Cold Wind

38

Bud did look like hell.

Joe found himself grimacing as his old employer and ex-father-in-law slowly made his way up the center aisle of the courtroom. Instead of sixty, Bud looked eighty. He was stooped and drawn, and his suit, which Joe remembered from Bud and Missy’s wedding six years ago, hung loose and baggy on him. The collar of Bud’s Western dress shirt gaped at least an inch. He peered out of it like a turtle looking out of its shell, Joe thought, and Bud’s pants hung around his legs. Bud held his Stetson in his right hand, and reached out with his left from chair top to chair top for balance as he proceeded toward the bench.

“My God,” Marybeth whispered. “Look what’s happened to him.”

Joe was surprised when Bud glanced over as he passed. His eyes were rheumy and unfocused, but for a split second Joe could see the man he remembered somewhere in that shell. Bud seemed to acknowledge the spark of recognition.

Joe nodded his head slightly. Bud nodded back.

It took a minute for Bud to get settled into the witness stand. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hat. Schalk gently took it from him and put it on the prosecution table. Now there was a cowboy hat on both tables and it looked, Joe thought, like Wyoming.

After he’d been sworn in, Schalk asked Bud to state his name and address.

“Bud C. Longbrake Sr. I live at 2090 Main Street, here in Saddlestring. Apartment A. It’s called that on account as it’s the only apartment above the Stockman’s Bar.” His voice was familiar but tinny.

Joe heard a titter among the bar regulars behind him.

He leaned over to Marybeth. He whispered, “It’s more than the Jim Beam and hard living. There’s something really wrong with him.”

Marybeth nodded in agreement. Unconsciously, she was lacing and unlacing her fingers on her lap. Joe couldn’t tell if the reason for her anxiety was because of Bud’s appearance, her mother’s trial, the offer just made, or all three.

For the next ten minutes, Schalk patiently referred to her legal pad and established Bud Longbrake for the jury. His history in the county, the marriage to Missy Vankueren, the divorce and the loss of his ranch, the restraining order Missy had placed on him. Bud answered each item simply, but the time it took him to respond to each question dragged on longer each time. The long silences seemed to add to the tension in the courtroom. Joe noticed spectators glancing at each other, wondering if Bud was up for this. Joe wondered the same thing.

Schalk signaled to Jack Pym to cue the PowerPoint projector, and once again the list of phone calls between Bud and Missy was shown.

She said, “This document was produced by the phone company. It lists a series of telephone calls between your cell phone and the main landline at the Thunderhead Ranch or from Missy Alden’s private cell phone. Do you recall the telephone conversations that took place?”

Joe noticed that Bud hadn’t turned his head to look at the screen.

“Mr. Longbrake?” Schalk asked gently. “Can you please turn your attention to the screen?”

As if suddenly awakened, Bud jerked on the stand and swung his head over at the list, squinting.

Judge Hewitt cleared his throat and held up an outstretched palm to Schalk to wait on the next question. Hewitt said, “Mr. Longbrake, are you all right to continue? You seem to have a little bit of trouble focusing on the proceedings here. Do you need a glass of water or a break before we continue?”

Bud looked dolefully at Hewitt. “Nah, Judge, I’m okay,” he said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yep,” Bud said. Then: “I’m real sorry, but sometimes I kind of fade in and out. I think it’s getting worse. It is getting worse. You see, Judge,” Bud said, reaching up and tapping his temple with the tips of his fingers, “I got this inoperable brain tumor the size of a baseball in my head.”

Marybeth gasped and dug her fingers into Joe’s knee.

Dulcie Schalk stood her ground, but she was clearly shaken. She shot a murderous look to Sheriff McLanahan that Joe caught. Either she wasn’t aware of the tumor, or McLanahan-who had supervised the depositions-had downplayed its effect on Bud to her.

“I have good days and bad days,” Bud continued, “and believe it or not, this is one of the good days. I’m okay. Sometimes I just need things repeated, is all.”

Hewitt’s face softened as Bud talked. He said, “Then let’s continue.” To Schalk, he said, “Please keep Mr. Longbrake’s condition in mind as we proceed.”

“I will, Your Honor,” she said.

“Please repeat the question,” Hewitt said.

She asked him again if he recalled the phone conversations.

He said, “Yep. Every damned one of ’em.”

Joe, despite himself, sighed with relief. Bud seemed to be back, at least temporarily.

Schalk was also visibly relieved. She looked down at her pad for her next question. As always, she was faultlessly prepared and her questions scripted to elicit a clear narrative in the mind of the jurors.

Marybeth prodded Joe with her elbow, and when he looked over, she chinned toward Missy at the defense table. Missy had tears in her eyes, and she dabbed at them with a tissue. When she looked up at Bud, her face was not angry but sympathetic.

Joe was surprised. Didn’t she hate this man? He thought about the offer Missy had made Marybeth minutes before. He looked at his mother-in-law in a sudden new light.

