Long Range

by Box, C. J.

Nate said, “If they hurt or release any of our birds, I’ll have to kill them all. Of course, I’m already going to kill the sheriff. He’s a dangerous idiot and he made Liv upset.”

  Joe said, “Nate, don’t talk like that. You forget I’m law enforcement.”

  Nate ignored him. “So that means I’ll have to kill the sheriff twice. After they bury him, I’ll dig him up and do it again.”

  “Nate, please . . .”

  “What are they looking for, anyway?” Nate asked.

  “The long-distance rifle that was used to shoot at Judge Hewitt and Duane Patterson,” Joe said. “Apparently someone called the sheriff’s office and told them it was stashed away out here on your property.”

  Nate squinted in thought. “Sandburg, I’ll bet,” he said. “I could see that guy doing something like that. He likes to use law enforcement procedures to screw people over.”

  “I could see that,” Joe agreed. “But I have to ask. You don’t have any high-tech rifles, do you?”

  “Don’t need ’em,” Nate said. “I’ve got my low-tech weapon and it does the job.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Of course not,” Nate said. “I’ve got a .17 HMR for varmints, a couple of .22s, a twelve-gauge over-under for pheasants and quail, a 6.8mm Ranch Rifle for deer and antelope, and my 7mm Magnum for elk hunting. And I just bought Liv a little .38 revolver to defend herself and the baby.”

  By Wyoming standards, Joe knew, it was a surprisingly small arsenal. Guns to locals were like hand tools. Each had a specific purpose. Except for the .454 Casull revolver, of course. That was for taking down people in the most definitive way possible.

  *

  “AM I BEING charged for something?” Nate asked Joe.

  “Resisting arrest and interfering with an investigation,” Joe said. “I heard that over the radio before I got here.”

  “That’s bogus,” Nate said. “But not attempted murder?”

  “Not yet,” Joe said with gravity. His phone chirped and he checked an incoming text on his cell phone. After he read it, he told Nate, “Liv told Marybeth what happened and she’s already flown into action. She’s on the phone with Kink Beran.”

  “Who?”

  “Ken ‘Kink’ Beran. He’s a defense attorney out of Cheyenne. He’s in the same law firm as Governor Rulon, but Beran specializes in criminal defense law. With the exception of Marcus Hand, he’s the best in the state. He’s agreed to represent you, so you’re in good hands. Rulon might get involved as well, considering you two know each other.”

  “I hate lawyers,” Nate said. “Nearly as much as I hate politicians.”

  “Everyone does until you need one,” Joe said. “Man, my wife works fast. She doesn’t want to see you cooling your heels in the county jail, I guess.”

  Nate and Joe had skirted around the fact that Marybeth had had maybe a little more than just a soft spot for Nate in the past. But they’d never discussed it.

  “Oh good,” Nate said, nodding over Joe’s shoulder. “Here comes Barney Fife.”

  Sheriff Kapelow left his deputies and walked toward them across the gravel yard. As he got close, he reached back and once again gripped his sidearm.

  “I don’t know what he thinks I’ll do to him like this,” Nate groused.

  “Sheriff,” Joe said as he stood up and his knees popped, “I’m no lawyer myself, but I know you’ve either got to charge this man or let him go. I’d suggest cutting him loose.”

  Kapelow nodded at Joe and said, “Of course you would.”

  “Somebody fed you some bad information,” Joe said to the sheriff. “Plus, I think you’re looking at a situation where you used unnecessary force.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Kapelow said. He pointed at Nate on the ground. “This friend of yours has a long-standing animus toward authority and members of law enforcement in particular.”

  “Just the bad ones,” Nate interjected.

  Kapelow ignored him and continued. “He’s had federal charges made against him, and there are rumors that he had something to do with the disappearance of a Twelve Sleep County sheriff who was here before me. He was also a member of a special ops sniper team, so he’s a skilled assassin. When we find that rifle and he’s charged with the attempted murder of a county judge and the county prosecutor, I don’t really think the manner of his arrest will matter all that much. Do you?”

