Cold Wind

by C. J. Box

  Joe shook his head, confused. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t get it, then.”

  “Joe,” she said, setting her jaw, “I don’t want her found innocent because Marcus Hand ran rings around Dulcie in court. I want her found innocent because she didn’t do it. Don’t you understand? I don’t want this hanging over the heads of our girls. I don’t want it hanging over my head.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Tell me you understand, Joe.”

  He let a long stream of air out. “I understand what you’re saying.”

  “Good. Then you have to do what you can to find out what happened. Who did it, and why. The sheriff and Dulcie have tunnel vision. Everything they’re doing is based on Missy’s involvement. They’re not even considering other factors, I’m sure. Joe, you’re the only person I absolutely trust to keep an open mind.”

  He moaned. “I’m a game warden, honey. I’m not the governor’s point man anymore. He wants nothing to do with me. After what happened in the Sierra Madre, I made a promise to myself to just do my job as well as I can. No more freelancing.”

  A smile formed on her lips and her eyes sparkled in the moonlight from the window. She knew him better than he did, sometimes.

  “Okay,” he said. “In the midst of my day-to-day activities, I’ll find out what I can and push it. I’ll do what I do best—blunder around until something hits me in the head.”

  She chuckled at that, then turned serious again. “Joe, what about getting some help?”

  He looked away.

  “Joe,” she said, putting her hand on his bare shoulder. “It’s been nearly a year. It’s time you called him again. You two have way too much invested to let it be destroyed.”

  Joe said, “You know what happened.”

  “I do. And I realize you two together are better than either one of you alone. I swear, you’re acting like a couple of schoolgirls. Neither one wants to make the first move to reconcile.”

  “Men don’t reconcile,” he said. “We just pretend it never happened and move on.”

  She kept looking into his eyes. She knew that would work.

  “I don’t even know where he is,” Joe said, grumpy.

  “You know where he was,” she said. “Maybe you can start there.”

  He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. “If this was to get you out of jail, or save Sheridan or Lucy or April . . .”

  “Joe, she’s my mother.”

  “Boy, do I know that.”

  She sat up in bed, excited. “We’ll work on separate tracks. I’ll use library resources to find out what I can about Earl that we obviously don’t know. Maybe I can get a lead on someone who wanted him dead in that particular way. It’s strange when I think about it: I met the man fifty times, but I know very little about him before he got here. He’s made a lot of money over the years. I bet he’s made enemies, too.”

  “No doubt.”

  “And you’ll do what you do,” she said.

  “Blunder around until something hits me in the head,” Joe said sourly.

  “A little more enthusiasm would be nice,” she said.

  He tried to smile. “How about if we figure out who did it, but we keep quiet and she goes to prison? That way, you’ll know in your heart she’s innocent and you’ll be able to sleep at night—but she isn’t around here anymore to cause trouble. That way, everybody wins.”

  “That’s not a good solution. At all.”

  “Had to try,” Joe said, kissing her good night as the eastern sky began to blush with dawn.

  AUGUST 23

  If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.

  —LATIN PROVERB

  14

  The initial appearance for Missy Alden took place in front of Justice of the Peace Tilden Mouton in his closet-like room in an older section of the City/County Building where the air-conditioning didn’t reach.

  Joe arrived just as Deputy Sollis escorted Missy into the room. Marcus Hand was two steps behind and towered over both of them. If anything, Joe thought, Missy looked worse than she had the day before. Her skin was white and her hair was stringy. Her eyes looked out from the sockets, and her mouth was thin and wrinkled vertically, which reminded Joe of the stitched mouth of an Amazonian shrunken skull. He thought how humiliated she must feel to be in the county jail without her massive bathroom mirrors and makeup.

  There were only a dozen chairs in the chambers, and Joe took one nearest the exit. Sissy Skanlon of the Roundup took another. They were the only spectators, which surprised Joe. He’d never been present for an initial appearance before, and was taken aback by the informality of the proceedings.

