House Standoff Read online

  Well, Hiram Bunt didn’t care what the grazing fees were and he’d decided that he wasn’t going to pay them. He argued that public lands belonged to the public, and the goddamn federal government had no right to charge him anything. Bunt went so far as to claim that what the government was doing was unconstitutional and he sued to make his case—and one judge after another jammed his lawsuit up his ass. But Bunt didn’t care what the judges said and he refused to pay the grazing fees—he refused to pay them for more than ten years. And when the amount he owed added up to almost a million bucks, the BLM decided to round up some of his cattle that were eating the public’s grass for free, intending to sell the cattle to offset some of what he owed.

  Which was when Bunt decided to take on the BLM at gunpoint.

  Bunt, people who worked for him, and other ranchers who felt the same way that he did, armed themselves with AR-15s, shotguns, hunting rifles, and pistols, and confronted the BLM agents while they were doing the roundup. The BLM immediately called in the cavalry, and the FBI and other law enforcement agencies sent in about fifty guys in body armor, packing automatic weapons. The FBI agents, with the cameras rolling, started screaming at Bunt to stand down and Bunt screaming back that he wouldn’t, saying that he’d shoot any government son of a bitch that tried to rustle his cattle.

  The feds blinked first. They walked away without arresting anyone or taking any cattle. When the agent in charge was asked why he backed down, he said that he wasn’t about to get into a gun battle where a bunch of civilians were likely to get massacred. Not over a bunch of cows, he wasn’t.

  Wild horses fit into the story in a peripheral way. Wild horses were all over the western United States and most ranchers didn’t like them; there were too many of them and they were munching on the grass the ranchers wanted for their cows. Protecting and managing the wild horses was the responsibility of the BLM, and Bunt wanted the BLM to get all the damn horses off his land, which, by the way, was not fenced in any way to separate public from private land. And if there had been fences, Bunt wouldn’t have liked that either, as fences would have made it more difficult for his cows to wander over from his property to chew the government’s grass. Not long after the standoff occurred, a dozen wild horses were found dead on public land near Bunt’s ranch but no one could prove that Bunt had killed them and he loudly denied having done so.

  And that’s where things stood today. Bunt owed the federal government a million bucks, was never held accountable for killing a bunch of horses, and he was still grazing his cattle on public land without paying the grazing fees. One odd thing—or at least DeMarco found it odd—was that several politicians in Wyoming, including Congressman Wilbur Burns, had sided with Bunt, saying that the federal government shouldn’t have as much control as it did when it came to public lands. DeMarco was also surprised to learn that Bunt’s feud with the government wasn’t unique or all that uncommon. Ranchers and the BLM had been engaged in squabbles for decades in a number of other Western states like Nevada, Arizona, and even liberal Oregon.

  DeMarco wondered, however, if Shannon’s research could have uncovered something new that would have posed a threat to Bunt. Maybe she’d found proof that he had slaughtered the horses. Most people considered horses to be beautiful, magnificent animals. Killing a dozen of them would affect people emotionally, and much more so than Bunt refusing to give the government the money he owed. Even Bunt’s political allies, who most likely had a lot of animal lovers for constituents, might turn against him if they knew he’d shot the horses. Taking on the government over grazing fees might have made Bunt a local hero, but killing the horses would have made him a pariah. And if Shannon had found proof that he’d done it, it didn’t seem totally unlikely that a nut like Bunt, a guy willing to engage in a gun battle with the FBI, might murder a woman who threatened him. But DeMarco was just speculating. He needed to know more. And what he really wanted to know was what else the fucking cops were doing to catch Shannon’s killer. He just couldn’t accept the looney trucker story.

  DeMarco owned a narrow, two-story townhouse on P Street in Georgetown. It was made of white-painted bricks, had a front yard the size of a postage stamp, and an equally small backyard. It was about the only possession, other than his clothes, that he’d managed to keep after his first—and only—wife divorced him.

