C Box - Trophy hunt

Nate was right about one thing, Joe decided. Although a couple of the things he threw out seemed unlikely-a bear on a mission, for exam- ple-what Nate had said about thinking differently made some sense. Joe plucked his cell phone off of the dashboard and speed-dialed Robey Hersig's office. Hersig was in. "Robey, Joe." "Hey, Joe." Hersig sounded tired. "Anything of note from the task force?" There was a long sigh. "Your notes from your interview with that Garrett guy have been quite a source of amusement, as you might have guessed." Joe thought about telling Hersig about the e-mail from Deena, and decided against it for the moment. He hadn't decided how he should reply and he needed to reply, to keep her talking to him. Although he hoped she'd cool it with the digital photos of herself. "Anything in regard to Tuff or the other guy?" Joe asked. "Nothing of significance," Hersig said. "I know Barnum and Porten- son have been interviewing people who knew them, that sort of thing. Standard procedure. But if either of them have anything, they haven't told me yet. The investigation is stone cold, and although I hate to say it, we're just sitting around waiting for another corpse, or a lucky break. But there's nothing so far. That's why I haven't called a new meeting." "Robey," Joe said, "given the situation I want to widen my part of the investigation." "You mean investigate the murders?" Hersig sounded hesitant. "Yup." "That'll piss off Barnum, for sure." "I can live with that." Hersig chuckled uncomfortably. "I'm not sure I can authorize that, Joe." "You don't have to. I'm independent. I'm a game warden; they have no authority over what I do or don't do." "Aw, Joe…" Then: "What's your angle?" "I'm not sure I have one. But I can't see how it could hurt to look at the murders from another perspective. Maybe we can compare notes at a task-force meeting and find some discrepancies in our information. That might lead us somewhere." Hersig didn't reply. In his mind, Joe could see Hersig sitting forward in his chair, elbows on his desk, concern on his face as he thought it through. "Alright, alright," he said. "But out of courtesy I'll need to advise Barnum and Portenson." "Fine." "And that sound you'll hear will be the explosion when Barnum gets the news," Hersig said. "Hey, those guys are welcome to go talk to Garrett or zoom around with their sirens on looking at crop circles that aren't crop circles," Joe said. "Maybe they'll figure out something I missed." "As if they'd do that." "Well…" "Good luck, Joe."

"Thank you," he said, rolling toward town. Here's where we start to make people angry.

His starting place would be the site of Tuff Montegue's murder, Joe decided. For reasons he had trouble articulating even to himself, he felt that Tuff's death was the key to cracking things open.

After grabbing a quick lunch at the Burg-O-Pardner on the edge of town, Joe passed through the small downtown toward the bridge over the river. Not Ike was fishing again, looping a fly-line through the air. Joe pulled off the road on the other side of the bridge and got out. Maxine joined him, and he cautioned her to stay close. He had just about broken her habit of wanting to retrieve artificial flies that landed on the water.

Not Ike was a huge man with large, yellowed eyes, a quick smile, and a barrel chest so stout that his fishing vest strained to stay buttoned over the tattered I'M NOT IKE sweatshirt. When he saw Joe, the smile flashed, and he waved. Joe waited at the edge of the river, watching Not Ike's graceful cast play out. Not Ike placed a dry fly perfectly inside the muscle of a current, and mended his line back so the line wouldn't overtake the fly in the current. The dry fly drifted over the top of a dark, still pool. Joe saw a flash beneath the surface of the water, heard the ploop sound of the trout taking the fly, and watched the fly-line tighten and rise out of the water to the tip of Not Ike's rod, which bent in the shape of a boomerang.

"I got one!" Not Ike laughed. He had a booming laugh that made Joe smile.

Not Ike retrieved the trout patiently, not horsing it in, and eventually netted it. He held it up for Joe to see, and the sun flashed on the bright rainbow sides of the cut-bow trout-a hybrid of a native cutthroat and rainbow trout-and the beads of water that glistened on the net.

"Three for me!" Not Ike proclaimed.

Not Ike always claimed he had caught three fish, whether the actual number was one or twenty.

"Nice fish," Joe said, when Not Ike reached the edge of the riverbank.

"Nice fish, nice fish," Ike repeated, then looked up, his brow furrowing. "What you need? You need to check my license again?"

"You know it," Joe said.

"All right, all right, gimme a minute." Joe watched as Not Ike walked back out a few feet, eased the net into the water, removed the fly, and released the fish. Joe could see the trout hover for a moment below the surface, then with a powerful twist it shot out of sight. The man knows how to release a fish, God bless him, Joe thought.

Not Ike waded noisily toward the shore, still grinning. "Three for me!"

Ike Easter had told Joe that his cousin had once been lucid, if a little mean, and that he had become mixed up with the wrong crowd in Denver. He'd gotten involved in gangs and drugs, and was in the middle of it during the Summer of Violence when he had taken three.22 bullets in the back of his head, was dumped in the Five Points district and left for dead. When he finally recovered three years later, he was a different man. Easter said Not Ike now had the day-to-day intelligence of a five- or six- year-old boy, and so Easter had agreed to become his legal guardian. Soon after he arrived in Saddlestring, Robey Hersig had taught Not Ike how to fish. Fishing gave Not Ike a purpose, and as far as Joe knew, fishing was what Not Ike did. Which was another reason for not coming down too hard on the man for having an improper license. While Joe checked the license Not Ike handed him, the big man loomed over him with the blank but brilliant smile. The license had expired the week before. "Jeez, what would it take for me to drive you over to Barrett's right now and stand there with you while we bought you an annual fishing license?" Joe asked. "Ain't got the money for the big one," Not Ike said. "You say 'big one' like it costs a fortune. It's only fifteen dollars." "Ain't got fifteen dollars, Joseph." Not Ike was the only person who had ever called Joe "Joseph." Joe didn't know why. "Look, I'll buy you one," he said. "You don't even need to spend your own money." Not Ike took this as a personal affront, and scowled. "Don't want your charity, Joseph. Never have, never will." Joe sighed. He had offered to buy Not Ike a license before, and Not Ike had refused him then also. "Maybe I should talk to Ike about it." "Won't do no good," he said, shaking his head as if sharing Joe's frustration. "He knows I won't take charity." Joe handed the license back. "Well, at least go get a valid temporary one when you can, okay?" Not Ike nodded. He concentrated on refolding the permit and sliding it into his vest pocket. His big face furrowed as he did it. Not Ike had poor motor-skill coordination, and although his casting was graceful, it took him ten minutes to button up his fly-fishing vest, and longer than that to tie on a new fly. He had all the patience in the world, Joe thought, all the patience that didn't manifest itself in greedy, impatient fishermen like Jeff O'Bannon. "Yeah, okay," Not Ike said. "You gonna give me a ticket?" Joe shook his head. "Just get the new permit, okay?" Not Ike looked up, his face dark with sudden concern. "You found the Ripper yet?" "No." Not Ike stepped close to Joe. "I think I seen them in the alley downtown the night before those two men got killed." "Really." "I was fishin' a ways upstream, around the corner. I told the sheriff and that deputy. Even the FBI guy." Joe wasn't sure what to ask. "What did they look like?" "Wiry. Hairy and wiry. Creepylike. They were up in the alley, in the shadows," Not Ike said and gestured toward downtown Saddlestring, toward the alley behind the buildings on Main Street. "And there's something else." "What's that?" Not Ike leaned in even closer, until his lips were nearly touching Joe's ear, and his voice dropped dramatically. "I caught three fish that night."