Undercover in Conard County Read online

  “Not since I found out I had an outfitter’s application on file.” He stopped pacing and put his hands on his narrow hips. “Something’s wrong with that, Desi.”

  “I gathered.” She sighed, folding her arms and leaning back against the counter. “It doesn’t make sense, you’re right. Those are public records. If anything was guaranteed to keep these illegal outfitters away, it would be your application license.”

  “That’s how it struck me. Now the question is why in the hell would they want to do that?”

  Her stomach began to sink. “You think somebody at WIU is taking you out of the picture.”

  “Or somebody with the pull. I’ve started to wonder if I wasn’t sent here to be sidelined. But that couldn’t be, not if they’re shooting hunters they happen across.”

  She shook her head sharply. “We don’t know that yet. And what purpose could it serve them to do that anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t think it would, would you. But...what if I’d been out there hunting today?”

  “Then they made a bad mistake, because you were with me.” Then his words hit her. She drew a sharp breath, felt her heart slam and her knees weaken a bit. “You think they might have been trying to frame you?”

  “I don’t know!” His voice rose slightly in frustration, and she watched as he reined himself in. “The point is, I’m beginning to feel as if I were sent here with blinders on. Either that or this is the lousiest operation ever.”

  “Might be both,” she said slowly. Then she managed a small mirthless laugh. “You haven’t been with the department long, Kel, but I can promise you, investigations like this can take years. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to hang out here for a couple of years if they don’t get a break some other way. I remember one investigation like this that went on for three years and involved a dozen states. But right now, we don’t even have one name, one lead to pursue.”

  “That’s what I heard, anyway.” He ran his fingers through his short hair. “Okay, maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. But something stinks like three-day-old fish.”

  Desi eased onto a stool, feeling all her hard-won and well-practiced cool beginning to slip out of her grasp. Emotions could be weakening. Anger was good, but she wasn’t angry right now. Now she was worried sick and she didn’t like it.

  Looking at Kel, she wondered how she had come to care so much about what happened to him. Regardless of how she’d gotten here, she cared. The idea that he was being used like some puppet, or worse being set up...

  She stopped her thoughts sharply. Now was not the time. “When Gage gets here, let’s talk about this. He’s done enough undercover work in his life to know if this is reasonable or unreasonable.”

  Having encountered Gage’s capacity for coffee any time of day or night, she busied herself making a fresh pot.

  She liked it here in Conard County. It had been a long time since she hadn’t felt a bit rootless, but it struck her now that she was beginning to feel rooted here. Stupid thing to let herself feel when she could be reassigned at any time. Not that that was common. Many of her fellow wardens were working areas where they’d grown up and had friends and family.

  She sighed as she started the pot brewing and realized Kel had joined her in the kitchenette. She turned a little and was startled when he placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “I refuse to drag you into whatever this is.”

  His touch was welcome but his words were not. “I can take care of myself. Besides, I got into it, whatever it is, when I started raising the roof over increased trophy hunting. I was the one setting off flares. I know other wardens were concerned, but I made the most noise. Mainly because we have some of the largest herds of big game in the state. Plenty of trophies up there in the mountains. We’re right on a major migratory route.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  “Which makes this a great place to hunt if you don’t care about permits and all you want is a big trophy for your wall. I need more wardens.” She snorted quietly. “And good luck with that. We’re already spread pretty thin everywhere.”

  Her moment of weakness had passed. It was okay to be concerned about Kel, but not okay to feel it that deeply. In fact, given his background, he was probably the last man on earth who needed someone to worry about him.

  Gage arrived a short time later. He’d ditched his uniform in favor of black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt, although his jacket clearly bore the sheriff’s emblem.

  “So what’s up, girls and boys,” he asked as Desi brought him coffee. He took the easy chair, grimacing as he folded into it, and Desi and Kel sat on either end of the couch.

  “I want to know what you learned today,” Desi said bluntly. “You know what Kel’s doing here, right?”

