by Box, C. J.
“Do you mind if I come in and look out the window?” Joe asked. “I’ll steer clear of the blood on the floor.”
Kapelow said, “Are you some kind of expert in trajectory and ballistics?”
“Nope,” Joe said. “But I’ve spent my career out in the field doing investigations of big-game hunters and poachers. I’ve done hundreds of field necropsies of animals that were shot and left to die. I’ve developed some pretty good instincts where a shot came from and from how far away based on the angle of impact and how deep the slug penetrated a carcass.”
Before Kapelow could object, Norwood said to him, “He knows his stuff, Sheriff.”
“This is much different from finding a dead deer,” Kapelow said to Norwood.
“With all due respect, sir,” Norwood responded, “meat is meat and bone is bone. I know that sounds crass, given what happened to Sue Hewitt, but . . .” He trailed off.
Joe appreciated the support. “What can it hurt?” he asked the sheriff rhetorically.
“I already told you,” Kapelow said. “Too many inputs.”
Meaning, Joe knew, the sheriff didn’t welcome any opinions except his own.
“You’ve got a minute in this room,” Kapelow said to Joe. “Then please exit the crime scene and let us do our work.”
Joe nodded, then stepped into the dining room and skirted around the area where Norwood and his assistant were working. He gave them a ridiculously wide berth. Joe could feel the sheriff’s eyes on his back.
He walked into the space between the dining table and the window and looked out at the golf course. The dusk sun was at its most intense and it lit up the golden leaves of the trees so that they looked almost neon. The crowns of the trees against the horizon looked like upside-down clouds. He could see several Saddlestring PD officers walking slowly between the trunks in their grid search.
The bullet hole in the glass was almost squarely in the center of the bottom third of the window.
Joe turned around toward the table. He pointed at the empty place setting and the chair behind it.
“Judge Hewitt was sitting there,” he said. Then he sidestepped so that Hewitt’s chair was directly at his back. “That means the angle of the bullet wasn’t dead-on center. It came from the southeast.”
Which meant, he figured, that the shooter hadn’t been on the fairways or bunkers within sight straight east. That’s where the searchers were.
Unfortunately, the ground sloped from left to right. A grassy berm obscured the line of trees until all that could be seen of them were the very tops.
“I doubt the shooter climbed to the top of those trees to gain a clear shot,” he said as much to himself as to Kapelow and Norwood. “Otherwise, he’d be holding on to the top branches for dear life and trying to aim a rifle at the same time. But if he was lying prone on the top of that berm . . . Maybe.”
Joe bent over so he could peer through the hole itself. He could see the top of the rise, but at a downward angle.
From where he was, he turned his head and imagined where Sue Hewitt had been next to the table. The line was off. If the shooter had fired from the top of the berm, he would have been aiming up and the bullet would have hit the top of the west wall or even the ceiling.
“That doesn’t work,” Joe mumbled to himself.
“What doesn’t work?” Kapelow asked.
Joe explained his reasoning. He said, “You might want your guys to do a grid search of the berm down there, but I’d bet they won’t find anything.”
“We’re losing our light,” Kapelow said.
“Do it tonight,” Joe said. “Sometimes you can see more by flashlight, especially when you keep the beam low along the top of the grass. If the shooter was there, you’ll see a shadowed depression that would be hard to see in daylight.”
Kapelow grunted as if indulging a crank. Joe ignored the sheriff’s reaction.
Joe placed his hands on his thighs and slowly lowered himself while concentrating on the view through the bullet hole. The berm passed out of view, then the crowns of the trees. The hole filled with the mottled gray of a distant sagebrush-covered hillside.
He kept lowering his point of view. The hillside got murky with shadow and distance. Then it topped out. Behind the apex of the hill was the dark blue of the distant Bighorn Mountains.
He raised up again, studying the top of the hill. Then he turned his head again to visualize where Judge Hewitt had been sitting.
Joe’s knees popped as he stood up to full height. He pointed at the distant sagebrush foothill.
“I think it came from there,” he said, pointing.
Kapelow scoffed. “That’s insane. It isn’t even on the property and it must be a mile away.”
Joe nodded. That’s what he’d guessed as well.
“What a waste of our precious light and time,” Kapelow declared. Then: “Thank you for your effort, Mr. Pickett. We can take it from here.”
“Sheriff . . .”
“That will be all,” Kapelow said.
Joe turned again and watched the last slice of evening sun glide over the top of the sagebrush hill. Within minutes, he knew, it would blend into the view of the mountains until it couldn’t be seen at all.
Joe said, “Sheriff . . .”
“That will be all.”
Joe sighed and retraced his path through the dining room. Sheriff Kapelow didn’t even watch.
On his way out, Joe clamped on his hat in the hallway and said, “Sheriff . . .”
“That will be all.”
Joe bit his tongue, turned on his heel, and strode down the hallway toward the door. It was either that or punch Twelve Sleep County’s new sheriff in the mouth.
*
BEFORE RETURNING THE RANGER to the maintenance shed for his WYDOT pickup, Joe walked around the outside of the house to cool down. He reminded himself that it was the sheriff’s investigation to conduct, not his. It had been a very long day and his nerves were frazzled.
