Chapter One
“You call this a date?” I said to Dalton as the door slammed behind us with a whoosh-bang.
The place was a back alley, hole-in-the-wall, with sticky floors and the unmistakable odor of fifty-some years of cigarette smoke mixed with fryer grease and stale beer. Every square inch of wall was covered with either a mirror emblazoned with a beer logo or a bumper sticker.
Dalton turned to look at me with those eyes. “Who said anything about a date?” He motioned toward a corner booth. “Let’s sit there,” he mumbled and moved toward it, casually assessing the other occupants of the bar.
“Seriously?” I muttered, and followed, doing the same thing.
Two men, in their thirties, built like construction workers, played pool on the far side of the room. An older man, not so fit, had both hands wrapped around a mug at the end of the bar, his eyes glued to a tiny TV that hung in the corner.
As Dalton approached the left seat of the booth, I grabbed his arm. “I want that side.”
“Nope,” he said with a grin, and eased into the booth where he’d been headed. “I’m not sitting with my back to the door.”
My hands landed on my hips. “Well, neither am I.”
“One of us has to.” The grin grew more mischievous. “Since I’m already here, I guess you’ll have to trust my keen sense of observation.”
The door slammed shut again. I spun to see a grizzled man in his late sixties sauntering toward a barstool. The bartender had the top popped on a bottle of Miller Lite, and the bottle placed on the bar before he got there.
“Fine.” I plopped down in the seat. “I’ve got other senses to rely on, not to mention my cat-like reflexes.”
“Don’t I know it.” He gave me that look—the one that says we have something special between us, something intimate.
And we did. That was the problem. Dalton and I were federal agents and he was my partner. Recently, during an undercover operation together, we’d let our attraction for each other get away from us. And we almost got killed. I was still sorting out what to do about it.
“So, what are we doing here?” I asked.
The bartender, a young lady with thick eyeliner and hoop earrings the size of drink coasters, appeared at our table. “What can I get ‘cha? We got Lakefront Brewery’s River West Stein and Eazy Teazy Ale on tap.”
“How are your burgers?” Dalton asked.
She shrugged. “Ah-right I guess.”
“Do you have a vegetarian option?” I asked. It was worth a shot.
She scrunched up her nose. “Seriously? This is Milwaukee.”
“A basket of fries and two waters,” Dalton said.
She scribbled on her order pad.
“A couple Jello shots? The Badgers are playing.”
“Right,” I said, glancing at the TV. “No thanks.”
Another shrug and she turned back toward the bar.
I crossed my arms. “So?”
“So, since we were in town—”
“In town? We report to our new team in Chicago tomorrow. We’re two hours drive north.”
“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring me. “When I first started at Fish & Wildlife, I worked for a time up north of here, near Manitowoc. It was a joint thing with Wisconsin DNR. My partner and I nailed a guy for poaching, but—” he winced with the memory “—the bastard got off on a technicality.”
“That sucks.” I didn’t know what else to say. Dalton wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who welcomed affectionate reassurance.
He stared at me for a long moment, drew in a long breath. “It was my fault.”
I gave no reaction, tried to hide my surprise. Dalton was a former Navy SEAL who thrived on perfection, order, procedure. Admitting a mistake, well, I’d never witnessed that before.
“Yeah, well, my old partner has never given up. Apparently, the guy, Steve’s his name, bought this place and has been using the walk-in here to store illegal meat. Sells it to restaurants with wild game on the menu. Anyway, a warrant’s been issued.”
“For today? Aren’t you afraid he’ll see you and bolt?”
“I was told to c’mon in.”
The door made a whoosh-bang and I turned in my seat. A man in a Carhartt coat with salt and pepper hair, cut high and tight, strode toward us.
“Dalton, you old bastard,” he said, grinning.
Dalton rose to shake his hand, but got pulled into a man hug with a lot of back patting.
The guy’s eyes swung toward me. “And who is this lovely lady?”
“My partner,” Dalton said. “Special Agent Poppy McVie. Poppy, this is Carl Thompson, Conservation Warden, Wisconsin DNR.”
