Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(35)

After reading off the numbers he signed off and called Deputy Steck.

“I’m trying to find the sheriff,” he explained.

Steck said Kapelow had left the Hewitt home to meet with Judge Hewitt at the hospital and brief him on their progress thus far.

“What progress?” Joe asked.

Steck sighed, then proceeded with a faux reverence for Kapelow that Joe picked up right away. “My boss has a theory now that we’ve gone over the entire golf course inch by inch and found nothing. He thinks the bullet that hit Miz Sue was a stray round. ‘A million-to-one coincidence with a tragic ending,’ as he put it. He spent twenty minutes on the internet this morning googling ‘victim struck by stray bullet,’ and he announced that he got over a million hits. He printed off a few of the articles to take to the judge to show him how often it happens.”

“Seriously?”

“I was there. I watched him at the computer,” Steck said. “Most of the news stories were about urban drive-bys, but the boss found a couple where a stray bullet came from nowhere and hit somebody.”

Joe didn’t know how to respond.

“Are you sure the Game and Fish Department isn’t hiring?” Steck asked.

“Sorry.”

“But you’ll let me know if an opening comes up, right? Before you tell Justin?”

“Sure,” Joe sighed.

“Because if I stay in this loony bin much longer, I’m gonna eat my gun.”

“Don’t do it,” Joe said. “We need you around.”

“Sheriff Kapelow doesn’t,” Steck groused.

Joe told Steck about finding the location where the shot had been fired.

After a long pause, Steck asked, “How far away was it?”

“At least sixteen hundred yards.”

“Jesus. Who are we dealing with here?”

Joe looked up to see that Nate was following the conversation. His friend rolled his eyes, as if confirming that his long-standing opinion of law enforcement bureaucracies was once again being confirmed.

“We’re looking for a shooter and a spotter,” Joe said. “Two suspects, not one.”

“Oh, man. Who’s going to tell the judge?”

“I will,” Joe said. “I’m headed to the hospital as soon as I get off this hill.”

“I’d like to see the sheriff’s face when you tell him,” Steck said with a chuckle.





TEN


But the sheriff was not at the Twelve Sleep County Hospital when Joe arrived after dropping Nate at his van. There were a half-dozen cars in the parking lot, but no departmental SUV.

Kapelow had been there, though. Joe noted his name just before his own on the visitor registry. He’d missed him by five minutes.

As he walked down the hallway to the small ICU, Joe checked his phone to see if Kapelow had called him back. There was a “Call me when you can” message from Marybeth, but nothing from the sheriff.

He paused outside a door with the name Hewitt written on a whiteboard and speed-dialed Marybeth at the library.

She said, “Given what’s going on right now, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen?”

“Did someone take a shot at you?”

“Worse than that,” Marybeth said. “My mother is waiting for me at our house.”

Joe felt a wave of revulsion and fear wash over him.

“Missy is here? Why?”

He knew it sounded like a plea to the heavens.

“I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

“I thought she was still traveling the world.”

“So did I,” Marybeth said. “But apparently she’s back.”

“You’re right,” Joe said. “That is the worst thing I can think of. But her timing is still true to form.”

“It’s one of her special gifts,” Marybeth said with a bitter sigh. “I’ll head out there and see what she wants. Maybe I can convince her to leave before you get home.”

“That would be nice.”

Missy Vankueren Hand had been married six times, most recently to the infamous defense attorney Marcus Hand of Jackson Hole. Each husband—with the exception of Hand—had been wealthier and more influential than the previous one, a strategy she referred to as “trading up.” Hand was more of a lateral move because he’d served as her defense attorney when she’d feared prison for the murder of husband number five, wealthy rancher Earl Alden. Not only would Hand defend her, but as her spouse, he wouldn’t be forced to testify against her in court. So she solved two problems at the same time.

Missy had not only disapproved of her daughter’s wedding to Joe Pickett; she’d relentlessly tried to sabotage the marriage ever since. Joe thought of her as his nemesis and he still marveled at how Marybeth had turned out to be the opposite of everything her mother stood for. Although Missy had recently turned seventy—Joe was sure of that because they’d received a postcard from her from Venice where she’d written in a flowery scrawl that Seventy is the new forty— five—his mother-in-law had somehow maintained her tiny hourglass figure, heart-shaped porcelain face, and the ability to melt the hearts and morals of new wealthy husbands while simultaneously gutting the men she’d left behind.