Below Zero

Joe said, “Because it probably is.”

19

ACCORDING TO A DRIVER’S LICENSE FOUND IN HIS BLOODY hip pocket, the body in the SUV belonged to one Francis “Bo” Skelton, thirty-four, of Moorcroft, Wyoming. A call via SALECS to dispatch in Cheyenne revealed Skelton had a significant rap sheet including multiple arrests for possession of methamphetamine, marijuana, and crack cocaine as well as one arrest for B&E that was withdrawn by the Crook County prosecutor when Skelton agreed to cooperate with authorities. Local law enforcement, who had been waiting in vain at the I-90 roadblock, knew Skelton as a rounder and informant who was working with a joint local/state task force to infiltrate methamphetamine traffic in northeastern Wyoming. When not doing drugs or informing, Skelton ran parts for oil well and gas supply companies based in Gillette.

The girlfriend of the deceased, Cyndi Rae Mote, thirty-eight, sat on Joe’s pickup tailgate with a blanket wrapped around her to ward off the predawn chill. It didn’t help much because the few teeth she had still chattered. She told Joe she’d ridden to the Savageton Bar that evening and they stayed until last call. As they left the bar she said the “alcohol caught up with her” and she staggered to a garbage barrel in the parking lot to throw up. The effort knocked her over and she was scrambling on all fours to get back on her feet when she found the cell phone in a stand of weeds.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It looked like a perfectly good phone. I was gonna turn it in to Badger in case someone wanted to claim it . . .”

Joe said, “Badger?”

“The manager. He’s the bartender, too.”

Joe scribbled the name into his notebook, even though he had his mini-cassette tape recorder running in his breast pocket for backup. “Do you have a last name?”

“Mote,” she said, spelling it: “M-O-T-E.”

“Not yours,” Joe said patiently. “Badger’s.”

“Oh. No, I guess not.”

Joe thought, Badger should be easy to find. He glanced up to locate Agents Portenson and Coon, to see if he should call them in to participate in his interview with Cyndi Mote. He found them both where he expected them to be. Coon was circling the SUV with his flashlight, looking at the damage he’d helped inflict. Joe thought, When Coon was talking to Joe the evening before from his kitchen table with his son chattering at him, neither one of them could have imagined how the night would end. Joe felt bad for Coon. He knew Coon to be tightly wound but professional, basically good-hearted and honest. He doubted Coon had ever drawn his service weapon before, much less brandished an AR-15 with laser sights. Joe could only imagine what was going through his mind now that they’d confirmed that the entire incident, which resulted in a dead body, was all predicated on an error.

Meanwhile, Portenson was in the bubble of the helicopter making and taking calls. In a situation like this, Joe thought, raw priorities were revealed without pretense. While Coon was pensive, reflecting on what he’d done, Portenson was reaching out to people who could help bolster his case and save his job. Joe looked back to Cyndi Mote, assessing her. “Go ahead,” he said.

She said, “Anyway, I was gonna turn it in but Bo looked at it and said it was one of those cheap-ass phones like the ones you get at Wal-Mart. He said somebody probably used it up and threw it away.

“He was right. When I turned it on the battery light was flashing,” she said, “but I figured I’d get as many calls out of it as I could before it died.”

Her version confirmed Coon’s claim that the phone was being used to make other calls. It also explained the Wyoming area code and why the FBI hadn’t instantly tracked down the phone number to a specific user. April had been using a TracFone that could be purchased anywhere, loaded with minutes from a calling card, and used like any phone. It was a favorite among those who didn’t want or like long-term phone contracts, monthly bills, or the bells and whistles that came with more expensive phones. It was also the phone of choice among dealers and gangsters and others who didn’t want to be pinned down or tracked, and it came with a kind of temporary anonymity since the number assigned to the phone wasn’t assigned to a person but to the phone itself. But why had she thrown it away instead of recharging it or ordering more minutes? It didn’t make sense. Joe asked, “Who’d you call?”

She grimaced again. Her lips peeled back and her eyes narrowed into slits. Joe realized it was actually her smile.

“I called every ex-boyfriend whose phone number I could remember and told them they were full of shit,” she said, grinning/ grimacing.

“Do you still have the phone?” Joe asked, thinking they better check the call log to make sure it was the same phone April had used.

“I don’t know where it is,” Cyndi said, chewing on her nails. Joe saw that her nails were gnawed to the nub and bleeding. “It’s probably somewhere in Bo’s pickup. It’s probably shot up all to hell, like poor Bo.”

Joe said, “Why did Bo stick his gun out the window and start firing at the helicopter? Couldn’t he hear them ordering him to pull over? If he had, none of this would have happened.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes as if to say, Boys will be boys. “I couldn’t hear them neither,” she said. “We kind of had the music up loud. Like full freakin’ blast. We were just relaxing, you know? Driving down some roads Bo knew from work. All of a sudden the sky was full of light from that damned helicopter and all hell broke loose.

“I still can’t believe Bo started shooting,” Cyndi told Joe. “I knew he had a gun in the truck. I mean, who doesn’t around here? But when that helicopter showed up out of nowhere, Bo went postal and started screaming and shooting.”

She pulled her blanket tight and leaned forward, lowering her voice as if to tell Joe a secret. He bent toward her. The smell of cigarette smoke and souring alcohol was overwhelming. “See, he’s officially helping the cops on some cases and he’s not supposed to be messing with alcohol or drugs anymore. That’s his part of the deal. And he’s not supposed to have a gun. But when that helicopter showed up, he just lost it. He didn’t want to get caught, I guess. I told him to stop but he pointed his gun at me and told me shut up.” She said