"Sound's like you're challenging me," Dave said. "Name That Shit."
"I am," Joe said, forcing a laugh. Dave agreed to take a look at it, whatever it was, and to keep both the sample and the results in confidence.
Joe sat back in his swivel chair. He thought about what the woman at the lab had told him. He wondered how he could go about finding out who she was and if he even should. He believed she had told him the truth about the missing sample. He wished she hadn't, because things had suddenly become a lot more complicated.
***
The tires Of Joe Pickett's pickup made a sizzling sound as he drove through the wet streets of Saddlestring to the county sheriff's office. It was still raining, and there were very few people out on the streets. Those who were out were scurrying from one door to another holding their hands on top of their heads. Joe thought how strange it was that the rain had continued throughout the day. Rain was a rarity this time of year; in fact, it was a rarity, period.
Wyomingites, Joe had observed, didn't know what to do when it rained except get out of it, watch it through the window, and wait for it to go away. The same people who chained up all four tires and drove through horizontal snowstorms and bucked snowdrifts just to go have lunch in town during the winter had no clue what to do when it rained. A few ranchers stretched plastic covers, sometimes referred to as "cowboy condoms," over their John B. Stetsons but few people owned umbrellas. Fewer yet would let themselves be seen with an umbrella open because it would appear urban and pretentious, and the only rain slickers he ever saw were rolled up neatly and tied to the backs of saddles, where they generally remained. But Joe liked rain and wished there were more of it.
Vern had been right. Saddlestring was dying. A decade ago the coal mines in the county were operational and the Twelve Sleep Oil Field was pumping, but now both were silent. Only a reclamation crew still worked at the mine, and the oil wells had since been capped, waiting in vain for the price of a barrel of oil to rise.
Even the agricultural jobs had shrunk as out-of-state wealth bought local ranches for tax write-offs and in some cases took them out of production. Cattle prices were the lowest in a decade. A quarter of the storefronts on the main street were boarded up. In the past five years, the population of the town had decreased by 30 percent. Houses were available in all parts of town, and the prices were cheap. Saddlestring's one radio station had announced it was going off the air as of the first of next month. Unemployment was high and getting higher. Vern's pipeline would pump not only natural gas but new blood and dollars back into the community.
Saddlestring was a classic western town borne of promise due to its location on the railroad, but that promise never really played out. In the 1880s, a magnificent hotel was built by a mining magnate, but it had faded into disrepair. The main street, called Main Street, snaked north and south and had a total of four stoplights that had never been synchronized. The two-block "downtown" still retained the snooty air of Victorian storefronts designed to be the keystones of a fine city, but beyond those buildings, the rest of Main Street looked like any other American strip mall, punctuated by gun shops, sporting goods stores, fishing stores, bars, and restaurants that served steak.
Joe entered the sheriff's office and hung his jacket and hat on a rack.
"Still raining?" asked Deputy McLanahan from his desk behind the counter. Joe said it was and asked if Sheriff Barnum was available. Wendy, the receptionist/dispatcher, eyed Joe coldly, long enough to remind him that she still didn't like him after their telephone conversation on Sunday. But then she relented and buzzed Barnum on the intercom, saying "Game Warden Joe" was here to see him.
Sheriff Bud Barnum sat behind a desk stacked with mountains of paper and mail. He was sipping from a large white foam cup that he appeared never to put down. Although Barnum's office was good sized, there were stacks of magazines and documents everywhere, and the untidiness of it gave Joe a claustrophobic feeling. There was a single, brown Naugahyde chair across from Barnum's desk, and Joe moved a few pieces of unopened mail from it and sat down.
Barnum sipped loudly from his cup. Joe could smell the strong coffee.
"You ever been to that new coffee place down the block?" Barnum asked. Joe nodded that he had. Marybeth liked to meet him there for coffee and oversized muffins when he took a morning break.
"It's a pretty good place," Barnum said quietly. "The people who own it are a little goofy, though. It's kind of a hippie establishment. They moved here from California, and she doesn't wear makeup or shave her legs, which I don't understand the significance of. He was some kind of computer engineer before he sold his stock and moved out here. All their food is vegetarian."
To Joe, Barnum looked very tired. His pallor was grayish, and there were bags under his eyes.
"They've got all these different kinds of coffee these days," Barnum said, looking at the big foam cup. "This is Ethiopian JabaJava. All my life I thought there was only one kind of coffee and that it came out of a big red can with a little Mexican or Colombian farmer on it. Then all of the sudden there are a hundred kinds of coffee. They feature a new kind of special coffee every day in that place. I've been trying a different one every day to try and make up for all of those years I was sheltered. I don't know why it is that alcohol and tobacco are now bad, but jolts of caffeine are suddenly good. It is beyond me, and it makes me feel old."
He handed Joe the cup for Joe to try it. To be polite, Joe had a sip. Barnum had a disarming and likable way about him. Joe nodded.
"Pretty good, eh?" Barnum said. "Who'd a thought there could be coffee from Africa? Plain old American coffee just isn't good enough for us anymore, I guess."
Joe felt awkward. Then he came right out with it: "Can I ask you a question about the outfitter murders?"
"Pertaining to what?" Barnum asked, sitting a little straighter in his chair, his heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Joe. Joe started to answer, but Barnum spoke again. "First I need to know whose camp you're in," Barnum said.
"Whose camp?"
"Wacey Hedeman's or mine," Barnum said. "The guy who is running against me. Your pal."
"I'm neutral," Joe said truthfully. "I don't have a position on that."
Barnum's expression never changed. Joe had no idea what Barnum was thinking. It was unnerving.
"Stay that way," Barnum warned.
"I intend to," Joe replied.
"I'm going to lose the election," Barnum said flatly. "I've been around long enough to know this is the last one, even if no one else realizes it."
Joe had no idea how to answer that. He couldn't imagine Bud Barnum not being the sheriff of Twelve Sleep County. Clearly, Barnum couldn't either.
"I don't know what the hell I'm going to do after that," Barnum said. "Maybe the governor will give me a job, but then I'd have to move to Cheyenne. Probably I'll just stay here and drink a lot of coffee."
Joe lamely suggested that there was still a month and a half until the election and that anything could happen in that time. Barnum nodded wearily.
"You had a question."
"I'm wondering what the status of the investigation is."
"The status of the investigation," Barnum mimicked, his expression theatrically perplexed, "is obvious. The state crime-lab ballistics has proven that all three Mississippi yahoos were shot with the same nine millimeter semiautomatic pistol at close range, and that pistol was found on Mr. Clyde Lidgard by Deputy McLanahan and yourself and Mr. Hedeman. Lidgard is in critical condition in the Billings hospital, having never regained consciousness, and the doctors up there say every day that he won't live through the night but he has so far. Unless Mr. Lidgard regains consciousness and tells us a story that is different from what we already know, the case is all but closed."