Joe stepped back, his hands still on his hips. The day was surreal. The last time he’d been inside this house was two weeks ago with Marybeth and his daughters. Missy had planned the menu—chile relleños smothered in green chile sauce in honor of Sheridan soon going to college—even though the meal had turned out to be Lucy’s favorite and not Sheridan’s. Missy favored Lucy over all the children, seeing in her the spark of a kindred spirit, although Lucy no longer welcomed the attention. Despite the mix-up, Missy still supervised the cooking, but never touched the food and didn’t eat it. Neither did Sheridan.
And here he was again, Joe thought. Only this time Missy was somewhere inside being placed under arrest for . . . murder?
He snorted.
“Something you find funny?” Sollis asked.
“This whole thing,” Joe said, gesturing toward the vehicles in the ranch yard and all the law enforcement personnel standing around. “I knew Sheriff McLanahan needed something to happen to boost his chances of reelection, but even I didn’t think he’d go after the wealthiest landowner in the county for this.”
Sollis’ jaw muscles started working, like he was chewing gum. “You best keep your mouth shut until you find out more about the case against her,” he said. “I think you’ll be surprised. And I’d advise you to back off and pipe down. You’re being observed by the media.”
Joe turned. The Saddlestring media consisted of Sissy Skanlon, the twenty-five-year-old editor of the Saddlestring Roundup, and Jim Parmenter, the northern Wyoming stringer for the Billings Gazette. They stood together under a tree behind a yellow plastic band of crime scene tape where they’d obviously been ordered to stay. Joe nodded toward them. Jim nodded back and Sissy waved.
“There’s at least two television trucks on the way,” Sollis said with some satisfaction. “From Billings and Casper. Maybe more.”
Joe asked Sollis, “So how long has the sheriff been planning this? It takes a while to get both Jim and Sissy in one place. And I see we’ve got DCI vehicles here, meaning Cheyenne was called in enough time for these guys to get here. How long has this operation been under way?”
Sollis began to say something, and then caught himself. A slow grin formed. “Naw, that’s not going to work. You need to talk to the sheriff. Or better yet, maybe you ought to hold on until you can visit your dear mother-in-law in jail. Seems to me she knows a hell of a lot more about what’s going down than anyone else, even if she’s not talking to us.”
Joe nodded, then turned on his heel and walked up to Sissy and Jim.
“Have you guys been briefed?” Joe asked. He knew them both well and he’d never jerked them around. He always returned their calls and spoke to them plainly. In turn, they’d never burned him.
“We’re waiting,” Jim said, checking his wristwatch. “McLanahan said he’d be out with a full statement within half an hour. It’s been forty-five minutes. I think he’s waiting on the cameras,” he said with disdain.
Sissy said, “If it’s big enough news, like if she’s arrested for murder, we might even do a special edition of the paper. I can’t remember ever doing one before.”
She checked to make sure her recorder was on, then thrust it toward Joe. “Do you think she did it? You probably know her best.”
Joe was on thin ice. No matter what he said, it could be perceived wrongly. An immediate “No Way” would make it sound like he was her advocate and guarantee he’d be banned from any aspect of the investigation. A “No Comment” might imply guilt, since it was coming from the accused’s son-in-law. After several beats, he mumbled, “You need to direct that question to the county attorney.”
“You saw the body?” Jim asked Joe. “Is it true he was hanging off the blade of a wind turbine?”
Joe nodded, grateful Jim had saved him from a follow-up from Sissy. “I did,” he said. “It wasn’t something I’ll be able to get out of my mind for a while. Deputy Mike Reed is on the scene, so you may want to call him.”
“Yuck,” Sissy said, as she reached into her bag for her cell phone. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’ve gotta make a call.”
Jim reached out and touched her hand. “If you’re calling a photographer to go out to the wind farm before they bring the body down, I’d like a copy of that shot, if you don’t mind.”
Sissy contemplated the request for a moment—Joe could tell she realized the photo and the story could get picked up nationally and likely win some awards—then relented. “I know I owe you a few,” she said to Jim.
Since Jim had said the sheriff would be out to give a full statement, Joe thought that perhaps he’d given them something. So he asked, “Did he tell you the department was tipped? That they’d been told by someone to get ready for this?”
Jim nodded. “You know who it might have been tipping them?”
Joe shook his head. “Nope. So he called you two when? This morning?”
Jim sighed. “Yeah, early. He said get ready for something big, maybe. It was bad timing, because I was going to take my kids fishing today. I had the truck all packed and everything. I was hoping he’d call back and say, ‘false alarm,’ but instead he said to meet him out here.”
“How early?” Joe asked.
“Seven, maybe,” Jim said. “I was just getting dressed.” Jim read Joe’s face, and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Joe said, shaken. So McLanahan had called Jim Parmenter before Joe himself had called in the incident? Behind him he heard several voices and he turned in time to see Missy, head down, being escorted from the front door toward a waiting sheriff’s department GMC. She looked tiny between two deputies who had roughly the same build and bulk as Sollis. Except for Mike Reed, McLanahan had staffed his department with hard men.
Missy was slim and dressed in black slacks, a starched, untucked and oversized white shirt with an open collar and rolled-up cuffs, and simple flats. She looked like she was dressed for a day of celebrity gardening, Joe thought. For her small size, she had a large head and a smooth, heart-shaped open face. She always looked great in photographs, and the camera tended to trim twenty years off her. Her close-cropped coiffed hair was not as perfect as usual and a few strays stuck out, as if she’d done it in haste. Her over-large and sensual mouth was clamped tight. As she stepped down off the porch—the deputies on both sides physically guided her—she glanced up and locked on Joe.
Missy’s eyes were rimmed with red. Without her customary makeup, she looked pale, drawn, small—and her age. They’d handcuffed her in front, and the heavy stainless steel bracelets made her wrists look even thinner. For the first time, Joe noted how the skin on the back of her palms was mottled with age and that her fingers looked skeletal. He’d once heard that no matter what a woman did to fight off the years, her hands revealed all. And Missy’s hands were revealing.
Missy kept her eyes on Joe, silently pleading but not groveling, as the deputies marched her across the lawn toward the car. Behind her, Sheriff Kyle McLanahan filled the doorframe, scowling briefly at Joe and then peering over Joe’s head at the ranch yard. He carried a leveraction .30-30 Winchester carbine with plastic-gloved hands. Behind him was Dulcie Schalk, the new county attorney who’d replaced Joe’s friend Robey Hersig.
Joe looked over his shoulder to see what the sheriff had fixed on, and saw the television satellite truck rumbling up the long driveway. McLanahan had no doubt frittered away time inside until he could make a dramatic appearance before the cameras.
Dulcie Schalk was in her early thirties, with dishwater-blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and a trim, athletic figure. She’d been hired by Robey as his assistant a few months before he was killed three years before, and she’d stepped into the vacuum and filled it so well that when she’d run for the office she was unopposed. Schalk was unmarried except to her job, and Joe had found her to be honest and professional, if very tightly wound. Marybeth and Dulcie Schalk ran in the same circles, and shared a profound interest in horses. They’d gone on trail rides together and Marybeth spoke highly of her, which counted with Joe.