The storm cloud writhed in the Southern sky, moving in fast, another aggravation in a day fraught with obstacles. Reginald “Mullet” Bellows cursed god, the mountains and the weather. On his way up the mountain, he’d been pulled over for an expired tag by that son–of–a–whore Deputy Scott Amos, then he’d had to sit another ten minutes for the lecture on danger in the woods that the deputy delivered with such enjoyment, and then he’d finally gotten up to the campsite only to discover that Burl Mascotti hadn’t left the supplies where they were supposed to be. He’d found them stuck in the hollow trunk of a pine tree, not a spruce, after a thirty–minute search in the failing light. Burl was a fucking moron. He couldn’t recognize one tree from another. His only redeeming quality was that he’d do whatever it took to make money. And he could bullshit with the best of them. He had a great act going—a philanthropist who took in unwanted zoo animals to give them a retirement home. Right. What he gave them was a shot of drugs so strong they couldn’t even stagger away from the stupid fuckers who paid upwards of ten grand to shoot a panther or a tiger.
Mullet went to the cage where the black panther waited. She was older, but she wasn’t too old to hurt him if she got the chance. She’d been docile when they’d first gotten her, but now she’d caught a whiff of her future, and she meant to go down fighting. He’d have to use the dart gun on her, but not until tomorrow. There was no way the two lawyers from Albany, New York, would make it to the campsite in a flood, so the kill would have to be postponed. Damn it all to hell. He’d hoped to move the lawyers in, set up the cat, let them shoot it, and get them back on a plane tomorrow with their trophy left down at Zell’s Taxidermy to be stuffed.
Now, the weather had thrown a monkey wrench in his plans. The cat would just have to sit in the cage another day. Hell, it was going to be killed anyway, so another twelve hours of discomfort wouldn’t matter.
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a pouch. He rolled the joint with dexterity. He thought about giving the cat some water, but after the first two tokes, he didn’t feel like doing anything until Burl showed up. Burl said this cat came from some small zoo in Mississippi. They’d given it to Burl, thinking it was going to a loving home. He chuckled aloud at the irony.
The sound of an ATV roaring through the thick trees told him Burl was on the way. He saw the headlight bobbing along the dim trail.
He lost sight of the headlight when it went into a small hollow. When it came back up it was only five yards from his extended feet. He waited for his friend to turn off the engine.
“Burl, you bring any beer?”
Burl kicked his foot, hard. “Those fucking lawyers didn’t want to spend the night in the rain. I tried to get them to come on up and finish this, but they wouldn’t think of getting their expensive guns wet.”
“I figured as much. Pansy asses.” He re–lit the joint, took a hit and offered it to Burl. “This’ll make it all seem better.” He frowned. “Hey, fancy footwear. Where’d you get the money for boots like that?”
Burl took the joint, a grin splitting his face. “I bought ‘em this morning at Abe’s Outfitters. Some hiker ordered ‘em special but never picked ‘em up. I got ‘em half price.” He inhaled, holding the smoke until he expelled it on a cough. “Man, that’s some good shit.”
“Once we get the money from those lawyers, I’m gonna make a little investment in this. Buy five pounds and cut myself in for a nice profit by selling it.” He could see Burl’s eyes light up at the thought of a profit.
“Got a line on a wolverine. That oughta draw some big bucks next week.” Burl glanced around the woods. “You think those two murders are gonna hurt our business?”
Mullet ran his fingers through the long hair that hung down the back of his neck. The front and top were close–cropped, a style he’d adopted when he was in his prime some twenty years earlier. The haircut, and a certain way with the ladies, was his signature and had earned him his nickname.
“Naw, our out–of–town clients don’t know about it ‘til they get into town, and by then it’s too late. We’ve got their money, so they can’t back out.” He yawned. Damn but smoking dope made him lazy. “I think putting ole Hank in the ground is only gonna help our business. Less competition.”
Burl cocked his head as if he heard something.
“What’s wrong?”
“I smell gasoline.” Burl walked off two steps, then turned to the ATV. He knelt down beside it. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. There’s a damn hole in the gas tank.”
Mullet closed his eyes to hold on to his temper. Burl was such a major fuck–up. “You could tear up a steel ball, Burl.”
“I didn’t tear nothin’ up. Look at it. Someone punched something in it. Like a screwdriver or something.”
Mullet stood and pulled the flashlight from the pack of supplies beside the panther’s cage. Once he looked at the hole, he had to back off Burl a little. It did look as if someone had punctured the gas tank deliberately. The idea of it made him turn slowly in all directions.
“You see anyone around when you got the four–wheeler out of the woods?”
