The Disappeared Read online

  He started to object, but didn’t have a good reason to do so.

  “Maybe you can keep an eye on him,” Joe said, indicating Nate.

  “I’ll be happy to do that,” she said with a full-wattage smile.

  . . .

  NATE AND SHERIDAN went down the stairs and Joe was a beat behind them when his phone lit up in his hand. He glanced at the screen. Hanlon.

  He considered letting the call go to voicemail, but he punched it up instead.

  “What in the fuck is going on over there?” Hanlon asked. Joe could hear traffic sounds in the background and assumed Hanlon was racing from place to place in Cheyenne in his SUV.

  Before Joe could respond, Hanlon said, “I just got off the phone with Governor Allen. The British Consulate called him and said there’s a photo of Kate Blah-Blah on the front page of an English rag. They said there’s evidence that she’s being held against her will in our state right now—right under your nose.”

  Joe said, “It’s unconfirmed. I was going to tell you about—”

  Hanlon cut him off: “When? This is not the way things should work. I shouldn’t be calling you to find out what the hell you’re doing. You’re supposed to keep me up to speed on your investigation. I never again want to learn about something from the governor or from a British tabloid. So are you going to confirm that photo and find her?”

  “I’m on it,” Joe said, tight-lipped. He knew he should have briefed Hanlon earlier as Marybeth had suggested.

  “Governor Allen is not happy about this development, Pickett.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “But there’s a difference,” Hanlon said with faux calm. “He’s the governor and you’re a nobody.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “We’ve called a press conference for tomorrow where the governor will announce that Kate has been rescued. I’m going to ask the British Consulate to send a representative. It’ll be a big deal and it’ll be great for us to get this stupid issue off our plate and we’ll finally have a win.”

  Joe sat up straight. “I’d really advise you not to do that until we know for sure we’ve got her.”

  “I tell you what: you do your job and I’ll do mine.”

  Hanlon terminated the call before Joe could ask about the keys to Pollock’s house.

  *

  “TROUBLE?” NATE ASKED outside as Joe strode around him toward his pickup.

  “Politics,” Joe said.

  “This is the life you’ve chosen.”

  “Not really,” he said while climbing behind the wheel and turning the key in the ignition.

  *

  THEY DROVE NORTH on WYO 130 toward Walcott Junction with Nate in the passenger seat and Sheridan crammed into the back amidst discarded winter clothing and other gear. Shadows were starting to nose west on the snow from exposed sage and buckbrush in the late-afternoon sun.

  Joe told Nate about Billy Bloodworth’s scoop and Sheridan let him read it on her phone.

  “That photo could be from anywhere,” Nate said about the shot. “It could have been taken two years ago or it could be staged.”

  “Maybe,” Joe said.

  “Or maybe she’s still here,” Sheridan said from the backseat.

  *

  “DID YOU KNOW William Shakespeare was a falconer?” Sheridan asked Nate.

  “Yes, I did,” he said.

  “It’s true,” Sheridan said to Joe, who was obviously unaware of the fact. “He used falconry terms in his plays that have become part of the English language—only people don’t know where they came from.

  “‘Fed up’ is from when a bird has eaten too much of his kill and doesn’t want to hunt or do anything for a while,” she said. “And ‘under my thumb’ and ‘wrapped around his little finger’ are from holding a falcon tight to your fist by its jesses so it can’t fly. Those terms were in Shakespeare’s plays and until then they weren’t common usage.”

  She said, “‘Haggard’ is a falcon that’s difficult to fly, and ‘hoodwinked’ is from putting the leather hood on the bird so it can’t see to fly away.”

  “Interesting,” Joe said. He meant it.

  Nate recited:

  “My falcon now is sharp and passing empty;

  And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,

  For then she never looks upon her lure.

  Another way I have to man my haggard,

  To make her come and know her keeper’s call.”

  “That’s from The Taming of the Shrew,” Sheridan told Joe.

  Joe looked skeptically at his friend and then at his daughter. He’d never heard Nate recite poetry before and was unaware that Sheridan had that much familiarity with Shakespeare.

