by C. J. Box
Mouton was short and bald and pear-shaped and looked like a cartoon character. As his belly grew each year, his beltline rose, so his buckle was just a few inches below his chest. He parked his glasses on the top of his head and Joe couldn’t ever remember seeing the man actually use them. His eyes were kind and he had a dry humor suffused with awful puns, like stocking duck decoys in the duct tape section. Mouton still personally waited on customers, and would spend as much time as necessary with them that they left satisfied.
So it was uncharacteristic when the JP scowled at both Missy and Hand with naked antagonism as they took their seats behind a scarred table. Joe wondered whether Mouton’s ire was directed at Missy, Hand, or both.
Dulcie Schalk was efficient. She recapped the charges and framed the evidence in a tone that was strident, as if she was holding back her true contempt in respect for the court. While Schalk talked, Missy looked off to the side with her chin down, the way a helpless puppy surrendered wounded domination to a larger and more aggressive dog.
It took less than ten minutes. Tilden Mouton nodded, thanked Dulcie Schalk, and looked to Missy and Hand for a reply.
Hand seemed taken aback. He said, “With all due respect, sir, I am still waiting for more. I anticipated hearing from the sheriff who arrested my client, and especially the testimony of the secret witness Miss Schalk mentioned who is testifying against us. All Miss Schalk has done here could have been accomplished by reading the front page of the newspaper.”
Joe was confused as well. He thought there might be something new and revelatory in regard to the charges or the evidence.
“The witness isn’t available this morning,” Dulcie Schalk said, and Joe caught a bit of trepidation catch in her voice.
“Isn’t available?” Hand said, faux-astonished. “These charges rest almost completely on the testimony of a mystery man, and he isn’t available?”
“We have plenty of other evidence,” Schalk said quickly. “The murder weapon, for example, which was found in the defendant’s Hummer.”
“This is ridiculous,” Hand said, playing to a jury that wasn’t there. “The prosecution has sullied the reputation of a pillar of the community and thrown her in jail, but they don’t feel it necessary to produce the witness that put her there?”
Joe thought he had a point. Where was Bud?
“Mr. Hand,” Mouton said, “I’m aware of you and your reputation. I know you think you can dictate how things will go, because you’re a big man in this state and you appear on national television. But that’s not how we do things here. We’re not trying the case here and now. We’re trying to decide if there is a case.”
Joe thought, Tilden doesn’t like the guy. Maybe Missy had made a mistake bringing Hand in to defend her.
Mouton wasn’t through. He said, “Mr. Hand, let me give you just a little bit of friendly advice while we’re here at this very early stage. Phrases like ‘pillar of the community’ only work if the defendant is in fact a pillar of the community.
“For example,” Mouton said, “if the defendant has made choices over the years to acquire large family ranches in the area and immediately put locks on gates that have been used for years by locals, or all but refuse to participate in any of the civic activities within the county because she looks down her nose at them”-he shot a glance Missy’s way while he paused-“or has chosen to obtain all of her groceries, hardware, or agricultural supplies from out-of-town firms because she saves a few pennies, well, it is hard to characterize that person as a pillar of the community.”
Joe sat straight up in his seat.
“Yes, sir,” Hand said.
Joe thought, It’s both of them.
Tilden Mouton banged a gavel and turned to his assistant and said, to Marcus Hand and Missy, “You are hereby bound over for a preliminary hearing before me this Friday. I’ve spoken to Judge Hewitt, and he wants this to move along with all due speed. Bail will be set at one million dollars.”
“I object, Your Honor,” Hand said. “One million dollars is punitive and unnecessary. It suggests my client, this wonderful woman with roots deep in this place, might actually run away.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘Your Honor,’ ” Mouton said. Then: “Your objection is noted and denied.”
“Mr. Mouton, I have problems with the amount, but for a different reason,” Dulcie Schalk said. “Given the defendant’s ability to simply buy her way out of jail using her dead husband’s money, the county implores you to detain her rather than grant her bail.”
