Back of Beyond (15 page)

Hell, he thought, if things worked out like he planned them,
he’d
be the one getting catered to.

10

Gracie got Strawberry, a light red
roan mare with dapples of white on her sides and haunches that had the effect of making her look like a pink horse. After sitting on Strawberry’s back for fifteen minutes as the long train of riders wound up out of the parking lot into the trees on the rocky trail, Gracie knew one thing for sure: she was in love.

Already she liked the sounds and rhythm of the ride; the heavy footfalls of the animals, their snorts, the rocking motion, even the smell of them. And she was thrilled with that big-eyed look Strawberry gave her when the old mare turned her head back and seemed to assess Gracie with a practiced eye, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

“I like you, too,” Gracie whispered, leaning forward in her saddle to pat Strawberry on the neck. “I like you, too. We’re a good team, I think.”

“What—are you talking to your horse?” Danielle said over her shoulder as she rode ahead. “Don’t be kissing him, now.”

“It’s a her,” Gracie said. “And you
should
talk to your horse. That’s one way to get her to like you.”

“What’s mine?” Danielle said. “I forgot. I know the name is Peanut.”

Said Gracie, “You’re riding a gelding.” She’d overheard Jed the outfitter and Dakota Hill brief her sister on Peanut and his particular tendencies, the worst of which was to take every opportunity available to grab a bite of grass from the side of the trail. “You know what a gelding is, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Danielle said. “He’s a unit.”

“A
eunuch,
” Gracie corrected.

“Right,” Danielle said, “a horse with no balls. A Peanut with a limp penis. Just great.”

“You wouldn’t want a stallion,” Gracie said. “They have only one thing on their minds.”

“I’m used to boys like that.”

“I know you are.”

“Shut up,”
Danielle said. “Just because you took some lessons you act like you’re an expert.”

“I’m not,” Gracie said. “But I wish you would have gone to those lessons with me like I asked you. I learned a lot, and you would have, too. If nothing else, you could have listened to Jed and Dakota tell you about him. I don’t know how you get by never listening to anyone.”

“Yet somehow I do,” Danielle said, looking over her shoulder, smiling seductively, and batting her eyelashes.

Gracie rolled her eyes.

From behind her, Gracie heard Dakota Hill say, “S’cuse me while I puke.”

Gracie giggled and looked around. Dakota was leading her three mules and mumbling to herself, and acted embarrassed that Gracie had heard her. Gracie winked. Dakota grinned and winked back, obviously relieved they had something in common.

Gracie wondered what the deal was with Jed and Dakota, if they were an item. She’d seen how they talked with each other at the horse trailer.

Yes, she decided. They were a couple, even if Jed was too old for her. Maybe, Gracie thought, there weren’t many choices of men in Montana.

*   *   *

The order of the riders,
horses, and mules was established in the parking lot by Jed. Once everyone was mounted, he’d explained that the reason for the order of riders was not based on merit or preference, but by how the horses behaved with each other.

“If you want to change the order,” he said, “we can maybe work it out at some point. We may find we want to change things up as well to keep the peace. But right now, just memorize the look of the rider’s butt and the horse’s butt ahead of you and follow those butts. Horses have an established pecking order. They also have friends and enemies. We know these horses better than we know you folks at this point, so trust us on this. Safety first, folks. If you change up the order you increase the chance of a wreck.”

*   *   *

Gracie rode next to last on Strawberry.
When Jed handed her the reins of the pink horse, he told Gracie the animal was a sweetheart and “Don’t have an ounce of mean in her anymore if she ever did.” Strawberry was older than Gracie, he said, and this may be her last trip before she was retired to be a brood mare. All Strawberry required, Jed said, was kindness and she’d pay Gracie back with loyalty and predictability. “You look like a nice girl,” Jed had said.

“Most of the time,” Gracie answered.

“You’ve ridden a little?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” she said.

He gave her a paternalistic smile. “We’ll see,” he said.

11

Cody Hoyt said, “So, do you
have a headlight that will work?”

