by C. J. Box
Reckling took a deep breath. She said, “I’m not in the ER.”
“Please.”
“I heard one of the doctors talking to somebody with the FBI,” Reckling said with a sigh. “Special Agent Dudley was his name. He insisted I put him through to surgery. The surgeon there told him it doesn’t look good. The injuries are massive and he doesn’t think Mr. Romanowski can make it. I heard the FBI guy on the other end screaming at him until the doctor just hung up on him.”
Marybeth was stunned.
The phone rang at the nurses’ station, and Shri Reckling said, “That’s probably him again. I don’t really want to answer it. Are all those FBI types so pushy?”
10
The arraignment for Tilden Cudmore began at nine-thirty on Wednesday morning in the Twelve Sleep County courthouse, Judge Hewitt presiding.
Joe sat in the third row from the back, his hat crown-down next to him on the bench. His mind was still reeling from what Marybeth had told him about Nate the night before. He would miss his friend. Joe had a lot of questions Marybeth couldn’t answer—like when did Nate get out of federal lockup? And why was he in Twelve Sleep County?
He hoped she’d have more information when he picked her up in Billings later that day, after the preliminary hearing had concluded. She was as ready to come home as he was ready for her to. Marybeth said the doctors recommended she leave. April’s condition was stable and they’d keep her that way. The question wasn’t bringing her out of the coma—that could be done at any time. The question was April’s recovery or lack of it when they brought her out from under the propofol. She could be healed or she could be brain-dead. Marybeth’s voice had broken when she said it.
Lucy had been a good sport while her mother was gone, but there was no doubt she was sick of frozen pizzas and elk steak. Plus, Joe had learned that morning that he didn’t know how the washing machine worked. He hoped no one would comment on his rumpled uniform shirt.
The judge was still in his chambers. The gallery consisted of Joe, a bandaged-up Deputy Boner, and an older woman with steel-gray hair, who was sitting in the front row and knitting, by the looks of it, a garish afghan. She didn’t seem to be connected to the case in any way, he thought. She was likely one of those people who just liked attending court.
Cudmore sat with his back to Joe in an orange county jumpsuit. His hair was tousled and there was a four-day growth of beard on his face. Next to him was the public defender, Duane Patterson, who was intently scribbling something on a legal pad. Cudmore turned his head and sized up his attorney and seemed to regard him with sneering contempt.
At the prosecutor’s table was County Attorney Dulcie Schalk. She sat completely still with her hands clasped in front of her on the table, staring at the closed door of Hewitt’s chambers like a cat poised over a gopher hole. Joe recognized her dark gray pin-striped power suit, as she called it. She once told Joe she had never lost a case while wearing that suit. If she was wearing her blood-red ruffled blouse—which he couldn’t see because she hadn’t turned around—it meant she was going for the kill. Or in this case, the maximum sentence possible.
He’d heard Cudmore would be charged with aggravated assault, attempted murder, and kidnapping. That was just for starters. Joe knew Dulcie well enough to surmise that an indictment for first-degree murder—if April didn’t pull through—was already written and in her top desk drawer.
Joe felt a breeze on his neck as the courtroom door opened and he looked over to see Sheriff Reed wheel himself in. He stopped at Joe’s row and beckoned him over. Joe slid to the end of the bench so they could talk softly to each other.
“I had a dream about that damned tank last night,” Reed said. “In my dream, it drove across my front yard and a bunch of idiots playing army were behind the wheel. It made me so mad, I called Williamson at home and yelled at him again. Woke him up.”
Joe nodded.
“I heard about your friend Romanowski,” Reed said. “What a hell of a run you’re having.”
“Not as bad as the run April and Nate are having.”
“Both at the same hospital at the same time? Who would have put odds on that?”
Joe shook his head. He’d wondered that himself during his sleepless night.
“Why was he at that ranch?” Joe asked. “Any ideas?”
Reed said, “I talked to the owners of the HF Bar and they’re clueless. They’re still at their winter home in Arizona and they weren’t even planning to come back until next week. Apparently, that’s when they traditionally start opening up the guest ranch. They’ve never heard of Nate Romanowski and they don’t know why he was there.”
