God, he needed a beer.
Coments later, as Joe was about to head to the kitchen, Nate called.
Joe said, “You’re just the man I want to talk to.” He heard Nate chuckle.
“I just heard some interesting news,” Joe said. “They found the missing grizzly. It never got here.”
“That is interesting,” Nate said slyly. “But we both know there was a bear.” “Yes,” Nate said. “I guess we do.”
“And I remember there was something you were starting to tell me just before we went out to the campground. We never finished that conversation.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Maybe we should finish it now,” Joe said.
Nate was prone to long silences, and he lapsed into one now. Joe waited him out.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Nate said, “if I knew there was a grizzly still around here and told you about it, you would be duty-bound to report the discovery, correct?”
“Correct,” Joe said. “Grizzlies are on the endangered species list and they fall under the authority of the department.”
“That’s what I thought.” Another long silence. “Nate?”
“I’ve learned so much. Not all of it is comfortable. But in the end, it gives me hope.”
“Why is that?”
“There are bigger things than us out there, on other levels. Luckily, they take care of their own.”
“Nate . . .”
“All I can say right now is you need to trust me on this, Joe. It’s fascinating, this experience. You’ll be the first to know what happens, I promise.”
Joe sat back, thinking, recalling things Nate had said.
In my dream, the bear was sent for a reason. He has a mission. That bear may be more than a bear.That bear is here for a reason.
We happen to be in the right place at the right time where conflicts on different levels are overlapping.
You should open your mind a little.
Using FBI resources, Agent Portenson tracked the path of Eric Logue from his years in the army to his escape in North Carolina to the Riverside RV Park.
Associates in the army confirmed Eric’s downward spiral from exceptionally talented surgeon into madness. He was wealthy as well, having in-vested in technology stocks early and selling just before the bubble burst. Eric first showed signs of paranoia and obsession with paranormal phenomena while in the Philippines. He had been suspected of drug use, along with Nurse Bob. When his patients began emerging from surgery with wounds and grafts not related to the procedure, he was put under a full-time watch. After a suspected Filipino enemy combatant with a minor leg injury died from massive blood loss after being operated on by Dr. Logue, an inquiry was launched that resulted in his court-martial.
While in custody, guards reported that Eric claimed he was in contact with aliens and had regular nighttime visitations with them. Eric said he had been instructed by his contacts to collect samples for them. The guards suspected that Eric’s delusions were an attempt to get the charges dismissed due to mental incapacity. Then, while being transferred to another facility, Eric escaped.
He had purchased his name in New Orleans, from a man who specialized in new identities. The pickup and trailer came from a dealer in Birmingham. There was no Iconoclast Society, no wealthy benefactor who financed the research. There was only Eric, so filled with messianic self-confidence that he was practically above suspicion.
Deena had been interviewed by Hersig while she recovered in the Twelve Sleep County hospital. Afterward, he’d called Joe and recounted the conversation.
Deena had met “Cleve” in Helena, and she knew nothing of his past and she really didn’t care to hear about it. He had never mentioned having a brother. What she knew was that he had been sent to her at the exact time she needed him most. He knew things that she hoped to learn, and was in contact with other beings on an intimate basis. He was their human conduit. At least that’s what he told her, and she saw no reason not to believe him.
If it really was Cleve who did the mutilations, she said, he was simply following orders.
Yes, she had agreed to let him experiment on her. She saw it as no different than getting tattooed or pierced. She was a little pissed off at him, though, when he cut off the top of her ABDUCTEE tattoo.
And yes, she knew Cleve disposed of her skin at the fish-cleaning station. He had told her that.
She had slept through most of the trouble in the trailer the day of the shoot-out, she said. Cleve had given her some medication for her pain, and it knocked her out. The noises from the front of the trailer were awful, in an otherworldly way, but she had thought at the time that she was dreaming.
Despite everything, she said, she still loved Cleve Garrett. And more important, she still believed in him.
Hersig’s voice was shaky as he told Joe the story. When he was through, he said, “I think I need to go take a shower.”
Sheriff Barnum claimed not to have any idea what Cam had been up to in regard to the CBM rights on the ranch, although he admitted be-ing interested in buying his retirement home there. Joe believed him, but also knew that Barnum had sat by quietly during the course of the investigation, as land values plummeted. He had not revealed his real estate interest to the rest of the task force, and he secretly benefited from the perception that the valley was “spooked.” This led Joe and Hersig to speculate that Barnum may have had perverse motivation not to solve the crimes quickly, but they had no solid evidence of that.
Nevertheless, word got out within the community about the land deal that never was, and Barnum’s interest in it. There was even talk among the coffee drinkers at the Burg-O-Pardner about launching a recall petition on Sheriff Barnum. As far as Joe knew, the action wasn’t followed through. But there was no doubt that Barnum’s reputation had taken a beating, and that he would stand little chance in the next election. Not that it mattered much, Barnum declared in the Roundup, because he had planned to retire anyway. It had been a good twenty-six years, he said.
For the twentieth time since the shoot-out, Joe sat lost in thought in his office. All but one big-game hunting season had ended, and winter was on the way. Paperwork was piled up in his in-box, and he’d missed three straight weekly reports to Trey Crump. The mutilations had, of course, stopped. Portenson had gone back to Cheyenne. The Murder and Mutilations Task Force had been disbanded for lack of purpose.
But for Joe, there was unfinished business. The case was still open, and not just because Eric Logue was still at large. There were still too many questions.
Nate Romanowski had all but disappeared. His only communication with Joe was a terse message left on the answering machine: “Joe, I was right. That bear is here for a reason. He’s just a vessel, an agent. He’ll be here only as long as he has to be.”
In the end, as the search for Dr. Eric Logue lost both hope and urgency, the only workable scenario they could give any credence to was this:
Eric had been a boy in the mid-1970s, when the first rash of cattle mutilations in the West was news, so the concept wasn’t foreign to him. Perhaps that was when his fascination and obsession with a paranormal answer to the crimes was first implanted.
Eric Logue, in his sickness, had come to believe that his mission was to kill and disfigure living beings and collect trophies. He believed that others were telling him to do it, or he had somehow convinced himself that he was pleasing the owners of these voices through his acts. He used his experience as a surgeon, as well as his tools, to do it. His first disciple in his mission was Nurse Bob, who had problems of his own.
Using his new identity and the cover of the fictitious Iconoclast Society, he returned to the Rocky Mountain West, first to Northern Montana, then to Wyoming. He had a reason to be where the mutilations were discovered, after all. He said he was studying them.
The mutilations in Montana, from Eric’s perspective, had gone very well. No one suspected him. What didn’t go well, though, was that the officials in charge of the investigation treated him like he was a crank. They didn’t take his theories seriously, and didn’t welcome his knowledge or advice. There were a few converts, Deena being the primary one, but overall, he was disappointed.