Cold Wind jp-11

by C. J. Box

  He approached the main house and went straight for the back of the garage. No one ever put curtains on garage windows, and he peered inside. Five stalls and not a single vehicle inside. The floor looked polished and it reflected a beam of moonlight.

  He stepped back and assessed the main house. It felt big and empty to him. All the curtains were closed tightly and there wasn’t a single leak of light from inside. He turned toward the guest cottages and moved from tree to tree, bush to bush, until he was behind them. As he’d moved, he’d noted the outline of a pickup truck parked in the driveway of the first structure, and now as he paused, a light clicked on inside at the far-left window, closest to the garage.

  Nate slid his.500 out of its holster, hoisted it up near his right ear, and as he leveled it his left thumb cocked the hammer back. The scope gathered all the available light, and Nate rested the crosshairs on the center of the window.

  Joe couldn’t help but think that Bud should have taken better care of a house in which he was a secret guest. Like in his apartment above the Stockman’s Bar, wrappers, empty bottles, reeking cartons, and bits of debris were everywhere. The door from the garage led into the kitchen, and Joe noted the stack of dirty dishes in the sink and the overflowing garbage can against the wall across from the stove. A scrawny gray cat fed among a pile of chicken bones it had pulled from the garbage can. The cat looked up at Joe with no fear at all.

  “Bud, are you here?” Joe called out. “It’s me, Joe.”

  As he passed the kitchen window, Joe leaned over and patted the cat on the head.

  Nate saw a glimpse of a head and a hat through the window. He put the crosshairs on it, and as he began to squeeze the trigger, the head was gone, as if the man inside had fallen through a trapdoor. He cursed, kept his weapon up, and waited for the target to reappear.

  But it didn’t, and another light clicked on behind the curtains of the middle window. He’d moved on.

  Nate wondered how he’d known to duck at that precise moment, but dismissed it as happenstance.

  And now Nate would have to go inside. It would be better that way, he thought, as he jogged toward the back door. Face-to-face would be best.

  He wanted Bud to see his face, know Nate Romanowski had found him, before Bud’s head exploded.

  The back door was locked, but it gave slightly when Nate leaned his shoulder against it. He opened his knife and slid it down through the crack between the door and frame. No bolt. Which meant it was locked at the knob set. He pushed the knife farther in, slid it down until the blade rested against the pawl, and chopped back.

  He was in.

  With his shotgun out in front of him, Joe entered the living room. More clutter. A table lamp was on with a lampshade that had been knocked cockeyed, the orb of light throwing out a yellow pool on the carpeting like a side glance.

  A high-backed lounge chair blocked his view of the side of the couch so he moved to his right, weapon ready. Joe girded himself to see a dead body.

  It was a single boot lying on its side with no Bud attached.

  Joe sighed, and yelled, “Bud!”

  “Joe?”

  Although Joe recognized the voice instantly, he still racked the pump and wheeled and raised the stock up to his cheek. The voice came from a darkened mudroom at the back of the house. “Nate? What the hell?”

  He heard Nate chuckle drily at the use of the curse.

  “I’ve got the same question for you,” Nate said, emerging from the mudroom into the light, rotating the cylinder on his big revolver until he could rest the hammer back on the empty chamber, holstering the weapon beneath his arm. Nate had cut and darkened his hair and he looked serious and severe. He asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to find Bud Longbrake,” Joe said, lowering the barrel of his gun.

  “Me, too,” Nate said. “I’m here to kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Joe saw the black braid attached to the barrel of Nate’s handgun and he recognized its color.

  “Oh, no,” Joe said. “You think Bud was responsible?”

  Nate said, “He set me up.”

  Joe was puzzled. “Why would he do that?”

  “Why did he do anything the last couple of years?” Nate said. “I don’t know whether it was the alcohol, or his paranoia about me coming after him, or what happened to him when he lost the ranch, or whatever. But something made him go crazy. And Alisha died because of it.”

  Joe said, “You’ve got me on that one. I was just thinking how he’d become a different person than the one I used to work for. Like his personality changed.”