It was ten thirty in the morning and the mechanic leaned against a rolling, red-metal standing tool chest and drank a cup of coffee. Above his head was a Snap-On Tools calendar featuring a blonde winking while holding a wrench. The little garage was dark and close and smelled of oil and gasoline. Dust motes floated through the shafts of light from the cloudy windows. The mechanic wore gray coveralls and a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation cap. He was short and wiry with deep-set eyes and short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He’d shaved but had missed a triangle of whiskers above his Adam’s apple. Cody had waited for him outside the shop for an hour while the mechanic had leisurely morning coffee with other locals at the diner next door.

“I might have one,” the mechanic said, “depending on your attitude.”

Cody nearly launched himself across the floor at the guy, but managed to take a deep breath and look away. Orange spangles danced around the edges of his vision. He wanted to flash his badge or show his gun. He wanted to put the mechanic in a sleeper hold and threaten his eyes with pepper spray—anything to get the guy moving. He
hated
being a civilian. And he hated the fact that he had to operate below the radar and on his own. If he’d told the trooper the night before where he was going and why, the patrolman would have been duty bound to call it in and check the story. Cody couldn’t afford to have the sheriff know he was gone, and Townsend was close enough to Helena that Bodean might send someone to get him and bring him back. So, gritting his teeth against his nature, he’d followed the trooper back to town and nodded meekly when ordered to “Park it.”

If he leaned on the mechanic the trooper would come back and he might never get out of Townsend, Montana, population 1,898.

“Look,” Cody said, “just please put your other jobs aside long enough to wire in a new headlight.”

The mechanic eyed Cody with a squint, sizing him up. Waiting for more groveling, Cody imagined.

“I’ve been here all night,” Cody said. “The trooper said you’re the only mechanic in town right now. I’m really desperate to get on the road and he won’t let me go until I’ve got a headlight that works.”

Finally, the mechanic said, “I doubt I can match the headlight. I might have to order one out of Helena or White Sulpher Springs—”

Cody broke in, “It doesn’t have to look pretty. It doesn’t even have to
fit
. It just has to light up.”

*   *   *

The morning was cool and sunny
and there were no pedestrians on the street. The Commercial Bar across the road was open, as it always was. Cody watched as a ranch truck parked at the curb and a beat-up old cowboy got out and went in for his breakfast beer. He wore irrigation boots and a sweat-stained straw hat.
Jesus,
he thought,
a breakfast beer
.

As he walked he thought of Justin, and his stomach turned sour. Therefore, he
had
to keep it going. He
had
to find his son and keep that going. He owed the world the favor.

*   *   *

He pulled out his cell
and speed-dialed Larry’s extension.

“Olson.”

“Larry, it’s me.”

There was a beat before Larry cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me, what did you say your name was?”

“Come on, Larry.”

“And you’re with what company again?”

“Ah,” Cody said, “Bodean’s in the room. Got it.”

“Yes,” Larry said, clipped.

“Can’t talk?”

“No. How did you get this number?”

“I’ll call back on your cell, then.”

Larry said, “I don’t purchase toner or anything else for the office, lady. I’m a detective for the sheriff’s department, for crying out loud. I’ve got important work to do.” And slammed his phone down.

*   *   *

Cody called back three minutes
later to find out Larry’s cell phone had been turned off.

Cody closed his phone, puzzled. Larry
never
turned off his phone. So either Bodean was still in the room or something else was going on. What?

Cody’s phone went off. He looked at the display. It was an unknown number but had the Montana 406 area code.

“Yes,” Cody said.

“Me,” Larry said. By the background traffic noises from Larry’s cell, Cody guessed his partner had taken a walk outside.

“Don’t call me on my cell or the office number again,” Larry said. “They don’t know you’re gone. There can’t be a record of calls between us on either phone. And if they ask me if I’ve heard from you, I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t lie for you, Cody.”

“I understand. So what is this phone you’re using?”

“You know, it’s one I borrowed,” Larry stammered.