“We accept the bail amount, sir,” Hand said sheepishly, after a quick conference with Missy where their foreheads were touching, “and I plan to make the proper arrangements so my client will be able to sleep in her own bed by this very evening.” He lowered his voice so Joe and Sissy Skanlon had to lean forward to hear. “So she can properly grieve her murdered husband and try to figure out how she’ll ever get her life and her reputation back.”
Dulcie Schalk sighed and rolled her eyes while Sissy scribbled.
Joe wondered what it would be like to have access to a million dollars within a single afternoon.
“Until Friday,” Tilden Mouton said, nodding at Schalk.
As Joe approached his pickup in the parking lot, he heard his name called out. He looked over his shoulder to see Marcus Hand walking toward him in big loping strides. Hand had a bemused look on his face. “That was interesting,” he said. “I wish for our case the Aldens had bought more feed and trinkets in town. But that’s water under the bridge at this point.” He looked at Joe.
“I know you’re an honorable fellow,” Hand said. “Even Missy says it.”
“Good of her,” Joe said.
“My understanding is you know Bud Longbrake quite well-is that right?”
“Yup.”
“I’m getting the impression our prosecutor doesn’t know where he is right now, unless she’s more fiendish than she appears and she’s got him hidden away somewhere.”
Joe shook his head. “She’s not like that. Dulcie is a straight shooter.”
“Look,” Hand said, “my team will be arriving soon from Jackson and I’ve got PIs on retainer who can tear this little town apart. But it will take a few days to get them settled in and up to speed. Those are days we can’t afford if we hope to get an immediate dismissal. If you can determine Bud’s location before that and I can get a chance to interview him, well. ”
Joe acted as if he didn’t understand.
“We might be able to kill this thing before it starts,” Hand said.
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” Joe said.
Hand put a big paw on Joe’s shoulder and gazed at him with warmth and sincerity that gave Joe a chill up his spine. “Let’s just say if you can help us, it would mean a lot to everybody you know and love,” Hand said. “And it would be the right thing. From what Missy tells me, that’s important to you.”
Joe turned for his pickup, and Hand said, “Not to mention it would be worth a lot to the both of us. Missy and me.”
Joe climbed in, slid the window down, and said to Hand, “You almost had me until that last bit.”
“Oh, darn,” Hand said with a mischievous wink.
AUGUST 26
The wind’s in the east. I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.
— CHARLES DICKENS, Bleak House
15
Groggy from lack of sleep and thinking too hard, Joe drove through light rain and fog the eight miles into Saddlestring. The cool dark morning reflected his outlook, so he hoped the sun would break through. The arraignment of Missy was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. in the county building, and he’d agreed to pick up Marybeth at the library so they could attend together.
A major reason for his discomfort was his unease at being on the other side of the legal proceedings. Usually, he was out in the field or going to court to help put a bad guy away-not to try to figure out ways to ci
rcumvent law enforcement procedure or the county attorney’s charges. In his uniform shirt and state-owned pickup, he felt like a traitor. He didn’t like the feeling.
He’d known Bud Longbrake for years as a solid and influential county citizen and rancher first, father-in-law and employer second, and bitter and pathetic alcoholic most recently. The loss of his ranch had devastated Bud, and even more so the loss of Missy, whom he worshipped. Joe was always taken aback how Bud had revered Missy and was blind to her schemes and manipulations. Once, as they drove back to the ranch headquarters in the middle of a sudden blizzard, Bud had turned to Joe and said he was the happiest man alive. He cited his productive ranch and his beautiful new wife, and confessed that the only thing-the only thing-he still wanted was to get his son or daughter interested enough in the place to take it over and keep it running under the Longbrake name.
