He got out of the truck and tried to say hello over the barking dogs, without much success.
“Unless you got a warrant, you can just get the hell outta here,” Teddy hollered.
“Just wanted to stop by and see how LeRoy was doing. I know he’s pretty close to your father, and I wanted to make sure he was doing okay.”
“Well, ain’t that benevolent of ya,” Teddy said. “My brother’s doin’ just fine, thank you. Now git outta here.”
“Okay, well, you boys have a good day,” McCain said as he began backpedaling for his truck. As he passed Teddy’s pickup he glanced into the bed and spotted a thin-wheeled game cart and what appeared to be fresh blood.
“Next time, save yourself a trip and send a postcard,” Teddy said before he and LeRoy returned to the house.
As McCain backed out of the driveway the dogs were still barking and the chickens, about thirty of them, were picking and scratching, scurrying around like a bunch of ants.
There were about fourteen reasons why Teddy Johnson might have a game cart in the back of his truck, McCain thought. But in the middle of summer, combined with fresh blood stains, only about three of those reasons were likely legitimate. He had no reason to think Teddy might be involved with the dead bodies in the Cascades, but it certainly was a strange coincidence. More realistically, Teddy and his simple brother had picked up where the old man had left off.
Even so, McCain decided to call Hargraves and let him know what he had seen.
“Hey Luke, what’s up?” Hargraves asked.
“On a whim I ran up to the LeRoy Johnson compound today. You’ll never guess what I saw.”
“I don’t know, a bear riding a bike.”
“Nope. Before they ran me off, I saw a game cart and fresh blood in the bed of one of their pickups.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me any. They probably just finished carting half a beef into the garage for butchering.”
“Probably, but then again, they might be up to something.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Hargraves asked.
“I’m not sure. Let’s think on it, and tomorrow let’s . . . hold on, I’m getting another call. See you at the office.”
McCain pressed a button on his phone to receive the incoming call from Sinclair.
“Hey, you’re a TV star,” he said. “I can’t change the station without seeing your face.”
“Yeah, it’s one of the crappier parts of the job. And these young TV reporters around here ask the stupidest questions. Didn’t they teach them anything in school?”
McCain knew that many of the reporters hired by the local TV stations were graduates of WSU’s school of broadcast journalism. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Yakima is about the 126th largest TV market in the country,” McCain said. “All the really good young reporters go to the bigger markets for higher pay. So, we get Simon Erickson. He’s a nice, hardworking guy, but I don’t think he’s going to be the next Lester Holt.”
McCain knew all of this because one of his buddies used to be a news director for the ABC station in town. The buddy had done the news anchor thing, and then became the news director before taking a job with the County Health District as their public relations director.
“Didn’t Tom Brokaw have a speech impediment?” Sinclair asked.
“I think so. I guess there’s hope for Simon yet.”
“Hey, I’ve heard from a couple other states on my request for similar missing or murdered women,” Sinclair reported. “And a couple other things have popped up. I thought maybe we should get together to talk. I’d like to get your thoughts on it.”
“I can come to your office anytime later this afternoon, if that works.”
“Sure, let’s meet at five. See ya then.”
It was getting close to lunch time, so McCain decided he’d drop down the hill from Tieton and go into Naches for some chicken strips and a cold soda. Seeing all the chickens at the Johnsons must’ve had a subliminal effect on him, he thought. The little hamburger place in town made the best chicken strips, and when he had a craving for strips, he headed there. Then after lunch he could run up the Tieton River and make sure none of the anglers on the river had caught a bull trout. He definitely wanted to keep Andrea Parker off his back.
He had just picked up his order from the carry-out window and was sitting down at the picnic table in the grass next to the building when Jim Kingsbury pulled in. He must have seen McCain’s truck sitting in the parking lot because he parked, jumped out of the truck, and came right over to where McCain was eating. He wore a bright yellow shirt reading PROCRASTINATE NOW in bold purple letters.
“Hey, Jim. Where’s your partner?”
“He’s at a doctor’s appointment in Yakima. I wanted to let you know that I’ve been keeping tabs on that cowboy in the silver Honda. I saw him around town a few times, and then he just disappeared.”
“Okay,” McCain said, chewing on a chicken strip. “So, what was he doing around here when you saw him?”
“He was in the grocery store buying a bunch of food. And then I saw him twice in the hardware store buying a big length of chain, some heavy-duty
