Free Fire

7

The law enforcement center for the park service,known informally as “the Pagoda,” was a gray stone buildinga block from the main road through the Mammoth Hot Springs complex in the extreme northern border of the park. Joe turned off the road near the post office with the two crude concrete bears guarding the steps. Mammoth served as the headquarters for the National Park Service as well as for Zephyr Corp., the contractor for park concessions. Unlike other small communities in Wyoming and Montana where the main streets consisted of storefronts and the atmosphere was frontier and Western, Mammoth had the impersonal feel of governmentalofficialdom. The buildings were old and elegant but government’s version of elegance-without flair. The architecture was Victorian and revealing of its origin as a U.S. Army post before the National Park Service came to be. Elk grazed on the still-greenlawns across from the Mammoth Hotel, and the hot springs on the plateau to the south billowed steam that dissipatedquickly in the cold air. When the wind changed direction, there was the slight smell of sulfur. A line of fine old wood and brick houses extended north from behind the public buildings, the homes occupied by the superintendent, the chief ranger, and other administrative officials, the splendor of the homes reflectingtheir status within the hierarchy of the park.

In the height of summer, the complex would be bustling with traffic, the road clogged with cars and recreational vehicles, the sidewalks ablaze with tourists with bone-white legs and loud clothing. But in October, there was a kind of stunned silence afterall that activity, as if the park was exhausted and trying to catch its breath.

Joe parked the Yukon on the side of the Pagoda. It wasn’t well marked. The Park Service didn’t like signs because, he supposed, they looked like signs and the park was about nature,not people trying to go about their business in the world outside the park. He circled the building twice on foot before deciding that the unmarked wooden door on the west side was, in fact, the entrance.

The lobby was small and dark and he surprised the receptionist,who quickly darkened the screen of whatever Internet site she had up. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“Don’t get many visitors, eh?” he said.

“Not this time of year,” she said, chastened, guilty about whatever it was she had been looking at and obviously blaming Joe for making her feel that way. “May I help you? Do you know where you’re at?”

“I’m here to see Del Ashby. My name is Joe Pickett.”

“Del is off today,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

She nodded toward a whiteboard on the wall. It listed the names of ranking rangers, with a magnetic button placed either “in” or “out.” Del Ashby was marked “out.” So was the chief ranger, James Langston, who Chuck Ward had said would also be in the meeting.

The receptionist started going through papers from her in-box.It took a moment for Joe to realize he had been dismissed.

“Hold it,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting with them at four. Can you check to see if they’ll be there?”

She gave him a withering look, but put the papers down and huffed away, pointedly closing the door behind her desk so he couldn’t follow.

While he waited, trying not to become frustrated with the situationthat seemed to be developing, he studied another whiteboardon the wall above her desk. Painstakingly, in intricate detail, someone had drawn a multicolored flowchart of all the park rangers in Yellowstone, starting with James Langston at the top, Del Ashby under him, and a spiderweb of divisions and units including SWAT, interpretation, and other units. He counted about a hundred park rangers assigned to law enforcement,more than he would have guessed.

The door opened and a short, wiry, intense man came through, head down as if determined to cross the room as efficientlyas possible. He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

“Del Ashby,” he said, firing out his hand.

“I thought for a minute my information was wrong,” Joe said, flicking a glance at the receptionist, who smoldered behindAshby.

“It’s my day off,” he said. “I had to come in just for this, so I hope we can get to it and get out.”

Joe nodded.

“We’ve got a conference room upstairs,” Ashby said. “The others are already there.”

“The chief ranger? James Langston?” Joe asked.

“Nah, it’s his day off.”

“Doesn’t he live just a block away?” Joe asked, recalling the stately line of old brick homes.

Ashby turned and his expression hardened. “Not everyone will come in on their day off, like me. But don’t blame Chief Ranger Langston; he’s a busy man. He’s got a lot on his plate, you know.”

Joe nodded noncommittally. The chief’s absence told Joe how seriously his presence and the meeting itself was being taken by the park administration. Nevertheless, he was grateful Ashby was there.

Ashby turned and hustled through the door. Joe followed. While they climbed the stairs, Joe looked at his watch. Three-fifty-five. Right on time.

Ashby stepped aside in the hall so Joe could enter a windowlessroom with a large round table crammed into it. Two men and a woman stood as Joe entered. Ashby shut the door behind them.