That was a problem, though. Bud Longbrake Jr. was a thirty-three-year-old college student at the University of Montana in Missoula whose prime interest was performance art on Higgins Street wearing a jester costume inspired by the French court at Versailles. He went by the name “Shamazz” and had had it legally changed. Shamazz’s specialty-and he was quite good at it-was satirical pantomime. He also sold drugs and took them. After his second arrest, the judge agreed to remand him to Bud’s custody. Bud had taken Shamazz back on the ranch for a while during Junior’s (he’d changed his name back by then) probation and tried to get his son on the right track. Joe was between stints with the state at the time, and served briefly as foreman on the Longbrake Ranch. Bud Jr. was assigned as his project. Joe was not successful in getting Bud Jr. interested in cattle, horses, fences, or legacies. Especially not fences. Bud Jr. lasted six months before vanishing on a cold day in November. Three weeks later, Bud Sr. received a postcard sent from Santa Fe asking for money. It was signed “Shamazz.”
Bud just couldn’t give up on Bud Jr. The old man continued to hold out hope that his son would one day show up clean-shaven in starched Wranglers, boots, and a Stetson and ask, “What needs to be done today, Dad?” Joe couldn’t understand what Bud was thinking, but that was before the past year with April. Giving up on a child was now a subject he couldn’t broach.
Bud’s daughter, Sally, had been severely injured in a car crash in Portland the year before. Thrice married, she’d been an artist specializing in wrought iron, but her injuries prevented her from resuming her career. The news of his daughter’s hospitalization, coming just months after Missy changed the locks on the ranch buildings while Bud was buying cattle in Nebraska, sent the man on a downward spiral that was epic.
Despite her actions, Bud still carried a torch for Missy. The meaner she was to him, the more he missed her. Although the restraining order on him prevented any contact with her, she wanted Bud to move away and stop telling his sad story to anyone who would listen from his stool at the Stockman’s Bar. Missy was angered when she found out she couldn’t obtain a court order to prevent him from speaking her name in vain to strangers and asked Joe for Nate Romanowski’s contact details so she could hire the outlaw falconer to put the fear of God into her ex-husband. Joe hadn’t obliged.
The last time Joe had seen Bud was the year before, when Bud had wandered into the backyard of their house in town drunk, armed, and confused. Joe and Nate had taken the old man home, and Bud had wept like a child the whole way. He’d said he was ashamed of what he’d become. Joe believed him, and thought Bud might pull himself together at some point.
Now, based on what Marcus Hand had told them, it looked like he had. And not in a good way for Missy.
As far as Joe knew, Bud Longbrake still resided in a rented a two-bedroom apartment over the Stockman’s Bar. At least that’s where they’d taken him the year before.
Downtown Saddlestring, all three blocks of it, was still sleeping when Joe arrived. The only shop open was Matt Sandvick’s taxidermy studio, which never seemed to close. And there were always a few pickups around. Joe heard rumors that Sandvick sponsored a nonstop poker game that helped pay the bills during the summer months when there were no carcasses to stuff, but since Sandvick was a craftsman and took pains to have the right taxidermy licenses, Joe didn’t bother him.
He cruised down Main Street, passing up empty parking spaces in front of the Stockman’s. There were already a few vehicles in front of the bar. Joe drove around the block and turned up the alley that ran behind the row of storefronts. He parked between two Dumpsters in an alcove where his truck couldn’t be seen by passersby on the street.
He swung out of his pickup and clamped his worn gray Stetson on his head and took a narrow passage between the old brick buildings that housed the Saddlestring Roundup on his left and the bar on his right. The door Bud had used that night was on the side of the Stockman’s. Joe avoided kicking empty beer bottles on the ground that would cause attention, and looked in vain on the wall for a buzzer or doorbell. There was neither. Looking around to see if anyone was watching-there was no one-he reached down and tried the latch. It was unlocked.
The door swung inward on moaning rusty hinges, and he stepped inside and closed it behind him. The staircase was dark and close and smelled musty. He let his eyes adjust for a moment until he could locate and flip a dirty light switch, but the bulb above was gone or burned out.
The stairway was narrow, and his shoulders almost brushed the sides as he climbed. He kept his eyes on the landing at the top and his right hand on the grip of his weapon on his hip. He didn’t know if the stairs were part of the apartment. As far as he knew, there was only one residence above the bar.
