Cold Wind

by C. J. Box

  Hand said defensively, “Your Honor—”

  “Can it,” Hewitt said. “Save it for the jury. Mrs. Alden, do you concur with your attorney’s statement?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Missy said, in a little-girl voice Joe had heard her use addressing his young daughters. “I’m not guilty of anything. I loved Earl.”

  Hewitt waved the last sentence away and struck his gavel. He narrowed and focused on Dulcie Schalk. “Miss Schalk, the county seems to have its ducks in a row and you appear to be chomping at the bit to proceed. Is there any good reason not to move along to scheduling at this point?”

  “Your Honor?” Schalk said, with a catch in her voice.

  “You heard me,” the judge said. “And I’ve heard enough from you. You seem to think you’ve got evidence and witnesses lined up. I see no reason to drag this out, do you?”

  “No, Your Honor . . .”

  “Pardon the court,” Hand said, looking around the room as if he couldn’t believe what was happening, “but once again Miss Schalk and the county have made damning allegations against my client based upon a mystery man they’ve not produced. While I’ve no doubt Miss Schalk is the most honorable county prosecutor in the land, I find it hard to believe that we will attempt an accelerated schedule when the star witness has yet to show his face and take the oath and attempt to condemn my client to a prison cell in Lusk or a lethal injection with a needle.”

  Schalk rolled her eyes when he said “needle.”

  “Miss Schalk?” Hewitt said. “Mr. Hand has a point.”

  “He’ll be here, the witness,” she said, faltering for a moment. “He’ll be here to testify. And for the record, we haven’t announced if we’ll seek the death penalty.”

  “So where is he now?” Hewitt asked.

  “Attending to personal matters,” she said. “We expect him back within days.”

  “Personal matters?” Hand said, shooting a glance at Joe, then turning to Hewitt. “This is the first we’ve heard of this. If one were suspicious or a cynic, one might come to the conclusion that the prosecution is hiding the witness away until they can spring him on the court without notice.”

  Schalk’s face flushed red. “I can assure you that’s not the case,” she said. “We’re ready to proceed.”

  Hewitt nodded and thumped the heel of his hand on his desk for emphasis. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to hear. The defendant is hereby remanded for trial to begin on September twelfth, two weeks from today. Jury selection will begin that Monday morning.”

  Marcus Hand quickly folded his arms across his chest as if to prevent his hands from reaching out and throttling Judge Hewitt. He said, “Two weeks, Your Honor? Is this a major murder trial or are we scheduling a track meet?”

  Hewitt let that echo through the courtroom—there were a couple of sniggers—then turned his full attention back to Hand.

  “No, Mr. Marcus Hand, famed criminal defense attorney and bestselling author, this is not a track meet and this is not Teton County or Denver or Hollywood or Georgetown. This is Twelve Sleep County, and this is my courtroom.”

  Hand took a deep breath and let his arms drop, fully cognizant of the fact he’d angered the judge. He shuffled his feet, recalcitrant, and looked down at the floor.

  “It seems to me, Mr. Hand, if your client is as wrongly accused as you claim and as innocent as you insist, that you’d want to clear her as quickly as possible and let her go home for good. Why you’d want to let her twist in the legal wind for weeks and months is something that doesn’t strengthen your position. And if the charges are as shallow and contemptible as you indicate, you should want nothing more than an opportunity to quickly disprove them. Am I missing something?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Hand said. “It’s just that I want to present the best possible defense. We’ve yet to see all the evidence gathered by the prosecutor, or had a chance to interview their so-called star witness . . .”

  “You heard her—you’ll have all that,” Hewitt said. “Miss Schalk, turn everything over without any further delay and make the statements of your witness available to the defense. Got that?”

  Hewitt turned to Hand. “Any motions?”

  Hand made a motion to dismiss the case. Hewitt laughed, denied it, and asked if there were any others. Joe expected Hand to open his briefcase and produce a dozen motions to delay the trial or make Dulcie Schalk’s life a living hell.