“This is Joe Pickett,” Ashby said, “from Wyoming governor Rulon’s staff.”

Joe didn’t take the time to consider the introduction-his staff, huh? Is that what Chuck Ward had told them? — but leaned across the table to greet the others. The atmosphere was instantly tense and uncomfortable and Joe surmised quickly that no one really wanted to be there. He recognized Special Agent Tony Portenson of the FBI out of the Cheyenne office. Portenson rolled his eyes at Joe as if to say, Here we are again. Then he smiled, which always looked like an uncomfortable sneer on him, like he was trying it out for the first time.

“No need to introduce us,” Portenson said to Ashby. “We know each other from way back.”

“Hi, Tony.”

“I thought I’d gotten rid of him for good,” Portenson said in a way that didn’t reveal if he was joking or not. “But here he is again, like a bad penny. Wherever I go I seem to run into Joe Pickett and then something goes wrong.”

Joe knew Portenson had been seeking a transfer out of Wyoming for years. He hated the state, its people, the quality of crimes he was in charge of. While the rest of the FBI was reshapingitself into a counterterrorism agency, Portenson had to oversee cattle rustling, crime on the Wind River Indian Reservation,and other mundane, career-advancement roadblocks. He’d complained mightily to Joe about it.

Portenson said, “What in the hell is going on now? You’re working for the governor of Wyoming?”

Joe nodded, not sure how much to reveal. He hadn’t expectedsomeone from his past to be in the room, especially not Portenson, who had made it a life’s goal to send Nate Romanowskito prison.

“Sort of,” Joe said.

“I’ve heard Rulon is a loose cannon, a damned maniac. He and the director have been going at each other for two years, ever since the election,” Portenson said. “The guy-Rulon-is power-mad, is what I hear. He thinks the Bureau should march to his orders. He probably thinks the same thing about the Park Service.”

With that, Portenson looked around the room, having quickly established Joe as an agent for someone who threatened everyone in it.

Joe winced. “Thanks, Tony.”

“You bet,” Portenson said, satisfied.

“Eric Layborn,” said a man in an impeccably neat park ranger’s uniform. “Special investigator, National Park Service.” Joe reached out, and Layborn gripped his hand so hard Joe winced. Layborn had a heavy brow and a lantern jaw, a close-croppedmilitary haircut, and a brass badge and nameplate that reflected the single light above the table. Even his gun belt was shiny. Layborn’s eyes were unsettling to Joe because one bored into him and the other was slightly askew, as if it were studying his ear.

“Ranger Layborn headed up the criminal investigation,” Ashby said to Joe.

“Whatever you want to know I can tell you,” Layborn said. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

Joe thought it odd that Layborn would lead with that.

“This is Ranger Judy Demming,” Ashby said, gesturing towardthe woman at the table who had not launched herself at Joe as Layborn had. “She was first on the scene.”

“Nice to meet you,” Joe said, flexing his fingers to get the feeling back in them before shaking hands with her.

Demming was a few years older than Joe with medium-lengthbrown hair, wire-framed glasses, a smattering of freckles across her nose. She seemed pleasant enough, gentle, and it was clear to Joe she was ill at ease. He couldn’t tell if she was uncomfortablewith him, with others in the room, or with her role in the case. After shaking his hand she seemed to withdraw and defer to Ashby and Layborn without really moving.

Portenson and Ashby sat back in their chairs, signaling they were ready to start the meeting. Demming saw them and sat too. So did Joe. Layborn remained standing, his eye fixed on Joe and Joe’s ear. He didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t necessary. The stare was a challenge. Joe had seen it before from local sheriffs, police chiefs, Director Randy Pope. The look said, “Don’t cross me, don’t second-guess me, don’t step on my turf. And I’m bigger and tougher than you.”

“Eric,” Ashby said sharply, “let’s get started.”

Layborn held the scowl for a moment longer, then eased back into his chair with the grace of a cat.

Message delivered.

Joe had brought the file folder the governor had given him. The letter from Rick Hoening was on the bottom of the documents,facedown. He didn’t want them to see it.

“Before we get started,” Ashby said, “I thought you might need some background on our job here and how we work. That way, we can save some time later.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Joe noticed Portenson had immediatelydrifted away and was studying the large-scale map of the park behind Joe’s head.

