Joe reached behind him without looking and closed the office door. It was now quiet in the room. He sat down at his desk.
“You called about a package today,” the woman said. “I saw it come in Tuesday and it went to Game Biology. Then it disappeared.”
“What do you mean it disappeared?” Joe asked.
“It disappeared.”
Joe thought about it, saying nothing. The woman again said that it had disappeared. She clipped her words, and he could sense the caution in her voice, as if someone might walk in on her any minute.
“Who are you?” Joe asked.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ve got two kids and a husband who’s out of work. I’m a state employee with benefits. I need this job.”
“I’ve got a couple of kids, too,” Joe said. “And another one on the way.”
“Then you had best just forget about that package,” the woman said sharply, not wanting to establish any kind of common interest. “Just forget about it and go on with your life.”
Joe frowned. It was the second time he had received that advice. While she talked, he slid open his desk drawer. The other envelope, the one with the last few pieces of scat, was still there.
She paused briefly, then continued. “Let me put it this way: anything you send us will get lost.”
“Why are you doing this?” Joe asked.
There was a hint of exasperation on the other end of the phone. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just felt that I had to. I have to go now.”
“Thank you,” Joe said but she had already hung up.
Joe thought about what to do. Still holding the receiver, he sifted through his desk until he found his old address book and then dialed his friend Dave Avery. Joe and Dave had gone to college together and Dave now worked as a game biologist for the Montana Fish and Game Department in Helena. After they had caught up (Dave had divorced but was engaged again), Joe asked him if he could send him a sample for an independent analysis.
“Where was it found?”
“My backyard.”
“And my Wyoming colleagues can’t decide what squeezed it out?”
“There’s some dispute,” Joe hedged. He didn’t want to go into the story of the lost sample. There wasn’t any need to.
“Sound’s like you’re challenging me,” Dave said. “Name That Shit.”
“I am,” Joe said, forcing a laugh. Dave agreed to take a look at it, whatever it was, and to keep both the sample and the results in confidence.
Joe sat back in his swivel chair. He thought about what the woman at the lab had told him. He wondered how he could go about finding out who she was and if he even should. He believed she had told him the truth about the missing sample. He wished she hadn’t, because things had suddenly become a lot more complicated.
16
The tires of Joe Pickett’s pickup made a sizzling sound as he drove through the wet streets of Saddlestring to the county sheriff’s office. It was still raining, and there were very few people out on the streets. Those who were out were scurrying from one door to another holding their hands on top of their heads. Joe thought how strange it was that the rain had continued throughout the day. Rain was a rarity this time of year; in fact, it was a rarity, period. Wyomingites, Joe had observed, didn’t know what to do when it rained except get out of it, watch it through the window, and wait for it to go away. The same people who chained up all four tires and drove through horizontal snowstorms and bucked snowdrifts just to go have lunch in town during the winter had no clue what to do when it rained. A few ranchers stretched plastic covers, sometimes referred to as “cowboy condoms,” over their John B. Stetsons but few people owned umbrellas. Fewer yet would let themselves be seen with an umbrella open because it would appear urban and pretentious, and the only rain slickers he ever saw were rolled up neatly and tied to the backs of saddles, where they generally remained. But Joe liked rain and wished there were more of it.
Vern had been right. Saddlestring was dying. A decade ago the coal mines in the county were operational and the Twelve Sleep Oil Field was pumping, but now both were silent. Only a reclamation crew still worked at the mine, and the oil wells had since been capped, waiting in vain for the price of a barrel of oil to rise. Even the agricultural jobs had shrunk as out-of-state wealth bought local ranches for tax write-offs and in some cases took them out of production. Cattle prices were the lowest in a decade. A quarter of the storefronts on the main street were boarded up. In the past five years, the population of the town had decreased by 30 percent. Houses were available in all parts of town, and the prices were cheap. Saddlestring’s one radio station had announced it was going off the air as of the first of next month. Unemployment was high and getting higher. Vern’s pipeline would pump not only natural gas but new blood and dollars back into the community.