  Twelve Sleep County, like several other small Wyoming counties, had retained the JP position. Joe surmised the main reason the county hadn’t modernized to a circuit court procedure was because no one wanted to tell Tilden Mouton he no longer had a job. Mouton ran the largest feed store in Saddlestring from a massive complex built by his father, which had been carried forward and expanded upon to sell hardware, sporting goods, and work wear. The building was on the National Historic Register and the single table and chairs across from the counter was the morning gathering place for ranchers and oldtimers. Joe loved Mouton Feed and had told Marybeth more than once that everything he ever wanted or needed could be found there. He delighted in the quantity and variety of tools, flies for fishing, and impressive duct tape selection.

  Because of Mouton’s good-hearted civic activities—sponsoring practically every team, school trip, celebration, and economic development scheme, buying the prize beef and lambs at the county fair, putting full-page ads in the Roundup, which practically kept it afloat—the consensus in town was that removing the man from a part-time job he treasured just wasn’t worth it to anyone. Tilden was so good-natured and proud of his side job as JP there was no reason to disappoint him by taking away his title. Everyone assumed the position would go away when Tilden Mouton did.

  Mouton was short and bald and pear-shaped and looked like a cartoon character. As his belly grew each year, his beltline rose, so his buckle was just a few inches below his chest. He parked his glasses on the top of his head and Joe couldn’t ever remember seeing the man actually use them. His eyes were kind and he had a dry humor suffused with awful puns, like stocking duck decoys in the duct tape section. Mouton still personally waited on customers, and would spend as much time as necessary with them that they left satisfied.

  So it was uncharacteristic when the JP scowled at both Missy and Hand with naked antagonism as they took their seats behind a scarred table. Joe wondered whether Mouton’s ire was directed at Missy, Hand, or both.

  Dulcie Schalk was efficient. She recapped the charges and framed the evidence in a tone that was strident, as if she was holding back her true contempt in respect for the court. While Schalk talked, Missy looked off to the side with her chin down, the way a helpless puppy surrendered wounded domination to a larger and more aggressive dog.

  It took less than ten minutes. Tilden Mouton nodded, thanked Dulcie Schalk, and looked to Missy and Hand for a reply.

  Hand seemed taken aback. He said, “With all due respect, sir, I am still waiting for more. I anticipated hearing from the sheriff who arrested my client, and especially the testimony of the secret witness Miss Schalk mentioned who is testifying against us. All Miss Schalk has done here could have been accomplished by reading the front page of the newspaper.”

  Joe was confused as well. He thought there might be something new and revelatory in regard to the charges or the evidence.

  “The witness isn’t available this morning,” Dulcie Schalk said, and Joe caught a bit of trepidation catch in her voice.

  “Isn’t available?” Hand said, faux-astonished. “These charges rest almost completely on the testimony of a mystery man, and he isn’t available?”

  “We have plenty of other evidence,” Schalk said quickly. “The murder weapon, for example, which was found
in the defendant’s Hummer.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Hand said, playing to a jury that wasn’t there. “The prosecution has sullied the reputation of a pillar of the community and thrown her in jail, but they don’t feel it necessary to produce the witness that put her there?”

  Joe thought he had a point. Where was Bud?

  “Mr. Hand,” Mouton said, “I’m aware of you and your reputation. I know you think you can dictate how things will go, because you’re a big man in this state and you appear on national television. But that’s not how we do things here. We’re not trying the case here and now. We’re trying to decide if there is a case.”

  Joe thought, Tilden doesn’t like the guy. Maybe Missy had made a mistake bringing Hand in to defend her.

  Mouton wasn’t through. He said, “Mr. Hand, let me give you just a little bit of friendly advice while we’re here at this very early stage. Phrases like ‘pillar of the community’ only work if the defendant is in fact a pillar of the community.

