Back in Wilsall, Stranahan got a bar of reception on the phone he’d bought that morning and left a message for Ettinger, telling her where he was headed. So McCready had camped at the same fishing access where he and Martha crossed the river in Harold’s canoe to meet the scat analyst. Had the analyst, what was his name, Thorn?—had he met McCready and showed him the signpost? Or told him where he could find wolf scat? For that matter, was it possible that both were involved in Nicki’s disappearance?
He tried Ettinger again, and this time she picked up. She’d received his message and had news of her own.
Fifteen months earlier, a Lincoln County deputy had picked up one J. Todd McCready for distributing alcohol to minors and found he was wanted in Washington State for violating the terms of his parole. He was extradited and served ten months in the Cedar Creek Corrections Center before his release the past May.
“That’s just one month before he showed back up in Libby,” Stranahan said. “What was he paroled for originally?”
“Sex without consent.”
“Rape?” Stranahan pulled to the side of the road.
“He had intercourse with a woman when she was passed out and she pressed charges three days later. So there were the usual questions. Was he also asleep as he claimed? Did they have carnal knowledge of each other before? Why did she wait so long? Et cetera. Evidently, the woman was the more persuasive and he served six months of a two-year sentence, was released for his stellar behavior and failed to report.”
“So he’s in the system under his original name.”
“Yes, but with an asterisk. He filed a petition to change his name the day after his release.
“I didn’t know a felon could do that.”
“He can as long as he’s not trying to defraud anyone or duck an outstanding violation. McCready got the court order, so as of June seventeenth he really is Fenrir Amorak.”
“Then how does he have a Montana driver’s license under McCready?”
“A person who’s petitioned for a name change has to apply for a new driver’s license within thirty days of receiving the court order. Maybe he never did that, or said he lost it and now he’s got driver’s licenses under both names. Now quit asking questions and listen a minute.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Judy did some digging. Parents are Knute and Margot McCready. Grew up on the family ranch near Whitefish, attended UM, bachelor’s degree in zoology. Worked for two years in Pullman, Washington, at the animal research center there, I wrote down the name but now I can’t read my writing. Anyway, arrested for possession with intent to sell, charges dropped. Drifted around a few years. Pops up in Bellingham, possession. Pops up in Tacoma, distributing alcohol to minors, community service. Got a job as a janitor at the Seattle Zoo and was there almost five years, maybe he straightened up. After the termination of his employment, there’s a year gap before he’s sent up for the rape. He goes in, he comes out, he falls right off the map. Doesn’t show up in Libby until ’09, when he gets a bullshit medical marijuana card from a quack. This would be about when he meets Martinelli. He’s in and out of her life for about three years and manages to stay under the radar until he’s picked up for the violation of parole. He goes behind bars for the second time and gets out in May and that brings us to the present.”
“He worked summers on the ranch in the Shields.”
“So you said in your message. It all fits. Generally speaking, when you look for monsters you find bottom feeders who deal drugs and live off girlfriends or relatives. Which as you know isn’t enough to haul him in for, especially when the evidence says the person you suspect him of kidnapping was eaten by a wolf.”
“Oddstatter said McCready’s behavior gave his sister, McCready’s mother that is, a heart attack.”
“Judy’s trying to reach the parents this morning. That’s all I know and I gotta go. The wolfer snared another member of the pack and I got wolf lovers parading in front of Law and Justice, demanding that we let it go. Actually it’s just an idiot wrapped in a coyote skin who howls when people walk by to show his pain.”
“The wolf is alive?”
“For now. But it will be euthanized to check for human DNA in its digestive tract and teeth. Get this, the demonstrator’s a law student from Boise State who came in by Greyhound to satisfy a class requirement. Says he’s supposed to see how far he can take his protest without getting arrested. So far all he’s learned is that howling at people can get you punched in the face. The wife of one of our repeat offenders dared him to open his mouth once more and she broke his nose.”
“I’ll let you get back to your work, then. Is it McCready, or do we call him Amorak?”
“Amorak.”
“Well, the odds are he isn’t at the campground anyway. It was back in June when he told Mrs. Oddstatter that’s where he was staying. I doubt he’s a guy who lets the grass grow under him.”
—
Ettinger had lied to Stranahan about her schedule. There was a storm gathering over the wolves, but it was on the horizon. A delegation from the Ranchers and Hunters for Taking the Wolf Out of Montana had requested a face-to-face, but that wasn’t until midafternoon. She drummed her fingers. Her eyes fell on the box of journals. She’d meant to call up some of the names Alfonso had listed in the category of “Ranchers Who Cried Wolf.” Someone—Alfonso?—had circled that list. Why?