Reed leaned in closer to Joe. “It’s impossible to say how he even got up there, unless he was dumped. There were no vehicles on the ranch. Hell, the last I knew he was in federal lockup in Cheyenne. The first I heard he was out was last night, when the FBI called me at my house to tell me they were sending a helicopter up here to my county. They said Romanowski was wearing a tracking device of some kind, and when it went haywire that meant it had been damaged in some way. At the time, they suspected he’d tried to cut it off. They didn’t know he’d been shot up until they found him. Apparently, he was found in the road between the barn and the main lodge. I get the impression he’d crawled there.”
“I’ve got a call in to Chuck Coon with the FBI,” Joe said. “The feds sprung him for some reason. Coon can tell me why and how long he’s been out.”
“Strange Nate didn’t contact you,” Reed said.
Joe shrugged. He’d wondered the same thing. So had Marybeth.
“How did he get to the ranch?” Joe asked.
“The FBI guy in charge of the case is named Dudley. When I talked to him, he said Nate was last seen the day before getting into a white van in front of the Federal Building. A fetching, dark-skinned woman was driving. They’ve got it on closed-circuit video.”
“Liv Brannan,” Joe said. “That fits.”
“But she’s not at the HF Bar—and neither is the van. We’ve got an APB out on it. The markings on the side of it say ‘Yarak, Inc. Falconry Services.’ Does that make any sense to you?”
Joe nodded. It had been a while since he’d heard the word yarak.
Reed shook his head. “The front gate was locked, so he must have jumped the fence. But he couldn’t have walked all the way from Cheyenne to the HF Bar. We’ve got to assume this Brannan woman drove him.”
“Any tracks?” Joe asked.
“If there were any tracks on the road, the rain washed them away. Our evidence tech may find something, though. He’s up there today poking around.”
Joe said, “I’ve met Liv Brannan. She was mixed up with Wolfgang Templeton, but she’s a good person. Pretty, smart, and in love. Nate feels the same about her. I know you can never guess what goes on between two people, but it doesn’t make sense to me that she’d cut him loose the day after she picked him up.”
“I hope we find her,” Reed said. “She could shine some light on this thing.”
“How many people besides the owners have a key to the front gate?” Joe asked.
“I asked the owners that same question,” Reed said. “They could think of at least a dozen. Maintenance people, plumbers, the local utility companies, contractors, employees, state licensing inspectors, et cetera. I asked them for a complete list of names.”
“I have a key,” Joe said.
“You do?”
“Yup. They gave me one a few years ago, after I’d had to call them in Arizona. A hunter wounded a bull elk that went on the property. We wanted to go get it so it wouldn’t go to waste. The owners had one of their seasonal employees meet me at the gate and he handed me a spare key. It’s possible there are more keys than we know about floating around.”
“That makes things tougher,” Reed said. “But we’re on it.”
“Let me know, okay?�
�� Joe asked.
“I will.”
Reed hesitated a moment, then said, “I hear he’s not going to make it.”
Joe nodded. “That’s what Marybeth said, but Nate is the toughest guy I’ve ever met. I know Nate, and he’d have taken some guys with him if he was bushwhacked.”
Reed said, “Maybe our tech will find some blood or spent shells up there. That’s providing he was shot on the HF Bar and not shot somewhere else and dumped.”
“I’ll stop by there on my way to Billings,” Joe said, raising his eyebrows as if to ask for permission.
“I guess it can’t hurt,” Reed said. “Another set of eyes and all. And because this isn’t connected to”—he paused and gestured toward Cudmore—“this.”
Joe said nothing.
—
“ALL RISE,” the bailiff sang.
Joe got to his feet as Judge Hewitt blew into the courtroom from his chambers behind the bench. The judge was short, dark, and twitchy, and his eyes narrowed for a second when he discerned that two occupants of his court had remained seated. One was Sheriff Reed, and Hewitt acknowledged his error with a quick nod of regret. The other was Tilden Cudmore. Cudmore was slouched in his chair, his legs splayed toward the bench, his head slumped to the side.
