Читаем Back of Beyond полностью

He thought about the group, how supportive they were. How he was rewarding them for their confidentiality and support by having his partner interview them one by one to determine if any of them might be guilty of murder. Man …

“My sponsor was murdered,” he said. “That kind of triggered things.”

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“I wish I was.” Then: “Oh-did I tell you I shot the county coroner last night?”

Silence.

“He’s not dead. And he shot at me first. I’m suspended but it’s just procedure. What’s killing me is I want to go after the bad guy and take him down-”

“Cody,” she interrupted. “You shot the coroner?”

He laughed. It sounded funny coming from her. Then he had to tell her how it happened.

It took a while for her to be able to change the subject. He glanced at the sun sliding behind Mount Helena and realized this was the longest conversation they’d had in two and a half years. Then he remembered something from two nights before about her new rich fiance being gone.

“Where did you say they went? His Richness and Justin?”

“Stop calling him that. I told you all this the other night but you don’t remember. He took Justin on a week-long wilderness pack trip. They don’t even have cell service, so it’s driving me crazy. It’s Walt’s idea because he wants to get closer to Justin if he can. He feels sort of distant, and…”

Cody tuned out. The thought of His Richness and his son spending that much time together made him instantly morose. He sort of listened. Something about horses, fly-fishing, all in Wyoming. What a fortune that must cost, he thought.

“Justin called me the other night,” Cody said. “He needed to borrow something. I barely talked to him. In fact, I cut him off. I feel bad about that.”

His phone clicked-another call coming in.

“I have to go now,” he said.

“Call again,” she said, surprising him. “Just don’t make it part of your next tour.”

* * *

Larry said, “Dry hole with your fellow alcoholics. Everybody has a decent alibi. That doesn’t mean none of them are lying, but three of them were out of town and the other eight gave me names of people who’d vouch for them. Everybody heard about Winters, but since they didn’t put any of the info about that bottle we found in the paper, no one connected the dots as to why I was calling.”

“That’s only eleven,” Cody said. “Who couldn’t you find?”

“Duh. Hank Winters and Cody Hoyt.”

“Oh.”

“You need to get some sleep.”

“I don’t know whether I’m relieved or pissed,” Cody said. “Because our best angle just got shut down.”

“Yeah, it sucks. My cop radar never went off once talking with any of them. They all were helpful and they sounded sincere.”

“Maybe it was Edna,” Cody said, his voice dropping into his conspiratorial rhythm. “Maybe she was banging Hank and something went wrong.”

“Or maybe it was you,” Larry said. “Can you account for your whereabouts that night?”

This is what they did, Cody thought. Cop-talk. But maybe there was a hint of curiosity in Larry’s question. In fact, he thought, he had no alibi. He’d been out driving, driving, driving. There was no one to confirm where he’d been.

“Tying flies,” Cody said, thinking of what his son was doing.

“You’re lying. You need steady hands for that.”

“Come and get me, flatfoot,” Cody said. Actually, he did tie flies. He’d tied two hundred-caddis, hoppers, Adams, stimulators, tricos, nymphs-in the last two months when he wasn’t driving aimlessly around the county. “Did you hear anything from your IT folks?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. They were able to access part of the hard drive but not all of it. The bad news is no e-mails were found. None. So we’re screwed on that front. But remember you asked me about the history in his browser? Which Web sites he’d been on?”

Cody said yes. He was starting to feel a tingle just by the way Larry was setting it up.

“They’re faxing me printouts and I don’t have them yet, but they said most of the sites he visited were from a week before, apparently before he went on his trip to Salt Lake. News, weather, Drudge, ESPN, no porno or weird shit. But the most recent site he visited was at nine on the night he died.”

Cody waited. Finally: “Was your guy an outdoorsman?”

“Not really,” Cody said. “I remember him talking about hunting, but my impression was it was way back. He didn’t fish because I offered to tie him some flies and he didn’t want any. Why are you asking?”

“Because the last site he visited was for an outfitter.”

Cody heard Larry shuffling papers. “Okay, got it. It was for something called Jed McCarthy’s Wilderness Adventures. I don’t know what the hell they do, but I’d guess hunting trips. I’m in the cruiser right now going back to the office after dinner so I haven’t been able to look it up.”

Cody scribbled down the name. “Thanks, man. I’ll check ’em out, too.”

“Hey, did you hear Skeeter held a press conference from his bed in the hospital?”

“No.”

“Called you a ‘rogue cop.’” Larry laughed. “The spin has already begun.”

“Great.”