Wolf Pack, page 5
* * *
—
PEDRO “PETER” INFANTE approached Tim and spun him around. Tim felt the bite of zip ties on his wrists as they were cinched up behind his back. Then Peter guided Tim to a kitchen chair and made him sit. More zip ties were used on his ankles to secure them to the chair legs. It was all done in a businesslike way.
When Tim looked up, he saw that Adelmo had his toolbox open on the kitchen table. He pulled out a cordless DeWalt twenty-volt hand drill. He tested it twice to verify that it was fully charged.
Zzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Adelmo asked Peter, “Her first or him?”
“Maybe neither,” Peter said. There was just a hint of a Mexican accent in his voice, Tim thought.
Peter stood in front of Tim and leaned toward him with his hands resting on his thighs.
“We can do this without any more drama,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Where is Ernie Mecca?”
Tim knew he flinched. “Who?”
“Please don’t do this.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Peter looked over his shoulder and growled as if angrily resigned to what would come next. He said to Cesar, “Start with her.”
Karen said, “Tim, tell him what he wants to know. You aren’t going to let them hurt me, are you? Tim?”
* * *
—
TIM KELLEHER WAS no stranger to violence and he knew it came in two kinds. It was either desperate or it was deliberate. Abriella’s actions were not just deliberate but measured and chilling. Every move she’d made since entering his house was purposeful.
The three men with her were the same way. This wasn’t a robbery or a home invasion. This was a professional operation.
Tim recalled hearing about a crew that consisted of three men and a woman. He’d never heard of any names associated with them, but he knew they were sent only for the most high-level jobs.
They were known as the Wolf Pack.
Abriella and Cesar bound Karen and forced her to sit on the floor with her back to the wall. They gagged her with a dish towel that Abriella found in the kitchen and pulled it tight so she couldn’t scream.
Adelmo bent her right knee up for a good drilling angle and poised the bit an inch from her kneecap and looked to Peter for the okay.
Karen was terrified. She looked over at Tim and their eyes locked.
He mouthed, Stay strong.
She didn’t like that advice and tried to struggle away, but Abriella and Adelmo held her in place.
Before Adelmo triggered the DeWalt, he paused and turned his head toward Tim.
“Last chance,” Peter said. “Where is Ernie Mecca?”
CHAPTER FIVE
JOE HAD TWO STOPS in the town of Saddlestring that evening on his way to his new home on the river, and he intended to make them quick. He’d promised Marybeth he wouldn’t be late for Lucy’s pre-birthday party that night and he didn’t want to screw it up. Marybeth had already texted him twice to remind him.
Unlike Marybeth, Joe didn’t keep a family calendar of milestones in his head. It hadn’t occurred to him until she explained it that not only was this Lucy’s last birthday dinner with them before going off to college, but it was the last birthday dinner of any of their girls living at home. The last chicken was leaving the nest.
Joe kind of wished she hadn’t put it in such stark terms. But he was glad he’d decided to forgo the drive to Winchester to meet Tom Kinnison after the incident with the wolves. With his luck, confronting Kinnison would result in some kind of long and complicated affair—one never knew what would happen when a man was accused of a crime—that would result in him being late.
He had nothing on his agenda for the next day, so he’d drive to Winchester first thing in the morning.
* * *
—
JOE ALREADY KNEW how he was going to play it because he’d played it the same way before.
Once he located the home of Kinnison, he’d walk up to the front door and knock. If someone answering to that name opened the door, Joe would say, “I guess you know why I’m here.”
The subject’s immediate response would dictate how things would go from then on. Over the years, the tactic had produced on-the-spot confessions to crimes Joe hadn’t known a thing about until the confession moment. Sometimes, the subjects implicated other guilty parties Joe had never suspected were involved or knew anything about. And sometimes subjects confessed to a non-wildlife crime that Joe would pass along to the local police or sheriff’s department.
He’d been waiting over the years for a suspect to blurt out, “It was me. I killed that son of a bitch and I’d do it again.”
But that had never happened.
He was also aware of other possibilities. Kinnison’s wife might open the door and explain that Tom couldn’t check his traps because her husband had left the state—or had died weeks ago. Kinnison could deny everything and claim that the traps were stolen out of his garage.
Or Kinnison could pull a weapon out of his holster and start blasting because he didn’t want to be arrested.
Anything could happen. And because of that, Joe knew he couldn’t risk lighting the fuse to an incident that might take hours to resolve.
Not tonight, anyway.
* * *
—
THEY HADN’T YET arranged for mail delivery to the new river location, so Marybeth had asked Joe to stop by the post office in town, where they had a box. He didn’t dislike going there, but it almost always took three times as long as necessary whenever he did.
It seemed like whomever he encountered inside wanted to stop and chat and catch up. The post office had always been the center of all local gossip and communication within the valley—even more than social media or the power lunch of local politicians and merchants at the Burg-O-Pardner—and it was a way for locals to check up on each other for good or ill.