A rap on the door brought her eyes up. Erik Huntsinger, one of her junior deputies, was holding a FedEx envelope.
“What do you got for me, Hunt?”
The padded envelope was from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department and was addressed to Sean Stranahan, care of Sheriff Martha Ettinger. Martha pulled the envelope tab. A note on department stationery:
Sean:
I located that letter. Instead of e-mailing a scan, I thought you’d get a better sense of the tenor and content if you had the original. The letter is not evidence in an open investigation, but I’ve found it best to preserve chain of evidence to be on the safe side. None of the recipients came to harm as a result of this letter, at least not in the weeks following the postmarked dates. It should be evident, but I would point out that the entirety of the letter is written in human blood.
See you on the Kootenai? The fishing holds up into November if you get the chance.
Tight lines,
Carter Monroe
Sheriff, Lincoln County
PS: Here’s the list of men and women who reported receiving letters.
Ettinger ran her eyes down the list. Most were hunting outfitters. Two were FWP commissioners. One biologist. One local legislator. Thirty-two names and addresses. She used her penknife to open the evidence bag, pulled apart the seal and shook out a simple manila envelope. Postmarked from Missoula, Montana, it was addressed to Corwin Ackerson, Ackerson Hunting Outfitters, 33 Ruby Ridge Road, Bonner’s Ferry, Montana. No return address. Ettinger used a fingernail to extract a single sheet of heavy stationery, which was impressed with a burgundy wax stamp, a howling wolf in silhouette. Below the stamp, centered on the sheet in forward slanting, rather florid script, was a poem stanza:
And the blood of the wolf will rain from the skies
And all the rivers will run red with blood
And the blood of the man who cast aspersion upon the wolf will flow with the river
And he will die
The dried blood was brown, but the effect was startling enough to draw a low whistle from Martha’s lips. She resealed the letter in the evidence bag.
“Listen up, Hunt. I’ve bookmarked a page in this journal. It’s got a green circle around it, a list of names of Montana residents called “Ranchers Who Cried Wolf,” probably from the western half of the state. Run them through the search engines and see if anyone’s been a victim of harassment or assault. Also, all the people listed on this sheet of paper.” She pushed over Monroe’s note. “How’s your schedule?”
“I have to testify on a DWI after lunch.”
“Then you better get a move on.”
She paused. Something had been nagging at her ever since her conversation with Stranahan. She shooed the deputy out of her office and punched in Stranahan’s cell number. Out of range. She squared her hat on her head and left word with Walter Hess as she passed the undersheriff’s office.
“Aren’t you going to go see the wolf that ate Little Bo Peep?” he said.
—
Driving ninety, Ettinger caught up to Stranahan’s lumbering Land Cruiser outside Norris.
“Was I speeding, officer?” He stepped out and leaned back against the hood. When he’d seen the flashing lights, he’d pulled over into the drive of a business that sold handcrafted chicken coops.
“Who the hell buys these things?” Ettinger said.
“Gentlewomen farmers, I suppose.”
She put her hands on her hips and drummed the butt of her revolver.
“Remember when we were looking at the wolf scat up at the Palisades? The analyst went off to ‘bleed my lizard,’ as he so eloquently put it.”
“Vaguely,” Stranahan said.
“Well, I heard a motorcycle start up in the campground across the river. I watched the line of dust as it drove toward the highway.”
“You remember that?”
She cocked a finger at her temple. “It’s in the hard drive. I got a memory like a bear trap.”
“Was it a four-stroke? Most Honda’s are four-stroke.”
“It . . . was . . . a . . . motorcycle.”
“So maybe he is there. You chased me down out of concern for my well-being, I’m touched.”
“No, there’s something else. We can talk in the car.”
“Yours or mine.”
“Mine.”
“Mine’s unmarked,” Stranahan said.
Ettinger tossed a fly-rod tube into the backseat of the Land Cruiser, and Stranahan cocked an eye as he turned the key.
“In good time,” she said. She was picking at her badge. Stranahan saw her glance at the speedometer.
“I could get there quicker on a horse.”
“Relax, Martha.”
“That’s what both my husbands told me. Walt thinks I’ve got ADD, says there’s a pill for it. ’Course you got to consider the source. That man talks so slow half the time I’ve forgotten the point before he finishes a sentence.” She blew out a breath and they drove in silence, passing the turnoff to the Sphinx Mountain trailhead where last summer’s drama had played out, resulting in Ettinger’s fifteen minutes of fame.
“I still see that bastard in my dreams.”
“Who? Crawford?”
