Jem pulled a pained face.“The bad news is that deal was for a different model.”
“But on your website—”
“I know, I know.We can’t get the website guy to keep it up to date.”
“We came in here because there was a dealer rebate,” the man said.“When I called, the man on the phone said you were still offering the rebate.”
Jem’s pained expression grew a little tighter.“Let me see what I can do, but I’m going to be honest: my manager isn’t going to like this.”
He left the couple on the lot with the Silverado; the sound of traffic from I-15 thinned behind him.The woman had dropped down inside her phone again; the man was touching one of the truck’s side panels like he was about to start petting it.
Inside the dealership, Jem went back to the employee break room.He got himself a cup of water, considered the donut box that now held only a single, stale cruller, and took out his phone.He watched a couple of YouTube videos.There was a guy he liked.He sold cars too, although that was a coincidence.What the guy did—what the videos were about, and what Jem got a kick out of—was talk to strangers.He pretended to know them.And nine times out of ten, maybe nine-point-nine times out of ten, the people went along because they were too afraid to admit they had no idea who he was.And the best part was, he could get them to agree to all sorts of things—to call old friends they’d never heard of, to reminisce about teachers they’d never had, to spill secrets about their health, their careers, their marriages.It was this little window, and Jem kept cracking it open, getting glimpses of this other world that was, occasionally, like a mirror.A world where you could justdoshit.And shit happened.
“Hey.”The voice cut through the buzz of conversation on the video.“You’ve got a couple out there who’s waiting to drop forty thousand dollars on one of my trucks.”
Little Dick was maybe five-seven, a hundred and fifty pounds, and he told everybody who’d listen that he’d wrestled in college, and back in high school he would have won state except he’d pulled his groin.That was how he said it every time:pulled his groin.
“Yeah,” Jem said.“I’m getting them a better deal.You’re being a real hard-ass about it, and I’m fighting for them to get our dealer rebate, and I swear to God, my manager is never going to let me do this again.”Jem caught himself fiddling with his tie again.“I’m giving it two more minutes.”
Little Dick grinned.He always grinned when he thought Jem was—as Little Dick liked to put it—giving it to them up the ass.He had capped teeth that were a little too small for his mouth.“Are they going to finance?”
“That’s a condition of the rebate.”
Little Dick’s grin got bigger.“You are un-fucking-believable.See if you can get them to swallow the dealer prep fees—oh, and nitrogen in the tires, that’s been popular lately.”
It had been popular lately because Jem had made it popular.But he nodded.He even smiled.
“God,” Little Dick said with a laugh.“If I had ten guys like you.”As he left, he slapped the wall and called without looking back, “Now get your ass out there and sell my cars!”
3
A turkey vulture circled high overhead.
“Hurry up,” the rancher, Neff, said.“I got a wolf to kill.”
Tean ignored him.
The cow had been dead for maybe twenty-four hours, but not much longer—flies buzzed up as Tean approached, but no maggots, not yet, and bloat hadn’t set in.She had been old and—Tean judged—sick before that, if the dried fecal matter clumped around her tail was any indication.Scavengers had already gotten to her eyes, her tongue, even her hindquarters, ripping away chunks of soft flesh around the anus.Something else had torn her open behind the ribs and gotten to the internal organs.
The big question was: what was thatsomething?
It was a beautiful day in this narrow valley of the Bear River basin.The October afternoon was warm, although not as warm as it was back in Salt Lake.And while the bottomland pasture was mostly brown this late in the year, tall grasses and good growths of browse still lined the banks of the creek a hundred yards off.Sage and juniper bristled on the foothills before giving way, higher up, to dense gold-and-green stands of aspen, spruce, and pine.The smell of the dead cow filled Tean’s nose, and back by Neff’s ATV, some kind of Shepherd mutt was barking his head off.
Neff shifted his weight.He was a round-faced, middle-aged White man, with a forelock of graying hair poking out from under his cattleman hat.A long-sleeved plaid shirt, Wranglers, and a pair of square-toed boots completed the standard Utah Rancher package.“Are you blind or something?Write your report, or do whatever you have to do, and let me get on with my business.”
Tean snapped a few photos with a digital camera, checked the ground to make sure he wouldn’t trample any evidence, and then moved around the cow to snap a few more pictures.Most people thought of forensics as something only human law enforcement had to deal with, but the science of wildlife forensics was becoming more and more important as part of legal proceedings in crimes against animals, like poaching, the exotic pet trade, or illegal trading of animal products.It was also important, although less frequently, in animal attacks.
“This is ridiculous,” Neff said, and he started to step forward.“Look, right here—”
“Mr.Neff, stay where you are,” Tean said.
“This is my ranch.You don’t get to tell me where I can go.”
“I haven’t finished documenting this.If you come over here, you might destroy evidence.”
Neff huffed a breath and threw a look at his companion—a man probably twenty years younger with bloodshot eyes.The ranch hand’s name was McCall, and he stood there, not looking at anyone as he tugged at his gloves.
“Look right there,” Neff said, but he stayed where he was.“Use your eyes, man.They eat on them for days, open them up like that.And I’ve seen that damn wolf right up on that ridge.You’re telling me this is a coincidence?”