“Yellowstone National Park is a federal enclave,” Ashby said. “You are no longer in the state of Wyoming, or Montana, or anywhere else. This is literally the last vestige of Wyoming Territory, and we’re governed as such. There are two U.S. marshalsup here, just like the frontier days, and we’ve got a hundredrangers including four special investigators. Eric here is our top investigator.”

At that, Layborn leaned forward. Joe was still stinging from the “message” and fought the urge to ignore the man. Instead he acknowledged Layborn with a quick nod.

“Think of the park as a city of forty thousand people every given day in the summer and fifteen thousand people in the winter,” Ashby said. “But unlike a city, everyone is passing through, turning over. We’ll have over three million in the summer,a few hundred thousand in the winter. It’s a brand-new scenario every day, a whole new cast. Our job is to serve and protect these people and enforce the laws, but at the same time to protect the resources of the park itself. This place is like a church; nothing is to be disturbed. It’s a national shrine and no one wants to see harm come to it. It’s a hell of a tough job, unlikeanything else in law enforcement. Park rangers are the most assaulted federal officers of all of the branches because of the public interaction that comes with the job. No one has jurisdictionover us in the park, including your governor and the FBI,” he said, indicating Portenson.

Portenson, Joe noticed, appeared to be counting holes in the overhead ceiling tiles in boredom.

“Because we’re federal,” Ashby said, “we operate under two sets of laws-the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Criminal Code and Rules statutes-and we can pick and choose depending on the violation. Most violations are Class B misde-meanors,meaning six months in jail and/or a five-thousand-dollarfine. Half of the violations are ‘cite and release’-we give them a ticket and let them proceed. But the other half are the serious ones, and they include felonies, poaching, violations of the Lacy Act, and so on. Because of the transient nature of the population here, all sorts of scum pass through. Last year we nailed a child molester who’d brought a little girl into the park in his RV. On average, we make two hundred to two hundredfifty arrests a year and issue four thousand tickets.”

Joe raised his eyebrows. There was more action than he realized.

Layborn broke in. “Don’t be fooled by the numbers, Mr. Pickett. We aren’t just arresting tourists. Half of the arrests are of permanent residents-meaning Zephyr Corp. employees. I spend most of my time tailing those people. Some of them act like they left the law at home when they moved out here.” He said it with a vehemence that seemed out of place after Ashby’s sober recitation of facts, Joe thought.

Layborn continued even though Ashby admonished him with his eyes to stop.

“There are seven thousand Zephyr people. They come from all over the world to work in the park. Too many of them come to think they’re on the same level as we are. They forget they’re here because we allow them to be. They’re contractors for the Park Service, nothing more. They work in the hotels, change the bedding, cook, unclog the sewers, wrangle horses, whatever.Some of them are renegades. We used to call ’em savages-”

“Eric, please,” Ashby said, sitting up, cutting Layborn off. “We’re getting off track.”

“The hell we are,” Layborn said to Ashby. “If we got rid of the bad apples in Zephyr, we’d get rid of most of our crime.”

“That may be, but that isn’t why we’re here.”

“The hell it isn’t. The campers who got shot were Zephyr people camping in a place they shouldn’t have been camping.” He turned back to Joe. “See what I mean about their attitude? And you can only imagine what they said to get themselves killed. I knew those people very well. I didn’t get along with ’em either. They had no respect for anyone or anything, those people. They liked to call themselves the Gopher State Five becausethey were all from Minnesota, like that made them specialsomehow.”

Joe observed that Demming had subtly pushed her chair fartheraway from Layborn. Portenson observed Layborn as if the ranger were an amusing, exotic specimen.

“You know,” Portenson said, “I bet you guys could really run this damned park properly if you could just get rid of all of the people in it. We feel the same way about the reservation. If we could ship all those damned Indians off somewhere, we wouldn’t hardly have any trouble at all.”

Layborn turned his scowl on the FBI agent. Demming looked mortified by both Layborn’s and Portenson’s language. Joe felt sorry for her.

“Maybe we can get back to the issue here,” Joe said, and receiveda grateful nod from Ashby.

“And maybe,” Layborn said to Joe, “we can start with why you’re really here. Why we all had to show up for this damned meeting in the first place.”

“I’m a little curious about that myself,” Portenson agreed.