  “For example,” Mouton said, “if the defendant has made choices over the years to acquire large family ranches in the area and immediately put locks on gates that have been used for years by locals, or all but refuse to participate in any of the civic activities within the county because she looks down her nose at them”—he shot a glance Missy’s way while he paused—“or has chosen to obtain all of her groceries, hardware, or agricultural supplies from out-of-town firms because she saves a few pennies, well, it is hard to characterize that person as a pillar of the community.”

  Joe sat straight up in his seat.

  “Yes, sir,” Hand said.

  Joe thought, It’s both of them.

  Tilden Mouton banged a gavel and turned to his assistant and said, to Marcus Hand and Missy, “You are hereby bound over for a preliminary hearing before me this Friday. I’ve spoken to Judge Hewitt, and he wants this to move along with all due speed. Bail will be set at one million dollars.”

  “I object, Your Honor,” Hand said. “One million dollars is punitive and unnecessary. It suggests my client, this wonderful woman with roots deep in this place, might actually run away.”

  “You don’t have to call me ‘Your Honor,’ ” Mouton said. Then: “Your objection is noted and denied.”

  “Mr. Mouton, I have problems with the amount, but for a different reason,” Dulcie Schalk said. “Given the defendant’s ability to simply buy her way out of jail using her dead husband’s money, the county implores you to detain her rather than grant her bail.”

  “We accept the bail amount, sir,” Hand said sheepishly, after a quick conference with Missy where their foreheads were touching, “and I plan to make the proper arrangements so my client will be able to sleep in her own bed by this very evening.” He lowered his voice so Joe and Sissy Skanlon had to lean forward to hear. “So she can properly grieve her murdered husband and try to figure out how she’ll ever get her life and her reputation back.”

  Dulcie Schalk sighed and rolled her eyes while Sissy scribbled.

  Joe wondered what it would be like to have access to a million dollars within a single afternoon.

  “Until Friday,” Tilden Mouton said, nodding at Schalk.

  As Joe approached his pickup in the parking lot, he heard his name called out. He looked over his shoulder to see Marcus Hand walking toward him in big loping strides. Hand had a bemused look on his face. “That was interesting,” he said. “I wish for our case the Aldens had bought more feed and trinkets in town. But that’s water under the bridge at this point.” He looked at Joe.

  “I know you’re an honorable fellow,” Hand said. “Even Missy says it.”

  “Good of her,” Joe said.

  “My understanding is you know Bud Longbrake quite well—is that right?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m getting the impression our prosecutor doesn’t know where he is right now, unless she’s more fiendish than she appears and she’s got him hidden away somewhere.”

  Joe shook his head. “She’s not like that. Dulcie is a straight shooter.”

  “Look,” Hand said, “my team will be arriving soon from Jackson and I’ve got PIs on retainer who can tear this little town apart. But it will take a few days to get them settled in and up to speed. Those are days we can’t afford if we hope to get an immediate dismissal. If you can determine Bud’s location before that and I can get a chance to interview him, well . . .”

  Joe acted as if he didn’t understand.

  “We might be able to kill this thing before it starts,” Hand said.

  “I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” Joe said.

  Hand put a big paw on Joe’s shoulder and gazed at him with warmth and sincerity that gave Joe a chill up his spine. “Let’s just say if you can help us, it would mean a lot to everybody you know and love,” Hand said. “And it would be the right thing. From what Missy tells me, that’s important to you.”

  Joe turned for his pickup, and Hand said, “Not to mention it would be worth a lot to the both of us. Missy and me.”

  Joe climbed in, slid the window down, and said to Hand, “You almost had me until that last bit.”

  “Oh, darn,” Hand said with a mischievous wink.

  AUGUST 26

  The wind’s in the east. . . . I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.

