The Wild Inside (13 page)

“Animals?” Monty asked surprised. “You mean incidents of animal cruelty?”

Megan shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Since he was young?” Monty asked again and this time, unlike when we questioned Penny Lance and he chimed in, I was slightly taken back and irritated to hear him questioning Megan—to know he was somewhat of a participant, a poacher in the waters into which I was casting. Instead of feeling like a productive mentor, I felt a stitch of resentment rise inside of me, and the only possible explanation I could conjure was that Monty had defended Ford in the car. Not obnoxiously, just enough to add some edge, just a tiny minnow of an intrusion in already crowded waters. I shoved the twinge down because I knew I was being irrational. I refocused on Monty’s question, which also irritated me, especially since Megan was about to tell us about a particular incident, and Monty was leading her to the more general—away from the specifics, a no-no in police inquiry. But still, I was curious. His question was pertinent to understanding Victor Lance. If he was abusive to animals as a youngster, it could indicate that he was a potential sociopath.

“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing like that. It’s, it’s just some
thing I heard lately. You have to understand that Victor was an angry and confused kid, especially after our dad left.”

I nodded. “Your father split when you were pretty young?”

“Yeah, he moved to Washington when I was about eight or nine.” She came over and sat back down. “We stayed with him some when we were little. After he moved, we rarely saw him after that. Victor was pretty hurt when he left, went into a sort of depression for a long time. I remember when he was little, he used to be really good at spelling. Loved to study the dictionary even and always used to win the school spelling bees, but after our dad left, he quit trying in school completely and my mom couldn’t get him to spell a word for her, even for fun, after that.”

“Victor and your father were close?” I asked, giving in to the line Monty had taken us down.

“I guess.” Megan shrugged indifferently, but her eyes showed something akin to fervor. “As close as you could get to a guy like my father.” Now that we’d gotten her going I sensed that she could go on, resentment now eclipsing the fond memory that had risen. “I guess that would explain Victor’s mean gene. My dad was no picnic either. Hot-tempered and hated certain groups of people. Catholics, Jews, Arabs, black people, liberals, you name it.” She laughed bitterly. “Christ, he’d never even met an Arab or a Jew, and you could count the number of blacks on one hand who live in this town, so I have no idea what there was to hate. As it is, the whole friggin’ area’s an advertisement to the Aryan Nation.”

“So, Megan”—I needed to rein this in—“what was it that you heard involving animals?”

“Well, that’s what I was getting to when you brought my father into it.” She sounded like an upset child, irritated by my question. She relit the cigarette I had snuffed out, sat back, and held it to her young lips, plump and now pouty. “Last spring, there was an incident with a dog at the mouth of the canyon, near Columbia Mountain turnoff.” She pointed her cigarette out the window, in the direction of the canyon,
where the Flathead River cuts through. “It was written up in the local paper. Someone had tied the poor thing, a Lab or something, by its leash to a fence post, then beat the shit out of it with a bat. I remember being disgusted, but not thinking anything more of it.”

“Uh huh.” I gestured for her to continue.

“Then in July, I ran into my brother’s longtime buddy, Daniel. They’ve been friends since elementary school.”

“Your mom mentioned him.”

“Anyway, we had a few beers together and he brought Vic up. Said he was worried about him using again. I had said, ‘What’s new,’ but he said he heard something strange. Said he’d heard from another mutual friend of theirs, Rick Pyles, that my brother and another guy were the ones that beat this poor dog. That they’d been trippin’ out of their minds.”

“Do you remember who the owner of the dog was?”

“No, but it was in the paper, so you could look it up.”

“Did the dog die?”

“Eventually. The article said he was taken to a vet, and they put him out of his misery.”

“How did you leave it with Daniel?”

“Nothing really. What was there for us to do?”

“Did you talk of doing something about it, going to the cops or talking to your brother?”

“Yeah, we discussed it. But we weren’t positive it was Vic. Just hearsay, you know. And going to him would only piss him off. I did tell my mom about it, but she said that it was just talk and that she knew he would never do something like that. She begged me not to spread such lies.”

