Vicious Circle

by C. J. Box

  —

  HER HEAD JERKED UP when a pebble bounced off her shoulder. It was freezing out, but not cold enough to see her breath. Despite that, she hugged her knees and tried to keep warm until the sun came up. She was surprised that she’d fallen asleep at all.

  She wondered how long she’d slept. Five minutes? An hour? They’d taken her phone away, so she didn’t know what time it was. All she knew was that it was still dark. The lights were off at the distant ranch house except for a single blue pole light that looked like a tiny lone star on the black sagebrush prairie below her.

  Another pebble fell and lodged in her hair. She reached up and plucked it out, and when she did the back of her arm brushed against something she hadn’t noticed before.

  A rope. And the end of it was twitching as if it were alive.

  There was a grunt from above and she sat up and scuttled to her left or she would have been stepped on by a pair of massive boots that thumped on the shelf.

  Cross looked at her, grinned, and said, “There you are. I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to go back to the cabin for a rope.”

  She trembled and asked, “Are you here to hurt me or to rescue me?”

  He shrugged. “I guess we’ll try and figure that out together, Wanda.”

  —

  HE STOOD THERE bathed in moonlight while catching his breath from the descent. She noticed the dull glint of the moon on the grip of a pistol that poked out from his back pocket.

  She said, “If you wanted me dead, you could have just left me here to die of exposure. So I’m guessing that I’m worth more to you alive.”

  “That’s a good guess.”

  “I’m thinking you’ve done this,” she said with a sweep of her hand to indicate everything around them, “for money. I can’t think of any other reason.”

  “Maybe so.”

  His tone was slightly mocking, almost jaunty. She tried to ignore it.

  “Well, I don’t have much money, but what I’ve got, you can have. Tie that rope around me and pull me up, and you can drive me into town to an ATM. My mom and dad are retired, but they’ve got some money in the bank. I’ve got the keys to the Stockman’s, and I know where Buck’s safe is hidden. I don’t know the combination, but I’d think you could get it out of him. We’ll get plenty of money, and I’ll give it all to you and your friend.”

  “He’s my associate. Not my friend,” Rory said. “I’ve got plenty of money coming in, but I guess I can always use a little more.”

  She felt her shoulders relax a little. He seemed to like the idea, even though he claimed he had plenty of money coming in, which was curious. He turned and plucked the rope from where it hung against the chute and inspected it as if trying to figure out how he’d tie it to her.

  “And I won’t prosecute, either,” she said. “I’ll pretend this all never happened.”

  “Tell me,” he said without looking over at her, “how much did you hear the other night in the bar?”

  “What?”

  “When we were discussing some plans. How much did you overhear?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. I honestly can’t remember anything besides we talked about eating wild game. I was kinda flirting with that cowboy. That’s what I remember.”

  “So you didn’t hear a thing besides that?”

  “Honestly, no.”

  “But you know we were all together.”

  “So what? You have a right to sit with your friends in a bar.”

  “Associates,” he corrected.

  “Associates.”

  He paused a long time and nodded his head. “You know what, you’re right about getting you out of here. Especially if you didn’t hear anything. But you have to fuckin’ promise me you won’t try to get loose and run again. We spent half the night chasing you, and now you know there’s no place to run, right?”

  “Right. I promise,” she said. “I don’t like being alone outside.”

  He took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. His eyes were wide and they shone in the starlight. It made him look a little crazy, she thought.

  “Let’s tie this rope under your arms,” he said. “First I’ll tie a strong loop in the end of it. I’ll climb up ahead and pull you up when I get back to the top, but you’ve got to help. No offense, but I can’t pull you up all by myself.”

  “I’ll climb the rope,” she said. “I’ll make it easy on you.”

  “That’s a good girl, Wanda,” he whispered.

  She pushed herself up and walked to him on stiff legs.

  “Turn around and raise your arms so I can tie this on.”

