Bear Bait (9781101611548) (21 page)

“Summer? You still there?”

“You need to cover your butt, don’t you? You already told the media I’d do it.”

He laughed. She couldn’t tell if it was forced or not. “We were sure that you’d want to, and you weren’t here to ask. It’s your kind of thing; it’s a
wildlife
conference.”

It crossed her mind that she might not need
The Edge
at all; she could probably just contract with the conference organizers. Whoever they were.

As if he could read her mind, he added, “If this goes well, we might start a weekly column about outdoor adventures.”

She noticed he didn’t actually
promise
any work beyond the conference. Public speaking was not her forte. As a matter of fact, most of her encounters with a microphone and the public had been disasters. But, she argued with herself, she’d be prepared this time. It was another payment on the mortgage for her cabin. What could happen at a conference, for heaven’s sake? The greatest threats would be overbaked salmon and watery coffee.

The Edge
might surprise her and come through with other offers. At the very least, once her name was out there again, she’d get a few more writing assignments from the
conservation organizations and maybe some of the outdoor sports magazines as well. And the park service and forest service and BLM had publications, too; maybe some of those could be a new source of revenue after those organizations knew about her.

“So, is the contract on its way?” Best prompted.

She sighed, resigned to her fate. “As soon as I get to a post office.”

“Just fax it.”

“All right,” she told him. “Work on that weekly column idea. And don’t make any more promises to the media on my behalf.” She pressed the End button. The phone sang its voice mail-waiting ditty, and she switched over to voice mail.

“Westin?” Hoyle sounded more annoyed than usual. “Where are those reports I asked for?” Click.

Whoa.
She’d better hightail it to the district station and type up the reports first thing this morning. Right after coffee and a shower. As soon as she’d set down the phone, it howled again. She stabbed the Talk button. “What?”

“Maybe I’ll just call back later.”

She smiled at the familiar voice. “No, it’s okay, Blake. I just haven’t had my coffee yet and my phone keeps howling and there are creeps in the woods and people are dropping dead—”

“
More
people? I read about that poor trail worker girl in the paper this morning.”

“Well, then, not
more
people, I guess.” How had she managed to make Lisa’s death sound trivial? “Hey, you called me. What’s up?”

“I don’t want to add to your woes.”

“But?”

“The kitchen sink’s dripping.”

“You mean the piping under the drain’s leaking? Or is water running down from the faucet? Or the sprayer? Or is it a fitting around the garbage disposal?”

“How would I know?”

“Well, you have to dry everything off and then watch where it’s coming from.”

There was a long silence, then he finally said, “Or I could just call a plumber.”

In rural Kansas, people knew how to fix things. Especially men. One of her grandfathers had done his own welding, for heaven’s sake; the other constructed whole buildings out of rock. Her father had built wheelchair ramps and installed railings and shower seats for her mother. And her grandmother had helped him. How could any adult male not know how to fix a leaking sink?

“Never mind,” she groaned. It was her house, after all. And she was not about to foot the bill for a plumber. “Stick a dishpan under it. I’ll fix it when I come back in a day or two.”

“Okey-doke,” he said.

Okey-doke?
That didn’t sound like one of Blake’s expressions. “Have you been talking to my father?”

“Just the once, a couple of days ago. He said he was praying for me; I told him, likewise. Didn’t he call you?”

“Yeah,” she said, remembering. “About the wedding. Any other calls for me?”

“Does a solicitation from The Red Cross count?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then no. Go get that coffee. Don’t bite anyone.” He hung up.

While pawing through her daypack for her hairbrush, she uncovered Lisa’s Bible and her mind abruptly leapt back to the case at hand. Guns, mines, explosives, terrified bears, and a young woman, dead. Garrett Ford—was he simply an irritable local rattler she had run across, or was he up to something? Did any of these pieces fit together? Maybe Paul Schuler had been right; if you hung out in the woods long enough, you’d encounter every form of shady activity.

She decided she’d left her hairbrush in her truck and padded to the kitchen. A cup of coffee, a few minutes to pack, and she’d be on her way to the Marmot Lake area. The sheriff’s department and the park rangers would pursue interviews about Lisa’s kidnapping and the illegal gunplay in the area. At least she hoped they would. The FBI
would handle the autopsy. They had the resources to track down Lisa’s relatives and associates.