I remembered Penny Lance’s look when we were done talking and actually, I had a pretty good idea that she at least suspected her son had changed enough, perhaps because of the meth, to possess the potential to do something like that.

“Thank you, Megan, we’ve taken up enough of your time and you’ve been a great help.”

“What’s next?” she asked.

“We just keep plodding along, asking questions. We may need to ask you more, but for today, that’s enough.” I stood up.

She crushed her cigarette out, stood, and walked us to the door. She seemed stronger than when we had come in, as if our questions, or rather her answers, were some form of sustenance.

8

“
B
EAT THE SHIT
out of a black Lab.” Monty winced, then made his signature whistle when we returned to the car. The whistle didn’t bother me; I was sort of expecting it now, like the regular chime of a clock.

“Sounds like our victim definitely pissed some people off.”

“I’d say so,” Monty said dryly. “I think I remember reading about that in the paper. Nice guy, huh?”

“A real love bug.” We learn early that it’s best to never sympathize with the victim, to never get emotionally drawn in over any factor at all, even if the victim was a child. But honestly, when the victim was a creep, staying neutral was definitely much easier. The danger of going too far the other way, not caring at all and even feeling contempt, was equally ill advised. Both extremes invited miscalculations and misjudgments. “I’ll get Monica on the news article, and we’ll pay a visit to the treating vet and the owner of the dog. Right now, I want to speak to Lou. With his cabin being closest to the crime scene, there might be something there.” I looked at my watch. I’d definitely be working very late.

“And what do you think about the animal thing?”

“Could be something there. It’s hard to say. If the owner of the dog found out who did it, I mean, it fits with the teaching-him-a-lesson thing. Sweet revenge. Tying him to a tree for any wild animal to give him what he deserves?”

“But what about the gunshot? If you were going to let him get tortured by wild animals, why kill him?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t quite square. Unless you went back to check, saw
that no animal had gotten him yet, so you shot him. Then as luck would have it, that animal comes along anyway.”

“It fits,” Monty said. “I know people love their animals, but would anyone go to such lengths and kill someone over it?”

“People kill over much less. I worked on a case where the guy killed his buddy over a motorcycle that they’d both worked on. And it wasn’t even a Harley, some piece-of-shit Honda. But, thing is, it’s always best to stick with the most straightforward explanation.”

Monty looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

“This meth business, right?”

He nodded.

“It’s the most obvious thing, and no denying that the meth world is one messed-up place. ’Course you know that excessive users are prone to paranoia, violence . . . schizophrenia. Yeah.” I nodded. “Twisting this into some kind of animal cruelty situation would probably be a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we won’t check it out.” I looked out the window at the pines interspersed with the bright golden tamaracks on the hillsides against a milky, fading sky that scattered a dull, pointless light, one that suggested a lack of grace, meaning, or purpose. It was the thing I hated most about Montana, the endless gray throughout so many months of the year, as if it were mocking my inability to stay buoyant and content. “Whoever got him out there must have used the gun to do it, and trying to secure tape while holding a gun to someone’s head would be tough. It’s definitely plausible that this was more than a one-man job.”

“But doable for one.”

I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. I answered anyway, “I suppose,” I said. “Doable.”

• • •

Monty looked up Lou’s address on his laptop, and on the way to the Shelton cabin we made a quick stop at headquarters to get a printout
from Monica on the dealer, an Andrew Stimpson, which she rounded up from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Two years before, the ATF sent in an undercover agent to work the area because there’d been a major methamphetamine ring running between Spokane, Washington, and the Flathead Valley. At its height, about twenty-five people were involved in trafficking the drug. Eventually, twelve residents, five from the Flathead Valley in Kalispell and seven from the Hungry Horse and Coram area, were convicted and are still serving anywhere from sixty to two hundred months in prison. That left the newbies in the area, like Stimpy, to play around with developing their own connections, and the police didn’t fully have a good feel for which way the newbies might swing. Whether they’d be bringing it in from Washington again or setting up shop and manufacturing more from small-time homegrown operations. Monica found Stimpson in the regional drug-task-force intelligence database with only one offense: he’d been busted for disturbing the peace outside a bar and had dope on him. He was suspected of dealing within the Spokane importation ring, but they had no proof, so he was free as a bird.

