Joe sat back, thinking. "So three of the five-Rick Hoening, Jim McCaleb, and Bob Olig-all worked together at Old Faithful?"
Ashby nodded. "In the area, anyway. But it's a big complex with hundreds of employees, nearly a thousand in the summer. It wasn't like they did the same job."
"But I assume they lived in employee housing together?"
"Correct."
"And it's been searched?"
"Torn apart," Layborn said. "We found some meth, some dope, like I said. A bunch of books about environmental sabotage,monkey-wrenching, that sort of crap. And e-mails from their fellow loons around the world. But nothing about Clay McCann, or anything we could use."
"Can I look at them?" Joe wondered how many of the e-mails were to and from Yellowdick, and what they were about.
When he asked the question, he saw Layborn, Portenson, and Ashby all smile paternalistically. Portenson leaned forward on the table. "You can quit the charade, Joe."
Joe didn't respond but he knew his face was flushing because it was suddenly hot. The thunderhead of doubt rolled across the sky, blacking it out.
"We know about the e-mail to your governor," Portenson said. "It was sent by Hoening. He was Yellowdick. He sent messages to the governors of Montana and Idaho too." He paused, letting that sink in before continuing. "And the president,and the secretary of the interior, and the head of the EPA. None of them make any sense. All of the e-mails have referencesto resources and cash flow. The best we can determine is the guy objected to some aspects of management up here and liked to be a scaremonger. The Park Service is an easy target, you know. Everyone's a critic. Hoening liked to stir things up, is all."
Joe was embarrassed. They had known all along why the governor sent him and had been waiting for him to come clean. His duplicity shamed him.
"We know all about his e-mail traffic; we know everything there is to know about the victims," Portenson said. "We didn't just fall off the fucking turnip truck. But what we can't figure out is if there is anything more to this case than what is staring us right in the face: that Clay McCann walked into Yellowstone Park and shot four people in cold blood and got off. That's bad enough, but I'm afraid that's all there is."
Joe swallowed.
Portenson said, "This is the strangest case any of us have ever been involved in because everything's transparent." The FBI agent raised his fist and ticked off his points by raising his fingers one by one: "We know what happened. We know who did it-the son of a bitch admits it. We think we know the motivation.And we know there isn't a goddamned thing any of us can do about it."
Joe said, "Unless we can prove McCann went there specificallyto kill those four people as some kind of bigger scheme, then we can get him on conspiracy to commit murder."
Portenson sighed. "You think we haven't tried?"
"You're welcome to follow up with me and my staff with any questions you might have," Ashby said, taking back control of the meeting as Joe gave it up. "But we resent the idea that your governor thinks we're a bunch of incompetents up here and he needs to send a game warden to figure things out. We resentthe hell out of it."
Joe's ears burned, and he needed a drink of water because his mouth was suddenly dry.
Ashby said, "Everything that could be investigated has been investigated. We're sick to death of reporters, and questions, and second-guesses. We didn't write the law that created this loophole and there's nothing we can do about it now. The chief ranger wants this whole episode to go away."
"Meaning," Layborn said, "do what you have to do and then get the hell out. We don't need your help and we don't need your governor to check up on us."
Ashby looked at his wristwatch again. For all intents and purposes, the meeting was now over.
"Thank you," Joe said, and his voice sounded hollow even to him.
Layborn was up and out of the room before Joe could gather his papers and put them back into his file. Demming gave Joe a sympathetic nod and was gone.
"My daughter has a volleyball game in Gardiner," Ashby said. "It started at five." He held out his hand and Joe shook it.
"I've got daughters too," Joe said. "I know how that goes."
Ashby stood aside so Joe and Portenson could leave, then locked the room after them.
Joe and Portenson went down the stairs. The receptionist, who had to stay five minutes beyond quitting time because of the meeting, glared at Joe as he passed her desk.
The evening was cool and still. Joe didn't realize Portenson was following him until he reached the Yukon.
"You ought to just go home, Joe," Portenson said. "Save yourself the aggravation. This case has beaten me to death."
Joe turned around and leaned against his vehicle. "You reallythink we know all there is to know?"
Portenson shook his head. "Sometimes, it's all there right in front of you. We all want to find something else, figure it out, be heroes. But in this case, there's nothing to figure. It is what it is."
Joe wasn't sure he agreed. "So where's Bob Olig?"
"Who the fuck knows? Or cares? He probably just felt guilty because his friends died and he didn't so he went to Belize or someplace like that."
"Shouldn't the FBI be able to find him?"
Portenson snorted. "Man, haven't you been reading the paper?"
Joe didn't want to go there. "The other thing I can't wrap my mind around is this Clay McCann. The story just doesn't ring true. He just happened to go on a hike armed like that? Come on."
"The story's so bizarre that it might just be true. And even if the guy knew about the Zone of Death, so what? He committed the perfect crime."
Joe mulled that over.
"Those guys up there," Portenson said, nodding toward the law enforcement building, "they don't know you very well, do they?"
"I don't know what you mean."
The FBI agent grinned wolfishly. "They don't know you've got a knack for getting yourself in the middle of trouble. I wouldn't really call it a talent, exactly; it's more like a curse, like I'm cursed to never get out of this fucking state." He laughed. "It might be just their bad luck that you'll bumble onto something we missed. Poor fucking them."
Joe shook his head and thought Portenson had more confidencein him than he had in himself, especially after having his head handed to him in the conference room.
"Are you going to be needing any help up here?"
Joe misunderstood. "Are you offering?"
"Fuck no. I'm through with this case. What I was wondering about was whether you might ask your old buddy Nate Romanowskito show up with his big gun and his bad attitude."
Joe looked away, hoping his face didn't reveal anything.
Portenson read him. "So he might show, eh?"
Joe said nothing.
"I still want to talk to him, you know."
"I know."
"I may never get out of this state," Portenson said, "but it'll make my sentence more pleasant if I know Romanowski is in a federal pen."
"Don't you have real terrorists to chase?" Joe asked.
Portenson snorted and opened his arms to embrace all of Mammoth Hot Springs, all of Yellowstone, all of Wyoming, and shouted, "I fucking wish!"
With that, Portenson turned on his heel and stomped across the small parking lot to his Crown Vic with U.S. Government plates. The FBI agent roared away with a spray of gravel.
Joe sighed, looked around. Cumulus clouds became incendiaryas the setting sun lit them. The quiet was extraordinary, the only sound the burble of a truck leaving Mammoth Village and descending the switchbacks toward Gardiner.
It occurred to him that he hadn't made arrangements for where he would stay that night. His choice was to drive down the switchback roads from Mammoth out the North Gate and find a motel in Gardiner, Montana, or cross the street, the lawns where the elk grazed, to the rambling old Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.