Bones (18 page)

Watching Jack walking through the rain, hands held high, Frank wondered if Jack was risking life and limb for Irene right this moment. But as if Jack could feel their concern, he looked over his shoulder at them and smiled.

Deke and Dunk lifted their noses to the open window, watching anxiously as Jack moved farther away from the van.

It had been Jack's idea to bring them along.

"They aren't trained to track," Frank had objected, "and I don't want to be worried about them. They won't be able to find this group any faster than we will."

"There's a male dog on this expedition she's on, right?"

"Right."

"Maybe they'll find this other dog, then. Besides, your dogs have been camping with me more than once. They'll behave."

"For you, they will," Travis said, speaking Frank's thoughts on the subject aloud.

But in the end, the dogs were allowed to join them. Frank had arranged for care of the cat. Finally, he had called Pete Baird and told him of his plans to find Irene. After listening to his partner's warnings about the inevitable problems at work, Frank had refused Pete's offer to join them.

"I'd love to have you with me, but one of us getting into this much trouble will be bad enough. I need you in there to beg for my reinstatement. Besides, if Irene comes home safe and sound before I do, you can tell her where I am. And I need someone to cover what's going on here--to try to contact me if anything comes up while I'm still within cell phone range."

"Anything else I can do for you before you're fired for interfering in Thompson's investigation?" Pete asked.

"Yes. If we're not back by Sunday at six, come looking for us."

So now Frank sat in the van, watching a man whom many people thought of as his most unlikely friend. Jack Fremont, tattooed and scar-faced, wearing black leather and sporting a gold hoop earring, his head completely shaved, looked made to order for the job he had once held--leader of a biker gang. That Jack had been born into wealth, and--after a number of years on the road--was now one of the wealthiest men in Las Piernas, surprised almost anyone who learned of it. It wasn't a fact he advertised. He fit better into the role he was playing now.

"Stinger Dalton, you crusty-assed old son of a bitch, put your guns away!" he called.

"Jack?" a low, gravelly voice called back. "By God, I don't believe my fuckin' eyes. I figured you were dead!"

"What? And you think I wouldn't have come haunting you before now?"

The front door opened, and a thin man with a shotgun stepped onto a ramshackle front porch. He was of medium height, and was wearing jeans, heavy boots, and a sleeveless blue T-shirt. He had long, gray hair that he wore in a single braid down his back. His arms were covered with tattoos. As he came into view, the dogs began whining.

"Hush," Frank said to them, trying to hear the conversation outside.

"What the fuck happened to your hair, dude? And who fucked up your face?"

"You ask me the same questions every time you see me. You need someone to write you some new lines. Man, put the gun away. I want you to meet some friends of mine."

Dalton looked at the van with misgiving.

"I'd never bring trouble to your door, Stinger. You know that."

"No feds?"

"Shit, Stinger. We both know you aren't hiding from the feds."

"Any of 'em feds?" he repeated obstinately.

"No. One of 'em is a cop--"

"What!" Dalton brought the gun up.

Christ, Frank thought, why did you tell him?

"Now, Stinger, in a minute here, I'm gonna take offense," Jack said easily. "I'm trying to tell you that he's a cop, but he's not here on a beef or anything like that. He's my friend. You've heard me talk about Frank. Works homicide in Las Piernas. But he needs to do some business with you that's got nothing to do with him being a cop, except that maybe it will get his ass fired."

"I don't follow you," Dalton said, holding his position.

"The man's as good a friend to me now as you've been, Stinger. Remember me telling you about Irene's husband?"

At that, Dalton lowered the gun.

"Let us come in out of the rain, Stinger, and I'll explain. Unless you think I've turned into a liar, you've got no reason to keep me standing out here."

"Haven't seen you in a long time, Jack," Dalton said.

"Bullshit. I was out here just a month ago. By the way, keep in mind that this is the guy that lets me borrow his dogs."

"Your neighbor's dogs--"

"Oh, yeah--I almost forgot! I've brought a couple of dogs that would like to see you again."

Dalton's face broke into a grin. "Bring everybody in." He turned and went inside.

Jack motioned to Travis, who started the van.

"What do you think of him?" Travis asked, as they turned up the drive.

"I think Jack is pretty free about introducing my dogs and talking about my wife to head cases. But if Jack says Stinger's a good friend of his, I'll try to reserve further judgment."

Travis said nothing, but Frank didn't miss his look of unholy amusement.

Deke and Dunk sprang from the van and charged toward Dalton, who was back out on the porch, without the gun. To Frank's amazement, though, they slowed as they neared him, and approached with ears back, tails wagging--suddenly well mannered. Dalton spent several minutes praising and petting them, to their obvious delight.

He stood up and extended a hand as Jack said, "Doug Dalton, this is my friend Travis Maguire, Irene's cousin."

"You don't look old enough to shave," Dalton said.

"He's traveled all over the state," Jack said, "working as a storyteller."

"Storyteller!" Dalton said, but catching Jack's eye, kept any further comment to himself. He turned to Frank. "You must be the cop." There was no rancor in it, though, and his handshake was firm, his smile welcoming.

