Dead Man’s Fancy (17 page)

The trapper found a toothpick in his pocket that he'd whittled from the penis bone of a raccoon. He worked it as Ettinger picked up the thread and then wound down.

“So this fella,” he said, “he's supposed to have somehow found out she was living in the valley and went up there in the basin and kidnapped her?”

“That's the sister's thinking.”

“I'd say her story makes sense, weren't for finding that hair.”

Martha steered the conversation back to the Martinellis.

“You knew her father. Did you know Nicki?”

“I met her once at a trapper rendezvous,” Barr said. “Up on the Middle Fork of the Teton. Looked about sixteen, a feast for the eyes. Had a wild streak in her, no doubt. Put a coonskin cap on and just run around full of the dickens, that hair flying out. Friendliest creature you ever met. But then the next day she was more sober, seemed like a sensible young woman. Called me Mr. Barr. She reminds me why I never did understand women. You think you got 'em figured, but you don't. Even my wife before she passed.” He nodded to himself, then colored, remembering it was a woman he was talking to.

“What about Asena?”

“No, her I never met. I didn't know Alfonso had another daughter. But he didn't have a lot of words—that you'd understand, I mean. Man could go on and on in French. I wouldn't have known he had Nicki if it wasn't for that rendezvous. So the sister, she's here in the valley, you say?”

Ettinger nodded. “Came down from B.C. where she works as a counselor in the schools. The girls grew up in a cabin somewhere north of nowhere. She's the one who stayed.”

“You get outside Vancouver, just about all B.C., is nowhere.” Barr put the toothpick back in his pocket.

“That cellar at her dad's place,” he said. “You think you might talk to her, see if she minded I stopped by and helped myself to a bottle of the twenty-nine?”

H
arold Little Feather was standing in the great common room of the Lake Hotel in Yellowstone Park, looking out the windows at the vast roll of the slate-colored lake, when his phone vibrated. He'd meant to turn it off. He knew there was a cell tower disguised as a pine tree near the Old Faithful Inn. He didn't know they'd put one up here. Pretty soon there will be no place sacred, he thought. He flipped open the phone.

It was Martha Ettinger.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm looking at Yellowstone Lake, drinking tea with my pinky cocked.”

“That doesn't sound like you.”

“I'm a man of mystery, Martha.”

Such was the manner they were back to now, easy enough in the light of day. It had taken a long time.

Harold glanced over at his sister's in-laws, who were up on vacation from Flagstaff. They were lounging on the mauve wicker furniture, listening to a woman playing a blond grand piano while waiting to be called for their dinner reservation. Harold had a hunch the lamb cutlets with the mint jelly sauce weren't going to be in his future.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “No, this is the first I've heard of it.” A minute later. “So I have Katie and Stranahan to thank for this. You don't see a jurisdiction problem?” He heard Ettinger say, “Not as long as you don't arrest anybody.”

He closed the phone and this time remembered to turn it off. His sister, Janice, sidled up to him. He told her who'd called.

“When are you going to tell her you're a single man again?” Harold had stopped seeing his ex-wife over the summer.

“When I'm good and ready,” Harold said.

“So you got to go, right? What should I tell them? They like you.”

“They think I'm a novelty 'cause I look so much more like an Indian than you. It will wear off.”

“You've been leaving me to do whatever since we were kids. Where to this time?”

“Up to the Lamar. Sheriff wants me to check out a man there who thinks he's a wolf.”

—

A
t the pullout, Harold stepped out of his pickup and arched his back to get the cricks out, his long braid tracking the hollow in his back. He crossed his arms so that his biceps popped out below the cut-off sleeves of a check flannel shirt. Let them get a good look at the tattoos, the weasel tracks hunting around his left upper arm, the elk tracks hunting around the right. He could feel their eyes on him as he walked up to the rail by the interpretive sign and placed his hands on it.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Harold spread his arms to encompass the valley of the Lamar.

The man standing a few yards away had hair as long as Harold's, tied off in a ponytail that stuck through the adjustable band of a Great Falls Dodgers baseball cap. He wore an unsnapped Harley vest over a pelt of chest hair. Tiffany blue stud earrings added a feminine touch. His eyes were very dark red, almost maroon. He was wearing the wolf pendant Ettinger had told him to look for. The woman, hardly more than a girl, had blond hair with red tips, sported a nose stud and had blazing orange eyes. A rim of baby fat blossomed between the bottom of her T-shirt and the top of her jeans, which were decorated with fake pearl beads outlining phases of the moon.

“Are you here for the wolves?” the man said. “In some Native American cultures, wolves were man's brothers. There was a Crow Indian here this summer; he told me about the myth of Running Wolf.”

