Joe craned around to the criminal defense attorney filling not only the doorframe but somehow the entire room. Marcus Hand was a big man in every respect. He stood six feet four and a half inches, according to the height scale mounted to the left of the door itself, and he had wide shoulders made wider by the shoulder pads of his thighlength fringed buckskin jacket. Hand had long silver hair that curled up neatly at his collar, and piercing blue wide-set eyes. His face was broad and smooth, his lips rubbery and downturned, his nose large and bulbous on the tip. He wore coal-black jeans, roach-killer ostrich skin cowboy boots, a large silver buckle, a black mock turtleneck under the leather jacket, and a tall black flat-brimmed cowboy hat adorned with a band of small silver and jade conchos. He carried a worn leather coffee-colored pouch that looked more like a saddlebag than a briefcase.
Joe had heard—but couldn’t confirm—that on the wall behind Hand’s desk in his law office in Jackson there was a rough barn-wood sign burned with:
RATES (PER HOUR)
INNOCENT WYOMINGITES: $1,500
OUT-OF-STATERS: $2,000
“And you are?” Hand said, taking a few steps into the room.
“Deputy Jake Sollis.” The answer was quick and weak and, to Joe’s ear, surprisingly submissive.
“Deputy Sollis,” Hand said, “I wish to speak to my client immediately. As in right now.”
Sollis swallowed, intimidated and flushed, and said, “I need to ask Sheriff McLanahan . . .”
“Ask anyone you wish,” Hand said, “as long as you do it in the next ten seconds. Because if you keep me from consulting with my client any longer than that, it’s the first of many grounds for immediate dismissal of all charges.
“My God,” Hand said, raising his arms and modulating his voice even deeper so it sounded more stentorian and God-like to Joe. “You ridiculous people have actually taken into custody—
into custody!
—the grieving widow of a brutally murdered man—the love of her life—and put her on display in the press as if she possibly had something to do with the crime. I’m personally and morally
outraged
. OUTRAGED.
This will not stand, Mr. Sollis
.” The last words were shouted.
The deputy snatched his phone from its stand and fumbled with the buttons. Joe looked from Sollis to Hand.
“And who are you?” Hand asked, still accusatory but slightly less so.
“Name’s Joe Pickett. I’m a Wyoming game warden. I found the body.”
Hand quieted for a moment, his eyes taking Joe in the way a wolf assesses a calf elk. “I’ve heard your name before,” Hand said in almost a whisper. Then he snapped his fingers with recollection. “You’re the one who arrested Governor Budd for fishing without a license! I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard as when I read the story in the newspaper. I determined then you were either naïve or a zealot.”
“Neither,” Joe said. “Just doing my job.”
“Ah,” Hand said, “one of
those
. But if I recall, you now work for Governor Spencer Rulon. You’re his secret agent, of sorts. An unofficial range rider dispatched to do the governor’s bidding.”
“Not anymore,” Joe said.
He had not spoken with Rulon in a year. The governor had taken a liking to Joe several years before and used the machinations of state government to work outside the lines and assign him to locations and give him directives that would have normally been far beyond his scope of work. He’d been the enigmatic governor’s point man, a range rider of sorts. Rulon had been in his corner although he’d always maintained an arm’s-length distance from Joe, so if Joe screwed up, Rulon could claim ignorance.
But the nasty business that had taken place in the Sierra Madre with the twin brothers the year before had resulted in total and complete silence from the governor’s office. Joe had done what he was assigned to do—sort of—but the end result no doubt angered Rulon. Since then, the governor had neither reached out to help nor to manipulate circumstances so Joe would be hurt. And Joe had moved somewhat comfortably back into his role as game warden for the Twelve Sleep district. But when the phone rang at home or his cell phone danced, he still felt the tingle of anticipation and dread, wondering if would be the governor on the other end.
“We’ve tangled a time or two,” Hand said. “I can’t claim we’re the best of friends. But this is Wyoming and there aren’t enough people around to avoid anyone, so we put up with each other.”
“You’ve defended some guilty folks I wanted to put in prison,” Joe said more calmly than he thought capable. “Remember the name Stella Ennis?”