Joe observed Patterson surreptitiously prompt Cudmore to stand by jabbing him in the arm with his finger. The public defender faced the bench while he did it. In reaction, Cudmore rolled his shoulder away from his counsel.
Joe thought: Uh-oh.
Hewitt took his seat and glared at Cudmore. He was still glaring when he said, “Mr. Patterson, does your client have a problem?”
“Your Honor?” Patterson said. Even at a distance, Joe could tell Patterson was flushing red.
Hewitt jabbed his finger impatiently at Cudmore. “There he sits,” he said. “Are we going to have to start talking about contempt charges before this hearing even begins?”
Patterson knelt down next to Cudmore and emphatically whispered into his ear. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Cudmore lumbered to his feet. He stood hip out, his body language saying to Joe, This is ridiculous.
“You may all be seated,” Judge Hewitt said through clenched teeth. “Except for you,” he said, boring in on Cudmore. “You keep standing for a few minutes until I tell you to sit down.”
Joe hadn’t seen that maneuver before, and he’d testified in Judge Hewitt’s court many times over the years. Hewitt was a no-nonsense tyrant of a judge who ripped through every procedure like his hair was on fire. He hated it when a lawyer meandered or stalled, and he was quick with a threat or a sarcastic put-down if either the prosecution or the defense didn’t respond to his questions quickly enough or if they appeared to be wasting his time. He’d been brusque to Joe a few times, but Joe learned later it wasn’t personal. The judge wanted the trial to end so he could go hunting or fishing. Joe had encountered Judge Hewitt wading waist-deep and fly-fishing in the Twelve Sleep River many times. Hewitt was only relaxed, it seemed, when he was on the water. They’d had several conversations about dry flies, nymphs, and streamers. They never talked about particular cases before the court or about law enforcement in general.
Personally, Joe and Marybeth owed a debt of gratitude to Judge Hewitt and it had to do with April’s status as their adopted daughter. Finally, after years of April’s existence in a legal netherworld, the judge had informally recommended to Joe and Marybeth a clear path for settling April’s legal status once and for all.
April had been abandoned by her mother at age five, when the Picketts took her in. Due to circumstances, the birth mother’s brief interference, and Joe and Marybeth receiving bad advice, the family hadn’t formally adopted April when she was returned to them, and for a while it seemed April didn’t want to be adopted. When April reached her late teens and demanded that she wanted to “know who she was,” Joe went to the judge for advice.
Hewitt recommended an experienced family lawyer in Jackson Hole he’d once partnered with, and he made a call to her to smooth the way. The lawyer took up the case and provided her opinion that, despite the unusual circumstances of the case, the facts spoke for themselves—April had lived with Joe and Marybeth for a sufficient length of time with no support or contact from April’s extended family—and that what was pertinent was the “intent of both parties.” In a sense, they were already common-law parents. The lawyer drew up an adoption petition signed by Joe, Marybeth, and April, which was filed with the court.
Judge Hewitt approved the petition in a proceeding that lasted five minutes. He signed off on it with a wink to Joe and Marybeth.
And she took on her new name: April Pickett.
—
“COUNSEL, APPROACH,” Hewitt snapped.
Patterson and Dulcie Schalk responded by practically sprinting to the bench. They’d both been in Judge Hewitt’s courtroom many times. Despite that, Joe knew the judge was reading each the riot act: telling them to move things along, keep things clean and professional, and most of all to not waste his time. Joe could see Patterson and Dulcie nodding along.
When they returned to their tables, the bailiff read off the formal title of the case as well as the docket number.
Cudmore was still standing.
Dulcie rose to present an affidavit prepared by Sheriff Reed that supported the charges. After Dulcie finished her presentation, Patterson would then do his best to argue that the affidavit contained insufficient evidence to warrant going forward with a trial.