  She did. She looked down to see if he’d loop the rope under her breasts or over the top of them. Instead, before she could react to what was happening, the rope flopped over her head and he pulled the slipknot tight around her neck. She gagged and reached up to try to loosen the rope.

  Rory leaned back, raised his right foot, and placed the sole of it on her wide buttocks. She tried to turn away from it, but he shoved hard and she dropped over the lip like a full bag of flour and without a sound.

  He sidestepped quickly so that when the rope became taut from her weight below, it wouldn’t slip under his jaw and take his head off.

  A second later, the rope moaned as it pulled tight. He reached out and placed his hand on it and he could feel it quivering as she swung and kicked below.

  It took a full minute before the rope went still and he could feel nothing through it. He found it fascinating and oddly arousing that he could actually feel her life leave her through the rope itself. When she stopped kicking, it was like the rope itself had lost its soul.

  Rory dug a folding knife out of his front pocket, opened it, and cut the rope near his feet. It popped and coiled back around his legs. He listened until he heard a crunching sound below like a bag of cubed ice dropped on concrete.

  He said, “Sorry, Wanda. I wouldn’t even have come back, but my associate is a pussy and he wanted to make sure. So blame him, not me.”

  Then he grasped the rope with both hands and started climbing.

  12

  Two weeks later, Joe sat in the last row of the Twelve Sleep County courthouse next to Deputy Spivak for the pretrial motion hearing before the first-degree murder trial of Dallas Cates was to begin. As was his custom, Judge Hewitt had already blown through the bail review, preliminary hearing, and formal arraignment stages in the past ten days, as if his hair—or the court building itself—was on fire.

  The motion hearing was the last step before a trial date was to be set, a jury empaneled, and opening statements were made. In Hewitt’s courtroom, motion hearings were usually perfunctory occasions, and Joe rarely attended them as his cases proceeded through the system. But Dulcie had asked Joe and Spivak to be present in case Marcus Hand tricked her with a substantive motion to dismiss or delay the trial and she had to call on their testimony to bolster her argument to proceed. Although she’d been quoted in the Saddlestring Roundup as saying that the case was airtight, she obviously didn’t put anything past Marcus Hand.

  She’d told Joe that she’d been shocked that Hand hadn’t filed a motion for more time, because she said she would have concurred with it. That Hand seemed agreeable to the fast track of Hewitt’s trial scheduling made her more nervous than usual about the case.

  She’d been extremely pleased at the results of the forensics analysis from the state crime lab. They’d matched the blood found in Cates’s vehicle to Farkus’s blood, and they’d concluded that the casings located at the crime scene and the slugs removed from Farkus’s body were from the same .223 rifle found in Cates’s car.

  A call to the prison in Rawlins confirmed that, despite Dallas’s claim that he knew his two associates only as “Brutus” and “Weasel,” their given names were Randall Luthi and Rory Cross. Corrections officers s
aid the three had been well-acquainted inside and had all been released at approximately the same time. Despite an all-points bulletin issued by the sheriff’s department, neither Luthi nor Cross had been picked up.

  Airtight. Slam dunk.

  Judge Hewitt had a way of glowering and moving that made him seem tightly coiled and ready at any time to explode. He entered the courtroom from his chambers wearing both his robes and the perpetual look of agitation he projected in order to browbeat attorneys into moving things along. He’d been a judge for twenty-one years, and Joe had gotten used to the fast, no-nonsense pace in his courtroom. Under his robes, Hewitt wore a shoulder holster with a .45 in it, and he’d whipped it out on more than one occasion.

  The courtroom had high ceilings, with poor acoustics, and it hadn’t changed much since it was constructed in the 1890s. The walls were still covered by old paintings depicting 1940s versions of local Western history: cavalry charges, grizzly bear hunts, powwows, covered wagons loaded with cherubic children. Only the politically incorrect images of blood-soaked massacres of pioneers by Indians had been replaced recently with renderings of nearby Yellowstone Park.

