Free Fire Page 9

  In a rage, a man like Clay McCann would much more likely start pointing his weapons and shooting until all his victims were down and consider the job done. But to have the presence of mind to walk up to each downed camper and put a death shot into their heads after they were incapacitated? That was pure, icy calculation. Or the work of a professional. And if not a pro, someone who had reason to assure himself that all his victims were dead, that no one could ever talk about what had happened, or why it happened. Vicinage and jurisdiction aside, the murders had been extremely cold-blooded and sure.

  Joe couldn’t put himself into Clay McCann’s head on July 21. What would possess a man to do what he did with such efficient savagery? What was his motivation? An insult, as McCann later claimed? Joe didn’t buy it.

  AT THE EAST entrance gate, the middle-aged woman ranger asked Joe how long he’d be staying. Until that moment, he hadn’t really thought about it. He was thinking that he was glad he had never had to wear one of those flat-brimmed ranger hats.

  “Maybe a couple weeks,” he said.

  “Most of the facilities will be closing by then,” she said. “Winter’s coming, you know.”

  “Yes,” he said, deadpan.

  He bought an annual National Park Pass for $50 so he’d be able to go in and out of the park as much as he needed without paying each time. While she filled out the form, he was surprised to see the lens of a camera aiming at the Yukon from a small box on the side of the station.

  “You’ve got video cameras?” he asked.

  She nodded, handing him the pass to sign. “Every car comes in gets its picture taken.”

  “I didn’t realize you did that.”

  She smiled. “Helps us catch gate crashers and commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles aren’t allowed to use the park to pass through, you know.”

  “I see,” he said, noting for later the fact about the cameras.

  He listened to her spiel about road construction ahead, not feeding animals, not approaching wildlife. She handed him a brochure with a park road map and a yellow flyer with a cartoon drawing of a tourist being launched into the air by a charging buffalo. He remembered the same flyer, the same cartoonish drawing, from his childhood. He could recall being fascinated by it, the depiction of a too-small buffalo with puffs of smoke coming out of his nostrils, the way the little man was flying in the air with his arms outstretched.

  “Are you okay?” she asked because he hadn’t left.

  “Fine,” he said, snapping out of it. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Not that you’re holding up traffic or anything,” she said, gesturing behind him at the empty road.

  7

  THE LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER FOR THE PARK SERVICE, known informally as “the Pagoda,” was a gray stone building a block from the main road through the Mammoth Hot Springs complex in the extreme northern border of the park. Joe turned off the road near the post office with the two crude concrete bears guarding the steps. Mammoth served as the headquarters for the National Park Service as well as for Zephyr Corp., the contractor for park concessions. Unlike other small communities in Wyoming and Montana where the main streets consisted of storefronts and the atmosphere was frontier and Western, Mammoth had the impersonal feel of governmental officialdom. The buildings were old and elegant but government’s version of elegance—without flair. The architecture was Victorian and revealing of its origin as a U.S. Army post before the National Park Service came to be. Elk grazed on the still-green lawns across from the Mammoth Hotel, and the hot springs on the plateau to the south billowed steam that dissipated quickly in the cold air. When the wind changed direction, there was the slight smell of sulfur. A line of fine old wood and brick houses extended north from behind the public buildings, the homes occupied by the superintendent, the chief ranger, and other administrative officials, the splendor of the homes reflecting their status within the hierarchy of the park.

  In the height of summer, the complex would be bustling with traffic, the road clogged with cars and recreational vehicles, the sidewalks ablaze with tourists with bone-white legs and loud clothing. But in October, there was a kind of stunned silence after all that activity, as if the park was exhausted and trying to catch its breath.

  Joe parked the Yukon on the side of the Pagoda. It wasn’t well marked. The Park Service didn’t like signs because, he supposed, they looked like signs and the park was about nature, not people trying to go about their business in the world outside the park. He circled the building twice on foot before deciding that the unmarked wooden door on the west side was, in fact, the entrance.

  The lobby was small and dark and he surprised the receptionist, who quickly darkened the screen of whatever Internet site she had up. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Don’t get many visitors, eh?” he said.

  “Not this time of year,” she said, chastened, guilty about whatever it was she had been looking at and obviously blaming Joe for making her feel that way. “May I help you? Do you know where you’re at?”

  “I’m here to see Del Ashby. My name is Joe Pickett.”

  “Del is off today,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  She nodded toward a whiteboard on the wall. It listed the names of ranking rangers, with a magnetic button placed either “in” or “out.” Del Ashby was marked “out.” So was the chief ranger, James Langston, who Chuck Ward had said would also be in the meeting.

  The receptionist started going through papers from her in-box. It took a moment for Joe to realize he had been dismissed.

  “Hold it,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting with them at four. Can you check to see if they’ll be there?”

  She gave him a withering look, but put the papers down and huffed away, pointedly closing the door behind her desk so he couldn’t follow.

