by C. J. Box
“Who else could it be?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“You ‘don’t rightly know,’” Joe repeated, feeling his neck flush hot.
Marybeth stood in the doorway, listening to Joe, shaking her head as if to say, This valley is getting too small for us.
KNOWING HE WOULD need a front-end loader to dig a hole deep and wide enough to dispose of the massive elk heads, Joe angrily carried three of them into the back of his truck and drove them deep into the timber of Wolf Mountain, where he disposed of them. Although insects and predators would make short work of the hide, flesh, and soft parts, leaving only the skulls and antlers, the act of dumping the heads like bags of garbage went against everything he stood for. The last head he’d dragged behind his garage and covered with a tarp to ship to state forensics. It was possible, although not probable, that they could find a human hair or fiber that could lead them to the killer.
He was not in the mood for a cell phone call from Randy Pope. When Joe saw who was calling on the display, he considered not answering. But it was early Saturday morning. The headquarters office in Cheyenne was closed. It could be something important.
“Yes?”
“I’m at home, Joe,” Pope said, not trying to disguise his indignation, “when I get a call from a sobbing reporter from the Saddlestring Roundup. She asks me if I have any comment on the slaughter of four elk in the middle of town. She says the bodies are in the park for all to see, but the heads are gone. She says little kids are bawling.”
Joe closed his eyes. On the underside of his lids, he saw red spangles.
“She also tells me the sheriff said the local game warden says the heads turned up at his place.”
“That’s true,” Joe said.
Pope hesitated a moment before shouting: “What in the hell are you doing up there? Can’t you even protect wildlife in the middle of your goddam town?”
Joe couldn’t think of how to answer that. He opened his eyes to the sky, hoping for a sign of some kind.
“This will hit the wires, Pickett. It’s the kind of juicy story the press loves. Four poor innocent animals. And it will all come down to the fact that the local game warden can’t seem to do his job. But they won’t call you, Joe, they’ll call me!”
“Somebody is trying to destroy me,” Joe said, not liking the paranoid way the words sounded as they came out.
“I’d say that somebody is you!” Pope shouted. “Have you been out to Hank Scarlett’s place yet?”
“No.”
“Just what in the hell are you doing?”
Joe sighed. “Cleaning up the mess.”
Pope was so angry he sputtered, not making sense. Joe didn’t ask him to repeat himself. Instead, he closed the phone and threw it as far as he could into the trees.
Before he left the timber, though, he reluctantly walked back and retrieved it. He felt like leaving his own head in the brush. Pope, and most of the people in town, would probably endorse that concept.
FROM WOLF MOUNTAIN, Joe drove to the Thunderhead Ranch to pick up Sheridan. He was used to how Sheridan looked after sleepovers—wan and exhausted—but he quickly perceived there was something more to her demeanor. That’s when she told him about meeting Arlen and Bill Monroe in the kitchen, and about the bad dreams she had when she went back to bed.
“Who?” Joe asked suddenly, startling her.
“Bill Monroe.”
“He’s the man who beat me up,” Joe said.
“Oh, Dad . . .”
It tore him up inside, the way she said it. He wished he hadn’t said anything. At that moment, he hated his job, hated what had happened in that parking lot, hated that Sheridan even had to know about it. And he hated Bill Monroe.
He thought: What was Bill Monroe doing in Arlen’s house? Wasn’t Bill Hank’s man? Then he remembered what Arlen had said about having an informer in Hank’s camp. He also knew Arlen had misled him about Monroe’s role.
When she showed him the knife she had taken from the Scarlett kitchen and hidden in her overnight bag, Joe pulled to the side of the road to examine it.
“It looks like the one that was stuck in our door, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Pretty close,” Joe said, turning it over. The length and design were the same. The dark wood handle seemed more worn, though.