  “W-well, when you put it like that . . .” Joe stammered.

  Nate coughed up some blood and spit it to the side. He asked, “You know what really makes me mad about all this?”

  Both Kapelow and Joe turned to hear him.

  “I used to operate with my own set of rules before I came back on the grid,” Nate said. “I put all that behind me and went legit. I started a business and a family. I kept my head down and I’ve operated within your rules.”

  He said it to both of them. Only Joe winced.

  “And now look at me,” he said. “I’m chained up on my own property and I’m accused of things I never did. My wife can see me like this through the window and it’s humiliating. It makes me wonder if it made sense to come back.”

  Nate read Joe well enough to know that his friend wanted to argue with him about what he’d just said. But he didn’t want to do it in front of Sheriff Kapelow.

  At that moment, Deputy Steck shouted from the mews.

  “Boss! Come look at this.”

  “What is it?” Kapelow asked.

  Nate watched as the deputy pulled a long parcel from beneath the floorboards of the shack. It was wrapped in a blanket.

  When it was unfurled, Steck held up the heavy high-tech rifle with its massive scope. He opened the bolt and sniffed it. “It’s been recently fired,” he said.

  “Well, what do you know?” Kapelow said with a grin. Then to Nate: “I don’t know how you thought you’d get away with it.”

  Nate shook his head and said, “I’ve never seen that weapon in my life. Somebody planted it there.”

  “I’m calling Marybeth,” Joe said while raising his phone to his ear. “I’ll see how fast Kink Beran and Rulon can get here.”

  *

  OVER TWO MILES AWAY, Orlando Panfile watched the activities at the Romanowski falconry compound with great interest through his spotting scope.

  PART THREE

  So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  SEVENTEEN

  TWO HOURS LATER, JOE SAT ACROSS THE TABLE FROM Marybeth in the Twelve Sleep County Library conference room with the doors closed and the blinds drawn. Marybeth’s phone was on the table between them.

  “How did you get this?” he asked her.

  “Let’s just say friends in the sheriff’s department,” she replied.

  Marybeth opened a voice memo she’d received via email on her phone and turned the volume up.

  An oddly distorted deep male voice said, “The guy you’re looking for in the shooting of Sue Hewitt and Duane Patterson is named Nate Romanowski. He’s a local and you can look him up. The rifle he used in both shootings is stashed on his property where he keeps his falcons.”

  There was a long pause and Joe could hear the caller struggling for breath. Then he continued.

  “Don’t bother trying to trace this call or identify me. Consider me just a helpful witness who wants to stay anonymous. I won’t admit to making this call and I won’t testify to how I know all of this. This guy has been operating in plain sight under your noses the whole time. He’s a killer. If you don’t believe me, just look him up. I want nothing to do with him. But once you’ve found the gun, you shouldn’t need me anyway.”

  “Please play it again,” Joe asked. He listened as carefully as he could.

  “I don’t recognize the voice at all,” Joe said. “The guy sounds drunk or on something.”

  “I think neither,” Marybeth said. “He’s using some kind of voice-altering software. There are apps
available and they’re really easy to download to your phone.”

  “Man,” Joe said, sitting back. “This whole thing went from zero to a hundred really fast.”

  “You don’t think Nate had anything to do with it, do you?” Marybeth asked him.

  “Nope.”

  But despite Joe’s certainty, there was an intrusive kernel of doubt. Although he’d had a long friendship with Nate and they’d been in so many situations together, Nate had always been unpredictable and eccentric in his own way. Not only had Nate sat naked on branches observing wildlife, he’d also spent hours submerged in the river to “experience what it was like to be a fish.” And there was no doubt Nate was capable of taking violent action when he felt it warranted. Nate was known for ripping the ears off of men he was angry with. His friend had a clearly defined sense of justice that had very little to do with the actual law. Nate hadn’t ever hesitated to punish those he thought were guilty. But that was in the past, Joe thought.

