Jed and Niall started talking again. Linette tuned them out as she examined the problem.
“Wait, I have an idea!” Belatedly, she realized she’d interrupted Niall. “I’m sorry—”
He smiled. “We were spinning our wheels.”
Jed nodded in agreement. “What are you thinking?”
“Well…it’s what you said, a while back, that none of the ranches in that quarter of the county have been hit by the rustlers. What if you tell the pilots you’re afraid that with law enforcement focus elsewhere, that’s where the rustlers will make their next move? Ask them to concentrate on the area – you could even mention that Chief Seward has a big ranch that would make a likely target. You’re concerned.”
Jed’s eyebrows twitched. “That’s good thinking.”
Niall shifted his gaze to Jed. “Are they taking photos?”
“Usually only when there’s an observer as well as the pilot, and then only when they see livestock trailers on the road at night, or any indication that cattle are being moved.”
“You could ask for more photos, just to give you a better idea how many targets there are in that part of the county,” Linette suggested. “The fly-over could even be during the day.” She spread her hands in a gesture of innocence. “Who could object to that?”
Niall grinned at her. “You may have missed your calling.”
“I agree.” Jed’s eyes had warmed this time when they met hers.
Niall said thoughtfully, “It will be interesting to see whether your net scoops up any of my fellow officers tomorrow night.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jed agreed.
It took restraint for Linette not to roll her eyes. Of course, they were both enjoying themselves when all she wanted was for this to be over. As long as Jed felt obligated to make up for the past by guarding her with the dedication of a highly-trained police dog with lots of sharp teeth, how could she be sure how he really felt about her?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Beneath a quarter-moon, the old ranch buildings tilted drunkenly, while others displayed gaps like missing teeth where boards had fallen out. Washed with faint silver light and deep shadows, this could have been a ghost town. Tonight, it was occupied by the living, although Jed’s troops were doing an admirable job of staying invisible.
He, on the other hand, struggled to remain still. Among his peers in the army, he’d been known for legendary patience. If they could know how restless he was tonight, they’d get a good laugh out of it. He’d already adjusted his stance half a dozen times in the past hour. Now he cautiously leaned a shoulder against the barn wall, wincing at the squeal as a rusty nail protested. The structure stayed upright, however, so he eventually relaxed.
Damn, what he’d give for night vision goggles or binoculars. He’d considered buying cheap ones, but couldn’t make himself, not when the quality he was accustomed to ran five thousand dollars and up. Way up.
Something to talk to Grant about, Jed mused. The military occasionally offered surplus equipment and gear to police departments. This request from the Hayes County Sheriff’s Department would sound modest compared to the armored vehicles some law enforcement agencies had been bagging.
Through the high-optic binoculars he did own, Jed searched the darkness toward the mile-long, rutted dirt lane that would carry any arrivals from the little-traveled county road. Nothing. A deputy had positioned himself that afternoon and early evening to watch the ranch. Nobody had come or gone, he reported.
Maybe the thieves didn’t feel a need to check on their herd of stolen cattle every day, he brooded.
This could get expensive if they had to repeat it tomorrow night. Grant was here, crouched just inside the barn when Jed had last seen him. Three other deputies – Eddie Aguilar, Ben Fischer and Erin Brown – had found hides of their own. Details of the sting hadn’t been shared with anyone but the participants, but everyone else in the department knew something big was going down, if only because the schedule had been readjusted so that the two oldest deputies handled routine duties. Deputy Numsen patrolled tonight, while Kitson – nearing retirement – was expected to be ready to act as backup.
One other deputy had been excluded from the plans: Chris Jarman. He’d worked the day shift today, which took him out of the building while they planned. Going off-shift, he realized something was up and begged to be included. When Grant said, “No, we need you ready to go, fresh, come morning,” Jarman’s response was telling.
With an ugly expression, he’d said, “It’s Detective Dawson who wants me to be left out, isn’t it?”
Jed had a feeling Jarman’s employment would soon be terminated. Nothing about his attitude would recommend him to Grant.
