Текст книги "Out of Range"

Автор книги: C. J. Box

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Two hundred and fifty miles away, under the same stars and slice of moon, an SUV with Virginia plates was aimed at the lip of a remote canyon called Savage Run. The driver, who had coaxed it up there over some of the roughest country he had ever seen, eased the gearshift into drive and stepped out as the vehicle rolled forward, picked up speed, and vanished over the edge. It took four full seconds for the sound of the crash to reach the top.

THIRTY-FIVE

A harsh shaft of sun from a skylight burned red through his eyelids, and Joe awoke covered in sweat with a screaming headache on a metal-framed cot in the Teton County jail. He turned his head to the side, away from the light, and the movement created a wash of nausea that rose in him. He staggered to the metal toilet in the corner of the cell, threw up, and leaned against the cold cinderblock wall, breathing deeply. His mouth tasted like he'd been sucking on pennies.

"Morning, sunshine," a Secret Service agent said, standing outside his cell. Joe recognized him as the one he had first seen in the sheriff's office.

Joe looked at his wrist, but saw a pale oval of skin where his watch should have been.

"What time is it?" he croaked, noticing they had also taken his belt, boots, and everything in his pockets.

"Noon."

"Man," Joe said, "my head is killing me."

"You took a few lumps," the agent said. "By the way, you popped your stitches last night so the doctor sewed you up again."

Joe raised his arm and saw the dried bloodstains on his clothes, then raised his shirt and looked at the new bandages. There was no mirror in the cell, but when he rubbed his unshaven face he felt several cuts and bruises, and his bottom lip was swollen and sore. Boy,he thought, if Marybeth could see me now, she'd be so proud.

"I'm Agent Cameron" the man said, "and you, my friend, are in a shitload of trouble."

Joe looked over at Cameron, the the words setting him back.

"What do you have against the vice president?" Cameron asked bluntly.

"Jeez …" Joe moaned, "I've got nothing against him."

"Then why'd you go after him that way?"

"I didn't go after him," Joe said. "I went after Don Ennis."

Cameron shifted, peering at Joe through the bars.

"Yeah," Cameron said, "that's what we thought. But Mr. Ennis tried to make the case that you were attacking the VP and he stepped in front of him to protect him from you."

Joe said, "You were there, weren't you? You know it didn't happen that way."

"We wouldn't have let it happen that way," Cameron said. "But maybe you were swinging for the VP and hit the wrong guy?"

"I hit who I was trying to hit," Joe said.

Cameron showed a slight smile. "Yeah, it was obvious you were after him and not the VP. I was just testing you. But Mr. Ennis seems to call a lot of the shots around here, and I think he would like you to stay in this jail cell a lot longer."

Joe reached up with both hands and smoothed his hair back. There were lumps on his scalp too, and he winced. "Have I been charged with something? Can I talk with the sheriff?" Joe asked.

"I don't think the sheriff is back yet," Cameron said. "He had to leave early this morning because there was some kind of accident on the river. Apparently, someone drowned in the whitewater."

Joe almost didn't make the connection, but when he did he said, "Oh, God."

"They're looking for her body downriver, I guess," Cameron said.

Joe closed his eyes tight and slid to the floor.

"Was she worth punching her husband and landing in jail?" Cameron asked.

Yes,Joe thought, yes she was.

Joe sat at a conference table in the sheriff's office with Randy Pope, Trey Crump, and Tassell. His hands were handcuffed and on the table in front of him. The skin on his knuckles, where he had hit Don Ennis, was peeled back and scabbed over.

Trey was seated next to Joe. "I came over as soon as I heard. Mr. Pope called me last night."

"Does Marybeth know?" Joe asked. "I haven't been allowed to make a call."

Trey raised his eyebrows sympathetically. "I called her this morning."

Joe looked down. He could not imagine what Marybeth must be thinking. "How did she take it?"

"Not well," Trey said, "but I told her we'd figure a way out of this."

He leaned into Joe. "I heard about what happened with Smoke Van Horn. I know you're not pleased about what you had to do, but I'm damned proud of you, Joe. After that bear, you had me worried."