He had a hard job, Joe thought. Patterson was tall, thin, and ungainly, and wore a suit that was too large for him and hung on his slim frame like a tarp covering an outdoor barbecue grill. Judge Hewitt was rarely magnanimous to the defense, and Tilden Cudmore hadn’t helped his cause by refusing to stand up.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Hewitt said, scanning the papers in front of him. “Let’s hear the charges.”
Dulcie approached the podium. Before she spoke, she looked around to see who was in the gallery. When she saw Joe, she smiled. When he noticed she was wearing her blood-red attack blouse, he smiled back.
“Okay, you’ll probably want to be sitting down for this,” Hewitt said to Cudmore.
Cudmore remained standing.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Hewitt asked, raising his voice. Patterson tugged on Cudmore’s sleeve.
“I got something to say, Your Excellency,” Cudmore grumbled. “I’ve been sittin’ in your jail since Friday night. I’ve done enough sittin’.”
“That’s not how it works,” Hewitt said impatiently. “There’s a procedure here, and in my courtroom we follow it. Miss Schalk reads the charges. When she’s done, I’ll ask you if you plead guilty or not guilty. Then I determine if there’s enough evidence to proceed. Got that?”
It didn’t stop Cudmore. “I want to fire this guy,” he said, pointing at Patterson a foot away. “I don’t want him to represent me one more minute. He’s a part of our corrupt legal system, just like everybody in this damned room. I ain’t gonna let myself get railroaded by treacherous elites with an incompetent boob by my side.”
“Tilden . . .” Patterson said. “Come on now. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I sure as hell do know what I’m doing, Your Excellency,” Cudmore said too loudly to Judge Hewitt. “He might as well be over there with Schalk, rubbing her feet, that’s how close they are. This is a damned joke, this trial. I ain’t done nothing wrong and you are all just actors performing a part in a play called Let’s Screw Tilden Cudmore Because He Knows the Truth About Obama and 9/11.”
Dulcie scowled at Cudmore, then turned to the judge.
“Your Honor, I move that the defendant be gagged and restrained if he says another word out of order.”
“Fine idea,” Hewitt said, nodding toward the bailiff. “I was thinking about having him tased first. Do you have you
r Taser on you?”
“Um, yes, Your Honor,” the bailiff said, instinctively checking his equipment belt to make sure the Taser was there.
“Though I’m kind of starting to like the term ‘Your Excellency,’” Judge Hewitt said with a grin.
Then he turned to Cudmore and the grin vanished.
Joe looked over at the woman in the front row. She’d lowered her knitting to her lap. She was transfixed and had a slight grin on her face.
Judge Hewitt said to Cudmore, “Sit down and shut up. That is your first and only warning. The only reason I haven’t had you dragged back to jail with a whole slew of new charges is because a local girl was horribly beaten and she deserves swift justice.”
“Like this is justice,” Cudmore said, his voice rising again. “First they send an armored personnel carrier onto my property to arrest me, like this was Cuba or Russia or some damned Third World dictatorship. Then they blow off the roof of my house with a .50-caliber machine gun. Then they drag me in here in front of you.
“This is a kangaroo court, a show trial just like the Commies used to run. I done nothing wrong, but here I am. They set me up and brought me in because of my political beliefs. I’m a political prisoner. If that girl got hurt, it’s because she brought it on herself. Hell, everybody in this town knows April Pickett is nothing more than a two-bit buckle bunny out there spreading her legs wide and just asking for something like this to happen. This is bullshit, Your Excellency.”
Judge Hewitt turned white. He banged his gavel down so hard—bam-bam-bam-bam—the shaft snapped.
Joe was five steps down the aisle before he even realized he had launched out of his seat. He was headed toward the bar, into the well of the court itself. Cudmore stood with his back to him not twelve feet away through the short batwing doors. Joe fixed his eyes on the back of Cudmore’s head and neck, where the first blows would land.
Sheriff Reed said, “Joe, no,” and wheeled his chair to block the entrance.
Joe reached down to shove the wheelchair aside, but Reed’s pleading eyes penetrated his rage, and he hesitated.