Cold Wind - C. J. Box [121]
“Yeah, yeah yeah,” McLanahan muttered, dismissing him. Then to Sollis, “Take this yahoo in and get his statement. Then we’ll decide if we want to arrest him and on what charges. Reed, you drive his truck down to the county building. I’ll call Dulcie and see how she wants to proceed.”
Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“Sure I do,” McLanahan said, turning aside to spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the lawn. To Joe, he said, “Why aren’t you out there trying to catch poachers or something? Shouldn’t you be doing your job instead of mine? You ever think about that?”
“I do,” Joe said. “I just figure one of us needs to do your job.”
Reed snorted a laugh and looked away quickly.
McLanahan froze, and Joe saw something ugly pass over his face. Joe squared up, ready if McLanahan swung.
The sheriff took a deep breath and said to Sollis, “Cuff the son-of-a-bitch.”
On the way through the grounds of the Eagle Mountain Club, handcuffs biting his wrists, Joe thought that he was pleased to have hooked back up with Nate. But he couldn’t help thinking it might be too late to affect the outcome of the trial. And he’d never imagined spending a night in a county cell.
He thought of his daughters. Their grandmother up for murder, their father in jail.
April’s words mocked him: “I guess maybe I’m not the only one in this perfect little family who makes mistakes.”
SEPTEMBER 14
Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom.
—CLARENCE DARROW
37
On Wednesday morning, the day Bud Longbrake was to take the stand to testify against Missy Alden for the murder of Earl Alden, Joe sat next to Marybeth in the eighth row of the Twelve Sleep Country Courthouse and dug his index finger into his shirt collar to try to loosen it against the tight cinch of his tie. It didn’t give much, and he felt that he was slowly strangling to death.
He surveyed the room. Everyone seemed to have taken the same seats they’d occupied the previous two days since the trial began.
Judge Hewitt’s courtroom was full and warm and close. Family members, local gadflies, civic leaders, Bud’s drinking buddies from the Stockman’s including Timberman and Keith Bailey, law enforcement personnel, the all-male morning coffee crowd from the Burg-O-Pardner, and local, state, and regional press took every seat. There was a low murmur as everyone waited for what the Roundup called “pivotal Day Three” to begin. All the players were in one place, Joe thought. He whispered to Marybeth that if Stovepipe’s metal detector was malfunctioning again and a bomb were to go off inside, Saddle-string might as well close down and sell off the fixtures.
Marcus Hand and Dulcie Schalk were at the bench discussing the schedule and rules for the day with Hewitt, who stood and leaned down toward them so the conversation could be kept confidential. Hand wore a dark charcoal suit, white shirt, bolo tie, and his pointy cowboy boots. A silverbelly Stetson sat crown-down on the defense table, but Joe never saw Hand actually put it on. It was solely for effect.
Schalk was dressed sharply in a dark pin-striped business suit and skirt with a cream-colored bow at her throat. Her hair was pulled back so she looked severe and serious. And older.
Monday had been spent selecting a jury. Like everything that took place in Judge Hewitt’s courtroom, it had gone like lightning. Twelve local jurors and two alternates were selected out of a pool of thirty. Joe knew most of the jurors: seven women and five men. All were white and middle-aged except for a Shoshone woman who lived outside the reservation. Although Hand had worked to challenge as many of the blue-collar types as he could, apparently assuming they would more easily convict a nasty woman of means like Missy, Marybeth observed to Joe that Hand seemed to do it halfheartedly,