by C. J. Box
Through the sound in his ears, he thought he heard a whoop from the other side of the canyon. It was the whoop of a fan whose team had just scored. Painfully, he turned his neck to see, but his vision was fuzzy and he couldn’t focus well. What he thought he saw were two distant figures practically melded together on the canyon trail. They were so close together he thought for a moment they were embracing or dancing. But they were moving up the trail together, attached to each other in some way, for some reason.
Even through his injury and confusion, he knew instinctively they’d attacked him and weren’t out of range if he had his weapon. A long shot, sure, but not impossible. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the hand and eye coordination necessary to make the shot, and he didn’t have his.454. He vaguely recalled taking off his shoulder holster and hanging it on a peg, but he couldn’t remember why. What he did have, he knew, was a serious concussion that made it difficult to think straight.
And then, like a thunderclap, he remembered the reason he’d taken off his holster: Alisha. The sound that came from his throat was unfamiliar, but it sounded vaguely like a woofing bear.
He lurched from smoking tree to smoking tree, burning the flesh on his hands, to the cave entrance. It was eerily quiet; the buzzing in his ears was competing with the pounding of his heart, and he took in the horrible scene with the sound off.
Bits of clothing and hair. Shards of bed covering and chunks of electronic equipment. Her shoe, the foot still in it.
The bear sound came again, low and rumbling, choked off at the end in a yelping sob.
He reached out with a trembling hand and grasped a thick strand of her long black hair that was stuck to the cave wall, and he pulled it into his face and smelled it and it smelled like her.
Nate turned slowly, still holding the hank of hair to his face. The figures he had tracked earlier were nearly to the top of the canyon rim, specks in the distance. The vapor trail of the rocket wasn’t entirely dispersed, and arched across the void. It all came back to him with sickening clarity.
He searched in vain for his weapon inside. It was hard to see in the dust and smoke that hung there, and what he did see and touch enraged and nauseated him. Alisha had always been so much more than a sum of her parts, but that’s all she was now: parts. He felt hollow, as if they’d killed him as well.
And he decided that if he didn’t go after them immediately, they would get away, weapon or not.
He would tear them apart with his hands.
He raced down the canyon. His head pounded and he fought through it as he plunged headlong into the river, splashing through the icy thigh-high current, slipping on slick submerged river rocks, going under, nearly drowning, getting completely turned around by the time he broke through the surface twenty yards downriver from where he went in.
But the cold water served to wake him up a bit, sharpening his senses a few clicks, and when he staggered up the other bank he imagined the two killers close to the top of the canyon now. He imagined them chuckling, high-fiving, patting themselves on the back for the fine shot, oblivious to the fact that he’d soon be on them.
Nate charged up the rough foot trail, his knees pumping, his breath coming in labored honks. He strode through the brush from which he was sure the rocket had been fired and paused to turn and look. He could see the top of his cave from there. A curl of smoke came out of it, like a child’s drawing of a chimney. He noted a Coors beer bottle that had been tossed aside, as well as a couple of bottle caps in the dirt. There would be fingerprints. Even DNA left behind. This confused him, but didn’t slow him. It made no sense that any of the people from his past who were after him would be so sloppy. The Five were professionals, as he had once been. They wouldn’t leave evidence.
Near the top of the canyon, when he could see the rim and the light blue sky with fat-bellied rain clouds scudding across it, he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. It would do no good to be exhausted when he found them. He’d need all his speed and strength to rip their throats out.
They were gone.
He walked unsteadily on the trail, stepping in their footprints to and from the canyon. He saw a spatter of dark blood from one of them beading on the dust and he ground it into the dirt with his heel. Heat shimmered over the sagebrush flat, and he could see the back bumper of their pickup retreating at least a mile away. Dust from the tires still hung in the air.
Nate stood up tall and straddled the trail. He lifted his right arm and placed his left hand beneath the right fist that still clutched Alisha’s hair. He pointed his right index finger and cocked his thumb like a hammer and sighted down his forearm. The thumb fell.
