When they were sure the girls were in their rooms with their doors closed, Joe and Marybeth sat together on the couch and he told her about his conversation with Nate. He left out the part about the falconry website. Although it was his practice to share everything with his wife, in this case he felt the need to hold back a little for her own protection. She wouldn’t agree with his decision-he was sure of it-but Nate had spooked him.
“Nemecek?” Marybeth asked.
“Nate said we wouldn’t find out much about him,” Joe said. “He said he was off the grid as well.”
“No one is completely without identity.”
Joe shrugged.
“I have my ways,” she said.
He nodded. “I know you do.”
Marybeth’s part-time job at the library gave her access to data and networks that rivaled those of most local law enforcement, and certainly the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department. She’d used that access to her advantage many times, and, through a coworker who had once worked for the police department, had obtained passwords and backdoor user names that allowed her into N-DEx, the U.S. Justice Department’s National Data Exchange, and ViCAP, the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
“I’m curious to hear what you find,” Joe said.
“Of course, we could just go to the source and ask him,” she said.
“I’m holding that in reserve.”
She shook her head. If it were up to Marybeth, Joe knew, she would have had Nate spilling everything.
They sat in silence for a while on the couch, each consumed by their own thoughts.
Finally, Marybeth asked, “Do you think we’ll see Nate again?”
Joe shrugged. “I hope so.”
“If he said the things you told me, he must be really worried. I’ve never heard him talk like that.”
“Me either.”
She said, “I can’t help wondering what it was he did that drew him here. What was so awful that he thinks he deserves to die?”
At 2:30 in the morning, Joe slipped out of bed and pulled on his robe and walked quietly down the hallway to his tiny and cluttered home office. He shut the door, turned on the light, and sat down at his computer.
Emails from Game and Fish headquarters flooded his inbox, but nothing looked urgent. The department was temporarily without a new director, and a search by the governor was under way. Governor Rulon, who in the past had employed Joe directly but off the books in a bureaucratic sense, had two years left in his second and last term and had seemed to have mellowed somewhat. Joe hadn’t received an assignment from Rulon in more than a year, which was fine with him, although if forced to admit it, he’d come to crave the adventure and uncertainty of his missions. The respite had been healthy for his family, though, and being able to stay home was something he’d never regret.
It didn’t take long to find the falconry website Nate had given him. He took a few moments to register a username and a password, and he was in. The site was rudimentary and cluttered, no more than a screen filled with topics and comment threads:
WHAT KIND OF HOOD SHOULD I BUY FOR A PRAIRIE FALCON?
‹17 COMMENTS›
FLYING SHORT-WINGS
‹21 COMMENTS›
HOW LONG WILL MY BIRD KEEP MOLTING?
‹7 COMMENTS›
How do I recognize a state of yarak?
‹14 COMMENTS›
Joe clicked on that one because he was unfamiliar with the word yarak and recalled Nate had used it earlier. The thread had begun more than ten years before, and the last comment was eight years old. Nevertheless, he read the thread with interest. Y arak was a Turkish word describing the peak condition of a falcon to fly and hunt. It was described as “full of stamina, well-muscled, alert, neither too fat nor too thin, perfect condition for hunting and killing prey. This state is rarely achieved but a wonder to behold when observed.” In order to achieve an optimum state of yarak, one commenter wrote, full-time care, exercise, diet, and training were required.
“Don’t think you can get your bird into primo yarak by working with it at night or on weekends. This is a twenty-four/seven commitment, and there are no guarantees.”
Joe didn’t expect to find a new thread with the word “kestrel” in it, and it wasn’t there.
He wondered if Nate would launch the thread before he achieved his state of yarak.