Cold Wind (14 page)

“I can’t believe it,” Lucy said. “Did she stab him or poison him or what?”

“Neither,”
Marybeth said heatedly.

Joe thought it interesting Lucy made the leap from Earl’s death to how Missy would have likely chosen to kill him.

“He was shot,” Joe said. “Then hung from a windmill.”

“Eeew,” April said, making a face.

“This is like a joke,” Lucy said. “What will people say about her? What will people think about
us
?”

Exactly,
Joe thought.

April snorted and sat back in the couch, her arms still folded across her like an iron breastplate. “Well,” she said, “I guess maybe
I’m
not the only one in this
perfect
little family who makes
mistakes
.”

Marybeth recoiled, tears suddenly in her eyes. Joe reached out and pulled Marybeth to him and said to April, “I know you’re mad, but that wasn’t necessary.”

“But it’s true,” April said, narrowing her eyes, looking mean. “Maybe it’s time you people learned how to handle the truth.”

“Actually,” Joe said, “I think we’re pretty good at it.”

April rolled her eyes, suddenly bored.

“Meeting’s over,” Joe said. His tone was hard. And effective, since he rarely used it.

April sprang up and marched to her bedroom, smirking and satisfied with herself, but a quick look back at him indicated she thought she might have gone too far.

Lucy got up and walked behind her, slowly, and before she entered her room she said, “If anyone cares, I got the part.”

Joe felt as if he’d been punched. They hadn’t even thought to ask her about it. Marybeth pulled away from him and said to Lucy’s back, “I’m sorry, honey. I’ve had so much on my mind . . .”

They lay in bed awake,
neither speaking. Joe ran through the events of the day in his head, trying to make sense of them. Trying to come up with alternative scenarios to the one most compelling and obvious. Trying to figure out why an innocent woman would be on the telephone to Marcus Hand within minutes of hearing about the death of her husband.

And wondering who had tipped off the sheriff.

Marybeth no doubt had the same thoughts. But there was more. At one point she sighed and said to Joe, “I hope this doesn’t tear our family apart.”

“Missy?” Joe asked.

“Her, too,” Marybeth answered. Then, after a few moments: “I miss Sheridan. It doesn’t feel right to go through this with her gone. I want all my girls around me when something like this happens.”

“She’s not that far,” Joe said.

“Yes, Joe. She is.”

 

 

The phone rang
at two-thirty and Joe snatched it up. He was wide awake. Marybeth rolled to her side and arched her eyebrows in a “Who can that possibly be?” look.

“I can’t find the bourbon,” Marcus Hand boomed. “A bottle of twenty-year-old Blanton’s, to be precise. The best bourbon on the planet is what I’m talking about. I gifted one bottle to Earl and asked him to save the other for me when I visited again. I’ve turned this house upside down and I can’t find it. Where do you suppose he hid it?”

Joe said, “I don’t know. He’s dead.”

“I’ll find it before the night is over,” Hand said, as if he were talking to himself. Then: “The reason I called. I mean, the other reason. Tonight after consulting with my client, I met with the comely Miss Schalk to review the charges and get a lay of the land. Turns out the bulk of the case revolves around information passed to the sheriff from an informant intimately involved with the planning and execution of the crime.”

“I knew that,” Joe said, swinging his legs out from beneath the covers and sitting up. He could hear Hand rooting around in what sounded like pots and pans.

Hand said, “Apparently, he started talking to the sheriff a couple months ago, telling him this crime was going to happen. McLanahan is thickheaded, as we know, and sort of entertained the guy without ever believing him. Until this morning, when the guy called the sheriff at home and described the murder and the location of the body. And according to the fetching Miss Schalk, the informant is willing to testify against your mother-in-law.”

Hand spoke so loudly his voice carried throughout the bedroom from the phone.

Marybeth whispered, “What’s his name?”

“What’s his name?”

“Damn. I wrote it down.” More clanking and clanging. “Where did he hide my Blanton’s? Hiding a man’s bourbon. This alone would justify shooting him, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask,” Joe said, gripping the phone tight. “Can’t you remember his name?”

Hand sighed. “Bud something. Kind of a cowpoke name. Missy’s ex-husband.”

Marybeth heard and gasped.

“Bud Longbrake?” Joe said. “Bud is McLanahan’s informant?”

“Yeah, that’s the name.”

“I can’t believe it,” Joe said.

“Believe it. That’s the name. Of course, I know nothing of this man’s credibility. And the Longbrake name is well known here in Twelve Sleep County, so I should have recalled it right away.”

“Oh, my God,” Marybeth whispered.

“Missy divorced Bud and got his ranch in the settlement,” Joe said. “She’s had nothing to do with him for two years. She even got a restraining order on him so he wouldn’t try to contact her ever again. He’s spent the last two years inside a bottle.”

“Kind of where I’d like to be right now,” Hand said.

Joe said, “Bud has every reason in the world to frame her. She weaseled his third-generation ranch away from him by making him sign a pre-nup he never bothered to read because he was so madly in love. This might blow the case out of the water.”

“Maybe,” Hand said. “Maybe not. Bud the informant says she tried to get him to kill Earl for her. For a while, he claims he went along with it to draw her out.”

