Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(36)

His mother-in-law was now independently wealthy because she’d sold the ranch that had been passed along to her and she could afford to pick up and travel the world whenever the mood struck her or the law closed in.

And now, Joe moaned to himself, she was back.

He slid the phone into his pocket and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he remembered why he was there.

*

JUDGE HEWITT SAT unshaven and disheveled in a hard-backed chair at the bedside of his wife, Sue, who was both unconscious and looked to be sprouting tubes and wires from her body beneath her sheet. Her head was turned to the side, facing the judge, but her face was obscured by a cloudy oxygen mask. A bank of monitors blinked and clicked behind her headboard.

Hewitt’s eyes were red-rimmed when they rose to meet Joe’s.

“What now?” he asked sharply. “First that idiot Kapelow and now you.”

Joe removed his hat and nodded. Although Judge Hewitt’s greeting had been less than friendly, Joe chalked at least some of it up to the judge being viewed in a very vulnerable and intimate state. Judge Hewitt was used to looking down on others from his bench while wearing a black robe that served as a kind of force field. Now here he was in rumpled clothing grasping the hand of his wife who couldn’t squeeze back. Joe felt for him.

“How is she doing?” he asked softly.

Hewitt started to speak, then caught himself and looked away. Sue was obviously not improving, but he couldn’t come up with the words without breaking down.

“She’s opened her eyes and looked at me a couple of times,” Hewitt said. “I thought she was here with me and I started to talk to her. Then she slipped away. I can’t say for certain she even heard what I said.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “We’ll pray for her.”

“Do that,” Hewitt said. “I’m doing all I can. I’ve threatened to cite Him for contempt if He doesn’t bring her back to me.”

His attempt at dark humor—and the reminder that he was still a judge—made Joe wince.

“This is a terrible thing,” Hewitt said while stroking Sue’s hand. “I can’t help but think how much I wasn’t there for her over the years. I was selfish—either on the bench or chasing after trophies all over the world. She had to resent it, but she rarely complained. It must have been very lonely for her.

“Now this has happened. I’ve sworn to God that if she makes it through, I’ll change. I’ll be different. I’ll listen to her when she yammers on and I’ll be there for her the way she’s been there for me. I swear it.”

Joe was taken aback. Judge Hewitt had never spoken to him with such intimacy or regret before.

“She always wanted to go on a European trip,” Hewitt said. “I told her we would—someday. But I used my time off for me—always thinking we’d go later after I retired. Now . . . Now I realize that time may never come.”

His eyes filled with tears and Joe had to steel himself not to look away.

“If she gets through this, we’re going to Europe, which I hate. They’re so smug over there that they don’t know their time is up. But I can put those feelings aside for a few weeks for Sue. And I hope I have the opportunity to do just that.”

“I can’t imagine how you feel,” Joe said.

“I have a long bucket list of species I have always intended to kill,” Hewitt said. “I’m about seventy-five percent through the list. But those remaining creatures mean nothing to me at this moment. Right now, I want just two things.”

He turned to Sue as if she could hear him. He said, “I want you to get through this.”

Then he turned to Joe. “And I want retribution for what happened to her.”

Joe gulped.

Hewitt gently lay Sue’s hand down on the mattress and released it, then he turned and grasped a sheaf of papers from a bedside table and shook them at Joe.

“This is what Kapelow brought me,” he said angrily. “Newspaper stories from around the country where people were struck by stray rounds fired from miles away. He thinks this proves something in Sue’s case. He’s a mental midget like I’ve rarely encountered. The only people worse are the moron voters of Twelve Sleep County who elected him sheriff.”

Joe didn’t want to remind Hewitt that those same morons had elected the judge time and time again.

Hewitt said, “I reiterated to him that every hour that goes by without real progress in the case is an hour lost that we’ll never get back, and he’s spending his time printing off garbage stories and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

“It’s really very simple. So simple even an idiot can get it. Someone tried to kill me and they hit my wife. Why is that such a difficult thing for the sheriff to grasp?” Hewitt asked Joe.

“There’s some news on that front,” Joe said.

As he detailed his trip up the hill that morning, he showed Judge Hewitt the photos he’d taken on his phone. Hewitt grasped the significance instantly.

He said, “So we’re looking for a man of means with a motive to kill me who can afford a weapon like that—and his minion.”

Joe nodded, although he wasn’t ready to call the spotter a minion yet.

“That should narrow things down,” the judge said as he handed Joe’s phone back.