  “No motions, Your Honor,” Hand said.

  Joe sat back, perplexed.

  “So we’re set,” Hewitt said.

  Schalk nodded, then followed with a weak “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Marybeth talked briefly with Missy and Marcus Hand after the proceeding was recessed, while Joe went into the hallway to wait. The bailiff, an ex-rodeo cowboy nicknamed Stovepipe, sauntered from behind the metal detector he manned into the courtroom and grinned at Joe.

  “He’s something, ain’t he?” Stovepipe said.

  “Moves things right along,” Joe said.

  Stovepipe switched a toothpick from the left side of his mouth to the right in a deft move. “I get the impression that celebrity lawyer from Jackson might not know what hit him.”

  “He knows,” Joe said. “He’s done this before.”

  “You think?”

  As they approached Joe’s pickup, Marybeth said, “What just happened? Mom’s in shock.”

  “He runs a tight ship,” Joe said. “Judge Hewitt doesn’t screw around. Marcus Hand will have to be amazing. Of course, Hand’s specialty is jury manipulation, not judge manipulation.”

  “Which won’t be necessary,” Marybeth said, “for an innocent woman.”

  Joe nodded.

  “I’m pretty good at reading people,” she said, climbing up into the cab, “but I couldn’t read the judge. He seemed to be angry at everyone.”

  “He’s in a hurry,” Joe said, starting the engine.

  “But why?” Marybeth asked, shaking her head.

  “Talked to Stovepipe,” Joe said. “Judge Hewitt drew a tag for a Dall sheep in Alaska. If he gets one, he’ll complete his grand slam: Stone, Rocky Mountain bighorn, desert bighorn, and Dall. Trophy hunters like Judge Hewitt will do anything to complete their grand slam, and this may be his only chance. The season up there opens and closes next month. I’ll check with a couple of buddies I know in the Alaska Fish and Game to get the particulars.”

  Marybeth moaned aloud. “He’s hurrying so he can go hunting? When my mother’s life is at stake?”

  “Man’s got priorities,” Joe said. “Hand has to realize he needs to work within them. A Dall sheep permit is a once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

  “She looked so . . . lonely up there,” Marybeth said. “For the first time in my life, I realized she has no one to support her. She has no friends, Joe.”

  He turned toward the library. “Can’t blame that on anybody but her,” he said.

  “But it’s so sad. She’s truly alone now.”

  “She’s got you,” Joe said.

  “But not you,” Marybeth countered.

  “Didn’t say that.”

  “Don’t look so glum, pretty lady.” Marcus Hand grinned at Marybeth as he approached them across the courthouse lawn.

  “Why not?” Marybeth asked. Joe looked on.

  Hand said, “’Cause we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em.”

  Marybeth looked at Joe for an explanation, and he shrugged back at her.

  She said, “I thought you objected to the two weeks? I was surprised you did absolutely nothing to gain more time.”

  Hand chuckled. He looked at Joe, and Joe raised his eyebrows, also curious.

  “Okay,” Hand said, “but this is the last time I talk strategy with you. Not because I don’t trust you two, but because . . . well, just because.

  “The news about Bud was unexpected, but wonderful. It means one of two things: they’re hiding him away or they don’t know where he is. We can work with each of those possib
ilities. But the important thing is their entire case rests almost entirely on the credibility of their star witness. If they’re hiding him, it’s for a reason, like they can’t trust what he’ll say in public or my questioning of him will destroy their case. That’s good, too. If they don’t know where he is, it means he may not even show up. Or if he does, his credibility is already shot because of his flaky nature. This is all good. So the faster we go to trial, the better for us.”

  Hand leaned back on his boot heels and smiled.

  “One other thing,” Marybeth said. “My mom is innocent.”

  “Of course she is!” Hand said.

  AUGUST 30

  To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.