He said, “You’re dead.”
Halfway back down the canyon, Nate sat and put his head in his hands. One of the lone thunderclouds settled over the canyon and plunged it into shadow, and errant raindrops smacked onto the dry ground and freckled the rocks in the trail. He lifted his face to the rain, knowing nothing would ever wash this day away. To Alisha’s spirit, he said, “I’m so sorry.”
12
Joe Pickett was finishing his statement across the desk from Deputy Sollis in the County Building when Marcus Hand arrived. Dusk painted the windows and, despite the furious activity that had gone on throughout the day, the squad room was oddly silent. Most of the sheriff’s department was at dinner, except for Deputy Reed, who was still at the crime scene assisting the DCI forensics crew as well as the crane operators who, as far as Joe knew, were still trying to figure out how to lower The Earl’s body from the windmill without dropping it.
Joe’s cell phone was backed up with three messages from Marybeth, no doubt wondering what was going on, and he held the phone in his hand as if to alleviate his guilt at not responding sooner. Sollis was a two-fingered typist, and his fingers were as thick as his neck, and they’d spent most of the previous hour going over the circumstances related to the discovery, the climb up the tower, and the condition of The Earl’s body that Joe could recall. Every other word Sollis typed, it seemed, was misspelled or wrong, and he was constantly leaping backwards in the text and correcting his errors. When Joe offered to key it in for him, Sollis shot him a murderous glare.
“You say his boots looked big,” Sollis said. “What do you mean by that?”
“Centrifugal force,” Joe said. “He’d been up there spinning so long and so fast that the fluids in the body were driven toward his extremities. ”
“So you’re a forensic scientist as well,” Sollis sneered, rolling his eyes. “I thought you were just the game warden. Turns out you’re an expert on centrifical force, too.”
“Centrifugal,” Joe corrected. “I’d suggest you look it up, but it would take an hour for you to Google it using your sausage fingers.”
“Look, buddy,” Sollis said, turning in his chair away from his monitor and thrusting his meaty face halfway across the desk, “that’s about enough of that crap from the likes of you. ”
Joe leaned forward as well, fed up, nearly but not quite wanting Sollis to start something, when he noticed the deputy’s attention was elsewhere, his tiny eyes squinting over Joe’s shoulder.
“This is the sheriff’s department,” Sollis said over Joe’s shoulder. “Can I help you with something?”
The voice that responded was deep and smooth, like thick syrup: “Sir, I’m well aware of my location. I’m also well aware that you currently have a sweet, beautiful, and innocent woman-my client-sitting like a common criminal in your jail. I wish to speak with her immediately. My name is Marcus Hand.”
Joe craned around to the criminal defense attorney filling not only the doorframe but somehow the entire room. Marcus Hand was a big man in every respect. He stood six feet four and a half inches, according to the height scale mounted to the left of the door itself, and he had wide shoulders made wider by the shoulder pads of his thighlength fringed buckskin jacket. Hand had long silver hair that curled up neatly at his collar, and piercing blue wide-set eyes. His face was broad and
smooth, his lips rubbery and downturned, his nose large and bulbous on the tip. He wore coal-black jeans, roach-killer ostrich skin cowboy boots, a large silver buckle, a black mock turtleneck under the leather jacket, and a tall black flat-brimmed cowboy hat adorned with a band of small silver and jade conchos. He carried a worn leather coffee-colored pouch that looked more like a saddlebag than a briefcase.
Joe had heard-but couldn’t confirm-that on the wall behind Hand’s desk in his law office in Jackson there was a rough barn-wood sign burned with:
RATES (PER HOUR)
INNOCENT WYOMINGITES: $1,500
OUT-OF-STATERS: $2,000
“And you are?” Hand said, taking a few steps into the room.
“Deputy Jake Sollis.” The answer was quick and weak and, to Joe’s ear, surprisingly submissive.
“Deputy Sollis,” Hand said, “I wish to speak to my client immediately. As in right now.”