"Me too," Joe confessed.

Tassell cleared his throat. He looked wrung out and angry. "I'd like to remind everyone here that Mr. Pickett is under arrest for assault, so I'd appreciate you not having side conversations. Letting him out of the cell to talk with you is a courtesy."

"Thank you," Joe told Tassell. He looked at Trey, said, "Thanks for telling Marybeth that, but I didhit the guy. My only regret is that I didn't shoot him-"

"Joe," Trey cautioned, interrupting, "watch what you say here."

Joe was struck by the wisdom of that and went silent.

"We might have a way to get you out of this," Pope said.

Joe turned to him. Pope sat on the other side of the table with Tassell.

"I talked with Don Ennis an hour ago at the hospital," Pope said. "He was very distraught, as you can guess. The poor guy lost his wife this morning. But he did say he'd consider dropping the charges if we would transfer you out of here."

"Was he in the boat when it happened?" Joe asked.

Pope looked back, confused. "What difference does that make? Didn't you hear me? He said he'd consider dropping the charges."

"Who was in the boat?"

Pope angrily slapped the table and addressed Joe's supervisor. "Trey, we have a terrible situation here, as you know. We could have one of our game wardens charged with aggravated assault-the second employee in this same district to get arrested. If that happens, it will look like the governor has completely lost control of this agency. I risk my reputation to get this guy out of it, and he doesn't seem to care!"

Trey sighed heavily and leaned toward Joe. "Joe, what's going on? We could both lose our jobs over this."

"His wife drowns but he has the presence of mind to negotiate my transfer?" Joe asked. "Does that sound like a grieving widower to you?"

"Shock affects people in different ways," Pope said weakly, again talking to Trey as if he couldn't deal with Joe. "Don Ennis has a direct line to the governor, Trey. He's not somebody we can fuck around with anymore. We let you give Will Jensen a long leash, and then Joe here. Things couldn't have gone worse under your watch. Now we've got to think of oursurvival, and I'm talking about the whole agency."

"What did you offer him?" Joe asked Pope. "Did you tell him we'd approve Beargrass Village?"

Pope flushed red but didn't answer.

"You did," Joe said.

"I'm trying to keep you out of jail!" Pope shouted. "Why can't you get that?"

Joe stood up, and he noticed that both Trey and Tassell pushed back from the table in case they needed to restrain him.

"Don Ennis caused Will Jensen to break," Joe said. "He started to do the same to me. He probably killed his wife this morning. And you"-he pointed awkwardly across the table with his handcuffs at Pope-"just gave him what he wanted all along."

The room was silent, until Pope asked, "Can you prove a single thing you're saying?"

Joe hesitated. "Some of it," he said. "But you'll need to give me the rest of the day to nail it all down."

Trey looked from Pope to Tassell. "Let's give Joe a chance here. Is that all right with you, Sheriff?"

"I don't think I like where this is headed," Sheriff Tassell said, shaking his head. "I don't think I like it at all."

On the way to the statehouse in Tassell's Cherokee, the sheriff kept shaking his head. "We lose a couple of people every year on the river," he said. "Unlike homicides, it isn't that unusual." He had told Joe, Pope, and Trey that while going through the rapids, Stella apparently lost her grip on the rope and was thrown from the boat. Don Ennis said she must have been tugged underneath his raft because they didn't see her again. Teams were searching for the body, but they hadn't found it yet.

"We've had situations where the body isn't found for weeks," Tassell said, "sometimes even longer. If it gets pinned under the water against rocks, we just have to wait. One guy wasn't found for over a year. His body washed all the way down to Palisades Reservoir and an ice fisherman found him when he was drilling a hole in the ice."

"Who else was in the boat?" Joe asked again.

"Don, of course," Tassell said, "Pete Illoway, and some guy named Shane Suhn, who works for Ennis. They all corroborated the story."

"How do we know she was in the boat?"

"Some other rafters saw her when they launched," Tassell said.

"Where did it happen?" Joe asked. "Where on the river?"

"At the start of the worst stretch of whitewater," Tassell said. "That's where most of the drownings take place. People get used to nice easy rapids, and then they hit the hard stuff and they aren't prepared for it."