  —CHARLES DICKENS, Bleak House

  15

  Groggy from lack of sleep and thinking too hard, Joe drove through light rain and fog the eight miles into Saddlestring. The cool dark morning reflected his outlook, so he hoped the sun would break through. The arraignment of Missy was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. in the county building, and he’d agreed to pick up Marybeth at the library so they could attend together.

  A major reason for his discomfort was his unease at being on the other side of the legal proceedings. Usually, he was out in the field or going to court to help put a bad guy away—not to try to figure out ways to circumvent law enforcement procedure or the county attorney’s charges. In his uniform shirt and state-owned pickup, he felt like a traitor. He didn’t like the feeling.

  He’d known Bud Longbrake for years as a solid and influential county citizen and rancher first, father-in-law and employer second, and bitter and pathetic alcoholic most recently. The loss of his ranch had devastated Bud, and even more so the loss of Missy, whom he worshipped. Joe was always taken aback how Bud had revered Missy and was blind to her schemes and manipulations. Once, as they drove back to the ranch headquarters in the middle of a sudden blizzard, Bud had turned to Joe and said he was the happiest man alive. He cited his productive ranch and his beautiful new wife, and confessed that the only thing—the only thing—he still wanted was to get his son or daughter interested enough in the place to take it over and keep it running under the Longbrake name.

  That was a problem, though. Bud Longbrake Jr. was a thirty-three-year-old college student at the University of Montana in Missoula whose prime interest was performance art on Higgins Street wearing a jester costume inspired by the French court at Versailles. He went by the name “Shamazz” and had had it legally changed. Shamazz’s specialty—and he was quite good at it—was satirical pantomime. He also sold drugs and took them. After his second arrest, the judge agreed to remand him to Bud’s custody. Bud had taken Shamazz back on the ranch for a while during Junior’s (he’d changed his name back by then) probation and tried to get his son on the right track. Joe was between stints with the state at the time, and served briefly as foreman on the Longbrake Ranch. Bud Jr. was assigned as his project. Joe was not successful in getting Bud Jr. interested in cattle, horses, fences, or legacies. Especially not fences. Bud Jr. lasted six months before vanishing on a cold day in November. Three weeks later, Bud Sr. received a postcard sent from Santa Fe asking for money. It was signed “Shamazz.”

  Bud just couldn’t give up on Bud Jr. The old man continued to hold out hope that his son would one day show up clean-
shaven in starched Wranglers, boots, and a Stetson and ask, “What needs to be done today, Dad?” Joe couldn’t understand what Bud was thinking, but that was before the past year with April. Giving up on a child was now a subject he couldn’t broach.

  Bud’s daughter, Sally, had been severely injured in a car crash in Portland the year before. Thrice married, she’d been an artist specializing in wrought iron, but her injuries prevented her from resuming her career. The news of his daughter’s hospitalization, coming just months after Missy changed the locks on the ranch buildings while Bud was buying cattle in Nebraska, sent the man on a downward spiral that was epic.

  Despite her actions, Bud still carried a torch for Missy. The meaner she was to him, the more he missed her. Although the restraining order on him prevented any contact with her, she wanted Bud to move away and stop telling his sad story to anyone who would listen from his stool at the Stockman’s Bar. Missy was angered when she found out she couldn’t obtain a court order to prevent him from speaking her name in vain to strangers and asked Joe for Nate Romanowski’s contact details so she could hire the outlaw falconer to put the fear of God into her ex-husband. Joe hadn’t obliged.

  The last time Joe had seen Bud was the year before, when Bud had wandered into the backyard of their house in town drunk, armed, and confused. Joe and Nate had taken the old man home, and Bud had wept like a child the whole way. He’d said he was ashamed of what he’d become. Joe believed him, and thought Bud might pull himself together at some point.

  Now, based on what Marcus Hand had told them, it looked like he had. And not in a good way for Missy.

  As far as Joe knew, Bud Longbrake still resided in a rented a two-bedroom apartment over the Stockman’s Bar. At least that’s where they’d taken him the year before.