“Partner, eh?” His eyes lingered on me a little too long. “How come I’ve never been assigned a partner as good looking as you? I always get stuck with the likes-a Dalton here. Sum-bitches that you’d rather not see by the light of day.” He chuckled, amused with himself.
“Indeed,” I said, and summoned my best librarian voice. “Good thing for Dalton, the latest update to the Fish & Wildlife Employment Hiring and Compensation Code, Rule 247, Section three, under Eligibility and Exemptions requires a minimum sex appeal, as rated by the International Organization on Attractiveness.”
Dalton managed to hold back a grin.
“Right.” Carl didn’t seem to get my joke. “Anyway,” he went on, digging a folded document from his inside coat pocket. He handed it to Dalton. “We thought, since you was here, we’d let you serve him. For old times’ sake.”
“Well, damn, Carl. That’s…” Dalton looked down at paper in his hands. “That’s really thoughtful.”
“He’ll be here any minute.” Carl held up his phone. “I’ve got a plainclothes out back. That’s where he always pulls up. I’ll get a text the moment he comes in the back door.”
Dalton sat back down, and Carl invited himself to sit next to me. I slid over, allowing him room.
“Aren’t you worried about someone alerting the perp?” I asked. “I mean, the staff here—”
“Naw,” he said, shooing away any doubt with a flick of his wrist. “Everybody’s in the loop. We’ve been working on this for years. We didn’t mess around. The case is sewn up from every angle. We don’t have to catch him red-handed.” He leaned back, smirked. “This is for fun really.”
His full attention turned to me. “So, I never would have guessed you’re a Special Agent. You’re so young, and, well”—his eyes dropped to my breasts, then quickly back to my eyes—“not exactly the type.”
“Well, that’s just it,” I said. “They never suspect. It’s a great advantage for undercover work.”
“Poppy’s being humble,” Dalton said. “She’s an excellent agent with superb instinct. Best partner I’ve ever had.”
My mouth dropped open. Dalton and I had a rough beginning to our partnership, and I knew he’d come to accept me, even like me. But he’d never said words like those before.
Carl grinned at me. “Well, it seems our boy is as smitten with you as I am.”
“Oh, it’s strictly professional,” I managed.
Carl threw his head back and roared. His laughter reached every dark corner of the room. “Well, I hope you can tame the boy. As I’m sure you already know, he can go off the rails sometimes.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Off the rails? Dalton?”
His eyes landed on my red hair. “Though I bet you’ve got a bit of spunk yourself, eh?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Dalton muttered.
The bartender plunked a glass on the table in front of Carl. Ginger ale, I assumed. And our fries and glasses of water. Without a word, he gave Carl a nod of respect and went back behind the bar.
“I’d never met a young man with such potential,” Carl went on. “And, whew, the passion. He was gung-ho from the get go, like a horse just been let out of the barn. I had to rein him in on several oh-kay-sions.” He leaned toward me like he was telling me a secret. “Patience was not his strong suit.”
“Dalton?” I said, incredulous. He wasn’t describing the Dalton I knew.
“He learned after Steve though.” He glanced at Dalton, grinned. “He tell you the story?”
“He said he got off on a technicality.”
“Hee, hee. Well, that much is true.”
“We don’t really need to go into it,” Dalton said with a shake of his head.
Carl took one of the fries, crammed it into his mouth, and kept talking. “We was knee deep in mud. It was raining icy sleet like a sumbitch. Something like, I don’t know, seven degrees. I’m about to lose my fingers from frostbite and Dalton looks snug as a bug in a rug.”
He crammed a couple more fries into his mouth. “Did I mention he’s a crazy bastard?” he said, then snarfed down the fries. “So, we’s out there, waiting for hours, ‘cause we knew Steve’d be coming through with a boatload of illegal waterfowl. See, there was this narrow spot where he had to lift the motor and use an oar to push through the weeds, and we figured that’d be where we’d catch ‘em.”
He tipped back the ginger ale and drained the whole glass.
