Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(48)

Joe’s list of suspects was all but cleared. That meant the shooters had a motivation that wasn’t likely related to Game and Fish violations, he thought. Because Duane Patterson had been targeted as well, Joe theorized the assailants likely came from a pool of individuals who had been involved with both Patterson as a public defender and later prosecutor and Hewitt as the presiding judge. The combination of the two of them could include scores of cases over the years, Joe guessed.

He’d need to talk to the judge again. Patterson and Hewitt needed to get together and come up with a list of suspects they both knew and had interacted with in some way. Perhaps, Joe thought, the shooters were in plain sight.

Just then, a text message from Marybeth appeared on the screen of his phone.

Where are you?

It was accompanied by an emoji with steam coming out of its ears.

Joe typed back: On my way. He didn’t do emojis.

To Daisy, he said, “Why couldn’t you be the kind of dog that bit people if they came to our house?”

Daisy sighed and closed her eyes.





FOURTEEN


CANDY CROSWELL GLIDED THROUGH THE BIG HOUSE WITH a glass of wine in her hand and the playlist she’d titled Chillax, for chilling and relaxing, on the internal sound system. She played it loud—Sade, Jai Wolf, Chet Porter, Nujabes, J Dilla—and she swayed to the rhythms and caught glimpses of her reflection in mirrors and glass-covered bookshelves as she did so. She looked happy, she thought, and she was. The tunes coursing through the home gave it an aura of high-tech élan, and Candy reveled in it. Tom had once surprised her when he arrived home unexpectedly while she was dancing alone to Chillax and he’d been delighted with her tasteful and obscure taste in music, he’d said. So cool, he’d said.

Honestly, she hadn’t curated or assembled the playlist herself, although Tom didn’t know that. She wasn’t that sophisticated, and she’d taken herself out of years of hot-take pop culture by diverting to North Dakota and Alaska for all of those years. Candy had downloaded the playlist to her phone from a yoga instructor who’d taught at the resort in Whitefish where she’d met Tom. Candy was unfamiliar with most of the music and nearly all of the artists, but she was trying hard to appreciate and understand the tunes. It was fun playing the role of the cool girl, and the wine helped.

One would think, Candy mused, that being alone in a big house day after day would be boring. And it was, at times. But Candy knew boring. Boring was a double-wide trailer in Williston or a one-room log cabin in Alaska.

*

AS SHE REFILLED her glass and before she set out on a second hip-swaying tour of the residence, she recalled the odd conversation she’d had with Tom before he’d gone to work an hour and a half before. He’d been at the breakfast bar filling a thermos with the strong coffee that he always took with him to keep him alert during his shift.

She had said, “You know, I noticed you had your target rifle in your pickup this morning.”

“I didn’t know you spied on me,” he had said coldly.

His reaction surprised her. She hadn’t seen that look in his eyes before: a startled mixture of anger and panic. He was instantly very tense.

“I wasn’t spying, Tom,” she said with a warm grin designed to defuse the situation. “I was going out to the studio to work out. Your equipment was in the back of your truck in plain sight.”

“What about it?” he asked.

“Don’t get so defensive, honey,” she cooed. “I wasn’t giving you a hard time about anything. I just wanted to say, for the record, that I’d love to go shooting with you sometime. I got to be a pretty good shot up in Alaska. I might surprise you.”

His expression softened considerably as she talked. She noticed that his shoulders relaxed.

“Really,” she said. “It might be fun.”

Then he had grinned. “You continue to surprise me,” he said.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s good,” he said. “It’s just hard to picture you with a high-powered rifle in your hands. But I kind of like the idea. You’d look pretty hot.”

She laughed and batted her eyes at him in a theatrical way.

He said, “Maybe tonight you could . . .” And he didn’t finish his sentence. She could tell he wanted to ask her to do some play-acting, something he’d asked her to do before, although he’d seemed ashamed of it at the time. Candy had obliged. Once, she’d dressed up as a French maid. Another time it was a candy striper. Both outfits had really revved him up.

“I could, what?” she asked.

Tom shot out his sleeve and checked his watch. He said, “I’ve got to get going. Maybe I’ll text you while I’m on shift.”

“Do that,” she said, pretending she was eager to take up the challenge, which she wasn’t. “Just give me enough time to, you know, get ready.”

Costumes were hard to come by in Saddlestring. Her previous outfits had been cobbled together from items she found at the thrift store. The women clerks there didn’t make eye contact with her as she paid for them, which was a reminder that nothing was private in a small town. But dressing up as an armed temptress? That wasn’t a problem. Camo tube top, bikini bottom, knee-high hunting boots . . .

“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he carried his coffee away.