Cold Wind

13

Joe arrived home long after the dinner dishes had been put away, and he sat at the table and filled in Marybeth while she warmed up the leftover spaghetti she’d saved for him. She listened intently, occasionally shaking her head with worry and disappointment, but waited until he was finished with his introduction to Marcus Hand to say, “She couldn’t have done it, Joe. She’s mean and ruthless and awful, but she couldn’t have done it. I want to know who the sheriff got his inside information from. Then we’ll know what’s really going on.”

“Neither Dulcie nor McLanahan would tell me,” Joe said. “But it’s got to come out soon. They can’t withhold the evidence from discovery. Hand will insist on them turning everything over sooner rather than later, especially since they seem to be rushing to press charges. Dulcie seemed pretty confident, and that makes me think. The rumor in the county building is the charges have been written up to be filed, including murder one, and the arraignment will be tomorrow in front of Judge Hewitt.”

Marybeth sat down and rested her chin in her hands. “It makes me think, too. And it makes me worry. From what you’ve told me, it appears Missy has been framed by someone who wanted Earl dead-or wanted to hurt her in the worst possible way. If she did it, would she keep the rifle in her car? Why would she even use that particular gun, since it was so easy to prove it came from Earl’s collection? Somebody stole it, shot Earl, and put it in her car for the sheriff to find.”

Joe nodded, urging her to continue.

Marybeth said, “My mother doesn’t know anything about guns, I don’t think. Are they suggesting she actually fired the shot? Are they thinking she carried The Earl’s body up a frigging wind tower and hung him by a chain? It’s ridiculous.”

Joe didn’t comment on his wife’s use of the word “frigging,” but took it to mean it was now an acceptable word in the household.

“No one’s saying that,” he said. “I think they’re assuming she hired a killer or had an accomplice to do the dirty work.”

“Who?” Marybeth asked sharply. “And most of all, why? My mother now has everything she’s ever schemed for. Why would she blow it like that? It doesn’t make any sense, Joe. It doesn’t make any sense that the sheriff and Dulcie could be so sure what they’re saying will hold up.”

Joe agreed.

“My mother is a lot of things,” she said. “But she’s not a murderer, for God’s sake.”

“Yes,” Joe said. “She’s a lot of things.”

“Joe.”

He got very interested in eating his plate of spaghetti and wanted to change the subject.

“It’s quiet in here,” he said. “What’s going on?” Meaning: How is April?

“She’s in her room in a huge snit since I took away her cell phone and told her she could use the computer only to do her homework. She acts like if she can’t text her friends it’s the same thing as being put into solitary confinement. Like we’ve cut her off from the rest of the world.”

He nodded.

“Lucy is trying out for a school play,” Marybeth said. “She said one of her friend’s moms would bring her home.”

“Do either of them know?”

“About Missy?”

“Yes.”

Marybeth sighed and shook her head. “I haven’t told either one. I was thinking we would have to do it tonight.”

Joe said, “We?”

“We. Coming up with the right words, though. that will be tough.”

“What about Sheridan?”

Marybeth said she’d sent her a text and asked her to call home as soon as she got a chance, but Sheridan had responded with a text of her own saying, “I know, Mom. Everybody knows. Did she do it?”

“And you told her what?” Joe asked.

Marybeth glared at him. “I told her it was all a big mistake.”

Lucy and April sat side by side on the living room couch. April smoldered with her arms crossed in front of her and her chin down, upturned eyes like daggers. Joe was distracted by Lucy. She hadn’t removed the makeup from the tryouts, and she looked strikingly mature and beautiful. It was as if she’d turned from a girl into a woman in a single night, and he didn’t welcome it because he was sure he wasn’t the only one to notice the transformation. Looking at her, he envisioned long nights ahead of sitting on his front porch with his shotgun across his knees, keeping high-school boys at bay. He was happy they’d moved so far out of town.

He wondered how they’d take the news. April had never been close to Missy, and Missy regarded her as an interloper. Slightly higher on the food chain than Joe himself, in fact. It was an alliance they shared.

