C Box - Blood Trail

“Terrific,” Joe said sourly.

“I wish he’d sit down,” Kiner said. “He’s making me jumpy.”

“Two minutes,” the technician called out.

Pope stopped pacing and stood and closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. All eyes in the room were on him, but he seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to know or care, Joe thought. Joe found it difficult to work up the anger he once felt toward Pope now that his nemesis was in the room instead of barking orders or making innuendos over the phone. Since his arrival, Pope had surprised Joe with his lack of animosity at the crime scene, and Joe was equally pleased, puzzled, and suspicious.

The director took his seat next to Kiner and gathered the files in front of him, then stacked them one on top of the other. Joe read the tabs on the files. The bottom one read J. GARRETT, the middle one W. TUCKER, the top one F. URMAN. He looked to Pope for some kind of explanation of the files but the director avoided meeting Joe’s eyes.

“What’s with the three files?” Joe asked.

“Not now, Joe,” Pope said out of the side of his mouth.

“Why are you and the governor so directly involved in this case?”

Pope shot Joe a look of admonition tinged with panic, and repeated, “Not now, Joe.”

The middle monitor flickered, revealing the top of a desk and the State of Wyoming seal on the wall behind the desk. The technician brought the audio up as Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon filled the screen and sat down. Rulon was a big man with a wide, expressive face, a big gut, a shock of silver-flecked brown hair, a quick sloppy smile, and eyes that rarely stayed on anything or anyone very long. Joe thought the governor had gained some weight since he’d seen him last, and his upper cheeks seemed rounder and ruddier. He wondered if Stella was there in the room, if she would appear on the screen.

“Are we live?” Rulon asked. His voice was gravelly.

“Yes, sir,” Pope answered.

“Sheriff, we’d like to thank you for the use of your facilities.”

McLanahan nodded, still chewing. “You paid for ’em,” he said.

“There are benefits to being flush with cash,” Rulon said with a slight smile, referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars of energy severance taxes flowing into the state. “This is one of ’em.”

Rulon’s eyes left the camera and shifted to his monitor. “I see we’ve got everyone here. Director Pope, Sheriff McLanahan, Robey, Joe Pickett. How you doing, Joe?”

“Fine, Governor,” Joe said, shifting in his chair for being singled out. “Considering.”

“Game Warden Phil Kiner is present as well,” Pope said quickly.

“Okay,” Rulon said without enthusiasm. Joe could feel Kiner deflate next to him at the governor’s cool reaction to the mention of his name. Then: “What have we got here, gentlemen?”

Pope cleared his throat, indicating to everyone in the room that he planned to take the lead. Joe wasn’t surprised.

“Mr. Frank Urman’s body was found this morning about three miles from his elk camp. Urman was sixty-two. He owned a hotel and gas station in Sheridan. What we heard over the radio turned out to be true. He was killed and mutilated in a manner that suggests he was left to resemble a game animal.”

Rulon winced, and Joe’s eyes wandered to the photos on the bulletin board.

“The crime scene has been taped off and contained,” Pope said. “State and local forensics spent the afternoon there and they’re still up there working under lights. The body is being airlifted to our lab in Laramie for an autopsy. The scene itself was pretty trampled by the time we got there, I’m afraid. Mr. Urman’s nephew and his friends were all over the scene.”

“Is it possible they had something to do with it?” Rulon asked. Before becoming governor, Rulon had been the federal district prosecutor for Wyoming, and Joe thought he easily slipped back into the role.

“We haven’t ruled it out,” Pope said at the same time McLanahan said, “They didn’t do it.” The two exchanged glances.

“Which is it?” Rulon asked.

“They’ve been separated and questioned,” Pope said. “We’re comparing their stories and we will re-interview them later tonight to see if their recollection has changed any. But I’ve got to say we’d be real surprised if any of them had anything to do with the shooting. They’re all cooperating. They’re vets just back from Iraq, and they seem too angry with what happened to have had anything at all to do with the crime.”

Rulon seemed to mull this over. “So you’ve got nothing?”

Pope sighed and nodded. “Correct.”

McLanahan said, “No footprints, no DNA, no fibers, no casing, no weapon, no motivation. Squat is what we’ve got. Squat. Not a goddamned thing.”

“Do we know if the murder victim was targeted or random?” Rulon asked.

“I’d say random,” Pope said quickly. “I think he was murdered because he was a hunter. The way his body was mutilated suggests the killer was sending us a pretty strong message.”

“You’ve got a good grasp on the obvious, Director Pope,” Rulon said, letting an edge of impatience into his tone. “What else can you tell me? What steps are being taken to find the shooter?”

Joe watched the blood drain from Pope’s face as the director seemed to shrink in size.

“Governor,” Pope said, “you’ve got to believe me that we’re doing everything we can. The scene is being analyzed and we’ll start a grid search of the entire mountain tomorrow. We’ve got every single law-enforcement body in the county questioning everybody they locate in a fifty-mile radius from the scene up there to see if anybody saw anything like a lone hunter or a vehicle leaving the area. I’m bringing all of our agency crime-scene investigators up here to comb the Bighorns. APBs are out. We’ll find something, I’m sure. A footprint, a spent cartridge, something.”

Rulon sat back, looking away from the camera at something or somebody in the room. Joe thought, Stella?

“What about this?” Joe asked Pope, holding up the small evidence bag with the poker chip he’d found in the grass near the body. Joe had been examining it through the plastic. The chip was old, red, and had a faded stamp of a flower of some kind on one side. It was blank on the other. A residue of dark powder clung to the chip and the inside of the bag, but no print was found on it besides Joe’s.

“Urman probably dropped it,” Pope said dismissively. “Poker games and elk camps go together like shoes and socks.”

McLanahan snorted.

The governor asked the sheriff, “Do you have something to say about this, Mr. McLanahan?”

The sheriff sat back in his chair and slowly stroked his new mustache. “Well, you know Joe,” McLanahan said. “I don’t mean to beat the devil around the stump or nothin’, but ole Joe kinda likes to play to the gallery in situations like this. A poker chip is just a damned poker chip, is what I think.”

The governor paused a few beats, as did Pope.

“Get out,” Rulon said, waving his hand at the camera as if shooing away a fly. “Get out of the room, Sheriff McLanahan. And take your minions with you. I don’t have the time or patience to learn a foreign language.”

McLanahan was taken aback, stammered, “This is my building. This is my case!”

“This is my state,” Rulon countered. “If you expect any more favors from me, you’ll gather up and leave the room. I need to have a talk with my men.”

McLanahan unwisely looked to Joe for help, then Pope.

“This ain’t wise,” the sheriff grumbled, pulling himself to his feet. His deputies followed suit, with Deputy Mike Reed struggling to keep from laughing. “This ain’t wise at all.”