Stone Cold (19 page)

Saddlestring, Wyoming

At the same time, behind her desk, Marybeth Pickett breathed a sigh of relief when both the RMIN (Rocky Mountain Information Network) and the FBI's ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) came up on the Twelve Sleep County Library system computer. She leaned back and glanced around to make sure no patrons or staff were close enough to see what was on the screen, then used her cell phone app to recall the usernames and passwords she'd been given years before from her friend Dulcie Schalk, who was also the county prosecutor. Dulcie had given Marybeth the keywords in the midst of a frantic investigation when she needed her help and had either forgotten—not likely, knowing Dulcie—or chosen to look the other way afterward. Both databases were supposed to be accessed only by authorized law enforcement personnel. Because Marybeth was married to one, and often was asked to perform research for him for free, she managed to justify why she kept the information.

For the first hour and a half that morning, she'd been too busy to access the system to see if the high-speed network was working again. The Internet in the old Carnegie library was often down and the IT man on staff could never seem to keep it live. Something about power surges, he claimed. But when she'd arrived that morning to open, there he was, assuring her that it was back up. The early-morning newspaper readers now lounged in the periodical section, several of the older locals napping. She'd inventoried returned books dropped off during the night, and spent the next hour answering emails and queries. A staff meeting was scheduled at eleven, which meant she had nearly an hour of practically free time behind the desk.

Before diving in, Marybeth did what she always did and ran through a mental checklist of her immediate family. She knew she couldn't proceed without knowing where everyone was, what they were doing, and when she'd talk to or see them next.

Lucy was in school but would be late getting home due to play practice.

April would go straight from high school to her shift at Welton's Western Wear for the evening, then return home enraptured, if Dallas Cates had called or stopped by, or in a sulk otherwise.

Sheridan should be in her third-hour class at UW, hopefully feeling safe, secure, and studious. Perhaps she'd even call that evening.

And Joe was hundreds of miles away, probably getting himself into some kind of trouble.

•   •   •

M
ARYBETH GLANCED
DOWN
at the scribbled list next to her keyboard, briefly debating who to look up first. No question, she thought, the first would be Erik Young. Erik with a
k
.

She was always worried that the usernames and passwords had changed since the last time she accessed the databases, and that by keying in the old ones she'd be flagging an investigation of some kind. So far, though, they'd remained the same and no G-men had shown up to question her.

She keyed in the usernames and passwords and she was in. Both the regional and national databases responded with prompts and search criteria.

She typed in “Erik Young” and listed “Los Angeles area” for a location in ViCAP, holding her breath while the search was conducted.

Four Erik Youngs had criminal records. None was younger than forty-two. She did the same search in RMIN, speculating that perhaps he'd done something in the region. No hits at all. She whispered, “Whew,” took a sip of coffee, and realized the search had hardly been helpful. Erik would be, what, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one at most? In that case, if he'd done something before leaving California, his records would be locked away in a juvenile database she had no access to.

There were other problems with her approach, she knew. Sheridan had told Joe he was “Erik Young from Los Angeles.” But there was no way to verify if Erik was actually his first name, a second name, or a nickname. Could “Young” be “Jung” or some other derivation? The only way to confirm his actual name would be to cross-check it with the university student database or ask Sheridan to get involved.

But there had to be a way to avoid that route, she thought. If nothing else, she could eliminate all the possibilities before she contacted the university or Sheridan. There was always a solution if she kept calm and thought it through.

Within a minute, she leaned forward and minimized both the ViCAP and RMIN windows and called up a national people-finder locator site and entered the same criteria.

There were forty-five Erik Youngs listed in California and sixteen in the Los Angeles area alone, although there were hundreds of Eric Youngs with a
c
. Marybeth concentrated just on the sixteen Eriks. There were four in Covina, two each in Anaheim, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, and Torrance, and one each in Monterey Park, Playa del Rey, Rialto, and Venice.

Methodically, she accessed each location. The database listed the name, of course, but also the street address, the value of the person's home, and an approximate age—sometimes given as “unknown.” Marybeth eliminated all the names with ages listed as thirty or above, and that left her with seven possible Erik Youngs, all designated “age unknown.”

She isolated the list of seven. The site provided maps of each specific address as well as Google Earth satellite photos of each home. They ranged from a $2.8 million mansion in Playa del Rey to Apartment C in Venice to a post-office box in Covina to an “unknown” address in Torrance. She assumed that a family in a multimillion-dollar home would not send their son to a state university, and crossed that one out. Likewise, she assumed families living in apartments or listing their address as a post-office box would likely not have the means to send any children out of state to college. Of course, she thought, she could always revisit the top and bottom tiers if the middle didn't pan out.

That left three possibilities: the $708,000 home in Covina (likely the parents of the P.O. box holder in the same suburb), the $565,000 home in Monterey Park, and the $268,000 home in Rialto.

