Cold Wind jp-11

by C. J. Box

  “How did you. make it?”

  “I wasn’t there when your monkeys fired the rocket.”

  She could feel his eyes on her, picking up every flinch, every twitch. She knew she’d reacted to what he said.

  “My woman was there. Her name was Alisha.”

  “My husband’s name was Chase.”

  He was silent for several minutes. It made her more frightened than when he talked. But she found some comfort in the fact that he wanted to go to the pier. On a warm evening like tonight, she thought, there would be plenty of people around. It would be public. Someone might see them. Or maybe she’d have the chance to escape.

  They approached the pier. He directed her toward the most remote parking lot. It was practically empty because it was the farthest away. She was dismayed to find that there weren’t many people around.

  “Here,” Nate said.

  She pulled into a space. Lake Michigan dominated the view of the windshield. The pier reached out into it on their right, and small waves lapped against the pilings. The city was behind them. She could see how simple it would be for him to shoot her in the car, leave her body, and just walk away. Maybe there were cameras-they were everywhere these days-but even if he was seen by them, she would still be dead. She thought about Melissa and Aimee, and pictured their faces when they came out of the studio looking for their ride to McDonald’s. She couldn’t stop from tearing up.

  She said, “How did you find me? How did you know about dance practice?”

  “Wasn’t hard. Google,” he said. “Your name is all over it. You’re listed as a patron of the dance studio, and the hours and classes are posted. And there were a couple of newsletters listing the students in each class. Melissa and Aimee, right? I figured you’d be dropping them off or picking them up.”

  She stared at him. “But how did you know it was me?”

  He said, “I killed your husband, but it wasn’t personal. I didn’t even know who he was at the time. He was just a man who turned on me, holding a weapon that a minute before he’d been aiming at an injured girl we were tracking. I had no doubt that he would have finished her off. I didn’t think twice about it at the time and I’d do it all over again in the same circumstances.”

  She shook her head. “Chase wouldn’t. ”

  “Of course he would,” he said. “Don’t be dumb. You know what kind of man he was and you’re not a stupid woman. You married him, after all.”

  She tried to find the right words to establish some kind of connection with him so he might let her go. But he was inscrutable and impossible to understand. Kind of like Chase. She said, “Did you find Johnny and Drennen?”

  “Yes,” Nate said. “I can find anybody.” And by the way he said it, she knew they were dead.

  “They didn’t tell me about your wife,” she said. “They never mentioned there was anyone else down there.”

  “That’s what happens when you work with amateurs.”

  “Professionals are hard to find.”

  “In Chicago?”

  “I wasn’t in Chicago. You weren’t in Chicago. You were in Podunk, Wyoming.”

  “Careful there,” he said. For the first time, she thought she saw a slight smile, an opening.

  Then he shut it. “So it was an eye for an eye,” he said.

  “My father. my father said revenge is a cleanser. I needed. ” She searched for words and he let her search. “I needed to show myself I wouldn’t just take it. I wouldn’t just let someone take my husband away like that and there would be no consequences. And if the law wouldn’t or couldn’t do it, someone had to.”

  He nodded as if he agreed. The gun was in his lap but still pointed at her, almost casually. He said, “But you understand that if you play at this level, the concept of mercy doesn’t exist. You do understand that?”

  Her mouth was suddenly so dry she couldn’t speak. She clamped her hands between her thighs so they wouldn’t tremble. She’d done well, she thought, up to now. But she was losing it.

  “My girls. ” she said, her voice a croak.

  “You should have thought of them before you went west,” Nate said. “That would have been a good time to think of consequences if you failed.”

  “I know,” she said, and dropped her head. Tears fell from her eyes onto the inside lenses of her sunglasses and pooled there.

  “There are people out there who want me gone,” Nate said. “They’ve sent a couple of professionals out over the years, but I put them down. And I thought I was off the map so far they’d never find me. But you did. A nice mom from Chicago. If it weren’t for what happened to Alisha, I could almost admire that.”