Tassell leaned across the table to look at Joe. "You've seen all those Snake River rafting pictures around town? That's where they're taken, because the rollers are so big."

Joe thought about the photos he had seen in the window of Wildwater Photography.

"She wasn't inexperienced," Joe said. "She'd been on that stretch of the river many times."

"But why would Don kill his wife?" Tassell asked.

"She discovered something about him," Joe said. "And he was planning to dump her."

Trey turned in his seat, hanging an arm over the back of it, narrowing his eyes at Joe. "How well did you know her, anyway?"

"Well enough," Joe said.

"I thought you were going to say 'not well enough.'" Pope grinned.

Joe glared at him, and Pope looked away.

At the statehouse, Joe showed them how the piece of siding on the back of the house could be removed. They watched as he took it off and peeled back a layer of pink insulation, revealing a line of copper tubing and a metal screw-top fitting that had been soldered onto the tube.

"This line connects directly from the well in the basement to the drinking water outlet on the refrigerator inside," Joe said. "It was the surest way they could drug Will. They couldn't put it in his food, because he ate out a lot and rarely cooked, except for that last night. But if they could connect it to his drinking water"-Joe fingered the valve where a bottle of liquefied narcotic could be connected by a fitting with a dispensing valve on it-"they knew it would get him." He showed them how the valve could be adjusted to dispense a quantity of the drug into the line. It was still set at one-quarter open, enough to affect Joe but not disable him.

"Christ," Tassell said, looking over the mechanism.

"The first night I was in the house I heard somebody out here," Joe said. "I heard a clunking sound, probably after they hooked up the bottle and fumbled with putting the siding back up. But I didn't figure this out until yesterday. Once I knew it was drugs, things started to make sense."

"So they didn't actually murder him," Trey said. "They created a scenario where he would either get fired, get arrested, or do himself in."

"Right," Joe said. "He was under a lot of strain after his wife left, and that's when they installed it. And they also knew that after she left he'd be in worse shape, and more vulnerable. Ennis knew Will was going to veto Beargrass Village, and the only way the project could go forward was if Will was gone and discredited. Will couldn't figure out what was happening to him-you can read it in his journals. The drugs just made things worse to the point that he couldn't see another way out of it." Joe had made the decision not to tell them what he knew about Stella's part in it. He didn't see the point, now that she was gone and Will's death had been ruled a suicide.

"But we don't know who rigged this up," Pope said. "You're speculating here."

"I am," Joe said. "But who besides Don Ennis had the means to do something like this? Who gained from Will going off the deep end?"

"You've got a point," Trey said.

"Another thing," Joe said. "Susan Jensen told me that Will's cremation was paid for by some anonymous person. She thought it was someone who liked Will, or the family. I'll bet if we check the crematorium we'll find out the check came from Ennis, or Beargrass Village, or one of his other companies."

"Why would he do that?" Pope asked.

"In case someone wanted to dig up the body and do an autopsy later," Joe said. "To prevent the discovery of drugs in Will's system."

Tassell rubbed his face with his hands and moaned.

"Let me show you something else," Joe said, leading them around the house to the driveway.

Joe explained that he had located the transmitter in Will's pickup the previous afternoon, before he went to the party at the Ennises'. After searching the wheel wells, bumpers, and motor, he found it mounted under the dashboard within a spider's web of wiring. Will's line about They know where I'm going and they track my movementsmade him think of the truck.

"They knew where he went, what he said, what he told people over his radio," Joe said. "Since game wardens spend more time in their vehicles than they do anywhere else, it was like tapping his office."

Trey nodded, leaning into the cab to look under the dashboard. "If we check the frequency on that transmitter and match it to a receiver, we've found who was listening in."

"I'd guess the receiver is in a room at Beargrass," Joe said. "That's how they knew what decision he was going to make on Beargrass Village. They listened to him talk to biologists and others about the migration problems a fence would cause."

"So that's why they torched your truck," Tassell said, still with a pained expression on his face. It was as if Joe's discoveries were causing him escalating physical pain. "It was easier to do that than run the risk of getting caught putting another transmitter in yourvehicle. They knew you'd just take Will's truck instead, and you did."

