Trial by Ice and Fire (32 page)

FORTY-FIVE

R
EBECCA AGREES TO FOLLOW ME
back to the cabin. I watch her in the rearview mirror for the entire drive. Even though it nearly causes me to wreck on several occasions, and to almost run through a surly buffalo roadblock, I never take my eyes off that small rectangle of glass for more than a few seconds. I'm terrified she'll change her mind; that she'll suddenly turn away and burn rubber back to Denver.

She's still behind me, but I curse out loud when I turn into my dirt lane from Cache Creek Road. There's yet another car parked against the porch. It's a cream-colored Cadillac with sparkling chrome. Have the FBI agents learned about Roberto being in town? About him being around the cabin? But as I study the car I realize it's too flamboyant for FBI agents. They tend to drive cars far less conspicuous, like enormous SUVs with black-tinted windows and antennae sprouting from every surface. This car has a Hertz sticker on the bumper and Wyoming plates.

Whoever it is, the timing couldn't be worse. I pull in so close behind the Cadillac that my brush guard looms over the sedan's rear bumper. I'm tempted to put it through the trunk. The last thing I need right now is more interference. More trouble. I check my rearview mirror one last time and, with a rush of relief mingling with trepidation, watch Rebecca park behind me.

Then I notice that the cabin's front door is standing wide open. Someone else has broken in.

I let Mungo out of the truck. Making that crying sound again, she immediately races back to where Rebecca is turning off her engine and unfastening her seat belt. The wolf's nails tap on the Saab's side window and door as her tail sweeps the dirt.

“It's about time you showed up,” Ross McGee bellows at me from the porch. He's rolled out the cabin's open door on his walker.

At the sound of his voice, Mungo stops her frantic assault on the side of Rebecca's car and rushes back to stand by my side. A low growl is coming from her chest. I realize I like this new Mungo. I should let her taste blood more often. Exposed by raised black lips, her white teeth look easily two inches long and as sharp as knives. I almost wish I hadn't washed Bill Laughlin's blood off her muzzle.

My boss is dressed in a navy pinstriped suit I've never seen before. It looks crisp and clean and it doesn't have the usual food stains running down the front or the snowy flakes of dandruff on the shoulders. His beard is clean, too, white and freshly shampooed.

Although I'm glad it's not the FBI waiting on my porch, right now McGee isn't much of an improvement. “What are you doing here, Ross? I thought you were in Cheyenne.”

“I was. I just flew back. You and me . . . we need to have a talk, lad. Now tell that creature to ease up.”

I stroke my wolf's head and tell her, “It's okay, Mungo. He can live . . . for now, anyway. But if he stays more than ten minutes, you have permission to bite his ass.”

Mungo lowers her lips and the harsh rumbling noise that's coming from her chest fades away.

“What's wrong with that dog? She got rabies or something?”

“I think she's gotten in touch with her inner wolf.”

Rebecca drags her fingertips across my arm as she walks past me. She climbs the steps and bends to kiss one side of McGee's beard. “I'm glad you're here,” she tells him. He wraps a thick arm around her waist and pats the rear pocket of her shorts fondly while giving me a wink. Rebecca laughs but I don't.

“What are you still doing with this cad?” he asks her. “I'd like to think a goddaughter of mine would have more sense . . . than to date a fool who spends his free time dangling from cliffs . . . and is mad enough to parachute into a forest fire.”

Rebecca looks sharply at me. “What? Parachute . . . never mind—I don't want to know.” Then back at McGee, “Love is blind,” she says simply.

McGee raises both his thick arms and clutches them to his chest while making a gagging noise.

“Do you mind taking Mungo for a walk?” I ask Rebecca. “I'll try to get this dirty old man out of here before you get back.”

McGee leads the way into my cabin while Rebecca coaxes the wolf down the lane. Both Mungo and Rebecca look over their shoulders at me as they walk away. Rebecca smiles again, and even Mungo seems to grin.

I stand impatiently in the spartan main room, watching as my boss takes a long time in getting himself a glass from the cupboard then finding ice to fill it with. I know better than to offer any help. After accomplishing that, he pours in a large amount of dark rum from his flask. Finally he rolls back toward me then sinks down onto the leather couch with a loud groan.

