Free Fire - C. J. Box [145]
“Did you forget about my mother on the ranch?” she asked, smiling bitterly.
“Of course not,” Joe said, taking the phone from her, “but what’s that saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?”
The house was larger than the state-owned home they’d lived in for six years, and nicer but with less character than the log home they’d temporarily occupied on the Longbrake Ranch for a year. Big kitchen, nice backyard, three bedrooms, partially finished basement with a home office, two-car garage filled with Joe’s boat, snowmobile, and still-unpacked boxes stacked up to the rafters. It had been three months since they bought the house but they still weren’t fully moved in.
Ten-year-old Lucy was sprawled in a blanket on the living room floor watching Saturday morning cartoons. She had quickly mastered the intricacies of the remote control and the satellite television setup and reveled in living for the first time, as she put it, “in civilization.” Sheridan was, Joe guessed, back in bed.
Marybeth looked on with concern as he said into the telephone,“Joe Pickett.”
The dispatcher in Cheyenne said, “Please hold for the governor’s office.”
Joe felt a thrill race down his back at the words.
There was a click and a pop and he could hear Governor Spencer Rulon talking to someone else in his office over the speaker phone, caught in midsentence, “. . . we’ve got to get ahead of this one and frame and define it before those bastards in the Eastern press define it for us . . .”
“I’ve got Mr. Pickett on the line, sir,” the dispatcher said.
“Joe!” the governor said, “how in the hell are you?”
“Fine, sir.”
“And how is the lovely Mrs. Pickett?”
Joe looked up at his wife, who was pouring two cups of coffeeto bring one to Joe.
“Still lovely,” Joe said.
“Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“Another hunter got shot this morning,” Rulon said.
“Oh, no.”
“This one is in your neck of the woods. I just got the report ten minutes ago. The victim’s hunting buddies found him and called it in. It sounds bad, Joe. It really sounds bad.”
If the governor was correct, this was the third shooting of a big game hunter in Wyoming thus far this fall, Joe knew. The first was still being investigated as a accident, but the second “hunting accident” the week before raised alarms. A third would be disastrous.
“I don’t know all the details yet,” Rulon said, “but I want you all over it for obvious reasons. You need to mount up and get up there and find out what happened. Call when you’ve got the full story.”
“Who’s in charge?” Joe asked, looking up as his day of homeowner chores went away in front of his eyes.
“Your sheriff there,” Rulon said, “McLanahan.”
“Oh,” Joe said.
“I know, I know,” the governor said, “he’s a doofus. But he’s your sheriff, not mine. Go with him and make sure he doesn’t foul up the scene. I’ve ordered DCI and Randy Pope to get up there in the state plane by noon.”
“Why Pope?” Joe asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rulon said, “if this is another murder of a hunter we’ve got a full-blown economic crisis on our hands. Not to mention another Klamath Moore press conference.”
Klamath Moore was the leader and spokesman for a national antihunting organization who appeared regularly on cable news and was the first to be interviewed whenever a story about huntingand wildlife arose. He had recently turned his attention to the State of Wyoming, and particularly Governor Spencer Rulon,whom he called “Governor Bambi Killer.” Rulon had respondedby saying if Moore came to Wyoming, he’d challenge him to a duel with pistols and knives. The statement was seized upon by commentators making “Red State/Blue State” argumentsduring the election year, even though Rulon was a Democrat.In Wyoming the controversy increased Rulon’s popularity within the state among certain sectors while fueling talk in othersthat the governor was becoming more unhinged.
“Why me?” Joe asked.
The governor snorted. Whoever was in the room with him— it sounded like a woman—laughed. Something about her laugh sounded familiar to Joe, and not in a good way. He