  —SAMUEL JOHNSON

  19

  “I hate how this has taken over our lives,” Marybeth said to Joe, thunking her fork down next to her half-eaten dinner salad on the picnic table outside the Burg-O-Pardner. Joe was finishing his burger with Rocky Mountain oysters on the side. He didn’t know why he’d ordered so much and knew he’d feel lethargic later in the afternoon.

  “We don’t have to let it,” he said, after swallowing. They had local grass-fed beef at the Burg-O-Pardner, ground lean, and they broke state law by cooking it medium rare on request. He wished he didn’t like the hamburgers so much.

  “Our girls are weirded out and neglected,” she said. “April is no doubt plotting something while our attention is diverted, and Lucy is miffed how little attention she’s gotten from us about that part in the play. Joe, she’s the lead. She sings and everything. The girl is talented, but you know what she said to me this morning before she went to school?”

  “What?”

  “She said, ‘Female stars like to say they’re actors, not actresses. So if an older woman kills someone, is she a murderer or murderess?’ ”

  Joe put down the rest of his sandwich. “She asked that?”

  “Yes. This plays heavily on her mind. No doubt she’s heard things at school.”

  “How is April handling it? At school, I mean. High school kids are the worst.”

  Marybeth sighed. “They are. And it’s even worse in that she said some of popular kids now think she’s kind of cool having a grandmother who’s accused of murder. Can you imagine that?”

  “I can,” Joe said sullenly.

  “And there’s a lot going on we’re missing. I almost forgot to tell you, in fact. Eleanor Sees Everything at the library said Alisha Whiteplume didn’t show up for work last Monday and no one’s heard from her. The folks at the high school are getting worried. Apparently, she’s not at her house and her stepdaughter is still with her grandmother. And her grandmother hasn’t heard a word from her.”

  Joe’s mouth got suddenly dry. He took a long drink from his iced tea. He said, “Alisha is missing?”

  “It’s not like her,” Marybeth said. “You know how responsible she is.”

  Joe rubbed his jaw.

  “Do you think Nate knows she’s missing?” Marybeth asked, trying to act nonchalant. “I think he’d want to know, don’t you?”

  He grunted.

  “I know what you’re thinking, that she’s with him. But she wouldn’t leave that little girl without letting her grandmother know.”

  “Has anyone called the sheriff?”

  Marybeth rolled her eyes. “Eleanor said they called yesterday. She said one of McLanahan’s flunkies said Alisha hadn’t been missing long enough to do anything yet. He implied keeping track of local Indians wasn’t their first priority since they almost always show up eventually.”

  “He said that?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know whether he said it outright. Either way, Eleanor was angry about it. But that doesn’t matter. If Alisha is missing, that’s a big deal.”

  She let it hang there.

  Joe finally broke the silence. “Honey, I’m not sure whether you’re asking me to try to find Bud, clear your mother, try to find Alisha, call Nate, go to the school play, lecture April, or do everything at once. I’m only one guy, and I have a job to do on the side.”

  Her eyes narrowed and shut him down. He was immediately sorry he’d let his frustration boil to the surface. He reached out and squeezed her hand. The one without the fork in it.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I think if we traded minds for an hour there’d be so much going on in yours I’d drive off a cliff because I couldn’t take all the voices. You, however, would probably be able to relax because it’s so quiet and not much is going on except maybe you’d want to take a little nap.”

  She simply stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing.

  “That’s what I wanted to see,” he said, and chanced a smile back.

  But on the haphazard list he’d created in his mind, he added another task: Find Alisha.

  Joe pulled into the library parking lot and they sat there a minute before Marybeth went in. He could tell she was processing what she’d heard and sorting it out. He told her about Bud’s absence the week before, hesitating when he confessed forcing the lock, but she seemed unfazed.

  “So they don’t know where Bud is, either?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. I can only imagine the scene when McLanahan tells Dulcie Schalk he’s misplaced the star witness.”

  “What do they have if they don’t have Bud?”

  Joe shrugged. “They may not have the airtight case they thought they had. I could see Hand blowing it wide open.”

  “They still have his statements, though?”

