C Box - Blood Trail

Reed looked away from both Joe and the sheriff. He looked like he could shoot himself, Joe thought.

“I saw what I saw,” Joe said.

“I’ve got a question,” McLanahan said. “Randy Pope asked me and I couldn’t answer.”

“Yes?”

“He claimed you’re working with Nate Romanowski, that he’s in your custody. He asked me if Romanowski was with you tonight. I had to tell him that not only was that son of a bitch not with you, he is nowhere to be found. So I learn from a state bureaucrat that the suspect in the murder of Sheriff Barnum was in my county but nobody bothered to let me know. So tell me where he is.”

Joe swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I don’t know where he is.”

“And do you see a problem with that?” McLanahan asked, his face flushing. He was really angry.

“Yes I do.”

“You are in so much trouble.”

“I think I already heard that tonight,” Joe said gloomily.

“I’ve got to go release Klamath Moore now,” the sheriff said. “I’ve got nothing to hold him on and an eyewitness saying he never went to Winchester tonight. Then I’ve got to go see that little pissant Byron at the clinic and see if he wants to press charges against you. Then I’ve got to see Doc Speer to see where in the hell we’re going to put another body, since the morgue is full.”

“I wish you wouldn’t release Moore,” Joe said. “I’d like to talk to him.”

McLanahan laughed angrily. “Not a chance. We already know what happens when you want to talk to people.” The sheriff made a pistol of his hand and pressed his index finger to his temple and worked his thumb twice.

Joe winced.

“I should hold you tonight,” McLanahan said. “But I’m just too damned tired to file the paperwork. So get out of my building and stay the hell at home where I can find you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. And make that son of a bitch Romanowski turn himself in.”

“That I can’t promise.”

The sheriff glared, on the verge of going into a rage but too tired to do so.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, and stomped out of the room.

Reed turned before following McLanahan, and showed a “what can I do?” palms-up gesture, and left the door open behind him.

JOE WAITED miserably at the front desk for the duty officer to find the keys to his van so he could go home. He didn’t know if he’d ever felt so dirty, so gritty, so incompetent.

Finally, after ten minutes, the old deputy returned to the desk and handed Joe the keys.

“I’ve also got a shotgun and a service weapon, a.40 Glock,” Joe said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” the old man said. “Come back tomorrow and get an okay from the sheriff.”

JOE WENT out into the night to find that a fine snow had started. It sifted through the cold dead air like powdered sugar, coating windshields with a film. He breathed in the cold air, tried to clear his head. He found the van at the side of the building where one of the deputies had left it.

As he reached for the door handle, a voice behind him, in the dark, said, “Out a little late for a family man, aren’t you?”

Joe froze, turned slowly to see Klamath Moore leaning against a light-colored SUV, arms crossed. Inside, in the dark, was the profile of Shannon Moore, looking straight ahead through the windshield as if she didn’t want to see what was happening outside.

Joe said, “Is that Shenandoah Yellowcalf in there? Isn’t she getting cold? You don’t even have your motor running.”

“She’s fine.”

“She’s a legend around here,” Joe said. “I just found out about her today. She’s the greatest athlete the reservation high school ever produced. They love her. How can you make her sit in there like that in the cold?”

“I don’t see where that’s any business of yours,” Moore said, ice in his voice.

“I just think you should appreciate her a little more, is all.”

“I appreciate her plenty.”

Joe said, “She enhances your image, for sure. It looks good for you to be married to an Indian. Makes you seem authentic. But you need to remember to introduce her to people. That way folks will think you like her.”

Moore worked his mouth, as if trying to suck something out from between his teeth. Joe saw it as a way not to say whatever it was he wanted to say in anger.

“That was you on the Winchester highway,” Joe said.

“I was home all night. I’ve got a witness.”

“Did you pull the trigger or did you talk Bill Gordon into doing it himself? That’s what I don’t know yet.”

Moore raised his chin, laughed at the sky. Unconvincing, Joe thought. As much an admission of guilt as if he’d signed a confession. But nothing Joe could use.

“You’re nuts,” Moore said. “You’re an embarrassment. Hell, you broke more laws than anyone in this county tonight, from what I understand. Assaulting a cop?”

“What do you want, Harold?”

“Why’d you call me that?”

“Isn’t that your real name? And another question: didn’t you do the same thing to Bill Gordon that you did to your uncle Everett? Make it look like an accident?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice rising, clearly getting agitated.

“Where is Wolverine?”

Moore got suddenly quiet.

“Where is he?”

“Wolverine? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who is Wolverine?” Joe asked. “Or are you one and the same?”

“You’re unhinged.”

“It won’t be long before I get you,” Joe said. “I owe Nancy Hersig this one.”

Klamath Moore shifted on the balls of his feet and clenched his hands into fists. Joe wouldn’t have been surprised if Klamath had attacked. In fact, he would have welcomed it. Moore had several inches and thirty pounds on him, but Joe thought he could do some damage before being overwhelmed. Plus, it would give Joe a reason to arrest Moore and haul him back inside the county building where he could keep him for the night. But as he watched, Moore seemed to cool down, seemed to channel his anger into calculation. The transformation sent a chill through Joe, made him realize what kind of man he was up against.

“I bet you think I despise all kinds of hunting, don’t you?” said Moore.

“That’s what I understand.”

“Not all kinds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Some animals deserve to die,” Moore said, letting his face go dead. “Like rats. I don’t like rats.”

IN THE SHED in back of my house I set up a stepladder against the far wall, where the shelves with old garden hoses, automotive parts, and sporting equipment have been for years. I don’t turn on the light because I don’t want to alert my neighbors I’m in here. Instead, I bite on a small Maglite flashlight and use the tiny beam to see. The shed smells of dust and long-dead grass.

As I climb, the beam of my flashlight illuminates the contents of the shelves-canning jars, paint cans, baskets, bags of fertilizer and grass seed, potting soil, containers of chemicals. A heavy coat of dust covers it all, and I take pains not to disturb anything.

On the top shelf, behind a barrier of ancient cans of deck stain, I grope for the handle of my duffel bag. I lift it over the cans and take it down to the shed floor. I unzip the long bag and inventory what’s inside: dark clothes, boots that alter my footprints, cap, rifle, cartridges. And one last red poker chip.

Randy Pope is coming back.

Soon, it will be over.

JOE WAS surprised to see lights on in the kitchen and living room of his house when he pulled into the driveway at 2 A.M. and killed the motor. He was exhausted and his stomach roiled. For a moment he sat in the dark and looked at the front door and thought, I don’t like this house very much. He knew it wouldn’t be many more hours before Ed next door would be outside getting his morning paper, smoking his pipe, commenting on the dusting of snow and finding it wanting, surveying the Pickett house to see if the fence was fixed yet, calculating how much the value of his property had dropped during the night due to his negligent neighbors.