Gray Ghost Murders (9781101606070) (21 page)

Stranahan waited.

“Buster Garrett has cancer.”

Stranahan let it sink in. “You're sure?”

“Mmm-hmm. Judy located his sister over in Darby. I called her as soon as I put down the phone talking to you. I apologized for the hour and said we'd questioned her brother about a game violation last week and needed to complete his file. We couldn't locate him, but we needed to know if he had any outstanding medical conditions we should be aware of, because we couldn't interview him again without doctor's approval, depending on the severity of his condition. It's true, actually. Technically, anyway.”

Stranahan arched his eyebrows.

“I wasn't proud of myself. But tomorrow could be our last chance. Under the circumstances it seemed justified. And guess what? He's got prostate cancer. The sister says he goes to Deaconess as an outpatient.”

“So if Garrett and Wade are one and the same, it backs up Kauffeld's story. The motive rings true.”

“I don't care about motive one way or the other. The thing that matters is we have evidence to arrest. Judy got confirmation this afternoon that the DNA on the bullet is a match with the second body, but we can't get the gun in possession because Crawford sold it and it's in Texas. Dusting a useful print at this date is unlikely. So what we have to count on is that Garrett will go back up there tomorrow, hoping that Kauffeld will show, and he'll respond to the hawk call. That's powerful circumstantial evidence. Plus we have Kauffeld's ID once Garrett's in custody, Kauffeld's eyewitness account of their first meeting, and, if the stars line up, we can corroborate with handwriting analysis on the note. It's enough for the DA to build a case, especially if we can get the Living at Last people to place Garrett at a retreat where he could have met Gutierrez. But”—she paused and looked at Stranahan—“if he's up there overlooking the trail with binoculars, like he told Kauffeld he would be, then everything hinges on the decoy. If Garrett doesn't buy the decoy, then we'll have scared him away for good.”

Stranahan looked at her levelly. “Why don't you just say me when you say ‘the decoy.' It's me or I wouldn't be here.”

Martha shook her head. “I'd rather have it be law enforcement. But Harold's out of the equation. I'd send Warren, but he's too short and . . .”

“No, it's got to be me,” Stranahan said. “I have the height and build. Besides, Warren wouldn't agree to shave his mustache.”

Martha allowed herself a brief smile. “You're right,” she said. “He probably wouldn't. But he'll have your back, trust me on that. So will I. But I want you to know what you're getting into before I deputize you.” She got up from the table and led him to her home office in the main room of the old farmhouse. She switched on the overhead track lighting system. Two maps were spread across the urethane surface of the sawn stump that served as her desk. One was a standard Montana road map, the other a USGS quad for Sphinx Mountain.

“Ever got around to counting the rings?” Stranahan said.

“I haven't been bored enough yet. I was told it's eight hundred years old; did I tell you that?”

“Last summer. You said it was a Ponderosa pine.”

“Yeah, well I had other things on my mind that day. You did, too, if you recall.”

“Like now.”

“Déjà vu, as Walt would say.” She pointed to the road map. The route from Big Timber, where Buster Garrett lived, to the trailhead at the Bear Creek Forest Service Station was highlighted in chartreuse marker. Ettinger told Stranahan that the Sweet Grass County Sheriff's Department had agreed to post a deputy at Garrett's house. The deputy would call with a vehicle license and description as soon as Garrett was on the move

“How do you know he's home?” Stranahan said. “Why couldn't he be on the mountain tonight, camping out above the trail? That's the way I'd do it.”

“Well, his truck's at home, the one you saw him driving, and the house lights are out, but no, we don't know for sure. Just like we don't know for sure that it's Garrett in the first place. You only called me an hour ago. Right now I'm trying to set this up with overworked people who are dressed in pajamas. You want to object or do you want to listen?”

Stranahan acquiesced by steepling his fingers.

Ettinger took him though the strategy she'd devised, referring to the topographic map. It seemed simple enough. The GPS coordinates for the arrangement, which Kauffeld had received in the note he'd recovered under the bridge, marked the bench of timber where the first body had been recovered. There were two trails leading to the saddle below the bench, both starting from the same trailhead. One followed the Trail Fork of Bear Creek—this was the path the body recovery team had taken and, later, that Sean and Katie Sparrow had taken when they used the metal detector to find the bullet. Kauffeld had been instructed to hike up this trail. It was presumed that Garrett would station himself where he could overlook it. Ettinger traced the trail with a yellow highlighter. “That's your route,” she told Stranahan.