  Other than Deputy Spivak and Joe, the only other observers in the room were T. Cletus Glatt and a private investigator named Bruce White, who was employed by Marcus Hand. White was an ex-military policeman with a buzz cut gone gray, wide shoulders, and sad, seen-it-all eyes. He sat directly behind the defense table. White wore a blazer over a crisp, white, open-necked shirt. He exuded physical strength and professionalism.

  Joe was struck with how comfortable Dallas Cates appeared to be. He slouched back in his chair and tipped up his chin from time to time to stare at the ceiling while Hand and Dulcie argued minor procedural points. He acted as if the hearing were a waste of his time.

  He didn’t sit up until Hand said, “Your Honor, in our final motion we urge the court to immediately drop all of the charges against our client and let him walk out of here this afternoon a free man. We’ll be doing a community service, Your Honor. The quicker we get this case dismissed the quicker the authorities can pursue an actual investigation for the real killer of Dave Farkus. As you know, Your Honor, most homicide cases are solved within the first forty-eight hours, or not at all. Two weeks have already been wasted in the prosecution of the wrong man.”

  Hewitt squinted at Hand, whom he’d faced before. Bored, he asked, “Of course you have to ask. But on what basis?”

  Hand rose to his feet. “On the basis that we can prove to you and the prosecution that Mr. Cates was set up by local law enforcement. On the basis that we can prove that all of the evidence in this prosecution was planted by the authorities in this county to make it appear that my client is guilty.

  “I’ll be blunt, Your Honor. Never in my thirty years practicing law have I seen a more egregious case of police misconduct.”

  Dulcie leaped to her feet. Her face was red.

  “Your Honor, that’s an irresponsible argument. He’s accusing the police of the worst kind of behavior with absolutely nothing to back it up.”

  Joe perked up. As Judge Hewitt had stated, nearly every defense attorney made a motion for dismissal of the charges prior to the trial. But Hand’s strong statement and Dulcie’s reaction to it signaled something serious was in the works.

  Dulcie glanced over at Glatt, who was manically writing down quotes, then back to Judge Hewitt. “The defense is attempting to poison the jury pool in advance with specious charges that will make their way into the community. He’s also attempting to destroy the reputation of honest law enforcement officers.”

  “Honest officers?” Hand said with a contemptuous chuckle. “Really? The defense is set to prove to you that the only thing honest about one particular witness in this proceeding is his honest goal to frame my client.”

  Joe nervously shifted his weight from his right butt cheek to his left. He’d been confident that Hand would attack him and every piece of evidence—that’s what Marcus Hand did. But—

  “We will prove to the court,” Hand said as he rotated a hundred and eighty degrees and slowly raised his hand to point, “that Twelve Sleep Sheriff’s Department undersheriff Lester Spivak deliberately and systematically used his power and authority to manufacture a murder charge against my client.”

  Joe turned to Spivak. The deputy’s face was white and his eyes were wide open. He worked his jaw so vigorously that Joe could hear his teeth grind together.

  “Your Honor,” Dulcie said, “may I approach the bench to discuss this?”

  “Both of you,” Hewitt said, jabbing his index finger at Hand and Dulcie, “get up here now.”

  —

  JOE HAD VISITED his family twice at the Hand compound north of Jackson Hole since they’d cleared out of Saddlestring. Although he talked with Marybeth every night and they texted each other during the day, he certainly missed seeing them. In all honesty, though, he’d been so busy he scarcely would have seen them if they’d stayed home. It was early November and four different big-game hunting seasons were open and roaring in various areas within his district—deer, elk, moose, and bear. He’d been in the field from an hour before dawn to two or three hours after dusk.

  He’d enjoyed his surprise bachelorhood for exactly two nights when his dinner consisted of thick grilled steaks and beer. He ate without worrying about vegetables or side dishes. After that, the house seemed to get emptier every night he came home. He felt guilty for not being able to protect his far-flung family, because that was truly the most important thing to him and the reason for his existence. And he felt resentful that Marybeth and the girls had fled to Missy’s, of all places, for safety. That was a twist of the knife.