  “Basically.”

  “Well, something stinks. Were you able to talk to Don? The guy who was shot?”

  “Not yet. But we spent a lot of time with Thor Edvaldson.” He shook his head a little. “Poor guy seems touchy about his name. I’d like to look inside the heads of his parents. Anyway, he did his best to give us a description of what he saw, but I don’t think he was especially focused on the riders. More on the dogs. Seems he has a mild fear of them.”

  Then he turned his attention to Kel. “So they sent you out here undercover, your butt essentially hanging in the breeze, thinking maybe someone would tell you stop horning in?”

  “Or something,” Kel agreed. “Right now that’s feeling like not much of a plan.”

  “It certainly isn’t. When I went undercover I at least had targets. People we wanted to know more about or catch red-handed. This is...” Gage just shook his head. “So nobody has the least idea who these guys are? Nothing? From where I’m sitting that seems strange. How can they be so invisible? How is it that nobody in Game and Fish has a clue? They must have some ideas.”

  “None that were shared with me,” Kel said. “I was told that they couldn’t get a handle on anyone. That whoever was part of this ring had managed to get to the point where they didn’t have to advertise but relied solely on word-of-mouth.”

  “Like drug pushers,” Gage mused. “Okay, so somebody either needs to be invited to join the group, or to be pushed out by the group. Well, that’s possible. Tricky situation, but possible. I assume you’re pretty much ready to handle anything that might arise.”

  “It used to be my job, although the situation this time didn’t seem as deadly.”

  “Didn’t,” Gage repeated. “Yeah. Today...” He trailed off. “I talked with Edvaldson quite a bit. Even after he let go of the shock, he didn’t have much to say. Two men, six horses, four of which seemed to be pack horses carrying a lot, and a whole lot of dogs. He couldn’t even tell me how many dogs. They scared him. So a whole lot could be three or four, or a dozen. I haven’t been able to talk to Don, yet, but with any luck I might be able to ask him a bit tomorrow.”

  “Did you find anything?” Desi asked, even though her hopes weren’t high.

  “Actually yes. Kel was right about the shooter’s line of sight. We found a bullet casing, thanks to the K9. Just one. Thor told me how he was positioned behind Don, and we sketched it out. Either the shooter thought he could take them both at the same time, or he didn’t care as long as he got Don. Regardless, a .338 magnum shell is a pretty big round for hunting.”

  Kel stiffened. Desi whipped her head around to look at him. “.338 cal?” she repeated. “Definitely for big game.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Kel. “And overkill for Don. He’s lucky he survived.”

  Desi rose from the couch and went to get the coffeepot. She desperately needed to move. “So the .338 magnum suggests big game. But why in the hell shoot Don? Chances are, he’d have never mentioned those guys once he got his own moose.”

  “Maybe they didn’t want him in the area?”
Kel suggested.

  “Or maybe they didn’t plan on hell descending,” Desi replied. “Like we talked about, in three or four days there wouldn’t have been enough left out there to really know what happened. If he’d gotten both men.”

  Gage spoke again. “From what we know of where the two men were standing, that was probably his intent.”

  Desi nodded. “And Thor said he dropped instantly. Training. So maybe the shooter thought he got both of them. Regardless, he wasn’t going to go back to be sure. His targets were armed, too.”

  “Maybe he didn’t care if he got both of them,” Kel said slowly. “Maybe it was misdirection.”

  Gage said nothing. Desi stared at Kel. “How so?”

  “I’m not sure. But we’re all talking about a shooter in the woods, not about trophy hunters. We’re concerned about an attempted murder, not whether a big game animal gets taken. Or maybe it was a warning. Anyway, you were talking earlier about needing to make sure your wardens didn’t all converge and possibly walk into something. That you’re going to talk to them in the morning.”