He looked up at her. “Sheridan, what are you thinking about this?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll feel really bad if the knives are from the same set, but I’ll feel bad if they aren’t and I took the knife. I already feel bad about being suspicious of my best friend’s family. Do you know what I mean?”
Joe nodded. “I know what you mean, darling.” At that moment, he was proud of her for what she’d thought about and done, and profoundly sad for her what she’d discovered.
Joe asked about the dreams, hoping to change the subject. “So you dreamed you saw Opal Scarlett alive, huh?”
“Um-hmmm.”
“What did she look like?”
“Are you going to make fun of me?” Sheridan asked, raising an eyebrow at her father.
“Nope,” he said. “Remember when I promised to pay more attention to your dreams no matter how goofy they seem at the time?”
“Yes.”
“I’m doing that. Just don’t give me any woo-woo stuff,” he said.
“She looked kind of pleasant, actually,” Sheridan said. “Like a nice old lady. Nicer than I remember her. But I didn’t really see her, you know.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I just spent too much time last night staring at a portrait of Julie’s grandmother on the wall. It’s a pretty interesting picture. I let her eyes get to me, I guess, so when I finally got to sleep that’s what I dreamed about.”
“Bill Monroe is the name of a famous bluegrass singer and bandleader,” Joe said. “Some people called him the Father of Bluegrass. Ever hear of the ‘high lonesome sound’?”
Sheridan looked at him as if he’d swallowed a bird.
“Really,” Joe said. “Dig in the glove box. I think I’ve got The Very Best of Bill Monroe in there.”
She opened it and rooted around and brought out a CD case with a black-and-white photo of a man playing a mandolin in a suit and tie with a cocked cowboy hat on his head. “This looks awful,” she said. “And it isn’t the Bill Monroe at the ranch either.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“I wonder if they’re related in some way?” Sheridan asked, turning the case over and reading the back. The look of distaste remained on her face. Joe was pleased they had digressed somewhat from their earlier discussion. He didn’t like seeing Sheridan troubled.
“Listen to it before you decide,” he said.
“Have you been listening to the CD I made you?” she asked.
“A little, not much,” Joe confessed.
“You need to get with it,” she said. “You need to know what’s good.”
“So do you. Put that on.”
“Hmmpf.”
Joe thought it was odd Hank had hired a man with a southern accent named Bill Monroe.
“Footprints in the Snow” filled the cab.
Sheridan said, “Ew!”
WHEN THEY GOT home, Joe wrapped both the steak knife he had found stuck in his door and the knife Sheridan had brought home and sent them to the state forensic lab. He attached a note asking the staff to confirm that they were the same brand and lot number.
17
BY LATE MORNING, JOE WAS CRUISING EAST ON THE state highway that bordered the Thunderhead Ranch all the way to the Bighorn Mountains. It was one of those schizophrenic spring/summer/winter May days when storm clouds shot across the sky in fast motion dumping both slashing rain and wet snow as if ditching their payloads in a panic, then darting away leaving sunshine and confusion, only to be followed by a second and then a third wave of clouds doing the same thing. There was something wildly adolescent about days like this, Joe thought,
as if the atmosphere were supercharged with hormones and just didn’t know what in the hell to do next.
There were five entrance accesses to Thunderhead Ranch from the state highway. Two were on the western half of the ranch, Arlen’s side. The other three were on the eastern half, Hank’s. The difference between the sets of entrances was Hank’s gates were closed and locked with heavy chains and multiple combination locks. To get to Hank’s lodge, one either needed permission to enter via the state highway, or went through Arlen’s side, where there were three different access roads. Joe didn’t know the status of those roads, but assumed they had locked gates as well.
After his frustrating conversation with Pope, Joe had done a quick inspection and review of the gear and paperwork he might need to search Hank Scarlett’s home. He put fresh evidence vouchers and envelopes in his briefcase, and made sure his digital camera and microcassette recorder were fully charged. He tossed two clean legal pads into his case for taking notes and making sketches, if necessary.
