Land of Wolves (19 page)

“But the ones you saw were fresh?”

“I asked him about that too, and he said that all the shepherds do it.”

“You think he’s trying to hide something?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems like everyone is these days.” Leaning back in my chair, I looked at the ceiling. “I asked him about Abe and whether he had a temper, and he said that he wouldn’t work for a man who didn’t have one; that it showed a lack of passion.” I spread my hands. “And what is life without passion?”

Vic reached down, turning the sheet of paper on my desk and studying it. “I’m starting to like this guy more and more.” She looked up. “What’s the name of the camp tender, the one with the black eye?”

“Jimenez.”

“Right.” She studied the drawings. “Look, I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but what if Abe has all these guys working with him and poor Miguel was the odd man out?”

“It’s crossed my mind, but what’s the motivation?”

“Hernandez found something out and the others zotzed him?”

“Zotzed him?”

“I’m trying to use verbiage from your era. I was bored the other night and watched a gangster double feature, both of them starring John Garfield.”

“But what’s the motivation for killing Hernandez?”

She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “Well, if ol’ Miguel was as big of a walking, talking, Columbian asshole as ICE appears to think he is, then there are all kinds of reasons to blip him off.”

“Blip him off?”

“You know, roast his chicken.”

“Now you’re just making those up.”

“Look, anybody that did the things the Immigration and Customs people said this guy did deserved killing. Jeez, Walt, he tortured and murdered people, even his own bodyguard.”

“But what does that have to do with shepherds in the Bighorn Mountains?”

“I don’t know, maybe he got drunk and mouthed off to the wrong guy and they decided to lend justice a hand.”

“So, either Arriett or Jimenez?”

“Or Abe.” She leaned in. “Let’s not forget that the son-in-law, Donnie, is still missing.”

“Now I want to talk to the folks down at the Department of Labor in Colorado.”

“I bet they answer their phone.”

I started to call for Ruby but then thought better of it. “Can I find the Colorado DOL phone number on the computer?”

She smiled. “Faster than you can roast a chicken.”

Vic reappeared in my doorway and listened while I continued my conversation with the lady at the Colorado DOL.

“So what kind of vetting process do these folks go through when they register with the DOL?”

“Department of Labor
and
Employment.” The nice woman from the Department of Labor and Employment was having a good time talking to me on the speakerphone, so much so that I got the idea she didn’t know many real sheriffs. “Are you the guy from Wyoming that was down in Mexico a few months ago?”

Or then again, maybe she did. “Um, yep, that was me . . .”

She laughed. “I read about you in the papers—you’re something of a loose cannon, aren’t you?”

Vic smiled at that one, and I cleared my throat. “Not usually.”

I listened as she settled herself in. “Well, in answer to your question, we do a cursory interview, but if the individual has a clean working record with no felonies, then they’re free to apply with a work visa attached. To be honest, we’re not talking about rocket scientists here. Shepherds and agricultural workers like fruit pickers or even cowboys are in such demand at certain times of the year, that if they’re breathing and willing to work for ten dollars an hour, then they get in.”

“Do you normally fingerprint the applicants?”

“No.”

“Then how did Hernandez’s end up over at Immigration and Customs pitching red flags like it was a new continent?”

“I really couldn’t say unless they were included from his native country.”

“I think if Columbia had had those prints they would’ve never let him leave.”

“Possibly.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I know I’m not being very helpful here, but I really don’t have many answers for you. Most of our contact with Mr. Hernandez was through the enforcement branch that deals with working conditions, fair labor practices, and injuries.”

“And that’s where Keasik Cheechoo comes in?”

“She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know—you tell me.”

There was a pause. “Have you had trouble dealing with her?”

“She’s very passionate about her work whether it’s the Department of Labor.” I quickly added. “. . . And Employment, or the welfare of wolves.”

“She has lots of causes.” The woman took a deep breath and then continued. “She does a marvelous job in the more outlying areas that we really can’t police—but I’d imagine you know about that? There’s a lot of abuse in the industry, and I’m afraid the poor workers bear the brunt of it.”

“Miguel was abused in an earlier case that Ms. Cheechoo mentioned?”

“Oh, it was horrible, maybe one of the worst cases we’ve ever had. The employer actually beat his employees, didn’t pay them, and practically starved Mr. Hernandez to death.”

