C Box - Blood Trail

Robey asked Rulon, “Do you mind if I stay?”

“Joe, what do you think?” Rulon asked. Joe could feel Pope’s eyes on him. The director was miffed he hadn’t been asked that question.

“Robey’s integral to this case,” Joe said.

“He stays then,” Rulon commanded.

“And I ain’t?” McLanahan said.

“I’ll stay and report back,” Robey said under his breath to Deputy Reed, who winked.

The governor sat back and waited until he heard the door slam shut.

“Are they gone?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Pope said.

“What the hell is wrong with him? What’s this ‘beat the devil around the stump’ crap?”

Joe said, “He thinks he’s a western character.”

“I have no patience with those types,” Rulon said, “none at all. There’s room for only one character in this state, and that’s me.”

Joe grinned, despite himself. And he thought he heard Stella giggle off-camera. Okay, then, he thought.

“Since they’re gone, let’s get to it,” Rulon said into the camera. “We received word about an hour ago that Klamath Moore is in the state. He plans to come up to Saddlestring with his entourage in tow. Apparently, he already knows about our victim and how he died.”

Randy Pope went white.

Joe had seen footage of Klamath Moore being arrested at anti-hunting and animal-rights rallies and being interviewed on cable-television news programs for several years. He was a bear of a man, Joe thought, who came across as passionate and charismatic as he thundered against barbarians and savages who slaughtered animals for fun. There was a documentary film on his exploits that had won prizes in England.

Randy Pope said, “That guy is a nutcase. He’s my worst nightmare. How’d he find out about Frank Urman so fast?”

“We’d all like to know that,” the governor said. “My guess is one of his followers has a police scanner and heard the whole thing today and tipped off the big man. But we can’t spend much time and energy finding out who tipped him off, because in the end it doesn’t matter. What does matter is how fast we can find the shooter and put him away so Klamath has to go home. The longer that guy stays here, the more trouble he’ll cause.”

“Hold it,” Robey said, realization forming. “Klamath Moore is the guy who-”

“He’s the guy who thinks hunters should be treated the same way he thinks animals are treated by hunters,” Rulon said. “He’s the main force behind most of the protests you hear about where hunters get harassed in the field or game animals get herded away from lawful hunting types. He sends his people into the hills in Pennsylvania on the opening day of deer season tooting kazoos and playing boom boxes. The media loves him because he’s so fucking colorful and politically correct, I guess.”

“Why is he coming here?” Robey asked.

Rulon said, “Think about it for a second. The only reason he’d come to Wyoming is to give aid and comfort to whoever shot Frank Urman and the two other hunters we know about.”

With that, Joe sat up. Now he knew what was in the two other files Pope had brought with him.

Pope sighed.

“Two we know about,” Rulon said. “There may be more for all we know. I’ve got DCI going over every ‘hunting accident’ that’s occurred in the last ten years. One to four people a year are killed during hunting season, and sometimes none at all.”

That was true, Joe knew. Most of the fatalities were the result of carelessness within a group of hunters, and often involved family members-hunters who mistook other hunters for game, hunters who didn’t unload their guns, or, the biggest killer of all, hunters climbing fences or crawling through timber when their gun went off and killed a companion or themselves. Rarely were there hunting accidents where the shooter wasn’t quickly identified, and most of the time the assailant confessed in tears.

“How long have you suspected this?” Joe asked Pope.

Pope shrugged. “We couldn’t be sure. We still aren’t, but today…”

“Whoever did that to Frank Urman wants us to know it,” Rulon said. “In fact, he wants the whole country to know it.”

Kiner said, “Jesus,” and sat back in his chair. Robey moaned and put his head in his hands.

“And it’s not only that,” Pope said. “This could kill us as an agency. It could just kill us. Hunting and fishing brings in over four hundred million dollars to the state. Licenses pay our salaries, gentlemen. If word gets out that hunters are being hunted in the state of Wyoming, we’ll all be looking for work. We’ll be ruined.

“Think about it,” Pope continued, as Joe and Robey exchanged looks of disgust. “Using our economic multiplier, we know that every elk is worth six thousand dollars to us. Every bear, five thousand. Bighorn sheep are twenty-five thousand, every deer is worth four thousand, and every antelope is three thousand. The list goes on. If hunters aren’t hunting, our cash flow dries up.”

“Try not to use that argument with any reporters, Randy,” Rulon said with undisguised contempt.

“So that’s what this is about,” Joe said. “That’s why you’re up here personally.”

“Of course,” Pope said. “Why else?”

“Well, an innocent man got killed and butchered, to start,” Joe said.

“Save me your sanctimony,” Pope spat, “unless…” Pope stopped himself. Joe had been braced and ready for Pope to light into him, to accuse him of insubordination, destruction of government property, playing cowboy-all the reasons he’d used to fire him in the first place two years ago. Joe wouldn’t have been surprised if Pope brought up the disappearance of J. W. Keeley, the Mississippi ex-con and hunting guide who’d come to Twelve Sleep County to get revenge and had never been heard from again-the darkest period of Joe’s life. But for reasons Joe couldn’t fathom given their acrimonious history, Pope bit his tongue.

“Unless what?” Joe asked.

“Nothing,” Pope said, his face red, his nose flared from internalizing his emotions. “This case is too serious to expose those old wounds. We need to work together on this. We need to put our past aside and find the shooter.”

Robey, who had been ready for an explosion and had placed his hands on the edge of the table so he could push away quickly and restrain Joe, looked as perplexed to Joe as Joe felt.

Pope took a deep breath and extended his hand. “I need you on this one. I don’t know what it is, but you seem to have a knack for getting in the middle of trouble like this. Plus, you know the area and the people because this is your old district. We need you here on the ground.”

Joe shook Pope’s hand, which was clammy and stiff, his long, thin fingers like a package of refrigerated wieners.

The governor said, “That’s what I love to see. A little love and cooperation among my employees.”

“HOW TRAMPLED is the crime scene?” Rulon asked.

“Trampled,” Pope said. “We’ve all been all over it, not to mention Urman’s nephew and his friends.”

“What about the immediate area? Did you determine where the shot was fired?”

“Not yet,” Pope said. “We ordered the forensics team to stay at the immediate crime scene. I was thinking we’d go up there tomorrow when it’s light and see what we can find.”

Rulon made a face. “Do you think it’s possible the shooter is still up there somewhere?”

“Possible,” Pope said, “but unlikely. Why would he hang around?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to all go home,” Rulon said. “Look, I have an idea. Before I was governor, I prosecuted a case on the reservation where this poor old woman was raped and murdered in her mountain cabin. There was no known motive and no obvious suspects, but my assistant hired this guy named Buck Lothar to go to the crime scene. You ever heard of him? Buck Lothar is a master tracker; it says it right on his card. He’s some kind of mercenary who contracts with law enforcement and the military all over the world to hunt people down. He can look at the ground and tell you how many people walked across it, what they look like, and how big they are. Scary guy, but damned good. Anyway, we hired Lothar to go to the res, and within three days he’d tracked down the loser who did the crime and got away on foot. Lothar produced enough evidence-plaster footprints, fiber from the bad guy’s clothes he found caught in a thornbush, a cigarette butt tossed aside we could pull DNA from. We put the bad guy away. I’m thinking we should hire Buck Lothar. I think he lives somewhere in Utah when he’s not in Bosnia or the jungles of the Philippines or the Iraqi desert tracking down insurgents. If he’s home, I’ll send him up there as soon as we can. I’ll fly him up on the state plane.”