“I don’t hunt or fish,” he said. “There’s no need for a game warden to come to my place.”
“I’m no longer a game warden,” Joe said. “I’m here as a local.”
“You got fired?”
“I quit. Which means I don’t have to play by the rules anymore.”
Blevins studied Joe’s face. Joe didn’t flinch. He noticed that Blevins shot several cautious glances toward Nate as well. Nate had that effect on people.
Blevins said, “It’s nice to meet you, but I really don’t have time for this right now.”
Joe said, “When the investigation was going on, did you see me when I turned around and looked right at your nice cabin here? Did a little bit of fear go through you that I might figure it out?”
“Really, I don’t have time for this. .” Blevins said, and stepped back to swing the door closed.
Nate lurched over Joe’s shoulder and shot his arm out and stopped the closure with the heel of his hand. Nate said, “My friend is talking to you. Don’t be so fucking rude.”
For the first time, fear flickered across Blevins’s eyes.
“You didn’t want your view of the lake blocked by the Roberson home,” Joe said. “You got a call from a man who said he could help you if you agreed to keep him informed on the progress of the construction.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His voice was weak and small, Joe thought, and betrayed exactly the opposite of the words he spoke.
Joe said, “I wondered how you knew Julio Batista, but he actually contacted you, didn’t he? Because you had a mutual interest? Then you and Batista set things in motion and you just sat back here in your nice cabin and let the system destroy Butch.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Blevins said.
“Whatever. But there’s no doubt you lit the Butch Roberson time bomb.”
“I didn’t know he’d murder anyone. I honestly had no idea that could happen.”
Joe hesitated, then asked, “Did you see him pull the trigger?”
“No. I was in town the day it happened.”
“Convenient,” Joe said. Then: “You never spent a minute getting to know him, did you? As far as you knew, he was a redneck in a ball cap, right? You didn’t know he was a local contractor who had a family, did you? To you he was a stupid gorilla who fired up his loud tractor and wanted to screw up your perfect view of the lake. And when things got out of control, you didn’t do anything to stop it, did you? When Butch showed up here two weeks ago and started up his tractor after a year of leaving you alone, you got right back on the phone, didn’t you?”
Before Blevins could speak, Nate growled, “What an asshole.”
Joe said to Blevins, “Five men dead, one man in jail, a good family wrecked. Thousands of animals and birds burned to death. An entire forest incinerated. You’re quite a guy, aren’t you?”
“Look,” Blevins said, panic in his voice, “I’m not responsible for all the things that happened. I was just making a call.”
Joe said, “It’ll be interesting when Butch Roberson’s attorneys find out about you and put you on the stand. Once people find out what you did, you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. Right, Nate?”
“And you might see me,” Nate said in a homicidal whisper.
“You can’t prove any of this,” Blevins said. Beads of perspiration sequined his upper lip. He swiveled his head toward Nate and said, “So who are you?”
Joe cringed because he’d seen raw red meat tossed to problem grizzlies before-and this was the same thing.
But there was a hesitation on Nate’s part. Then an explosion. Nate shot his hand out and grasped Blevins’s ear and twisted. The man cried out and bent forward. Nate leaned into him with his huge gun drawn and pressed the muzzle into Blevins’s temple.
“I can twist your ear off your head or blow your brains to Nebraska,” Nate said evenly. “Or I can do both, one after the other, which is my preference.”
Blevins mewled and choked, his head down. Joe considered stopping it, but he didn’t want to.
Nate leaned in closer to Blevins, and thumbed back the hammer of the.50-caliber revolver until it locked.
Nate said to Blevins, “I’ve torn apart men much better than you with my hands. I’ve twisted their noses and ears off and I’ve ripped their arms and legs out of the sockets and beat them over their heads with them. I like doing it to those who deserve it, that’s what you need to understand. You deserve it more than most. So if you don’t start singing right now to my friend Joe, you’ll be eating your own nuts in less than ten seconds. Got that?”
Joe was stunned. But he appreciated it.
Blevins mewled like a cat, then said, “I called Julio when Roberson showed up with his tractor. I never knew what would happen.”
“That’s why those agents showed up so fast,” Joe said. “It’s been driving me crazy. So when did you last talk to Batista?”
“Why is that important?”
Nate twisted the muzzle into Blevins’s temple, breaking the skin. Blevins cried out.
“Answer the question,” Joe said.
“A couple of days ago. He called me and asked if I knew anything about Pam Roberson giving a press conference today.”
Joe knew all about it because Marybeth had written the release and emailed it to every newspaper and electronic media outlet within five hundred miles.
“What did you tell him?” Joe asked.
“That it was scheduled for this afternoon.”
“Did he ask for directions to her house?”
After a beat, Blevins said, “Yes.”
Nate’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Please, dear God, get him off me,” Blevins pleaded.
Nate looked to Joe and grinned. Joe was unsettled. Something had happened to Nate to drive him further over the moral line he’d always insisted was there. Joe had no doubt that if he said, “Waste him,” Blevins would be history. Headless history.
Instead, Joe drew his new digital recorder out of his breast pocket and checked it and showed it to Blevins.
“You’ll hear this again in court.”
Blevins, still in Nate’s headlock, looked up with equal measures of horror and confusion.
On their way back to Joe’s house, Nate said, “There are too many assholes like that. This is why we need a revolution.”
Joe didn’t respond. He’d been able to contain his red-hot anger at Blevins while he was there in order to get the evidence, but it had been tough work. Nate’s overreaction had skewed things.
“I’m worried about you,” Joe said, not looking over to Nate in the passenger seat.
“What? You thought I’d blow his brains out?”
“Yes.”
“You told me to be scary. You told me to be Nate,” he said angrily.
“Still,” Joe said. “I got the impression you really wanted to do it.”
“I did,” Nate said quickly. “There’s nothing worse on this earth than privileged bureaucratic assholes who work the system. They never get caught, and if they do, there are no real consequences. I wanted to show that asshole some consequences.”
“I understand,” Joe said. “But he’ll be shunned-or worse-when his name gets out and folks find out he’s the one who started all this. He’ll wish he was in jail.”
“Then we’re cool?” Nate asked.
Joe was unclear how to answer.
Nate said, “I saw Marybeth’s post on that website, asking me for help. You don’t understand or want to know my situation these days, but when I saw that she asked for help I dropped everything and showed up. So cut me a fucking break, Joe. I did it for you.”
“And I appreciate it,” Joe said.
“We can always go back,” Nate offered. “I could blow him away and burn his house down.”
Joe shook his head and said, “I’m tired of fires. Plus, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
He drew his cell phone out and called Marybeth at home.
“Honey, are Hannah or Pam Roberson still there?”
“Hannah is here, of course,” Marybeth said. “Pam’s going over her statement for the press conference later. I think there will be plenty of press, based on the calls we’ve received.”