Endangered (20 page)

“That poor April,” Tassel continued. “She didn’t know Dallas had a girl or two in every town. He’d ask me to keep her busy so he could sneak off with every buckle bunny he could find. She is a
nice
girl, you know? You raised her right. I tried to tell her once what Dallas was like, but she didn’t want to hear it. He had her buffaloed, you know?”

Joe felt the anger rising in his chest.

He said, “Do you know if they broke up before Dallas got injured?”

Tassel looked surprised. He said, “Not that I know of.” Then: “Hell, if that had happened, I would have gone after April in a heartbeat . . .”

He caught himself and flushed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that to her dad.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Joe said, “but I’d be a lot more comfortable with you around than I ever was with Dallas.”

“Still, sorry.”

“One more thing,” Joe said. “Do you know if they left Houston together after Dallas got injured?”

Tassel thought about it. He said, “I guess I don’t know for sure. I sort of assumed they did, since all of a sudden they were both gone, but I didn’t see them leave together or nothin’.”

“Would anyone know for sure?” Joe asked.

Tassel shook his head. “I doubt it. Dallas did his own thing, like I said. I was his only friend, and that’s just because I’m stupid. He’s the kind of guy who would just leave without sayin’ nothin’ to anyone.”

Joe said, “Dallas told me that April broke up with him and played the field, trying to make him jealous.”

“That no-good son of a bitch,” Tassel said. He looked up at Joe with fire in his eyes. “Believe me, Mr. Pickett, that
never
happened.”

“I believe you,” Joe said, trying to keep his anger off his face. “Did he ever put his hands on her?”

“I never seen it,” Tassel said. “But I wouldn’t put it past him. I do remember she was wearing big old sunglasses for a week or so up at Calgary. She wouldn’t take ’em off, even indoors. But I never seen him hit her.”

“But you wouldn’t put it past him?” Joe said.

“I wouldn’t put nothin’ past Dallas Cates.”

Joe thanked Tassel and wished him the best of luck at the next rodeo.

As he turned to leave, Tassel said, “Mr. Pickett?”

Joe turned.

“You ain’t gonna tell Dallas we talked, are you?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be on the wrong side of that guy. Or his family.”

Joe paused. “What about his family?”

“I met ’em a couple of times when they came to see Dallas ride. They ain’t exactly a fun bunch, and that mom of his . . .”

“What?”

Tassel shook his head. “She’s just scary, man. She don’t want anybody to beat Dallas in nothin’. She’d say things to other bull riders like ‘You better let Dallas win or I’ll send my boys after you.’ Things like that.”

“Did you ever hear her say that?” Joe asked.

“Hell, she said it to
me
in Cheyenne,” Tassel said, shaking his head. “She’s got a thing about Dallas that ain’t healthy.”

That night, in his hotel room in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the federal forensics lab, after sending Governor Rulon his condolences regarding Cody McCoy’s ninety-two-point ride, he called Marybeth and told her what he’d learned about Brenda and Dallas Cates at the rodeo.

“It sounds like he was talking about Ma Barker,” she said.

“She scares men who ride sixteen-hundred-pound bulls,” Joe said. “That’s not nothing.”

A
t the same time, four hundred miles to the north of Denver, Liv Brannan heard the screen door slam at the main house and she stepped away from the rock she’d been working on in the wall of the root cellar.

She’d been at it all day. The tips of her fingers on both hands were raw and bleeding from digging around the rock, and she’d resorted to working by covering her hands with her shirt and wearing only her bra. She’d tried to pry one of the rusty shelf braces out of the wall, but didn’t have the leverage or the strength to get any out. She was finally able to bend and break a cross brace away from the angle iron early in the afternoon. When it finally came free, it was such an emotional victory that she stood and looked at the tongue depressor–sized piece of metal in her hand and cried.

Digging with the cross brace had doubled her progress around the rock. It was still stuck fast, but she guessed she was halfway there. The rock was oval and large, approximately the size of a football. If the hidden end was as round and even as the exposed side, she thought, she’d be able to lift it and it would cause serious damage. If she could ever get it out. And if she wasn’t caught in the act of trying to remove it.

