C Box - Trophy hunt

Marybeth sat behind his desk, the glow of the computer monitor making her features look harsh. But when she raised her face, Joe could see she was troubled.

"You've got some messages on the answering machine," she said. "Why don't you take care of those and then come back in here. We need to talk."

The first telephone message was from Sheriff Harvey in Park County.

"We tracked the cell phone number down, Joe. It is leased from Cin- gular Wireless to a guy named L. Robert Eckhardt, RN, whose last known address is Fort Bragg in North Carolina."

Nate was right about that, Joe thought. He wrote the name down on a legal pad.

Harvey continued, "I'm assuming RN stands for registered nurse. We've got calls down there but we couldn't get much cooperation. One guy we talked to was friendly at first, then he put us on hold and came back and wouldn't say jack-shit. I got the impression he'd been told to stonewall us. We asked the FBI through Portenson to put some heat on them down there, and we should know more tomorrow. I'll give you a call."

The second message was from Robey Hersig: "The APB is out, Joe, but as of six this evening, there are no reports of Cleve Garrett and his traveling road show."

The third was from Sheriff Barnum. His voice was tight with anger. "Pickett, I got a call from Sheriff Harvey in Park County. He says they may have an angle on somebody, but didn't give much detail." There was a long pause, and Joe pictured Barnum fuming at his desk, trying to keep calm, trying to find the right words to say. Finally, "You need to keep me in the goddamned loop here, Mr. Pickett." The telephone was slammed down violently on the other end. Joe saved the messages for later, in case he needed them.

"Done?" Marybeth asked, trying to contain her impatience.

Joe nodded. "Can I grab something to eat first?"

"Sure. There's some cold Wally's Pizza in the refrigerator."

"I haven't eaten since…"

"Go, Joe."

He returned with the box and a bottle of beer and sat down across from his desk. Except for some condiments, milk, and something old and green wrapped in plastic, the refrigerator was now officially empty. He tried not to let it get to him.

The look on her face shifted his line of thinking immediately. She looked agitated, yet sad. Maybe a little angry. He hoped it wasn't aimed at him.

"You wanted me to find out what I could about Tanner Engineering, and how long ago Tuff Montegue worked for them," Marybeth said, standing up and walking past Joe so she could close the door of his office. "There is a lot of information on them on the Internet. I started with a simple Google search."

Joe listened, eating cold pizza.

"It was really easy to find," she said, her eyes widening. She gestured at a stack of paper she had printed out and placed facedown on the edge of the desk. "Tanner Engineering is an environmental research firm that is contracted by the federal government and a lot of energy companies to assist with environmental impact statements. Their specialty is water-testing-and their most recent clients included all of the big firms drilling for coal-bed methane in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming-but mainly Wyoming. Especially in the Powder River Basin and here in Twelve Sleep County.

"Once the company does its testing and produces a certified report signed by the primary engineer, who was Mr. Tanner, then the energy company bundles it with all of their paperwork and submits it to all of the state and federal agencies that approve drilling. Without that seal of approval, there's no drilling. If the company finds too many minerals-or salt-in the water, it's a lot harder for the company to get approval to drill. So that certificate is pretty important."

Joe twisted the cap off the bottle of beer, and drank a quarter of it. It was cold and good.

"I called the company down in Austin and talked to their personnel department," she said, and her cheeks flushed. "I sort of told them I was related to Tuff Montegue, which I know I shouldn't have. But I didn't know if they would help me or not."

"Don't worry about it," Joe said, saluting her with the beer bottle. "Good work."

Marybeth beamed a quick smile. "And yes, Tuff was employed by them as a contractor in the spring. He was with a survey crew that resurveyed a property and put the stakes in the ground so that the water-testers could follow up. Tuff worked for them for six weeks."

She was leading to something, Joe could see.

"And…" he said.

"When I asked what the property was, the lady in personnel got kind of suspicious. I guess I would, too, but I told her another lie. I told her that Tuff had passed away but that he'd said in the past that the place he was working in meant a lot to him, that he talked about how beautiful it was all the time, so we wanted to spread his ashes there. But we needed to know where exactly he worked."

"That's… inventive," Joe said, equally impressed and alarmed by her deceit.

Marybeth shot him an uneasy grin. "The whole time I was talking to her, I was afraid Cam or someone would come into my office and ask what I was doing. Luckily, nobody did.

"Anyway, the woman decided to help me out. I guess she believed me, or else she didn't see how helping me could hurt." "Yes…" "Joe, it was the Timberline Ranch." Joe sat up. "You're probably wondering who hired Tanner Engineering to do the water survey." "Yes I am, darling," he said, feeling his interior motor start to run. She took a deep breath, and her eyes closed briefly. Then she opened them: "Logue Country Realty, on behalf of an unnamed client." Joe whistled, and sat back heavily in the chair. "So what does this mean?" "I'm not sure, Joe, but it gives me a really bad feeling. And Joe, that's not all." "What?" She turned over the sheaf of papers on the desk, and thumbed through it. "On the Tanner Engineering Web site I went to the section on executives, and did a search. They had photos of their top management. There he is." She slipped a page to Joe. He looked at the photo of Stuart Tanner, CEO and founder. In the photo, Tanner looked to be in his mid-sixties, but was lean and fit. His face looked weathered behind rimless glasses. He looked like a serious man. Joe wondered if Marybeth thought Joe would recognize Tanner from somewhere. "I saw him, Joe. I talked to him," she said. "He was in the office that Monday when the first mutilated cows were discovered. He had a big file with him that he said he needed to deliver to Cam." "You're sure it was Stuart Tanner?" Marybeth nodded her head, somewhat reluctantly. "Yes, it was him. Which means Cam knew him, and maybe Marie did, too. That's fine, of course, but what troubles me is that neither of them ever mentioned it to me. Remember when we were talking about the murders at my mother's dinner? The Logues said nothing about knowing Stuart Tanner. Nothing." "Of course, we weren't talking about Tanner, we were talking about Tuff," Joe said. Marybeth leaned forward, now so still and tense that she looked like a snapshot. "Joe, you don't think Cam and Marie…" Joe was silent, thinking. "We can't rule anything out," Joe said finally. "But I think it's very, very unlikely they had anything to do with the crimes." Marybeth let out a long breath of relief, but her eyes still had him fixed in their sights. "That doesn't mean, though, that he didn't see some opportunity in the situation," Joe said. "That he didn't use the circumstances to advance an agenda of his own." "I can't see it, Joe. I can't see Marie getting involved in something so awful." Joe drained his beer and wished he had another in front of him. "Didn't you tell me she hasn't been in the office? That she's been sick? Maybe she can't face you anymore, or can't face the situation she's got herself in." "I should go to her house," she said. "I should talk with her." Joe held up his hand. "Maybe so. But I'd like to do some checking around before you do. I'll do it first thing in the morning. This thing still doesn't make much sense." As he looked at her, tears welled in her eyes, and when she blinked the tears coursed down her cheeks. "Marybeth…" "Damn it," she said. "I liked and trusted them. How could I be so taken in? So blind?" They both knew the answer to her question. Joe stood up and went around the desk, and pulled her up and hugged her. She buried her face in his shirt, and he kissed her hair.