Joe shook his head. “He was never charged because Stella turned up alive and well. Marcus Hand was his lawyer. The Teton County DA plea-bargained the rest of the charges and Don Ennis paid some fines and moved to Florida.”
“How did she wind up in the governor’s office?”
“I have no idea,” Joe said. “She’s resourceful.”
“This state is too small sometimes,” she said.
“Yes it is.”
Marybeth approached Joe and pulled him to her with her hands behind his neck, so their faces were inches apart. “Stay away from her, Joe. You know what happened last time.”
“Nothing,” Joe said, flushing.
“Yes, but,” she said.
“Honey . . .”
“She’s a very good-looking woman. I’ve seen pictures of her. She’s beautiful, and very dangerous. But so am I.”
He smiled. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“I believe you.”
“Besides, it sounds like I’ll be too busy dealing with Sheriff McLanahan and Randy Pope. I’m not looking forward to
“I don’t trust her,” Marybeth said. “But I do trust you.”
“You should.”
“Plus, Sheridan and Lucy would kill you if you ever did anything untoward.”
“That I’m sure of,” Joe said.
“So what’s going on? Another hunter?”
“Apparently,” Joe said. “I don’t know much yet, but the governor’s worried.”
“Any idea how long you’ll be gone this time?”
“I should be back tonight.”
“No,” she said. “I mean on this case.”
He buckled on his holster with the .40 Glock, pepper spray, and handcuffs and reached for his Stetson that was crown down on the dresser.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s another accident or foul play. Everyone’s jumpy because of those other hunters who got shot. No one wants to imagine that someone is hunting hunters, but everyone is thinking that.”
She nodded. She didn’t need to tell him there were parent-teacher conferences later in the week at Lucy’s junior high and Sheridan’s high school. Or about the party they’d been invited to with members of their church. Or about the fact that she wanted him home while she battled with her mother and needed his support.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” he said.
She walked him to the door. Lucy was still watching television and didn’t look at him. She simply said, “Gone again?”
Joe stopped, hurt. Marybeth pushed him gently out the door into the front yard.
“We’ll be here when you get home,” she said. Then: “It looks like there’s someone who would like to go with you.”
He turned, hoping Sheridan was on the porch pulling on her jacket. But it was Maxine, his old Labrador who had turned white four years before and was now half-blind, half-deaf, and fully flatulent.
“Come on, girl,” Joe said.
Maxine clattered stiff-legged down the sidewalk, her tail snapping side to side like her old self. Joe had to lift her back end into the cab.
“I
Joe kissed her. “You’ve made your point,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about here. I need to go.”
“I understand,” she said, “but Ed Nedny is going to be real upset with you.”
3
PHIL KINER, the new game warden of the Saddlestring District, was waiting for Joe in his green Ford four- wheel-drive pickup with the Wyoming Game and Fish logo on the door in front of Joe’s old home on Bighorn Road. Joe drove an identical pickup. Joe tried not to let it get to him that Phil now lived in his former state-owned home with the view of Wolf Mountain, tried not to allow the nostalgia he’d let in that morning eat further into him, but when he saw the house he couldn’t help it. The picket fence needed painting and the corral needed repair. When he shot a glance at the windows of the house he saw the images and ghosts of his younger family looking out as they had once posed—Marybeth, Sheridan, Lucy—and his foster daughter, April. He shook his head hard to rid himself of the memory and stanched his longing for the innocence and naivete of that time.
Kiner unrolled his window as Joe pulled up beside him nose to tail, the quintessential cop maneuver so neither