There had been no food deliveries during the day and they hadn’t removed the waste bucket. The stench of urine hung in the dead space. The Cateses had either forgotten about her or were punishing her for what had happened with Bull the night before. Or they were simply gone. She’d guessed the latter.

Finally, midday, she had heard the sound of the Suburban entering the compound and the voices of Eldon and Brenda. They didn’t look in on her.

An hour later, Liv had heard the main house screen door open and slam shut so hard it sounded like a gunshot.

Bull said, “Where in the hell are you going, Cora Lee?”

“Way the hell away from
you
!”

“You ain’t takin’ the truck.”

“Fine, you son of a bitch—I’ll walk.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m walkin’. See me walkin’ away?”

There was a pause.

Then, in the distance, Cora Lee shouted:
“I’m still walkin’!”

The door slammed shut again. Then a third time. A moment later, Brenda said, “Bull, go get her and bring her back.”

Bull said, “Maybe I ought to let her go. It serves her right to have to walk twelve miles to town. Maybe she’ll lose some weight.”

Someone laughed. It was a new voice Liv hadn’t heard before. A younger male.

“Hell, I ain’t gonna go get her. I just got new shocks on my truck and I don’t want the suspension screwed up. Maybe you could take the front-end loader and bring her back in the bucket.”

“Dallas, you’re no help,” Brenda responded. She sounded annoyed but patient. Then: “Bull, go get her and bring her back. We can’t have her tellin’ her story all over town. If it gets out why she’s mad, we’ve got big trouble.”

Liv thought,
Dallas
. The special son.

Dallas said, “Maybe you should just run her over and be done with it.”

“Dallas,
please
,” Brenda said.

“Shit, I’ll go get her,” Bull whined.

His truck fired up a few minutes later, and Liv could hear the gravel popping under the tires as he left the compound.

He returned a half hour later, presumably with Cora Lee in the passenger seat.

—

N
OW
,
THOUGH
,
Liv heard two sets of footfalls.

She slid the thin cross brace into her jeans and pulled her shirt over her head and put it on. She hid her battered hands behind her back, out of sight, and looked up as the cellar doors opened.

It was night. The beam of a flashlight hit her in the face and temporarily blinded her.

“There she is,” Brenda said to someone next to her.

Liv couldn’t see who it was, just a form that blocked out the stars. He was wearing a cowboy hat.

Dallas said, “Not my type.”

“I didn’t think so,” Brenda said.

“Maybe if you cleaned her up,” he said, as if talking himself out of his first impression.

“Hey, how you doin’ down there?” Dallas asked Liv.

“How do you think?” Liv said back.

“Better than me,” Dallas said. “I got busted ribs and a dislocated shoulder. That ain’t no fun, either.”

Liv didn’t reply.

“Luckily, I’m gettin’ better by the hour,” Dallas said. “By the end of the week, I’ll be wrestling grizzly bears again. By the way, do you know who I am?”

“You’re a rodeo star,” Liv said.

“Damn, she knows,” Dallas said, sounding impressed.

“She heard it from me,” Brenda said. “She’s from down south somewhere. She doesn’t know rodeo.”

“We got cowboys from down there,” Dallas said. “I bet she knows some of ’em. Honey, do you know Piney Porter? Or Benny LeBeau? I’ve rodeoed with both of them.”

“I don’t know them,” Liv confessed. Then, for some reason, she started to cry. She didn’t know why.

“Are you hungry?” Brenda asked.

“Yes,” she sniffed.

“Then I guess I better feed you. Sorry about breakfast and lunch. We had to go visit our oldest son down in Rawlins. I told Cora Lee to make you something, but I guess she forgot. Once she gets a mad on, it’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I think the next time she decides she’s gonna walk away, I’ll let her.”

Liv welcomed the bucket as it lowered. She snatched it down quickly so Brenda wouldn’t see her damaged hands.

“We got chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans. Sorry there isn’t that much gravy. Dallas ate like a horse, on account he’s feeling better.”