“I don't know how
you
do it . . . a smart, beautiful girl like that, a stone-headed cretin like you—” he starts to say.

“This is a really bad time, Ross. What are you doing here? What happened in Cheyenne?”

His frown at being interrupted is affected—I can see he's eager to talk. To tell me something. But first he says, “What the hell were you thinking . . . jumping out of that plane?”

It's intended to be a rebuke, but I know McGee well enough to discern the hidden approval in his voice. He is a man who knows a lot more than me about taking chances. In a prior life his wartime adventures in Southeast Asia had proven that. As had the slew of medals he was decorated with.

“Hell of a goddamn risk,” he continues when I don't say anything. “Fucking miracle you pulled it off.” He drinks from his glass and looks away from me. “But at a price—I heard about the sergeant. . . . Now they're sending a crew up to that mountain to look for the other body.”

I don't make any comment, although I'm tempted to tell him that they won't find it there. “What happened in Cheyenne?” I ask again.

After another sip from his glass, a longer, deeper one, he begins telling me what had occurred at the governor's office.

McGee's boss, the Assistant Attorney General, and the AG himself—our
über
-boss—were present. The two of them and the governor took turns reaming him for having been so reckless as to have put me in charge of such a sensitive case. And for having utterly screwed it up by allowing Cali Morrow to come to harm. It was a black eye that the state's law enforcement might never recover from. They were giving the Feds total command and latitude. And they were laying total blame where it belonged—squarely on McGee's shoulders. Shaking their heads with mock sorrow, their lips tight with pretended anger, they delightfully told him that it was an inglorious end to his twenty years of service.

“A regular gangbang,” McGee calls it.

They didn't care that we believed she was safe once we had Armalli in custody. All the evidence—physical and otherwise—pointed to him. There was no reason to go on protecting her when we had every reason to believe her stalker was locked securely in a cage at the Teton County Jail.

A new criminal investigation into my involvement in the triple homicide two years ago would be commenced immediately. And there would also be a parallel investigation looking into whether McGee had inappropriately used his authority to quash the initial investigation in order to protect one of his agents from multiple charges of murder. McGee's cooperation in both investigations would be required, and his immediate resignation was demanded.

A secretary had then interrupted the meeting, saying the governor had an emergency call. It turned out to be Alana Reese. The governor took it on his speakerphone, expecting it to be yet another nail in McGee's coffin. He even introduced the men present in the room and told her the purpose of their meeting. But the actress, instead of demanding that McGee and Burns be lynched from the nearest lamppost, did an amazing thing. She
ordered
the governor to undo whatever he was doing with regard to McGee and me. The governor—picking up the phone now—refused, telling her it was justified based on a long history of improper and possibly criminal behavior, and that it could not be undone.

McGee starts to chuckle, and for once it doesn't turn into a cough.

“The lady made him put her back on the speaker. . . . Then she told him again that he would undo it . . . threatened to give millions of dollars, if necessary, to whoever opposed him in the next election. . . . To even campaign for him or her. . . . She wouldn't give an explanation—she just demanded it be done. And it was, lad. It was.”

No doubt the animosity the administration bears toward McGee and me has now increased tenfold. This victory will cost us in the end, but I can't help feeling a little of my boss's elation. Even though I'm not sure how much longer I'll be doing this job. That depends on Rebecca.

“So you flew up here just to tell me this? All clean and fresh and in that fancy suit? You could have called and left a message, Ross.”

He grins even wider, showing all of his crooked yellow teeth. “That's not the end of it, QuickDraw. . . . I'm finally going to meet the little fox. . . . She invited me to dinner tonight . . . out at her ranch.”

The thought of McGee dining with the actress is more than unlikely—it's simply impossible to imagine. “You've got to be kidding me.” I shake my head at him, wishing I had a drink of my own to salute him with.

“Lady even sent her private jet to pick me up. . . . She invited you, too, by the way . . . but she said her daughter told her that you'd be busy.” He leers at me now, cocking an eyebrow, then glances toward the open front door.

I turn to look, too, and see Rebecca throwing a stick down the lane for Mungo to retrieve. Mungo stands beside her, watching the stick turning in the air then skittering in the dust, before turning back to Rebecca and lolling out her tongue.

