“Cold,” he muttered, and wandered over to the truck, greeting the trooper as he passed.
“You get any sleep?” I said.
“Some-still feel like shit, though. You figure this mess out yet?” “No, but it prompted me to talk to Pete Chaney again.” I gave Spinney the abbreviated version.
Hamilton came back as I finished. “Makes you wonder how many other people are involved in this case.” I laughed at that, but without any humor. I was just grateful that both of them had restrained from saying, “I told you so.” My conversation with Chaney put Rennie right in the middle of this case: He wasn’t the framed local bystander anymore, even in my own mind. While there still wasn’t proof he’d killed Bruce Wingate, it wasn’t so farfetched to assume Rennie might’ve had a serious personal grudge.
My bitter ruminations were interrupted by a muffled, grinding, metallic sound from down the road.
“That must be Fish and Game.” A somewhat battered Ford 150 four-wheel drive lumbered up the road and stopped behind my car. The Fish and Game emblem-what hadn’t been scratched off by too many encounters with brush and low branches-was emblazoned on the door. A man in a dark green unIform with black epaulettes and breast-pocket flaps piped in scarlet stepped out onto the road. He was somewhere in his forties, tall, very lean and muscular, and wore a.357 Magnum on his belt. Looking at him, I felt like Elmer Fudd next to a young Burt Lancaster. He nodded %185 us, looking around briefly, seemingly cataloging the scene in his ind.
Then, still not having said a word, he walked silently and graceIly up to us and shook hands, barely murmuring his greeting. His eep-set blue eyes, contrasting with a tan face and dark brown hair, ere startlingly sharp. If I hadn’t seen him drive up, I would have ought him capable of just appearing from the woods, much like the eer that were pictured on both his shoulder patches. Hamilton made the introductions. “This is Lieutenant John ishop. He’s been with Fish and Game for over twenty years and is Probably one of the best trackers they have.” Bishop shook his head slightly, downplaying the compliment. hat’ve you got?”
Hamilton waved at Rennie’s truck. “Owner of that’s wanted for estioning in a murder. He disappeared yesterday. Wiley here,” he dded at the trooper, “found the truck about an hour ago.” Bishop nodded and walked a few steps toward the truck, his head nt, watching the ground. He stopped a few feet from it and crouched, oking underneath. “Any of you walk around here?” Wiley spoke up first. “I went to the driver’s door, then around to e other side, just to see if anyone was maybe in the ditch. But that as it.” “You walk around the front or the back?”
“Front.” “Anyone else?” “I did about the same thing,” Spinney admitted.
“I also looked side, using the driver’s door.” Bishop placed his hand on the truck’s hood and then stepped ay, coming back toward us. “Well, it was parked here last night.” e looked at both Wiley and Spinney. “Could I see the bottoms of your oes?” Both men turned and lifted their feet up for Bishop to see. He dded after a few seconds of study. “Thanks, I just want to rule them t-don’t want to mix them up with other prints.”
He walked out to the middle of the road and crouched again, arming the surface with those careful eyes. He got up, moved a bit, ouched. He did that several more times before nodding to himself. e nodding was something I learned he did a lot, the gesture of a man ho spends much time alone in serious conversation with himself. He crossed over to his truck and retrieved a camera, a large knife at he attached to his belt, and a tape recorder, into which he muttered veral notes. He glanced over at us, clustered together, looking back him. “Saves on time and paper. I type it up at the office.” %186 He pointed to the road. “You had two vehicles here last night. On’ of them parked over there, and then turned around later and left in n< big hurry.” He returned to Rennie’s truck, this time from the rear, and go down on one knee near the exhaust pipe. He muttered something to himself I didn’t catch and strode quickly to the driver’s door again, thi’ time opening it and looking in. He slammed the door and faced us.
“Well, that explains why the branches and leaves were taken off the front-the engine was running and whoever did it didn’t want too much heat to build up and cause afire.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Why run the truck half-coverec with leaves and junk?” “The lights are on, or they were until the gas ran out and the battery died, and they’re aimed right to where the tracks lead off int< the woods. I guess he was lighting the way, or maybe just showin~< which way to go. That’s not a good sign, by the way.” Hamilton said it. “Why not?” Spinney answered.
“‘Cause it means he meant to come back and turn off the engine and never did.” I’d understood instantly, too, and it opened a void deep within me Over the last several days, I’d had to relinquish much of what I’d helc dear of my memories of Rennie and of Gannet. What had been plannec as a spiritual homecoming was fast becoming a wake.
Bishop gave a small smile and ducked his head slightly. “Righ you are.”
He followed the erstwhile path of the headlights to the edge of the woods, where the road petered out. “More bad news. Three sets 0 prints head off here; only two come back, both leading to where the other vehicle was parked.” We walked toward him as a group, but he stopped us.
“Tell y01 what.
I’d like your company-all except Wiley-but I’d like you t( follow my tracks and not these.” He pointed at the ground where, to be honest, I hadn’t seen much from the start. “Wiley, I’d like y01 to stay here to watch the truck and to act as liaison between us and you] car radio.
That okay, Lieutenant?” Hamilton nodded. I noticed Wiley seemed relieved as he trampec back to his unit-and its heater. Hamilton, Spinney, and I tuckec ourselves into Bishop’s wake as he led the way into the woods.
Now in his element, and in obvious control, Bishop became a’ talkative as he’d been quiet earlier. Bending over at the waist, frez quently dropping to one knee, switching suddenly from one bearing to %187 there and back again, he chatted freely about what he was seeing, his rarely leaving the ground. I was tempted to think of him as a ting dog on the scent, but somehow the image didn’t stick. The gun, quiet, unemotional voice, and the sheer Iitheness of his movements him a more lethal air.
There was an element of limitless determinato him-a rare thing in a human being, and a potentially dangerous “The owner of the truck went first-alone. The other two followed r, and not too well at that; not too used to walking in the woods. ok at this-you can see where one of them tripped. And over there, other one did it; looks like a woman or a small, light man, maybe enager. The lights must have been left on for them, although they uldn’t have been much good for more than a few feet.