Burl shook his head. “It was right there, covered up with limbs like we left it.”
“Someone found it, though.” Mullet remembered a paragraph from the newspaper story he’d read about Hank Welford’s death. The state game warden, Jake Ortiz, had speculated that it was likely some poachers killing other poachers. Mullet tried to think if he’d pissed off any of the competition lately.
“Hank was skinned alive,” Burl said, turning to look in all directions. “He bled to death from where the person peeled the hide off him. They took his head and nobody’s found it yet.”
“Shut up.” He and Hank had had a bitter falling out, but he didn’t like to think of him being tortured.
The snap of a stick made both men turn to the south. The edge of the storm cloud was right on top of them, a black thunderhead that looked as if divine justice was about to come down from the sky. “Let’s get back to town. We can double on my four–wheeler.” He staggered a bit, ruing the effects of the joint. Now his imagination was on overdrive and his reflexes were dull.
“What about the cat?” Burl asked.
“It ain’t going anywhere. Now move.” He had the creepiest sense that someone was watching them from the trees. “Get your fat ass humpin’, Burl. I want to get back to town.”
“Let me get some water—”
“Fuck the cat!” He roared the words, taking some courage from the sound of his own agitated voice. He was still in command. “Pick up this shit here, and I’m going to grab the drugs up on the top of the ridge where I left ‘em.”
He straddled his four–wheeler and roared off, leaving Burl to pick up the beer and sandwiches they’d planned to eat while waiting for the lawyers to “find” the panther. He was halfway up the ridge when he heard a high–pitched sound that was neither human nor animal. He cut the engine to listen and was about to turn the machine back on when he heard it again, this time a distinct scream. Burl’s scream.
He hesitated, his fear blooming, as alive and powerful as the forces barely contained in the overhead cloud.
Burl’s cries tore through the gloom. Mullet spun the ATV toward the site where he’d left his partner.
Mullet re–entered the camp area as the first drops of rain began to fall. Hard and cold, containing small crystals of hail, the rain sang as it struck his nylon jacket. He shone his headlight on the area.
The door of the panther’s cage swung open. The lock that he’d taken such precautions to buy so that some happenstance hiker wouldn’t free the animal had been sprung.
A blood trail disappeared into the woods.
Terrified, he wanted to flee. He could always claim he thought he should get help rather than search for Burl on his own. He could claim…
The headlight caught the boot.
He left the ATV running as he got off and walked slowly toward the hiking boot that stood all alone on the forest floor. The blood trail ended at the boot, Burl’s brand new boot.
The rain came down harder, washing away all traces of Burl and what might have happened in the small clearing.
# # #
Rachel shuffled the papers she’d been studying and glanced out the window of the sheriff’s office. Her best lead so far involved Trussell, a wealthy plastic surgeon who had a legal problem. A serious one. He wasn’t highly regarded by his office staff. Or his wife. She’d come to claim his body, sans head, and never shed a tear.
Scott had interviewed a dozen men associated with Hank Welford and who might bear him a grudge. Nothing. The case was at a standstill. Even the forensic evidence was nil so far. Her first big case and she was stalled.
Trussell’s expensive belongings had been found at a camp site some five miles from the murder scene but had led nowhere.
Night had fallen early with the help of the storm. She was alone, except for the dispatcher, Gladys, who was reading a novel. Judging from the expression on Gladys’s face, she wouldn’t have paid attention if a bomb exploded in their building.
Rachel rubbed her eyes, aware that she was tired and hungry. VICAP had yielded no match for similar cases, but she’d done a comprehensive ten–year newspaper search for murders where the victims were mutilated. There were plenty of cases, but none that resembled what was happening in Criss County.
A shadow fell over her desk, and she looked up to see Jake reading the report over her shoulder.
“You got something on that doctor?” Jake motioned to the papers in her hand. “What’s the story?”
“He was being sued by one of his patients.”
Jake’s eyes showed immediate interest. “What kind of suit?”
“The kind that can get a man killed.” She handed the papers to him.
Jake studied the report for a moment before he lowered it. “He molested a sixteen–year–old girl?”
“Allegedly molested. And not just any girl, but a patient who claims she was raped while sedated. The girl’s family was asking for half a million to settle.”
Jake put the pages on her desk. “So why torture Hank instead of the doctor?”
Rachel rubbed the furrow between her eyebrows. “That troubles me. Could be Trussel ran and the killer shot him in the head.” She shook her head. “Could be Hank did something stupid and pissed the killer off.”
“Could be you need something to eat,” Jake said, rubbing the back of her neck. “You look done in. Want to grab a burger at Lulu’s?”