  She began to weep deep down from her chest. She couldn’t help it and wished she could stop.

  He said, “You obviously met someone in Wyoming who told you how to find me. And he or she probably helped you get your hands on a rocket launcher. I can’t imagine you can buy them on the street here as easily as I can buy a gun in Chicago.”

  She said, “Yes. I met someone.”

  Nate said, “What was the name?”

  She told Nate, but said she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t feeding her a line. After all, she’d told everyone her name was Patsy.

  He described the man’s physical features, and she agreed it was him. But it was hard to hear him through the roaring in her ears.

  Finally, Nate said, “Keep your mouth shut. You never met me. This is over. We both lost our lovers. But always keep in mind that I found you and that I can find you again. This time, think of those two girls of yours.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  When she was recovered enough, she got out and stumbled toward the front of the car, not sure her legs had the strength to keep her upright. She pitched forward and caught herself on the hood and the metal was so hot it burned her palms. Despite the heat and the humidity and the sun, she felt a chill race through her.

  She raised her head, looking for him. She wasn’t sure which direction he’d gone. The grassy hill between her and the city had a few couples on it sitting on blankets, oblivious to what had just happened. Or nearly happened.

  Then she turned toward the pier itself. It was crowded with tourists, but one tall man with dark hair was among them. He paused at the railing, and she saw two objects drop and splash into the lake. The guns.

  She looked at her watch. An hour before she needed to pick up the girls. Enough time for a drink, or maybe two. She needed them like she’d never needed a drink before.

  Nate leaned against the railing on the pier away from the crowds. He didn’t throw the weapons into the water, but let the weapons drop out of his hands so his movements wouldn’t be obvious to anyone.

  The name she’d given him had shocked him at first, but the more he thought about it the more sense it made. The dots connected.

  He checked his watch. He had time to return the rental and catch a red-eye back to Jackson Hole, to his Jeep, to his.500.

  He wasn’t through, after all.

  33

  Driving north on I-25 approaching Chugwater, Joe scrolled down through the call records on his cell phone, looking for a number from several weeks before when Dulcie Schalk had called him from her cell to ask questions about a poaching case. He highlighted the number and pushed SEND. She picked up on the third ring.

  “Joe?” she asked, her surprise obvious.

  “Since it’s after hours I didn’t know whether to call the office, and I couldn’t wait until tomorrow,” he said.

  “We’re neck deep in work, Joe,” she said. “Getting ready for opening arguments next week. I really don’t have much time right now, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sure,” he said, “but there’s some new information you need to know. I’d never call otherwise.”

  “So this is about the Alden case.” It was a statement, not a question, and she sounded disappointed in him.

  “Yup.”

  There was a heavy sigh. “Joe, you know the situation. You�
��re personally involved in this whole thing, and it’s inappropriate to contact me after hours to lobby for your side.”

  Joe eased his pickup over to the shoulder of the highway and parked. The few lights of Chugwater were in his rearview mirror. To the west, three heavy-bodied clouds sat suspended over the bluffs of the horizon, their rose-colored bellies lit by the setting sun. When he turned the key off in the ignition, the sweet smell of desert sage filled the cab. “I’m not calling to lobby,” he said evenly, “and I don’t have a side.”

  The tone of his voice seemed to jar her. She said, “But I thought. ”

  “I need you to listen to me for five minutes. If you think I’m lobbying you after that, I’ll hang up and wait for you to lose the trial. Is that the way you want to go here?”

  “No,” she said, with a slight hesitation. “Okay, I’ve got five minutes.”

  He filled her in on his conversation with Bob Lee and what Marybeth had found online about Rope the Wind, which had led him to Orin Smith.

  “He’s in federal custody,” Joe said. “I interviewed him at the Federal Building in Cheyenne.”

  “Under whose authority?” she bristled.

