Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(64)
“Did they leave you or did you leave them?”
“I left.”
“I see,” Missy said with approval. “At least you got that part right. But it’s easy for me to see that you’ve got trouble brewing with Tom.”
Candy nodded.
“Come on over here,” Missy said while slicing through the plastic on a package of angel hair pasta. “We’ll make a nice dinner together and drink more good wine and wait for Tom to get back with my package.”
“Make dinner together?” Candy asked.
“Sure. Since we’re both stuck here for a while, let’s make the best of it,” Missy said. Then: “I know about men like Tom. I know about men. They’re amazingly simple creatures and I fear you think they’re more complicated than they are. I could tell that when you asked him about his secrets, as if it were his duty to tell them to you.”
“You don’t understand,” Candy said.
“Oh, I understand,” Missy said, gesturing around the house with the point of her knife. “This is a wonderful house. Tom has built a lucrative practice with his legitimate work and his special job on the side taking care of people like me. And you’re just shuffling around here hoping he’ll take pity on you and include you in all that he has. This is what you don’t understand.”
Candy drained her wine. Her head was fuzzy. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Come on over,” Missy said. “Maybe you’ll learn something. God knows my daughter never did.”
NINETEEN
JOE AND MARYBETH DID SOMETHING THEY RARELY DID: they sat together in a bar, namely the Stockman’s, with its knotty-pine interior, black-and-white rodeo photos, and private high-backed booths. They were there for two reasons. The first was that it was the place defense attorney Kink Beran had said he’d meet them after his initial consultation with his new client, Nate Romanowski. The second was that with all of their daughters out of the house, it was something they could do again.
Joe ordered a draft beer and Marybeth a glass of red wine.
Joe had spent the afternoon after the press conference in the field, checking hunters for valid licenses and habitat stamps. It had been a good day for big mule deer bucks, and he inspected the camps of several groups of out-of-state hunters to make sure the carcasses were properly hung and cooled. He’d been offered beers and whiskey at a couple of the camps—hunters generally wanted to be on the good side of local game wardens—but he’d declined, as he always did. Joe did allow Daisy to gobble up some dog treats a Michigan hunter offered her, though.
He’d performed his duties by rote because he was distracted the entire time by the events of the morning. Joe didn’t like checking hunters and camps while distracted because he wanted to observe them in minute detail and pay close attention to what hunters did and said to him. If they were a little too accommodating, it might mean they were hiding something. If the hunters were surly, it might mean there was trouble in the camp that might result in later violence or they had an animus toward law enforcement in general.
After visiting the too-accommodating camps, Joe often left but parked somewhere where he could remain in visual range. On a few occasions, he’d observed the friendly sportsmen walk from their camp to where they had poached game animals hidden away in the trees. Or, in one instance, the summoning of a prostitute they’d picked up in Denver along the way.
With the surly camps, Joe noted the license plates on the vehicles and called them in to dispatch. This procedure sometimes revealed men who had outstanding warrants or were wanted in different states for nongame crimes.
But he’d detected neither circumstance on his afternoon patrol. The hunters he’d met were friendly but not too friendly, and they all seemed to be serious and ethical sportsmen.
Joe was grateful for that because he could barely concentrate on what he was doing.
Meanwhile, Marybeth had returned to work after the press conference to complete the last of her staff evaluations. She kept in communication with Liv and the defense attorney, and monitored social media to find out that Sheriff Brendan Kapelow and his statement to the press was trending everywhere.
*
JOE SAID TO Marybeth, “I figured out something today about our new sheriff.”
Marybeth raised her eyebrows to urge him on.
“He’s very ambitious,” Joe said. “He’s using Nate’s arrest to raise his profile in the state. I hadn’t seen that in him before and I hadn’t seen it coming. I knew there was something behind his odd demeanor and his need to control everything around him, but now I think I get it. Kapelow is using the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s office as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things.”
“That’s a very interesting observation,” Marybeth said.
“Think about it and tell me if you think I’m off base,” Joe said. “But I noticed how Kapelow orchestrated that perp walk of Nate and how he organized the press conference in record time. Those aren’t things that just come naturally to a new sheriff. That leads me to believe he’s been preparing for both of those events for quite a while and he was finally able to pull the trigger. None of this is about finding Sue’s killer—or about Nate. It’s about finally having a case sexy enough to get attention. It’s all about being seen as a crusading sheriff in the media.”