Winterkill

Her dad nodded, and began to pull away from the curb. Then something seemed to hit him and he slammed on the brakes. Lucy yelled “Dad!” to admonish him, but Sheridan turned in her seat to face her father.

“Sheridan,” he said slowly, enunciating clearly, each word dropping like a stone. “How do you know your mother came and got her?”

“I heard the announcement from the other room,” she said. “The secretary came on and asked for April to report to the principal’s office. That’s what they do.”

Lucy came to her older sister’s defense. “They made an announcement like that for me when Mom came and got me to take me to the dentist. Whenever they do that it means your mom or dad is waiting in the office for you.”

“Did you see her?” her dad asked. “Did you see your mom?”

Both girls shook their heads. Sheridan had seen a woman in a green dress pass by her classroom door. But it wasn’t her mother. She had no idea why their father seemed so upset. Then she realized what must have happened—Jeannie Keeley must have come for April and taken her away. Sheridan clapped her hand to her mouth. She had been afraid something like this would happen. Her parents had never spelled out what was happening with April, but Sheridan knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“Your mom was at work all day at the library and the stables,” he said.

And their sister April was gone.

Sheridan began to sob, and Lucy joined her. Sheridan felt awful. April was her responsibility because she was the oldest. Her dad closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and drove. He did not say It’s okay, it’s not your fault.

“I need to call your mother,” her dad said, his voice resigned.

Joe lay awake in bed and waited for Marybeth to join him. It was late, and he was exhausted. He watched Marybeth brush her teeth and clean her face in the vanity mirror. He could hear the murmur of late-night television from downstairs, a nightly habit of Missy Vankueren’s.

Marybeth had amazed him once again that night. By the time Joe got home, Marybeth had again channeled her rage and frustration into usefulness. Her ability to push her emotion aside and develop a strategy was stunning, Joe thought.

She had calmed Sheridan and Lucy as well as she could, and made dinner for them all. While she cooked, she methodically called both the principal and the sheriff to notify them of what had happened. She left after-hours messages with the county attorney and three local attorneys, asking them to call her in the morning.

While the girls bathed and watched television with Missy, Marybeth filled a suitcase and several boxes with April’s clothing and toys. At the first opportunity, she announced to Joe, they must make sure Jeannie received April’s belongings. She said it with a kind of chilly determination that had unnerved him.

“Jeannie got April before we could prepare our little girl, or kiss her goodbye,” Marybeth said. “I will never forgive her for that.”

Missy always thought—and often said—that Marybeth would have made an excellent corporate lawyer if she hadn’t married Joe Pickett and started having children. Now Joe could see what an efficient and cold-blooded lawyer she could have become.

Marybeth turned the vanity light off and came to bed. Joe held her.

“We’re going to get April back,” Marybeth said through gritted teeth. “We’re going to get her back, Joe.”

Three times during the night, Marybeth left the bedroom. Joe slept so fitfully that he woke up and noted her comings and goings each time. He knew what she was doing. She was checking to make sure that her other two girls were still there.

Twenty-one

On Friday night, the public meeting on road closures in the national forests was held in the cafeteria of Saddlestring High School, home of the Wranglers. Joe Pickett arrived late. He parked in the last row of cars in the lot and shuffled through vehicles toward the building. It was bitterly cold, with a clear sky. The stars looked blue-white and hard, and he could hear the rattling hum of an overworked power transformer mounted on a light pole. A set of fluorescent pole lamps cast chilling pools of light on the snow and ice in the gravel lot. The storm predicted by the National Weather Service had skirted the Bighorns and slammed full-force into the Tetons, the Absarokas and the Wind River mountains to the west. Twelve Sleep Valley had received only a skiff of light snow and single-degree temperatures.

Before he had left his home office, Joe had sent a report to his supervisor outlining the doubts he had about Nate Romanowski’s guilt, and saying that he thought there was a connection between Lamar Gardiner’s murder and Birch Wardell’s crash in the foothills. Joe wrote that he didn’t have enough information to take his suspicions to the sheriff or Melinda Strickland, but that he hoped to draw out the driver of the light-colored vehicle. He ended his report to Terry Crump by saying that due to personal circumstances relating to his foster daughter, he might need to request time off in the near future. Then he had sent the e-mail, gathered his parka, walked out through the cold to his pickup, and left to attend the meeting.

Judging by the number of vehicles in the parking lot, Joe expected a full house inside for the meeting. A blast of warm air greeted him as he opened the cafeteria door, and he could see that the room was filled with locals sitting in metal folding chairs. This was definitely an outdoor crowd—hunters, fishermen, outfitters, ranchers. Most of the men wore heavy coats, boots, and facial hair. Melinda Strickland was speaking from behind a podium. Maps were taped to the wall behind her. Joe worked his way toward the back of the room. A few men Joe knew in the audience nodded greetings to him.

Behind him, Melinda Strickland paused in her briefing about the meeting’s protocol.

“Glad you could make it, Joe!” Melinda Strickland said with surprising enthusiasm.

Joe waved and felt his face flush as nearly a hundred men turned in his direction before they settled back around toward the podium. For a moment, Joe wondered why she had greeted him so warmly and publicly. When a number of the faces lingered on him with narrowed eyes, he realized why. It was Melinda Strickland’s way of announcing to the crowd that he was on her side. The realization left him cold.

Several men were already standing behind the crowd, their backs to the wall, surveying the participants. Two of them, one with curly gray hair and another with hawkish eyes, stood with their arms folded, barely contained smirks on their faces. Joe recognized them as the men who had asked Sheridan for directions. Elle Broxton-Howard, looking smashing in a black outfit with a fleece vest, was there as well. She scribbled earnestly in her pad. Robey