“Is that right?” Harold kept his hands on the railing, his eyes on the skyline.

“I'm Blackfeet,” he said. “The wolf may be my brother, the Crow I'm not so fond of.”

“If you stick around, you might see the Thunderer Mountain Pack. They were howling this morning like they'd made a kill.” The man pointed across the valley.

The girl looked shyly at Harold, not an inconsiderable achievement for someone whose irises were the color of a fire season sunrise. “Are you full-blooded?” she said.

The presumption of some white people never ceased to amaze him. “Sure,” he said. “Grew up on the rez. Mama cooked fry bread. Known seducer of white women.” He watched her blush and laughed. “I'm fooling with you. I'm probably the only Native American on the eastern front can't make the claim he's seen a wolf. Thought I'd take a drive and rectify that. My wife's in-laws are staying at the Lake Hotel. Would either of you care for a beer? Pass the time while we wait.”

They passed the time, the man and woman drinking the beer that Harold's sister had packed, Harold sipping at a Coke and wondering what he was doing there. Ettinger had told him to engage the couple and see if he could learn their names and where they lived. She'd tell him the whole story later.

Harold jutted his chin toward the motorcycle. “Isn't that one of the old 350 Hondas?”

“It's a '69 CB,” the man said. “Somebody fried the electrical system trying to jump it with a car battery and the spark plug threads were stripped. I picked up the pieces and restored it. That red on the tank is the original paint job.”

“I had a Scrambler,” Harold said. “Nineteen-inch front wheel, high-set exhaust, same model the late, great Jimmy Morrison drove except his was psychedelic. Gas tank on mine was what they call candy blue. Do you mind if I take a picture? I got a brother rebuilds old bikes who'd like to see it. They made a ton of 350s but it's hard to find one hasn't been repainted or screwed with.”

“Sure, what's the harm?” the man said.

Harold took photos from a couple of angles, making certain he got close-ups of the license plate.

“How about one with you two on it?” he said.

“Can we, Fen?” It was the woman, a child's pleading note in her voice.

The man looked sharply at her and then shook his head. “No, I don't think so. Got to keep the soul in the body. You understand, being Native yourself.”

“Hey, no problem,” Harold said. “I'm a medicine man. We still have lots of people on the rez who feel that way.” Under the pretense of looking at the photos on the LCD screen, he switched the settings of the point-and-shoot to its silent operation mode.

—

T
wo hours later he reached Ettinger from the lobby at the hotel.

“Woman's name is Deni, short for Denise. I heard her call the man Fen. He didn't seem to like her saying it, shot her a look. They didn't offer last names and I didn't press. Deni said the contact lenses burned her eyes. At one point she wanted to remove them, but he said no. Not a mean ‘no,' not a loud ‘no,' just ‘no.' I got the feeling she does what he tells her to.”

“Did you ask why they wore them?”

“The man said it was to pay respect to the wolves. What's this about, Martha?”

“A long story.” She filled him in briefly, the missing woman's sister suspecting foul play and the wolf watcher with the red eyes the prime suspect. Martha said that the guide who led wolf tours in the park had spotted the motorcycle couple that afternoon and checked in at the Yellowstone Institute as Katie Sparrow had instructed. Katie was on backcountry patrol by Electric Peak and told the ranger to relay a message to the sheriff.

Ettinger said, “People working behind my back seems to be becoming the order of the day.”

“I thought the wolves ate her. I thought it was a done deal,” Harold said.

“That's what the evidence suggests, but Sean's inclined to give some credence to the sister's suspicion. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, what were your impressions of this man? Could you buy him as a Svengali Manson type?”

“If you're asking did he look like a kidnapper, I'd say no. What he really reminded me of was the Sunday school Jesus picture my sister has in her bathroom, but anybody has serpent eyes burning out of his head is out on the small branches in my book.”

“I don't suppose they told you where they lived?”

“No, when I asked he said, ‘From here, man, from here.' When I asked her it was the same answer, him answering for her and her looking away. But I can give you the plate number. He wouldn't let me take their photos but I got a few when they weren't looking. Not good enough to suck the souls out of their bodies, so don't get your hopes up. I'll download them into my sister's computer when we get back to Pony and attach them for you.”

“You did good, Harold. Thanks for helping me on this.”

It was nine forty-five and the restaurant was still open. Harold asked for a table in the back, where he could see the black waitress with the seventies Afro who had taken his breakfast order. He looked at her name tag, then up into her golden brown eyes.

“You wouldn't happen to have any of that lamb left, would you, Alexis?”

“T
hat's enough, Choti girl,” Stranahan said. He clicked his fingers and told the sheltie to stop barking as he removed the sticks closing the flap of the tipi.

