Back of Beyond

hat.”

“You can have mine,” Cody said, handing him his cap as he passed. It was sodden and heavy with rain.

“Keep it,” Larry said. Then: “Hey, what did you do to your unit? You’ve only got one headlight.”

“Hit an elk on the way up.”

“Yeah, I saw it on the side of the road. You must have been in a hell of a hurry.”

Cody left Larry and walked toward his Ford. He looked up at the dark sky, hoping for an opening in the rain clouds. Nope.

“Hey, Cody,” Larry called.

“What?”

“You got a cow permit?”

* * *

His cell signal had faded further, so Cody shooed Dougherty and the hiker out of his Ford. As Dougherty climbed out, Cody said, “Any discrepancies in their stories?”

“No, sir.”

“Good work. Keep them here for a while in case we have more questions, then take them back to the York Bar or wherever they’re headed. Just make sure we’ve got contact details on them if we need to get in touch later.”

The patrol officer patted his notebook. “I’ve got all that.”

“Okay then,” Cody said.

Dougherty paused. “So you aren’t going to write me up?”

“Go. Just go. But remember, never shut off an area of inquiry in any situation. Never assume anything. Always assume everybody is guilty as hell but act like they’re innocent to their face. Remember that. Everybody is guilty of something, every single one of ’em. It may not be this,” he said, chinning toward the cabin. “But it’s something. No one is clean and pure and perfect.”

Dougherty didn’t say Yes, sir. He just stood there.

“What?” Cody said.

“I hope I never get like you,” Dougherty said, and went back to his truck.

Cody said to no one in particular, “I hope you don’t, either.”

* * *

It was warm and dry in his Ford. The windows steamed on the inside of the cab due to his wet clothing. He called Edna on the radio. While he talked to her he watched Larry Olson retrace his own steps around the cabin, shooting his flashlight about, moving slow.

“Edna, please alert Skeeter and Tubby-”

“You mean Sheriff Tubman.”

“Of course,” Cody said, glad she pointed that out since there were plenty of locals who monitored the police band. “Sheriff Tubman.”

“What should I tell them?” Edna asked.

“We’ve got a body,” he said, signing off.

* * *

He gave Larry plenty of time. Dougherty and the hikers sat in Dougherty’s vehicle waiting for the word to be given for clearance to leave. As Cody waited for Larry to finish up, he glanced into the backseat. The male hiker had left his daypack, the idiot. Cody thought he may need to call Dougherty, tell him to bring the guy over to get his property.

Before he reached for the radio, he slung the pack up to the front seat and unzipped it. He kept the interior light off and the pack below the window so the deputy or hikers couldn’t see what he was doing. The contents smelled of woodsmoke. He felt sorry for the hikers, having to camp night after night in the rain. How fun could that be? Plus, the female wasn’t exactly a looker with her matted hair, hairy legs and underarms (he’d noticed), and no makeup. A typical Missoula or Bozeman bark beetle type.

The pack was heavy and he rooted through the balled-up damp clothing. He found a Ziploc bag with residue of marijuana. See, he thought to himself, everybody is guilty. He wondered if they’d purchased it from a sapphire miner. He put it back, and dug further, thinking maybe he’d find matches and an accelerant and close the case like a supercop. Instead, he closed his fingers around the loving and familiar and understanding neck of a full bottle of Jim Beam.

He whispered, “Oh, no.”

Then: I’ve got to make another call.

Then: To whom? Especially now.

Then: This is not happenstance. This is fate. And Fate says, “You need to drink this. It’s why I left it for you to find. You’ll need it to get through this.”

Before he made the decision he knew he’d make, he looked up and saw Larry walking toward his Ford. And he shoved the bottle back into the daypack and pushed it aside.

* * *

“Well?” Cody asked, opening the door and sliding outside. His boots hit the mud with two squish-plops.

Larry’s shaved head beaded with rain and a rivulet ran down between his eyebrow and pooled on his upper lip. “I’m thinking accidental death with an outside chance of suicide, so I’m happy.”

Cody grunted. They’d discussed it before, how at every death scene they hoped like hell it was a natural or an accidental or a suicide, that they’d be done with it in a matter of hours after they turned it over to the coroner.

“Show me,” Cody said, “show me what led to your thinking suicide.”

“Which means you’re not so sure,” Larry said.

“Which means nothing at all.”

“Is suicide on your mind?”

“Constantly.”

“You know what I mean. So, did you call Skeeter?”

Cody sighed, “Yeah. But given the distance and the rain, I figure we’ve got an hour before he gets here.”

“Sheriff coming?”

“Don’t know.”

The two of them slogged down the flagstone path toward the scene, when Larry suddenly stopped. “Hey,” he said, “An hour for what?”

“To come to a consensus,” Cody said, widening the beam on his light to encompass the burned half of the cabin. “Okay, walk me through it.”

Larry pinched down the beam of his Mag to use as a pointer within the wide pool of light. He started with the blackened woodstove.

“First thing I noticed,” Larry said, “is the door to the stove is open. I don’t see that happening after the fire started, do you? The handle locks down from the top, so a falling beam wouldn’t hit it and knock it open. So I conclude it was open before the fire started. So what likely happened was our victim had a fire going-it’s sure as hell cold enough this summer-and left the door open for some reason. The logs inside shifted or sparks flew out or something. Thus starting the blaze.”

Cody said, “Go on.”

“It’s speculation until the arson team comes and looks things over, of course,” Larry said while he slowly moved the beam of his light from the open door of the stove to the black muck that was the former hardwood floor, “but it looks like the fire started here a few feet from the open door and spread outward. The floorboards are completely