Although Lucy had distanced herself from Missy in the past year, there was absolutely no doubt that Missy preferred her over all the girls. At one time, when Lucy was still vulnerable to her grandmother’s charms, Missy had gone through a period where she bought matching outfits for the two of them and took her favorite granddaughter for shopping and long lunches.

“Something terrible happened today,” Marybeth said to the girls on the couch.

“You took my phone,” April muttered.

Marybeth closed her eyes, fighting back anger. “Much worse than a phone,” she said. “Your Grandmother Missy was accused of murdering Earl. They found his body this morning. In fact, your dad found it.”

April’s mouth shot open involuntarily, then just as quickly she realized that she was baring her feelings and she shut it again. It was as if the Perpetual Mask of Petulance had slipped momentarily. Joe was relieved to see there was still a girl inside vulnerable to such news.

Lucy’s eyes were huge. She said, “I got some texts in school asking me about Grandma Missy, but I didn’t know what to answer.”

“I got no texts,” April hissed, “because you people stole my phone.”

“It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding,” Marybeth said, ignoring April.

“You mean Earl isn’t dead?” Lucy asked softly.

“No. he’s gone,” Marybeth said. Then she turned to him. “Joe?”

“He was murdered,” Joe said. “No doubt about it. Somebody killed him.”

“But it wasn’t Grandmother Missy?” Lucy asked, looking back and forth from Joe to Marybeth.

“Of course not,” Marybeth said. “But she’s been accused of it. We don’t have all the facts yet, but we think someone made it look like she had something to do with the crime. We don’t know who or why. Once everything’s investigated, she’ll be back home.”

“I can’t believe it,” Lucy said. “Did she stab him or poison him or what?”

“Neither,” Marybeth said heatedly.

Joe thought it interesting Lucy made the leap from Earl’s death to how Missy would have likely chosen to kill him.

“He was shot,” Joe said. “Then hung from a windmill.”

“Eeew,” April said, making a face.

“This is like a joke,” Lucy said. “What will people say about her? What will people think about us?”

Exactly, Joe thought.

April snorted and sat back in the couch, her arms still folded across her like an iron breastplate. “Well,” she said, “I guess maybe I’m not the only one in this perfect little family who makes mistakes.”

Marybeth recoiled, tears suddenly in her eyes. Joe reached out and pulled Marybeth to him and said to April, “I know you’re mad, but that wasn’t necessary.”

“But it’s true,” April said, narrowing her eyes, looking mean. “Maybe it’s time you people learned how to handle the truth.”

“Actually,” Joe said, “I think we’re pretty good at it.”

April rolled her eyes, suddenly bored.

“Meeting’s over,” Joe said. His tone was hard. And effective, since he rarely used it.

April sprang up and marched to her bedroom, smirking and satisfied with herself, but a quick look back at him indicated she thought she might have gone too far.

Lucy got up and walked behind her, slowly, and before she entered her room she said, “If anyone cares, I got the part.”

Joe felt as if he’d been punched. They hadn’t even thought to ask her about it. Marybeth pulled away from him and said to Lucy’s back, “I’m sorry, honey. I’ve had so much on my mind. ”

They lay in bed awake, neither speaking. Joe ran through the events of the day in his head, trying to make sense of them. Trying to come up with alternative scenarios to the one most compelling and obvious. Trying to figure out why an innocent woman would be on the telephone to Marcus Hand within minutes of hearing about the death of her husband.

And wondering who had tipped off the sheriff.

Marybeth no doubt had the same thoughts. But there was more. At one point she sighed and said to Joe, “I hope this doesn’t tear our family apart.”

“Missy?” Joe asked.

“Her, too,” Marybeth answered. Then, after a few moments: “I miss Sheridan. It doesn’t feel right to go through this with her gone. I want all my girls around me when something like this happens.”

“She’s not that far,” Joe said.

“Yes, Joe. She is.”

The phone rang at two-thirty and Joe snatched it up. He was wide awake. Marybeth rolled to her side and arched her eyebrows in a “Who can that possibly be?” look.

