“A couple, huh? Are you keeping any?”
“Naw,” the bigger guy said, obviously the spokesman for the group.
“Can I see your fishing licenses and IDs?” McCain asked. “Whatcha got in the cooler?”
“Just some beer,” the spokesman said as he handed McCain his license and ID.
He checked the other two licenses and said, “You know, you guys can keep five trout apiece in this lake.”
“Yeah, we know,” the shortest guy said.
“No fish then on a stringer or in a cooler?” McCain asked again.
“No, sir,” the short one answered. All of sudden he was the talker.
Jack moved over and started sniffing the cooler. The big guy was trying to shoo him away.
“Okay, I’m going to be straight up with you fellas,” McCain explained. “I was watching you from my truck over there, and in five minutes I saw you land three trout and toss them in the cooler. So I know you have kept some. The only reason you might lie to me about that is maybe you have a few more than three in there.”
When it was all said and done, McCain counted twenty-two trout in the ice chest. He wrote each of the men a citation for catching over their limit and told them not to do it again. That, he knew, was like telling a post to stop standing there looking stupid.
He talked to a few other anglers around the lake and checked their licenses. A middle-aged man in a floppy hat and a Hawaiian shirt like Tom Selleck used to wear on the TV show Magnum PI said he was glad that McCain caught the guys with too many fish.
“They were loud and foul-mouthed and every time they caught a fish they would hoot and holler,” that man said. “It got old fast. I was just about to go over there and have a few words with them when you showed up. I hope you gave them a big, fat ticket.”
McCain told the floppy hat man that getting into it with guys like that probably wasn’t the best idea, and if he was to have problems again, to give him a call. Then he gave the man his card and continued on.
He went and checked several anglers on the river, and luckily, none had any bull trout in their possession. He would put that in his daily report so that Andrea Parker would know he was doing his job.
The steakhouse out by the airport was one of those where a bunch of strangers sat around a giant sizzling hot grill, and the chef would come out in a tall white hat and cook your meal in front of you. It was like Benihana, but since Yakima was too small to actually have a Benihana, this was the next best thing. The restaurant also had several booths in a separate area where diners could forgo the show and just have a nice quiet meal. When Sinclair arrived, that is what they decided to do.
“So how was your day?” she asked after they had been seated.
“Oh, you know,” he said. “I sat through about four hours of mind-numbingly boring discussion about streamside habitat and the effect it has on spawning bull trout. Then Jack and I went out and harassed some trout fishermen.”
“Wow,” she said. “Why didn’t I become a game warden?”
“That’s fish and wildlife police officer,” he corrected. “Yeah, you don’t know what kind of fun you’re missing out on. And how about you? Did you enjoy your little horse ride up into the Cascades?”
Sinclair said she actually did like the ride up the trail to the bones. When she was a teenager her friend had horses, and they rode them often. She always enjoyed riding, even if it was on business.
McCain had never quite understood the relationship that some females had with horses. It was like a mystical bond.
“Did Williams ride up the hill?” he asked.
“Nope, he walked,” she said.
“How’d they get the bones down?”
“The coroner placed them in a body bag and then strapped the bag onto a pack horse.”
“Anyone find anything else around the bones of interest, besides the hair?”
“No, not really.”
“Did you see the old boot track?” he asked.
“No, I missed that,” she said. “Where was it?”
“About five yards north of the hair. It was only a partial, and fairly old. Coulda been from a hunter or who knows. I took a few photos on my phone. Laid my flashlight next to it for size comparison. I saw you FBI guys do that on TV once.”
“Wow, writing tickets to poor fishermen just trying to catch enough trout for dinner AND an investigator. Look at you.”
“Aw, shucks,” McCain said.
“I’ll need you to send me those photos by the way,” she said.
They chatted about the site, and the bones, and the other bodies through the rest of dinner. McCain finally remembered to tell her about the guy in the silver Honda coming out of the mountains on the same road where the second body had been dumped. He also told her about the silver Honda in Naches, with the cowboy and the girl with the long black hair. He gave her the partial license plate from his notepad and saw the reminder he’d made about the horse rental places.
“I was thinking about how someone might get a body up that trail by himself,” McCain elaborated. “First off, if he packed the body on his back or shoulders, he’s gotta be in fantastic shape. Then I thought he might have gotten up there the way you did today, or I did yesterday, by horseback. So, it might be worth checking with the Indian Spring Corrals folks, and any other place that rents horses for day trips to riders and hunters, and get the names of anyone who had rented a horse in October or November last year, and March and April this year.”
“Good idea,” she said.
“It’s probably nothing but might be worth checking out.”
“You never know when something is going to help,”