Joe felt his neck get hot. He had been expecting the question and couldn’t lie or mislead them. Not that he was any good at lying anyway. He felt it was his assignment to tell them the truth but leave a couple of things out. The specter of Governor Rulon stood in the corner, it seemed, listening closely to what Joe said.

"Spencer Rulon was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Wyoming before he ran for governor, as you know,” Joe said. “So if he still had his old job, he would have been the one tryingto prosecute this case. He’s got a vested interest in it. He’d like to see Clay McCann thrown in prison because he doesn’t like the idea of a man getting away with murder in his state, despitethe weird legal circumstances of this one. So he asked me to come up here and talk to you all and write a report summarizingthe case. If he reads something that interests him, he may go to the new U.S. Attorney, or have the Wyoming AG take a look at it. He wants to help, not interfere. That’s what he told me. He asked me to come up here and poke around, see if I can figure anything out from a fresh perspective.”

Layborn snorted, sat back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you expect to find that we haven’t already gone over?”

Joe shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“This is pointless,” Layborn said. “You’re wasting my time and everybody’s time in this room.”

“Maybe,” Joe agreed.

Ashby said, “I suppose it can’t hurt. Sometimes the best thing to do is start fresh.”

Joe could tell by the way Ashby said it that he really didn’t believe what he was saying. He was playing peacemaker and he wanted to move the meeting along so he could get out of there.

“Doubtful,” Layborn said.

Ashby sighed and looked squarely at Joe. “The particulars of this case have been reviewed ad nauseum. We’ve never had a case with a higher profile, and frankly, we don’t appreciate the publicity that’s come from it. We saw more national press up here last summer than we’ve seen since we reintroduced the wolves, and it wasn’t very good press.”

“Is that why the chief ranger isn’t here?” Joe asked.

Ashby tried not to react to Joe’s question, but there was a flicker behind his glare.

“The National Park Service is funded by federal appropriation,” Ashby said flatly. “Congressmen want to feel good about the parks. We want to be the agency everybody feels all warm and fuzzy about. They don’t like this kind of controversy, and neither do we.”

Layborn shot his arm out and looked at his wristwatch. “I’ve got to go,” he said.

“I have some questions,” Joe said quickly.

“This is stupid,” Layborn said, looking to Ashby for a nod so he could have permission to leave. “He has the files. He should read ’em.”

Ashby wouldn’t meet Layborn’s eye to dismiss him.

“I read over the file more than once,” Joe said, forging ahead. “I read everything in it, but I’m not sure all of the information was in there. Not that anything was withheld deliberately,but there are things I’m just unclear on. So I thought I’d start with those so I have a better picture of what happened.”

The room was suddenly silent except for a loud sigh from Layborn.

“The sooner we do this the sooner I’ll get out of your hair,” Joe said quickly. Ashby acquiesced and sat back in his chair. With his fingers, he signaled, Go on.

“It looks to me like everybody involved did everything exactly right,” Joe started, hoping to relieve some of the doubt they might have. “By the book, down the line. From the initial call to throwing McCann into the Yellowstone jail. I have no questions about the procedure at all. In fact, given the crime, I was damned impressed with how restrained and professional you all were.”

He looked up to see Layborn nodding as if to say, What did you expect?

“The things I don’t get have nothing to do with how you handledthe arrest. They have to do with other aspects of the case.”

Joe didn’t like talking so much. He had already used more words in this room than he had in the past month. But he had no choice but to continue. Self-doubt began to creep into his consciousness,like a black storm cloud easing over the top of the mountains. He wasn’t sure this was a job he could do well, a role he could play competently. Joe liked working the margins, keeping his mouth shut, observing from the sidelines. He did his best to block out the image of the thunderhead rolling over.

He asked Demming, “You were the first to respond, correct?”

For the first time, Demming sat up. Her expression changed from embarrassed to interested.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I was actually off-duty at the time. I was coming back from Idaho Falls with my daughter, who had to see the orthodontist. I was out of uniform, but I had the cruiser and my weapon. I heard the call from dispatch and realized I was just ten to fifteen minutes away from the Bechler ranger station, so I responded.”

Ashby cut in. “That corner of the park is by far the least visited,” he said, his voice monotone, as if he’d explained it countlesstimes, which he likely had. “You can’t even get there from the park itself. In order to get to Bechler, you’ve got to drive into Idaho or Montana and come back in. The road down there doesn’t connect with any of our internal park roads. That’s why we didn’t-and don’t-have a constant law enforcement presencethere.”

