Breaking Point jp-13

by C. J. Box

  It was Lucy, her fifteen-year-old daughter.

  “Mom, can Hannah stay with us tonight?”

  Marybeth did a quick calculation of the food available in the freezer and refrigerator, and except for the game meat Joe provided in volume, she didn’t have enough items for dinner for six.

  “Yes, but I need to stop at the store on the way home,” she said.

  “Maybe you can pick up pizza?”

  “Maybe. Why is Hannah staying with us again?”

  “She’s my best friend, Mom,” Lucy said, put out.

  “I know that,” Marybeth said, rolling her eyes. “Is it okay with her mom? She’s stayed over at our house twice already this week.”

  “It was her mom’s idea,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, really?” That sounded odd to Marybeth. Pam Roberson managed the office for the small construction company she co-owned with Butch, but she took pains to be involved in her daughter’s life and activities, and she kept a fairly tight rein on Hannah, her only child. Like Lucy, Hannah was bright and attractive, although Marybeth had noted a change in her recently. Hannah had expressed an interest in horses, and Marybeth was secretly thrilled. Neither Lucy nor April shared her passion for horses, and Marybeth loved the idea of mentoring Hannah. Marybeth hoped this new development wouldn’t create a rift between Hannah and Lucy because Lucy had no interest at all in riding.

  Lucy said, “Yeah, she called a few minutes ago. She talked to Hannah and told her there were a bunch of cops at their house.”

  “What? Cops?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  The sirens, Marybeth thought.

  “Lucy, please put Hannah on the phone.”

  “I can’t.”

  “And why not?”

  “Mom, she’s in the bathroom. I think she’s crying.”

  4

  Joe drove his boot heels into Toby’s flanks and rode hard and fast back up the mountain through the water guzzlers to where he’d last seen Butch Roberson. Daisy ran behind, her tongue lolling out to the side. Toby had a surprisingly smooth gait when he went all-out, and it was actually easier on Joe’s aching knees and groin than his walk or bone-jarring trot.

  Toby’s hooves pounded the soft ground, and Joe felt the wind in his face. He reached up and clamped his hat tighter on his head so it wouldn’t blow off.

  He yelled, “Butch!”

  The name echoed back from the wall of trees beyond the Forest Service fence-which hadn’t been repaired.

  What he’d heard over the radio wasn’t reassuring. An anonymous call had been made to the sheriff’s department reporting two federal EPA officials missing from the night before. Whoever called said the two men had never checked into their rooms at the Holiday Inn and there was no sign of their car. A uniformed sheriff’s department officer was sent to where the caller said the two EPA men had been planning to go, which was a two-acre lot in a development called Aspen Highlands near Dull Knife Reservoir.

  A quick check of the lot ownership with the county clerk revealed that it was owned by Butch and Pam Roberson. On arrival, the reporting officer said he could find nothing except some piles of gravel-and freshly dug soil. A quick reconnaissance of the area resulted in the location of a late-model Chevrolet Malibu SA hybrid sedan with U.S. Government plates. The car was found three miles from the Roberson lot. Someone had driven the vehicle off the gravel road and into the canyon choked with heavy brush. No one was inside. The reporting officer said he could have easily driven right by the car if it weren’t for the churned-up tracks on the dirt road. A tow truck, along with forensic techs, had been called to the scene.

  Before climbing back into the saddle, Joe had called the dispatcher on his truck radio.

  “This is Joe Pickett, GF-forty-eight. I’m located on the Big Stream Ranch. .” He gave her the location coordinates. “I ran into Butch Roberson-the subject of the current inquiry-an hour ago and I’m going back to find him. Please relay this to Sheriff Reed’s office.”

  When she asked, he said, “I don’t want or need backup. It would take them too long to get out here, anyway.”

  He signed off, “GF-forty-eight, out.”

  GF-48 meant he was number forty-eight of the fifty-four game wardens in the state, ranked by seniority. He had once risen to GF-24 before getting into a confrontation with his superiors and losing his job and seniority number. When he’d been reinstated personally by Governor Rulon, a vindictive bureaucrat had refused to give him his old number back.

