Part 2: Just the Good Ol' Boys
The first day of the job was going by uneventful, Echo had gotten the smallest desk that wobbled due to one leg being shorter than the other. She was currently on her hands and knees with folded pieces of paper trying to fix the problem. Vic and Ferg were staring at her like she was crazy, Ferg had even muttered under his breath that nothing had been wrong with the desk while he was at it.
Walt came barging through the door, making her jump up out of the floor and dust her hands off on her jeans. He took his hat off, nodded his head at her once, then walked on into his office motioning for Vic to follow. Vic walked into the office and shut the door, and Echo went back to trying to stop the desk from wobbling.
10 minutes later Vic and Walt came out of the office, "Ferg, we got a call about a body in the river. The Game Wardens that found him were able to identify him as the ranch owner, Harlan Judy. Take Echo with you to the scene, see what you can find out there. Vic and I are heading over to Harlan's place to talk to Wilma."
Echo started putting her jacket on and following Ferg out the door. Ferg unlocked the Charger and climbed into the driver's seat. "Walt normally sends me to the scenes, I've gotten really good at tracking and noticing the little things that most people don't notice." Echo smiled at him politely and didn't say anything the trip to the scene. Ferg kept talking himself up about how he learned to track and all the other wilderness classes he had taken to help him do his job better. Echo would just nod her head every now and then when she knew he was waiting on a response.
When they finally arrived at the scene, Ferg grabbed his bag out of the trunk of his car and headed to where two Game Wardens were standing at a truck parked near where the body laid covered with a towel. Echo followed behind him with her hands shoved in the coat pockets. The older game warden had grey hair that had begun thinning in the front, a thick mustache covering his whole top lip, he introduced himself as Jim Childers. The younger one, Harry Shirk, had black hair that he had greased back, with the start of a beard growing. He was attractive, and he knew it, which is the problem.
As Echo and Ferg walked up, the young one was not shy about staring her up and down and letting his eyes linger in places they shouldn't. Ferg noticed it too and stepped in front of her and stuck his hand out, "I'm Deputy Ferguson, this is Deputy Aven. What can you tell us?"
Jim extended his hand to Ferg as well, "We were doing our weekly checks on all of our wildlife management areas, this was the last one we had to check when Harry saw something floating in the water. At first, we just assumed it was some garbage, so we stopped to pull it out. When we got closer we realized it was a person, so we pulled him out from the water, and I found his wallet on him, telling me the name. Then we called you guys."
Ferg wrote everything down in a notepad, including their names and numbers to reach them if we had had any more questions and then sent them on their way. However, Harry did have to leer at Echo's backside the whole time she walked off. She could feel his eyes burning holes into her back, and then she heard him tell Jim what he would like to do with her behind as he chuckled and got into the truck.
"I'm so sorry, Echo, I hate men that think they can do that and get away with it." Ferg said as he bent down in front of the body. "Also, if you want to step back, I understand too. Seeing your first dead body is hard enough, and coming from the smell so far, he isn't pretty."
When Ferg pulled the towel from the body, he stumbled back a couple steps and covered his nose. The body had clearly been in the river for quite a while, it had bloated and the skin had become waterlogged and was coming off the body. Ferg took a couple more steps back, his face had lost all color now, and then walked over to a tree and began vomiting.
Echo could agree that the smell was not that great, but she had smelled worse, seen worse. So while Ferg was losing his breakfast, Echo pulled on two gloves and began examining the body. She found a bullet wound through his chest, pretty large, but she wasn't sure if it was from the actual bullet, or the damage to the body the river had made. She rolled the body to the side to see the back, but once again, the extent of the damage, or what evidence may have been on the body, was gone due to being in the water so found the man's wallet laying beside him, identifying the man as Harlan Judy. The wallet also had $250 dollars in it, so it wasn't a robbery. She rocked back on the heels of her boots and stood up.
She tossed the towel back over the body and hollered at Ferg, "You doing ok back there, tough guy?"
Ferg poked his head out from behind the tree, the shame on his face was apparent as he walked back up towards her. "I'm sorry...I guess I not only underestimated you, but myself. What did you find out?"
"A bullet hole through his chest, there is an exit wound from the back. It's hard to tell exactly what damage is from the bullet, or what was made worse due to the face of being in the water that long. He did have his ID on him, Harlan Judy, with $250 dollars in the wallet as well."