  “It doesn’t matter what caused it,” Nate said. “He still has to answer for his big mouth.”

  Joe said, “I wanted to talk with him because he claims he has the goods on Missy murdering her husband. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been trying to find him because the trial starts on Monday.”

  “You could have shot me,” Nate said, looking at Joe’s Remington Wingmaster.

  “Yup,” Joe said. “Sorry about that. You scared me.”

  “So where’s Bud?”

  “He’s not here, but he hasn’t been gone long. His truck is in the garage, so either he caught a ride or someone got here just ahead of us and took him.”

  “Too bad,” Nate said. “Who could have taken him?”

  Joe said, “I’ve got so many suspects in this case, my mind is boggled. I’ll fill you in if you want to hear it all. How long have you been here?”

  “Two minutes,” Nate said. “I just came in the back door and heard your voice. A minute before, I nearly shot you in the head.”

  He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it took Joe a second or two to grasp the import. “You nearly shot me in the head. ” Joe repeated, trailing off.

  Nate shrugged. “Wouldn’t it have been something if we’d drawn down on each other by mistake? That would be a hell of a thing.”

  Joe stifled a smile. It wasn’t funny what they’d almost done to each other, but the way Nate said it was.

  Joe said, “It’s good to see you, Nate.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened in the canyon. I found the scaffold.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Marybeth and Alice Thunder. Both have kept it to themselves.”

  Nate nodded, grateful. He said, “I found the guys who did it, and the woman who put them up to it. I put the guys down, but I let the woman off. ”

  “No details,” Joe said, putting his hand up to stop Nate from saying more.

  Silence hung in the air.

  Joe said, “Nate, can we get past what happened last year?”

  Nate nodded. He said, “I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, as I’m sure you have. It boils down to this: You were wrong, but you had no choice.”

  Joe said, “I think I agree.”

  “Then we don’t need to talk about it anymore,” Nate said.

  Joe liked that.

  “So,” Nate said, “where did that son-of-a-bitch Bud Longbrake go?”

  Before Joe could speculate on an answer, he heard the sound of motors outside and the quick whoop of a siren that blew open the quiet night. Flashing red and blue lights filled the window and danced across the walls and made the living room seem like an unlikely party scene.

  Joe stepped over and parted the curtains with the back of his hand. “The sheriff is here,” he said. Two department vehicles: Sollis’ SUV and McLanahan’s pickup. There were two heads in Sollis’ unit, but the sheriff was alone in his.

  “You want me to take them out?” Nate asked, reaching for his.500.

  “Jeez, Nate.”

  “I’ll catch you later then,” Nate said, retreating toward the mudroom. Joe watched him. He doubted the sheriff had sent anyone around the back to block the back door since he’d arrived with such fanfare at the front.

  “My house,” Joe called after him,
and Nate was gone.

  Joe laid the shotgun on the couch and cautiously opened the door before McLanahan could bang on it. He wanted to show himself in the open, and that he offered no threat.

  The sheriff looked purposeful and self-satisfied in the flashing lights of the vehicles. Sollis stood smugly behind him and to the left, with his hand on his holstered weapon. Deputy Reed was farther back, looking solemn.

  “Hello, Joe,” McLanahan said. Then to Sollis, over his shoulder, “Arrest this man for breaking and entering and attempting to tamper with a witness. Maybe trespassing as well, if the club wants to charge him.”

  Joe sighed. “Except I didn’t do any of those things.” He pointed out the boot on the floor, the reason he had probable cause for entering without a warrant or notice.

  “I’ve got photos of what I saw,” Joe said. “I really did think Bud Longbrake was dead or hurt, so I entered. The garage door was unlocked.”

  “Anybody with you?” McLanahan asked, peering over Joe’s shoulder.

  “No.” Thinking: Nate should be sprinting across the lawn out back toward the edge of the property. Still, he felt guilty for misleading the sheriff.

  McLanahan rocked back on his heels and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops so he could lean back and look down his nose at Joe. McLanahan twitched his mustache from side to side, and said, “Not sure I’m buying it.”

  Joe shrugged. “I’m not trying to sell you anything.”