“You’re learning.” Cody smiled to himself. He remembered the afternoon when he showed Larry how many phones there were in the evidence room, each tagged for specific cases. Some still had a battery charge left. He’d told Larry how, down in Denver, he’d used confiscated phones to make calls that couldn’t be traced back to him and sometimes, to aggravate a criminal, he’d call random numbers in Bolivia and Ecuador just to run up astronomical phone charges.

“So, where are you?” Larry asked.

Cody sighed. “I made it as far as Townsend and an HP trooper picked me up and marched me back to town for that fucking missing headlight.”

Larry laughed. “Townsend? That’s all the further you got? You’re
kidding
.”

“So I spent the night bouncing off the walls of the Lariat Motor Lodge. I’d recommend it only because it’s probably the last place in America that still has black-and-white TVs in the rooms and bedspreads that remind you of your grandmother’s house.”

“You should have stayed home,” Larry said.

Cody grunted, “No way. I’ll be back on the road in a few minutes.”

Larry sighed.

“Have you heard anything back from ViCAP or RMIN?”

“Sort of,” Larry said. “RMIN is running the police reports from the most recent victim in Jackson Hole and they’ll be getting back to me. The case was classified as an accident but it sounds, well, real familiar. A woman named Karen Anthony, forty-six, divorced and living alone, was found dead in her home outside of Wilson. Same deal, Cody. Her place was burned down around her and she was found the next day underneath the debris. Head injuries the likely cause of death.”

Cody said, “Anything like what we’ve got in terms of an open stove, or the bottle?”

“Nope. The evidence so far doesn’t match up to ours. But the circumstances of the death ring true.”

Cody walked down the empty sidewalk, pacing. He noticed a face watching him from the window of the Commercial Bar. It was the cowboy he’d seen enter earlier. The man tipped his hat and took a deep drink from a beer mug as if to taunt him. The cowboy was drinking a red beer—spiced tomato juice and Bud Light. Cody used to start the day with one. Its properties were magical.

“Bastard,” Cody said.

“What?” Larry asked.

“Not you. What did Karen Anthony do? What was her job?”

“Let’s see,” Larry said. “Okay, here. She was an independent hospital consultant. Had her own firm, and apparently a pretty successful one. She had an office in Jackson and one in Denver, Minneapolis, and Omaha.”

Cody rubbed his face. “One of the victims was from Minnesota, right? Is there a connection there?”

“I don’t know. We’re too early in this thing. I’ve got a telephone meeting scheduled with an analyst at ViCAP later today so maybe we’ll be able to establish a link of some kind. The only thing I can figure, obviously, is Winters was a pharma guy and Karen Anthony was a hospital consultant. So maybe they worked together somehow or knew each other. But it’ll take a hell of a lot more digging.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “We still don’t know anything about the Minnesota and Virginia deaths. They could be connected to these two or not. ViCAP might be able to help with that.”

Larry said, “And Cody, nothing really connects Winters and Anthony yet except for the burned-down houses and the proximity of the dates. This thread is so thin.…”

“I know,” Cody said. “Keep me posted, okay? My cell should work all day until I get to Yellowstone.”

“So you’re still going,” Larry said.

“Damn right. Hey—did you get in touch with Jed McCarthy’s office yet?”

Larry paused while a diesel vehicle passed him, the engine hammering away. Then: “I’ve left two more messages to call me.”

Cody stopped. “You haven’t asked the Bozeman PD to roust it? Come on, Larry!”

Silence. Then it dawned on Cody but Larry spoke before he had a chance to apologize.

“You asshole,” Larry said. “You were supposed to be at that office when it opened. You weren’t supposed to be playing with yourself in fucking Townsend, Montana. And how would it have been for you if you showed up at Wilderness Adventures at the same time as the local cops? Don’t you think they’d ask questions? Don’t you think they’d figure out real damned quick you were a suspended detective and call up here and talk to Tub?”

“I know,” Cody said, “I’m sorry. You’re thinking clearly and I’m not. Thank you, Larry.”

“I’m tired of doing you favors,” Larry said.

“I know. I don’t blame you.”

“You are an unthinking prick sometimes,” Larry said.

“Okay,”
Cody hissed, “I’ve got the point.”

“Good,” Larry said with finality.