BUCK LOTHAR, perhaps miffed that his arrival had been upstaged, made no effort to make a powerful first impression. Joe approached a tall, angular man at the luggage carousel, said, “Mr. Lothar?” The man shook his head, said, “You’re lookin’ for someone else.”
“That would be me,” said a short, overeager fireplug of a man with a close-cropped beard, a lantern jaw, aviator glasses, and eyes that went in two different directions. “I’m Buck Lothar. Can you help me with my gear and my dogs?”
“Sure,” Joe said, shaken by his mistake. While Robey and Pope introduced themselves, Joe watched in his peripheral vision as Moore and his contingent loudly filtered out of the airport into waiting cars, trucks, and vans. Lothar’s gear consisted of four huge duffel bags made of camo cloth. It was obvious from the military patches on the bags Lothar was well traveled. Two large animal carriers—each with a bloodhound in it—slid down the aluminum leaves of the carousel. “Butch and Sundance,” Lothar said.
Joe carried two of the bags, Robey one, and Pope the last, albeit reluctantly. Lothar let the dogs out of their carriers and leashed them.
“Sorry I can’t help,” Lothar said. “My back. My foot too. I’m still recovering from jungle rot inside my boot and I can’t put any added pressure on it.”
“Jungle rot?” Pope asked.
“From tracking insurgents in Indonesia,” Lothar said, guiding the dogs to a patch of grass so they could defecate. “We got ’em, if you were wondering.”
Outside, Joe tossed the bags into the back of his pickup. Pope put his bag into the back of his state Escalade. Lothar stood on the curb and supervised.
“Let’s get to the crime scene while it’s still warm, gentlemen,” Lothar said, rubbing his hands together and chortling.
“I’ll meet you up there,” Pope said to them. “I’ve got a buddy to pick up.”
With that, Pope roared away from the curb, leaving the three of them with the two dogs.
“I guess we’ll all fit into the pickup,” Joe said.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Robey said.
“I’ve been in much worse situations than this,” Lothar said jauntily, making it sound vaguely to Joe like something the deceased Crocodile Hunter would say.
“A BUDDY?” Robey grumbled as he climbed into the middle seat of Joe’s pickup, pushing aside coats and gear, followed by Lothar, who took the passenger seat. “Pope’s got a buddy?”
9
YELLOW CRIME-SCENE tape had been stretched around tree trunks and stapled to pieces of hammer-driven lath in a hundred-foot perimeter around where Frank Urman’s body was found. Two state DCI employees had been left to guard the scene, and they scrambled to their feet from where they had been sitting on the tailgate of a pickup chewing tobacco when Joe’s vehicle and Pope’s Escalade nosed over the ridge near them and parked.
Pope climbed out of his car with his cell phone pressed to his ear, and motioned to the DCI men that they could go. His gesture to them was a backhanded flicking of his fingers as he walked, as if shooing away a street vendor. Joe noticed that the two exchanged dark looks and one mouthed, “Asshole,” before they left.
“He makes friends everywhere he goes,” Joe said to Lothar, who pretended not to hear.
Since Pope didn’t take the time to introduce his friend, Joe offered his hand.
“Joe Pickett.”
“Wally Conway,” the man said, smiling warmly. Conway was in his midfifties, with longish, thinning brown hair, bulldog jowls, and an avuncular nature. Joe got the impression Conway was good at putting people at ease, making them smile. He wore a huge down coat that was reversible: camo on the outside and blaze orange on the inside. A hunter. Joe had seen him around town but didn’t know him.
“You’re an architect, right?” Joe said.
“Yes, and you are—were—the local game warden,” Conway said. “I’ve been following your exploits for years.”
Since Conway was Pope’s friend he’d no doubt heard, from Pope, that Joe held the record for the most damaged vehicles and equipment in departmental history—and was insubordinate as well. It was hard to gauge how close the two men were since Pope had shown no deference to Conway since they’d arrived.
“I hope you don’t mind me crashing the party,” Conway said, looking to Pope to explain his presence but Pope was busy on the phone. “Randy and I go back a long way. Since he was in the area, he asked me to come along. I hope you don’t mind. I promise to stay out of the way.”
“Nice to meet you,” Joe said. He liked Conway’s pleasantness, and wondered how he and Pope could be friends. But given Pope’s sudden change of attitude toward him, Joe thought he might have been too rough on his boss. Maybe, just maybe, there was a human being in there somewhere, he thought.
Pope snapped his phone shut and stepped between Wally Conway and Joe. “You met already,” he said.
Joe nodded.
Robey and Lothar stepped forward and Pope introduced his friend to them. Conway asked if there was anything he could do to help out, and Lothar suggested they unload his gear from Pope’s Escalade. Which left Joe and Pope standing together.
“What?” Pope asked defensively.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were giving me that look, like,