  It rankled him every time he said “GF-forty-eight.”

  Joe’s mind raced, and he replayed his encounter with Butch the hour before. He had no doubt Butch knew something, and suddenly everything Butch had said carried a different, more sinister meaning. Still, though, Joe wanted to find him and tell him what had been discovered on his property. He had no authority or probable cause to arrest Roberson, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t question him or ask him to follow him into town.

  He rode through the opening in the fence and into the timber.

  Two federal agents, he thought. Freshly turned-up ground. A car with no one in it.

  Butch would have some hard questions to answer.

  The fire pit Butch had built was cold, the rocks from the fire ring kicked away. Joe dismounted and tied Toby to a tree and carefully walked around the camp. He identified his own boot prints, Daisy’s prints, and large waffle-like impressions from Vibram hunting-boot soles, which he attributed to Butch. But he couldn’t discern which direction Roberson had gone after breaking his camp.

  “Butch?” he called out.

  He stopped and put his hands on his hips and looked west, into the thousands of acres of National Forest. Most of the roads within it had been closed, so it would be tough to drive inside. Butch had grown up in the area and had hunted the mountains all his life. Beyond the summit were succeeding waves of mountains, canyons, and heavy timber wilderness.

  Joe smiled bitterly. Twelve Sleep County got its name because the Indians said it took “twelve sleeps” to walk or ride a horse from the west side of the mountains to the eastern slope. That was a lot of rough country.

  Joe photographed the camp, the tracks, and what was left of the fire pit. He had a feeling there would be local, county, state, and federal people who would want to look at them. As he did, he questioned himself on the conversation he’d had with Butch Roberson. Had he deliberately missed something? Had his familiarity with Butch made him less than cautious?

  He sighed and powered down the digital camera. Then he untied Toby and cantered him down to his pickup so he could drive to Butch’s lot at Aspen Highlands.

  5

  Because his house on Bighorn road was midway between Big Stream Ranch and the highway he’d need to take to get to Dull Knife Reservoir, Joe stopped long enough to let Toby out into the corral and dump the horse trailer. Poke, Dulcie’s gelding, greeted Toby by playfully biting him on the butt. Toby kicked back at Poke and missed. Rojo, Marybeth’s other horse, watched the two of them imperiously from the corner of the corral.

  Joe’s district was considered a “two-horse” district by the department, meaning he received reimbursement for horses, tack, food, and vet bills. It was a two-horse district because of the vast size of it-more than 1,800 square miles. He was also in charge of a department snowmobile, a boat with an outboard motor as well as a drift boat, and a four-wheel ATV. And, of course, his assigned pickup, which was stuck on top of a mountain and he might never retrieve.

  As he put the three horses out to pasture, he heard Marybeth’s van drive up the road and swing into the driveway in the front. He checked his watch-4:38 in the afternoon-and wondered why she was home so early.

  As he unhooked the trailer hitch from the ball on his pickup, he heard Marybeth park in front. She was apparently on a break from work. Then the back door opened and slammed shut, and she emerged from the house. He thought she looked lovely: blond, slim, compact, with green eyes and nice cheekbones.


  “Hey,” he said, cranking the trailer hitch up and over the ball of his truck.

  “You saw Butch Roberson?” she asked.

  He stood and wiped away a drip of sweat that coursed down the side of his face from his hatband. “How’d you know that already?”

  “Dulcie told me. She said you called it in.”

  “Yup.”

  “Joe, did you hear what happened?”

  “Some of it,” he said, repeating the reports he’d heard over the radio.

  “Do they think Butch had something to do with it?”

  “That’s my impression,” Joe said. “It’s still too early to say. I’m not sure anyone knows anything yet.”

  “How did he seem to you?” she asked, concerned.

  Joe shrugged. “Strange. Different. Spooked, I guess.”

  “But he didn’t tell you anything? He didn’t confess?”

  “Nope. And he didn’t shoot me, either.”

  “I don’t think that’s funny, Joe.”

  He grinned.

  “Hannah is inside,” Marybeth said, gesturing toward the house. “I haven’t talked with her yet. She doesn’t want to talk. I don’t know what’s going on at their house, but apparently law enforcement is there questioning Pam.”

