The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 (38 page)

When he returned from Izzy's after lunch, Mrs. Hamlin had been into the office and talked to Rooster again and John felt the return of that prickle on the back of his neck.

The Snake River bordered Callister County on one side, separating Idaho from Oregon. Though it was not the ideal steelhead fishing river, fishermen nevertheless flocked to it. Leaving Rooster to mind the office, John drove the sixty miles to check it out and followed the same procedure as the day before on the Payette—asking questions of fishermen and merchants, driving the back roads along the river.

Nothing.

He gave up at dark and turned the Blazer toward Callister. As he drove, a feeling of helplessness and inadequacy washed over him, reminding him of his lack of qualifications for the job he had committed to do. Two weeks of sheriff's school did not a detective make. Oh, sure, he could run the office and play the politics with his hands tied behind his back, but that wasn't police work. Yep, he had to take that job with the rope manufacturing company and leave law enforcement to the qualified.

Rooster was working at his computer when John arrived at the office early Wednesday morning. "Any luck on Frank?" the deputy wanted to know first thing.

John shook his head, fearing his voice would reveal the concern growing inside him. Court would convene at ten and having spent two days on two rivers, he wasn't prepared. Embarrassing himself with Judge Morrison went beyond annoying.

Rooster left his desk and followed John into his office. "Well, the Fish and Game Department might not be worried about Frank, but that ain't true about Mae. She came in again after you left yesterday. She looks like she ain't slept in a week. I told her you were checking on him. I tried not to upset her any more than she already is."

John plopped his hat on top of the filing cabinet behind his desk and sank into his chair. In the last two days he had done more than check on Frank. He had covered miles of remote territory. And in the mountains of Idaho, "remote" wasn't an adequate word to describe the isolation and wildness of Callister County's pristine geography that was inhabited mostly by wildlife. "Where the hell could he be, Rooster? I've looked in every canyon I could drive to along the rivers."

"I don't know, John, but being out of touch six days is a long time, even for a man who's used to doing it."

As John contemplated his own question, someone entered the office and Rooster walked out to meet the visitor, closing the door behind him. A few minutes later he came back. "John T?"

John looked up. Instead of leaning his shoulder on the doorjamb where he usually posted himself, the deputy was standing in front of the desk, his face bleached white. A dart of anxiety stabbed John's stomach. "What is it?"

The deputy glanced back toward the outer office and whispered, "There's a guy out here says he found a body."

For a few seconds John drew a total blank. "As in dead?"

Rooster nodded.

A thud in his chest drove John to his feet. "Shit. Get him in here."

The short, stout man who followed Rooster into John's office could be thirty-five to forty-five and his face, like Rooster's, showed an ashen tint. John put out his right hand. "Sheriff John Bradshaw. You say you found a body?"

The stranger shook hands. "George Powell. It's buried except for a hand and a foot. I didn't touch anything."

Suddenly the room seemed colder despite the rustle of the antiquated furnace. John hiked up his pants in an effort to look like a man who knew what to do next. "Where'd you find it?"

"Me and my brother were fishing on the Snake. He stumbled across it upriver from that big concrete boat launch."

A quick picture of the county geography flashed in John's mind. He had been at the big boat launch just yesterday. He stalled, waiting for the next question he needed to ask to come to him. "Uh, can you be more specific?"

"About ten miles above the dam. My brother went up into the trees to take a leak and—"

John stopped him, grabbed a note pad and pen and handed them to the stranger. "Draw me a picture."

The stranger took the pen and pad, but hesitated. "I don't think I can draw a map, but I can take you back there. My brother stayed, watching out."

John shot a glance toward Rooster. The deputy's eyebrows were drawn into a woeful tent and his teeth were clamped down on his lower lip. "We'll meet you outside," he told the stranger.

As soon as Powell left his office, John turned to Rooster. "Get your hat and coat."

He yelled for Dana. The dispatcher came into the office pale-faced and wide-eyed. That she had been eavesdropping was a foregone conclusiion. "Rooster and I are going out," John told her. "We might be out of touch, so get that retired guy to come in and man the office."

He didn't have to say the retired guy was the backup deputy. She nodded. "And Dana—this is not yet public information."

She nodded again. Despite the admonition, John knew that by the end of the day everybody in Callister County would know the sheriff's office was investigating a dead body.

Outside, the stranger strode to a battered Dodge Caravan where a dark German shepherd the size of a yearling filled the passenger seat. It went on alert, fidgeting as John passed.

Flatlanders
, he thought with disgust. No dedicated fisherman would take a big dog on a fishing trip.

He and Rooster climbed into the Blazer and followed the Caravan out of the courthouse parking lot. As the Dodge raced up the highway at over eighty miles an hour, John pushed the old Blazer to keep up. From the corner of his eye, John could see Rooster pressed into the corner, hanging on to the dash with one hand and the seat back with the other.

"Who do you think it is, John T?"

"No clue," John answered, but that strange tickle wouldn't leave the back of his neck.

Chapter 25

Seventy miles of crooked highway at high speed was enough to shut Rooster's mouth for the rest of the trip. Finally, the maroon Caravan turned off onto a dirt two-track and continued on, traveling too fast for the rugged road. The county's aged Blazer rattled behind it, bouncing over small boulders and climbing out of erosion ditches that had cut furrows across the dirt surface.

