“Still . . .”
“It’s odd, I’ll grant you that,” Arlen said. “But Wyatt has always marched to the beat of his own drummer. The man just doesn’t sleep, or when he does, it’s for an hour at a time. He used to keep us up all night wandering around the house, puttering, doing his hobbies. Wyatt has a lot of interests, and almost all of them”—Arlen rolled his eyes, then settled them back on Joe—“stink. Everything Wyatt does stinks.”
Despite himself, Joe smiled at the way Arlen said it.
“He’s either making model planes and spacecraft, which smell of glue and oil paint, or he’s tanning hides or reloading bullets. Taxidermy is his newest obsession. Those chemical smells can get to you.”
JULIE AND SHERIDAN came back out through the front door with an adult woman in tow. She was dark and attractive, Joe thought, but there was something hard about her. Her eyes took him in. Her expression didn’t reveal what her conclusion was about him.
“I’m Doris Scarlett, Julie’s mother,” she said, extending her hand.
“Joe Pickett.” Her fingers were long and cool. She didn’t wear a wedding ring.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “We’re going to get these girls to bake some bread, and then some cookies. We thought we’d have a few more girls coming out, so we have more than enough dough to roll in there.”
“Lindsay, Sara, and Tori can’t make it,” Julie told Sheridan, who had caught what Doris had said about the other girls.
Joe wondered if the other parents were concerned about the situation at the Scarletts, or if it was happenstance that the other girls weren’t there. He thought, as he often thought: What would Marybeth do here? He decided Marybeth would proceed with what they’d already decided, that Sheridan could spend the night with her best friend. Arlen had assured Joe things were fine. And they appeared fine.
“Nice to meet you too,” Joe said to her. She smiled and nodded, and turned and went back into the house. Joe could tell the introduction was for his benefit, at Sheridan’s instigation, to assure him that things were okay, that she and Julie were well supervised.
Arlen said, “When Hank and Doris started having trouble, Mother let Doris and Julie move across the ranch to the guest house. Hank doesn’t like it one bit, but at least he can see his daughter from time to time. Mother really doted on that girl.”
Arlen stood there, something obviously on his mind, making it awkward for Joe to turn and go.
Arlen said, “Now I’ve got a question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Fire away.”
“I heard someone called and reported my brother Hank had committed some pretty serious game violations. That he had illegal mounts and species displayed at his house. Do you know anything about this?”
Joe thought: Now I know for sure who made the call. But he said, “I got the report. I’m waiting on authorization to proceed.” It embarrassed Joe to say that.
Arlen searched Joe’s face. “Authorization?”
Joe knew he was on thin ice as he proceeded, Arlen being a new Game and Fish commissioner. But why protect Randy Pope?
“You might have heard,” Joe said, as diplomatically as possible, “the agency director has assigned himself the job of being my immediate supervisor. He reserves the authority to okay my actions and duties.”
“And he hasn’t done so,” Arlen said, his voice cold.
“No sir, in this case . . .”
Arlen turned on his heel and walked back to his house. “Wait here,” he said over his shoulder to Joe. “I’ll be right back.”
Joe leaned back against his pickup, wondering what kind of trouble he’d just gotten himself in now.
SHERIDAN CAME OUT of the house to hug him good-bye. As he pulled her into him, he leaned down and whispered, “I can still take you home.”
She stepped back and raised her eyes to him. “Dad, I’m the only girl who showed up. I can’t leave. Don’t you understand?”
Joe looked at her, wanted to insist she get her things and climb back in, but he saw his growing daughter in an admirable new light.
“Then at least promise to call immediately if you need anything, okay?”
“That would be easier to do if I had a cell phone,” she said, her eyes triumphant.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Joe said, sighing.
Arlen appeared at a window on the second floor of the main house holding a telephone. He leaned out of the window, and gestured a thumbs-up to Joe.
“What’s that about?” Sheridan asked.
“Hank,” Joe said.
JOE SLOWED AS he cruised by Wyatt’s chicken coop. The place looked dark and buttoned down, the window curtains pulled tight.
His cell phone burred and he plucked it from its mount on the dash and said, “Joe Pickett.”
“Hold for Director Pope,” said Pope’s administrative assistant.
Joe smiled. That hadn’t taken long.
“Pickett,” Pope said brusquely, “I want you to proceed with that 800-POACHER tip as soon as possible.”
“Gee,” Joe said, “what’s the hurry?”
Silence. Joe could imagine Pope gritting his teeth, having just concluded his call from Arlen.
“Just get right on it,” Pope said.
“It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“What do you mean it will have to wait?”
“I’ve got to get home and write up my daily report,” Joe said. “My supervisor demands it by five P.M.”
“Oh, for God’s sake . . .”
“And you need to get me a new truck. This thing is ready to fall apart,” Joe said, looking at the temperature gauge, which was in the red. “I don’t think it’ll last the month.”
“Another truck!” he said, as if Joe were asking Pope to pay for it out of his own pocket instead of simply assigning another from the fleet. “We’ve had this discussion, I believe. You’ve damaged more government property than any other single game warden in the state, as you know. The damage case file we’ve got on you is . . .”
“I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up,” Joe said, tapping the phone against the side of his head before punching off.
His visit to Hank would need to wait, Joe said to himself, until his daughter was off the Thunderhead Ranch.
14
THE WORD THAT POPPED INTO SHERIDAN PICKETT’S mind that evening, as the Scarletts sat down to dinner in the old dining room of the main ranch house, was Gothic. Ranch Gothic. Not the kind of Gothic she was used to, like those black-clad Goths in school who painted their nails and lips black and looked amazingly silly in P.E., but the older definition of Gothic, the kind she’d read about in novels. Until now, that definition had always been beyond her grasp, because she’d never encountered it. She never thought there was anyplace in Wyoming ancient enough or sinister enough to be considered Gothic. Until now. An image of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations wearing her wedding dress and riding a horse across the meadow outside popped into Sheridan’s head. She almost giggled at the thought but she was too on edge.
A ROILING BUT invisible cloud seemed to hang in the air of the dining room and throughout the house. She imagined the cloud to be made up of violent past emotions. The whole place, she thought, could use a good airing out.
The décor within the main ranch house had obviously not been changed—simply added onto—since it was built. The walls and wallpaper were dark and the trim ornate, the cornices were hand carved, each doorway a custom lark of intricate woodwork. Ancient wagon-wheel chandeliers hung from high ceilings on rough chains. The kitchen was big enough that when the cast-iron cookstoves were replaced by modern ovens there was no need to throw the old ones out. The dining room and sitting room were close and stuffy, with old paintings on the wall of Wyoming and Scottish landscapes. Sheridan had found herself staring at an entire wall of framed black-and-white photographs in the living room.