Joe stood back and let the men hash out theories and make connections. Trey bought what Joe had shown them; Pope was intrigued but wary because if Joe was right he would look foolish for his agreement with Ennis, and Tas-sell was pained by the prospect of confronting one of the most powerful and willful men in Teton County. While Joe listened, he saw the neighbor in the tam come out of his house with his dog. He had kept Stella out of it so far, figuring it was the least he could do. Even though he knew she was dead, the fact hadn't really sunk in yet.

"Let's go back to the station," Joe said, interrupting. "I've got an idea how we might be able to get Ennis to admit he murdered his wife."

Pope and Tassell looked at Joe with incredulity.

They were in the Cherokee before the neighbor made it down the block, for which Joe was grateful. That man, he had learned the day before, was a talker.

THIRTY-SIX

Pi Stevenson was in the process of flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED in the window of Wildwater Photography when Joe rapped on the door. She started to point to the sign, then recognized him and unlocked the bolt.

"What happened to you?" she asked, recoiling from the bruises and lumps on his face.

"Is Birdy here?" Joe asked, not wanting to take the time to explain.

"He's in the back," she said. "Would you like to come in?"

"I've got some colleagues with me," Joe said. He saw her look over his shoulder at the sheriff's SUV, which was parked against the curb.

"Am I in trouble again?" she asked.

"Not that I know of," Joe said, stepping inside and signaling Tassell and Trey to follow. The studio was small, the walls filled with action shots of skiers and rafters and a few obligatory Tetons at daybreak. A long front counter divided the public area from a small office and a curtained darkroom. A red light was on above the darkroom entrance, and Joe assumed that's where Birdy was.

"What do you want?" she asked. "We were just about to close up for the day."

Joe looked straight at her. "How would you like to contribute to a real bad day for Don Ennis and Beargrass Village?"

Her eyes lit up, and she beamed. Then, with determination, she turned and shouted over her shoulder, "Birdy!"

"You've got to be real careful here," Joe told Pi and Birdy. "You can't lie, and you can't insinuate anything at all, even if he presses you, or wants to negotiate over the phone. Do you understand me?"

Pi nodded, trying to contain her enthusiasm. She was both giddy and nervous at the same time. For his part, Birdy seemed pleased to have Pi so happy with him for agreeing to go along with Joe's idea.

"I'll be on the phone in the office," Tassell warned, looking from Pi and Birdy to Joe. "If anything you say comes across as even a hint of extortion or entrapment, I'm pulling the plug on this. We'll have the call recorded, and it has got to be clean enough to stand up in court if we need it."

The store's office was crowded. One of Tassell's deputies had brought in the owner of the local Radio Shack, who was opening up boxes containing a tape recorder and an 8mm video camera. Randy Pope was at the Game and Fish building, calling the agency director and the governor to let them know what was happening. Joe wondered why Pope had been so anxious to leave, but was pleased the man wasn't there.

"What if he acts like he doesn't know what we're talking about?" Birdy asked.

"That's fine," Joe said. "That means he's either innocent or he's buying time to deal with you later. My guess, though, is he'll want to take care of things right away. He won't really believe you have anything, but he's too impulsive not to make sure. He's a man of action. If that's the case, we want him to come here. We don't want a meeting set up anywhere else. You've got to be careful not to tip him off in some way. If that happens, we've lost our opportunity."

Over his shoulder, Tassell asked his deputy if the telephone tap was working, and the deputy said it was. The owner of Radio Shack looked excited to be able to play a part in the operation, Joe thought.

"What about the video camera? Where are we going to put that?" Tassell asked.

The man from Radio Shack and the deputy looked around the room theatrically for a good location.

"How about on the shelf behind the counter with all the other cameras? We can put a piece of tape over the red light so they won't know it's on," Trey said, pointing over Tassell's head. Birdy had a display of old and new cameras that he used for photographing skiers and rafters.

"That makes sense," Tassell said, rolling his eyes at the obviousness of it.

