C Box - Blood Trail

“Oh, I know who you are,” Byron said.

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re the guy who busted my uncle Pete and me up on Hazelton Road six years ago. You said we forgot to tag the elk we had in the back of the truck, and you gave Uncle Pete a damned citation.”

Joe looked over his shoulder at Officer Byron, who’d probably been seventeen or eighteen at the time. His face did look vaguely familiar, and he recalled how filled with attitude the boy had been at the time. He’d told Joe, “I’m gonna remember this.”

“Your elk didn’t have tags,” Joe said. “I was doing my job.”

“And I’m doing mine,” Byron said, grinning.

Joe sighed deeply, and turned his wrist a little so he could see his watch. Eight on the nose.

“Look, just give me my speeding ticket,” Joe said. “Let me get the hell out of here. Here’s the situation: I’m working undercover for the state, for Governor Rulon. I’m here to meet a confidential FBI informant, right now, in Winchester. This is about the murder of those hunters and Robey Hersig. You knew Robey, right? This guy may know something. If I’m not there he’ll bolt and I may not get a chance to talk to him. Take my weapons and wallet and anything else you want. As soon as I meet my guy, I’ll come to the station and turn myself over to you and you can check it all out. I promise. I swear.”

And Byron laughed. “That’s a new one. You must think I’m an idiot.”

Well, yes , Joe thought.

Byron said, “Just keep your mouth shut and don’t move. I’m going to check your ID. And I’ll need to see your registration and insurance card.”

Joe moaned with frustration and anger. Had Marybeth even put the registration in the car? And if so, where? It was her car, and he normally had very little to do with it other than maintenance.

He imagined that Gordon would be checking his watch and probably walking toward his vehicle with his keys out.

And what was Klamath Moore doing in Winchester, if that was him?

Byron said, “Never mind getting your wallet, I’ll get it,” and Joe could feel the cop lift up the back of his coat again. Dropping his chin to his chest and looking back under his armpit, he could also see Byron lower his weapon to his side while he dug into Joe’s pocket with his other hand.

Joe swung back as hard as he could with his right elbow and connected with Byron’s nose, the impact making a muffled crunching sound like a twig snapping underfoot. Joe spun on his heel and grabbed the cop’s gun with both hands and twisted, wrenching it free. Byron backpedaled clumsily to the center stripe in the highway, reaching up with both hands for his broken nose.

Joe pointed the gun at the cop while at the same time not believing he was doing it. Dark blood spouted through Byron’s fingers.

“Get in the van,” Joe said.

“What are you going to do?” Bryon asked with a mouthful of blood.

“We’re going to the park.”

“The park?”

JOE STEERED the van into Winchester with his left hand on the wheel and Byron’s weapon, pointed at the cop in the passenger seat, in his right.

“Don’t hurt me,” Byron burbled.

“I’ll try not to,” Joe said.

As he turned from the main street toward the park, Joe said, “I had my gun taken from me once. It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Mmmff.”

BILL GORDON was sitting partially in shadow on a park bench when Joe arrived. Gordon appeared to be looking him over as Joe parked and opened his door.

“What about me?” Byron asked.

“Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes and we can get this all straightened out.”

“You’re gonna shoot me, aren’t you?”

“Of course not,” Joe scoffed, “and I’d probably miss if I tried. I’m a horrible pistol shot.”

Byron’s eyes did a “now you tell me” roll.

Joe hoped Gordon wouldn’t get nervous and run when he saw the cop inside the van. He was relieved when he shut the door and saw that Gordon was still there.

“Bill?” Joe called, walking across the grass that was stiffening with cold. “It’s Joe Pickett. I’m sorry I’m late. I got nailed in a speed trap coming into town.”

Gordon didn’t move, just sat there slightly slumped to the side, a wash of pale moonlight on the side of his face.

“Bill?”

Joe froze when he was ten feet away. He saw it all at once-the gun held loosely in Gordon’s fist, the small hole in one temple and the larger exit hole in the other, bits of brain and bone flecked across the backrest of the bench.

Joe whispered, “Oh. No.”

JOE SAT alone at a scarred table in Witness Room Number Two in the Twelve Sleep County Building at one in the morning, waiting for Sheriff McLanahan and Deputy Reed to return. They’d been gone over an hour. On the table was a mug of weak coffee that had gone cold.

The amoral eye of a camera mounted in a high corner of the room watched him. The mirrored plate of one-way glass in the wall reflected the image of a man who very much wished he was home in bed. Anywhere but where he was.

He groaned and sat back, staring at the blazing light fixture inset in the ceiling. He thought, I’ve really done it this time.

AFTER HE found Gordon’s body and confirmed he was dead, Joe called county dispatch and asked Wendy, the dispatcher, to locate the sheriff and send him to Winchester right away. He told Wendy he’d stay at the crime scene until the sheriff and the coroner’s team arrived.

“And please put out an APB for a light-colored SUV heading toward Saddlestring from Winchester on the highway. The subject inside I believe is Klamath Moore, and he may have information on the death of the victim here on the park bench.”

“That Klamath Moore?” Wendy asked.

“That Klamath Moore,” Joe said, punching off.

“Jesus, is that guy dead?” said Officer Byron. Joe hadn’t heard Byron walk up to him.

“Yes.”

“This is my first dead body,” Byron said. “I mean, other than a car wreck or some old lady dying of a heart attack. It sure looks like he ate his own gun, don’t it?”

“That’s what it looks like.” But Joe had his doubts.

“I want my gun back now.”

“No,” Joe said. “Go sit down until the sheriff gets here. Don’t get any closer to the crime scene.”

Byron turned from Gordon’s body to Joe. “You are in so much trouble.”

“I know.”

Joe made two more calls before the sheriff’s department arrived, the first to Marybeth advising her not to wait up for him because he’d discovered a dead body and assaulted a police officer. She was speechless.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

“You assaulted a cop?”

“Sort of, yes.”

“And you say not to worry?”

“I’ll be home soon,” he said, wishing it were true.

The other call was to Special Agent Tony Portenson, telling him his confidential informant had just been found dead.

Portenson had predictably exploded, and Joe told him he’d get back to him with more details and closed his phone.

ANOTHER HOUR. Joe paced the witness room, tried to see if anyone was looking at him through the one-way mirror into the hallway. The repercussions of what he’d done, what had happened, crushed in on him from all sides. At one point, he had to hold himself up with one hand on the wall and breathe deeply, get his wits back. His heart raced and slowed, raced and slowed.

When the door opened he jumped.

It was Deputy Reed, looking furtive. “I really shouldn’t be in here,” he said.

“What’s going on?”

Reed pulled out a hard-backed chair from the other side of the table, the legs scraping across the linoleum like fingernails on a blackboard. He sat down heavily.