When I walked in, Joe came out to greet me, a serious expression on his face, and with no apparent reason, an undertow of anxiety tugged at me. “What’s up?” I asked.

“We’ve got the bear.”

I nodded, felt my stomach grip, my breathing quicken, and even my palms felt immediately slippery. “You’re kidding? So soon?”

“He was hanging around the McGee area. Maybe thought someone else would turn up dead. Went right to the concoction—a savory little mixture of fermented cow’s blood and rotten fish.”

“Has anyone found any of his scat?”

“Not yet. We’re hopeful, though. No one wants to cut this guy open. He’s a beauty, very healthy. He’s put on his hyperphagic weight, probably close to seven hundred pounds. We’re checking his DNA with the saliva found on the victim to be absolutely positive that he’s the right one.”

I took a deep breath, felt the incoming air fight to expand laterally against my tightly bound ribs. It was such a simple thing—the bear crapping the bullet out—that it seemed too easy. I hoped that’s all it would take. I didn’t want to be in a position to ask the park’s bear committee to have him cut open. Besides the outside chance that we might find other pieces of clothing belonging to the victim in the bear’s gut, plucking the bullet out of a pile of scat with some tweezers certainly was the simplest solution. And looking at Joe, with his experience and fatherly advice flickering in his dark eyes, it all seemed like it could work out. “I don’t want to euthanize him either, Joe. But it still doesn’t solve the problem that he’s fed on human remains.”

“I know, but hopefully we get the bullet without drastic measures. Bears drink tons of water as they near hibernation to help with elimination, so we’ll make sure he’s got more than enough.”

I nodded but could see a tenseness in Joe’s face. “Something else?” I asked.

“Actually, yes,” he said. “Can you come into my office?”

I glanced at my watch. I didn’t want to be rude, but time seemed to be flying away from me at warp speed.

“It’ll only take a moment.”

I followed him, in some ways relieved to have a plan in place with the bear, but still felt a strong undercurrent tugging at me. When I entered, I saw Joe’s daughter sitting in one of his desk chairs. Joe motioned for me to take a seat. “Remember Heather?”

“Of course.” I held out my hand to her before sitting, hoping my palms were less moist now. She was wearing a lightweight tan coat and had on a dark green scarf knotted around her neck. She gave me a closed-lip smile that seemed genuine. “Nice to see you again.”

“Likewise.” She shook my hand, her grip light.

“So what’s going on?”

“It’s in this morning’s paper. You seen it?” He nodded to the copy of the local daily news on his desk.

“Yeah.” I picked up the copy and quickly glanced at the small article. “Exactly as I’d expect Ford to handle it.” I set the paper down and flicked it with my finger. “Hardly gave any information at all.”

Joe nodded, still looking tense, the muscles in his jaw tight.

“So, what’s the problem, then?” I looked from daughter to father, took in their similarities—pale eyes and fair, weathered skin.

“Well.” His gaze stayed on Heather as he began. “When you met us earlier on our way to lunch, Heather had wanted to meet with me for a reason.”

I sat still.

“Turns out when she read the victim’s name in the paper, she was shocked because she knew the guy. In fact . . .” He looked down, picked up a pencil, and began rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. “This is sort of hard for me.” His voice sounded small, vulnerable, something I’d not witnessed before. Jack-of-all-trades, always-in-control ranger, who becomes chief of Park Police didn’t get weak. “I have another daughter.”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, glanced at my watch again; it was almost four p.m., and I wanted to get to Lou Shelton’s place.

“She’s been in and out of trouble with drugs since she was a teenager.” He rubbed his forehead. “She was even screwed up on meth for some time. Anyway, long story short, Heather came to tell me that she had dated this guy for over a year. I had no clue.” Joe shook his head.

Now Joe’s tenseness made sense. Leave it to family matters, the one thing that can drop a person to their knees. I looked at Heather, then back to Joe. “Your daughter’s name?”