The other approach to the saddle was a trail up the Middle Fork of Bear Creek, along the northern side of the Helmet. It was about the same distance, but the going was more difficult, with several iffy creek crossings. Ettinger marked it in pink highlighter. This was the route she and Warren Jarrett would take. It would keep them out of sight of anyone watching the other trail, and they could then meet up with Stranahan on the saddle, a few hundred yards below the bench. She gave Stranahan the coordinates of the meeting place to program into his GPS.

“Okay then,” she said, “once we rendezvous, we'll climb as a team to the bench and take cover. You'll give the hawk call. We'll let Garrett come to us. Warren will apprehend. We'll back him up. No cowboy-hatting. You got that?”

Stranahan nodded.

“Can you drive a different car to the trailhead? Garrett knows your Land Cruiser. He shouldn't be in any position to see the trailhead by the time you arrive, but why take the chance?”

Stranahan nodded again.

“So, what do you think?”

He caught the note of uncertainty in her voice. “I think it's like boxing,” he said. “Everybody has a plan until they get hit.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning things don't always go to plan.”

“They never do. Anyone who's dealt with an Adam Henry can tell you that.”

Stranahan inclined his eyebrows.

“Adam Henry. An aggressive and hostile suspect. So are you in or out?”

“I'm in.”

Ettinger began to speak and then snapped her middle finger against her thumb and held up her forefinger. “Ssshh. Listen.”

It was the owl's low-pitched call—“whooo-ooo-ooo-ooo.”

They were quiet, waiting, and then it came again, the silence of the forest profound when the last note died. After a time the sound of the creek came back.

Martha's voice was thoughtful. “Do you know the great gray owl is called the gray ghost of the north? A coincidence, huh? I never thought of it until now.”

“Maybe it's an omen,” Stranahan said.

“Yeah,” Martha said. “But a good one or a bad one?”

“I guess we'll find out tomorrow.”

“I guess we will. Now raise your right hand before I change my mind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A Strike from the Bucket List

A
cool and absolute stillness that was more of an emotion than a quality of atmosphere smothered the trailhead the next morning. Stranahan glanced at his watch—eight-fifty. Warren Jarrett's unmarked Toyota Tacoma was there, but no other vehicles were parked at the trailhead or in the adjacent campground. Nor had he received any messages on the powerful FM radio that Ettinger had lent him. If the Sweet Grass County troll who'd been posted at Garrett's house had anything to report, it hadn't reached Stranahan's ears. He thought of Martinique, burying her face in his neck when she'd seen him out the door an hour before. Maybe there was no need for her to worry after all.

He walked around to the back of the Datsun, the lift struts of Martinique's hail-damaged hatchback so shot he had to hold the trunk open while reaching down for Kauffeld's .300 Savage. Ettinger had pressed the rifle into his hands the night before, along with the hawk call and the red hat. He leaned against the hood and stretched his legs. A few drops of rain, a promise of more. He tied the arms of a rain jacket around his waist, shut the hatch, and started hiking, feeling about as naked as he ever had, despite the reassuring weight of the rifle hanging by a sling from his shoulder.

For two miles the trail dipped into and out of forest, into and out of a drizzling rain. It was in the wildflower meadow at the trail junction, where the path to the saddle veered to the left and began to zig-zag up, that Sean had felt the hair on his forearms prickle the last time he'd hiked here alone. Then he had been able to dismiss the feeling, but it was not so easy while wearing a target in the form of a red hat, and with the suspicion that he was being watched from one of the openings in the timbered slopes that rose sharply on either side. He resisted the urge to glance around, but instead trained his eyes on the massive extrusion of limestone on the Helmet, the plumelike peak resembling the brush of horsehair topping a Roman general's hat. He bent forward as he walked, swinging his arms in an attempt to emulate Melvin Kauffeld's distinctive stride. And felt his heart pound against the binoculars that bobbed on his chest.

But nothing happened and the feeling of impending doom gradually receded. An hour and fifteen minutes later he reached the place on the saddle where he'd been instructed to wait for Ettinger and Jarrett, and ten minutes after that he heard a branch break to the north, from the direction of the Middle Fork. He was gripping the rifle tightly as Ettinger and Jarrett rounded a bend in the path. Ettinger put a finger to her lips and motioned Stranahan back into the trees, where they squatted in silence.

The sheriff's sergeant spoke first. “Did you tell him?”

“Tell me what?” Stranahan said.

Jarrett explained that Buster Garrett had been spotted walking outside his house at six a.m. wearing boxers, scratching his belly, and urinating in his yard. He'd gone back into the house and had come out again at seven and driven off in his truck, heading west on the highway.

“His truck wasn't at the trailhead when I drove in,” Stranahan said.

“He could be coming late,” Jarrett said.

Ettinger didn't want to argue about it. She turned to the sheriff's sergeant. “Okay, Warren, it's your show.”

