Trapline (4 page)

“Cross that bridge when you come to it,” said Allison. “And you'll do it in the most humane way possible.”

Trudy looked quiet. She'd gone deep inside herself, still reeling. “I want to go back a day,” she said. “And start over.”

seven:
monday, mid-day

Allison squatted in sandy
rocks and bunchgrass at the top of the
ridge near the half-corpse. The summer sun warmed her cheeks. Behind her up the slope and under the cover of the woods, three Garfield County Sheriff officers and the county coroner busied themselves with measurements, photographs and a careful examination of the b
ody.

She slowed her breathing, played statue. She watched the tops of a fireweed flutter under the spell of a gentle breeze. She quieted her mind. At least, she tried. She wanted the cops to be done, wanted the body picked up and packed up—she wanted their conclusions oh, about an hour ago.

She stopped naming the individual plants and flowers. She let them be as the living things that they were before human beings came around and tried to order and organize the world.
King Philip crossed over France going south
. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Her father had taught her the first mnemonic. She preferred the ones her high school girlfriends giggled about,
King Philip came over for good sex.

No order to anything.
See. Feel. Sense. Absorb.

She moved five slow steps north, squatted again. Her working theory was rickety but as good as any other. If it was an animal attack, the only two truly eligible critters were bear or mountain lion. If it was one or the other, her theory went, the closest stand of woods were their likely cover. Allison planned to follow an arc that should have intersected where the animal would have raced out of the woods and where the attack would have happened. She hoped to come across some feline or ursine track or, better yet, some indication that she needed another line of thinking.

She faced the open valley. Lumberjack Camp plopped in the middle of the otherwise treeless bowl like a pin cushion at the bottom of the town water tank.

Allison scanned the ground again, overlapping each view in the grid. Marmot tracks? She'd seen plenty. These were about seven inches apart, a right and a left. A V-shaped print with four elongated toes. The fifth vestigial lined up like a forgotten finger.

Allison moved again, squatted. What she wanted to see was a paw print or scat from something feline. Uncovered scat would be the real prize, suggesting the cat was comfortable, moving and working on its own turf.

Five more steps, another squat, another moment, another chance to ice-down the percolating brain and live in the moment, to expand her thoughts and senses so she could pick up what was happening for hundreds of yards—or a mile or ten—around. A deer could do it, why couldn't she? An elk could do it, why couldn't she? Coyote radar had a hundred times her sensitivity, why couldn't she channel that power, if only for a minute?

A daisy. A sunflower. More fireweed. A scattering of lupine.

The lack of evidence matched the lack of a credible scenario. If it was a mountain lion, which the stick and brush-covering business suggested, then the attack, if confirmed, would send a shudder deep down in the bones of every hiker, camper, or outdoorsman in Colorado. In fact, she should be quaking in her Ropers, the new black pair she'd been breaking in for the season and which, in fact, looked as good as they felt. The same ones that would now leave a nifty track for some other mammal or insect tracker to decipher. But she wasn't afraid. No quaking. The only mammals in the Flat Tops that gave her pause were the ones that came up this way with rifles, alcohol, and a mad desire to channel their inner Teddy Roosevelt.

Five more steps. Here, some vole scat but no vole tracks, the soil too firm to collect an impression. Or maybe you'd need to be another vole to notice.

Three more squats, three more mini-vistas of wildflowers, scrub, and rock in their wonderfully random arrangements. If the attacking beast hadn't come from the woods, he or she had to have come running across a half-mile or more of open expanse, as unlikely as a Colorado aspen grove suddenly becoming the home for a troop of howler monkeys. This wasn't the Serengeti, where predator and prey i
nteracted in big bloody widescreen Technicolor smack in front of every Range Rover full of safari-esque tourists, this was the goddamn Flat Tops where beast-on-beast takedowns, when they happened,
took place off-screen like a movie script carefully crafted to earn no more
than a PG-13 rating. Humans were common here and many carried rifles or bows. Thus the term
heavy hunter pressure.
All the big mammals in the Flat Tops faced the consequences of hunting season and all the big mammals, as a result, were champions of avoiding human contact except during the rut, of course, when sexual urges overrode every other instinct and a 700-pound elk could be manipulated like a horny virgin.

Allison climbed back up to the top of the ridge. The trio of deputies lifted the half-corpse onto a sheet of plastic. It was wrapped with care, placed in a body bag and then into an oversized saddle bag on Eli, her old reliable mule.

The threesome pulled their masks over their heads in unison. They packed up trowels, knives, scissors, forceps, evidence bags, glass vials, measuring tape.

