Out of Range

Suhn: "Maybe we ought to see the pictures first. Maybe there's nothing on them. Maybe it's just a bunch of us having a fun time on the river, and somebody falls in. That won't prove anything."

There was a long silence. Joe was tempted to inch the curtain back to see what was taking place.

Illoway: "Shane's right, Don. The photos may not prove a thing."

E

Birdy said, "It's on," and Joe could feel the terror in his voice.

When would Tassell decide he had heard enough, Joe wondered, and come out? How far would Tassell let Pi and Birdy go, searching for photos that didn't exist on the computer?

E

Birdy: "Give me a minute. The computer was sleeping and it'll take a second to boot up."

E

Birdy: "It's asking for my password."

E

Then Pi spoke. Her voice was strong, challenging. "What are you guys thinking?" she asked. "Are you thinking that you can't see when Don here cuts the straps of her life vest? Or that you can't see it when he shoves her out of the boat just as you enter the whitewater? Or that you can't see when he hits her with his oar to keep her from crawling back in the boat?"

E

Now,Joe thought. Tassell needs to come out now.

Pi: "Maybe it was Pete Illoway, the eating consultant, who was whacking at her with his oar. I'm not sure."

Illoway: "We're fucked, Don."

Suhn: "Okay, you two, step away from the counter."

"There's no need for gunshere," Pi said frantically, shouting out the word guns."We can work something out. Really, we can."

E

Joe was about to rip the curtain aside and hurl himself into the shop when he heard the office door open and Tassell say, "HANDS ON THE COUNTER! All of you! NOW!"

Joe didn't have a weapon, so he stepped aside so Trey could push through the curtain with his Beretta drawn. Joe saw E

"Drop that," Tassell hollered at Suhn, who quickly lowered the weapon and dropped it with a clunk on the floor.

"I thought you were never going to come out," Pi said angrily.

"Keep your hands in view on top of the counter," Tassell said.

"Including us?" Birdy asked.

"Step away from them," Tassell said, and Birdy and Pi scrambled out of the way.

"You set us up, you bastard," E

"You," was all he said.

Tassell a

"Don't forget Will Jensen," Trey said.

"That comes later," Tassell said.

Illoway, Joe thought, looked like he was about to cry. Instead, he screwed up his face, glanced for a moment at E

E

"We didn't even know he pla

Suhn acted like he'd been slapped. "I didn't know about Stella," he said. "But I can tell you all you want to know about the game warden."

Joe felt a release inside, and exchanged glances with Trey.

E

"My loyalty is to the Good Meat Movement," Illoway said. "That's more important than one developer."

"I'll get us out of this," E

"Get yourself out of it," Suhn said. "You don't pay me enough to go to prison for you."

E

"What pictures?" Pi gri

THIRTY-EIGHT

Joe waited for Mary to conclude a telephone conversation while he stood at the front counter holding a box with his possessions in it. When she hung up and looked up at him, he extended his hand.

"Thank you for everything, Mary," he said. "You made me feel welcome here."

She blushed as she briefly shook his hand, then looked away.

"I just got off the phone with Susan Jensen," Joe said. "I was a little surprised by her reaction."

"How much did you tell her?" Mary asked.

Joe thought about his answer. "I told her that Don E

"Nothing about Stella?" she asked. Joe wondered about Mary's exact meaning for a second, then decided Mary didn't know about Will's last seconds.

Joe shook his head. "That didn't seem necessary. Stella didn't enter the picture until after Susan had left with the boys anyway."

Mary arched her eyebrows in a way that told Joe he was wrong about that. But she didn't pursue it.

"You probably heard that Don E

"I heard."

"Hand's already claiming it was entrapment," Mary said. "And that Pete Illoway and Shane Suhn are lying to keep themselves out of jail. If they don't find Stella's body soon, he'll claim E

Joe nodded. He could only imagine how the recorded words and images from the studio would be twisted and reinterpreted for a jury. He tried not to think of what Stella's body would look like when it was finally found. The image made him shiver. The condition of her body would likely be beyond any possibility of providing evidence that she had been injured before drowning, and Hand would no doubt make an issue of that.

Tassell's men had found a receiver in Shane Suhn's office at Beargrass Village that was tuned to the transmitter in Will's truck, as well as cassette tapes of Jensen's radio communications. They also brought back the developer's telephone log, which Joe got a look at. The most interesting thing on the log was a call to E

"Don E

Joe shrugged in a "what can you do?" gesture.

"But it looks like there won't be any Beargrass Village," she said, her expression of relief revealing, for the first time, what she thought of the project. "Not with Pete Illoway pulling out of it. Without his blessing, it would be just another million-dollar housing development, and Jackson has enough of those."

Joe wasn't sure what to say next. He picked up his box. "I rented a car until they replace my pickup," he said. "The county attorney will need Will's truck for evidence at the trial."

She looked up. "Will you be coming back?"