While he debated with himself if he should share his concerns about Kapelow’s methods with Judge Hewitt, Joe found himself on the side of the house where he could see the golf course. There wasn’t much light left in the evening, and the ongoing search already looked like something out of a Hollywood premiere.
Dozens of deputies and town cops walked the grass in individual grid patterns with their flashlights bathing the turf in front of them. Joe wondered how long Kapelow would allow the search to go on before calling it a night.
Joe’s gaze lifted from the golf course and trees to the sagebrush-covered hills in the distance. They were nearly out of view in the gloom and they were a very long distance away: beyond the grounds of the club, beyond an irrigated hayfield of a ranch, over the river. He wished he had his range finder (which was in his pickup in Jackson) to get an accurate estimate of the distance, but he guessed the top of the hills were over fifteen hundred yards away.
That was three times what a typical long-distance shot would be on a big-game animal, he knew.
Still, though . . .
SEVEN
ON THE FOURTEEN-MILE JOURNEY FROM THE EAGLE Mountain Club to his state-owned game warden station and house on the east bank of the river, Joe called dispatch in Cheyenne on his cell phone. He’d gotten used to using the Bluetooth system inside the cab of his pickup and it felt odd to talk with the phone pressed to his face like he used to have to do.
“This is GS-19,” he said. “Can you patch me through to GS-18? I don’t know whether he’s still in the field on his sat phone or back in town.”
“Have you tried him on your radio?” the dispatcher asked. She sounded young and a little put out by Joe’s request.
“I don’t have my radio,” Joe said. “I don’t have my truck. It’s a long story.”
The dispatcher paused. “Stand by,” she said. The music playing on hold was Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus doing “Old Town Road.” Joe wondered who at headquarters had made that choice. The only reason he recognized
it was because his oldest daughter, Sheridan, had blasted out the country/rap hybrid the last time she’d visited.
I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road
I’m gonna ride till I can’t no more . . .
Joe grimaced until Mike Martin came on the line.
“How’s it going?” Joe asked.
“Complicated,” Martin said. The connection was poor and Martin sounded bone-tired. “We found Jim Trenary’s body, which is something I won’t soon forget. Two bears, a yearling and his mama, were there in the meadow when we found him. They weren’t feeding on the body, though. It was like they were guarding it.”
“That’s just strange,” Joe said.
“You’re telling me,” Martin said. Joe could imagine him shaking his head while he said it. “Both bears took off when we got there, but I don’t think they went far. Now we’re kind of at an impasse. It’s too dark to land a chopper and go home tonight, so we’re just going to dry camp here on the edge of the crime scene and hope the bears don’t sneak up on us.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help more,” Joe said as he cruised down Main Street in Saddlestring and out the other side.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” Martin said. “We can’t determine yet if the killer was the yearling or the mama bear.”
“Is it possible there was a third bear you never saw?” Joe asked.
“It’s possible, but unlikely,” Martin said. “I thought about that myself. But both bears were aggressive and territorial when we found them. They fit the profile.”
It was as if he were talking about a gangbanger, Joe thought.
“That’s why I could still use another set of eyes, if you can shake free of whatever it is the boss asked you to do,” Martin said.
“Does Talbot’s story check out?” Joe asked.
“Well, not really.” He said it in a breezy way that was discordant to the tone of their previous conversation.
“Is he standing right there?” Joe asked.
“Yes, that’s the situation, Joe.” Then: “Our crime scene guy will be with us tomorrow. We didn’t get a chance to investigate the scene after we located the body. There’s plenty of evidence scattered around. I hate to leave Jim’s body out there, but I don’t see where I’ve got a choice.”
“Got it,” Joe said. He knew Martin was conveying that there were questions about what had happened based on the scene and the evidence, but that he couldn’t talk about them in front of Talbot.
“The chopper will be here first thing tomorrow,” Martin said. “Mr. Talbot will be boarding it so he can fly back to Florida.”
“I figured he would.”
“No doubt about it,” Martin said, as if addressing something else entirely.
“My pickup is over there at the trailhead,” Joe said. “Do you know of anyone who might be headed over the mountains in my direction?”
“I’ll ask around,” Martin said.
“The key fob is under the rear bumper.”
Joe had learned not to take his vehicle keys with him into the field. It was too easy to lose them or damage them while on horseback.
“When we get down from here, I’ll grab it and take it with me,” Martin said. “I’ll let you know about getting your truck back to you. But if that doesn’t work out, you might have to come get it.”
“That may be a couple of days,” Joe sighed. “It’s complicated over here as well.”
“We’ll have to have a long sit-down and swap stories,” Martin said.
“Yup.”
*
JOE TURNED OFF the state highway into a thick bank of trees and willows on a two-track that led to his home. After so many years of living at the old place on Bighorn Road, he still felt like he needed to pinch himself when he pulled up to the ten-year-old, three-bedroom, two-bath house next to the river.
In addition to the structure itself, there was a barn and corrals for their horses, a shed for his departmental ATV and drift boat, and a two-car garage. The irony of finally being assigned living quarters with twice the floorspace—now that their three daughters had left the nest—didn’t escape him. And that he could grab his fly rod and walk to the river for a few evening casts seemed too good to be true.