“There was a physical altercation between the two men?”

“From our reports, yes.”

“And that was a rancher down there in Colorado?”

“It was, yes. Why, have there been others?”

I shook my head, rested my elbows on the edge of my desk, and glanced up at Sancho. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Excuse me?”

I looked down at the piece of paper on my desk. “If Miguel Hernandez is actually this Alfredo Rafael Anaya, it just doesn’t
add up. Anaya tortured his people, killed them . . . He murdered his own bodyguard. This sounds like a dangerous man, if you ask me. So how does he get to the point where he’s getting beaten up by a rancher down there in Colorado and was in another altercation up here where he didn’t even raise his hands in defense?”

“Was that another work-related situation?”

“No, it was in a bar, but it still doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Do you have any idea who could’ve relayed those prints to Immigration and Customs?”

There was another extended pause. “I wish I did, but they seem to have come out of nowhere. I mean the prints are legitimately in his file, but we have no idea who could’ve forwarded them to the immigration people.”

“Was that done electronically?”

“By email, yes, but it was just our general IP address at the office.”

“No way to trace it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, I’ll ask the ICE guy about that. In the meantime, can you forward that same file to me here in Wyoming?”

“It’s all electronic, so I can send it to you via email.”

“No more manila folders, huh?”

I read her the address and bid a fond farewell to the Centennial State. I hung up my phone and looked at my undersheriff. “What’s an IP address?”

“Internet protocol. It’s assigned to each computer as a formal designation.”

“And nobody there can track it down?”

“You can find somebody’s location and such, but in an office
of that size I’m betting it wouldn’t do any good, because they probably have communal computers that a lot of people use. Besides, who cares where the information came from if this guy is a fucking war criminal?”

I stood and stretched, looking at Seth Thomas for some guidance. “It’s five o’clock?”

“Yep, and you have a visitor.”

“Who?”

Her voice took on an odd innocence. “The Cheechoo woman is out here waiting for you—something about a shower?”

“She needs a hose connection for her camper.”

She batted her eyelashes at me. “A hose connection?’

“Um, yep.”

“Why doesn’t she just go to one of the RV campsites.”

“I already suggested that, along with the shower downstairs, but she said no thank you.”

“So, she’s staying out at your place?”

“She’s hooking a hose up to her camper out at my place and then coming back into town is how I understood it.”

“You might want to discuss that with her, because she’s out here with her blankie and her dog.”

“My truck broke down.”

I stood on the stairwell with Dog, the previous sheriffs staring at me with grim faces from the 8 × 10 frames on the wall. “Then maybe you should get a motel room instead?”

“I don’t have the money.”

I fished in my pocket for my wallet again. “Well, how about we treat this as a ministerial aid and the county loans you enough to get a room?”

“I don’t want charity.” She adjusted the Tibetan
dharmachakra
hat, the tassels swaying. “Besides, Gansu doesn’t like motels—she tends to bark.”

Vic stood at the top of the steps looking down at me, obviously enjoying herself.

“Hey, you’ve got a shower, don’t you?”

She folded her arms and smiled. “Broken.”

“Your shower is broken?”

“Yeah.”

I took a look at the toes of my boots and then back to her. “Since when?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday.”

“Yeah.” She gestured toward the office at large. “Besides, I’ve got the Rock.”

I turned back to the wolf woman. “Look, Ms. Cheechoo . . .”

She glanced at Vic and then back to me. “C’mon, Sheriff, give a working girl a break? I’ll sleep on your sofa.”

“He doesn’t have a sofa.”

Keasik glanced up at her. “Really?” About that time the phone rang at Ruby’s desk and Vic disappeared to answer it. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

I sighed. “All right, but the cots in the holding cells here are really comfortable. I’ve slept on them more than I have my own bed, of which there is only one, so you’re going to be stuck in the recliner my daughter bought me about five years ago.”

“Sounds comfy.”

Vic reappeared on the steps. “Those goofballs from search and rescue are on the line and say they found something over on the Stockyard Trail—do you want to talk to them before you head out to your little bed and breakfast?”

Frowning, I headed back up the stairs and passed her at the landing. “Your shower is broken my ass.” Continuing on, I picked up the receiver and grunted, “I’m assuming it’s not a body.”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“A receipt for gas from over at the Maverik on Route 16. Isn’t that the last place you said you saw this Donnie guy?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Well, the receipt is charged to the county, and I remember you saying you had to pay for his gas?”