  He went back to his place after brunch, thought briefly about mowing his lawn, then thought: Aw, fuck that. If the grass grew another couple of inches, who cared? He certainly didn’t. His next thought was to go to a driving range and hit a bucket of balls—for him, whacking golf balls was often therapeutic—but that didn’t appeal to him either. He just couldn’t get Shannon off his mind. His head was filled with images and memories of her.

  He took a seat on the patio in his untended backyard and started to call the number Shannon’s agent had given him for Gloria Brunson, the writer in Wyoming that Shannon had most likely met with—and again thought: Fuck that. He decided, at that moment, that he was going to go see the woman in person. Then after he heard what she had to say, he’d mosey on over to Waverly and speak directly to the deputy in charge of the case—the one with the implausible theory that some truck driver passing through town had killed Shannon.

  Shannon may have been famous enough to make the front page of the Washington Post but the media had the attention span of a hummingbird and would soon move on to other things. No hotshot investigative reporter was going to be assigned to make sure the Wyoming cops were doing their job. Nor did she come from a wealthy, connected family that could apply a political blowtorch to the cops if they were dragging their feet. And what all this meant was that her death could very likely become an unsolved homicide, which would then become a cold case, and Shannon’s killer might never be caught—unless someone was pushing. Well, DeMarco knew how to push. All going to Wyoming would cost him was the price of an airline ticket and a day or two, and he’d be more likely to find out what the cops were doing to catch her killer and apply some pressure if they weren’t doing enough. Also, if he talked to the cops in person, then the authorities would know that someone outside of Wyoming cared about what had happened to her and would be on their backs if they didn’t get results.

  He did, however, have the problem that his boss wanted to know who had leaked the merger story to Anderson Cooper. DeMarco knew if he called Mahoney and told him that he was flying to Wyoming to look into the death of an old lover, Mahoney would tell him to stay in D.C. and do his damn job. And although DeMarco had already decided that he was going to go whether Mahoney liked it or not, he’d just as soon not lose his job. So he needed to come up with a lie. Lying to a liar like Mahoney didn’t bother him a bit.

  He mulled the problem over. Okay. He’d say that his widowed mother, who lived in Queens, had fallen, broken her hip, and he needed to go home and help her out and set up some kind of nursing care for her. Not a great lie, but the best he was able to come up with after five seconds of deliberation. But as he knew that Mahoney, the callous bastard, wouldn’t care about his poor, old mother’s broken hip, he wouldn’t speak to Mahoney directly. Instead he would call Mavis, Mahoney’s secretary, and have her pass on the lie. He figured that by the time Mahoney was informed, DeMarco would be in Wyoming. Yeah, that sounded like a plan, maybe not a great plan, but he couldn’t come up with a better one.

  Mavis answered the phone saying, “Why are you calling me on a Sunday, DeMarco?”

  Mavis had worked for John Mahoney since she was a teenager. She knew where all the bodies were buried and God help Mahoney if she ever decided to become a whistleblower. She was now about Mahoney’s age and looked it, but when she’d been younger she’d been a stunner, and DeMarco was convinced that she was one of the many women Mahoney had slept with. Whatever the case, she was as loyal to Mahoney as a gangbanger’s pit pull.

  DeMarco said, “I need to talk to Mahoney. I called him but he didn’t answer his phone or—”<
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  “Of course he didn’t answer his phone. He’s on his way to China and from there he’s going to Vietnam. Don’t you ever watch the news?”

  He didn’t bother to tell Mavis that his television was almost permanently set to the golf channel, but this was perfect. Sometimes luck was better than a lie. “No, I didn’t know about him traveling,” DeMarco said. “And I’m sorry I bothered you. What I need to tell him will have to wait until he’s back. There’s nothing he can do while he’s in China. How long is he going to be gone?”

  “He’s spending two days in China then he’s scheduled for three more in Vietnam, although his Vietnam schedule hasn’t been finalized. He’ll be gone at least a week because when he returns he’ll probably be attending a fundraiser on Cape Cod.”

