Endangered

16

After his encounter with the Cates family, Joe drove on the highway toward his home. He knew Marybeth was planning a big dinner with all the items Lucy liked best—pasta, garlic bread, green salad—as a way to atone for the time she’d been in Billings and for Joe’s food, and he wanted to be home for it. As he drove, a window opened in the storm clouds and he found himself suddenly bathed in warm yellow afternoon sun. The beam was small and concentrated, and the pool of light was no bigger than a half mile in every direction. It was as though he were the subject of some kind of cosmic spotlight. It felt good—Summer was on the way—although he was disappointed no revelation came along with it. It was just sun.

When his cell phone went off, he expected to see Marybeth’s name on the screen. That wasn’t the case.

“Governor,” Joe said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you on a Saturday evening.”

“Damn, I’m so jet-lagged I don’t even know what day it is,” Rulon said. Joe imagined the governor pacing back and forth in his home office as he’d seen him do—one hand holding his phone to his face and the other gesticulating and wildly punching the air as he talked.

“I just got back from a two-week trip to Asia,” Rulon said. “I was over there selling Wyoming coal—or trying to. We produce more coal than any other state, and the feds are shutting us down so they can stop global warming. The Asians want to grow so someday they can have First World problems like us. They want our coal, and as much of it as they can get. So we’ll shut down our coal-fired utilities over here and pay higher utility bills while they build them up over there and provide power and air-conditioning to their people so they can make things and get wealthy. You know, like Americans used to do.”

Joe smiled to himself. Rulon liked to rant. The governor said, “Somehow, we’re going to stop global warming by shutting down our clean power plants so the Chinese can burn our coal in their dirty power plants. Ah, the geniuses in Washington! They never fail to constantly lower the bar on common sense. Anyway . . .”

“Anyway,” Joe repeated.

“What’s this I hear that our precious sage grouse are being wiped out in your district?”

Joe sighed. “It’s true. I found an entire lek that had been—”

“I know all about it,” Rulon said, cutting him off. “I read the report from the Sage Grouse Task Force.”

Joe grunted.

“They’re required to keep me informed of their activities. And it’s attracting plenty of attention in the usual quarters, as you can imagine: ‘Wyoming Neanderthals Fail to Protect Endangered Species.’ That’s not the actual title, but it sure as hell is the tone.”

Rulon paused, then said, “Joe, I need you to clear up this sage grouse thing. I know you can’t bring those birds back to life, but if you find out who did it and throw the book at them, it’ll show the feds we aren’t complacent. Plus, it will set an example for other yahoos who might have the same idea.”

Before Joe could tell the governor what he’d learned, Rulon said, “The damned problem is the feds create reverse incentives and they don’t even realize they’re doing it. If you tell landowners that all their grazing land will be put off-limits for energy exploration or anything else if sage grouse are found up to two miles away, the incentive will be to get rid of the damned birds. Ranchers can’t make money ranching anymore, so they have to make deals for wind towers, or solar, or some damned thing Washington loves. So where does that leave a guy who wants to use his property?”

“I considered that,” Joe said. “The location where the grouse were shot is on BLM land.”

“Is it two miles away from anyone?”

“Well,” Joe said, “there’s one family.”

“Start with them.”

Joe knew Rulon fancied himself an amateur detective. He said, “I did that.”

“And?” Rulon prompted, ready to declare victory.

“They don’t have enough land for wind towers or fracking, so I doubt they’d have any lease opportunities. That’s not to say they might not be ornery enough to do something like this, but in this case I don’t think so. But they gave me a lead I’m going to track down,” Joe said. “If it goes where I think it could, we might have a bigger mess than we’ve got right now.”

Joe could hear Rulon take a breath, ready to continue with one of his rants. Then he paused. Joe understood why. Cell phone conversations could be monitored.

Rulon said, “Let’s meet tomorrow in my office. My afternoon’s free and I’ll try like hell to be lucid. Maybe I’ll send somebody out to get me one of those energy drinks, I don’t know. It’ll take me a couple of days to get back on track, I’m afraid.”

“I can drive down there tomorrow,” Joe said.

