Cold Wind

by C. J. Box

  Bud Longbrake Jr. was at the wheel. His sister, Sally, sat next to him, slumped over. Joe sighed and sat back, assuming the vehicle would continue on. But then it slowed and turned onto the gravel road and under the elk antler arches to the Thunderhead Ranch. Were the siblings out to take a last look at the place they grew up? And why take a trailer?

  The van stopped at the gate, and Bud Jr. got out and worked the keypad. It swung open.

  He watched the van roll down the distant gravel road until he could confirm that it took the road that led to the former Longbrake ranch. He watched it through his scope until all that was left of its appearance was a long trail of settling dust.

  He was wondering how Shamazz knew the keypad combination when Marybeth called on his cell phone.

  “Mom called,” she said. “They’re having an acquittal party at the Eagle Mountain Club tonight.”

  “An acquittal party?”

  “That’s what she called it. She wants to know if we’ll come.”

  Joe winced.

  She said, “If she asks us about her offer, what are we going to say?”

  “You mean, do we want to take over a multi-million-dollar ranch and never have to worry about financial difficulties ever again in our lives?” Joe said.

  “When you put it that way . . .” Marybeth said, but didn’t finish her sentence. “Did you hear about Bud?”

  “No,” he said, expecting the worst.

  “He’s in a coma. No one expects him to come out of it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Joe said.

  “It’s awful. It’s just awful. I suppose I should feel good about all this—not about Bud, of course, but about how the trial went—but I guess I can’t wrap my mind around it yet.”

  “Me neither,” Joe said, thinking about Bud Jr. and Sally driving to the ranch with a trailer attached.

  When it hit him, he felt something cold and sharp shoot through his stomach and chest. The calls between Missy and Bud. The rifle in her car. Bud’s last-minute revelation and recanting. Missy’s odd behavior from the arrest to the end of the trial. As if . . .

  He said, “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to check something out.”

  “So what about tonight?”

  “I may not be able to make it. I’ll let you know,” he said, closing the phone.

  He tossed the rest of his sandwich out the window, put his pickup in gear, and nosed the vehicle off the knoll in the direction of the wind farm.

  Joe parked next to the wind turbine where he’d discovered Earl Alden’s body. He got out and called for Tube to follow him.

  His dog was ecstatic to be out of the truck on such a fine clear day. He wasn’t as pleased when Joe looped a chain around his middle and started hoisting him up inside the tower.

  40

  A few minutes before midnight, Joe saw a sweep of headlights across the interior walls of the house and heard the crunch of gravel outside in the ranch yard. The garage door opener growled, and he stood up in the dark, approached the window, and parted the curtains to see Missy’s Hummer enter the open door. She was alone, it appeared. Good. He doubted she’d been able to see his vehicle, which was hidden behind the shop.

  He checked to see if anyone was right behind her, but there were no other headlights on the entrance road. Yet. He sat down on a plump leather couch burned tastefully with Thunderhead and Longbrake Ranch brands, checked the loads in his shotgun, and waited.

  In a minute, sounds came from the kitchen; the clinking of glass and the scuffling of cabinets being opened and closed. As he approached, he could hear her humming lightly to herself.

  Joe stood at the threshold of the kitchen in the dark hallway, watching her fill the coffeemaker with grounds and water and pull down a half dozen mugs and set them on the counter. She held a full glass of white wine and sipped from it as she worked. She looked stunning, Joe thought, in a snug dark blue dress and oversized pearls. She’d kicked her heels off on the floor and padded around on small bare feet.

  When she saw him standing there, she gasped and let out a squeak and dropped the glass to the floor.

  “Joe!” she said, hopping back from the broken glass and spilled wine. “What are you doing here? You scared me to death.”

  He said, “I assume Marcus Hand and his crew are on the way. How long before they get here?”

  She looked up at him, quickly regaining her composure. Her brows furrowed and her face became the porcelain mask she’d perfected. “They won’t be long. Everybody had plenty to drink, and I wanted to have some coffee ready. You missed the party.”

  He nodded and entered the kitchen and put the shotgun on the counter next to him, letting her see it.

  She shook her head, then let some anger seep through the mask. “Does Marybeth know you’re here? What are you doing, measuring the drapes? Checking out your new office?”

  He tried to smile, but couldn’t. He said, “I saw Bud Jr. and Sally today on their way to move in to their new digs. You don’t actually expect them to live there and work it, do you?”

  A flash of terror—finally!—shot through her eyes and her nose flared. She didn’t breathe for a moment. Then, almost as quickly, she raised her chin and set her mouth with bitter resignation. “No,” she said, “I expect them to sell it back to me after a reasonable length of time. The old place was appraised at six million dollars, you know.”

  Joe said, “You probably could have bought their silence for less than that.”

  “Probably,” she said. “But Bud told them the price, and I suspect they’ll hold me to it.”

  Joe nodded. He said, “It’s just you and me here. You can’t be retried for murder, and we both know it. So walk me through how it all worked.”

  She looked at him as if she was determined not to give an inch.