Saddlestring was a classic western town borne of promise due to its location on the railroad, but that promise never really played out. In the 1880s, a magnificent hotel was built by a mining magnate, but it had faded into disrepair. The main street, called Main Street, snaked north and south and had a total of four stoplights that had never been synchronized. The two-block “downtown” still retained the snooty air of Victorian storefronts designed to be the keystones of a fine city, but beyond those buildings, the rest of Main Street looked like any other American strip mall, punctuated by gun shops, sporting goods stores, fishing stores, bars, and restaurants that served steak.
Joe entered the sheriff’s office and hung his jacket and hat on a rack.
“Still raining?” asked Deputy McLanahan from his desk behind the counter. Joe said it was and asked if Sheriff Barnum was available. Wendy, the receptionist/dispatcher, eyed Joe coldly, long enough to remind him that she still didn’t like him after their telephone conversation on Sunday. But then she relented and buzzed Barnum on the intercom, saying “Game Warden Joe” was here to see him.
Sheriff Bud Barnum sat behind a desk stacked with mountains of paper and mail. He was sipping from a large white foam cup that he appeared never to put down. Although Barnum’s office was good sized, there were stacks of magazines and documents everywhere, and the untidiness of it gave Joe a claustrophobic feeling. There was a single, brown Naugahyde chair across from Barnum’s desk, and Joe moved a few pieces of unopened mail from it and sat down.
Barnum sipped loudly from his cup. Joe could smell the strong coffee.
“You ever been to that new coffee place down the block?” Barnum asked. Joe nodded that he had. Marybeth liked to meet him there for coffee and oversized muffins when he took a morning break.
“It’s a pretty good place,” Barnum said quietly. “The people who own it are a little goofy, though. It’s kind of a hippie establishment. They moved here from California, and she doesn’t wear makeup or shave her legs, which I don’t understand the significance of. He was some kind of computer engineer before he sold his stock and moved out here. All their food is vegetarian.”
To Joe, Barnum looked very tired. His pallor was grayish, and there were bags under his eyes.
“They’ve got all these different kinds of coffee these days,” Barnum said, looking at the big foam cup. “This is Ethiopian Jaba-Java. All my life I thought there was only one kind of coffee and that it came out of a big red can with a little Mexican or Colombian farmer on it. Then all of the sudden there are a hundred kinds of coffee. They feature a new kind of special coffee every day in that place. I’ve been trying a different one every day to try and make up for all of those years I was sheltered. I don’t know why it is that alcohol and tobacco are now bad, but jolts of caffeine are suddenly good. It is beyond me, and it makes me feel old.”
He handed Joe the cup for Joe to try it. To be polite, Joe had a sip. Barnum had a disarming and likable way about him.
Joe nodded.
“Pretty good, eh?” Barnum said. “Who’d a thought there could be coffee from Africa? Plain old American coffee just isn’t good enough for us anymor
e, I guess.”
Joe felt awkward. Then he came right out with it: “Can I ask you a question about the outfitter murders?”
“Pertaining to what?” Barnum asked, sitting a little straighter in his chair, his heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Joe.
Joe started to answer, but Barnum spoke again.
“First I need to know whose camp you’re in,” Barnum said.
“Whose camp?”
“Wacey Hedeman’s or mine,” Barnum said. “The guy who is running against me. Your pal.”
“I’m neutral,” Joe said truthfully. “I don’t have a position on that.”
Barnum’s expression never changed. Joe had no idea what Barnum was thinking. It was unnerving.
“Stay that way,” Barnum warned.
“I intend to,” Joe replied.
“I’m going to lose the election,” Barnum said flatly. “I’ve been around long enough to know this is the last one, even if no one else realizes it.”
Joe had no idea how to answer that. He couldn’t imagine Bud Barnum not being the sheriff of Twelve Sleep County. Clearly, Barnum couldn’t either.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do after that,” Barnum said. “Maybe the governor will give me a job, but then I’d have to move to Cheyenne. Probably I’ll just stay here and drink a lot of coffee.”
