Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(25)

Joe grimaced until Mike Martin came on the line.

“How’s it going?” Joe asked.

“Complicated,” Martin said. The connection was poor and Martin sounded bone-tired. “We found Jim Trenary’s body, which is something I won’t soon forget. Two bears, a yearling and his mama, were there in the meadow when we found him. They weren’t feeding on the body, though. It was like they were guarding it.”

“That’s just strange,” Joe said.

“You’re telling me,” Martin said. Joe could imagine him shaking his head while he said it. “Both bears took off when we got there, but I don’t think they went far. Now we’re kind of at an impasse. It’s too dark to land a chopper and go home tonight, so we’re just going to dry camp here on the edge of the crime scene and hope the bears don’t sneak up on us.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help more,” Joe said as he cruised down Main Street in Saddlestring and out the other side.

“It’s gonna be a long night,” Martin said. “We can’t determine yet if the killer was the yearling or the mama bear.”

“Is it possible there was a third bear you never saw?” Joe asked.

“It’s possible, but unlikely,” Martin said. “I thought about that myself. But both bears were aggressive and territorial when we found them. They fit the profile.”

It was as if he were talking about a gangbanger, Joe thought.

“That’s why I could still use another set of eyes, if you can shake free of whatever it is the boss asked you to do,” Martin said.

“Does Talbot’s story check out?” Joe asked.

“Well, not really.” He said it in a breezy way that was discordant to the tone of their previous conversation.

“Is he standing right there?” Joe asked.

“Yes, that’s the situation, Joe.” Then: “Our crime scene guy will be with us tomorrow. We didn’t get a chance to investigate the scene after we located the body. There’s plenty of evidence scattered around. I hate to leave Jim’s body out there, but I don’t see where I’ve got a choice.”

“Got it,” Joe said. He knew Martin was conveying that there were questions about what had happened based on the scene and the evidence, but that he couldn’t talk about them in front of Talbot.

“The chopper will be here first thing tomorrow,” Martin said. “Mr. Talbot will be boarding it so he can fly back to Florida.”

“I figured he would.”

“No doubt about it,” Martin said, as if addressing something else entirely.

“My pickup is over there at the trailhead,” Joe said. “Do you know of anyone who might be headed over the mountains in my direction?”

“I’ll ask around,” Martin said.

“The key fob is under the rear bumper.”

Joe had learned not to take his vehicle keys with him into the field. It was too easy to lose them or damage them while on horseback.

“When we get down from here, I’ll grab it and take it with me,” Martin said. “I’ll let you know about getting your truck back to you. But if that doesn’t work out, you might have to come get it.”

“That may be a couple of days,” Joe sighed. “It’s complicated over here as well.”

“We’ll have to have a long sit-down and swap stories,” Martin said.

“Yup.”

*

JOE TURNED OFF the state highway into a thick bank of trees and willows on a two-track that led to his home. After so many years of living at the old place on Bighorn Road, he still felt like he needed to pinch himself when he pulled up to the ten-year-old, three-bedroom, two-bath house next to the river.

In addition to the structure itself, there was a barn and corrals for their horses, a shed for his departmental ATV and drift boat, and a two-car garage. The irony of finally being assigned living quarters with twice the floorspace—now that their three daughters had left the nest—didn’t escape him. And that he could grab his fly rod and walk to the river for a few evening casts seemed too good to be true.

For the past week, a big cow moose had stood in the middle of the two-track when he returned home in the evening. She was old, with snow-white legs and a white snout and she’d glare at him with an uncomprehending squint until he stopped his pickup. Then she’d amble into the timber with the grace of a charging linebacker. But the moose wasn’t there this evening.

The house was lit up from within and the porch light was on. Marybeth’s van was parked in the garage and Joe was surprised to see Nate Romanowski’s Yarak, Inc. utility transport nosed into the space between the house and the shed. He smiled wryly.

Joe and Marybeth were still adjusting to a house without daughters in it now that Lucy was a freshman at the University of Wyoming. The situation was both thrilling and terrifying at the same time, and it depended on the circumstances. It was a tougher adjustment for Marybeth, he thought, but he certainly missed his girls as well. For over twenty years, he’d return each night to the “House of Feelings,” no matter what actual structure it was. Now it was just Joe and Marybeth.

They found themselves getting on each other’s nerves at times since there weren’t any daughters around to buffer a disagreement or distract them from it altogether. It had been so long since the original empty house, he thought, that it was more effort than he’d anticipated for him and Marybeth to return to the balance they’d once had before starting a family. But things were certainly trending the right way. They were getting used to it.