“Then why don’t we drive to the camps?” Brueggemann asked softly, not wanting to seem obstinate.
Joe said, “We could drive right to most of them. But they’d hear us coming miles away. And even though most of these guys are good hunters, there are a couple I don’t want to know we’re out there. So instead of driving right up on them and giving them a chance to hide or stash illegal carcasses away where we can’t see them, I’d rather approach them in silence. That way we can circle the camps up in the timber from all sides before we decide to ride in.”
Brueggemann sighed and nodded.
“If someone’s doing something illegal, like too many elk or dead cow elk in an antler-only area, they’ll likely hang the carcasses within walking distance of the camp but out of sight from the road. It works better to know what the situation is before we talk to the hunters.”
Joe continued, “I know most of these guys. Half of them are local, and three run guide operations, so they’ll have clients in the camps. Of the eleven camps, ten are familiar names. There’s only one new guy this year, and I want to find out who he is and what he’s up to.” He tapped his finger on Camp Five, which was four and a half miles away along the old logging road they’d soon be riding on.
Joe’s cell phone rang in his pocket. He grimaced as he pulled it out and looked at the display. It read twelve sleep county sheriff’s office.
“This is never good,” Joe mumbled out loud. Then: “Joe Pickett.”
“Joe, this is Sheriff McLanahan.”
Joe rolled his eyes. He and McLanahan had a long history, mostly bad.
“Joe,” McLanahan said, “a fisherman down in the river in the middle of town just called me in a panic. He saw what he thought was an empty drift boat floating toward him in the current. When he looked inside, he found three dead bodies.”
Joe felt his scalp crawl.
“I need you to come in and take a look at these guys,” the sheriff said. “I think they’re friends of yours.”
“Friends?”
McLanahan hung up.
Joe looked to Brueggemann. “Now you’ll learn how to unsaddle a horse and lead it into the trailer. We’ve got a hitch in our plans,” he said.
3
Joe located the sheriff, the boat, and the bodies in the garage adjacent to the old county building in Saddlestring. On the way into town he’d listened to the chatter over the radio. Word of the triple homicide was rocketing across the state. Although nearly every resident had several guns at home and many carried weapons in public, there were only fifteen to twenty murders a year in Wyoming. So three at once was big news, and Joe understood the magnitude, just as he was puzzled by McLanahan’s mention of the victims as his “friends.” He had a dark premonition that one of the bodies might belong to Nate Romanowski, although the idea of anyone actually getting to Nate seemed incomprehensible.
As he entered town he was greeted with a new reelect our sheriff kyle mclanahan billboard. On it, the sheriff leaned out of his pickup window to offer a carrot to a horse. Joe shook his head.
Sheriff Kyle McLanahan had it in for him, and their professional relationship had gotten worse in the past few months. McLanahan had made it clear to his deputies that they wouldn’t be chastised for making Joe’s life miserable. They did it in subtle ways, such as not responding to help requests and losing or delaying paperwork Joe filed. He’d gotten around it somewhat by working directly with County Attorney Dulcie Schalk and bypassing the sheriff’s department.
As election day neared, McLanahan had spent a good deal more time than usual out of his office, meeting voters and playing up his persona of a western caricature. Joe had heard from a few residents that the sheriff cited him in particular as one of the biggest reasons why he’d been humiliated during the trial of Missy, Joe’s mother-in- law, who’d been accused of murdering her former husband. Up until the trial, McLanahan seemed to be cruising toward reelection. Not anymore.
Joe parked next to a sheriff’s department SUV outside the garage. Three other departmental vehicles were lined up on the other side of the open garage door, as was an ambulance and Sheriff McLanahan’s pickup. Dulcie Schalk’s red Subaru wagon was also out front. Dulcie was also stinging from the outcome of the trial and was still cool to Joe, but he thought he sensed a warming. Dulcie was young, tough, professional, and one of Marybeth’s friends. Their mutual love of horses and riding was strong enough that the trial hadn’t derailed their friendship.
Joe killed his motor and jumped out and took a deep breath before going inside.
“Hey,” Luke Brueggemann called out. He’d parked behind Joe’s pickup. “Should I tag along, or what?”
After all he’d been thinking and worrying about, Joe had forgotten about his trainee. Joe put his hands on his hips and thought about it.
“Well?” Brueggemann asked, stopping short of reaching Joe.
“Have you ever seen a dead body?” Joe asked.
“Sure,” Brueggemann said, hitching up his pants.
“You have?”
The trainee looked above and to the right of Joe. “My grandma. At her funeral.”
Joe smiled, despite the situation. “It’s up to you, Luke. I won’t force you, but I won’t keep you away.”
With that, Joe turned and headed for the garage. No footsteps sounded behind him.
“Ron Connelly,” Joe said, as he fought to keep his stomach from churning, “He’s known as the Mad Archer. I arrested him twice. The other two are Stumpy and Paul Kelly. They have a shady outfitting business outside of Winchester. I’ve been trying to catch them poaching for years.”
The sheriff had arranged to have all of the county vehicles moved out of the big garage to make space. The three victims were laid out next to one another on thick plastic sheeting on the concrete floor. When Joe first saw them, he was reminded of Old West photos of dead outlaws on display. All three were stiffened into the unnatural positions in which they’d been found.
Joe asked, “Why didn’t you just pull their wallets to see who they were?”
Before McLanahan could answer, Dulcie Schalk said, “I told the sheriff not to touch the bodies again until the forensics people could get here.”
McLanahan made a face, obviously displeased that Schalk had taken over.
Joe looked around.
The boat they’d arrived in was on the concrete next to the bodies. It smelled of blood. Joe imagined there were gallons of it congealing inside, but he didn’t look to confirm it. He did note that the Mad Archer’s compound bow and a Savage twelve-gauge pump shotgun with a synthetic stock had been tagged and placed on a tarp.
“See?” Sheriff McLanahan said to Dulcie Schalk, who stood off to the side, holding her hand over her mouth in horror. “I told you he’d know ’em. They’re of his ilk.”
Joe ignored the comment and spoke directly to Schalk. “Ron Connelly killed dozens of game animals with his bow and arrows over the years. Down in southern Wyoming where I was stationed for a while, he took potshots at cows and horses, too. I know he wounded an eagle once, and that time I caught him and threw him in the clink. But the penalties for poaching and injuring animals are so weak he didn’t spend much time in jail.
“Our department has-I should say had — alerts out on him,” Joe said. “All the game wardens in the state kept a good eye out for this guy. He used to be a tweaker, but I’d heard he cleaned up his act. Apparently not well enough,” he said, nodding toward the body.
“The Kellys are real backwoods types,” Joe said. “Paul Kelly and his wife, Pam, run a few cows and lease out their stud horse, but other than that they survive off welfare payments and some kind of disability pension Paul got from an accident he’d had when he worked for the county road crew. The disability didn’t stop him from running illegal guided hunts, though. Both Paul and Stumpy got the boot from the Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association a few years ago because of client complaints and their general lack of ethics. One client claimed they