They soon saw a man John assumed to be Powell's brother. The Caravan slowed and stopped. John brought the Blazer to a halt behind the Dodge. His stomach kinked as he anticipated the coming minutes. They all climbed out into the sunshine, but John shivered.

Powell introduced his brother, Weldon, then hauled the German shepherd out of the van and hooked a leash onto its collar. Rooster walked a wary circle around the energetic dog.

"Show me the body," John said, unable to divert his attention to anything else, even the dog.

As George Powell and his brother set out uphill, John unsnapped the strap that secured the pistol he had fired at uncountable paper targets but never in the line of duty. He didn't expect to need it, but it seemed like a good idea to keep it handy as possible.

They hiked in a straight line up a thirty percent grade. The German shepherd lunged ahead against the leash. For two short men, the Powell brothers covered a lot of ground in a hurry. John had to hustle to keep up. With every stride a sense of dread built in his chest.

Rooster tagged behind, audibly struggling for breath. "Lord, John T., I've got a bad feeling about this."

The mother of all understatement. John didn't reply.

The trek took them to a four-strand barbed wire fence that had been cut, and to trespassing on the Double Deuce Ranch. Drawing a welcome deep breath after the fast uphill hike, John glared at the brother named Weldon. "You cut this fence?"

"I found it like that," he answered defensively, then added, "I didn't touch anything."

As they approached a stand of fir, a distinct septic odor permeated the air, masking all other smells. John recognized it instantly as a dead-animal smell.

The shepherd went nuts, whimpering and barking and pulling at the leash. Powell yanked it back and they moved forward. Fifty feet inside the trees, the man stopped and pointed. "It's over there."

John's gaze traveled forward from the end of the stranger's finger to the toe of a black boot and bloated human fingers protruding from the loose soil. Along with a breathtaking odor, the silence hummed with a million flies swarming the area and covering the fingers. "Jesus Christ," John mumbled as an icicle skittered up his spine.

Rooster backed up and buried his head behind a syringa bush, retching and choking.

John's mind darted everywhere at once. Unbidden, Frank Hamlin's wife leaped to the forefront. Grappling for composure, he pointed at the excited dog. "Get that damn dog outta here."

George Powell dragged his dog over to an out-of-the-way bush and tied it.

From the looks of the torn-up ground, a digging varmint had exposed the boot and fingers, then got scared off—or dragged off. "Your dog been up here?" he asked George Powell.

"Hell, no," the stranger said from behind him. "When we're out like this, I keep her on a leash."

John made a mental note of that lie as Rooster came up for air, eyes tearing, face red. A wet stain showed on the front of his shirt. Both Powell brothers leveled a look at the deputy that was somewhere between confusion and contempt.

John remembered even less than usual of what he had learned in sheriff's school. Not expecting to ever use most of the information that had been imparted, he hadn't paid close attention in the first place. But he did recall it was his duty to protect a crime scene. Deep down he wondered if any evidence present was already tainted beyond use.

"Rooster," John said, "go on back to the rig and—"

Before John finished, the deputy started down the hill.

"Find some of that yellow ribbon," John yelled, "and bring it back." He hoped Rooster had watched as many TV crime shows as he, John, had and knew what yellow ribbon he meant.

The Powell brothers watched him with eagle eyes.

John thumbed his hat back. At the moment, the two brothers were his only suspects. He questioned them at length, learned they lived in Boise and were employed by Hewlett-Packard.

Before he finished his questions, Rooster returned, panting and carrying a thick roll of inch-wide, hot-pink fluorescent ribbon. Surveyor's tape.

"This is all I could find, John. There ain't any of that yellow stuff."

John grabbed the roll. Muttering some of his most creative expletives, he set about marking a perimeter around the crude grave, looping the ribbon around trees and tying it to bushes.

"Aren't you supposed to rope off two perimeters?"

John gave Powell an arch look.

Powell lifted a shoulder. "I saw it on TV."

The guy could be right, for all John remembered, but he didn't have enough ribbon to span that far anyway, so he ignored him. He ended the task when he ran out of ribbon.

He also knew he had to get the coroner on the scene. He unclipped his cell phone, but was met with a no service message.
Shit
. "Rooster, I'm going down to the Blazer to use the radio. You stay here. Don't touch anything inside that tape. And I mean
nothing."

Feeling more in control, he looked at the stranger. "You, Mister Powell, take that dog outta here and you and your brother stay in your van 'til I tell you different."

Powell pursed his mouth, jerked the German shepherd's leash from the branch where he had tied it and he and his brother stalked down the hill.

"You sure you don't want me to do the radioing, John?"

That he didn't want, so he ignored the deputy and headed for the Blazer.

"You think whoever done this could still be around here?" Rooster called from behind him.

"Keep it together, Rooster," John yelled without breaking his stride.
Forgodsake, keep it together.
"Whoever did this is in Canada by now."

Or Mexico. Or, hell, maybe Europe.

As John reached the Blazer, it came to him he should be taking notes and photographing evidence. He had seen a Polaroid camera in the Blazer's cargo hold once. He rummaged, came up with it and discovered it actually had film. In the jockey box, he found a pocket-sized spiral notepad. Beyond that, all he could think of was calling for help.