“Thank you,” Liv said. She was starving, and she sat down on her mattress and removed the Tupperware containers one by one. Liv dug into the chicken-fried steak and spooned out the mashed potatoes and gravy. Her eyes closed as she ate, and she moaned. The food was delicious.

As she spooned gravy over the rest of the steak and potatoes, dirt sifted down from the opening and sprinkled her dinner.

“Sorry,” Brenda said. “Did I knock some dirt down?”

Liv didn’t respond. She ate despite the sandy grit. She was
that
hungry.

“Ma,” Dallas said, “it just seems plumb weird to keep a woman who don’t know anything about rodeo in a hole on the property.”

He said it, Liv thought, like she wasn’t even down there.

“I remember when you put Timber down there for a week that time after he wrecked the truck,” Dallas said with a chuckle. “Me ’n’ Bull used to come out here at night and piss on his head. Man, that made him mad.”

“You were naughty boys,” Brenda said.

“So why is she down there?” he asked.

“She wasn’t supposed to be with him,” Brenda said. “It was a surprise when the two of them showed up together.”

Liv looked up, beam and all, and spoke directly to Dallas.

“If you let me out of here, I’ll go on my way and never say a word about this. I swear on my mother’s grave. I know how to keep a secret.”

Silence. She assumed Brenda and Dallas were looking at each other.

After a beat, Dallas said, “You aren’t the first woman to ever lie to me right to my face.”

“I’m not lying,” Liv said. But she had to look away. The beam of light was making her eyes burn.

“Sure you are, honey,” Dallas said. She wondered how he had gotten that Texas accent if he’d grown up on the compound.

“I told you she was wily,” Brenda said.

“Maybe I ought to get Bull to come out here tonight,” Dallas said. “We’ll pretend you’re Timber down there.”

“No, you won’t,” Brenda said to Dallas, admonishing him. “You’ll get your sleep and heal up the rest of the way.”

“You’re right,” Dallas said, standing up and stretching. “She kind of bores me, if you want to know the truth.”

As he started to walk away, Brenda said, “You want to stay and watch her eat?”

“Naw.”

After a few minutes, Liv looked up to see that Brenda was still there.

After a long pause, Brenda said, “Men don’t talk.”

“Pardon me?”

“Men don’t talk. They grunt at each other or they grunt at me. But they don’t
talk
. I spend all my time out here on this place surrounded by men. I keep them in line, but they don’t
talk
.”

So that’s why she stayed,
Liv concluded. Maybe she could keep Brenda talking. Maybe she could convince her to come down into the cellar. Maybe she could get Brenda to lower the ladder . . .

“What about Cora Lee?” Liv asked.

“She talks, but she’s dumber than a box of hair.”

Liv faked a mild laugh.

“Did I tell you she walked away again? I know she did it just waiting for Bull to come get her. But this time I told him to let her go. She isn’t worth the trouble. Not two times in one day. She’ll probably end up with her ex-husband down in Oklahoma, and he’ll probably put a bullet in her head. At least then there’ll be something in there.

“I keep hopin’ one of these boys brings a girl home I can talk to,” Brenda continued. “You know, someone who can talk about something other than the Kardashians. Instead, I got Cora Lee.”

Liv said, “I’m sorry I caused you trouble,” even though she wasn’t.

“You’re trouble with a capital
T
. Bull never has had any sense, but luckily he lets me steer him around, just like his dad. But did you notice how Dallas took one look at you and sized up the situation and moved on? That’s because he’s the only one who can think ahead more than one step at a time.”

Liv ignored the insult. The insult gave her strength. If she could get Brenda to come down into the cellar, she thought she might have enough incentive to pull that stone out of the wall.

Liv asked, “What are you going to do with me? You can’t keep me down here forever.”

“No, I guess we both know that.”

“So why are you doing this to me?”

“I don’t look at it that way,” Brenda said. “It isn’t aimed at
you
. I always cover my bases. Somebody around here has to. I figured if things really went screwy, we might need something to negotiate with, you know?”

The realization hit Liv hard. “You mean you’re keeping me alive in case you need a hostage?”

“Yep. Although that doesn’t look like it’ll be necessary.”

