Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(84)

Woods shinnied along the side of his SUV and reached in through the open driver’s-side window for his PA microphone. After keying it, he said, “Dr. Arthur, this is Deputy Justin Woods of the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department. We have your house surrounded. There is no way out. I’m asking you to lay down any weapons you might have and step out through your front door with your hands on top of your head. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Joe peered around the back of the vehicle toward the house. He could see no movement inside.

Woods repeated his command. While he did, Joe saw Deputy Steck crabwalk toward the open garage. It was both a courageous and foolhardy action to take, Joe thought. He held his breath until he could see Steck enter the garage and sweep it with his rifle. Then Steck stood up, obviously relieved that there was no threat to him from inside.

Steck’s voice came over Woods’s handheld radio. “I’m inside the garage. Dr. Arthur’s pickup is gone and there’s a door into the house from here. I’ll go inside, but I want to make sure you can cover me. Tell the cops to make sure all of our team knows what I’m doing, so they don’t see movement inside and decide to shoot me.”

“We don’t want a friendly-fire incident,” Williamson said to no one in particular. He was simply repeating what Steck had said.

Williamson continued: “And we don’t want to shoot the doctor if we can help it, either. I was on the search committee for a new doc for the clinic. Believe me when I tell you how hard it is to convince one to move here. Dr. Arthur was the only doc who would agree to come.”

Joe and Woods simply stared at Williamson, and the chief seemed to realize he’d been thinking out loud. In his defense, he said, “It’s gonna be hard to convince a new doc to come here if he knows we shot the last one.”

“We hope to arrest him,” Woods said. “Not shoot him.”

“Either way, we’ll have to find a new doctor,” Williamson said.

“Then just tell your guys not to shoot Deputy Steck or the doctor unless he threatens anyone,” Woods said to the chief. Joe could tell he was trying to keep his irritation out of his voice.

Williamson told his men to sit tight until Steck was inside and he gave the all-clear.

“Hey,” Steck said through the radio, “there’s somebody in here. Oh, fuck—there’s a woman down in the garage.”

Joe looked to see Steck gesturing toward the bundle of clothing by the workbench.

“What’s her condition?” Woods asked Steck over the radio.

“She’s breathing. I don’t see any blood.”

It was at that moment that Joe recognized a vehicle parked in the shadow of a grove of aspens on the side of the house. He hadn’t seen it earlier because of the bright lights everywhere else.

County twenty-two plates. Missy’s Range Rover.

Was she the person in the garage? Was she inside? Was she dead? Had she been forced to accompany Arthur as he fled?

Joe fought an urge to be okay with any of those outcomes. And he felt guilty about it.

*

BUT IT WASN’T Missy bound in duct tape and barely conscious on the garage floor. In a heavily slurred voice, she said her name was Candy Croswell.

Joe squatted down next to her as Steck cut through the tape on her wrists and ankles with a pocketknife. Woods, Williamson, and the town cops had stormed inside and were sweeping the house room to room.

The tension of the situation had largely lifted and faded away now that it was obvious Arthur had fled the scene before they got there. The sudden release of tension often resulted in giddy behavior and dark humor in cops on the scene, Joe knew. He felt it himself.

“Tom is gone,” Croswell said while her eyes filled with tears. “He left me. The cheating son of a bitch left me.”

Steck asked her, “Tom is Dr. Arthur?”

“Yumm,” she said, nodding her head. She meant “Yes.”

“Did he drug you?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, but I was already drunk,” she said with no inflection.

“How long ago did he leave?”

“No idea. What time is it now?”

Joe looked at his watch. “It’s three-twenty.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t know when he left me here,” she said. “Not long ago, I think. The cheating son of a bitch chose his stupid rifle over me.”

Joe and Steck exchanged glances when she said it.

“Sounds like a bad country song,” Steck said. “?‘The cheating son of a bitch chose his rifle over me.’?”

Joe didn’t want to smile, but he did.

At that moment, the door to the house opened and one of the town cops said, “We’ve got another one inside. Another woman. This one’s much older.”

“I think I know who she is. Is she all right?” Joe asked. The answer would be important one way or the other.

“She’s a mean old bearcat,” the cop said. “She cursed me when I cut her loose and she ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She won’t come out.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Joe said wearily. To Steck, he said, “Better call the highway patrol and get an APB out on Arthur’s pickup before he gets too far.”