weapon, a.44 Magnum that looked the size of a jackhammer. He was wearing it now.
I got up fast, shoved my gear into the brush, and hurried to meet him, keeping the cabin between us so it wouldn't look like I'd been so far away. My head, ribs, and wrist all reminded me of details from yesterday.
When I got to Gary, he had my truck's hood up and seemed to be admiring the engine.
'Morning, Hugh,' he said. 'I haven't seen this much of you in years.'
'Sheriff.'
'Out for a stroll?'
'Just to take a leak.'
'Nice old rig,' he said, patting the fender. 'What you got in here, a 327?'
I nodded. 'My dad had it bored and revalved for the changeover to unleaded, so it's a little bigger now.'
'Nice,' he said again. He closed the hood with a clang that made me wince.
'Come on in,' I said.
His blue-gray eyes took in the cabin's interior without seeming to, in that practiced cop way. There wasn't much to see-the nook I euphemistically called my kitchen, just big enough for an old Monarch wood cookstove and a sink; a bed made of three-quarter-inch plywood with a worn-out mattress on top; a table and some other pieces of furniture; and some bookshelves and prints and such that I'd mounted on the rough log walls.
The clock read 7:39 AM. I hadn't expected this visit so early, or that Gary himself would come. But I'd known that somebody would, and I'd done a little staging of my own, rumpling the bedding and leaving a bottle of Old Taylor and some empty beer cans around.
'Sorry to interrupt you,' he said, hooking his thumbs in his gun belt. 'You look like you could use some more sleep.'
'I got pretty fucked up last night.' I didn't have to pretend much about that. I was bleary-eyed, rumpled, and still wearing dirty work clothes-although not the same ones as yesterday.
'The kind of day you had, I can't blame you,' he said.
'Thanks. I'll make some coffee.'
'Don't worry about it on my account. I already drunk a gallon.' So. He'd been up and on this for a while.
I started filling the kettle, mostly to give my hands something to do. 'You're looking very official,' I said.
'Not by choice-just in case something comes up. I got a call about five this morning from Reuben Pettyjohn. He'd just got a call from Kirk's girlfriend. I guess she didn't want to talk to our office directly-she's got a couple little drug issues pending. Anyway, seems Kirk never came home last night.'
I kept my hands moving and did my best to put on a wry face.
'I don't find that too hard to believe,' I said. Kirk had a well-known penchant for sliding around on his live-in squeeze, Josie. Even Helena had its meth whores, and he was popular with them.
'That's what me and Reuben would of figured, and so did Josie, at first,' Gary said. 'She drove around town a while, checking the bars and other gals' apartments and all that. She kept calling his cell phone and he wouldn't answer, which ain't hard to believe, either.
'But then an hour or two after midnight, her calls started going straight to the phone's answering machine. Now, it's possible he turned it off or it ran out of juice, but she says he was crazy about that phone and he made damn sure to keep it working twenty-four seven, no matter what.'
Son of a bitch, his cell phone. He must have had it stashed in the Jeep. I'd rummaged through there quickly, looking for my camera, but I hadn't found that and I'd never even thought about the phone.
'The only other way I know of that can happen,' Gary said, 'is when they get damaged.'
Sitting at the bottom of Canyon Ferry Lake would damage a cell phone, all right.
I glanced at Gary, wrinkling my forehead in concern.
'You think something happened to him?' I said.
'I got two minds about it. I'm still mostly willing to bet he fell in love for the night. Maybe he did turn it off, or dropped it or stepped on it or run over it. But together with him not turning up-that's unsettling. So we're asking around.' Gary's gaze stayed on me.
I shrugged. 'Last time I saw him was yesterday afternoon at the ranch, right before I came to visit you.'
'He was holding a rifle on you, is that right?'
I'd suspected that would get thrown at me sooner or later, too, but it was still the hardest jolt yet.
'Well-yeah,' I said.
Then I swung around to face him.
'What are you getting at, Gary? Nothing happened between Kirk and me-we never even talked. He was just there in the background, doing his job.'
'That's all I'm doing, too-just my job. This is informal, but if you don't want to talk to me, you don't have to.'
It didn't look informal, with that uniform and hogleg.
'Sure I'll talk to you,' I said.
He lifted his chin in approval. 'Why don't you give me a quick rundown of what you did last night?'
I'd rehearsed this over and over during the drive back here and the hour or so before I'd fallen asleep, but it was still like walking through a minefield. I spoke hesitantly, as if I was trying to remember.
'I got home from jail. I was pissed off and restless. I went down to O'Toole's and had a couple. Then-can we keep this private?'
'For now,' Gary said. 'Not if it comes to bear legally. So think it over.'
'It's nothing that serious. I went out to the ranch and picked up my tools.'
'Am I remembering right that Balcomb eighty-sixed you from there?'
'Yeah, but the way he was fucking with me, I was nervous he'd impound them or some goddamn thing and I'd never see them again.'
Gary pushed his hat brim back and scratched his forehead.
'I can't say that was a good idea, but I can see it,' he said. 'Give me a time frame to hang this on.'
'I probably left the bar around ten and got back to town around midnight.'
'That's a long trip out there and back.'
'I took it slow, on the ranch. Kept stopping and listening, in case there was somebody else around.'
'All right, you got to town about midnight,' he said.
'I stopped by Sarah Lynn's to pay her the money she'd lent me. Then I went home and took that slow, too. I had a lot to think about.'
'Anybody see you during all this?'
'Not that I know of. I mean, people might have seen me, but there was nobody I talked to.'
'What time did you get here?'
'I never looked. It must have been at least two o'clock, maybe three.' I hadn't wanted to say that-it was in the time range when Kirk's cell phone would have gone on the blink.
'That puts a little kink in my brain,' Gary said. 'Your truck engine seemed a touch warm. You'd think on a chilly night like we're getting, it'd go stone cold between then and now.'
Son of a bitch again. So that's what he'd been doing with the hood open.
The only answer I could come up with was bone lame.
'I might have driven around longer than I thought.'
Gary didn't say anything to that-just took another look around the cabin, then stalked to the door. I followed him.
'OK, Hugh,' he said. 'That all seems reasonable, even if some of it ain't exactly legal, and we can check it out if we have to. Let's hope we don't.'
'Look, you know Kirk and I aren't buddies.' I was careful not to use weren't. 'But we get along. I'd sure never wish him any harm.'
'That's good to know. Unfortunately, it don't much matter. What does is if something bad happened to him. And with him being Reuben Pettyjohn's son-' Gary paused, then added, 'Make that, 'last surviving son'-it kind of turns up the heat on me, know what I mean?'
I knew, all right. He'd do his damnedest to put somebody away, and he wouldn't bat an eye at bending the rules.
