C Box - Blood Trail

“A BUDDY?” Robey grumbled as he climbed into the middle seat of Joe’s pickup, pushing aside coats and gear, followed by Lothar, who took the passenger seat. “Pope’s got a buddy?”

YELLOW CRIME-SCENE tape had been stretched around tree trunks and stapled to pieces of hammer-driven lath in a hundred-foot perimeter around where Frank Urman’s body was found. Two state DCI employees had been left to guard the scene, and they scrambled to their feet from where they had been sitting on the tailgate of a pickup chewing tobacco when Joe’s vehicle and Pope’s Escalade nosed over the ridge near them and parked.

Pope climbed out of his car with his cell phone pressed to his ear, and motioned to the DCI men that they could go. His gesture to them was a backhanded flicking of his fingers as he walked, as if shooing away a street vendor. Joe noticed that the two exchanged dark looks and one mouthed, “Asshole,” before they left.

“He makes friends everywhere he goes,” Joe said to Lothar, who pretended not to hear.

Since Pope didn’t take the time to introduce his friend, Joe offered his hand.

“Joe Pickett.”

“Wally Conway,” the man said, smiling warmly. Conway was in his midfifties, with longish, thinning brown hair, bulldog jowls, and an avuncular nature. Joe got the impression Conway was good at putting people at ease, making them smile. He wore a huge down coat that was reversible: camo on the outside and blaze orange on the inside. A hunter. Joe had seen him around town but didn’t know him.

“You’re an architect, right?” Joe said.

“Yes, and you are-were-the local game warden,” Conway said. “I’ve been following your exploits for years.”

Since Conway was Pope’s friend he’d no doubt heard, from Pope, that Joe held the record for the most damaged vehicles and equipment in departmental history-and was insubordinate as well. It was hard to gauge how close the two men were since Pope had shown no deference to Conway since they’d arrived.

“I hope you don’t mind me crashing the party,” Conway said, looking to Pope to explain his presence but Pope was busy on the phone. “Randy and I go back a long way. Since he was in the area, he asked me to come along. I hope you don’t mind. I promise to stay out of the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” Joe said. He liked Conway’s pleasantness, and wondered how he and Pope could be friends. But given Pope’s sudden change of attitude toward him, Joe thought he might have been too rough on his boss. Maybe, just maybe, there was a human being in there somewhere, he thought.

Pope snapped his phone shut and stepped between Wally Conway and Joe. “You met already,” he said.

Joe nodded.

Robey and Lothar stepped forward and Pope introduced his friend to them. Conway asked if there was anything he could do to help out, and Lothar suggested they unload his gear from Pope’s Escalade. Which left Joe and Pope standing together.

“What?” Pope asked defensively.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were giving me that look, like, why are you bringing a civilian up here? Like, why didn’t you clear this with the governor? ”

Joe said, “I was?”

Pope stepped forward and shook his finger in Joe’s face. “The reason is, Joe, I need people around me I can trust. And I trust Wally Conway.”

“And you don’t trust me,” Joe said.

Pope started to say something but stopped. Instead, he smiled a triumphant smile.

Joe shook his head and turned away.

THE ONLY THINGS Buck Lothar retrieved from his duffel bags for the hike down the hill were a square-shaped camo daypack and a telescoping rod of some kind. He also buckled on a holster. Joe recognized the weapon as similar to his.

“Sig Sauer P229,” Lothar said. “I prefer it to the Glock.40 you’re wearing.”

“I prefer a shotgun,” Joe said. “I can’t really hit anything with a handgun, anyway.” Thinking, Except from three inches away , a dark reminder of an episode from two years prior that still gave Joe night sweats and filled him with guilt.

“Tracking stick,” Lothar said, answering Joe’s unasked question about the rod in his hand. “I’ll show you how it works a little later.”

“What about your dogs?”

“We’ll leave them up here for now,” Lothar said. “My understanding is that there have been dozens of you people down there trampling all over the crime scene, right?”

“Right.”

Lothar said, “All those scents will just confuse them. If we can figure out where the shooter was and isolate a scent, I might bring them down later. But not until.”

Joe shrugged, and reached in the carriers to pet the dogs. They lapped at his fingers.

“Dogs are helpful,” Lothar said, “but nothing beats human observation and brain power. We might not even need them.”

Robey said, “Wouldn’t we need a piece of clothing or something from the shooter to offer to the dogs? Don’t they need to have the scent beforehand so they know who they’re after?”

Lothar smiled paternalistically. Joe had the impression he did a lot of that.

“It would help if we had an article of the shooter’s clothes, of course,” Lothar said, “but it rarely happens that we’re that lucky. No, these are great dogs. Great dogs. With a great handler-me-they can track blind. You see, humans always leave something behind. Even in the worst-case scenario, when they haven’t left something obvious like a cigarette butt or a clothing fiber caught in a thornbush, the shooter will have shed dead skin cells. Tens of thousands of them. They fall off the body like rain.” Lothar gestured to Robey. “They’re falling off you as we speak, and settling to the ground all around you.” Which made Robey look in vain at the grass around his boots, as if he could see a pile of his dead skin cells.

Lothar continued, “Each dead skin cell is unique to the individual, with a unique scent. If we can find where the shooter stopped for a period of time-and there hasn’t been too much deterioration of the ground due to weather or trampling-we should be able to get a scent on him. But first, we need to rule out dozens of things.”

Lothar patted the top of one of the carriers. “Butch and Sundance are like my samurai swords. I don’t pull them out of their scabbards unless I plan to use them to track down a man.”

“Not even for a drink of water?” Joe asked.

Pope snapped, “Joe, they’re his dogs.”

Before Joe could reply, Pope’s cell phone burred and Pope snatched it out of his breast pocket and turned away. Conway was visibly uncomfortable, not knowing whether to stand with Joe, Robey, and Lothar or stick close to his friend, who was walking up the hill gesturing as he talked. Joe felt sorry for him.

“What’s the deal with those two?” Lothar whispered.

Joe shrugged.

“This isn’t one of those Brokeback Mountain kinds of deals, is it? I mean, this is Wyoming.” He grinned to show he was kidding.

Robey sighed and looked heavenward. “You know,” Robey said, “I think I’ve heard just about enough Brokeback Mountain jokes to last me a lifetime.”

“Yup,” Joe said.

“Think about it,” Robey said heatedly, “men can’t even go fishing together anymore without someone making a Brokeback Mountain joke. And now a man can’t go hunting without getting butchered! What are we supposed to do, fucking knit ?”

“Man,” Lothar said, still grinning, “you guys are a little sensitive…”

LOTHAR AND POPE led the way down the hill with Joe, Conway, and Robey following. Lothar kept up a nonstop chatter. Pope nodded and prodded. He seemed pleased, Joe thought, proud of having Buck Lothar next to him, on his team. While Lothar told the story of tracking down an escaped inmate from the SuperMax prison in Cañon City, Colorado, who had gotten out by shrink-wrapping himself in plastic and hiding among rolls of clean linens, Pope looked over his shoulder at Joe and Robey and beamed at them, as if to say, “He’s on our side.”