Bognor closed his notebook. “Raines is going to have a stroke when she hears this.”
Pierce and Marshall left a state police Crime Scene trailer and approached the two men. “Mind if we listen in?” Pierce said.
“Caleb,” Bognor said, “This conversation will go a lot easier without your constant sarcasm.”
Carlyle turned to Marshall. “I guess you realize that this guy knows everything about your operation. Which rafts you use, your boat order, what time you take off from Indian Lake. All of it.”
“Ryan,” Bognor said, “I hate to say this, but if Ric is correct, it may be time to close you down for good.”
“Hold on a second, John,” Carlyle said. “There may be a better way of handling this. We’ve learned a good deal about him in the past two weeks. When he gets anywhere near this river, he’s almost impossible to stop. And we can’t just wait for him to find us. That means we have to try another tactic.”
“Okay, let’s hear this bright new idea of yours,” Pierce said.
“We flush him out of the woods.”
“You’re really not saying that we go in there after him, are you?” Bognor said.
“What other choice do we have?”
Pierce let the butt of his shotgun drop to the ground. “Wake up, will you? Thirty minutes after this operation begins, everyone within a hundred miles will know about it. Including the asshole we’re looking for.”
“But only two or three people will know where we’re going.” Carlyle pulled a topo map from his pack and unfolded it. “There’s only three legitimate trails into the gorge east of Blue Ledges. We start at the top and work our way down.”
“How many forest rangers will you need to find this guy?” Pierce said.
“I’m not planning on using any.”
“You want to tell me, then, who’s dumb enough to track this killer?”
“Wells and I will do it.”
Pierce grabbed the map from Carlyle’s hand. “You two are no match for that guy.”
“Wells know this terrain better than anyone and he’s just pissed off enough to try it.”
“You think you can do what three different police agencies have been unable to?”
Carlyle reached over and took his map back from Pierce. “If you’ve got a better idea, either let us know what it is or stay out of our way.”
Just before eight that evening, Carlyle found Beth sitting on the porch. A tiny lamp stood on a side table, an open book lay on her lap, and a cigarette lay smoldering in an ashtray. She had thrown on a hand-woven shawl that she’d bought in Taos last year.
Carlyle pulled out a chair next to her. “You haven’t done that lately,” he said.
“What?”
“Smoke.”
“It was a long day.”
He bent over and kissed her temple.
Beth said, “Are you okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” He would tell her later about Nash. “Can I take a look at the book?”
She passed the heavy volume toward him. “You may not like the image.”
“Why not?”
“You once said you preferred realism.”
Carlyle laughed. “I said that when we were dating. I was trying to impress you.” He took the book from her hands. “You won’t believe this. Even in this light, I can see it’s Caravaggio.”
“The Conversion of St. Paul.” Paul, wrapped in armor, a maroon cloak at his side, lay on his back beside an old man holding the bridle of a huge warhorse.
Carlyle stared at the painting for several minutes, its bold colors unmistakable even in the weak light. He looked outside at the shadows creeping across the garden and put the book back in her hands. “What’s it supposed to mean?”
“I think Caravaggio’s saying we can’t trust reason, but emotions never lie.”
“If everyone followed their gut, I’d never catch the madman who killed those two guides.”
“Why not?”
“Everybody up north is trigger-happy.”
Carlyle decided he had to tell Beth about his day. He described Nash’s accident.
“Did anyone else get hurt?”
“Betts gashed his hand pulling the canoe out. That’s all.”
“You weren’t in any danger?”
“No. But I had to drive our boat back to North River.”
“How did it go?”
“You can’t imagine how it feels to be in a raft when the river has some teeth in it, when it’s fighting you every second.”
Unable to sit still as he described his afternoon, Carlyle stood up, moved toward the window, and stared at the garden as the light faded. Furrows, deep and dead straight, stretched across it instead of weeds and brush. “Was someone working out there today?”
Beth picked up a wine glass. “I couldn’t refuse his offer.”
Carlyle kept his back to her. “Whose offer? What are you talking about?”
“Adrian’s. He said he’d help us get ready for the spring.”
“How long was he here?” Carlyle continued to study the expertly turned fields.
“Until about three.”
“You said he’d left the area.”
“He’s got an apartment in town now.”
Carlyle turned. “Listen to me, please. It’s not safe to have him around us.”
“Ric, there’s nothing to worry about.”
It was almost dark now. Carlyle put his glass on the table. “He probably thinks I’m responsible for booting him out of the program.”
“How does that affect us?
“When graduate students get terminated, they can go a bit crazy. Some send menacing emails to their professors or phone in bomb threats to the university. One maniac in Utah stabbed his adviser as she was pushing her infant daughter in a stroller.”
“Adrian’s not capable of anything like that.”
“Beth, let me explain something. The university employs a lawyer to do nothing but handle calls from faculty stalked by students, who can go berserk when they feel they’ve been mistreated by a professor. Why do you think I cancel my office hours at the end of the semester and suggest we leave town for a few days?”
“Adrian’s really quite kind. He knows how busy you’ve been lately.”
Carlyle turned to face her. “How can you be so certain this guy isn’t dangerous?”
“You haven’t been at home much. What was I supposed to do?”
“That’s not fair.”
Beth got up and walked into the kitchen. Carlyle watched as she put his dinner in the oven and, without looking back,