“Now you tell me—what the hell happened up on that mountain?”

Sitting down myself now, still looking out the open door to where Rebecca and Mungo play in the road, I tell him about jumping from Jim's Cessna with Wokowski. And, in a brief, terse way, about what had happened to Charles Wokowski. I tell him everything, about the engagement ring Wook had showed me and the way he shoved Cali and me into the hole ahead of him. My throat is tight by the time I finish. It takes an effort to keep my voice from breaking.

McGee, despite his well-practiced callousness, appears to feel it, too. He looks older. Sadder, and not nearly so full of wicked energy. The wrinkles around his eyes are as deep as I've ever seen them and he slumps back in the chair.

He shakes his head sadly. “He was a good man . . . a good man. . . . Didn't like you much—he
had
to be a good man.”

We sit in silence for several minutes. Rebecca throws a stick again and this time Mungo brings it back to her. Then Mungo stands in front of her, the stick clenched between her fangs, and snarls at Rebecca. Rebecca puts her hands over her heart and pretends to swoon in terror. The wolf drops the stick, wagging her tail now and appearing—as much as a wolf can—to laugh. I want to be out there with them.

At last McGee growls, “So Laughlin got cooked in his own fire, eh? . . . That's justice, at least. No trial, no muss, no fuss.”

I rub my hands over my face and feel the dirt embedded there. I push them through my hair and they come away greasy and smelling of smoke and sweat.

“No, he somehow lived through it. I told you he was what climbers call a hardman. He managed to cross the burnt-out zone and make it to a ridge just a couple of miles from here. But then he fell off a cliff about two hours ago.” I don't mention the wolf bite that will be discovered on his ankle. It would be too hard to explain. And it might be interesting to see what the federal investigators make of it.

In giving him a sanitized version of the afternoon's events, I also don't mention anything about Roberto's presence or about me putting my gun to Laughlin's head.

When I finish, McGee is staring at me. He's leaning forward with his hands on the walker. It's as if he's trying once again to judge what's in my heart and in my head. As if all the faith he's built up in me is now in jeopardy. I feel my face get hot.

“Tell me you didn't push him,” McGee says quietly, his small eyes as dead serious as his voice.

“I didn't push him, Ross. He jumped at me, tripped on Mungo, and fell.”

“Look at me, lad. Look me in the eye.”

“I did not push him.”

The staring goes on. It takes great effort for me not to look away, knowing that it might be construed as guilt. I meet his gaze evenly and hold it.

After a few long seconds of this he lets out a phlegmy sigh. “Don't get all pissy on me, QuickDraw. But you give me a bad feeling sometimes.”

“I did not push him, Ross.”

He nods and finally looks down at his drink. “All right.”

The big glass of rum, which is still one third full, goes down his throat in one long swallow. The ice knocks against his teeth and he sucks the last drops of rum through them. Slumping back on the couch, he wipes his mouth with his sleeve and closes his eyes.

Outside Rebecca is calling to Mungo now. For a minute I think the wolf has run off somewhere, maybe chasing the stick or distracted by a squirrel, but then I catch the shape of her head poking out of the branches on the other side of the road. She's doing her you-can't-see-me-because-I'm-a-wolf thing. And Rebecca's playing her part, looking off in another direction with her hands on her hips. I hear her calling, “Where's Mungo? Where could she have gone?”

I walk into the bathroom and turn on the cold tap. Cupping the water, I splash it on my face and try to rub away the streaks of soot and dirt. They don't come away easily. I scrub at my skin with a rough towel until the only marks left on my face are the thin white scar running from left eye to lip and the creases of exhaustion and grief. More cold Teton water seems to help the latter, but has no effect on the scar. I scrub some more and look at myself for a long, long time. Longer than I have in many years. Then I walk back out into the main room.

“Hey, McGee. Do you want to know something about me? Something that will really piss you off?”

He appears to have been close to nodding off, or sinking into some personal reverie. But now his eyes snap open as he raises his head. The blue irises seem to be almost blazing with curiosity from beneath the bristling white brows. And, I imagine, a little bit of dread.