Open Season (16 page)

Joe blew out a breath and kicked the trailer door open to get some air. Then he turned back to the freezer. The freezer pan was full of congealed blood and fluids. Tufts of brown hair were stuck in the blood and to the sides of the compartments. Until recently, Clyde Lidgard had stuffed his freezer with animal parts. And now they were gone.

 

Joe stood outside
the trailer with his hands on his knees, breathing deeply, fighting back nausea. His head pounded and his eyes still stung. Eventually, he was breathing crisp clean air. There was the strong, sweet smell of wet sage, and Joe inhaled gratefully. Dusk brought a red-smeared sunset over the foothills.

Joe straightened up and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Then from behind him came a powerful
whump
sound. He turned in time to greet a ball of flame as it rolled out of the trailer, scorching his face.

It was remarkable how fast the trailer burned. Already the walls were gone, exposing the black skeleton frame.

He watched helplessly. Whatever evidence there might have been inside was being destroyed. How could this have happened? He hadn't smelled gas.

He remembered that he had left his holster inside and he cursed out loud. Then something made him turn around.

On the road leading toward Saddlestring, a pair of brake lights flashed. If a small herd of antelope hadn't crossed the road and forced the vehicle to slow down, Joe probably wouldn't have seen what looked like the back of a dark Chevrolet Suburban.

Vern Dunnegan drove a Suburban, but so did lots of people. Vern had also once taught Joe the trick of waiting until dusk to sneak up on hunters and use no lights because that was the hardest time to be seen in a moving vehicle.

Joe wondered if that had been Vern, and, if so, what Vern would be doing out at the Lidgard place.

When Joe got
home, Wacey's mud-splashed pickup was parked in the driveway. Joe pulled in alongside it and, as he walked toward the house, sniffed his shirtsleeves. There remained a strong odor of smoke from Clyde Lidgard's trailer. Maxine met him at the door and trailed him into the house, a gold shadow not three inches from his leg. Lucy and Sheridan were playing in the living room. Lucy was again playing the role of an animal and Sheridan was feeding her invisible treats as Missy looked on, amused. Wacey was leaning against the door frame of Joe's office and Marybeth was inside, looking through Joe's desk calendar.

“Want one of your beers before I drink them all?” Wacey asked.

“Sure.”

Wacey returned with a cold bottle. “You don't smell good, Joe,” Wacey whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he brushed by Joe and handed him the beer. “I heard about Clyde Lidgard's trailer burning down. How in the
hell
did that happen?”

Joe was in a dark mood. He had radioed the Saddlestring Volunteer Fire Department (they had arrived ten minutes after the framework of the trailer sighed and collapsed in on itself into a sizzling pile) as well as Sheriff Barnum (who rolled his eyes skyward and moaned ruefully) about the ball of flame. The fire department recovered what was left of his gun and holster; the black fused-together mass still smoldered in the back of his pickup where he had thrown it. Rarely had Joe Pickett felt as stupid as he did right now.

“Did you ask him yet, Marybeth?”

“Ask me what?”

Marybeth had a curious smile on her face. Joe looked from Marybeth to Wacey, puzzled.

“Wacey has a proposition for us,” Marybeth said.

Wacey stepped forward and shut the office door behind him. It was a small room. Wacey grinned. Marybeth grinned.

“Aimee Kensinger has to go to Venice, Italy, for three and a half weeks with her husband,” Wacey said. “She asked me if I knew anyone who would be trustworthy enough to stay in her house and keep it up and walk her dog every day. You know, that little rodent Jack Russell terrier of hers.”

Joe nodded slowly, waiting for more.

“He suggested us.” Marybeth added in a way that indicated to Joe that she liked the idea. “Our whole family. Even
Mom.
”

Wacey jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Missy in the living room. “That way she could live more
in the style to which she is accustomed,
” he said, affecting enough of a pompous lilt to make Joe smile in spite of himself. “It's going to be like a family vacation without really going anywhere.”

Joe turned to Marybeth. “So you want to do it?”

Marybeth spoke practically. “We're out of room, Mom's sleeping on the couch, everything seems to be falling apart, and it would be a good time to get some repairmen in here when they're not bothering everybody. It seems like we're
always
here. It
would
be kind of like having a vacation.”

“Which, as far as I know, you two have never had,” Wacey chimed in. “Hell of an opportunity.
Hell
of an opportunity.”

“We move in Thursday,” Marybeth said.

“Then I guess the matter is decided,” Joe said flatly, then drained his beer.

Marybeth asked Wacey if he wanted to stay for dinner. But Wacey said he had to get home. On the way toward the door, Wacey stopped suddenly and watched Lucy and Sheridan play.

“That's a cute little dog,” Wacey said.

“I'M NOT A DOGGIE!” Lucy yelled back, arching up on her feet with her chubby arms curled under her chin while Sheridan fed her an invisible treat.

“What are you, then?”

“I'm not a doggie,” Lucy said, folding back down to her haunches.

 

Joe walked with
Wacey out to his pickup. Wacey stopped and stood in the dark before he got in. Wacey had brought an unopened beer with him and Joe heard the top being unscrewed.

“Joe, do you know how it's going to look when word gets out that you burned down Clyde Lidgard's trailer?”

“Another bonehead move,” Joe admitted, reaching into the bed of the pickup to see if his weapon was cool enough to touch. It was still warm. He tersely described what happened and said he couldn't understand how the fire had started. He left out the part about maybe seeing a Suburban.

“What a stroke of bad luck,” Wacey said, looking at the now-useless gun. “I bet Barnum's having a good laugh about it. By tomorrow half the town will know.”

Joe sighed. He couldn't believe he had lost his gun again.

Wacey took a swig of beer. “Are you sure this is something you ought to be pursuing?”