Sollis swallowed, intimidated and flushed, and said, “I need to ask Sheriff McLanahan. ”
“Ask anyone you wish,” Hand said, “as long as you do it in the next ten seconds. Because if you keep me from consulting with my client any longer than that, it’s the first of many grounds for immediate dismissal of all charges.
“My God,” Hand said, raising his arms and modulating his voice even deeper so it sounded more stentorian and God-like to Joe. “You ridiculous people have actually taken into custody-into custody! — the grieving widow of a brutally murdered man-the love of her life-and put her on display in the press as if she possibly had something to do with the crime. I’m personally and morally outraged. OUTRAGED. This will not stand, Mr. Sollis.” The last words were shouted.
The deputy snatched his phone from its stand and fumbled with the buttons. Joe looked from Sollis to Hand.
“And who are you?” Hand asked, still accusatory but slightly less so.
“Name’s Joe Pickett. I’m a Wyoming game warden. I found the body.”
Hand quieted for a moment, his eyes taking Joe in the way a wolf assesses a calf elk. “I’ve heard your name before,” Hand said in almost a whisper. Then he snapped his fingers with recollection. “You’re the one who arrested Governor Budd for fishing without a license! I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard as when I read the story in the newspaper. I determined then you were either naive or a zealot.”
“Neither,” Joe said. “Just doing my job.”
“Ah,” Hand said, “one of those. But if I recall, you now work for Governor Spencer Rulon. You’re his secret agent, of sorts. An unofficial range rider dispatched to do the governor’s bidding.”
“Not anymore,” Joe said.
He had not spoken with Rulon in a year. The governor had taken a liking to Joe several years before and used the machinations of state government to work outside the lines and assign him to locations and give him directives that would have normally been far beyond his scope of work. He’d been the enigmatic governor’s point man, a range rider of sorts. Rulon had been in his corner although he’d always maintained an arm’s-length distance from Joe, so if Joe screwed up, Rulon could claim ignorance.
But the nasty business that had taken place in the Sierra Madre with the twin brothers the year before had resulted in total and complete silence from the governor’s office. Joe had done what he was assigned to do-sort of-but the end result no doubt angered Rulon. Since then, the governor had neither reached out to help nor to manipulate circumstances so Joe would be hurt. And Joe had moved somewhat comfortably back into his role as game warden for the Twelve Sleep district. But when the phone rang at home or his cell phone danced, he still felt the tingle of anticipation and dread, wondering if would be the governor on the other end.
“We’ve tangled a time or two,” Hand said. “I can’t claim we’re the best of friends. But this is Wyoming and there aren’t enough people around to avoid anyone, so we put up with each other.”
“You’ve defended some guilty folks I wanted to put in prison,” Joe said more calmly than he thought capable. “Remember the name Stella Ennis?”
“Remember her?” Hand said, his mouth forming a slight smile. “Those lips! Those legs! I have dreams about her. But her husband was found innocent in a court of law.”
“He was guilty.”
“That’s not what the jury concluded, Joe Pickett.”
“Nope,” Joe said. “You got him off, even though he did it.”
“Water under the bridge,” Hand said, dismissing the topic with a wave of his hand. “I have no control over inept law enforcement personnel and prosecutors who can’t put forth a solid case despite the enormous coercive power and resources of the state. Not that I’m suggesting you’re inept, of course. Just not persuasive enough.” Then: “So you found the body? Aren’t you related to my client in some way?”
Joe nodded. “She’s my mother-in-law.”
Hand thought that over, and his smile grew larger. Sollis lowered the phone to the cradle and looked up at the lawyer with a whipped expression on his face. “Sheriff McLanahan will be here as soon as he’s done with an interview with CNN.”
Marcus Hand made an elaborate show of taking that in. He mouthed, “CNN? National news? Whatever could your sheriff be telling them?”
“Don’t know,” Sollis said, looking away.