“I did.”

“Then he must’ve come this way, because the prevailing wind is in the opposite direction.”

“Where are you guys?”

“Out near the parking lot at the fairgrounds, on the trail beside the creek.”

I glanced at the two women and decided I was just as happy to have somewhere else to go. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

“Any word on the Jeep?”

“Excuse me?”

“Can we put a bid in on his Jeep?”

“We may have to hold off on that for a bit.”

I started to hang up but stopped when I heard him say, “Because there’s blood on the receipt.”

“Looked like blood to us.”

I lifted the Ziploc bag and peered at the piece of paper, stained with a hole in the middle. “Where, exactly, did you find it?”

He gestured down the trail toward a large sprig of silver sage. “Stuck on that one.”

I walked over, knelt down, and pulled out my Maglite. Shining it about, I couldn’t see any other clues. “Impaled on one of the dry branches?”

“Yeah.”

I handed him the bag. “Do me a favor and run this over to Isaac Bloomfield at the hospital and have him test it, please.”

“You sure he’s there?”

“He’s always there, so get a move on.”

“What’re you going to do?”

Standing, I looked around at the dying light. “Have a look around.”

As I walked with them toward the parking lot, Keasik cracked open the door of my vehicle. “Something?”

“It’s a receipt from the other night when I met the man who’s disappeared.”

“The father of the boy?”

“Yep. Look, I’m wanting to take a walk along this trail and search for myself, so you can catch a ride back into town with the search and rescue guys. I’ll pay for a motel room and . . .”

“I’ll wait.”

I stared at her.

“Honest, I’m fine.” She pulled her dog closer in her lap. “We’re snug as a couple of bugs in a rug.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m going to take one of the bugs with me.” Circling around, I opened the driver’s side door and released the beast from the back. “C’mon, you.”

“Is he a police dog?”

I shrugged. “He’s a dog, and I’m the police, so I guess he’s the closest thing we’ve got.” I started to close the door but then added, “Not officially, but his nose is better than mine.”

“About forty times better.” She smiled, accenting the broad cheekbones and wide jaw—too expansive for a typical beauty but in the long run devastatingly good-looking, even if she did need a shower. “Three hundred million olfactory receptors in comparison to our six million. To put it into perspective, we might notice if a spoonful of sugar has been added to our coffee, whereas canines could detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water or two Olympic-sized pools.”

“That good, huh?” I closed the door and pulled a stocking cap that I’d taken from Lott’s Jeep and held it out to Dog, who took it in his mouth. “I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Taking it back, I held it out again and he sniffed at it and then sat and looked at me. Finally giving up, I stuffed the cap back in my pocket and started for the trail by the creek. “C’mon.”

The path was well marked and in good shape even after the
winter. A lot of the locals walked or ran on it through the year, so looking for specific tracks really didn’t make much sense. Taking Dog out of the truck and expecting him to suddenly become a bloodhound didn’t make much sense either, but here I was with the light dying and the cold coming on, standing by a creek with my pal. “So, what do you think?”

He wagged.

“I bet if we were looking for a ham, you’d find it.”

As if in response to the insult, he dropped his head and snuffled around, slowly making his way to the left and away from town, toward the fairgrounds.

Following along behind him, I pulled my Maglite and shined it toward the looming grandstands of the rodeo arena, looking pretty unsettling with nobody in the seats. When I glanced back, Dog had moved farther up the trail and had turned to see if I was following, which I was.

I had to admit that it was good to be out of doors even with the drainage apparatus stuck in my side. Still, what did I think I was doing? Maybe avoiding going home with the strange woman—and why hadn’t Vic stepped in and done something to help me out?

Dog turned again and then quickened his pace.

“Hey, don’t run off and leave me, okay?”

Ignoring me, he continued on, breaking into a soft trot.

“Hey!” He disappeared around the next bend, and I shouted again. “Hey!

“Hell.” Pushing off with a little more urgency, I made the bend in time to see him head toward the back of the grandstands. “Damn it.”

I followed up the slight grade as quickly as I could toward the long backside of the rodeo chutes and the tower leading to
the announcer’s booth. Darting through the open gates, he continued at a quick pace and I lost him.