She felt her pulse quicken as she looked at the likely homes that produced Erik Young and sent him to far-off Laramie to attend the University of Wyoming.

It took only a few minutes to access the L.A.-area white pages to obtain all three telephone numbers.

Surprisingly, two people answered—a housekeeper in Monterey Park and a stay-at-home mom in Rialto with a heavy Mexican accent.

She began with, “Hello, I'm calling to find out if this is the home of Erik Young who is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie . . .” She was careful not to misidentify herself or pose as either a law enforcement or university official.

Both said she was on the wrong track. The Erik Young in Monterey Park was a student at UCLA, the housekeeper said. The Erik Young in Rialto was incarcerated at the California State Prison in Corcoran. As the woman told Marybeth, she began to cry.

Marybeth apologized in both instances.

At the Covina home, she was asked to leave a message by a recorded female voice that sounded to be about right for the mother of a college-aged student, Marybeth thought. She left a message and asked to be called back on her cell phone.

But she was thinking:
Covina.

When she had more time, she decided, she'd do an in-depth search of “Erik Young” and “Covina.” Perhaps she'd find where he'd participated in school activities, or been mentioned in blog posts or newspapers. Maybe she'd find where he had been thrown out of school for wearing a long black trench coat or arrested for torturing small animals. The thought of the possibility of cracking it so easily left her shaking her head.

She hoped that after the staff meeting and lunch she'd have
another extended period at the desk when she could do the additional research.

•   •   •

T
HE
RMIN
DATABASE
went off when Marybeth entered the names William Critchfield, aka Bill Critchfield, and Eugene Smith, aka Gene Smith, of Medicine Wheel County, Wyoming.

She whistled as she scrolled through the list of priors: issuance of a bad check, several counts of DUI, breaking and entering, aggravated assault and battery, wanton destruction of a game animal, fishing without a license, and several parole violations. They seemed to operate as a team, because all of the charges except the check kiting and DUI had been filed on the same dates.

She whispered “Jackpot” to herself while cutting the text from the site into a Word document to send to Joe.

It bothered her that Joe had asked her for research help so quickly after he arrived, and she wondered if he was keeping his vow to simply observe and report back. But she knew the answer to that question because she knew Joe so well. Her hope was that by providing him with the information he'd requested, he could leave and come home more quickly.

As she built the document to send, she noticed there had been no charges or convictions for either man for the previous five years. Given the frequency of criminality prior to that, she checked her search criteria and ran it again. But no new activity showed up.

•   •   •

A
S THE
OTHER LIBRARIANS
and support staff gathered in the conference room for the weekly meeting, Marybeth logged out of
the criminal databases and deleted the history of her searches on the Web browser.

Her cell phone vibrated as she was about to place it into her purse, and she checked the screen:
UNKNOWN CALLER
.

Covina
, she thought, and turned her back to the open conference room door so none of the others could hear her.

“Yes?”

The voice was hesitant. “Did you call me a little while ago?”

It was the female voice that was on the outgoing message at the Covina home, although more distant and suspicious.

“Yes, that was me.”

“Why were you calling me? I didn't listen to the message, but I saw that 307 area code . . .” She didn't finish.

“I'm calling from Wyoming,” Marybeth said.

“I know,” the woman responded. She sounded both weary and cautious, Marybeth thought.

Before Marybeth could explain, the woman said, “I knew this call would come someday. My God, what has he done?”

Marybeth felt a chill shoot up her back.

Sand Creek Ranch

“Follow my lead and keep your mouth shut,” Latta said over his shoulder to Joe as the two game wardens walked across the shorn meadow to where Templeton had parked his ATV in the shade of a huge river cottonwood.

“Got it,” Joe said crisply but with resentment. He was still angry with Latta and getting tired of his constant admonitions.

Latta was several strides ahead and moving faster than necessary, Joe thought. There was no doubt Latta wanted to get to the ranch owner before Joe did.

Looking ahead over Latta's shoulder, Joe could see Templeton stiffly climb off the four-wheeler. The rancher raised his long arms to stretch, then lowered them and put his hands on his hips and leaned slightly forward to receive his visitors.

He'd aged from the last photographs Joe had seen of him. Despite
the beat-up ranch clothing, Templeton maintained his patrician bearing. He was even taller and leaner than Joe had guessed from the photos, and his short hair was now silver streaked with black rather than black streaked with silver. He had sharp, intelligent eyes that revealed nothing. His once-thin mustache had grown in acreage and now covered his full upper lip and drooped down slightly on the sides, giving him an almost Marlboro Man appearance. He was a memorable presence, Joe thought: the kind of man even men looked at twice.

Joe felt his phone vibrate in his breast pocket and paused to retrieve it. There was a text message from Marybeth reading:
Call me when you can. Info on E. Young.

