She’d told him: Don’t forget to put on your scrubs.
He reviewed the map to the hospital and the photo of the girl whose death would free Dallas once and for all, as she put it, and he thought:
Who loves his mama the most?
24
Light rain was changing to snow when Joe reached his home on Bighorn Road.
Spring storms in the Rockies always had the most impact. Unlike the powder snow that came down in the winter, spring snow was heavy with moisture. It piled up quickly and broke tree branches and downed power lines. Although it usually melted down within a day or so, the heavy wet blanket seemed like a cruel ending to a harsh winter, especially when the trees were starting to bud and baby animals had just been born.
His plan was to feed the horses and Daisy, grab a change of clothes, and head to Billings to meet up with the rest of his family before the storm hit.
A text from Marybeth and an unexpected visit from Revis Wentworth changed all that.
The text read:
We made it safe and sound to Billings and the hospital in front of the storm. The doctors have postponed bringing April out of the coma until tomorrow or the next day. We’re getting two rooms at a motel, but no need to try to get here tonight. Word is the highways may close anyway. I’ll call when we get settled.
xoxoxoxoxo,
MB
—
WENTWORTH’S WHITE PICKUP was parked at an odd angle in front of Joe’s house, but Wentworth didn’t appear to be inside. Joe parked in front of his garage and approached the pickup cautiously with his hand on the grip of his Glock. The cab was unoccupied except for an empty Wild Turkey bottle on the passenger seat.
Puzzled, Joe pushed through his front gate and walked across the lawn. The snow was starting to stick to the grass, big thick flakes of it, and he could feel it melting through his uniform shirt.
Several scenarios went through his mind when it came to Wentworth. He could imagine the man sitting in his lounge chair with a shotgun across his lap, waiting for Joe to come in the door. Or he was there with Annie Hatch and a new story to try and get Joe off his trail.
Or . . .
He was drunk and passed out on their couch. Which he was.
Joe sighed and mounted the porch steps and entered his house. As he walked through the mudroom, he heard Daisy whimper from behind his closed bedroom door.
He stood over Wentworth, who had obviously found Joe’s bottle of bourbon and had drunk a quarter of it, judging by the level of liquor in the bottle, and Joe said, “Hey, wake up.”
Wentworth didn’t move. He looked like he hadn’t shaved or showered since Joe had seen him last. He reeked of alcohol and sweat. His hair looked greasy and was pasted to his skull.
“Wake up, Revis,” Joe said loudly, nudging Wentworth’s foot with his boot tip.
Wentworth groaned but his eyes didn’t open.
Joe thought about dousing the man with a bowl of ice water, but he didn’t want to get his couch wet. Instead, he let Daisy out of the bedroom where Wentworth had obviously shut her inside.
After quivering and rubbing herself against Joe’s legs to say hello, she romped into the living room and started licking Wentworth’s face, just as planned. As she did, Joe got a digital micro-recorder out of his breast pocket and turned it on to record, then put it back while Daisy lapped away. At first, Wentworth responded by smiling and mewing. Joe could only guess what was going on in the man’s mind and assumed it involved a vision of Annie Hatch. Then Wentworth cracked one eye, saw Daisy’s mouth a few inches away, and screamed.
He shot up to a sitting position and raised his hands as if surrendering.
“Get that animal away from me.”
“Daisy,” Joe said, and his Labrador padded over to him.
“Stay.”
Daisy sat on her haunches and looked from Joe to Wentworth, who was obviously terrified. Wentworth used his sleeves to dry his face and neck.
“Start by explaining why you’re in my house or I’ll . . .” Joe paused for effect. “Let her lick you again.”
Wentworth lowered his hands and looked around. He shook his head. “I can’t even remember getting here.”
“But you did. What if my wife or girls had found you here? What if they’d called the sheriff on you?”
He obviously hadn’t thought of that, and he winced as he reached out for Joe’s bottle.
“Right, help yourself to more of my whiskey,” Joe said. “Don’t even bother to ask.”
“I need it,” Wentworth said, drinking straight from the bottle.
Then he looked at Joe with glassy eyes and said, “What can I do to get myself out of this? Is there something I can say or do? This could kill my whole career.”
Joe remained standing. “So you’re willing to admit it, then? You won’t get fired. Nobody in a federal agency ever gets fired.”
Wentworth’s first reaction was to argue, but he fought against it. He said, “I could get reassigned to Bumfuck, North Dakota. Right now, no one down at the lab will return my calls. Annie won’t even talk to me. The walls are closing in on me, and you know it.”
“Yup,” Joe said.
“So what can I do? I know I have a problem,” he said, raising the bottle again and flirting with it. “I know I drink too much and get out of control and do things I later regret. Like coming here. Or that night out at Lek Sixty-four.”
“So you admit you killed all those birds,” Joe said.
Wentworth nodded. That wouldn’t be an admission on the tape.
“Start by admitting it and we can go on from there,” Joe said.
“I just did.”
“Thank you,” Joe said. “Then you tampered with the evidence I gathered and sent false evidence to your lab in Denver. I know because we opened the box this morning and looked at it.”
Wentworth moaned. He said, “You were down there?”
“I met Kelsea Raymer,” Joe said. “We opened the box together. Where did you get those spent shotgun shells?”
Wentworth tipped his head back and moaned again. Joe was getting tired of the moaning.
“I found ’em in the back of a guy’s truck. It isn’t hard to find shotgun shells around here.”
“That’s what I figured,” Joe said. “And the tire tracks?”
Wentworth hesitated, then mumbled, “In an alley in back of the Stockman’s Bar.”
“Now, doesn’t it feel good to come clean?”
“Not really,” he said, sullen.
“Isn’t that why you came here?”
“Kind of,” he said. “I was kind of hoping you and I could work something out, you know?”
“Like a bribe?”
“Maybe. I’ve got some money in savings, and by looking around here you could use it.”
Joe shook his head. “Have you been drinking since I saw you last?”
“Pretty much. I can’t remember it all. I do remember going back up to Lek Sixty-four to see if you’d found all the shotgun shells. It was the second time I’d been up there since the incident.”
“Did you find any?” Joe asked.
“A couple.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Joe said. “I didn’t send all of the originals in the evidence box. I held a couple out that came from your shotgun. Kelsea Raymer has them now. She’ll no doubt find your fingerprints on them and determine they were fired from your shotgun.”
Another moan.
“When is the last time you ate something?” Joe asked.
Wentworth shrugged.
“I’m going to scramble some eggs,” Joe said. “Maybe you ought to put a cap on that bottle.”