Jarrett told them to check their rifles. One in the chamber, safeties on.

Stranahan eased open the lever of the Savage, caught the reassuring glint of a cartridge, and closed the action.

“Here's how it goes down,” Jarrett said. “We climb to the bench single file; Sean, you're last. I'll choose our cover. You two will spread out to either side of me, how far depends upon the nature of the cover. We settle down, wait for everybody's pulse to return to normal. You have that hawk call?”

Stranahan pulled the call on the neck lanyard from under his shirt.

Jarrett nodded. “I'll wait till exactly noon, per the instructions Kauffeld gave us. When I put my fingers to my mouth, you give the call. Then we wait. If somebody comes in with a weapon, I'll identify myself and command him to drop it. All three of us will stand and show arms, so he knows we have superior force. Nine times out of ten if you have superior force, the subject drops the weapon. Protocol is if he raises the weapon, makes any move to point it in our direction, then we shoot to kill. You got that?” He looked at Stranahan.

Stranahan said, “What if he runs?”

“If he runs and I consider him an armed suspect, I have discretion to use reasonable force to stop him.”

“We shoot him?”

“I shoot him. Only if he threatens us with a weapon do you or Martha fire.” Jarrett stood up. “That's it. That's my speech.”

“Then it's showtime,” Ettinger said.

As the party climbed upward, the drizzle became constant, slanting rain. Ettinger caught Stranahan's eyes and raised her own to the leaden sky. The rain meant the call of the hawk wouldn't carry as far. But there was nothing to be done about it, and the call sounded loud enough when Sean blew it a few minutes after they'd reached the bench. The tension among the team was palpable. Sean could hear Warren Jarrett breathing ten yards to his right. His hands on the rifle were slick with sweat. But nothing happened, and nothing happened after he'd blown the call for the second time a half hour later. As the afternoon advanced, legs became cramped, clothes soaked through, spirits were deflated. Finally Ettinger made a cutting motion across her throat. It was a weary and very wet team that stumbled down the trail and gathered for dinner at the Ennis Café.

“You notice we never saw the shovel,” Jarrett said. “We were within fifteen yards of the coordinates. You'd think we would have seen it if the game was on.”

“The shovel would have been nice,” Martha agreed. “We might have dusted a print from it.” She held up a finger, reached for the cell phone vibrating in her pocket. “Ettinger.” She listened, said “uh-huh.” She ran her forefinger across the face of the phone.

“That was Sweet Grass County. Buster Garrett returned to his house at noon, hasn't gone out since. He must have just been working a job this morning.” She blew out a breath, her lips making a bubbling sound. “I never did think it was him, even after his sister said he had cancer. I just let myself hope it was him.”

“What about going back tomorrow?” Stranahan said.

“What about it?” Ettinger said. She cut into her chicken-fried steak.

“Well, the sound of the call couldn't carry in that heavy air. Maybe he'll come back tomorrow, give it a last chance.”

Jarrett combed his fingers through his wet hair. “I think if anybody comes back to the bench tomorrow it's that sow grizzly what chomped on Harold. I could smell her in there today.”

“Listen, Sean,” Ettinger said. “Today was the fifth day. If this fellow Wade”—she made quote marks in the air to emphasize the name— “if he didn't come on a day he said he would, then he isn't coming on a day he said he wouldn't. He probably wrote Kauffeld off as a player after the first no-show. Now it's on to the next pigeon. It's over for him, this time anyway. It's over for us, too.”

Back at the grain elevator with the churring lament of a nighthawk pouring in the open windows, Martinique proved to be equally dismissive—and adamant—about his not returning the next day. She said if he absolutely had to experience a more elevated heart rate, she could do something about it. He asked her what that could be. She led him up the stairs and showed him.

•   •   •

R
emember Sam has you lined up for that float in the Bear Trap. You have to meet Peachy at six.”

“I know. I'm getting up.” He sat up in bed. “Martinique, you look . . . indescribable.”

Readying herself for a double shift, Martinique was applying patches of double-sided tape to a gauzy peasant blouse, just above and below the dark circles of her nipples. She pulled the heavy Weyerhaeuser suspenders clipped to her jean cutoffs up over her shoulders and pressed them over the tape. It was the extent of her outfit. She gave a businesslike bounce to make sure the straps would stay in place.

“These were my dad's logging suspenders,” she said.

“Wouldn't he be proud?”

“Don't go there, Sean. We agreed, remember?”

“You agreed, but I'm not going to argue with you this morning. I do wonder, though, why you signed me up for a float today without consulting me. It just seems . . . out of character, you being so independent yourself. I can't imagine your reaction if I did the same thing, commit you to something without asking.”

