The feather streamer Stranahan had christened the Vegas showgirl and loop-knotted to Willoughby’s leader flashed its tinsel charms in a deep run of the Madison several miles below the junction pool, where the Firehole and Gibbon rivers bled together. The first rainbow came undone at the jump, the second showed its size, then bore down and suddenly pulled much harder than it should have had the muscle for. As the line arrowed toward a log sweeper, Willoughby looked at Stranahan and raised his eyes behind his thick glasses. Sean smiled as the “trout” climbed onto the log. He’d known that an otter had taken possession of the fish directly after the jump, having lost a good brown to the thief in the same pool earlier in the fall.
“What do I do?” Willoughby said. “The manual did not address this situation.”
“You break him off.”
Willoughby did and hobbled out of the river, his wading staff probing the streambed ahead of him. They sat on the bank and watched the otter rip orange flesh from the trout.
“If we keep fishing, he’ll just follow us and take anything you hook,” Stranahan said.
“You overestimate my ambition.” Willoughby removed his tweed hat and examined the flies in a sheepskin patch pinned to the brim. “Sean,” he said, “I have made much of my living finding the weaknesses in men’s characters and in the political systems to which they profess their loyalty. I find reading a man’s face is similar to reading a map, a matter of deciphering contour lines to envision a country, or if you are a naval intelligence officer as I was, to see beneath the surface of the sea. Your face tells me you’re somewhere else this morning. At the risk of intrusion, might I ask where?”
“It’s that obvious?”
“Quite so, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not sure I can talk about an active investigation.”
“We’re sitting on federal soil. I assure you my clearance level in matters of state is adequate to permit our conversation, but if you feel uncomfortable talking about events that have happened outside park borders, present me with a theoretical scenario. Names are unimportant.”
As Stranahan talked, clouds of steam rose about the men’s heads. Willoughby’s unruly eyebrows rose twice, first when Sean spoke of the girl who had been burned in the hot pot and again at his suspicion that the man responsible for that was the same person who had fed Nicki’s hair to wolves.
“Are you intimating this man is a serial killer, that he seduces impressionable young women only to discard them in a fatal and quite sensational manner when they fail to meet his standard?”
“Doesn’t it strike you as a possibility?”
Willoughby seriously considered the question. “Profiling is a science, Sean,” he said at length. “It is a better one now than when I was more active in the field, but I do know something of these matters from a military perspective.” His eyes met Stranahan’s. “If I may be so bold as to offer an opinion?”
“Anything that would help put this man behind bars, I’d appreciate it.”
“That I can’t promise. What I will say is the person you describe runs up flags suggesting a psychopathic disorder. He is egocentric, remorseless, lacks empathy and he is a nonconformist. This wolf hierarchy he imposes on the young women is typical of psychopaths who are at heart narcissists, and who shun social and legal mores by establishing their own set of rules. And”—Willoughby raised a forefinger pink from cold—“he can be charming when the need arises. He can put on what psychiatrists refer to as a ‘mask of sanity.’ These are all traits of the classic psychopath. But, and this is important”—Willoughby wagged his finger—“scratch a serial killer and you often uncover a psychopath. But scratch a psychopath—?”
“And you don’t necessarily uncover a serial killer,” finished Stranahan.
“You anticipate me. The defining characteristic of most serials, note that I did not say all, is their inability to form human attachments. Isolation. Serials are literally stranded in the cold. You may characterize the relationships this man has with women as controlling, even abusive, but they are attachments. In the case of the woman who is missing, the attachment has become obsessive. It is entirely conceivable he killed her in order to possess her, to take that which would not be given, but if that’s the case, her murder falls into a different category of crime from the majority perpetrated by serials, who wish to exert control over a category of people rather than an individual. Have you noticed that it’s snowing? What induced me to come to Montana in such an uncivilized season?”
Stranahan was working his toes in his wading boots to keep the blood circulating. “You’ve given me a lot to mull over. And I think we’ve given the otter enough time to get bored. Let’s walk upstream. If a hatch of blue-winged olives trickles off, as I think it will, we’ll have some fishing.”
—
Two hours and two trout later, notably a three-pound, prespawn brown that sipped in Willoughby’s dry fly as delicately as a doe clipping a wildflower, they resumed the conversation. Willoughby had treated Sean to lunch in the bar inside the Old Faithful Inn, where they sat under a cut-glass window etched with a cartoon bear that was conducting an orchestra of cubs.
Stranahan sipped at an Irish coffee. “I noticed the look on your face when I mentioned the girl burned in the hot pot. What were you thinking, Patrick? Do you think it could have been an accident?”
“An accident? Only in that it’s likely she was frightened and tripped. I’m just uncertain about the identity of the frightener. What you omitted in your recitation was of great interest.” He hailed the waitress. “Would you be so kind as to bring us another round? Doctors orders. Medicine for the heart, you see.”
