One Careless Moment (25 page)

I stumble, manage a half-decent landing on a chair. Fight or flight time — but the Sasquatch is right in front of me, and Erwin is already half standing. So I do neither, which is the classic cause of stress. I ease back onto the chair and, after a moment, Erwin sits down. The Sasquatch remains standing, his bowling pin forearms crossed over his chest.

“What'd you tell the cops?” he demands, scowling down at me.

“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing important, anyway.”

“Then why were they here?”

“I'm not sure. Maybe they developed a lead on their own.”

Erwin sniffs at this — obviously relieved to see the Sasquatch's anger directed elsewhere. The Sasquatch considers me for a moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Why would they come here, if you haven't told them anything?”

“Why wouldn't they?”

Both men looked puzzled.

“You're close to the fire, you're squatting illegally, and you're uncooperative.”

“It's public land,” says the Sasquatch. “No one can tell us we can't be here.”

“See what I mean?”

I get a double-barrelled frown and remind myself again to avoid sarcasm. “Given recent events, you're conspicuous. You don't think the cops have been a little curious about why you're here, other than the free gas? They're going to have questions. Eventually, they'll figure it out, just like I did.”

“And just how did you figure it out?” says the Sasquatch. “Karalee tell you?”

“No — Karalee was good at keeping secrets. Too good. I followed Erwin to the feed store, figured there was a reason you needed that much fertilizer. Then I searched the bush around your camp until I found the trail to the burn. It wasn't that hard.”

The Sasquatch glares at Erwin, who glares at me.

“If he knows where the trail is —”

The Sasquatch nods, gives me a critical look. I get a bad feeling.

“I haven't told anyone about the gardens,” I say, standing.

“And you're not gonna,” he says, reaching into a back pocket and pulling something out. It's a picture — a Polaroid, curved and crimped. A Polaroid of Telson, taken in front of the Super 8. They caught her in mid-stride, walking to her car, and it's blurry, like a bad snap taken by the paparazzi.

He holds up the photo, so I get a real good look. “You make sure you don't let anything slip.”

I meet his eye. There's murder there. “Anything else?”

The Sasquatch shakes his head and I back toward the door, feeling for the handle.

“Get out of here,” says Erwin, waving me off. “Find my sister's killer. Do your job.”

I hurry across the wellsite. In the Cornbinder, I stare at the cluster of old trailers, at the wellhead covered with parasitic hoses, the car riddled with bullet holes, and shake my head. Somehow, I have to get Telson the hell away from here. I turn the Cornbinder around, drive like a madman down the rough trail, jolting from rut to rut. On the Blood Creek Road, I remember the vial of antibiotics in my pocket, decide against returning. My concern for Erwin's well-being is at an all-time low.

I haven't calmed down much when I reach town and pull into the Super 8. I'm determined to make Telson listen to reason, talk her into leaving. Her car is gone, the motel room empty. I pace for a minute, manic with worry, then sit on the edge of the bed. She's in town somewhere, running down that list I gave her, and it occurs to me she'll never leave on her own.

On impulse, I pull open the drawer in the nightstand. Other than a dusty bible, it's empty. Erwin's gun is gone — I should have tossed it into the lake. Not that it would make much difference; the Erwins of this world have an inexhaustible supply of guns. Which only fuels my resolve to get Telson the hell away from Carson Lake. I have a sudden idea, but it's not one I particularly care for. I lock the motel room, drive around town in the Cornbinder, mulling over the possibilities.

I pass Carson Lake Sporting Goods and it occurs to me again that whoever was leaning on the squatters somehow had to find out they were growing marijuana. They could be former associates of the squatters, or they could be local. If they are local, they probably stumbled across a garden or two and made the same connections I did. Considering the reputation of the canyon, I doubt there were many hikers or recreationists thrashing through the heavy understory, but a hunter is a definite possibility — they're always looking for that pristine area. That secret fishing hole or bluff. I make a U-turn in the parking lot of the Chicken Coop Casino and Lounge, head back to the sports store.