And under that light, other things fell into place. The reason for Bud’s mood and personality changes now made sense. Joe recalled the collection of medications in Bud’s bathroom over the bar, and kicked himself for not noting the names of the drugs. Then there was the fact of Bud Jr. and Sally coming back. Plus, Orin Smith’s reference to a rancher who was ill. And Keith Bailey saying Bud was “under a shitload of pressure and pain right now.”

He wanted to punch himself for not putting it together.

Dulcie Schalk said to Bud, “Let’s begin with this first phone call back on July 2 that was placed from the Thunderhead Ranch phone to your cell phone. Can you tell the jury who called you and what was discussed during that call?”

“Yep.”

Joe, like the jury and everyone else, waited. Bud just sat there.

“Mr. Longbrake,” Schalk said, “can you tell the court the subject matter of that July 2 call?”

“I can.”

“Well, please tell the court, Mr. Longbrake.”

Bud rotated his head as if stretching out a stiff neck. He said to her, “Miz Schalk, can I just cut to the chase?”

Behind Joe, one of the bar regulars chuckled at the response.

“I’d rather we do this methodically, Mr. Longbrake,” Schalk said, gesturing with her legal pad filled with questions.

Bud squinted at the pad and said, “I might be dead by the time we get through that whole damn list.”

Several people in the galley laughed at that, and Hewitt looked up in warning. The judge turned back to Bud and seemed to assess his condition, then said to Schalk, “Given the circumstances and Mr. Longbrake’s condition, let him cut to the chase. The prosecution can follow up with background questions later if necessary.”

Schalk said, “Your Honor, in order to establish-”

“I know how much you adore your lists,” Hewitt said, cutting her off. “But if we can move along here, we might avoid a very uncomfortable situation.”

His meaning was clear: Let’s get this over before the old man dies right here on the stand.

“Cut to the chase, Mr. Longbrake,” Hewitt said.

“Thanks, Judge,” Bud said. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, then cleared his throat. Joe found himself holding his breath waiting.

“Here’s the deal, Miz Schalk,” Bud said. “I’m dying. I knew I was sick, but I didn’t know how sick. I know I shoulda gone to the doctor years ago when I started getting headaches and blacking out, but I just thought I was hung over. Now it’s too damned late and nothing can be done. My brain is being replaced by a damned orange. But I can’t go to my grave knowing what I know without coming clean.”

Dulcie Schalk stood there helplessly, with her arms at her side, pleading with her eyes to the judge.

Bud said, “I shot that son-of-a-bitch.”

Joe felt Marybeth dig her fingers into his leg so hard it made him cringe.

Bud said, “I planned it for a while, and I got madder every time one of those god-awful turbines went up. I started calling McLanahan there telling him Missy was up to no good. Setting her up. I knew McLanahan would fall for it because he’s dumber than a box of rocks and he needs to get reelected somehow.

“I knew how to get into the house through a basement window that didn’t lock and I took that Winchester out of my old gun case. I drove right up on old Earl and shot him in his goddamned heart, which was so small I shoulda used a scope. Then I threw him in the back of my pickup and drove him to his goddamned wind farm and hoisted him up and chained him to the blade of that windmill. And to get back at all Missy done to me, I hung it all on her by putting the rifle in her car and calling the sheriff.”

Joe was stunned. He wasn’t alone.

Bud turned to Missy. He said, “I’m so sorry, Missy. I wanted to make your life as miserable as mine was. But something changes when you find out you’ve got maybe a few weeks to live, and that’s what the doctor told me this weekend. It tends to focus the mind, and I figured that if I can’t savor my revenge, then what’s the damned point of getting it? Plus, if I’m meeting God in a few days, I don’t want to have to explain what I done, because there’s no way He will let me off the hook. So I was gonna say you asked me to kill him, and when I said no, you did it yourself. But now I just can’t.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said directly to her. “I don’t feel bad about Earl. He was a prick. But damn, I never shoulda blamed it on you.”

Schalk stood stock-still, her mouth open. Hewitt was frozen behind the bench, his eyes blinking madly. Sally Longbrake suddenly shrieked a long, mournful wail.

Missy sat back in her chair with her fists clenched at her chin, her eyes streaming tears.

Behind Joe, one of the Stockman’s regulars said, “It’s like fuckin’ Perry Mason!”

Bud Longbrake wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He looked pale and spent. He said to Judge Hewitt, “Judge, I said what I wanted to say. But right now I’m not feeling so good all of a sudden.”

Marcus Hand stood up slowly and said, “Your Honor, I move for an immediate acquittal.”

Dulcie Schalk seethed. She strode the courtroom floor and slammed her pad of questions on her table, her eyes boring holes into Sheriff McLanahan, who looked away.

Joe sat astonished. It was like Perry Mason. All that buildup and a last-minute courtroom surprise? He was happy for Missy-well, happy for Marybeth, anyway-but something loomed just beyond the peripheral vision of his mind’s eye.

Why did he feel like a large rock was about to drop on his head?