Shaking off thoughts of the jackass, Jed touched his watch, which lit up with a green glow. After ten. He needed to get into the zone. They had agreed to stay until midnight, at least.
His phone vibrated on his hip. New text from Niall. All well on the home front. Jed tapped out, No action here.
Why were they all hiding? They could have held a barbeque while they waited. God knew, they could see anyone coming from a distance. Unless, of course, their prey came a back way, as Jed had. But why would they, when they’d driven in yesterday, cocky as could be?
Amusement lifted a corner of Jed’s mouth. Niall was burned out on taking orders. That had never been Jed’s problem; apparently what he wasn’t very good at anymore was the endless waiting. He’d have to tell Linette—
A faint luminosity in the distance caught his eye. He lifted the binoculars, adjusting them until he was certain he was looking at oncoming headlights. Somebody was out on the road. Didn’t mean they wouldn’t shoot on by, although if so, this would be the first vehicle to pass in the two hours he’d been watching. The twin beams grew steadily brighter…until they abruptly winked out.
No, not entirely. As the vehicle turned into the dirt track leading into the ranch, he saw smaller running lights. They couldn’t drive totally blind.
He murmured into his radio, “Company coming.”
Soon he heard the engine, the sound of tires. Pickup truck, he bet, even before it appeared in the ranch yard not fifteen feet from his position. The engine was turned off. Both doors swung open. He faded back in case one of the two men who got out decided to sweep the surroundings with a flashlight.
“Let’s get this done,” one of them said in a low voice.
No response.
Jed eased back to look around the corner and saw that one was lowering the tailgate while the other stretched over the side for a coil of hose.
Wait. Wait.
The man at the back of the truck heaved a hay bale onto his shoulder.
Jed murmured into his radio, “Go.” Then he walked forward, not ten feet from them when the first of the two men whirled. “Police! Hands up!”
*****
It hadn’t taken a minute to have both pressed belly up to the cold metal sides of the pickup bed, hands cuffed behind their backs, being frisked, then read their rights.
Jed and Grant hung back, let their young officers have the fun of making the arrests. The entire time, Mason Thayer had glared at Jed. If looks could kill.
Ignoring him, Jed was struck by how anticlimactic this operation had turned out to be. And yes, it was only one step; he knew that. Theory was, these two would lead them to more participants, who would lead them to more, until they reached the top. That was important; Gary Webb’s family deserved justice, and Jed was determined to get that for them.
What disturbed him, he realized once they were back at the station, was that he no longer believed this network of thieves had any connection to Linette’s assailant. What he couldn’t be sure was whether the attempt to kill him had to do with her, or the cattle rustlers.
Right this minute, he needed to put that question aside and do his job. He had to persuade these two fools to talk.
Thayer, who had demanded an attorney, was currently stashed in a holding room. The fellow Jed had
n’t recognized had said, “I don’t understand. Why would I need a lawyer?” As a result, he waited in the interrogation room.
Grant stood at Jed’s side as they both gazed through the one-way glass. “I didn’t recognize him out there, but damn. That’s Jimmy Hinton.”
Jed frowned, the name ringing a bell. Five foot ten or eleven, this guy was lean and possessed a limp Jed had noticed earlier. Short, light brown hair, skin weathered but not yet forming deep creases. At a guess, he was in his early thirties.
Grant said, “He’s enough younger than me, I wouldn’t have known him from the old days. I’m thinking he’s around Cassie’s age.” His fiancée, owner and managing editor of the local newspaper since her father’s death, had also grown up in Fort Halleck, but something like five years behind him.
“Then how do you— Wait, is he the rodeo star?”
“Yep. Jimmy Hinton rode bulls. He has at least a couple of national titles, from what I recall. Believe it or not, I kept up with the County Courier all those years. Hinton was a shining star by this town’s standards. Lots of pictures.” Grant shook his head. “Guess the success didn’t hold up. I hadn’t heard he was back in the area.”