  “Well, okay. I’ll talk to him when he gets back. Again, sorry to bother—”

  Mavis hung up.

  Only because he was curious, DeMarco googled, “Mahoney, China, Vietnam.” The all-knowing Internet informed him that Mahoney was attending some sort of trade meeting in China with a gaggle of other Democrats. Vietnam, however, appeared to be a personal mission for him, a stroll down memory lane. When Mahoney was seventeen, he’d been a Marine and had served in Vietnam and was rewarded for his service with shrapnel from a grenade, some of which was still embedded in his right knee. The article said Mahoney was planning to visit some of the places where he’d fought and would be meeting with some of the guys who’d been on the other side lobbing grenades at him. All those guys would be about Mahoney’s age by now, and all the hatred they’d once felt for each other had most likely dissipated. DeMarco was sure, however, that Mahoney would make a point of rolling up his right pant leg and showing all the old Viet Cong soldiers the scar on his knee. Mahoney showed people the scar every chance he got.

  For a moment he wondered why Mahoney hadn’t called him before flying to China to ask what he’d learned about the leaker. Mahoney had been adamant that DeMarco had to identify the rascal but, for whatever reason, he hadn’t bothered to harass him. Whatever the case, it looked as if he could spend a couple of days in Wyoming and Mahoney wouldn’t even know that he’d been gone.

  6

  Not surprisingly, there were no direct flights from Washington D.C. to Rock Springs, Wyoming, the city where the writer, Gloria Brunson, lived. Vast parts of the United States are called “fly over country” for a reason. The quickest way for DeMarco to get to Rock Springs was to take a four p.m. nonstop from Reagan National to Salt Lake City—then rent a car and drive for three hours. He arrived in Rock Springs close to midnight on the same day he had talked to Mavis and checked into a Holiday Inn. It had been too dark for him to appreciate the Wyoming landscape during the drive.

  The next morning he woke up around eight, had breakfast, and at nine o’clock called Gloria Brunson. He figured that by nine she should be up.

  He said, “Hello, my name is Joe DeMarco and I was wondering if you’d talk to me about Shannon Doyle. Your literary agent in New York gave me your number.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “No, I work for Congress but—”

  “Oh, you’re that DeMarco. Shannon told me about you.”

  This surprised him, just as it had surprised him that Shannon had told her sister and her agent about him. He’d obviously made a bigger impression on her than he’d thought. Which was good, but which also made his heart ache.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Gloria said.

  “I’m actually here in Rock Springs. I was hoping I could meet with you. Maybe I could buy you lunch or something.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Just come to my house.”

  Rock Springs, Wyoming, a town with a view of White Mountain, is known for mining the coal that kept the Union Pacific Railroad’s steam engines chugging back in the 1800s. Its population is only about twenty-five thousand; nonetheless, as of the last census, it was the fifth-largest city in Wyoming.

  Gloria Brunson lived in a boxy, white, two-story clapboard house on C Street, close to the Rock Springs Library. There were two red rocking chairs on the front porch, the paint on the chairs peeling. Parked in the driveway was a dusty Jeep Cherokee. The grass in the front yard was about three inches high and dandelions were thriving. It appeared as if Gloria had about as much interest in yard work as DeMarco did.

  He knocked on the front door and was greeted by a tall, thin woman in her sixties. She was wearing a plain white T-shirt, faded blue jeans with a hole in one knee, and sandals that looked as if they’d been made from old tires. Her hair was gray and straight and reached her shoulders and DeMarco’s first impression was: Hippie. She shook his hand and said, “It’s good to meet you. Shannon liked you a lot, so I figure you must be okay. It’s a beautiful morning. Let’s go sit in the backyard and talk. You want coffee?”

  “Sure,” DeMarco said.

  DeMarco followed her into the house. The interior was cluttered with old but comfortable looking furniture. Books were everywhere: in bookcases, on end tables, on the floors. A Native American blanket was tossed on a sofa; a cat sat on the blanket and a pair of scuffed tennis shoes lay in front of a recliner. The dining room table was littered with stacks of paper and more books; an open laptop sat on the table. DeMarco imagined the table was the spot where Brunson wrote her novels.