Sam was tired of chasing shadows. Like the plumbing in her house, the wilderness was her domain. She knew how it worked. Eventually, she would make Marmot Lake give up its secrets.

When the caffeine kicked in, she remembered that today was the first day she could have her stitches removed from her lip. She drove to the tiny emergency clinic in Forks. The brief pain of having the stitches plucked out was well worth the reward of no longer looking like the bride of Frankenstein.

On to the next onerous task—creating Hoyle’s reports. In the mailroom at the division building, Sam faxed the signed contract to Best, hoping that the transmissions weren’t logged and she wouldn’t be reprimanded for using government equipment for private business. Then she forced herself to sit at the desk she’d been assigned to. She and several other temps shared access to an ancient computer. As the technological dinosaur warmed up with its usual coffee-grinding noises, she scrubbed a layer of fine dust from the keyboard and screen. She should have brought her laptop from home. But then, that had been part of the appeal of this assignment, to get away from the insane pace and chaos of hi-tech.

Outside the window, wisps of ground fog floated along the ground like ghosts gliding among the trees. She loved the mysterious moist cloak of clouds that rolled in from the ocean. Snagged by the forest and dammed in by the high peaks of the Olympics, the fog would lay hushed in the hollows like a cold-blooded beast that had to be warmed by the sun before it could move.

Fog was a rarity in the rolling hills of southeastern Kansas, where she’d grown up. To walk through a cloud-shrouded forest was a special joy: trees dripping in primeval moisture, muffled wingbeats of birds flying invisible overhead, diamond chandeliers of spiderwebs stretched between the fern fronds.

By noon, the fog outside would be gone. Turning the squeaky chair toward the keyboard, she set about typing as fast as she could. First, the Lisa report she’d promised Hoyle. She entered all her conversations with Lisa Glass, as well as her trailside interview of the girl’s coworkers and her inspection of Lisa’s dorm room. Then she worked on the report for the incident at Marmot Lake. Reduced to words on the screen, she definitely did not come off as a professional investigator. She left out her collision with Raider, but noted a sighting of a large male bear, possibly wounded. Under “Conclusions”: she typed,
Trace license plate, continue investigation of lake area
.

She e-mailed both files to Hoyle, then clicked the flashing mailbox icon at the top of the screen. Most messages were from the Division Office, standard instructions about proper usage of forms or distribution of funds or about yet another reorganization of high-level NPS managers nobody had met. One message, from Peter Hoyle to all employees, contained advice about dealing with Lisa Glass’s death; it was mainly a warning not to talk to the press. Another to Sam alone suggested how to represent herself at the upcoming conference. She squirmed in her chair, already fretting about the speech she was now committed to do. It was not an event to look forward to.

And there was her father’s wedding to get through before that. High heels and church ladies and unrealistic pledges of forever. Although, now that she thought about it, since her father was in his mid-sixties, forever might not be all that unrealistic. She was suddenly ashamed of herself for dreading his marriage. She needed fresh air and bird songs to sweep that malicious dust out of her brain. She peeked outside. Dang, the fog was nearly gone.

She called Tom Blackstock and told him she would not be returning to the bunkhouse tonight. Arnie Cole caught her in the supply room as she was lashing a tent onto a backpack. “Well, well. Sizzlin’ Summer Westin. I’ll bet you’re camping out at Marmot Lake.”

“There’s something weird going on out there.”

“I heard about the gunplay. There’s always something going on out there, just like I told you.”

“I suppose you heard that Lisa Glass died, too.”

“Was that her name?” He looked genuinely stricken, and for a moment she thought she may have misjudged him.

“I think there’s a connection between what’s still going on out there and what happened to Lisa.” Sam pulled a nylon strap through a metal-toothed buckle and snugged it up tight. “We’re never going to discover what it is with law enforcement just responding to calls.” She stood up.

“You’re camping out there by yourself?”

No way was she going to tell him that. She hefted the backpack.

“Need protection?” He bounced his eyebrows at her. “I’m available.”

“I wouldn’t risk it if I were you, Arnie. I have a gun, and I’m a little jumpy these days.”

