Robey nodded. "Go on."
"Which must have frustrated the hell out of the killer, to spend all that time and energy making statements nobody gets. With Frank Urman, he doesn't want to leave any doubt at all what he's doing, what he's trying to say. He not only shoots the poor guy, he guts him and hangs him from a tree like a deer or an elk."
"So you're saying we've got a socially conscious serial killer on our hands," Robey whispered, looking over his shoulder to make sure none of the people wandering through the airport were directly behind him. "A guy who is so anti-hunting he's killing hunters and treating their bodies the way a hunter treats big game."
"Maybe," Joe said.
"Which is why Klamath Moore is coming to Wyoming. Not just to protest hunting in general, but to support whoever is doing this."
"Look around you," Joe said. "Who do you suppose these people are here to greet?"
The blood drained from Robey's face. "Oh no," he said weakly. "HAVE YOU ever fantasized about being hunted?" Joe asked Robey as the two of them stood outside so Robey could smoke a cigar. The United Express flight was minutes from landing, according to the last announcement. Joe could hear the faint buzzing of an airplane in the big cloudless sky, but he couldn't yet see it.
"Say again?" Robey had taken up cigar smoking after going on a fly-fishing excursion to Patagonia, a fiftieth-birthday gift from his wife. Apparently, all the well-heeled fishermen down there ended the day with a cigar and Robey had followed suit. Now, he smoked not only after a day of fishing but whenever he was nervous.
"I think every hunter thinks about it," Joe said. "I have. I don't think there's any way you can be out in the field with a gun or a bow and not at some point let your mind wander and fantasize about somebody hunting you the way you're hunting the animal. I think it's natural, just not something anyone really talks about."
Robey took a short draw, then removed the cigar from his mouth and studied it.
"And I don't think the fantasy is restricted to hunters," Joe said. "I think every fisherman, hiker, camper, and bird-watcher has it at some time or other. Don't tell me you've never had it."
"Okay, I've had it," Robey said reluctantly. "I remember getting that feeling recently in Patagonia. Sort of a chill that went all the way through me for no good reason. I looked all around and couldn't see anyone except a couple of fishermen who'd become my friends. But I couldn't shake it for hours."
Joe said, "Maybe it's come to pass."
Robey made a sour expression. "Pope and the governor may really have something to worry about after all. If what we're talking about turns out to be true, it'll destroy the hunting and fishing economy in Wyoming and maybe all up and down the Rockies. Hunters will just stay home."
Joe nodded. "To be honest with you, Robey, it's not the hunters who stay home I'm worried about. It's the hunters who don't."
Robey looked up.
"I'm worried about the guys who want to take this killer on. And believe me, there will be some."
"I never thought of that."
"You've never driven up to a hunting camp and looked into the eyes of some of these men," Joe said. "They live for it, and they'll die for it too. And don't assume we're talking about roughnecks and outlaws. There is a certain percentage of men in the world who would feel neutered if they couldn't hunt. The way they see it, it's all they have these days to prove to themselves they're still men. It's a one- or two-week validation of who they really are, or who they think they are. They'll look on this situation as a personal challenge."
Robey shook his head. "Joe, we don't even have proof that the killings are related yet."
"We will," Joe said.
"How?"
"Let's start by finding out if the three of them were killed with the same weapon. I'll ask the head necropsy guy at the game and fish lab in Laramie to take a look at all three autopsies."
"The game and fish guy? Why not state forensics?"
"Our guys are better," Joe said. "We have a lot more game violations than the state has murders."
"Oh."
"Another thing-the poker chip we found by Frank Urman."
"What about it?"
"I didn't read anything about poker chips in the files on Tucker or Garrett. But those cases were investigated as accidents at the time, not murders. There are no listings of items found around the victims, the contents of pockets, or personal possessions gathered up or impounded. The possessions and clothing of the victims could have been returned to the families or they might be in a box at the county sheriff's or coroner's because no one's dealt with them yet."
Robey made a note. "I can ask my staff to follow up on the poker chips, or lack thereof," he said, his cigar bobbing as he talked.
"The more we know about the Garrett and Tucker killings, the more we can help out Lothar the Master Tracker," Joe said. "Those crime scenes are cold as ice, and he won't have any interest in them. So we should try and learn as much as we can."
Robey chuckled as he repeated, "Lothar the Master Tracker…" WHEN AN aircraft emerged from the sky, the restless crowd in the airport murmured and began to knot together near the cordoned-off passenger ramp, and the dozen TSA employees grouped near the metal detector eyed them and raised their walkie-talkies to their mouths in alarm.
Pope approached Joe and Robey. He closed his phone for the first time that morning and fixed it in a phone holster on his belt.
"Finally, eh?" Pope said.
"Lothar the Master Tracker," Robey growled melodramatically. Pope glared at him. Joe looked away to hide his smile.
A collective groan came from the crowd as the spiky-haired airline agent announced that the approaching plane was a private jet, not United Express, but that United Express would be landing within five minutes.
"A private jet?" Pope asked, raising his eyebrows. "Saddlestring has private jets?"
"We have a lot of 'em," Robey said. "The Eagle Mountain Club up on the hill has lots of wealthy folks."
As he spoke, the jet touched down on the farthest runway, scattering the herd of antelope. Joe watched it brake and taxi to the far end of the tarmac to the private fixed base operator, FBO-which was larger and better appointed than the public airport-and turn with an ice skater's dramatic flair and stop.
"Who is it?" Pope asked.
"His name is Earl Alden," Joe said, observing as a black Suburban with smoked windows drove out onto the tarmac to greet the jet. A petite and attractive older woman got out of the Suburban and walked up to the unfolding airplane stairs to greet the lone passenger, a tall man with silver hair and a pencil-thin mustache.
"I've heard of him, who hasn't?" Pope said. "Who's the woman?"
Joe sighed. "Her official name is Missy Vankueren-Longbrake."
"She's a babe."
"She's my mother-in-law," Joe said.
He looked at Robey and shook his head with disgust. "Why can't people just get old and sweet anymore?" Joe said, thinking not only about Missy but about his own father, who was suffering from dementia brought on by years of alcoholism. His father was in a facility in Billings. The last time he'd gone to see his father he had to introduce himself as his son. His father had said, "Joe? Joe Schmoe? Go get me a flask, Joe Schmoe." THE UNITED EXPRESS flight landed five minutes later. Joe stood well back from the crowd, watching as the passengers descended the stairs and walked the short distance across the pavement to the airport. He heard a woman in the crowd gasp, "There he is!"
Klamath Moore wore an oversized white smock that accentuated his tanned and weathered face. His long blond hair blew around his face in the breeze, and he brushed it back and tucked it behind his ears as he gazed at the airport, knowing instinctively how important it was to make a powerful first impression, Joe thought.