Joe lamely suggested that there was still a month and a half until the election and that anything could happen in that time. Barnum nodded wearily.
“You had a question.”
“I’m wondering what the status of the investigation is.”
“The status of the investigation,” Barnum mimicked, his expression theatrically perplexed, “is obvious. The state crime-lab ballistics has proven that all three Mississippi yahoos were shot with the same nine millimeter semiautomatic pistol at close range, and that pistol was found on Mr. Clyde Lidgard by Deputy McLanahan and yourself and Mr. Hedeman. Lidgard is in critical condition in the Billings hospital, having never regained consciousness, and the doctors up there say every day that he won’t live through the night but he has so far. Unless Mr. Lidgard regains consciousness and tells us a story that is different from what we already know, the case is all but closed.”
Joe waited for more. No more was coming.
“So when Clyde Lidgard dies, the investigation ends,” Joe said.
“Unless there is some kind of new evidence to open it back up,” Barnum said. “Simple as that.”
Joe nodded. “His trailer was searched?”
Barnum’s tone was mildly sarcastic. “It was searched both by the sheriff’s office and by the state boys. Nothing could be found that either implicated or exonerated Lidgard. The report is in the file if you want to read it over. Lidgard was a strange bird, and his trailer was a strange place. He liked to take a lot of pictures with his Kodak Instamatic. There are thousands of photos out there. He also liked to collect pictures of Marilyn Monroe, including that first-ever Playboy magazine with her in it. That magazine’s probably the only thing Clyde owned that was worth anything. If that magazine is still out there, it will amaze me because more than likely it ended up in the briefcase of one of the state investigators. But aside from the magazine, everything that was in the trailer is still in the trailer, and the unit has been sealed and locked.”
Joe took it all in and waited for Barnum to finish.
“Do you mind if I take a look on my own?” Joe asked.
Barnum again resumed the perplexed look. Then he smiled slightly as if Joe amused him. “You going to do some investigating?”
“Just curious.”
“Can I ask why?” Barnum said, his eyebrows arching.
Joe shrugged. “I guess I’m taking this whole thing a little personal because Ote Keeley died in my yard. This whole thing has affected my family.”
“What’s there to solve?” Barnum asked. “In my twenty-odd years of experience dealing with things like this, I’ve come to the painful and sometimes unpopular conclusion that many times things are exactly what they seem to be.”
“Maybe so,” Joe said. “But I need to convince myself.”
The sheriff studied Joe for what seemed an inordinate amount of time. “Go do what you need to do,” Barnum finally said. “Lidgard’s trailer keys are in the file. Just don’t take or disturb any of the evidence, because we might find a next of kin who wants some of that crap out there.”
Joe thanked him and stood up.
“Joe,” Barnum said, as Joe reached for the doorknob, “shouldn’t you be out there in the woods catching poachers or counting gut piles or whatever it is you boys do?”
That stopped Joe and turned him around.
“Yes, I should be,” Joe said quietly. He did not say what he was thinking, which was, Shouldn’t you be out there following up every last possibility instead of sitting here on your butt, drinking coffee and worrying about the election?
Joe got a copy of the crime report and the trailer keys from Deputy McLanahan.
“Depressing, ain’t he?” McLanahan asked Joe. “This is a really fun place to work these days. When I try and make a joke or even smile about something, he tells me to quit trying to act like Jerry Lewis.”
Joe nodded and got his jacket and hat.
“Jerry Lewis,” McLanahan echoed as Joe stepped outside. It was still raining.
Written with a felt-tipped marker, the cardboard sign on Clyde Lidgard’s trailer read: Anyone caught vandalizing or attempting to enter these premises will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by order of the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department.
The rain had caused the letters on the sign to blot and run, and there were several long rivulets of black running the length of the door.