“You have an inquisitive look on your face.”

The speaker was the most talkative of the bunch, lead deputy Brad Marker. Allison had fallen into easy conversation with him on the ride up. Marker had been a deputy for eleven years but had transferred from New Mexico two years ago.

“I'm that obvious?” said Allison.

“Don't think we have anything conclusive,” said Marker. “Tom?”

Garfield County deputy coroner Tom Potts couldn't have been a day over thirty. He wore mirrored Aviator sunglasses and a plain baseball cap. Besides being truly circumspect and inscrutable all morning, he had complained about his back on the ride up and issued leave-me-alone vibes from the first moment. Not much about him said sports or outdoors. Allison stood a couple of strides uphill so they were eye to eye.

“Going to be a simple case of undetermined causes until we send the parts out,” said Potts. “There's a wildlife forensics lab up in Wyoming that handles all these cases.”

“Mountain lion?” said Allison.

“Can't rule it out,” said Potts. “We've got all the sticks and stuff that was moved around to cover him up—might be animal hair that shows up in there somewhere, or on the body itself. And maybe the DNA analysis. We have a long way to go.”

“Was there anything on the body—an ID? Did he have a wallet—anything?” said Allison.

“What was left of his pockets were empty,” said Potts. “He wasn't carrying much or wearing much.”

“What did you find?” said Marker, almost as if he was trying to spare Potts.

“Lots of wildflowers and some marmot tracks,” said Allison. “So, mountain lion?”

“I'd like to see the legs,” said Marker.

“Doubt that's going to happen,” said Allison. “See any bite marks?”

“He's going to need cleaning up,” said Marker. “I can't tell the difference between the original attacker and post-mortem eaters. No major puncture wounds on the back of his neck, though, and that's where mountain lions like to attack, no?”

Marker's stiff-jawed inconclusiveness didn't help. Allison wanted closure and certainty or new theories to stir into the mix.

“But can you picture a mountain lion?” said Allison.

“More than a bear,” said Marker. “We'll have to see if the dogs pick up on anything.”

With the half-corpse moved, the houndsman made his way up the slope with his two best dogs, who strained at their leashes. The houndsman had a reputation as one of the best mountain lion trackers on the Western Slope. His name was Sal Hickman. His black Stetson was well-worn. His tired face and the ungainly white whiskers on his neck suggested he was at least sixty. He walked with an awkward gait, as if one knee wouldn't bend right. His brass belt buckle featured a relief of a mountain lion leaping, teeth bared.

“And it doesn't matter if I can picture it,” said Marker. “Stranger things have happened. A mountain lion will eat anything from elk to grasshopper so a good old slow-moving guy is really just another option. Hey, for him, it worked.”

There wasn't much arguing with fact-based reason.

“Experts will get a better look in the lab,” said Marker. “This guy's too much of a mess right now to tell his story without help.”

Hickman let his dogs go with a “hunt it up” command. Marker gave him a walkie talkie. The dogs circled, all-business. Noses scraped the ground.

“You had maggots all over the body,” said Allison, “which means it's not a fresh kill—those eggs take at least eight hours to hatch. And there would be birds that would come in to graze and there's some evidence of birds and their droppings but not as much as you'd think.”

“True,” said Marker.

“And no drag marks,” said Allison. “If it was a mountain lion, he would have dragged the body and this guy looks like he fell out of the sky.”

Marker sighed. “Lots to consider.”

The dogs headed off and Hickman followed on his horse.

Back at Lumberjack Camp, they sat around the fireless fire ring. Trudy's sandwich concoction went down without conversation. Whole wheat baguette with cucumber, bean sprouts, tomatoes, and some sort of olive tapenade that served, as Trudy put it, as a binding schmear. Tasted like heaven to Allison. If the guys were expecting roast beef, they were likely disappointed. But no complaints were uttered. They were joined by a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer, who had circled the site on his own and had taken dozens of photographs. He was the seasoned type, with curly gray hair and black eyes. His uniform was spotless and, among all those who had come on this mission, he looked the most like a cop, with his full belt and holstered gun.

They chatted about the shooting in Glenwood Springs. Marker didn't know much. The others didn't say much.

“Still waiting for our first solid lead,” said Marker. “But I've been out of touch, obviously, since I climbed on the horse this morning. They could have it all wrapped up by now, you never know.”

Marker's walkie talkie crackled to life.

Allison couldn't make out Hickman's garble, but Marker got the gist. “How much farther you going?” he asked.