“Remember her?” Hand said, his mouth forming a slight smile. “Those lips! Those legs! I have
dreams
about her. But her husband was found innocent in a court of law.”
“He was guilty.”
“That’s not what the jury concluded, Joe Pickett.”
“Nope,” Joe said. “You got him off, even though he did it.”
“Water under the bridge,” Hand said, dismissing the topic with a wave of his hand. “I have no control over inept law enforcement personnel and prosecutors who can’t put forth a solid case despite the enormous coercive power and resources of the state. Not that I’m suggesting you’re inept, of course. Just not persuasive enough.” Then: “So you found the body? Aren’t you related to my client in some way?”
Joe nodded. “She’s my mother-in-law.”
Hand thought that over, and his smile grew larger. Sollis lowered the phone to the cradle and looked up at the lawyer with a whipped expression on his face. “Sheriff McLanahan will be here as soon as he’s done with an interview with CNN.”
Marcus Hand made an elaborate show of taking that in. He mouthed, “CNN?
National news?
Whatever could your sheriff be telling them?”
“Don’t know,” Sollis said, looking away.
“Call him back,” Hand said, his voice pure cold steel. “Tell your boss if he spends one more second poisoning the jury pool, I’ll be up his ass so far I’ll be winking at shapely ladies from behind his molars. Got that, deputy?”
Sollis stammered, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish in a tank.
“Call him back,” Hand said. “Tell him what I said. Meanwhile, I’m walking across this room into the jail to see my client.”
Hand walked in front of the flustered Sollis as the deputy grabbed the phone. The lawyer put a large hand on Joe’s shoulder and squeezed. “Where is the best place to stay in this town? I may be here a few days and nights.”
Joe shrugged. “Saddlestring doesn’t have the kind of accommodations you might be used to. There’s the Holiday Inn.”
Hand snorted. “What about the ranch house?”
“The Thunderhead Ranch?”
“Of course. I remember going there for some charitable fund-raiser a year ago where I met Earl and Missy Alden. Lovely people. And the view from the front portico was heavenly and reminded me of my own ranch in Teton County. You see, I’m used to waking up to a mountain view. Horses in the pasture and the plaintive mewling of bovines. In my next life, I want to be in charge of scenic cow placement in any meadow I overlook. I find these corny Western settings quite restful. Much more so than a white-bread hotel room with thin plastic cups wrapped in cellophane.”
“I guess you’ll have to ask your client about staying at her place,” Joe said. “And about arranging her cows.”
“I surely will,” Hand said, patting Joe’s shoulder. “So despite our past differences, Mr. Pickett, in this circumstance we’re on the same side.”
Joe said, “Don’t be so sure of that.”
After a beat, Marcus Hand threw his head back and laughed.
13
Joe arrived home
long after the dinner dishes had been put away, and he sat at the table and filled in Marybeth while she warmed up the leftover spaghetti she’d saved for him. She listened intently, occasionally shaking her head with worry and disappointment, but waited until he was finished with his introduction to Marcus Hand to say, “She couldn’t have done it, Joe. She’s mean and ruthless and awful, but she couldn’t have done it. I want to know who the sheriff got his inside information from. Then we’ll know what’s really going on.”
“Neither Dulcie nor McLanahan would tell me,” Joe said. “But it’s got to come out soon. They can’t withhold the evidence from discovery. Hand will insist on them turning everything over sooner rather than later, especially since they seem to be rushing to press charges. Dulcie seemed pretty confident, and that makes me think. The rumor in the county building is the charges have been written up to be filed, including murder one, and the arraignment will be tomorrow in front of Judge Hewitt.”
Marybeth sat down and rested her chin in her hands. “It makes me think, too. And it makes me worry. From what you’ve told me, it appears Missy has been framed by someone who wanted Earl dead—or wanted to hurt her in the worst possible way. If she did it, would she keep the rifle in her car? Why would she even use that particular gun, since it was so easy to prove it came from Earl’s collection? Somebody stole it, shot Earl, and put it in her car for the sheriff to find.”
Joe nodded, urging her to continue.
Marybeth said, “My mother doesn’t know anything about guns, I don’t think. Are they suggesting she actually fired the shot? Are they thinking she carried The Earl’s body up a frigging wind tower and hung him by a chain? It’s ridiculous.”