Hundreds of times over the years, he’d overheard residents say things like “I saw Stan at the post office and he wasn’t looking too good . . .” or “I saw Mary at the post office and she looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet.”
Of course, when the game warden went inside, he was cornered by ranchers who wondered when he’d be by to inspect last winter’s elk damage or hunters who wanted to share their stories from the fall—or report potential violations. Going inside the building with his post office box key seemed to be a signal to others to take him aside and talk. Joe was psychologically unsuited to being rude to locals in his job as a game warden. He felt obligated to hear them out and offer advice and counsel.
So he tried as best he could to avoid them when he could.
Another downside to picking up the mail was simply that local poachers and habitual violators had a bead on his location. If the game warden was at the post office in town, that meant he wasn’t on patrol out in the district.
Since Marybeth had also asked him to stop by the grocery store to pick up an order from the meat department, he was happy he had an excuse to end any long conversations.
* * *
—
THE POST OFFICE counter closed at five sharp and he could see the postal workers behind the glass preparing to do just that. It was a good time to get mail, he’d found. Anyone who needed postage or who had found a slip in their box to retrieve a package at the counter was pressed for time, or they’d have to wait a day. They’d be in a hurry as well and less likely to take him aside for a chat.
He emptied his box and gathered the mail under his arm. It appeared to consist of local circulars and solicitations from nonprofits, but there were also a few letters in there, including what looked like birthday cards addressed to Lucy.
As Joe turned to stride out of the post office, he noticed a stooped man with a pointed white beard and a stocking cap who stabbed at his box with a key and kept missing. Each time he did so, he made a ticking sound as the key bounced off the front plate of his post office box. The man bent forward so he could see the lock better and tried again. He missed.
Tick.
Joe hesitated for a moment, then went over to him.
“Can I help?”
“Can’t see a damned thing,” the old man said.
Joe recognized him as Rolf Schweiring, the longtime mayor of Winchester. Rolf had held the office for more than forty years, but he’d moved to the bigger community of Saddlestring after he’d retired. Joe had heard that Rolf didn’t like the way the new mayor operated and felt forced to relocate out of disgust.
Joe opened Rolf’s box for him and the old man gathered his mail.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
“Actually, I’ve got a question for you,” Joe said as he handed back Rolf’s key. “Since you probably know everyone there, have you ever heard of a guy named Tom—or Thomas—Kinnison back in Winchester? Lives on Elkhorn Drive?”
Rolf straightened up and ran his fingers through his beard like a comb. He asked, “What was that name again?”
Joe repeated it.
“Can’t say I have,” Rolf said. “He must be real new to the area.”
Claims to have been there for fourteen years, Joe thought.
“He’s a trapper and not a good one,” Joe said.
“Nope, I don’t know him.”
Joe thanked him and headed for the door to get to his pickup before anyone else came in.
As he pushed through the door, Rolf said, “Elkhorn Drive is kind of sketchy, though. I heard some real oddballs moved up there.”
“Oddballs?”
“City people, I should say,” Rolf said. “The type that normally don’t last.”
“Ah,” Joe said.
* * *
—
“I’M PRETTY SURE my wife ordered something that she asked me to pick up,” Joe said to the butcher at the grocery store. The man was setting out Styrofoam containers of breakfast sausage that he ground and seasoned himself.
“Miz Pickett?”
“Yup.”
“Just a sec. It’s in the back.”
Joe thrust his hands in his pockets and furtively looked around. Going to the grocery store in uniform was as dangerous as going to the post office. He was just waiting for someone to sidle by him with a cart and ask why his entire left side was covered with dried mud.
The butcher returned with a large rectangular bundle wrapped in waxed paper. It was nearly two feet long. He handed it over the display to Joe.
“Be careful carrying it,” he said. “You don’t want any of the claws to poke out. They’re sharp—they might take your eye out.”
“Claws?”
“Five pounds of the finest Alaskan snow crab legs I’ve seen in a while,” the man said.
Joe gulped. This was going to be expensive. He knew Lucy liked crab legs and she must have requested them for her special dinner.
“I’d like some of that breakfast sausage as well,” Joe said.
At the register, he handed over his credit card. The purchase amounted to well over a hundred dollars. He couldn’t remember paying that much in that store . . . ever . . . but he rarely shopped for groceries.
Marybeth was frugal and a good money manager. Joe credited her entirely for keeping them afloat while he was fighting to get his job back and receiving no income. Somehow, she’d done it. He knew he’d be bankrupt and destitute without her, and he’d learned not to question her financial decisions, because she thought long and hard about all of them.
But . . .
“Can I come over for dinner?” the checkout clerk asked with a sly smile.
“Might as well,” he said. “It looks like we’ll have plenty.”