  He said, “When you decided to make your last upgrade, your last trade-up, and get rid of Earl, you contacted Bud. You knew he’d take your call because for some reason he still loves you, despite everything. And you offered him his ranch back if he’d take Earl out of the picture. After all, you still had this place and all the other property holdings you and Earl combined when you got married. You probably even hinted that the two of you could get back together someday. Am I right so far?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Joe said, “And Bud said of course, he’d do it. But he was sick. He didn’t know at the time how bad off he was, and it turned out he wasn’t sure he was physically capable of pulling it off. But he sure wanted that ranch back, if not for him, then for his kids. He always wanted them to have it.”

  She shook her head and said, “Even though they shit on him all their lives, he still wanted them to have it.”

  “That kind of selflessness just doesn’t work for you, does it?” Joe asked.

  Her eyes drilled into him. “Some children these days can be so ungrateful. They feel entitled to things they didn’t earn.”

  Joe ignored her and continued, “So you and Bud talked it over, back and forth, for a month or so. He wanted to help you out with your Earl problem and get the ranch back, but you were running out of time. Was it at that point you figured out Earl had consolidated all his assets and put everything into the wind farm? I bet that didn’t make you very happy.”

  “It was reckless and irresponsible,” she said, her anger palpable. “Taking everything we had together and leveraging it to build that idiotic thing out there on the ridge. He was not only risking everything he had, he was risking everything I’ve spent my life trying to get—and had finally achieved. And for what? He had no right to do that.”

  “Plus he wanted to get rid of you,” Joe said. “That must have hurt.”

  “It did,” she said simply.

  “You found yourself in a dilemma, though,” Joe said. “Bud was in it with you, but he couldn’t perform. And you couldn’t risk him talking about it, either. So you told him you’d let him set you up with the sheriff and you’d have it done as long as he’d wait un
til the trial to take the rap. He agreed to that, but you could never be absolutely sure he’d follow through when crunch time came. In the back of your mind, you must have worried that Bud might screw you the way you screwed him. That must have made for some sleepless nights.”

  She didn’t react, but stared at Joe with ice-cold eyes.

  “In the middle of your discussions with Bud, you both realized that you’d tried to contact Nate to work for you along the same lines, but Nate refused. Which meant there was another person out there who knew what you were capable of. You urged Bud to tell that woman Laurie Talich where Nate lived to get Nate out of the picture. It almost worked, too. But Alisha Whiteplume was killed instead of Nate. I hope that’s on your conscience, too. If you have one.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” she spat back. “Bud did that on his own. He thought it would please me, I guess.”

  Joe shrugged. He said, “Nate would have never talked, so what you did was pointless. And right now, he is at my house. He still wants revenge.”

  Her eyes got large. “But . . .”

  “All I have to do is tell him,” Joe said. “Unlike the court, he has no rules about double jeopardy.”

  “Please don’t,” she said. “Think about what I’ve offered you.”

  “I don’t want your blood money,” Joe said, dismissing her. “Back to where we left off. You drove right up to your husband and shot him in the heart. Then you drove his body to the wind turbine. I tested the hoist system today with my dog and found out how easy it is to crank a body up to the top. I figured it would require a lot more upper body strength, but it’s easy. Easy enough for you. So why did you hang him up there, anyway? Out of spite, or to throw everyone off?”

  She sighed and looked away, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it to pretend any longer.

  Joe said, “The one thing I can’t quite wrap my mind around is how you hung the body from the blade. Earl was heavy.”

  She pursed her lips. “I admit nothing,” she said, “but I can tell you when you’re a small person all of your life, you learn how to use leverage to get what you want. You learn to use the power of objects to work in your favor and to use people’s superior strength against them.”

  Joe whistled and shook his head. “So you looped the chain around the body and threw the loose end over the blade while it was turning. You let the spinning blade lift him out of the nacelle.”

  Missy arched her eyebrows, acknowledging Joe’s theory. “I suppose it could work like that,” she said coyly.

  “But why the wind turbine at all?”

  She said, “Admitting nothing, one might have thought the sheriff or Miss Schalk would pursue the wind angle. One would assume Marcus would go that direction and come to find out about Earl’s dealings with unsavory people and his fraud. Once that information was out, there would be people on the jury Marcus could convince. But it couldn’t come from me—that would have been too obvious.”

  Joe shook his head. He said, “So you set yourself up. You made it plain and simple. So simple, that people like your daughter and me would automatically assume there was more to it. That you’d been framed.”

  She was quiet, because there was no need to say anything.

  “Hand’s investigators learned there had been a contract put out on Earl in Chicago,” Joe said. “That’s what they told him in the courtroom yesterday. If you’d just waited, it would have all been taken care of without you even getting involved.”

  She said, “That came as a surprise, but what if they’d botched it?” She looked squarely at Joe. “I don’t count on people to take care of me, I never have. I’m the only one who will take care of me, Joe, and I trust no one but me. If my daughter had learned that lesson, maybe she wouldn’t be what she is today: a part-time librarian in a crappy little town with you as a husband.”