There was a main gate that I took, allowing me a more direct route to a walkway where the contestants could load into the chutes. Instinctively, I pulled my sidearm and glanced around, finally seeing Dog’s hind legs as he shot up the steps. “Dog!”

Hustling to the far end, I found another stairway that connected to the one he’d climbed and hauled myself up to a landing overlooking the arena as some snowflakes blew from the grandstand across the open area; swirling devils that danced and then melted away in the breeze.

Dog barked. He stood by a closed door that led into the announcer’s booth.

I hoisted myself up, keeping my Colt to the side, figuring there wasn’t any sense in scaring the daylights out of a couple of amorous teenagers who might be looking for an exclusive place to neck.

Dog turned to look at me but stayed close to the door as I played the beam over the glass, still seeing nothing inside. Stuffing the flashlight under my arm, I turned the knob and opened the door, immediately feeling the heat.

Dog darted inside. I traced the beam of the Maglite over the room. There was a counter to my right with scattered papers, clipboards, and other refuse from the summer rodeo season. To my left, a table, a few folding chairs, and the loudspeaker equipment in the far corner, but nothing else.

Other than Dog snuffling around, the only noise was the rhythmical hum of the baseboard heater underneath the counter attached to the front wall. Kneeling down, I placed a hand over it and felt the warmth. Before I turned it off, I looked around for water lines, a sink, or anything else that might
require heat during the winter and the fall and spring hip seasons. Seeing nothing, I reached over, dialed the knob down, and turned the thing off, watching the red light diminish and finally go black.

Standing, I turned and leaned on the counter and looked at Dog. “I sure wish you could trade a few of those olfactory receptors for vocal cords and tell me what the hell is going on.”

When we got back to the lot by the picnic tables, Vic’s unit was parked alongside the passenger side of mine. The windows were down, and the two women were talking.

My undersheriff leaned out as I approached. “Liam is gone.”

Walking between the two vehicles, I wrapped an arm around her rearview mirror for support, both physical and psychological. “Gone?”

“Jeannie Lott went to pick Liam up at the foster home, and he was missing.”

“Missing?”

“Are you going to keep repeating the last word of my sentences?”

I fumbled for some originality. “What happened?”

“They put the kid in his room to rest before his mother got there, and when they went to get him, he was gone. The entire group is still over at the house with Saizarbitoria, but I thought I better come and get you since you weren’t answering your radio, although Keasik finally did and filled me in.”

Retreating, I made my way around to the driver’s side of my unit. “We’ll follow you.”

Opening the door, I allowed Dog to jump in the back and
then climbed in, firing up the V-10 and spinning the wheel to catch the rapidly disappearing aged unit ahead of me.

“Anything?”

Full lights and siren—I watched as Vic skidded out onto the paved road and floored it, correcting her drift and jetting into town. “The heater was on in the announcer’s booth at the rodeo grounds.”

She shrugged. “Crime of the century?”

Making the pavement, I too turned and hit the accelerator. “I turned it off to save the county money.”

“Thrifty.” Bracing a hand against the dash, she reached over and snapped on her seat belt. “That poor little boy . . .”

Weaving right onto the 196 bypass that led south of town, I watched as Vic’s brake lights stabbed on and her taillights made a right, stopping just after the lumberyard. She pulled into a driveway that already held another of our units as I slowed and parked at the curb. I climbed out and turned to Keasik. “You stay here.”

She saluted as her dog climbed back in her lap. “Okay.”

Rushing up the driveway, I noticed a BMW SUV with Colorado plates parked at the curb. I got to the porch where Dave Anders was waiting. “Walt, we have no idea what happened. I took Liam in the back bedroom, because he was falling asleep on the sofa watching TV, and he couldn’t have been there for more than ten minutes before his mother came and I went back to get him and he was gone.”

“Have you looked through the entire house?”

“We were doing that now.”

He led the way into the house, where Sally was trying to comfort a woman who sat on the sofa and was crying, and through a
short hallway to a guest bedroom, where Sancho met us coming up from what I assumed was a basement near the kitchen. “Nobody down there, Boss.”

Continuing through the house, we ended in the bedroom where Liam had been sleeping where Vic now stood studying the window. She turned and pointed toward the heavily painted molding. “I haven’t touched it, but there’s no way that kid got out of this window by himself.”