  “You two make me feel stupid,” he confessed.

  Nate shrugged. “We’re falconers,” he said.

  Sheridan giggled.

  *

  TWO MILES SOUTH of Walcott Junction and I-80, Joe speed-dialed Sheriff Neal’s private number.

  The sheriff answered immediately.

  “Sheriff, Joe Pickett. I’m on my way to Rawlins right now to brief you on some new developments.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I can see the interstate.”

  “Well, hold tight,” Neal said. “In fact, pull over and wait for us.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve got a man in custody on a DUI rap who claims he took the picture of Kate and sold it to the English reporter two days ago. He’s agreed to show us where the cabin is, so we’re headed your way. We’re about ten minutes out.”

  Joe pulled over.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Sheridan asked.

  “Break in the case.”

  His heart raced. Joshua Teubner’s phone records would have to wait—and might not even be necessary.

  18

  THREE CARBON COUNTY SHERIFF’S SUVS WITH LIGHTS FLASHING TOOK the Walcott Junction exit, followed by a three-quarter-ton pickup hauling a trailer topped with six snowmobiles.

  Joe powered his window down as the caravan approached and slowed to a stop on the highway. Neal was in the lead and he climbed out of his Chevrolet Tahoe and lumbered over to the pickup. Neal was heavyset and stoop-shouldered. He had a thick mustache threaded with gray and large brown cop eyes that took in everything he looked at. As he neared Joe’s truck, he could see Neal assessing Nate and then Sheridan.

  The sheriff zipped up his heavy parka against the cold as he approached Joe’s window.

  “Why can’t this stuff ever happen on a nice summer day?” he said.

  “I see you brought snowmobiles,” Joe said, nodding toward the three-quarter ton.

  “I called a snowmobile outfitter I know and rented his whole fleet,” Neal said with a shake of his head. “That’ll do some damage on my budget.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “All the way up the Snowy Range Road until it ends,” Neal said.

  Joe knew that the Snowy Range received so much snow every winter that the highway department didn’t bother to plow it until spring, and even then they had to use rotary snowplows to cut through the ten to twelve feet of accumulation that blew off the roadway into huge plumes. He’d noted that the snow got so deep that highway workers attached fifteen-foot lengths of wood to the steel mile markers so the plow drivers could discern where the road was located.

  “Who is your informant?” Joe asked. He could see the silhouette of a head in Neal’s backseat. The man had a round face the shape of a pie tin and a scraggly beard.

  “Name’s Eli Jarrett. We know him.”

  He said it in a way that meant, He’s familiar to law enforcement and not in a good way.

  “Eli used to work in the mine in Hanna before it went bust. Picked him up a few times for DUI. Likes meth, too.”

  Joe heard Nate grunt with recognition from the passenger seat.

  Neal thumbed over his shoulder toward Jarrett. “He collects sheds in
the mountains and sells them to dealers. He said he knows of a couple of open meadows up there where the wind blows them clean in the winter. He took his snowmobile and sled up there last weekend to try and get a jump on his competition.”

  Joe knew that “sheds” were elk antlers that naturally detached and dropped to the ground each winter from bull elk. The price for them from Asian pharmaceutical representatives, artists, and furniture makers had climbed to over fifteen dollars per pound, meaning that a massive set could go for over eight hundred dollars. It was tough work, but it could be lucrative.

  There was a big run on sheds in the late spring and early summer when the snow melted to reveal them where they’d dropped. “Shed wars” were so named because collectors sometimes got into disputes with others over territory, and there were very few rules or regulations about gathering them. There were shed wars in other Wyoming mountain ranges, including Joe’s Bighorns.

  “That’s where Eli bumbled onto a cabin,” Neal said. “He said he was surprised it was occupied, because the road to it is snowed in.”

  “Do you know who the cabin belongs to?” Joe asked.

  “Trapper by the name of Les McKnight,” Neal said. “He’s a mysterious old coot who sometimes works for the Fish and Wildlife Service, but mainly he works for himself. Gets badgers, beavers, coyotes...”