His plan was to call Hank and inform him that he wanted to come to his home for the purpose of doing a cursory inspection to determine if there was evidence of illegal mounted game animals. If Hank could produce documentation that the animals had been taken legally, Joe’s investigation would be over. If not, Joe would proceed with issuing citations or, if the infractions were serious enough, arresting him outright and taking him to the county jail. That would certainly raise some eyebrows in town, Joe thought.
In Joe’s experience, the only people who denied him permission to search were those who had something to hide. Simple as that. Not once had anyone refused him entrance who hadn’t violated the law. In that case, Joe had always been able to obtain a search warrant signed by Judge Pennock in Saddlestring within the day and come back.
Pulling off the highway onto the gravel two-track that led to the second of three locked gates on Hank’s side of the ranch, Joe parked, snatched his cell phone from the dashboard, and called.
The phone rang only twice before a voice answered and said, “Thunderhead East.”
The voice sounded familiar, Joe thought. Deep, southern.
“Is this Bill Monroe?”
“Who wants to know?”
“You’re answering a question with a question. Let’s stop that right off. Again, is this Bill Monroe?”
Hesitation. Joe guessed Monroe had recognized his voice.
“You aren’t supposed to be around anymore, Bill,” Joe said. “Both Hank and the sheriff claim you left the state after attacking me. You pounded me pretty good, Bill. What I want to know is if it was your idea or if Hank put you up to it? Not that it’ll matter in the end, when I arrest you and put you in jail, but I am wondering.”
Silence.
“And what are you up to with Arlen? What’s that about?”
Joe hoped Monroe wouldn’t hang up on him.
“If you tell Hank about me meeting with his brother, there’ll be blood on your hands. I’m the only one keeping them from going at each other.”
Joe heard the truth in that. If Bill was Arlen’s inside man, it was not a good idea to expose him. Yet.
“I’m making a deal with the devil,” Joe said.
“Call it whatever you want.”
“Bill, let me talk with Hank, please.”
A beat, three beats, then a mumbled “Hold on.”
Joe heard the handset clunk down on a table. He felt a wave of sweat break over his scalp. There was no way to prove it was Bill Monroe, he thought, unless he caught him outright. But the behavior of the man who answered was evasive enough that he thought he had his man.
He could hear voices in the background, then the heavy sound of boots on hardwood.
“Hank Scarlett,” Hank said.
“Hank, this is Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. We have an anonymous tip alleging you have game mounts in your home that were taken illegally. The tip also alleged evidence of violations that might have occurred in Alaska at your outfit up there. I’d like to come out to your place and have a quick look around to assure the department there is no merit to this tip.”
“That’s interesting,” Hank said. “I bet I know who called.”
“I have my suspicions as well,” Joe said. “But it doesn’t matter. The call was placed with some pretty specific details in it, and my director has authorized me to come out and take a look. Mind if I check it out?”
Hank didn’t hestitate. “Yes, I mind.”
Joe said, “Look, Hank, I’m at the gate to your place. If you’d send one of your men out here or give me the combination of the locks, I could be at your place in fifteen minutes and we can get this all cleared up.”
“This is private property,” Hank said, his voice flat. “Don’t that mean anything to you?”
“Yes, it does. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Every entrance is locked. You can’t come out here unless you bust the locks and enter illegally. And if you do that, I’ll have you arrested, Mr. Game Warden.”
He said it with such calm assurance, Joe thought. It unnerved him, but he continued. “Hank, is Bill Monroe still out there? I thought that was him who answered.”
“Nope,” Hank said. “Just somebody who musta’ sounded like him.”
“I can get a search warrant and be back out within a few hours. Are you really going to make me do that?”
Joe could almost feel Hank smile on the other end, that cold smile he had, the one he reserved for people beneath him. “Yes, Mr. Game Warden, I’m really going to make you do that.”
And he hung up.