More static and garble, but Hickman's upbeat tone was clear. The dogs had lit on something.

“Okay,” said Marker. “Take it as far as you need or as far as you can.”

Allison's stared at Marker in disbelief. “What?”

Marker put down his walkie-talkie. “He's on the trail of a live one,” he said. “The dogs are on a tear.”

“A cat? A mountain lion?” said Allison, feeling the jabbing sting of humiliation. She imagined the smug look on Colin's face when he heard the news.

“Sal's specialty, as the whole valley knows,” said Marker. The implication was clear.

The men packed up their lunch trash, stretched. They were all content to be sucked into the groupthink.
Must have been a mountain lion.
It wasn't hard to pick up on their relief. One lit a cigarette, exhaled clouds against the blue sky.

“Well, the hot pursuit of a live cat might settle things down,” said Marker. “And that will let us pour everything we've got into the looking for the shooter in Glenwood Springs. We really didn't need this distraction and, as a matter of fact, we better get.”

“What about Hickman and the dogs?” said Allison.

“He could be gone for hours,” said Marker. “If he gets the cat, he'll bring it out and we can cut him open, see if we can find the other half of our victim. Put this baby to rest.”

The sun told the time. Just past two. Maybe she'd stare at the sun until she went blind, protect her from any future temptation to jump to conclusions.

Marker and the others checked their horses and saddles. Allison tied Eli's lead rope to the tail on Marker's horse—rope once around the tail, fold the tail, three more loops, lead rope under the wraps and pull tight, leaving an easy-release loop in the knot. Eli knew the drill.

“Wouldn't you rather have it sorted out and done?” said Marker.

“Did I say something?” said Allison.

“It's in your scowl,” said Marker.

“Just thinking,” said Allison. Wanted to say,
you don't know a scowl.
Wanted to say,
you presumptuous jerk.
Ground her teeth together instead. “Thinking everything it might mean, what I'm going to tell all my hunters this year.”

They stepped out into the open meadow and pointed their horses toward the trail. Nobody needed a guide now.

“You all go on ahead,” said Allison. She was bringing up the rear, behind the mule.

“What?” said Marker.

“Know the way?” she said.

“Sure,” said Marker.

“I've got a few more hours, or at least two. I'm going to hang around.”

“And do what?” Marker said it like a distrusting father.

“Might scout a bit,” said Allison. “No point in wasting the day, now that you've got everything.”

And maybe help the houndsman if he ends up coming back this way. She wanted to see the dead cat draped over Hickman's horse. She wouldn't be satisfied until she saw with her own eyes and directly from the cat's guts that the lion was responsible for the demise of the half-corpse.

And besides, she didn't want to stare at Eli and his sad cargo all the way back to Sweetwater.

eight:
monday, mid-day

“That's the goddamn problem
right there.”

The cream-colored van bore scars. Bloom guessed mid-1990s. New Mexico plates.

Just another traffic stop.

Three cop cars.

Bloom counted seventeen passengers, then counted again to double-check.

Sitting cross-legged. Quiet. Obedient. They have accepted their fate. They are used to this.

“Can you believe they were all packed in that one van? On a day like this?”

DiMarco muttered. He wouldn't want to be seen consorting with a journalist. But it was DiMarco who had alerted him, ten minutes ago.

The van had been pulled over in the parking lot for the stand-alone, mid-valley restaurant Dos Hermanos, once the semi-swank Mt. Sopris Inn. The shell of the restaurant and its long-abandoned parking lot attracted only weeds and dust. The Mexicans sat on concrete parking bumpers that hadn't been used for years.

Dos Hermanos. More than “dos.”

Somehow, he would work that into the lead paragraph. He might need to find out the precise date the restaurant was closed for a tasty detail.

The lights on top of the cop cars flashed. Engines idled for the AC.

“What's going to happen to them?” said Bloom.

DiMarco was average height with a dark complexion and permanent stubble. Bloom guessed he was pressing fifty. He was deliberate and savvy. He wasn't in charge and didn't want to be. His nose was fleshy and had a sloping tip.

“One-way ticket back for every one of the passengers,” said DiMarco. “Up to the feds. Unless one of 'em suddenly coughs up a legitimate ID. About the same chances that one of them can recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“The driver?” asked Bloom.

They were two strangers talking to the breeze, not each other.

“Whole different story right there,” said DiMarco. “He'll be arrested, booked, and we'll try everything we've got—human trafficking for sure. Not just a federal crime anymore.”

“Where were they headed?”