  “That’s a wise idea,” said Gage. “This is a police job now, this shooting part of it. Yes we need the help of the wardens. Who knows the woods best? But Kel has a point. We’re going to act differently now. All of us. And if the shooter had any point at all in attacking those guys, maybe that was it. Desi, how about I bring some of my people out here in the morning to meet with your people? Maybe we can work something out. It’s always better to have more minds to look at something. Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course it’s okay,” she said. “I want all the help I can get.” But then she looked at Kel again. “What are we going to do with you? You’re supposed to be undercover. If you’re at this meeting tomorrow...” She hesitated. “I don’t like this whole damn affair. Bad enough having dead animals.”

  “You two work Kel’s part out together. I just want to catch me a bad guy.” Rising, Gage said good-night and headed for the door, looking back just long enough to say, “Eight in the morning?”

  “Make it nine. I’ve got to gather my people and some of them will have a bit of a drive.”

  “Nine it is.”

  He closed the door behind him and the silence suddenly seemed thick. Without a word, Desi picked up her radio and called her wardens, telling them there was a meeting at nine at the station. Everyone promised to be there.

  Then she was alone with Kel, looking at a man who’d frankly said at one point that he’d been sent out here to be a goat. Problem was, that could be a fatal role.

  The other problem was, neither of them was sure exactly how he was being used.

  She felt sickened.

  Chapter 11

  While no inclement weather was in the forecast, the wind started blowing fiercely around ten that night. Desi listened to the forlorn keening, and for the first time in her life truly noticed how lonely it sounded.

  She briefly gave some thought to going to Mahoney’s Bar in town and eating some kind of appetizer just to listen to the sound of voices in the background and the music of the jukebox that Mahoney somehow miraculously kept working and serving up old tunes.

  But there was Kel, too. Shadows seemed to be passing across his face, as if he were trying to avoid some unpleasant place inside himself, a place that might have been resurrected by the day’s events.

  Maybe he needed a break, too. “Let’s go to town,” she said.

  He tilted his head. He was still sitting on the couch and looked up at her. “What do you want to do?”

  “Hit Mahoney’s Bar. Listen to the gossip or not. I just want to be in a crowd. I guess you wouldn’t like that from what you’ve said.”

  He stood. “Let’s go. Sitting around here thinking about something we know almost nothing about isn’t doing me any favors. As long as you understand I might get an overwhelming urge to walk out, depending.”

  “Then we’ll walk. I don’t necessarily want to stay until closing. I just need to get out of here for a while and stop listening to the wind. God, it sounds mournful, like a funeral for all the world.”

  One corner of his mouth managed a small tick upward. “Good description. It isn’t taking me any place I want to go.”

  * * *

  Outside the wind felt even stronger. Tumbleweeds blew down the middle of the road and in the fields beyond. The moon had grown brighter, well on its way to full, occasionally occluded by a scudding cloud. Leafless fingers of some nearby trees did a skeletal dance, silvered by the moon, occasionally cracking under the stress.

  “This feels like a good setting for a horror movie,” Kel remarked.

  Desi laughed. “It’s beautiful, though. It reminds me of that line from ‘The Highwayman.’ ‘The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas...’ It does feel as if Halloween is near.”

  “I thought it was.”

  She laughed again as they climbed into her truck and drove the mile to town. They had to park a way down the street, though. Even on a weeknight Mahoney’s was evidently hopping.

  Inside warmth and the buzz of voices, along with raucous laughter, greeted them. Every booth and table was full, but a man at the bar, spying them, slid over one stool making room for both of them.

  “Hey, Desi,” said Matt Jackson as she slid onto the stool he’d just vacated. “How’s it going? And who’s your new friend?” Matt was a man of about Desi’s age who spent his summers working construction and remodeling jobs wherever he could find them. Most of the summer he was out of town, but come winter he was always back and seemed to need only odd jobs. A smiling face, dark hair and eyes that were an unusual aquamarine.

  “Hey, Matt,” she answered. “This is Kel Westin. He’s in town to set up an outfitter’s business.”