  “I know,” he said. “And against my better judgment, I was burning up the miles and my reputation trying to get you off.”

  Nodding, she said, “I knew I could count on you, Joe. I knew you’d dig into the wind farm scheme and lead Marcus to it. So even if Bud died or forgot about our agreement or went back on it, I was covered. There would have been reasonable doubt.”

  She paused and looked at her hand, assessing the shade of red on her painted fingernails. She said, “I’ve spent my life working simple men like you and Bud.”

  Joe reached over and wrapped his hand around the shotgun and pulled it up.

  She looked at him with disbelief. “You’ll never do it.”

  “I might surprise you,” Joe said through clenched teeth.

  “The offer still stands,” she said, suddenly shaken. “If you do this, you get nothing. Your family gets nothing.” Then: “Does Marybeth know?”

  “Not yet. But we talk to each other. Imagine that.”

  “So you’ll tell her?” Missy said. “You’d tell her that her mother is a murderer after all? You’d tell my granddaughters?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “It depends on you.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, tears in her eyes. “What do I have to do?”

  He couldn’t determine if the tears were authentic, and he didn’t care.

  He outlined his proposal.

  When he was done, he said, “If you don’t do the right thing here, you’re dead. And in the future if you try to go back on what’s right, I’ll let my friend Nate know who was responsible for Alisha.”

  The porcelain mask was off. She said, “You’re such a bastard, Joe Pickett. You’re as conniving as I am.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “You’re in a class all your own.”

  The sounds of motors rose outside. Headlights flashed in through the windows as Marcus Hand and his associates arrived.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  “And I’m gone.”

  Joe slipped into bed as quietly as he could, but Marybeth reached over and put a warm hand on his thigh. With a voice drugged by sleep, she said, “You’re really late.”

  “Openers,” he said. “Lots of hunters out there. I also stopped by the hospital to see Bud.”

  “How is he?”

  “Dying.”

  “Mmmmmm, that’s so sad. I’m glad his kids came back, though. That probably made him feel good.”

  “He was a simple man,” Joe said. “He took care of his family.”

  She yawned and said, “I’m exhausted. This has been a long couple of weeks.”

  “Yup.”

  “Dulcie called,” she said, more awake now. “She feels terrible how this all went. She said she let her competitive nature get the best of her. It was kind of an apology and I told her we were still friends. That seemed to make her feel better. And she is a good person, Joe.”

  “I agree.”

  He reached over and pulled her to him. She was wide awake. “Mom called, too,” she said ominously.

  “Really?”

  “She said she’s thinking about going on a long cruise around the world, then selling the ranch and moving. Something about how everything around here reminds her too much of Bud and Earl. She sounded a little drunk.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Joe said.

  “She said she’s creating a college fund for our girls and a trust fund for Alisha’s ward,” Marybeth said. “She’s going to talk to Marcus Hand about setting them up before she goes. I’ll tell you all the rest in the morning. I’m too tired now. I guess that means her offer for the ranch is off the table, but this is better and she sounded very humble. Even thoughtful.”

  “That’s great.” He buried his face in her hair. “I’m tired, too,” he said.

  “She was very sweet,” Marybeth said in a whisper. “It was an odd conversation, because it seemed like she had a lot more to say. And it almost seemed like she was saying good-bye.”

  Joe didn’t respond.

  “I might even miss her a little,” Marybeth said.

  “Yeah,” Joe said.
“Me, too.”

  SEPTEMBER 20

  Therefore pride compasseth about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.

  —PSALM 73:6

  Epilogue

  Nate Romanowski once lived in the stone house on the banks of the North Fork of the Twelve Sleep River. Across the river, to the east, a steep red bluff rose sixty feet into the air. The morning sun lit up the red face of the bluff. The river was so low that it was no more than a series of pocket water pools kept on life support by an artery of underground springs. To the east was a long flat dotted by sagebrush. A two-track cut through the flat from the highway and was the only road to the place.

  Nate awoke in his blankets near the trunk of the single ancient cottonwood on the side of the house to discover that the peregrine had found him during the night. The falcon sat high and silent above him on a branch of the same tree. The bird didn’t look down and acknowledge him, and Nate didn’t call to it. It was just there. That was the nature of their partnership.

  He kicked off his blankets, hung his weapon from a peg in the bark of the tree, and stood up naked and stretched. Although the stone walls of his house still stood, the rest had been vandalized over the years he’d been gone. The windows had been kicked in. There were two dozen bullet holes in the front door and a few shotgun blasts. Someone had entered the place and started a fire on the floor, which had burned down through the joists. A family of skunks now lived under the floorboards, and an owl nested in the chimney.

  Nate walked down to the river and lowered himself into one of the deeper pools. The water was icy and bracing, and he washed his skin and most of the black out of his hair.

  Shivering, he dressed in his best shirt and jeans. Then he pulled on his boots. He cleaned and roasted a sage chicken he’d killed the night before. He ate all the meat and tossed the bones aside for his falcon.