Joe said, “I’ve read the file, Mr. Ashby. I know where Bechleris located. What I’m asking about are things that aren’t in the incident report.”

Ashby sat back slightly chastened.

Demming continued, “When I got to the station, McCann had turned over his weapons and was sitting on the bench waiting.He didn’t put up any kind of struggle, and he admitted to what he’d done. I took him outside, cuffed him, and waited for backup.”

“Which was me,” Layborn said. “I was there within the hour.”

“How did McCann act?” Joe asked Demming.

Demming shook her head, as if trying to find the right words. “He was easy to get along with, I guess. He didn’t say all that much. He wasn’t ranting or raving, and didn’t act like he was crazy or anything. In fact, he seemed sort of stunned, like he couldn’t really believe it was happening.”

“So he didn’t deny the murders?”

“Not at all. He described what happened down at Robinson Lake. That he’d been hiking and the campers harassed him, so he defended himself. That’s how he put it, that he was defending himself.”

“Asshole,” Layborn whispered. Joe ignored him.

“So at the time you arrived, he didn’t indicate to you he knew anything about the Zone of Death?”

“No.”

Ashby looked pained. “We don’t like that term and we don’t use it.”

Joe acknowledged Ashby but pressed Demming. “So he found out about it later? After he was in jail?”

Demming shook her head. “I had the feeling he knew about it at the time,” she said. “It’s just an impression, and I can’t reallyprove it. He was just so cooperative. I got the impression he knew that he was going to walk eventually. He acted like he had a secret.”

Joe nodded.

“You never told me that,” Layborn said to Demming, his voice threatening.

“I did so,” she said, looking back at him. “I told you when you arrived. But it didn’t fit with anything then, so you probably just forgot about it.”

Layborn rolled his eyes and turned to Joe. “What difference does it make?” he asked.

“Maybe none,” Joe said. “I’m just trying to figure out if he went trolling for targets or if there was more to it.”

Joe asked Demming, “Did McCann check in at the ranger station before he went on his hike that morning? Did anyone see him?”

Demming hesitated, trying to recall. “Yes,” she said, “he even signed the register, listing his destination as Robinson Lake.”

“I didn’t see a copy of the registration page in my file,” Joe said. “That’s why I asked.”

“Why does it matter?” Layborn cut in.

Joe said, “Because if McCann checked in that morning he could have looked on the register to see who was already in the park before him. I assume the victims registered the day before. McCann could have seen their names on the sheet and known who was at Robinson Lake. If he knew their names and where they were camping, that might suggest some familiarity with them after all-that he didn’t just bump into complete strangers like he claimed.”

Layborn, Ashby, and Portenson exchanged looks. Joe had hit on something. He felt a little trill in his chest.

“What about that?” Ashby asked Layborn.

The chief investigator started to answer but stopped. His face reddened as he looked back at Joe.

“I’m sure the sign-in sheets are still at the station,” Demmingsaid, unsure where Joe was headed.

“It would be interesting to take a look at them,” Joe said.

Portenson reacted by furiously rubbing his face with his hands. “We’ve been down this road for months, Joe,” he said. “The FBI has been working on the Gopher State angle. We interviewedeveryone the victims knew in Minnesota, their parents, teachers, friends, fellow environmental activists. Environmental terrorism is high priority with us and we pursued that angle. What we found is a bunch of granola eaters who hate George Bush. No surprises there. But we couldn’t find a single thing that connected the victims with Clay McCann. Not a damned thing. We’ve gone over it a thousand times. Nada.”

Joe said, “So none of them had ever been to West Yellowstone?”

“Not that we could find,” Portenson said with impatient finality.“And we couldn’t find any record of McCann in the park either. Like maybe he stayed at Old Faithful and one of them spit in his food or something so he wanted revenge. Believe me, we’ve been all over this.”

“We think they were involved in drugs,” Layborn cut in.

Joe looked up at him. That wasn’t in the file.

“Meth, dope,” Layborn said. “There’s a goddamned pipeline from somewhere into the park. We think half the Zephyr people are users, and we don’t think they travel to Jackson or Bozeman to get it. We think they buy it locally.”

Ashby cleared his throat. “Half is too much, Eric.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than half,” Layborn said, ignoring his boss. “I’m convinced if we ever find out why those four people were murdered, if there was even a reason other than Clay McCann having target practice, it’ll have somethingto do with the drug ring.”

