I thought for a minute. “Did you tell him I shot one of them?”
He nodded. “Yeah. He put it all down in his little note pad. He wants to talk to you. Today, if you feel up to it. He said there’s nothing to warrant him acting in an official capacity, but he’s curious and would like to hear a few more details. This thing has got his interest up. He wants to hear your side. Will you talk to him?”
“Can’t see what it will hurt,” I said. “There’s no physical evidence of a crime – nothing I could be arrested for.”
Haywood signaled the waitress for the check. When she brought it, he dropped a twenty on the table and we left. I waved a ten at him as we went out the door into the parking lot but he held up a hand.
“On me,” he said.
Haywood had taken a full week off for our planned moose hunt, however, since the hunt had been cut short, he decided to spend the afternoon at the clinic. Although it was Saturday, his receptionist, Sally, and her teenage son were installing new computer hardware in the office. He wanted to see how they were getting along, and catch up on some paperwork. He said I could drop him off if I felt well enough to drive. I had declined, so he agreed to drive me back to his house, and then go in to work. He used his cell phone to call Hard Case en route. Hard Case said he’d come by a little after noon. He’d pick me up and treat me to lunch somewhere. When Haywood dropped me off at the house, I went in and stretched out on the couch. Bosworth joined me. I had planned on a little nap, but Bosworth’s purring and biscuit-making on my sore ribs precluded that. After a while I gave it up, and went and sat at the table. Bosworth didn’t seem to mind having the couch to himself.
I hadn’t had a hot bath since June, so I took this opportunity to put that right. I filled the tub with hot water and even added some bubble bath I found under the bathroom sink. Then I stretched out in the tub and, keeping my shoulder above the water line, rested my head back on a folded towel, and soaked. It was the ultimate luxury, and having closed the door against the company of Bosworth, I was able to sneak in a little nap after all. I woke when the water cooled enough to get uncomfortable, drained out a few inches, then refilled it with pure hot. Ah, boy. I’d forgotten how decadent and wonderful a hot bath could be.
Chapter 26
Hard Case pulled up in front just a little past noon and tapped his horn. I grabbed my jacket, gave Bosworth a pat on the head and went out the door. As it was Saturday and he wasn’t on official business, Hard Case had driven his personal vehicle, a two-year-old Ford Explorer. It was white and he didn’t appreciate any comparisons with O.J.’s white Bronco. I opened the passenger door and climbed in. The interior was, as always, spotless.
We grinned at each other, and I delicately offered my right hand.
“Gently,” I said. “Still mending.”
Hard Case offered me a sympathetic smile, and took my hand. He gave it a squeeze, rather than a shake. He was large and gruff, but he wasn’t inconsiderate.
“You’re looking fit,” I observed.
He patted his ample stomach. “Clean living,” he said righteously.
It was a standing joke. Hard Case had the full compliment of vices. He drank to excess whenever the opportunity presented itself, and smoked non-filtered Camel cigarettes – at least a pack a day. He ate far too much, and enjoyed every mouthful. His doctor had opined that a bullet would be a quicker, although less certain way for Hard Case to kill himself. All this notwithstanding, I never saw him out of breath or lacking in strength, stamina or enthusiasm.
I nodded sagely. “Pure heart, clean mind, healthy body.”
“That’s me.” He smiled, put the big SUV into reverse and backed out of the driveway.
We continued to make small talk as we drove out to Harley’s Haven, a few miles west of town. It was on a dirt road and the access depended on the weather, but it seemed to do enough business to make ends meet. Hard Case liked it because it was quiet and out of the way, and they served gigantic hamburgers with huge slices of red onion, and made the best fries you could get anywhere. Always conscious of his diet.
When we had settled into a booth and ordered our burgers and beers, Hard Case lit a Camel and leaned across the table. His gaze was steady, but friendly.
So,” he said, “tell me about it.”
He was a good cop. Maybe even a great cop.
