Smoky Mountain Mystery 01 - Out on a Limb (14 page)

“Many students chose universities with an eye toward proximity to the
Smokies
, the
Rockies
, the beach, or winter sports rather than for academic reasons. Miss Iverson seems a decent sort, but unfortunately she’s rather immature, and not a particularly promising scientist.”

Henry tilted his head, appraising Whittington.

“Sorry I can’t be of more help, but I simply don’t know the girl well enough. Perhaps it’s a failing in my tutelage that I’ve not insisted she maintain better contact.”

“Professor!
Professor!” someone called out. “What’s this,
Dead Man’s Toes
?”

The question drew snickers from the group. The professor looked toward the
forayers
, torn between his questioners. Henry knew he’d better wrap it up. “Do you know what she was working on?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. She has not stated the direction of her research formally, nor even decided on anything informally, as far as I’m aware.”

“Any idea what area of the park she favored for her research?”

He shook his head,
then
he looked at Henry in a distracted way, saying, “I’m so sorry. You must forgive me, but I need to resume the foray before any of my volunteers wander off to parts unknown.”

Whittington lumbered away, moving along the trail in a bear-like, side-to-side waddle. Henry remembered that the technical term for that gait was
plantigrade
and was pleased that he’d remembered some of his college biology lessons. He followed the Professor with his eyes for a few moments,
then
turned to hike back to his vehicle. He’d walked only a few minutes when he was passed by a vigorous elderly lady wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan
Non
Impediti
Ratione
Congitatonis
.

Henry smiled and greeted her as all rangers do when encountering another person on a trail. Then he asked, “What’s the
sayin
on your shirt mean?”

“It’s Latin,” she said, “It means
Unencumbered by the Thought Process
.”

Then the woman, who had to be in her seventies if not eighties, clambered up the steep hillside next to the trail with the agility of a mountain goat and was out of sight a couple of seconds later.

The exchange was so other-
worldly,
Henry wondered if it was real. He’d had a series of strange encounters in the park in the last couple of days. He tried to shake off the feeling of
discombobulation
by walking back to his truck as fast as possible.

Phoebe pondered death and dreams as she drove away from Mrs. Willard’s house and toward her next call. When her phone chirped to let her know she had a message, it startled her out of her meditative state.

She played the message. “Hey Phoebe,
it’s
Henry. It looks like I’ll be
goin
to
Cataloochee
to change out that elk’s collar this afternoon.
I’z
wonderin
if you might still
wanna
come along.
You’ll like it. It’s a real pretty area.”

“Oh, and I found out who that backpack belonged to, but I can’t get in touch with the owner, so I need to keep
tryin
to track
em
down in case
somethin’s
gone wrong. They
coulda
got hurt or
somethin
. I doubt any of our bears would’ve hurt
em
, but you never know. Bears are like people, they all got different personalities.
If you run into the wrong bear on the wrong day ….
Well anyway, let me know if you’d like to go.” Then he gave her a number to call.

Henry was such a good person. Phoebe didn’t have a single bad memory of him. Of course, nearly all her memories of him were more than half a lifetime ago. But still, she hoped they could be friends again like they’d been when they were little. She could use a friend.

She thought about the invitation, but she was torn. She wanted to see
Cataloochee
and the elk, and even Henry. But the Henry she’d been friends with had been young. Now he was a man.

Phoebe didn’t want any more man problems. She wasn’t in any condition to go through more of that. In fact, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to go on another date for the rest of her life. She liked men, but at this point she didn’t really want one in her house. She knew she was getting set in her ways, but she enjoyed directing her own life.

So, she decided to give the trip a pass and continued toward her next house call.
A few minutes later, though, as she thought about the mystery of the backpack, she realized Henry hadn’t told her who it belonged to.
In the end, curiosity won out and she returned Henry’s call and arranged to meet him later in the day.

***

Phoebe made a stop at the gas station that was used as an office by White Oak’s redneck mafia. It was a charming old
Esso
station that Lester and Fate had spared no expense in restoring to glittering original condition.

Sitting around a table in a vintage booth from a diner surrounded by Sinclair Dino and Tony Tiger memorabilia, the low key duo oversaw all the illegal, surreptitious, and questionable activities in the area, including most of the professional plant and animal poaching, illegal drug and alcohol production, thieving, and goodness knew what else.

Times were changing in
East Tennessee
. Law enforcement’s tentacles could reach nearly everywhere nowadays – everywhere but a place that enjoyed the isolation and insularity of the
Smokies
.