Joe shook his head, even though Hand couldn’t see him disagree. If that was the situation, there would be phone records tying Bud and Missy together. Maybe even taped calls if in fact Bud was working with the sheriff for a while beforehand.

“One more thing the lovely Miss Schalk said,” Hand continued. “She claims The Earl was about to file divorce papers of his own. Do you know anything about that?”

Joe was speechless.

Suddenly, Hand said, “Eureka! I have found it. The key to everything.”

“Which is?” Joe asked hesitantly.

“The Blanton’s. Earl hid it on the top shelf of his closet. Good night, Joe.”

They went over
what Hand had said even deeper into the night. Joe agreed with Marybeth that what had seemed fairly clear-cut just a few hours before—a boneheaded frame-up of Missy—was now even more complicated. On the one hand, there was motive if Hand was correct that Earl Alden had decided to leave. But if Missy believed that and wanted to kill Earl, why the elaborate staging? Why would she plot with Bud? Why would Bud trust her? And why would she leave the rifle in her car?

And if Bud Longbrake was the informant, why would he implicate himself as well as Missy? Did he want them both to go down together? Could he possibly be that vindictive? Or did he have a scheme going on the side?

Marybeth said, “Joe, I don’t feel I can trust Marcus Hand completely to exonerate her.”

“Have you looked at his track record?”

“I know all about it. But Missy isn’t well liked and the jury will be local. Bringing him in could backfire for her. He has a reputation for slickness and jury manipulation. Didn’t he even write a book about it?”

Joe said he had. It was called
The Eight Percent Rule: A Top Attorney’s Foolproof Method for Defending Your Client
. Hand’s strategy was to identify at least one juror of the twelve who was most susceptible to partnering up with him and who would to stick it to the system by holding out and refusing to go along with a guilty verdict. Joe had tossed the book aside in disgust.

“And I sure don’t trust McLanahan and his crew,” Marybeth continued. “He’s got everything riding on a guilty verdict. He’s put it all out there for everyone to see. If she goes to prison, he wins. If she gets off, he loses. Not only the case but probably the election as well.”

Joe nodded. “What about Dulcie Schalk?”

“She’s smart and tough,” Marybeth said, “but she’s never gone up against somebody like Marcus Hand. She’s kind of a control freak, as we know. She wants everything in perfect order to proceed. Marcus Hand will make it his mission to throw her off.”

Joe shook his head, confused. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“No.”

“I don’t get it, then.”

“Joe,” she said, setting her jaw, “I don’t want her found innocent because Marcus Hand ran rings around Dulcie in court. I want her found innocent because
she didn’t do it
. Don’t you understand? I don’t want this hanging over the heads of our girls. I don’t want it hanging over
my
head.”

“Mmmm.”

“Tell me you understand, Joe.”

He let a long stream of air out. “I understand what you’re saying.”

“Good. Then you have to do what you can to find out what happened. Who did it, and why. The sheriff and Dulcie have tunnel vision. Everything they’re doing is based on Missy’s involvement. They’re not even considering other factors, I’m sure. Joe, you’re the only person I absolutely trust to keep an open mind.”

He moaned. “I’m a game warden, honey. I’m not the governor’s point man anymore. He wants nothing to do with me. After what happened in the Sierra Madre, I made a promise to myself to just do my job as well as I can. No more freelancing.”

A smile formed on her lips and her eyes sparkled in the moonlight from the window. She knew him better than he did, sometimes.

“Okay,” he said. “In the midst of my day-to-day activities, I’ll find out what I can and push it. I’ll do what I do best—blunder around until something hits me in the head.”

She chuckled at that, then turned serious again. “Joe, what about getting some help?”

He looked away.

“Joe,” she said, putting her hand on his bare shoulder. “It’s been nearly a year. It’s time you called him again. You two have way too much invested to let it be destroyed.”

Joe said, “You know what happened.”

“I do. And I realize you two together are better than either one of you alone. I swear, you’re acting like a couple of schoolgirls. Neither one wants to make the first move to reconcile.”

“Men don’t reconcile,” he said. “We just pretend it never happened and move on.”

She kept looking into his eyes. She knew that would work.

“I don’t even know where he is,” Joe said, grumpy.

“You know where he
was
,” she said. “Maybe you can start there.”

He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. “If this was to get you out of jail, or save Sheridan or Lucy or April . . .”

“Joe, she’s my mother.”

“Boy, do I know
that
.”

She sat up in bed, excited. “We’ll work on separate tracks. I’ll use library resources to find out what I can about Earl that we obviously don’t know. Maybe I can get a lead on someone who wanted him dead in that particular way. It’s strange when I think about it: I met the man fifty times, but I know very little about him before he got here. He’s made a lot of money over the years. I bet he’s made enemies, too.”

“No doubt.”

“And you’ll do what you do,” she said.

“Blunder around until something hits me in the head,” Joe said sourly.

“A little more enthusiasm would be nice,” she said.

He tried to smile. “How about if we figure out who did it, but we keep quiet and she goes to prison? That way, you’ll know in your heart she’s innocent and you’ll be able to sleep at night—but she isn’t around here anymore to cause trouble. That way, everybody wins.”

“That’s not a good solution. At all.”

“Had to try,” Joe said, kissing her good night as the eastern sky began to blush with dawn.