Joe sat back and said, “Hmmmm.”
But there was obviously a reason why Wolfgang Templeton had chosen to relocate in the most remote and economically depressed part of Wyoming — and it certainly wasn’t because the cattle business was booming. If Templeton had a long-term reason for choosing Medicine Wheel County — and he might — Joe couldn’t figure out what it was.
Unless, of course, Templeton simply wanted to be left alone. There was nothing wrong with that, and Wyomingites tended to give new people the space they desired and not stick their noses where they didn’t belong. Joe felt a little uncomfortable doing exactly that on behalf of the governor.
Unless, of course, Templeton was a killer.
Coon’s case file didn’t reveal much more about the victims than Joe had been told.
Jonah Lamprecht had disappeared in Saint Louis in 2004.
Brandon Fonnesbeck had vanished off the coast of Long Island in 2008.
Henry P. Scoggins III had been abducted — or walked away — from his fishing lodge in Montana the month before.
Several threads connected them, but tenuously. All the victims were extremely wealthy and well connected, and ran with a certain elite international crowd. No traceable ransom demands were ever received by their families or loved ones. Most important, none of their bodies had ever been found. The only dubious connection was that the name Wolfgang Templeton had been brought up peripherally in each case.
Joe shook his head. It was weak, very weak. So weak that he would never take the circumstantial evidence in the file to his own county prosecutor, Dulcie Schalk. Dulcie would hand the file back and tell him she needed more. There were years between the incidents — as long as five between Fonnesbeck and Scoggins, which certainly didn’t lend weight to the idea of a busy hit man’s schedule.
But the FBI, with everything they had on their plates these days, had invested time and interest to build the file. They must have reasons beyond what Joe could see, he thought. It was possible Coon didn’t even know what the reasons were.
Joe wondered if there were additional disappearances of similar people that weren’t included in the case file — maybe even scores of missing persons where the name Wolfgang Templeton simply hadn’t come up. If the FBI’s suspicions were correct, there likely were, he thought. And if the whole thing was a wasteful fishing expedition…
But there was the DCI agent, whose name had been redacted from the incident report. The man had been sent to Medicine Wheel County to find out what he could about Templeton, and within a few days there had been a fire in his room that killed him.
And there was that photo of the man who could possibly be Nate.
There was a small sign vandalized by bullet holes that read ENTERING MEDICINE WHEEL COUNTY as Joe crossed the Cheyenne River. Within twenty minutes, the landscape changed once again. The flats began to fold into gently sloping hills and then fold again, as if they were a floor rug being jammed into a corner. The folds led into heavily wooded small mountains. The thick spruce that covered the hills was dark under the leaden sky — thus the name Black Hills — and sharp ravines knifed through the surface and chalky bluffs jutted out from the timber like thrust jaws.
It was beautiful and complex country, Joe thought, mountainous, but not severe and dangerous like his Bighorns. The terrain was oddly inviting and accessible, with wide meadows bordered by hillocks. The road itself changed from a straightaway into a winding pink road that hugged the contours of the foothills and sometimes plunged over blind rises.
He glimpsed some structures in the timber as he drove, mainly older houses tucked behind the first wall of trees. They were well situated but looked ramshackle and abandoned. The only homes he saw that were occupied were marked with collections of old vehicles and newer four-wheel-drive pickups scattered around their lots. Wood smoke curled from blackened chimneys and dispersed in the upper branches of the spruce trees before filtering into the close sky.
He didn’t slow to read the old markers on the side of the highway as he drove — he could do that later — but he was left with the impression of a place that had once been vibrant and filled with energy and ambition but now held only testimonials to failed enterprise. He did slow down, though, to let a clumsy flock of wild turkeys cross the road. They waddled like fat, drunk chickens.
Medicine Wheel district game warden Jim Latta said he’d meet him two miles south of Wedell, one of three small communities that still existed in Medicine Wheel County, the others being Medicine Wheel itself and Sundance on the far western border.
Latta’s green Game and Fish pickup was parked just off the highway on an old two-track trail at the bottom of a wooded grade. As Joe slowed to join him, Latta waved for him to follow.
The road was narrow and muddy, and twisted through the timber. At times, Joe couldn’t see Latta’s truck because the trees were so dense, but he knew the game warden was ahead of him because there were no other exit roads. Finally, after grinding up a sharp rise, he found Latta’s truck parked in a grassy opening and Latta himself climbing out and pulling on a green wool Filson vest identical to the one Joe wore.
Joe parked next to Latta’s truck and let Daisy out to romp and relieve herself.
Latta approached with his right hand extended and a sly smile on his face, and as Joe shook his dry and meaty hand Latta said, “Long time, Mr. Pickett.”
“It has been. When was it, the Wyoming Game Wardens Association dinner a few years back?”
“Seven years, I think,” Latta said. “That’s the last time I went.”
“Seven years,” Joe echoed.
“Time flies,” Latta said. “So, you brought me some birds.”
“Yup,” Joe said, clamping on his hat. “Let’s pull that canvas off so you can see ’em.”
Jim Latta was a few inches shorter than Joe, thick through the shoulders and chest, with a large round head, cherubic cheeks, and a gunfighter’s sweeping handlebar mustache. His eyes didn’t give much away as he spoke — he had the cop’s deadeye down to perfection — and his voice was surprisingly high for his bulldog features. His badge said he was warden number six, and he had ten years seniority on Joe. Although he’d no doubt moved from district to district around the state as Joe had in his early years, Latta had been in the Medicine Wheel District since Joe had been hired. Latta was a fixture in the northeast corner of the state, and rarely ventured out.
Joe climbed up in the back of his pickup after lowering the tailgate. The metal beaded moisture from a light combination of rain and snow, and the surface of the bed was slick under his boots.
While Joe unhooked the nylon straps, Latta said, “It pains me to say this, but we could save a whole lot of energy by just delivering these birds to about six local yahoos up there in Wedell. Those bastards will have ’em poached out of here by the end of the month.”
Joe shook his head to commiserate.
“In fact,” Latta said softly, “I think I see one of those reprobates now.”
Joe paused.
“Don’t look up there real obvious, but I think I see a four-wheeler up there to the southeast on that hill behind you. I’d guess he’s scouting so he knows where we release these damned birds.”
So he wouldn’t turn and obviously look at the potential poacher, Joe sidled to the side of the crate and used the mirror on the passenger side to see. He had to duck a bit before he got a bead on the man Latta had spotted.
Midway up the timbered hill behind and to the side of them, Joe glimpsed a man who appeared to be holding his head. No, he thought, the man was using binoculars.