Back of Beyond (44 page)

“I know all that, Bodean,” Cody said impatiently. “Now please shut up and listen. We’re doing this Larry’s way.”

Bodean took a deep breath and held it, then leaned forward. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Okay. Things started to go bad for me in Townsend when I left here. I got pulled over by the local cop and spent the night there, putting me a day behind I’ll never get back. Who knows how many lives might have been saved if I’d been able to get into Yellowstone and break up the pack trip before they left? I will always be haunted by that.

“It seemed odd to be picked up like I was,” he said. “I thought at the time the local cop might have received a tip of some kind, likely anonymous, to watch for my car. That’s when I first got the inkling maybe Larry was playing a double game with me. That for some reason—maybe for my own damned good—Larry wanted to slow me down. Save me from doing something stupid.”

Bodean nodded for him to continue.

“After that fire in my room in the hotel, I was even more sure it was Larry. It could have been the perfect death. Whoever did it knew me pretty well. Out of control, suspended, drunk alcoholic, disabled smoke alarm, smoking in bed. It would have been a slam-dunk accidental death. But for some reason I saw the fire and got out in time. No one saw who did it, and I never really thought it was Larry but maybe someone he sent.”

Cody noted the small beads of perspiration forming on Bodean’s upper lip. It wasn’t warm in the office.

“I realized in Bozeman someone was tracking my cell, so I smashed it. Of course, not just anybody can get the phone company to track a cell phone. Only law enforcement can do that, so again, it pointed to Larry—the only guy who knew where the hell I was or why I was going. I’ve since confirmed that the phone company had a request to track my cell phone and the request came from this office.”

Bodean’s voice cracked when he said, “That son of a bitch.”

Cody raised his eyebrows this time. “Yeah, that Larry,” he said with sarcasm. Then: “Later, in the park, I turned on my phone. There were five messages from Larry on it. I listened to them. They’re still on the phone, by the way. I could tell from what he was saying and his tone he was working on something big, that he’d found something huge. Now, if his intent was to steer me away from the pack trip, why would he keep investigating? Unless, of course, he was trying to completely mislead me. But that didn’t jibe with his tone. He was excited, and angry with me. He wanted to help me. Larry was my partner. I believed him.

“So I called back,” Cody said. “Someone picked up his cell phone from the briefcase sitting next to his desk. Larry said it wasn’t him because he was getting reamed out by the sheriff at the time right here in this chair. But you know what? He didn’t mention anyone else being in the room. And knowing Larry, he wouldn’t have left a detail like that out, because Larry didn’t leave out details.

“So someone heard my voice and knew I was alive and probably in the park. Any idea who that might have been?”

Bodean’s gaze was hard and steady. “It could have been anyone who picked up that phone. You’re on thin ice, Hoyt.”

Cody conceded that. “But it wasn’t just anyone, I don’t think, because what would just anyone have learned from my call? Only that I was calling Larry. Nothing else. Supposedly at that time no one knew about my trip south, or the fire.”

“I’m confused,” Bodean said.

“Sure you are,” Cody said. “So whoever picked up Larry’s phone knew that I was trying to reach him. And they knew if I was trying to reach him Larry would tell me what he’d discovered. That he’d spoken to the San Diego PD and so on. If someone was involved in the whole mess in Yellowstone, that wouldn’t be a good thing.

“I’m guessing Sheriff Tubman didn’t decide to suspend Larry on his own. I’m guessing maybe his undersheriff convinced him Larry was going rogue and withholding information about me, as well as what he was learning in his unauthorized investigation. It went right by me when Larry told me you became unhinged when you found out our investigation was pointing toward Yellowstone Park and Jed McCarthy’s outfit.”

Cody noticed Bodean’s hands were now two fists on the desk.

“When I gave my statement to the Park Service, I met Larry’s buddy Rick Doerring. Rick confirmed that Jed McCarthy had been around doing some kind of concession business when the interagency team assembled in Mammoth about that report of the disabled plane. Rick said the rumor mill was really cranking along, as usual. Then I remembered something Larry said to me in passing, and I’d almost completely forgotten about it.”

“What?” Bodean said.

“The sheriff sent
two
members of the department down to Yellowstone. Larry and you.”

Bodean swallowed hard but said nothing.

Cody said, “That’s where you met Jed McCarthy for the first time and learned about his pack trips. I’m sure Jed told you all about them because he was a yapper. I’m sure he told you all about his big Back of Beyond itinerary, since that was his pride and joy, not to mention his cash cow.

“But that isn’t the only task force Undersheriff Cliff Bodean belongs to, is it?” Cody asked. “You’re also our official liaison to the DEA. So later, after you got back from the park and everyone forgot about the airplane since no one reported it missing, you heard the rumors and read the reports about the Chavez cartel and the kidnapping. You put the dates of the kidnapping and the plane disappearance together and found they were days apart. There was a rumor the exchange was to have taken place in Jackson Hole, but it never did. So you got out a map and drew a line between Bozeman, where the plane was last seen, and Jackson, where the plane was supposed to land. I did it myself last night. That line goes straight through the Thorofare country of Yellowstone. Practically on top of Jed’s route.”

Bodean tried to laugh it off, but it sounded like he was barking, Cody thought.

