Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(68)

Joe nodded that it did and said, “Not to mention that somebody took a shot at you as well.”

“That, too,” Patterson said, almost as an afterthought. Joe found that an unusual response. Barely avoiding a bullet in the face would deeply affect most people, Joe thought. Including himself.

“Maybe you ought to go home,” Joe said. “It’s been a rough day.”

“Why?” Patterson asked.

Unlike Joe, Patterson didn’t have anyone to go home to. Joe had been to his apartment over the hardware store on Main Street just once, to watch a Wyoming Cowboys football game. The Cowboys had lost, and Joe had found himself looking at the walls within the apartment. There was nothing on them except a few old posters that had probably been in Patterson’s college dorm room. That was one reason, Joe always assumed, that the man spent so much time at the office. The courthouse was his home, in a way, whether he was the public defender or now the prosecutor. This was Patterson’s world, and it had been violently disrupted.

“He actually broke down and cried,” Patterson said.

“Judge Hewitt?”

Patterson nodded. “He put his head on my shoulder and cried.” As he said it, Patterson reached up and touched his collar with the tips of his fingers, as if feeling for dried tears.

“This may not be a good time,” Joe said, “but I’m following a lead that may exonerate my friend Nate.”

Patterson reacted with alarm, but that was replaced quickly with a dispassionate professionalism. “What kind of lead?”

“Nate didn’t do this,” Joe said. “I’m starting from that premise. So who did?”

“Don’t let your loyalty blind you,” Patterson cautioned.

“I’m not. I’m just here to let you know that as far as I’m concerned, the investigation isn’t over.”

“Do you want to clue me in on where you’re headed?”

“Not yet,” Joe said, “but I’ll keep you apprised. I want to keep this on the up-and-up. It’s not right to brief the prosecutor on my suspicions without facts backing them up.”

“Dudley Do-Right until the end,” Patterson said. “You do know that I have to prosecute this case, don’t you?”

“I know you have to do your job,” Joe said. “That’s why I’m telling you this in confidence. I don’t plan to tell the sheriff until I have to.”

“Wise decision,” Patterson said.

“And I don’t want to bother the judge right now.”

“Good, because he’s a mess.”

“But if I find solid evidence of Nate’s innocence, I’ll turn it over to you and Nate’s lawyer,” Joe said. “You’ll have to make the call then if you want to continue.”

“I’ll make that call if I have to.”

Joe held out his hand because he didn’t know what else to do. When Patterson grasped it, Joe said, “I know this has been tough. Get some rest.”

“I will.”

“Go home. Have a drink.”

“Maybe I will.”

As Joe stood up and put on his hat, Patterson asked, “Who knows about this?”

Joe said, “Nobody.” He chose to keep Marybeth out of it.

Patterson nodded.

“I’ll be in touch,” Joe said.

He avoided the sheriff’s department on his way out and he used a utility door to exit the building. Sheriff Kapelow’s unit was still in the lot, parked in its designated space right up front.





TWENTY


LESS THAN FIFTY FEET FROM WHERE JOE LEFT THE COUNTY building, in a small room built of lime-green-painted cinder blocks and a stained tile ceiling, Nate met his defense lawyer for the first time.

Nate sat at a scarred table with shackles on his ankles and handcuffs on his wrists. He wore an oversized orange one-piece coverall with tscj—Twelve Sleep County Jail—stenciled across the shoulders. They’d taken his boots and given him a fifteen-year-old pair of cracked Crocs for his feet.

After Nate heard a key in the lock of the interrogation room door, the lawyer blew into the room and extended his hand. The man was tall and sandy-haired with a ruddy complexion and wide-spaced eyes. He wore an open sports jacket and a string tie over jeans and pointy-toe cowboy boots. His demeanor was rushed but friendly and there was no doubt he commanded the room.

“Kink Beran,” the lawyer said to Nate. “I drove a long way to meet you and now we’re going to set about getting you out of here and getting the charges dropped.”

Nate tried to raise his hand, but a chain tethered at his ankles to his cuffs prevented it. Beran wheeled on the heels of his caiman cowboy boots and erupted at Deputy Woods, who was in the process of closing the door.

“Unlock my client this instant,” he bellowed. His tone was high and grating like a chain saw. “This fucking instant.”

Woods was taken aback. “I’m not sure I can—”

“You can, oh you can,” Beran said. “In fact, if you don’t produce the keys, I’m bringing proceedings against you and everybody else in this department. I need to consult with my client and you have him bound up like he’s Charles Manson.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Woods said, cowed. He backed away and closed the door.