  Even then, when Nate was off the grid and operating at times like a rogue vigilante, he hadn’t been sneaky or subtle about his actions. It wasn’t his style to hide in the shadows and ambush someone. Nate wanted his target to know who had come after him and why.

  And that was before Liv, Kestrel, and Yarak, Inc.

  It was also before the long-range sniper rifle was discovered on Nate’s property.

  “So who do you think left that message?” Marybeth asked Joe. She had absolutely no doubt about Nate’s innocence, which was no surprise.

  “Nate suspects Jeremiah Sandburg,” Joe said. “The ex-FBI guy who paid him a visit.”

  “Maybe,” Marybeth said with a doubtful shrug. “I suspect someone local, though. The caller assumes the sheriff’s department is familiar with Nate and where he lives. And he was right.”

  Joe nodded. He thought, Good point.

  He said, “If we can find the caller, I think we’ll find the real shooter. Does the sheriff’s department have any way of tracing the call?”

  “Yes, but it’s no help,” she said. “The call was placed from an untraceable burner phone using a local cell tower. No doubt the burner’s been disposed of by now.”

  “That’s interesting,” Joe said. “It shows some real planning by whoever made the call.

  “The other big question,” he continued, “is when the rifle was planted. That’s a tough one. Nate is usually at work during the day, but Liv has stayed close to home since the baby came. If Nate and Liv go somewhere together, their nanny is home with Kestrel. Whoever planted the rifle knew enough about all of their habits that he used a short window of time when all of them were gone or distracted to hide the weapon. Either that, or he managed to come on the property during the night without anyone hearing him. Since it’s just been a couple of days since Sue got shot, he must have done it during the last forty-eight hours.”

  Marybeth nodded while Joe talked. She was obviously trying to find an angle or explanation.

  “We need to talk to Liv and Nate and figure that out,” Joe said.

  She agreed.

  Then she asked, “How was he doing when the sheriff put him in his truck?”

  “Stoic,” Joe said.

  “What about Liv?”

  “Liv is tough,” Joe said. “Like you.”

  “I made the offer that she could bring Kestrel to our house and stay with us until this blows over,” Marybeth said. “She says she’s fine for now. She’d got Loren to help her with the baby and she wants to keep the business going. But she knows she can stay with us.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Kink Beran had a court appearance this morning in Cheyenne and then he’ll drive north and be up here by five tonight,” Marybeth said.

  “Will Rulon be with him?” Joe asked.

  “I hope so,” she said. “I really hope so.”

  *

  BEFORE JOE HAD returned to town from Nate’s residence, he’d had a chance to examine the rifle the deputies found before it was tagged to be used as evidence and examined by Gary Norwood. It was a Gunwerks Magnus 7mm long-range Magnum with a sophisticated Nightforce scope. The rifle cost well over ten thousand dollars and it was in very good shape.

  He’d explained to Deputy Woods that long-range rifles weren’t Nate’s weapon of choice and that he had no doubt someone had planted the gun. Woods made sure Sheriff Kapelow didn’t overhear him say he agreed with Joe, but it didn’t look good for Nate.

  It looked worse when Deputy Steck located a box of long-range 147-grain cartridges in a plastic bag that had been hidden under falcon excrement in the mews. There were two rounds missing from the box.

  The range finder Nate had brought along when he and Joe climbed the hill was found in his panel van and tagged as well.

  Before Nate was taken away, Joe had approached Sheriff Kapelow and said, “It’s my understanding that it takes two men to pull off a shot like the one that hit Sue Hewitt. You’d need a spotter and a shooter.”

  Kapelow looked over with an annoyed expression. “What’s your point?”

  “So who is the spotter?” Joe asked.

  “Maybe your friend will tell us.”

  Joe scoffed.

  The sheriff said, “Maybe one of his outlaw falcon buddies showed up. Those people are a tight bunch from what I understand. And they all have the same attitude toward law enforcement.”

  “Not all of them,” Joe said. But having met several of Nate’s circle of falconers, he had to partially agree with Kapelow.

  “How do you know so much about long-distance shooting?” the sheriff asked Joe with barely disguised suspicion.