Saddlestring to Cheyenne was four hours. Denver was two hours beyond that. He could kill two birds.

“I’ll see you then,” Rulon said. “My antennas are up now.”

—

TWO MINUTES LATER, Joe’s phone lit up again. Rulon again.

“Joe, I heard about what happened to Romanowski and to your daughter. I meant to say how damned sorry I am, but I completely forgot when I called you the first time. Anyway: I’m damned sorry.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.

“Are they connected somehow?” Rulon asked, once again playing amateur detective.

Joe said, “No, sir. At least I don’t think so.”

“Two things like that happening in the same week in the same place,” Rulon said. “It just seems hinky. But you’re on the ground there, and I’m not. So how is your daughter doing?”

Joe told him.

“But they got the guy who did it?”

Joe hesitated before he said yes. Rulon had jarred him with his speculation.

“And the guy killed himself in his cell?”

“Yup.”

“That’s why I think we should issue nooses or electrical cords to every slimeball brought in on a nasty felony,” Rulon said. “Maybe with a little instruction book on how to do yourself in. It would save us a lot of money and time if we did that.”

Joe didn’t comment.

“What about Romanowski? I give him a conditional deal and he goes out and gets himself shot the very next day. That guy is something else.”

“As far as I know, he’s alive,” Joe said. “But the FBI has him under wraps. I can’t get anything out of him.”

Rulon cursed. He said, “I’ll talk to those bastards tomorrow. This is that Dudley guy, right?”

“Yup.”

“He’s a crap-weasel. I’ll go over his head. Maybe by the time you get here, we’ll know more.”

“I appreciate that,” Joe said.

“I’m fading fast,” Rulon said. “You’re a good man, Joe. Good night.”

“Good—”

Rulon had terminated the call before Joe said, “Bye.”

—

IT WAS DUSK when Joe cruised through the rows of cars in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn. The lot was nearly full, which used to be unusual in March because it wasn’t yet tourist season. Things had changed, though, because the lot was filled with muddy oil service trucks on their way to—or from—the oil boom in North Dakota. Saddlestring was a logical halfway point between Denver and the Bakken formation, where the oil had been discovered.

It didn’t take long to find the white U.S. government pickup used by Annie Hatch and Revis Wentworth. For one thing, it was one of the few vehicles that had been recently run through a car wash. That in itself, Joe found interesting.

Since Wentworth was headquartered in Denver, he stayed at the hotel while he was in the area. Hatch lived in a rental in town, next door to her yoga studio.

Joe parked his pickup on the side of the hotel so it couldn’t be seen from any of the south-facing guest-room windows, and he carried his evidence kit through the parking lot.

When he found the white truck, he ducked down and opened his valise. Despite the fact that the outside of the pickup was clean, he ran his hand under the inside of the rear wheel wells and found a coating of dried mud. If analysis later proved that the soil was picked up in the vicinity of Lek 64, Joe knew, it proved nothing. Wentworth and Hatch had been in that area several times, including the night Joe discovered the crime. But if he could find mud that was embedded with feathers or sage grouse blood, well, even that was a reach.

Joe did it anyway.

When the evidence envelopes were filled with flakes of mud and labeled, he carefully photographed the tread on all four tires. If the tracks he’d photographed in the middle of Lek 64 matched up with the tread of the government pickup, he might have something. The allegation could be corroborated by Eldon Cates.

Wentworth and Hatch could claim that of course they’d left tracks when they got lost that night in the snow, but the time stamp on Joe’s shots would shoot that down.

It was circumstantial, but it was something, Joe thought.

And what about the shotgun shells? If he could find a half-empty box of 12-gauge shells in Wentworth’s room or Hatch’s home that were the same brand and shot quantity of the spent shells he’d found . . .

Then he smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand, nearly knocking his hat off. The realization hit him like a mule kick.

Hatch and Wentworth had been very concerned about the evidence Joe had gathered at Lek 64. Joe’d assumed they were concerned that he’d take too long, or that the state lab would somehow botch the analysis.

Given the circumstances, Joe had willingly handed over the box of evidence to them. He’d retained nothing but the photographs that were preserved on the memory card of his camera.

