Keeley couldn’t detect the chew in his side of the room, but he tried to imagine it. He also tried to imagine the other odor, the one that was overpowered by the tobacco. The smell of almonds.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Wacey said soundlessly.
Keeley smiled through the glass. Wacey didn’t smile back, but stood and knocked on the door so the guard would let him out.
AS HE RODE in the van back to the Administration Building, John Wayne Keeley thought over what Wacey had told him.
“Good visit?” the driver asked.
“Good enough,” Keeley said.
WHEN HE PASSED back through the security area, he fished the large can of Copenhagen he had brought out of the garbage can, and slid it back in his pocket. The guard saw him, and winked. They didn’t care a whit what you took out of the place, Keeley thought, only what you brought in.
At the desk he retrieved his driver’s license from a guard who had replaced the woman. He quickly cleaned his wallet and keys out of the locker, while noting that number 16 was locked. The old couple were still inside, visiting.
IN THE PARKING lot, he wiped down all the surfaces in the SUV with a soft cloth, then removed his duffel bag from the back seat and the sock of valuables from the glove compartment of the SUV. He carried them across the pavement to the old yellow Ford pickup and tossed the duffel into the back beneath the camper shell.
As he guessed, the cab of the truck was unlocked. He opened the door and tripped the hood latch. After a glance toward the Administration Building to make sure no one was coming, he leaned under the hood. It took less than a minute to locate the red coil wire, strip it, run half of it to the positive side of the battery coil and tie it off, and trigger the starter solenoid. The engine roared to life. These old Fords were easy to hot-wire, and he’d had plenty of practice on his own when some dumb-shit camp cook lost the keys. That’s why he’d targeted the truck right off, rather than any of the other vehicles in the lot that were nicer. He slammed the hood shut and slid behind the wheel. The steering wheel unlocked as he jimmied the locking pin on the column with the flat screwdriver blade on his knife. Easy.
He peered over the dashboard to make sure no one had watched him. No one had.
John Wayne Keeley backed up and drove out of the parking lot, up the service road, beneath the NO TRESPASSING sign. He steered with his left hand while he threw the old couple’s belongings out the passenger window: a thermos, some women’s magazines, sunglasses, cassette tapes of polka hits. Before he took the entrance ramp to the interstate, he pulled the can of Copenhagen out of his pocket, the one of two he had laced generously with potassium cyanide stolen from a jewelry store in Kansas, and tossed it out the window.
That was the difference, once again, between those stupid convicts in there and John Wayne Keeley out here. If one of those jokers had broken into a jewelry-restoration shop he would have walked right past the chemicals used to refurbish diamonds and gold—cyanide—and straight to the jewelry itself. And then he’d have had a bunch of worn trinkets to try and fence. Not John Wayne Keeley. Not J.W., as he liked to be called. Keeley stopped when he found the cyanide in a locked drawer of the little workroom. And he only took as much of the white powder as he needed, before reshelving the bottle. The proprietors would know they’d been broken into, of course, but would be flummoxed by their good fortune that the thieves had stolen nothing of value. They probably wouldn’t even notice the small amount of missing chemical.
He tried to imagine what was happening back there at the prison right now. Had Wacey filled his mouth with the Copenhagen right outside the door? Or had he tried to sneak it back to his cell, where he could smell and savor the tobacco, out of view of the two hundred cameras? Either way, it would kill within minutes of ingestion. Keeley remembered a hunting client, a forensic pathologist from Texas, telling him how it worked. The victim looks flushed, then has a seizure, like he’s had a heart attack. He collapses, fighting for breath. His skin turns pink, and his blood inside his veins has turned cherry red. Bright pink foam might burble out of his nose, looking like something . . . festive. Then, Sayonara!
“Have a good chew, Wacey!” he hollered. “That was for Ote!”
And he was thinking that he really hadn’t learned all that much from Wacey, because he already knew what he wanted to do to Joe Pickett—hit him where he lived. Make him hurt. Take him down. Make that son-of-a-bitch game warden find out what it’s like to feel lonely, worthless, unable to protect his own.
3
AT THE TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE, THE Scarlett brothers sat in molded-plastic chairs, with an empty chair between each of them, across from the sheriff who was at his desk. Arlen was on one end of the line, Hank on the other, Wyatt in the middle. All three were still cuffed. Wyatt’s and Hank’s hands were bound behind their backs but Arlen had his cuffed in front, so he could dab his head wound with a cloth. Deputies stood close to the brothers. Joe had found them like this when he arrived, and was surprised emotions had cooled down enough that McLanahan had chosen to put them all into the same room. Joe sat on the edge of McLanahan’s desk, a gesture sure to annoy the sheriff. Fine, Joe thought. Arlen had apparently persuaded the sheriff to forgo the hospital for the time being, and he held a bloody cloth to the side of his swollen head. His eyes were alert, Joe thought, and his expression was mildly amused.
Robey Hersig, the county attorney, had been called away from dinner with his family to come to the sheriff’s office and interview the brothers.
“You asked what happened,” Arlen said to Robey. “I’ll tell you. As you know, the legislature broke for the session Tuesday morning. I stayed in Cheyenne that night to pack, and drove back to the ranch. Two nights ago, I had a nice supper with my mother and Wyatt at the Holiday Inn here in town, and we went back to the ranch.”
“They got good prime rib,” Wyatt interjected, then looked back at his big hands in his lap.
“Yes, well,” Arlen said, looking at Wyatt with an expression that wasn’t quite sympathy, wasn’t quite annoyance, but a kind of uncomfortable acceptance. “Anyway, we were home that night around ten, which is late for Mother. She’s an early riser. The game warden can attest to that,” he said, nodding at Joe.
Robey looked to Joe for an explanation of why he had been brought into the conversation.
“I saw her early yesterday morning when I floated the river,” Joe said. “I guess it was about seven.” But he wasn’t sure why Arlen had thrown it to him, other than to make the point, yet again, that Joe might have been the last person to see her.
“And why were you there, Mr. Game Warden?” McLanahan asked from behind his desk.
Joe bristled at the way McLanahan asked, knowing there was sarcasm in the question.
“Fishing access,” Joe said, and left it at that.
“How did she appear when you had your conversation with her about . . . fishing access?” McLanahan asked.
“She was fine,” Joe said, “her normal self.”
“Did you two have a dustup?” the sheriff asked.
“No more than usual.”
Joe was grateful when Arlen jumped back in. “As I said, she’s an early riser. Yesterday, we had a nice breakfast in the house, Mother, Wyatt, my niece Julie, and me.”
At the mention of Julie’s name, Hank suddenly sat up. His mouth was now pulled back into an ugly grimace. Joe noted that Arlen had confirmed what Reed had told him about Julie being Hank’s daughter.