  “Man,” Joe said, shaking his head. It was strange to be so close to people who were apparently under suspicion.

  “I feel so bad for Hannah,” Marybeth said, as if reading his mind. “I don’t think she really knows what’s going on.”

  “Maybe I’ll know more in a while,” Joe said, telling her his intention to go back up into the mountains to Aspen Highlands. “I guess I didn’t realize they’d bought a lot up there.”

  “Pam mentioned it to me,” Marybeth said. “She said they’d scraped together enough to buy some land to build their retirement home. I don’t think they’ve started building anything yet, though. I don’t think they can afford to. The construction business hasn’t exactly been booming around here, as you know.”

  “Could be worse,” Joe said. “They could be trying to restore a historic hotel.”

  Marybeth’s glare caught him off guard, and he realized he’d hit a nerve.

  “I was just joking,” he said, feeling his ears flush hot.

  “I’m not amused,” she said.

  “I’ll call when I know something,” he said, giving her a good-bye kiss that she returned without much enthusiasm.

  “Hannah’s staying for dinner and maybe for the night,” Marybeth said. “When my shift is over, I’ll come back and feed everyone.”

  “Sheridan and April are home?”

  “They will be soon. Sheridan gets off at six, and April’s off at six-thirty. Sheridan’s supposed to pick April up.”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” he said. “And go ahead and start dinner without me.”

  “Ah,” she said. “I hoped you’d be home.”

  “That’s the way it goes,” he said, climbing into the cab of his pickup. Daisy was already there.

  Joe took Hazelton road up into the Bighorns to Dull Knife Reservoir. Dust hung in the air on the gravel road-there had been plenty of traffic before he got there-and the waning sun fused through it to give the scene a burnished orange cast. Trees closed in and opened into mountain meadows and closed back in again, and he regretted his ill-timed joke with Marybeth about the hotel. It wasn’t necessary, and he didn’t harbor any resentment toward her or the prospect of the project. In fact, he trusted her business acumen and admired her tenacity, and sometimes wished he didn’t love his job and these mountains so much, so he could focus his ambition on enterprises that would better benefit his family.

  “Remind me to apologize,” he asked Daisy. Daisy looked back as if she understood.

  He turned off the gravel road to a graded two-track at a sign in the trees announcing the Aspen Highlands development. The road plunged down into a wooded swale, then leveled out at the bottom as it got closer to the reservoir. Dull Knife had been created years before by damming the Middle Fork of the Powder River and flooding the creek basin. A smattering of cabins had been built on the east and west sides, but Aspen Highlands was obviously more preplanned. The roads through it were wide and straight and graded, and there were already a dozen or so homes built on two-acre lots in the trees.

  The Roberson property was easy to find because of the collection of law enforcement vehicles he could see parked in the grass just off one of the spur roads. There were three sheriff’s department SUVs, a pale green U.S. Forest Service pickup, and a highway patrol cruiser. Joe swung in off to the side of the vehicles, told Daisy to stay, and cracked the windows for her.

  It was a beautiful afternoon: warm, still, almost sultry. The air was fused with pine, pollen, and wildflowers. Joe could also get a whiff of the tawny surface of the reservoir itself.

  He approached the scene as if he were the first to arrive, keeping his eyes and ears open.

  The lot itself was rectangular, and the borders were obvious. There were homes on both the east and west sides of the lot; an Austrian-looking chalet style on one side and an A-frame on the other. Behind the Roberson lot was a two-story log cabin built within the last couple of years, judging by the sheen on the logs and shine of the green metal roof. The cabin had a clear view of the scenic reservoir below.

  Joe paused for a moment to study the other homes. By their drawn shades and the lack of any vehicles around them, he guessed no one was staying in them at the time. There were no observing neighbors standing around the perimeter of the location, or anyone talking with the deputies and other law enforcement inside.

  Although he’d driven past the sign before, he’d never ventured into the development. He’d expected to find something more rural and remote, and was surprised how close the homes were to one another.

