Joe listened and watched the shadow of a single cumulous cloud move slowly across the sagebrush saddle in front of him.
“I had to call in the big guns in Washington to put pressure on the army down there to break through the wall at Fort Bragg. They just didn’t want to talk. But we found out some interesting things. Just a second here . . .”
Joe heard papers being shuffled in the background.
“L. Robert Eckhardt was an army nurse. A real good one, according to his early evaluations. He was a combat guy. He was deployed in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. But he didn’t go to Iraq. You want to know why?”
“Yes,” Joe answered impatiently.
“This is why the army didn’t want to talk to us,” Portenson continued. “Eckhardt was suspected of being involved in the ‘surgical mutilation’ of enemy combatants. That’s what it says here, ‘surgical mutilation.’ Some doctor was accused of it, and Eckhardt was his assistant. The whole incident was kept way under the radar, I guess, like a lot of things are in the war. It was an internal army investigation, and there’s no press on it at all. These guys, the doctor and Eckhardt, were pulled out of the Philippines and sent home to Fort Bragg a year and a half ago to face court-martial.”
Joe stared the cloud as he considered the information. “Does the report say what the mutilation consisted of ?”
“No. Just ‘surgical mutilation.’ But that’s where we might have a connection. Eckhardt and the doctor went AWOL before trial. They’ve been missing for six months. The army is pissed off about it, and they’re still looking for these guys. They don’t want to go public with it, and neither do we. But when we told them about Eckhardt’s cell phone call reporting the body in the woods they went ape-shit. They’re sending a couple of military cops to Wyoming as soon as they can get ’em here.
“Of course, it’s possible that somebody has Eckhardt’s cell phone, but that seems real unlikely. The army guys asked if the caller had a speech impediment, because Eckhardt has one, but I didn’t know what to tell them. Anyway, we’re running down other calls made from that number now, and we’ll see if we can make any sense of them.”
Joe watched the cloud move up the hillside, felt it envelop him as it passed over, sensed the five-degree temperature drop. “The Park County dispatcher had trouble making out what the 911 caller said.”
“That’s interesting,” Portenson said. Joe’s mind was racing ahead.
“Joe, you still there?” Portenson asked. “I’m here.”
“We need to have an emergency task-force meeting. I already told Hersig and he’s clearing the decks for seven o’clock tonight.”
Joe didn’t respond.
“Joe, can you hear me?”
“Yup, I’m thinking.” He paused for a moment, then: “Do we have a name on the doctor Eckhardt’s involved with?”
“Hold on . . .” Portenson said. Joe could hear him thumbing through the pages again. “. . . Okay, here it is. His name is Eric Logue, Dr. Eric Logue.”
“Logue? Ah, Jesus . . .” Joe pushed off the sign he had been leaning against, Eric Logue’s name ricocheting through his head. In his subconscious a series of formerly random bits of information stopped flying around and began to pause, align, and connect. It was as if the tumblers on a lock were falling into place, finally releasing the hasp.
A doctor.
Surgical mutilations.
Cam said his brother was a surgeon.
L. Robert Eckhardt. Bob. The name on the army jacket Sheridan said she saw on the transient who had yelled at her.
Bob. Nurse Bob. A speech impediment. The dispatcher telling Harvey that she had trouble understanding the caller.
Nurse Bob: Nuss Bomb.
“Joe, you still there? What’s going on?” Portenson said. “Agent Portenson, let me ask you something,” Joe said. “Go ahead.”
“If your parents came to visit you at an inconvenient time and you were telling somebody about it, would you say, ‘it’s not exactly the best time in the world to have my whole family here for a visit’?”
Portenson sighed. “What in the hell does that have . . .”
“The whole family,” Joe said. “Would that be the phrase you would use if your parents were visiting? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say my folks, or my parents?”
“I guess so,” Portenson said, sounding perplexed and annoyed.
“Me too,” Joe said. “But when Cam Logue was at dinner and the subject came up, he said the whole family. Maybe it was just a mistake, but it doesn’t sound right. But maybe he really did mean his whole family— including his brother.”
“You’ve fucking lost me,” Portenson said. “Who’s Cam Logue and why should I care what he said at your little dinner party?”
“Just stay by the telephone for the next few minutes,” Joe said. “I’ve got to make another call.”
“What are you . . .”