JACK
Winner stood on Ernest Craig’s rickety front steps, holding a postcard and pretending hard that it was from Allie. His throat was closing up fast. When Ernest answered the door, the old man also had a postcard in his hand.

“So you got one, too,” Ernest said, blinking. The hand in which he held the Universal Studios card trembled like a leaf in a breeze. Without Allie’s paycheck to fund his habit, the old sot probably had the DTs by now.

Ernest noticed him looking and slid his quivering hand, along with the postcard, into his front pants pocket. “It just doesn’t seem like Allie to run off to L.A.,” he said. “But it says she met this guy Steve—” Ernest’s gaze met Jack’s at that point, and he paused. “Anyhow, I’m so glad to know she’s alive, aren’t you?”

Jack wasn’t sure he could speak at all for a few seconds, so he just nodded. Finally, he croaked, “Mr. Craig, I—”

“Ernest.”

Jack cleared his throat, then said, “Ernest, I don’t know
how you’d feel about this…I don’t even know how I feel about it, but—”

The old man interrupted, “I don’t understand about the car, though.”

Jack blinked at him. “What car?”

“Allie’s car. How come she left it at Bogachiel State Park if she was goin’ to L.A.?”

Oh, God. He’d forgotten about the car. Jack racked his brains for an explanation. “Maybe she hitched a ride.”

“Too dangerous.” Ernest shook his head. “Allie wouldn’t hitch.”

“Mr. Craig—Ernest—it seems like Allie did lots of things that you never thought she would.”

The old man deflated like Jack had just slugged him. “Yeah,” Ernest finally managed to get out. “I guess so.”

“Things we both thought she’d never do,” Jack said. “Maybe this Steve guy gave her a ride. Maybe they drove his car to L.A.” He liked to think that sometimes, that a nice guy had stolen Allie away and they lived happily ever after. In his imagination, this Steve looked a lot like Jack Winner but had a lot more money. He could see the two of them now, driving south on 101 in a convertible, enjoying the sun and the ocean views.

“You were gonna ask me something?” Ernest said, jerking Jack’s thoughts back to the present.

“Yeah.” Jack paused a beat before adding, “Allie asked if I’d send her a few of her things.”

The old guy’s eyes lit up. “You got an address for her?” He sounded eager and hurt all at the same time.

Damn. Of course he’d need an address. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? Then inspiration struck. “It’s a general delivery post office box; you know, a place to pick up mail and packages, until she gets settled. I’ll write it down for you.” He didn’t know how long a post office would keep general delivery mail these days, but he figured that even if Ernest’s letter got returned, the old man would assume that Allie had just moved on. That was how
he tried to think of her now, too. Like she’d moved on to someplace better.

Ernest let him in. Jack could hardly believe the place. It was almost as clean as if Allie were still living there. The old man had scrubbed the kitchen and even vacuumed the living room. The stains were still there on the carpet, but the place smelled like orange cleaner instead of sour whiskey now.

Ernest watched as Jack wrote down a fake P.O. box address on the back of an envelope. Thank God the zip code for Hollywood was on the back of his postcard.

“I’m gonna write to Allie,” Ernest told him. “Tell her I’m cleaning up. You’ll tell her that, too, won’t you? It’ll be better around here now; she won’t have to be ashamed. I’m gonna get me some sort of job, even if it’s just a dishwasher at the diner. I’ll find an AA group and I’m really gonna go this time.”

He sounded so hopeful. When the old man’s quivering hand landed on his shoulder, Jack wasn’t sure he could take it. “You’ll tell her, too, won’t you?”

Jack had to swallow hard before he could answer. “Sure, Ernest, I’ll write her that when I send the stuff. But I don’t know if she’ll listen to me.” His voice broke then and he had to stop. Had Allie died because she’d listened to him too often?

“Why d’you think she asked
you
to send her things?”

Jack shrugged. “Probably because she didn’t want you to have to make a special trip.” He nodded in the direction of the man’s bad leg.

“’Course. She always did baby me like that.” Ernest turned and looked toward the bedrooms. “What kind of things did she want? I hope it’s not the paintings I got in my bedroom. She did those when she was just a little kid, and I sorta need ’em. I gotta have—” Ernest choked then.