He’d been with the Alaska State Troopers’ Criminal Investigation Bureau since its inception, back in 1971. He had worked his way up from backcountry patrol to the top job. He wasn’t a political animal by nature, but you didn’t need to be political to succeed in Alaska, even in a government job. All you needed was the respect of your fellow Alaskans. Hard Case had earned that over his career and was now enjoying the fruits of his labor. Before his official retirement, he had spent the majority of his time managing office staff and trying to balance the budget for his department. Now, that was someone else’s worry. The Troopers had brought him back under contract to do what he loved best – working crime scenes.
I told him my story. He listened without comment and took no notes. He just sat and smoked his Camel and sipped delicately at his beer from time to time. When I had finished, he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and took out his notepad.
“O.K.” he said. “Mind if I make a few notes, Gus?”
I shook my head. I didn’t mind.
“A few details,” he began. “Let’s start with the bear. Haywood said it was the biggest grizzly he’d ever seen. Had you seen it around your stretch of river before?”
I told him I’d seen his tracks several times but had only actually seen him once – the morning after I’d found the woman. After that, he spent a good deal of time around the cabin but I’d never seen him again, just his tracks.
He made a few notes. “Now Gus, I know you’re good, but how did you know they were his tracks? There are a lot of bears around that section of the Moose Jaw, as I recall.”
I told him about the missing claws on the front paw.
He nodded and thought for a minute. “Did he ever bother the cabin, or try to get at your cache?”
I said he hadn’t.
“So, the first time you ever got close was when he attacked you.”
I nodded again.
“And the attack was unprovoked. You weren’t threatening him in any way?”
I said I wasn’t as far as I knew. I didn’t know what was going through the bear’s mind. I had crossed his tracks and had gone out of my way to avoid going in his direction. I told him it looked as if the bear had circled and picked up my tracks. He’d followed me and attacked from behind. It was almost as if he’d been stalking me.
“O.K.” he went on. “So, the bear charges you from behind, you hear him coming and get out your .44, turn, stick it in his mouth and pull the trigger. Is that pretty much the way it went down?”
“That’s pretty much it. Although, I don’t think I actually stuck it in his mouth. It was more like I was just bringing it up while I turned, and then the gun was in his mouth. I didn’t actually stick it in, it just went in. Maybe he bit at it, I don’t know. It all happened too fast.”
Hard Case lit another Camel and took a deep drag while he thought.
Then he said, “Now, you pull the trigger, the gun goes off in his mouth, you blow his brain through the back of his skull and he dies instantly. His momentum brings him down on top of you, and in the process, you get a cracked rib and a raked shoulder. That it?”
“That’s about it. I think he clawed me just as I squeezed the trigger. I seem to remember his right paw coming down on top of my left shoulder just as I fired.”
Hard Case set the note pad aside and tapped an ash into the ashtray.
“After you kill the bear, you’re out cold for a while, come to, and make your way to the beaver pond. Haywood finds you there, gets you to the cabin, sews you up, and in the morning you fly out.”
I nodded once again. Nothing to add. He had it right.
“All sounds pretty straightforward up to that point. Now it starts to get funny. I go back in with Haywood and, as we professionals like to say, ‘dare ain’t no body’. Haywood’s moose is there but your bear has vanished. I can certify that there was no bear. I looked the place over good. I would testify under oath, that there was no evidence, whatsoever, that there had ever been a bear. No tracks, no hair, no bone fragments, no brain tissue, no body. There might be some blood; we won’t know until we get the stains on the jacket tested. But, I’ll bet it turns out that all the blood is yours.”
Our burgers and fries arrived so he leaned back to allow the waitress to put them on the table. When she had gone he stubbed out his smoke and sampled a few fries. I waited.
“So, here’s the rub. I know you and Haywood pretty well. You’ve both got your heads screwed on straight and, aside from being drunks and sexual deviates, you’re fine upstanding citizens. You say a bear attacked you and you killed that bear. Haywood swears he saw the bear. He even touched it. So I have to believe there was a bear. But, I also have to believe what my own eyes saw the next day – no bear. This is where it comes apart. First, there was a bear, then there wasn’t. If I accept both these statements as true, I must also accept as true that the bear vanished into thin air. I have trouble with that.”
I nodded in sympathy. “Yeah. So do I.”
He took a bite of his burger, chewed for a while and then swallowed.