“Ote Keeley died in my woodpile. That makes it kind of personal. And to me the pieces just don't quite fit.”

“What in particular?”

Joe rubbed his eyes. They stung from the fire. “Oh, I don't know. I guess I can't convince myself that Clyde Lidgard just up and shot three men for no clear reason and then stayed in their camp until we found him. And I don't know why Ote Keeley came all of the way to my backyard to die.”

“Joe ...” Wacey's voice sounded high-pitched and pained, as if he were losing patience. “Clyde Lidgard was a fucking nut. You can't explain a nut. That's why he's a nut. Just let it go.”

“You sound like Barnum and everybody else.”

“Maybe he's right for once,” Wacey said. Joe could see the pale blue reflection of the moon on the bottom of Wacey's beer bottle as Wacey lifted it to his mouth. “Trust me, Joe. It's been investigated. Everyone's satisfied. We're just Game and Fish guys. Guts and Feathers, as our critics like to say. We aren't detectives. People think we're nothing more than glorified animal control officers. Don't be a lone ranger here. You'll just embarrass the department and get yourself in more trouble, if
that's
possible.”

Joe absently kicked the dirt with his toe and looked down.

“And you never know,” Wacey said, “you might find a bad guy and then reach down only to remember that you lost your damn pistol again.” Joe could tell Wacey was smiling at him in the dark.

“You've made your point,” Joe answered sourly.

“Just go on up with your cute little family and have a nice vacation at the Eagle Mountain Club,” Wacey suggested. “Besides, hunting season's just about to get hot and heavy, and you're going to be busy as hell. We both are.”

“Maybe so,” Joe said.

“That's what you say when you really don't agree but you don't want to discuss it anymore,” Wacey commented. “I know you pretty good, Joe. You can be a stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Maybe so,” Joe said. Wacey grunted, and the two men stood in silence. Billowing dark clouds were low and moving fast through the sky, painting black brush strokes over stars.

“Why don't you and Arlene stay at Kensinger's?”

Wacey snorted. “Arlene's idea of high class is eighty television channels. She wouldn't exactly appreciate that place the way Marybeth would. Besides, Arlene might find a sock of mine under the bed.”

Joe nodded, though he wasn't sure he could be seen in the dark.

“I'm going to work one more week before I declare my candidacy,” Wacey said after a long silence. “I'm trying for a leave of absence with the state, but if I don't get it, I'll have to quit.”

“What if you don't win?” Joe asked.

“I'm going to win,” Wacey said, confident as always.

“But what if you don't?”

Wacey laughed and drained his bottle, then flipped it into the back of Joe's pickup where it would rattle around tomorrow. “Hell, I don't know. I haven't given it any thought at all. Maybe I'll go back to riding bulls for a living.”

Wacey opened his truck door, and they looked at each other in the glow from the dome light.

“I'm not kidding you, Joe,” Wacey said, climbing in. “Leave this outfitter business be. Just go back to work and have a fun vacation with your family. You've got one hell of a family, and one hell of a wife.”

Wacey slammed the door, and they were in darkness again. Wacey started his pickup and the headlights bathed the peeling paint of the garage door.

Joe listened to gravel crunch and watched Wacey's tail-lights recede down Bighorn Road.

Marybeth was suddenly beside him, and it startled him. He hadn't heard her come outside.

“We seem to be on a lucky streak,” she said, looping her arm through his. “First the job offer and now the Eagle Mountain Club.”

“I might have broken that streak this afternoon,” Joe said.

“What's bothering you?” Marybeth asked. “You didn't exactly get excited when Wacey told you about it.”

“I am excited,” Joe said flatly. “You and the kids will probably love it. And your mom, of course.”

She tugged on his arm playfully. “So what's the problem?”

He started to say “nothing,” but she anticipated it and tugged on his arm again. He didn't want to mention burning down the trailer and losing his gun. Still, that wasn't the problem.

“I guess I just feel bad that we live in such a dump that house-sitting seems like a vacation.”

“Oh, Joe,” Marybeth said, giving him a hug. “We both know this won't last forever.”

 

Joe opened his
mail while Marybeth got ready for bed. The mail was mostly junk, but there were several envelopes from headquarters in Cheyenne. There were two departmental memos, one about avoiding overtime and the other about making sure that original receipts were sent along with expense reports because credit card receipts could no longer be accepted.

When he opened the third envelope and read the letter it contained, he froze. It was written in terse bureaucratic prose and he read it three times before it sunk in. He blew a short, hard breath out through his nose in exasperation as he resisted the urge to tear the letter into tiny pieces.

“What is it?” Marybeth asked from behind a washcloth.

“Headquarters,” Joe said dryly. “I've got to appear in Cheyenne on Friday for a hearing.”

Marybeth stopped washing and listened.

“They're investigating the incident when Ote Keeley took my gun from me. They call it ‘alleged negligence with a department-issued sidearm.' It says here that I could get suspended from the field.”

Joe read the letter a fourth time to himself.

“Why now?” Marybeth asked. “That happened months ago.”

“The state works in geological time,” Joe said. “You know that.”

“Those bastards,” she hissed. She rarely said anything like that, and Joe looked up. “Just when things were going so well.”

E) (1) Establishment of Committee

There is established a committee to be known as the Endangered Species Committee (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Committee”).

(2) The Committee shall review any application submitted to it pursuant to this section and determine in accordance with subsection (h) or this section whether or not to grant an exemption from the requirements of subsection (a) (2) of this action for the action set forth in such application.

(3) The Committee shall be composed of seven members as follows:

(A) The Secretary of Agriculture.

(B) The Secretary of the Army.

(C) The Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.

(D) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

(E) The Secretary of the Interior.

(F) The Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(G) The Governor of each affected State.