  “I’m a game warden, remember?”

  “Were you in the military?”

  “No,” Joe said. It was something he’d always felt guilty about. Since Kapelow had served, it was a cudgel he was quick to use.

  “Where did you learn about sniper teams?”

  “Nate,” Joe confessed.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting?” the sheriff asked.

  “That was in the process of determining where the shooter set up,” Joe explained. “Do you really think Nate would lead me to the location if he had anything to do with it?”

  Kapelow looked away from Joe with a smug look on his face. His mind was made up.

  “Sheriff,” Joe said. “If you’ll recall, you dismissed the possibility of a long-range shot.”

  Kapelow turned away as if he hadn’t heard the question.

  Joe was still steaming about the exchange when he’d arrived at the library.

  *

  MARYBETH SLIPPED HER PHONE into her purse and asked, “Were you invited to the press conference?”

  “What?” Joe asked.

  He learned from her that Sheriff Kapelow had called a press conference to begin in fifteen minutes at the county building.

  “Should we go?” Joe asked her.

  “Of course,” she said.

  *

  THE TWELVE SLEEP County Building was only two blocks away from the library, so they walked there. The day had warmed up considerably and the mountains towered clear and blue in three directions. It was a perfect fall day, Joe thought. Except for the reason they were together.

  “Has Kapelow ever had a press conference before?” Marybeth asked. Her heels clicked on the sidewalk.

  “Not since he’s been elected,” Joe said. “This is probably a big day for him.”

  “Obviously,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  *

  “HERE FOR THE SHERIFF’S shindig?” Stovepipe asked them as he lumbered to his feet from behind the metal detector.

  “Yup,” Joe said as he once again dumped all of his electronics and hardware into a tub.

  “Don’t bother,” Stovepipe whispered. “It’s busted again.”

  Joe nodded and retrieved his items.

  “I have pepper spray in my purse,” Marybeth confessed to Stovepipe.

  “Keep it in there,” he said. “Just don’t spray nob
ody.”

  *

  THE BRIEFING ROOM in the sheriff’s department had been hastily rearranged for the event, Joe noted. A podium used by the town council had been wheeled to the front of the room and a microphone was set up. Empty folding chairs flanked the podium and more had been set up for reporters and interested citizens. The table that was usually in the center of the room had been shoved to the far wall to accommodate the guests.

  Joe and Marybeth took seats in the back row. It was a very small crowd. He recognized reporters from the Casper Star-Tribune, K-TWO radio, the Billings Gazette, and a twentysomething from the local Saddlestring Roundup. A skeletal-looking man with long wispy hair set up his digital recorder on the podium. He wore a name badge identifying himself as representing a statewide web news service Joe had never heard of.

  The Roundup reporter, whom Marybeth knew from when she used to intern at the library, saw them sitting in the back and approached them.

  “Hello, Mrs. Pickett,” the former intern said.

  “Alyssa, this is my husband, Joe. Joe, Alyssa. She’s been working at the Roundup for what, nine months?”

  “A year,” Alyssa said. She was redhaired and Sheridan’s age. Alyssa had a camera with a long lens looped around her neck and she grasped an open reporter’s notebook.

  “Did you see what happened outside?” Alyssa asked Marybeth.

  “No, we just got here.”

  “Look,” Alyssa said, and she turned the camera around so both Joe and Marybeth could see the digital screen. Alyssa scrolled through a series of photos: Nate arriving in the sheriff’s SUV, Nate climbing out of the vehicle with his hands cuffed and with a contemptuous expression on his face, Nate walking up the courthouse steps flanked by Deputies Steck and Woods with Sheriff Kapelow leading the way, Nate passing close by Alyssa and her camera with his chin held high.

  “It’s a perp walk,” Alyssa said. “That’s what a couple of the reporters called it. It’s my first, and I got some really good pictures, don’t you think?”

  Joe could imagine them on the front page of the paper.

  “The sheriff didn’t have to do that,” he said to Marybeth.