  “I’ve seen him,” Sheridan said urgently from the backseat. “He put some traps by the river last summer at the ranch.”

  “Silver Creek Ranch?” Neal asked her.

  “That’s where I work,” she said.

  “Well, there you go,” Neal said to Joe. “That puts McKnight on the ranch where Kate disappeared.”

  Suddenly, Billy Bloodworth and Sophie’s theory sounded more plausible, Joe thought.

  “Eli had his phone with him and he took some pictures of McKnight’s cabin,” Neal said. “It wasn’t until he got home and looked at them that he noticed the blonde in the window. He ran into that English feller in the bar and sold him the photos for a couple of hundred dollars apiece. He didn’t know what the reporter was going to do with them or how fast they’d show up on the Internet.”

  The sheriff used the word Internet as if it were some strange new trend in technology, Joe noted.

  Neal sighed. “That’s his story, anyway. The photos are still on his phone, so he’s not lying about that part.”

  The sheriff squinted against the icy wind and looked at the mountains to the east.

  “We better get going if we hope to get up there by dark,” he said.

  “Lead the way,” Joe said.

  “Remember when I told you trouble always follows you around?” Neal asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Maybe it worked out in our favor this time.”

  *

  JOE MADE A U-TURN and joined Sheriff Neal’s entourage headed toward Saratoga.

  “Yes, I remember him,” Sheridan said. “He’s a creepy guy and we had to throw him off the ranch because he didn’t have permission to put traps there. Mr. Gordon was worried that one of our ranch dogs would get hurt, you know?”

  “Is it possible,” Joe asked, “that McKnight was on the property the same week Kate was there? July 23 to 30?”

  “I’m thinking,” she said. “I can’t say for sure. I know he was there in the middle of the summer, so it’s possible. Mr. Gordon might remember.”

  Joe called the Silver Creek Ranch office, but Gordon wasn’t in, so he left a message asking the GM if he could recall the specific week when McKnight was ordered off the property.

  . . .

  A FEW BUNDLED-UP pedestrians on the sidewalk in Saratoga paused to watch the five-vehicle law enforcement caravan pass through town and out the other side.

  “Tongues will be wagging before we get there,” Sheridan observed.

  *

  THEY TURNED LEFT at the junction of Highways 130 and 230 and started the climb to the Snowy Range. The sagebrush and rock formations in the foothills gave way to a long willow-choked flat where Brush Creek meandered and two cow moose and a yearling calf watched them go by. The snow on either side of the road got deeper with every mile.

  Joe checked his rearview mirror to discover that an additional four-wheel-drive vehicle had slipped into the convoy behind the truck pulling the snowmobiles. He couldn’t see who was inside until he took a turn into the trees and got a better angle.

  “Oh no,” he said aloud. “Billy Bloodworth and Sophie have joined us.”

  He reported the interlopers to Sheriff Neal on the radio.

  “He’s the English reporter?” Neal asked.

  “Yup. And Kate’s sister.”

  “That son of a bitch should have turned those photos over to us instead of putting them on the Internet,” Neal said, with the typical disdain cops had for the media in general. “Did you know it’s common for those UK types to pay people for stories and photos? I didn’t know that until today.”

  “He’s gonna want to go along with us,” Joe said. “He wants an exclusive before any other reporters show up.”

  Neal grunted and signed off.

  Joe realized Nate had said nothing since they’d spoken to Sheriff Neal and joined the procession south.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked his friend.

  “I’m thinking this new development really doesn’t work in my overall conspiracy theory,” Nate said.

  “Aha,” Joe said with a hint of glee.

  *

  A LARGE TURNAROUND had been plowed at the end of the highway so that unsuspecting drivers could easily loop around and head back to Saratoga instead of going over the top of the mountain toward Centennial and Laramie. There was enough room to use the alcove as a staging area for the snowmobiles. Joe parked next to Neal’s vehicle.