“Anyways,—” he set the glass down and held his fist to his chest, holding back a burp “—here comes Steve, just like we figured. But when he gets the nose of his rowboat into the weeds, he sees us. Or just gets skittish. Whatever, who knows. He’s a squirrelly bastard. So, anyways, he throws that little outboard motor into reverse. Well, Dalton ain’t having it. He plunges through the weeds after him. He’s up to his eyeballs in water, but somehow manages to get a grip on the edge of that boat.”
He shook his head and grinned with amusement. “Here’s where it gets good. Steve doesn’t know quite what to do. He’s got a hundred-sixty pound weight on the side of his boat and water coming in. So, Steve, he—” Carl held his hand over his mouth and chuckled. “Steve’s gotta get Dalton to let go, right? So, what does he do?” He chuckled again. “He stands up. Well, Dalton knows a little about physics, weights and balances and such, so he goes ahead and volunteers to let go, right then. Steve goes ass over tea kettle into the drink. Course he comes up cursing Dalton’s ancestors, all in a fit of rage, and no doubt hyper-ventilating. Dumbass goes after Dalton. You see, Steve was nineteen and all of a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. And Dalton was—” he gestured toward him “—I mean, the man’s a Navy SEAL.” He paused. “You know he was a SEAL, right?”
I nodded, but didn’t want to speak for fear he’d stop talking. I was getting a glimpse of a side of Dalton I’d never seen.
Dalton pushed the fry basket toward Carl, saying, “Then we arrested him and took him in.”
“Well, I couldn’t see that good from my position, what with the freezing rain and such, you know, but I’m quite sure, officially—” he winked “—when Steve slipped, he knocked his head on the side of the boat. Then he ended up spending some time under water. Not too long. Just enough to change his perspective, know what I mean. Next thing I see, Dalton’s flipped him into the boat. That Steve flopped around in there like a hooked fish.
“By the time we got him to the police station, his lips was blue and he was shivering like a Quaker.”
He shook his head like that was the end of the story.
“So, what was the technicality?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We didn’t have any evidence.”
“He didn’t have any illegal waterfowl after all?”
“Oh, he did. But when Dalton swamped the boat, they got washed out. Musta sank. He would’a had ‘em tied with weights already, in case he came upon the law and had to ditch ‘em quickly. You see, perps do that kinda thing all the time. They know the law. It’s your job to dot your I’s and cross your T’s. Well, Dalton, he found out the hard way. The whiny little shit claimed unnecessary roughness, and since we didn’t have no evidence, the judge was none too happy ‘bout it.” His phone chirped. He glanced at the screen. “Well, partner. You’re on. He’s in the kitchen.”
Dalton took hold of the document and slid out of the booth.
Carl grinned after him, but made no effort to slide out of the seat. He leaned over to me and whispered, “That judge gave Dalton a real talking to. But now he’s going to get the last—”
“Let me out!” I gave him a shove. “Where he goes, I go.”
“You are something,” I heard him say to my backside.
Dalton strode through the swing door, and I zipped in behind him.
Sure enough, a stocky, ape-of-a-man was headed for the walk-in.
Dalton brought him to a halt with his voice, stern and direct. “Steve Scripnick, you’re under arrest.”
Steve spun around. His eyes found Dalton and a look of confusion came over him. He scrunched up his eyebrows, cocked his head to the side. “What the hell?”
“So, you remember me.”
“Aw, shit.” His eyes started to dart about. He was going to bolt. He swung toward the back door where the plainclothes officer now stood. Dalton moved toward him, but I stayed where I was, at the kitchen door.
Steve’s eyes swung around to me, assessing.
“I wouldn’t mess with her,” Dalton warned.
Steve didn’t seem like the brightest bulb, but I could see why he thought coming my way was his best option.
He barreled toward me like a bull out of the gate.
I planted my feet, dropped one shoulder and he hit me like a freshman linebacker. I shifted, trapped his elbow and pinned his foot, using his momentum to take him to the ground. He was a scrapper though. He rolled, knocking over a bucket of grease, and, surprisingly, sprang right back to his feet, though his hand caught the prep table. Two burger baskets flipped into the air. Fries flew every which way.
“Hey!” the cook yelled.
