“We?” she said. “Got a mouse in your pocket there, lawman? But, what the hell, if it’s proof you want, reach under your seat.”
Surprised, I felt around under the front of my seat and discovered a small, cold, heavy cylinder among the empty beer cans. I pulled it out. It was a law-enforcement-model pepper-spray canister. There was a decal on it saying that it was property of the U.S. Park Service and, if found, should be returned to the nearest ranger station immediately.
“This hers?” I asked.
“Ain’t no one knows, lawman. But the fat boy you saw doin’ the Alpo marathon? He had that thing in his truck. Y’all can make of that what you will. Convinced me. Good enough for them dogs, too.”
“Nobody from Robbins County has done anything like this to a park ranger before,” I said. “The cops are speculating she witnessed something, maybe even tried to interfere.”
Rowena shrugged and then readjusted her blouse before she fell out of it. “Where you stayin’ at?”
I told her, and she drove through the town going at least twenty miles over the speed limit. At this hour there was almost no traffic, but I did see a sheriff’s cruiser parked on a side street. They had to have heard that engine, but didn’t seem to be interested. When we pulled into the parking lot at the lodge, however, there were two police cars and a Park Service Jeep out in the middle of the lower lot. Rowena drove right into the middle of the cluster, put the truck in park, and leaned an elbow out her window.
“Well, here you are, lawman,” she announced, as several cops began to get out of their vehicles. Mary Ellen Goode climbed out of the Jeep, and my two shepherds came bounding out behind her.
“Well, thanks again for the ride,” I said. “I guess I probably won’t be seeing you again.”
She pushed both hands through her luxuriant hair, which did interesting things to her superstructure. “Not in Robbins County,” she said with a seductive smile. “But now that I know where you’re stayin’, who knows?”
Mary Ellen was close enough to the truck to hear that last bit, and I saw a pained expression cross her anxious face. I got out of the truck and closed the door. Rowena waved at me, smiled at all the staring cops, and thundered out of the parking lot. The two shepherds were all over me, but over their fuzzy shoulders I could see that the cops wanted some answers.
“Where did you get that?” Mary Ellen asked, pointing at the pepper-spray canister in my hand.
“It’s a long story. Let’s all go to my cabin.”
Once in the cabin, the senior Carrigan County sheriff’s deputy told me that a guest on the second floor had seen a pickup truck leave the parking lot with what looked like a body in the bed. He’d called 911, and the responding deputies found my two German shepherds racing around the parking lot looking for me and displaying just a bit of aggression, meaning no one in the lodge could get to a vehicle. It also kept all the cops in their patrol cars until their sergeant, who’d shown me into Sheriff Hayes’s office the other day, had called Mary Ellen Goode, a known associate of the possibly missing ex-lieutenant Richter, to corral the agitated shepherds. A ninety-minute search through the surrounding area had produced nothing but the facts that I appeared to be missing, my cabin was unlocked, and my car keys and wallet were in the kitchen. They also had a second witness statement about a woman seen leaving my cabin earlier in the evening. Mary Ellen had called her supervisor at Thirty Mile station, the redoubtable Ranger Bob, who’d brought along the senior law enforcement ranger from the station.
I got everyone situated out on the creekside porch and held an impromptu debrief, leaving out only my visitation from the lady SBI agent. Then Sheriff Hayes himself arrived, and we had to go through it all again, while the other cops verified and added to their notes. When I had finished, the sheriff gave me a long look and then commented on my continuing propensity to instigate trouble.
“You are a regular shit magnet, Lieutenant,” he said.
I grinned. “Guilty,” I said. “But you have to admit, you know more about what happened to that girl than when I first came here.”
“And now that we do, will you be leaving soon?” the sheriff asked, sounding hopeful.
“That depends,” Mary Ellen said, provoking an annoyed look from Ranger Bob, who’d been about to speak.
“On…?” prompted the sheriff.
“Mrs. Howard called me earlier this evening,” she said. “After she heard about our finding that body, she sat down with Janey and had a heart-to-heart. She said Janey was ready to tell me what happened, although she did not want to talk to the police. So I went back to Murphy. I took along a tape recorder.”
She fished the recorder out of her bag and set it on the table. We all listened to Janey Howard tell her tale of witnessing the execution and being taken down, assaulted, and then driven away out into the woods dressed in only a blanket.
“So now we know what the word ‘hangman’ was all about,” Mary Ellen said.
“And that there were two men involved in it, not just the fat boy I saw getting eaten by a dog pack,” I said. “Grinny Creigh did not tell the entire truth.”
The sheriff just stared at me, until I remembered that I hadn’t told him about the dog-pack incident. I did now.
“Ain’t that something, now,” the sheriff mused, shaking his head. He turned to Mary Ellen. “We can’t use that tape as evidence, you understand. If there’s gonna be a prosecution, she’s gonna have to make a statement, ID a bad guy, and testify in court.”
“I understand,” Mary Ellen said. “I just thought you would appreciate finally hearing from the victim. At least you know where to look.”
“Yeah,” the sheriff said unhappily. “That’s not necessarily progress. Means I now have to call M. C. Mingo.” He turned to me. “You want to press charges?”
“I’ll think about it-it was more of a summons before the throne than a kidnapping. Will you need a formal statement as to what I witnessed out there on the road with those dogs?”
“Can you describe the victim?”
“Ragout?” I said, prompting suppressed grins among the other cops.
“Let’s see what M. C. has to say tomorrow morning,” the sheriff said. “In the meantime, give some thought to going back to Manceford County. Actually, give it a lot of thought; I can’t stand all this goddamned excitement.”
I promised I would, and the meeting broke up. Mary Ellen stayed behind, after having exchanged what I sensed to be a few tense words with Ranger Bob as he left the cabin.
“Your boss seems unhappy tonight,” I said.
“Let’s say he isn’t thrilled with developments,” she said. “I have been suitably cautioned about bringing outsiders into Park Service business.”
I thought about a scotch and then decided to make some coffee instead. Mary Ellen and I went back out to the porch.
“Given all the hostile vibes up here, maybe the sheriff is right,” I said. “I should back out and let you folks get on with your interesting lives.”
She gave me a wan look and nodded. “I really appreciate your coming,” she said. “I’m just sorry…”
“That it turned up yet another dead body and more violence?”
“That wasn’t your fault,” she said with a sigh. “But…”
“Yeah, but. It does seem to happen a lot. Like every time you and I get together. Maybe the sheriff was also right about my being a shit magnet. I wish things were different.”
“This is such a beautiful place,” she said, looking out at the creek rushing through the night below our feet. “The Smokies. The park. This whole end of the state. It’s sad to think there are people who come out here to hurt other people, make narcotics, hunt people down with packs of dogs. That’s the stuff that happens in big cities, not out here in God’s country.”