Oh my, I know you. I buy all your products and one of your staff delivered two big loads of peat one day and he was so nice, gave me about ten minutes of suggestions about the garden, how to lay it out.”
Trudy offered a smile like she was hosting a summer cocktail party. “A pleasure to meet you,” she said.
Bloom gave her a quick tour of their working outline. “We already have a sheet for Adam Paxton, but it’s blank,” he said.
“Not for long,” said Hayes.
Hayes had spent the last hours at the library and more time at home.
“And then for him to come here and think he could talk the newspaper out of writing up the assault,” said Hayes. “I mean, I saw it with my own eyes. Troy Nichols’ face was beet red, ready to burst. Never seen so much anger and Paxton, I’m telling you, he had a death grip on him.”
Hayes shuddered, remembering the moment, then launched into what she’d found. “Have you heard of Pipeline Enterprises?”
Bloom exchanged a look with Trudy.
“Paxton is vice-president,” said Hayes. “And one of the original owners. I can’t tell you every entanglement, but Pipeline is connected to another company, a new one, that works over in Grand Junction that’s the operating business in Colorado for a string of for-profit prisons around the country. They have contracts with ICE. When ICE started talking about putting a detention center in Glenwood Springs, another company named InterWest for some reason thought they already had an edge. That’s where Nichols comes in.”
“Truth or Consequences,” said Trudy. “They were already part of the trafficking.”
“They were delivering Mexicans north,” said Bloom. “Keeping the supply fresh to ship warm bodies south.”
Hayes absorbed the new information like a seasoned analyst. “This goes back to when ICE was looking to expand, before the economy tanked. There must have still been some bad blood between InterWest and Pipeline. InterWest felt they had a commitment of some sort that had been broken.”
Hayes reached in her oversized purse, nearly as big as a beach bag, a thick wad of papers held together with a giant binder clip. “Ran out of ink on my home computer,” she said. “But after ICE changed its collective mind, InterWest filed a big lawsuit. Not here, but over in Mesa County. There was a reference to the suit in the Grand Junction paper, but we missed it. The case is still on track for a trial but the depositions lay it all out.”
Bloom grabbed his phone.
Kerry London answered on the first ring.
“What did I miss?” he said.
“What are you doing?” said Bloom. “Care to lend a hand?”
If London was staying at the Hotel Colorado, it would take him no more than ten minutes to walk across the bridge.
“Wrapping up my last round of calls before ordering late room service and a massage,” said London. “You know, these expense accounts. Hate to see them
go to waste.”
Negotiations didn’t take long. No doubt London could hear the seriousness in Bloom’s tone. London said he’d get out of his silk robe and head over.
“You are hired help,” said Bloom when London showed up. London looked more relaxed than a national news reporter should look after a week on a story that needed around-the-clock updates. “Not hired, because we have no expense account, but on loan.”
It was nearly 11 p.m.
Marjorie Hayes was utterly unimpressed by the arrival of a national news television celebrity, but Trudy took a minute to chat and shake hands and offer a gushing smile. Bloom and Trudy flanked London while Marjorie snapped a picture with Bloom’s phone.
“I better not see that on the World Wide Web,” said London. “Consorting with the ink-stained wretches might ruin my reputation for perfect hair and shallow sound bites.” He laughed.
Taking the “no-surprises-for-the-boss” approach, Bloom called Coogan and laid everything out.
“We have a mountain to climb,” said Bloom. “In the dark. London is an old Denver friend, so he’s coming over to help with the route finding. He’s not going to represent the paper.”
Coogan asked questions about what Hayes had produced and for any details Bloom and Trudy knew. “Hang on,” he said. “I’m coming down.”
Bloom called for a huddle when Coogan arrived. He reviewed everything they had learned, including the information from Trudy and Allison.
“The story is those dogs being used to chase men like foxes,” said London. “That’s national news. Tonight. Top of the show. Lead item. If they find the shooter today, that’s the only other thing that would top it—or you’d have to mention both in the same sentence. It’s unbelievable.”
“Hey,” said Bloom. “On my schedule, not yours.”
“Agree with you both,” said Coogan. “We need our version up pronto.”
“We only have the outline,” said Bloom. “The rough picture.”
“There’s enough,” said Coogan. “If Allison is the source.”
“That’s all information via Trudy,” said Bloom. “And she’s only putting two and two together.”
“Allison Coil actually heard the hunt?” said Hayes.
“She heard the howls, found the man who was badly bitten—and they got him flown to the hospital,” said Trudy.
“Sure it was dogs?” said London.
“If Allison said it was dogs,” said Trudy, “believe me, it was dogs.”
London shook his head. “Thought I’d seen everything.”
sixty-one:
friday, late night
Colin said: “Pretty smooth.”
“They’ve got as much at Button Down as anywhere else.”
“You sold them,” said Colin. They were in bed, Allison on her back but propped up by a plump pillow. Colin sat on the edge of the bed facing her, a bedtime beer still in one hand. “They’ve been thinking Lumberjack for weeks and weeks and you got them switched and you made it look easy.”
“Those are terrific people, it turns out,” said Allison. “Just not what I’d been expecting. I mean—Ralph Waldo Emerson for crying out loud.”
Colin took a sip of his beer, passed it over. This brew tasted like a hearty loaf of bread compared to the fizzy swill preferred by the Oklahomans. Good thing Colin was sharing. The beer was going down smoothly on top of her tequila; she’d taken the generous offer of a second shot.
“So Lumberjack is empty,” said Colin. “Now what are we going to do?”
