The Wild Inside (20 page)

“Of what?”

“My ass,” I replied. “I wiped it. You can let Ford know that.”

He laughed wholeheartedly, and after he hung up, I spent some time leaning against the SUV, staring at the trees through which I knew the bear’s cage stood off another hundred yards. I couldn’t see it from the parking lot since the forest blocked the view. Ford said they’d considered transporting him to the Logging Lake area, which had been closed for camping two months earlier and day hikes restricted just the day before in anticipation of this eventual move. Not many people
visit Logging Lake during the summer, and even less during the fall, if any at all. It’s deeper up the Inside North Fork Road, but still close enough to McGee Meadow that the bear should feel like it’s still in its own territory. For years, park Bear Management would try to relocate troublesome bears, only to find they’d hightail it right back to where they came from. I figured it was like getting drunk in a bar in a different town, being drugged, and waking up the next morning and saying to yourself,
Where the hell am I?
Then heading home as soon as possible.

They would not need to sedate him. They would simply lead him into the culvert trap, drive him up the long, rutted road, then let the cranky thing out with a remote-controlled cage door so they could be safe in the cover of their vehicles.

I pictured him swaying from left to right on his forepaws. Looking around, glancing back at Bowman and Smith. Snorting, grunting, then trotting into the woods. Maybe drinking out of the cold lake after gaining distance, then moving on and up to the tree line where the terrain turns rugged—letting the wilderness provide a barrier from all human constructs. And sauntering away with the case’s most crucial piece of evidence.

• • •

We didn’t find Stimpy as effortlessly as I thought we would. For one, his run-down trailer at the address we had from the task force seemed abandoned—no recent footprints, dust at the base of the door, debris from a windstorm on the front steps. . . . It was down a dirt road just past the Lake Five turnoff, and we found the shithole easily. We figured he was probably taking up with a girlfriend.

I went back into headquarters and grabbed Monty even though I was conflicted over the idea that he seemed so cozy with Ford, an irrational thought, I knew, since he worked for the guy. I needed someone with me on this one in case Stimpy was all jacked up and ended up freaking out. I quizzed Monty on the way over to make sure he
remembered some of the backup protocol from his early training days before he got all soft and converted to Ford’s duties. Just the obvious and only just in case: going in single file, watching my back, covering opposite vision points, searching for fields of fire. Monty didn’t seem insulted with my review and once again, I considered the fact that he was a good student.

I had a list of known users through the Regional Drug Task Force database and quite easily came up with Stimpy’s whereabouts by threatening the first user, an undernourished, chain-smoking guy named Kevin Miller, whom we tracked down at a local hangout in Coram called the Elk Tracks Saloon. It was only a matter of convincing him that it was going to be his ass very soon and that I would make sure the sheriff’s department made a full-time job of him if he didn’t give me some information on our friend Stimpy.

He sang within minutes, giving us Stimpy’s girlfriend, a Melissa Tafford, and that she ran a bar in Hungry Horse called the Outlaw’s Nest. We headed there, and when we walked in, I rearranged my gun that I wear on a shoulder strap just because you never know how a paranoid drug user and dealer, usually with easy access to illicit weapons, is going to react to federal law enforcement. But when we entered, there were only about five people in the place—two older men with receding hairlines at the bar and two young women and a young man (possibly all underage) at a table. They were clearly drunk, speaking and laughing loudly in the quiet place. I knew that things hadn’t changed in Montana—very few people called taxis as they do in the city when drinking heavily. They simply hopped in their vehicles and hit the roads in spite of the reverence-inducing American Legion practice of placing white crosses at car fatality sites.

Nobody in the bar even remotely fit Stimpy’s description: a stout guy with a shaved head and a dark goatee. We walked up to the bar. The whole place gave off a tangy smell of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol mixed with the strong scent of bleach even though Montana
had outlawed smoking in all food and drinking establishments. The two older men were having tumblers of whiskey, and the one closest to me turned and glared at me with narrowed, disapproving eyes. He threw his drink back, grimaced, and made a smacking sound, then looked back at his empty glass. I wondered if they were retirees from the aluminum plant when it was still going strong or if they’d been let go with the most recent closure. Or possibly old loggers out of work, their hands strong, rough, and scarred as they cupped their whiskey.

