Winterkill - C. J. Box [132]
“Maybe a little more,” Joe said, feeling both elated and guilty at the same time.
“There’s my boy.” Nate smiled and nodded and clapped Joe on the back of his coat. “Then we need to persuade her to retire and leave,” Nate said. “So we need leverage. How well do you know her?”
“Not well enough,” Joe said. “I’m not sure anyone really knows her.”
“But you know her well enough to have a good idea about what she likes, what’s important to her, right?”
Joe thought about it. He thought of two things. They went inside to Joe’s office and Joe asked Nate to wait a moment. He went upstairs to check on Marybeth. She had been crying. Joe tried to comfort her, but she didn’t want comforting. Seeing her like that steeled Joe’s determination to do something. He left Marybeth, went downstairs to the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of bourbon, dropped ice into two waterglasses, and carried it all into his office. He shut the door.
For the next two hours, they discussed it. Eventually, they agreed on a plan.
It began to snow.
Thirty-five
At 4:52 the next afternoon, Joe Pickett entered the U.S. Forest Service office in Saddlestring and sat down on a vinyl couch that looked as if it had been purchased during the Ford Administration. While he brushed snowflakes off the manila folder he had brought with him, he smiled at the receptionist.
“I’m here to see Melinda Strickland.”
The receptionist glanced at the clock on the wall. The office would close in eight minutes. She had already put her purse on her desk and gathered up her coat. Joe knew from experience that no one in the office worked a minute past five. It was the same situation at most state and federal offices.
“Is she expecting you?”
“She should be,” Joe said, “but I doubt it.”
“Your name?”
“Joe Pickett. And please tell her it’s important.”
The receptionist was a new employee, someone recently hired by Melinda Strickland to replace the last receptionist, who was one of the two women who had filed the grievance. Joe recognized her from a previous job she had held in a local credit union. She was unsmiling, and squat, brusque. He watched her as she rapped on Melinda Strickland’s closed door. Then she went inside and shut the door behind her.
Joe heard the murmur of voices, one of them raising in pitch. In a moment, the door reopened and the receptionist returned to her desk for her purse and coat.
“She asked that you make an appointment for later in the week.”
“I see,” Joe said. “Did you tell her it was important?”
The receptionist glared at Joe.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her it was about her dog?”
She was suddenly flustered. As Joe had suspected, the receptionist had been there long enough to realize the special relationship Strickland had with her cocker spaniel.
“No. What about her dog?”
Joe shook his head. “I need to talk with Ms. Strickland privately, please.”
The receptionist huffed and turned on her heel and went back into Strickland’s office. Behind him, Joe heard a brief rush of employees turning off lights and closing office doors. It was five, and they streamed out of the building so quickly that the outside door never shut between them.
Melinda Strickland opened her door, clearly agitated. She stood to one side to let the receptionist back through so she could go home. Strickland’s hair was the coppery color it had been when Joe first met her three months before.
“What is this about Bette?”
Joe had forgotten the name of her cocker spaniel. He stood up.
“Do you have a minute?” he asked.
Strickland’s eyes flashed. She hated surprises, but she loved her dog. Joe knew that.
“Ms. Strickland . . . ?” the receptionist asked, poised behind her desk.
“Yes, go on home,” Strickland snapped at her employee. “I’ll lock things up in a minute.”
Joe pushed by Melinda Strickland in her doorway and walked into her office. The room was in a shambles. Papers, notebooks, and mail were piled on the chairs, on the desk, and in