  Gloria’s backyard had a small flagstone patio and they took seats across from each other at a round table shaded by a beige umbrella. The grass in the backyard was as high as the grass in the front, but then he noticed three white, wooden boxes, each box about four feet tall, and he realized they were beehives. He could see the industrious little critters darting in and out of them.

  Gloria saw where he was looking and said, “Those are my children as I don’t have any of the human variety. You’re not allergic to bee stings, are you?”

  “Uh, no,” DeMarco said.

  “That’s good. So what did you want to talk about?”

  “I’m trying to find out what Shannon was doing in Wyoming. The cops here think she was killed by some trucker passing through Waverly, but I’m having a hard time accepting that. I want to see if her death could be connected in some way to whatever she was doing out here.”

  “Are you conducting an official investigation into her death?”

  “No. I don’t have the authority to investigate anything. I’m just a lawyer who does odd jobs for Congress.”

  “I think you’re being modest. Shannon told me about that woman you tracked down in Montenegro because she tried to kill a young girl.”

  “Well, that was an extraordinary circumstance and not what I normally do.”

  DeMarco didn’t see any point in mentioning that what he normally did was function as Mahoney’s bagman and track down people who leaked unflattering things about his boss to the media.

  DeMarco said, “Do you have any idea what she was doing in Waverly? Her agent thought she was researching some nut named Hiram Bunt who got into an armed standoff with the feds.”

  Gloria shook her head. “Shannon was intrigued by the standoff, but it wasn’t the focus of her book. What interested her were the people.”

  “You mean Bunt?”

  “Not so much Bunt as the men who work for him. They think of themselves as cowboys. They may use GPS devices to track cattle, and ATVs and pickups more often than horses, but they identify with the old-time cowboys who fought Indians and went on cattle drives back in the 1800s. A lot of them come across to outsiders as John Wayne wannabes, but they’re not acting. It’s who they are. They’re tough as nails because you have to be to do the kind of work they do. Their idea of sport is riding a one-ton bull in a rodeo. They don’t go around picking fights but they won’t walk away from one. They make good soldiers, and a lot of them are veterans. They’re often laconic and soft-spoken, and many of them tend to be painfully shy around women. Shannon was partic
ularly impressed with how capable most of them are. When your car breaks down, you probably call triple A. These guys can fix cars and well pumps and windmills and just about every piece of machinery you see on a modern ranch or farm. They also all hunt and fish, and Shannon always said that come Armageddon, they’ll survive while the rest of us will starve to death in the dark when the power grids come crashing down.”

  Gloria took a breath. “Anyway, that’s what fascinated Shannon, what she called the cowboy persona. As for the book she was writing, I have no idea what it was going to be about. She told me she was writing a love story, but Shannon’s approach to storytelling was so unique that I have no idea what kind of book it would have been and I doubt Shannon even knew when she first came out here.”

  “So what was she doing?” DeMarco asked. “Interviewing these people she found so interesting?”

  “Interviewing them. Studying them. She spent a lot of time just riding around and looking at the country. Lighthouse was as much about the setting as it was about the women in the novel, and I think she was trying to do the same thing here: Capture the magnificence of the open range and the people who live on it.”

  “Do you know if she recorded these interviews?”

  “Oh, no. Shannon just talked to people and soaked in everything about them. I doubt any of them would even consider a conversation with her an interview. And I actually helped her get started in Waverly. Waverly’s a small town, but they have a book club there, and I’ve spoken to the club a couple of times about my novels. I introduced Shannon to the lady in charge and she was just thrilled that a big-name writer like Shannon Doyle would be willing to meet with her group. So Shannon immediately became friends with about twenty women in town and after that, she just sort of settled in. She’d go to the bars and the restaurants there and chat with folks. She told me she met a lot of the men who work for Bunt, even danced with a few of them, and she genuinely liked them.”