"Give us a minute," the Radio Shack owner said. "I want to test everything."

While they waited, Joe went over things again with Pi and Birdy.

"And to think this was all about meat," Pi said triumphantly. "Flesh-eaters lose their moral bearings when confronted with the possibility of not getting what they want, which is more flesh. Or in this case, better flesh."

Joe was confused for a moment, and could feel Tassell staring at him. He motioned Joe into the office and shut the door.

"She's a loose cannon," Tassell said. "She'll screw this up and we'll get hung out to dry for entrapment."

"Can you think of another way?" Joe asked.

Tassell hesitated. "No."

Joe opened the door and went back to the counter, Pi and Birdy looking at him expectantly.

"Are we still on?" Birdy asked.

"We're on," Joe said.

"Let's get this son of a bitch," Pi said, her eyes dancing.

Joe sat down, filled with sudden doubt. It had taken him over an hour to convince Tassell to try this, and the sheriff had reluctantly agreed, but only after talking with the county attorney. Tassell was concerned that Pi and Birdy's animal rights agenda was so vehement that they would do or say anythingto implicate their target. Every word that was said, every inference, would be recorded on audio– and videotape to be scrutinized by lawyers and judges in what could be a hostile court. Looking at the glee in Pi's face, Joe wasn't so sure the sheriff wasn't right.

Joe sat at the counter across from Pi and Birdy while Pi arranged the speaker phone in front of them. His assignment was to coach them through the phone call if necessary, and to warn them if they got into dangerous territory. Joe handed her the business card he had received a couple of weeks before, the one that read: "Welcome to town. I worked with Will. I'll be in touch."

As she punched the buttons, Joe turned to Tassell, his deputy, the Radio Shack owner, and Trey, and placed his finger to his lips. They all nodded back.

After three rings, a receptionist answered, "Beargrass Village."

"May I speak to Don Ennis, please?" Pi said.

"Who may I ask is calling?"

"Pi Stevenson and Birdy Richards," she said, looking up at Joe and smiling. "It's extremely important."

"Hold, please." There was a click and the silence was filled with soft classical music.

Joe turned and raised his eyebrows at the Radio Shack owner and the deputy, who both wore headphones. Both men turned thumbs up. The recording equipment was working.

"Come on the line, you bastard," Pi said, curling her lip.

Joe shushed her.

"He's an asshole," she said. "What if he doesn't take our call?"

Joe shrugged and gestured toward the phone. He didn't want to get into a discussion with her that could be overheard if the receptionist suddenly came back on the line.

"He's probably sitting in his lounge chair eating raw flesh," Pi said, and Birdy giggled.

Joe looked at them both with exasperation.

But when the receptionist picked up, Pi was all business.

"Mr. Ennis suffered a traumatic event today and he's resting," the receptionist said. "May I please take your name, number, and a message so he can call you back?"

Joe saw a spark in Pi's eyes as she said, "I suggest you wake him up. This call concerns the traumatic event. Again, it's extremely important that we talk to him."

Uh-oh,Joe thought, trying to catch her eye. Don't go any further with it.

The receptionist hesitated. Joe could almost see her trying to figure out what to do.

"This is something Mr. Ennis will want to hear himself," Pi said. When she finally looked up, Joe motioned to her to back off. She smiled and dismissed Joe with a "don't worry" look.

"Please hold," the receptionist said, and the music came back.

Tassell had crossed the room and was hovering behind Joe.

"I know," Joe whispered to him. His stomach was knotting up, and Pi said frivolously, "I think we've got the hook in the bastard's mouth. Now he'll know what fish feel like."

"Pi-" Joe started to say, when the music stopped suddenly.

"This is Don Ennis." His voice was a harsh, no-nonsense baritone. "This is not a good time to call. What's so goddamned important?"

Pi mimed the act of reeling in a fish while she spoke: "Mr. Ennis, this is Pi Stevenson-"

"Is there somebody there with you?" Ennis interrupted. "I thought I heard another voice."

Joe thought, Shit.

"Yes, there is," Pi said smoothly, and Joe felt his scalp crawl. "I'm here with Birdy Richards. He's the owner of Wildwater Photography, and I work for him."