Joe didn’t comment on his wife’s use of the word “frigging,” but took it to mean it was now an acceptable word in the household.
“No one’s saying that,” he said. “I think they’re assuming she hired a killer or had an accomplice to do the dirty work.”
“Who?” Marybeth asked sharply. “And most of all, why? My mother now has everything she’s ever schemed for. Why would she blow it like that? It doesn’t make any sense, Joe. It doesn’t make any sense that the sheriff and Dulcie could be so sure what they’re saying will hold up.”
Joe agreed.
“My mother is a lot of things,” she said. “But she’s not a murderer, for God’s sake.”
“Yes,” Joe said. “She’s a lot of things.”
“Joe
.”
He got very interested in eating his plate of spaghetti and wanted to change the subject.
“It’s quiet in here,” he said. “What’s going on?” Meaning:
How is April?
“She’s in her room in a huge snit since I took away her cell phone and told her she could use the computer only to do her homework. She acts like if she can’t text her friends it’s the same thing as being put into solitary confinement. Like we’ve cut her off from the rest of the world.”
He nodded.
“Lucy is trying out for a school play,” Marybeth said. “She said one of her friend’s moms would bring her home.”
“Do either of them know?”
“About Missy?”
“Yes.”
Marybeth sighed and shook her head. “I haven’t told either one. I was thinking we would have to do it tonight.”
Joe said, “We?”
“We. Coming up with the right words, though . . . that will be tough.”
“What about Sheridan?”
Marybeth said she’d sent her a text and asked her to call home as soon as she got a chance, but Sheridan had responded with a text of her own saying, “I know, Mom. Everybody knows. Did she do it?”
“And you told her what?” Joe asked.
Marybeth glared at him. “I told her it was all a big mistake.”
Lucy and April
sat side by side on the living room couch. April smoldered with her arms crossed in front of her and her chin down, upturned eyes like daggers. Joe was distracted by Lucy. She hadn’t removed the makeup from the tryouts, and she looked strikingly mature and beautiful. It was as if she’d turned from a girl into a woman in a single night, and he didn’t welcome it because he was sure he wasn’t the only one to notice the transformation. Looking at her, he envisioned long nights ahead of sitting on his front porch with his shotgun across his knees, keeping high-school boys at bay. He was happy they’d moved so far out of town.
He wondered how they’d take the news. April had never been close to Missy, and Missy regarded her as an interloper. Slightly higher on the food chain than Joe himself, in fact. It was an alliance they shared.
Although Lucy had distanced herself from Missy in the past year, there was absolutely no doubt that Missy preferred her over all the girls. At one time, when Lucy was still vulnerable to her grandmother’s charms, Missy had gone through a period where she bought matching outfits for the two of them and took her favorite granddaughter for shopping and long lunches.
“Something terrible happened today,” Marybeth said to the girls on the couch.
“You took my phone,” April muttered.
Marybeth closed her eyes, fighting back anger. “Much worse than a phone,” she said. “Your Grandmother Missy was accused of murdering Earl. They found his body this morning. In fact, your dad found it.”
April’s mouth shot open involuntarily, then just as quickly she realized that she was baring her feelings and she shut it again. It was as if the Perpetual Mask of Petulance had slipped momentarily. Joe was relieved to see there was still a girl inside vulnerable to such news.
Lucy’s eyes were huge. She said, “I got some texts in school asking me about Grandma Missy, but I didn’t know what to answer.”
“I got no texts,” April hissed, “because you people stole my phone.”
“It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding,” Marybeth said, ignoring April.
“You mean Earl isn’t dead?” Lucy asked softly.
“No . . . he’s gone,” Marybeth said. Then she turned to him. “Joe?”
“He was murdered,” Joe said. “No doubt about it. Somebody killed him.”
“But it wasn’t Grandmother Missy?” Lucy asked, looking back and forth from Joe to Marybeth.
“Of course not,” Marybeth said. “But she’s been accused of it. We don’t have all the facts yet, but we think someone made it look like she had something to do with the crime. We don’t know who or why. Once everything’s investigated, she’ll be back home.”