He paused, weighing whether to call her immediately, but decided since she hadn't indicated it was an emergency it could wait a few minutes. Especially now, with Templeton right in front of him. Joe knew he might never get the chance to see the rancher in person again, and by doing so, his assignment might be near completion. He slid his phone back into the pocket. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Latta had used the opportunity to gain more distance on him.

Latta closed on the rancher and the two shook hands and exchanged greetings, and Latta leaned forward and whispered something into Templeton's ear. Templeton had no reaction to whatever Latta had said, but eased Latta aside and stepped forward to meet Joe.

“I'm Wolfgang Templeton,” he said, grasping Joe's hand in a huge dry grip. “I own most of this country around here.” He had a flat, authoritative voice.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Joe said after introducing himself. “It's nice country.”

“It's more complicated than it looks, that's for sure,” Templeton said, turning his head toward the hills.

Joe got the impression there was more to Templeton's statement than the obvious.

But before he could find out, Latta intervened, literally stepping between the two.

“Mr. Templeton, remember we talked a while back about establishing a couple of public walk-in areas downstream on Sand Creek, where the county road ends . . .”

Latta went on to explain the parameters of walk-in areas, the benefits for the public as well as the landowner, the goodwill that could be established, on and on, Joe thought. He'd never heard Latta talk so much or so quickly. Joe let him and didn't interrupt. He assumed it was because Latta was nervous and perhaps intimidated, and instead concentrated on trying to read Wolfgang Templeton.

Joe had learned from Marybeth to trust his instincts upon meeting a man for the first time, and he'd honed the ability over the years when encountering fishers, hunters, and other loners in the outdoors. His immediate impression of Templeton was that he was a man with both the drive to achieve what he wanted and the patience to get it done. He was also a perfectionist who personally checked not only the fences, roads, and culverts of his ranches himself but also the hay crop. Templeton listened to Latta without a word, appeared to be engaged, but Joe doubted it. He seemed like the kind of man who had heard thousands of pitches in his life and could cut through the verbosity of the proposal to its bare essence within half a minute, and sum up the presentation in a sentence better than the presenter could ever dream of—for better or worse.

Joe had been in the presence of evil men—outright violent criminals and those with hidden motives and agendas—and Templeton didn't give off that vibration.

There was also something in Templeton's demeanor that suggested weariness and exhaustion. As if he had too much on his plate to spare the time for Latta, even if the game warden's intentions were good.

Templeton nodded slightly as Latta went on about access and agreements with the state, but his eyes drifted first toward the rows of cut hay and then to Joe himself, where they locked on Joe just long enough to make him uncomfortable.

While Latta was in mid-sentence about the property-tax benefits of establishing a walk-in area, Templeton cut him off and said, “Okay, we'll do one.”

That seemed to take Latta by surprise. Again, he began to explain the benefits.

“I said we'd do one,” Templeton said with finality. “Send all the paperwork to Mr. Williams, my ranch foreman. Deal exclusively with him to establish the boundaries. I'll let him know you and Mr. Pickett here will be in touch.”

“That was easier than I thought,” Latta said, beaming. “I thought you'd have questions and concerns—”

“I said yes even though, believe it or not, it's not the highest on my priority list,” Templeton said. Then, to Joe: “Some people have trouble taking yes for an answer. So you're new to the area?”

Joe nodded.

“Where's home?”

“The Bighorns.”

Latta said, “He'll only be here for a couple of days. He's done this walk-in area thing a few times, and—”

Templeton waved off Latta and turned a shoulder to him. To Joe, Templeton said again, “It's fine country, isn't it?”

“Yup.”

“Only a settler or two away from pure wilderness,” the rancher said. “What you see around you in this county is the first edition, even though it's crumbling away. Think about that, how new it is even though it looks old. Most civilizations build for centuries on top of themselves. Not here. What you see is the first version of an attempt to tame wild country and draw a living from it: Black Hills 1.0. I'm not counting the Sioux and Cheyenne—they were here first. But they hunted here and passed through. They didn't leave anything permanent except a few tipi rings.”

Joe nodded.

“You don't talk much, do you?”

Joe nodded to Latta and said, “He thinks I talk too
much
.”

Templeton took in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly through his nose.

“Strange how many people here feel they need to protect me in some way. I used to find it charming.”

Joe had no idea how to respond or what to say.

Before Latta could interject again, there was the sound of another vehicle roaring up the ranch access road toward the highway.

All three men paused to look up at the late-model white Suburban with the
SAND CREEK RANCH
logo on the door. It was traveling so fast, Joe thought, it might cause a head-on collision if someone was coming the other way around the tight curves. The tires kicked up a large plume of dust.

