Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(12)

He was always fascinated to see his district from the air since he spent so much time driving and patrolling its back roads, but he wished there were some way he could get the same view without having to be inside a small plane or chopper. Flying terrified him, and it was hard to appreciate the view when he could barely breathe and his heart whumped in his chest.

For the first time, though, he spotted the green metal roof of his new game warden station tucked into a heavily wooded curve of the river. The Picketts had been in the home for less than a year, after his old station had burned to the ground. He was still getting used to it, but he liked the location and he loved being close enough to the river to keep his fly rod strung and ready near the front door.

The palette of fall colors near the river and the multicolored aspen groves in the folds of the mountains made it hard to pick out individual objects. The valley was drunk with color, and Joe had left his shades in his agency pickup in Jackson.

Which was a problem.

He was about to land at the Saddlestring Municipal Airport, but his truck was six hours and three hundred and fifty miles away in Jackson. This wasn’t very good planning, although it wasn’t unusual when it came to state government.

Joe looked up at his death grip on the overhead strap. He’d been clutching it since he’d lifted off, and his fingers were white with strain. Although the helicopter flight had been smooth and without incident and it was very unlikely that it would suddenly buck in the air and throw him outside through the window, letting go of the strap was something he refused to do.

His phone had a single bar of cell service as it neared Saddlestring and he quickly texted his wife, Marybeth.

Can you please pick me up at the airport? No truck. Long story.

*

JOE SAW HER driving to the small airport in her white Twelve Sleep County Library van just as the helicopter began to descend. It was the only vehicle on the road.

Touchdown was gentle, but Joe didn’t begin to relax until he could hear the rotors decelerate and he was convinced they were on solid ground on the tarmac.

The pilot, a navy vet from Riverton, turned in his seat and made a thumbs-up, indicating Joe could get out. Joe thanked him for the lift, opened the door, and clamped his hat tightly on his head.

He jogged toward the van in a hunched-over crouch well past the range of the rotor blades so there was absolutely no chance his head would be lopped off by them. He had the .308 in one hand and his shotgun in the other.

As he opened the van door and swung inside, he could hear the engine of the helicopter roar as it lifted off. The pilot planned to fly back to Jackson and resume the search for Jim Trenary. Joe had heard some back-and-forth between the pilot and Mike Martin. While they were in the air, Martin had reported that he thought they were getting close to the location of the grizzly attack.

“Good thing I just got out of a meeting when your text came through,” Marybeth said.

“Thank you.”

Marybeth was the director of the county library and Joe thought she looked sharp in her dark pantsuit, white blouse, and single strand of pearls. She looked and smelled much better than Mike Martin, Julius Talbot, or Peaches.

The van Marybeth had commandeered also served as the county bookmobile. Joe liked the musty smell of all the books on the shelves in the back.

“I heard about Sue Hewitt,” Marybeth said. “It’s just bizarre.”

Sue Hewitt was on Marybeth’s library foundation board and she was very involved in the community. Marybeth had once said that Sue’s generosity with her time and money was partly designed to offset the judge’s cranky reputation and disposition, and it had worked.

“Have you heard how she’s doing?” Joe asked.

“Hanging by a thread,” Marybeth said. “They kept her here in the hospital because they were afraid to airlift her to Billings last night. Plus, Judge Hewitt wouldn’t let them.”

Joe grunted. He’d told Marybeth about the grizzly incident the night before because they talked every night on the phone when he wasn’t home, but at the time the news wasn’t out about the shooting.

“Does anyone know what happened?” he asked.

Because of her job and her local friends and connections, Marybeth always knew more about what was going on in the valley than Joe did. Since they now had an empty nest, she’d gotten even more involved with activities, fund-raisers, and charity work. Marybeth was plugged in.

She said, “Whoever did it wasn’t even close to their house at the time. As you know, the Hewitts live up at the club on the golf course. I’ve heard some people say they think it was a stray round that just happened to go through the window and hit Sue. That it was some kind of freak occurrence—or a drive-by shooting.”

Joe was puzzled. “How can there be a drive-by when there isn’t a road?”

The Hewitt home backed up to the eighteen-hole course. There was no road behind them for a long distance, although golf carts likely drove by in the summer when the course was open.

The judge and his wife were rare local members of the Eagle Mountain Club, an old but still very exclusive members-only resort on the eastern flank of the valley. It offered lodging, dining, fishing, and golf primarily. Since most of the members were from out of state, the club was practically vacant in the fall and winter, except for the few members who lived there for the entire year like the Hewitts.

If it was indeed a drive-by shooting, Joe thought, the shooter must have been somewhere on the golf course itself—which was closed. Meaning someone had sneaked onto the property with a weapon and a target in mind. But sneaking onto the Eagle Mountain Club wasn’t easy to do. It was surrounded by a high perimeter fence on all sides and the only access was through a gate at the front entrance that required a code or key-card entry. The gatehouse was usually staffed with a guard, who knew each guest by sight. There were cameras and sensors hidden around the exterior fence as well. Anyone who parked outside the club would have left their vehicle on the side of the road near the fence, where it could easily be seen by passersby.