Stone Cold

23

“What do you mean, not until tomorrow?” Joe said angrily to Chuck Coon.

“Realistically, it may be a couple of days.”

“Are you sure? In a couple of days, I may be dead.”

“Have you looked outside?”

He grunted as he swung to his feet and limped to the window. His lower back ached from sleeping on the sagging mattress.

Fifteen inches of snow covered the ground outside, and it was still coming down. The pine forest had been transformed into two tones: white and gray. Trees looked ghostly through the falling snow, and the hills looked quiet and muted — as if everything was on hold for a while.

“It’s worse in Cheyenne because the wind has kicked up as usual,” Coon said. “Everything’s closed — the airport, the interstates, the schools. Half my guys didn’t even make it in this morning. What a freak damn storm. They didn’t even predict it. It’s just like you wake up and it’s a whiteout.”

Joe groaned.

He’d spent the previous thirty minutes on the phone with Coon — pausing only to take a quick call from Marybeth to say he’d call her back — recapping all that had gone on the night before and what he suspected. Coon admonished him for dismantling the bomb instead of leaving it intact for forensics, but he was as intrigued as Joe was about locating Nate Romanowski. In fact, the agent-in-charge seemed almost jaunty — which rubbed Joe the wrong way. Joe’s story had energized Coon to a surprising degree, Joe thought. The man was on the hunt now, armed with real evidence. Joe understood the feeling but couldn’t share it because of his circumstances. The dreary hotel room, lack of sleep, and growing fear that he’d be found by Critchfield and the others didn’t allow him to share Coon’s enthusiasm.

Coon spoke as if he were thinking out loud: “We finally have actionable evidence on the operation up there, thanks to our midnight bombers. You can personally identify the four of them, right?”

“Right.”

“Did you get any photos?”

“No.”

“I wish you had.”

“Chuck, I didn’t even think of it at the time, and I’m not sure I could have risked it.” Joe paused and said, “But they don’t know that.”

Coon chuckled. “We might be able to suggest you did, is what you’re saying. Something like, ‘What would you say if you found out that Joe Pickett took a camera-phone shot of the four of you together in the sheriff’s SUV?’ And see what they do.”

“Yup.”

“If we can get somebody to talk — and we now have four suspects — one or more of them might give us something we can build on. I’m particularly interested in sweating this Bill Critchfield. He might be our link between the bomb under your truck and Wolfgang Templeton.”

“That’s why I made that stupid call to your voice message yesterday. I was trying to flush them out.”

“And just maybe it worked. I still can’t condone all your methods, though.”

“Oh well,” Joe said.

They talked about sending state DCI and federal evidence techs to search the ranch with sonar for buried bodies.

Coon said, “That makes it even more important we do this right. From what you’re telling me, we need to storm that county with every man we’ve got and grab them all at once before they know what’s happening, so we can isolate the four bombers from each other. We can’t pick them up one by one or they might warn the rest in the food chain. So that means we need at least four arrest teams and maybe even extra manpower from South Dakota or Montana. I need my full forensics team to go over that motel cabin to pull out the spy gear you say is there, and the bomb experts to go over that device you found. We need to get approval from D.C. for an operation on that scale.”

“How long will that take?” Joe asked.

“Like I said, a couple of days. You know how the bureaucracy works — or doesn’t.”

“I want to get out of here as soon as I can,” Joe said, parting the moth-eaten curtains with the back of his hand to look outside again. Most of the hunting vehicles were long gone. Nothing excited hunters more than fresh snow to track game. “Everybody knows everybody around here. It may not take them long to figure out where I am.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Coon said. “I’ll call you back after I’ve talked to D.C. Guys are slowly making their way in here now, so I’ll have a better idea of what kind of manpower we’ve got by this afternoon. I’ll also give the heads-up to Rulon that his range rider might have broken this thing wide open. He’ll need to give us his blessing to proceed, because he’s said in the past—many times—that he’d arrest any federal official who takes action in the state without his approval.”

Joe noted the disdain in Coon’s tone, and it made him smile.

Coon continued, “I don’t think there’ll be any problem this time, since he was the one who sent you up there. But keep in mind even if everything goes perfectly, it’s still five hours from here to there on the roads. There’s no way we can fly up there in this weather. So you’ll need to just lie low and stay off their radar until we can get there.”

“I thought I was supposed to make my report and go home,” Joe said. “That was the deal.”

“That deal is no longer operable,” Coon laughed. “Now we need you to stay. It’ll make a big difference that you’re with us when we brace those four bombers — especially that other game warden. They need to see your face and know that you can place them at the motel last night. That’ll turn the heat up on them. Make sense?”

“Yeah,” Joe said, discouraged.

Coon mused, “I’m thinking that even without the definitive photo of them together from you, we can still pull trace and DNA evidence from inside the sheriff’s vehicle that will put them at the scene. Not to mention fingerprints and trace from the bomb itself. Where did you say it was now?”

“In a safe place,” Joe said.

Coon paused. “What does that mean?”

“I hid it someplace they won’t think to look for it. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“But what if—”

Joe finished Coon’s thought for him. “What if they get to me and by the time you get up here, I’m not around to show you where it is or place them at the scene? Well, maybe that’ll give you another reason to get things moving on your end.”