  Joe watched Billy Bloodworth erupt from his rented SUV as soon as he parked it with the others. Sophie stayed inside. He was at Sheriff Neal’s Tahoe as Neal climbed out. Joe left his truck running while he got out to join them.

  “I must go with you,” Bloodworth said to the sheriff. His voice was unusually high-pitched and frantic.

  “Not possible,” the sheriff said affably. “I’m not risking the safety of a civilian.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Bloodworth said as his eyes bulged. “I’m not a civilian. I’m media and therefore I have a right to report the news under the First Amendment.”

  “So you’re American?” Neal asked him.

  “I’m a British subject.”

  “Then have your queen send me a note,” Neal drawled.

  Joe looked away so he wouldn’t laugh.

  “You don’t understand,” Bloodworth pleaded. “This is my narrative. This is my legacy.”

  Neal stared at Bloodworth for a moment. “Show me in my mission as the sheriff of Carbon County that it’s my job to help you with your legacy.”

  Bloodworth turned to Joe. “Tell him this wouldn’t even be happening without my reporting.”

  “He’s the sheriff,” Joe said. “It’s his call.”

  Neal said, “You’re welcome to stay here, though, and see what we find.”

  “This is fucking outrageous,” Bloodworth said. Then, as if it had just occurred to him, he hugged himself and said, “It’s cold as fuck!”

  “Put on a coat,” Neal said sourly. “And try not to curse every time you open your mouth. What’s wrong with you people?”

  Bloodworth turned toward his rental, but stopped short when he saw Eli Jarrett being escorted by a deputy from the back door of the SUV.

  “Mr. Jarrett,” Bloodworth said with venom. “We had a deal to keep this information confidential until I could finish reporting the story.”

  Jarett flushed and said, “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Fucking idiots,” Bloodworth spat, and pulled himself quickly inside his car and shut the door. Joe could see but not hear Sophie admonish him, and Bloodworth go on a rant with dancing hands and spittle flying on the inside of the driver’s-si
de window.

  “He’s a little too tightly wound to go along,” Neal said to Joe. “And I doubt he’s ever driven a snow machine.”

  Joe agreed.

  *

  TWILIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS brought a special kind of cold. It crept out from the darkness of the lodgepole pine forest where it had spent the daylight hours and it slithered across the top of the snow to sting every inch of exposed human skin. Sounds became sharper and the snow itself became a different texture that squeaked like nails on a chalkboard with every footfall.

  While the snowmobile-rental owner backed each machine off the trailer one by one, Joe and the sheriff’s crew pulled on snowmobile suits and exchanged their footwear for heavy snowmobile boots. Joe was grateful his coveralls had been in the backseat and they were still warm from Sheridan’s body heat. His helmet, though, had been in his gearbox in the bed of his pickup and it was as cold as a block of ice when he pulled it on. The plastic face shield fogged up instantly.

  He approached Neal as the sheriff struggled to fit into his suit with SHERIFF written in yellow across the back.

  “Do you have a spare for my partner?” Joe asked, nodding toward Nate in his truck.

  “I might have,” Neal said. “Who is he?”

  “He’s a guy we’d rather have along with us,” Joe said.

  “We’re running out of machines.”

  “He can ride on the back of mine.”

  Neal gestured to the snowmobile-rental operator. “Check with him,” he said. “Tell him to put it on my quickly growing tab.”

  “Thanks,” Joe said.

  . . .

  “WHAT ABOUT ME?” Sheridan asked as Joe handed Nate an extra-large black snowmobile suit that had Snowy Range Sleds embroidered over the breast pocket.

  “Call your mom and let her know what’s going on,” Joe said. “She’s going to want to know.”

  Thinking: So would Hanlon.

  But he’ll be even more pleased, Joe thought, with a call that tells him we’ve solved the case.

  *

  THE STILL AIR filled with the acrid fumes of six idling snowmobiles. Sheriff Neal and his three deputies waited for everyone to straddle the machines and nod their helmets that they were ready to move out. Joe took a Polaris 550 WideTrak LX because it was extra-long and could seat two people. Nate settled in behind him. Snug, but not embarrassingly snug, he thought.