County Sheriff ’s Department.” I guess it hurt his feelings.
“This car will do a hundred and sixty.”
“I doubt that and, if it does, it better not do it in this county. Anyway, I don’t think Dorothy’s gonna run for it, so you’re safe.” I nodded toward the office. “Hanging by the door with the Phillies key chain.” Whiz kids.
He slumped and started back, stopping to ask, “We meet back here?”
“Sure, we’ll synchronize watches.”
It was six blocks to the Log Cabin Motel on 16 leading toward the mountains. It’s an old style place with twelve-by-twelve log structures and faded red neon. I pulled the Bullet up to the office and went in to talk to Willis, who informed me that the Michigan men had been up late celebrating their last night in town. This didn’t sound like men who had shot somebody, but you never knew. Willis asked who whacked Cody Pritchard, and I asked him why it was that when somebody died in town everybody started talking like John Garfield.
They were in cabins 7 and 8, so I walked down the row beside the imprint of Turk’s 50-series tire tracks. Topflight detective work. I’m sure with the glass-pack mufflers he had been as inconspicuous as the Daytona 500. There was a brand new Suburban parked between the two cabins, Michigan plates. I couldn’t believe he had called them in. I knocked at the door of the nearest cabin and heard a muffled groan. I knocked again.
“Oh God…”
I knocked again. “Sheriff ’s Department. Could you open the door, please?”
“Randy, this is not funny…” I leaned against the glossy, green doorjamb and knocked once again. After a few seconds, a young man in his underwear and a camo T-shirt snatched open the door. “Do you know what time it is?!” He was short and kind of round with light brown hair and a two-week beard. It did not take long for him to figure out I wasn’t Randy.
“Good morning. I’m Sheriff Longmire, and I’d like a word with you.” At first he didn’t move, and I could see the wheels turning as he tried to figure out what it was that he had done to bring himself in contact with me. These few moments in the beginning can often tell me what I need to know. You hear about eye movement, nose touching, all that crap but, when you get right down to it, it’s just a feeling. The little voice in the back of your head just says, “Yeah, this is the guy.” My little voice had taken the fifth, and I figured this was not the guy. Besides, I was probably looking for a perpetrator who had acted alone. I told him he could put his pants on.
I waited out by their SUV and watched the cars go by. The air was brisk, and I was starting to regret not bringing my coat from the Bullet. The aspen trees around the cabins and adjacent campground were a bright butter and shimmered in the light wind. They had been tenacious in the face of the small snowstorm of the evening before, trying to hold onto fall. Only a few loose leaves tumbled across the gravel toward the alley behind the motel. But the sun was shining this morning, and the whole place just seemed to glow.
He remembered his jacket. After he closed the door to the cabin, the curtain flipped back just a touch and then hung slack as it had before. “You want the other guys, too?”
I introduced my most ingratiating smile. “No, I figure you’ll do.” He didn’t seem happy with this turn of events. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, mister?”
“Anderson, Mike Anderson.” He was quick with it, and the name matched the registration of the vehicle.
“Mr. Anderson, do you mind taking a little walk with me here?” I gestured toward the office, where the Bullet was parked and, more importantly, where my jacket lay on the seat. He started, and I figured this guy’s never had any dealings with law enforcement in his life other than traffic violations. I figured to start easy. “Why don’t you tell me about last night?”
He bit his lip, nodding his head in agreement. “I am really sorry about all that noise.”
“Um-hmm.” Um-hmm was one of my secret weapons. I could give out with a noncommittal um-hmm with the best of them.
“We didn’t tear anything up… I mean we made a lot of noise?”
“Willis did mention it… But that’s not why I’m here.” Now he looked really worried. “I just need to ask you about the areas that you might have hunted in your visit here.” We had arrived at the Bullet, where I opened the door, fished out my coat, and pulled it on. “Sorry, it’s getting a little cool. The areas? Sections for your hunting permits?”
His eyes stayed in the truck, taking in the radio, radar, and especially the Remington 870 that was locked to the dash. After a moment he spoke. “You mean the numbers?”
“Yep, that would be helpful.” I waited. “You’re not sure what the numbers are?”
“No, but they’re in the truck.”
As we started back, the tone became a little more conversational. I commented on the weather, and he related how he and his friends had been surprised by the little storm last night, how the roads had been slick with snow coming off the mountain. “You fellows were hunting on the mountain?”
“Yes, sir.” He unlocked the Chevy and dug into the center console where I caught a glimpse of a red box indicating Federal brand ammunition. After a moment, he produced four bright and shining bow-hunting permits.
Bow hunting permits. I pursed my lips and blew out. “You fellows are bow hunters?
“Yes, sir.” I checked the permits; they were all mountain, 24, 166, 25. “Look, is there something we’re being charged with? Should I be getting a lawyer or something?
“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary, Mr. Anderson. Do you or any of your party have any firearms?”
“No.”
Maybe he was just nervous. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Well…” Moment of truth. “Randy has a. 38 in the glove box.”
“Is it loaded?”
“It might be.”
“Are you aware that a loaded, vehicularly concealed weapon constitutes a misdemeanor offense in this state?” Vehicularly-was that a word? Where did I get this stuff? I smiled again to let him know I didn’t think he was Al Capone. “So, let’s say you and I make a deal? I won’t examine the legendary Randy’s pistol to see if it’s loaded and you answer a few more of my questions.” He figured it was a good deal. I pulled the section map out of my coat pocket, spread it out, and, with Mike’s help, held it on their hood. He said they had asked at the Game and Fish about sections 23 and 26 because Anderson’s father had hunted there years ago, claiming the deer on the Powder River draw were much larger than those on the mountain. Anderson’s father was right, but I didn’t share that with Mike; my ranch was in that section. They had driven out there Friday at noon and circled up along the Powder River coming back past Arvada, Clearmont, and Crossroads.
“Did you get off the main road at any point?”
“Um, three times. Once to watch some antelope just at the top of the hill after that little town at the main road?”
“Arvada.”
“Once where there was an old bridge headed south.”
Maybe something. “An old kings-bridge structure?” His face was blank. “A trestle system of steel girders that goes over the road with an old car stuffed into the bank on the far side?”
“Yes, sir. Now that you mention it.”
“Did you see anyone, or anything else, out there?” He paused to think. I was going to have to talk to all of them. Was I ever going to get to sleep?
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did anybody see you?”
“No. I mean there were some cars and trucks that went by…” He was thinking hard but wasn’t coming up with anything.
“But you didn’t speak to anyone?”
“No.”
“What about the third stop?” His face brightened. I guess he figured the governor had called with the reprieve.
“We had lunch at a little place about twenty miles out.”
“The Red Pony?”