Coon chuckled. Joe didn’t appreciate it.

“Whatever you do, Joe, don’t engage them. Just stay where you are and don’t let yourself be seen. We can’t risk them finding you and blowing the case before we can move on it.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Joe said.

“Yeah — it didn’t exactly come out the way I wanted it to sound,” Coon said, his voice contrite.

“But it’s what you meant.”

Joe took Coon’s silence as agreement.

“I’m trapped here for the moment,” Joe said, explaining that his pickup was miles away through the forest and he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to retrieve it.

“There’s something else,” Joe added. “I need money.”

“We all need money.”

“No — I need cash. I’m tapped out, is what I’m saying.”

Coon said, “The governor didn’t give you a budget?”

“No.”

“Well — this is uncomfortable,” Coon sighed.

They worked out a way that Coon could transfer seven hundred dollars from a bureau emergency fund directly into Joe and Marybeth’s bank account. Joe could draw it out from the saloon ATM when it cleared, which he hoped would be soon.

“You’ll have to pay that back,” Coon said.

“Talk to the governor about that.”

Coon groaned but agreed.

“I’ll call you back as soon as I know when we can move,” Coon said.

Before Joe could speed-dial Marybeth, his phone lit up again. Coon calling back.

“That was quick,” Joe said.

“Ha-ha. No, I just remembered I had something to tell you. I forgot about it until now. Didn’t you say this fancy southern guy you ran into was named Whip?”

“Yes.”

“We might have something on him. The photo we’ve got matches your description, and I’ll send it to your phone in a second so you can ID it.”

“So who is he?” Joe asked.

“He might be named Robert Whipple, originally from Charlotte, North Carolina. My guys did a search of FBI databases and got more than a few hits on him. If it’s this Robert Whipple, you need to not run into him again.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Joe said. He could hear Coon shuffling through paperwork so he could summarize it over the phone.

“Robert Whipple, aka Whip, was a CIA Black Operator during Operation Desert Storm. He was with an off-the-books rendition and interrogations unit, but his cover got blown by a whistle-blower in the same unit who claimed Whipple murdered a couple of Iraqi Republican Guards who wouldn’t cooperate. The whistle-blower said Whip shot one of the Republican Guards in the back of the head with a .22 pistol in front of the other. The scared Iraqi told Whip everything he wanted to know, but it turned out the information was bad. Whip supposedly came back the next week and put a .22 round into that man’s head as well.

“Let’s see,” Coon said, reading further: “By the time the whistleblower made his allegations, Whip had vanished into thin air. He’s never been arrested, and his whereabouts were unknown — until possibly now. But his name was associated with several high-profile disappearances, kind of the same deal as Templeton himself. Dirty people seem to know his name—Whip—but they didn’t give enough information to tie Whipple directly to any murders.”

Joe felt his chest constrict. Again, he parted the curtains on the window. There were no new vehicles in the lot.

His phone chimed and he opened the photo message sent from Coon.

“Yup,” Joe said. The dark features, hooded eyes, and feminine mouth. “That’s him.”

“Man,” Coon laughed, “there is a nest of dangerous outlaws up there. I may end up getting a promotion out of this.”

Joe sighed and terminated the call.

Before he could call Marybeth, there was a rapid knocking on his door. Joe froze for a second and took a step toward his shotgun. The knocking was frantic, and sounded like a woodpecker hammering.

“Housekeeping.” A female voice Joe recognized as belonging to Alice from the front desk. Daisy barked at the sound.

“Why start now?” Joe asked her through the door, looking around at his armpit of a room.

“What did you say?” she asked suspiciously.

“Never mind. I don’t need anything.”

“Was that a dog I heard in there? Dogs are an extra twenty-dollar surcharge.”

“I’ll pay it.”

“Aren’t you going hunting today?” she asked. “Everybody else is gone. It snowed during the night and it’s still snowing.”

“Yup.”

“So you’re just going to stay in your room all day? Do you need any towels or anything?”

“No.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“You can slip that extra twenty for the dog under the door, then.”

Joe rolled his eyes, dug out his wallet, and found his last twenty. As he slid it under the door, she snatched it with the speed of a change machine.

“Something else, Mr. Roma-nooski. If you’re staying in this room again tonight, you need to pay in advance. You can just slip that under the door like you did the other.”

Joe took a moment to think. If she wanted cash on the spot, he assumed he was still off the books and their unspoken arrangement could continue.

“I’ll have it for you tonight,” Joe said. “I’ve got to get some cash from the ATM.”

“You said cash, right?” she asked.

“Yup.”

She paused and seemed to be thinking something over. For a moment, Joe feared there might be someone with her. The door didn’t have a peephole so he couldn’t check that out.

“Look,” she said, her voice much lower. He had to lean toward the door to hear her. “Couple of guys came by this morning and asked whether I’d seen a man who kind of looked like you. They didn’t mention no dog, though.”

Critchfield and Smith, Joe thought.

“I told them you weren’t registered, which is the truth.”