That must’ve given Steve an idea, because he picked up a mayonnaise-slathered burger and threw it at me. Smacked me right on the neck. I wiped the slime away with the back of my hand. He lunged and grabbed me by the hair with both hands.
Oh, no way, buddy!
My knee came up hard with a jolt to the groin. He let go. He seemed to fold forward with surrender, but he’d pissed me off. I grabbed the back of his head and dropped him on his face.
He lifted himself up on his hands and knees, heaving to catch his breath.
Then whack! The jerk collapsed into a roll, knocking me out at the knees and taking me down with him. I landed flat on my back in a puddle of grease, my hair all mashed into it.
“You shouldda seen that one coming, McVie,” I heard Dalton say, with way too much amusement.
“This is getting downright entertaining.” The plainclothes added. “We could open up the back door and charge admission.”
I spun to my belly, got to my knees, grabbed hold of the bucket, and whacked Steve upside the head with it. The last of the grease splattered down his chest.
He bucked, tried to get up, but I was on my feet.
I planted my heel in his spine. “Don’t even think about it.”
Dalton grinned beside me. “I’m so turned on right now.”
I wiped grease from my forehead. “Can’t we go on a normal date some time?”
Chapter Two
Chicago. Rows and rows of tall buildings, sectioned into a grid. Throngs of people, hurrying to and fro. Noise day and night—cars honking, sirens blaring, trucks jacking their brakes. And the smells. Oh, the smells. Rotting garbage mixed with car exhaust and a hint of sewage. Big city.
What snow there was, had turned to icy, gray clumps that clung to the curb. Snowflakes didn’t fall. They seemed to settle, uneasily.
I was out of my element.
Give me a blue sky and the rich tapestry of a deciduous forest. Or the open air of the sea. Or the varied greens of the jungle with the constant hum of insects and chatter of birds making their living in the everlasting cycle of life. The smell of fresh earth.
But the city was where the offenders were. This was where they built their networks of crime and destruction. Where wild animals, once trafficked or poached, ended up.
This was where we’d catch the bad guys. At least this time. These were the end users. The buyers. Those who created the demand.
Dalton and I had been assigned to an elite unit, a Presidential task force, created solely to investigate animal-related cases. It was a big honor, and I was determined not to screw up.
So, here we were. Unfortunately, our last two cases had come down, one right after the other, in a whirlwind, and I felt like I’d been on a dead run. The lack of information heading into this was unnerving. But I’d had to wing it before. I could wing it again.
I was given a time to report to the downtown Chicago headquarters. Dalton’s appointment was after mine. We weren’t sure why we weren’t scheduled to arrive together, but my latest goal was to follow orders, ask no questions.
The one thing I did know, and it was the best news of all, was that my new boss was a woman. Ms. Benetta Hyland. I couldn’t wait to meet her. A woman! My hands felt clammy; I was so excited. This new assignment was everything I’d ever dreamed of, and I was determined to be a stellar employee. It would be so much easier with a woman at the helm.
Though I couldn’t find any personal information about her, I did learn that she had been appointed to lead this task force after a twenty-year career in conservation. A leading national expert on the Endangered Species Act, she’d even testified before Congress. She’d also been a representative of the United States at the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. She knew animal law, that was sure. And she fought for animals, just like me.
The downtown Chicago office was a huge, industrial-looking building among the plaza of federal offices across the street from Calder’s Flamingo, the famous bright red sculpture.
I arrived on time to the office number I’d been given. It was a large room with eight cubicles set up in two rows of four. The sign on the door read, Case Analysts.
“Excuse me. I was told to report here, but I’m sure I must have the wrong office,” I said, hoping someone would direct me.
A young man, younger than me, pushed back from his desk, rode his roller chair out of the cubicle, and looked up at me. He shoved his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You the new intern?”
“What? No. Do I look like I’m—” I shook my head. “I’m from Special Ops.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
I blinked once. Am I sure? “That’s why I’m good at my job.” I batted my eyelashes and flashed a fake grin. “No one suspects little old me.”
“Well,” he said, his head slowly easing into a nod. “You gotta talk to Greg for your assignment.” His head swiveled on his neck. “Yo! Greg!”
