Chapter 17

It was little things like the ridge in the dirt and the scrap of cloth that made up the trail. I've tracked people and animals who left a trail so clear a pet rock could have read it, but most aren't that way, and this one certainly wasn't. If I hadn't been looking for a trail I never would have found this one, and I lost it half a dozen times in the first couple of miles. I was guessing as much as tracking, guessing where to look for the next indication that someone had passed that way. And it was only the fact that I did find those faint, scattered indications that allowed me to believe I was tracking someone.

It was after we'd gone that couple of miles that I squatted down beside a barrel cactus and looked up at Castro. "This guy's not acting like a crook."

"No." His uniform shoes were beginning to hurt him, if the way he walked was any indication, and both he and Mulcahy were showing signs of being hotter, and having walked farther, than they were used to. Sverdlov was still as fresh as ever, but that didn't surprise me. A law enforcement ranger in the Mojave National Preserve would have to know wild country, and be able to maneuver in it, and a couple of miles wouldn't bother her.

Castro just said the one word, but he had to be thinking the same thing I was. Crooks aren't all that smart. If they were they wouldn't be crooks. A great deal of the time the bad guys catch themselves, as it were, making stupid mistakes that bring them to the attention of the police. One of my favorite examples is one I saw on COPS, a guy who violated traffic laws, leading to a stop. And then instead of taking the misdemeanor citation for having an ounce or two of grass, he tried to eat it – and destroying evidence is a felony. If he'd been smart enough to drive legally no one would have stopped him, and if he'd been smart enough not to eat the weed he would have gotten off with a misdemeanor.

I learned while I was a cop that "crooks are as dumb as a box of rocks," and I've caught some who proved it. Without taking away from good police work, many times the perps walk right into the hands of the police – like Timothy McVeigh, who was on his way out of Oklahoma and only got stopped because he was speeding.

And crooks are lazy too. Why else rob banks, coming away most times with less than honest work would have netted over the same time? They don't want to do any more work than they have to – unless, of course, it involves criminal activity – and so they steal, for instance, rather than get a job.

But this guy was being smart, and he clearly wasn't afraid to put in effort. Of course I didn't know who I was tracking, but he wasn't any ordinary crook, if he was a crook at all. An average crook would have walked in from the road the shortest way, and walked back out to the road the same way. The trail I was following wasn't quite parallel to the road, but the rate of convergence was so slight that it would be a mile or two more before they met.

And an ordinary crook wouldn't have walked a mile from the road either. He'd have gotten the body – or the victim, if he was still alive at that point – just far enough off the road that someone driving by wouldn't see it, and then he'd leave it there. He wouldn't go a mile, and he wouldn't take the time and effort to put it under an overhang to keep the buzzards and whatnot off.

But that bit of smartness and willingness to work just might have backfired – he might have been too smart. When I got to that point in my thinking I looked up at Castro again. "You know, this guy might have outsmarted himself."

He crouched down beside me, his eyes watching everything; he was all cop, even out here. "How so?"

"If he'd just dumped the body like any ordinary idiot would have done, the buzzards and coyotes and all that would have eaten the body up, and all we'd have ever found would be a few scattered bones – if we ever found that much. When I was a cowboy out here we didn't ride out to investigate every time we saw the buzzards circling. Yeah, it might have been one of our cows or even one of our people, but it more likely was a coyote or a rabbit or something else natural. This guy gave us evidence that a little less care might have destroyed."

Castro nodded slowly. "Could be." He scratched his cheek, not because it itched, I guessed, but because he was thinking. "I don't know too many perps who can devise a real plan, but the ones who can usually make it too complicated."

"Yeah, they get cute. And getting cute is evidence too." I glanced around, for I'd been a cop too. "We can maybe start putting together a picture of this guy."

"Tell me what you think."

"He's smart. He knows about buzzards and such. He knows that an ordinary crook would drag the body or the victim, whichever, just far enough off the road to hide it. He knows that the cops would look for that first, if they got involved, so he's taken out across country. And probably he either lives out here, or knows the country from visits. You don't just walk out into Lanfair Valley like that unless you can handle yourself, or you're dumber than a fried frog's leg – and this guy ain't that dumb."

"He could be dangerous."

"Yeah." I thought for a moment, and decided that my decision was the right one. "I'll track for you, Sergeant Castro, but I ain't a cop no more, and I got a family waiting on me. We get close to an arrest or whatever, and I'll sit it out."

He looked at me for a moment. "I don't suppose you're a coward. And you're right – you're not an officer anymore. I'll make sure you stay safe."

"I appreciate it. The older I get, and the longer I'm married, and the more I see my daughter growing up, the more I want to finish each day in one piece."