The store is in a new log building, stained dark brown. In the window, empty jackets and hunting pants are propped on wires, posed like ghosts gone fishing, holding rods and catching plastic fish. The clerk gives me an idle nod when I amble in. I'm the only customer and spend a few minutes perusing the inventory, which consists of fishing tackle, life jackets and game calls. They must still be in startup mode; shelves are made of unfinished plywood and sections of sub-floor are visible. After a few minutes the clerk sets aside his elk-hunting magazine to ask if I need help.

“Just browsing,” I tell him.

He looks disappointed. I wait until he's turning away, then cast my lure.

“Beautiful area you got here,” I say. “What's the hunting like?”

He circles back, takes another look. “Do you hunt?”

I jiggle the line. “You bet. Elk, cougar, bear. It walks, I kill it.”

The clerk smiles, sensing a potential sale. He's a young guy, curly hair, lots of freckles.

“We got good moose and deer hunting here. Some of the best in the state.”

“What about bear? I'd love to plug a big black around here.”

“Oh, yeah — we got bear,” he says. He's wearing a checkered plaid shirt and has his ball cap on backwards: the uniform of the young outdoorsman. “Had a record come out of here a couple of years ago. Can't remember the exact size, but it was a real monster.”

“I'd like to do a company hunting trip. You have anyone around here that guides?”

“There's a few guys,” he says. “I do a little myself, off the books.”

“That area northwest of town looks interesting. Where they had that fire.”

The clerk frowns a little. “Not many guys go out there.”

“Perfect. Just what I'm looking for.”

“There's better places,” he says.

“I'm sure there is,” I say, putting on my pushy, executive attitude. “I've flown over a lot of this area though, hired a chopper out of Missoula, and that mountain caught my eye. I know there's gotta be some good hunting in those draws and canyons. Especially that one that got burned. Give it a year or two and it'll be chock full of animals, moving in for the shoots that'll be coming up.”

“Yeah.” The clerk doesn't sound convinced. “I guess so.”

“You know anyone that specializes in that area?”

My best cast, but he's circling, wary. I'll have to sweeten the deal. “Now, I understand your hesitation,” I say, clapping a friendly hand on his back. “You're thinking you'd like to get my business yourself — and there's no harm in that, son -- but you don't know the area as well as you'd like. I'll tell you what. If I decide to take a group out there, I'll pay you a finder's fee to show you I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction. Off the books, of course. How does, say, five hundred bucks sound?”

Judging by the look on the clerk's face, it sounds just fine.

“Okay, you got yourself a deal Mr. —”

“Sneed,” I say, shaking his hand. “Gilbert Sneed.”

“Well, Mr. Sneed, there's only two guys I know of that've hunted that area.”

The clerk is smiling, relaxed now. I reel him in without a fight. He jots down two names on a piece of paper. I give him a fictitious address and phone number on another piece of paper, which he carefully folds and slips into the pocket of his plaid shirt. Behind us, the door jingles. “Or you could hire Bob Capsan,” says the clerk, as a man wanders past. “He's a big-time hunter.”

I turn to see Capsan, the real estate agent, frowning at me.

“You name it,” says the clerk, “he's shot it. Rhino. Cape buffalo. Polar bear.”

“What are you still doing here?” says Capsan.

The clerk's smile falters. “You two know each other?”

“We haven't been formally introduced,” Capsan says dryly. He's sweating, looks grumpy.

“This is Mr. Sneed,” says the clerk. “He's looking for a hunting guide.”

“I'll get back to you,” I tell the clerk, and head for the door. I'm expecting Capsan to follow, to chew me out for searching his car, but make it outside and into the Cornbinder unmolested. On the street, I breathe a sigh of relief, drive a few blocks before pulling out the scrap of paper the clerk gave me. One of the names I don't recognize. The other is the chief of the Carson Lake Volunteer Fire Department.