JOE SPEED-DIALED Robey Hersig and got his voice mail.
“Robey, I’m on my way down from the Thunderhead Ranch. Hank refused access, so I need a warrant drawn up as soon as possible and signed by Judge Pennock. And when I come back, I may need a couple of deputies to help look around, if you don’t mind coordinating that with the sheriff.”
Robey came on the line, saying he had just stepped into his office. Joe repeated what he’d left on the voice mail.
“I’m meeting with the judge this afternoon,” Robey said. “Will that work?”
Joe said it would.
“I wonder why he’s being so cantankerous,” he said, then chuckled, “but I guess that’s just Hank.”
“Or he’s guilty as sin,” Joe replied. “And his friend Bill Monroe is out there too, answering his phone for him.”
“Really?”
“That’s another reason why I might need the deputies.”
“So you don’t do something over-the-top to the guy?”
“No,” Joe said. “So he doesn’t beat me up again.”
JOE SPENT THE afternoon at his home trying to put epoxy over all the cracks and holes in his drift boat. He kept his cell phone on and in his front breast pocket. He was ready to drop everything on a moment’s notice and meet the deputies at the entrance to Thunderhead Ranch.
Robey didn’t call until a few minutes to five.
“The judge won’t sign the warrant until he sees the documentation for probable cause.”
“What?”
“That’s what he said, Joe.”
“He’s never asked for documentation before. What does he want, the transcript of the tip? That’s all we can provide him.”
“I guess so.”
“But a tip is a tip. I told you everything in it.”
“Joe, I’m just the messenger here.”
“Oh, I thought you were the county prosecutor,” Joe said, immediately feeling bad that he’d said it.
“Fuck you, Joe.”
“I’m sorry. What is it, is the judge hooked up with Hank? Or is he just shy about doing anything if the name Scarlett is involved?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Robey said.
“Robey . . .”
He hung up.
Joe angrily tossed his phone into the boat
, where it clattered across the fiberglass bottom.
June
As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the
ground, but the live timber burgeons with
leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another
dies.
—HOMER, ILIAD
I wished to possess all the productions of nature, but I wished life with them. This was impossible.
—JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
18
ARLEN SCARLETT WAS DISTRACTED. MARYBETH COULD tell. Though he was looking at her across her desk with the well-practiced face of an eager-to-please canine, his mind was clearly elsewhere. Even as she explained that she had broken Opal’s code when it came to her record keeping for the ranch, something Arlen should have been ecstatic over, his mind was elsewhere.
The previous week, Arlen had shown up at Marybeth’s office with five banker’s boxes full of paperwork—envelopes, statements, invoices, files. He complained he could not make hide nor hair of them. Opal had kept the books on the ranch, he said, and she’d never explained to anyone how she did it. Arlen claimed he had no true idea if the ranch made money and if so how much, or if they were in trouble.
Marybeth had reluctantly agreed to take a look at the contents of the boxes to see if she could find a method in Opal’s madness.
“It didn’t really take me as long as I thought it would,” she explained to Arlen, who looked at her but not really. The antenna of a cell phone extended out of a snap-buttoned breast pocket of his white cowboy shirt. Even though he never looked down at it or reached up for it, Marybeth got the distinct feeling the phone was what he was concentrating on, even as she spoke. He was waiting for a call.
“At first,” Marybeth said, “I couldn’t figure out why she filed things the way she did. It seemed like random collections of paper held together with rubber bands. Some of the papers went back years and some were as current as two months ago, just before she . . . went away. All in the same bundle. It was obvious she wasn’t using monthly P and Ls, or any kind of cash-flow records to keep track of things. But we know Opal was not the type of woman to maintain haphazard records, so I figured there must be some kind of formula she was using. It came to me last night,” she said, widening her eyes, trying to engage Arlen. “I realized she grouped records by season and category. It kind of makes sense, when you think about it. For example, you grow and sell grass hay, correct?”