  “Under mine,” he said. “But for the record, both the governor and the federal agent in charge knew I was there and what I was doing. In fact, the FBI listened in to the interview.”

  He could tell by her silence that she had no foreknowledge of Orin Smith or his connection to Rope the Wind, and therefore Smith’s previous efforts to get a wind energy company started in Twelve Sleep County among the landowners. He wasn’t surprised, since the sheriff’s investigation had taken them no further than Missy. He hoped she wouldn’t get defensive and territorial and shut him down before he heard him out. Joe knew Schalk didn’t like surprises, and he’d seen how she bristled when others offered speculation with nothing to back them up. And like every county attorney Joe had ever worked with, she hated it when investigators struck out on their own.

  She said, “This man, Orin Smith, he’s in federal custody? And I assume this testimony might help him out at sentencing? Why should I think he’s a credible witness?”

  “Good point,” Joe said. “You have no reason to believe anything he says right now. He’s up for eleven counts of fraud, after all. I’m not sure I believe everything he told me. But please jot down what I relate to you and check him out on your own and make your own decision. And keep in mind Sheriff McLanahan wants a big simple win over a rich woman nobody likes. He’s never wanted to look any further than her, and he’s never focused on anybody else. Dulcie, neither have you.”

  “Continue,” she said. Her tone was ice cold.

  Joe said, “The other night, I heard Earl Alden described as a skimmer. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant at the time or why it would matter. But now I have a better idea.

  “Alden was connected politically and professionally,” Joe said. “And that seems to be the way it works these days. Success has nothing to do with ideas or inventions or hard work. It’s about who you know and which politician may pick you to succeed. The Earl was a skimmer with no personal ideology. He gave big money to folks in both parties and made sure they knew it. That way he was always covered no matter who won. For The Earl it was like investing in research and development: He was never sure who would pay off. If there was an opportunity, he was right there with his hand out. And when it came to this big push for wind energy development, The Earl was right there ready to rock with the new administration in Washington and all their green initiatives.”

  She said, “Are you getting to the point soon?”

  Joe said, “Believe me, I don’t like to talk this much, either. But you need to know Alden’s background before you can understand what he did and who was affected by it.”

  “Okay,” she said, unconvinced.

  “Anyway,” Joe said, “with this wind energy deal, he saw a way he could cash in. The money was phenomenal, and he figured out a way to keep it coming from all sides.

  “First,” Joe said, “he heard about Orin Smith and Rope the Wind. I don’t know who told him, or if Earl figured it out on his own. You know how fast word spreads in the county, and no doubt some of the ranchers Smith approached talked to each other over coffee or at the feed store. He might have even heard something from Missy or Bud Sr., for all we know. However he found out, The Earl met with Smith after every other rancher in the county had turned Smith down. Earl saw the value in a three-year-old wind energy company even if the three years was nothing more than incorporation records sitting in a file at the secretary of state’s office. So Earl offered not to buy Rope the Wind for cash, but to make Smith a partner in the effort. In effect, Earl told Smith he’d get forty percent of the profits once the wind farm was built and producing electricity. Since Smith had struck out everywhere else and he knew Earl Alden was this legendary cashgenerating machine, he agreed to the deal.”

  “I don’t get it,” Schalk said. “Why would Earl want to cut Smith in on the profits? Couldn’t he have just bought the name on the cheap and done it all himself? Or just started his own company without this Smith guy?”

  “He could have,” Joe said, “but he was ten steps ahead of Smith and everybody else. See, Smith also had contact with a firm down in Texas he’d help incorporate several years before. The Texas company wasn’t all that big, but they specialized in buying old or malfunctioning wind turbines and remanufacturing them into working units. There’s been a market for legitimate wind turbines for years, I guess. These guys down there were sort of scrap dealers who fixed the turbines and put them back on the market. But because of the big money suddenly available for new wind farms, the new companies that went into the business didn’t care about buying old turbines at a discount. You’ve got to forget about things like supply and demand, and free markets, when it comes to wind energy. All the incentives were designed for new companies building new turbines and putting people to work so the politicians could crow about what they’d done for the economy and the planet. So this Texas company was floundering and sitting on over a hundred pieces of junk they couldn’t unload.”

