Free Fire - C. J. Box [90]
The night dispatcher threw open the door to the lobby, his headset dangling from where he’d jerked it out of his phone. His eyes were wild.
“Chief,” he said to Ashby, “you’ve got to take this.”
“Take what?” Ashby said, grimacing.
“Stevens from Bechler.”
“Wait here,” Ashby told Demming and Joe, and followed the dispatcher.
Five minutes later, he came back. He was seething, his face bright red: “That son of a bitch Clay McCann did it again!”
20
Joe finished writing his report—including the news of Clay McCann killing two more people in “self-defense” within the Zone of Death—and had it faxed from the front desk. While he watched Simon feed the pages through, something nagged at him. He needed to talk to Demming.
Lower-level federal housing was down the mountain from the Mammoth Hotel, a half-mile walk nearly straight downhill. The moon was full and lit the sagebrush-covered hillside. A small herd of elk grazed in the moonlight. Joe could smell their familiar musky smell in the air. He noticed blue parentheses on either side of the moon. Snow was coming.
The cluster of Park Service housing was built on a plateau on the sagebrush hillside. The houses were packed tightly togetherwith fenceless common yards. The density of the houses was claustrophobic, Joe thought, compared to the vast, empty hillsides in all directions. It reminded him of a government-builtanthill in the middle of a prairie. He found Demming’s house by the brown wooden sign outside that said LARS AND JUDY DEMMING and crossed the postage-stamp lawn. A BMX bike leaned against the house. The house was small and looked exactly like every other house on the street. The Park Service had even painted them all the same light green color. Demming’s cruiser was parked next to a jacked-up Ford 4x4 pickup that looked formidable as well as well taken care of.
A man answered the door. Joe expected someone named Lars to be tall, strapping, blond. Instead, he was short, pudgy, with long sideburns and an acne-scarred face. Smile lines at the corners of his mouth suggested he was always of good cheer. He wore a baggy T-shirt with a silk screen of a wolf on it.
Joe introduced himself. “Hope I didn’t get you at dinner,” Joe said.
“Not at all,” Lars said, looking over Joe’s shoulder for his vehicle. Lars was the kind of man who judged other men by what they drove, Joe guessed. “Come on in. You walked?”
“Yup.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Lars said, chuckling. “I heard about your Yukon. Quite a story.”
The television was on in the living room and the house smelled of the fried hamburgers they had had for dinner. It was modest, almost spare, except for the elk heads and antlers on the wall. Joe didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Maybe more books, he thought.
Lars introduced Joe to Jake, who was watching television. Jake, ten, was a younger, fitter version of Lars, and he self-consciouslygot up and shook Joe’s hand and returned quickly to the couch. A teenage girl looked out from her room, said hello, and ducked back in.
“Erin,” Lars said. “Fifteen and surly.”
Joe nodded with empathy.
“So, Judy tells me you’re a game warden.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of those heads on the wall?”
“Nice.”
“I got seven more of ’em in the garage. I was thinking you might want to take a look at them.”
People always wanted to show Joe their game heads or hunting pictures. He was used to it. To be polite, Joe said, “Sure, you bet.”
Judy intervened, coming from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She was out of uniform, and she looked like, well, a mom.
“I think Joe’s seen plenty of elk heads before, honey,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Joe said.
“Really,” Demming said to Lars.
Lars did a barely noticeable man-to-man eye roll, asked, “You want a beer?”
“You bet.”
“Turn the television off, please, Jake,” Demming said. “Time