Joe looked to Ashby and Portenson for clarification. Portensonrolled his eyes. Ashby looked away, said, “We don’t have any evidence that the crime had to do with drugs.”

Layborn smirked. “Drugs and environmental terrorism,” he said. “I’ll bet the house they’ll have something to do with this. We’ll just never fucking know, I’m afraid.”

Layborn’s conspiracy had silenced the room.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said, leaning across the table toward Joe. Ashby saw what was happening and was too late to intervene. Layborn growled, “Getting rid of those four assholes was not the worst thing to ever happen to Yellowstone National Park.”

“Eric!” Ashby said. Then quickly, to Joe: “That is not our policy.”

“But I bet you wish it could be.” Portenson grinned.

“No, we don’t,” Ashby said heatedly.

Demming had shrunk back into her chair as if trying to becomeone with the fabric.

Joe didn’t know what to say. He looked back down at the list he had made several days before and continued as if nothing had happened.

“There are several references to the Gopher State Five,” he said. “Four are dead. Who survived?”

“His name is Bob Olig,” Demming said quietly. “We haven’t been able to find him.”

“There’s a nationwide BOLO for him,” Portenson said, meaning Be On The Lookout. “No solid hits yet.”

“He worked here also?” Joe asked.

Layborn said, “Another Zephyr scumbag.”

“He was employed at the Old Faithful Inn,” Ashby said wearily, having lost all control of Layborn and given up trying. “He vanished the day after the murders were reported.”

“Where was he the day of the murders?” Joe asked.

“Giving tours of the Old Faithful Inn,” Ashby said. “That’s been verified by the site director, Mark Cutler. Olig was a tour guide, and a pretty good one.”

Joe sat back, thinking. “So three of the five-Rick Hoening, Jim McCaleb, and Bob Olig-all worked together at Old Faithful?”

Ashby nodded. “In the area, anyway. But it’s a big complex with hundreds of employees, nearly a thousand in the summer. It wasn’t like they did the same job.”

“But I assume they lived in employee housing together?”

“Correct.”

“And it’s been searched?”

“Torn apart,” Layborn said. “We found some meth, some dope, like I said. A bunch of books about environmental sabotage,monkey-wrenching, that sort of crap. And e-mails from their fellow loons around the world. But nothing about Clay McCann, or anything we could use.”

“Can I look at them?” Joe wondered how many of the e-mails were to and from Yellowdick, and what they were about.

When he asked the question, he saw Layborn, Portenson, and Ashby all smile paternalistically. Portenson leaned forward on the table. “You can quit the charade, Joe.”

Joe didn’t respond but he knew his face was flushing because it was suddenly hot. The thunderhead of doubt rolled across the sky, blacking it out.

“We know about the e-mail to your governor,” Portenson said. “It was sent by Hoening. He was Yellowdick. He sent messages to the governors of Montana and Idaho too.” He paused, letting that sink in before continuing. “And the president,and the secretary of the interior, and the head of the EPA. None of them make any sense. All of the e-mails have referencesto resources and cash flow. The best we can determine is the guy objected to some aspects of management up here and liked to be a scaremonger. The Park Service is an easy target, you know. Everyone’s a critic. Hoening liked to stir things up, is all.”

Joe was embarrassed. They had known all along why the governor sent him and had been waiting for him to come clean. His duplicity shamed him.

“We know all about his e-mail traffic; we know everything there is to know about the victims,” Portenson said. “We didn’t just fall off the fucking turnip truck. But what we can’t figure out is if there is anything more to this case than what is staring us right in the face: that Clay McCann walked into Yellowstone Park and shot four people in cold blood and got off. That’s bad enough, but I’m afraid that’s all there is.”

Joe swallowed.

Portenson said, “This is the strangest case any of us have ever been involved in because everything’s transparent.” The FBI agent raised his fist and ticked off his points by raising his fingers one by one: “We know what happened. We know who did it-the son of a bitch admits it. We think we know the motivation.And we know there isn’t a goddamned thing any of us can do about it.”

Joe said, “Unless we can prove McCann went there specificallyto kill those four people as some kind of bigger scheme, then we can get him on conspiracy to commit murder.”

Portenson sighed. “You think we haven’t tried?”

