Joe closed his eyes. How much worse could this day get? he wondered.
“Joe! How in the hell are you?”
The governor’s voice was deep and raspy. There was heavy background noise, overlapping conversations, the bark of a laugh.
“Hello, sir. I’m fine.”
“Good, good. Can you hear me okay? I’m in Washington giving hell to these bastards, and I’ve got a few minutes between meetings. I don’t have long, so we need to get to the point.”
“Okay.”
“First, how is Marybeth? How are the girls?”
“Good all around. They’re here with me. . . .”
“Tell me straight: are you nuts? Did you go goofy down there in exile?”
Joe swallowed. “No.”
“I got part of the story from my chief of staff, who’s in touch with DCI. I’ve been anxiously awaiting news of a bloody shootout where two brothers are killed and two women are rescued in the mountains. Instead, I hear they can’t find anything or anybody.”
“I just heard from Sheriff McLanahan,” Joe said. “They must have been searching in the wrong places.”
“Hmmm.”
Joe asked, “Do you know a DCI investigator named Bobby McCue? He was in here earlier today asking me a bunch more questions about what I saw up there. Do you know why DCI is questioning my story?”
“What did you say his name was?”
“McCue.”
“The name is familiar somehow, but I can’t say I place him. You say he was with the state?”
“That’s what he claimed.”
“We have too many goddamned employees,” Rulon huffed. “I can’t know every one of ’em.”
Rulon said suddenly,
“They prefer the Grim Brothers.”
“Diane Shober?”
“I don’t swear it was her. I made that clear to the DCI. I said outright I may have been mistaken.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We don’t have wolves in southern Wyoming.”
“You do, sir. C’mon, governor. How can you doubt me? Have I ever lied to you? Or anybody?”
“Well, no,” Rulon said. “You haven’t. Sometimes I wish you would. An honest man can be a big pain in the butt to a politician, you know.”
Joe smiled.
“Have you been contacted by the press yet?” Rulon asked. “They’re going to eat this story up.”
“No.”
“Especially the Diane Shober angle. I know how those bastards think. They won’t care about Terri Wade or you. But they’ll be on the missing-runner thing like fat kids on a pie.
“Do not under any circumstances talk to them,” Rulon said. “Say ‘no comment’ and direct any inquiries to my office. We won’t talk to them either, but they don’t know that yet.”
“Okay,” Joe said.
“It’s gonna be damage-control mode. Luckily, we’ve had a little experience with that lately,” he said, almost wistfully. “How this plays out will be a reflection on me and my administration, since I hired you and tried to squirrel you away where you wouldn’t do any more damage. If this story gets out . . .”
“It’s not a story,” Joe said, gritting his teeth. “It’s the truth. It’s what happened. I’m in a hospital bed because of those brothers.”
“That sheriff of yours calls you a fabulist,” Rulon said. “We won’t be able to keep him quiet.”
“No,” Joe agreed.
Rulon paused. “Okay, then. I’ve got two calls I need to return. They both have to do with you. The first is from Chuck Coon at the FBI. He says he wants to be briefed, but I think he may know something about those brothers that he doesn’t want to reveal. As you know, the feds always have something going on behind the scenes.”
Joe grunted. Governor Rulon was getting more and more disparaging of the federal government all the time. Joe used to think he did it to gain popularity with his constituents. In a state where more than 50 percent of the land was owned and managed by federal bureaucracies, the battles between locals and Washington were fierce. Rulon had recently been quoted in national newsmagazines calling the government “thieving, blood-dripping vampire jackals” and “jackbooted fascist thugs.” Joe was beginning to think Rulon believed every word he said.