  The north side of the Roberson lot appeared to be the edge of the Aspen Highlands development, and it flowed seamlessly into the National Forest. Someone-Butch? — had set up a half-sheet of plywood in front of a bermed backstop of dirt. The plywood was peppered with small holes, and had obviously been used for target practice. The paper targets had been removed. Next to the plywood was a stack of hay bales, likely used for archery practice. He looked around in the grass for the wink of spent brass and didn’t see a single ejected cartridge. Whoever had been shooting had been meticulous about cleanup. The setup looked safe and well thought out to Joe, and certainly not an unusual sight in Twelve Sleep County.

  Joe ducked under yellow crime scene tape that had been tacked to tree trunks and entered the lot. There was nothing on the lot except grass, an orange Kubota tractor with a loader on the front and a backhoe bucket on the back, and a mound of freshly dug soil. A knot of officers stood together off to the side of the mound, and their faces swung toward him. One of the uniformed deputy sheriffs-Joe knew him-nodded his way and detached from the others.

  Deputy Justin Woods was young, tall, and angular. He was a fairly new hire since Sheriff Reed had cleaned house of McLanahan’s team of thugs. He’d recently returned from training at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas, and his uniform was crisp and new. As he greeted Joe, he tipped his hat back on his head.

  “Joe.”

  “Justin.”

  He gestured toward the mound of dirt. “Sheriff Reed is on the way up here with our evidence tech. We’re waiting for the go-ahead to start digging.”

  Joe stepped to the side so he could see the mound better. It was about seven feet long and five feet wide, and the soil was so fresh some of the larger rocks poking out from it hadn’t dried completely. Severed cables of tree roots were mixed with the soil.

  “Sure looks like a grave, don’t it?” Woods said.

  “Yup.” Joe nodded.

  The surface around the mound was scored with V-shaped tractor tire tracks.

  Woods said, “We’ve got to check the backhoe for prints once the tech gets here. But it sure looks like somebody used it to dig this hole last night.”<
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  Joe agreed, and winced.

  “I found the car,” Woods said, gesturing over his shoulder in a vague southern direction. Joe frequently used the gravel ridge road Woods indicated. It was cut into the side of a steep mountain with a sloping grade on one side and a chasm on the other. There were turnouts for faint-of-heart drivers to return to civilization. Woods said, “It looked like somebody took it up the road and deliberately drove it off the ridge road into the canyon. They probably thought it would roll to the bottom and we wouldn’t find it for months, but there were enough trees to stop it from crashing all the way to the creek.”

  “But no one inside?” Joe asked.

  “No. But I could see those U.S. Government plates easy enough from the road.”

  “And you’re thinking this happened last night?” Joe asked.

  Woods shrugged. “No way to know for sure yet, but that would be my guess.”

  Joe looked over at the mound again.

  “Yeah,” Woods said. “If somebody was buried alive. .” He let his voice trail off.

  Woods nodded toward his colleagues, who leaned on their shovels in a pool of late-afternoon sunlight. “I’d kind of like to get these guys started before it gets dark.”

  Joe felt a pang of frustration. He glanced at the deputies with their spades and the Forest Service ranger talking to the highway trooper. He could tell by the way the ranger was gesticulating that he was showing the size of a fish he claimed he’d caught recently in Meadowlark Lake on the other side of the mountains. He thought, So much of law enforcement work is just standing around.

  He heard the pop of gravel under tires and looked up to see Sheriff Mike Reed’s van strobing through the trees. It was a ten-year-old handicap-equipped panel Ford that had been specially purchased in Billings at an auction for the sheriff’s use. Joe could see Reed was at the wheel, using the hand controls, with the evidence tech, another new employee named Gary Norwood, in the passenger seat. The election the year before had taken place while Reed was in surgery from his gunshot wounds. He’d emerged from the hospital as the paraplegic new sheriff of Twelve Sleep County. The county commissioners had agreed to buy the van, but they were balking at purchasing the motorized wheelchair he’d requested, so Reed rolled down the side ramp and was immediately stopped fast in the soft dirt. Norwood bounded over to help, but the sheriff waved him off. Instead, Sheriff Reed leaned forward and grasped the thin wheels with his big hands and shoved, powering his way to firmer ground, where Joe met him.