He thought:

What if they’d tampered with the evidence before sending it to Denver to their federal lab? Maybe changing out the photos he’d copied to a CD, or replacing or removing the spent shells?

What if they hadn’t even bothered to send it in?

If either thing had happened, Joe knew, he had nothing to tie the government vehicle to Lek 64 the night the sage grouse were wiped out.

—

JOE SHOOK HIS HEAD as he returned to his pickup. Before ducking around the side of the building, he looked up to see if he had any observers in the four-floor building.

At the second window on the third floor, Revis Wentworth stepped back. A moment later, the curtain was pulled shut.

Joe had been caught, he knew.

So how would he play it now?

—

HE PULLED HIMSELF inside his vehicle and started it up while punching the speed dial on his phone to his home number.

When Marybeth answered, he asked, “How long before dinner?”

“Why?” she asked, suspicious.

“I might have a break in the sage grouse case, and I have to act fast. I don’t want the suspects talking to each other before I get to them.”

Marybeth sighed. It was a familiar conversation to both of them. “We eat at seven,” she said. “You have an hour.”

“That should be enough,” he said, wheeling out of the parking lot.

—

WHILE JOE DROVE DOWN the streets of the subdivision Annie Hatch lived in, he mulled things over.

If his suspicions were correct, it meant two federal employees charged with preserving sage grouse and overseeing their protection had wiped out an entire flock.

It made no sense.

He again recalled what Lucy had observed out the front window of his house when Hatch and Wentworth had come to talk to him.

Maybe . . .

—

ANNIE HATCH lived in a small but well-appointed single-family home on Third Street. Next door was her Bighorn Valley Yoga Studio. A Prius in the driveway had bumper stickers that read CERTIFIED YOGA INSTRUCTOR and MY OTHER CAR IS A YOGA MAT. So she was home.

As he approached her door, he heard a phone buzzing from inside. He suspected it was Wentworth calling her to tell her what he’d seen in the parking lot. Joe knocked sharply, hoping she’d choose to answer her door before picking up her phone.

The phone continued to buzz and he heard no footfalls from inside. He knocked again, then leaned over the side of the porch so he could see into her living room from the nearby window. The television was on and a cat was curled up on top of a couch, staring at him. But no Annie.

For a moment, he thought the worst. Would an unanswered phone constitute enough probable cause to enter her home? He knew it wouldn’t, but he twisted the screen door handle anyway. It wasn’t locked. That wasn’t unusual anywhere in Saddlestring.

He knocked again while he tried the doorknob. It was unlocked as well.

Joe glanced right and left down the street. It was deserted except for parked cars and trucks. No doubt the cool weather had kept the kids inside. He cracked the door open and leaned his head into the house.

“Annie? It’s Joe Pickett.”

No response. He looked around. There was a crumpled afghan on the couch in front of the television. It looked as though she’d thrown it aside moments before. He could smell popcorn from the direction of the kitchen.

“Annie?”

Her cell phone danced unanswered across a breakfast bar within view. Joe entered and snatched the phone up.

The display read: REVIS.

He quickly put it down and backed out toward the door. The cat watched him the whole time with dead button eyes and never flinched.

He was stepping out onto the porch when Annie Hatch said, “Joe, what are you doing in my house?” She was coming from the yoga studio, carrying a mop and bucket. And she was angry.

After being startled, he recovered and said, “I think you know why I’m here.”

—

BUT SHE DIDN’T. Joe could tell from her expression and the way she lowered the bucket and crossed her arms over her breasts without taking her eyes off him that she was harboring no guilt about anything. She was just miffed she’d caught him coming out of her house.

“Just tell me what you were doing in there,” she said.

“I heard the phone ringing inside, and when you didn’t answer it, I got worried about your well-being,” he said.

“That’s nice, I guess,” she said. “Still, you shouldn’t enter someone’s house.”

“You’re right,” Joe said. “I shouldn’t.”

“Did you answer my phone?” she asked, curiosity working its way through her anger.

“Nope.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose.” She seemed no longer suspicious, just puzzled. She had a sweet soul, Joe thought.

He said, “I got a lead on Lek Sixty-four.”

