Free The Royal Wulff Murders by Keith McCafferty

expertise that the writers of the fishing manuals overlooked. They reduced fly fishing to a nuts-and-bolts proposition, leading their readers to believe that the man who had the highest modulus graphite rod, the line with the slickest space-age finish, the invisible fluorocarbon tippet, and the perfectly tied fly would so overwhelm a trout with technological superiority that it would open its mouth in defeat. Stranahan knew that success rested upon touch more than it did on technology, and that technique took a backseat to concentration and desire. You fished a river by feel and your heart rode with the fly. The minute you let your mind wander, you were lost.
    He fished methodically back toward the bridge, taking at least one trout from every third or fourth pocket where the river paused long enough to catch a breath. None had a V cut from its adipose fin. But as he squatted down to bring a fine rainbow of seventeen inches to hand, he saw a glint of light in the distance. He had waded out to a gravel bar and was facing the west bank. The light flashed and vanished. Then it flashed once more, seeming to originate from one of the cabins on the bank, although “cabin” was hardly an adequate word to describe the colossal log structure, with its wraparound deck sportingenough rough-hewn patio furniture to stock the lobby of the Old Faithful Inn.
    No doubt some millionaire Californian owned the place. He would keep binoculars on the sill to track the flight of osprey or spot bighorn sheep on the opposite mountainside. The light was probably the reflection off the lens. Even if someone was watching him, and Stranahan had an uncomfortable feeling that someone was, there was no harm intended—just someone fishing vicariously through the successfully bent rod of a passing angler.
    Stranahan released the trout, trying to shake off the thought that there might be more to Velvet Lafayette’s story than she had told him. He headed downriver with a brusque step. If one needed an excuse, the next decent riffle was around the bend, anyway. He felt supersensitive to his surroundings, the melody of the current more insistent now that the shadows were lengthening. He rounded the bend and felt the constriction in his chest ease. Tan caddis flies swarmed from the willows as he pushed through branches toward the river. The mucky earth that sucked at his boots held a faint smell of mint. Stranahan stepped quietly into the water and began to cast.

CHAPTER TEN
A Scent in the Forest
    T he host of the Beaver Creek Campground, a gaunt giant with the pinched face and corrugated cheeks of a Depression-era farmer, opened the door of his trailer at Martha’s knock and said no, there were no abandoned cars in the campground.
    “Anyone who hasn’t paid up?”
    “Everybody’s square, Sheriff,” he said seriously. Hair the color of an orangutan’s sprouted from the V-neck of his undershirt and he had a faint, hoarse voice, thrown like a ventriloquist’s, so that it seemed to emanate from somewhere else. His eyes were rheumy, the pupils blurred. Martha found she had a hard time looking at him.
    “I have half a lung,” he said, as if sensing her thought. “That’s what you get after thirty years in a West Virginia coal mine. Whisper’s best I can do.”
    “I can hear you fine,” Martha said.
    Walt walked up from the Cherokee, where he’d been stretching his legs. “Maybe you have someone who’s paid up but the campsite seems to be abandoned, never see anyone around? Car might have Mississippi plates.” He was thinking of the hat Ettinger had found at the logjam. “Anytime in the past week or so.”
    “I’ll look.”
    The man disappeared into the trailer and came back holding a clipboard. A Manx tabby cat darted out the door and underneath the trailer.
    “That’s Suzy,”the man croaked, his lips barely moving. Martha had to resist the urge to look past him and search the cluttered interior of the trailer for the source of the