The table Hinton sat behind hid his belt buckle, but Jed had noticed earlier that it was big enough to demand attention. Wasn’t that the rodeo version of a trophy? “The press will be all over this,” he grumbled. “Cassie will be all over it.”
“No shit.” Grant did not look thrilled. He rolled his shoulders. “It’ll make her day.”
Jed muffled his laugh, but not soon enough. His boss shot a rueful sidelong glance his way.
“Have at it,” Grant said, nodding toward the glass. “This is your investigation.”
Jed started toward the door, but his phone rang. He’d have silenced it if he hadn’t been worried about Linette. The caller was his Crook County colleague, Detective Frasier.
“I’m sorry to tell you that Oren Calderon was found dead early this morning. Supposed to look like suicide, but it didn’t quite work. The medical examiner confirms my impression. He was murdered with his own gun, sitting in his living room.”
Jed wished he was surprised. “Damn it,” he growled. “They eliminated him as a threat.”
“That’s my take.”
Jed updated him on what had been happening here, and Frazier promised to keep him in the loop. Pocketing his phone, Jed filled in the parts of the conversation Grant hadn’t heard or figured out.
When Jed walked in to sit down with Jimmy Hinton, the guy glowered, the annoyance he projected that of an innocent man. “What is this? I was hired to help take care of some cattle. That’s all I was doing.”
All? Along with stealing cattle, the gang had now committed two murders.
Jed pulled out a chair directly across the table from his prisoner. “You didn’t wonder why you had to sneak around at night to feed the cattle? Which, by the way, are being held illegally on state-owned land?”
“State-owned?” His surprise appeared genuine. “The people that hired me said they’d leased the land from the heirs of whoever used to ranch there. And we went out there at night because we both have day jobs.”
On a Saturday?
“What is your day job, Mr. Hinton?”
His chin came up. “I’m a warehouse forklift operator.”
“Your employer?”
Jed had to pry it out of him, but finally got the name of a small manufacturer and the name of Hinton’s direct supervisor. He also learned that Hinton had only held the job for three months, and hadn’t stayed in any job longer than six months since he had to give up bull riding after a serious injury over five years ago. He became increasingly sullen in his responses. He claimed that sometimes he’d discovered he couldn’t do the work because of his chronic pain issues. Sometimes he got bored, or thought he was treated like shit or underpaid.
Up to a point, Jed understood. After a high-adrenaline lifestyle that had brought a man stardom, being able to do nothing but menial work had to be a blow to both the ego and the pocketbook. Jimmy Hinton had been ripe to be recruited for some kind of nefarious work. His skill set had been right, too; he knew how to herd and load and unload cattle and likely could competently drive a pickup hauling a fully-loaded livestock trailer. The under-the-table money would be a motivation, but the real engine for his decision to participate was probably his resentment at everything he’d lost.
“Who hired you for this job?” Jed asked bluntly.
His expression stayed stolid. “The guy I was with. Mason. I knew him back when. He’s who hooked me up.”
“Fair drive from Prineville,” Jed remarked casually. “Hardly worth the trip, if all you were doing was throwing out some hay and refilling water tanks.”
“I got friends up here.”
“How long have you been working with Mason?”
“Like, a month? Easy job. You know. The grazing’s good right now.”
“Are you aware some of those cattle belong to Mason Thayer?”
Hinton accomplished a fair pretense at being surprised. “Yeah, sure. I helped move them. The boss gave him permission. His own pastures can rest a little.”
“Interesting mix of breeds.”
Real wariness appeared now. “Well…common ones. Hereford and Black and Red Angus.”
“Not Black Angus. Wagyu.”
Hinton’s eyes widened with what might be outrage. “You sure?”
“I am.” Jed contemplated him. “Guess you noticed the mix of brands, too.”
“I didn’t think about it. Might be like a bunch of small ranchers teaming up to compete with the big guys.”