"Stinger taught me all I know about dog training," Jack said. "He's met Deke and Dunk when we stopped by here on our way to go camping and fishing. He's also the best helicopter pilot I know of, and protected my butt on more than one occasion when we did a little riding together. Now he protects me from the fiercest opponent I've ever encountered."

Dalton smiled. "I'm his tax accountant."

"Tax accountant!" Travis said. "How many people come all the way out here for tax advice?"

"Besides the ones that live out here or who contact me by fax or modem?" Dalton asked. "Just a bunch of old bastards on Harleys."

Travis looked stunned.

"Not everyone on a hog is a hell-raiser these days, you know. Bunch of CEOs on 'em now. And as for hell-raising, a lot of us just got tired of that shit. Plenty of cops ride," he added, casting a glance at Frank.

"Sorry, not this one. But we're not here about--"

"My apologies about the welcome," Stinger said. "I just happen to appreciate privacy. Come on in."

Just before they walked through the door, though, Frank's cellular phone rang. He excused himself and stayed on the porch to answer it, uncertain about being able to pick up a signal inside Dalton's fortress.

When he rejoined the others, they were seated around a plain, thick oak table at the center of a large, open room. The few other furnishings were equally spartan.

Jack took one look at his face and said, "What's wrong?"

"That was Pete. The group up there is getting smaller--a little while ago, a botanist and a ranger hiked out with a body bag--Julia Sayre, as far as anyone can tell at this point. These two said the others in the group were going to work on finding a second grave. Seems Parrish hinted there might be as many as eleven others up there--"

"Eleven!" Jack said.

"Yes. Pete didn't have too many details, but I guess they had just come out of one meadow and were up on a ridge when Parrish started hinting about more bodies being up there. Thompson thought Parrish was playing games, until the cadaver dog reacted to a change in the wind.

"So the others went down to check out this second meadow, while the botanist and the ranger hiked out to the plane. The ranger radioed for a helicopter to pick him up so that he could show the chopper where to find the others--including Irene. But by the time the helicopter came to the landing strip for the ranger, the weather was bad. The chopper pilot said they'd have to go after the others later--they'd have problems just making it back to the ranger station.

"Storms are supposed to get worse during the next twenty-four hours. They won't send a chopper in today--the pilot of the plane said if these two guys had come out an hour later, they wouldn't have been able to take off at all."

"Fucking wussies," Dalton grumbled.

"I've told him the basics," Jack said, "as you can tell, he's already got some opinions on the matter."

"Fuckin'-A," Dalton said, crossing his arms over his thin chest. "How long ago did these two leave the rest of the group?"

"This morning. The rain and hiking with the body slowed them down. My partner's going to try to talk to them, but it doesn't look likely. He learned as much as he could from the pilot of the plane."

When he didn't go on, Travis said, "You looked upset when you walked in here. I take it there was more to it than that?"

"I don't know," Frank said. "I don't know. Maybe it's nothing, but--more than a fourth of the people who started out on this project are no longer with the group. And Pete said the pilot told him that these two were real unhappy about taking off. The botanist had promised to stay with the body, but he still protested about leaving the others. The ranger was even more adamant. When the pilot asked the ranger what the big deal was, since the group had enough food to be out for another couple of days, the ranger said that he thought the guards were fatigued."

"Hmm," Jack said, frowning. He turned to Travis. "Why don't you take out those topo maps we marked up? It won't hurt anybody if some extra campers show up in the area, right?"

"Free country," Dalton said with a grin.

"Hell of a thing for a tax accountant to be saying," Jack muttered.

Travis unfolded the maps and on one of them, pointed out a location on a western ridge. "That's where the makeshift airstrip is." He moved his finger along a line that connected a series of dots. "That's the trail we think they were on when the lawyer was injured."

Dalton nodded. "How many days ago you say that was?"

"Tuesday," Frank answered. "Two days ago."

"Hmm." Dalton frowned over the map. "How many folks you say were on this star voyage?"

"Originally, or after the lawyer was taken home?"

"After."

"Twelve people and a German shepherd. The ranger was gone for a day or so, then rejoined them after getting the lawyer out."

"And the ranger and the botanist say the others were tired but doing okay as of this morning?"

"Yes."

"And the ranger hasn't been with them much, right? I mean, after this lawyer got stepped on, the ranger had to hike out and back in--had to find the others--and now he's hiked out again. Spent most of his time on the hoof."

"I think so--at least, that's the way it sounds to me."

"Tell me about the people in this group--you don't need to bother with the ranger, I don't think he figures into this part of the equation very much. Just tell me about the others."

"Including Parrish?"

"Especially Parrish."

Frank told him as much as he could, although he knew little of Ben Sheridan, David Niles, or Andy Stewart. From Dalton's questions, he soon figured out what the other man was interested in: How would this group work together? Who would make decisions? How fit were they? How experienced as hikers?

The main problem before them--where had the group gone after they left Newly?--started to feel more like the kind of problem he worked with every day. Human behavior. So if you were this person, thinking the way he does and in this situation, what would you do next? Instead of the unfocused, nagging anxiousness of the past few hours, Frank knew he had something to work with, something he could set his mind to.