Dallas Cates was shorter than Joe, but had wider shoulders, and biceps that strained at the fabric of his snap-button western shirt. He had a compact frame that suggested he was spring-loaded and ready to explode at a moment’s notice. His neck was as wide as his jaw, and he projected raw physical power.
There was a two-inch scar on his left cheek that tugged at the edge of his mouth in an inadvertent sneer. Supposedly, Dallas got the scar when he jumped from a moving snowmobile onto the back of a bull elk, in an attempt to wrestle the animal to the ground like a rodeo cowboy did with a running steer. The sharp tip of one of the antlers had ripped Dallas’s cheek. Joe didn’t know if the story was true, but he’d heard it several times.
Dallas was also somewhere on the periphery of a terrible crime that had occurred when he was an all-state wrestler for Saddlestring High School, when a girl was abducted, raped, and dumped outside of town by at least four high school–aged suspects. Unfortunately, the victim, named Serda Tibbs, couldn’t identify her assailants because she’d been slipped a date-rape drug that rendered her unconscious. Were there four of them, or five? Four seniors were arrested, tried, and convicted. None of the four would finger Dallas Cates, even though several other students anonymously claimed Cates was the ringleader. That was the power Dallas held over the other student criminals.
“So have you met the matriarch, Brenda Cates?” Reed asked Joe, cocking his head as he pulled into his designated parking spot on the side of the county building.
The way he’d asked, Joe surmised, held significance.
“No. Marybeth’s met her at the library. Brenda wanted her support on creating signs to post at the entrances to town bragging about Dallas.”
Reed nodded. “She wants signage put up declaring Saddlestring the ‘hometown of PRCA bull-riding champion Dallas Cates.’”
Joe snorted.
“Let’s just say she’s very proud and protective of her family,” Reed said as he swung his seat around and lifted himself into his wheelchair in a single fluid motion.
Before Joe could ask what that meant, Reed’s cell phone burred and the sheriff held it up to his ear. He listened for a minute, then asked, “What about Dallas?” before listening more and punching off.
“What about Dallas?” Joe asked.
“That was my deputy. Dallas’s parents say he’s laid up and can’t make the trip into town right now. But Eldon and Brenda Cates themselves should be here any minute. They’re being very cooperative, I’m told.”
Joe said, “I’ll bet.”
Sheriff Reed said, “If Dallas Cates is that banged-up and has actually been home for a while, he might not have been the one, Joe.”
“I want to see him. I want a doctor to evaluate his condition.”
“We can do that,” Reed said, “and we will. But first I think we should hear out Eldon and Brenda, don’t you?”
Joe agreed.
“Brenda is the one you should be interested in,” Reed said, arching his eyebrows and sliding the van door open.
3
Eldon and Brenda Cates sat in hard-backed chairs across from Sheriff Reed’s desk in his office. Joe stood off to the side with his arms folded over his chest, leaning against the radiator. He’d agreed to observe only and to not ask questions. Dulcie Schalk, the county prosecutor, had taken a side chair next to Reed’s desk. She’d positioned herself in such a way as to keep a close eye on both Joe and the Cateses.
Eldon asked, “Has April said what happened to her?”
Sheriff Reed shook his head. “Not yet. She wasn’t conscious when we found her.”
“That’s what we figured,” Eldon said, and he and Brenda exchanged knowing glances. “Because if she could talk she’d a told you our boy Dallas didn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Reed said.
“We can guess what you all might be thinking,” Eldon said. “But it ain’t like that. When your guys came out and told us what’d happened, we figured we ought to come in here right away and nip this in the bud.” When he said it, he cast a quick look toward Joe.
Eldon was tall and rawboned, with broad shoulders and a weather-beaten face. He had thin straw-colored hair and a heavy lantern jaw. His hands were large and red and crablike, and it appeared to Joe that Eldon didn’t know what to do with them when he was seated. First they were on his lap, then rested on his thighs, then hanging down on either side like twin slabs of meat in a cooler. He wore a heavy wool hunting shirt, worn jeans, and lace-up high-heeled outfitter boots for riding that were covered with years of bloodstains from dead deer, antelope, and elk.
“What is it you think we’re thinking?” Reed asked without a hint of aggressiveness.
Eldon glanced at Joe again, then at Dulcie. He said, “That Dallas might have had something to do with this.”
“Why would we think that?” Dulcie asked.
She was tightly coiled, as always. Dulcie Schalk was in her mid-thirties, with soft, dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a trim, athletic figure. She was dressed in a dark suit with a ruffled white blouse. She was single and considered one of the prime catches in Twelve Sleep County, although there were rumors about her sexual preference. Joe had once wondered as well, until she’d asked him some provocative questions about his friend Nate Romanowski. Dulcie was tough and thorough, and never went to court unless she was absolutely convinced she had the evidence to obtain a conviction. Her success rate was more than ninety-five percent, and she’d recently won her first reelection.
“Because that’s how you people think,” Eldon said in answer to Dulcie’s question. He leaned back and said, “You people sit up here and look down on the little people out in the county just trying to make a living.”
Reed reacted with scorn and shook his head. He said, “I’m the sheriff of the whole county, Eldon. I’m not just sheriff of Saddlestring.”
Dulcie said to Eldon, “I don’t believe at this point a single accusation has been made, so I hope we can put your prejudices and assumptions aside and start over. We’re just in an information-gathering phase. Now, from what I understand, you two volunteered to come in here. We want to hear what you have to say.”
“So we can rule things out,” Reed added.
Eldon nodded slightly. He had heavy-lidded eyes and virtually no expression. Brenda looked over at him approvingly but had yet to say a word.
Brenda Cates was heavy, with a round face and permed auburn hair. She wore a faded blue dress and heavy sensible shoes, and she clutched her overlarge purse on her lap with both hands. Her face was hangdog, jowly, matronly pleasant at first glance. She looked like the type of woman who baked lots of cookies and took in stray cats, Joe thought. She wore no makeup.
Joe couldn’t figure out why Reed had suggested she was the one to watch instead of Eldon.
Eldon looked over to Joe again and said directly to him, “I should’a said earlier we’re just both real damned sorry about what happened to your girl.”
“Thank you,” Joe said.
Eldon said, “Dallas feels damned bad, too. He’d have been here if he wasn’t so buggered up. He’s got busted ribs and a shitload of other injuries from the Houston Rodeo last week. He drew a bull that pounded the crap outta him. That bull got him down on the arena floor and threw him around like a cat playing with a mouse. Them bullfighters tried to get him out, but you know how a bull is when its mind is made up. We seen it on TV and it was a damned bad wreck.”