I park behind a strip mall a few blocks from the fire station, walk back alleys between rows of trailers, cut across small treed spaces. The parking lot of the fire station is empty. I approach from behind, just to be cautious, peer in the side windows. Too much glare to see anything. I try the front door — locked, as I suspected. I knock anyway, just in case, get no answer. I'll have to go in the hard way but there's too much exposure in front; I'll try the back.

There's a single red metal door at the rear of the building. Heat ripples off corrugated siding. Grasshoppers whine and complain. It's so hot, I can hear pinecones popping. I hesitate, look around. Nothing behind me but trees and, much farther back, another industrial building. I slip on leather work gloves, take out my pocketknife. I'm no expert, but the door yields easily — no one expects a break-in at a fire station. It takes a moment before I see much of anything. Long blocky shapes emerge; I'm in the garage.

I pass through a small locker room into the ready room, where it's much brighter, moving straight into the front office where the records are kept. The computer, which I'm hoping will have everything I'm looking for, is password protected and I'm no hacker. I start looking for a hard copy of the dispatch record. It's a bit of a long shot, but I can't help wondering why the chief received the call, why he was so reluctant to share information, and why he was the one who went to the fire. It seems odd, on a fire in the bush, that he didn't contact the Forest Service before responding, or didn't scan the Forest Service frequency on the trip out.

There's a two-way radio in here, volume turned low. The dispatch log is on a clipboard, in a drawer below the radio. I flip back a few pages, find an entry signed by Hutton. The notes are brief but concise: public call, bush fire, Blood Creek. Time of call: 1137. There's no phone number or name of caller. I try to remember when I was dispatched to the fire but can't recall the exact time. It would have been about a half-hour earlier, judging by the time Hutton and his men arrived. Once again, none of this really means anything. I rummage in a file drawer, looking for anything on how they're supposed to respond to calls; fire organizations are inevitably heavy on operating procedure. I find their bylaws and standard operating guidelines, do a quick skim. It seems all dispatch communication should be routed through 911. This means Hutton should have called 911 before departing. A quick check in the radio log confirms he did. There's a very small section on wildland fires. Dress in appropriate wildland gear — and monitor the red channel on the radio for traffic from either the US Forest Service or dnrc.

If they were following procedure, they should have known the Forest Service was already at the Holder fire. Perhaps there's another procedure requiring them to show up to any fire within a certain radius of town. I look, but find nothing documenting this, switch to the personnel files, flip through. They each have a picture, and list the member's address, phone number, and place of work. I photocopy the files of the members who were at the fire. I'm putting the files back when I hear gravel crunching outside, and I duck away from the window. A sheriff 's suburban does a slow U-turn in the parking lot. I break into a prickly sweat, my heart thumping. Fortunately, the vehicle is just patrolling and completes its circuit. I wait until it turns onto the road, then switch off the photocopier and head for the back door. In the garage I pause and, on impulse, climb into one of the trucks that was at the fire, check in the glove compartment, behind the seat. Fusees — the thirty-minute variety. A box of reflective hazard triangles. Under the seat is dust and grime. My hand brushes something, dangling from the seat springs — cobwebs or a filament of cloth. It's probably nothing, but I forage for a flashlight, take a look.

Hanging from where it's caught in the seat springs is a scrap of pink flagging.

14
•

I PULL OUT the flagging. It takes a little work because it's jammed in tight, caught in the coil of a spring like someone shoved a tangle of the stuff under the seat in a hurry, then yanked it out. The strip I finally manage to extricate is about three inches long and stretched out of shape, but it's plastic flagging, and it's pink. I'd like to search the lockers and storeroom to see if they stock pink flagging, but don't want to take that much time. I shove the ribbon into my pocket and slip out of the fire station. At the strip mall I find a pay phone, place a quick call to Del's Greenhouse. A man answers, his voice vaguely familiar. I ask for Del. The voice tells me she's not available.

“Do you know where she is?”