She grunted in the affirmative. “So how do we approach Amorak?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t think we do. This isn’t the kind of guy who’s going to see your badge and pee his pants. I’d like to trail him, see if he has a job somewhere, let the string pay out until we’re sure one way or the other if he’s in contact with Martinelli. But it seems a hell of a coincidence that he’s camped directly across the river from the cliffs where the scat analyst found the wolf poop.”
“It does at that. Pull over to the side of the road. I want to show you something.”
She showed Stranahan the letter. “I take it you knew about this.”
“Not much. Carter told me. He said the letters were sent to—”
“I know who they were sent to. What I don’t know is what this has to do with Martinelli.”
“She was in her Clan of the Three-Clawed Wolf stage. Because they fancied themselves ecowarriors, the department looked at her group for being behind the letters. Amorak, specifically. There was no follow through. No arrests were made; no one who got sent a letter was hurt.”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Martha said. “I have someone checking the names to see if anyone’s come to harm since. But if his was the blood behind the pen, then that’s another reason to be careful. Anyone takes a blade to himself . . .”
“You really were worried about me.”
Ettinger took off her hat. “Do you have another jacket? I don’t want to look official.”
—
With October on the horizon, only two of the twenty sites at Palisades Campground were occupied. No motorcycle in either. As Stranahan circled the loops, a truck pulled into the campground, stopping in front of a canvas wall tent. Two bow hunters, dressed head to toe in camo, had arrowed a raghorn bull and they had the head and one hindquarter in the bed of the pickup.
Stranahan idled the Land Cruiser as Ettinger rolled down the window.
“Where did you get lucky?” she said.
One of the men pointed across the river. His shirt, his pants cuffs, his boots and his knees were stained dark with blood. “Up Bobcat Creek. We got the rest hanging.”
“You’re aware a hunter was mauled there last season?” Martha said.
The hunter nodded. “The guy who got his jaw chewed off by a G-bear. It’s not an image you get out of your head. We’ll be careful packing meat, trust me.”
Stranahan leaned across Ettinger. “We’re looking for a man who was camping here. Maybe riding a motorcycle.”
“Sure.” The hunter nodded at his partner, who spoke for the first time. “We called him Tarzan. He had one of those outback tents you hang from a tree branch.”
“Tarzan, huh?” Martha said.
“Every night he’d wade across the river and climb the cliff. Then he’d howl like a wolf. Very realistic. You could set your clock by it.”
The first hunter nodded. “Nine o’clock sharp. He got wolves going a couple times, which was pretty cool. But he left a few days ago.”
“More like a week,” the other said.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No. He didn’t talk to us.”
“Alone?”
“When we saw him he was alone.”
Ettinger asked where the man had camped, and they drove to a riverside site. A rectangle of blanched grass showed the footprint of the tent. No litter, no trash in the fire ring. He’d been a clean camper.
—
The question, now what? hung in the air as they drove back through the valley, Ettinger fingering her badge, another in a long line of what she called her “new bad habits.” She felt a pricking against her breast and realized the fly she’d won playing poker at the clubhouse was still in her shirt pocket. She fingered it out. It had gone through the wash, the dyed feathers leaving a reddish orange stain on the material.
“This is your fault, Sean,” she said, showing him the stain.
“Biggest fish I hooked in my life took that fly,” Stranahan said. “A steelhead in British Columbia, where I was commissioned for some paintings.” For a moment he was back on the Kispiox River on a run called Silver Bear, two thousand miles to the north.
“Sam told me whoever won the pot got to name it. I decided Dead Man’s Fancy. In honor of Grady Cole. He wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t got involved with a flame-haired woman.” She snapped her fingers. “Pull into the Blue Moon. Let’s bat this thing around.”
“Drinking on the job, huh?”
“Who’s drinking on the job? I’m hungry and they got a jukebox with ‘Crazy’ on it. I just love Patsy Cline.”
They ordered, she got change for the jukebox and waited until the song finished, then tipped her iced tea back and smacked her lips. She’d carried the fly-rod case into the bar and pulled out the rolled-up topo map that Stranahan had seen on the wall in her home office.
“Something the wolfer said got me thinking. Help me pin down this map.”
Ettinger had drawn a red circle at the site of the dead elk, where the wrangler had met his fate, another on the slope farther up toward the headwall of the basin where they had found Martinelli’s hat. She’d also marked the trail junction where Martinelli had left the organized saddle ride to go off on her own. The trails were marked in dotted lines.
“So what’s visible from just about anywhere on this map?”
“Papoose Mountain?”
“You’re warm.”
“I don’t know, you tell me, Martha.”
“The sky, that’s what’s visible. And what do you see in the sky?”
“Clouds?”