“Hey inside, it's Martha,” Ettinger called out.

“I know it's you. You must have Goldie, huh?”

“Can she come in? I don't want her running around after dark. That lion's back in the canyon again. Pablo showed me its track.” Pablo Mendoza was a baritone for the New York Metropolitan Opera who had a residence at the road end, a half mile up the canyon from Martha's place.

Stranahan grasped the handle of the lantern to make sure it wasn't tipped while the dogs bounded around the tipi. When they'd settled at the foot of his cot, he opened his hand to direct Martha to the folded buffalo blanket to his right.

“You might fool some people with that Indian tradition bullshit, but you don't fool the sheriff of Hyalite County,” she said. But she took the seat anyway, pulling her legs up under her in a lotus position. She said, “Harold had an afternoon you'd find interesting.”

Stranahan interlaced his fingers while she spoke.

“Fen,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “I heard that name before.”

He reached for the box underneath his cot. It contained the journals written by Alfonso Martinelli, the ones Carter Monroe had found in the cabin. There were twenty in all, one for each calendar year of the past two decades. The writing was dense, the hand precise and the letters open looped—a schoolboy's script.

“Let me see an early one.” Ettinger extended her hand for the journal.

“They're mostly of the ‘what I trapped today' nature,” Stranahan said. “Not much personal stuff. One thing though, the old man was a list maker. Made lists of everything—catch versus escape ratios for different types of traps, gear lists for running his lines, prioritized lists of the most common reasons for livestock deaths. He had a list of what he referred to as ‘Honest Abe's,' ranchers who took care of their stock and actually wanted him to find out what was killing them. He had another for ranchers who blamed wolves for any livestock fatalities, never mind that his autopsies drew different conclusions. That list was called ‘Ranchers Who Cried Wolf.' It's circled in green highlighter, the only list that's marked that way.”

“What's that have to do with what's his name, the guy with the red eyes?”

“I'm a Montanan now, Martha. I get to things in a circumspect way. Alfonso made a list of wolves in mythology. Actually two—one for myths about good wolves and one of myths about evil wolves.” Stranahan pulled out a journal dating back four years. “Here it is,” he said.

Martha scooted closer to him and together they looked at the page. Sean ran his finger halfway down and tapped his nail under the name. “Fenrir (Fen).” “It's a wolf in Norse mythology,” he said. “This is the list of bad wolves.”

“If you say so,” Martha said. “What language is that?”

“It's mostly French words with some Italian. Martinelli grew up in the mountains north of Nice. That's where he learned to trap wolves.”

“They have wolves in France?”

“In the Hautes-Alpes. Same wolf causing the same old controversy. Wolves and sheepherders are at each other's throats in France no different than they are here.”

“Humpff. I would have never guessed. So you can read this?”

“No, but Asena could.”

“What's it say about this Fenrir? There's words after it.”

He shook his head. “I don't know. The only name I had her translate the origin of was Amorak, which is a lone wolf in Inuit legend. He's in the list of good wolves, see?” Stranahan pointed out the name. “According to the legend, Amorak killed the weak and sick caribou so the herds became healthy.”

“So this guy, you figure he took the names of wolves for his first and his last names. Fenrir Amorak or Amorak Fenrir.”

“One or the other,” Stranahan said. “I have a book on wolf myths but I left it at my studio.”

“Let's walk up to the house and boot up my computer. Bring the journals. We can research ‘Fenrir' and then I want to check in with Judy. She was going to pull the DMV sheet on the license plate of that motorcycle.”

“What made you change your mind about Amorak?”

“Something the wolfer told me. He killed one of the Bald Ridge Pack today. I'll fill you in on the walk up.”

—

“J
ust set them on the stump while I make us some tea.” Ettinger gestured toward the cross-sectioned trunk of an enormous Douglas fir that served as her desk. Stranahan switched on the track lighting and set down the journals.

“I didn't know you liked puzzles, Martha.”

A partially completed jigsaw puzzle, acacia trees and elephants under the snow cap of Kilimanjaro, was spread across one end of the desk.

“When I'm working late, a few minutes on the puzzle helps clear my mind.”
And pass the long Montana night alone
, which went unsaid.

“I guess your love life is about as active as mine,” Stranahan said.

Martha poured the tea into two cups. Yet here we are again, she thought, standing right in front of each other. She kept her voice casual. “Did I tell you I received a ‘Save the Date' from Bucky Anderson and Evelyn Culpepper. To their wedding next June. Bucky's got some nerve, huh? He wrote a PS that I ought to take you. I'm thinking I might put in an appearance just to spite him.”

“Then let's go,” Stranahan said. “You can look daggers at him while we dance.”

“I'd rather arrest him. But maybe you're right.”

