Breaking Point

36

Joe pushed through the double doors of the vestibule into the reception area of the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department and nodded a greeting to Wendy the dispatcher, who waved back. The walls inside were decorated with elk, deer, and antelope heads as well as mounted trophy trout that needed dusting.

“Mike in?” he asked.

“He’s in his office waiting for you,” she said. Then, looking him over: “It’s strange not to see you wearing your uniform.”

“Feels strange, too,” Joe said. He strode around the counter and saw Sheriff Reed wheel out of his office to greet him.

“He’s in there?” Joe asked, gesturing toward the closed door of the interrogation room.

“We’re watching him on the monitor,” Reed said. “He’s fidgety, to say the least.”

Reed backed his wheelchair into his office and Joe followed. Deputy Justin Woods, evidence tech Gary Norwood, and Dulcie looked up from where they sat on folding chairs in front of a television monitor. The black-and-white image was of Juan Julio Batista seated at a bare table. He was aware of the camera lens above him and glanced at it furtively.

Dulcie looked concerned. She was a famously by-the-book county attorney. Joe grinned at her in an effort to reassure her she’d have a clean prosecution, that not too many rules had been broken. That this might flirt with entrapment but not quite cross over the line.

He held up his digital recorder. “It was Blevins working with Batista.”

To Norwood, Joe said, “When you transcribe this, you’ll want to leave out the threats.”

Norwood smiled and Dulcie moaned.

“Don’t worry, Dulcie, you can lose the tape and the transcription later. You won’t even need it.”

Joe turned to the image of Batista. He looked small, pale, and nervous. There was an ugly red welt over his right eye.

As if reading his mind, Reed said with transparent insincerity, “He forgot to duck when we put him in the cruiser. He doesn’t like to be in handcuffs. Apparently, he still doesn’t think much of us small-town Barney Fifes.”

“Has he talked?”

“No,” Reed said. “And I don’t suspect he will for a while. That may change when he realizes he may not get out right away.”

Dulcie said with caution, “He refused to answer questions and he immediately demanded his lawyer so we backed off. From what I understand, his counsel is flying up from Denver as we speak.”

Joe said, “Good thing I don’t have to care about that kind of thing anymore.”

“Joe. .” she said, her voice trailing off.

“I promised you ten minutes with him if he showed up and no more,” Reed said to Joe. “So you better get in and get out. Be quick.”

Joe nodded. “Are you going to watch on the monitor?”

“Yes, and it’s being recorded,” Dulcie said, obviously uncomfortable with the arrangement. “So don’t. .”

But Joe had already turned and marched out of the office for the interrogation room.

Juan Julio Batista looked up at Joe like a trapped animal. His cuffed hands were on top of the table, his fingers interlaced. His eyes narrowed as Joe sat down across from him.

Batista said, “I’m not saying a word to anyone until my lawyer gets here. You have no right to question me any further. I know my rights.”

Joe shrugged. “I’m not a cop. Those rules don’t apply to me. I resigned, remember?”

“Then why are you here?”

Joe said, “I’ve found it’s more efficient to do some things when you don’t have a badge.”

Batista looked puzzled.

Joe plucked the recorder out of his pocket and placed it on the table between them. He hit the play button of his conversation with Blevins. Batista’s face drained of color while he listened. Joe turned it off as Blevins said Please, dear God, get him off me.

“That’s what was driving me crazy all along,” Joe said. “How you knew to send the agents up here so quickly when Butch started working again. Now I know.”

“That was obviously coerced,” Batista said, his voice not as strong as he’d probably intended it, Joe thought. “It will never stand up in court.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Joe said. “Blevins will cut a deal and throw you under the bus to save himself. And proving you called him repeatedly will be a matter of getting your agency phone records. My buddy Chuck Coon with the FBI is in the process of obtaining them now. You’re going to prison, Batista. Rawlins, Wyoming, will be your new home. And no one deserves it more than you.”

Something went dead in Batista’s eyes.

“My wife is really smart, and she put together a timeline,” Joe said. “Tell me if she got anything wrong, okay? We want to make sure we understand the whole story.”

Batista didn’t speak.

“You grow up in Chicago as a dweeb named John Pate. No one likes you much because you’re not a likeable boy, but you have a burning desire to make something of yourself and show them someday. So you can’t wait to leave all that behind you and you go to college out of state in Fort Collins. You kind of reinvent yourself there, right? College is a good place to do that. Am I right on so far?”

“This is ridiculous,” Batista said.

“I’ll take that as a yes. You major in sociology and something called environmental affairs. As a senior you act like a big shot. During orientation week for newbies, you notice a very cute and naive freshman girl fresh from Douglas, Wyoming. She looks like she’s right off the ranch and she’s at this big school with no friends. Her name is Pam Burridge. You become infatuated with her, and because she feels over her head at such a big school, she appreciates the attention from you for a while.”

Batista broke off his gaze and swiveled his head away. Joe took it as a good sign.

“But you came on too strong with her. You were too domineering. You didn’t want her to make any new friends, and you spooked her when you would go on and on about your future lives together. You told her her job would be to support you and look good on your arm. If she so much as talked to another male, you would go into jealous rages. You didn’t know it at the time because you had such a high opinion of yourself, but she was desperately looking for a way out. She met that way out at a club in Old Town in Fort Collins. His name was Butch Roberson, a redneck construction worker who barely graduated high school, and he was passing through town on his way back to Saddlestring. He was the kind of guy you despised-blue-collar, rough around the edges, no sophistication. A rube.”

