Cold Wind - C. J. Box [11]
One of Joe’s new directives was to assist in monitoring the sage grouse activity in areas where wind development was occurring and send memos of his findings to Cheyenne. Although he couldn’t honestly link one to the other on his forays into the wind farms, he had noted a number of dead birds (not sage grouse) and even more bats crumpled up dead at the base of the towers. Bats, apparently, had their natural radar fouled by the air pressure of the spinning blades and they’d become disoriented (so the theory went) and fly headlong to their death into the steel of the towers.
As he approached the first row of turbines, Joe noted another vehicle coming fast in his direction. He thought it might be the first of the sheriff’s deputies to the scene until it got closer and he recognized it as one of several of The Earl’s company pickups by the Rope the Wind logo on the door. Rope the Wind was Alden’s newest enterprise. He’d shown Joe and Marybeth a mock-up of the logo, expecting their enthusiastic approval at a dinner they’d attended with their girls at the ranch. He said he’d bought the company and the name recently, anticipating the wind energy boom. The logo was a drawing of a large cowboy straddling the nacelle of a three-megawatt turbine. The cowboy’s hat was bent back by the oncoming wind, and he was tossing a lariat into it.
“It combines the historical figure of the frontier cowboy with the new frontier of renewable energy in the twenty-first century,” The Earl had said with typical bombast. “I love the hell out of it and it cost me big money to some of the hippest graphic designers in Portland. It’s perfect. So, what do you think? ”
Joe had said he liked it just fine, but apparently not with enough enthusiasm. The Earl had huffed and rolled up the design and stomped away. He was a man who valued those who agreed wholeheartedly with him, and discounted those who didn’t. Joe had been discounted.
The company pickup arrived at the base of the tower at the same time Joe did. The driver swung out and faced Joe with his hands on his hips. He was in his mid-twenties and beefy, with a full red beard and a crisp new jacket with the Rope the Wind logo on his breast. “You seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked Joe.
“Tell me it’s a joke,” Joe said, shutting his door gently on slobbering Tube.
“I wish to hell it was,” the worker said, leaning back and craning his neck up. “I can’t figure what the hell it is or how it got up there.”
“It looks like a body.”
“Yeah,” the worker said, rattling the door latch on the tower to confirm it was locked. “But that’s just crazy. You need a key to get inside one of these to access the ladder. There’s no way to go up the outside and the only other explanation is it flew through the air and landed on the blade. That ain’t likely.”
“Nope.”
“Well,” the worker said, digging into his jacket for his keys. “Let’s go see.”
While the worker unloaded hard hats and other equipment from his vehicle, Joe grabbed the handheld radio from the cab of his truck. He turned it on and it was instantly alive with voices, and one of them was addressing him directly.
“Joe Pickett, this is Sheriff McLanahan. Do you read me?”
Joe considered ignoring him, but thought better of it. Although the two had clashed repeatedly over the years, it was the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
“I read you,” Joe said.
“Are you on the scene?”
“Affirmative. I called it in.”
“Okay, well, hold tight. We’re on the way. Under no circumstances are you to climb that tower and compromise the crime scene.”
Joe bristled at the command. “How do you know it’s a crime scene?”
Silence. Then, from miles away, someone—probably a highway trooper monitoring the exchange—said, “Good point.”
“Did you hear my initial command?” McLanahan asked, with the put-on Western drawl