  While he waited, trying not to become frustrated with the situation that seemed to be developing, he studied another whiteboard on the wall above her desk. Painstakingly, in intricate detail, someone had drawn a multicolored flowchart of all the park rangers in Yellowstone, starting with James Langston at the top, Del Ashby under him, and a spiderweb of divisions and units including SWAT, interpretation, and other units. He counted about a hundred park rangers assigned to law enforcement, more than he would have guessed.

  The door opened and a short, wiry, intense man came through, head down as if determined to cross the room as efficiently as possible. He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

  “Del Ashby,” he said, firing out his hand.

  “I thought for a minute my information was wrong,” Joe said, flicking a glance at the receptionist, who smoldered behind Ashby.

  “It’s my day off,” he said. “I had to come in just for this, so I hope we can get to it and get out.”

  Joe nodded.

  “We’ve got a conference room upstairs,” Ashby said. “The others are already there.”

  “The chief ranger? James Langston?” Joe asked.

  “Nah, it’s his day off.”

  “Doesn’t he live just a block away?” Joe asked, recalling the stately line of old brick homes.

  Ashby turned and his expression hardened. “Not everyone will come in on their day off, like me. But don’t blame Chief Ranger Langston; he’s a busy man. He’s got a lot on his plate, you know.”

  Joe nodded noncommittally. The chief’s absence told Joe how seriously his presence and the meeting itself was being taken by the park administration. Nevertheless, he was grateful Ashby was there.

  Ashby turned and hustled through the door. Joe followed. While they climbed the stairs, Joe looked at his watch. Three-fifty-five. Right on time.

  ASHBY STEPPED ASIDE in the hall so Joe could enter a windowless room with a large round table crammed into it. Two men and a woman stood as Joe entered. Ashby shut the door behind them.

  “This is Joe Pickett,” Ashby said, “from Wyoming governor Rulon’s staff.”

  Joe didn’t take the time to consider the i
ntroduction—his staff, huh? Is that what Chuck Ward had told them?—but leaned across the table to greet the others. The atmosphere was instantly tense and uncomfortable and Joe surmised quickly that no one really wanted to be there. He recognized Special Agent Tony Portenson of the FBI out of the Cheyenne office. Portenson rolled his eyes at Joe as if to say, Here we are again. Then he smiled, which always looked like an uncomfortable sneer on him, like he was trying it out for the first time.

  “No need to introduce us,” Portenson said to Ashby. “We know each other from way back.”

  “Hi, Tony.”

  “I thought I’d gotten rid of him for good,” Portenson said in a way that didn’t reveal if he was joking or not. “But here he is again, like a bad penny. Wherever I go I seem to run into Joe Pickett and then something goes wrong.”

  Joe knew Portenson had been seeking a transfer out of Wyoming for years. He hated the state, its people, the quality of crimes he was in charge of. While the rest of the FBI was reshaping itself into a counterterrorism agency, Portenson had to oversee cattle rustling, crime on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and other mundane, career-advancement roadblocks. He’d complained mightily to Joe about it.

  Portenson said, “What in the hell is going on now? You’re working for the governor of Wyoming?”

  Joe nodded, not sure how much to reveal. He hadn’t expected someone from his past to be in the room, especially not Portenson, who had made it a life’s goal to send Nate Romanowski to prison.

  “Sort of,” Joe said.

  “I’ve heard Rulon is a loose cannon, a damned maniac. He and the director have been going at each other for two years, ever since the election,” Portenson said. “The guy—Rulon—is power-mad, is what I hear. He thinks the Bureau should march to his orders. He probably thinks the same thing about the Park Service.”

  With that, Portenson looked around the room, having quickly established Joe as an agent for someone who threatened everyone in it.

  Joe winced. “Thanks, Tony.”

  “You bet,” Portenson said, satisfied.

  “Eric Layborn,” said a man in an impeccably neat park ranger’s uniform. “Special investigator, National Park Service.” Joe reached out, and Layborn gripped his hand so hard Joe winced. Layborn had a heavy brow and a lantern jaw, a close-cropped military haircut, and a brass badge and nameplate that reflected the single light above the table. Even his gun belt was shiny. Layborn’s eyes were unsettling to Joe because one bored into him and the other was slightly askew, as if it were studying his ear.

  “Ranger Layborn headed up the criminal investigation,” Ashby said to Joe.

  “Whatever you want to know I can tell you,” Layborn said. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Joe thought it odd that Layborn would lead with that.

  “This is Ranger Judy Demming,” Ashby said, gesturing toward the woman at the table who had not launched herself at Joe as Layborn had. “She was first on the scene.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Joe said, flexing his fingers to get the feeling back in them before shaking hands with her.

  Demming was a few years older than Joe with medium-length brown hair, wire-framed glasses, a smattering of freckles across her nose. She seemed pleasant enough, gentle, and it was clear to Joe she was ill at ease. He couldn’t tell if she was uncomfortable with him, with others in the room, or with her role in the case. After shaking his hand she seemed to withdraw and defer to Ashby and Layborn without really moving.

