Cold Wind

but there’d never been a call or report on him.

Hollow-eyed mixed-breed ranch dogs came boiling out from beneath the front porch as Joe got out. He quickly jumped back in his pickup next to Tube, who was alarmed but not exactly motivated to protect him from the snarling pack. The dogs circled his pickup as if they’d treed it, snapping their teeth in the air and yapping. It was obvious there were people around; the lights were on inside and five vehicles—two battered ranch pickups, a later model Jeep Cherokee, and two low-slung restored muscle cars from the 1970s—were parked around him. Joe waited for someone inside the house to come out and call the dogs back.

Finally, a woman pushed through the front screen door and held it open, as if unsure if she wanted to come all the way out or go back in. She was old and heavy, wore a faded tent-like dress and bright yellow Crocs on her feet and her iron-colored hair was in curlers. She squinted at Joe’s pickup with her mouth clamped tight, and Joe slid his window down and said, “Mrs. Lee, can you call off your dogs so I can talk with you and Bob?”

He saw Dode Lee turn to someone inside and mouth “game warden” as if answering a question. To Joe, she said, “They won’t hurt you, those dogs. They haven’t bit anyone in years.”

“I believe you,” Joe said cheerfully, not sure if he believed her but reminding himself that one-third of his job description fell under the heading Landowner Relations, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d call them back.”

Again, Dode Lee turned to address someone inside. “He’s scared of the dogs,” she said, rolling her eyes. Then back to Joe, “What is it you need?”

“Just to talk to you for a minute,” he said. “It won’t take long.”

“He says he wants to talk to us,” Dode reported. Then back to Joe: “What about?”

A large man with shoulder-length black hair and a basketball-sized beer belly shouldered past Dode and yelled angrily at the dogs. He was wearing greasy denim jeans and a black Aerosmith T-shirt. He also wore Crocs, which Joe thought odd. The dogs cringed at his voice, one yelped as if struck, and they crawled back to the house. Joe knew how dogs behaved around someone who had severely beaten them, and this pack was a case study. He swung out and shut his door on Tube, who, now that he was safe and the dogs were gone, started barking at them. That was the corgi part in him, Joe thought with regret.

“Thanks,” he said to the man. “They’re obviously scared of you.”

“Good reason for that,” the man said.

The big man was much younger than Dode, although Joe could see some resemblance in his rough wide face and unfriendly manner. He thought he must be her son.

“Are you Wes Lee?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Joe Pickett.”

“I know. I heard of you.” He said it in a way that suggested Wes wasn’t impressed at all.

“Mind if I talk to your folks for a couple minutes?”

Wes glanced at his mother, who looked back without expression. “Make it quick,” he said. “We’re kind of busy today.”

Joe nodded. He didn’t question what it was they were busy doing. “Mind if I come in?”

“If it’s about Earl Alden,” Dode said, “we don’t have much good to say.”

“It’s about him,” Joe replied, trying to see past Wes, who hadn’t moved his bulk from the top of the porch steps to let Joe by. “Your neighbor.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” Dode Lee said.

“Mom,” Wes said to Dode, while eyeing Joe suspiciously, “the less you talk to law enforcement, the better. They can twist your words around and use it against you.”

“So you’ve had some experience in that regard,” Joe said breezily, stepping around Wes, trying not to show he was wary of the son’s bulk, size, and attitude.

“That was years ago,” Wes said, fully aware of his effect on Joe and only reluctantly letting him by.

Joe nodded and made a mental note to himself to look up Wes Lee’s rap sheet after the interview. Joe had spent years trying to read people the first time he encountered them in the field, and he had the strong impression Wes owned a mean streak a mile wide.

The home was dark and cluttered and smelled of cigarette smoke, motor oil, and dogs. The reason for the oil smell was obvious. An engine block sat on a stained tarp in the middle of the living room. Tools were scattered around it. Joe wondered why the work wasn’t being done in one of the three outbuildings, but he didn’t ask about it. People’s homes were people’s homes.

Bob Lee sat in a worn lounge chair at the back of the room next to a tall green oxygen bottle. Despite the yellowed tube that ran from the tank to a respirator that clipped under his nose, Bob held a lit cigarette between two stained fingers. Joe glanced at the decal on the side of the tank that read:

WARNING: NO SMOKING

OXYGEN IN USE

NO OPEN FLAMES

The television was on: The Price Is Right. Lee had a large frame but looked sunken in on himself, as if his flesh had collapsed over his skeleton. He had large rheumy eyes, thin lips, and folds of loose skin that lapped over his shirt collar.

“What’s the game warden want with us?” Bob asked, his voice both scratchy and challenging.

Joe removed his hat and held it in his hands. Wes came back in and sat on his engine block with his big hands on his knees and looked up at Joe expectantly. Dode hung back, not far from the door, as if she needed to be close to it in case she had to escape.

Joe said, “I was just wondering if all of you were around last week. Sunday and Monday, to be specific. I was wondering if you saw anything unusual on the day Earl Alden was killed, since his place is next to yours.”