Which could mean only one thing.

Brenda didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally: “I came up with a solution. I told Eldon, and he can get it done tomorrow or the next day.”

“Get what done?”

“Hey, it was nice talking with you,” Brenda said before she closed the doors. “It’s kind of nice talking with somebody who has a brain in her head.”

Then: “Honey, don’t cry. Don’t take none of this personal.”

K
elsea, this gentleman has been waiting for you since we opened up the doors at nine,” the receptionist said the next morning.

Joe stood up, removed his hat, and thrust his hand out toward Kelsea Raymer, the chief forensics analyst of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Center, which was located in the National Wildlife Property Repository on the grounds of the old Rocky Mountain Arsenal facility near Denver. Raymer was a tall, trim, and comely brunette in her mid-thirties, with a wide, open face and curious blue eyes. She shook Joe’s hand and looked to the receptionist for an explanation.

“He says he’s a game warden from Wyoming,” the receptionist said with a shrug.

“We don’t get many actual visitors here,” Raymer said as she looked him over. “I’m surprised you found it.”

“Me too,” Joe said. It had taken him nearly thirty minutes of driving around to find Building Six within a compound of similar nondescript three-story brick structures that housed federal agencies and outposts.

She sized him up: studying his red uniform shirt, pronghorn sleeve patch, the badge that read
GA
ME WARDEN 21
, and the brass rectangular
J. PICKETT
nameplate over his breast pocket.

“What brings you to Denver?” she asked.

“I’m working on a case. I was hoping I could take a few minutes of your time.”

“Put your hat back on and follow me,” she said with a sly grin.

He followed.

When he looked over his shoulder at the receptionist, he could tell that she was puzzled by the warm reception as well.

—

“M
Y FATHER
was a game warden in Montana,” Raymer said as she gestured toward an empty visitor’s chair in her office. There was no window, and the fluorescent lighting was harsh. The walls on each side of the room were lined with books and manuals. He noted a credenza filled with framed photos of her husband, her four towheaded children—two boys and two girls—and the entire family on a white-water rafting trip.

“I grew up moving around the state,” she said. “I was born in Choteau, went to grade school in Hamilton, middle school in Ekalaka, and high school in Missoula and Great Falls. We followed my dad from place to place. I don’t think he ever made more than twenty-four thousand dollars in a year, but I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything. Have you moved your kids around like that—provided you have some?”

“I do,” Joe said. “Three girls. My wife and I bounced around Wyoming until I got the Saddlestring District up in the Bighorns. I was stationed in Jackson and Baggs for a short time, but that’s a long story.”

“The Bighorns are nice country,” Raymer said. “They remind me of Montana. And what Colorado used to be,” she added with a gentle smile. He liked her.

“I’m surprised you just showed up,” she said.

He nodded.

“And what can I do for you?”

Joe explained finding the dead sage grouse—she cringed—and the gathering of the evidence. He left out the name Revis Wentworth but told her he had a suspicion the evidence had been tampered with or not sent at all.

She shook her head, puzzled.

“I know,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to believe. But I was hoping I could take a look at the package, provided it was received at all. I didn’t call ahead and make an appointment because I didn’t want to tip anyone off.”

“You want to take it out of our chain of custody?” she asked.

“That’s not necessary. I just want to see if it’s here and what’s inside. I don’t want to take it back.”

She closed one eye and said, “This is an odd request. No one has ever asked me to do this sort of thing before. We can’t just open up sealed evidence to the general public, even if you are law enforcement. I’m sure there are rules about this.”

“There probably are,” Joe said. “But I was kind of hoping we could stay out of the rule book on this. I know if you ask somebody in Washington, their first response will be ‘Don’t do anything until we get a ruling on it.’ That could take months. I don’t have months.”

She laughed. “You have some experience dealing with government agencies.”

“I’m in one myself,” he said.

She drummed her fingers on her desk for a minute and looked toward her bookcase, as if seeking an answer.

“I’m surprised you’ve gone to all this trouble,” she said.