  Portenson and Ashby sat back in their chairs, signaling they were ready to start the meeting. Demming saw them and sat too. So did Joe. Layborn remained standing, his eye fixed on Joe and Joe’s ear. He didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t necessary. The stare was a challenge. Joe had seen it before from local sheriffs, police chiefs, Director Randy Pope. The look said, “Don’t cross me, don’t second-guess me, don’t step on my turf. And I’m bigger and tougher than you.”

  “Eric,” Ashby said sharply, “let’s get started.”

  Layborn held the scowl for a moment longer, then eased back into his chair with the grace of a cat.

  Message delivered.

  Joe had brought the file folder the governor had given him. The letter from Rick Hoening was on the bottom of the documents, facedown. He didn’t want them to see it.

  “Before we get started,” Ashby said, “I thought you might need some background on our job here and how we work. That way, we can save some time later.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joe noticed Portenson had immediately drifted away and was studying the large-scale map of the park behind Joe’s head.

  “Yellowstone National Park is a federal enclave,” Ashby said. “You are no longer in the state of Wyoming, or Montana, or anywhere else. This is literally the last vestige of Wyoming Territory, and we’re governed as such. There are two U.S. marshals up here, just like the frontier days, and we’ve got a hundred rangers including four special investigators. Eric here is our top investigator.”

  At that, Layborn leaned forward. Joe was still stinging from the “message” and fought the urge to ignore the man. Instead he acknowledged Layborn with a quick nod.

  “Think of the park as a city of forty thousand people every given day in the summer and fifteen thousand people in the winter,” Ashby said. “But unlike a city, everyone is passing through, turning over. We’ll have over three million in the summer, a few hundred thousand in the winter. It’s a brand-new scenario every day, a whole new cast. Our job is to serve and protect these people and enforce the laws, but at the same time to protect the resources of the park itself. This place is like a church; nothing is to be disturbed. It’s a national shrine and no one wants to see harm come to it. It’s a hell of a tough job, unlike anything else in law enforcement. Park rangers are the most assaulted federal officers of all of the branches because of the public interaction that comes with the job. No one has jurisdiction over us in the park, including your governor and the FBI,” he said, indicating Portenson.

  Portenson, Joe noticed, appeared to be counting holes in the overhead ceiling tiles in boredom.

  “Because we’re federal,” Ashby said, “we operate under two sets of laws—the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Criminal Code and Rules statutes—and we can pick and choose depending on the violation. Most violations are Class B misde- meanors, meaning six months in jail and/or a five-thousand-dollar fine. Half of the violations are ‘cite and release’—we give them a ticket and let them proceed. But the other half are the serious ones, and they include felonies, poaching, violations of the Lacy Act, and so on. Because of the transient nature of the population here, all sorts of scum pass through. Last year we nailed a child molester who’d brought a little girl into the park in his RV. On average, we make two hundred to two hundred fifty arrests a year and issue four thousand tickets.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. There was more action than he realized.

  Layborn broke in. “Don’t be fooled by the numbers, Mr. Pickett. We aren’t just arresting tourists. Half of the arrests are of permanent residents—meaning Zephyr Corp. employees. I spend most of my time tailing those people. Some of them act like they left the law at home when they moved out here.” He said it with a vehemence that seemed out of place after Ashby’s sober recitation of facts, Joe thought.

  Layborn continued even though Ashby admonished him with his eyes to stop.

  “There are seven thousand Zephyr people. They come from all over the world to work in the park. Too many of them come to think they’re on the same level as we are. They forget they’re here because we allow them to be. They’re contractors for the Park Service, nothing more. They work in the hotels, change the bedding, cook, unclog the sewers, wrangle horses, whatever. Some of them are renegades. We used to call ’em savages—”

  “Eric, please,” Ashby said, sitting up, cutting Layborn off. “We’re getting off track.”

  “The hell we are,” Layborn said to Ashby. “If we got rid of the bad
apples in Zephyr, we’d get rid of most of our crime.”

  “That may be, but that isn’t why we’re here.”

  “The hell it isn’t. The campers who got shot were Zephyr people camping in a place they shouldn’t have been camping.” He turned back to Joe. “See what I mean about their attitude? And you can only imagine what they said to get themselves killed. I knew those people very well. I didn’t get along with ’em either. They had no respect for anyone or anything, those people. They liked to call themselves the Gopher State Five because they were all from Minnesota, like that made them special somehow.”

  Joe observed that Demming had subtly pushed her chair farther away from Layborn. Portenson observed Layborn as if the ranger were an amusing, exotic specimen.

  “You know,” Portenson said, “I bet you guys could really run this damned park properly if you could just get rid of all of the people in it. We feel the same way about the reservation. If we could ship all those damned Indians off somewhere, we wouldn’t hardly have any trouble at all.”

  Layborn turned his scowl on the FBI agent. Demming looked mortified by both Layborn’s and Portenson’s language. Joe felt sorry for her.

  “Maybe we can get back to the issue here,” Joe said, and received a grateful nod from Ashby.

  “And maybe,” Layborn said to Joe, “we can start with why you’re really here. Why we all had to show up for this damned meeting in the first place.”