Batista shook his head but wouldn’t look at Joe. And here is where Marybeth’s additional research into Pate had really paid off.

Joe said, “It turned out to be quite a scene that night in that club, didn’t it? You grabbed Pam by the arm because you caught her talking to this redneck from back home, and the redneck wiped the floor with you. In front of your friends! The police report you filed against Butch said you had multiple contusions and some broken ribs. But the Fort Collins cops never arrested Butch because he was gone by then, and he’d taken Pam with him. She dumped you like a hot rock. Then she dropped out of school and actually married the guy.”

Joe noticed the cords in Batista’s neck were as tight as guitar strings.

“And it festered, didn’t it?” Joe asked. “She forgot all about you, but you couldn’t keep her out of your mind. Even after you changed your name and started climbing through the bureaucracy, it still burned hot, didn’t it? That this silly girl had picked an uneducated loser over you?

“So a year ago you tracked her down and called her. You didn’t give her your new name or tell her exactly what you did at the time, just that you were very successful. You claimed you just wanted to touch base with her and see how she was doing after all these years, but you were obviously hoping she’d hear your voice and maybe she’d come to her senses. Instead, she told you never to contact her again. She said she and Butch were happy and they had a daughter now and they were doing well. In fact, they’d just bought this piece of land. .”

Joe sat back and waited for Batista to turn his head and look at him.

When he did, Joe said, “Pam told us all this after she saw your photo on the agency website last week. Your face brought up some bad old memories for her, but your call to her meant so little she’d forgotten about it, and she never even told Butch. That must sting a little, huh?” Joe said, twisting the knife.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Batista hissed.

“Here’s where my wife’s timeline comes in,” Joe said, pushing on. “A year ago, at the time you made that call, the Sackett case in Idaho was getting some attention. Even some of your colleagues in Region Eight were alarmed. But you didn’t look at it that way. You looked at the details of what had been done to the Sacketts and saw it as a perfect way to ruin Pam and Butch. You could dish back some of the pain and humiliation they’d caused you. So from your anonymous perch behind a desk in Denver, you researched the lot they’d purchased and you found Blevins. From your position of power, you set this thing in motion and thought you’d crush them without the Robersons or anyone else ever tying it back to you.”

Joe paused for a moment, and then said, “Then you sent those two agents up here to die.”

Batista erupted and slammed the table with his cuffed hands. “I did not! They were supposed to serve the compliance order and come back.”

Joe glanced at the camera in the top right corner of the room, as if to say “Got him.” Then he shifted back to Batista.

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” he said. “I actually believe you had no idea there would be shooting. But when it happened-you panicked. You saw your world and career about to blow up if the story got out, though, so you tried to do damage control. You were determined to take Butch out because if he talked it might lead back to you. And today you were going to threaten or murder Pam before she could expose you and what you did to them. The press conference was my wife’s idea to get you up here so you could be prosecuted locally. I wasn’t so sure you were this desperate and stupid, but Blevins confirmed it. And he’ll confirm it on the stand.”

“He’s a liar,” Batista said.

“Maybe,” Joe agreed. “But you were the one caught with the shotgun.”

Batista sneered, but his face had completely drained of color.

“You know what first got me to thinking that something was hinky with you?” Joe said, sitting back. “It’s when you had Underwood announce that reward. It was a desperation move, and it especially didn’t make sense to me that a glory-hungry political hack like you would pass up an opportunity to get his name in the papers. But you didn’t want Pam or Butch to recognize you as John Pate and put things together, right? Your only shot to save yourself was to get them both out of the picture before they figured the scheme out. And now look at you.”

Joe stood and shook his head. “You destroyed a family and five people died, one by your hand. You abused your power in the worst possible way. As far as I’m concerned, nothing that happens now is bad enough for you.”

“My lawyer. .” Batista said, but didn’t finish his thought.

After closing the door of the interrogation room, Joe leaned into Reed’s office.

“That help?” he asked.

“I’m going to crucify that piece of shit,” Dulcie seethed.

“That’s my girl,” Joe said.

To Reed: “Please tell Butch what happened. He’ll want to start pumping iron for when he runs into Batista in prison.”

Reed barked a laugh.

“Man,” Joe said with a heavy sigh, “I think I’m talked out.”

Nevertheless, he called Marybeth from his pickup in the lot of the county building. “It’s done,” he said.

“Thank God. I’ll tell Pam.”

“Is Hannah still there?”

“She’s hanging out with Lucy like usual and staying for dinner again.”

“You’re a saint.”

He could envision Marybeth rolling her eyes at that. She said, “One more mouth to feed. No big deal.”

“Keep her there,” Joe said. “I need to talk with her.”

“Joe,” Marybeth said, concern in her voice, “what’s this about? I don’t like the sound of this.”

“I can’t tell you yet.”

“Did Butch relay a message? They won’t let Hannah in to see him, you know. They say she isn’t old enough for visiting hours. So I’m guessing he wants to tell her something through you. Am I right?”

Joe closed his eyes. What he was about to do felt like the toughest thing he’d ever done. He wished Marybeth was there cheering him on instead of making it harder. But she didn’t know.

He said, “Just keep her there, please.”