Free Fire (13 page)

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.”