He sighed. “It’s a high priority for my director and the governor. We’re talking sage grouse, remember?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. Then: “I don’t get involved with the politics of all this. But I do know there is some concern if this bird gets listed as an endangered species.”

“I try not to get involved, either, but I can’t help it. And when it comes to sage grouse, there’s a
lot
of concern,” Joe said.

Finally, she said, “I guess it won’t hurt anything to see if we even received it.”

“How could it?” Joe said eagerly.

She booted up her computer. While they waited for the ancient desktop PC to become functional, she said, “I used to ride around with my dad sometimes. It was interesting to see him interact with all kinds of people.”

“I’ve taken my oldest daughter out with me,” Joe said.

“He could have gotten other jobs that paid more and weren’t as dangerous. In fact, I know he interviewed for a couple in Helena after he was wounded in the leg by an elk poacher. But in the end, I think he decided he couldn’t sit at a desk all day. Like me.”

“He’s a man after my own heart,” Joe said.

“He died last year,” she said.

Her eyes filled and she looked quickly away.

Joe said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He had a heart attack riding his old mule, Blue. That’s the mule he used to patrol with before he retired.”

Joe nodded.

“I think he died happy,” she added ruefully.

“I’ll bet he was happy for you, being the director of this whole operation,” Joe said.

“He was,” she said with a chuckle. “He said I was the only fed he ever liked.”

Joe smiled.

—

“H
ERE
,”
SHE SA
ID
,
jabbing at the screen. “A package was sent from Agent Revis Wentworth in Saddlestring, Wyoming. It arrived over the weekend, and I assume it’s in receiving.”

Joe arched his eyebrows.

She said, “I suppose we can go look at it. But I don’t want you touching anything or contaminating the evidence in any way, even if it’s inadvertent.”

“I understand,” Joe said.

He stood up and stepped aside so she could pass.

“Receiving is in the basement,” she said over her shoulder as they made their way down the nondescript hallway. As she walked, she pulled on her white lab coat.

—

T
HE SMALL CARDBO
ARD
evidence box was among several others in a canvas bag on a rolling cart. Joe recognized it as Raymer raised it out of the bag and placed it on a stainless-steel counter. The only other person in the receiving room was a Hispanic staffer who shot surreptitious glances at them over the top of his computer monitor.

“That’s it,” Joe said. “But it’s been opened and retaped.”

Raymer paused and said, “You’re sure?”

He nodded. “That’s my clear plastic tape under the new strapping tape he used. He must have cut it open and resealed it.”

“Who would have done this?”

“The man who sent it to you.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked. She was genuinely curious.

“Because I believe he is trying to contaminate the evidence so he can steer us away from who really did the shooting.”

She stood back and put her hands on her hips. She kept her voice in an urgent whisper so the staffer couldn’t overhear. “Are you telling me one of our own agents is trying to derail a case?”

“I’m not telling you that,” Joe said. “I’m following up a theory.”

She shushed him to keep his voice down.

“Maybe you could open it up,” Joe whispered. “I’ll know when I see what’s inside.”

She feigned impatience with him as she pulled on a pair of white rubber gloves from a dispenser of them and reached for a box cutter.

“Stand back,” she cautioned.

Joe didn’t approach her, but he did raise his height by balancing on the balls of his feet so he could see inside the box when she opened it.

“Shotgun shells,” she said, plucking several out and placing them on the counter. “A beer can. A CD. A bag of dirt and some sage grouse feathers.”

Then she looked up at Joe and said, “That’s all.”

He nodded and studied the items. He said, “These shell casings look weathered. They look weeks old—like they’ve been out in the sun and rain. I’m sure you can confirm that with testing. The ones I found were only a day or two old. The beer can and the feathers look like what I put in the box. No need to change them out. But who knows what’s on the CD? I still have the original photos on my camera, so we can compare what I shot with what’s on the disc.”

She hesitated, then said to the curious staffer, “Juan, I need to use your computer for a minute. Isn’t it time for your break?”

As Juan gathered up his things, Joe said to her, “You might want to dust that disc for prints just to see if mine are on it.”

She looked at him with a withering glance that said,
I know how to do this job
.

Joe responded by putting his palms in the air in an apology.

