Cold Wind - C. J. Box [91]
“I know you think you did,” Rulon said. “But it wasn’t how I wanted it.” Then, with a wave of his beefy hand, he dismissed the issue. “I need more yes-men,” he said. “I deserve more yes-men.” He grinned. “And fewer independent thinkers like you. Hell, I’m the governor.”
He looked to the ceiling and opened his arms: “Where, Lord, are my sycophants? Do I need to run for U.S. Senate to get some?”
Joe snorted.
“You’re going to have a new director at the Game and Fish soon,” Rulon said, as always changing subjects with the lightning speed of a television remote control. “I hope you can get along with him. Or her. They may not allow you to operate with the kind of autonomy you seem to have. I mean, it’s Tuesday morning and you’re in Cheyenne. Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I just worked the whole three-day weekend,” Joe said. “Last time I checked, the state owes me twenty-five comp days.”
“That you’ll never take,” Rulon said.
“Except today and maybe a few more this week. I’m following up on something else right now.”
“Right,” Rulon said. “You’re here for a reason. What is it?”
“Wind,” Joe said. “What’s the inside story?”
Rulon snorted and rolled his eyes. He said, “They’re everywhere, aren’t they? Those wind farms? I’m not against the idea in principle, and there are a few locations where they can actually be cost-effective and productive. But the wind energy people have got to play on a level field with everybody else. A lot of those guys are a thorn in my side, as if I need more trouble. They want to throw up those turbines on top of every hill and ridge as far as the eye can see. But they’ve got to slow the hell down,” he said, “until we can get a handle on it.” He shook his head.
“We used to think we were cursed with Class Five, Six, and Seven wind in this state,” he said, “and now we find out we’re blessed with it. But for Christ’s sake, we’ve got to get some control. Not everybody wants to look out their window and see those things. In the last few years, we’ve all learned the word ‘viewshed.’ But what I need to be made to understand is why it is we’re putting up all those turbines when right underneath them is all the oil, gas, coal, and uranium we’ll ever need but we aren’t allowed to get. If the reasons these windmills are going up is based on wishful thinking and policy and not need, what the hell are we doing?”
Joe shrugged his I’m-just-a-game-warden shrug.
“Is that what you want to know?” Rulon asked.
“Partly,” Joe said. “But specifically I was wondering about the Rope the Wind project up in my neck of the woods.”
Rulon sat back in his chair and laced his fingers across his belly, which was much bigger than the last time Joe had seen it. Rulon said, “Now I get it. This is about your father-in-law.”
“Partly,” Joe said.
“He was really chained from the blade of a turbine?”
“Yup. I found the body.”
“Jesus,” Rulon said, reacting as if a chill were coursing through him. “What a way to go. I hope it doesn’t start a trend.”
“Too much work,” Joe said. “Most criminals don’t want to work that hard.”
“Give my regards to your mother-in-law,” Rulon said, raising his eyebrows. “I’d hate to lose one of my biggest contributors on a first-degree murder charge. That kind of thing doesn’t look good. Thank the Lord I’m nearly term-limited out and I won’t have some jackass Republican using that one against me down the road . . . But I digress. From what I understand, it was going to be the biggest single private wind energy project in the State of Wyoming. One hundred turbines! But this murder has thrown it off track, maybe. And you think there is more to it than meets the eye?”
“Possibly.”
Rulon cocked his head. “I didn’t think you and your mother-in-law saw eye-to-eye on much. Why are you trying to save her?”
Joe said, “It isn’t about her, although it is. My wife . . .”
“Say no more,” Rulon guffawed. Then: “There isn’t much I can tell you about it. The state hasn’t been involved. It was done purely between the landowner, the power companies, and the Feds. There