Lee Child - MatchUp

Johnson stopped, turned, and asked, “You coming?”

Cain shook his head. “Not yet. That fuckin’ Lang had one too many last night. He’s just getting up now. We’ll be a half hour behind you.”

The river was shallow and quick, with occasional pools, and it was gorgeous, with the stone-cut bank on the far side looking like a piece of petrified wood rising a hundred feet above them, the dawn coming, sunlight glinting on water. As dawn gave way to daylight Virgil spent almost as much time looking at the landscape as he did fishing, and the fishing was decent. A little after eight o’clock they stopped to sit on a rock and eat the egg-salad sandwiches that Ann Waller had made them for breakfast, when they heard a pop from upstream.

The report of a rifle echoed over the water.

They both stared downriver and waited.

No second shot.

Nothing to disturb the silence but the lapping of the water and the cry of a blackbird, its red wing visible in the brush on the shore.

“That was a rifle, a center fire,” Johnson said with a frown. “What the hell was he shootin’ at?”

Virgil didn’t know, and he had no idea what was in season for a hunter here in Montana. “If that was target shooting, the shooter was easily satisfied.”

“I don’t like the idea of people shooting around in heavy brush when there are lots of folks out on the river, fishing,” Johnson said. “It gives me an itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. Like we oughta be wearing our blaze orange.”

They finished their sandwiches as the sun rose over the eastern horizon, then climbed back into the boat and went down the river. Fishing. Catching nothing for half an hour.

And then a man started screaming.

“Virgil Flowers. Where the hell are you?”

The voice sounded frantic, scared as hell.

They both looked back upstream, trying to pinpoint its location.

They’d just pulled their boat to the side of the river and were heading toward the sound of the shouting, when Jim Waller, driving a John Deere Gator on what was little more than two ruts in the brush, found them. His face was grim, his lips compressed.

He didn’t bother climbing off the idling utility vehicle but shouted, “Dan Cain’s been shot. He’s dead. For the love of Christ, some dumb ass shot him in the back.”

“You call the cops?” Virgil asked as he and Johnson slogged through the reeds, mud, and bitter brush to Waller’s vehicle.

“Yeah, but they’ll be half an hour.” Waller said. “We told them you were here, they want you to go up and take a look at the body.”

There was nothing to see.

No crime scene.

Virgil’s gaze swept up and down the river as he stood over the body and listened to a barely coherent Lang who had been fishing with Cain, the men in separate boats.

“I don’t know what happened. I mean, he was trailing me down the river about a hundred yards or so.” He was sweating and breathing hard, though it wasn’t from the temperature. Exertion and adrenaline had turned his face beet red. Fear rounded his eyes and he kept swiping at his forehead, wiping away the sweat.

The man was freaked.

As was Johnson.

He wasn’t good with dead bodies, and at the first chance he took off along the road, heading back to the spot where the car was parked.

Virgil listened as Lang explained in short bursts, his gaze traveling from the body to Virgil, along the river’s edge and back to the body.

He had looked Cain over, the shot had gone through his back, exited his chest, probably caught him right through the heart. Good shot, Virgil thought, if Cain really was the intended victim. If the whole thing was an accident, then both Cain and the shooter were damned unlucky. But if it were an accident, why hadn’t the shooter showed himself? Run for help?

A kid? Or just a coward?

Or a cold-stone killer?

Cain had been trailing Lang down the water by a hundred yards. Lang had gone around a bend in the river when he heard the shot. He’d gone on, but when Cain hadn’t reappeared around the bend, Lang, now worried, went looking for his friend and found him out of the boat, in the river, already dead, aground on some shallow rocks.

Lang said he’d dragged Cain’s body to the riverbank and pulled it up on shore. He believed Cain was dead, but wasn’t sure, and he’d run to get help.

“I found Jim, here,” he said, pointed at the owner of the ranch who was standing near his Gator, taking in the entire scene. “And we called 911.”

“That’s good.” He paused. “You own a gun?”

“A rifle?” Lang asked.

“Any gun?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t keep one in the car.”

“No, and Dan didn’t either. Neither one of us hunt and I don’t believe in that self-protection crap. Too many people get killed with their own weapons.” His gaze strayed to the body again. “Oh, Jesus, who would do this? Why? God, it must’ve been an accident, right? Some asshole with a rifle.”

“That’s what we’ll have to find out,” Virgil said. “Now, everyone step back onto the road. Clear this area.”

He could do nothing but keep people away from the body, keep them out of the woods along the river, where the shooter might have been.

And wait for the local cops.

A deputy arrived a few minutes later, parked away from the area, and walked in. He was a tall man and introduced himself as Pete Watershed. He wore aviator sunglasses and a scowl. Virgil told him what he’d done, which was almost nothing aside from clear the area around the body and where a shooter might have been potentially hidden. A couple more deputies arrived, then the sheriff, Hooper Blackwater. About six feet, he was all compact muscle and carried himself as if he were in the military. Short-cropped black hair, coppery skin, and high cheekbones suggested he might be part Native American. He was all business. He surveyed the area, frowned, barked out some orders to his men, took a closer look at the body, then pulled Virgil aside and after checking his ID said, “You’re an investigator? You do this kind of thing all the time?”

“When I’m on the job.”

And often, when he wasn’t. Like now.

Blackwater asked, “What do you think? What happened here?”

“Haven’t figured out where the shooter was or if this was an attack or an accident. If it was intentional, it’s hard to figure out why. Random target? Paid assassin? Some nutcase getting his rocks off? Someone with a grudge? So far that’s all unknown. I talked to Lang; he and Cain are from Bismarck, and they really don’t know anybody here but the Wallers. They’ve been at this camp a couple of times. This trip up they haven’t left the camp since they got here, day before yesterday. They fished the first day, sat out the rain yesterday, and got back at it today. Mr. Waller said there’d been no trouble at all at the camps, no arguments, nothing like that.”

“And you and your friend think it was a rifle shot.”

“We both have experience with all kinds of firearms. It was a rifle.”

“What happened to the guy you were with?”

“He went for the car. He doesn’t do well with this kind of thing.”

“Not a cop.”

“Lumber business. You can catch up with him back at the WJ Guest Ranch if you want, but I’ll vouch for him. He was with me the whole time.”

The sheriff rubbed his forehead. “We’ll want to talk to him.” Then he asked, “Got any theories?”