  “How’d you get access to the club, anyway?”

  Joe caught himself before he looked away. “I know the keypad combination.”

  “Right,” McLanahan said, snorting. Joe thought he was caught, and he felt cold dread in his belly.

  “Probably got it from your dear mother-in-law,” McLanahan said, sure of himself.

  Joe felt the dread dissipate. He said, “Rather than screw around with me, I’d suggest you put out an APB on your star witness, Bud Longbrake. He’s gone.”

  The sheriff grinned and looked over his shoulder at Sollis, who smiled back at him. Reed found something interesting to stare at on the top of his boots. They knew something he didn’t.

  “No need for that,” McLanahan said. “Bud’s safe and warm in sheriff department custody, but I ain’t sayin’ where. He’s probably enjoying a cocktail to calm his nerves. He called us because he heard you were coming after him. He said he feared for his life.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Joe said. “I’d never hurt Bud.”

  “Poor old guy,” McLanahan said, ignoring Joe. “He’s under so much pressure, and you make it worse. He’s a sick man, you know.”

  Joe shook his head. He recalled Orin Smith saying something similar. “I don’t know about that,” Joe said. “I just need to talk to him.”

  “Not before the trial,” McLanahan said, shaking his head. “Not unless he tells me to let you in. Even then, you’d have to get through Dulcie Schalk, and I don’t think you’re real popular with her right now.”

  Sighing, Joe said, “You’re on the wrong track, McLanahan. You’ve been wrong since the murder. Bud wants revenge on Missy and he’s using what happened to get back at her. I don’t blame him, but this crime. there’s a lot more to it. Things you’ve never even considered or looked at.”

  “Yeah, yeah yeah,” McLanahan muttered, dismissing him. Then to Sollis, “Take this yahoo in and get his statement. Then we’ll decide if we want to arrest him and on what charges. Reed, you drive his truck down to the county building. I’ll call Dulcie and see how she wants to proceed.”

  Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Sure I do,” McLanahan said, turning aside to spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the lawn. To Joe, he said, “Why aren’t you out there trying to catch poachers or something? Shouldn’t you be doing your job instead of mine? You ever think about that?”

  “I do,” Joe said. “I just figure one of us needs to do your job.”

  Reed snorted a laugh and looked away quickly.

  McLanahan froze, and Joe saw something ugly pass over his face. Joe squared up, ready if McLanahan swung.

  The sheriff took a deep breath and said to Sollis, “Cuff the son-of-a-bitch.”

  On the way through the grounds of the Eagle Mountain Club, handcuffs biting his wrists, Joe thought that he was pleased to have hooked back up with Nate. But he couldn’t help thinking it might be too late to affect the outcome of the trial. And he’d never imagined spending a night in a county cell.

  He thought of his daughters. Their grandmother up for murder, their father in jail.

  April’s words mocked him: “I guess maybe I’m not the only one in this perfect little family who makes mistakes.”

  SEPTEMBER 14

  Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom.

  — CLARENCE DARROW

  37

  On Wednesday morning, the day Bud Longbrake was to take the stand to testify against Missy Alden for the murder of Earl Alden, Joe sat next to Marybeth in the eighth row of the Twelve Sleep Country Courthouse and dug his index finger into his shirt collar to try to loosen it against the tight cinch of his tie. It didn’t give much, and he felt that he was slowly strangling to death.

  He surveyed the room. Everyone seemed to have taken the same seats they’d occupied the previous two days since the trial began.

  Judge Hewitt’s courtroom was full and warm and close. Family members, local gadflies, civic leaders, Bud’s drinking buddies from the Stockman’s including Timberman and Keith Bailey, law enforcement personnel, the all-male morning coffee crowd from the Burg-O-Pardner, and local, state, and regional press took every seat. There was a low murmur as everyone waited for what the Roundup called “pivotal Day Three” to begin. All the players were in one place, Joe thought. He whispered to Marybeth that if Stovepipe’s metal detector was malfunctioning again and a bomb were to go off inside, Saddle-string might as well close down and sell off the fixtures.