A head popped up over a divider. “Yeah?”
“This girl is here for her report.”
Girl? What was it with this guy? He was younger than me.
Greg’s head disappeared like a prairie dog, back down its hole. The first guy didn’t say anything more. He rolled back inside his cubicle, his eyes already glued back on his monitor, so I went ahead to Greg’s cubicle.
“Nice digs,” I said. A flat out lie. If I had to spend eight hours a day in this ten by ten, with its grey fabric walls and nothing but the glow of a computer screen, I’d be at risk of shoving an icepick in my eye. “I’m Special Agent Poppy McVie from Special Ops. I was told to—”
He sat up straight on the edge of his chair. “Special Ops, eh?” he said, entirely too impressed. This guy had to have been fresh out of school. His shirt was starched and pressed and buttoned tight at the neck.
“Are you the analyst for our mission?”
“Maybe. You got a case number?” he said, fondling his mouse.
“I wasn’t given a number. I’ve been assigned to the Presidential Task Force.”
His eyes lit with excitement. He leaned forward and whispered, “Oh that case. You’re Poppy?”
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward and whispered back, “Yes. I’m Special Agent Poppy McVie.”
A silly grin spread across his pimpled face. He spun around in his chair and plunked away at his keyboard. Then he handed me a headset, typed some more, and spun back around. “It’s ringing.”
“Who are we calling?”
“Your new boss. That’s what I was told to do.”
“Okay.”
After four rings, a female voice on the line said, “Hyland.”
“Hello, this is Special Agent Poppy McVie.”
“Yes. McVie. Sorry I couldn’t be there to greet you in person. I’m stuck here in Washington. I’m glad to have you on the team, though. You’ve come highly recommended.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Sorry, I know this is a little unorthodox, but, there it is. With your experience, I’m confident you can jump right in.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re tying up loose ends on current operations, still pulling the team together. I’d like you to help out with a current operation. Greg will bring you up to speed with your assignment details. Go ahead and get settled in, and we’ll meet when I’m in town next week.”
“Yes, ma’am. Am I to—?”
The line was dead.
Greg leaned my way, eyebrows raised.
I yanked the headset off my head. Damn thing got all tangled in my hair.
Greg was staring at me, expectant.
I tried to hide my disappointment. “She said to get the details from you.”
“Right on,” he said and spun around on his chair. His fingers rattled the keyboard.
I grabbed a hold of a bunch of hair with my left hand and tried to work the headset out with the other. Finally, I slammed it down on his desk, now in pieces, a knot of hair still stuck in it.
Greg ignored the headset and spun back around to face me. “A few of the members of your new team have been working on a sting here in Chicago for a few months now.” He explained that a taxidermist had been busted for mounting illegal species, and they’d been building a case on every poacher who’d come through his shop. Dalton and I were being worked into the scheme. The hope was that we’d be able to help flesh out the last of the targets before the big takedown, which was planned to happen in another two to eight weeks.
“You’re going to work at Wilson’s Taxidermy Shop.”
I stared at him. “A taxidermy shop? Are you sure? I have no knowledge about taxidermy whatsoever.” And I find it disgustingly macabre.
“That’s okay. You only need to actually work as the counter girl.”
Girl, again? I refrained from informing him how annoyingly offensive that was. “What’s my directive?”
“Hyland thought that a new person working in the shop, with fresh eyes, might see something that has been missed.”
“Anything else?”
“And you’re to play the new girlfriend of Special Agent Michael Wessell.”
“And my directive for that?”
He read from the monitor. “Says here, keep a lookout for anything that might have been missed.”
“Right.” Translation: they didn’t know what else to do with me.
“And lastly, you’re to keep a close eye on the proprietor of the shop, Jim Wilson. He’s on electronic tether, but it’s always good to have human intel as well. You’re to—”
“Use my fresh eyes to see anything that might have been missed?”
He nodded.
“Right.”
* * *
Wilson’s Taxidermy shop was right in downtown Chicago, south of the river, tucked in between an old shoe store and a tobacconist. All three were red brick with signs made and hung around 1940.