He looked off for a moment, then the eyes snapped into focus. He tapped the faux leather covering the tabletop. “You never once mentioned that this man you are investigating exhibited uneasiness, quite the opposite. If I chased someone into boiling water and she survived, I would have a worm in my gut. What will she say when she recovers from the coma? The fact that your man has not left the area leads me to believe that he is unworried. Either there is nothing for him to worry about, or he is so confident in his authority that he believes she won’t point the finger at him. I think the former more likely.”
“Then who is responsible?”
“The roommate mentioned that the victim hitched around the park. Perhaps she got a ride with the hot pot watcher who is credited with finding her. Perhaps he offered to show her a secret thermal area.” He let the thought hang in the air as his caterpillar eyebrows climbed into inverted Vs. “Anyone who spends his life sitting beside a pool of water and has no family to go home to. . . . Frankly, I’m surprised your sheriff hasn’t looked into this man’s history, but then I suppose there are jurisdictional issues.”
“It’s an accident as far as the Park Service is concerned. There’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.”
“Yes, I understand that. But the professional wrestler, this Madman from Minnetonka . . . I would think a search engine might provoke several hits on a name so distinctive.”
Willoughby nodded to the waitress for the check.
“Have you ever seen an eruption of Old Faithful?”
Stranahan admitted he hadn’t.
“Nor have I. I suppose such a trite display of shock and awe should be beneath us, we being anglers in the age of irony and so forth, but I rather feel a child’s compulsion to stand in simple wonder of nature. Shall we?”
—
Robert Knudson, aka Geyser Bob, aka the Madman of Minnetonka, had been a featured performer in the North Country All-Star Wrestlers from 1975 through 1984, with a professional record of 27–395, including losses to such luminaries of the sport as Bruno Sammartino, Chief White Owl, and Rowdy Roddy Piper. His most memorable victory was over fellow heel George “the Animal” Steele, in what the Milwaukee Standard, in a retrospective of wrestling superstars, called “The Slobberfest of the Century,” both men being notable for copious drooling as they stalked their opponents around the ring. The story went on to report that both Knudson and Steele had enjoyed reputations as erudite giants who had careers as high school teachers and coaches, with a notable difference. Knudson, in April 1997, had been issued a restraining order after repeated, unwanted advances on a female student. He’d lost his job as a result, although criminal charges had not been filed.
Willoughby, who was reading the story out loud in his motel room at the Three Bears, pursed his lips as he continued to search the name on his laptop.
Knudson’s name popped up again in an archived story in the Green Bay Herald headlined “Smelt Fisherman Saves Wrestling Icon.” The story was dated April 16, 1999.
A local fisherman rescued an unconscious man he found floating naked in the icy Menominee River on Thursday night, the Green Bay County sheriff’s office reported. Andrew Larkenoff, 33, was smelt fishing when he spotted the body and waded into chest-deep water to pull the victim to shore. The fisherman said he called 911 and tried to warm the unconscious man until an ambulance arrived.
The victim was identified as Robert Knudson, 49, a former professional wrestling star known as the “Madman of Minnetonka.” He was listed in fair condition at Superior Benefice Hospital.
“I used my own body warmth to try to keep him alive,” said Larkenoff. “But he was so big and I was so cold myself I think he helped me more than I helped him.”
The World Wrestling Almanac listed Knudson at 6’ 7” and 330 pounds.
Capt. James Cummings of the Green Bay County Sheriff’s Office said Knudson’s car was found parked near the Johnsonville Bridge, about a mile upriver from where he was rescued. Cummings could not confirm that Knudson had jumped from the bridge.
Knudson’s involvement with a young woman when he had been a teacher at . . .
Willoughby finished the story, which contributed no further details about the restraining order, but added that Knudson had been separated from his wife, who still lived in Minnetonka. The former wrestler had been employed in Green Bay as a construction worker and substitute high school teacher at the time of the incident.
“It’s a slim thread, but a thread all the same,” he said. “I hope the Park Service investigates the man.”
“I’ll check with a ranger friend,” Stranahan said. “She’ll pass the information to someone reliable.”
“What will you do now?” Willoughby asked.
“I don’t know. I found the man I was paid to find. Now we’ll see how the judicial system responds. I’m not optimistic.”
“No, I mean tonight. It’s too far to drive back to Bridger. You could bunk here with me.”
“Thanks, I might take you up on it. In fact I will. But I want to check the campground, make certain my buddy hasn’t bailed to parts unknown.”
“Is that wise? Won’t he become suspicious if you keep dropping by?”
“Maybe you’re right. I’ll just park near the wildlife center and make sure he’s on shift, then see if he drives away toward the campground afterward. I won’t follow him.”
“Your Land Rover—”
“Land Cruiser.”
“I was going to say it’s rather conspicuous. Take my rental. That way you can tail him as you see fit. I’d offer to accompany you, but the cold water seems to have played havoc on my arthritic legs.”
They agreed to meet for pizza at seven. The Rocky Mountain Pizza Company was a short walk from the motel.
“If you fail to show by seven thirty, I’ll call for reinforcements.”
“Wait until eight, Mother,” Stranahan said, closing the door behind him.
Willoughby waited until a little after nine o’clock before ringing the Hyalite County Sheriff’s Department from the pizzeria.