“At home,” says the voice. “But she's not working.”

“Who is this?”

“Lyle Harnack. Who is this?”

I hang up.

I'm not sure why, but it bothers me that Harnack is there. Maybe it's the proprietary air he has when he talks about Del. Maybe it's just that he complicates things. Either way, I need to see her, so I drive the Cornbinder to its ancestral home. Business is light — a minivan load of old ladies are the only customers, admiring the flowers. I find Harnack behind the counter at the main building.

“Lyle — where's Del?”

“At the house,” he says mildly. “You want me to call her?”

“No thanks. I think I can find the way.”

He nods, smiling a good-natured, farm-boy sort of smile. He's like a kid with a new box of Legos. I exit through the back of the greenhouse, crossing the yard, and ring the buzzer on the trailer. After a moment, Del comes to the door. She's wearing baggy shorts and a ratty old T-shirt. No bra. She looks tired, and a little distracted.

“Come in,” she says.

She offers me coffee, which I decline — it's just too hot. Her kitchen table is scattered with papers, pencils, a calculator — looks like she's doing her taxes. “Cash flow,” she says. “The bank wants an update. You'd think they'd give a person a little slack, after what happened.”

“Maybe for a price,” I say. “So, Erwin really wasn't any trouble?”

“No.” She pours herself a glass of iced tea from a pitcher. “We had a good talk.”

“Really?” I can't imagine Erwin talking much. “What did you talk about?”

“Just things. He's an interesting guy. You give him the antibiotics?”

“Sure,” I say with a twinge of conscience. A very small twinge.

“Good.” She drains the glass in one swallow. “He needs to get better.”

There's a pause. Del leans against the counter, holding the empty glass in her hand. The last thing I want to talk about is what a great guy Erwin is. I dig the scrap of pink flagging from my pocket, drop it on the counter beside her. She looks at it. “What's that?”

“Pink flagging. The same type I used to mark the origin of the fire.”

She frowns, then her eyes widen. “The same flagging?”

“I think so.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From under the seat of a fire engine.”

She thinks about this for a minute, toying with the glass. “A Forest Service engine?”

When I tell her no, she looks relieved, then puzzled.

“I paid a little visit to the Carson Lake Volunteer Fire Department.”

“You found the ribbon in a vfd truck?”

I nod. Her green eyes narrow.

“They disturbed the origin,” she says.

“Maybe. Maybe it's just coincidence.”

“Maybe not,” she says, frowning in a horrified sort of way.

“Let's not jump to conclusions here, Del. There are several possibilities —”

“Who was at the fire?” she says sharply. “Which volunteer members?”

Her jaw is set and she has an intent, possessed look in her eye I find a little disquieting. It occurs to me that it might not be a good idea to give her names until I have something more to go on. She's angry enough, she might confront these people. If they're innocent, it would be more than a little embarrassing. If they're involved, it would put them on their guard. “The only thing we really know is there was some pink ribbon under the seat of an engine. Anyone who was at the fire could have put it there. The arsonist could have been watching, waiting for just this sort of opportunity. It could be a deliberate attempt at misdirection.”

“Maybe. Did you find all your ribbon?

“Just this scrap.”

“So someone took out the rest.”

“Apparently.”

“Wouldn't the vfd people have mentioned finding the ribbon?”

“Someone else could have cleaned out the truck. Someone who wasn't at the fire, who didn't understand the significance of the pink ribbon. To them, it would just have been trash.”

Del nods reluctantly. “Are you taking this to the cops?”

“Not yet. We don't know if it's the same ribbon.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to find out who put the ribbon in the truck.”

She rubs her forehead, frowning like she has a migraine, then looks at me with the sudden expression of someone who just remembered something important. “You've got to talk to Lyle,” she says.“I'll call him over.” Before I can say anything, she's on the phone, calling the greenhouse.

“What's Lyle doing here?” I ask, after she hangs up.

“He knows something,” she says briskly. “He has some information.”