Stepping in closer, I could see where the paint had been scraped as the thing had been forced open by somebody. Turning to Dave, I asked, “Does this window open?”

He nodded. “Kind of—with a lot of force you can get it partially up.”

Glancing back at Saizarbitoria, I started toward the door. “Continue to go through this house, and if you don’t find anything come out and join us.”

He was already on his hands and knees looking under the bed as Vic joined me in the hallway. “Circle the vicinity in your unit, and I’ll start searching the outside.” I stopped and turned back. “And call the Highway Patrol.”

Pulling out her cell phone, she passed me as I knelt down in front of the crying woman. “Mrs. Lott?”

She raised her head a bit and sobbed. “You lost my son.”

I studied her face and could see the abrasions and bruises beneath the makeup that Vic had noticed. “We’re going to find him, Mrs. Lott, but I have to ask you if you have any idea who might’ve done this?”

She caught her breath and screamed in my face. “You’re the one who lost him!”

I studied her for a moment more and then stood, turning toward Sally. “What was he wearing?”

She seemed confused but then answered. “Yellow pajamas with little cowboys and horses all over them.”

“No shoes?”

“No, but there was a blanket on the bed, and that’s missing too.”

“What kind of blanket?”

“Um, fleece, buffalo plaid, red and black.”

I walked quickly to the door and called out the description to Vic, who was standing on the sidewalk talking to the Highway Patrol.

I pulled my Maglite and continued to the back of the house, working my way around a hedgerow that jutted out from the building. I could see that the window was easily accessible from ground level. Shining the beam under the hedges and then in the tree, I finally stepped toward the window but could see no prints or any other sign that told me if the boy had been taken through there.

Edging in closer, I finally saw an indentation in the wood at the bottom, about the width of a screwdriver or tire iron.

Reaching up to the top of the frame, I pushed and watched as the window popped open about an inch and in the next instant, Sancho was there looking at me, weapon in hand. “Here?”

“Here.” I turned away, looking at the trailer court to my right and the bypass road and highway to my left, watching an 18-wheeler blast down I-25, headed south. Scanning the ground with my flashlight, I still couldn’t see any prints but started thinking about carrying a child wrapped in a blanket with no shoes—how far you could go and who would it be that the child would let do such a thing without making any noise?

Turning back to the window I pushed it up the rest of the way as Sancho reappeared from the hallway. “Something?”

“Who was at our offices last?”

He thought about it. “Probably Vic. After we got the call from search and rescue, she closed up shop, but then got the call on the missing kid.”

“Came and got me and then straight here?”

“Far as I know.”

“Do me a favor, head back and see if Donnie Lott’s Jeep is still in our parking lot. I think he’s been hiding out at the rodeo grounds—the heat was on in the announcer’s room.”

“Why there?”

“He came up here to get his son and for some reason I spooked him, but now I’m betting he’s got Liam, and if they’re in that Jeep then I’m not sure where they are, but it could be pretty far from here.”

He dashed into the house, and I played the beam of the flashlight toward the road and the bypass, stepped over a short, picket fence and down the barrow ditch to a pull-off. The ground was hard, and I couldn’t see any tracks until I shone the beam farther back, where a set of tires with an aggressive tread seemed to have pulled over and sat.

Not proof positive, but it was a hunch.

I walked back to the road and, turning left toward the rear of my truck, thought about it. Why would Donnie go to such lengths to steal his own child? Even if his father-in-law hadn’t been in the Casper hospital, he had every right to the child, so why not just come and take him? Was there something more going on in the family, or were there players I wasn’t even aware of?

Keasik was still sitting in my truck as I walked by the window, Vic rushing over, breathless. “Anything?”

“Nothing . . . Liam must’ve known his abductor and gone with him willingly.”

“So, you think this guy stole his own kid? But why?”

“I don’t know, but if that Jeep is gone, I’ll start knowing a lot more.”

Static. “Unit one, this is unit three.”

Vic slung the handheld to her face. “S’up?”

Static. “The Jeep is still here. Still parked. Still locked.”

“Tell him thanks for blowing my theory.”

She keyed the mic. “You blow.” She looked up at me. “Shorthand.” The tarnished gold sharpened like molten metal, and she glanced around. “Now what?”