  Marcus Hand and Dulcie Schalk were at the bench discussing the schedule and rules for the day with Hewitt, who stood and leaned down toward them so the conversation could be kept confidential. Hand wore a dark charcoal suit, white shirt, bolo tie, and his pointy cowboy boots. A silverbelly Stetson sat crown-down on the defense table, but Joe never saw Hand actually put it on. It was solely for effect.

  Schalk was dressed sharply in a dark pin-striped business suit and skirt with a cream-colored bow at her throat. Her hair was pulled back so she looked severe and serious. And older.

  Monday had been spent selecting a jury. Like everything that took place in Judge Hewitt’s courtroom, it had gone like lightning. Twelve local jurors and two alternates were selected out of a pool of thirty. Joe knew most of the jurors: seven women and five men. All were white and middle-aged except for a Shoshone woman who lived outside the reservation. Although Hand had worked to challenge as many of the blue-collar types as he could, apparently assuming they would more easily convict a nasty woman of means like Missy, Marybeth observed to Joe that Hand seemed to do it halfheartedly, more for the show than from determination. Like he had something up his sleeve, and the makeup of the jury didn’t matter.

  Marcus Hand only needed one juror to nullify a guilty verdict, Joe replied. He couldn’t determine which one or two who’d been selected met Hand’s satisfaction. Maybe the unemployed city worker who couldn’t find a job in the bad economy hated the world and would love to stick it to The Man? Or maybe the Shoshone woman, filled with years of resentment and the existential burden of her white lay-about husband, could finally get back at the system?

  Joe had spent most of previous Thursday in the sheriff’s department interview room after being taken from the Eagle Mountain Club. Deputy Sollis had checked in on him from time to time with a grin on his face, explaining that they were waiting for Sheriff McLanahan to return for the questioning to begin. Joe knew it was a stall and an attempt to humiliate him, and conceded that it was working pretty well
. No charges were filed that he was informed of.

  Finally, mid-afternoon, Dulcie Schalk blew into the room. She was angry with Joe for trying to contact Bud Longbrake and with the sheriff for holding Joe without questioning him or pressing any charges. Right behind her was Marcus Hand in his black turtleneck and fringed buckskin jacket.

  She said to Sollis, “Let him out of here now.”

  Joe thanked her, and she snapped, “Do not speak to me.”

  On the way to his pickup after retrieving the keys from a very sheepish Deputy Reed, Hand draped his arm around Joe’s shoulder and whispered, “You hate us until you need us. That’s the way it works.”

  The past weekend with Marybeth and Nate was interrupted only by a call into the break lands east of town from a citizen reporting a wounded antelope staggering around on the road. Nate had gone with him in the truck, and Joe spent hours filling him in on the murder, the investigation, and what Joe had learned from Smith about Rope the Wind.

  “I’d put my money on the boys from Chicago,” Nate said, after listening to Joe and after the game warden had dispatched the suffering animal. “I could see them sending someone out here to shut up The Earl once and for all. They came, shot him, and hung him from the windmill, and they were on a plane back to O’Hare by the time you found him.”

  “It may be what happened,” Joe said, “but it’s speculation at best. Marcus Hand sent two of his investigators east, and they may come back with something before the trial is over. But they may not. What I have trouble with in that scenario is how this Chicago hit man would know to frame Missy.”

  Nate said, “They had an insider.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “The same guy who told Laurie Talich where she could find me.”

  “Bud?”

  “Bingo,” Nate said. “It took a while for me to figure it out and there are still some loose ends I’d like closed, but it makes sense. Missy knew vaguely where I was living because she talks to her daughter, and last year she tried to hire me to put the fear of God into Bud, remember? She might have let it slip to her ex-husband that if he didn’t stop pining over her, she’d drive to Hole in the Wall Canyon and pick me up. Somehow, Bud found out where I was. And by happenstance, he meets a woman in the bar who has come west for the single purpose of avenging her husband. Bud has contacts with the National Guard who just returned from Afghanistan, and he was able to help her get a rocket launcher. Then he drew her a map. He must have been pretty smug about how it all worked out. He thought he was able to take me out of the picture without getting his own hands dirty.”