“You see birds. Anybody hunts will tell you that you kill an elk, you don’t have time to fill out your tag before you have ravens circling and whiskey jacks dancing on the branches. Wolves don’t cover their kills. Anything they bring down draws birds.”
“Okay.”
“So let’s back up to the afternoon Martinelli disappeared. Why did she leave the trail ride? I’m waiting for the shoe to drop.”
“She saw birds?”
Ettinger nodded. Their plates had arrived, buffalo burgers and fries. Ettinger took a bite.
“That’s a good burger.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin.
“The birds were the trigger. She’s a lobo lover, there are wolves in the basin that they’ve been hearing down at the ranch, she sees scavenger birds, it only makes sense they’re circling a wolf kill. I’ll go a step further and say it was probably the wrangler who saw them first and pointed them out.”
“That’s speculation.”
“Then help me speculate.”
“Okay, if the wrangler spotted the birds, why didn’t he report it in the nine-one-one?”
“Put yourself in his position. If he says she’d gone off looking for wolves and he was the one who told her where to find them, how’s it make him look? No, he keeps that part to himself. Plus, when he called he was worried, he was in a rush to get up there, he didn’t have time to go into detail. My gut tells me he couldn’t have stopped her from going if he’d wanted to.” She nodded to herself. “All along I’ve been trying to figure out how the tracks of three different people ended up at the same spot on the mountain. If we assume Martinelli went to investigate what she thought was a wolf kill, and Grady Cole rode off trying to find her, it only makes sense he’d look where he’d seen the birds. That leaves the third track, and I know damned well it’s Bucky’s.”
“Which he denies.”
“Who else could have set the trap that Cole stepped into? Not Cole, not Martinelli. When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable—”
“—is the truth,” Stranahan finished. “You must have grown up reading Sherlock Holmes?”
“My dad gave me The Complete Sherlock Holmes for my tenth birthday. I aimed to become a consulting detective and that went sideways for a while. But I eventually hit pretty close to the mark, deerstalker hat notwithstanding.”
“It makes sense, I guess, but why couldn’t the third track belong to Amorak? He was camped only a few miles away.”
“Because that doesn’t make sense.”
Ettinger held up a finger. “Number one, the Culpepper Ranch is a closed community. How would he know she was going on a trail ride, or that she would break away and ride off alone? Number two,” she held up a second finger, “even if he did, how would he get there? It’s a heck of a climb, and I don’t see him having a horse.”
“That still leaves questions about what happened up there.”
“Of course it does. This isn’t TV. In the real world, people lie and the truth comes out in dribs and drabs, not by divine intuition. One of the things I still don’t understand is the hat. The logical conclusion is she was bucked from her horse where we found it. Maybe she was unconscious for a while, then stumbled down the hill when she saw that her horse had bolted. She would have been on a direct line to the carcass of the elk. It’s possible there’s another explanation. But one thing I’d bet my star on is that Bucky Anderson found Cole caught in the trap and pushed him onto the antler. He can smile all he wants, say therapy’s changed him, I don’t buy it. Bucky has violence in his heart.” She thumped the center of her chest. “He’s face to face with a man who’s hurt as a result of him setting an illegal trap. For wolves, no less. That’s not going to wash with the little lady. Or with her brothers, who aren’t in favor of the marriage to begin with. He has to remove the trap before the searchers find it—that’s probably why he was hell bent on getting a jump start and left before we arrived that night—that and to make sure Grady Cole never talked.”
Stranahan ate his last french fry and reached for one of Martha’s. “You’re too busy talking to eat,” he said.
“I’m just thinking out loud. Harold said the smaller track was a running track. What that means to me is Martinelli came on the scene after Cole was dead, saw him impaled on the antler and fled. Possibly she witnessed Bucky killing him. Look at that night from her perspective. She’s responsible for the wrangler setting out looking for her, so in her eyes she’s responsible for everything that happens after that. Plus she might have witnessed a murder, or seen someone leaving the scene of one. It’s a shock to the system, on top of the shock she received being thrown from the horse. The sister told you she was mentally unstable, didn’t she?”
“I think the term she used was ‘subject to flights of fancy.’”
“One person’s ‘flights of fancy’ are another’s old-fashioned crazy. Anyway, she panicked. I used to think the question was Where did she go? Now I’m thinking Who did she go to?”
“You’re talking about Amorak. But how would she know where to find him?”
“If he was camped at the Palisades, then she might have seen him when she was guiding for Sam. Take a gander at Meslik’s logbook and see how many times she floated that stretch of the river.”
She pushed away the glasses that were pinning down the map and rolled it up. She rolled down the cuffs of the jean jacket Stranahan had lent her and took it off.
“I ought to get out in plain clothes more often.”