“You got any light in this place?” Corey asked.
“Nope. Don’t come ‘round here much.”
Montgomery discovered it first. He nudged Corey and pointed to the animal hide nailed to the far wall.
Corey strolled to it, scratching at his neck as he walked. “Where did this come from?”
“Oh, that piece of rubbish? Bought it at a flea market down at Cooke City. Long time ago. Don’t remember exactly when it was.”
Corey leaned over the workbench to inspect the head of what was once a beautiful wolf. He stroked the soft fur as if petting a newborn puppy and caressed the snout as he fingered the sharp incisors, gently pressing his forehead against the hide.
Dietz coughed. “Didn’t pay that much for it, I think it was—”
“Why did you have to shoot it?” Corey asked, almost a whisper.
Montgomery stepped toward Corey.
“I didn’t shoot nothing. Hell—”
Before Montgomery could get between them, Corey grabbed Dietz’s ragged shirt collar with both hands and rolled his fingers into tight fists. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t shoot my wolf, you Godforsaken son-of-a-bitch!”
Montgomery reached out for Corey’s arm, but too late. Corey rammed the lower back of the startled man against the jagged edge of the workbench.
Montgomery struggled to get both arms around Corey’s shoulders.
Corey snatched Dietz around the neck and squeezed until Montgomery jerked him away.
Turning scarlet and then purple, Dietz bent over and coughed. “My back!” he squealed.
“Okay, Mr. Dietz,” Montgomery said. “We’re taking in this hide and two of your rifles. Even just having a wolf hide in your possession is a crime. You should know that.”
“My back is broken!” Dietz rubbed his tailbone with the palm of one hand, groaning.
Corey picked up a hammer with a narrow claw and slammed it down on the workbench. “Tell it to the judge.” He continued to pound the hammer as if playing a drum, a funeral tempo. “On the other hand, I can explain to him how difficult it is to wrestle with a suspect who’s swinging one of these at me.”
Dietz took deep rhythmic breaths and glared back at him.
Corey continued to hammer. Dietz stood erect and stumbled for the door, shaking his head, no doubt with a newfound respect for the law.
After packing up the wolf hide and rifles, Corey and Montgomery backed out of the driveway with the evidence under a tarp in the truck bed. Nathan Dietz watched the departure, crouching on the ground by the porch and puffing on a cigarette with one hand while the other crept down the rear of his trousers massaging his lower back.
As they drove back to headquarters, Montgomery couldn’t help but notice the sassy grin his boss flashed from time to time.
“You don’t think he’ll try to file a complaint on us, do you?” Montgomery asked.
“Complaint for what?”
“I don’t know, maybe about getting a little roughed up?”
“If I had wanted to rough him up, he’d be out cold right now. But I don’t really care if he does try to complain. His word against ours. Who’s going to believe a word that crosses that bastard’s lips?”
Montgomery nodded and pretended to smile. “By the way, has the superintendent been around lately?”
“Thank God, no. McFarland neither.”
That wasn’t a good sign, Montgomery thought. Having neither the Park’s superintendent or his deputy Greta McFarland checking in with Corey was a bad omen. One or both of them should be keeping up with the progress on Operation Wolfstock. They should be finding out directly from the Chief Park Ranger’s mouth what he’s hearing from the locals, what he’s finding out on the road. With them not staying in contact on a regular basis with Corey suggested that there could be plenty going on that Corey wasn’t aware of. It was likely they were intentionally leaving Corey out of the loop. Isolating him because they had other ways of getting info, other plans. Montgomery could get trapped in the middle. He wasn’t about to put up with that along with the constant agony of keeping Corey out of trouble, a thankless task. It was all beginning to weigh on him. More and more he was wondering whether it was worth it.
“It seems our problems around the western border are growing,” Montgomery said.
Corey sighed and stared at the passing scenery. “You mean Colter?”
“Especially there. Just wondering if the superintendent’s doing anything about it.”
“Gilmer’s been on top of it from the day the body on the Madison was found.”
What? “But I thought you weren’t going to brief him.”
“He got wind of it quick enough. That same day he called the forensics lab in Ashland. They flew in that evening.”
“He called the wildlife lab in Oregon? The fed investigators?”
Corey stared back at him. “That’s what I said.”
Montgomery couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Superintendent had suspected wolves in the death of the photographer from the get-go?
“They’ve had a team snooping around for days,” Corey added. “We’re going to meet with them tomorrow. Behind closed doors at Lamar Valley.”
“Shouldn’t I be there?”
“Thought I told you about it.”
Corey had never breathed a word to him about such a meeting.
“In any case,” Corey said, “you’d better be there—just keep quiet about it.”
“What about that dead photographer?” Montgomery asked. “Have you heard anything from the autopsy?”
“Nobody’s filled me in yet.”
“What will we do when word gets out?”
Corey twisted his head around to face him. “Who said word’s going to get out?”
“For one, that new vet in town… Harmon,” Montgomery said. “I’m sure he’s asking questions.”
“Don’t worry about Dr. Harmon. He’s being dealt with.”
SEVENTEEN
Dieter picked up his pace. He’d never told Amy to keep his children out of the water, but he assumed she had enough common sense to ask him before taking them swimming anywhere. He jogged away from his parked truck along the path toward the Little Bears’ home, an elaborate hand-hewn log house that overlooked Hebgen Lake.
When Michael and Megan saw their dad, they waved with an enthusiasm that he hadn’t seen in them for a very long time. Amy stood waist high in the clear lake water. From her puzzled stare, he knew she sensed his mood.
Rusty was running into and out of the shallow water, splashing and chasing a stick Michael threw. When Megan ran toward her dad, Dieter grabbed a beach towel from the grass. He wiped the water from her back as she laughed and shook her head to spray the water from her hair into his face. Michael remained planted in the water alongside Amy.
“Come here, Michael,” Dieter called out without smiling.
Michael meandered toward him with his arms wrapped around his chest and shuddering from the breeze. Amy followed and picked up a towel to dry her long hair while ignoring Dieter.
He spoke without looking at her as he toweled off Michael. “You really should have asked me about taking them into the lake.”
She tied a knot in the towel wrapped around her waist. “May I ask why?”
“I suppose I should’ve told you that they haven’t had swimming lessons. We didn’t have any opportunity for that in our old neighborhood in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s why I was giving them lessons.”
“You want to see me go underwater, Dad?” Megan shouted, aiming for the lake and ready to run back into the water.
“No, honey. You and Michael go on up to the house and change into dry clothes.”