“You did?” She was genuinely surprised.

“Do you remember meeting the Cates family? They said they remember you.”

She cupped her chin in her hand and searched the clouds, then said, “Are they the people who live just to the south of Lek Sixty-four? Kind of a junky place?”

“That’s them.”

“What do they have to do with this?”

“Eldon, the old man, said he saw a vehicle up on the bench the night the lek was wiped out. He said he heard shooting immediately afterward but he didn’t think much about it at the time.”

Her eyes widened, prompting him for more.

“He said it was a new-model white pickup. He said it looked just like the government truck that you and Wentworth drove out to his place.”

She shook her head. “It couldn’t be ours,” she said. “We didn’t go up there until the next night, if you’ll remember. We went up there after you confirmed there had been a crime. Do you think Mr. Cates got his days wrong?”

“It’s possible,” Joe said. “But is there any chance you two were up there the night before? Like maybe you were lost or something?”

She looked at the underbelly of the clouds again, searching for the answer. Joe thought it must be some kind of yoga thing. He said, “It would have been Thursday, March thirteenth. I found the lek Friday.”

Hatch shook her head. “No, that can’t be right. I was in Casper at an agency meeting that day. I didn’t even get back until Friday morning.”

Joe let that settle, then asked, “Was Wentworth with you?”

“No. He stayed here . . .” And the doubt showed on her face. Everything Annie Hatch thought, it seemed, showed on her face.

“So Wentworth was here alone with his truck?” Joe asked.

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Just asking,” Joe said. “I remember you told me you first learned about Lek Sixty-four through a call to your tip line, right?”

“Right.”

“Who retrieved the information, you or Wentworth?”

“Revis did.”

“Did you ever figure out the identity of the tipster?” Joe asked.

“No, why?”

“Did you ever listen to the recording yourself?”

“No. But Revis heard it.”

“Right. Is it still recorded somewhere?”

She shook her head. “You’d have to ask Revis.”

She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. She shifted her gaze from the clouds to the lawn between her feet. “You’re saying you think Revis had something to do with this?” she asked.

“I’m not blaming anyone yet,” Joe said. “But I’ve got another question for you. Did you send that box of evidence to the lab in Denver?”

“Yes,” she said. Then after a moment, she said, “Well, we did. I didn’t personally send it.”

“Were you there when Wentworth took it to the post office, or FedEx or wherever?”

“No. But he told me he sent it in.”

Joe let that settle.

She shook her head again, as if ridding her hair of dust. “No,” she said adamantly. “There is no way Revis had anything to do with it. You just want to pin the blame on someone. You just don’t like him.”

“Could be,” Joe said. “I’ve got a request for you.”

She looked up at him.

“Don’t call Wentworth back for fifteen minutes. Will you promise me that?”

“Why should I?”

“Because it’ll take that much time to clear him,” Joe said.

After thinking it over, she said, “Fifteen minutes. But I’m sure you’re wrong.”

“I’ve been wrong before,” Joe conceded.

—

AS HE RACED BACK to the Holiday Inn, Joe had no confidence Hatch would restrain herself from contacting Wentworth. But it was worth a try.

He pulled his pickup in front of the lobby and went straight to the front desk of the hotel. The young female assistant manager on duty had purple-streaked hair and a nose ring and he recognized her as one of Sheridan’s high school friends. She was texting with someone, but when she looked up she seemed to recognize him as well. Everybody knew the game warden.

He said, “Is Revis Wentworth still in the same room on the third floor? I need to ask him some questions and I’m pretty sure he told me it was room 348.”

The girl looked on the computer and said, “No, he’s in 343.”

“Thank you,” Joe said, tapping his fingers on the counter in thanks. “Good to see you again.”

“No problem,” she replied, and reached for her phone.

He’d had no idea of Wentworth’s room number and he knew she wasn’t authorized to give it out. He felt slightly guilty about the ruse.

—

JOE KNOCKED LOUDLY on the door of room 343. He stepped to the side so Wentworth couldn’t see him out of the peephole and pretend he wasn’t in.

Joe watched as the peephole darkened, then lightened again. From inside, Wentworth said, “Who is it?”

