Missy filled the end of her spoon with a tiny bit of ice cream and stabbed the tip of her tongue at it. Her eyes closed slightly as she did, like her more delicate version of Hand’s food swooning. She seemed to know it would get his attention. It worked and he looked up, saw her, and appeared enchanted.
“He wants to know how involved I was in Earl’s business dealings,” she said.
“Why is it important?” Hand asked Joe.
“Because I talked to Bob Lee on the next place,” Joe said, thumbing over his shoulder in the general direction of the Lee Ranch. “He said The Earl approached him two years ago to buy his holdings outright, but Bob wouldn’t sell it all. So Earl negotiated a price for just the adjoining ridge. Bob didn’t mind selling that, since it was worthless for livestock or hay, and he thought he’d get the best of Earl since the price was twice what it had been appraised for. Then less than a week after the closing, Earl met some guy from Cheyenne and bought his company—Rope the Wind.”
Joe let that sink in. He checked Missy for a reaction, but she wore her best porcelain mask.
“Now Bob realizes the windy ridge was all Earl ever really wanted,” Joe said.
Missy said, “You are asking me about things that happened before we were married.”
“Right about the time you started sneaking around with him behind Bud Longbrake’s back,” Joe said. “I thought maybe he’d talked to you about his entry into the wind business.”
Her eyes became cold and hard, and she barely moved her mouth when she said, “We had other things to talk about.”
Joe nodded and said, “Rope the Wind was an established company at the time, from what Bob Lee told me. They’d gotten going before the current administration came into power and created the big boom in renewable energy. But apparently Earl could look ahead and see it coming, so he put everything into place before it did. He bought the company since they were up and running and he could move fast.”
Hand said, “Earl Alden was a kind of genius that way. He bought up depressed Iowa farms before the Feds started handing out ethanol subsidies, and it sounds like he had the same instinct when it came to wind.
“That’s something I’ve learned about the genius of Earl Alden,” Hand said, nodding his head, “and one of the three common categories of wealthy clients I’ve served over the years. The people who exist in a stratosphere outside of ours, although one could say thanks to them I’m now in it,” he chuckled. “But I digress. I’ve learned over the years there are three kinds of rich men, and only three. The first are those who had their wealth given to them. Those types generally get in trouble because they haven’t earned their wealth, although they certainly enjoy it. It gives them a skewed kind of entitlement, and they often step over the line because they think the rules don’t apply to them, alas. I’ve been hired by many of them. Even if they avoid prison—which they do thanks to me—they eventually spiral out. Many of them have such self-loathing that it’s contagious.”
Joe sat back, listening. While Hand talked, the thighbone bounced up and down in his mouth.
Hand said, “The second type is what I call the ‘makers-of-things.’ These are your entrepreneurs, the risk-takers. Most of them started out humble and figured out a way to make a product or a service that customers want to buy. These are the truly creative, mad geniuses. They’re quintessentially American. They produce real things—widgets, ideas, devices, inventions, you name it. Many of them started out at the lowest level of their fields and rose up. Although they aren’t self-destructive like the trust-fund babies, they’re fighters for what they’ve earned. They’d rather go to court to prove their innocence than take a plea and pay a fine or go home. I usually end up in arguments about my fee with them, for example,” he said, smiling.
Hand paused. “Earl Alden is a charter member of the third type. Earl is—was—a skimmer. He’s like many of the Wall Street and Big Business types we’ve heard so much of in recent years. Earl started with some money, but he learned early on to work the system and take a cut. He produced nothing of record and made nothing of note. But he worked the politics and figured out ways to be there when the money flowed. He didn’t care if the gusher of cash made sense or if it was moral or ethical. He just concentrated on the gusher itself. And apparently Earl saw the value of ethanol before the farmers did. Ethanol uses more energy to produce than it generates, and it deprives the Third World of corn to eat, but the politicians and the agribusiness firms benefit. And he foresaw wind power before the ignorant ranchers could. Earl was the best skimmer I ever studied.”
“I find that repugnant,” Marybeth said softly.
“If it wasn’t Earl,” Hand said, “it would have been someone else. At least Earl was here to take care of your mother, and your family to some degree. And for once he was actually building something himself instead of skimming only.”
Missy didn’t weigh in. The method of wealth had never interested her, Joe thought, only that her man had it. She was similar to her ex-husband in that she couldn’t see past the gusher.
Joe said, “I learned a lot from Bob Lee and I’ve got some leads to track down. Bob is a bitter man. He doesn’t exactly mourn the untimely death of Earl Alden. He thinks Earl cheated him out of that windy ridge—which he didn’t. Earl had a better use for the ridge than grazing cows.”
“When you say he’s bitter,” Hand said, learning forward and plucking the thigh out of his mouth and tossing it aside, “the question is how bitter? Bitter enough that maybe I should send my investigators over to have a talk with him as well?”
Joe shrugged. “He’s a tough old bird. That might not work out in your favor. Plus, he’s not in good shape. He’s on oxygen and can barely move around. There’s no way he hoisted Earl’s body to the top of that turbine.”
“Is there anyone around who could have done it?” Hand asked, arching his eyebrows.
“Well,” Joe said, “he has a son.”
“Wes,” Missy said, as she narrowed her eyes. “He’s a big guy. He’s some kind of biker or hot-rod type. I think we’ve run that redneck off our land more than once.”
Joe held up his hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m making no accusations here. The Lees are solid folks and don’t you dare smear them without solid proof, which we don’t have. My point is Earl had enemies other than his lovely wife.”
“Shame on you,” Missy hissed toward Joe. “Of course he did.”
“Have the sheriff and the comely Miss Schalk interviewed the Lee family?” Hand asked, gently sweeping his plates aside with his arm so he could steeple his fingers on the table and think aloud.
“No,” Joe said, nodding toward Missy. “They’ve had blinders on. They’ve got one suspect and they’re bound to convict her come hell or high water.”
“Thanks to Bud,” Marybeth said.
Missy said, “Yes, thanks to Bud.”
Joe turned to his mother-in-law. “How did the rifle end up in your car?”
Her eyes flared, and she took a breath to speak. Joe expected Marybeth to intervene, but she didn’t. She was just as interested in the answer.
“Never mind that,” Hand interjected. “Missy, don’t answer. It’s water under the bridge. Obviously,” he said to Joe, “whoever framed her put it there.”
“Don’t you want to hear from your client?” Joe asked.
Hand sat back, incredulous. “No,” he said finally, as if Joe had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. Then with a wipe of his hand through the air, he changed subjects.
“This is all getting very interesting,” Marcus Hand said. His eyes were lit up. “Do you realize what you’ve just done, Mr. Pickett?”