“That why he's at the front counter?”

“No. He just wants to help. He used to do it all the time.”

“Before you two broke up?”

“Before we got together,” she says.

“You think it's wise, having him around?”

Del gives me an impatient look. “He just wants to help, and God knows I could use it. With Gertie and Melissa gone, it's just me and the two summer students.” She must be able to read my expression. “Don't worry Porter. I can handle Lyle Harnack. You're sounding like my mother.”

I'm about to say something more when the door opens. Lyle comes in.

“Hey guys, what's up?”

Del smiles at him. “Tell Porter what you saw at the fire.”

Lyle gives me an earnest look. “I was walking along the dozerline when I saw someone where I think the origin was. One guy, all alone. So I hollered to him, thinking it was you. But he didn't answer, just sort of looked back at me and hurried away.”

“Do you know who it was?”

Harnack shakes his head.

“Why didn't you mention this before, Lyle?”

He glances at Del, who gives him an encouraging nod. “It didn't occur to me until later that this was the origin area, because there was no ribbon. But when I started to think about how that guy just rushed off, it seemed a little strange. Anyway, I thought you should know, so I came here to tell Del because I knew she would tell you.” Harnack looks self-conscious. “Turns out, she needed a little help, so I stuck around.”

“And he's a godsend,” says Del. Harnack beams. I'd picked him as the manipulator, but now I wonder who's being taken advantage of.

“Did you see him taking down any ribbon?”

Harnack shakes his head.

“Did you see where he went?”

“Just into the burn.”

“Into the burn? Didn't that strike you as a little odd?”

Harnack looks uncomfortable. Firefighters avoid the interior of a burn because there's no danger of spread from within — unless there's a snag blowing sparks, a fire spreads from its perimeter. “I thought it might be you,” he says again. “Doing your investigation.”

“Fair enough.” I give him a little slack. “Was there anything distinctive about the guy?”

“Like what?” says Harnack, scratching his head.

“What was he wearing? What did he have strapped around his waist? Did he look like one of the guys on your crew? Or could he have been a smokejumper? Or maybe someone else?”

Harnack gives this some thought, his young brow furrowed.

“Think hard,” says Del. “This is important.”

“He was dressed like everyone else,” says Lyle.

“Was he wearing green pants?”

Harnack thinks some more, then looks troubled. “I'm not sure.”

I look at both Del and Harnack. The only people at the fire not wearing green pants would have been smokejumpers. They wear jump suits, with big bulges in the legs. The difference in appearance is fairly distinct. Either Harnack is lying, just for an excuse to talk to Del, or he didn't get a good look at the guy — which is likely if he was on the far side of the creek. Neither scenario is very helpful.

“Did it look like a jumper, Lyle?”

“It could have been,” he says, trying to help. But I need more than good intentions — the jumpers were the only ones I didn't check for ribbon. They're not local and I can't think of a reason they might want to tamper with the origin.

“I could do some checking,” says Lyle. “Dig up some information on the jumpers.”

“I'm not sure that would help.”

“It couldn't hurt though, could it?” says Del.

I could get whatever information is available on the jumpers just as easily from Grey, but by the way Del is looking at Harnack, I can see she wants to throw him a bone. Which is fine by me, as long as Harnack stays out of my way. In fact, it's probably worth it for that reason alone. “Okay, Lyle,” I say, trying to make this sound like another crucial assignment, “I think that would be a good idea. Get a list of their names. See what you can dig up about where they've worked so far this season. But be discrete. Don't tell anyone why you're doing this. Whatever you do, don't talk to the jumpers directly.”

“I can do that,” he says, watching Del. The phone rings. It's one of the summer students. The old ladies are waiting to pay for their flowers and they need someone to open the till. Harnack affects the air of a gracious but unappreciated mâitre d', tells us that duty calls, he'll see us later. I wait until he's gone before laughing.

“Where did you find that guy?”

Del looks wistful. “If only they could all be that naive.”