“Let me guess,” asked a medium-size woman with dark, wavy hair and several deep acne scars pocking the pale skin on her cheekbones. She was washing beer mugs in a large sink with murky water. “You two aren’t here for the whiskey.”

“Come on.” I smiled. “We don’t stick out that much.” I looked down at my jeans and my navy coat. I wasn’t wearing my badges. Monty had on gray pants and a black windbreaker.

“Yeah.” She picked up a cloth and began scouring the bar. “You do.”

“Well, let’s get right to it, then. Your boyfriend, Stimpy—can you tell us where he is?”

She gave me a blank stare and walked over to the older gentlemen. “Another?” she asked him. He glanced our way, then nodded and slid his glass to her.

“He’s not in trouble; we just need to talk to him,” I said.

“’Bout Victor Lance.” She filled his glass partway with ice, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal, and filled it halfway.

“That’s right. And may I ask how you know that?”

She clutched her rag again, turned her back to us, and began cleaning the opposite counter. “Guy turns up dead. People talk.”

“Makes sense.” I smiled even though she wasn’t looking at me. “So where might Andrew Stimpson be this afternoon?”

“I don’t know where he went. He was in here earlier, then he left.”

“You’re his girlfriend and he didn’t tell you where he was going? That wasn’t very nice of him.”

“I don’t give a shit what you think.” She pivoted back to us and put her hand on her hip, the dingy rag still in her hand. “Neither one of us did anything wrong.”

Both of the older men stared at me, and the one who’d refilled his drink cleared his throat. “Melissa.” He wagged his finger at her to come over. She went and he scooted forward, leaning over the bar, and whispered to her.

“It’s okay, Bud,” she said. “It’s fine.”

I politely nodded at him. “If that’s the case,” I said to Melissa, “that you’ve done nothing wrong, then why so nervous about us having a chat with him?”

Her face got pouty, and she shrugged.

“Look, Ms. Tafford. My partner and I aren’t here to stir up any trouble; we just want to find out what Victor Lance was up to before this past weekend.”

“How would I know that?”

“Like you said, people talk. Just thought you might’ve heard. Did you know him?”

She nodded.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip. “Last week sometime. Came in for a few.”

“Was he with anyone?”

“No. He was alone.”

“You sure ’bout that?

“Yeah. I’m sure. He sat here”—she lifted her chin to the bar—“and we made small talk.”

“Which day of the week was it?”

“Wednesday, I think.”

“How did he seem?”

“Fine.”

“Nervous or jumpy?” I asked.

“No more than usual.”

“Where’s Stimpy?”

“I told you. He left, but I have no idea where.”

I turned my back to her, away from the old men, and leaned against the bar on one elbow and took in the rest of the place. A meager, dusty light filtered in from a greasy street window. A red-and-black psychedelic seventies-type carpet spread under old linoleum-top tables with metal legs and metal chairs. Several different blue-and-red neon beer signs hung on the walls, and the tiled floor in the short hallway to the bathrooms was buckling. Even though the place was bleak, it was nicer than some of the other taverns up the Line. “Nice place you’re runnin’ here. Bet it’s not easy to keep it going.”

She looked at me only for an instant.

“I’m guessing you don’t want the local law enforcement making a project of this place?”

She still said nothing. Monty took a seat at the bar, and I stayed half-turned away from her. “Bet that might make the owners a little nervous, you know, ’bout the management of it. Kind of makes life real tough when you’re a bar owner to have the cops breathing down your neck, checking to see if you serve to minors, overserve to people with too many DUIs, you know, that kind of thing.” I turned back to face her. “Not to mention any drug deals that might take place—and I’m not saying that happens here.” I held up my palm innocently. “But you can never be too careful these days. Especially when the boyfriend of the person you’re paying to manage the place is listed with the local drug task force.”