“Let’s put the bear aside for the moment.” He sipped his beer. “Let’s talk about the woman. It seems she also vanished. You said her name was Morgan?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Morgan what?”
“Just Morgan. She didn’t give me any other name. It was as if she didn’t know, or couldn’t remember.”
“Physical description, age, unique scars or tattoos, you know.” He picked up his pad and pen again.
I told him she was tall, close to six feet, slender and well sculpted.
Not necessarily athletic, but well formed. She had red hair, green eyes, good teeth; age between thirty and thirty-five; no tattoos, three scars on her right shoulder blade made by bear claws.
Our eyes met and locked. He’d been chewing another bite of his burger. He stopped chewing.
“Three?” he said. “Not four, not five.”
I took a swig of beer and swallowed. “Only three.”
“Haywood said he had to stitch up three claw marks on your shoulder also.”
“That’s right,” I confirmed.
“I’d like to have a look at them when we get back to Haywood’s place, if you don’t mind.”
I said I didn’t.
“Curious coincidence, don’t you think?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Same bear. But, it is curious.”
We both focused on eating our burgers for a while. When he finished his he signaled the waitress for two more bottles of beer.
“Go on about the woman. Personality traits, accent, mannerisms, was she a genius, an airhead, did she come off as religious, politically active; or anything that struck you about her.
I told him she appeared cultured. She had a soft, quiet voice, good grammar and vocabulary, excellent table manners – probably a finishing school somewhere in her background. I told him what she’d said about working for a law firm in Seattle and about her being a fly-fisherman since she’d been a teenager, and about Jason, her missing fishing buddy.
Hard Case took it all down and then asked several questions about Jason. I told him what I knew and he wrote that down too. When he was finished he stared off into space for a while, absently sipping his beer with one hand and tapping his pen on the table with the other. I left him to ponder while I tucked into my fries.
Suddenly, he came out of his reverie, downed his beer in a long gulp, and signaled the waitress for the check. While she was bringing it, he jammed his note pad and pen back into his shirt pocket, and stood up. Lunch, clearly, was over.
I popped two fries in my mouth and took a final swallow of beer while he paid and left a generous tip.
Back in his Explorer, he said,
“Something about all this rings a bell.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I want to do some checking. Won’t be able to find out much today, it being the weekend. But, Monday I should be able to do some digging around.
He started the Explorer’s big engine and drove out of the Haven’s parking lot.
“You can tell me about this guy you offed on the way back to Haywood’s.”
I briefed him on my unsuccessful search for Jason, and the episode at the McCaslins’ lodge. He wanted more detail regarding the shooting – weapon, load, range, how many shots I fired. Where did I hit him? Did I remove any physical evidence? Did I leave any behind?
I answered him as best I could. He didn’t seem too upset that one of his best friends had, willingly, pulled the trigger on a fellow human being and then, with malice aforethought, given him another load in the face. But, he had been around long enough to earn the nickname Hard Case. He held few illusions regarding mankind’s capacity for violence.
After I told him all I could about Roy, he wanted more detail regarding the second body I found inside. I described Larry as a giant, mean, ugly, homosexual rapist. I also offered my opinion that he was stupid as a post. Then I told Hard Case how I had last seen him at the fishing lodge.
Hard Case swung left onto Haywood’s street.
“Think about what you saw when you looked into that room. There was the nude body of a big man on the floor. There was blood all over the place. The body was full of stab wounds and it was missing its genitals. Hold that picture in your mind.”
I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
“Now he said, let your mind walk back outside. Look at the guy you shot. He’s also naked. He’s got a knife in one hand and you said he had something else in the other. What was it?
I didn’t have to think about it. I knew what it had been, I just hadn’t elaborated on it when describing the shooting to Hard Case. Roy had been holding a wire in his left hand when he came out the door. I hadn’t noticed it when I shot him but I saw it clearly enough when I inspected the body after killing him. Although my first load had mutilated his manhood, I could still see the wire wrapped and twisted around his genitalia. Even in death, he clutched it in his left hand. At the other end of the wire hung a gory mass of hacked and bloody meat, which I assumed to be his brother’s missing parts.