“Joe Pickett.”

He heard a long sigh and the lock being thrown.

Wentworth wore sweats and gym shoes. A basketball game blared from the TV. His face was fixed in a snarl and he said, “I saw you out there sneaking around in the parking lot. What the hell was that all about?”

Annie Hatch had kept her word.

Joe said, “I was gathering evidence to prove that you slaughtered all the sage grouse in Lek Sixty-four. Annie is going to be very disappointed in you.”

Wentworth’s face drained of color and his mouth opened slightly. For a few seconds, his eyes went blank.

“You can’t prove a thing,” Wentworth said.

“That’s the first thing guilty men always say. They don’t say they didn’t do it or that I don’t know what I’m talking about. They always say I can’t prove it.” Joe smiled. Then: “I don’t know much about women, but I don’t think this was the most brilliant way for you to spend more time with Annie Hatch. After all, what would your wife think?”

“We’re separated,” Wentworth said. As he spoke, he unconsciously kneaded the naked ring finger of his left hand with his right.

Joe said, “That’s your business.”

Wentworth stepped aside as Joe entered the hotel room. The closet door was open and Joe peered inside. A 12-gauge pump shotgun was propped in the corner of the closet and an open box of Federal shells was on the shelf above the hanging rod. Joe could feel Wentworth tense up when he realized what Joe was looking at. Joe quickly withdrew his phone and snapped a photo of the shotgun and the shells.

“I’ll be confiscating your weapon and the ammo,” Joe said. “Don’t worry—I’ll give you a receipt.”

“You can’t do that,” Wentworth said.

“Sure I can. Weapons suspected of being used in a wildlife crime can be confiscated until it’s proved otherwise. So I’ll be taking your shotgun with me for analysis.”

Wentworth shook his head. He was trying to force a smile. He said, “I know shotgun pellets aren’t like bullets. You can’t match up the markings on pellets to a certain gun, and those Federal shells are a dime a dozen.”

“Yup,” Joe said, gathering the items. “But every shotgun leaves a unique firing-pin indentation on the primer. You can’t see it with your naked eye, but a forensics lab can see it through a microscope. They’ll know if this gun was used to kill those birds when they match it up with the spent shells I found at the scene.”

“Bullshit.”

“This time I’m sending the evidence to my lab,” Joe said. “If I were you, I’d start a long conversation with myself about all this.”

“So what are you going to do?” Wentworth talked like his mouth was dry. He looked at Joe with pleading eyes.

“Now?” Joe said. “I’m going to go home and have dinner with my family. But don’t worry—I’ll be in touch.”

Wentworth’s cell phone rang on a lamp table near his bed.

“That’ll be Annie,” Joe said while he backed out with the shotgun. “If I were you, I wouldn’t pick up.”

Joe’s last glimpse of Wentworth as the door shut was of a man with his head in his hands.

—

THAT NIGHT, while Joe and Marybeth were getting ready for bed, Marybeth said, “I think we should go to church tomorrow. I know it’s been a while, but I want to pray for April and Nate and to make sure they’re on the church’s prayer list. Lucy even said she wants to come along.”

Joe said, “I have to go to Cheyenne and meet with the governor.”

“On a Sunday?” She was distressed by the news.

“You know how he is.”

“You have to go to Cheyenne on a Sunday to talk about wild birds?”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .”

“No, you go,” she said. “The governor’s been good to you and he won’t be in office forever. I’ll take Lucy with me to church and give everyone your regards.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll pray for them as I drive south.”

“You do that.”

—

AFTER MARYBETH had turned off her reading lamp, Joe said, “Do you think there is any connection between what happened to April and what happened to Nate?”

She hesitated for a moment, then clicked her light on again and propped herself up on her elbow.

“What?”

“It’s something the governor mentioned today. He doesn’t know all the details, but he thought it strange that two big events happened so close together. It’s got me thinking, but I can’t connect them at all.”

“That’s because there’s nothing to connect,” she said sharply.

“I’m sure you’re right.”

She reached over and doused the light again and settled under the covers with a huff.

“Thanks for giving me something to keep me awake all night,” she said.

“Sorry.”