“I can’t find the bourbon,” Marcus Hand boomed. “A bottle of twenty-year-old Blanton’s, to be precise. The best bourbon on the planet is what I’m talking about. I gifted one bottle to Earl and asked him to save the other for me when I visited again. I’ve turned this house upside down and I can’t find it. Where do you suppose he hid it?”

Joe said, “I don’t know. He’s dead.”

“I’ll find it before the night is over,” Hand said, as if he were talking to himself. Then: “The reason I called. I mean, the other reason. Tonight after consulting with my client, I met with the comely Miss Schalk to review the charges and get a lay of the land. Turns out the bulk of the case revolves around information passed to the sheriff from an informant intimately involved with the planning and execution of the crime.”

“I knew that,” Joe said, swinging his legs out from beneath the covers and sitting up. He could hear Hand rooting around in what sounded like pots and pans.

Hand said, “Apparently, he started talking to the sheriff a couple months ago, telling him this crime was going to happen. McLanahan is thickheaded, as we know, and sort of entertained the guy without ever believing him. Until this morning, when the guy called the sheriff at home and described the murder and the location of the body. And according to the fetching Miss Schalk, the informant is willing to testify against your mother-in-law.”

Hand spoke so loudly his voice carried throughout the bedroom from the phone.

Marybeth whispered, “What’s his name?”

“What’s his name?”

“Damn. I wrote it down.” More clanking and clanging. “Where did he hide my Blanton’s? Hiding a man’s bourbon. This alone would justify shooting him, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask,” Joe said, gripping the phone tight. “Can’t you remember his name?”

Hand sighed. “Bud something. Kind of a cowpoke name. Missy’s ex-husband.”

Marybeth heard and gasped.

“Bud Longbrake?” Joe said. “Bud is McLanahan’s informant?”

“Yeah, that’s the name.”

“I can’t believe it,” Joe said.

“Believe it. That’s the name. Of course, I know nothing of this man’s credibility. And the Longbrake name is well known here in Twelve Sleep County, so I should have recalled it right away.”

“Oh, my God,” Marybeth whispered.

“Missy divorced Bud and got his ranch in the settlement,” Joe said. “She’s had nothing to do with him for two years. She even got a restraining order on him so he wouldn’t try to contact her ever again. He’s spent the last two years inside a bottle.”

“Kind of where I’d like to be right now,” Hand said.

Joe said, “Bud has every reason in the world to frame her. She weaseled his third-generation ranch away from him by making him sign a pre-nup he never bothered to read because he was so madly in love. This might blow the case out of the water.”

“Maybe,” Hand said. “Maybe not. Bud the informant says she tried to get him to kill Earl for her. For a while, he claims he went along with it to draw her out.”

Joe shook his head, even though Hand couldn’t see him disagree. If that was the situation, there would be phone records tying Bud and Missy together. Maybe even taped calls if in fact Bud was working with the sheriff for a while beforehand.

“One more thing the lovely Miss Schalk said,” Hand continued. “She claims The Earl was about to file divorce papers of his own. Do you know anything about that?”

Joe was speechless.

Suddenly, Hand said, “Eureka! I have found it. The key to everything.”

“Which is?” Joe asked hesitantly.

“The Blanton’s. Earl hid it on the top shelf of his closet. Good night, Joe.”

They went over what Hand had said even deeper into the night. Joe agreed with Marybeth that what had seemed fairly clear-cut just a few hours before-a boneheaded frame-up of Missy-was now even more complicated. On the one hand, there was motive if Hand was correct that Earl Alden had decided to leave. But if Missy believed that and wanted to kill Earl, why the elaborate staging? Why would she plot with Bud? Why would Bud trust her? And why would she leave the rifle in her car?

And if Bud Longbrake was the informant, why would he implicate himself as well as Missy? Did he want them both to go down together? Could he possibly be that vindictive? Or did he have a scheme going on the side?

Marybeth said, “Joe, I don’t feel I can trust Marcus Hand completely to exonerate her.”

