Patrick ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking it through. His eyes dancing over her and then away again. “I can tell you what not to do,” he said. “Don’t smuggle drugs in across international borders. Don’t let anyone know you’re doing it. And…” He looked around the room in mock suspicion. “Don’t get caught.”
“I see you’ve been rehabilitated,” Ellie said.
“Totally cured.”
Drake watched Ellie to see how she was taking it. There was an undeniable level of sarcasm in Patrick’s voice and it was hard to know what to do with it.
“You feel guilty about any of it?” Ellie asked.
“I’d take it back if I could,” Patrick said. “I messed a lot up. I was the sheriff and I was arrested right here in town. I tried to run but I didn’t make it far. I got cocky. Of course I didn’t know it at the time. But sitting in Monroe for all those years I can see how it all spiraled out of control for me. I tried to sell too much at one time. People start to take notice.”
“Those people being the DEA?”
“When I started out in this I didn’t have a lot of options. No one wants to do business with a sheriff and I rushed into it. I needed the money. The DEA offered my contact down in Seattle a deal and that deal involved me. I walked right into it. I really didn’t even need the money at that point.”
“And you got out this morning?”
“Only three hours ago.”
“It must feel pretty good, like a birthday or something.”
“Yeah, a birthday I only get to celebrate every twelve years.” Drake’s father blew air through his teeth and looked around at the room. “Bobby told me about the wolf, I thought I’d come in for a second. I didn’t expect to meet anyone like you in here.”
“Is that a good thing?” Ellie asked.
“You’re the best thing I’ve seen in twelve years.”
“The state prison offering charm school now?”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Just before shop class and after basic auto maintenance. It’s real popular.”
“I bet.” Ellie looked from Patrick to Drake and then dropped her eyes to the half-eaten carcass on the table.
Drake turned and looked at his father. “You think you could give us a moment?”
“Yeah, no problem. I just came in to give the place a look.” He nodded a good-bye to Ellie and then smiled toward Drake. “Bobby, I’ll be out by the car when you finish up here.”
Drake watched his father walk back toward the front entrance. When the door drew shut, Ellie said, “You definitely didn’t mention he was such a smoothy.” A playfulness showing on her face again.
“I didn’t know you were into older men.”
“Only if they’re old enough to be my father,” Ellie said. She gave Drake a wink. “That bad-boy thing really gets me going, you think he’d wear a leather jacket if I asked?”
“You can stop anytime, Ellie.”
“Just having some fun. Just being polite. The guy has been locked up for twelve years.”
“Uh-huh, and it’s your job to cheer him up?” Drake said. He could feel the flush of blood on his cheeks. He didn’t know why he felt this way about her, or what to call it. Protective? Maybe. Ellie was like a little sister to him. She’d grown up in the town and then left for college, later applying to Fish and Wildlife. She’d been something like twelve years old when everything had gone down with Drake’s father. And just like everyone else in Silver Lake, she knew almost every detail about the case.
“He could probably use some good times,” Ellie said.
Drake shook his head, trying to get a handle on it. He thought if he opened his mouth to speak his voice would break like a teenage boy’s. He swallowed, wetting his throat, knowing it was all talk, and that Ellie was giving him a hard time like she always did. “You thought you’d just flirt with him a little?” Drake said. “Show him a good time?”
“The convict thing? It’s the one thing he’s known for, isn’t it? That and knowing every inch of these mountains.”
“That’s what happens when you spend a couple years smuggling drugs over them.” Drake laughed, but it felt forced, and he looked to the front door of the Quonset hut and wondered what his father was doing outside.
With one gloved hand, Ellie pushed the light back from the carcass and flicked off the power. “I didn’t know it was for that long.”
“Not everything was in the papers.”
“I guess not.”
“I tend to think people know things about our family before they’ve even met us. I’m surprised Gary never told you that part.”
She took the gloves from her hands and threw them into the trash can beneath the table. A dappling of sweat showed at her hairline where the examination light had caught her. “Gary barely says a thing and you won’t talk about him at all except to tell a few stories from his childhood. You’re not exactly forthcoming with all the information sometimes.” She walked over to her desk, where a topographical map of the surrounding mountains was spread. Little red marks all up and down the valley floor. “When you called this morning, you didn’t say anything about our wolf.”
Drake shrugged. “I didn’t want you getting all excited about it.”
“She’s becoming a problem.”
“Better the deer than someone’s cow.”
“That’s the problem,” Ellie said. “It’s only a matter of time before one of those ranchers starts shooting at her. She’s on her own and starting to look for the easy meal.” Ellie put a hand to the map, running a finger from one red mark to the next. “These are all the places where she’s been seen. She’s not just passing through at this point. Wolves hunt in pairs. Without a pack she’s pretty much just going to go for the easiest meal she can find. A calf, trash cans, or roadkill. All of which are related to humans.”
Drake looked at the thin corridor of sightings, north to south along the lake, following the main road.
“I want to collar her and see where she goes,” Ellie said. “When I can prove it’s an individual wolf, and I have her movements worked out, I can start to put a plan together. I want you to help me out.”
Drake looked around the room, wondering for the slightest moment if she might have been talking to someone else. “I’m a little busy being a deputy,” Drake said.
“I’m trying to save her,” Ellie said.
“That’s all fine and good but I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”
Ellie got up from the desk and untied the yellow apron from around her waist. Standing she came to Drake’s shoulders, petite with a swimmer’s broad arms and sculpted legs. Her size alone reminded Drake of how young she was, and how brand-new to Fish and Wildlife she seemed. Nothing worn away on her or piled up against the surface of her skin, like a cabin in the winter under all that snow. No scars, or pieces of her missing. Drake wanted her to stay just the way she was, twenty-four years old, doing exactly what she wanted with her life.
Drake watched as she turned and hung the apron up on a hook by the door. By the time she turned back around she was already looking at him like something funny had been said. “I already talked this over with Gary.”
“Christ,” Drake said. “You want to go on a wolf hunt? I’m people police. You understand that, right?”
“He says you probably know the valley better than anyone.”
“Christ,” Drake said again, this time hoping a prayer might be answered. “When?”
“Tomorrow or the next day. Sooner the better.”
“My father just got out.”
“Bring him.”
“No.” Drake waved off the statement, both hands in the air. “No way.”
“After all these years you’d think you’d want to spend time with your father.”
“You might think that, but I don’t.”