The deputy looked hard at Joe. “I think you know.”
Reed’s radio crackled to life. Because of the proximity to the trucks below, McLanahan’s voice was strong and clear. “Deputy Reed, have you reached the top?”
“Almost, sir,” Reed said, and winked at Joe and Newman.
“Get a move on,” McLanahan ordered.
Reed took a deep breath.
“I’m surprised you’re still around,” Joe said. “But I’m glad you are.”
“He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer,” Reed said. “He wants to be able to keep an eye on me. So,” he said, looking over Joe’s shoulder at the body spinning by, “it’s true then. Earl Alden. This is gonna be a big deal.”
Joe nodded. He filled Reed in on what little he knew, from the missing person’s report to the riderless horse to the climb up the tower with Newman. He pointed out the hoist and the possible smear of blood. The whole time, Reed simply shook his head in disbelief. Then he called down on his radio and repeated the whole thing to the sheriff.
“We’ll need the evidence tech,” Reed said. “There might be some traces, and we might have some blood.”
McLanahan said, “You want me to send Cindy up there? She weighs what, three hundred? How we going to get her up there?”
“I don’t know,” Reed said.
“Can’t you at least stop that damned windmill from turning?”
Reed looked to Newman, who said, “Yeah. We can disengage the rotor. Joe told me not to touch anything.”
“He was right,” Reed said, and then nodded toward the radio, “but you heard the man.”
“And get that son-of-a-bitch Joe Pickett off there,” McLanahan said. “He’s got a built-in conflict. We can’t have him up there.”
“I’ll tell him,” Reed said.
“You’ll ask me,” Joe shot back.
“Please?”
“Okay,” Joe said. “But first you have to tell me why McLanahan sent his deputies out to my mother-in-law’s ranch. There’s nothing I’d like better than to see her in prison just to give her a scare, but come on. She can’t really be your suspect.”
Reed shrugged. “From what I understand—and nobody really tells me anything directly—the sheriff has been getting calls for a while about the possibility of this”—he gestured toward The Earl’s body as it flew by—“happening. He got another one last night, I guess. He didn’t act on it because he couldn’t believe it, either. But whoever called—all I know is it was a male—gave us enough detail ahead of the discovery to implicate her. I don’t know all the details, Joe. McLanahan didn’t share them. Maybe he’ll tell you.”
Joe snorted.
As he unclipped from the nacelle and reattached the fall-arrest mechanism to the cable to prepare his descent, he heard McLanahan tell Reed they were in the process of locating an industrial crane that would go high enough to unhook the body from the blade. And that he’d already contacted the state DCI (Division of Criminal Investigation) to send their best forensics team north.
“I want this thing puncture-proof,” McLanahan told Reed. “No mistakes. No cut corners. Now stay up there and secure the crime scene, Reed. I need one of my guys here when the crane shows up. I’m headed out to the Thunderhead Ranch to oversee the arrest and the search. And don’t let anyone else up there unless you clear it with me.”
“You want me to stay up here?” Reed said, frowning. “It could be the rest of the day. Maybe into the night.”
“That’s why you get paid the big bucks,” the sheriff said. “And why I get paid bigger bucks for making these decisions. We need this to be as clean as our mountain streams and as open as our blue skies.”
Reed looked up at Joe, who said, “I can already hear that last quote on the news and in his campaign ads.”
Reed shook his head and smiled bitterly. “The sheriff’s got this whole thing orchestrated pretty damned neatly. He’s on his way to make the arrest and I’m sure it won’t be a low-profile affair. I’m stuck up here waiting for evidence and forensics folks to somehow get this body down and find any physical evidence they can. If there are any procedural errors in the evidence chain, guess who is responsible? The guy left in charge of the stupidest crime scene in Wyoming history.”
Joe shrugged. “Good luck,” he said, straddling the hatch. “I’ll be checking back with you on what you find here.”
“I may not be able to share everything,” Reed said. “I hope you understand that.”
It was easier getting down the ladder than it had been going up.
But Joe knew as he approached the ground that his life was about to get real complicated.
6
Although between them The Earl of Lexington and Missy Vankueren Longbrake Alden had accumulated and then consolidated six adjacent ranches—including the Longbrake Ranch, where Missy had once lived—they’d chosen the wooded compound of the Thunderhead Ranch as their headquarters. Joe passed under the massive elk antler arches that marked the entrance—the gates had already been flung open, so he didn’t need to stop—and drove through a low-hanging cloud of dust obviously kicked up by a stream of vehicles that had arrived just before him. As he approached the headquarters, he could see the wink of metal and glass of law enforcement units parked haphazardly in the ranch yard.
There had been so much traffic ahead of him that even the ranch dogs, who always raised a fuss and ran out to challenge visitors, simply glanced up, exhausted, from their pool of shade underneath an ancient billowing cottonwood on the side of a horse barn.
Joe pulled in next to an unmarked SUV he recognized by the state plates and antennae on the roof as DCI. He swung out, letting Tube follow him, and strode toward the old Victorian mansion that had once belonged to the Aldens, the original owners of the ranch. The renovated block stone home served as the residence of his mother-in-law and father-in-law until their new place was finished. As he skirted the bumper of a highway patrol car on his way to the house, Joe glanced to the west through an opening in the trees and saw a corner portion of The Earl and Missy’s new home. It dominated the high bluff on the other side of the Twelve Sleep River, and was a complex design of gables, windows, sharp angles, and peaks. It was to be 15,000 square feet and the construction of it alone was keeping half the contractors and one of Saddlestring’s lumberyards open through the recession. Joe wondered if the contractors had paused for the day when they heard the news, wondering if their jobs were now over and if they’d ever get paid for the work they’d done so far.
Deputy Sollis saw Joe coming and stepped out from the lilac bushes next to the front door of the ranch house. Sollis raised his hand to Joe, palm out, and said, “That’ll be far enough.”
Joe stopped, looking Sollis over. Sollis was square-shaped and his head was a block mounted on a stump of a neck. He was solid and buff, and his uniform looked a deliberate size too small in order to accentuate his pectorals, biceps, and quads. His eyes were black and small and could be seen like spider holes through the lenses of a pair of black wraparound shades. A fresh crop of acne crawled up his neck from his collar, and Joe thought, Steroids.
“Sheriff inside?” Joe asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“So let me in.”
“No, sir. No one goes in. Especially you.”
Joe put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I want to see my mother-in-law. Is she under arrest?”
A slight smile tugged on the edges of Sollis’ thick mouth. “I reckon, by now.”
“What’s the charge?”
“Charges,” Sollis corrected. “You can take that all up with the county attorney. My job is to keep everybody out.”