“I’m losing my signal,” he lied, then turned the phone off and tossed it angrily aside onto his truck seat.
Eleven
Bucking a rooster tail of plowed snow in the county building’s lot, Joe parked in the designated visitors section and got out. Three floors of institutional blond brick housed the sheriff’s office, the jail, the attorney, the court, the assessor, the treasurer, and other county administration offices. The sandstone inscription over the front doors read:
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
WHERE THE PAVEMENT ENDS
AND THE WEST BEGINS
The slogan was an endless source of amusement, especially among a group of retired men who drank coffee every morning at the Burg-O-Pardner. They’d petitioned the Saddlestring
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
TRAILHEAD FOR THE INFORMATION COWPATH
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
MILLENNIUM? WHAT MILLENNIUM?
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
TEN YEARS BEHIND WYOMING,
WHICH IS TEN YEARS BEHIND EVERYWHERE ELSE
Joe was still shaken from the events of the morning. The word “custody” hung in the air and wouldn’t go away. Joe hoped like hell that Brockius was wrong. And where was Jeannie Keeley, if she wasn’t in the camp?
Melinda Strickland’s rantings had angered and confused him further. She had sounded unhinged, hysterical. When would she go away?
And now this. Nate Romanowski.
After hanging up on Strickland, Joe had decided to visit Nate at the county jail. He was curious as to why the man had called him. He hoped as well that talking to Nate would dispel the lingering doubts he had about his guilt. And Joe also hoped it would really piss off Melinda Strickland. A newly installed metal detector and security desk were manned by a semi-retired deputy wearing a name tag that identified him as “Stovepipe.” He’d received the nickname years before in an elk camp when he fell over a woodstove in a tent and brought the chimney down all over himself. Joe had met Stovepipe during the previous summer when Joe had driven up on him to check out his fishing license. Stovepipe had fallen asleep on the bank of the river, where he had been bait fishing, and was angered to discover when he awoke that a trout had not only taken his bait, but had dragged his rod into the river.
This time, Stovepipe was awake, although barely.
“You ever find your fishing rod?” Joe asked, while he unbuckled his gunbelt and slid it across the counter.
Stovepipe shook his head sadly. “That was a hundred-dollar Ugly Stik with a Mitchell 300 reel. I bet you that fish must have been seven pounds.”
“Maybe,” Joe said, patting his pockets for metal items.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stovepipe said conspiratorially, leaning forward over the counter to see if anyone else was around. “The machine’s broke anyway. It hasn’t worked since July.”
The sheriff’s office and county jail were on the second floor. Joe mounted the steps and pushed through frosted glass doors. Barnum’s door was shut and his office was dark, but Deputies Reed and McLanahan sat at desks, staring into computer monitors.
“Which one of you told Melinda Strickland that Nate Romanowski called me?” Joe asked.
Reed was obviously puzzled by the question. That left Deputy McLanahan. When McLanahan looked up, Joe noticed two things. The first was a barely disguised hatred—a snake-eyed, thin-lipped countenance similar to a horse about to bite. The second thing he noticed were the stitches that appeared to fasten McLanahan’s nose to his face.
“What can I help you with, Mr. Pickett?” McLanahan asked, the question posed as a bored statement.
“What happened to you?” Joe asked, taking his coat off and hanging it on a hook. He kept his cowboy hat on.
“Nate Romanowski happened to him,” Reed volunteered from across the room. McLanahan glared at Reed.
“When did he do that?”
“Two days ago,” Reed answered again, ignoring McLanahan.
“What are you, my goddamned mouthpiece?” McLanahan asked, rising from his desk. He turned to Joe.
“I looked in Romanowski’s cell and he was on his bed trying to choke himself. He had his hand in his mouth, and I told him to knock it off,” McLanahan explained, his voice nasal due to his injury. “He wouldn’t quit, so I went in there to make him stop.”
“And Romanowski decked him,” Reed said, pointing toward McLanahan. “Romanowski cleaned McLanahan’s clock, then kicked him outside his cell, and shut his own door. He doesn’t like Deputy McLanahan very much.”
“SHUT UP!” McLanahan seethed. Reed looked away, obviously hiding a smile.
Joe looked from Reed to McLanahan. McLanahan’s face was red, and his anger had caused tiny beads of bright red blood to leak through his stitches.
“He didn’t try to escape?” Joe asked. “Seeing that you were on the floor and he could have stepped over you and walked away?”
McLanahan shook his head. “Maybe he knows what I would have done to him if he’d tried.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Joe said, deadpan. Reed continued to look away, but Joe could tell he was smiling by the way Reed’s cheeks bulged out in profile.