Then he thought of his back pay and raise. For one of the few times he could remember in their entire marriage, Marybeth had some extra cash. And of course she’d spend it on their daughters.
That was fine by him.
* * *
—
HIS CELL PHONE lit up as he exited the grocery store parking lot onto the state highway that would lead him south toward his new home. It was Katelyn Hamm.
“Joe Pickett.”
“Joe, I’m glad I caught you. I found out a little more about my drone pilot.”
He could hear the excitement in her voice. She was working this thing. He felt guilty for not having made any inquiries about local drone operators since he’d last talked with her.
“I ran into one of my trappers out in the badlands west of here. He’s one of the good ones—I never have any trouble with him. One of his traplines is about ten miles away from the winter range.”
“Yes,” Joe prompted.
“He’s been out every day checking his traps for the last ten days. He said that he’s seen that drone in the sky for the last six days in a row. It’s been buzzing around the base of the mountain and chasing deer and elk.”
“Why didn’t he call you?” Joe asked.
“Because he thought it was us,” she said. “He said he figured the agency was using drones to count wildlife or check up on the game herds. I didn’t want to tell him we aren’t quite that sophisticated, that we use helicopters and planes.”
“Interesting,” Joe said.
“Maybe we should use drones,” she said. “I think you’re just as scared as I am flying in those little planes we use.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“But that’s not all. He said each time the drone flew home it was headed in your direction, just like what I saw today with my own eyes. And one time he saw it land in a clearing on the face of the mountain.
“He was a real long distance from where it landed, but he said he saw a white SUV in the vicinity. Either a Suburban or a Yukon. He said he assumed the pilot of the drone was driving it, but like I said—he thought it was us.”
That narrowed it down, Joe thought. While nearly every resident of Twelve Sleep County had at least one four-wheel-drive vehicle, how many white Yukons or Suburbans could there be? Cross-reference white SUV owners with residents who registered or piloted drones? The list had to be small.
“We might be able to narrow it down with that information,” Joe said. “Please thank your trapper for the intel.”
“I did. Are you going to have some time in the next couple of weeks to work this?” she asked.
“Not a problem,” Joe said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“If you find him, please give me a call. I want to drive over and be there when we roust the son of a bitch. Not only was he responsible for stressing and killing my herd, he probably has video of me squatting in the brush with my pants down.”
Joe said, “Yikes.”
* * *
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HE TURNED EAST off County Road 212 toward a wall of cottonwoods and stands of willow that bordered the meandering river as the sun flared over the mountains before its final descent. The last blast of the day threw a spotlight on the river valley that brought out the crimson of the brush and the light green of spring buds on the branches of the trees.
The gravel road led past a sign that read GAME WARDEN STATION. It was so new it looked like the lacquer on it hadn’t dried yet. The department must have sent out some trainees to place the sign while Joe was in the field.
He liked it that passersby couldn’t see his house from the county road, although at night they might be able to make out the lights through the trees. He wasn’t used to privacy, and he knew it wouldn’t take long for locals to realize he’d moved. In the meanwhile, though, it was pleasant.
A small herd of ragged-looking mule deer grazed just inside the cottonwoods and they looked up as he went by. They had the mottled look of animals that had endured a tough winter and were waiting to shed their winter fur so they’d be sleek again.
A cow moose stuck her head out of the willows in his direction, her nose like a black six-by-six beam. Despite her size, which he estimated as six feet tall at the shoulders and nine hundred pounds, she was wily in her movements and could vanish into the brush like she’d never been there at all. He’d seen her the last couple of nights when he came home and he noted her location and species as Shiras cow moose on his WOF pad.
He got a thrill out of seeing a moose so close to his new home, but he knew to be wary of her and to warn Marybeth and Lucy to be cautious as well. Although moose appeared lumbering and slow and their eyesight was notoriously poor—they could also pose a threat.
He’d recently heard of an incident near Dubois where a ranch hand named Ernesto Morales had been greeted every morning by a friendly cow moose outside his cabin that would still be there at night when he returned. Morales had named her Cow-winkle, in homage to the Bullwinkle cartoons of his youth.
Morales had enjoyed seeing her every day until the cow inexplicably cut him off one morning when he was on his way to the corral. Without warning, Cow-winkle rose up on her hind feet and struck down at him with her sharp front hooves, instantly breaking his right clavicle. When Morales was on the ground, she struck again and broke his ribs and pelvis.
Somehow, Morales had had the presence of mind to roll away from the attack until he was beneath his pickup, where he called 911 on his cell phone. Cow-winkle was still there circling the pickup when the local sheriff and game warden arrived to shoot her.
Morales and the local game warden had had no explanation for why Cow-winkle had suddenly turned on him like that. They’d speculated that perhaps she had lost her calf and gone crazy, but no one knew.
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