  Even Daisy seemed out of sorts, although she had the run of the house. She seemed to miss her family and Tube, the half Lab, half Corgi, seemed depressed as well.

  The juxtaposition between his district during hunting season and with the elite gated community Missy and Marcus Hand lived in was striking. He’d go from dust, blood, carcasses hanging in trees, and hunters with a five-day growth of beard offering him a gulp of whiskey to an elegant and mostly silent enclave where gardeners and landscapers had been instructed to step behind trees while members drove by.

  Joe had to sit idle at the entrance gate until a uniformed guard called Missy to allow him entrance. Each time, Missy stalled just long enough in giving her approval to make sure her point was made.

  When the gate swung up, he drove his muddy four-wheel-drive on pitch-black asphalt and through manicured grounds where the only other vehicles were Range Rovers, Mercedeses, and BMW SUVs—or golf carts. The Grand Tetons walled off the western horizon like tiger teeth. To the east was the Gros Ventre Range, to the south the Hoback Mountains, and to the north Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone.

  The Hands lived on Snake River Drive in a sprawling, low-slung seven-bedroom, six-bath home constructed of natural river rock. It was sleek and elegant and decorated in typical Jacksonian New West nouveau riche style: cathedral ceilings in the great room, elk antler chandeliers, bronzes of writhing trout, fly-fishing originals on the walls, Navajo rugs on the flagstone floors.

  For the first time in their lives, each of his daughters had her own bedroom, bathroom, and walk-out patio. Even April, who was determined not to like either Jackson Hole or their temporary headquarters, had succumbed to the easy luxury of it . . . for the first week.

  By the second week, Marybeth said they were all getting bored and restless, not to say increasingly suspicious of Missy’s full-time and uncharacteristic charm offensive. According to Marybeth, Missy behaved as if she’d finally attained her life’s goal of being surrounded by her daughter and granddaughters in one place. This was the woman, she reminded Joe, who had more than once said she was too young to ever “feel” like a grandmother, and who had instructed them all when the girls were young never to use that hated word.

 
; As a result of the tension and boredom, as well as the fact that Jackson’s tourism season roared on into the fall, April had taken a job as a wrangler and part-time cook for a hunting camp. Sheridan was employed as a hostess in a chic Thai restaurant. Marybeth had arranged with Lucy’s teachers to send their assignments to Jackson via email and text message so Lucy wouldn’t get too far behind. They’d all made several excursions to Powell to visit Joy Bannon in the hospital, who, according to Marybeth, was recovering well.

  But this new arrangement was getting old for all of them.

  And the woman who’d attacked Joy and stalked Sheridan had been neither seen nor caught.

  —

  THERE HAD BEEN ONLY seven people at the funeral service for Dave Farkus, which had taken place outdoors at the cemetery on the hill that overlooked Saddlestring. In addition to Joe, the Presbyterian minister, and the funeral director himself, Cotton Anderson was there with his ex-wife, Buck Timberman was in attendance to pay his respects to one of his best customers, and Farkus’s sister, Bloomie, hid behind dark glasses and chain-smoked throughout the event. Until then, Joe hadn’t known Farkus had a sister.

  The minister had never met Farkus, so the short eulogy he gave was generic. In the end, he rushed it because the wind kicked up and ruffled the pages in his book and he had trouble keeping track of the text.

  Joe wore a jacket and tie and his $2,500 silver-belly Stetson Rancher. The hat fit tight enough that the sudden wind didn’t lift it off his head. Inside the sweat brim was the inscription To My Range Rider Joe Pickett From Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon. It had been a parting gift from the previous officeholder.

  The funeral—and the lack of attendance—made Joe melancholy. Less than half a dozen there? Farkus must have touched more people in his fifty-plus years on earth and in the valley. He wished he’d known Farkus better, and he regretted the many times he’d cursed the man over the years.

  When the minister closed his book and turned on his heel for his pickup, Bloomie approached Joe. In a smoke-hoarse voice, she said, “Dave would have liked it that you were here. He really admired you.”