We didn’t even live here then, Joe said to himself but not to Cam. Joe simply watched and listened.
“You people never even thought about me at all, trying to go to a school in South Dakota that was half-Indian and half-white and all fucked up. If anything, you wondered about my brother, the genius, the future doctor who would make my parents so proud. You wanted to be able to tell people you remembered when he was a student here, going to sixth grade when he should have been in third grade, winning all of those science contests. If only you knew . . .”
Suddenly, Cam stopped.
“Talking too much,” Cam said, more to himself than to Joe.
He lumped back into his chair, staring at something over Joe’s head, looking drained.
“I’m truly sorry, Cam.” No response.
“I screwed up,” Joe said. “I came up with a conclusion and tried to find facts that would fit it, instead of the other way around.” Putting his hat on his head, Joe stood up.
Cam still sat there, eerily drained, his concentration elsewhere. “Cam?”
Joe thought that Cam was somewhere deep inside of himself now. What had he done?
“CAM!”
Thankfully, Cam Logue seemed to snap back to the present. He blinked rapidly, then his eyes settled on Joe.
“I’ll be going,” Joe said. Cam nodded. “Okay.”
Joe started to turn, then stopped himself. “Do you have any ideas on what’s happening, Cam? With the mutilations and the murders? We obviously don’t even have a clue.”
Cam shook his head wearily.
“We’ve got bears, aliens, all sorts of bad ideas,” Joe said. “Hell, somebody even claims he saw a couple of figures out in the alley behind your office a while back.”
Joe was surprised that Cam’s face blanched again, as it had when he first saw Joe.
“Who said that?” Cam asked.
Joe shrugged. “That’s not important. My point was about all of the crazy theories.”
“Tell me who said it.”
“Cam, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now. I’m sorry I took up so much of your time.”
Cam stared at Joe and set his mouth.
“I really am sorry about all of this, Cam.”
n his pickup, Joe thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. He had been so wrong, he thought.
He called Hersig, who answered anxiously.
“You should take me off the task force,” Joe said morosely. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Dry hole?” Hersig asked.
“Wrong county, even. Not even close.”
Hersig sighed. “We’re going to have to mend some fences with the business community after this.”
“Worse than that, Robey, I’ve got to tell Marybeth.”
oe found her in her tiny back office at Barrett’s Pharmacy. She looked up expectantly as he came in.
“I was wrong about Cam.” “Tell me.”
He did, her face hardening as he spoke.
“Why did you come down on him so tough, Joe?”
He shrugged. “I thought it was the best way. I thought I could shock him into saying something.”
“Well, I guess you did that all right.”
He shook his head and stared at the tops of his boots. “I feel terrible.” “Don’t.”
He looked up, puzzled.
“It sounds like a hell of a performance,” she said. “I know, I just thought if I laid it right out . . .”
“No,” she said, shushing him. “Not by you. By Cam. There’s something there, Joe. I just know it. There’s no good reason why Cam and Marie wouldn’t have told me about getting back the ranch. They know I’d keep it confidential, and what difference would it make anyway? Marie and I shared everything, Joe. We talked about both you and Cam, and we talked about our children and our aspirations. Believe me, if Marie knew about Cam’s plan to buy back that ranch, she would have told me about it. When Cam told us together about the ‘secret buyer,’ he was misleading Marie as well. Why would he go out of his way to do that?
“So, he’s lying to you. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a realtor wanting to buy property. Realtors do it all the time.”
Joe felt a wave of relief for a moment. “But I sabotaged your career.”
She smiled. “If I wanted a career, Joe, I’d have it. And I’d be damned good at it. Even now, without the Logues, my small business is chugging along. I just need to keep it small, I know now. More flexible. I’ve got to think about
