Joe said, “That’s a start.”
“But you don’t have a specific villain, do you?” she said. “You don’t know who in that cast of characters was desperate enough to shut him up that they took action?”
“No,” Joe said. “It’s like a big locked-room mystery. There are maybe forty, fifty, sixty people out there who were taken advantage of, but who wouldn’t want the scheme exposed because it would hurt them. So the only way to prevent the thing from blowing up would be to kill the king.”
She paused for a long time. He could only imagine what she was thinking.
He said, “I really don’t know who could have done it. And it will take time and a lot of investigation to find out. I’m not thinking it’s the city, state, or government people involved. They wouldn’t solve it this way. I’m thinking either the mob, or an angry shareholder out there. Maybe even someone local who realized how The Earl had taken advantage of them, or someone crazy with rage because they’d been cut out. We should definitely get the Feds involved, and Chuck Coon heard this stuff and may be starting to make some calls as we speak. But given the stakes and the suspects, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility to think that someone figured out a way to off Earl and frame Missy.”
She said, “This is so far-fetched.”
He sighed. “I know it sounds that way. But what about the method of death? Why would anyone go to all that trouble of shooting him and hanging the body from a wind turbine blade except to send a message of some kind? If it was Missy on her own, why didn’t she just cut the gas line on his car or poison him or something? Why didn’t she smother him in his sleep?”
She said, “Unless she wanted to steer us away from her.”
Joe thought about it. “She is pretty crafty, all right. But I don’t know if she’s capable of that kind of premeditation.” As he said it, he thought about how Missy, over the years, had lined up the next rich husband well before the soon-to-be-discarded one had a hint of dissatisfaction. And how she’d mastered the fine art of hidden but definitive language in her prenuptial agreement with Bud Sr., which had gained her his third-generation ranch.
Joe sat back in his seat. The rose-colored clouds had lost their light and now looked like heavy clumps of dark steel wool set against a graying sky.
“Well,” Schalk said, “this is all very interesting.”
“This stuff I just told you,” Joe said, “it’s new information, right?”
“Most of it,” she said.
“So it may be worth looking into?”
“Except for one thing,” she said.
“Bud Longbrake,” Joe said.
“And as far as that aspect of the case goes, it’s still solid,” she said. “You can throw all these conspiracies at me and watch the implications of what Alden did fly all over the country, but the fact still remains that we’ve got a man who claims your mother-in-law tried to hire him to kill her husband and he’s willing to testify to that fact. We’ve got phone records to prove that they were talking, even though Missy claims she hadn’t seen Bud or heard from him since she filed a restraining order against him. And, Joe, we have the motive. I’ve got people who will testify to the fact that Earl Alden was seeking a divorce.”
Joe winced. “But still . . .”
“Facts are stubborn things, Joe,” she said. “And I can promise you a jury will be able to understand Missy wanting to kill her husband much easier than a wild-eyed conspiracy involving wind energy, tax credits, the mob, and so on.”
He said, “You’re probably right about that. But is it worth it? Would you do your best to convict a woman who may be innocent because it’s easier than expanding the investigation?”
Her voice had a sharp edge to it when she said, “Don’t you ever question my integrity again. If I didn’t believe she did it, we wouldn’t have brought the charges against her.”
“I apologize,” Joe said, flushing. “I went over the line.”
“Yes, you did.”
No words were spoken for a full minute. Then Joe said, “But you’ve got to be thinking of what Marcus Hand will do with this.”
“I’m thinking about that, Joe,” she said. “No doubt he will use it to muddy up the case and confuse the jury.”
“He’ll find a juror or two—maybe more—to buy his theory,” Joe said. “We both know that. So given what he’ll do with this information, you might want to consider delaying the trial until you can make sure you can counter it.”
She said, “So, when did you get your law degree? When was it you were elected by the voters in Twelve Sleep County to enforce the law?”
Joe said, “I’ve seen Marcus Hand in action. I’ve seen him win with less than this.”
“Besides,” she said, her voice lightening in tone, “who says he needs to know all this ahead of time?”
Joe looked suspiciously at his cell phone before raising it back up. “Dulcie, you didn’t just say that.”
She was silent.
“Dulcie, now I’m questioning your integrity.”
“I was just speculating,” she said, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“He knows,” Joe said. “Marybeth is talking to him.”
“Joe, you’re a son-of-a-bitch.”
He was speechless.
“And the same goes for your wife,” she said.
Joe took a deep breath. He said, “Dulcie, this isn’t you. This is somebody who wants to beat Marcus Hand so badly they’ve lost their judgment. Dulcie, I need to talk to Bud.”
Silence.
“You still don’t know where he is, do you?”
She said, “See you in court, Joe.”
“Dulcie, please—”
She hung up on him.
“You may not know where he is,” he said to the dead phone, “but I think I do.”
As he pulled back on the highway, he tried to call Marybeth, but his call went straight to voice mail. No doubt, she was speaking to Marcus Hand or her mother, or both. Telling them what he’d told the county prosecutor.
He said, “I’m headed back, but I’ll keep my phone on. I’ve got a stop to make on the way.”
Then: “I’m really disappointed in Dulcie. But she’s probably going to put your mother away. The women’s prison is in Lusk, by the way, if you ever want to visit her.”
Glendo Reservoir shimmered in the moonlight to the north and east of the highway. There were a couple of boats out there in the dark, walleye fisherman Joe guessed, and a few lights across the lake from a campground.
After his conversation with Schalk, he got angrier with each mile traveled. He was angry with Dulcie Schalk, Sheriff McLanahan, Bud Sr., Bud Jr., Orin Smith—the whole lot of them. But he traced most of his anger to his own frustration with himself. He couldn’t crack this thing, he might never be able to crack it, and he wasn’t sure, deep down, he wanted to.
What Smith had told him about The Earl and the way business was done in the country these days had instilled a deep and hopeless strain of melancholy. There was no right and no wrong anymore.