“The driver is remarkably unforthcoming right now,” said DiMarco. “That'll change.”

Four young. Late teens. Rest are older. Two women. They look comfortable, cool, despite heat. One says something, smiles.

“Heading to Carbondale?”

“Or Aspen,” said DiMarco. “Dishwashers, landscapers, painters—waltzing into the country like they run the place. A thousand get through for every one we stop.”

“Why did they get pulled over?”

“Imagine how low the rig was sitting with all these people inside,” said DiMarco. “It was dragging ass.”

“This ain't Arizona,” said Bloom. Some Colorado legislators had tried a similar law, but it had failed.

“Illegal U-turn,” said DiMarco. “Don't get your tighty whities in a knot. Officer said he could hear voices in the back, had the driver show him the cargo.”

A decent news story. Worth ten or twelve inches of copy, maybe more. In the wake of the shooting, ironic at least. Hard to imagine fitting it in with everything else Bloom needed to get done, but with the
Dos Hermanos
bit, this would practically write itself.

“Where do the illegals go?” said Bloom.

“Federal holding,” said DiMarco. “ICE on the way.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bloom had done stories on a big ICE raid at a meat packing plant in Greeley.

Bloom fought off an undertow of fatigue. The wee-hours meet-up with the cops at the newsroom hadn't taken as long as he had predicted. A telephone technician quickly isolated the number from
the strange caller. Bloom didn't love the idea of the cops seeing all the
numbers from other sources, but what could he do? What could the paper do? The independent editor had prepared a statement in case some left wing journalism professor threw an editorial hand grenade, but they had the cops' agreement that they'd keep the newspaper's role out of the narrative.

“Anything new on the main event?”

“There's a noon press briefing,” said DiMarco.

“I'm aware. Did the phone number lead anywhere?”

DiMarco stood straight, cranked his shoulders around like he needed a stretch, returned his gaze to the gravel. “The number was one of those temporary phones, pre-loaded with minutes, you know?”

“I know them.”

“That's the bad news,” said DiMarco. “No name goes with the number, you know?”

“If you paid by credit card?”

DiMarco gave him a sideways look that said
think about it.

“Okay, probably not likely,” said Bloom. “What's the good news?
“Who said there is good news?”

“You implied it. The bad news, good news thing. One follows the other.”

Another van, solid beige and spit-shine new, pulled into the parking lot. This one had windows and side-folding doors. There were no markings, but it screamed government business.

Three dark sedans wheeled in behind it and suddenly the parking lot was a busy hub of intergovernmental authorities sorting out roles, rules, laws, and egos.

“My work here is done,” said DiMarco.

“The good news?” said Bloom.

DiMarco looked squarely at Bloom, for a flash. “You still got my back, right? Protect me?”

“All the way to reporter hell,” said Bloom.

“The phone was activated yesterday morning.”

One by one, the Mexicans were interviewed and loaded into the newly arrived van.

“And?”

“And the company that sells these phones distributes ninety percent to convenience stores all over the state.”

DiMarco paused, proud of this nuance. One of the Mexicans, a man with a wrinkled face and dejected eyes, stared out at them from behind the window.

“Do we know which store?” said Bloom.

“No,” said DiMarco. “But we can find the stores that sold a phone yesterday.”

Bloom spotted a flaw in the logic. Just because the phone was activated yesterday didn't mean that was the day it was purchased. Everything else about the assassination attempt was obviously tight. Why would they have made this slip?

“A little sloppy,” said Bloom. “Correct?”

“The kind of slop we need,” said DiMarco. “And like.”

Besides the sick notion that he might have been on the phone with Lamott's shooter—or one of the accomplices—there was also the question of whether he could write today's article since he was now part of it. That might be a journalism no-no in the big city but couldn't be helped in a two-reporter town.

“How long is it going to take?” asked Bloom.

“To what?”

“I assume you're checking all the store cameras in all the stores from Grand Junction to Denver where a phone was sold yesterday,” said Bloom.

DiMarco shrugged his shoulders up, held them there for a second. “Maybe. All this consorting with the cops must be rubbing off. You're wearing your Dick Tracy hat.”

Bloom ignored the slight. “How long do you think?”

“Today,” said DiMarco. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“And nothing more from Lookout Mountain?”

“You think you can keep squeezing me until I run dry?”

“So you're still coming up empty. Don't worry,” said Bloom. “I gotta go talk to the feds—do my job.”

“Understood,” said DiMarco. “Keep in mind we wouldn't be here today if the feds had done their job in the first place—protecting our fucking borders. None of this would have happened.”