On the landing, to the left, was another door. There was no indication it was the entrance to an apartment. There was no number on it, or name. The door was solid with no window or peephole and was slightly warped from age. Peeling strips of varnish on the surface of the door looked like dozens of stuck-out tongues. Joe cleared his throat, as much to alleviate his nerves as to signal to anyone inside he was out here. Then he rapped on the door three times, hard and businesslike.
“Bud, it’s Joe. Are you in there?”
He heard no response or movement inside.
“Bud? Are you in there?” He knocked again sharply, hurting his knuckles.
Nothing.
Joe put his hands on his hips and stared at the door, as if willing it to open. He’d considered calling ahead to see if Bud was there, but had decided against it. He’d learned in investigations over the years that it was almost always more productive to arrive without warning. Catching a suspect off-guard sometimes resulted in surprise admissions of guilt or bouts of dissembling that contained the truth inside. One of Joe’s tricks was simply to knock on a door and introduce himself by saying, “I suppose you know why I’m here?” and let them talk. At least a dozen times over the years, people alluded to crimes Joe hadn’t even been aware of until he asked that question.
But he couldn’t ask Bud because there was no response.
He started to turn to leave, but couldn’t help himself and tried the doorknob. Locked. Meaning it was possible Bud was inside, maybe sleeping off a late night. Maybe sick. Maybe hurt. Maybe.
Joe leaned closer to the door. Because of the darkness in the hallway, he could see a ragged line of light between the door and the doorjamb. Although it was locked, the seal wasn’t tight and he could see there was no lock bolt, only the dead latch on the knob itself. And because of the gap in the door, the dead latch barely caught the strike plate. Joe wasn’t surprised. Ranchers-or ex-ranchers, in Bud’s case-didn’t think a lot about security and locks. That’s why they surrounded themselves with dogs and guns.
In one move, Joe grasped the knob with both hands and jerked up on it and pushed against the door with his shoulder. It opened. He stepped back and to the side to peer through the inch-wide opening. It was light inside, but not bright. He could see the corner of a rug on a hardwood floor, an empty beer bottle on its side under the edge of a couch, and a spatter of dark liquid flecked across th
e floor.
Thinking blood, Joe nudged the door open all the way with his hand on his weapon, ready for anything.
Nothing happened when the door creaked open. Bud wasn’t on the floor or on the couch, although Joe could see the sag of the cushions where he’d no doubt spent a lot of time.
He stepped inside the apartment, squinting, all senses turned full on. The place smelled of old grease, dust, sour beer, and Copenhagen chewing tobacco.
The muted light was a result of the morning sun painting the floor through paper-thin yellow blinds that were pulled all the way down. The windows overlooked Main Street. He took a few steps and squatted to get closer to the floor, careful not to let his boot tips touch the spots. As he observed the scene, he let out a long breath. The spots were black and old, maybe paint, oil, or shoe polish.
A coffee table in front of the couch was littered with beer bottles, a spit cup for tobacco juice, and several thick bound manuals stacked one on top of the other. Not books, but bound documents. The top one had several round stains on it where beer bottles had been places. The cover read WIND POWER PROJECT ECONOMICS: SATISFYING THE WORLD’S GROWING DEMAND FOR POWER REQUIRES A BALANCED PORTFOLIO OF ENERGY OPTIONS. Joe nudged it aside to look at the others. A LAND RUSH IN WYOMING SPURRED BY WIND POWER and COMMERCIAL WIND ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN WYOMING: A GUIDE FOR LANDOWNERS. Written in a shaky longhand scrawl on the cover of the last document was the name Bob Lee.
Joe said, “Huh?” Again, he called, “Bud?”
Nothing. Joe checked the kitchen to his left. There was a stack of dirty plates in the sink, and a half piece of toast on the counter. A half-empty carafe of coffee sat inside a Mr. Coffee setup, and Joe reached out and touched the glass. Cold. In the refrigerator there was a half-gallon carton of milk and four bottles of Miller Lite beer. Joe opened the carton and sniffed. Not spoiled yet.
