Free Fire - C. J. Box [94]
They didn’t.
When simon said there were no messages for him at the front desk, Joe used the pay phone in the lobby to call Chuck Ward. He needed to know what the governor thought of his reportsthus far and how he could get a new vehicle, and he wanted to advise them of the new information about Cutler, flamers, and Clay McCann’s latest crime.
Ward wasn’t in.
“Can you tell me how to get ahold of him?” Joe asked the secretary in the governor’s office.
“No. He took a few days’ personal leave.”
“Personal leave? Now?”
“Yes.”
Joe was annoyed. This meant Ward hadn’t received his reportsand had no idea what was happening.
“When will he be back?”
“Monday.”
“That’s three more days!”
“Correct.” She sounded bored.
Joe tried to think. There was no way Ward would be out of touch completely. He was the governor’s chief of staff, he couldn’t just vanish. It didn’t work that way. He knew the secretaryprobably couldn’t give out Ward’s number, wherever he was. But he knew who could.
“I need to talk to the governor, then. It’s important.”
“What did you say your name was?” she asked before puttinghim on hold.
Joe waited. The hold music was Johnny Cash singing “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Joe assumed the governor had had somethingto do with the choice.
Finally, she came back on the line. “The governor says he’s never heard of anyone named Joe Pickett.”
Joe clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, said, “It’s so good to be back in the system. Please have Chuck Ward call me immediatelyif he happens to check in. And please tell the governor things are happening. Three more people are dead. I’m sure he’s heard about them—two murdered by Clay McCann, the other a Zephyr employee who we made contact with. That one might be an accident but I doubt it.”
“I’ll pass that along,” she said in a tone suggesting she had no intention of doing so.
“He’ll be interested,” Joe said. “Trust me on that.”
“Hmmmppf.”
Joe walked to the Pagoda, stepping through a television news crew from Billings that was setting up in the parking lot at the side of the building. A pretty blond correspondent who looked all of twenty-four was applying makeup to her sharp cheekbones, ready to do a stand-up report on the fact that Clay McCann was back in the Yellowstone jail.
The receptionist looked up as Joe entered. Layborn sat in a chair behind her, and he shook his head with clear disgust when he saw Joe.
“Thanks to you,” Layborn said, “I get to spend the morning fending off the press instead of doing my job.”
Joe ignored him. “Did you find anything out about the black SUV?”
“You mean the one you didn’t get a plate number on? No. It was probably out of the park by the time we put out the APB at all the gates.”
“But you’ve alerted the cops in all of the gateways, right? Jackson, Cody, West Yellowstone, Bozeman, Cooke City?”
“Gee,” Layborn said, curling his lip, “we never even thought of that. Good thing you’re here to advise us.” He snorted, “Of course we did that. Christ. But we’ve got nothing so far. Do you know how many SUVs there are in this area? Everybody has ’em.”
Joe nodded. True. “So McCann is here again, huh? Are charges being filed?”
Layborn looked quickly away. Joe could see that the ranger’s face and neck were turning red. “We’re holding him while the prosecutors try to come up with something,” he said through clenched teeth. “This time, we can’t even get him on a gun charge, since he claims the victims had the gun and he took it away from them in self-defense. That son of a bitch is going to get away with it. Again!” he spat the word out.
“So he’ll be released?” Joe asked, incredulous.
Layborn shifted in his chair, finally looked back at Joe. “We had to tell him this morning he could go.”
“He’s gone?”
Layborn shook his head. “That’s the thing,” he said. “He refusesto leave. He says he’s staying in custody until we either bring a case against him or not. In the meantime, he’s demandingto be moved to another federal facility. He says he doesn