“You’re welcome to follow up with me and my staff with any questions you might have,” Ashby said, taking back control of the meeting as Joe gave it up. “But we resent the idea that your governor thinks we’re a bunch of incompetents up here and he needs to send a game warden to figure things out. We resentthe hell out of it.”

Joe’s ears burned, and he needed a drink of water because his mouth was suddenly dry.

Ashby said, “Everything that could be investigated has been investigated. We’re sick to death of reporters, and questions, and second-guesses. We didn’t write the law that created this loophole and there’s nothing we can do about it now. The chief ranger wants this whole episode to go away.”

“Meaning,” Layborn said, “do what you have to do and then get the hell out. We don’t need your help and we don’t need your governor to check up on us.”

Ashby looked at his wristwatch again. For all intents and purposes, the meeting was now over.

“Thank you,” Joe said, and his voice sounded hollow even to him.

Layborn was up and out of the room before Joe could gather his papers and put them back into his file. Demming gave Joe a sympathetic nod and was gone.

“My daughter has a volleyball game in Gardiner,” Ashby said. “It started at five.” He held out his hand and Joe shook it.

“I’ve got daughters too,” Joe said. “I know how that goes.”

Ashby stood aside so Joe and Portenson could leave, then locked the room after them.

Joe and Portenson went down the stairs. The receptionist, who had to stay five minutes beyond quitting time because of the meeting, glared at Joe as he passed her desk.

The evening was cool and still. Joe didn’t realize Portenson was following him until he reached the Yukon.

“You ought to just go home, Joe,” Portenson said. “Save yourself the aggravation. This case has beaten me to death.”

Joe turned around and leaned against his vehicle. “You reallythink we know all there is to know?”

Portenson shook his head. “Sometimes, it’s all there right in front of you. We all want to find something else, figure it out, be heroes. But in this case, there’s nothing to figure. It is what it is.”

Joe wasn’t sure he agreed. “So where’s Bob Olig?”

“Who the fuck knows? Or cares? He probably just felt guilty because his friends died and he didn’t so he went to Belize or someplace like that.”

“Shouldn’t the FBI be able to find him?”

Portenson snorted. “Man, haven’t you been reading the paper?”

Joe didn’t want to go there. “The other thing I can’t wrap my mind around is this Clay McCann. The story just doesn’t ring true. He just happened to go on a hike armed like that? Come on.”

“The story’s so bizarre that it might just be true. And even if the guy knew about the Zone of Death, so what? He committed the perfect crime.”

Joe mulled that over.

“Those guys up there,” Portenson said, nodding toward the law enforcement building, “they don’t know you very well, do they?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

The FBI agent grinned wolfishly. “They don’t know you’ve got a knack for getting yourself in the middle of trouble. I wouldn’t really call it a talent, exactly; it’s more like a curse, like I’m cursed to never get out of this fucking state.” He laughed. “It might be just their bad luck that you’ll bumble onto something we missed. Poor fucking them.”

Joe shook his head and thought Portenson had more confidencein him than he had in himself, especially after having his head handed to him in the conference room.

“Are you going to be needing any help up here?”

Joe misunderstood. “Are you offering?”

“Fuck no. I’m through with this case. What I was wondering about was whether you might ask your old buddy Nate Romanowskito show up with his big gun and his bad attitude.”

Joe looked away, hoping his face didn’t reveal anything.

Portenson read him. “So he might show, eh?”

Joe said nothing.

“I still want to talk to him, you know.”

“I know.”

“I may never get out of this state,” Portenson said, “but it’ll make my sentence more pleasant if I know Romanowski is in a federal pen.”

“Don’t you have real terrorists to chase?” Joe asked.

Portenson snorted and opened his arms to embrace all of Mammoth Hot Springs, all of Yellowstone, all of Wyoming, and shouted, “I fucking wish!”

With that, Portenson turned on his heel and stomped across the small parking lot to his Crown Vic with U.S. Government plates. The FBI agent roared away with a spray of gravel.

Joe sighed, looked around. Cumulus clouds became incendiaryas the setting sun lit them. The quiet was extraordinary, the only sound the burble of a truck leaving Mammoth Village and descending the switchbacks toward Gardiner.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t made arrangements for where he would stay that night. His choice was to drive down the switchback roads from Mammoth out the North Gate and find a motel in Gardiner, Montana, or cross the street, the lawns where the elk grazed, to the rambling old Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.