But she dusted the disc. There were
no
prints.

“He wore gloves,” Joe said. “I’m not that clever.”

—

T
HE PHOTOS
on the CD of the tire tracks didn’t match the ones from the memory stick on Joe’s camera. Unlike the shots he had taken in the killing field, the ones on the CD were of tire tracks squished through a grassy bog.

“Now look at this,” Joe said, urging her to advance through the photos on his memory stick. She clucked her tongue while she toggled back and forth between the tracks on the sagebrush flat and the tread pattern of the tire on Wentworth’s government pickup.

“These appear to match up,” she said. “Further analysis is needed to confirm it, though.”

“And the photos on the disc are obviously not taken in the same location,” Joe said.

He pointed out the differences to Kelsea Raymer and she remarked on the disparity of the vegetation.

“He probably took those right off the edge of the parking lot of the Holiday Inn,” Joe said. “And the shells probably came from the back of some oil-field worker’s truck parked at the same hotel in Saddlestring. Believe me, I could wander through that lot myself and gather spent brass casings, shotgun shells, and beer cans out of twenty different trucks.”

“Oh my,” she said.

—

“T
HE TIRES IN MY PHOTO
belong to a government truck,” Joe said.

She winced as if he’d poked her with a pin, then said, “I still don’t have enough evidence here to make any conclusions.”

“I agree,” Joe said. “But
I
can. I know what I packed in that box and I know that what was sent to you was tampered with.”

She rolled her chair back. “It’s not my job to investigate agency personnel,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to investigate,” Joe said. “In fact, you need to handle this the way you’re supposed to handle it. All I ask is that you lock this box away along with the memory stick for my camera. If a guy named Revis Wentworth wants it back, I hope you’ll throw up some bureaucratic roadblocks. You know, play dumb or tell him you’re researching his request.”

“That’s his name? The agent who did this?”

Joe nodded.

“I’ve heard of him,” she said. “He’s supposed to be a sage grouse expert.”

“Oh, he is,” Joe said.

“But why would he do something like this?” she asked. “His job is to protect the species, not endanger it.”

Joe told her Lucy’s observation. While he did, Raymer shook her head in disbelief.

“If he did this, I hope he gets arrested,” she said. “I don’t like the thought of people like that in our agency.”

“Good for you,” Joe said. “Now I have another request.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“I have his shotgun in my pickup and two spent shells I picked up out in the field that I didn’t put into the original evidence box. I had completely forgotten about them until this morning, when I saw them rolling around in the back of my truck. You might be able to pull a couple of prints, or at least partials, off of the brass of the two shells. I think you’ll find that the shotgun and the primer stamp on the spent shells match up. That will prove that he did the shooting.”

She shook her head. “It might prove it to you, but it doesn’t prove anything to me. All of this—
all of it
—is based on your assumptions.”

Joe said, “That’s right.”

Raymer’s phone chimed from a pocket in her lab coat and she instinctively drew it out and looked at the screen.

“How interesting,” she said. “I just got an email from Revis Wentworth.”

Joe smiled.

“He’s asking me to confirm that we received a box of evidence in an important case,” she said. “And he cautions me that, because of the magnitude of the crime, I may be contacted by local law enforcement attempting to influence our findings. I assume that would be you,” she said, looking up.

“Yup.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Nope. He’s trying to run interference. He’s desperate.”

She dropped the phone back in her pocket and looked at Joe squarely.

“So you’re going to turn over every piece of evidence you have to me? The shells and the shotgun and the memory stick? How can you build your case if all of the evidence for it is here locked away in Denver?”

He said, “Because I trust you to keep it until we need it.”

She cocked her head. “Why?”

“Because you’re from Montana and your dad was a game warden,” Joe said.

—

J
OE HATED
D
ENVER TRAFFIC
and he kept both of his hands on the wheel and his pickup in the far right lane as cars zipped around him. It was as if every driver on the five-lane freeway had just downed three shots of vodka and had been handed the keys to Daddy’s sports car. When his cell phone rang, he ignored it until he was nearly ten miles north of the city and the traffic finally eased up.