They sat and drank their beers and made small talk. After a while Drake brought up the wolf.
“Where was it?”
Drake told him. He described the avalanche chute and the ridge above. He described the small descent into the valley through the trees and the clearing farther on. “We’re going to go back tomorrow. There was a boot print up there.”
Gary sipped from his beer. “So someone did your job for you?”
“Someone who didn’t have the authority to shoot her.” Drake leaned back from the bar and looked over at Gary. “What size shoe do you wear?”
Gary shook his head. “You’re serious?” He was smiling and he lifted his beer and then, reconsidering, put it back down again. “You know I work for the people—no matter what the law says. That includes you, too, Bobby.”
“That’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s all there is. Besides, it doesn’t matter, does it? You went up to kill the wolf and the wolf is dead. What else matters?”
Drake thought it over. He didn’t know if it mattered or not. He was starting to have a hard time telling the difference.
“Sheri’s usually off around this time, isn’t she?”
Drake nodded. He glanced over his shoulder toward the dining room. “Usually,” he said. “Seems like maybe there’s just a couple more tables.”
“You come and pick her up every day?”
“I try. There’s just one car now so I usually drop her off and then come get her at the end of the day.”
“But today you were up in the mountains?”
“Yes, so Sheri dropped me at Fish and Wildlife and then came to work. We’ll probably do the same tomorrow.”
“You know, it’s nice you’re helping out,” Gary said. “You’re always welcome to come back, you know?”
He didn’t have anything to say to Gary. He’d made his decision. He knew he couldn’t go back on it and in a couple minutes Sheri came over from the restaurant and approached Drake and Gary where they sat at the bar.
“You ready?” she asked.
Drake said he was and got up from the bar. He was collecting his wallet and cell phone from the bar when Gary said, “You know they caught Bean earlier today.”
Sheri—who was half turned toward the exit—stopped and looked back at Gary. “You sure?”
“I wanted to wait till both of you were here. He wasn’t caught, really. He was shot as he tried to steal an RV from a man over in Chelan County.”
Drake stood watching Gary where he sat. “Dead?”
“Doesn’t get much deader.”
“How?” Sheri asked. “I mean, who shot him?”
“A ten-year-old boy—the grandson of the poor son of a bitch who was driving the thing. The sheriff called me forty minutes ago and gave me the info. The driver pulled over to help Bean out. Bean was carrying a gas can or something and the driver stopped to offer him a ride. Bean shot him right there and dragged the body off the RV and hid it off the side of the road.”
“And the boy?” Drake asked.
“Hidden in the bench seat of the dining area,” Gary said. “The sheriff said the grandfather was just taking the boy out for a little drive. They didn’t live more than twenty miles away.”
“That’s horrible,” Sheri said.
“Bean left a gun behind sitting on the seat when he dragged the driver from his RV. I guess he figured he was alone.”
“I can’t believe it,” Drake said.
“Looks like you can stop building a compound out of your place.”
Drake shook his head in disbelief. “Ten years old…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Gary said. “I just thought it would be better if you two were together.”
“It’s fine,” Drake said. He looked to his wife and saw her eyes had gone watery. “It’s okay,” he said, trying to comfort her. He thanked Gary and after a little while he led Sheri out through the bar.
At the door, just before they left, Gary called after him. “I’m a size ten if you’re still wondering.”
Drake nodded. He put a hand to the door and propped it open for Sheri, the night air out there like a cool balm on the skin.
AT HOME THEY made dinner together and for a long time neither said a thing. At ten they watched the evening news and the story came on first thing. The cameras showed an empty road and the RV, a big thing that looked like a tour bus, wrapped with yellow police tape. Several of the Chelan County deputies working in the background to guide what little traffic there was.
An interview with the sheriff followed and then one of the two marshals made a statement for the camera. The news moved on to an Easter egg hunt somewhere in North Seattle that weekend, followed soon after by the weather and the local sports. Drake watched it all in silence as he sat on the couch.
For some reason little of it surprised him and he got up and went back into Patrick’s room. Without bothering to turn on a light, he sat at the desk in front of the computer. Sheri hadn’t come into the room much since breaking down the crib and removing the changing table. Now there was only the bed that Drake still hadn’t gotten around to.
He swiveled on the chair and looked over the mattress and frame. His father had made the bed and it looked untouched. On the desk where Drake sat there was a paper from a week and a half ago. Someone had brought it by—either Luke or Andy—and Drake had taken the time to scan the article, looking to see what was said and what wasn’t.
The story was a full page of text, cut up throughout the front section of the paper. It detailed the three days Patrick had gone missing and ended with Patrick’s escape from the Bellingham Police Department. They’d contacted Drake but he’d offered no comment, hanging up before the reporter was able to ask a second question.
Now Drake stood and walked to the bed and knelt, feeling around underneath for the box of Patrick’s things. He slid it out and brought up the folder and then crossed the room to the desk again.
For about five minutes he stood leafing through the articles, the light from the hallway the only thing to assist him in his study.
It was when he started to rip the article from the newspaper that Sheri came to the door. He looked over at her but didn’t say anything, simply continuing on with the article. When he was done he collected the pieces and folded them to fit in the manila folder with the rest of the newspaper articles, and then he placed the latest and, he hoped, the last within.
Only when he put the folder away and the box back under the bed did Sheri ask if he was saving it for Patrick.
“I’m not sure anymore,” Drake said. He stood half in the light and half in the dark and for a long time he stayed that way.
THE BOOT PRINTS were still there in the morning. Ellie waited for him as he looked them over for the second time in two days. The edges around the imprints had crumbled away a little more but the shape and size of the boot was still easy to recognize.
“There’s nothing off this way except for forestry land and a few hundred acres of clear cut,” Ellie said. She was looking at a topographical map and lining up a compass. The boot tracks were visible every few feet, sometimes in the mud but mostly as a scrape in the forest floor—a patch of dead pine needles displaced or the scuff of a boot toe against a rotten log. It was hard going and at times they backtracked, looking for a sign before going on again. The trail leading them on, farther and farther into the woods, where even Drake felt he had never been.
They traveled light, each with a day pack loaded with supplies. In Drake’s bag he carried a flashlight, a thermal blanket, some matches, a compass, binoculars, a radio Ellie had given him, and the spare ammunition to the .270 strapped over his shoulder. Ellie had the same except for the service weapon she wore in a holster over her right hip.