“Get up in that area on our own,” said Allison. “If you know a back way or a side door into Lumberjack, some way to approach it other than the main trail, tell me.”
“I might,” said Colin.
“Good,” said Allison.
“And how are you so sure this won’t be more than we can handle?”
Allison gave it some thought and another tug on Colin’s beer. “I don’t.”
“But?”
“But what?” said Allison. “We lay low. We circle. We sniff around. We go in real slow. Observe. See what’s what. It could be empty. But only three people know I’m going to be there in the morning—you, William Sulchuk and Trudy.”
“You talked to her?”
“After the stop at Sulchuk’s, on my way out of town,” said Allison. “Definitely wanted her to know where I’d be.”
Colin looked puzzled. “So you think they’ll be at Lumberjack—”
“Might be no they. Maybe it’s just Armbruster all by his lonesome.”
“But you said Sulchuk said all the right things.”
“He was sending me a message that he was clueless,” said Allison. “But I’m not as sure as I’d like to be.”
“And we’ll be coming in with a big target on our backs, wide open.”
“We did what we were supposed to do,” said Allison. “We were sucked in and we followed through. And now we have the upper hand—Armbruster doesn’t know we know.”
Allison sounded more confident than she felt. If Armbruster was there and if they could get close enough for conversation, her loose plan was to assure Armbruster that they would help expose the “sporting” aspect of the game and, somehow, they could keep his name out of it.
“We’ve got to come up on Lumberjack on our own terms,” said Allison. There was really no sneaking up on Lumberjack, but she liked to think it would help. “See if the trap worked.”
sixty-two:
friday, late night
The newsroom carried the feel of a war room. Bloom relished the determined hum of the place and his odd, disparate team.
Kerry London, putting his own IRB account to use, focused on Troy Nichols.
Bloom showed Marjorie Hayes one of the better people-finder web sites and Pacer, the federal court database, so she could work on Adam Paxton. Hayes also did general Google searches, looking beyond the first hits, in combination with Joseph C. Harbor and Ricardo Reyes.
Coogan worked on Dillard and the nephew-and-uncle combination of Larry Armbruster and Carl “Junior” Boyd.
Trudy took William Sulchuk.
They would all keep an eye out for Dillard, Kucharski, and any of the company names.
“Dillard is probably connected to Pipeline,” said Bloom, “since Allison heard that name in the camp and also saw the dogs in the camp, but we need a first name and occupation and all the other details. And I’ll take Luis Tovar but keep an eye out for him showing up. Put his name in combination with the others in searches too.”
“Tovar?” said London. “The professor? We interviewed him two days ago. So mild-mannered. Not that his words amounted to anything.”
“That’s him,” said Bloom. “If it’s the same clan, he’s got a sister and she and her husband rent out the New Castle house to their daughter and her husband, Ricardo Reyes.”
They needed a week in the courthouse. They needed to get lucky.
Bloom started poking around in Mesa County records. Luis Tovar taught in Grand Junction. Maybe the 85-mile commute allowed him to keep some of his interests quiet.
“This Troy Nichols dude is squeaky clean,” said London. “Married for nearly thirty five years now. His house is paid off. Chamber, church and chicken for dinner three times a week. Check, check, check. That Truth or Consequences story you already found is about the only scrape with the law Troy Nichols has ever had and from what I can tell it kind of got swept under the rug in the media coverage down there—another sad saga from the immigration wars. Driver let off easy.”
“Not exactly squeaky clean,” said Bloom. “One of the sardines in that truck had swallowed a brick of cocaine,” said Bloom.
“So he’s good at keeping his dark side quiet,” said London. “His online presence is a yawn—and maybe the truck was in his fleet but that appears to be an isolated incident—nothing
ever implicated the larger business and nothing happened up here. Nichols is dullsville.”
“Keep looking,” said Bloom.
Hayes’ digging put Adam Paxton in deep with Pipeline Enterprises and she found that Pipeline was a subsidiary of the second largest private prison network in the country.
Coogan’s efforts turned up a bite on Dillard. Coogan had tried entering the surname Dillard in a variety of search engines in combination with the company names and other individual names floating around. Suddenly he found a Lonnie Dillard who lived in the area and was active, he said, in the CBA.
London gave a little shrug and turned his head. “Continental Basketball Association?”
“The Colorado Bowhunters Association,” said Coogan. “So I popped his name in Facebook and he’s right here in Glenwood Springs. A bowhunting expert who runs Rifle Sporting Goods. He was quoted in the Rifle paper when the Wal-Mart opened, complaining it would destroy downtown Rifle. His shop is known as a bowhunters’ mecca in Western Colorado. So then I ran a search for Lonnie Dillard, Adam Paxton, and bowhunting, and Google Images coughed them right up. They are both in CBA.”
Bloom went to his sheets and put Dillard near Paxton and Pipeline Enterprises.
“Pieces falling together,” said Bloom. “We need the Tovar shoe to drop.”
An hour slipped by, keyboards clacking.
“And now Armbruster,” said Coogan. “I thought that name rang a bell.”
Coogan stood, leaned on his knuckles as he summarized. Armbruster and his family were at Two Rivers park. At the time, he worked the loading dock at a grocery store. He gets in an argument with someone in his family over immigration. He gets mad, throws a full can of beer. The flying can hits a seven-year-old boy who is playing Frisbee with his dad. The seven-year old is Arturo Anaya from an All-American family, third generation. Little Arturo doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish. The Anayas are from Denver. Dad is a big-time eye doctor. The family was in Glenwood for the day, relaxing. Arturo had to be taken to the hospital. He was treated for a badly bruised leg and released.