She handed the black leather wallet over to Ferg who took it gingerly and placed it into a plastic evidence bag. "How did you get so used to seeing dead bodies like that? You didn't seem bothered by it the slightest bit. Vic once told me that it's when you stop being bothered by a dead body, is when you should worry." Ferg trailed off and was looking anywhere but at the body.
"I was in the Army for 12 years, based in Iraq," Ferg looked up at her with wild eyes, "but don't worry Ferg, I won't tell anyone what happened here today. Do you want to look around the area, use your tracking skills to see if you can find anything? I personally believe he's been in the water for awhile, at least a week or two. I'm doubting this is the place the murder happened, so that's going to be the fun part...finding where it happened."
While Ferg walked around the area to see if he could find anything, Echo followed the muddy footprints back to the river bank and looked around. The calming sound of the water put her at ease as she took a deep breath of the cold air.
"Echo! We gotta go! The medical examiner is almost here for the body, and Walt's got a lead!"
Echo turned and rushed back to the charger and jumped in. Ferg held the phone out after placing Walt on speaker, "I just talked to Wilma Judy, she said Harlan had gone to his hunting cabin with two cousins by the name of Ben and Kyle Montgomery that worked for him. She said that was over two weeks ago, she assumed he was still there enjoying his trip. Vic and I are 10 minutes away from their house, you two go up to the hunting cabin and see what you find there. Be careful and call us if you need backup."
"Will do, Walt." Ferg said as he quickly wrote down the directions to the cabin and hung up the phone. He looked at Echo, "Let's do this!" He turned the car around and sped off to the cabin.
As they slowly eased around a turn on the gravel road, the hunting cabin came into view. "That's the Montgomery boy's car there, and theres smoking coming from the chimney as well. They're still here, and they probably know we're here too. Be careful, Echo."
Ferg put the car into park and got out with his hand on his got out of the car and nodded her head to Ferg to have him go around back, and that she would cover the front. He nodded, pulled his gun out and started slowly heading around the house. Echo undid the latch on her holster and began heading towards the front door.
As soon as she made it up the three steps onto the porch the door flung open, and there stood a bear of a man. It was Ben Montgomery, who was covered in thick black hair, missing 3 of his teeth, and in nothing but a pair of camo pants. He looked her up and down, like it amused him. "Can I help you, darling?"
"Yeah, you can actually," Echo said, slowly reaching behind her to pull the badge from her pocket, "I'm Deputy Aven, and we just found Harlan Judy's body, know anything about it?"
Ben stopped scratching his belly and straightened up from the door frame, real slowly he looked back into the house, yelled "Run Kyle!" and then charged Echo like a bull. Without having a minute to blink, much less move, he tackled Echo off the porch, knocking the wind out of her. He stood up and went to run past her, but she was able to grab his foot and twist it to the side as hard as she could, resulting in him falling on his face.
Echo could hear Ferg yelling, and she heard another vehicle pulling up into the driveway, but she didn't take her eyes off Ben who was still trying to get away from her.
Walt brought his car to a skidding halt as they rounded the corner in time to see Ben Montgomery tackle Echo off the porch. He had jumped from the vehicle and started off towards them when he heard Ferg and looked over to see him fighting with Kyle. "Vic, Ferg!" Vic took off running around the house to help him as he took off to get to Echo. He could tell the impact had knocked the air out of her, but as Ben stood up to run, she rolled and grabbed him, bringing him back to the ground. Ben kicked back with his other foot, kicking her in the face.
Walt got to him then and shoved the barrel of his rifle into his back. "You better apologize to my new Deputy, Ben, before I just put this bullet into your back."
Ben froze and held his hands bent down and cuffed him and then turned to help Echo up, but she was already leaning against the porch wiping blood from the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. "You ok, kid?"
She looked up and met Walt's gaze, and the look in her green eyes actually made the hair on the back of Walt's neck stand up. "I'm fine, Longmire. Trust me, I've been through worse."
About that time Vic and Ferg came from around the side of the house with a cuffed Kyle heading towards his squad car. Walt yanked Ben to his feet and shoved him towards the charger. "Vic, Ferg, you take these two back to the station and check them in. See if they'll give you their statements. I'm taking Echo with me." Vic nodded as she took Ben from her and headed towards the car.
Walt turned back to Echo who was watching him with curious eyes, reminding him of a fox. "We're going for a drink, get in the car."