“Thank you,” Joe said, not sure if he believed her. But then he thought she must be telling the truth or he would have already had visitors.

“I don’t like them two guys,” she said. “Never did. It goes back years. But I thought you’d want to know.”

“I appreciate it,” Joe said. “I really do.”

“Of course,” she said conspiratorially, “that means the price of this room just went up.”

He winced. “How much?”

“I’m thinking five hundred a night, two-night minimum — in advance.”

Joe said, “So a thousand.”

“That’ll be good,” she whispered.

“I’ll give it to you tonight,” Joe said.

“I think you’d better,” she said. Then: “Sure you don’t want some clean towels?”

He quickly texted Coon to make the loan at least twelve hundred dollars and “no less.” Then he imagined the special agent blowing his top.

When he reached Marybeth, he tried not to convey his growing sense of panic. There was no need worrying her when there was nothing she — or he — could do about it at the moment. She said it was snowing there, too, but it was supposed to clear up by late afternoon. The Twelve Sleep County Library and schools were closed due to the weather, but both would likely reopen the next day.

And, she said, Mrs. Young in California wouldn’t pick up.

“I’m guessing she sees the 307 area code and just won’t answer the phone,” she said. “I’m really frustrated.”

She said she was equally frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t locate a Facebook page or blog she could tie to Erik. That alone made her uneasy, since she assumed he was on the Web—he had to be—under a false name.

When she asked what he’d been doing the previous night, Joe said he’d been out scouting and left it at that, and quickly changed the subject: “Have you heard anything from Sheridan?”

“The university’s closed today, too,” Marybeth said. “I texted her and asked how things were going. She sent me an answer that everything was fine. That’s all she said, and I didn’t ask any more. I may call her later today, though, since she’s likely just hanging out in her dorm room.”

“Let me know,” Joe said.

“I will.”

“So the girls are home with you today?”

“Yes, yes, they are,” Marybeth said. “Lucy got up, heard school was closed, and went back to bed. April’s making breakfast.”

“How’s that going?”

Joe heard the muffled sound of Marybeth covering the mic on the phone, and he waited until she was someplace — probably the hallway — where she felt free to talk. Her voice was a barely audible whisper.

“I don’t know what’s happened, but she’s been an angel. The good April is back. She even smiled this morning when she heard there was no school.”

“What brought on the change in her outlook?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m not going to ask yet. I’m stuck in the house all day with her, after all.”

“That’s good news,” Joe said. “Maybe she’s kind of getting over this Dallas Cates thing.”

His wife snorted and said, “That’s not likely. But I don’t know — maybe he’s getting a clue and not pressuring her to follow him on the rodeo circuit or something. Whatever it is, she’s not sulking and slamming doors, which is all I ask.”

Joe nodded to himself. He said, “I’m hoping to be home in a couple of days at the most. I’m ready to get out of this place.”

“Yes,” she said, “it will be good to have you back.”

“Marybeth, I love you and the girls.” It just came out.

She paused and said, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Exactly what Sheridan said, and I’m not sure I completely believe either one of you. Now you’ve got me scared.”

“Don’t be,” Joe said. “I can’t tell you everything yet, but the FBI is manning up to get up here and take over. This should be done soon — or at least my part in it.”

“Good. Remember your promise.”

“I have,” Joe said.

“Joe,” she said, “did you try to call me last night? From a pay phone or something?”

“No,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I saw your text, but I thought it was too late to call back.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Someone called my cell phone last night. I missed it because I was in the shower, but it had a Medicine Wheel County prefix. They didn’t leave a message or anything, but I thought it was curious.”

Joe asked, “What time?”

“A few minutes after midnight.”

Joe thought back. He’d been on the ATV, retreating from the Sand Creek Ranch.

“It wasn’t me,” Joe said. The second he said it, he had a possible explanation.

She beat him to it, and said, “Joe, I had this premonition. What if it was Nate?”

“He’s here,” Joe said.

She paused and her voice rose. “And when were you going to tell me that little fact?”

“Soon.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No. But I think I found where he lives on the Sand Creek Ranch.”

“I hope he’s not…” she began to say, but didn’t finish the sentence.

“Me too,” Joe said.

“But if it was him, I wish I knew what he was calling about.”

Joe wondered the same thing, and was about to say something when he noticed Daisy had gone rigid and was staring at the door. Her growl came out as a low, cautionary rumble that ended with two heavy barks that shook the thin walls.

Joe said, “Gotta go.” Someone was outside in the hallway.

As he tossed the phone on the bed and reached for his shotgun, he heard the clumping of retreating boots.

He kept the shotgun aimed at the door for thirty seconds until Daisy calmed down and there was no more rustling outside. Then he went to his window and parted the moth-eaten curtains. They weren’t made of lace after all.

“Oh no,” Joe said aloud.

There, out in the parking lot, was Jim Latta walking from the inn toward his pickup. His shoulders were bunched and hands jammed in his pockets against the falling snow. His vehicle was idling in the lot, exhaust billowing from the tailpipe. When Latta opened his door, Joe caught a glimpse of a passenger — a young girl. His daughter, no doubt.

What he didn’t see was Latta opening his phone to call anyone.

Yet.