With all the cash flowing through the place, I’d pictured a modern building with shiny floors and glass cases.
The odor was the most unexpected part. All the carcasses and hides made the whole shop smell of damp animal. It was an earthy smell. Not exactly unpleasant. More like an old, wet goat had been living in a root cellar that never got aired out.
“You get used to it,” Jim said as he gave me the grand tour of his shop.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s so…”
“It’s like anything else. Your brain starts to tune it out.” He stood, cross-armed. “So we should probably get right to teaching you the customer service stuff, eh?”
“Actually, I’d really like to hear your story first. If you don’t mind.”
A frown creased his brow and his eyes turned soft with sadness. “All right. C’mon. We best stay in the back room for that one. We can keep an eye on the front door from there.”
I followed him to the back, past the workroom where hides hung on drying racks next to the salt table, past the bench where they’d be stretched onto the molds and all the detail work done.
He poured and offered me a cup of coffee, which I accepted, then poured a second. He set up a folding chair, gestured for me to sit, then pulled up a stool and eased onto it. His cat, a brown and black Maine coon, leapt onto his lap and Jim’s hand automatically started stroking its ears.
Jim was in his late sixties. A short, hefty guy with a white beard. Put him in a red velvet suit and he’d easily pass for old Saint Nick. He even had rosy cheeks and a hearty chuckle.
“I’ve owned this business for forty-two years.” His eyes traveled around the room as though every good memory was being conjured right then and there. “Me and the wife, we started it from nothing. I’d been a taxi driver before that, but due to some health issues, I had to give it up. Taxidermy was just a hobby, but I started doing some work for friends, on a count of having time on my hands, you know. Then one thing led to another and before you know it, we had us a full blown business.”
He smiled then. “I suppose it was a dream I’d never admitted I’d had, making a living outta doing something I loved. The years went by. We didn’t make much money, but somehow we were able to make ends meet.” A shrug of resignation. “Then it happened.”
He took a long draw of the hot coffee as I waited, wondering what his version of the story would be. Jim had been busted for illegal wildlife trafficking and his shop seized. It was now under ownership of the federal government and Jim was a probationer. At least that was my impression. The report from Greg the analyst had been light on particulars.
Obviously, Jim had struck some kind of deal, because here he was, drinking a cup of coffee in his shop rather than sitting in a prison cell. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet. But there was something about Jim. I liked him the moment I’d met him. And not just because he reminded me of Santa.
“Then what happened?” I urged.
“My bride. She got the cancer. Doctors said they could help, with some pills. Expensive pills. But we didn’t have no insurance. Not enough anyway.”
He took another swig of coffee and hung his head, running his hand down the cat’s back. Avoiding my eyes, he said, “We was desperate, you know.” Then he lifted his gaze, looked me right in the eye. “And I’d do it again, I guess.”
The bell that hung over the front door jingled. He and I looked to the monitor. A customer had entered the shop. One man, alone.
“Oh, it’s him again,” Jim muttered.
“Who?”
Jim shook his head. “I think his name is Hal. Odd guy.”
“You’re not sure of his name? I thought you had documentation of all your customers, so they could be investigated.”
He shrugged. “He’s never bought nothing. Just comes in, hangs around, generally wastes my time.”
I watched on the monitor as the man moseyed in, casually looking around.
“Well, let’s get to it,” Jim said. He gently placed the cat on the floor then rose from the stool and headed for the front room, coffee cup in hand.
I followed.
“Mornin’ to ya,” Jim said as he passed through the doorway. “How can I help ya?”
“Just stopping in,” the man said, his eyes roaming over the many mounted animal heads that hung on the walls. Then he seemed to search through the full-body displays on the floor—a lioness, two black bears and a six-by-six elk. “Got any new ones? Anything exotic?”
“I been busy, but nothing I can think of since you were in last.”
“Uh huh,” he breathed and scratched his head. “Any good stories?”
“Not really.” Jim obviously had no interest in engaging with the guy.