“Consortium is the word I think you’re going for. And were you paid by check? I can contact the bank—”
“Ah…Mason was just giving me cash. Easier that way. You know.”
Jed smiled thinly. “I’ll need to inform the IRS, ask them to check that you paid taxes on these earnings.”
The former rodeo cowboy straightened with a jolt. “The job was just temporary! I was going to file what I had to, but I figured I’d wait until they didn’t need me no more.”
“Uh huh. Well, I’ll let you explain to them.” Jed lifted an eyebrow. “Did your buddy Mason tell you he’d reported his cattle stolen?”
Jimmy Hinton stared. “No! Why would he do that?”
“I have a good idea.” Although Mason had been a fool to do it. Jed paused. “Now, here’s what you need to know. All of those cattle under your tender, loving care were stolen. You can’t have missed reading or hearing about the cattle rustling happening here in the county.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I—”
“So you’re looking at some serious charges here, Mr. Hinton. Felony charges that will see you spending a few years in the penitentiary. And that’s if your buddies don’t point fingers at you for murder. Because some of you are going down for murdering two ranchers.” Pictures flashed in his head: a good man left sprawled dead in the dirt, pajamas peeking out from under hastily donned clothing. The disbelief and grief on the face of Webb’s son.
Hinton reared back. “Two? What are you talking about?”
“Oren Calderon was murdered last night.”
“I never heard of him! I didn’t have nothing to do with anything like that! I’m no killer.”
“Were you there the night Gary Webb was shot?”
“Not me,” he said hurriedly. “But I heard talk. You know. It was kind of an accident. Nobody meant to shoot anyone. It was just…”
“Inevitable.”
A desperate gaze met Jed’s. “I want a lawyer. I’m not saying nothing else until I have one.”
Jed let his face go blank. “Very well. I’ll see that you have a phone and a local phone book, if you need one.” He pushed back his chair, rose and walked out.
Grant hadn’t moved. His face was carved in granite, a reminder of his friendship with Gary Webb’s son Hayden and thereby the whole family.
Jed glanced
through the glass at a man who looked as if he’d shrunk in the past fifteen minutes. He was diminished, pale and scared.
“He’s ready for a deal,” Grant said.
Jed thought so, too.
One down, one to go.
*****
When Linette heard Jed’s pickup truck out front, she dashed to the front door. He’d parked close enough to the house that she saw he wasn’t alone. That was either a boy or a small woman— In the next moment, she recognized the woman. It was that deputy Jed had sent out to check up on her, the one who did fingerprinting.
“What the hell?” Niall said from right behind her. Of course he’d heard the door open and come running.
As he mounted the porch steps, Jed’s eyes met hers, holding warmth and intimacy that others were unlikely to see.
You’ve changed.
I have.
“Jed.” His name came out husky – or was that sultry? But Linette managed to switch her gaze to the young woman with him. “Deputy.”
“Call me Erin,” the petite cop said.
“Erin who?” Niall asked, raking the other woman with a look.
Linette understood his surprise. Even she’d had to blink a few times before she could quite picture Erin Brown as a cop rather than the teenager she especially appeared to be now in black jeans, athletic shoes and hoodie.
“Deputy Erin Brown,” Jed told him, not seeming to notice his bemusement. He ushered her inside ahead of him. “Erin, meet Niall Callaghan.”
“I’ve seen you.” She studied him, forehead wrinkled. “You were in uniform. I thought you must be a new hire at FHPD.”
“I am,” he said stiffly, sending a glower Jed’s way.
Jed opened his mouth and then closed it. Linette guessed he wasn’t ready to confide his suspicions about the police chief to the young deputy. “I knew Niall in the army,” he said after a minute. “I asked him to help. He and I have been splitting the night, keeping an eye out for the creep who’s giving Linette trouble.” Somehow, he’d maneuvered without being noticeable until he was at Linette’s side, his upper arm brushing her shoulder. “I’m beat,” he said. “Come morning, I have to sit down with the two men we arrested tonight and their attorneys. I asked Erin if she could help out.”
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