“Oh, baby, don't you know?” She sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand.

“No, I don't think I do.”

“I know it isn't logical, but I thought if I . . . how do I put this?” She turned his hand over and rubbed his palm, looking down. “Yesterday, when you left and I knew you were going up into the mountains, I didn't know if you were coming back. So I thought if I signed you up to fish today, then you would have an obligation. You'd have to come back. ‘He can't die, because he has to do this float. Sam's depending on him.' You understand?”

“I do.” He pulled her to him. The metal clasps of the suspenders were cold against his chest.

“I better go make breakfast,” she said. Her voice assumed a self-mocking tone. “Then this little logger chick is off to pour coffee.”

“Your nipple's showing.”

She looked down. “We can't have that,” she said. “Your sheriff would throw me in the hoosegow.”

•   •   •

S
tranahan tried to mask his surprise when he saw Melvin Kauffeld and Harriet Langhor standing beside Peachy Morris's Explorer at the boat ramp. He hadn't known who his clients would be, only that they were from the Double D.

“Where's Peachy?” he said, taking the cold hand that Kauffeld extended and then Harriet's, whose grasp was hard as any man's.

“He put in ten minutes ago,” Kauffeld said. “You cover your surprise well, Mr. Stranahan.”

“Sean.”

“Sean. But look at it from my point of view. Harriet's conference lasts until Sunday. I'd be a fool to leave her before I absolutely had to. And Peachy seemed quite keen on taking the two young women from Oklahoma, which leaves us with you. He said you're a fine fisherman, that you don't catch a lot of trout but you know how to catch the big ones. I'd like to catch a twenty-inch trout. Do you think you could grant one wish from a dying man's bucket list?” He crinkled his eyes, which disappeared into their deep sockets.

To Stranahan, the display of bravado seemed forced. But then, he thought, so would most attempts at levity by a man with Kauffeld's prognosis. He said, “I've put anglers into fish that size in six runs between here and Greycliff. We'll go with articulated streamers, but the thing about slinging artillery is you might not catch anything at all—that's the trade-off.”

“Sean, just waking up this morning was a blessing. I was kidding you about the wish.”

But he got it, anyway, about an hour into a cold float with a brisk wind lifting spray from the riffles. The trout, a rainbow fat as Finnegan, took an olive streamer tied from dyed Finn raccoon fur, a pattern of Stranahan's that had paid off before in the lower river. After taking the obligatory photos and releasing the trout, the anglers admired a pair of ospreys that peered regally down from their throne on a pinnacle of cliff.

Kauffeld said, “You two keep an eye on the birds. I drank too much coffee this morning.” He started to wade downstream, toward a bay that was out of sight.

Stranahan felt Harriet grip his arm. “He's putting up a front,” she said, her accent thicker than Sean had remembered. “Something was bothering him yesterday. I told Peachy we wanted to float with you, so I could tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“He sent you on a goose chase yesterday.” She unzipped a top pocket of her wading vest and opened a cell phone. “Mel's phone. He doesn't know I have it.” She tapped keys. “I turned the volume down. Put it to your ear.”

A voice message, the voice muffled, Stranahan thought deliberately so: “I know you're at the Double D. I followed you to the airport . . . Last chance, pardner. Be a man.”

“Look at the time,” she said. The banner readout scrolled from left to right:
Wednesday, July 16, 2:20 p.m
.

“Yesterday afternoon we were on the mountain,” Stranahan said. “We were where they were supposed to meet.”

“I think you were in the wrong place. Mel told you he didn't have a map, but I went through his clothes. I found this.” She handed him a folded paper from the same pocket of her vest. It was a computer copy of a
National Geographic
map page. Stranahan identified Sphinx Mountain and the Helmet. There were circles on the map. One, in red marker, circumscribed the timber bench where the bodies had been found, where Stranahan had met Ettinger and Jarrett the day before. The other circled a lower slope of a ridge a couple miles west of the saddle. Sean marked it as being not too far from the meadow at the trail junction. A shorter and much easier hike from the trailhead. In addition to a set of penned GPS coordinates beside the X that marked the center of each circle, there were sequential numbers separated by hyphens: 13-14-15 inside the circle that marked the saddle; 16-17 inside the circle that marked the lower slope.

“They're dates, don't you think? You went here”—she pointed—“but Wade was at this other place then. I am right, yes?” Her intense eyes shifted from the map to Stranahan.

Stranahan nodded. He was thinking that the second circle was the contingency plan, in case an older and infirm man decided he couldn't hike as far as the saddle. He folded up the map as Kauffeld bucked the current, wading upstream toward the boat.

“Don't tell him you gave me this,” he whispered.