“Christ,” Cody said, thinking of Hank. “That’s just
“Yeah, yeah,” Larry said.
Cody paused. “I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. So we’ve got a guy traveling the country and setting up rendezvous with recovering alcoholics, then bushwhacking them in their homes. I see a pattern but not a motive.”
“Me neither,” Larry said. “I’ve been racking my brain. Who would want to go after people who’d straightened out their lives? What’s the point of that?”
Cody grumbled that he didn’t know, then thought of something. “Larry, did any of the locals in Virginia, Minnesota, or Wyoming find any AA coins at the scenes?”
He could hear Larry shuffling through papers. “No mention of them anywhere,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean anything for sure. They didn’t catalog every item they found at the scene. No reason to.”
“Unless,” Cody said, “the bad guy is taking the coins with him like he did with Hank. That way the locals wouldn’t even have a reason to bring the AA angle into the picture. Hell, we wouldn’t have gone down that road if I didn’t know Hank took his coins with him everywhere he went.”
“I didn’t think of that, dammit,” Larry said. “Or I would have asked the detectives.”
“Find out,” Cody said.
“I will tomorrow,” Larry said. “But we still don’t know why our bad guy even knew them at all.”
“I don’t know,” Cody said, “unless maybe the victims did something to the guy before they sobered up. Maybe, I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t come up with a scenario that makes any sense. Not without knowing if the victims even knew each other or were ever in the same place.”
Larry agreed. “We’ve got four different locations thousands of miles apart. Four different lines of work. I can’t see where they possibly intersect.”
“This is going to take some fine police work,” Cody said. “Can you pull in the cops in all those states to help?”
“Some,” Larry said, his voice dropping. “But you know how it goes. They’re all up to their asses in alligators. They’ll probably all agree to help, but no one is going to make this top priority. I can’t blame them. I’d do the same thing if one of them asked me. I’d put it on the back burner and concentrate on my local caseload. I wouldn’t drop everything to go investigate this based on my speculation.”
“What about the Feds?” Cody asked.
“I’ve got a call in to them,” Larry said. “Which means I had to clear it with the sheriff and Bodean. Luckily, I asked Tubman in the middle of another blowup with the coroner who, by the way, announced his intention to run for sheriff next year.”
“Did Tubman ask about me?” Cody asked.
“Not yet. But Bodean hit the roof. I walked him through what I had so far thinking he’d ease off, but he came unglued. He said if I heard from you I was to tell you to get your ass back here ASAP.”
Cody exhaled deeply. “Duly noted.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bodean throw his hat in the ring for sheriff,” Larry said. “He seems to suddenly be doing damage control.”
Cody’s mind was elsewhere. He said, “Larry, this seems like the right track, but I can’t see things coming together fast. I need them to come together fast.”
“I need a lot of things I can’t get,” Larry huffed. “Like a raise and some hair.”
“Sorry,” Cody said. “I’ve got to think about all this. We have to be able to connect the victims with somebody or someplace. Then we can get the other agencies and departments moving, once we’ve done that.”
“Agreed. But it’s that first part that seems impossible,” Larry said, gloomy.
“You can do it,” Cody said. “If anyone can.”
“Yeah,” Larry said, “I know.”
“I’m still going after Justin tomorrow,” Cody said. “I’ll turn on that satellite phone. Call me with anything else, and I’ll do the same.”
After a beat, Larry said, “Are you going to alert the Park Service that you’re entering their sacred domain?”
“Hell no.”
“Cody…”
“They’ll just muck it up. I don’t have the time for them to have a bunch of meetings and go up the chain of command. I have to find my boy and put this bad guy on ice.”
Larry was exasperated. “How many violations are you going to break on this deal? I can’t even keep track.”
Cody shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said.
“Look,” Larry said, “you may not care but I’m complicit in every stupid thing you do. So I’m going to cover my ass a little. I’ve already figured out that the sheriff is so distracted by Skeeter I can claim I told him everything at some point and he’ll probably believe me. He won’t know the difference. Of course, Bodean is a different animal. I’ll have to figure out how to bypass him.”
Cody agreed.
Larry said, “And tomorrow I’m going to call a buddy of mine named Rick Doerring with the Park Service. He’s the ranger I met last year.”
Cody shook his head, not liking where this was headed. “Last year?”
“Yeah, remember when someone from Bozeman called in that they saw a small plane headed toward Yellowstone? Remember, the citizen said the plane looked damaged and it was flying real low toward the park.”
Cody vaguely remembered the incident. From what he could recall, the FAA had no record of the aircraft and there were no reports of a missing plane. Since Larry and Bodean were the departmental assignees to an interagency Homeland Security Task Force, they’d had to scramble because unknown airplanes headed for federal land were a big deal these days. Rick Doerring was on the task force as well. The plane was never found, and no one ever reported it missing. The incident faded away quickly.
“Rick is a good guy,” Larry said. “Almost normal, for a Fed. I may run this by him on the sly and see what he says.”
“I can’t stop you,” Cody said. “But at least give it until the afternoon. By then, I should be deep into the park where he-or you-can never find me. I don’t want their help with this unless it’s on my terms.”
Larry didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue.
“Look at the bright side,” Larry said. “Your son is likely not a recovering alcoholic.” It was meant to be funny.
“No,” Cody said, “but why is our guy on this particular trip? What is he after, or is it his way of hiding out after his spree? No matter how you cut it, the guy must be a little desperate after all he’s done. I wouldn’t think anyone around him would be very safe,” he said, tapping the file of Jed McCarthy’s clients.
“We still don’t know if he’s on the trip,” Larry said.
“I
“So where are you now?” Larry asked.
Cody said, “Close to the park.”
There was a beat of silence. Larry said, “You’re not going to say, then?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Cody said, “Larry, you’re the only guy I trust. But the less you know, the better for both of us. As you said, you’re complicit in every stupid thing I do.”
Larry snorted. “I see your point. But answer me this, cowboy. How in the hell are you going to find this pack trip in the middle of the wilderness?”
Cody said, “I’ve got a plan.”
“I hope it’s a good one.”
Cody said, “Me, too.”