Her bottom lip stuck out even farther, like she was an angry, sulking teenager. I took a seat along with Monty and gave her a dose of her own blank stare.

“Look, I told you.” She threw the rag into the sink after about five seconds of silence. “He took off.”

“Why?”

“Because some guy came in here asking questions. Said he was investigating a murder in the park and that he’d heard from Victor’s sister that Stimpy might have known Victor. Stimpy was pissed, so he left.”

I glanced at Monty. “A police officer?”

“No, no one like that. He said he was a reporter, that he was just checking into things because he knew there was more to the story than the sheriff’s office was letting people in on.”

“Let me get this straight. So this reporter—he spoke to Stimpy?”

She nodded. “Stimpy said he knew nothin’ ’bout Victor Lance. And I believe him; he didn’t.”

“So why did he leave?”

“He wanted to talk to Victor’s sister. Find out why that reporter came to him.”

“And how does he know Victor’s sister?”

“I don’t know. I guess through Victor. He was proud of her. You know, mentioning her a lot. He’d talk about her having her act together and working at that café in C’ Falls.”

• • •

“Where are we going? The soup place?” Monty asked.

“That’s right. See if Stimpy’s still there and see who this reporter is? Damn.” I slapped the top of the steering wheel. “You can thank your boss for that.”

“My boss?”

“Yeah, what the hell’s a reporter sticking his nose into Stimpy’s business?”

“How would I know?”

“I’ll tell you why. This is the way it works: if you don’t give the media enough information, they attempt to dig it up themselves and they go sniffing around where they don’t belong.”

“What’s that got to do with Ford?”

“He arranged with the sheriff’s office for them to defer all ques
tions from the press to his PR department. You read the article. It didn’t even mention a kidnapping or homicide. He should have at least given them that.” I felt my grip on the steering wheel a little too tight. “If that reporter gets hurt by sniffing around meth dealers, you think your boss even cares?”

I could sense Monty’s eyes on me for a long moment until finally, he looked out the window.

• • •

It wasn’t the reporter who got hurt. It was Megan, but only mildly. We found her at her apartment hugging her arm with an ice pack. “My fucking brother.” She sat down on her couch after she let us in. Then she paused and took a deep breath. I could tell she was holding back tears. She waited a second until she was free of the impulse, then added: “Still, even with him gone, I have to deal with his screwed-up life.”

“How long ago did he leave?”

“’Bout thirty minutes.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No. Can you believe it? That asshole grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back.” She took another deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out, making a shaky airy sound, almost like a whimper. “Then he whispered in my ear.” She shivered. “I could smell his nasty breath and he said that I’d pay for it if I ever mentioned his name to anyone ever again.”

“Wasn’t there anyone in the café with you?”

“No, it was past the lunch rush and I was reading a magazine when he came in. After he left, my boss came in with some supplies, and when I told her what happened, she let me go so I could come up and ice my shoulder.”

“And who was the person that you mentioned Stimpy’s name to?”

“To that reporter. From the
Daily Flathead
.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Will something. Will Jones.” I saw Monty write it down.

“Why Stimpy’s name?”

“Same reason I gave it to you. They asked who my brother might have been involved with on the drug scene. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I feel so stupid.” She shook her head. “I should know better, but he was young and seemed harmless, and after I gave it to him . . . after I realized that that might not be such a great idea, I asked him if he planned on putting it in the paper or using my name in the paper and he said he wouldn’t. I never dreamed he’d use it with Stimpy or that he’d even go talk to the guy.”

I sighed. “He won’t mention Stimpy in the paper. A reporter, even a bad one, knows better than to spew out hearsay.” I knew Megan was a tough girl, but I had also pegged her for being smarter than to give such details to the press. She was hard, but apparently, she was no criminal. “You were just trying to help. Did you tell him anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Did he ask about the bear?”

She nodded and took a sip of water. She looked at us with those same hard hazel eyes, but this time they were darkened with fear instead of anger. I reminded her that she had my card and told her to call me immediately if Stimpy or the reporter showed up again.