“Sure.” She slipped the report into her desk drawer and locked it.
“A little paranoid, aren’t you?”
She didn’t look at him as she got her purse. “Force of habit. That way nothing goes missing and there’s no time lost hunting for things that someone picked up and forgot to return.”
The rain had begun to slack off when they opened the door of the courthouse. Rachel hunched into her coat. Though it was summer, the storm had brought with it cooler temperatures. “Jake, do you think it’s possible someone from Boston followed this guy here and decided to take justice into his own hands?”
Jake didn’t immediately answer, and she didn’t press as they walked to his Land Rover. He opened the door and she slid in.
“It’s possible.” He started the vehicle and pulled out onto Main Street. “But why kill someone who might pay you half a million?”
“Maybe to spare your daughter having to testify in a courtroom. They can still sue the estate.”
Jake glanced at her. “Some fathers would do that.”
“Yeah, some would.” She fixed her gaze out the passenger window. “And some wouldn’t. Like mine.” She wanted to take the last two words back as soon as she spoke them. This was one of the reasons she found it difficult to be around Jake. He knew too much of her history. And sometimes, when she was tired and her guard was down, she slipped too close to being the teenager who’d viewed her own life as worthless.
“You know it wasn’t you that your father abandoned, Rachel. Your mom made it impossible for anyone to stay around.”
“Except for me.” Jesus, why not just send out invitations to the pity party? “Look, I don’t want to talk about this.” She sat up taller, determined to shed the memories as she lost the slumping posture she’d assumed as soon as she thought about the past.
“I’ve never told you about the day your dad left, have I?”
Rachel felt the skin on her face tighten. “You saw him leave?” It was one of Jake’s habits, to reveal things by layer and degree. Sometimes she wondered if he made things up based on the situation.
“Wasn’t much to see. I’d ridden my bike to the Little League game and stopped to say hi to your mom. Your dad threw a pillowcase full of clothes into the front seat of his truck and reversed out of the driveway. I figured he and your mom had had another fight and that he’d be back in a day or so. They fought pretty regular toward the end, and it was nothing to see him pack his things and light out for a bit.”
There was nothing Rachel could add. They were talking about a ghost, a man she’d never met. Her only image of him came from an old photograph she’d found in her mother’s things.
The windshield wipers swished back and forth as they drove slowly down Main Street. On the edge of town they passed Prima Donna’s, a modern glass and steel structure that looked out of place among buildings that bore the distinctive stamp of the old West. The studio/dojang was closed. The little tappers and ballerinas were cute, but Rachel liked to work out in the wee hours of the morning when sleep wouldn’t come.
“I’ve grown to love this town,” Jake said, his thoughts paralleling hers.
“I know. It’s a special place. Do you think Paradise will change it a lot?”
He sighed. “Change is inevitable.”
She grasped what he meant instantly. Bisonville and Criss County would change greatly. She took in the empty streets that had seen a bloody history and now a deep peace.
Neon lit Bud’s Bar and Lulu’s, as well as the local pharmacy. Almost everything else was closed. Bisonville rolled up every day about five o’clock when the work day was over. Growing up in Rapid City, she would’ve been appalled at the idea that she’d ever find this solitude and isolation comforting. “What would my life be like now if your parents hadn’t taken me in and moved here, away from all the drugs and bad influences?”
“I figured your dad never knew about you,” Jake said as he parked the Land Rover right in front of the café. Red neon advertised barbecue, and green promised short orders.
She opened the car door and started to get out, but his hand gently stopped her. “If he’d known about you, he would have come back. Nobody had a clue until months later when Junie started showing. By then there was no denying it, and though Dad tried to find your father, he never could get a trace on him.”
“You ever think I might not belong to Edward Redmond?” It was a question that she’d asked herself a million times, but she’d never asked her mother. “I mean, Mama wasn’t all that particular who shared her bed.”
Jake’s thumb rubbed the top of her hand. “She wasn’t like that always, Rachel. You know that. I think she got desperate. She loved you. For all of her flaws, she did love you. I think she felt trapped by her life.”
“She was the most imprisoned person I’ve ever known.” Rachel was impatient to get out of the vehicle and the conversation. Jake wasn’t usually so sentimental, and she was wary of falling too far down the black hole of the past.
He nodded. “She constructed a perfect hell for herself, but I remember her when you were first born. I was just a kid myself, but she’d sit on the steps of the trailer and bounce you on her knees. You laughed a lot as a baby. And drooled.”
“Thanks for the image and the walk down memory lane.” She slipped free of him and stepped into the cold air. “I want to get a workout in later tonight, so let’s grab that burger. I’m starving.”