friend was likely to run. No doubt Barnum and Munker had asked Rope about his partner, but if he had said anything to them, it hadn’t resulted in anything. Now Latham was in jail, in the county building, guarded by sheriff’s deputies. Barnum’s crew might not let Joe in to see him, or might delay a meeting throughout the day. Joe didn’t think he had the time to waste right now. Also, Rope Latham wouldn’t exactly have special feelings for the man who had arrested him, and if he was going to talk, it probably wasn’t going to be to him.
Using his cell phone, Joe made sure Marybeth had made it home. She was there, but said the county had closed the road in back of her. And her van was stuck in the driveway.
On a chance, he tried another number.
“County attorney’s office.”
“Robey? You’re there.”
“Ah, Joe . . .” he said it in a way that suggested he wished it was just about anybody else who was calling him.
“Robey, you need to help me.”
Silence.
“Robey?”
“I shouldn’t even be talking to you, Joe, after what you said this morning. How you treated me. I’ll just assume that you’re a little off your rocker right now. Can I assume that?”
Joe nodded, even though Hersig couldn’t see it. “I guess you can assume that. I guess I get that way when I see a blood-bath coming.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Joe . . .”
“Robey.”
“Are Strickland and Munker still gathering the troops? Considering the weather, I mean?”
“You are to stay away from that meeting, Joe. You’re likely to be arrested if you even show up.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“YES!”
Joe slowed to a stop in the middle of the street. There was no traffic to impede. “How are they going to get up the mountain? I just talked with Marybeth, and she said Bighorn Road is already closed.”
“I don’t know all the details, Joe. This isn’t exactly my department. But I heard Barnum put in a request for those Sno-Cats again. And the sheriff’s department has snowmobiles of their own. My understanding is that they’ll roll as soon as they can get enough vehicles.”
THINK.
The first place Joe had ever noticed Rope Latham and Spud Cargill together was during the Christmas Eve service at the First Alpine Church of Saddlestring. He’d been concerned with the presence of the Sovereigns at the time, and hadn’t given it much consideration until now.
Two single men, business partners, had gone to church together. That was a bit unusual in itself. And although he didn’t know either man well, he couldn’t say that the roofers showed any outward signs of deep religiosity. One never knew for sure about such things, he thought, but neither seemed to approach business or life in a very God- fearing way. Unprovoked murder and assault for unpaid bills weren’t exactly Christian acts.
But the First Alpine Church was more than just another denomination. It was “unconventional.” Joe had heard that the weekly sermons by the Reverend B. J. Cobb were equal parts Gospel and God Damn the Government. It was the latter part, he surmised, that had drawn Spud Cargill.
Joe flipped a U-turn in the middle of the empty street and felt the back end of the truck fishtail in the snow. When it gripped, he gunned the truck eastward toward the edge of town.
One of the advantages of the storm, Joe thought, was that it drove everyone home and indoors. In normal circumstances, a search for the Reverend B. J. Cobb would have consisted of visiting various work sites where his contract welding unit might be set up. But today, Cobb would likely be home like everybody else. Home was a double-wide trailer behind the church.
Joe parked in front of the church and waded through the snow toward the double-wide. There were no fresh tracks of any kind around either structure. A snowmobile had been driven out from the garage and parked near the road, a wise precaution if an emergency came up.
He banged on the metal door and waited.
B. J. Cobb opened it wearing a ratty terrycloth bathrobe over a sweatshirt and stained white painter’s pants. He was unshaven. The odor of simmering chili wafted out of the door.
“Hello, sir,” Cobb said, not unfriendly.
Joe nodded and said he didn’t mean to bother him at home. “Can I ask you some questions?”
Cobb smiled and looked up over Joe’s head at the falling snow. “It seems like today you should be home with your family, waiting this out, instead of standing in it.”
“If you let me in, I wouldn’t be standing in it,” Joe said.
Cobb looked down. He didn’t invite Joe inside, which annoyed Joe slightly.
“What can I help you with?”
“Spud Cargill. He was a member of your church. I saw him there Christmas Eve.”
Cobb nodded, and pulled his bathrobe together across his chest.
“B.J., would you please close that door?” Mrs. Eunice Cobb implored from somewhere inside the trailer. “You’re letting all the heat out!”