Hal, if that was his name, seemed like the stereotypical used-car salesman. Smarmy. He was dressed in polyester slacks and a thin, white button-down shirt, though he didn’t wear a tie. I got the feeling he was headed to work and would put it on at the last minute. He was not an executive or highly educated engineer-type. Definitely a salesman of some kind.
“Are you a hunter?” I asked.
He came to a halt as his eyes settled on me, as if he hadn’t realized I was in the room. “No, not really. Well, yeah. Birds.” He nodded as though convincing himself. “I’m not very good at it.” He licked his lips. “Not like these guys.” He made a vague gesture toward some of the bigger mounts. “That’s something, to go to Africa and take down a lion like that. To kill that kinda beast. Man, that’d be something.”
I controlled my urge to explain how it’d be something to take him down with a roundhouse kick to the head, let him see how that felt.
“I’d love to meet the guy did that,” he continued, with nauseating awe.
“Can’t help you there,” Jim said. “If that’s all, I got work to do.”
Hal shrugged, seemingly oblivious to Jim’s annoyance. “So, you the new girl?”
What’s with everyone calling me a girl? “Yeah,” I managed. “My first day.”
He nodded, but said nothing more.
“If you’re interested in meeting other hunters,” I said, “why don’t you try the Safari Club?”
“The what?”
“The Safari Club. It’s an international group of hunters. They have annual conventions, fundraiser banquets and such.” We had a team member working that angle as part of the sting. “I mean, if you want to meet other hunters around here. I’m sure, if you look online, you could find a local chapter.”
“Ah.” He nodded, thinking, then seemed to drift off. He poked around the shop for another two minutes, then moseyed back out the door.
“So you’re saying he never brings in anything?” I said to Jim.
He huffed. “Takes all kinds, I guess.”
We returned to the chair and stool in the back, refilled our cups with coffee and resumed our conversation.
“Anyway, where was I?” Jim asked, sitting back down on the stool. The cat appeared and was back on his lap in an instant.
“Your wife was diagnosed with cancer.”
“Yeah, well, long story short, guy comes in with a couple of untagged deer. I explain how it’s illegal and he could get in trouble. That was always my policy. Then he offers me cash to do the work anyway. A handful of it. Well, those pills Alice was needing cost a helluva lot of money.” His eyes got glossy and he blinked several times. “I figured, one time, just one time, and that’d be it.”
I nodded in understanding.
“Next thing I know, I’m hiding all kinds of illegal species, running ‘em in and out the back door. I got guys coming to me from three states away.” He sighed. “Still it wasn’t enough. I lost my Alice anyway. The drugs just made way for some faster, more aggressive kind of cancer. Like that, she was gone.”
“I’m so sorry, sir.”
He snugged the cat close to his chest. “Masie here is all I got left of my Alice. She was her darling.”
His eyes got misty and I felt like I was intruding on his memories.
“Well, anyway,” he said, coming around, “two days after her funeral, Special Agent Mike Wessell shows up in my shop. I guess he’d been watching me for some time, gathering evidence. I felt like such a fool.”
“Then you went to court and the judge—”
“No. I never went to court. Never had no lawyer neither. I was never arrested.”
I sat back in the chair. That didn’t make any sense.
“Wessell turned my open sign to closed, showed me his badge, and said I had to go with him. With Alice gone, I didn’t really care what happened, so I didn’t question nothing. That’s when I met Benetta Hyland. I believe she’s your new boss.”
I nodded.
“She explained my situation, how she could send me to prison for years, but she had some sympathy for me, I guess. She offered me a deal. I keep running the shop, like nothing happened, don’t tell nobody nothing, and your unit has full control, all the records, everything. I get to keep doing the work and no prison. Well, how could I say no?”
He set the cup down and glanced at a portrait on the wall. Alice, I assumed.
“I never wanted to do wrong to begin with. I just wanted to save my Alice. I suppose I got a chance now to make it right.” He pushed his foot out from the stool, pulled up his pant leg. The cat sprang from his lap. “They make me wear this here ankle bracelet.” He huffed. “Where’em I gonna go anyway?”
The bell at the door chimed again.
“This is what I do,” he said and pushed himself up off the stool and headed for the front room.