  “I assume so. We don’t know what he said, but we can assume it’s pretty bad for Missy. But without Bud . . .”

  “Dulcie wouldn’t hide him, would she?” Marybeth asked. “From what you described, it sounds like he packed up for a few days. It’s not like someone kidnapped him and took him away?”

  “There were no signs of a struggle,” Joe said. “I doubt kidnappers would tell him to grab his toothbrush before they took him somewhere.”

  “I’ll bet Dulcie will be in full panic mode,” she said. “Same with the sheriff.”

  Joe agreed.

  “What if we find him first?” she asked.

  Joe said nothing. He wasn’t sure he liked where she seemed to be headed. “What if we did?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But maybe he ran because he’s been making this up all along and his conscience got the best of him? Maybe he’d like a chance to recant his part in the frame-up?”

  “Marybeth,” Joe said, reaching out and touching her hand. “There’s still the rifle. And if Earl really was in the process of divorcing her . . . well, it still doesn’t look very good.”

  “How do they know he was going to leave her?” she asked. “Was that from Bud, too?”

  Joe shrugged. He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Where would Bud go to hide out?” she asked. “We know him pretty well. You know him. Where would he go?”

  AUGUST 31

  The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  20

  The next day, after checking the licenses and stamps for a group of antelope hunters from Texas, Joe drove across the break lands to the home of Bob and Dode Lee of the Lee Ranch, which bordered Missy and Earl’s property. Cumulus clouds scudded across the expanse of sky as a cold front approached, as if fleeing the state for warmer climates. As he approached the ranch headquarters, Joe was cognizant of the tops of the wind turbines peeking over the southern horizon, their tri-blades turning. There was the snap of fall in the air, and he’d had to scrape frost from his windshield that morning before leaving his sleeping house.

  After the arraignment and posting of bail, Marcus Hand had driven Missy home. According to Marybeth, Hand had sent for a large team of paralegals and additional lawyers from his Jackson Hole office. Team Missy, as Hand had taken to calling it, would occupy most of the bedrooms of the ranch h
ouse to prepare for the next stage of the trial. Cable news satellite trucks rumbled into Saddlestring, and a half-dozen legal reporters from newspapers as far away as New York and Los Angeles booked rooms at the Holiday Inn.

  There had been no news in regard to either Bud Longbrake or Alisha Whiteplume. Joe had placed a call to the sheriff’s office to check on Alisha and gotten Sollis, who said they were giving it another day or two before opening an inquiry. When Joe asked why, Sollis said he didn’t appreciate the implication and hung up on him.

  Unlike the spectacular stone headquarters on the adjoining Thunderhead Ranch once occupied by Missy and Earl Alden and now serving as command central for Team Missy, the Lees’ place was clapboard, tired, and utilitarian. The once white house needed a coat of paint and the old gray shingles on the roof were warped and cracked from sun and weather. It sat in a wind-whipped grove of Austrian pines—the only standing trees for miles—on the high prairie at the end of a rough two-track. The trees all leaned to the south. The windward sides were flattened and the southern sides were bushy and gnarly as if they’d all been shot in the back and were reaching out with branch-hands to break their fall. Joe thought the word “hardscrabble” would have had to be invented to describe the Lee Ranch if it didn’t already exist.

  The ranch compound consisted of the house, three battered metal Quonsets that served as garages, an oversized peeling wooden barn, and an intricate set of corrals and chutes built with crooked poles sunk into the hard ground and linked with haphazard railings. Hereford cattle and bony horses fed on piles of hay scattered across the ground within the corrals and looked up at the approaching green pickup.

  He didn’t know the Lees well. They weren’t the kind of ranchers who participated in the community or in public meetings, politics, or even the state livestock organizations. They kept to themselves, making no demands when it came to problem game animals or hunters, for that matter. Joe had heard the rumor that Bob Lee once took care of elk feeding on his hay by mowing them down with a .30-06 rifle and burying the carcasses with his front-end loader, but there’d never been a call or report on him.