“Call him back,” Hand said, his voice pure cold steel. “Tell your boss if he spends one more second poisoning the jury pool, I’ll be up his ass so far I’ll be winking at shapely ladies from behind his molars. Got that, deputy?”
Sollis stammered, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish in a tank.
“Call him back,” Hand said. “Tell him what I said. Meanwhile, I’m walking across this room into the jail to see my client.”
Hand walked in front of the flustered Sollis as the deputy grabbed the phone. The lawyer put a large hand on Joe’s shoulder and squeezed. “Where is the best place to stay in this town? I may be here a few days and nights.”
Joe shrugged. “Saddlestring doesn’t have the kind of accommodations you might be used to. There’s the Holiday Inn.”
Hand snorted. “What about the ranch house?”
“The Thunderhead Ranch?”
“Of course. I remember going there for some charitable fund-raiser a year ago where I met Earl and Missy Alden. Lovely people. And the view from the front portico was heavenly and reminded me of my own ranch in Teton County. You see, I’m used to waking up to a mountain view. Horses in the pasture and the plaintive mewling of bovines. In my next life, I want to be in charge of scenic cow placement in any meadow I overlook. I find these corny Western settings quite restful. Much more so than a white-bread hotel room with thin plastic cups wrapped in cellophane.”
“I guess you’ll have to ask your client about staying at her place,” Joe said. “And about arranging her cows.”
“I surely will,” Hand said, patting Joe’s shoulder. “So despite our past differences, Mr. Pickett, in this circumstance we’re on the same side.”
Joe said, “Don’t be so sure of that.”
After a beat, Marcus Hand threw his head back and laughed.
13
Joe arrived home long after the dinner dishes had been put away, and he sat at the table and filled in Marybeth while she warmed up the leftover spaghetti she’d saved for him. She listened intently, occasionally shaking her head with worry and disappointment, but waited until he was finished with his introduction to Marcus Hand to say, “She couldn’t have done it, Joe. She’s mean and ruthless and awful, but she couldn’t have done it. I want to know who the sheriff got his inside information from. Then we’ll know what’s really going on.”
“Neither Dulcie nor McLanahan would tell me,” Joe said. “But it’s got to come out soon. They can’t withhold the evidence from discovery. Hand will insist on them turning everything over sooner rather than later, especially since they seem to be rushing to press charges. Dulcie seemed pretty confident, and that makes me think. The rumor in the c
ounty building is the charges have been written up to be filed, including murder one, and the arraignment will be tomorrow in front of Judge Hewitt.”
Marybeth sat down and rested her chin in her hands. “It makes me think, too. And it makes me worry. From what you’ve told me, it appears Missy has been framed by someone who wanted Earl dead-or wanted to hurt her in the worst possible way. If she did it, would she keep the rifle in her car? Why would she even use that particular gun, since it was so easy to prove it came from Earl’s collection? Somebody stole it, shot Earl, and put it in her car for the sheriff to find.”
Joe nodded, urging her to continue.
Marybeth said, “My mother doesn’t know anything about guns, I don’t think. Are they suggesting she actually fired the shot? Are they thinking she carried The Earl’s body up a frigging wind tower and hung him by a chain? It’s ridiculous.”
Joe didn’t comment on his wife’s use of the word “frigging,” but took it to mean it was now an acceptable word in the household.
“No one’s saying that,” he said. “I think they’re assuming she hired a killer or had an accomplice to do the dirty work.”
“Who?” Marybeth asked sharply. “And most of all, why? My mother now has everything she’s ever schemed for. Why would she blow it like that? It doesn’t make any sense, Joe. It doesn’t make any sense that the sheriff and Dulcie could be so sure what they’re saying will hold up.”
Joe agreed.
“My mother is a lot of things,” she said. “But she’s not a murderer, for God’s sake.”
“Yes,” Joe said. “She’s a lot of things.”
“Joe.”
He got very interested in eating his plate of spaghetti and wanted to change the subject.
“It’s quiet in here,” he said. “What’s going on?” Meaning: How is April?