“So you contacted Jed,” he said. “I guess you probably met with him a few times and laid it all out. You shared your information and made him maps. You agreed to cover his back on the law enforcement side—make sure nobody decided to suddenly look for that plane—if he’d actually retrieve the cash.”

“This is insane,” Bodean said.

“No, sorry, it isn’t.”

Bodean said, “You’re trying to connect me with Rachel Mina. I never knew Hank Winters from Adam. I swear.”

Cody said, “I believe you. Nice try. But this is where everyone investigating this has it wrong. The thing is, there is no connection between you and Mina and Gannon, is there? The key to this mystery is that it
wasn’t
connected. It was two completely independent schemes both working to find that plane, but unaware of the other. There was Mina and Gannon on one team, and you and Jed on the other. Two schemes, one trip, one destination. I don’t think even Jed and Mina figured that out until the very end.”

Bodean wiped the sweat from his lip. His face was drained of color. He said, “You’ve got nothing.”

“I didn’t until this morning,” Cody said. He leaned forward in his chair. “Until the FAA investigators pulled Jed’s body out of that hole. He had a satellite phone, too, Bodean. He’d made one call on it and it was to your private cell number.”

“It must be a mistake,” Bodean said.

“And something else,” Cody said, reaching for the briefcase he’d brought. “I had Edna look over the logs the night Larry was killed. You know those GPS units we all have under our cars? Well, I disabled mine, but you never did. It shows your midnight trip to Bozeman to try and burn me up. And Edna found you took a trip up to Marysville twenty minutes
before
I called her to send a car. Either you’re real fucking prescient, or you killed Larry.”

Bodean said softly, “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Yup,” Cody said. “I’m saying up in Deer Lodge those convicts are gonna
looove
you. A former undersheriff? Man, you’ll have plenty of dates, I’d guess. And if you think the prison guards are going to protect a cop killer, well think again.”

Cody opened his briefcase and took out the bird’s nest he’d found near the crevice and spun it across the desk so it landed between Bodean’s fists.

“Look,” Cody said, “it’s made of money. A nest made of money. You thought you’d have one of your own and now you do. Pretty cool, if you think about it.”

Then he reached into his pocket and plucked out the microphone. Said, “Heard enough? If you guys don’t come in here in the next five seconds I’m going to rip his throat out for killing my best friend.”

*   *   *

Cody stood aside as the FBI agents
rushed in the room, followed by a hangdog Sheriff Tubman.

As they stood Bodean face-first against the wall and cuffed him, and before they could read him his rights, Cody said, “I wanted to shoot you in the head, myself. But the sheriff said no, that would hurt his reelection campaign, so he made me go through all this.”

One of the FBI agents gave Cody a withering glance. As did Tubman.

“I’d start with his knees,” Cody said. “That makes ’em talk, believe me.”

He turned to Tubman. “Look at it this way, sheriff. You’ve eliminated a rival.”

*   *   *

Cody trudged across the lawn
toward Jenny’s van. Justin sat in the back, no doubt texting Danielle Sullivan. Justin looked up and nodded.

“Tell her to say hello to Gracie for me,” Cody said.

He swung in beside Jenny and gave her a quick kiss. She didn’t seem affected by the sudden breaking of her engagement to Walt. “I hope you’ve picked a smoking restaurant,” he said.

“I was thinking Chubby’s in Clancy,” she said, pulling away from the curb. “The sign out front says ‘Greatest Food You’ll Ever Eat.’”

“Sounds promising,” Cody said.

“Cody,” she said, “it has a lounge. I know you’ll probably want to toast Larry’s memory…”

“I know,” he said. “But I can’t do that kind of thing anymore. I made a promise to Larry.”

Acknowledgments

The author would like to sincerely thank the many friends, relatives, and colleagues who assisted in the research, reading, editing, and publication of this novel, starting with Investigator Cory Olson of the Lewis and Clark Sheriff’s Department in Helena, Montana, and including Investigator Larry Platts, Sheriff Leo Dutton, my friend Pam Gosink, and forensics guru D. P. Lyle, MD.

Thanks always to my first readers: Becky Box Reif, Molly Box, and Laurie Box.

Thanks also to John R. Erickson for the use of the lines from
The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog,
Puffin Books, 1983.

Thanks to Don Hajicek for cjbox.net and Jennifer Fonnesbeck for the rest of the on-line presence.

It’s an absolute honor and privilege to work with the excellent and enthusiastic team at St. Martins Minotaur, including Sally Richardson, Andy Martin, Matthew Shear, Matthew Baldacci, Hector DeJean, and the absolutely peerless Jennifer Enderlin.

For Ann Rittenberg: You. Are. The. Greatest.

Also by C.J. Box

THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS

Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

Blue Heaven

THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS

Cold Wind

Nowhere to Run

Below Zero

Blood Trail

Free Fire

In Plain Sight

Out of Range

Trophy Hunt

Winterkill

Savage Run

Open Season

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

BACK OF BEYOND. Copyright © 2011 by C.J. Box. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Box, C.J.

   Back of beyond / C.J. Box.—1st ed.

       
   ISBN 978-0-312-36574-5

   PS3552.087658B33 2011

First Edition: August 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7068-6

First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: August 2011