As the Suburban shot by, Joe saw three forms inside—the driver in front and two women in back, each in their own row of seats. Although the windows of the vehicle were darkened, he saw a pale hand wave good-bye to Templeton through the smoky glass.

Templeton raised his hand and waved. “There they go,” he said. “Off to the airport in Rapid City to return to where they came from.”

“Who were they?” Joe asked. He could feel Latta's glare on the side of his head but didn't acknowledge it.

“Visitors,” Templeton said. “Visitors who forgot they were visiting.”

Templeton watched them go. As the Suburban curved around the last hill, his face softened as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders, Joe observed.

“You've got quite a few visitors,” Joe said.

“I do,” the rancher said. “Some are better than others.”

“I assume those two in the car are who you're talking about,” Joe said.

“Yes. But someone very special is replacing them.”

Joe arched his eyebrows.

Templeton continued, “It's an amazing fact of life that no matter what your situation and current circumstances, you can suddenly meet a special someone who looks you right in the eye and sizes you up and opens herself up to you and everything else just melts away and you just know she will be a part of your life. Maybe even a big part. When that happens, it's important to reassess.”

Latta's mouth dropped open. He was obviously unsure how to respond, and a little shocked that Templeton spoke to Joe that way.

“You realize it's time to clear out the detritus,” Templeton said. As he did it, he raised his hand and flicked his fingers at the memory of the passing Suburban.

He said, “After I'd met my special woman and returned back to the ranch, I couldn't even look at those two anymore. It was the difference between dining on caviar and champagne and returning
home where someone is opening a can of Spam for dinner. So it was time for them to leave and clear the air.”

“When will this special lady get here?” Joe asked.

“Anytime now,” Templeton said, almost in reverie.

“I met another one of your visitors down the creek,” Joe said. “He was an interesting guy who called himself Whip. He was fishing with a vintage bamboo fly rod. I don't see many of those.”

Templeton seemed to snap back to the present. “That would be an important colleague of mine.”

“He wanted to ticket him,” Latta interjected. “Luckily, I saw what was going on and put a stop to it.”

Templeton nodded with approval. “That's for the best.”

Joe said, “If I catch him fishing again with too many big fish or without a license, I'll ticket him for sure. The same with your other guests, so you might want to let them know what the rules and regulations are.”

Latta moaned.

Templeton turned to Joe. He said, “I hope you'll give that some real thought. My colleague, well, you don't want to get on his bad side.”

“I got that message loud and clear,” Joe said. “Do you have other guests I should look out for, so I don't ruin their day?”

Templeton smiled as if he were wise to the game that was afoot. “Other guests?”

“You know,” Joe said, “other colleagues of yours who might be out and about without paying any attention to Game and Fish regulations. Fishing without a license, for instance, or shooting pheasants out of season. Falconry without a permit—things like that.”

There was a tiny twitch at the corners of Templeton's mouth at the word
falconry
, Joe noted.

“Why do you ask?” the rancher said.

“Joe, we've got to go,” Latta said.

Templeton said, “Yes, I've got to get back to inspecting my hayfields. If we don't have rain, I can start baling that cut hay tomorrow. It's the last cutting of the year, you know.”

Latta thanked Templeton profusely for his time as well as for agreeing to the trial walk-in area, and grasped Joe's arm to pull him along.

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” Joe said to Templeton.

“Likewise,” Templeton said, coolly looking Joe over as if for the first time.

His demeanor remained serious when he told Latta, “Don't contact Mr. Williams until tomorrow about your project. He's busy tonight organizing a welcome reception and dinner for my very special guest.”

“Okay, Mr. Templeton,” Latta said.

To Joe, Templeton asked, “I hope the accommodations and the Whispering Pines Motel are okay for you.”

Joe nodded. Of course he knew
.
But how much?

•   •   •

“
W
HAT IN
THE HELL
was that all about with his guests?” Latta shouted when they climbed back into the cab of his pickup. “What did I tell you about keeping your mouth shut and letting me do all the talking?”

“You did plenty of that.”

Latta thumped the steering wheel hard with the heel of his hand. “He's talking to you all neighborly-like, and all of a sudden you start bringing up his guests and grilling him on his own land.”

“
Grilling
is a strong word,” Joe said.

“And what was that about someone doing falconry? I oversee the falconry permits around here, and no one has applied. What was that all about?”

Joe shrugged. “Just popped into my head.”

“Jesus Christ,” Latta said with disgust.

“Who is this special woman he's importing?” Joe asked.

“I have no idea,” Latta said. “Why do you think I would know or care? That's not my business, and it sure as hell isn't yours.”

“She must be something,” Joe said.

“It doesn't matter!” Latta thundered. “It's his personal life. There have been plenty of females in the past. There is this black one—sorry, African American—from down south who is an absolute friggin' knockout. I don't know if she's still there or not. I don't care about any of them, and neither should you.”