Joe let out a long, silent sigh.

"I thought you were that animal-rights kook."

"One and the same, Mr. Ennis, but that's not why I called."

"What is it, then? I told you this was a bad time."

"Well, we thought you would want to know," she said.

"Know what?"

Birdy leaned forward toward the phone. "Mr. Ennis, this is Birdy Richards. Do you know what we do here at Wild-water Photography?"

"No, and I really don't care."

Birdy glanced at Joe, hurt. Joe gestured for him to go on.

"We've got cameras placed on the banks of the Snake River," Birdy said. "Where the rapids are. We take pictures of the rafters when they come through the whitewater. The rafters usually don't even know it, because they're having too much fun or they're too scared to look for the cameras. Then, at the take-out spots, we pass out flyers saying the rafters can buy photos of themselves shooting the rapids if they come into town to my shop. We have proof sheets ready by the time they get here that they can look at, and I sell the shots either as prints or I can put them on a disk. About five to seven percent of the rafters decide they want pictures made of their Snake River experience."

As Birdy talked, Joe began to relax. Birdy had made his sales pitch often enough that he sounded comfortable. Joe could imagine Ennis's mind racing with the possibilities of what he was being told.

"Of course," Pi interjected, "that means ninety-five percent of the photos aren't sold to anyone. Sometimes, they turn out to be the most interesting shots taken."

Stop there,Joe gestured to her.

"What the fuck?" Ennis said. "What are you telling me exactly?"

"Just that we get a lot of pictures we don't quite know what to do with," Birdy said.

Pi leaned forward, and Joe mouthed, No!She sat back, pouting.

"So," Ennis said, his voice hushed, "are you telling me your cameras shot all of the rafters on the river today?"

Birdy looked at Joe, fear in his eyes. He obviously didn't know how to answer the question, how to parse his words so he wasn't lying. The fact was, Birdy's cameras shot only rafts for companies that enrolled in his program and agreed to tape photocells on their rafts that would signal the remote cameras to work. All the other rafts, including the Ennis raft, would have passed by unnoticed.

"Mr. Ennis," Pi said, while Joe cringed in anticipation, "what we're saying is that we got a lot of pictures we just hate to see go to waste. Some real prize-winners."

Okay,Joe thought, signaling her. That was vague enough.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," Ennis growled.

"We thought you'd find that interesting," Pi said, beaming at Joe and yanking an imaginary hangman's noose above her head.

"Would you consider possibly selling the photos you took today?" Ennis asked.

"Sell them?" Pi said innocently.

"You know what I'm talking about," Ennis said. "Quit fucking around. I want to look at them, and maybe I could buy some of them. I want you to bring them to me."

Tassell's deputy sneezed in the back of the room.

Ennis went silent.

Joe covered his face with his hands.

"Who was that?" Ennis asked.

Birdy looked stricken. His wide forehead was beaded with sweat. Pi, for the first time, looked scared.

Then Joe mouthed, The dog.

"Just the dog," Pi said to the phone.

"The dog?"

"Pi feeds the dog a vegan diet," Birdy said, running with it. "He doesn't get enough protein so he catches a lot of colds. I keep telling her that dogs need to eat meat, even if people don't."

"Dogs can survive perfectly well without meat," Pi said heatedly, meaning it. "They can get their protein from soy and other natural products."

"Jesus, you people," Ennis said disgustedly.

Again, Joe relaxed.

"Mr. Ennis," Birdy said, "we can't bring the pictures there. They're here on the computer. But if you want to, you can come look at them at the shop."

Again, silence. Joe guessed Ennis was deliberating what to do.

"Has anyone else seen the photos?" Ennis asked.

"No, sir."

"Does anyone else know about the photos?"

"Not yet, sir," Birdy said, hanging the yetout there.

"Sit tight. What's the address?" Ennis barked. "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

When the call was concluded, Birdy flopped forward into his arms as if completely spent, and Pi pumped her fist in the air and screamed, "Yes!"

Joe turned and looked at the sneezing deputy, who was beet red. Then to Pi and Birdy: "Great job."