Dulcie asked Boner, “What color was it? The cat, I mean.”
Boner hesitated a second before saying, “Black.”
“A black cat,” Reed echoed.
“With white feet,” Boner said, as if just then recalling the detail.
“Did you and the sheriff cook this up together?” Dulcie asked, but her tone had softened.
“Would we ever do anything like that?” Reed asked. Then, looking up, he said, “Hey, Joe.”
“Mike.”
“I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got a couple of things to show you.”
“That’s why I brought my daughter Lucy,” Joe said. “She knows April’s clothing and such.”
He winked at Dulcie. “We would have gotten here sooner,” he said, “but I had to slow down to let a black cat cross the road.”
“Hmph,” Dulcie said, shaking her head. But she didn’t continue with her objections.
—
AFTER JOE WAS ASSURED by Boner and Reed that nothing Lucy would see should upset her, she joined them near the dumpster. The items Boner had found inside were displayed on a blue plastic tarp and covered with a clear sheet of plastic. Evidence numbers and tags were already attached and the display was ready to be photographed. Beads of moisture dotted the outside plastic from snowflakes that had melted on it.
Boner swept the beam of his flashlight from item to item.
“That’s her sweater,” Lucy said, pointing at a thick beige garment. “I know because I used to borrow it from her closet. She yelled at me when she found out, so I stopped.”
“What about the coat?” Reed asked gently.
He was referring to a multicolored leather jacket embroidered with NFR logos and insignias.
“I’ve never seen that in person,” Lucy said, “because I think it’s new. It looks new. I’m pretty sure there are a couple of photos on Facebook of her wearing it, though. That’s easy to check.”
Reed and Dulcie exchanged looks, and Dulcie nodded that she’d follow up.
“And there’s this,” Reed said, gesturing toward what looked like a leather shoulder bag with a western buckle strap on it. Joe recognized it himself from the last time he’d seen April. She had slung the bag into the cab of his truck when he’d picked her up after work at Welton’s Western Wear. All she could talk about that day as they drove home was having met Dallas Cates, who had been at the store that day to promote his line of denim jeans.
“That’s her purse,” Lucy said. Joe noticed her eyes were moist.
“We found a wallet inside with her Wyoming driver’s license,” Reed said to Joe. “There were no credit cards or cash, though. I assume she has a cell phone, but we haven’t found it yet.”
“She has a phone,” Lucy said.
Deputy Boner said, “We’re waiting for a generator and lights before we crawl back in the dumpster. There’s a lot of stuff in there, and heavier things like a phone or keys might have settled to the bottom. There may be other items in there, too. These things were obvious because they were on top.”
“Under the black cat,” Dulcie said, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” Boner said with what sounded like sincerity.
“Where’s this Tilden Cudmore?” Joe asked.
“He looks like our perp,” Boner said.
“Whoa there,” Reed said. “Who’s to say he didn’t find these things on the highway and bring them home to throw away after pocketing the credit cards and cash?”
Boner said, “He still looks like our perp. Especially since somebody saw him forcing April into his car.”
“There’s that,” Reed said.
“Again,” Dulcie said, raising her voice, “I want everyone here to proceed with caution. I’ll grant that it looks bad for Mr. Cudmore, but we only know what we know . . . about this son of a bitch.”
Joe almost smiled. Dulcie had revealed more about her thoughts than she had wanted to, he thought.
—
“HAVE YOU BEEN INSIDE?” Joe asked Reed, nodding toward the dark trailer.
“We’re waiting on a warrant from Judge Hewitt,” Reed said. “Dulcie put that in motion earlier, and we tracked him down having dinner at the Burg-O-Pardner. He signed it. We should have it within the half hour. The evidence tech is also on the way.”
Joe nodded. They were near Reed’s van. Boner and the other deputies were establishing a crime scene perimeter by threading yellow tape along the barbed-wire fence and entry arch. Lucy was in Joe’s truck on her cell, filling in her mother and Sheridan. Dulcie was leaning against her car, talking on her cell phone as well.
“I’ve got to admit this really surprised me,” Reed said. “He wasn’t on our radar at all. Maybe Brenda kind of had a point about going at this with blinders on.”
“I’m still not sold,” Joe said. “What can you tell me about Tilden Cudmore?”
“He’s a nut,” Reed said without hesitation. “I’ve had quite a few encounters with him over the years—enough that when we get that warrant I want everyone to take their time going through that trailer of his. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s booby-trapped. He’s probably got fragmentation grenades rigged up to trip wires and shotguns cocked and aimed toward the doors. I might even leave it alone for now and ask the state bomb squad to open it up as soon as they can get here.”
He looked up at Joe, and the ambient light from errant flashlights highlighted the spray of stress wrinkles that fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
Reed said, “Cudmore thinks of himself as a patriot and survivalist type, but he’s just a walking bundle of paranoid conspiracy theories. He moved here two or three years ago from southern Illinois, I think, hoping to find a bunch of like-minded individuals. For the most part, I think he was disappointed.
“I’ve heard him go on at city council meetings about the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, Agenda 21, all that crap. He’s a 9/11 truther who thinks Bush and Cheney brought down the towers so they could invade Iraq for oil. Cudmore’s politics are all over the map. We threw him out of the local Tea Party because he’s such a lunatic.”
“We?” Joe asked.
“I’m on board with my largest constituency,” Reed said, a little on the defensive. “You know that.”
Wyoming had a larger per capita membership in the Tea Party than any other state.
“What does he do for a living?” Joe asked.
“He can run a backhoe, I guess. But basically he does a whole lot of nothing,” Reed said, shaking his head. “He’s supposedly got some kind of disability and he lives off welfare payments.”
Joe said, “He hates the government but lives off welfare?”
“Yeah, I know,” Reed said.
Joe gestured to Reed to continue.
“You’ve never run into him?” the sheriff asked. “He drives an army-surplus Humvee. Bumper stickers and signs all over it?”
Joe now recalled the Humvee and some of the messages on it: KILL A COMMIE FOR MOMMY, 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB, THE TREE OF LIBERTY MUST BE REFRESHED FROM TIME TO TIME WITH THE BLOOD OF TYRANTS, RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT, ONE NATION UNDER CCTV, OBAMA LOVES AMERICA LIKE O.J. LOVED NICOLE. A miniature Gadsden flag flew from the radio antenna.
“That’s his?” Joe said. “Yeah—I’ve seen it around town. But I guess he’s not a hunter or a fisherman, because I’ve never run across him out in the field in my district. I’ll run a license check, but if he was a sportsman I think I would know it. I thought survivalists hunted at least. How else would they survive?”
“Some, like Tilden Cudmore, buy their five years’ supply of food and have it delivered by UPS,” Reed said. “We should assume Cudmore is armed and dangerous. He’s an open-carry type—wears a .357 revolver in a holster over his coat. He’s been thrown out of county commissioners’ meetings because he refuses to take it off.”