We crept through the forest, stopping every few yards to listen. Twice I thought I heard part of the Boreal Owl’s flute call, but each time, it broke up before it finished. We were getting close to where I’d found Rahr’s body, and little shivers were racing up my spine as I remembered the arm popping up in front of me. Then, from out of nowhere, something Thompson had said popped into my head.
“What about Montgomery?”
Luce turned to look at me. “What about her?”
“Thompson said she gave him the idea to start his own business. We know they went on the owl tour together. Maybe she’s the one who came up with the poaching idea. I don’t know—maybe it was her revenge against owls in general after she lost her job with the lumber companies in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Bobby,” Luce said. She stared me straight in the eye. “I love you, honey, but get a grip.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “Momentary insanity.”
“Maybe not,” Stan’s voice floated behind me. I’d followed Knott’s advice and asked Stan to bring up the rear of our little march. No reason to deny the man’s expertise. An ounce of prevention, you know.
“From the sparse financial data I’ve managed to obtain on VNT, there’s obviously another partner involved. Just like you suggested earlier, Luce.”
“I’m impressed,” I said, my voice tinged with awe. “That was a pretty complex sentence for you, Stan. Are you all right?”
“Eat dirt, White.”
“No thanks,” I replied. “Been there, done that yesterday.”
“So you think Montgomery might be the partner, Stan?” Luce tried to continue the conversation.
“Good probability. She has access to money. Some I can’t trace. And she and Thompson seem pretty tight.”
We stopped for a moment and listened again. The air was colder now, the night completely black. We caught a glimpse of stars through the pines, and the trail was easy traveling since so much more of the snow had melted since I had walked last weekend. I stuck my hand in my parka pocket and pulled out a little gadget Eddie had pressed on me.
“To be honest, I’d wondered if perhaps Montgomery might be afraid of Thompson,” I said. “After seeing that tape, I wondered if she might have seen her pal meeting with Rahr’s killer, and she was afraid of what he might do if she went to the police. ”
“What’s that?” Stan pointed to the tiny recorder in my hand.
“A toy from Crazy Eddie,” I said, turning it over in my palm. “He said it’s the highest resolution recording device on the planet Earth. I don’t know if that’s true, but he’s pretty skilled with this stuff, so it’s probably better than most. He said I should record the Boreal when I hear it. Kind of like a trophy, he said.” I put it back in my pocket. “We’ll see.”
We walked for another ten minutes in quiet. Great Horned Owls continued to hoot, and once more, I thought I heard the Boreal, but again it didn’t complete the call. Luce thought she saw movement in the trees off to our left and raised her night vision binos to her eyes. She didn’t move for a full two minutes, so I lifted my binos, too. I didn’t see anything nearby, so I adjusted the focal distance out.
“I’ll be damned,” I breathed.
“Yup,” Luce breathed back.
“Money in the bank,” Stan said, his binos up, too.
We were looking at a cherry-picker.
Standing on the hillside across a ravine, the picker looked like part of an oversized preying mantis, partially draped in camouflage cloth. Covered in snow from last weekend, the machine would have disappeared into the forest because no one would have been able to distinguish it from the landscape around it. It tilted at an odd angle.
“It’s stuck,” Luce said. “I bet it was on its way to the Boreal site to do some harvesting and got stuck in the snow back in December. That must be one of the old logging trails it’s sitting on.”
“Which Thompson knew about because he used to log up here,” Stan added.
“And if it was sitting there when Rahr made his first trip up here earlier this month, he would have been convinced he needed to do something to protect the habitat.” I thought again of Eddie’s comments. “Eddie said Rahr told him he was going to do some preventative maintenance. I guess he was referring to the tree spikes.”
We crossed down and through the ravine, then slogged back up the hill to take a closer look at the stranded cherry-picker. Definitely sitting at a tilt and definitely stuck, it was splattered with freshly churned earth along its sides. I put my hand on the hood over the engine.
Still warm.
This was what we’d heard less than an hour ago. Someone had been here, trying to move the truck.
Behind me, I felt, rather than heard, Stan melt away into the night.
“Luce,” I whispered. I reached out for her hand and pulled her next to me. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”
“Because. Humor me. Give it to me, please.”
She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and handed it to me. I looked around us, but I didn’t see anything moving. Stan was gone. I glanced into the cab of the cherry picker to make sure no one was hiding on the floor of the cab. Nobody there.
I pulled out my flashlight and aimed it at the seat. A parka, heavy gloves, and a wool cap were laying on the bench. Clothing you’d wear in the woods on a frigid day. Clothing that would keep you from freezing.
Clothing that Rahr’s body hadn’t been covered in.
I punched in Knott’s phone number.
“Knott here.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “John,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
“Really, I’m not here,” the recorded message ran. “I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave a message at the sound of the tone, I’ll get back to you.”
This is why I hate answering machines.
“Allow me,” Margaret Montgomery said, stepping out of the darkness from behind the machine. She reached up to take the phone from my fingers. At the same time, she raised her other hand. In it, she held a gun.