It was dark inside the trailer, the heavy rain only allowing a meager amount of light to filter in through the grimy louvered windows. Joe searched for the light switch but discovered that the electricity had been cut off. It smelled musty, and there was the sharp stench of rotting food from the refrigerator and garbage. He decided to check them last, on his way out, because he guessed that the smell would be overpowering once he opened the doors. Joe drew his flashlight from his belt and turned it on. He felt wary and voyeuristic standing in the middle of the dead man’s home. The investigations Joe conducted were usually done outside, more often than not over the carcass of a game animal shot and abandoned. In the trailer, Joe felt closed-in. He believed that he didn’t know Clyde Lidgard well enough to be in his home. Plus he had no idea what he was looking for in the trailer.
The trailer was small and filthy, years of grit coating the floors and counters. He stood near the kitchen table in the middle of the trailer, trying to decide where to look first. He shone his flashlight around the room, exposing a hallway that branched off of the room he was standing in. All the doors were wide open, the result, Joe guessed, of the sheriff ’s search. At the end of the hall, Joe could just make out the foot of a bed in a large bedroom. There were two rooms off of the hallway. One led to a tiny bathroom and the other to a small room that appeared to have been used for storage.
Joe started down the narrow hallway, and his holster caught on an exposed nail. He stepped back and unbuckled his cumbersome belt and put the holster on the table. He kept his flashlight.
Joe stepped inside the bathroom. Old Marilyn Monroe pictures, puckered from steam, covered the walls and ceiling. The staples that secured the pictures were rusty. Shelves against the corner were filled with dozens of brown, prescription drug bottles. Most of the bottles were dusty and hadn’t been used in some time. Joe read the labels and saw most had been prescribed by doctors at the local VA hospital. The most recent had been filled by Barrett’s Pharmacy in Saddlestring. Joe recognized the names Thorazine and Prozac but knew little about either drug.
The small bedroom was filled with boxes, clothes, and junk. So much had been haphazardly piled into the room for so long that the room couldn’t really be entered without taking boxes out. Joe shone the f
lashlight into several of the closest boxes and found them filled with envelopes of photographs. As Sheriff Barnum had said, there appeared to be thousands.
Joe then entered Lidgard’s bedroom and found that the twin bed nearly filled all of the floor space. Joe had to turn sidewise and shuffle around the bed to look around. There were a couple of yellowed posters of Marilyn Monroe stapled to the wall along with an army photo of a younger Clyde Lidgard and a calendar from Lane’s Feed and Grain in Saddlestring. The sheets on the bed were not beige as he had first thought, but were white sheets so dirty they appeared beige. There was a stale smell in the room.
Joe slid back the closet doors. Lidgard had a surprising quantity of clothing—they completely filled the closet rack—but none of them looked to have been worn for years. Dust covered the shoulders of the shirts and jackets. On the shelf above the clothes, Joe saw a dozen boxes for .30-.30 rifle cartridges. The price tags on the boxes ranged from $8.50 to $18.00, indicating they had been purchased over at least 20 years. Joe reached up to find that the older boxes were empty but for whatever reason Lidgard had chosen to keep them. Judging by the photographs, junk, pill bottles, and cartridge boxes, Lidgard had been an obsessive collector of things. Joe stood on the end of the bed to make sure he had seen everything on the shelf. The heavy coat of dust was tracked with recent finger smudges, and Joe assumed they had been left by the other investigators. But Joe didn’t see what he looking for.
Joe closed the closet and drew a small notepad from his shirt pocket.
“Lidgard’s trailer,” Joe wrote. “No nine millimeter cartridges.”
It took Joe several trips to bring out all of the boxes of photographs from the junk room to the kitchen table where the light was better. It appeared that the thick envelopes full of photos were not really arranged in any manner. But in general, the top envelopes contained more recent photos than those at the bottom of the boxes.
Joe took out the newer sets of photographs, looked at them, and was careful to return them into the proper envelopes. The most recent photos had been developed at Barrett’s Pharmacy, the same place Lidgard filled his prescriptions.