  “O-kay,” she said, drawing the word out, making Joe feel like a crank.

  “Listen,” he said, “you don’t know all the pieces to this yet.”

  “Go on. So when do we get to the Cubans on the grassy knoll?”

  Joe ignored her. “With the information Smith had given him about that big ridge where the wind blew all the time that bordered Earl’s ranch, Earl bought the acreage from the Lees. Those poor Lees got the short end of the stick in every regard. So Earl owned the windiest place in the county and the one perfect spot for a big wind energy project. That was the first piece to fall into place.

  “Once he had that ridge secured, Earl locked in the agreement with Orin Smith for the company, and suddenly Earl Alden had a three-year-old wind energy operation and land with almost constant Class V to Class VII winds. The reason that was important was because those two things were essential to start working the system-to kick-start a skimming operation on a big scale.”

  Schalk said, “Skimming whom?”

  “You, me, all the other taxpayers,” Joe said. “Here’s how it worked, according to Smith. Like I said, The Earl was connected. He knew which banks across the country were going to receive federal bailouts because certain politicians didn’t want them to fail. Earl approached those banks with the package for financing a massive wind farm called Rope the Wind. He knew at least one of them would go for it because the banks were being encouraged to lend to renewable energy schemes with bailout dollars, and they knew that even if the deals went bust, they’d be taken care of by the federal government. So no need for caution for these bankers-just open the floodgates to federal money, take their fees, and funnel it right back out the door to the right kind of company. In particular, and you may want to write this down, Smith said Earl got almost all of his financing through First Great Lakes Bank in Chicago. Heard of it?”


  “You’re kidding,” she said. “Everybody’s heard of it. This is the one they call the Mob Bank? The one with all the questionable loans that just disappeared? Haven’t they been shut down?”

  “They have now. But not before everybody got paid off in fees,” Joe said. “They were connected, too.”

  “But that’s not The Earl’s fault,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t. But that’s how he financed his company. And he was just getting started.”

  He heard her take a long breath on the other end. He said, “Earl took the loan-which was backed by the Feds-and bought a hundred old wind turbines from the Texas remanufacturing company. He paid a million dollars each, Smith said, but applied for tax credits and incentives for new turbines, which run four to five million apiece.”

  “Jesus!” Schalk said. “That’s outright fraud. That’s what, three or four million per turbine? Or four hundred million dollars in the clear?”

  “You bet,” Joe said. “But who is checking on these things these days? There’s so much of it going on, and so much bureaucracy in the process, no one knows what’s what. I mean, how likely is it the Feds would send out an inspector to make sure the wind turbines were brand-new? And keep in mind, the profits are all paper profits at this point. They’re on a balance sheet, but that’s all. That’s how a guy like the Earl skims. Everything is under the surface.”

  “I see your point.”

  Joe consulted his notes and said, “So The Earl doesn’t stop there. He’s like a junkie when it comes to skimming. He got a fifty-million-dollar grant in federal stimulus funds from the Department of Energy because his project was about wind. That’s why he bought Rope the Wind, because it had been around for three years on paper and that was one of the criteria for receiving the grant-that the company have a track record. Then he has his people go out and secure power contracts with a bunch of cities and states who have passed laws that mandate that certain percentages of their power must come from renewable energy. With the farm going up and the contracts in place, Earl now owns a genuine electric utility, which gives him the right to condemn the private land owned by the Lees to create a corridor for transmission lines. Even though these places are buying power at a loss and there wasn’t any way of getting the power to them yet, it makes them feel good. So The Earl takes advantage of that.”