“Sure. It will be fun.”

Martha felt a flush of blood. She'd received the note in the morning's mail and had been filled with anxiety since, wondering how to bring it up or even if she would. Now she had a date with Sean Stranahan, even if it was half a year down the road. And he'd made it easy. She felt a release of tension as she furrowed her brow, feigning concentration.

“Fenrir, Fenrir,” she muttered as the Mac booted up. “Where are you, Fenrir?” She clicked on a site titled Wolves in Myth and Astrology and read aloud.

“Fenrir, offspring of the trickster fire god, Loki . . . gave birth after eating the heart of a giantess.” She read the rest of the thumbnail description.

“Fenrir was badass, no question,” Stranahan said.

“Badass?”

“Sam had me watch the honey badger video.”

Ettinger's expression was blank.

“You don't know about that?”

“Some of us have work to do. So . . . what? This guy takes the names of wolves in ancient mythology, the odds of this being his real name are not good. But what if he had his name changed? If he's in the system, either one of these names would stick out like a snakebit thumb.”

“What makes you think he'd have a record?”

Ettinger awarded him one of her withering looks.

“Okay,” Sean said. “The guy's a dirtbag, it follows.”

“Remember what you said to me? That Nicki told her sister the man would disappear now and then, never said where he went. Maybe he was dealing or, I'm thinking out loud here, doing something else criminal, could be anything. Then about a year and a half ago, he disappears. Summer passes. Fall, winter, spring. At no time does he make any effort to contact Martinelli. He doesn't resurface until June, when he pulls up to the fly shop on the Kootenai, looking for Nicki.

“He was arrested,” Stranahan said.

Martha nodded. “That's what I'm thinking. Or picked up on an outstanding warrant. Anyway, he goes away to a place with five-inch windows. We can narrow the records, search by age, likely period of parole, state of incarceration. It all depends on whether he went away on his given name or his wolf names . . .”

An inset message had appeared in the lower right corner of the computer screen, alerting Ettinger of incoming mail.

“Or maybe we won't have to,” she said. “Let's see what Judy found.”

The e-mail included an attachment, which Martha opened. It was a scanned motorcycle registration from the DMV.

Martha nodded. “J. Todd McCready. DOB 06/24/1981. Address on Shields Valley Road, Wilsall, MT.” She looked up. “Why, he's just over the hill.”

Stranahan felt a tingle, a chill of excitement that crawled up his arms, lifting the hairs. “He's older than I thought he'd be,” he said.

“Predators are usually older than the prey.”

“Maybe someone ought to drive up there and knock on the door,” Stranahan said.

“Maybe someone shouldn't do anything stupid,” Ettinger said.

“He wouldn't do that.”

“Then maybe someone should. Frankly, I have a hard time buying that this guy kidnapped the woman, scat or no scat. But if she's alive, I do think there's a possibility she ran off with him.”

“She could be there right now.”

“You'll report back to me.”

“Does this mean I'm back on the payroll? I have a contract with Asena through next week.”

“No, it means I care what happens to you.”

“I still don't have a cell phone.”

The withering look.

“I amend my statement. I don't have a phone but I will by tomorrow. Is that better?”

“Call so I have your number. And leave these journals with me. I'd like to run a few more names.”

Stranahan stood up. His eyes fell on the puzzle, and he spent a minute trying to fit a piece.

“There's only about seven hundred to go,” Martha said. “I'll be cross-eyed until next summer.”

She felt the chill air come in when Stranahan left. “Don't let the lion get you,” she said after him.

She watched the beam of his headlamp bob down the road from her kitchen window, felt the pull in her heart that belied the indifference of her comment. There wasn't any real danger from a lion, was there? But then there wasn't supposed to be from a wolf, either. She poured another cup of chamomile and sat down at the puzzle. She'd completed the border and the parade of elephants crossing the plain near the center. The grass was what stumped her, hundreds of pieces of a tawny color all more or less the same. You could work from the inside out or the outside in. Working from the outside in was what she'd been doing the past week. She'd accepted the borders of the Martinelli case, the central construct that the girl had been eaten by a wolf. It naturally followed that a wolf had killed her and was somewhere in the evergreen ridges flanking Papoose Basin. Stranahan, the wolfer, Harold—they had all given her reason to suspect that she might get further working from the inside out, and that the most dangerous animal on the mountain didn't necessarily have the sharpest claws, but perhaps took on the semblance of a wolf only in the drama of his eyes. Martha did not approve of speculation without fact, and a human hair in a pile of wolf scat was fact. Still . . .

She tried the puzzle piece in the patch of grass to the right of the leading elephant, a one-tusker cow followed by a toto. It fit. She blew on her tea and picked up another.