Part 25 (1/2)

Joe sat on the couch. Demming and Lars settled in well-wornoverstuffed chairs.

”Too bad about Mark Cutler,” Lars said. ”He was a real nice guy. I met him a few times at Old Faithful.”

It seemed oddly uncomfortable, Joe thought. No doubt both Lars and Demming felt the same. Demming did, he was sure, by the way she lowered her eyes while Lars told story after story about every time he had met Mark Cutler. Most of the tales had to do with Lars's road crew fixing the potholes around Old Faithful. Demming didn't interrupt when the stories got too long, deferring to her husband.

When Lars went to get Joe another beer, Demming said, ”Ashby called. I've got a meeting with him and James Langston tomorrow. I won't be with you anymore either, providing they even let you stay. I've been rea.s.signed to traffic if they don't decideto suspend me.”

”I'm sorry.”

She shrugged. ”It gives me an excuse to quit. I wish I could. Maybe I can really try to get into interpretation now.”

Lars came back and resumed telling stories about each of the elk on the wall, the circ.u.mstances in which he'd killed them.

Joe wanted to ask her how she was doing, but it seemed like the wrong time and place. Instead, he finished the beer because he thought Lars would want him to.

”I better get back,” Joe said, standing. ”I need to call my wife.”

”Yeah,” Lars said, grinning. ”Don't forget that that or there'll be h.e.l.l to pay.” or there'll be h.e.l.l to pay.”

Joe said, ”Marybeth's not like that.”

Lars gave him a man-to-man wink, as if to say, They're all like that. They're all like that.

”Do you need a ride?” Demming asked.

”I don't mind walking.”

”I'll drive you back.”

”Jeez,” Lars said, ”haven't you two spent enough time together?”

He was joking, Joe thought, but he wasn't.

In the car, Demming said, ”You wanted to ask me something.”

”I wanted to see how you were doing.”

”Besides that. What was it? I could tell.”

She was Demming again, the ranger.

”Last night, after I left you the message about the meeting with Cutler, who did you call?”

”Ashby. Why?”

”I'm trying to figure out who knew about the meeting ahead of time.”

”Do you realize what you're asking? What you're saying?”

”Yes.”

She drove in silence the rest of the way.

When he got out, he said, ”Be careful.”

”You too,” she said. ”Maybe you ought to go home.”

”What?”

She looked over, concern in her eyes. ”You seem to have a nice family, Joe, and obviously you care very much about them. This isn't your fight.”

”It's my job,” he said. ”Same thing.”

Joe missed his family, missed them more than he thought possible, more than he should have given that it had been only four days since he left. When he really thought about them, reallydug deep, he wondered if, in his heart, he felt out of his depth and therefore wanted them near him for comfort. Two more days, he thought. Two more days. But should he welcome them to a place where just that morning he'd seen a man boiled alive, had his state car destroyed, and come to a nagging realizationthat it was very likely that someone on the inside murdered Mark Cutler and could just as easily come after him him?

Maybe that's what it was, Joe thought. The thought that Cutler had no one to mourn him. No wife, no kids, and a sort-of fiancee he'd made a fleeting mention of. If whoever got Cutler came afterJoe . . . he tried to imagine how Marybeth, Sheridan, and Lucy would mourn him. Would it demolish them, change them forever? He hoped so as much as he hoped not. Or would they figure out a way to go on? They were tough, he knew. He wished he were that tough. And now, he thought, sitting in his room at the Mammoth Hotel at midnight on a vacant floor with the half-emptyJim Beam traveler on his tiny desk, he was crossing over a line into a kind of morbid depression he hadn't felt since, well, since his brother died and his father left them.

And he realized what the root of his dark meditation was- the reunion with his father. It had brought everything back, most of all feelings of inadequacy, of not being properly rooted. He had forgotten that those feelings dwelled within him.

That, and the inevitable replaying of what he'd seen that morning as Cutler's flesh came off his body and floated away.

Oh, and Clay McCann. The lawyer who had upped his body count to six. The man who would very likely get away with his latest double homicide as easily as he had the first four.

What, was he losing it?

He needed Marybeth to tell him he wasn't.

And another drink. That would be okay too.

He broached the subject of her not coming when he called home. ”Marybeth, there's so much going on that I can't figure out,” he said. ”The last thing I want to do is put you and the girls . . . into this mess.” He almost said, ”in danger” but re-phrasedit clumsily.

She paused a long time before saying, ”Joe, I'm a little disappointedin you.”

”Why?” He was puzzled.

”How much have we been through together?”

”A h.e.l.l of a lot,” he said. ”Too much. That's why-”

”That's right,” she said. ”We're good together. Maybe I can help you out. Besides, I'm just about done with that research you asked me to do. I'll print everything out and bring it along.”

”Anything interesting?”

”Not that I can tell. I still have a couple of companies to go. I should have it all done by the time we get there.”

”I'm thinking of Sheridan and Lucy,” Joe said. ”I still feel so d.a.m.ned guilty about what they went through last spring. I don't want any more of that happening.”