Headlights(36)

“Lucy’s out. But I’ll show you the car.”

Someone steps into the hall behind him. He closes the door before we can see, says, “Gonna show you somethin’ else too.”

It’s an old farmhouse with a solid, new fence around the perimeter of the property. The land well maintained but brown because of the time of year. I bet it’s beautiful in the summer. We walk out behind the house and Frank leads us over to a barn, cattle grazing beyond it in a large enclosure. Inside, the smell of manure, hay, and old wood fills the space. Frank steps over to a small office, then comes back with photographs. He hands one to each of us. Close-ups of bloody wounds on a cow’s neck. Another of a calf with its entrails ripped from its belly, spilled out in the grass and half-eaten by something.

“What is this?” I ask, flipping the photos over.

“That is what happens when wolves are put back on our land. Three of ’em attacked one of our cows and a calf. I scared ’em off, but not before they did this. Neither of my cows made it,” he says. “That in your hands is as clear evidence of wolf depredation as you’re gonna get. And if that isn’t enough”—he holds up his hand, shows us the half tooth in his palm—“I dug this out of her throat.”

The tooth … a sense. Something prickling.

I say, “This isn’t our—”

“Cops aren’t doin’ shit. Government’s allowing it. I get one paycheck a year, and I need to send my kid to college. We didn’t ask for it. Nobody asked for this, and someone’s gotta do something. I killed one of the wolves I saw, and it was in my rights to do it, seein’ it happen. But if you don’t see it, if you’re just a little late, law isn’t on your side.”

“We’re here investigating a murder case,” I say.

“This is murder. Each of these cows is a life.”

“Till you send ’em for processing,” Tillman says. He’s wandered to the side of the barn, is leaning down over a stack of hay bales, inspecting one closely. “I thought we’ve got a pretty good depredation compensation policy in place these days. Hopefully you got your money. This looks like good hay.”

“It is,” Frank says. And the quiet danger in his tone is clear.

“I’ll make a note,” I say, smoothing it over. Tillman’s a goddamn liability. “See if I can send someone out, find the right department.”

We leave the barn. Frank and I walk ahead, Tillman traipsing behind us like a child. I apologize for him. Frank says, “We’re helpless here. We look after this land, we tend it, my family for four generations. And the state’s just sent in a bunch of predators we’re not allowed to shoot if they come after our livestock. Airlifted ’em from freaking Canada. For what? Someone’s gotta do something. No one makin’ these laws gives a shit about us. Predators sneak in, in the fuckin’ night, and we can’t…”

I glance over and try to pretend I don’t catch the emotion in his voice, the way he swipes beneath his eye as he takes a deep breath. After a long minute, he says, “She’s my kid, ya know? And this boy was here, and I didn’t even know it. And what he did to that lady … I just keep askin’ myself, what if he’d done it to Lucy? If he was capable of that, what if he…”

I nod. Because what else is there to say.

He collects himself. “We hear a howl,” he says, “and all it means is death.”

We walk around a large paddock to reach a lower field where we find Pete’s car.

“They told me not to touch it,” he says. “You takin’ it today?”

“I can send someone,” I say. Tillman and I slip on our gloves. “You find the keys?”

He shakes his head no, tells us he’s gotta make a call from the house. We tell him we’ll be gone soon, and he starts to walk back the way we came, around the paddock.

“The lengths we used to go to to get a little action,” Tillman says, when Frank’s gone. “Guess nothin’ changes.” He taps the top of Pete’s car, then looks up to the sky again. He’s talking about a kid who’s never gonna see daylight again outside of a prison yard if things keep going this way. For one second I very seriously consider doing the world a favor and punching him in the face.

I step around the car and bend down, get Tillman out of my line of sight and try to view Pete’s path from all angles. Was he intercepted, coerced? No traces of any kind of substance in his system. No contusions, nothing to suggest he could have been physically assaulted. But I just can’t believe he planned to do this. Unless … Tillman’s right about one thing. Teen boys might do a lot for a little action. We should talk to the girlfriend.

I watch the grass, the sky, the roads. Feel the wind, listen to the quiet. This last land Pete Noland walked on before his life was ripped from him forever. Or because he chose to throw it away. I rub my neck, my eyes on the cows. That photo Frank showed us, the teeth marks in the throat.

Teeth marks.

That strange pressure in the air.

The field the other night, Everett Brown abducting Hannah out in the middle of nowhere, in the plains grass. The grass in the wind, something moving in the dark, something I couldn’t see. And Pete’s car, here in this hayfield. We’re dealing with someone who knows land, who can move freely through the outdoors. Who keeps using cover of night.