Free Fire - C. J. Box [46]
She nodded. “That’s why I’m here now,” she said. “I’d like to go down to Bechler with you tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
Joe said, “I’d be honored.”
“Of course, Ashby wants me to keep an eye on you as well.”
“I figured that.”
Now that it was out, a heavy silence hung between them.
“Why does Layborn hate Zephyr employees so much?”
Demming rolled her eyes. “I wish he wasn’t so strident about it, but he is. Layborn used to be a SWAT assault team captainfor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,and he brings too much of that gung-ho training to his job. He’s like a lot of real-world cops I’ve met. Day after day, he only sees the worst side of human nature, you know? He never gets calls to watch thousands of them serving food, or doinglaundry, or giving tours. He only encounters the employees who get into trouble, so he assumes they’re all like that. And some of them really are. The Gopher Staters used to drive him crazy. They made it personal.”
“How so?” Joe asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers.
“They were like frat boys. He caught them hot-potting more than once and he gave them tickets for it.”
“Hot-potting?”
“Sorry, we have so much lingo up here. Hot-potting is soakingin thermal pools. It’s illegal, but lots of people do it at night. It’s relaxing and a way to wind down—a natural hot tub. Becausethere aren’t any movie theaters or nightclubs or anything like that up here, some of the Zephyr employees go hot-potting for date night. Alcohol is usually involved, of course. Most of us look the other way because it’s basically harmless. There’s even a spot called Ranger Pool, if you catch my meaning. But we leave them alone unless they’re being particularly loud or blatant about it. Not Eric Layborn, though. He busted the GopherState Five a few times and they got to know him, and to know him is to dislike him, as you learned today. It escalated from there.”
Joe encouraged her to go on.
She said, “Once they found out Layborn suspected them of dealing, they declared all-out war on him. They’d let the air out of his tires when he was at lunch, or they’d put a potato in his exhaust. Stink bombs, stuff like that. Once they acted like a big drug deal was going down in employee housing at Old Faithful—they put the word out to people Layborn used as informants—so Layborn put a huge squad together to raid it. It turned out to be a birthday party for a seventy-year-old waitress who’d worked in the park for forty-some years. Layborn was reprimanded, and it made the local papers. They set him up. And I’m sure you noticed his eye?”
Joe said he had.
“One time, they did that trick from American Graffiti, the movie? Layborn was hiding in the trees watching for speeders near Biscuit Basin. Somebody snuck up behind his car and put a chain around his axle and attached the chain to the trunk of a tree. Another guy raced by on the road. Layborn took off after the speeder and the chain ripped the axle off. Poor Layborn lost an eye on the steering column when that happened.”
“That explains it,” Joe said.
“It’s glass,” she said. “Rumor has it Eric had the National Park Service logo engraved and painted on the inside of his glass eye, so it points at his brain in his socket. But that’s just a rumor—I’ve never seen it.”
Joe was taken aback. “You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
Demming was so deadpan when she said it they both burst out laughing.
She covered her mouth with her fingers. “We shouldn’t laugh.”
“No, we shouldn’t.”
“So,” Joe said, recovering, “no one was ever caught?”
“No. Nobody would fess up. We all knew it was the Gopher Staters, but we couldn’t prove it.”
Joe shifted uncomfortably. “Judy, did Layborn have any dealings with McCann?”
Demming wasn’t shocked by the question. “I know what you’re asking. But no, I don’t think so.”
“Everything’s on the table,” Joe said. “Maybe eye-for-an-eye kind of revenge, so to speak?”
Demming nodded, uncomfortable. “I’m probably not helpingmy career talking to you so much,” she said. “You’re not exactlythe most popular guy