Blood Trail - C. J. Box [26]
Robey sat a few seats down from Joe, reading his copies of the same files. He was dressed in full-regalia Cabela’s and Eddie Bauer outdoor clothing for his first day on the crime team, and Joe had stifled a smile when he picked him up that morning. Robey’s boots were so new they squeaked when he got up to get another cup of coffee so weak the only taste was of aluminum from the pot itself. Randy Pope paced through the airport, working his cell phone. From snippets Joe could hear whenever Pope neared, his boss was dealing with personnel and legislative issues back in Cheyenne. Pope was a bureaucratic marvel, firing orders, interrupting calls he was on to take more important ones, keeping several people on hold at once, and jockeying between them as he paced.
As the arrival time came and went and an announcement was made by a spike-haired blonde with a tongue stud that the United Express flight from Denver would be at least twenty minutes late, Joe tried to discern the makeup of the people in and around the airport waiting for the aircraft to arrive. It was difficult to count them because they didn’t gather in one place so much as flow through the airport and back to their cars—many of which were campers and vans—in the parking lot. He didn’t recognize any of them, which was unusual in itself. They didn’t fit the profile of those usually found in the Saddlestring Regional Aiport: ranchers waiting for a new employee, usually one who spoke Spanish; a coal bed methane company executive greeting a contractor; or various local families picking up loved ones who had ventured out. Instead, the people waiting had an earthy, outdoor look. There was a wide-eyed, anxious, purposeful attitude about them Joe—at first—couldn’t quite put his finger on. A very attractive olive-skinned, black-haired woman struck him in particular. She seemed to be removed from the throng but with them at the same time, caring for her baby in a stroller and thanking those who approached her and complimented her on the child. Joe noted her dark eyes, high cheekbones, and pegged her for Shoshone. She had a dazzling smile and seemed to exist in a kind of bubble of serenity that he found mesmerizing.
“I wonder who she is?” Joe asked aloud.
Robey shook his head, distracted. “We heard from the sheriff of Sheridan County this morning,” he said to Joe, sitting back down with his coffee, “following up on Frank Urman. They’re trying to determine if he had any known enemies, business problems, wife problems, threats, the usual.”
Joe tore his eyes away from the woman and child and looked at Robey.
“They’ve found nothing to go on so far. Urman was fairly active in city and county government, belonged to a couple of groups—Elks and the American Legion—but kept a pretty low profile. He was well liked and respected, from what they say. He spent a lot of his time hunting and fishing, but that describes just about everybody in Wyoming.”
Joe nodded, and tapped the files on his lap. “It describes John Garrett and Warren Tucker too,” he said. “I was hoping when I read the files something would jump out at me. Or better yet, that there would be some kind of connection between the victims. Tucker and Garrett were around the same age, fifty-four and fifty-two, I think. That got me going for a few minutes until I saw that Urman was sixty-two.”
Robey said, “What, you thought they might be members of the same group?”
“Just thinking.”
“The only similarity I could find is that