For the past week, a big cow moose had stood in the middle of the two-track when he returned home in the evening. She was old, with snow-white legs and a white snout and she’d glare at him with an uncomprehending squint until he stopped his pickup. Then she’d amble into the timber with the grace of a charging linebacker. But the moose wasn’t there this evening.
The house was lit up from within and the porch light was on. Marybeth’s van was parked in the garage and Joe was surprised to see Nate Romanowski’s Yarak, Inc. utility transport nosed into the space between the house and the shed. He smiled wryly.
Joe and Marybeth were still adjusting to a house without daughters in it now that Lucy was a freshman at the University of Wyoming. The situation was both thrilling and terrifying at the same time, and it depended on the circumstances. It was a tougher adjustment for Marybeth, he thought, but he certainly missed his girls as well. For over twenty years, he’d return each night to the “House of Feelings,” no matter what actual structure it was. Now it was just Joe and Marybeth.
They found themselves getting on each other’s nerves at times since there weren’t any daughters around to buffer a disagreement or distract them from it altogether. It had been so long since the original empty house, he thought, that it was more effort than he’d anticipated for him and Marybeth to return to the balance they’d once had before starting a family. But things were certainly trending the right way. They were getting used to it.
They found themselves getting closer, reconnecting, having more conversations, and getting to know each other again.
Well, he smiled, it was just Joe and Marybeth—and now Nate, apparently, since his car was there.
The garage was too nice for the WYDOT pickup, so Joe parked outside and climbed out. Daisy, his yellow Labrador, had heard him pull in and her blocky head parted the curtains of the picture window. He could hear her heavy barks when she realized it was an unfamiliar vehicle. He was glad he’d left her home for his brief sojourn to Jackson, or he’d be without both his pickup and his dog.
Joe carried the weapons he’d had with him into the mudroom and propped them in the corner. He was tired of carrying them from place to place all day. He kicked off his boots, placed his cowboy hat crown-down on a shelf, replaced it with a King Ropes cap, and hung his jacket on a peg. Daisy bounded into the room and he cradled her head in his hands and rubbed her ears while she shimmied in place. She was happy to see him and he felt just the same.
“Joe?” Marybeth called out.
“Yup.”
“What are you doing?”
“Saying hi to Daisy.”
Marybeth sighed loudly. “Maybe you two should get a room. Meanwhile, we’ve got guests.”
“I see that,” he said.
“You need to light the grill,” she said. “We’re all getting very hungry.”
He heard them talking as he walked down the hallway toward the dining room. Both walls of the hall were covered with photos of their daughters and the entire family at every stage of their lives together. Marybeth had been working on framing and hanging the collection since September. Often, he stopped to study the photos and reminisce.
Sheridan, twenty-three, was tiring of her job as head wrangler on an exclusive guest ranch resort near Saratoga, Wyoming. She said she was restless and getting ready for the next stage of her life, once she could figure out what that would be. Joe and Marybeth had been more than a little surprised that their oldest daughter was having a tough time deciding what to do next. She’d always been the most decisive, always had everything planned out and organized. Her detour from college graduation to the Silver Creek Ranch had been complicated by her attraction to a fellow wrangler named Lance Ramsey, but they’d recently broken up for good, alth
ough both still worked on the ranch.
In a discussion the month before with Marybeth, Sheridan had compared her time at Silver Creek to the long European break that some kids took between college and graduate school. She’d mentioned possible future degree pursuits of wildlife and resource management or a law degree. Joe had blanched at the words “graduate school.”
April, twenty-one, was in her last year at Northwest Community College in Powell. Although she’d been by far the most challenging of the girls to raise and live with—April had a storied past and was the most mercurial and unpredictable—she seemed to be clear-eyed when it came to what she wanted to do with her life.
It had come as a mild shock to Joe and Marybeth when April had announced that she wanted to devote her life to “putting pukes away where they belong.” “Pukes,” to April, meant criminals. She wanted a career in law enforcement. April had always been quick to judge and quicker to condemn and demand retribution, but an assault several years before had sharpened her worldview. The world, to her, was black and white and without nuance. Joe hoped she would become a cop and not a bounty hunter, although he’d be happy with something in between. Her aim, she said, was to become an intern in a law enforcement agency or a private investigations firm the coming summer so she could learn on the job.
Lucy, nineteen, was in Laramie. She was as beautiful and popular as ever and had adapted easily to college life. A bit too easily, Marybeth had observed, and she admonished her youngest to keep her grades up and maybe dial down her very active social life. Lucy was still seeing Justin Hill, although Marybeth sensed a cooling off between them without being told about it.
Lucy had grown into her role as the central communications and emotional hub of the entire family. She was the only one who kept in frequent contact with her siblings and her parents, and she made it a point of being there for anyone at any time. She even texted Joe to see how his day was going, and Joe found himself responding to her on an adult-to-adult basis, which was both satisfying and vaguely unsettling. Lucy was wise beyond her years.
The one thing in common with all of their daughters, Joe noted, was that they were their own people, they were doing well, and they were no longer home.