  Matt leaned forward to see past Desi to Kel. “Howdy. It’s odd now that I think of it, but I don’t believe we’ve had an outfitter around here before. You going to be guiding?”

  “That’s the idea,” Kel answered easily. “I spent most of the summer scouting in the mountains.”

  Matt nodded. “A lot of people do that. But you won’t be guiding people from around here.”

  Kel chuckled. “No, the local hunters don’t need me.”

  Matt laughed. Jim Mahoney, tending bar, came over for their orders. Kel looked at Desi. “You want me to be the designated driver?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t even have a beer this time of year. Never know when the phone will ring.”

  So Kel ordered himself an ale and she asked for a mocha coffee.

  “Terrible thing today,” Matt continued. “I can’t believe Don Greaves was shot. Is he going to be okay?”

  “I guess we’ll all know more in the morning.”

  “When I was a kid, he and his father used to bring over some venison steaks for us to enjoy. My dad never cottoned to hunting, but he never turned down a steak either.”

  It was Desi’s turn to laugh. “I don’t know many who would.”

  “You ever go hunting, Desi?” Matt asked.

  “Never have the time.”

  “But if you did?”

  She tilted her head, thinking about it. “You know, most of the wardens I know go hunting. But somehow...” She shrugged. “I spend so much time protecting those animals, I don’t think I could bring myself to eat one.”

  That caused Matt a thigh-slapping laugh, and moments later some other men gathered around, beer mugs in hand. They all wanted to talk about the shooting that day, and all had very strong opinions about careless hunters. Kel twisted a little on his stool and just listened, nodding occasionally.

  But soon talk turned to poaching. Desi knew she’d been making a lot of noise about it, but that was within the wardens’ service. She hadn’t realized how aware of it the locals were. Sure, they
came to her when they suspected wrongdoing, but that didn’t mean they had any idea of how big the problem was growing. Apparently, she was wrong.

  Lefty Anderson, one of the men gathered round, leaned in. “We was talking before you got here, Desi. You know anything about a camp on the north side of Thunder Mountain?”

  Her heart quickened. She glanced at Kel and saw his gaze had sharpened. “A camp?” she repeated.

  “I ain’t talking about a pup tent,” Lefty said, keeping his voice low. Several of the other men nodded. “Showed up about a week ago, figured it’d be gone after a few days, but it’s still there, just below the tree line. Bighorn territory. Now, I grant you, it ain’t the kind of camp you see in them shows about safaris in Africa, but it ain’t three men and a gun, if you get me.”

  Desi nodded slowly. “I get you. Think I should check it out?”

  “Maybe so.” Lefty changed the topic, turning his attention on Kel. “So you going to help them out-of-staters catch our game?”

  Kel smiled faintly. “That’s usually who will hire me, yes.”

  “Thought so.” Then he swerved the subject again. “My granddaddy use to tell me ’bout the old days, when we didn’t need no licenses to hunt.”

  Desi pursed her mouth. “What else did he tell you?”

  Lefty laughed. “How we about lost all the fish and game. His granddaddy told stories about no fish in the rivers. And when my granddaddy was a boy, finding deer wasn’t near so easy. So I get the point of licenses. Just wish we didn’t have to share some of the ones for big game with outsiders.”

  “They’re a comparatively small number and they pay higher fees,” Desi explained. “Much higher. All that money is used to support our efforts to increase the herds and for the fish farms.”

  “I know.”

  Then another man spoke, one Desi didn’t recognize. She was still learning the people in this area.

  “Thing is,” the new voice said, “those high fees are the reason we got illegal outfitters.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Matt argued. “These guys who want these fancy outfitters? They’d still want them even if we charged the same fees. They don’t want to do the hard work we all do around here, scoping out the best places to hunt, finding buddies to help us carry our kill. They want to come in here, take a comfortable horse ride, sit in a comfortable camp, and have plenty of help for all the rest of it.”