“Have you looked at his track record?”

“I know all about it. But Missy isn’t well liked and the jury will be local. Bringing him in could backfire for her. He has a reputation for slickness and jury manipulation. Didn’t he even write a book about it?”

Joe said he had. It was called The Eight Percent Rule: A Top Attorney’s Foolproof Method for Defending Your Client. Hand’s strategy was to identify at least one juror of the twelve who was most susceptible to partnering up with him and who would to stick it to the system by holding out and refusing to go along with a guilty verdict. Joe had tossed the book aside in disgust.

“And I sure don’t trust McLanahan and his crew,” Marybeth continued. “He’s got everything riding on a guilty verdict. He’s put it all out there for everyone to see. If she goes to prison, he wins. If she gets off, he loses. Not only the case but probably the election as well.”

Joe nodded. “What about Dulcie Schalk?”

“She’s smart and tough,” Marybeth said, “but she’s never gone up against somebody like Marcus Hand. She’s kind of a control freak, as we know. She wants everything in perfect order to proceed. Marcus Hand will make it his mission to throw her off.”

Joe shook his head, confused. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“No.”

“I don’t get it, then.”

“Joe,” she said, setting her jaw, “I don’t want her found innocent because Marcus Hand ran rings around Dulcie in court. I want her found innocent because she didn’t do it. Don’t you understand? I don’t want this hanging over the heads of our girls. I don’t want it hanging over my head.”

“Mmmm.”

“Tell me you understand, Joe.”

He let a long stream of air out. “I understand what you’re saying.”

“Good. Then you have to do what you can to find out what happened. Who did it, and why. The sheriff and Dulcie have tunnel vision. Everything they’re doing is based on Missy’s involvement. They’re not even considering other factors, I’m sure. Joe, you’re the only person I absolutely trust to keep an open mind.”

He moaned. “I’m a game warden, honey. I’m not the governor’s point man anymore. He wants nothing to do with me. After what happened in the Sierra Madre, I made a promise to myself to just do my job as well as I can. No more freelancing.”

A smile formed on her lips and her eyes sparkled in the moonlight from the window. She knew him better than he did, sometimes.

“Okay,” he said. “In the midst of my day-to-day activities, I’ll find out what I can and push it. I’ll do what I do best-blunder around until something hits me in the head.”

She chuckled at that, then turned serious again. “Joe, what about getting some help?”

He looked away.

“Joe,” she said, putting her hand on his bare shoulder. “It’s been nearly a year. It’s time you called him again. You two have way too much invested to let it be destroyed.”

Joe said, “You know what happened.”

“I do. And I realize you two together are better than either one of you alone. I swear, you’re acting like a couple of schoolgirls. Neither one wants to make the first move to reconcile.”

“Men don’t reconcile,” he said. “We just pretend it never happened and move on.”

She kept looking into his eyes. She knew that would work.

“I don’t even know where he is,” Joe said, grumpy.

“You know where he was,” she said. “Maybe you can start there.”

He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. “If this was to get you out of jail, or save Sheridan or Lucy or April. ”

“Joe, she’s my mother.”

“Boy, do I know that.”

She sat up in bed, excited. “We’ll work on separate tracks. I’ll use library resources to find out what I can about Earl that we obviously don’t know. Maybe I can get a lead on someone who wanted him dead in that particular way. It’s strange when I think about it: I met the man fifty times, but I know very little about him before he got here. He’s made a lot of money over the years. I bet he’s made enemies, too.”

“No doubt.”

“And you’ll do what you do,” she said.

“Blunder around until something hits me in the head,” Joe said sourly.

“A little more enthusiasm would be nice,” she said.

He tried to smile. “How about if we figure out who did it, but we keep quiet and she goes to prison? That way, you’ll know in your heart she’s innocent and you’ll be able to sleep at night-but she isn’t around here anymore to cause trouble. That way, everybody wins.”

“That’s not a good solution. At all.”

“Had to try,” Joe said, kissing her good night as the eastern sky began to blush with dawn.