In White Oak any stranger would be immediately obvious and locals weren’t likely to tell a stranger anything. Cell phones and computers were useless in most of the area. The dense vegetation and cave-riddled rock made many kinds of aerial surveillance ineffective, as Eric Rudolf had demonstrated to the intense frustration of national law enforcement authorities.

A place like this was in great demand by criminals of all stripes. That meant the men’s connections were no longer merely local, but extended into organized crime both in the
U.S.
and overseas. In this new market, white trash could trade up. Lester and Fate’s kids could be the next Kennedy or Rockefeller.

Criminal dynasties fascinated Phoebe.
America
was run by them, and as far as Phoebe knew, so was every other country in the world. The most successful ones hid not only in plain sight, but in the Presidency, Capitol Hill, and as CEOs of all the biggest companies.

She’d never thought much about badness in a bloodline
til
a friend who worked at Child Protective Services said they’d done a survey and found that nearly every serious case of child abuse or neglect in
Knoxville
involved one of seven local families. So, crime, like a lot of other things, ran in families.

As Phoebe walked through the door, Steve Earle’s redneck anthem,
Copperhead Road
, was playing from a beautiful antique jukebox. The eerie wailing of bagpipes, manic Irish fiddle, and percussion at the emphatic but constrained pace of clogging perfectly conveyed the raucous and relentless mood of the mountain culture.

Fate pointed a remote control toward the jukebox and the volume was reduced to a faint background noise. Polite greetings were exchanged. Not for the first time, Phoebe marveled at the lovely manners you so often encountered in sociopaths, at least the ones you got along with.

“To what do we owe this pleasure?” asked Lester, pronouncing the last word
play-
zure
,
then
spitting tobacco into a container at his feet. At least Phoebe hoped there was a container there. He was a huge man with hands big enough to palm Phoebe’s whole head.

He was wearing a vintage green work shirt with the name
Bob
embroidered in an oval patch on the left chest. For a moment Phoebe wondered if it was some sort of hillbilly alias, Lester, AKA,
Bob
. But then she realized it was simply more of the gas station memorabilia.

“I just wanted to thank you gentlemen for the antibiotics. I really appreciate
em
. Your kindness will help a lot of people around here who can’t afford the high-dollar medicine. Might even save some lives.”

The men looked at each other with feigned confusion.

They were good, Phoebe thought to herself.
Real pros.
But if you knew who they were, the performance seemed more like a skit in the Redneck Crooks Comedy Tour.

“Well, thanks anyway,” she said and started to leave, then remembered Henry saying he couldn’t get hold of the owner of the backpack. Maybe these guys would know something that would help. She knew they’d never tell her anything straight out, but she also knew she’d be able to tell if they actually did know anything from the way they answered her.

She turned back and said, “I’d don’t mean to bother ya’ll, but it looks like somebody
mighta
gone
missin
in the park.
I’z
wonderin
if
y’all’d
seen or heard anything about that.”

Both men shook their heads with expressions that said they were terribly sorry not to be able to be of assistance, but they just didn’t know a thing about it. Seeing this pantomime performed
à
deux
, Phoebe realized it was an expression that men in their lines of work would’ve had to perfect early in their careers.

Engaging in the occasional brief conversation with them was one thing, but Lester and Fate had reputations for being
mean
, which, in the
Smokies
and depending on who was talking, covered anything from rudeness up to and including serial killing. Phoebe wasn’t exactly scared of these men, but something in their manner made her wonder if the missing backpacker might’ve accidentally stumbled onto something they shouldn’t have. And maybe Sean had, too.

If these guys didn’t want a body to be found, it wouldn’t be. Thugs in the
Smokies
didn’t fool around with sissy drive-by shootings or botched disposals of ashes. They were highly effective killers, trained from childhood to hunt, shoot, and everything that went along with that. It was why most of the military snipers were recruited from the southern Appalachian highlands. Heck, Phoebe could shoot
better
than most law enforcement or even military personnel. It was just part of the local culture.

“Well, I sure would appreciate it if you’d let me know if you do happen to hear anything.”

“We sure will,” said Fate.

Phoebe wasn’t certain, but she suspected both of them were struggling to hide smiles.

“Where are ye?” said
Waneeta
.

“Just
leavin
the
Esso
station.
Went by to talk to the guys.”

“Why? Did
yer
car
git
stole
?”

Phoebe laughed. “No, I went to ask
em
for a favor.” She didn’t dare mention the drug theft, even to
Waneeta
.

“You want
em
to steal ye a new car? God knows you need one. What’re ye
gonna
git
?”

“No, I’m not
gittin
a new car!” said Phoebe, laughing even harder. “And don’t you talk bad about my car.
Me
and Eleanor are
doin
just fine. We understand each other.”